TaylorStSox

Crochet's pitched 79 innings in 4 years and Kopech has been a bigger disappointment than Moncada. Maybe we should wait more than 5 games before having this discussion.

Never. Trade both.

God forbid there are fat players on the team?

Doesn't that depend on whether Clevinger was a good teammate? He's been around and had a lot of success.

It's been proven that Bauer was targeted. The issue with Bauer is that he he seems uncoachable. He's going to do whatever the hell he wants. They loved the theatrics in Japan, but if he's going to do it here, he better be Cy Young Bauer, not mediocre Bauer. Clevinger is a bit different as his accuser is an ex. MLB investigated his case exhaustively and cleared him. I'm not sure what else he can do. Playing "Gold Digger" was insensitive as hell, but it's also an act of somebody who's pretty confident they're innocent.

After watching a lot of Thorpe, Snelling and Lesko, I like Thorpe more than Lesko. Lesko reminds me a bit of a poor man's AJ Burnett. He throws hard and his change has a lot of natural drop, but there's not a lot of deception. I'm sure the spin metrics love him, but he's a good indicator of why delivery/deception can be more important than raw movement. Snelling is super interesting. HIgh effort delivery with a nasty sweeper/slurve type of pitch, almost like Buehrle, but he also throws a really heavy 4 seamer at about 96. As good as that 4 seamer looks, I think I'd rather have Buehrle's cutter. That cutter won't get the swinging strikes, but it's impossible for RH hitters to hit and lay off of.

I don't give a s%*# about infidelity. I do give a s%*# about abuse and nothing has shown that Clevinger and Bauer are abusers. If a woman consents to rough, consensual sex, that's not abuse.

7:23 - "Chicago's monster lineup." ? Basically, this video is showing that he was able to get k's by hanging change up's because the short arm delivery was super deceptive.

You realize women have agency to have sex in any way they deem fit, right?

I know nothing about Bauer or Clevinger's politics. Considering they're baseball players, I assume the worst. With that said, everything that's been verified about both Bauer and Clevinger shows they're dumb kids that like to party and have made some bad decisions. That evidence has also shown both were set up. MLB would absolutely love to nail both of them. They cost Bauer hundreds of millions. If there was any real evidence that proved they were abusers, neither would ever be eligible again. From what I can tell, Bauer comes off like a guy that wants to challenge convention at every opportunity and Clevinger is just kind of dumb.

I want to say Pitching Ninja did a video on Gio which showed it really wasn't the sticky stuff, but I'm not completely sure. I believe he's one the best examples of a guy whose delivery was way more important than his spin rate and velo. A good comp would be Mark Prior.

This is your best post.

Here's the latest video on Bauer's Youtube. I just don't see this guy as a psychopath.

Kopech has one of those Nolan Ryan type of arms, where everything he throws is nasty as hell and hard as hell. Nobody will ever figure out what in the hell is wrong with him.

I think it had the movement of a 70 change, but he struggled so much with his arm slot and extension that it went from a plus change to a mediocre curve. I don't think his velocity was the thing that broke him, it was his delivery. He was always in his own head and always struggled with repeating.

If you're going to compare Clevenger and Bauer to Ted Bundy and John Wayne Gacy, there's really no point in us having any type of conversation. Clevenger doesn't fit that profile at all. Like, not even a little bit. From what I know, that worst thing he's ever done was breaking covid protocol to do blow with a few girls. As a kid in his early 20's, that's pretty normal. Irresponsible? Absolutely, but he's an idiot baseball player with a lot of money and no education. That doesn't make him a psychopath.

The other thing to watch with Thorpe is that his 92-94 looks super easy. It's really, really deceptive.

When Gio was at his best, his slider was the pitch that really made the difference. I think Thorpe's change is better than any pitch Gio ever threw. Is it good enough for him to be a 2 pitch starter? Maddux was able to throw 4 variations of his change along with a serviceable curve and a 4 seamer with movement. The ch was the pitch that made him truly elite though.

I'll post this again. This change is so good, it would make Keith Foulke blush.

The question with Thorpe is whether major league hitters will just sit fb and completely ignore his change. I'm not sure if he's deceptive enough to fool truly elite hitters. He makes AA hitters look terrible.

From what I can tell, he has a few different grips on the change. It drops against RH hitters, almost like a 12/6. Against LH hitters it tails when he throws away and drops when he throws it in. His slider also looks serviceable against RH hitters. It has good movement, but he doesn't throw it with authority. He throws his 4 seamer with purpose. His ch is so good that it looks like he feels like he's throwing 98. He's super interesting to watch - guy with change up that's so special he can throw 92 and lead all of the minors in k's and k/9.

Bauer had consensual, fetishized sex with a few different women. He was investigated by MLB, the police and the DA. Ultimately, he was cleared. He's a really weird guy. He's a defiant asshole, but he's also fairly likable. If you watch his Youtube channel, he does a lot for kids and really loves the game. I'm not convinced he's a bad dude. I think he's a guy that really likes to challenge convention. Clevinger seems like a guy that likes to party and was set up by his ex. He's been under more scrutiny than any player I can remember. He might be dumb. He might be an asshole, but I'm also not convinced he's a bad guy. He was also cleared by the police, DA and MLB. Baseball has been littered with really bad people that did terrible things. Bauer and Clevinger have been under investigation for half a decade and they're cleared to play. What else can they do?

I'm not sure if there's evidence that it matters, but all of them have 1/8th slots and don't throw hard. Thorpe's change up is the best pitch all of them feature. Soroka throws the hardest and pitches more diagonally. I just think if you want to set up Thorpe for the very most success, you want to sandwich him between pitchers who look nothing like him. It makes his ch look even more devastating. After watching several innings of him pitch, that ch is really, really fuckin special.

The other thing about Bauer is that he's not a low effort pitcher. He's a baseball nerd that obsessed with the game. He's just got some kind of personality disorder I'm not qualified to diagnose. If he fails, it won't be because he's not trying. Based on the carefree profile we've seen from all of our players since the Hahn era began, he might actually be a positive influence. He's a total asshole, but he actually plays hard as hell and he's not scared to talk s%*#. He's also willing to absorb all the negative press the team will encounter. The more I think about it, the more I like it.

The one thing that I really hate about this trade is that Soroka, Flexen and Fedde are RH's that don't throw hard and feature plus changes. That's not how you set up a pitcher like Thorpe up for success. You'd like a LH or a hard throwing FB/SL/CU starter to separate their profiles.