re relative value of players in kime apr mongoose torolab ibm com kime mongoose torolab ibm com edward kim writes in article c ro h lww world std com jle world std com joe m leonard writes before folks jump on me let me ask the net would the jays have won the al with a good pitcher from aaa in place of morris given his run support how about an average ml pitcher i can t believe that morris performance in the playoffs and series had a large positive impact on the jays performance i know it s very trendy nowadays to dump on morris but let s give credit where credit is due it is doubtful that the blue jays would have won the al east without morris well when you say without morris you have to mention an assumed replacement if the alternative to morris was letting cito gaston soft toss the ball underhand to the opposition every days then of course the blue jays wouldn t have won without morris if the alternative was replacement level then i think it would ve been very close and yes morris might ve made the difference if the alternative was frank viola the blue jays probably would have won more easily with viola last year when the team went for the month of august and all the other starters were being shelled and milwaukee was making a charge morris went with a pretty good era i can t remember exactly yes you can make the argument that the his presence prevented the team from collapsing in august also let s not underestimate the importance his innings to save the bullpen every fifth day if he didn t help us win the al east forget about the pennent and the world series those innings were probably helpful his run support was high runs but so was stottlemyer s runs and he won only games i do remember morris winning an inordinate number of and ballgames but this is to his credit he pitched only as good as he needed to be when he was up in a ballgame he just put it in cruise control and threw the ball up there and let the batters get themseleves out i hate this expression an inexperienced pitcher would wear himself out trying to make perfect pitches to keep his era down but morris being a veteran pitcher knows that winning is the only thing that really matters in baseball by saving himself he was able to reach back for that little extra i hate this too when the game was on the line well i think is complete bs what happened most of the time is that morris fell behind and the team came back and rescued him mostly this is because he s a lousy st inning pitcher and much better the rest of the way that the team can climb out of holes consistently and win them is not to morris credit it s to the team s credit furthermore while morris did exceed the w l percentage that would be projected from his runs allowed and run support he hasn t done this in previous years in fact his w l record in is a lot worse than what it projects to be with run support and runs allowed do you think he just came up with this ability in look at the postseason games he pitched decently in typical morris games morris gets behind team rescues him he s not responsible for that rescue and in both those games the team just didn t rescue him enough jack morris pitched as well as he did during much of the season in those games the offense just didn t earn him a victory btw i think he should be put in the bullpen it would be embarrassing a veteran pitcher which cito would never do but his era is how much more can he be embarrassed morris is one of those guys who will reture when he can t start anymore he s too bad a first inning pitcher to serve in the bullpen greg
