State of our starting pitchers

[chw42]

Poreda throws a slider and changeup and they are both average pitches. He can start in the majors with his repetoire because his fastball is explosive with movement. An Ace? No. Top of the rotation guy? No. But a 4 or 5? Certainly.

 

Jon Garland: 4.90 ERA, 1.51 WHIP, .303 batting average against, 59 BBs and 90 Ks.

Javier Vazquez: 4.67 ERA, 1.32 WHIP, .263 batting average against, 61 BBs and 200 Ks.

 

By these numbers, it is also safe to say that Vazquez underperformed based on peripherals and Garland overperformed. Garland, as much as I love him, is trash.

 

Garland didn't overperform. He had his worst year this season since 2004. I don't think he likes Anaheim very much.

[chw42]

I don't trade Vazquez for him though. I'd trade Vazquez for Hardy and that's about it from Milwaukee.

 

 

 

I would like to know how you know he undervalues Lincecum...because I imagine if he did that, Lincecum would be in a different uniform right now.

 

In other words, I highly doubt he undervalues Lincecum.

 

J.J. Hardy's a good hitting shortstop, but he is extremely streaky.

[chw42]

Sabean aint that stupid, you would have to throw in a bunch of young prospects, even then I think any team can beat our offer for what they need (which is younger players who are cheaper, unless Sabean really believes his team can compete after losing Cain).

 

If we can get Cain for Jermaine Dye (or even better...Swisher), I would piss my pants in joy.

[Disco72]

Here are Weeks' numbers over the past 3 seasons FWIW;

 

06 - .279/.363/.404

07 - .235/.374/.433

08 - .234/.342/.398

 

I think if he was available, the Sox should definitely have a look at him at least. I wouldn't play him at 2B though.

 

 

Weeks would have to be able to play CF. I do like his batting eye. Yet I still would like someone who could play more than one OF spot, esp, if Dye is traded.

 

Weeks' numbers seem very Swish-like, though Swish has the better slugging and Weeks can steal a few bases. I haven't seen Weeks play at all, but is he a better CFer than Swisher? Unless we unloaded Swisher in another deal, I don't want two guys with those stats on the team. I like the OBP, but the Sox need some hitters with higher average to go with the OBP.

 

Swish:

2006 - .254/.372/.493

2007 - .262/.381/.455

2008 - .219/.332/.410

 

 

 

[bigruss]

The man traded Liriano, Bonser and Nathan for AJ, signed Zito, made a habit out of signing over the hill veterans, and drastically undervalues Tim Lincecum. I don't think we can put to many positive spins on his intelligence.

AJ back then was a promising young catcher, which basically is a HUGE commodity to have, Nathan was not a prime closer then, Liriano had extreme injury concerns (and look what happened, he had tommy john), and Bonser was a pretty good pitching prospect but not great. At the time, the trade did not seem that bad, what happened afterwards is what made it suck as much as it does.

 

The Zito signing has no real justification, though one could argue to take some blame off of him for his rationalizing that Zito would be able to keep his #1/2 starter status if he pitched in the NL, I mean did anybody think he would tank THIS badly? Atleast this quickly? Of course, its the risk you take with any FA, or any player in general, sometimes they just fall apart, its baseball. s*** happens.

[Balta1701]

The Zito signing has no real justification, though one could argue to take some blame off of him for his rationalizing that Zito would be able to keep his #1/2 starter status if he pitched in the NL, I mean did anybody think he would tank THIS badly? Atleast this quickly? Of course, its the risk you take with any FA, or any player in general, sometimes they just fall apart, its baseball. s*** happens.

Quite frankly...yeah. I'm not sure I predicted an ERA of 8, but seriously, I though he was falling apart. His fastball was losing 2 mph a year. He'd gone from being a hard thrower to tossing softer than Jamie Moyer within about 3 years, and that was before the Giants signed him.

[bigruss]

Quite frankly...yeah. I'm not sure I predicted an ERA of 8, but seriously, I though he was falling apart. His fastball was losing 2 mph a year. He'd gone from being a hard thrower to tossing softer than Jamie Moyer within about 3 years, and that was before the Giants signed him.

Exactly, you said it right there, you didnt think he would be THIS bad, I predicted he would have one or two decent years, but after that lose any reason to be starting, but who could predict he would be taken out of the Giants rotation in just the second year.

[ThunderBolt]

I mean did anybody think he would tank THIS badly?

Billy Beane did too. His decision not resign Zito was not only a financial one, but also one where the organizations projections had Zito experiencing a significant drop-off in the near future. Zito, at his best had an insane curveball to offset a mediocre fastball. The A’s organization reckoned that as soon as Zito lost his finite control of that curve, he would lose his value to the organization as well.

[bigruss]

Billy Beane did too. His decision not resign Zito was not only a financial one, but also one where the organizations projections had Zito experiencing a significant drop-off in the near future. Zito, at his best had an insane curveball to offset a mediocre fastball. The A’s organization reckoned that as soon as Zito lost his finite control of that curve, he would lose his value to the organization as well.

Yea, makes sense why they wouldnt try to compete with large offers, but mostly because they couldnt afford to compete, i mean few teams could counter a deal like that of the giants for a player who had shown to be on the downward slope. If they could get him for what they thought was a fair deal, i bet they sign it, but every team is going to value a player differently, the Giants jsut thought he was a valuable piece who may help them win the division, obviously it backfired big time.

[Balta1701]

Exactly, you said it right there, you didnt think he would be THIS bad, I predicted he would have one or two decent years, but after that lose any reason to be starting, but who could predict he would be taken out of the Giants rotation in just the second year.

I didn't even think we'd be talking about decent years for him though.

[bigruss]

I didn't even think we'd be talking about decent years for him though.

Well, I took form your previous post that you thought he might be below-average in his first couple of years, as you stated he has turned into a Moyer like soft tossing pitcher, but if you look at Moyer's stats thats pretty average, youre talking about 200 innings, and about a 4.5 era (recently its ranged between 4 and 5, though he did have a 3.71 era this year). So I dont know if you were actually talking about comparing Zito to Moyer's performance, or just the type of pitches he now has, but Moyer has been solid in the NL. Basically, I took it as you saying he would be average to below-average while progressively getting worse, and I was just stating I didnt think anybody could predict he would be out of a SF Giant rotation in less than two years.

[sircaffey]

It should be interesting to see Zito next year. I think he will do much better (4.10-4.20 ERA). I saw a number of his starts and it seemed that he threw less and less fastballs as the season went on, and his stats started to turn around some. He has an above average changeup which he threw a ton later in the year. His velocity also returned up in the upper 80's as opposed to the mid to low 80's he was throwing early in the season. Should be interesting to see where he sits next season. If he can continue to improve on his slider, he could return to being at least a middle of the rotation SP.

[scenario]

Here's an interesting little stat...

 

If you take the top 20 starting pitchers in the AL (ranked by 2008 ERA) and look at the teams they play for... Here's how it stacks up.

 

The number in parentheses below is the number of those 20 pitchers that play for each team.

 

LAA (3)

Sox (3)

Tampa (2)

Boston (2)

Toronto (2)

Royals (2)

Seattle (1)

Detroit (1)

Cleveland (1)

Minnesota (1)

Baltimore (1)

Yankees (1)

 

Teams without a starting pitcher in the top 20: Texas and Oakland.

Edited October 23, 2008 by scenario