MLB 2012: The Postseason Edition

Off Topic
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[quote]Maiden3.16 wrote:
Whatever happened to Vlad? He had a pretty good year with the Rangers in 2010 and then his power numbers fell dramatically the following year with the O’s. He still hit .290 though. Whats amazing is that’s the lowest he hit in his career. .318 career avg with those free swinging ways, pretty impressive. I’m suprised no one picked him up last year. [/quote]

He was in the Jays minor league for a while last year.

I personally call productive hitters with poor plate discipline “free swingers” and save the term “hackers” for shitty players with no plate discipline.

I would never call Josh Hamilton a “hacker”

His style clearly works for him.

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[quote]DBCooper wrote:
The other thing to keep in mind, Raj, is who the Blue Jays are probably going to part with in order to get Dickey: Travis D’Arnaud and Anthony Gose.[/quote]

Ended up being D’Arnaud and Syndergaard, a low A top 100 prospect.

[quote]DBCooper wrote:

Do you really think the Blue Jays are one knuckleballer away from contending for the pennant? And is trading their top prospect worth it, especially when they already parted with several second-tier prospects to get Johnson, Buerhle, Reyes, Bonifacio and Buck?[/quote]

I think even without Dickey they are contenders. The best team in the AL East in 2013 for sure

[quote]DBCooper wrote:

I actually think they might be contenders already if they catch some breaks along the way. I think they might be better served to go into the season with the staff that they have now and then try and work a trade for another starter during the season if the need arises. Who knows? If Romero, Johnson and Morrow all have big years they might not need Dickey. After all, if those three have really good seasons they’re going to be a lot better than Dickey.[/quote]

The Jays window to compete is the next 2-3 years for a few reasons:

  1. Their best players - Bautista/Reyes/Encarnacion will be in their prime for this period.

2)The rest of the division is a mess for the first time since the early 90’s.

Red Sox have many holes and have plugged some of them with mediocre players - Napoli, Victorino, Dempster

Yankees have many question marks - Jeter, MO, A-Rod are all beaten and broken down. Swisher is likely on his way out and their Starting pitching staff sucks outside of Sabbathia.

Rays took a momentary step back by trading away Shields for Wil Myers. Outside of Longoria they have little to no offense and it’s only gotten worse from the departure of BJ Upton.

Orioles were a fluke in 2012, don’t expect an encore.

  1. D’Arnaud will not be that much better if at all than their current catcher the next couple of years. By the time he peaks, the Jays will likely be in decline. Do you think the Red Sox give a fuck that Hanley Ramirez turned into a star? Do you think I give a fuck that Jeff Kent eventually became an MVP? Flags Fly Forever.

So why not go all in? Would you rather have a top 5 farm system or a top 5 team? I can’t argue that the price they paid was steep but sometimes you just gotta go for it. Additionally, I think the cost is a direct reflection of the pitching market. Just look at the deals Greinke and Anibal Sanchez received this offseason. These talents rarely become available and when they do, they cost a fortune. Plus, I think our GM believes Dickey will be quite devastating at Rogers Centre. While only 70 IP, he has an ERA of 1.72 in indoor parks. Tim Wakefield once said the Rogers Centre is the best mound for knuckleballers.

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Also deal only happens if Dickey agrees to an extension over next 72 hours.

I just tuned into this bills Seahawks game for shits and giggles. Jesus Christ this is horrifying

144

Dickey deal is done.

He’s signed through 2015

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30 million over 3 seasons.

$10M a year is ridiculously cheap.

Anibal Sanchez makes $16M/year

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Gotta say, this new rotation has the upside to overtake the Gisnts for best starting rotation in baseball :stuck_out_tongue:

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Here you go, Raj. An early Christmas present for you.

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[quote]therajraj wrote:
Gotta say, this new rotation has the upside to overtake the Gisnts for best starting rotation in baseball :p[/quote]

Whatever the fuck you’re on, I want some of it too.

