1. How does one assess the risk that Bedard doesn't come back as a TOR the-guy-you-REALLY-want-in-your-best-of-seven-playoff-rotation? I mean, that's what makes him different from the 47 other pitchers-coming-off-injuries, right? In fact, they will already have one of those under contract and on the 40-man: Carlos Silva.
In other words: if I'm going to sink new money into Bedard, it's gotta be because we want the chance at 11-K lights-out Bedard, right? If we just want a streaky guy to fill out the rotation, it makes no sense, because we've got 7+ guys who could theoretically start in MLB, not counting Bedard.
So what is the track record of TOR studs going through shoulder stuff and coming back as TOR studs?
2. You want your K/9 stats, how about these:
9.03 K/9, 2.18 BB/9, 0.5 HR/9, 4.14 K/BB
Those are the AA numbers of 1st Lt. Hill. How would youze guys fit him into the French-Olson-Vargas scrum (assuming RRS and Fister have graduated)?
Last year, it was Shawn Kelley putting up those kind of attention-getting AA and winter ball numbers. That worked out OK so far.
Here's an article by Street. Felix would go every 5 days; the other guys would go on longer rest.
The M's have Felix, Snell, RRS, Fister and French; Brandon Morrow is coming up shortly.
So somebody might want to pencil that out, considering they're off every Monday in September :- )
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Bigtime kibitz points for Capt Jack's single-minded focus on identifying the best 2010 players. Not only will he need a decision on (say) Fister vs French for 2010; he needs to make a call on certain players so as to set up other decisions on winter acquisitions.
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Wakamatsu mentions also the ability to save some wear-and-tear on young pitchers "whose innings are getting up there."
The Shandler principle has always been, don't let a pitcher's innings increase by >50 from one year to the next; recently this Shandler Principle has been all the rage. The national TV guys have jumped on it w/r/t Joba Chamberlain.
Which is fine, but .... which young pitcher has IP "getting up there"? :- )
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=== Quotable ===
After French's last start, Wakamatsu's Skip-O-Vision translation interview read, "Luke tends to nibble anyway, but after a couple of shots they really chased him off the plate. He picked at the corners, didn't get the calls, and then when he came in they blasted him."
Can't find the interview I'm thinking of, but that's what Wok said, coded.
It's my house and my opinion :- ) and right now, it's that Wok is not a lot higher on Mr. French than is jemanji.
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The postgame Seattle Times blog posts spoke about how much of a mismatch the Angels were for the Mariners.
Funny how the mismatch talk is going to disappear in the two games with Fister and Felix starting. As Earl said, "Momentum is as good as that day's starting pitcher."
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Contrasting that is Wok's postgame on Tuesday. He is justifiably impressed with Doogie and already speaking glowingly of his future in the bigs...
More impressed was The Mainframe, when Wok sent Doogie back out there for the 7th and even for the 8th. Wowza. Read: Fister is scrambling up the internal ladder like Spider-man up a stucco building.
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=== This & That ===
The move to swinging-strike rate, as opposed to strikeout rate period, has left us in an unjustifiable state of confusion as to how Doogie pitched so well in the PCL, despite a low S%.
How in the world could a guy get such a blizzard of called strikes, may we ask? Well, what kind of strikes don't hitters swing at? (1) Pitches they disagree with the ump on. (2) Pitches they guess (badly) wrong on.
(1) Doogie paints. The hitter wants the call. The ump doesn't give it to them.
(2) Doogie's signature pitch is a vapor-lock changeup.
Now y'know what it looks like, a K rate higher than the S% rate. Next up: a consistently low BABIP, like Jamie Moyer had.
... I remember Billy Beane complaining once after the M's beat the A's: "We get better swings off Pedro Martinez than we get off Moyer." When hitters are confused and tentative, they tend not to do mean things to the pitcher.
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I want to know swinging strike %, but want to know K/9 and K/BB a lot more.
- jemanji
Comments
believe how many times Doogies change started inside on a lefthander and dropped back in and over the plate for a called strike. I recall one particularly nasty Change to Abreu that just left him standing there shaking his head and smiling as if to say, "Good grief what am I supposed to do with THAT!" You know what should be a good indication that a pitcher is impressive? When Vlad Guerrero and Bobby Abreu are impressed (or at least chagrined ;) ), as they were last night :)
What does that picture have anything to do with a six-man rotation? Those 6 never started consecutively at any point in the season.
