Looks pretty good to me. The big thing to look for regarding potential shoulder problems is to see if his throwing hand is up in the air as the plant foot lands.
Basically just look at greg maddux and roger clemens in slow motion. If something is done differently than they way they do it, itill likely be the source of a potential problem.
His mechanics look pretty good to me. He’s a typical drop and drive pitcher like Nolan Ryan or Tom Seaver, which I like. To be a bit nitpicky, I do think he’ll have to build up his leg strength more to pitch successfully with that sort of delivery later in his career when his legs won’t be so fresh.
At first, when watching the slow motion video, it looks like he’s going to be late with his right arm as his left foot glides forward and then plants. But if you watch the last couple seconds of the delivery prior to his leg planting you can see that he does a nice job of kind of stepping over an imaginary object right before he plants.
This does two things: a) it allows him a little more time to get the arm up, which he does, and b) it allows him to generate that much more momentum toward the plate as he delivers the ball and takes that much more stress off the arm. You can see him fight against this momentum after the ball is released as he sort of hops up on the left foot while his back side comes through.
HOWEVER, if you watch him throw out of the stretch you’ll see that there’s a slight pause in his motion at the top of his leg kick. I don’t like this from a purely mechanical standpoint. It DOES upset the timing of the hitter ever so slightly, but it also stops his momentum. To use a weightlifting analogy, it’s sort of like stopping for a split second at the bottom of a squat. You lose the extra momentum that the stretch reflex allows for and you are effectively squatting from a stationary position much like squatting off of pins. It requires extra strain to complete the squat as a result.
This is much more dramatic than Darvish’s motion, but the concept is the same. By cutting short some of his momentum he has to strain that much more to get things going again. It’s a VERY slight factor here, but given that he’ll being throwing on four days’ rest and not five like in Japan, AND given that he’ll be expected to throw more innings than he has in Japan, the cumulative effect could be problematic for him.
One other thing I noticed that may be a problem is his tendency to place the ball so far behind him as he takes his right hand out of his mitt. It’s more of a timing mechanism than anything and something that can be problematic as far as finding a consistent release point goes. It’s my opinion that this is why Lincecum can be erratic with his command from time to time.
As long as he maintains a long stride length he should be fine with this ball path in terms of health. But if he doesn’t maintain a long stride length (either by inconsistently striding during a game or due to a loss of flexibility as his career lengthens) this WILL become a mechanical problem that will quicken the deterioration of his arm because now he’ll be slightly late getting the arm up and out in front. I’d like to see some video of him pitching when he’s struggling with his command and/or his velocity is down.
About his stuff: it’s pretty good, but I’m always skeptical about Japanese pitchers coming over here. There’s only been one who was any good for a considerable amount of time (Nomo). They use a different type of ball in Japan. It’s a little bit smaller and, like I said, they pitch every 6th day there. Also, from what I’ve heard he has a tendency to get away from the fastball and rely too heavily on his off-speed stuff.
When you throw as hard as he does (I’ve heard he consistently throws in the high 90’s) and you go to your off-speed stuff a lot, you’re essentially going to your second and third best pitches a lot. This isn’t Japan anymore, it’s the Major Leagues and he won’t be facing semi-reluctant players looking to get into shape while wearing the red, white and blue like he did in the World Baseball Classic. Major league hitters feast on everybody’s second and third best pitches when they see them often.
[quote]BONEZ217 wrote:
Looks pretty good to me. The big thing to look for regarding potential shoulder problems is to see if his throwing hand is up in the air as the plant foot lands.
Basically just look at greg maddux and roger clemens in slow motion. If something is done differently than they way they do it, itill likely be the source of a potential problem. [/quote]
I looked at Maddux’s delivery and I see what you’re saying.
[quote]DBCooper wrote:
HOWEVER, if you watch him throw out of the stretch you’ll see that there’s a slight pause in his motion at the top of his leg kick. I don’t like this from a purely mechanical standpoint. It DOES upset the timing of the hitter ever so slightly, but it also stops his momentum. To use a weightlifting analogy, it’s sort of like stopping for a split second at the bottom of a squat. You lose the extra momentum that the stretch reflex allows for and you are effectively squatting from a stationary position much like squatting off of pins. It requires extra strain to complete the squat as a result.
This is much more dramatic than Darvish’s motion, but the concept is the same. By cutting short some of his momentum he has to strain that much more to get things going again. It’s a VERY slight factor here, but given that he’ll being throwing on four days’ rest and not five like in Japan, AND given that he’ll be expected to throw more innings than he has in Japan, the cumulative effect could be problematic for him.