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[quote]DBCooper wrote:

[quote]therajraj wrote:
Gotta say, this new rotation has the upside to overtake the Gisnts for best starting rotation in baseball :p[/quote]

Whatever the fuck you’re on, I want some of it too.[/quote]

Lol

We’ll see I guess.

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For your question about trading D’Arnaud, here’s a good example that directly pertains to you:

10 years from now when you’re reminiscing over this current period in Giants history, will you be thinking about the Wheeler for Beltran trade, assuming he ends up being a perennial Allstar? Will you give a single fuck?

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[quote]therajraj wrote:
For your question about trading D’Arnaud, here’s a good example that directly pertains to you:

10 years from now when you’re reminiscing over this current period in Giants history, will you be thinking about the Wheeler for Beltran trade, assuming he ends up being a perennial Allstar? Will you give a single fuck?

[/quote]

Of course I’ll be thinking about the Wheeler trade. Beltran didn’t do shit for the Giants. He played really well for them but he was on the DL during the most critical stretch of the season.

Starting rotation depth is a huge weakness for the Giants right now. If anyone of the starters go down this year the Giants are fucked. Their best pitching prospects are still only about 20 y/o and down in A-ball or AA-ball, so there isn’t anyone they can really call up and they don’t have anyone in the bullpen who’s capable of stepping in and making some quality starts for them.

I didn’t like the trade at the time it went down that much, either.

Besides, Wheeler doesn’t bear comparison to D’Arnaud. He’s a catcher, not a pitcher, and I’ve always been of the opinion that you NEVER trade away top young pitching prospects unless you aren’t sold on them, in which case they aren’t top prospects anyways. D’Arnaud may be a good catcher down the road, but he isn’t a once-in-a-generation talent at his position the way Posey is. Trading him isn’t the same as trading Wheeler, who by all accounts has some of the best stuff in the minors right now and has an upside INFINITELY higher than D’Arnaud’s.

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[quote]DBCooper wrote:

Of course I’ll be thinking about the Wheeler trade. Beltran didn’t do shit for the Giants. He played really well for them but he was on the DL during the most critical stretch of the season. [/quote]

Jesus Christ.

If TEN YEARS down the road that’s still a major focal point for you looking back, you really can’t enjoy anything.

[quote]DBCooper wrote:

I didn’t like the trade at the time it went down that much, either.[/quote]

I would’ve been fine with it had they resigned Beltran. He’s been good in STL.

[quote]DBCooper wrote:

Besides, Wheeler doesn’t bear comparison to D’Arnaud. He’s a catcher, not a pitcher, and I’ve always been of the opinion that you NEVER trade away top young pitching prospects unless you aren’t sold on them, in which case they aren’t top prospects anyways. [/quote]

I would say top pitching prospects are much more likely to fail than top position player prospects due to the sheer nature of pitching. So many things can go wrong health wise because pitching is a highly unnatural movement. I also think in some divisions where lineups are stacked, parks are hitter friendly, some pitchers cannot develop properly in those conditions.

For every Tim Lincecum you have 5 Kyle Drabeks.

For every Matt Cain you have 10 Tod Van Poppel’s

For every Cliff Lee you have 5 Edwin Jacksons.

Wasn’t Michael Pineda up there too?

Yes position prospects fail at high rate, but I would say pitching prospects are significantly more likely to not pan out. The one exception of course would be the catcher because of the wear and tear. Just look at how many terrible hitting catchers there are in the league, the league is utterly filled with them. A lot of these guys would provide EXTREME negative value if they ever moved to any other position even if they maintained average defense at their new position. Even when they do pan out, they wear down so much. Buster Posey is already starting games at 1B. Joe Mauer has missed significant time and I doubt he’ll be able to play 150+ games/year anymore

[quote]DBCooper wrote:

D’Arnaud may be a good catcher down the road, but he isn’t a once-in-a-generation talent at his position the way Posey is. Trading him isn’t the same as trading Wheeler, who by all accounts has some of the best stuff in the minors right now and has an upside INFINITELY higher than D’Arnaud’s.[/quote]

Colby Rasmus was supposed to be a once-in-a-generation talent too. Aside for a couple of good months he had a crummy 2012.

