What are the chances the Royals trade Barlow and sign two of these guys? Rogers, Smith, and Strahm would all be great in my eyes with the lower walk rates. I just don’t see Padres or Dodgers trading its guys but who knows. Might as well ask. Would love to see a couple sign one and pair that with trading Barlow. Would it work? Who knows, but if we are in a new age of thinking here….why not.
I think anything is possible because you're right, this is a different era now in the way they're doing business. I think I'd be a little surprised, but I don't see why that wouldn't be explored. The only thing that would give me (and the team) pause is that I think they see some of the blown leads from last year as a detriment to development and while there isn't an immediate benefit to winning 75 games over 65 games, I think there is a developmental benefit. So I think they'd hesitate to trade one of the better relievers in baseball if they don't have replacements lined up already. But yeah, nothing is out of the realm of possibility.
I'm stumped when it comes to relievers because usually whatever the royals try doesn't work. They keep going after reclamation types and it usually doesn't work out. Personally I think Barlow is on the way down. He's lost quit a bit of velocity and constantly gets himself in trouble but usually works his way out. Still he blew 4 or 5 saves this year and had something like 4 loses. That's 8 or 9 games he cost the team. To me that's not an elite pitcher. He also averages 6 home runs per 9 innings. Personally if they could trade him for some younger talent I would do that. As far as the other guys go. Let's just hope a new pitching coach can help. I think a lot of this can be fixed. When they hired Dave Eiland the team ERA dropped by nearly a run a game so it can be done. I'm also a big fan of the slider and I hate the curveball. I'm talking a Greg Holland type slider. One that comes in at the knees and hits the plate when it drops. All too often curveball get hung in the middle of the plate and get crushed. I wish bubic would try to learn how to throw a good slider and use his curveball less. He can't control it. Greinke is the only guy on the staff that knows how to throw one. So I really don't have an answer on this one. Just hope a new coach can help
In general I agree with you on the slider vs curveball thing. OTOH you never saw how silly Tom Gordon made bunches of MLB hitters look with that big nasty curve of his! (Mike McDougal could do that too - in particular I recall a knee-buckling utterly humiliating pitch to Frank Thomas - but he didn't last nearly as long as Gordon did.)
I may be wrong but I have about come to the conclusion that the type of pitch is less important than the location, movement, sequencing, and tunneling observable in that pitch.
Still, it seems to me that I've seen a lot more hard-hit curves than sliders. That's a purely subjective impression; I freely admit I have no data to back it up.
Assuming Singer and Lynch have locks on two of the rotation spots, which of the remaining young starters (Bubic, Heasley, Zerpa, Hernandez, Castillo) would you guess would get put into a bullpen role in an effort to find some consistency and maybe slide to the rotation later in the year? The flexibility there in my mind makes it somewhat less important that we land a few good relievers than finding two good starters. Though of course you can never have too much pitching. Also I didn't include Kowar on that list because I assume he'll start the year in Omaha and also I don't know what to make of him at this point.
I think the only reliever in that bunch from the start is Hernandez. He’s pretty much made that move at this point. Heasley is someone who I’d be interested to see in that role, so that intrigues me. Zerpa has very little experience above AA. And I think Castillo is ultimately a swing man anyway, but keep in mind they all have options still. New leadership and all that, so they could act way different than this, but I think most of these guys are starters somewhere.
The only real reason I think they definitely get one or two is that Anne has reported it twice now.
I'll admit I'm not familiar with her work but it's clear you have a lot of respect for her! Where can I read her stuff? I promise not to abandon you no matter how much I like it! (And here you were hoping I'd go away... for good.)
Relievers are such perishable commodities with such variable (usually short) shelf lives. A good way to lose money would be to try to predict the performance of each team's bullpen as of April 1st of each year. Along with every other day of the year, for that matter!
Will last year prove to be the best of Barlow's career? Or was it another step on his ascendancy to bullpen immortality? Is he going to get better from here? Or did he reach his ceiling and he's on the way down?
Who knows? No one can answer such questions with certainty and baseball laughs at our paltry attempts to do so.
I know that many analytically oriented folks don't like hearing such things. But that doesn't change the fact that that's how it is. Look up the word "random" and you're likely to find an image of any MLB bullpen or reliever for the past 10 decades. It would certainly not be inappropriate.
Watching the world series.... Yeah, I'd like my team to be one of the two. Still, watching real grownup MLB ballplayers playing real grownup high-level MLB genuine hardball is a rare aesthetic pleasure that I don't think is equaled anywhere else in sports.
Maybe in the final seven games of the NCAA basketball tournament. Maybe.
Possibly in a few of the Olympic sports. Possibly.
What are the chances the Royals trade Barlow and sign two of these guys? Rogers, Smith, and Strahm would all be great in my eyes with the lower walk rates. I just don’t see Padres or Dodgers trading its guys but who knows. Might as well ask. Would love to see a couple sign one and pair that with trading Barlow. Would it work? Who knows, but if we are in a new age of thinking here….why not.
