Seanez To DL; Phils Call-Up Walrond
Posted by Tim Malcolm, Sat, August 02, 2008 12:28 PM | Comments: 14
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Rudy Seanez has been placed on the 15-day DL with shoulder inflammation. He joins Pedro Feliz and Tom Gordon on the DL, and suddenly the Phillies are nicked, bruised and battered.
In his place the Phils have called up Les Walrond, a 31-year-old lefty Minor League journeyman. Walrond has been with the AAA Lehigh Valley IronPigs this season, and struck out 17 batters against Louisville on July 6.
From Muskogee, Okla., Walrond’s full name is Leslie Dale Walrond. He had two cups of coffee in his career, with Kansas City and the Cubs. Both times he wasn’t that effective. Drafted by Saint Louis, he’s mainly played in the minors since 1998, and this year for Lehigh Valley was 5-7 with a 2.61 ERA and 95 strikeouts in 103.1 innings. Not sure if he can fill out the left-handed specialist role — lefties have a .252 average against him, righties are hitting .225.
Posts: 0 PSU Fan
Saw Les pitch at AAA 2 weekends ago. This guy is a beast!
Posted: 12:31 PM on August 2, 2008
Posts: 0 Phil
Romero is our lefty specialist. Righties are hitting above .300 on Romero and lefties are hitting under .100 on him.
Posted: 01:05 PM on August 2, 2008
Posts: 0 Tim Malcolm
Right Phil, but Charlie doesn’t use him as such. (Though he should.)
Posted: 01:46 PM on August 2, 2008
Posts: 0 scot
The injury or ineffectiveness of Gordon killed how Manuel should use Romero. Now he tries him more as a 7th or 8th inning guy for a full inning. And such, he doesn’t seem at least visably, and statiscally as dominant as last year. Which is another reason why, if Myers could get his head and arm straight he should be our 8th inning guy and Romero go more into the situational role he’s better suited for.
Posted: 01:52 PM on August 2, 2008
Posts: 0 Geoff
Thats why they needed, and still need, to acquire another full-fledged stup man. either the asking prices were outrageous or they didnt try hard enough.
JC Romero is the LOOGY. i dont know why they spent the whole trade deadline looking for a LOOGY when they already had one, instea dof trying to get a real setup man/lesser team’s s closer to be our setup man like george sherrill. i never heard about what the orioles wanted for sherrill from us.
anyway, i wonder what waiver-trade candidates are out there who can get through the 8th inning for us. im pretty sure they blew that chance though.
ryan madson is not a setupman, chad durbin is best suited for the wildcard role (setupman one night, 2 innings bridge guy another night, etc) and i dont want to ruin his mojo trying to force him to be the setupman. if tom gordon comes back, he should be used sparingly and not in the 8th inning. theyve gone insane looking for this left-handed reliever when they FUCKING ALREADY HAVE ONE. go get a setupman please. romero is NOT a setupman and cant ever be one on a regular basis, when he gets overworked hes terrible. hes a LOOGY.
i do not understand why charlie tries to expand his role and not use him as the very thing hes meant to be. les walrond? come on guys, hes a 31 year old junkballer, if he was any good at all he would already have been in the major league for more than those two cups of coffee.
Posted: 02:04 PM on August 2, 2008
Posts: 0 Geoff
i know gordons situation ahs forced that, but thats when you GO GET ANOTHER SETUP MAN. they wasted MONTHS trying to put a bandaid on this problem when it could have easily been addressed before the trade deadline if youre willing to pay the price for a setupman. its steep, but without a good setupman the whoel bullpen falls apart becuase you have people being used in ways theyre not supposed to be.
Posted: 02:07 PM on August 2, 2008
Posts: 0 scot
I agree with you, Geoff, but the past has passed. So I am just looking ahead.
