March 20, 2006

Some may be inclined to jump at the "best big game pitchers" claim, particularly with an all-time 2-3 record in the post-season, so I'll back it up: 1997 World Series, Game 7: with everything on the line, Leiter starts and holds an Indians club that had scored 42 runs in the first six games to only 2 runs over 6 innings. He left down 2-0, but he kept his team well within reach, and... well, you know how that turned out. October 4, 1999: The Mets have a one-game playoff against the Reds to determine the NL's Wild Card. Leiter pitches a complete game shutout to send the Mets to the post-season. Huge. 1999 NLDS, Game 4: With the Mets up 2 games to 1 and trying to move on, Leiter had given up only 1 run to the D-backs in 7 innings. In the eighth he was removed with 2 outs and 2 on. Benitez blew the save in a game the Mets went on to win anyway. 1999 NLCS, Game 3: With the Mets down 2 games to none against the Braves, Leiter gives up 1 unearned run (throwing error on a double steal by Piazza) in seven innings. He is pinch-hit for in the seventh, the Mets never manage to score against Tom Glavine, and they lose 1-0. (Admittedly, Leiter would go on to get rocked in the decisive Game 6 of this series, unable to make it out of the 1st inning, but in his defense he was going on short rest.) 2000 NLDS, Game 2: The Mets had lost Game 1 and were trying to avoid going down two in a best-of-five. Leiter gives up a single run to the Giants through eight innings. In the ninth, leading 4-1, Leiter gives up a leadoff double to Barry Bonds, then gives way to Benitez, who AGAIN blows the save. The Mets win in extra innings. 2000 World Series, Game 1: Facing the indomitable Yankees, Leiter gives up just two sixth inning runs to the Yankees and leaves after seven with a 3-2 lead. Benitez AGAIN blows the lead in the ninth and the Yanks win in 10 innings. 2000 World Series, Game 5: In the decisive game, Leiter gives up just two runs through eight innings and enters the ninth in a 2-2 deadlock. He strikes out the first two Yankees he faces, but a tired warrior starts to slip. With the Mets having lost faith in their bullpen, and with the help of an error by Jay Payton, Leiter gives up two runs (only one earned) and loses. This was kind of a 2003 Pedro situation, but few people complained about leaving Leiter in there after what he had done for the club. He was a freakin' horse. Throw in that the guy pitched a no-hitter, saved the Yankees rotation in July of 2005 when he was picked up off the scrap heap, winning a pivotal game against the Red Sox, appeared in each of the first four games of the 2005 ALDS against the Angels and won a crucial Game 4 to send the series back to Anaheim, and this is a much better career than his raw numbers dictate. I personally love this guy (as you can probably tell). I wish him well.

posted by BullpenPro at 08:11 AM on March 20, 2006

So... do they Yankees have plans to replace him? Leiter saw the handwriting on the wall -- he had already been replaced. The Yanks definitely didn't have a rotation slot for him, so his role, if any, was likely to be as a lefty specialist out of the pen. Given that the Yanks had signed Mike Myers and Ron Villone as lefties in the off-season, Leiter was quite likely on his way to an invitation to Columbus at best. It's too bad, but with Johnson, Mussina, Wang, Pavano, Wright, Chacon, and Small all seemingly ahead of him he just had nowhere to go, and I don't think he just wanted to hang on with a Tampa Bay or Kansas City. Good for him that he took the graceful exit instead of pitching until the phone stopped ringing. His intellect and sense of humor will certainly land him in the broadcast booth if he doesn't decide to switch to politics.

posted by BullpenPro at 08:34 AM on March 20, 2006

I never realized how different Leiter's record would have been if Benitez wasn't such a mess in big games. Anyway, I'm sure people will disagree, but I thought Leiter was pretty good in the broadcast booth when he did playoff games on Fox. He always seemed excited to be there and to drop little tidbits that the others (I can't even remember who they stuck him with) weren't privy to.

posted by Jugwine at 08:45 AM on March 20, 2006

Al "the Ingrate" Leiter -- a class act?? "The cloud of unpredictability hovering over Leiter isn't limited to the playing field. "When Leiter jumped ship from the Blue Jays to sign with the Marlins before the 1996 season, then-Jays president Paul Beeston criticized him for being disloyal to a Toronto organization that had been patient with him through several injury-plagued years. "So when Leiter returned to the SkyDome to face the Jays in August during interleague play, he addressed that lingering issue by referring to himself as "Paul Revere" while talking to reporters. "Don't you mean Benedict Arnold?" he was asked. "Oh, I guess I do," came the reply." Paul Beeston is one of the most respected men in MLB the past two decades. He never said anything bad publicly about any player -- except Al Leiter. If it hadn't been for the patience of Beeston and Gillick, Leiter would have been thrown to the wolves. They carried him for years. Sure, a professional athlete can do whatever the rules allow him. But while the rest of y'all can go on fantasizing about Al Leiter being a "class act," there's a few of us out here that believe he was an ingrate prick, and to Leiter I say good riddance, don't let the door hit you on the way out.

