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MLB thread
- Thread starter little gk
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Hey Stall, I felt the same way about Dice-K four years ago. I'd see how he pans out before you make him your idol.
I understand the skepticism when it comes to pitchers coming from Japan. But what people don't understand is that even in their home country, Darvish's numbers completely dwarf Dice-K's. The worst ERA he's had in Japan is better then Dice K's best. For his career he is sub 1.90 i think where as Dice-K is 2.9x. Also Darvish has one of the nastiest repertoire's of pitches I have seen in my life, his slider is just completely unfair and he has like a 7 pitch arsenal. Not saying that he's a sure thing but he's a much better bet then anyone who's come from Japan in the past and will probably (and hopefully) develop into a TORP for my Rangers for years to come!
Edit: http://eye-on-baseball.blogs.cbssports.com/mcc/blogs/entry/22297882/33955130
Edit: http://eye-on-baseball.blogs.cbssports.com/mcc/blogs/entry/22297882/33955130
I don't care where he's from, the fact is is that you are signing (hopefully) a pitcher who never faced quality hitting before to a long-term contract. Overseas leagues are nothing like the MLB and are a little better talent wise to College baseball. To me, Darvish is like a first round draft pick who you hope can play at a Major league level. Sometimes you are going to get a great player, other times you are going to be like the Pirates and draft a complete bust.
Darvish to me compares right now to Bryce Harper. Both are uber hyped and not MLB or even AAA proven. I want to see if they can handle playing before I deem them the savior of a franchise. But that's just me...
Agreed with butteredtoast, before we start jizzing over him we have to test him against big league bats. The only difference between him and other japanese i really see i is his fluent delivery. He's no verlander with 99 then drop a 78 mph knee buckler or aroldis chapman wizzing 103 past you, but maybe a #2 in the rotation. Its good he has a american like delivery because those damn japanese players pretty much show hitters the ball for seconds. Kei igawa fucking sucked, so maybe darvish will have a simular fate. Hope he denies the rangers.
According to TR, the O's turned down a trade of Andrew Jones for Jair Jurrjens, Martin Prado AND a picthing prospect.
There is no way I would not jump on this if I was the O's. Are you freaking kidding me Duke? Your offense is good enough to win with Reynolds, Roberts, Markakis, and Wieters. Unless you want to finish dead last again, you are going to need a viable pitcher to confront the Lesters, Sabathias, Morrows, and Prices of your division. Guthrie is not going to cut it as a #3 guy let alone your ace.
No wonder the Red Sox fired your ass Duke. No wonder.
There is no way I would not jump on this if I was the O's. Are you freaking kidding me Duke? Your offense is good enough to win with Reynolds, Roberts, Markakis, and Wieters. Unless you want to finish dead last again, you are going to need a viable pitcher to confront the Lesters, Sabathias, Morrows, and Prices of your division. Guthrie is not going to cut it as a #3 guy let alone your ace.
No wonder the Red Sox fired your ass Duke. No wonder.
I wouldnt say he's a stud and we know of his injury rep, but for the orioles he would easily be a #1. The orioles god-awful pitching would be improved by a young yet veteran pitcher like him. Adam jones i see as a future 30-30 player, and maybe a few mvp's. As buttered said before its not like the orioles have that bad of an offense: hardy, hr or strike out reynolds, wieters, markakis. Brian matusz and guthrie isnt going to win 80+ games a year. Should of accepted trade.
Adam Jones is a above average player that has not really played out to his potential while Jair is a top of the line pitcher who has struggled with some health problems recently. Both are young and both have the exact number of years of team control left (two). I would consider them to be about equal in both pros and cons when all is said and done.
What you also need to take into consideration is the state of Baltimores pitching staff, whose BEST pitcher went 9-17 with a 4.33 ERA. That is a number that should be comming out of a 4 or 5 pitcher, not a teams ace.
Also consider that it is not a one-for-one trade. The O's would also recieve a replacement OF'er in Prado AND a pitching prospect. Even sabermetrically, Baltimore wins EVEN WITH Jair's injuries.
JONES 2011 WAR: 3.2
JURRJENS 2011 WAR (4.0) + PRADO 2011 WAR (1.3)= 5.3
That my friend is a gain of 2.1 wins right there, not even taking into consideration that the pitcher Jair would replace would have a negative war number.
So in conclusion, unless Baltimore is looking to get some other big named pitcher that we don't know about, (and based on their Yu Darvish bid that's very unlikely) I'd say that this trade should have been made.
I'd say being a fat ass stickler who can't enjoy some offseason conversation takes the cake.
I just want to clarify a few things. I'm not sure exactly how I feel about this trade yet without looking at the service time and contracts of the players, but man do I hate it when people are all like Jair is a great pitcher woo! Top line starter. He's not. Jair Jurrjens is an above average pitcher, who will see success come to him from luck on balls in play because he can't get people out any other way. He had one of the lowest K/9 rates out of all starters last year at 5.33, and the stat is DROPPING on his year to year basis. He manages to maintain decent BB/9 rates, which help maintain a decent ERA, but when your fastball velocity is 89-90, there just isn't much you can do to maintain a lot of success in the league (unless your name is Greg Maddux). He's not durable, and he doesn't go deep in games.
