Some afternoon links for a slow-moving Sunday…
- The Mariners currently project as a 75-win team, writes Dave Cameron of the U.S.S. Mariner and Fangraphs. Cameron writes that assuming the team still has $15MM to spend, they could push themselves into the .500 range for the 2012 season. He looks at remaining free agents and presents three speculative offseason scenarios — one of which involves Prince Fielder.
- Paul Hoynes of the Cleveland Plain Dealer answers questions from Indians fans surrounding Matt LaPorta's trade value, potential free agent signings, Shelley Duncan's roster status, the health of Grady Sizemore, and more in this mailbag piece.
- Pete Kerzel of MASNsports.com writes that Nationals fans should get used to the conservative approach for Stephen Strasburg, speculating an innings limit of 170 (based on how the team handled Jordan Zimmermann last year). He goes on to say that while GM Mike Rizzo and manager Davey Johnson may get creative to allow him to pitch into early September, they're both "big picture guys" who would probably shut Strasburg down before late September even things broke right and Washington reached the playoffs.
Why not rest him more in the first few months then?
Angels and Rangers are too good to have the M’s win anywhere near 75
I´ll laugh in 3 years when Pujols is a 260/ 15HR guy earning 25 millions a year… Will be great!
As much as I like how that sounds, you should probably not count on that happening.
Yeah, because that’s the only two teams the M’s will play in there 163 game schedule…
You do know that the AL West teams play other teams, too, right?
75 wins is about right, but there’s still some offseason left. I expect that if the M’s miss out on Fielder(which I kind of hope they do), they’ll pursue a platoon LF(to platoon with Casper Wells), try to do a dump trade of Chone Figgins and acquire someone else to play 3B, and perhaps get another RP.
With one of Danny Hultzen or James Paxton set to debut in 2012, the rotation should be really good and the team defense should be good to great. Getting the offense to only slightly below league average would be a great achievement, and if they do, I project 76-78 wins, in all likelihood. 🙂
The M´s will sign Prince Fielder, in 2012 they´ll be the third place in the AL WEST, but in 2013, with Hultzen, Paxton, Nick Franklin and lots of money, (Olivo, Ichiro,Vargas, League) they could sign David Wright! Imagine:
Ichiro (resigned, 5 millions or something)
Ackley
Wright (4 years, 60 millions)
Fielder
Smoak
Nick Franklin
Guti
Wells/Robinson/Catricala/Carp
Jaso
Felix-Pineda-Hultzen-Paxton-Iwakuma/Walker/Jose Campos/Erasmo Ramírez
Pure speculation, but sounds great to me…
Great lineup. But they’re still in the same division as the Angels and Rangers.
lol wow ive come across so many delusional mariner fans. first of all, ichiro gona cost a LOT more than 5 million. and wrights gona cost a LOT more than $60 mil (if he for some odd reason would ever go to seattle in the first place). after playing in citifield why the heck would he want to go to an even worse ball park with a team just as bad. but even if that lineup miraculously comes true, that still isnt better than the rangers lineup and arguably not even better than the angels lineup. and to say the mariners have a top 5 rotation in 2013? geez man. hultzen and paxton are being projected by a lot of people to be career #3 starters.
i think an ingenious solution to limit strasburgs innings while still allowing him to pitch in sept and hopefully october would be to limit his 1st half starts to 5 innings each max. basically we could just have stras pitch 5 and have gorzelanny or detwiler finish it off, because neither of them will actually be in the rotation, but could easily go 4-5 innings every 5th day as a long man. i know we could always just replace him in the rotation with detwiler or gorzelanny, but you cant TRULY replace stras in the rotation and i think it would really damage the possibility of going deep in a playoff run (if at all)
I agree, that’s a good solution. I’d be surprised if the Nats don’t limit the number of pitches he throws early in the season. Basically keep him on a 60-75 pitch limit for April, raise it slightly for May, then evaluate.
The Mariners should take the cue from Billy Beane and trade King Felix for the future. There is no way they can compete with the Angels and Rangers in the next 3 years.
I disagree, if they decided to trade him next off-season the package would only be marginally weaker (if at all) and they would get an extra year of the fans he draws to the park. You could even make a pretty good case that they could wait two years and not get significantly less for him.
i agree. there’s only so much a team can give up for him..
the only thing of course is if his performance slips or gets injured.
True, there’s always a chance that his performance slips and they wouldn’t be able to get nearly as much for him. But I think the risk is relatively minimal with a guy with as much talent as Felix.
Off topic, does anyone know what dice-k’s status is?
I believe he’s out until the middle of the season as he’s recovering from TJ surgery. Maybe he comes back in July or August.
