Gagne may never again fill closer’s role
Posted: Thursday, July 17, 2008 1:48 PM
Page 219 of the Mitchell Report buries Eric Gagne. One passage lifted from the report of a Red Sox scout acknowledged that steroid rumors had dogged Gagne from his glory days in Los Angeles and would always make him a risky acquisition.
So how is it that the Red Sox traded for Gagne last July and then Milwaukee bestowed a $10 million contract upon Gagne this winter?
How is it that anyone would expect Gagne to repeat his three-year brilliance (2002-2004) -- a run unlike any ever produced by a closer, 152 saves and a sick 0.69 WHIP in 2003?
Then again, how did Gagne demonstrate a passing resemblance to that pitcher in the first half of 2007?
The marriage of Gagne and Milwaukee never had a honeymoon. Opening Day saw him blow a ninth-inning lead at Wrigley Field to the hated Cubs on a Kosuke Fukudome homer.
It bottomed out in May when he lost his closer role and shortly after went on the DL. He has allowed seven home runs in just 23 innings. The Brewers have made Salomon Torres the closer and it doesn’t appear Gagne will get another chance at that role.
One could argue that Gagne’s demise isn’t about Gagne. It’s about the BALCO era and the dozens if not hundreds of players who chose the route of chemical enhancement. It’s about the consequences of life after BALCO and the price that players and teams are still paying.
In fact, an argument could well be made that teams are paying a harsher price. After all, Milwaukee’s desperation to win led them to pay Gagne the aforementioned $10 million. General managers around the game are taking a beating for the signing/acquiring of pitchers who have lost significant velocity.
Just as whispers followed Gagne, even during his Dodgers’ glory, so have they hovered over many others. Decency forbids any names but scan the rosters and transactions and you can figure out the names. Multiple stays on the DL, poor performances and even All-Star pitchers being released are regular occurrences.
I saw a pitcher in 2001 -- three years removed from his last major league appearance -- reemerge from independent ball throwing in the low 90s. That doesn’t happen by accident.
We are all aware that BALCO was hardly a slugger’s club. Pitchers used, as much if not more, than hitters.
So as we move through the coming years teams will lean on their own players, products of their own system, players about whom teams will know all. There will be fewer chances taken, like Milwaukee’s brazen signing of Gagne despite the whispers that have followed him.
FIVE SWINGS ON BARRY BONDS:
1. Bonds, who turns 44 next week, wants a regular job. Here’s a sampling of 44-year-old position players in recent MLB history and how they have fared: Pete Rose (.264, 39 points below his career average), Carlton Fisk (188 at-bats) and Rickey Henderson (72 at-bats). Carl Yastrzemski retired at age 43. Only five players in the history of the game have accumulated 400 total at-bats at age 44 and beyond.
2. Bonds’ agent says he offered his client’s services to teams for the minimum salary. There is not one ounce of my being that believes Bonds would consider walking across the street for the minimum salary.
3. When the agent talks, the words come from Bonds. I have heard this from people in the legal proceedings surrounding Bonds: He is tough and he is thoroughly involved in his business. When the agent cries “conspiracy” over the lack of contract offers, the sentiment likely comes from Bonds himself.
4. Race has been a thread through much of the Bonds’ conversation. Over the last five years, I have fielded many calls on San Francisco radio that frame all matters Bonds in a racial light. Defenders have often used Roger Clemens as their base of argument. Why doesn’t the media look at Clemens the way it looks at Bonds, they cry. Is it because he’s a white hero? Those people stand tall today. Their point appears correct. Thus, the collective media must not be too quick to dismiss the fact that Guillermo Mota and Jason Giambi and dozens of others cited in the Mitchell Report play on while Bonds sits at home.
5. But a New York Times columnist went down that path last week. Drawing a comparison with Giambi’s acceptance in New York after his “apology,” the column was clearly looking to raise the question of race as a factor in Bonds’ current state of unemployment.
Then the writer presented the incredulous concept of Boston signing Bonds. And the writer even admitted that Bonds, just a few years ago, had called Boston a “racist” city.
Did the writer, before placing the burden of placating Bonds on the team, ever consider for even one second the possibility that Bonds could apologize for slandering an entire city?
