Not as a pitcher anyway. Look, the guy is 112 and cannot be relied on in ANY situation. If the Twins are winning, he’ll give up the lead. If the Twins are losing, he’ll take them out of contention. He turns blowouts into cliffhangers and cliffhangers into blow outs. I can’t conceive of any situation where I want him on the mound, unless I know the very next batter will deliver a career-ending line drive into the pitcher’s solar plexus.
This pit could be better, but I’m moving from “anger” to “despair” mid-post.
As long as he’s not actually throwing the ball to the catcher, he’s quite an asset. He has long been acknowledged as the possessor of one of the game’s most fiendish pickoff moves.
I saw the thread and thought “Is Terry Mulholland broadcasting now? Huh! I didn’t know that! I wonder if he’s more or less irritating than Tim McCarver*…HOLY SHIT! He’s still pitching?”
[sub]*I kid! No one is more irritating than Tim McCarver.[/sub]
Sometimes I think the Twins might do better by simply asking for volunteers to come down from the stands and pitch an inning or two. They couldn’t do any worse.
I still remember Mulholland beating my Blue Jays in Game 2 of the 1993 World Series. And he was old THEN.
I am certain Mulholland is the most mediocre pitcher in the history of baseball to havea 20-year career. What’s weird is that his last good year was in 1998. He must have some sort of blackmail leverage over a lot of general managers.
I think you misspelled “Jeff Fassero” there. OK, he’s only been around for 15 years, but I swear, he’s got pictures of like half the league with a goat or something. How that man continues to get paid for blowing leads, I don’t know.
I honestly thought Terry Mulholland had retired. At this point, he’s like Satchel Paige without the talent.
The reason Mulholland and Fassero are both still pitching is the same reason that Jesse Orosco kept getting jobs until he was about 55 - they have the unique blessing of throwing the baseball with the arm on the left side of their body, and there is quite the premium on that talent among major league baseball teams.
With that said, there is absolutely no reason that Mulholland should be pitching to any right-handed batters. Split stats for this year; lights out vs. LH, with a WHIP of .80 and a BAA of .203, while vs. RH he has a WHIP of 1.91 and a BAA of .347. So yeah, Twins fans, send angry messages to Ron Gardenhire telling him that you’ll rip Mulholland’s arm off and beat Gardenhire with it if he sends him out there against any more right handed hitters.
The problem with Fassero is that he’s really no more effective against lefties than against righties (.262/1.34 WHIP vs. .264/1.39 WHIP lifetime,) so he’s not even a situational lefty. The only bright spot might be his ability to spot start, but his starts this year have not been pretty (1-4, 6.43 ERA in 6 starts.)
Fassero’s stats and lack of split differences would label him as a prototypical “long relief guy” to me - put him in when you need innings, pray he pitches at the mediocre level his stats would indicate, and under no circumstances bring him into a close game late unless the real relievers all got food poisoning at a bullpen dinner that he skipped last night.
Unfortunately, I don’t follow him currently (plays on the wrong side of the country and neither he nor his team is good enough for me to make the effort to care), so I can’t say as to whether this is how he’s actually used.
Just keep in mind that the Tampa Bays and Kansas Cities of the world would kill for a guy with a ERA under 5 and a WHIP under 1.35. It’ll make you a little happier… maybe.
As a White Sox fan, I can only hope that Terry Mullholland gets many more opportunities to pitch this year. After all, the Sox currently only lead the Twinkies by 11 games.
The Sox have managed to avoid their usual post-All-Star-Game collapse, just as they’ve somehow managed to avoid their annual midseason acquisition of Roberto Alomar. The WhiteSox really have no excuse for not winning the World Series this year, in fact, but let’s hope the gamblers don’t get to them.
If only someone had told Tony La Russa not to use him in close games during his stay in St. Louis. Seriously, it got to the point where my friends and I would joke about it. “2 run lead in the 8th? Bring on Fassero, we need to tighten it up for them.”
And yeah, Tampa Bay and Kansas City would love to have him. Kansas City would want him because people might have actually heard of him, and Tampa just needs someone with an arm to stand on the mound and watch the defense blow easy plays.
That no hitter he threw was an interesting game. He didn’t walk anybody, either, and the guy who reached base (on a Charlie Hayes throwing error that, believe it or not, led to a fistfight between my brother and myself), was actually doubled up on the next play. My point is, old T-Mo faced the minimum in that game, so it was almost better than a perfect game.
On the subject of shot lefties inexplicably relied upon by decent teams, I’d like to see someone top Rheal Cormier. Worse numbers than Mulholland, triple the salary, an ERA of almost eight at the Philadelphia International Airp- I mean Citizens Bank Park, and Charlie Manuel still uses him in tight spots. I bet you won’t find Mulholland on the mound in the eighth protecting a one run lead very often.