One other thing I noticed that may be a problem is his tendency to place the ball so far behind him as he takes his right hand out of his mitt. It’s more of a timing mechanism than anything and something that can be problematic as far as finding a consistent release point goes. It’s my opinion that this is why Lincecum can be erratic with his command from time to time.
As long as he maintains a long stride length he should be fine with this ball path in terms of health. But if he doesn’t maintain a long stride length (either by inconsistently striding during a game or due to a loss of flexibility as his career lengthens) this WILL become a mechanical problem that will quicken the deterioration of his arm because now he’ll be slightly late getting the arm up and out in front. I’d like to see some video of him pitching when he’s struggling with his command and/or his velocity is down.
About his stuff: it’s pretty good, but I’m always skeptical about Japanese pitchers coming over here. There’s only been one who was any good for a considerable amount of time (Nomo). They use a different type of ball in Japan. It’s a little bit smaller and, like I said, they pitch every 6th day there. Also, from what I’ve heard he has a tendency to get away from the fastball and rely too heavily on his off-speed stuff.
When you throw as hard as he does (I’ve heard he consistently throws in the high 90’s) and you go to your off-speed stuff a lot, you’re essentially going to your second and third best pitches a lot. This isn’t Japan anymore, it’s the Major Leagues and he won’t be facing semi-reluctant players looking to get into shape while wearing the red, white and blue like he did in the World Baseball Classic. Major league hitters feast on everybody’s second and third best pitches when they see them often.[/quote]
Pretty Interesting take. Will definitely have to watch the youtube a clip few more times to pick up everything you described.
So nothing horribly wrong with his delivery, but could use a few small tweaks in terms of mechanics.
I’m not convinced pitching on every 5th day vs 6th will be a huge issue since he will still be pitching the same amount of innings each year. I think the source for a lot of this concern is a result of Dice-K’s health problems. But Dice-K would throw upwards to 200 pitches/game on short rest in high school. Darvish didn’t abuse his arm and for that reason I would argue his arm is a lot younger than Dice-K’s arm at the same age.
[quote]therajraj wrote:
[quote]DBCooper wrote:
HOWEVER, if you watch him throw out of the stretch you’ll see that there’s a slight pause in his motion at the top of his leg kick. I don’t like this from a purely mechanical standpoint. It DOES upset the timing of the hitter ever so slightly, but it also stops his momentum. To use a weightlifting analogy, it’s sort of like stopping for a split second at the bottom of a squat. You lose the extra momentum that the stretch reflex allows for and you are effectively squatting from a stationary position much like squatting off of pins. It requires extra strain to complete the squat as a result.
This is much more dramatic than Darvish’s motion, but the concept is the same. By cutting short some of his momentum he has to strain that much more to get things going again. It’s a VERY slight factor here, but given that he’ll being throwing on four days’ rest and not five like in Japan, AND given that he’ll be expected to throw more innings than he has in Japan, the cumulative effect could be problematic for him.
One other thing I noticed that may be a problem is his tendency to place the ball so far behind him as he takes his right hand out of his mitt. It’s more of a timing mechanism than anything and something that can be problematic as far as finding a consistent release point goes. It’s my opinion that this is why Lincecum can be erratic with his command from time to time.
As long as he maintains a long stride length he should be fine with this ball path in terms of health. But if he doesn’t maintain a long stride length (either by inconsistently striding during a game or due to a loss of flexibility as his career lengthens) this WILL become a mechanical problem that will quicken the deterioration of his arm because now he’ll be slightly late getting the arm up and out in front. I’d like to see some video of him pitching when he’s struggling with his command and/or his velocity is down.
About his stuff: it’s pretty good, but I’m always skeptical about Japanese pitchers coming over here. There’s only been one who was any good for a considerable amount of time (Nomo). They use a different type of ball in Japan. It’s a little bit smaller and, like I said, they pitch every 6th day there. Also, from what I’ve heard he has a tendency to get away from the fastball and rely too heavily on his off-speed stuff.
When you throw as hard as he does (I’ve heard he consistently throws in the high 90’s) and you go to your off-speed stuff a lot, you’re essentially going to your second and third best pitches a lot. This isn’t Japan anymore, it’s the Major Leagues and he won’t be facing semi-reluctant players looking to get into shape while wearing the red, white and blue like he did in the World Baseball Classic. Major league hitters feast on everybody’s second and third best pitches when they see them often.[/quote]
Pretty Interesting take. Will definitely have to watch the youtube a clip few more times to pick up everything you described.