Posted: 02:36 PM on August 2, 2008
Posts: 0 Geoff
you can still makes trades, go get another setup man. as for hamels, scot, he doesnt suck, i feel that hes not ready to be the man though. hes 24. it would benefit him at this stage in his career for myers to have been more effective or for them to have gotten some stud ace in a trade, and it would benefit them to get someone like ben sheets as a free agent. without those other elements there ALL the attention is on cole. he needs some of that taken off of him until hes truly mentally ready to be the man here. hes about 80 percent to where he should be. in two years, hell win the cy young award.
Posted: 02:40 PM on August 2, 2008
Posts: 0 scot
i actually agree with everything you said, geoff. as for the setup man, i just don’t know if someone who comes through waivers will be better than what we have.
as for hamels, we all wanted him to be THE MAN this season. and i’m just pointing out that he’s not. thus, my dissapointment. he still may get there. but all evidence so far says, if he does, it won’t be this year. when i said a few weeks back it’s a shame we don’t have someone better, it wasn’t a demand to trade hamels, it was to have someone like a sheets or CC here so that he doesn’t need to be the man just yet. because, really, he isn’t. at least not yet.
Posted: 02:53 PM on August 2, 2008
Posts: 0 Geoff
i think they screwed him up by making myers the opening day starter, taht was pointless. he needs to know hes the man going into a season and then youll see some ill-ass esoteric pitching from him. if brett myers was ready to be an ace at all we wouldnt have to worry about hamels and hamels would be the perfect number 2. but myers’ missteps screwed up the whole rotation. somehow jamie moyer has had his best year in a while and kendrick has held together. those guys have been cornerstones this year. having said that, moyer is still not off the hook, but hes done a nice job.
next year i would have my rotation be:
sheets
hamels
blanton
kendrick
happ/carrasco/moyer
i think a healthy ben sheets caliber starter ahead of hamels allows him to perfect his craft without the pressure of being the man. a few years of that will allow hamels to be that man by age 26/27.
Posted: 03:02 PM on August 2, 2008
Posts: 0 philsphan
Seanez had been a very good middle reliever for the Phillies this year, but his last few outings show that he is losing steam. I think that this will be his last season in the big leagues. We may see hi in September but I think that will be it.
As for Les Walrond… He has been good at AAA this year but the Phillies should be able to find a lefty (or even righty) reliever on the waiver wire that is better and more proven.
Posted: 04:13 PM on August 2, 2008
Posts: 0 KM
if he was that good he wouldn’t be a 31 year old in AAA.
Posted: 06:38 PM on August 2, 2008
Posts: 0 Nick
… tell that to Chris Coste … and hey, you never know how much adding a pitch can help a guy become effetive.
Posted: 07:05 AM on August 3, 2008
Posts: 0 NJ
KM that’s just not true. There are a hell of a lot of players too old to be propsects in AAA with a hell of a lot to offer a big league team, there are a lot of these guys who float around between the 24/25th man on the roster and playing every day in AAA waiting for a chance to get that call-up and regain their big league status. Take a guy like Russell Branyan who was briefly with us and has hit 12 home runs with the Brewers and another 12 in stints with their AAA team. The talent is in either high A or AA but AAA is where you find the prospects teams want to seasoned like Jaramillo with us and very servicable if not in some cases incredibly talented veterans looking to get back to the bigs, just look at how many guys over the age of 30 sign minor league deals to get back on the radar in AAA.
As for Walrond, very good move. I like the chief but it’s a pefect time to send him to the DL for a rest prior to the stretch and to see if we have someone servicable with upside in LV, there’s no reason not to give Walrond a shot when he’s pitched so well in AAA and Condrey’s pitching well enough to be given that bit more responsibility. Really like what we’re doing with the veterans in LV, if one guy earns a roster spot down the stretch the experimenting with that last roster spots paid off.
As for the LOOGY situation that’s not Romero, although he sometimes will run into trouble against right handing hitting he’s a reliable set-up man and having that second lefty in the pen means Charlie doesn’t have to turn to Romero as the LOOGY when he wants him to set-up for Lidge.
Posted: 10:41 AM on August 3, 2008