I don't think Halama is a good comp for Luke French.
From 02-06 Halama averaged 83.9mph on his heater. THats 3mph+ LESS than what Luke French averages. French has a poor fastball, but it is NOT an awful fastball like Halama's. He throws harder than Jorge Campillo and a LOT harder than Halama did (and both of those guys had some success).
In 2002, when Halama posted a sub 4 ERA he averaged 83.2mph on his heater.
Halama's best pitch was also his change-up whereas French's best pitch is his slider. This meant that Halama didn't have much of a platoon split, whereas French dominates lefties and struggles mightily vs righties. French also apparently has a respectable changeup-up, but his slider is by far the best offering (and he could afford throwing it more often).
Really these guys aren't that similar. I see French with a much higher upside than Halama (considering a much better fastball and dominating lefties already), but a better chance of washing out as a starter if he doesn't limit the damage from RHPs (needs to throw more changes-some sliders to them). French throws his fastball too often (61% of the time) and his slider not enough (he could afford to go 30%+ with that pitch).
FLIP: French is supposed to be help for 2009, huh?
CHOP: See Cool Papa's post "This is troubling" in the Aug. 1 pepper.
Every word he says is exactly mine.
On KJR, Capt Jack was very emphatic: this is the deal that got us both help down the road and HELP RIGHT NOW. Therefore I took this deal.
Which, supposing for a moment that you and I are right, and French is a Garrett Olson-level fringe SP, is alarming.
I know that the script is to praise Zduriencik's genius on every move individually, but on the surface of it, this one looks alarmingly misjudged.
She's over-bored and self assurrrrrrred ... I know, I know, a dirty worrrrrd ....
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Again as Cool Papa notes, the thought process is ransomed IF AND ONLY IF they have good reason to believe we have underestimated French -- say, if his command turns out to be Moyeresque. Don't waste a lot of time worrying about this. If Detroit had seen pinpoint command from a guy with that kind of hook, they'd be pencilling him into their #2-3 slot for the next six years, not us.
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There is value in a #6-7 SP. On real MLB teams, #6 SP is in essence a position, comparable to utility infielder or #4 outfielder.
If Zduriencik is saying, we got our #6 SP and he doesn't cost us a dime off the payroll* then I can respect that. But to trade Jarrod Washburn for that?
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G-Moneyball, and Matty. compare Luke French to John Halama. How did poor li'l Dr. D not think of that one? Good show.
Among the comps: Halam-a-rama was AAA-stomping only towards the end of his minors career, like French. Both have 87 fastballs and very sweet, big-breaking, David Wells curve balls. Both will knock around the bigs and log some innings.
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Allow me to respectfully demur, as to what a decent changeup means for a pitcher like this. Most of these lefty bad-FB good-SL guys do have changes, which play like sloppy versions of their sliders. I don't expect the change (which French does have) to impact his game. Just my $0.02.
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I do like G-Money's case for: "But Luke DOES have a plus change-speed/batter-eye-height weapon. I think he can hang in the back of the rotation just fine, and he HAS finally put it together. He also cares more about baseball than Halama ever did."
And, of course, all of our template guys for French -- Zito, Liriano, RRS, etc -- their hooks do change eye height. Which provides them what little 12" wooden shields they have against the ballistas of the AL mashers.
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On KJR, they had the script that Washburn's trade meant that the M's had quit, and then Zduriencik came on and explained very carefully that he had brought in 3 (actually 5, with Bedard and Beltre) players to replace one. "It's not a future direction; it's a different direction."
After the break, Gas went right back to the script. "So we had Zduriencik on, and he pretty much said, well, they're 8 games out and the writing is on the wall..." These guys are unSTOPpable. :- )
I DO like the fact that Zduriencik is putting THIS MUCH effort into the 2009 (and 010) games. Even the Washburn trade?
Cheers,
Dr D
Comments
I'm gonna have to get more specific about my comps. People are freaking out that the comparison I draw is to "a LH soft-tosser who needs his breaking pitch to be on that day or he's getting hammered, but can throw 160-180 innings in the #5 slot for you and can be moved to the pen if things don't go well" and apparently want me to find the exact pitch style and composition comparison instead. This seems to keep happening.