Fister has quite the compelling stat line. For starters with 30 or more IP, we has the second lowest swing rate for balls in the zone and the 15th highest swing rate for balls out of the zone. He has hitters completely flumoxed.
On a separate topic, do you buy the Roland-Smith - Washburn comparisons? Frankly, I just don't see it. I see Ryan in the Zito family not the Washburn family. Jarrod has the 'best' substandard fastball in the league this year, whereas Ryan gets hurt with his fastball. I think Jarrod's ability to sustain a career as a starting pitcher in the big leagues is a tremendous mystery.
And actually can't imagine where the French-Washburn comparisons came from, either.
Jarrod Washburn is one of the tiny fraction of ML starters who can throw nothing but an 88 fastball and walk off the mound 7 innings later with okay results. Jamie Moyer, Brandon Webb, Jarrod Washburn, nobody's a comp to them until they've proven it for about four years in a row :- )
Right. RRS is a Zito / Pettitte type LHP in my book -
In which they were musing about the possibility.
The pic's just for fun, Anon. Lighten up :- ) this website is not the kind you're used to.
It's a fair question... risk there always is, even on Felix...
I'm used to seeing legit TOR's like Chris Carpenter come back full steam. Carpenter, Clemens, Webb, the legit monsters who have shoulder surgery seem to know how to hold the laces... Bedard isn't going to forget how to snap a curve ball...
When Bedard came back *last* winter he wasn't a whit less the 9K beast he always is... that the shoulder surgery might knock him out of the game, I could worry about, but not especially that he's going to forget how to spin a curve...
Others might assign a 20%, 40%, 70% chance, whatever, that Bedard's stuff isn't there... for me, it's the least of my worries...
Your appraisal of Aardsma in spring training and early in the regular season seemed to be "stay away...far away"...you gave good reasons why...the mechanical break down was particularly convincing.
How is he able to command his fastball so well and be such a dominant closer? Got a second opinion for us?
What in the world happened to French's slider?
I'm really starting to question Adair when it comes to guys like French and Snell. These are guys that have relied on their electric sliders in the past for success and have turned into mushy fastball-changeup pitchers in Seattle.
What gives?
French in Detroit: 3.91 FIP, 9.1 SwS%
French in Seattle: 5.88 FIP, 7.4 SwS%
Both the usage and effectiveness of the slider have dropped pretty significantly since the trade to Seattle.
I'm just not all that sold yet on Fister as an impact starter. As a viable #4-6 SP in '10? Probably, but I need to see more of him.
2 Ks, 2BBs, 5 SwSs, 7 FBs, 9GBs.
Fister has done well in hit% prevention, but his peripherals are only so-so. 4.81 FIP and 4.89 tRA are solid, and deserving of a back-end spot if he can maintain it.
I need to see more before I'm convinced of Fister's ability to hold a .219 BABIP and 83.3 LOB% considering his BABIP was .356 and his BABIP has been over .300 for the past three years in the minors.
Good Q.
In short, there's no shortage of guys who have a Bill Campbell, Mike Schooler year or two in the 9th inning. Particularly the 8k, 4BB guys with good fastballs up in the zone, seem susceptible to putting a little run together.
If and when he implodes, how many guys do you think will say they saw that coming, too :- )
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Personally don't want any part of that 2010 closer scenario, but maybe I'm just being stubborn.
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Still, kudos to him. He wants the ball, he goes after the hitters and he's having a good year. Good for him.
I agree with you here Doc.
I just can't see a fastball-only guy with mediocre command sustaining this kind of dominance.
Even this year it seems to me that one too many flyballs have been caught right at the fence.
Sell high on this dude. Hes our JJ Putz of '09.
Putz was a genuinely dominant closer for awhile. He isn't anymore. But I don't buy AT ALL the concept that a 1-pitch pitcher cannot be a dominant closer for MANY years. Rivera has a cutter. Hoffman has a change. NEITHER has a 2nd pitch that would be described as plus. In truth, the general profile of every long-term closer I know of is that they have ONE exceptional pitch, which they throw a huge percentage of the time, and still, nobody can hit it "cleanly" on a regular basis.