So nothing horribly wrong with his delivery, but could use a few small tweaks in terms of mechanics.
I’m not convinced pitching on every 5th day vs 6th will be a huge issue since he will still be pitching the same amount of innings each year. I think the source for a lot of this concern is a result of Dice-K’s health problems. But Dice-K would throw upwards to 200 pitches/game on short rest in high school. Darvish didn’t abuse his arm and for that reason I would argue his arm is a lot younger than Dice-K’s arm at the same age.[/quote]
Well, in reality pretty much any pitcher could use small tweaks to their delivery. There are very, very few pitchers who threw hard who remained injury-free AND threw strikes consistently. Even Nolan Ryan probably could have used a slight tweak, hence his horrible command, especially earlier in his career.
Pitching every 5th day might not be a big issue, but if he throws the same innings in the bigs that he did in Japan, he’ll be doing so over a shorter time frame. This could definitely accelerate any deterioration in his arm strength. Keep in mind, not only was he starting every 6th day, he also never made more than 28 starts in a season. The demand placed on him in the bigs is WAY bigger than the demand placed on pitchers in Japan. That’s not to mention that the quality of hitters in the bigs is far and away much better than in Japan.
Where did you hear that Matsuzaka was throwing 200+ pitches in his high school career? If he was throwing that many pitches in high school? That’s gotta be complete bullshit or an aberration rather than the norm for him. If he consistently threw that many pitches it tells me that he fucking sucked in high school except that every other pitcher on his team was even worse. That’s a LOT of pitches for a 7-inning game, and I assume he was really good in high school.
Regardless, the adjustment Darvish needs to make when throwing on what would essentially be short rest for him could be difficult to make. I’m just not sold on any of these Japanese pitchers at all. Matsuzaka was supposed to be the Real Deal and he clearly wasn’t. His first season was below average (15-12, 4.40 ERA), his second season was good (18-3, 2.90 ERA). But as we all know, those numbers are a bit deceiving. He was all over the place most of the year and was injured, beginning a recurring pattern of arm fatigue/breakdowns. Every year since then has been a complete bust.
Nomo is really the only good Japanese starting pitcher to play in the bigs, and even then he wasn’t good for an extended period of time. He was really good for a couple years and then was mostly mediocre with the intermittent flash of brilliance. There’s been a couple good relievers, and I don’t think it’s a coincidence that for the most part those who have succeeded have been relievers.
I think there seems to be this fascination with Japanese players that is due in some part to racism or ignorance. We see these pitchers with unconventional windups and weird names for their pitches and we assign the same sort of cunning and deviousness and inventiveness that we assign them when we marvel at some of the electronic shit coming out of Japan.
The bottom line is that he’s 6’5", 185 lbs with a good fastball and good off-speed stuff who already has four seasons with 200+ innings and another with 185 innings under his belt. That isn’t anything special at all by Major League Baseball standards. There are all sorts of 25 year olds in the bigs with that kind of stuff, and they’re built to hold up much better over the course of a 35-start season. I don’t see what’s different about him, other than he’s a completely unproven commodity.
[quote]DBCooper wrote:
Well, in reality pretty much any pitcher could use small tweaks to their delivery. There are very, very few pitchers who threw hard who remained injury-free AND threw strikes consistently. Even Nolan Ryan probably could have used a slight tweak, hence his horrible command, especially earlier in his career.
Pitching every 5th day might not be a big issue, but if he throws the same innings in the bigs that he did in Japan, he’ll be doing so over a shorter time frame. This could definitely accelerate any deterioration in his arm strength. Keep in mind, not only was he starting every 6th day, he also never made more than 28 starts in a season. The demand placed on him in the bigs is WAY bigger than the demand placed on pitchers in Japan. That’s not to mention that the quality of hitters in the bigs is far and away much better than in Japan. [/quote]
I want to point out that even though he threw every 6th day he also averaged 125 pitches/start.
[quote]DBCooper wrote:
Where did you hear that Matsuzaka was throwing 200+ pitches in his high school career? If he was throwing that many pitches in high school? That’s gotta be complete bullshit or an aberration rather than the norm for him. If he consistently threw that many pitches it tells me that he fucking sucked in high school except that every other pitcher on his team was even worse. That’s a LOT of pitches for a 7-inning game, and I assume he was really good in high school.[/quote]
Yeah, I just recited what I vaguely remembered reading when Dice-K first came over.
