2017 MLB Season

[kroywen]

Chapman was throwing absolute fire last night, but he continued to be unable to hit his targets. Chapman missed his spot by almost a foot on that pitch to Devers, and Devers was able to turn it around to the opposite field. Great job of hitting by Devers, of course, but Chapman was missing his spots terribly.

 

Chapman is probably the fifth best pitcher in the Yankees' pen right now, behind Robertson, Betances, Green, and Kahnle. And yet who is out there as the all-valuable closer? I generally hate the concept of a strictly 9th inning "closer" - I much prefer the idea of a relief ace who is deployed in high leverage situations - but for as long as it is entrenched in baseball, the best reliever in the pen should be the team's closer. And the Yankees aren't anywhere close to that right now. They have an insanely good bullpen (again) and yet have a weak link at the head of it.

 

20th blown save of the season for the Yankees. Twentieth. Given that the team is in line for a Wild Card spot, I can only imagine where they'd be right now had their bullpen been decent throughout the entire year.

[The Six]

Nice article by Pablo Sandoval in the Players' Tribune https://www.theplayerstribune.com/pablo-sandoval-giants-return/

 

It's been a terrible season for the Giants, but throughout baseball's incredibly long season, it's always possible to find a few bright spots. The Panda coming back has been one of them. He hasn't been lighting the world on fire since returning, but he's been a serviceable player, and already better than he was with the Red Sox. Hopefully the weirdo Giants fans who rooted for him to fail in Boston have gotten over it by now.

[SFGiants58]

1 hour ago, The Six said:

Nice article by a ghostwriter imitating Pablo Sandoval in the Players' Tribune https://www.theplayerstribune.com/pablo-sandoval-giants-return/

 

It's been a terrible season for the Giants, but throughout baseball's incredibly long season, it's always possible to find a few bright spots. The Panda coming back has been one of them. He hasn't been lighting the world on fire since returning, but he's been a serviceable player, and already better than he was with the Red Sox. Hopefully the weirdo Giants fans who rooted for him to fail in Boston have gotten over it by now.

 

I fixed your post, but your point still stands. He's been a tiny bright spot, alongside good performances by Buster Posey, Ty Blach, MadBum, and several others. I've got no ill will towards the guy.

 

I'm just worried that the front office doesn't want to rebuild in any substantial way. The negative reaction to the Matt Duffy trade (and I'll defend that trade, given that his achilles issues have cost him a whole season now) may have scarred Evans, Sabean, and the owners. It was good for a team looking to "win now," but it was dreadful from a PR perspective.

[Brass]

3 hours ago, SFGiants58 said:

 

I fixed your post, but your point still stands. He's been a tiny bright spot, alongside good performances by Buster Posey, Ty Blach, MadBum, and several others. I've got no ill will towards the guy.

 

I'm just worried that the front office doesn't want to rebuild in any substantial way. The negative reaction to the Matt Duffy trade (and I'll defend that trade, given that his achilles issues have cost him a whole season now) may have scarred Evans, Sabean, and the owners. It was good for a team looking to "win now," but it was dreadful from a PR perspective.

 

It's also an odd-numbered year so the San Francisco Giants have no business being good.

[The_Admiral]

15 hours ago, kroywen said:

Chapman is probably the fifth best pitcher in the Yankees' pen right now, behind Robertson, Betances, Green, and Kahnle. And yet who is out there as the all-valuable closer? I generally hate the concept of a strictly 9th inning "closer" - I much prefer the idea of a relief ace who is deployed in high leverage situations - but for as long as it is entrenched in baseball, the best reliever in the pen should be the team's closer. And the Yankees aren't anywhere close to that right now. They have an insanely good bullpen (again) and yet have a weak link at the head of it.

 

Kind of a bummer the way Chapman's career turned out. I thought he was gonna be a megastar when he came over, but he never made it out of the bullpen, allegedly shot a gun at his wife, and almost lost the World Series. Still a very good career, but not what I expected.

 

The Indians had the right idea with Andrew Miller, I agree.

[kroywen]

6 hours ago, the admiral said:

 

Kind of a bummer the way Chapman's career turned out. I thought he was gonna be a megastar when he came over, but he never made it out of the bullpen, allegedly shot a gun at his wife, and almost lost the World Series. Still a very good career, but not what I expected.

 

The Indians had the right idea with Andrew Miller, I agree.

 

I thought he was going to be an ace, personally, and also remember thinking at the time that the Reds jumped the gun on moving him to the pen. Apparently there were concerns about his lack of focus in the middle innings, and tendency to unravel when encountering any struggles or difficult situations on the mound. I'd say that he continues to display those weaknesses as a reliever - he notoriously hates throwing multiple innings, and tends to fall apart if he allows a couple baserunners.

 

He's struck me as being incredibly immature both in his personal and professional life, which has probably held him back from reaching his full potential as a pitcher. Tons of talent, but not a person who can put it all together and fully reach his potential.

[Sport]

When Chapman gave up the home run to Rajai Davis in Game 7 I was not at all surprised. He's a complete headcase and that was the highest pressure situation possible. A generational arm when everything goes according to script, but I've never seen a guy fall apart so quickly at the slightest hiccup. His control problems get worse the more guys you put on base. I honestly couldn't believe he was able to make it out of that inning after that. And his head is why he never became a starter. I also think he liked that he could pitch one inning every 2.5 days and get paid a ton of money and didn't care to put in the work that goes along with being a starting pitcher. 

 

I liked when he was with the Reds and I'm glad he's not on the team anymore. I just wish Bryan Price had figured out that you can use your best pitcher outside of the 9th inning before Chapman left. 