I want to know what production I can expect out of a slot. I don't care if the guy is the exact same height, chews the same tobacco brand and has 1 extra MPH on his FB or swings a 1 oz heavier bat. But that's just me. Other people apparently want body clones and exact stuff comparisons. Lesson learned. :) I'll stop giving comps.
I do agree that French has a better chance of being a lefty stopper since lefty changeup artists *normally* are not lefty killers (depending on the style of change they throw and which way it breaks as it falls out of the zone). French's breaking pitch gives him a better chance of stopping LH bats and he could do long-relief fine if starting isn't in his future.
But I'm still fine with running him out there at the back of the rotation for basically nothing and seeing what he can do. I like him better than Olson for sure and he JUST found the handle on his slider, so I expect some growth there as he figures out that he doesn't have to nibble around the zone with every pitch now, which was causing him a lot of issues earlier in his career. If he winds up in the pen, though, I have other guys who can step into that slot.
The prize of the deal is still Mauricio Robles. Yes, I know he needs control (even though he has a 2.5:1 K:BB). Yes, he's short. He's also KILLING people out there and already has far better command this year. If we'd gotten Chris Tillman back for 3 months of Washburn people would be freaking out about our awesome deal. Tillman's trip through high-A looks a lot like Mauricio's (tho Tillman was a few months younger), Robles was running a huge FIP split earlier (his guys suck at helping him out), he's a lefty with low-90s stuff, a curveball that's making low-minors guys look stupid (wanna see THAT deployed in AA) and who is getting a working changeup. Did I mention he's practically unhittable even with his wildness and sucky fielders? 20 year old Erik Bedard just got added to our system (crap, I just made another comp...) so I'm not really worried about How John Halama/Luke French is doing as my #5. Tiny Bedard/Freddy Garcia (ie, the lynchpin of my trade for my deadline pitcher with the expiring contract) is the guy we got back. If his velo jump into the low 90s is sustainable, look out.
I wasn't kidding when I said I thought he was the 2nd best starting pitcher in the Detroit system. If he was Tillman/Garcia-sized we'd never have gotten him. He's under-valued because he's tiny. So was Roy Oswalt. And Tim Lincecum. Maybe he blows his arm out. That can happen to any pitcher. Maybe he only turns into a pen arm. But I like that kid a lot.
If we're gonna get back any bats in a trade, Morrow and Robles are the ones who are gonna have to make that happen. Otherwise, we're just gonna have to see if either can throw a few less BBs and stick in the rotation. I like the chances of one of those guys working out. So long as they stay healthy. *knock on wood*
And in the meantime, French is making sure we're not having Olson/Silva as our only back-end options to keep the big club above waterline.
"Better now, better later" is Z's motto. Snell + French is better than Wash + Olson for 09, both are with us for years if we want them, and Robles is the best prospective starter in our system if Morrow isn't.
Sounds like we're following the motto fine to me.
~G
Well said, G. :)
Couldn't agree more that this is the exact kind of move the Mariners need to be making.
At first I had the gut reaction of a fan "damnit, we traded Washburn and didn't get a bat!"...I've been questing after bats all year. But Robles is a big time talent and I think French is a nice fungible rubber arm who can give us 140-180 solid4.5 - 5 ERA innings at zero cost. Good teams need those guys.
I agree with your overall points.
And yes, French is going to struggle on days when he doesn't have that slider. I just don't like grouping French with Halama as a way of downplaying his upside (as Doc does here).
French throws 3mph+ HARDER than Halama did. Its like comparing Felix Hernandez's fastball to Jakubauskas'. French has a minus-MLB caliber fastball, Halama had a AAA fastball.
All French needs is a better feel for his change-up and hes an MLB #3 starter that plays very well in Safeco. As is, hes already a much better option than Olson, and a little better than Vargas (thanks to a better secondary pitch).
I forgot about the Moyer comp.
