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POTD

Wei-Yin Chen, SP2

Replace WBC-san? you cannot be SERious

Posted by

jemanji

11/21/15

Just kinda byte sized. You come to SSI for the bottom line. Here y'go amig-O.

7K, 1BB Dept.

Show me a pitcher who walks 1+ a game, and still fans hitters, and I'll show you a man that Dr. D wants on his pitching staff.

Doug Fister was the first of these to hang around Seattle in quite some time, and the Think Tank was all over him from day one. Shame he wasn't one of your best five going forward, Jack ...

Hisashi Iwakuma, like Wei-Yin Chen, is a Pacific Rim pitcher. They come from a culture that doesn't have our tolerance for mistakes. From the time you're three, you have it hammered into you that "Precision, accuracy, reliability is more important than 14 strokes and then a Tin Cup shot." Sure, you could argue this point; nobody said that 1 billion people from India or The Greater LA Area are all identical. Nobody said that Yu Darvish is exactly the same pitcher as Koji Uehara. But Dr. D thoroughly enjoys the visual of an Asian pitcher going for accuracy rather than power.

Over the period 2010-2015 here are the guys who walked 1+ and fanned a decent number of guys. No groundballers need apply.

Koji Uehara
Hisashi Iwakuma
Wei-Yin Chen
OK Dr. D we get it, we get it, could you please shaddap now
Cliff Lee
Roy Halladay
Jordan Zimmermann (!)
Michael Pineda
Adam Wainwright

You could also argue for McCarthy and Hughes, but one was injury-prone and the other has horrible gopheritis. Also, to include Chen here you've got to use 2014-15, which I do. If you include 2012-13 his BB's sail all the way up to 2.19 per game. Let's throw those years out so as not to embarrass him.

Point is, Dr. D's default mode is "Yea" on this dude.

VIDEO

Here's a big win over Tampa. Open a second window and sing along with Dr. D:

Pitch 1 = located 93 FB pounds the knees. Hard to get a swinging K on this pitch, but watch
Pitch 2 = 94 paints the black (Roenis Elias dreams about throwing this pitch)
Pitch 3 = slider with more change-speed action than bite. But locating a slider, cool
Pitch 4 = see above, but not really located (batters are "in between")
Pitch 5 = slider gets "excuse me" swing from lefty
Pitch 6 = 93 fastball, on the black, thrown way past a righty (see remark on pitch 4)
Pitch 7 = see above
Pitch 8 = see above

Chen also has a cambio and he has a slow change curve, but those haven't been scoring well for him the last two years. Really his thing is what Danny Hultzen's was supposed to be: a quick lefty fastball, painted, and a parachute on his second pitch. Cole Hamels, Johann Santana are in this template.

Chen's slider isn't technically a changeup, but that's the way his game presents. Same goes for Michael Pineda from the other side.

ANYTHING THAT'S GOING TO DISRUPT DEFAULT MODE, THEN?

1. Chen's estimated FA contract: 4 years x $13-16M. Same as Iwakuma. Giant bargain relative to other TOR's.

2. Being lefty in Safeco? Let's not hold that against Chen.

3. Losing the #11 pick? That's worth what, $5-10M. Keep it in proportion.

4. Guess not.

If the M's lose Iwakuma, they could spend the same money on Chen and, objectively speaking, you'd have a gain in durability and LH'ness. Doesn't mean I'd trade you, but.

Enjoy,

Dr D

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Wei-Yin Chen

Comments

Thanks

This guy is built for Safeco. He won't walk you and he keeps it in the park, even in Baltimore. And he's young-ish. He's 4 years Kuma's junior and, as you might expect, he has a considerable mileage advantage over our guy. Kuma has thrown more than 2195 "Big" (both sides of the pond) league innings, Chen just 1357. (Interestingly, Felix has thrown 2262, just a smidgeon more than Kuma). Of course Kuma's game is based on laser-guided smart bombs that may defy age, but the same is true for Chen.

In case you forgot, throwing a ton of innings hasn't been Kuma's forte recently.

Which guy would you bet would give you 195 next year?

For the same money, as much as I like Kuma (a lot!) I think I take Chen. Minus Felix, we don't have a predictable innings-eater on the staff. Something like that is valuable.

Sign Chen, BTW, and the extra year demand from Kuma might just disappear. Just sayin'.

Checking his game logs out, you will see he doesn't go deep into games often. In his 117 career starts, he's never thrown a complete game and only gone 8 innings 6 times. But he's gone 7 innings 28 other times. But Kuma has only 1 CG in his 97 career starts. On this side of the pond, Chen has averaged 6.04 innings in every start, Kuma 6.42. Basically Kuma gets one more out, on the average, per start than Chen. I suppose that one extra out won't wear the pen out too badly. Over those 6 innings, he'll give up (approx.) 1 extra baserunner.

I hate Boras and I hate giving him any of my (oops...our) money and Chen, on his game, isn't quite Kuma on his. But he's a safer bet to throw 570 innings over the next 3 years and he's pretty good.

If Kuma's agent is jacking me on the extra year, then I'm just giving Chen that money, and selling the "short" flight home and the comfortable confines of Safeco vs. the Baltimore bandbox.

If you get Chen on board and THEN Kuma comes around, it would be hard for the FO not to cough up THAT cash.

