Couldn’t help reading today that Bobby Parnell deserves to be an All Star on MetsBlog. Sorry, but I beg to differ.
Parnell ranks 13th out of 15 National League closers with 9 saves. The leader, Pittsburgh’s Jason Grilli, has 22 saves, while Edward Mujica of the Cardinals and Craig Kimbrel have 17 saves each. All three have ERAs of 1.93 or lower. Do those three deserve to be All Stars? You bet they do. Parnell isn’t even on the same map as them.
The Mets closer has blown three saves out of 12 opportunites and his 75% save ratio is the worst mark among all 15 qualified NL closers.
His 1.01 WHIP, which is pretty impressive, still only ranks seventh among qualified closers, and his Batting Average Against of .202 while good, isn’t even in the same company of of guys like Grilli (.141), Kevin Gregg (.148), Jonathan Papelbon (.125), Mujica (.138) or Aroldis Chapman (.183), In fact, Parnell doesn’t even have the best BAA in his own bullpen, as that honor goes to Scott Rice who boasts a .198 BAA.
So aside from just taking the fanboy approach, what exactly makes Parnell more deserving than any of those elite closers I mentioned?
Heck, I wish all the Mets could be All Stars if you asked the homer in me. But from a pure baseball intellect standpoint and an unbiased point of view, it’s very clear that Parnell doesn’t deserve a spot on the All Star team and that there’s at least 6-8 closers in front of him that do deserve the honor.
His blown save last night that allowed the Nationals to comeback and beat the Mets 3-2, had the bearded one allowing a double, a wild pitch, a single, another double, and finally a sac-fly with the bases loaded to clinch the deal for the Nats.
Now, has Parnell embraced the closer role better than many of us expected?
Yes, of course. But to count him among the elite closers in baseball, or even in the league, is pretty ridiculous right now.
Parnell is not an elite All Star caliber closer. He’s just a good one – most of the time.
