Papel-boner No More

What the hell happened to Jonathan Pabelbon's elite closer status. Don't get me wrong, he was never on the level of Mo Rivera, but if his stats from previous years look pretty dominant. Even last season, when he didn't look the same, he put up an ERA of 1.85 with 38 saves in 41 chances. He did, however, blow game three against the Angels to eliminate the Sox from the playoffs.

It is clearly evident that hitters aren't as afraid of Papelbon as they once were. The fact that his splitter isn't always reliable makes his fastball that much more hittable. He can still crank it back to 97-98mph at times, but typically settles into the 95mph range. Even if you hit 100mph, once major league hitters have seen it a number of times, they can hit it out of the yard.

Because hitters have seemingly caught on to Papelbon this season, it would be safe to assume that he is becoming more aware of this. He is, to the tune of 19 walks in 49 innings already this season. His previous high in walks came last year in fact, when he recorded 24 walks. His SO/BB ratio is at a career low 2.37, while last year it was just at 3.17. That is quite alarming considering his previous low (not inluding when he started a handful of games in 2005) was 5.60 when his ERA was 1.85 in 2007.

Papelbon, like the rest of us, realizes that his time in Boston is coming to an end (if not after this season, then sometime thereafter). Daniel Bard is ready to take over right now, he is much younger than Papelbon, and his stuff is absolutely filthy. To say that Papelbon is awful and needs to be shipped out of town is 100% wrong. The guy still has great stuff and is a top-half of the league closer. He won a world series and has closed out meaningful games for the Sox. Closing in baseball is one of the toughest jobs to do. It is amazing how many times a closer is an All-Star one year, and the next year he's out of his closer role by May. The position is so important, however, and team's that expect to go deep in the postseason need to have a top-end closer (an underrated part of the Yankees dominance has been Rivera).

I don't what Terry Francona should do this season. Keep Papelbon as closer and lose a couple more heartbreak's, or establish Bard as the closer for the rest of the season and risk losing Papelbon's confidence entirely. I'm glad I'm not in the position to decide.