Get Chen and then Elias or Montgomery makes a nice package with Smith or Trumbo, if getting "athletic" is still on Dipoto radar.

I'm in on this Chen dude.

Objectively speaking, I'd draft Chen next year in roto

'Kuma is just too nervy a draft with his shoulder. Sigh.

Still one of my fave M's of all time and if you talk to him sweet, hopefully he's there down the stretch to win you your title.

Permutations

If you don't sign 'Kuma and he ends up signing with, say, Detroit, you get an end-of-1st-round pick. In that case, I concede Chen is worth everything you say.

If you do sign 'Kuma, I'd still rather have Fister as my "other" experienced starter. Felix-Kuma-Paxton-Walker-Fister looks mighty formidable from here. And you keep #11.

So, to me, it's how long do you wait for 'Kuma to do his tour and make up his mind. And do you offer 3/$39M or 4/$42M if you really want to pay 2/$30M plus a 1/$10M option.

You've sold me that Chen may in fact be the better fit going forward. But I'm still sentimental, and 'Kuma has earned the sentiment.

I suppose the budget prohibits a Big Three

As far as the tour: this one may be pretty simple. The M's want to give 2 years; Kuma wants 3-4 and they're hoping he'll cave in.

Would love to see a Paul Allen approach. Make up your mind what your best offer is (mine would be 3 years), get it out there, and if it doesn't work go in a different direction.

Never saw a situation more tailor-made for the Allen way. And Kuma would PREFER it I'm sure. It's more on the M's to decide on that 3rd year, though.

Fister down to 86-87 MPH

And it looks like there's some blue smoke out the tailpipe. Who knows what the imaging shows inside his shoulder.

But yeah, would that not be SWEET to see him back here throwing that unique tall-graceful fastball into the pocket of the mitt again :- )

What about Karns?

I'm curious, Bat, do you think Karns is going to be traded or that he'll end up in Tacoma to start the season?

Karns

Karns is interesting. He's a starter, but a 5-inning guy. A Classic 5th starter in a game that has moved beyond 5th starters who start twice a month to rotations that almost always go 1 through 5 each time around.

Right now, if the Ms re-sign 'Kuma or sign Wei-Yin Chen as the #2, Karns is the #5 guy. The question is whether the Ms sign another experienced starter, as most pundits predict, or they look for another Montgomery - a guy with no track record that has options for #5B/6. Given that Walker will probably still be on a pitch count limit and Paxton limited in total innings (my guess is they won't go beyond 160), my analytical side says they'll sign a Fister or even both Chen and 'Kuma, and use the Tacoma Shuttle for Paxton, Walker, and Karns, with Nuno (and maybe Zych) stretched out in case. That's the contender route.

My expectation now, though, is that we will see them trade for another guy that has had cups of coffee, but has options left. I've been looking at who that might be, but I don't have a good feel for who is out there that's gettable unless they're willing to give up AlexJ, O'Neill or Diaz. I don't think Karns or Bass will get flipped - it doesn't seem to be Dipoto's style to flip a guy he's praised as an object of a trade. In that regard, I think Powell is safe, since Dipoto has specifically talked about his place in the future, while Sardinas has been discussed as depth and nothing more - he's a possible flip.

They other key to this is the BP. Dipoto seems to like a classic BP - a closer, four setup guys, a LOOGY, and a long guy/swing man. If Oh is signed as the closer, that gives CSmith, Benoit, Zych, and JRamirez as setup guys currently, Furbush as the LOOGY, and Bass and Nuno are available as the long guy. Furbush, of course, is a setup guy in reality - he can get RHs out. But is he fully recovered from his muscle injury? JRamirez can throw hard but he can't find the strike zone with both hands and has no options. He's gone as soon as they can ink Lowe. Zych may have the stuff to start (Wilhelmsen all over again). If they can find another dominant LH stud (I want Sipp) to both insure against Furbush not being fully ready, and to provide balance, I wouldn't be surprised at either Zych or Nuno, or both, going to Tacoma to start, as hedges for the limits on Walker and Paxton, and able to come up to take innings periodically when Karns starts.

But you have to have the options. At least two of the starters and two of the BPers have to have options in order to cover all of the contingencies. Benoit, Lowe, Furbush, Bass, and Sipp do not. Oh would have, due to the way IFAs fit into the system, and CSmith, Nuno, and Zych would.

Karns is one piece of a very complex puzzle. We're into the area I feel JackZ did not do well - fitting the pieces into a sytem with a Plan A, B, and C able to be implemented whenever necessary. Dipoto sounds like he gets it much better. We'll see.

Zych.... Options?

While I know Zych has the stuff to start, I really don't want to see him jerked around. Leave him in the set up role and keep him comfortable. Last year was the first time that Zych was consistently throwing strikes so I just want to see him repeat that skill first.

Also, are we sure Zych still has an option left? I'm not so sure that he does.

Zych and option status

The Seattle Times doesn't list him as out of options, nor does roster resource.

http://www.seattletimes.com/sports/mariners/baseballs-offseason-official...

Thanks again Bat

We're using you as a living microfiche machine here. Glad you have nothing against micro fish or Sardinos or exploitation. As you know, neither does Dr. D.