John Lackey Rumor

1.  To bet on any particular golfer to win a tournament, even Tiger, is to bet a longshot against the Field.

We're at a point in the free agent derby that, you mention any one team, sure, obviously it's just chatter.

.........

2.  I'm kind of surprised that many MC/DOV'ites didn't pick up on Olney's language, his choice of words.

Olney didn't write a Matthew Cerrone post -- hey, I like Cerrone -- in which jigsaw pieces are slid around the table and an educated suggestion is made matching this FA to that team.  Olney said "rivals view" the Mariners as a potential sleeper team for Lackey.   That's Olney-speak for "when I talk to the Rangers and Angels, they're telling me they expect the Mariners to be in on Lackey."

Which also isn't a guarantee or a prediction.  But with Olney or Ken Rosenthal, when they use the writer-speak, they're usually picking up buffalo steps off the prairie with ears to the ground.

..........

3.  Olney is a guy that I respect.  He does a good job in letting you know when he's guessing and when he's relaying what he hears.  He's got street cred with me.

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4.  This isn't a POTD, but as far as health questions go, I like the fact that Lackey's injuries have been to the muscles -- forearm and bicep strains.  Usually those come from snapping off cutters and breaking pitches too hard.  You remember Felix.

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5.  At 30, Lackey was throwing as well at the end of the year as he usually does.

This is another in Dr. D's Chris Carpenter file:  great pitchers often go through even catastrophic injuries and come back firing seeds.  They just know how to throw the pitches.  That's all.

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6.  Very underrated curve ball:  career pitch value of better than -1.00 runs per 100 curve balls, and he throws it a ton, putting heavy pressure on the pitch.

It's one of those things where it doesn't look like a Kerry Wood or Jered Weaver or Josh Beckett hook, but he has legitimately great command of it like Mussina did.

If there's something that makes Lackey special, it's the fact that he can spot his curve ball.  Very few ML pitchers can.

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7.  Among the most-comparable pitchers to Lackey, per baseball-reference.com, are Josh Beckett, Jake Peavy, Chris Carpenter, and Danny Haren, with Beckett being #1.

Lackey's pitches don't look as intimidating as those of a Beckett or Carpenter, and for this reason I think Haren is a real good match to Lackey.   ... Haren doesn't have a big fastball or a shellshocking curve; he does have sharp pitches and his thing is command.

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8.  Three years ago, right before Lackey had his big ERA year, Inside Pitch insisted in a chat that Lackey was one of the five best pitchers in baseball.

I'm not sure he was wrong, looking back.

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9.  James listed many reasons for a player being underrated -- switching teams a lot, playing in a small market, failing to score big in stats like RBI, K, ERA, failing to win a World Series ... none of these apply to Lackey.

I wonder if a player can be underrated because he looks goofy.  :- )   Lackey doesn't look as goofy as I do, but I smile when I look at him.  His pitches look kinda underwhelming too.

Edgar Martinez looked quite unassuming for ten years, also.

John Lackey is simply the poster boy for not looking like a star, not being perceived as a star, and yet being a star.

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10.  Stars & Scrubs, babe.  If you can take Harden's and Johjima's money and come up with one Lackey, it's okay with me.

Others would analyze Lackey 75% in terms of his risks and in terms of his negatives.  This is a player I would analyze 75% in terms of his positives, those being that he is a terrific pitcher and that he is 30 years of age.

SSI on the Lackey quasi-rumor:  Two Thumbs Way Up.

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Lackey is a very un-sexy pitcher.  He's also just about the #1 reason the Angels have owned the division the last five years.

Cheers,

Dr D

Comments

1
Taro's picture

Lackey is pretty solid mechanically, although the curve worries me slightly. 
For some reason I thought he had an elbow injury earlier in the year (which scared me off big time)? Forearm/bicep strains aren't that serious.
I actually like him. Good mechanics, proven AL #1-2, and not rediculously old in a buyer's market. It comes down to how high the $+years get, but I like him if he comes at decent value.
 

2

That's about as high as I'd want to go for Lackey.  It would still leave the Mariners about 16-20 million dollars to buy a DH and possibly a LF...and it, along with a Hernandez extension, would lock in a viscious 1-2 in the Mariner rotation for 4 years.  With those guys 1-2, you can have all the cheap, high risk high reward experiments and spaghetti strands you want filling the rest of the rotation.

4

I just love ballclubs that have multiple dominators at the top of the rotation.  If I have a personal bias, it's that one.
The Angels have posted some 100-ish team OPS's, but they've had marquee TOR's.   The 2001 M's lost to a ballclub that had superior TOR's.   I just think that big-time aces are the fabric of World Series history.

5
Taro's picture

I'm wondering if he can be had for 4-5 years at $12-14mil?
His last two years have been cut short IPs wise (which should depress his value), but he was a 5.5-6.0 WAR type a few years ago.
Its a pretty nice time for Lackey to be hitting the market from a buyer's stanpoint. The market is low and his stock probably isn't as high as it should be.

6

The word is that Lackey is irritated about the two hometown discounts that he cut the Royals and "now it's time to be paid" (as though the zeroes on the paychecks haven't been much so far).
Don't know if that's the case, but ... it'll be a whale of a contest between Lackey's attitude, the fact that he's such a huge acquisition, and the market.
My guess would be that if only 2 or 3 players got sensational contracts, he'd be one of them, but ... after the Jack Wilson scenario I've given up guessing contracts.  :- )

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