The fruitcake may be thinking the same thing there, Brett ...

.

=== Viewed through the Pitch Arsenal Paradigm ===

It's never been clear to me why Noesi is viewed as having elite stuff.  But that's how he is viewed.  Baseball men think he has, more or less, a Michael Pineda arm.  Just a few days ago, Jack Zduriencik told Geoff Baker that three or four Mariners had showed the right stuff "in spurts," and in this handful of names he included Noesi.

I don't get this.  I don't mean "I disagree with this and take it as more evidence that baseball people are stupider than bloggers."  I mean that the situation is opaque to me:  I don't get it.

.................

Noesi's fastball velocity is 92.4 MPH this year.  This puts him #30 in the major leagues, in a group with Zach Greinke, Phil Hughes, Chris Sale (!), Johnny Cueto, and CC Sabathia.

Right below that is Ervin Santana, who has a 92-93 fastball and a wipeout slider.  And, a very confusing 5.75 ERA.  Santana also has a good fastball that he thinks to be great, and a 1.7 gopher rate.

He averages 92.4 MPH, which is very lively.  It's easy velocity, too.  Beautiful!  Except that it's his only pitch, and 92.4 guys with other pitches, such as Ervin Santana, still get splattered.

The Mariners are investing a whale of a lot, chasing .... what?  Seventeen starts on, Dr. Detecto simply does not see the exciting potential that the baseball men see.  I wish that they would explain it to us.  They have treated Noesi the way that the 1982-88 Mariners used to treat Mike Moore - like he was always just a weekend away from being one of the top ten pitchers in the game.

.................

One of two things have occurred here:  take your pick.  Either (1) Dr. D does not understand Hector Noesi; he doesn't understand, from the CF camera, the on-field things that make Noesi special.  ... Or, (2) the scouts have gotten unduly excited about his "easy velocity."  They've over-emphasized the visual appearance of Noesi's smooth, effortless 94 MPH.

To me, if everything comes together for Noesi, then he'll be average-to-good.  This is the cognitive dissonance for me.  I don't grok Noesi's forward place in line with Zduriencik.  Seems to me that another 150+ innings in the minors are in order.

.

=== Dr's R/X ===

At SSI, we have rated Noesi's pitches about like this:

• Fastball - Good
• Change - Serviceable
• Curve - High school
• Slider - High school in April; mediocre to poor now
• Command - a fatal flaw.  Gopheritis currently running = 1.9 per game

Noesi threw a real good game on April 14.  He used two pitches, his best two pitches.  This simplified the game for him, his command was better, and he reminded us vaguely of Max Scherzer.

Since then, Mariners catchers have gone with a 3.5-pitch mix, calling for the slider and change alternatively by inning, whichever one he'd thrown best to the last hitter, it seemed.  Here is the pitch % chart.  The changeup and slider bounce wayyyyyy up and down against each other.

If it were me, I'd cut him down to 2 pitches.  Okay, 2-and-a-half.  60% fastballs, 30% changeups, 8% sliders and 2% curves.  Simply allow him to gain a feel for an easier game.

.....................

What you would wind up with, if this worked out and you were able to cross Max Scherzer's velocity with Brett Tomko's makeup, is a topic for another post...

.

Part Three

.