{"id":545643,"date":"2010-04-28T03:43:07","date_gmt":"2010-04-28T07:43:07","guid":{"rendered":"urn:newsml:sports.yahoo,yhoo:20050301:fantasy,article,yhoo-ept_sports_fantasy_experts-237179:1"},"modified":"2010-04-28T03:43:07","modified_gmt":"2010-04-28T07:43:07","slug":"closing-time-trevor-hoffmans-nightmare-continues","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/545643","title":{"rendered":"Closing Time: Trevor Hoffman’s nightmare continues"},"content":{"rendered":"

Trevor Hoffman<\/a>(notes)<\/a><\/span> has a sterling reputation, a winning smile and 594 career saves. But these days he’s just another scuffling closer looking for answers. <\/p>\n

The 42-year-old Hoffman has been a mess to open the year, collecting three blown saves in his last six appearances. The latest collapse came Tuesday against the Pirates and there was nothing cheap about it – Ronny Cedeno<\/a>(notes)<\/a><\/span> tied the game with this frozen rope out of the park<\/a>, and Ryan Doumit<\/a>(notes)<\/a><\/span> sealed the deal with this moonshot to right field<\/a>. Hoffman has already allowed five homers in just eight innings; he’s not getting beaten on bloops and bleeders, it’s been no-doubters. He’s been getting behind in the count regularly, which presents two problems: he has to throw his 80s fastball more than he wants to, and it prevents him from going to his money pitch, an out-of-the-zone change-up while ahead in the count.<\/p>\n

But when you’ve got the resume of Hoffman, ninth-inning changes don’t happen overnight. "He’s the all-time saves leader," Milwaukee manager Ken Macha said after Tuesday’s loss<\/a>, essentially offering Hoffman a vote of confidence. "I mean, I think he’s got a pretty good feel for what he’s doing out there."<\/p>\n

Sounds like Hoffman will get a chance to right the ship, but it’s important for us to look around the Milwaukee bullpen to find a possible successor, just in case. Get out the notebook and let’s see what’s what. <\/a><\/p>\n

LaTroy Hawkins<\/a>(notes)<\/a><\/span> has been the bridge to Hoffman most of the year but he’s been struggling as well, getting hit hard in three of his last five outings (eight hits, eight runs). Todd Coffey<\/a>(notes)<\/a><\/span> has been passable as a set-up man (3.72 ERA, 1.34 WHIP) and was a mediocre closer for the Reds in 2006, if that matters to you. And then there’s Carlos Villanueva<\/a>(notes)<\/a>,<\/span> who’s been far and away the most dominant man in this bullpen (11 IP, 5 H, 0 R, 4 BB, 14 K). If you have to own a non-Hoffman reliever on this team, I’d suggest betting on the skills and going with Villanueva. <\/p>\n

If the Brewers eventually look towards Triple-A<\/a> for some relief help, there are some options. Closer Chris Smith<\/a> has already collected eight saves with Nashville (8 IP, 5 H, 1 R, 2 BB, 9 K), though he’s also 29 and can’t really be called a prospect. The real tantalizing arm belongs to left-handed set-up man Zach Braddock<\/a>; he’s been out of this world (9.2 IP, 3 H, 0 R, 2 BB, 17 K). But those are just names to tuck away for now; when Milwaukee has a lead to protect later this week, Hoffman figures to have the ball. <\/p>\n

(Feel free to discuss Milwaukee’s bullpen in the comments. I’ll be back shortly with another 1,000 words of baseball talk in this space.)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Trevor Hoffman(notes) has a sterling reputation, a winning smile and 594 career saves. But these days he’s just another scuffling closer looking for answers. The 42-year-old Hoffman has been a mess to open the year, collecting three blown saves in his last six appearances. The latest collapse came Tuesday against the Pirates and there was […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4321,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-545643","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/545643","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4321"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=545643"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/545643\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=545643"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=545643"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=545643"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}