So a few moves on the RP front for the home-towners. Juan Nicasio is $17mil richer; Shawn Armstrong exists, and will attempt to K the world for the M's (without simultaneously walking it); and Anthony Misiewicz gets a homecoming!
In addition to the aforementioned $17mil headed to Nicasio's offshore account, a grand total of $1.5mil in int'l bonus pool allotments are headed out to bring Armstrong and Misiewicz back. Gotta say I'm a little underwhelmed, but as someone (Gordon?) astutely mentioned recently, it's not as though the M's have had ANY success in the int'l FA market since Felix (with something like $20mil spent along the way?!).
So what is Nicasio? Honestly, you've got me. He looks like a power pitcher, whose fastball averaged 95.4 last season out of the 'pen, after averaging 93.6 in 2016 for the Pirates. Somewhat interestingly: last season is the first time in his career that he didn't make at least one start. I dunno what can be said about him? He appears to have either A) leapt a plateau by challenging with the gas, trusting his stuff, and not chasing whiffs (his K/9 decreased a couple notches, but so too did his BB's), or B) been 'lucky' in the sense that he's unlikely to repeat his 2017 success in the next couple years.
MLB relievers are tricky. If they don't have OVERPOWERING stuff, it's almost impossible to bank on their performances being above-average year-in, year-out. Guys like Eddie Guardado come to mind as relievers with underwhelming, 'white knuckle' (shamelessly stolen from Doc) stuff who somehow manage to defy the odds for a string of 3-5 years before (some would say 'predicatably') imploding. (On the subject of Guardado, he and Shigetoshi Hasegawa are the *only* relievers I can remember who could consistently attack the outside corner at the knees with truly underwhelming *stuff* and somehow make it work game-in, game-out without getting flensed for their troubles).
Then you've got Armstrong and Misiewicz, who probably deserve more than a shrug and a sigh from someone pretending to write intelligently about baseball, but that's all I can offer. Misiewicz is funny because Dipoto just shipped him out mid-season, only to re-acquire him with the same int'l pool allotment that he received for Vieira. I won't hold my breath waiting for someone to jump up and proudly declare they prefer Misiewicz to Vieira, talent-wise or fit-wise for the current club, but at least Misiewicz could (theoretically) start. That's worth something at least, but to my (untrained and wholly-without-merit) eye he looks like mid-minors spaghetti.
Armstrong, on the other hand, has at least some experience at the big league level to go with his 93+ mph fastball. But honestly, I don't know how to read pitch values or any of that newfangled stuff, so I'll have to leave it to someone else to do so if they're so inclined. Personally, and again I'm sure this comes off as disrespectful to some degree, I just don't see anything jump off the page.
Even Nicasio, the 'impact reliever' Dipoto was talking about prior to acquiring, looks every bit as likely to 'regress' in the upcoming season as he is to build on the success of his 2017 campaign going forward. Still, you need arms and lots of them (unless your pen is stacked, which Seattle's decidedly isn't--it's got some really talented contributors, to be sure, but it's far from a lockdown unit).
Would welcome discussion about these guys if anyone's got insights on them.
