Keith Foulke is due back early next week to help shore up a mostly ineffective bullpen. But the real question lingering in all Red Sox fans mind is simple- how effective can Keith Foulke really be? Will he return to some shade of his 2004 form, or will it be Gopherball city and anger management for Foulke? The bullpen hierarchy has Papelbon on the top, Timlin working the eighth, MDC or Hansen in the seventh, Lopez vs. lefties if he returns, and Seavarez if we??re up/down by 5+ runs. What role will Keith Foulke attend to? Let??s look at his numbers before the long stint on the DL:
32.0 IP, 35 H, 4 BB, 23 SO, 8 HLD, 5.63 ERA, .280 BAA (.339 LHB, .222 RHB), 1.22 WHIP
Looking at these numbers, and also factoring in Foulke??s playoff experience for the stretch run, I would put him just below Hansen and above Tavarez on the bullpen scale. The ERA is unimpressive, but if we can try to mainly keep Foulke pitching against right-handers, he could be a key asset. The WHIP is generally low, along with the good K/BB ratio. Let??s take a look at the WHIP??s of the other pitchers in the Sox pen:
Papelbon: 0.71
Timlin: 1.23
Delcarmen: 1.38
Hansen: 1.37
Tavarez: 1.60
Seanez: 1.57
While it??s close, Foulke has the second highest WHIP on the staff, only behind supreme stud Jonathan Papelbon, who happens to be our only day-to-day reliable arm in the bullpen. Many experts consider WHIP the most important stat in finding the true effectiveness in a bullpen arm, a much better determiner in success than W-L record or even ERA. Before I move Foulke higher on the bullpen scale, let??s look at Hansen and Tavarez full numbers:
Hansen: 19.2 IP, 22 H, 5 BB, 15 SO, 5 HLD, 4.12 ERA, .286 BAA, 1.37 WHIP
Tavarez: 53.2 IP, 61 H, 25 BB, 32 SO, 1 HLD, 5.20 ERA, .293 BAA, 1.60 WHIP
Okay, so basically there??s no way Tavarez should EVER be used against a RHB over Foulke. I??m sure Tito will screw this up sometime in the near future, but we can complain about that later. Also, in all actuality, Foulke has better numbers than Craig Hansen in most categories. But the differences between Foulke and Hansen are alarming- Hansen with the young lively arm, the high potential, the smoking fastball being labeled as the #1 pitch for our future closer- while Foulke is more like an aging, bitter veteran trying to desperately find his stuff, so bad he might quit because of some failure. He didn??t admit it, and handled the situation quite well, but you know it was eating at Foulke when Papelbon got the closers job.
He lets out quotes like this to the Hartford Courant:
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