Corey Patterson was also a “can’t miss prospect”

Wasn’t Jesus Montero supposed to be the next Miguel Cabrera?

You can’t really tell who will be a generational talent, I think any top 10 prospect has that chance. D’Arnaud is 9-10 overall on most people’s lists.

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Heard Chipper Jones was dating a playboy model.

Chipper must have a big bone.

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Jesus Christ…

R. Eh. Dickey

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[quote]therajraj wrote:
Jesus Christ…

R. Eh. Dickey[/quote]

LOL. I remember watching Dickey pitch last year and putting one of his pitches in slow-mo to marvel at it. Then I showed my girlfriend what a real knuckleball looks like and she said “I don’t see what the big deal is, it’s not really moving.” WHAT!!!

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Oh, and that pitch is at 80MPH.

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[quote]Maiden3.16 wrote:

[quote]therajraj wrote:
Jesus Christ…

R. Eh. Dickey[/quote]

LOL. I remember watching Dickey pitch last year and putting one of his pitches in slow-mo to marvel at it. Then I showed my girlfriend what a real knuckleball looks like and she said “I don’t see what the big deal is, it’s not really moving.” WHAT!!! [/quote]

Hah! That’s pretty funny. I would guess the fact that it’s not moving (I think she was referring to the lack of spin on the ball) is one of the big reasons it’s so hard to hit.

As a side note, one thing I’ve always marveled at was the ability of professional hitters to pickup the spin on a 90mph+ projectile. I’ve been in bat cages for shits and giggles and could never for the life of me ever pickup the spin.

Of course I do not have 20/20 vision.

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[quote]therajraj wrote:

[quote]Maiden3.16 wrote:

[quote]therajraj wrote:
Jesus Christ…

R. Eh. Dickey[/quote]

LOL. I remember watching Dickey pitch last year and putting one of his pitches in slow-mo to marvel at it. Then I showed my girlfriend what a real knuckleball looks like and she said “I don’t see what the big deal is, it’s not really moving.” WHAT!!! [/quote]

Hah! That’s pretty funny. I would guess the fact that it’s not moving (I think she was referring to the lack of spin on the ball) is one of the big reasons it’s so hard to hit.

As a side note, one thing I’ve always marveled at was the ability of professional hitters to pickup the spin on a 90mph+ projectile. I’ve been in bat cages for shits and giggles and could never for the life of me ever pickup the spin.

Of course I do not have 20/20 vision.

[/quote]

I think the fact that it IS moving is why it’s so hard to hit. And not only does it move, it moves in, out, or down, or all of the above. Not even the pitcher knows which way it’s going. Nor does the catcher which is very evident in the clip you posted. Every other pitches direction of movement can be predicted if the player picks up the spin, or more likely picks up the speed (curves slower than fastballs, which i think a hitter picks up on moreso than the spin) Or knows it’s coming based on the count etc. A good knuckleball you can know it’s coming and still not know where it’s going.

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By the way, the knuckelball in the clip is slightly spinning, yet it has no bearing on whether the ball will go in, out, or down. You can clearly see that the pitch goes in, out, then down and in. How that fuck someone barrels that ball up without a lot of luck is beyond me.

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[quote]Maiden3.16 wrote:
By the way, the knuckelball in the clip is slightly spinning, yet it has no bearing on whether the ball will go in, out, or down. You can clearly see that the pitch goes in, out, then down and in. How that fuck someone barrels that ball up without a lot of luck is beyond me. [/quote]

No doubt.

What I’m trying to say is that part of the reason a knuckler is so hard to hit is because a big leaguer cannot use his usual technique of picking up ball spin in order to track the ball from the pitcher to the plate.

If you normally use ball spin to pick up 99.9% of balls pitched to you, how fucked would you be for the 0.001% when you can’t do that?