Overrated
In order to be over rated you need to be thought highly of to begin with. Seeing as the hype behind him left after season one with the Sox I don’t think overrated is the word for him. At this point under rated makes more sense. I mean in reality he is a very solid #5 when healthy and half this forum wouldn’t even give him credit for that so yeah under rated.
Never thought I’d see the day where a fan would consider an athlete “under-rated” who cost $100mm and will have only played 50% of the time for the duration of the contract.
Contracts arn’t the determining factor in an overrated/underrated conversation. A posting fee is the only thing that made that contract an overpay. 10M a season isn’t an overpay but like I said his pre-MLB hype had him overrated, but since then its been the opposite. Dice-K came into the league on a big contract (Because of a posting fee) and his resume out in Japan had him severly overrated. Now that he has been in the league for some years, purely from a performance vs. perception standpoint he is very underrated. Most people think that when he is healthy he is a batting practice pitcher when in fact he is a solid #5 so contract aside (Irrelevant) he is still much better than what people generally think, thus he is under rated.
It’s funny to me that Davey Johnson is putting the 23 year old Strasburg on an innings limit. He let Doc Gooden pitch 250 innings after his injured 22 season, which came after he had pitched over 200 since his age 19 season.
I wonder what made these pitchers so fragile? I bet Nolan Ryan was beyond pissed that the 24 year old Derek Holland had “only” 200 innings.
the game has changed a lot since the mid-80’s. honestly i think davey does want him 2 pitch a full season, but he would get fired if he did so
I agree so much. I hate these stupid limits like 100 pitchs in a game is crazy and stuff like that. Other pitchers could easily throw over 150 and do you see all of them with terrible arm problems??? No!!!!!¡
While I agree that it had gotten to a point where the coddling had gone too far, too often people say “oh, yeah, it really hurt (insert HOF pitcher here)!!!” But how many guys do you NOT know about because they were pushed to their physical limits and didn’t have the arm for it?
Also, keep in mind that without the advanced scouting reports and tools, a pitcher could lose a little something back in the day and it wasn’t the end of the world. There isn’t as much room for error in today’s game.
This. Also: pitchers have to throw harder nowadays to keep up with the advanced training (advanced technology and equipment) that hitters have.
For every Nolan Ryan/HOF story, there’s probably a Mark Prior story.
Yeah the Nationals should handle Strasburg with kid gloves. It would suck if he had to get TJ surgery of something….
*again
Ok. People. I am NOT GOING TO SAY the mariners are a playoff team. They are NOT. But to completely avoid the fact we have some promising pitching, we were in the AL west race during June last season, and have money coming off the books would be bad.
Yes I said bad. (Yes, this needs its own paragraph!)
Wasn’t it the mariners who won 2 of 3 against the phillies? Obviously the phillies are a better team, but this is a good indication of how crazy this game can be. It is why it is MY FAVORITE.
Winning a 3 game series doesnt mean much in 162 games
Everyone has “promising pitching”. Look at the Angels new rotation. Look at Texas. Other than Texas featuring one of the best current bullpens, they have (soon to be) Darvish, Lewis, Holland, Harrison, and Feliz in their rotation. You have 4 guys in there with potential to be good 2’s or better. Then you have Perez, Ramirez and Ross in the upper minors who all project to be 3’s or better (with Perez having the ceiling of a Johan Santana type ace).
bottom line is the rangers are still far better and the angels got much better this offseason. the mariners have done nothing. mentioning the mariners winning a series from the phillies in the regular season to support your case that anything can happen in that division over 162 games is pretty crazy
Strasburg would be shut down even if the nats make the playoffs because they’re looking at the big picture? A world championship is the big picture!
Davey should pitch Strausburg with normal pitch count limits in April/May. Maybe consider skipping a start or two early in the season with the rain delays and what not. Then spot start Gorzelanny the rest of the way. That should get Strausburg into Sept.
I expect Strasburg to have around the number of innings Zimmermann had this past year
Even with Strasburg getting shutdown the Nationals could have a rotation that looks like Gio-Zimm-Wang-Lannan-Detwiler for the last month or so.
Why not just let Stras take it easy in spring and then have him start in Triple-A for two months? Not only can you cut off a bunch of innings, he can still work on things that will make him even better, and couldn’t you even back his clock off another year?
if strasburg got any better than he showed at the end of last year i think it would be criminally unfair. the guy comes back from tj and doesn’t give up a walk until his 5th and final start back (2 walks in that start). also only 4 earned runs in 24 innings of work for a 1.50 ERA. i don’t really think there’s anything else for him to work on
throwing innings in triple a still count towards innings thrown. wouldnt make sense. if they let him throw in triple a they might as well throw him in the majors and get good production out of him. and the nationals dont have to worry about slowing the clock. theyre not the rays who have a 40 million dollar payroll
Here’s a thought on how to limit Strasburg. Go with a 6 man rotation! Skip some of his starts when days off allow it!