The Monday Before: 4 Good Things Right Off the Bat
.
Erasmo Martinez has been shut down for two weeks with a lat strain. As Matt reminds us, this can be worse than advertised, maybe much worse. As the mainframe reminds us, this is not an explosion of his rotator cuff. "Things happen" sez Scott Servais. So, Dr. D's main interpretation here is that Marc-O will get a Willy Wonka Golden Ticket and will have to toss it overboard to miss the rotation.
Ariel Miranda has real good life on his LH fastball and deception on his armside changeup (which I think they call a "slider" for some reason). Here's a YouTube on which Miranda blows away many, many, MANY enemy hitters.
As Dipoto has said, the M's will be game-planning their BOR for 15- outs. Miranda's problem, to date, has been his class-A caliber gloveslide slider (which they call a changeup for some reason). Miranda's CTL was 3.1 on pitches 51-75 last year, but it fell off to 1.6 on pitches 75+. Until he gets his 3rd pitch together, and until Marc-O gets about -4 MPH off his changeup, they're both in need of quick hooks. So the news here is irritating, but not Paxton-to-the-DL lame.
Okay, maybe that's not a GOOD thing as such. But y'know. We've got 8, 9 draws at the rotation deck. Moving Erasmo to April gives us a chance to build on a talented Miranda and on a St. Louis Cardinal. We'll stay cool and reach for another lemynade.
.....
Yes, we know it would nice if Dipoto would buy a pitcher. Typing that in all caps here isn't going to change anything there.
.....
John McGrath breaks code by telling us schlubs that King Felix is -- and will be -- accustomed to being treated as a Hall of Famer, whether or not he pitches like one. Fine, give him Opening Day if that's the way he's going to be. And hope that his light IP in 2017 bounce him into a crisper fastball for 2018.
What's good about a sneer on Felix' lip? Check him in three weeks.
.....
Jerry Dipoto has been talking about David Phelps ike he's the very key to the bullpen. Say what? Of course you know about these guys:
Diaz - CL
Nicasio - SU/CL
Vincent - SU
Pazos - nuclear, wild LH SU
Zip - groundball LH SU
But Phelps, when he's throwing right, has an eye-blink 96 fastball and an absolute parachute yellow hammer. Here's Exhibit A.
(That leaves Zych as #7 and a gaggle of competition for #8.)
....
With Heredia injured, the Ichiro option becomes intriguing to at least one M's fan, because you're not even going to recognize the 40-man roster names that come after that. The question is whether you could get Ichiro to accept a graceful exit once Heredia was ready to go again?
....
Jeff Sullivan has an entertaining read on teams that were projected to win 100 games (that's 95 in STEAMER-speak). You remember the '15 Nationals, with Scherzer-Gio-Strasburg-Fister-Zimmermann, projected before the season to +14 games better than the #2 NL East team. They finished 83-79.
There are tons and tons of such examples, and they're recent. The 2005 Dodgers were projected to 92 wins, and got 71. Both 2008 New York teams were projected -- that's STEAMER-projected -- to win 95 games, but both missed the playoffs entirely.
Moral of the story? You're an SSI Denizen. You don't need it drawn for yer.
BABVA,
Dr D