I looked it up and this is what actually happened:
In high school there was a start he threw 250 pitches in a 17 inning game, then the very next day threw a complete game shutout. He would also regularly throw 130-150 pitch games in high school and even in his Japanese professional career. My initial post was off but the message is the same. His arm was abused early on in his baseball career.
[quote]DBCooper wrote:
Regardless, the adjustment Darvish needs to make when throwing on what would essentially be short rest for him could be difficult to make. I’m just not sold on any of these Japanese pitchers at all. Matsuzaka was supposed to be the Real Deal and he clearly wasn’t. His first season was below average (15-12, 4.40 ERA), his second season was good (18-3, 2.90 ERA). But as we all know, those numbers are a bit deceiving. He was all over the place most of the year and was injured, beginning a recurring pattern of arm fatigue/breakdowns. Every year since then has been a complete bust.[/quote]
Darvish was way more dominant that Dice-K in Japan. Dice-K’s best ERA in Japan was 2.12 while Darvish’s WORST ERA in Japan was 1.88.
On top of that, Darvish was managed correctly while managed Dice-K was not. Darvish could very well bust, but I wouldn’t consider Dice-K an apt comparison.
[quote]DBCooper wrote:
I think there seems to be this fascination with Japanese players that is due in some part to racism or ignorance. We see these pitchers with unconventional windups and weird names for their pitches and we assign the same sort of cunning and deviousness and inventiveness that we assign them when we marvel at some of the electronic shit coming out of Japan.[/quote]
It’s amusing to see Cuban and Japanese professionals described as mysterious and unpredictable. What year is this again?
[quote]DBCooper wrote:
The bottom line is that he’s 6’5", 185 lbs with a good fastball and good off-speed stuff who already has four seasons with 200+ innings and another with 185 innings under his belt. [/quote]
Darvish is apparently 215lb now. He has also has great control, strikes out a good amount of batters and has a low walk rate.
in 2011 he averaged 1.4 walks per 9 innings pitched.
[quote]DBCooper wrote:
That isn’t anything special at all by Major League Baseball standards. There are all sorts of 25 year olds in the bigs with that kind of stuff, and they’re built to hold up much better over the course of a 35-start season. I don’t see what’s different about him, other than he’s a completely unproven commodity.[/quote]
Can’t really say how he’ll hold up in the Majors conditioning wise, too early to make that call.
I’m not sure where you see all these 25 year olds floating around with stuff on par with Darvish. They exist, but they aren’t abundant and certainly not easily attainable. I think you’re just accustomed to watching a top 5 pitching staff and a division full of pitcher friendly parks. That division has the ability to turn mediocre pitchers into good pitchers. Perfect example: Heath Bell. Just watch, now that he’s a Marlin he’ll get lit up.
[quote]therajraj wrote:
Darvish is apparently 215lb now. He has also has great control, strikes out a good amount of batters and has a low walk rate.
in 2011 he averaged 1.4 walks per 9 innings pitched.
[/quote]
Just to keep the analysis fair, these stat mean absolutely nothing. Japan is widely considered to be somewhere between the talent levels of triple A and Pro. Its not just the talent of the hitters, it’s the whole approach. Darvish will need to make adjustments to his strategy to even have a chance to be successful in the bigs.
His command of his pitches is relevant but the amount of walks and strikeouts he accumulated doesnt say anything important for determining how he’ll do in the mlb.
And it’s also not as easy to just say ‘well, his numbers can be predicted just by inflating them’. That doesnt work for many, complicated, reasons. Many already discussed.
Oh and to add on the 100-110m it will likely cost to sign him:
A lot of that will be recouped through merchandise sales in Japan and by Japanese North Americans. He’s also half Iranian so that could further extend to Iranians.
If the reports are true and Toronto is the winning bid, it would likely boost attendance as well. Toronto is on par with NY in terms of ethnic diversity and attendance shoots up quite a bit here when Ichiro and the Mariners are in town. 50% of Toronto residents were born outside of the country and there’s a huge Asian population here.
[quote]BONEZ217 wrote:
[quote]therajraj wrote:
Darvish is apparently 215lb now. He has also has great control, strikes out a good amount of batters and has a low walk rate.
in 2011 he averaged 1.4 walks per 9 innings pitched.
[/quote]
Just to keep the analysis fair, these stat mean absolutely nothing. Japan is widely considered to be somewhere between the talent levels of triple A and Pro. Its not just the talent of the hitters, it’s the whole approach. Darvish will need to make adjustments to his strategy to even have a chance to be successful in the bigs.