As to how "real" Aardsma's 2009 performance is?
He's posted 10K/9 and 4.7BB/9 before. Those numbers are NOT abberations. However, his HR/9 and hit/9 numbers this year ARE very abnormal.
The HR/9 is the one that is most interesting. Here are Aarsma's HR/9 numbers for his career:
1.5 - 2006
1.1 - 2007
0.7 - 2008
0.4 - 2009
The above is complicated by the reality that these were generated for 4 different teams. In truth, VERY few pitchers can maintain a HR/9 of 0.4. Aardsma IS likely to regress in this arena. But, given the park and his previous track record, a 0.7 HR/9 rate doesn't seem unreasonable.
After his 0.3 HR/9 in 2006, Putz regressed to 0.8, but was still dominant. (Of course, he had vastly superior control).
But, the REALLY unsustainable number is the H/9. Even with the #1 defense, a 6.3 H/9 rate is not likely to be repeated. So, what is reasonable to expect from Aardsma? Something like: 7.0 H/9; 0.7-HR/9; 4.7-BB/9; 10.5-K/9; Yes, he should regress a bit, and probably blow a couple more saves. The question then is ... can you do better?
If this was 3 years ago, and the club still had guys like Soriano and Sherrill waiting in the wings, sure, make a move. But that isn't what the club has today. The bullpen was WEAK in 2009. The typical "best" development pattern for closers is keep a solid closer, and develop a COUPLE of closers-in-waiting behind him as 7th and 8th inning guys and THEN trade the guy with the 2-3 year track record of success.
Sure, Aardsma has "some" value on the market today. But, anyone wanting to gamble prospects is going to want more than a single season out of a guy that has a number of questionable seasons prior to 2009. To get REAL value for Aardsma, the club almost certainly has to get a 2nd 'good' season out of him. For me, the larger question is who are the 7 guys in the pen next season. Batista is gone for sure. Jaku would've already been gone if not for the lack of organizational depth.
Kelley, Lowe, White ... (and frankly, I think White is expendable)
I'm kind of hoping Silva replaces Batista in the pen, (preferable to him starting, IMO). And I expect some number of the lefty starter spaghetti that didn't stick will morph into lefty reliever spaghetti in 2010. But, bullpen went from an organizational strength to weakness VERY fast. In truth, given the park and defense, the HR allowance for Seattle in 2009 has been off-the-charts bad.
If you have Aardsma AND Morrow in the pen, then you can afford for one to fail. If you have ONLY Morrow in the pen, then the club has zero fallback for someone with even potential to be a dominant closer. In short, too many of the bullpen possibilites for 2010 have HR/9 rates above 1.0 and K/9 rates below 7.
The 2009 bullpen didn't fall apart as severely as I expected. But they were certainly NOT a strength for the team. Aardsma lands somewhere between Brad Lidge and Roberto Hernandez in terms of closer quality. Putz was traded from a team that nobody was expecting to compete. You don't NEED a shut-down closer if you're expecting to lose 90 games. But, if you just won 85 games, then dumping your closer is a sign of surrender, (unless you ALREADY have a clear replacement that said closer was blocking).
I don't think Z can afford to trade Aardsma, unless he gets an incredible haul. And I don't think 1 year is enough for Aardsma to erase the doubts raised by his previous results to warrant such a haul.
My opinion, you can't 'appear' to be giving away 2010 ... but the club is better served by concentrating on getting ducks in a row for 2011. Like 2007, too much of the 2009 performance is abberant, (29-16 1-run game performance), so you shouldn't pretend you're only 1 bat or 1 pitcher from the playoffs if you win 85.
Aardsma's about the same guy he ever was, which always included not being nervous under pressure .... he's a skosh better now with the building confidence he gains in his pitcher-friendly context and the end-of-game handshakes...
Firmly predict an end of the road in sight, in which the command goes on the fritz for a week or two's worth of walks, and several balls go over the fence, and the city panics ...
But credit to him for what he's done...
True, but I think this player type is even more likely to regress (Great fastball WITH command is a completely different story).
Guys in '08 that were succesful with an electric fastball, no real secondary pitches, and mediocre command were Grant Balfour (insanely dominant) and Brandon Morrow. Both guys regressed heavily in '09.
I think the Ms need to cash in their golden chip this offseason.