[HedleyLamarr]

I'm not so sure Chapman nearly blowing Game 7 was due to him being a mental headcase as much as it was Maddon overusing the hell out of him.

[Sport]

It was a little bit of both. 

 

 

[kroywen]

3 hours ago, McCarthy said:

When Chapman gave up the home run to Rajai Davis in Game 7 I was not at all surprised. He's a complete headcase and that was the highest pressure situation possible. A generational arm when everything goes according to script, but I've never seen a guy fall apart so quickly at the slightest hiccup. His control problems get worse the more guys you put on base. I honestly couldn't believe he was able to make it out of that inning after that. And his head is why he never became a starter. I also think he liked that he could pitch one inning every 2.5 days and get paid a ton of money and didn't care to put in the work that goes along with being a starting pitcher. 

 

I liked when he was with the Reds and I'm glad he's not on the team anymore. I just wish Bryan Price had figured out that you can use your best pitcher outside of the 9th inning before Chapman left. 

 

I wasn't surprised a bit either. He unravels so easily, and his control problems (which are always a bit of an issue with him) become so exacerbated when there are multiple men on base. 

 

Chapman relies on one thing and one thing alone - his velocity. He doesn't have great command or deception, nor does he have much movement on his FB. So if he loses even a couple ticks off his fastball - 99 MPH rather than 102 - he's throwing very hittable darts. Most ML hitters can turn around a 99 MPH fastball with no movement these days. I knew he was screwed in Game 7 last year when he was struggling to get over 100. Combine that with him being a total headcase, and he becomes nearly impossible to watch in any super high leverage situation.

[ozzyman314]

Red Sox with their 9th walk off this year. WOW. 

[OnWis97]

Byron Buxton is a single shy of the cycle.  And it's just starting to look like he might become an adequate MLB hitter.

[Shumway]

The Angels and Orioles combined for TEN homeruns last night, including a walkoff Grand Slam (his 3rd of the game) by Manny Machado.

 

As someone who has outfield seats for tonight's game, I hope this trend (well. the homerun one, not necessarily the outcome of the game) continues for another night.

[Kramerica Industries]

On 8/14/2017 at 9:39 AM, kroywen said:

Chapman was throwing absolute fire last night, but he continued to be unable to hit his targets. Chapman missed his spot by almost a foot on that pitch to Devers, and Devers was able to turn it around to the opposite field. Great job of hitting by Devers, of course, but Chapman was missing his spots terribly.

 

Chapman is probably the fifth best pitcher in the Yankees' pen right now, behind Robertson, Betances, Green, and Kahnle. And yet who is out there as the all-valuable closer? I generally hate the concept of a strictly 9th inning "closer" - I much prefer the idea of a relief ace who is deployed in high leverage situations - but for as long as it is entrenched in baseball, the best reliever in the pen should be the team's closer. And the Yankees aren't anywhere close to that right now. They have an insanely good bullpen (again) and yet have a weak link at the head of it.

 

20th blown save of the season for the Yankees. Twentieth. Given that the team is in line for a Wild Card spot, I can only imagine where they'd be right now had their bullpen been decent throughout the entire year.

 

This post is relevant again after last night, and the only thing I'm going to refute is putting Kahnle as being one of those arms that's better than Chapman. Aroldis has been awful, no question about it, but Kahnle has been a bag of piss ever since he was traded. Turns out that putting up good numbers for half a season on a bad team that's not playing in high-pressure games doesn't mean you're suddenly an elite reliever, huh? Total snake oil salesman, and if Cashman traded a top-50 prospect in order to get Kahnle in that trade, then that's surely going to end up as one of his worst decisions as a GM. Total waste of a useful trade chip.

[kroywen]

1 hour ago, Kramerica Industries said:

 

This post is relevant again after last night, and the only thing I'm going to refute is putting Kahnle as being one of those arms that's better than Chapman. Aroldis has been awful, no question about it, but Kahnle has been a bag of piss ever since he was traded. Turns out that putting up good numbers for half a season on a bad team that's not playing in high-pressure games doesn't mean you're suddenly an elite reliever, huh? Total snake oil salesman, and if Cashman traded a top-50 prospect in order to get Kahnle in that trade, then that's surely going to end up as one of his worst decisions as a GM. Total waste of a useful trade chip.

 

He's been a bit of a disappointment so far, but he's only thrown 12.1 innings, so it's still a small sample size to judge on. It's mainly been his last few appearances that have jumped out to me as being pretty bad. I'm hoping it's just a brief blip, and nothing else.

[HedleyLamarr]

I've long thought that if you aren't acquiring an actual closer (and even then, it's still a toss-up move), trading for a relief pitcher is one of the dumbest moves a GM ever does.  Non-closing relievers seemingly don't work out too well.

 

More often than not, you're giving up a prospect or two...or other quality assets.....for an arm that will have some seasonal fatigue to it.  You would be better off just promoting guys from the minors.

[ozzyman314]

So who had Doug Fister (5.56 ERA) one of Boston's worst starting pitchers, throwing a 1-hit complete game? Because I sure as hell didn't. 

[Sport]

I'm starting my Joey Votto Hall of Fame campaign now so people in large markets aren't surprised when he retires and start to see his name popping up.

 

Read this: http://www.sportsnet.ca/baseball/mlb/reds-joey-votto-keeps-proving-hes-time-great-hitter/

 

 

[The_Admiral]

I dunno, look at his similarity scores: Giambi, Helton, Edmonds? Fringe Ahoy!

[FiddySicks]

I dunno, my first reaction is to rate Votto WAY higher than those three. I'm actually surprised that those are the players he's compared to. 

 

Even with that, Helton and Edmonds are both guys I could see a pretty strong case for (even if they won't make it). Giambi not so much, but that's more to do with baggage than anything.