Freddy Garcia

[ScottyDo]

ooo, oo, can we sign david wells too?!?!?

[ZoomSlowik]

Well, the original poster was comparing the two pitchers in their careers, or at least I thought he was. Him pointing out that Garcia's 4.09 ERA wasn't a massive upgrade over Vazquez's 4.29 ERA. I took that to mean that Garcia wasn't all that much better than Vazquez during their career. I disagree with that. Garcia was much better.

 

I said I would take a healthy Garcia (i.e. Garcia of 2004 - 2005) over Vazquez and then added that it was doubtful Garcia was healthy now.

 

There really wasn't all that much difference, a .2 ERA difference comes out to one run every 45 innings, or about 5 runs in an entire season, or 1 every 6 starts or so depending on how you look at it. Yes, Vasquez was pitching in the NL in Montreal, but Freddy was also pitching in pitcher-friendly Safeco for some much better teams. Just look at his 2004 split between Seattle and the Sox to see how much difference that can make, he posted a 3.20 in Seattle and a 4.46 in Chicago. Vasquez also got off to a much slower start to his career (6.06 and 5.00 ERA his first two years), which hurts his overall numbers. Freddy wasn't quite as bad as Javy when he was bad, but he was still pretty damn inconsistent, and 3 of the last 5 seasons before this surgery he posted an ERA above 4.50 (and it might have been 4 if all of 2004 had been in the Cell). I really think the "better pitcher" debate comes down to which year you pick, as it's clearly in Javy's favor the last two seasons as well several years in Montreal. And yes, if he had close to his old stuff or people thought he would he'd have been signed already, Mark Prior and Mark Mulder got signed while they were still injured, I believe Bartolo Colon was as well at some point the last few years, and I'm sure there are others that I'm forgetting.

 

If we're talking about him as a late season alternative to limit the innings for Danks or Floyd in September that's one thing, it's another to say we should take Javy out of the rotation for him in the unlikely event that he's healthy. He's 3 seasons removed from being a significantly more effective pitcher than Vasquez now, it's really not the same guy.

Edited July 2, 2008 by ZoomSlowik

[Balta1701]

If we're talking about him as a late season alternative to limit the innings for Danks or Floyd in September that's one thing, it's another to say we should take Javy out of the rotation for him in the unlikely event that he's healthy. He's 3 seasons removed from being a significantly more effective pitcher than Vasquez now, it's really not the same guy.

Frankly, I'm much, much less worried about Gavin Floyd's workload this year than I am Danksy's. Gavin's thrown 170 and 176 innings the last 2 years between the minors and the big leagues, and he's 2 years older than Danks so his arm has been seeing solid workloads for a while now. There's no reason why we need to plan to give him time off like we ought to do for Danks. We'd actually be pretty smart if we tried to push Floyd to get around 200 innings this year, because if we can get him to that point this year then it's entirely possible we'll have his arm readily conditioned to be one of those classic 200 inning per year guys for the next few years.

[Chisoxfn]

Frankly, I'm much, much less worried about Gavin Floyd's workload this year than I am Danksy's. Gavin's thrown 170 and 176 innings the last 2 years between the minors and the big leagues, and he's 2 years older than Danks so his arm has been seeing solid workloads for a while now. There's no reason why we need to plan to give him time off like we ought to do for Danks. We'd actually be pretty smart if we tried to push Floyd to get around 200 innings this year, because if we can get him to that point this year then it's entirely possible we'll have his arm readily conditioned to be one of those classic 200 inning per year guys for the next few years.

Completely agree with you on Floyd. It appears that he had a bit of a dead arm period which he's pitched through (his velocity was up his last outing) and hopefully we'll be able to get him right around the 200 inning mark. Of course you also have to remember if we hit post-season play you are adding a bit more innings as well (and hopefully we will be )

[lostfan]

Completely agree with you on Floyd. It appears that he had a bit of a dead arm period which he's pitched through (his velocity was up his last outing) and hopefully we'll be able to get him right around the 200 inning mark. Of course you also have to remember if we hit post-season play you are adding a bit more innings as well (and hopefully we will be )

You love your parentheses don't you?