posted by the red terror at 09:59 AM on March 20, 2006

Beeston? The guy who said, "I can turn a $4 million profit into a $2 million loss, and I can get any major accounting firm in the country to agree with me. All I need is a sharp pencil and a good eraser." (In fairness, Beeston was trying to make a point, not a confession.) Leiter's move to Florida included a $2 million leap in salary (from $700-some-thousand). I don't know what the Jays offered him, but it certainly wasn't the opportunity to be near his Fort Lauderdale home. And, after several years of injury-riddled seasons, you might begin to wonder how well your team is taking care of you. At the very least, you may be eager for any change of scenery. As to Leiter's class, he won both the Branch Rickey Award and the Roberto Clemente Award. I'm sure you can win both of them and still be a first-rate jerk, but that hasn't been my experience with Leiter, nor that of many people I know who have spent any time with him. And as to loyalty, it's a two-way street. For Beeston to go public on Leiter sounds like a rare moment of sour grapes from someone who should certainly know that his is a business that does not foster and rarely rewards loyalty at any level.

posted by BullpenPro at 10:50 AM on March 20, 2006

Leiter comes into the majors in 1987, and in 18-plus years, that's the only public knock on him? I agree with Bullpen's last statement above about Beeston. There are also no lack of reasons to want to get out of Canada, whether your an entire organization, or an individual who wants to have your contract where the dollar is worth more. Loyalty IS a two-way street. When Andy Petitte left New York, the team in which he grew up and was on several championship teams, did he feel a loyalty to stick around? No. Should he have? Maybe, maybe not. He went for a better offer, and nobody blames him. I don't think one problem which was made public defines Leiter's whole career. Players come, players go in sports these days. Team loyalty basically went out of style in the '70s.

posted by dyams at 11:07 AM on March 20, 2006

it's too easy dyams........i'd have a battle of wits with you...but i won't take on an unarmed man. so...u think MR BLISTER should leave toronto...one of the great cities of the world...because he wants to go where the dollar is worth more???? what a putz. all baseball contracts are in american dollars....so.....by living in toronto....his contract would be worth more...as the canadian dollar was worth less at that point. his yankee bucks would go EVEN FURTHER! as far as loyalty being a 2 way street...what does seven yrs of patience waiting for his finger to feel better constitute?>?????????? the blue jays have a reputation in baseball as being one of the PREMIER organizations in so far as taking care of their employees. by the way.....every now and then...american teams move to canada as well.

posted by tommybiden at 11:16 AM on March 20, 2006

what does seven yrs of patience waiting for his finger to feel better constitute? It constitutes a really, really inexpensive opportunity to hope for the best -- that Leiter will deliver what he eventually did after he left the Jays (and maybe save a little face after essentially handing Jesse Barfield to the Yanks, though in retrospect that deal was a lot of nothing). I can understand why Jays fans might be bitter about Leiter's career path and not want to hear anything good about him. Tommytrump, you seem to have dug in your heels, and I'm not going to even try to brow beat you into thinking otherwise. Every fan has that player (or list of players) that they will just never forgive for leaving their team, and that kind of passion is a good thing. I'll let dyams address your excessively personal comments himself, as he is quite well equipped to do, whether you want to concede it or not. /heading back to the "bullpen," out of the "rotation," taking my own warm rememberances of post-Toronto Leiter with me...

posted by BullpenPro at 11:48 AM on March 20, 2006

There's only room for only so many selfish, self- centered pricks on any one team. With the addition of Damon maybe the Yankees were above the limit.

posted by INOALOSER at 12:02 PM on March 20, 2006

who are you dyams?? the grammar police? i'll use whatever punctuation marks i want...and easy on the redundancy...as in....question marks ARE punctuation marks. interesting that you remember as leiters' "GREAT" performance a LOSING EFFORT. that's poetic. by the way a 2-3 post season record with a 4.63 ERA hardly constitutes a GREAT BIG GAME TOUGH AS NAILS pitcher.

