Q: What, no POTD?
A: My magic 8-ball keeps saying "Get R' Dunn," so it's no help. The POTD will have to wait until after Fister is on TV for six or eight pitches. Sue us. :- )
.
Q. So what's this?
A. You wanted -something- through the window, right?
.
Q. Uh-oh, I hear that Fister is a Chris Jakubauskas type.
A. About 10% of all pitchers are Chris Jakubauskas types, give or take a beer-league pedigree.
Some never get out of high school. Some become Catfish Hunter or Bob Tewksbury or Kevin Tapani.
A template is not a pre-filled back-of-the-baseball-card.
.
Q. BTW, what about Jakubauskas?
A. Early on, we considered him a good BET compared to Olson, Vargas, and an 85 mph Ryan Rowland Smith -- that he had about a 50% chance to help this year, compared to Olson's 2%, 85 RRS' 4% and Vargas' 30%.
Early on, Jaku used a blissfully quiet motion, and super-limber arm, to feather the ball onto the black time after time. He also showed nice arm action on his offspeed.
....................
Jaku got into the rotation, INSTANTLY started throwing 90% fastballs (groooaaaaan) and lost his plus-plus command, into the bargain. (Check fangraphs.com on Jaku's FB% and on the Mariners' team FB%. Earlier this year the Mariners were #1 of 30 teams in FB%.)
If and when Jaku starts mixing pitches again, and if and when he starts showing plus command again ... he's got a chance again. It's not just my opinion. Zduriencik and Wakamatsu think so, too.
...............
In other words, don't take a Jaku comp as being a melancholy one for Fister. Jaku isn't done, and Catfish Hunter Strike One Righties come in many different calibers.
.
Q. Did you hear about Jason Vargas getting optioned?
A. Now, this is one you can toke the dealer on, if we do say so ourselves. ;-) Here's the original POTD -- read it and weep, boys.
Vargas had eight or so good starts ... "So maybe he's good, right?" Nope. And y'read it here first.
Wok said, nicely, he had a good experience, go down and get to work. Vargas' toolbox creates a looooong road home.
.
Q. What's your rotation?
A. Now it is Felix - (Bedard) - Snell - Morrow - RRS - and find a scrub for #5-6.
Not Olson, not Vargas, not Luke French, only Jaku if he finds the command and throws 35% offspeed ....
Doug Fister is an interesting idea. Maybe he'll be legit. I've got him at #6, gingerly, already, so with Bedard out, he's in there on Dr. D's team.
.
Q. Okay, move on. Fister's on-field results are a lot different this year.
A. Let's go ahead and assume that he jumped a plateau.
We can backtrack later, after he gets blasted in the majors. :- ) But for now we'll assume that the 2009 Fister is the one we'll see in Safeco.
.
Q. Does Fister have 0+ walks because he grooves 3-1 pitches?
A. THAT, my friends, is the $64,000 question on Fister.
Are his walks so low, because he gives in? Or are they that low, because he has Brad Radke-like command?
.
Q. Are you basically optimistic, or no?
A. Geoff Baker had an interesting quote from Wakamatsu:
Wakamatsu described the 6-foot-8 Fister as "a command guy. He has done extremely well in the reports both from the staff down there and from Jamie Burke . We talked about him early in the season how well he's doing. He's a big pitcher, height-wise, that can create some angles and has good command.''
Read that, they are just raving about Fister's ability to hit a mitt. We call that a prelim report that he's got plus, or plus-plus command.
Fister is a groundball pitcher. Always has been. His downward plane on the fastball gives it late sinking action and he throws a decent change-up as wlel - or so say the scouting reports I've now read. Jaku was always a flyball pitcher in the minors.
To be fair, Fister's HR rates aren't any better than Jaku's. So he's still making mistakes with the fastball too much. We'll see if he can adapt.
I don't want to make any quick judgements on the guy without seeing him throw yet...but here goes..
