Texas under fire for Feliz injury?

Good question. They should have left him in the pen. Let him be an old fashioned two-inning closer.

QUOTE(#1):

Originally posted 08:39 AM ET  08.01 by ...the best policy

Good question. They should have left him in the pen. Let him be an old fashioned two-inning closer.

yep--there was probably a reason they made him a closer to start out with--should have stuck with that plan.

'rollin with nolan...

QUOTE(#3):

Originally posted 09:28 AM ET  08.01 by Traded to Seattle

yep--there was probably a reason they made him a closer to start out with--should have stuck with that plan.

While I don't entirely disagree with you, starters are more valuable than relievers, and if you can get a guy with stuff like his to give you 6-7 innings every five games, you've got to give it a shot. It's just too bad for them it came to this.

Agree with h2. Plus Feliz wanted to start and not relieve. Keeping pitchers healthy is not easy to do regardless. You have someone like Smoltz who went from starter to reliever and back and did great. Then you have Prior and Wood and many others whose arms just have issues no matter what you do.

I never understood why they wanted to move him to the rotation. It would have made since if they needed another arm, but at the beginning of this season, they didn't. We were bringing in Darvish to go along with Derek Holland, Colby Lewis, Matt Harrison, and Alexi Ogando. Then they switch Feliz, an excellent closer to the rotation and stick Ogando, a proven effective starter, back to the bullpen. WHY? I've been wondering that all season and I still don't have an answer. And now Feliz needs surgery. Great.

QUOTE(#5):

Originally posted 12:27 PM ET  08.01 by h2opololpunk

While I don't entirely disagree with you, starters are more valuable than relievers, and if you can get a guy with stuff like his to give you 6-7 innings every five games, you've got to give it a shot. It's just too bad for them it came to this.

You and 3jays make good points. What the player wants does matter, and what helps the team (getting more innings from a good pitcher) is also important. You are also correct about injuries happening to some players no matter what you do. But he didn't look like a good starting candidate to me--he looked like a guy who threw really hard and was really dominant for a short sting. A starter needs to be able to get people out without using his best stuff all the time--I didn't think he looked like he had that ability. Maybe I was wrong, and the injury is just a fluke, or something that would have happened anyway.

This guy is special, if I get his arm fixed, he goes to the pen, if he has a strong stomach, he will do exceptionally well there. The Problem eith Starting is, you depend on the Bullpen!

Why do teams keep doing this? Joba got ruined, Feliz isn't doing so well, who knows if Bard will ever be the same, it's just a mistake! Keep elite bullpen arms in the bullpen, why sacrifice someone being elite to hope they can be good as a starter when in most cases the best case scenario is that they're average but more often than not they're injured, perform poorly and are never the same!

QUOTE(#5):

Originally posted 12:27 PM ET  08.01 by h2opololpunk

While I don't entirely disagree with you, starters are more valuable than relievers, and if you can get a guy with stuff like his to give you 6-7 innings every five games, you've got to give it a shot. It's just too bad for them it came to this.

The problem with this line of thinking is assuming "stuff like his" translates from 1 inning to 6-7 innings. We have yet to see it, except from Nolan Ryan and he's a freak. Joba's velocity and subsequently the effectiveness of his offspeed offerings decreased, so did Bard's, so did Feliz's. I'd much rather have a guy with elite "stuff" pitching 1-2 innings 4-5 times a week to shorten those games than having a guy with diminished "stuff" pitching once a week for 6-7 innings. You can get roughly the same number of inning per week out of him but with much better "stuff" which make that same number of innings more effective.