[USML Announce] Feliz Feliz Me

[rickgam at comcast.net]

Greetings; 
So this information was culled from the "Ben & Skin" show? 'Nuff said. 
Rick 
p.s. My heartfelt condolences to Mssrs. Winick, Shabelman, & Jansen for losing Kelly, Rizzo, & Fuentes last week in that Adrian G. trade last week. A couple more like that will level the playing field! 

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Brad Jansen" <bljansen at gmail.com> 
To: "USML Announcements" <announce at usml.net> 
Sent: Wednesday, December 15, 2010 3:35:09 PM 
Subject: [USML Announce] Feliz Feliz Me 

FROM ESPN.COM (and my bold prediction: he saves 25, wins 15)....... 


The last few weeks, general manager Jon Daniels hasn't attempted to 
hide the fact that his club is strongly considering moving Neftali 
Feliz into the starting rotation. The closer will be stretched out in 
spring training and have an opportunity to compete for a starting job. 

It's one thing to talk about the hypotheticals when you're flying to 
Arkansas three times and feeling like Cliff Lee could still come to 
Arlington. Now that he's not, I bet the Rangers pull the trigger and 
insert Feliz into the rotation. 

Yes, they could make some other moves this offseason to alter that 
thinking. But if he shows enough with his secondary pitches -- and 
those pitches improved as the season wore on -- the Rangers will feel 
like he can impact the club more starting every fifth day than he 
would out of the bullpen. 

Does Feliz have good enough stuff to start? The club needs to find 
out. In a perfect world, he could have one more year to refine those 
pitches. But if he is the closer, he's not relying as much on the 
secondary stuff. He'd be forced to work through his offspeed and 
breaking stuff if he's in the starting rotation. The club would need 
to show some patience, but if Feliz could handle the load, it would be 
a big boost to a rotation that just took a hit with the departure of 
Lee. It's the difficult call of whether you move a guy who seems to 
have Mariano Rivera potential to the starting rotation. But at his 
age, if it didn't work, he could always return to the bullpen. 

Daniels reiterated on "The Ben & Skin Show" this morning that it's 
something the club must consider. Daniels said it's not "comfortable" 
because of how good Feliz was in the closer role in 2010, but the club 
will look at it. 

"We've got to factor it in," Daniels said. "Look at the market. The 
top starting pitchers are getting 20-plus million dollars a year. The 
top closers are getting 10 to 12. There's a reason for that. The 
industry has figured out that there's significantly more value if 
Feliz can be a top of the rotation pitcher. I don't know if he can be. 
I know he's got some attributes that would make you think he can be. 
But he's just 22 years old. He's one of the youngest guys on our team. 
It's something we've got to think about." 

So the club will stretch him out as a starter, like they did in 2010, 
and see what he's got. They'll have to make a decision by the middle 
of the spring. I think he'll end up in the rotation. 
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