His command of his pitches is relevant but the amount of walks and strikeouts he accumulated doesnt say anything important for determining how he’ll do in the mlb.
And it’s also not as easy to just say ‘well, his numbers can be predicted just by inflating them’. That doesnt work for many, complicated, reasons. Many already discussed. [/quote]
That’s true and I guess that would hold true for ALL minor league stats.
From the scouting reports I’ve read, he has been said to have good control though.
Look, my point in all of this is that what he has done in Japan is immaterial as far as it concerns the Major Leagues. In Japan they play primarily in domes, which is to the advantage of the pitcher. The strike zones are bigger in Japan as well. I wouldn’t be surprised if the mounds were a bit taller in Japan as well.
I agree that Matsuzaka is not the best comparison to Darvish, but there are some relevant points here. Matsuzaka was said to have really good stuff as well and it simply didn’t translate well to the bigs. What was really good command in Japan became a tendency to nibble and fall behind hitters in the Majors. What was supposedly a fastball consistently in the mid to high 90’s was more like 92-95mph in the Majors.
What was supposed to be an unhittable mystery pitch in the “gyro” ball was a fucking joke of a slider that just spun and didn’t do shit. And what was supposed to be a rubber arm turned out to be made of glass. And this is arguably the most high-profile pitcher to come from Japan, not some low-level player who didn’t even have to go through the posting system.
If we forget about where Darvish comes from and look strictly at his ability, he loses a lot of his luster in my opinion. First of all, I’ve heard he throws in the high 90’s, but nothing that I’ve seen from him indicates that he actually does. I’ve seen him throw several times and he looks more like a 94-96mph kind of guy. Which is nothing to laugh at, that’s still a really good fastball by any standard. But it’s not consistently in the high 90’s, and there’s a HUGE difference between 98mph and 95mph.
The reality is that there are a lot of guys in the Majors with similar stuff, who are young and who have been slowly broken in even in comparison to Darvish. Four or five seasons of 200+ innings by the age of 25 is still a heavy workload by any standard, except for Matsuzaka’s standard. Yet, those players aren’t going to command top dollar without having thrown a single pitch in professional American baseball.
But what really worries me is his tendency to go to his off-speed stuff and also the sheer volume of pitches he allegedly throws. Throwing the kitchen sink at the hitter each at-bat might work in Japan, but he’ll need to learn how to pitch with the fastball in the Majors and he’ll probably have to abandon a lot of his secondary pitches in order to sharpen up his best off-speed stuff.
He doesn’t have to turn into Doc Halladay and throw nothing but cutters and sinkers with a changeup and a random curveball every once in a while, but he’ll need to learn how to pitch primarily off of the fastball. I’m always skeptical about a pitcher with a good fastball who has a tendency to get away from it. It tells me that that pitcher lacks confidence in his fastball, which is a really bad thing when you pitch in the Majors.
And to be honest, I hope he falls flat on his face just like Matsuzaka and Irabu did. It’s nothing against Japanese pitchers; I don’t like the posting system. I think it’s completely inequitable and I want to see every foreign player who goes through this process, regardless of where they’re from, fail miserably until MLB decides to rethink this whole posting thing.
It’s completely ridiculous for teams to have to buy the right just to negotiate with him. It isn’t fair to the 90% of the teams that can’t afford to pay that price. I think that if a player from Japan wants to be posted, MLB should put up the money, maybe even take a million dollars from each team to fund that posting. Or tell that player and his Japanese team that if he wants to enter the bigs he has to go through the draft like everyone else. Regardless of the path to the solution, the solution should be to enter him in the draft so that ALL the teams have a chance at him rather than the few who are willing to pay $50 million just to be able to talk to him.
Quite frankly, I’m shocked that the Blue Jays are trying to buy the negotiating rights. That’s $50 million that could spent better elsewhere on a proven commodity. I heard the Giants were interested as well, and I flew into a two-day long rage just thinking about it. Brian Sabean and the ownership group are the biggest bunch of cheap fucking bastards who have been pissing on us fans paying $10 for a beer and $8 for garlic fries and all that and then they tell us it’s raining.
And now all of a sudden they have the money to entertain the thought of pursuing Darvish? They don’t have the money to spend on a proven big-league hitter who can make an impact in their anemic lineup, they’re wringing their hands over whether or not they can afford to pay Lincecum AND Cain and yet they’re going to try to go after Darvish? It’s a fucking joke.
