No way Jose

Disclaimer- I'm a social worker, so I believe that each and every human being has inherent value.  Also, in America I believe that everybody has the right to pursue whatever type of career they so choose and it isn't my place to tell someone what they should or shouldn't be doing.

But Jose Valverde can no longer be the closer for the Detroit Tigers.

I don't know if Valverde is a sleeper agent for the Yankees or what (and looking at his stats against the Bronx Bombers, I'd believe it), but he has certainly been awful for most of 2012.  Yet the Tigers keep trotting him out game after game after game, to a chorus of groans and soul-crushing sadness.

Why?

Look, I love Jim Leyland as much as anyone.  In this era of hyper-awareness and health consciousness, I think it's great that we have the Marlboro Man managing our $119 million baseball team.  But I also think that Jim might be too close to the situation to realize what Tiger fans realized pretty early on- Jose Valverde is not a good closer.

I'm not even sure if he's a good pitcher at this point- maybe he could be, if he could pitch in low pressure, non-save situ....(thinks back to every time Valverde pitched in a non-save situation) ah forget it.  Valverde is an awful pitcher.

Too bad that we have him signed to a long term deal and we have to being repair...wait a minute, what's that you say?  Valverde is a free agent and even though  he's making $9 million this year to sabotage our playoff chances, we are not under contractual obligation to him next year?

This is amazing!!!

Do you realize what this means???  Jose doesn't have to play.  This isn't little league, Jim.  Cut him, waive him, revoke his scholarship- whatever you have to do, just keep him off the field.  Sure, it might throw off his mojo or whatever, but he's a free agent.  Why should we care about his possibly shattered confidence?  Lord willing he'll be doing this for someone else next year.  I say sit him on the bench and pitch the guys who can, you know, get the other team out.  Shoot, I'd rather have pre-hipster-glasses Rick Vaughn or Whitt Bass at this point.

To Leyland's credit, he seemed to indicate that there is at least a chance that Valverde won't be closing the rest of the playoffs (and if divine justice is a 'thing', never ever again while donning the olde English D).  I certainly wouldn't let him.  At this point, I wouldn't even trust Valverde ordering for me at McDonalds during lunch hour. 

I'm sure Jose Valverde is an interesting human being who could be a lot of fun to be around.  As a closer though, he has less worth than the box that Hiro-San is bringing down the aisle.  It's one thing to give up a bunch of 9th inning runs in Yankee stadium in April.  It's quite another to do it in game 1 of the ALCS.

Mike Ilitch is paying 21,686,545 Hot and Ready pizzas to bring a World Series back to Detroit and right now, the biggest thing standing between that us and that title is Jose Rafael Valverde.  Jim Leyland, please, for the love of all things good, do the right thing- Bench Valverde.  Drop Valverde from the postseason roster.  Forget that Valverde exists.   Profit.