Wrote the other three articles first ... guys I don't like as well as the M's do (just a couple), and guys that both they and I are unusually high on (scads, we were surprised to find out) .... funny thing, can't find many that I like better than the M's do.
At 5 a.m., honestly can't think of why that would be. But:
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Shawn Kelley as starting pitcher. From what filtered intel we get, the M's are maybe toying with the idea.
Shannon Drayer floated the idea early in spring training and we all wondered if this was just her noodling, or her reporting something. A few days later, we received the delicious news that Kelley himself had brought it up to the coaches...
It's not the 8.0 strikeouts and 1.8 walks. It was the Catfish Hunter pitching template that immediately paralyzed Dr. Detecto with fear. For the rest of the league, that is.
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Then we heard that Kelley had started in college, and that his "injury history" was simple Tommy John that he's long recovered from.
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We'd have been amp'ed to 11 just based on 70% fastballs and 30% sliders, if Kelley didn't have a change. But then we get Kelley's claim that his change is a good one ... no, not his "claim." His demonstration. He went right out and used the change in a 2.0 0 0 0 0 4 blitzkrieg that removed all doubt.
We respect dissent as to how much learning Kelley would have to do, but anybody who wants to bet a baseball cap or ten on it, step right up... :- )
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Anyway. You're in despair in the 3-4-5 slots. You've got a pitcher with an 8.0/1.8 control ratio. He says he can start and wants to start. Why wouldn't you immediately investigate?
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Jose Lopez. Here is the benefit side of the ledger:
Not saying he should be in the M's plans, but as Brock Huard put it, "Every time I talk to anybody with the M's, they only talk about his original 170 weight or his 220 weight now."
The reporters write six negative things about Jose for every one positive thing they write.
All we can imagine, it that outside the org it is residual skepticism since Lopez was Tuiasosopo'ed when he first came up, and that inside the org, there are still people left over from the Boone-Lopez-Hargrove fiasco?
Anyway, Lopez is a VERY desireable commodity, even if he isn't desired. :- ) He'll have his bustout year one day.
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Not sure why we could only find two ... er, one-and-a-half. Actually both of the above are halves, since Lopez is still startin' for 'em and hittin' 5th, and they're thinking about what to do with Kelley.
Hm. Now why would that be, that there are no more "Free George Sherrill / Roberto Petagine / Adam Moore / Doug Fister" campaigns to be rousted up at SSI? Even at AAA, really. I thought I'd get a Tui campaign this year, but looks like not. So...
Free Shawn Kelley,
Dr D
I think you're the only one banging the drum on Kelley, Doc.. I have to agree. The Ms are in a position where they desperately need someone with upside in the rotation. If it doesn't work out, Kelley goes back to the bullpen
Unlike the Lopez-Figgins experiment (don't agree on that one), the upside outweighs the risk IMO.
I think I was one of the first to showcase what Kelley was doing at AA in 08, and then replicating in winter ball, which was striking out everybody in sight. So he wasn't a dark horse to me when he made the MLB roster.
Tempering the enthusiasm for plugging Kelley right into the rotation is not about not liking Kelley, or thinking he has to "adjust" to being a starter.
It's about innings, and the "leap ahead" from a reliever's number of innings to a starter's number of innings. Both the Ms with Morrow and the Yankees with Chamberlain said they would not boost the number by more than 30 in one year.
Kelley's max so far is 76 in 08 (including 14 in the VWL). He had only 46 last year. The point Sandy and I were making is that you can't just plug him in for 20 starts and 120 IP. I mean, you CAN, but there's a body of wisdom that says you SHOULDN'T.
And that's not saying ANYTHING bad about Kelley, or saying that he needs "time in the minors to adjust" or anything else.
Just saying that it might not be prudent to expect more than 80 IP from Kelley in '10, and if that's your mindset, then you can't plug him into the rotation now (though maybe you can in August). Either way, he's not a solution to the current (2-)3-4-5 issues.
Not saying others aren't free to dismiss the "rule" -- I actually don't know how "validated" it is -- only that that's the reason for caution.
I once described Lopez as a "hacking hack of a hack" as a hitter....but in the same breath I said that a team can live with that if he hits around 100OPS, is a bargain WAR-wise, and wasn't a butcher UZR-wise.
All those apply to Lopez. His OPS+ was just ducky the last two years and (despite people's beliefs) he DIDN'T hack it up an 2B (at least last year). Sheesh.. last year he was a PLUS UZR guy.
Teams win with Lopez type IF's all the time. He has 2B skills and a plus arm....he can play 3B. Will he make us forget Beltre's glove.....not likely. But if he gets 280-290 total bases again this year (as he has two years in a row) and pops 40+ doubles....then he ain't bad. And if that happens...he might make us forget Beltre swinging at every slider 18 inches outside.
Sure I wish Lopez walked a bunch....it is a very valuable skill. But he doesn't...I can live with it.
I'm interested to see how the Tui-Lopez situation plays out. I think one of those guys is going to get some 1B time as the season goes on. Tui is going to rock the ball. My concern is that if he only hits .200 in April the brain trust deems him in need of more "polishing." I hope not. Let him hang around and learn from Jr. and Ichiro (God forbid, Bradley!). and find the 400 AB's for him.
Here's why one of those guys gets 1B AB's. Kotchman is a career 95 OPS+ guy (playing in better parks). He has 40 taters in almost 1900 career PA's...and has a career slugging % of .406. Basically he's a fair hitting SS with the bat. He's kind of a specialist guy. Plus glove and a LH bat. He hits RH's a bit better than LH's...but he's still just a league average guy against them for his career (slightly worse last year).