[quote]DBCooper wrote:
Well, in reality pretty much any pitcher could use small tweaks to their delivery. There are very, very few pitchers who threw hard who remained injury-free AND threw strikes consistently. Even Nolan Ryan probably could have used a slight tweak, hence his horrible command, especially earlier in his career.
[/quote]
Nolans Ryan’s mechanics changed quite a bit from his day as a met/angel to his later years with the Astros and Rangers, most notably his arm action.
In other news, who here is hoping the judge throws the fucking book at Barry Bonds today, and hits him square in his oversized head with it? I sure do. I’m sure WestCoast is holding some bastardized candlelight vigil over all of this, but I think that fucker should get the maximum sentence.
[quote]DBCooper wrote:
Look, my point in all of this is that what he has done in Japan is immaterial as far as it concerns the Major Leagues. In Japan they play primarily in domes, which is to the advantage of the pitcher. The strike zones are bigger in Japan as well. I wouldn’t be surprised if the mounds were a bit taller in Japan as well.
I agree that Matsuzaka is not the best comparison to Darvish, but there are some relevant points here. Matsuzaka was said to have really good stuff as well and it simply didn’t translate well to the bigs. What was really good command in Japan became a tendency to nibble and fall behind hitters in the Majors. What was supposedly a fastball consistently in the mid to high 90’s was more like 92-95mph in the Majors.
What was supposed to be an unhittable mystery pitch in the “gyro” ball was a fucking joke of a slider that just spun and didn’t do shit. And what was supposed to be a rubber arm turned out to be made of glass. And this is arguably the most high-profile pitcher to come from Japan, not some low-level player who didn’t even have to go through the posting system.
If we forget about where Darvish comes from and look strictly at his ability, he loses a lot of his luster in my opinion. First of all, I’ve heard he throws in the high 90’s, but nothing that I’ve seen from him indicates that he actually does. I’ve seen him throw several times and he looks more like a 94-96mph kind of guy. Which is nothing to laugh at, that’s still a really good fastball by any standard. But it’s not consistently in the high 90’s, and there’s a HUGE difference between 98mph and 95mph.
The reality is that there are a lot of guys in the Majors with similar stuff, who are young and who have been slowly broken in even in comparison to Darvish. Four or five seasons of 200+ innings by the age of 25 is still a heavy workload by any standard, except for Matsuzaka’s standard. Yet, those players aren’t going to command top dollar without having thrown a single pitch in professional American baseball.
But what really worries me is his tendency to go to his off-speed stuff and also the sheer volume of pitches he allegedly throws. Throwing the kitchen sink at the hitter each at-bat might work in Japan, but he’ll need to learn how to pitch with the fastball in the Majors and he’ll probably have to abandon a lot of his secondary pitches in order to sharpen up his best off-speed stuff.
He doesn’t have to turn into Doc Halladay and throw nothing but cutters and sinkers with a changeup and a random curveball every once in a while, but he’ll need to learn how to pitch primarily off of the fastball. I’m always skeptical about a pitcher with a good fastball who has a tendency to get away from it. It tells me that that pitcher lacks confidence in his fastball, which is a really bad thing when you pitch in the Majors.
And to be honest, I hope he falls flat on his face just like Matsuzaka and Irabu did. It’s nothing against Japanese pitchers; I don’t like the posting system. I think it’s completely inequitable and I want to see every foreign player who goes through this process, regardless of where they’re from, fail miserably until MLB decides to rethink this whole posting thing.
It’s completely ridiculous for teams to have to buy the right just to negotiate with him. It isn’t fair to the 90% of the teams that can’t afford to pay that price. I think that if a player from Japan wants to be posted, MLB should put up the money, maybe even take a million dollars from each team to fund that posting. Or tell that player and his Japanese team that if he wants to enter the bigs he has to go through the draft like everyone else. Regardless of the path to the solution, the solution should be to enter him in the draft so that ALL the teams have a chance at him rather than the few who are willing to pay $50 million just to be able to talk to him.
Quite frankly, I’m shocked that the Blue Jays are trying to buy the negotiating rights. That’s $50 million that could spent better elsewhere on a proven commodity. I heard the Giants were interested as well, and I flew into a two-day long rage just thinking about it. Brian Sabean and the ownership group are the biggest bunch of cheap fucking bastards who have been pissing on us fans paying $10 for a beer and $8 for garlic fries and all that and then they tell us it’s raining.
