SI Spits Out New Baseball Phrase With LOOGY

Sports Illustrated shows it can, on occasion, be clever and edgy by dishing the oddball acronym LOOGY in the current issue.

SI's Ben Reiter (Reiter...There's a good name for a writer...) credits Hardball Times with the phlegmatic phrase: A LOOGY is a Lefty One-Out Guy--a left-handed specialist whose sole job is to get mighty left-handed sluggers--Ryan Howard, David Ortiz, Jim Thome--out.

The article is about a pair of tribal elders in the bullpen--Arthur "Is He Still Playing?" Rhodes and Darren "Didn't He Retire Five Years Ago?" Oliver. The patron saint of LOOGYs, notes Reiter, may just be Jesse Orosco, who retired seven years ago at 46.

Hardball Times published A History of the LOOGY--and, presumably, gave birth to the phrase--way back in 2005. A "hard-core LOOGY" appears in at least 20 games, averages less than an inning per appearance, and fewer than .2 saves a game.
SI's Joe Sheehan lists some other LOOGYs around the league, including Aroldis Chapman and Tim Collins, and makes the point that some of them should not be just LOOGYs much longer.

"[They] can all do more than face lefthanded sluggers in big spots," believes Sheehan. "Let them."

[image from 3-Putt Territory]