I think anything is possible because you're right, this is a different era now in the way they're doing business. I think I'd be a little surprised, but I don't see why that wouldn't be explored. The only thing that would give me (and the team) pause is that I think they see some of the blown leads from last year as a detriment to development and while there isn't an immediate benefit to winning 75 games over 65 games, I think there is a developmental benefit. So I think they'd hesitate to trade one of the better relievers in baseball if they don't have replacements lined up already. But yeah, nothing is out of the realm of possibility.
I'm stumped when it comes to relievers because usually whatever the royals try doesn't work. They keep going after reclamation types and it usually doesn't work out. Personally I think Barlow is on the way down. He's lost quit a bit of velocity and constantly gets himself in trouble but usually works his way out. Still he blew 4 or 5 saves this year and had something like 4 loses. That's 8 or 9 games he cost the team. To me that's not an elite pitcher. He also averages 6 home runs per 9 innings. Personally if they could trade him for some younger talent I would do that. As far as the other guys go. Let's just hope a new pitching coach can help. I think a lot of this can be fixed. When they hired Dave Eiland the team ERA dropped by nearly a run a game so it can be done. I'm also a big fan of the slider and I hate the curveball. I'm talking a Greg Holland type slider. One that comes in at the knees and hits the plate when it drops. All too often curveball get hung in the middle of the plate and get crushed. I wish bubic would try to learn how to throw a good slider and use his curveball less. He can't control it. Greinke is the only guy on the staff that knows how to throw one. So I really don't have an answer on this one. Just hope a new coach can help
In general I agree with you on the slider vs curveball thing. OTOH you never saw how silly Tom Gordon made bunches of MLB hitters look with that big nasty curve of his! (Mike McDougal could do that too - in particular I recall a knee-buckling utterly humiliating pitch to Frank Thomas - but he didn't last nearly as long as Gordon did.)
I may be wrong but I have about come to the conclusion that the type of pitch is less important than the location, movement, sequencing, and tunneling observable in that pitch.
Still, it seems to me that I've seen a lot more hard-hit curves than sliders. That's a purely subjective impression; I freely admit I have no data to back it up.
Assuming Singer and Lynch have locks on two of the rotation spots, which of the remaining young starters (Bubic, Heasley, Zerpa, Hernandez, Castillo) would you guess would get put into a bullpen role in an effort to find some consistency and maybe slide to the rotation later in the year? The flexibility there in my mind makes it somewhat less important that we land a few good relievers than finding two good starters. Though of course you can never have too much pitching. Also I didn't include Kowar on that list because I assume he'll start the year in Omaha and also I don't know what to make of him at this point.
I think the only reliever in that bunch from the start is Hernandez. He’s pretty much made that move at this point. Heasley is someone who I’d be interested to see in that role, so that intrigues me. Zerpa has very little experience above AA. And I think Castillo is ultimately a swing man anyway, but keep in mind they all have options still. New leadership and all that, so they could act way different than this, but I think most of these guys are starters somewhere.
The only real reason I think they definitely get one or two is that Anne has reported it twice now.
I'll admit I'm not familiar with her work but it's clear you have a lot of respect for her! Where can I read her stuff? I promise not to abandon you no matter how much I like it! (And here you were hoping I'd go away... for good.)
She's the beat writer on MLB.com, so I assume she's getting information pretty directly from the source, which is why I trust what she's writing.
Just curious. What's the fastest pitch you've ever thrown? I once hit 55 mph going all-out.
As an adult, probably 70ish. But I pitched back as one of those youths from the statistics. I could hit upper-80s.
Edit: I should add that if you asked me to throw as hard as I could now, my arm would likely just crumble.
Relievers are such perishable commodities with such variable (usually short) shelf lives. A good way to lose money would be to try to predict the performance of each team's bullpen as of April 1st of each year. Along with every other day of the year, for that matter!
Will last year prove to be the best of Barlow's career? Or was it another step on his ascendancy to bullpen immortality? Is he going to get better from here? Or did he reach his ceiling and he's on the way down?
Who knows? No one can answer such questions with certainty and baseball laughs at our paltry attempts to do so.
I know that many analytically oriented folks don't like hearing such things. But that doesn't change the fact that that's how it is. Look up the word "random" and you're likely to find an image of any MLB bullpen or reliever for the past 10 decades. It would certainly not be inappropriate.
Watching the world series.... Yeah, I'd like my team to be one of the two. Still, watching real grownup MLB ballplayers playing real grownup high-level MLB genuine hardball is a rare aesthetic pleasure that I don't think is equaled anywhere else in sports.
Maybe in the final seven games of the NCAA basketball tournament. Maybe.
Possibly in a few of the Olympic sports. Possibly.
Nowhere else, IMO.