Cy-onara

In five years, baseball writers will have the opportunity to consider Billy Wagner's Hall of Fame credentials. My guess is they will find him wanting, particularly having tossed just 900 innings in his 15-year career.

Take a look, though, at his swan song. Has anyone ever exited the game on such an upswing? 

In 69 innings, Billy Wagner allowed just 38 hits while fanning 104. That's domination. His K-rate was second in the NL. His 104/22 strikeout-walk ratio was second in the league. His 7-2, 1.43 with 37 saves was nothing to sneeze at either. He was worth 27 runs -- in just 69 innings! -- to the Braves.

Wagner called it a career at 38. The only practitioner of the twirling arts whom I can remember posting such an incredible valedictory season is Sandy Koufax (27-9, 1.73; 317 K in 323 innings, worth about 100 runs), but his departure, at 30, was transparently premature.

The closer is an over-rated position, but relief masters like Wagner can tilt the contest their team's way. The Braves made a lot of good moves in the off-season, but losing Wagner will be a blow.

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A Wagnerian Opera

By the time you read this, events may have passed it by, but the Mets' Billy Wagner dilemma is worth examining.

It appears that the Mets, by showcasing the fireballing lefty following his long DL stint, and then placing him on the waiver wire, expect to buy out his $1 million option next year rather than pay him $8 million to stay. That in turn indicates that the Mets don't expect to compete seriously in 2010.

There's no reason KRod and Wagner can't co-exist in Queens. They would form a devastating lefty-righty bullpen combo, with one pitching the 8th and the other the 9th depending on the handedness of the batters due up. With the help of a decent "set-up" man, the Mets would truncate each game to six innings, a prospect that could benefit the starting rotation in myriad ways.

Certainly the brains of some managers and GMs (and virtually all baseball reporters) would get snagged on the idea of splitting saves between two star closers. But statistics are servants, not masters. They should illuminate what's important, not distort strategy in order to accumulate them. A bullpen of Wagner, KRod and a few working parts would almost certainly be the best in baseball, regardless who "closes."

No one has done this before, and it bucks conventional wisdom to some degree. That's a big hill for a GM to climb, particularly a GM facing the prospect of unemployment with one more wrong move. Omar Minaya is probably more risk averse than Ben Bernanke at this point, and tampering with baseball tradition is about as risky as it gets, short of violating an "unwritten rule."

Of course, it's not my money, so it's easy for me to endorse the expenditure of $8 million. But I'm guessing that even the seriously-Madofffed Fred Wilpon would gladly spend $8 million for a pennant, particularly given what he's been through the last three MLB campaigns. In addition, the Mets may know something about Wagner that we don't. Perhaps they believe that his two-strikeout audition against the Phillies was his high water mark and that the Red Sox, or whoever takes Wagner off their hands, would be getting damaged goods. In that case, a trade might save them some salary this year, $1 million next year, and return a promising youngster in trade.

Personally, I'd like to see the Mets figure out how to create synergy with their dynamic closer duo. They might actually knock over some false idols in the process. But I'm not counting on it.
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