In 2002 and 2003 when Moyer was TOR starter for the Ms, he averaged 82.8mph on his fastball. Thats OVER FOUR mph less than what Luke French is averagin this year.
Does Luke French have a below-average fastball? Yes.
Is it a joke of fastball like Jamie Moyer's or Halama's? No.
Lukes French's fastball is as comparable to prime Moyer's or Halama's as Jon Lester's fastball is to RRS's.
nail has a concussion :- )
Yeah, that was a smokin' post even by Money's stds...
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Taro, Halama did throw slower and he threw with very good location. He wasn't a mirror-image guy.
But French is going to be throwin' a BP fastball up there, sorry to say. 87, 85, 83 mph, it's all batting practice to the Nelson Cruz's of the world.
Caution about +2 mph more or less, once a fastball is minus.
If a FB is minus, it's minus. That means the hitter can sit "in between" pitches and still have plenty of time to crank a FB.
Moyer had as good a command as anybody who's ever pitched. That 85 mph was right on the black, either black, and an 85 FB on the black is a plus pitch.
...that if indeed French is capable of improving his command, he's got room to improve.
...not saying that's a given...far from it...but he's showing improvement in control and command already. Maybe there's more back there for him to get?
Thats a wierd cop-out. Of course its significant.
It doesn't matter that Justin Verlander averaged 96mph and Ian Snell 92mph, once a fastball is plus.
Ya who cares if Justin Verlander averages 96mph and Ian Snell 92.
96, 92, 90 Its all unhittable to Willie Bloomquists of the world.
Has the connotation of 'intending to avoid responsibility.'
On the high end of the velo scale, every mph means something...the faster you throw, the more defenseless the hitters will be to a secondary pitch thrown slower or with huge movement. The slow side of the scale is different. 88 and 82 mph fastballs look both look like grapefruits to most MLB hitters...the difference in terms of timing it and still timing offspeed stuff is negligible.
It's not unlike one of the major flaws in the global warming argument...much ado is made about the large warming observed in the polar regions, but with the tropics containing more energy by a factor of 500 or so (because temperature is related to elocity SQUARED and even more, the amount of latent energy contained in water vappor rapidly increases as the air takes on more vapor according to an exponential function with temperature), warming at the poles does not control planetary temperature swings...warming in the tropics does. The fact that we have observed absolutely no warming in the tropical atmosphere is glossed over by global warming activists. Point is...the more energy on the fastball...the more increasing that energy matters to the hitters. Same kind of reasoning applies.
I just think its silly logic.
Moyer and Halama got by with their command (and in Moyer's case and expanded strike zone). If they had fastballs like Luke French on top of the command they would have been much more effective.
Moyer threw 85-89 easily back when he was 28. He sucked when he was 28. And no...it's not because he had poor command...his command was already pretty decent by that age.
I'm not buying an inch of that. Did you guys watch the 88mph RRS vs the 84mph RRS?
83 vs 87 is significant.
...the good RRS was throwing 90...not 88.
Second of all...the good RRS also had a much sharper curveball instead of one that just rolled, and he had his change-up back to an 8-10 mph differential instead of 4-5.
Yes, the added velo does matter but only in the context of what your secondary pitches are and how effective they'll be. If French threw 92 and still had that 78-80 mph hammer slider, he'd be a TOR starter. But don't kid yourself into think the velo jump is what single-handedly fix RRS...he needed his other pitches back to full zoom too and he plays the fastball off of those other pitches.
Give the 01-03 Jamie Moyer another 4mph on his fastball. Watch him win a Cy Young.
I'm sorry, but I think this position is rediculous. The 1.5-2mph Jamie has lost since '03 seem pretty significant to me.
...the thing that Moyer lost since 2003 that has made him less of a pitcher is not the velocity...it's the feather-touch he used to have on his change-up. If you watch him pitch today, his command is a lot less solid...he misses up with the slop a lot more than he should and since he always had zero margin for error, any loss in his fine motor skills at the fingertips (which would, as anyone who played basketball knows, come from fatigue...Moyer wears down faster these days) will have disastrous consquences for him.