As far as I can tell, Tui has played every IF position this spring plus the COF spots. They're not looking for a reason to keep him anymore, they're looking for a way to get his bat in the game a lot more.
1B for TUi (or 1B for Lopez) is the fastest way.
I'm interested in whether the Mariners would be more willing to write off Kotchman's $3M rather than Garko's $550K. Kotchman just turned 27 and Garko 29...but I'm not sure the upside isn't with the older guy.
I think the Garko signing and the Tui explosion makes Kotchman way redundant (and we have in Carp a LH 1B who is at least his equal with the bat...and I would argue WAY better).
But Kotchman was a purpose signing....He's hard to walk away from.
Anyway....I don't LOVE Lopez. But he has his value...and it is worth WAY more than the M's are paying him.
But I ramble...
I wrote all that above... THEN I scrolled down the page and found the three big threads on Kotchman. Sheesh. Had I seen that BEFORE my posting, I could have just posted "DITTO" and walked away and put some more scotch in my coffee. Drats... But anyway...Ditto! Kotchman is our 5th best 1B guy right now. Lopez (or Tui...however you ant to look at it), Sweeney, Garko and Carp are all better. Heck...Ackley is better. Here's hoping Z has seen this already...and is finding a way out.
The fact that they will stretch him out and use him in more multi-inning situations DOES indicate that they may be viewing him as a starter in '11, which would not surprise me at all.
G-rated language on SSI, by the way... 'twas my preference on Detect-O-Vision, but as it happens, is also the rule per the current admins...
Really enjoyin' your ideas, man.
On Kelley, SSI is *never* going to be able to represent that he was a blog 'discovery' a la Tuiasosopo or somebody. Everybody likes Kelley.
And if you are saying that you have no doubts about Kelley's success in the rotation, are just concerned about the IP leap and his health, point taken - I think you're alone in that, but could be wrong.
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IP leap is a legit thing to talk about, but it's nothing to carry as an absolute. Anybody who converts to SP, like Feldman or Wainwright, is going to violate the IP Leap principle.
We can't just say that nobody ever gets to convert, right?
Still, if the M's were to convert Kelley, they might want to convert him in mid-May, or run him as a 5-6 inning guy this year.
is that it sees Kelley-SP as a really golden opportunity. An opportunity far too good to even consider passing up.
On a smaller scale, Kelley's situation is about like the decisionmaking process as to whether Lincecum or Morrow is going to move to the bullpen out of college.
I'd give Kelley a full 80% chance to have a Jeremy Guthrie impact on the 2010 season. I'd give away 2:1 odds and cheerfully feel that I'd gotten my edge.
Morrow and Chamberlain happened to be two players that I follow, and both the Yanks and the Ms faced the exact same situation, and both teams said they would not move them directly from short relief to the rotation because they wanted to limit the increase in IP from one year to the next, so that's what I'm familiar with. Their statements were treated as reasonable precautions at the time, if I recall. That is, I don't recall the media acting as if they were nuts to not plug them right into the rotation.
You're right that Wainwright and Feldman did jump by 100 IP and do not appear to have ruined their arms (Wainwright went on the DL the next year, but not due to arm problems). I do note, however, that Wainwright had five full years as a starter in the minors before his one 75 IP year in relief in the majors. So Feldman is the more analogous one.
Feldman had reliever seasons of 79, 68 and 69 IP before the leap to 163. Kelley had 142 between college starter and rookie ball reliever in 2007, then 76 between AA and VWL in 08, then only 49 last year.
Now, perhaps Morrow and Joba were different in terms of being particularly fragile "precious commodities" that Feldman and Kelley are not (as in high draft picks), I don't know.
Like I said, the "rule" may be bogus, but that's the basis on which I was questioning whether they would do it, especially right out of ST. And it's not a "rule" that says no one makes the switch, only that you do it in a way that there is a "transition year" in which innings are limited. That was the plan mapped out by both the Ms and Yanks for Morrow and Joba in 2008, so it's not something that came out of nowhere. Sandy made reference to it as well.
I agree with the IP-Leap principle. Shandler came up with this at least 10 years ago, and I use the principle in roto. It's not something that came out of nowhere; it came out of BaseballHQ.
Agree that in the ideal, and in the abstract, you'd give a pitcher a transition year.
Only offering the opinion that the IP-Leap principle works better as a strong guideline, than as an absolute. Don't disagree with anything above.
Good points Taro on the risk vs potential rewards. It would be hard to find the "perfect" fit so people will always disagree on moving any guy from here to there. But if there is the capability, look at the potential depth of the bullpen in the next three years to the starters?
I saw that Hyphen got tagged today but only box score numbers. In watching part of a replay against Colorado last week, one graphic said hyphen's fastest speed was at 86mph like last Spring? Not the most simple Spring! Any thoughts there?
Shawn Kelley will start on Thursday on a split squad game against the Royals. Very intriguing.
Interesting.. This rotation probably needs someone with upside like Kelley right now. You can move him back to the bullpen at any point if you feel it isn't working out..
Lopez looks just fine at third. I'd give an edge to beltre in fielding foul fly balls and defending against the bunt, however Lopez charges the ball well. He sure handedly makes all the routine plays. He seems to look more focused and intense than usual. I wouldn't mind seeing Hanahan get a few starts at third from time to time. Just to make sure Lopez stays focused.