Reese Kaplan - Have the Nasty Boys Arrived in Queens?

About 4 years after Janet Jackson had a hit song of the same title, the Cincinnati Reds of 1990 through 1992 employed three 95+ mph closers who performed under the moniker, “The Nasty Boys”.  The post John Franco era in the Queen City brought a trio of a new kind to finish games – Rob Dibble, Randy Myers and Norm Charlton.  Each was fully capable of blowing away hitters seemingly at will.  Sweet Lou Piniella rotated these guys to finish games and they responded well.  Take a look at the numbers:

Rob Dibble

As a part time closer, the big righty notched 67 saves and struck out an average of over 13 batters per 9 innings.  He kept his ERA for that period sub-3.00.

Randy Myers

The lefty obtained from the Mets was sensational for the first two years there as well.  He struck out roughly a man per inning, kept his ERA under 3.00 and saved 37 games.

Norm Charlton

Arguably the forgotten member of the trio, Charlton jumped between the rotation and the pen before settling in permanently to replace Myers in 1992.  During those three years his ERA was better than the more well known pair and he saved 29 games.  His strikeout numbers were not quite as spectacular, but he was a member of the 1992 All Star Team for his efforts. 

A friend wrote to me recently asking about the recent spate of success the Mets’ young guns in the pen have been having.  Just this week alone we saw Vic Black notch a victory, Jenrry Mejia with a 2 IP save (and STILL has not had an earned run score on him since shifting to the pen), and Wednesday afternoon Jeurys Familia notched a pretty 5-out save that included getting old friend Ike Davis on the very first pitch to hit into an inning-ending double play.  His ERA now sits at a tidy 2.92. 

Compare this back end of the bullpen to what started the season for the Mets – Kyle Farnsworth, Jose Valverde and a miscast John Lannan.  It had gotten so bad that people were clamoring for more Matsuzaka as Dice-K was the first one other than Carlos Torres to show a prolonged stretch of competence in this role.

The Nasty Boys reference becomes an even better parallel when you consider that next year at the ripe old age of 29 you’ll also have Bobby Parnell returning to the bullpen.  Now we don’t know after his TJS whether or not he’ll come back to be as effective or to throw as hard, but a fourth power arm under 30 is enough to make Mets fans salivate. 

What’s also interesting is that Dice-K, who reluctantly was sent to Las Vegas to start the season is now (as of this writing) sporting a nifty 2.33 ERA and striking out 10 per 9 IP.  He’s still walking too many, but he’s been pretty much unhittable with just 12 base hits surrendered over 27 IP.  He’s rapidly playing himself into a valuable commodity who would be valued more highly than Bartolo Colon due to his younger age and much smaller contract.   With Gee hopefully returning soon, something’s got to give and Dice-K seems like he could be the odd man out.  Of course, another way to go would be to keep Dice-K in the rotation and shift either Rafael Montero or Jacob de Grom to the pen to make the already improved 6^th through 9^th inning crew even stronger. 

Finally, there’s a rumor that in baseball a mechanism exists through which you can shift players from your roster to another team’s roster.  In return they shift some people from their payroll to yours.  I’m not sure Sandy Alderson knows the technical term for this type of maneuver, but I think it starts with the letter “T”.  Somebody ought to let him know that this possibility exists, too.   It’s not strictly reserved for veteran player salary dumps in exchange for minor league prospects.