The only other thing that I see is using the BR version of WAR, especially when it comes to pitchers. While the formulas may seem similar, BR uses ERA, whereas Fangraphs using FIP. The reason why his BR WAR was so high was because he was so lucky early in the year. He had some of the highest LOB% and lowest BABIP out of any starters in the league. If one looks at the quality of his actual performance, it wasn't that good... Sure, above average, but he doesn't have much going for him.
Anyways, I would be so much more in love with Adam Jones is he could read the strike zone. After watching Vernon Wells for so long, its so frustrating to see a player with almost every gift, yet he is unable to identify a ball for a strike and take a walk.
The only other thing that I see is using the BR version of WAR, especially when it comes to pitchers. While the formulas may seem similar, BR uses ERA, whereas Fangraphs using FIP. The reason why his BR WAR was so high was because he was so lucky early in the year. He had some of the highest LOB% and lowest BABIP out of any starters in the league. If one looks at the quality of his actual performance, it wasn't that good... Sure, above average, but he doesn't have much going for him.
Anyways, I would be so much more in love with Adam Jones is he could read the strike zone. After watching Vernon Wells for so long, its so frustrating to see a player with almost every gift, yet he is unable to identify a ball for a strike and take a walk.
Nats traded for Gio Gonzalez today. The Nats had to give up three of their top ten prospects to get him.
In my mind, quite an investment in a guy who lead the entire world in walks for the last two years...
In my mind, quite an investment in a guy who lead the entire world in walks for the last two years...
He still pitched over 200 innings of slightly over 3 era ball, with almost 200 strikeouts. The Nats needed a starter that was both good and could rack up innings since they still don't know how Strasburg/Zimmermann will handle a full season after both coming off of injuries. Now, their rotation is well above average with a HUGE upside, they have a good bullpen, and have a damn good lineup. They could contend for the wild card as soon as this year, definitely next year when Harper finally makes it to the majors.
FUCK! Why cant brian cashman get any pitchers that can say "i have pitched 150+ innings the last few years": yes bartolo, im hating on you. I hope we get Kuroda in a trade with LA, we're stacked in the minors and i understand we're not giving up our future, but at least some prospects to get some pitching. After sabathia we have someone who either throws no hit stuff or gets fucked, someone who cant throw a fastball, someone who was out of the big leagues for years, and someone who is in his 2nd year. Everyone calls us the evil empire, but we barely spend any fucking money.
You didn't have to spend money on Gio. You needed to spend prospects.
And Kuroda is a free agent, so no need to trade for him there. However, he has made it well known that he only wants to pitch for a West Coast team. For the Yankees, Oswalt looks like a better fit.
Tell that to Rafael "i'm taking a shitton of money to set up for mo" Soriano or AJ "i can't pitch my way out of a paper bag, let alone a jam" Burnett. Cashman for once is making the right moves by not making any moves and waiting for his albatross contracts to go away before throwing more money at his problems.
Thought he was still with LA. 2 years we were severely dissapointed when 2 nasty lefty starters in consecutive years turned us down for other teams. I heard somewhere that Kuroda is nearing a deal with us, which we really need him to eat up a #3 in the rotation innings. We all know our bullpen is probably the best in baseball along with atlanta, but when burnett, garcia, and colon are rocked in the 2nd inning it screws us over when we blow out our bullpen's arms. And thank you about oswalt! I suggested they get him when he was up for trade. He is looking for a 1 year deal somewhere, so we can offer him 12 million or whatever he wants to give time to raise the killer b's into the majors: betances and banuelos. Our staff is pretty movement and pitch placement based, so oswalt throwing 92 with a 12-6 curve will fit great for a #2. And now tennisace; soriano was signed to set up yes, but since mariano is going to retire after this year he will take over the sandman. How could anyone predict after 2 straight fantastic years he wouldnt even pitch half the season? Cashman is not making the right moves, he is literally climbing on the side of buildings jacking off to what he thinks A-rod is doing positive to our team. Unfortunately we are not rid of our "albatross" contacts, because a-rod is still being payed more then half the pirates team combined to sit on his sorry ass and mope over such sissy injuries, like a sore calf causing a 15 day dl sentence. If we want to even be competitively viable with the red sox or even the rays, we need to have another arm anchoring our rotation. Cashman thinks our team is in great shape, but we have no-names pitching for us, we can do so much better. When did we ever save our prospects? I understand monterro and betances will likely be our future, but right now we need to worry about today, not in 5 years. Cashman is not showing what his name states.
The Cardinals signed Carlos Beltran for 2 years and the deal is worth $25 million. Looks like a pretty good signing to me. After all, with Pujols gone the Cards needed some more offensive pop in the lineup. He's probably going to play right field since Allen Craig is out for 2 months at the beginning of the season and since Berkman's going to 1st base. Your thoughts?
I wish i could say "Great signing", but since beltran starting to decline in his play i dont know what to say anymore. The giants definitely got crap with signing him, and since his bat was missing he really cant turn to his explosive speed anymore. Decent signing, but he's not worth that money.
Is any free agent worth the amount of money he signs for?
Cespedes goes right along with my Yu Darvish post.
Not a free agent, but longoria who is one of the most talented young players in the game got locked up by tampa for something i think is less then 5 million a year. Thats a steal
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