A 1.62 HR rate vs lefties in AAA in one of the biggest parks in the minors doesn't bode well for his success at the MLB level THIS year.
The good news? His BB% is EXTREMELY low, so you're going to have to hit him to get on. His high GB% vs RHs, means he'll probably be respectable against RHs in the majors.
The bad news? A 6.2 SwS% in AAA means his offspeed game is 'probably' awful. A 1.62 HR rate vs lefties and high FB% means that the lefties are having ZERO problems with his changeup and are eating his fastball alive. A pitch vs lefties would go a long ways towards legitimizing him as a SP prospect.
Again, I don't want to make any quick judgements on the guy without seeing him first.. but he looks like one of those guys who'll get you some outs with a two-seamer vs RHs and get destroyed by LHs. His best-case scenario is probably something similar to Carlos Silva. Rumors are hes 90-92mph like a young Silva. Of course Silva had better GB rates when he was younger.
Personally I'm much more interested in John Smoltz as a short-term '09 solution, but if Fister is a young Silva thats a nice piece. We'll see, the AAA numbers seems to suggest more of the older Carlos Silva.
...he needs to work on his change-up if it's not fooling the lefties...that's the bottom line. His curve is better for righties.
Though his GB rates aren't notably skewed towards the ground, this year, right?
The LH HR rate, and SwS%, do *suggest* that he doesn't have a good offspeed pitch. Nice job champ.
As you say, we'll see.
... giving up 1.6 homers, short term, to LH's isn't the end of the story. Lots of good ML pitchers, such as Weaver and Snell, can't get the other-handed hitters out.
But yeah.
..But still 42% groundballs and only 34% flies. Which is lower than his career normals for a ratio.
The temptation on Smoltz is obvious, and not a horrible gamble for a team with well below average pitching. My feeling, however, is that he is beyond the point at which he can be a decent STARTING pitcher. His command, control, and head are ALL messed up at this point. I do, however, think, he could potentially tack on another year or two to his career if he agreed to return to the pen. I just don't think he wants to go that route. Parts of his game are still good -- but I believe his age has simply made it too hard for him to maintain all the aspects that a starter needs.
That said - given the right situation, he "might" agree to be a closer somewhere. But, I definitely don't see him settling for a setup role. And, I don't know if any of the contenders are so desperate for bullpen help, that they'd vault him into a closer role given the shakiness of his 2009 season. Seattle could ... but I wouldn't touch it without discussing the possibility with Aardsma before committing to anything. Unless Aardsma would be 100% for it, don't mess with a key piece for the future for a rent-a-dream as likely to implode as succeed.
In any case, thanks for the on-site report there San-Man.
His SwS% is still over 10 (suggesting his stuff is still plently good enough). Hes still doing a great job of throwing strikes and limiting BBs.
The big problem has been XBH prevention, which kind of supports your argument.
My take is that Smoltz has lost 1 mph on his fastball and just couldn't adjust in Fenway against the AL East offenses. Hes still throwing strikes, still striking guys out, but with a slighty weaker fastball the AL hitters are squaring him up. In the NL to AL conversion SPs BY FAR suffer the most.
I think he'd be a great gamble in Safeco behind this D. Our OFs eat up a lot of XBHs, and the doubles/HRs off the green monster are outs here.
Smoltz might still give up taters with the Mariners, but they would be less and the question is not whether Smoltz can be an ace again...but whether he could outpitch Doug Fister, which I think is an absolute slam dunk.
A Smoltz experiment could be interesting. Sure, you put him in a big park, with 3 CF's, and it would be well worth a look.
The man has a 33/9 control ratio -- far better than any Mariner starter other than Felix -- and the 8 homers in 40 IP are in limited innings. No doubt he is over-challenging, and/or making mistakes, but that's not the end of the world.
I'd look into it, if it were me, and if he fit into the 7-SP Bansai mold for 09-10...
I hope Zduriencik is willing to add a veteran presence to the rotation...our staff is very VERY young right now...that doesn't generally play well in October.