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Q. The general consensus is grokking Vincent to be a decentish middle reliever who may be fading. Is Dr. D bullish or bearish, relative to this consensus?
A. Fairly bullish.
Compared to a big name 8th-inning reliever, such as Joaquin Benoit, Darren O'Day or any of the Royals' closers, Nick Vincent is very "meh," yes. He throws an 89-91 fastball, a little cutter, looks kind of blocky ... not a very 'sexy' bullpen add.
But! Compared to any reasonable MIDDLE reliever, say Mayckol Gauipe or Blake Parker, then Nick Vincent is standing on a perch looking down. Vincent is a high-quality middle reliver.
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Q. His 2013-14 strikeout/walk numbers were Furbush-ish. 2015 he upped his walks to 4 instead of 1-2. Sign of injury?
A. Dunno. Wasn't around him all year.
But the first thing you'd look at would be his velocity in late season ... that wasn't goin' nowhere. Here's the slider velo and here's the fastball velo, which was even trending up a bit.
The Padres' manager was pretty convincing that they expect Vincent to have a nice year, but he is out of options and the Padres' bullpen is good enough that they just felt too many guys were a step ahead of him. No doubt they also like the PTBNL.
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Q. They say his cutter is a "special pitch."
A. It has been named the #1 cutter in the majors by Fangraphs. Most cutters have horizontal movement of +1 or 0 ... they "bow" out armside and then break back in to the same place they'd have been in a vacuum. Vincent routinely throws his to break ANOTHER 4" gloveside past a quality big league cutter/slider. Definitely a Nintendo pitch.
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Q. Let's! Go TO! the VIDeo! Tape!
Here is a good example of his "downhill fastball." And here is a second example of it, in case you (unwisely) doubt the Mainframe.
In this video, he throws a real nice change for a K and then you get a glimpse of the "cutter" at the very end of the tape.
In this video, he gets three successive K's on:
Here is another K on a jam pitch. The camera work gives a good idea of his Iwakuma-, Fister-style use of "three different pitches" on the fastball.
In this vid, he shows the Fister-esque location again:
As you can see, he is not overwhelming. You wonder in fact whether he can sustain 9K's on these pitches. But Doug Fister didn't need 9K's, not with that precision. And the located fastball is definitely the 2nd pitch to the feature cutter.
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Q. So, is this thing a slider or a cut fastball?
A. Looks like a hard slider to me.
One man's slider blends softly casual into another man's cutter. The pitch is either a VERY hard slider with a nicely late break, or it is a cut fastball with far more cut than other such pitches. SABRMatt called it "a really sharp cutter" and I think I like that better than "high-velocity slider."
He throws the pitch a whopping 55% of the time and then his 90 fastball plays up as a result. He will throw the fastball "downhill" to sink below the knees and he will definitely throw it up above the hands. He is a ... what's the term ... "Pitcher."
The changeup can be dangerous too. Here's a vid. To date he's only thrown it 5% of the time; he hasn't needed it.
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Q. Pitch values been dropping on his slider.
A. Ya, as the National League keys on it more and more. Like Felix' changeup. The league change should be nice for him. And righties can't do anything against a slider like that anyway.
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Q. Is he better against RH?
A. Quite a bit better. In the Klat Chat, SABRMatt gave his career OPS allowed as
That's not helpless against lefties, but it will be better to match him to 6th/7th/8th innings in which mostly right hand bats are coming up. He really can tear through righties like a buzz saw.
You don't have to be, um, fastidious about it. Lou would just bring Rhodes & Nelson into the 7th and 8th innings based on which inning had more LH or RH that night. No biggie.
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Q. Leaving us where?
A. Assuming that his arm is healthy, it's quite reasonable to hope for a Shawn Kelley type add. Relievers who aren't closing, or pitching the 8th that much, do get bounced around the league even if they are established relievers. You run into a situation where there are a couple of guys you like a little better, and you deal him, and ... next thing you know he's gone from 8K per game to 10K per game.
The M's liked Roach -- they better, considering 0 BB's and 15 K's from a groundball specialist -- but like Vincent even quite a bit more than that. Cheery news. As SABRMatt put it in the chat, the Mariners will have a hard time coming up with -0.6 WAR relievers this season. Last year, the Mariners had 13 different pitchers "contribute" negative value. Worst of the lot, Guaipe, Beimel and Rodney combining for -2.2 WAR between them. The total damage was -3.9 WAR between the thirteen feebs.
2016 looks like a much rougher ride for the negative WAR train. John and I were watching the Blazers last night and laughed, the Blazers consist of Damian, 3J and a roster full of 6th men that go at least 10 deep. The 2016 Mariners have a big-name SETup guy and five middle relievers who are solidly above average - for the 6th inning.
Enjoy,
Dr D
Having watched the bullpen spaghetti try to come together, I would guess that it will combine for something like 3-4 WAR total...be below average by MLB standards but not an exploding gascan of doom either. I had the pen being worth nothing in the pre-season...this moves my projection for the Mariners to about 84-85 wins with some upside potential in the rotation.
That's reasonable. I like the approach Dipoto has taken. Set a (hopefully) firm floor by filling all the gaping holes from 2015 with average-ish guys backed with average-ish AAA depth. Hope for some surprises and bounce backs to ramp up the win total. Pray for no injuries to the stars.
An up year from Cano would go a long way, I think.
i kinda like the arm slot....3/4, or thereabouts. you often see a 'heavy' ball from there, it seems.
I like what I'm seein' -- good movement, change in location both up and down, as well as side to side. Looks legit.
BTW Matt -- love the "exploding gascan of doom" line -- but am a bit more optimistic about the BP line at the end of the season.
A couple days ago, Fangraphs had two articles up ranking the bullpens for all the MLB teams, and each player in each bullpen.
The Mariners are collectively 27th out of 30 bullpens, with a educated guess of 1.6 WAR combined.
The Padres are ranked 23rd, so not much better... with a 2.3 WAR combined.
However, Vincent is rated as 0.3 WAR by himself... which is only behind Zych, Benoit and Cishek on the M's bullpen... so Fangraphs obviously sees this move as a positive... even if at 1.9 WAR collectively, the M's are still 27th.
Zych is our number one reliever by the projection systems...the only way our pen is better than what I have predicted (3 WAR or so...with maybe a tiny bit of upside) is if we get massive steps forward for some of the guys...guys like Nuno and Montgomery in particular.
SD has Ramirez at SS and he plays nearly everyday. Amarista behind him...but he's really a Bloomie-type guy. Still seems likely we give up Taylor, or perhaps Tyler Smith. I like Taylor....but I'm learning to like Smith even more. Would sure give him some CF time, as well as SS time. And I'm hurrying him to Tacoma. Pizzano, too. Sigh.
Maybe a young arm goes south. But a SS seems more likely.