December 08, 2004
The Once and Future Fish
Al Leiter returns home to play for the Marlins again. Al has had an increase in walks and a falloff in strikeouts the last two years. His strength in 2004 was that when batters made contact, nothing much happened. He allowed a paltry .218 BA to opponent batters in 2004.
He's not going to be the ace of the staff, but the Marlins don't really need an ace. He'll be a good fourth starter for them, and I wouldn't be surprised if he taught Dontrelle Willis a few tricks. It's a good signing.
As far as I'm concerned, he's still a top-of-the-line pitcher. That opponent's BA isn't a fluke: he throws a nasty cutter that is very hittable in terms of making contact but is very hard to drive.
The increase in walks is a concern as is his age but to call him a 4th starter is sort of harsh.
On that team he's the fourth starter. That's not a knock against Leiter, that's the reality of the pitching staff.
I agree with David. Look at the Cubs. On that staff, Maddux is #4 behind Woods, Prior and Zambrano. I hope that Fox mikes him during games too - he was fun to listen to in the booth.
The Leiter headline I am anxious to see sometime is "Leiter to Replace McCarver in Booth".
I wish Leiter had retired so he could have replaced McCarver this year.
i hope that leiter will be like a second pitching coach to the young guys, too.
and he is so GOOD in the booth that there is NO way fox will ever hire him... too bad...