And now all of a sudden they have the money to entertain the thought of pursuing Darvish? They don’t have the money to spend on a proven big-league hitter who can make an impact in their anemic lineup, they’re wringing their hands over whether or not they can afford to pay Lincecum AND Cain and yet they’re going to try to go after Darvish? It’s a fucking joke.[/quote]
I have some points I disagree with in what you wrote but the Yu Darvish bidding destroyed my productivity yesterday and I really need to get shit done today.
Just a couple things though:
I agree posting is unfair, but what makes it worse is the money paid to the Japanese team does not count towards the luxury tax. That’s bullshit.
I think Sabean is a terrible GM. He’s only one of a few GMs in the league that chooses to completely ignore the value of Sabremetrics. Until he’s gone get use to seeing Melky for Sanchez calibre trades over and over.
[quote]DBCooper wrote:
In other news, who here is hoping the judge throws the fucking book at Barry Bonds today, and hits him square in his oversized head with it? I sure do. I’m sure WestCoast is holding some bastardized candlelight vigil over all of this, but I think that fucker should get the maximum sentence.[/quote]
Judge passes sentence – Bonds gets 30 days of electronic monitoring, two years probation, a $4,000 fine, 250 hours of community service
[quote]therajraj wrote:
[quote]DBCooper wrote:
In other news, who here is hoping the judge throws the fucking book at Barry Bonds today, and hits him square in his oversized head with it? I sure do. I’m sure WestCoast is holding some bastardized candlelight vigil over all of this, but I think that fucker should get the maximum sentence.[/quote]
Judge passes sentence – Bonds gets 30 days of electronic monitoring, two years probation, a $4,000 fine, 250 hours of community service[/quote]
Motherfucker…
[quote]DBCooper wrote:
[quote]therajraj wrote:
[quote]DBCooper wrote:
In other news, who here is hoping the judge throws the fucking book at Barry Bonds today, and hits him square in his oversized head with it? I sure do. I’m sure WestCoast is holding some bastardized candlelight vigil over all of this, but I think that fucker should get the maximum sentence.[/quote]
Judge passes sentence – Bonds gets 30 days of electronic monitoring, two years probation, a $4,000 fine, 250 hours of community service[/quote]
Motherfucker…[/quote]
Lol
Im happy with that result.
Its nice to see judges emphasize what really matters in our criminal justice system. VIOLENT CRIME.
The judge is basically saying that the prosecutors were dickheads to even go after bonds in the first place for something as stupid as personal drug use/ lying about it. Let MLB ban him for life for all I care but he does not deserve to go to prison for using drugs that create no harm to society. Perjury is a serious offense but lets get real here, the ends of justice are not served by incarcerating barry bonds. A prison sentence wouldnt deter the public because this crime doesnt happen to regular people, only high profile people. It also wouldnt be appropriate from a retributivist point of view, IMO, as what he did just isnt that bad. An ankle bracelet and a long probation period is plenty to deter him as an individual. Assholes dont deserve harsher punishment just because theyre assholes.
/hijack
[quote]BONEZ217 wrote:
[quote]DBCooper wrote:
[quote]therajraj wrote:
[quote]DBCooper wrote:
In other news, who here is hoping the judge throws the fucking book at Barry Bonds today, and hits him square in his oversized head with it? I sure do. I’m sure WestCoast is holding some bastardized candlelight vigil over all of this, but I think that fucker should get the maximum sentence.[/quote]
Judge passes sentence – Bonds gets 30 days of electronic monitoring, two years probation, a $4,000 fine, 250 hours of community service[/quote]
Motherfucker…[/quote]
Lol
Im happy with that result.
Its nice to see judges emphasize what really matters in our criminal justice system. VIOLENT CRIME.
The judge is basically saying that the prosecutors were dickheads to even go after bonds in the first place for something as stupid as personal drug use/ lying about it. Let MLB ban him for life for all I care but he does not deserve to go to prison for using drugs that create no harm to society. Perjury is a serious offense but lets get real here, the ends of justice are not served by incarcerating barry bonds. A prison sentence wouldnt deter the public because this crime doesnt happen to regular people, only high profile people. It also wouldnt be appropriate from a retributivist point of view, IMO, as what he did just isnt that bad. An ankle bracelet and a long probation period is plenty to deter him as an individual. Assholes dont deserve harsher punishment just because theyre assholes.
/hijack [/quote]
You know what? You’re 100% correct. THIS asshole is going to fly down to Beverly Hills first thing tomorrow morning to dish out some punishment to THAT asshole himself.
