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In Game 161, Carter Capps busted out a can of Changeup Flavor Whoop Up. When he threw the changeup down, it was screwing the hitters into the ground, and he threw it down all the time. Case in point, KKKKKendrys Morales:
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High fastball, juuuuust a bit outside Mr. Uecker, for 1-0. Capps right back with an 89 MPH changeup - pay no attention to the little man behind the curtain, who assumes that 89 is a fastball - and Morales was out in front and over the top of it. 1-1.
We got a 98 MPH fastball just dyyyyyin' to MEETchoo. INside next pitch. Hey! Low-and-in is your wheelhouse there, dude. Guess that 98, after a changeup, looks like the proverbial 108?
On 1-2, having just been embarrassed by upper 90's, guess what Morales' chance is on a changeup at the knees, outside corner? Kee-rect. Ugly with a capital You.
It's not clear to Dr. D what a relief ace is doing, fiddle-dee-doo-dah'ing around with a third pitch. You wouldn't want to just be perfecting the slider and fastball? Jeff Nelson with a 99 heater should be doof'ing around spending time on a third pitch? The inning previous, Capps had detonated Mike Trout and Howie Kendrick, back-to-back K's, on his primary two pitches. He set both up with power sliders, and blew both of them away with 99 challenge fastballs.
Anyway, if there's one thing Dr. D knows, it's overkill. So here's the batter who followed Kendrys Morales, that being Callaspo:
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Power slider first pitch froze him, 0-1. Bust him inside upper 90's froze him again, 0-2. The next two pitches are changeups, gorgeously at the knees, and Callaspo manages to fight them off, 1-2 ... but then Capps changes the eye level with a 98 fastball letter high. Popped up on the infield.
He threw 7 changeups, 4 for strikes. Of those 4 strikes, 4 were not put in play. And the point of the change is not even supposed to be to get outs; it's supposed to be to accelerate his fastball.
.........
Blowers made a point that Eric Wedge wants to leave Capps out there for multiple innings "because he seems to have a better feel for his slider then." I would agree. Capps is a guy who kinda gropes for his release point. So let him go out there and get loose.
Hey, in the second inning he threw, Capps actually (1) LOCATED some of his 98 fastballs, like down and in, like letter high ... he (2) hit the knees with the change, he (3) backdoor'ed the slider. When his fastball hit locations, you didn't even have to watch the rest of the at-bat. We kid you not; we'd say it if he were a Ranger. There's the possibility of Carter Capps becoming the best starting pitcher in the American League.
If they're not going to find out, we'd like to know the reason why.
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...why they wouldn't move Capps to the rotation, but I think it may have something to do with his mechanics. From the way he throws, I'm not entirely sure that he can survive throwing 100 pitchers per outting every fifth day. It's interesting to to speculate about, though.
No, of course not. That is dumb.
I don't know how many teams have back-end guys who could be plus starters, but we have two. Pryor is never starting with that motion, but Capps or Wilhelmsen? They absolutely could.
And IMO one of em should - but I don't think either of em will. We have plenty of starters to choose from. If we don't trade any of em, then we have Erasmo, Hultzen, Paxton, Walker, Beavan, Noesi (ha), and a couple more minor league arms. We have Felix and Vargas under contract/control next year, and would almost certainly go with another vet pitcher if Vargas was dropped (whether it's Iwakuma, Greinke or whomever).
For maybe three spots we have 4 SERIOUS contenders, like top-50-prospect kind of contenders, and now we're gonna add Capps to that?
I think he should be a starter, and I think if we traded him that another team would have him as a starter pretty quickly (or if not, certainly a closer capable of multiple innings). We're using him as our 3rd setup man. Either we're ridiculously deep, or we're deploying resources in a less-than-optimal manner.
Of course, if Paxton, Hultzen and Erasmo kill it next year then we're just ridiculously deep, and selfish hoarders besides.
Do we just let Capps keep killing it from the pen and break-glass-in-case-of-emergency if we have a rotation problem next year?
~G
Capps Lock coming soon to a rotation near you ....
Wouldn't doubt that there would be pro's who took that position, Lon-Man ... from where I sit it looks pretty Jered Weaver-y ... smooth, nice and sidearm with no stress on the shoulder, the long arm clears loosely in Big Unit style, so what is it about the delivery that causes worries?
Other org's - just so. Hope that remark of yours gives somebody pause for thought. You can just see Toronto or KC or somebody starting him in game 4 of the 2013 season, and getting 17 W's out of the kid, winding up with next year's Chris Sale. Should provoke a bit of paradigm shift, that.