Closer controversy: Torres vs. Gagne

[Tbadder]

I hope Gagne means it. If he does i'm impressed, because if he doesn't right his ship the last half of the season he's gonna take a big hit on next year's contract.

[sweepscc]

I get the feeling Gagne would rather not close. It's obvious his confidence is down and I just hope he gets it together enough to be a good 6th/7th inning guy.

[Bucky Rules]

I hope Gagne means it. If he does i'm impressed, because if he doesn't right his ship the last half of the season he's gonna take a big hit on next year's contract.

 

I don't see any reason to believe that he doesn't mean it. I haven't seen much from Gagne in his short time here to suggest that he's not a realist. And I don't see him being a guy that will cause problems because he feels entitled to the closer role. All in all, it looks to me that he's a pretty good teammate.

 

Hopefully he does get it figured out in a hurry, though. We sure could use another quality option out of the pen.

[naivin]

While I am not necessarily comfortable with Torres as the permanent solution at closer this year, at this point I don't necessarily care who it is so long as he is getting the job done. But, is Gagne more or less the wild card where the Brewers are concerned right now? Certainly it appears that the 5-6 weeks off did him some good.

 

Before the season started he was an obvious question mark, with the answer determining whether that bullpen was good or not so good. I'd still like to see them add a proven guy, but in the event that doesn't happen, if Gagne can pitch well, do they really need to, or does he kind of become that guy? Ideally, you want both, but that can be tough.

 

He should have 4-5 more appearances before the deadline, so at what point do you say that the price for another releiver may be too high, and you just go replace Mota with McClung, Bush, etc?

[cwolf2012]

The bullpen is fine if we put McClung in over Mota. I don't want to give up any more top prospects for a reliever. Linebrink was okay, but not anywhere near the value we gave up. If it takes another set of decent prospects to get a reliever and we have to drop McClung to AAA, that just seems like a waste to me. I want to see how he can do in a relief role after starting.

[zzzmanwitz]

I don't think we know how valuable the prospects we gave up for Linebrink are as of yet. Neither do we know the value of the players we picked with the draft picks we received for Linebrink.

[cwolf2012]

I probably should have thought of that. Did we get Odorizzi and Frederickson with the Linebrink picks?

[zzzmanwitz]

Looks like Fredrickson and Dykstra from what I can see.

[splitterpfj]

Frederickson and Dykstra is correct.

[SoCal Brew Crew Fan]

Gagne has looked sharp in his last three outings. I like him in the 8th with Torres as the closer, simply because if Gagne or Mota or whomever gets in trouble in the 8th, Torres can be brought in early to shut things down. His ability to go 1+ innings makes him especially valuable when the guys in front of him are a little shaky.

 

I also believe our best pitchers should not be limited to specific innings, but rather the highest leverage situation..whether it's getting a starter out of a jam in the 7th or shutting things down in the ninth. If we had a one run lead in the 7th with two outs and runners at the corners with a gassed starter...why not send out Torres even if he is your closer?

[T B0NE 10]

Only give Gagne another chance if Torres loses it.

 

Otherwise what about the possibility of acquiring another bullpen arm or closer?