Give Moyer 5 mph on his 2003 velocity, and I'm willing to bet he strikes out a few more batters but it doesn't improve his results much. Not unless his average fastball gets up to 89-90 where hitters have to start tming it instead of sitting in between and swatting at the change-up.
RRS averages around 88.5-89mph in the rotation.
Yes the break in the curveball was also significant, but the velocity was the primary reason for the difference between the RRS that gets smashed in AAA and the RRS that was effective last start. Cmon now.
Are you and Dr.D seiously trying to tell me that 4mph isn't significant? I need to tell that to Marc Rzepcynski. I'm sure he'd be just as an intriguing prospect at 83mph. After all, velocity stops mattering in that mid 80s range.
ANY pitcher might come up with a plateau leap, and most pitchers could leap in the realm of command. Absolutely.
And, apparently Jack Zduriencik thinks French is going to do this. At least, that is the only conceivable rationale I can think of for acquiring French.
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You could say the same about Garrett Olson. If Olson starts hitting dimes, he's a 17-game winner. ;- )
It's just something that you experience when you play baseball.
Ask a hitter Champ :- )
From 2003 to 2004 Moyer lost a little over 1mph on his fastball, and he never recovered that.
I'm betting he had to nibble even more than norm, which is why you see the slight increase in walk rate.
But according to you and Doc, velocity stops mattering around 88mph and below right?
88-89 is average-solid.
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It sounds like a quibble, but there's a point there, "minus fastball." RRS doesn't have a minus fastball. French does.
...I can hear Taro chuckling at you smaking a 1 mph distinction between 88 from RRS and 87 from French but the next 4 mph not mattering...
I think the important thing to realize is that difficulty of hitting a fastball is exponential with speed and the point where the curve starts to go vertical is aroud 86 or 87 mph. So there's a huge difference between 89 and 86 but not much of a difference between 86 and 83. That's hard for some people to conceptualize.
...if it were 1 mph that made the difference between 20 win Moyer and hanging on by a thread Moyer...then when he was throwing 1 mph harder in 1999, he should be superhuman Moyer. The thing that got worse for Moyer was COMMAND...that's why the HR rate went up again, that's why the walk rate went up, that's why the first strike percentage went down, that's why the looking Ks went down. The culprit is execution...not speed. When Moyer lost the ability to jam guys with his fastball (perfect location required), they started pulling it every time he tried. When he lost the ability to paint that outside corner with the change, they started whacking it the opposite way.
In ANY sport, there's just that little tick in there somewhere, that changes the timing of the play.
I don't know exactly where it is -- 87, 88, depends on the pitcher and his motion and stuff. The scouts are way ahead of us here: every pitcher has an "average" fastball or a "minus" one, based on velo, life, deception etc ... and the label gets applied to a SPECIFIC name.
One guy's FB is easy to hit and another guy's isn't.
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I haven't seen French much :- ) and will allow for some (minor) possibility that his FB isn't as way minus as I think it is. We'll see.
...not that I fully trust those...
I think French's fastball is hittable...he can still pitch that way, but it's not going to be easy.
.... and a pitcher might CHANGE his run values, by pitch, if he improved his strategy or sequence or what-have you. Maybe Felix' FB run values would be better if he threw the FB less often, e.g., at the expense of his other pitches.
You go to the well a lot on one pitch, the run values on it would go down, logically.
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But the run values an awfully good piece of the discussion. French is like in the bottom 5% of the majors for FB velo, and the run values are terrible, and Dr. D's eyes tell him that this kid couldn't break a pane of glass.
But, OK. We'll see. :- )
The run values are terrible for his fastball, and unbelivably good for the slider.
My guess is that the run values improve for the fastball (though still remain bad) and he slider becomes less awesome (especially if he starts throwing it more often).
Hes throws the fastball too much (61% of the the time).