[quote]DBCooper wrote:
[quote]BONEZ217 wrote:
[quote]DBCooper wrote:
[quote]therajraj wrote:
[quote]DBCooper wrote:
In other news, who here is hoping the judge throws the fucking book at Barry Bonds today, and hits him square in his oversized head with it? I sure do. I’m sure WestCoast is holding some bastardized candlelight vigil over all of this, but I think that fucker should get the maximum sentence.[/quote]
Judge passes sentence – Bonds gets 30 days of electronic monitoring, two years probation, a $4,000 fine, 250 hours of community service[/quote]
Motherfucker…[/quote]
Lol
Im happy with that result.
Its nice to see judges emphasize what really matters in our criminal justice system. VIOLENT CRIME.
The judge is basically saying that the prosecutors were dickheads to even go after bonds in the first place for something as stupid as personal drug use/ lying about it. Let MLB ban him for life for all I care but he does not deserve to go to prison for using drugs that create no harm to society. Perjury is a serious offense but lets get real here, the ends of justice are not served by incarcerating barry bonds. A prison sentence wouldnt deter the public because this crime doesnt happen to regular people, only high profile people. It also wouldnt be appropriate from a retributivist point of view, IMO, as what he did just isnt that bad. An ankle bracelet and a long probation period is plenty to deter him as an individual. Assholes dont deserve harsher punishment just because theyre assholes.
/hijack [/quote]
You know what? You’re 100% correct. THIS asshole is going to fly down to Beverly Hills first thing tomorrow morning to dish out some punishment to THAT asshole himself.[/quote]
It sounds like youre planning to pee in his butthole. Whats your plan of attack??
[quote]BONEZ217 wrote:
[quote]DBCooper wrote:
[quote]BONEZ217 wrote:
[quote]DBCooper wrote:
[quote]therajraj wrote:
[quote]DBCooper wrote:
In other news, who here is hoping the judge throws the fucking book at Barry Bonds today, and hits him square in his oversized head with it? I sure do. I’m sure WestCoast is holding some bastardized candlelight vigil over all of this, but I think that fucker should get the maximum sentence.[/quote]
Judge passes sentence – Bonds gets 30 days of electronic monitoring, two years probation, a $4,000 fine, 250 hours of community service[/quote]
Motherfucker…[/quote]
Lol
Im happy with that result.
Its nice to see judges emphasize what really matters in our criminal justice system. VIOLENT CRIME.
The judge is basically saying that the prosecutors were dickheads to even go after bonds in the first place for something as stupid as personal drug use/ lying about it. Let MLB ban him for life for all I care but he does not deserve to go to prison for using drugs that create no harm to society. Perjury is a serious offense but lets get real here, the ends of justice are not served by incarcerating barry bonds. A prison sentence wouldnt deter the public because this crime doesnt happen to regular people, only high profile people. It also wouldnt be appropriate from a retributivist point of view, IMO, as what he did just isnt that bad. An ankle bracelet and a long probation period is plenty to deter him as an individual. Assholes dont deserve harsher punishment just because theyre assholes.
/hijack [/quote]
You know what? You’re 100% correct. THIS asshole is going to fly down to Beverly Hills first thing tomorrow morning to dish out some punishment to THAT asshole himself.[/quote]
It sounds like youre planning to pee in his butthole. Whats your plan of attack?? [/quote]
Aside from taking a piss in his asshole? I don’t know, probably just burn his fucking house down with him hogtied to the ceiling fan. The guy’s a piece of shit.
Honestly, this is just misplaced anger on my part. I feel like a fucking idiot for rooting for him and turning a blind eye to all his bullshit. I played ball with a guy who dated his ex-wife, Sun. He told me that she claimed Bonds used to habitually beat the shit out of her. I refused to believe that shit, until all this stuff about him beating her came out in his trial and then his current wife divorced him, citing the same stuff. Fuck, his kid Nikolai was arrested last year for 5 misdemeanor battery charges for beating up his mom (not sure if his mom is Sun or the second wife). Wonder where he learned that behavior from?
Honestly, the average fan doesn’t give a flying fuck about PED use. I really wish all this crap would go away because all it does is produce one unsubstantiated claim after another.
Wanna know what’s kicking around the ol’ bullshit rumour mill currently?
Ryan Braun’s positive test was a result of something he was taking to treat the herpes he apparently has. Oh and now people are speculating that he’s bisexual because ya know only gay people get STDs.
This shit will follow Braun even if it turns out the test results were wrong.