Out here on the interwebs, a debate rages. Should Neftali Feliz start or relieve this season? This, of course, leads to a secondary debate on whether leaving Feliz in the bullpen this season means that he’ll forever be a reliever. And that leads to frantic panting that the Rangers may be about to waste a true ace. To all this (especially my good friends at my favorite independent Rangers blog Lonestarball.com), I say relax. It will work itself out. For those concerned that another year of relief work would mean Feliz would forever be locked into the back end of the bullpen (which, by the way, isn’t a terrible thing), let me give you a cautionary tale. It’s about another child prodigy of a pitcher who began his career in the bullpen. This club up in Minnesota took this 21-year-old and had him pitch out of the pen for a year. Then they did it again the next year. For most of a third season, too. And darn it if they didn’t have him pitch out of the bullpen for the first half of a fourth season. He wasn’t even used to close games. Of all people, Minnesota closed games with Eddie Guardado back then. And that 21-year-old turned out to be Johan Santana. The Twins protected his arm and let him refine his stuff out of the bullpen from 2000 through 2003. He perfected his changeup as a complement to a super-duper fastball. And he learned a little about throwing strikes from an organization that demands it. It worked out OK for Minnesota. In 2002, the Twins won their first division title since 1991. In 2003, they won No. 2. And in 2004, with Santana just 25 and fronting the rotation, they won No. 3. Since then, he was won more games (99), struck out more hitters (1,335), posted the lowest ERA (2.86) and held opponents to the lowest batting average (.219) of any starter in baseball. Oh, and he won a couple of Cy Young Awards, to boot. Santana broke down last year, if you call trouble with bone chips breaking down. He broke down after leading the majors in innings pitched from 2004-08. The Rangers are very much where the Twins were at the start of the last decade. They were an up-and-coming team with a lot of pitching talent, trying to make all the pieces fit in the best possible positions to help them maximize their ability to win. At the start of the decade, the Twins merely carried Santana (a Rule 5 pick for a year), then used him as a reliever for most of the next two seasons because that’s where their needs were. When the time was right, they slid him right into the rotation. And he’s been wonderful. The Rangers can’t possibly expect that Feliz has a higher ceiling than Santana (you don’t project a guy as a multi-Cy Young winner). They can only hope he comes close to matching what Santana has done and for as long as he’s done it. So, if that means he apprentices as a reliever for 2010 or longer, nobody – nobody – should panic. There is plenty of time for him to still win a couple of those Cy Young Awards as a starter.
