Archive of SportingNews.com's old SOM Baseball forum

Howdy,

I admit it. Mike Cuellar looks awfully good on paper. Shoot, who wouldn't want him, given his WHIPS and salary?
So I usually draft him about half the time. And he stinks.Consistently. I know, ya'll are thinking that I'm using home parks like Jerry, Wrigley or Fulton-wrong! I usually choose pitcher's parks like Houston, Oakland or Arlington.No matter. Makes me scratch my head.
Anyone else have bad luck with junkballer extraordinaire Mike Cuellar? Or with any [i:24df7a6ff4]other[/i:24df7a6ff4] seemingly good player, for that matter?

Larry

Larry,
You are right! Cuellar does suck for me. I have fallen for the same act 4 times and each time, he sucks. He won't be on my list for the next 70s.

Chess2899,

Look, if there's something you want to say about Mike Cuellar, just come out and say it; I don't like it when people beat around the bush. LOL. Couldn't resist. ;)

Larry

I wouldn't pay $1.5M for da bum! His co-conspirator McNally has been equally bad. Wonder if their real-life stats are over-inflated because of Brooksie, Belanger and Blair playing behind them?

I'm starting to think it's just lefthanders in general...I don't care where I play, I don't think I ever have a lefty with less than a 5 ERA...

Jayhawk81,

Now Dave McNally has carried his weight (read salary) for me from time to time, something I can't say for the mysterious Cuellar! On my current pitcher-friendly Astrodome team McNally is 2-2 with a 1.20 WHIP and a good 3.31 ERA..but again that's in the Astrodome.
All I know..is that when I load up with Righty SP, my opponants can burn me with swith-hitters and otherwise mediocre-to-weak hitting leftys like Wayne Garret and even Brohamer. Just the observations of a career .505 mgr. :)

Larry[/i]

As I've said before, Cuellar was a guy who gave up a lot of HRs in real life (4 times in the 70's he finished in the top 10 in HRs allowed) despite pitching in arguably the 1st and 3rd best pitcher's parks in the 70's.

Cuellar would have easily had Jenkins like HR allowed totals if he had pitched in Wrigley & Fenway most of his career...Imagine if you swapped Cuellar and Jenkins with regard to where they each played. I'd bet Jenkins could have won about 320 games pitching in those parks and having those Orioles teams behind him.

[quote:c18765d5e8="jmc316"]As I've said before, Cuellar was a guy who gave up a lot of HRs in real life (4 times in the 70's he finished in the top 10 in HRs allowed) despite pitching in arguably the 1st and 3rd best pitcher's parks in the 70's.
[/quote:c18765d5e8]

Amplifying on jmc316's excellent observations, if you look at Cuellar's cards you find an awful lot of HR, including an awful lot of BPHR, on all of his cards except for the excellent 1969. I've generally steered clear of Cuellar for this reason.

I agree witht the last two. The bad luck is really being a bad GM in many cases. Cuellar really has only one card that is real good for a non-pitcher park. Peolple get attracted to the great WHIP, but he is really Steve Stone in that he has the one dominant year and the rest are littered with #HR. Add in that he is a LHP and that is a recipe for an early dismissal. If you are in a pitching park and see Cuellar not in a pitching park, just wait for him to be let go and give him a shot when you have a streak of home games. I caught his best year in the Dome when he got cut in Memorial and just tried it in the Tourney:
Cuellar in Fulton County:
2 0 2 0 7.2 20 13 2 8 15.27 2.87
Cuellar for me(3 in Yankee, one in Cominsky)
2 2 0 0 31.2 23 7 7 5 20 4 1.99 0.88
He only has real good K to BB ratio's in his two best years so I took a shot on his 2/8 ratio despite his being shelled in the bomber park. Looks like it is one of his good years. And yes, it was Chess who cut him.