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Sez Taro,

Would love to see Capps in the rotation. Even if you shave 3-4 mph off, hes going to be one of the hardest throwers in the game. He could be a better SP prospect than Walker, but hidden due to circumstance and perceptive age arcs. You never know.

Then go out and do your own Fister deal with those excess prospects.

Sez Terry McDermott,

I like the idea of Capps starting, too, but I don't think it's something that is likely to happen. I talked to two people in the org about this - one a player and one who would be heavily involved in the decision - and both said the same thing: right now he can't control his breaking ball consistently enough to start.

Almost half (48%) of his off-speed pitches this year were called balls. Doesn't mean he can't learn to control it. He's just never had the need to throw it much.

If you were to neon-flash those two super-poster light bulbs in alternation, what color would you get?  The one that says "Capps does indeed look like he could be a Chris Sale or Alexi Ogando.  But the M's would laugh at such an idea at this point in Capps' career; it's kind of a naive suggestion."

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Q.  Do you think TJM's sources represent the consensus?

A.  Now that he mentions it, I'm sure this is EXACTLY the way that the dugout looks at Carter Capps, and I'm 100% positive that it would become the #1 factor in any conversion talk.

Capps looked about as wild-eyed as any rookie pitcher you'll see.  Dr. D was watching him through slitted fingers just like Wedge was.  We had no idea that Capps - and Pryor - would be so shrill upon promotion.  Guess that's what happens when you go through several levels of O.B. and rise from zero in March to hero in September.  No time to acclimate.

I'd give the odds as verrrrrrry high -- higher than Nate Silver's election odds, if that don't tell you something -- that, given a winter's hibernation, Capps and Pryor will report to spring training far more relaxed.  Their jitters should be a thing of the past come next spring.

And, as Capps and Pryor relax around the game of baseball, their homies will in turn relax around them.

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Q.  Were Capps' problems with the breaking ball as bad as advertised?

A.  His slider-curve was a real adventure when he first came up.  His changeup was fine.  There isn't a lot of pressure on either pitch, in Capps' case.

When Capps got here, he was a deer in the headlights.  Bad.  But in September, he threw 61% of his curves for strikes, 57% of his changeups, and 67% of his fastballs (!) for strikes.  He was smoothing out real quick.

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Q.  Why didn't the Mariners notice the rapid settling in?

A.  Never get a second chance to make a first impression, I guess.... .... also, Capps' actual execution improved a whale of a lot faster than his body language did.  He continued to look nervous, after he wasn't pitching as nervously.

Look, the Mariners are accustomed to putting young pitchers into the rotation when they have NOTHING left to work on.  As far as control.  Consider who the Mariners have been putting into the rotation.  What was Doug Fister's BB rate his first month in the rotation?  What was Blake Beavan's BB rate?  What are Felix' and Vargas'?  Go down the list.  When Michael Pineda came up, his control was top 10 in baseball.  

The Big Three looked smokin' last March.  Who got the nod?  Erasmo Ramirez and his comforting control-and-command game.  As it turned out, that was the correct call.  But it still is an inkblot test for the Mariners' proclivities.  We'll let a young pitcher start taking them on --- > if and when his BB rate is top 25% of the league.  Relative to all the veterans in the league.  

Somebody up there can't stand to see a Matt Moore situation on the mound.  Now, in the lineup, it's different:  you need two years to settle in against ML pitching?  Here you go, Michael.  Dustin.  Justin.  etc.  

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Q.  Dr. D's approach would be what?

A.  The first thing I would suggest, is that young pitchers don't have to be finished products from Start One. The Rays threw Matt Moore in there knowing that he was going to be raw, and in April 2012 he walked 14 guys in 25 innings.  For the year he walked 81 guys in 177 innings.

Moore had a rough April, and his first three starts of May were brutal.  Starts 6 and 7, he got KO'ed early and it was ugly.  But whattaya know.  Start eight, he fanned 8 men and dominated.  Start ten, he fanned 10.  Start 13, he fanned 8 in an 11-0 detonation of the Marlins and now Matt Moore is ready to go.

The Mariners don't want to see those first seven Capps starts.  My quibble is, why don't they mind seeing those first seven Michael Saunders starts.  You are talking about Capps as a FIFTH starter.

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Q.  What's the case FOR waiting?

A.  Well, Chris Sale (for example) had a partial season in the pen.  Then another whole season in the pen.  Then went to the rotation and kicked booty.  To follow Sale's timeline, Capps would relieve next season.  There's something to be said for "making a guy earn it."

Chris Sale is one of 9,000 pitchers in ML history.  Alexi Ogando is another one of the 9,000:  Ogando relieved for part of one year, and then started the next  year -- making the All-Star team.

You could find tons of historical pitchers in Capps' situation who waited another year.  You could find tons who didn't.

You could ask Capps to get more confident with his curve.  ... asking him to become a curve ball expert, that's just paradigm paralysis.  He could already keep hitters honest with his changeup alone.

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Q.  The case AGAINST waiting?

A.  You could have waited another year for Sale, made him relieve in 2012, and thrown away 5 WAR at $497,000.   Nobody gets fired for saying, "well, we'll look at it down the road."   They just lose out on victories.

The M's only get Carter Capps for X number of years before he becomes a free agent.  They only get him for X years, or Y months, before his arm goes out.  Capps is throwing great ... at the moment.  Suppose the Mariners had waited one more year to promote Michael Pineda?

If that were the M's thinking, "okay, let him come to camp and prove he's settled in, let him get his legs under him, let him show his teammates he belongs here, and then we'll look at stretching him out," that would be reasonable.  It would be something done 9,000 times before, in fact.

But to rule Capps out of court because he Capps was nervy when he arrived, nada.  The idea that Capps doesn't deserve a Matt Moore two months, to white-knuckle his way to a point of balance, nada.  I'd be saying, okay, kid, here's the goal.  Let's get after it.

Alternatively, they can go get this year's Jeff Suppan.  Put him in line ahead of all the blue-chippers, and see how he does with the new fences.

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Q.  What do you think the M's will do?

A.  Always fun watching Jack Zduriencik.  He'll listen to 9,000 people yelling that Dustin Ackley can't play second base, nod sagely, go hmmmmmmm, and then go "A'ight, we'll try it."  And then the org goes deathly quiet.

The man commands total respect.  It's just fun watching it.

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