Movie Quotes, Bullpens, and Mat Latos

In the 1992 film, Unforgiven, William Munny (Clint Eastwood) has the opportunity to avenge the death of his friend Ned (Morgan Freeman) when he enters Greeley's Tavern on a rainy night. Munny exacts his revenge by shooting down nearly every man who has gathered at Greeley's, the place that adorned itself with the body of his friend Ned.


This climactic scene ends with Willliam Munney hovering over the Sheriff of Big Whiskey, Little Bill Daggett, who has already been shot in the belly. Their exchange is a memorable one:

Little Bill: I don't deserve this... to die like this. I was building a house.
Will Munny: Deserve's got nothin' to do with it. 

And then William Munny pulls the trigger.

I often see people talk about players/teams and how they did or did not deserve a certain outcome and I nearly always recall this quote from Unforgiven. I guess the modern day equivalent might be It is what it is.

Which brings me to last night where I first eluded to Unforgiven and its characters, Will Munny and Little Bill Daggett

Little Bill Daggett (Padres starting pitcher Mat Latos) was building a house (7IP 4H 2ER 1BB 5K) and then he was shot in the face (by Josh Spence: A.K.A. a Mike Adams depleted bullpen).

Mat Latos deserved better. But it is what it is.

We knew Mike Adams was a vital cog in the machine that was the PENitentiary--the all important bridge to the 9th and Heath Bell. And now we see it in action as the last three Padres losses have been due in part to meltdowns during the 8th inning.

Someone will eventually step forward, I am confident of this. Will this pitcher be as good as Mike Adams? No. And I am confident of this.

What happens next year without a steady 8th inning set-up man AND no Heath Bell in the roll of closer? I am in no way advocating that the Padres SHOULD give 20% of next year's payroll to a guy who will pitch less than 75 innings. . . but there is another issue to consider. How will a predominantly young pitching staff, and young team for that matter, be affected psychologically by a bullpen who cannot finish off strong efforts from the starting rotation?

(This post started with a bang, no pun intended. The ending has some issues...)

For the life of me I cannot recall where I heard about the idea that it was ACTUALLY worth having a strong bullpen (specifically a closer) even on a bad team.

The idea being that, when you are a bad team (or a very young team), and you do have a lead late in the game they become MUST win games. Psychologically those teams will never get over the hump if they cannot win the games they are supposed to win. Thus the need to have a strong bullpen... even IF your team is bad (or young in the case of the Padres... although the Padres are kind of bad too).

Don't we see this in action all the time? As much as winning seems to beget more winning we see the same from losing ball clubs. The idea above may have been expressed by a GM in the process of building an expansion club or I read it in a book or a blog... but it makes sense. Does it make sense to commit roughly 25% of your payroll to the bullpen so that the entire club feels better about itself 50% of the time instead of 47% of the time? Probably not.

At this point I'm just typing out loud. . . and you don't deserve that.