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Wood's Season Is Over
Submitted by cubsnet on Mon, 2005-08-29 18:20.
"Kerry Wood will have season-ending arthroscopic surgery on his right shoulder Wednesday," reports the AP. He is available to pitch tonight. Bookmark/Search this post with: »
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Good
Not much else to say. Should have been done long ago; the idea that Kerry Wood, only able to pitch the occasional inning, would be the difference down the stretch was always absurd.
With any luck, he'll be ready for spring training, full strength, and put all this bullpen nonsense behind him.
Experience
I would rather see him as a starter, but hopefully some good can come out of his bullpen experience. At the very least, it may help him next year to start strong and concentrate on throwing strikes when he starts a game. Plus if next year is another wash injury-wise, the Cubs could pay him for 2007 and beyond as an upper-tier closer and he could contribute that way.
With Dempster turning his career around, a strong offseason of work for Williamson, and the continued improvement of Novoa and Wuertz, adding K-Wood to the bullpen would make it a dominant one.
Dempster
With Dempster turning his career around ...
One of the big questions the Cubs have to look at is if Dempster actually is turning his career around, or if being in the bullpen is just minimizing the damage he does. The only thing he's done differently this year is dramatically cut his HR rate, from a career 1.10/9 entering the year, to a mere 0.48/9 this season.
That's great, as far as it goes, but it reeks of flukiness, a mirage due to a smaller number of innings. He still walks far too many batters, as many as he ever has, and his H/9 this year is pretty much in line with where it is over the rest of his career. It's just like the Cubs to get a good year out of someone, and assume a new permanent level of performance, but it rarely works out that way.
I don't feel very good about Dempster going forward. I'd just as soon they let him walk in the offseason.
Iowa's bullpen
One problem with not re-signing Dempster: Iowa's bullpen stinks, other than Van Buren.
True
But that fact is overridden by Brian's First Law of Bullpen Construction: Never give good money to a pitcher that allows more than 5 BB/9.
I feel very strongly that you can't go wrong by adhering to this law.
Any exceptions to the Law? If
Any exceptions to the Law? If you're really bad anyway, you might sign a guy like Steve Dalkowski for entertainment purposes.
Corollary
The first corollary of Brian's First Law: Walks have no entertainment value.
Wild pitches, yes. But not walks.