For me - the phrase "better in 2009" *HAS* to carry one underlying assumption ... the return of Bedard. Does ANYBODY think the club has any shot of a September miracle w/o Bedard throwing 6 every 5th? Given that assumption, the explanation of the Wash deal helping now AND in the future isn't a reach at all:
Felix
Bedard
Snell
RRS
French/Vargas
While having Wash in that rotation might look better, if one assumes Snell is the replacement for Wash - then French becomes the replacement not for Wash, but for the Vargas/Olson twins. And what was the #1 problem with these guys? HOMERS. The sample is tiny, but the one bright spot of French thus far is he's avoided the long ball, (2 in 29 IPs), compared to ... I just don't want to even think about Olson's numbers, sorry.
I would completely agree that any talk of helping the 2009 rotation ABSENT Bedard is silliness in the extreme, (which is, of course, why I don't see the reason so many are doing just that, in equating French replacing Wash, when Snell is replacing Wash and French is the new #5.
But, hey. I continue to speak what I believe the truth is: The DEFENSE, not the pitching, is what has kept Seattle alive. When your pitchers are ranked 9th of 14 in SO, BB and HR, then I don't see *ANY* analytical argument of any kind that cannot conclude that the defense, and not the pitching is the clearly and unambiguous cause for the run suppression during 2009. The defense, of course, is something that can potentially benefit any pitcher coming aboard, (so long as they aren't serving up gophers constantly and removing the defense from the picture).
You can't rule out a miracle run, and the D has gotten even better with Jack Wilson in the fold.
French actually has an average, maybe even plus fastball, does that change the view on him? So far in his first start with the M's he is sitting at 90-91 mph occasinally hitting 92. And here is the big problem with taking a handful of pitch f/x data and making a lot of soup of that one oyster... the dirty little scret is pitch f/x data is wrong ALOT! Pitch f/x often calls felix' slider a 2 seamer, or his 2-seamer a change, or whatever. In fact just off of my casual glancing at mlb gameday and such it feels like pitch f/x has actually gotten worse this year, because they are trying to be too smart about pitch identification. Plus the specific park skews the data too, so if Detroits home park has slow camera's/guns, with a small data pool (like Frenchs coupla of MLB starts) it can really give misleading data.
So what do you think of a French that actually hits 92 with the fastball???
the bolding, i swear that isn;t how it looked in the WYSIWYG editor.
This park seems to read WAY too high. It had Aardsma at 98 when we know he doesn't throw but 94-95 most nights.
French throws harder than people give him credit for. He doesn't have anything CLOSE to a Jamie Moyer or Jorge Campillo fastball. Hes closer to the late Jarrod Washburn velocity-wise.
Looking at Pitch f/x data his average fastball is closer to around a little over 87.8mph, although fangraphs has him a touch over 87.2 mph. It wouldn't suprise to see him around 88mph the rest of the year.
I didn't get see him throw today as I checked in late in the game, but it looks like he threw too many fastballs and not enough sliders. The Butler HR in the highlights would have been an out in Safeco and he would have likely escaped with a Washburn-esque 2 ERs.
Considering that people consider French an Olson-esque scrub, I think hes still underrated. Hes probably Washburn circa '06-08 right now and has #3-4 SP upside.
Ya, but Olson was throwing 90-91. The gun looked a little fast, but most stadiums have fast guns.
Olson's average fastball is around 89mph.
Washburn's fastball has a very low run value...he gets pop-ups with it. For whatever reason, French gets clobbered on his fastball even though the velo is similar to Jarrod.
Jarrod has better movement on his fastball and I think French has better life on his fastball. French clearly gets the edge on breaking stuff, though he doesn't have Jarrod's sinker.
I realize the run values on his fastball are really bad, but honestly I think French flat just has better stuff than Jarrod. This guy has the potential to suprise in Safeco with our OF D.
I'm much more interested in our revamped offense right now. I have a long post about it tat MarinerCentral that Doc may want to read, basically with the central idea that we're one DH short of being the 2008 Rays o offense now that Johnson is looking much improved at the plate and Beltre is back in the line-up.
French...I've seen his type before...he looks pretty darned hittable to me.
At the moment it's 3:52 am here and we better get a dartboard up on French's fastball. :- )