Kim Klement – USA Today Sports
Cliff Lee and the Cincinnati Reds both have something in common: The 2016 season can’t start quickly enough.
The Reds are hoping to forget their first last-place finish in Joey Votto‘s lifetime and Lee is hoping to get on the mound for the first time since the first half of the 2014 season. Both the Reds and Lee have a problem. The Reds don’t have a closer and Lee doesn’t have a team.
From 2008 through 2013, Lee enjoyed six seasons of 30 or more starts and 200 or more innings pitched. It would be a transition for the former Cy Young Award winner. He hasn’t pitched in relief since the 2007 season, the year before he won the Cy Young. With no career saves this would be new area for the former starter. On the other hand, his secondary stats appear better suited for closing than most of the Reds’ current in-house options.
Lee has a career WHIP of 1.20 including five years under that number. J.J. Hoover, the top in-house option to replace Aroldis Chapman, has a career WHIP of 1.18, but had a WHIP of 1.39 in 2014 while losing 10 games. The Reds can’t afford that type of production again. Sam LeCure, a spot closer earlier in his career, has a career WHIP of 1.26, but was allowed to become a minor league free agent this offseason. Right now, Hoover is the closer with Rule 5 draftee Chris O’Grady and Caleb Cotham of the Chapman deal as the only competition on the roster.
The Reds need the help and Lee needs the Reds. When players like Henderson Alvarez are signing free agent deals, Lee should have already been signed. The good news for Lee is that he has a cutter and a two-seam fastball … the tools that made Mariano Rivera the best reliever of all time.
Lee also has the mentality of a closer. He has 29 complete games and never liked to come out of games. This is something the young Reds starting staff could learn from as well. Once Lee establishes himself as a capable reliever, he can be moved to a contender for the stretch run.
Lee can go out a winner and the Reds can let their young pitchers develop at their own rate. The start of the 2016 season can’t get here soon enough. PLAY BALL!
Nick Vorholt is a writer for www.RantSports.com covering the Cincinnati Reds.