posted by tommybiden at 01:11 PM on March 20, 2006

Hey, tommytrump. Way to stick up for your right to use 20 question marks at the end of a sentence. I just wanted to save you a little time that could be better used for you to tend to the world's blister problem. You've been on this site what, about 15 minutes, and you start getting personal and cocky? Go back to the ESPN message boards where other angry nitwits post. Just a few comments on the American dollar/Canadian contract issue. While the contracts are paid in American dollars, that doesn't impact what a Canadian team can offer a player. Each cent of fluctuation between the value of the Canadian and U.S. dollar means a $400,000 swing. When you have 80 percent of a team's expenses (payroll, farm system, travel and scouting) in U.S. dollars and 70 percent of your revenues (ticket sales, local television rights and sponsorship) in Canadian dollars, you're behind from the start and always operating near a loss. The Blue Jays have endured some of the highest operating losses in all of baseball at more than $50 million per year in recent seasons. A player like Leiter wanting to go from that difficult situation to Florida, especially when it's his home, isn't too difficult to comprehend.

posted by dyams at 01:36 PM on March 20, 2006

who are you dyams?? the grammar police? i'll use whatever punctuation marks i want Perhaps, but not here. Consider the concept of a Social Contract before you decide what you will and will not do in a public forum. F'r instance, I might call you any number of names or assume you half a sped due to your lack of familiarity with the standards of punctuation in English (and I'm willing to accept conventions from either side of The Pond, though I remain . . . sceptical, if you will, that you're aware of any body of water larger than the business end of an outhouse). But I won't. Social Contract and all that, my good chap.

posted by yerfatma at 01:49 PM on March 20, 2006

even if i was a 'rookie' i believe i'm still entitled to my opinions Yes, but we'll respect your opinions only if they're written in clear and proper English. C'est la vie.

posted by DrJohnEvans at 02:14 PM on March 20, 2006

all of my opinions have been written in clear and proper english. if your biggest problem is that someone used a couple extra punctuation points you have a pretty good and easy life. N'EST PAS?

posted by tommybiden at 02:20 PM on March 20, 2006

not CLAIMING anything home boy......no gibberish coming from me...just from the syncophant supporters of one of the biggest jerks and cry babies of the major leagues in the last 20 years. word to yo' momma

posted by tommybiden at 03:20 PM on March 20, 2006

As the disembodied spirit of Babe Ruth is my witness, I never thought that the retirement of Al Leiter would generate more than 5 comments. I mean, come on people. It's Al Leiter. This is like getting worked up about Andy Benes or Rick Sutcliffe. Jeez.

posted by grum@work at 03:29 PM on March 20, 2006

My name is Jerseygo Girltoya and you have insulted Rick Sutcliffe. Prepare to die.

posted by jerseygirl at 03:51 PM on March 20, 2006

you have insulted Rick Sutcliffe. Prepare to die. Yeah, leave the Red Baron out of this.

posted by willthrill72 at 04:31 PM on March 20, 2006

Jerseygo Girltoya That is so going to be my next alter ego, once the Dr. retires.

posted by DrJohnEvans at 06:20 PM on March 20, 2006

5 better pitchers ...here ya go...jack morris, roger clemens, mariano rivera, pedro martinez, and curt shilling, if u don't accept rivera because he's a reliever, randy johnson is a fine substitute. gee that took about 25 seconds i'm sure i could list ten more if you wanted.

posted by tommybiden at 10:24 PM on March 20, 2006

Quiz: name five better big game pitchers of the last twenty years. Dave Stewart - the only blemish is the last two games he pitched in the playoffs. This is countered by his miraculous performance against Chicago in the 6th inning of this game. Bases loaded, nobody out, and he escapes without giving up a run. Mariano Rivera - even if he's "just" a reliever, he's still insanely great in the post season and the big games. He's one of the few pitchers I'd let into the HOF based on his playoff performances alone. 0.81 ERA in over 100IP? That's just crazy. Orlando Hernandez - 9-3, 2.55 ERA in the post season, plus he always seemed to come up big when they needed him to. Curt Schilling - great numbers (even with the 2004 ALCS) plus he's got historic performances in 1993 and 2004 World Series as well. I can only think of 4 off the top of my head (and then investigating if they were, in fact, money). Randy Johnson and Jack Morris don't really have that great numbers in the post season, and are really just floating on one or two legendary appearances. Martinez and Clemens are also fantastic regular season performers (two of the best in the past 100 years), but their post-season histories are a bit sketchy in comparison.

posted by grum@work at 12:47 AM on March 21, 2006

I like Al Leiter and wish him well. And Jerseygo Girltoya is the coolest name ever.

posted by fenriq at 12:52 AM on March 21, 2006

g@w: David Cone

posted by yerfatma at 05:47 AM on March 21, 2006