Rotation Problems
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GRATUITOUS NFL REPORTING
I thought yesterday's game was one of the most exciting I've seen. The Rams looked Super Bowl-worthy, got the 'Hawks way back onto their heels. But the Seahawks pulled 10 different highlight film plays, fought with the hearts of champions, and perhaps fired up a rivalry to replace the 49'ers. I saw the game as a spirited battle of titans.
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GRATUITOUS M'S SHTICK
Here's an article on Felix' strategy for becoming more durable as an old, and big, man. It's going to be away from weights; it says that much. Also there's an idea that Felix can cut his pitch counts (seems dubious to me).
But there is a thought floated in the piece "you can't do anything about ligaments;" that could be right but I doubt it. James Paxton took up a power yoga routine, correct? So the org is obviously hip on that strategy.
Older I get, the more I believe that the value of power yoga, for old people, is OBVIOUS. Felix is 32, going on what? But if the M's grabbed Ohtani or any of the DATA pitchers, have literally two rotations full of five and dive starters:
- Zeus
- DATA/Ohtani
- Felix
- Leake
- Erasmo
As well as
- Miranda
- Andrew Moore (very close to a Best Bet)
- Marc-O
- Andrew Albers will definiely have to pitch worse to avoid a quality MLB career. He probably will, but
- The entire winter's crab pot, starting with Max Povse who is pretty cook, on to Gaviglio (who isn't nothing), Overton, etc
Now that passions have died down, it DOES occur that we are over-applying 2017's bad injury luck to the 2018 Mariners. It's a funny thing that we know intellectually that ERA has problems, but then our mood is "set" by ERA anyway. That's operant conditioning for you.
It subjects a manager and GM to second-guessing, to deliberately install this Modified LaRussa thing with a bridge man planned for the late-middle innings. If you're going to get any thoughtful commentary on the Modified LaRussa you'll find it at SSI's think tank:
My own way of organizing my thinking is "Very obvious Strat-O-Matic advantages, but writer upheaval creates a lot of friction." Think Dipoto and Servais have it in them to push through it?
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Here's a dumb question for you. Why is Iwakuma not discussed for 2018? He's had a year of rest.
He's not going to get big offers. The M's seemed nice to him. It's more logical than "grooming" Smyly; it's a year forward in Smyly's process. Iwakuma hits spots in the 1st inning (and so could take an Andrew Albers role of throwing innings 5-7 sometimes). Not sure why we haven't read a thing on Iwakuma for 2018.
Cheers,
Dr D