Blue Jays Discussion: It's a bird, it's a plane, it's Kevin Pillar!

[The Nemesis]

Guess who's back?

Jays signed Saltalamacchia to a minor league deal.

 

[metafour]

Sanchez didn't become a dominant starting pitcher until he added more lower body strength to help him consistently repeat his delivery. A purely physical development that lead to improved numbers. Everything as a pitcher is built off a fastball and once he harnessed his, the secondary stuff naturally added more bite.

His case isn't that simple. Sanchez's control improved almost overnight when he was initially brought up to the bullpen. That callup was laughed at by many because his numbers in AAA when he was called up still looked as bad as ever. Am I to believe that over a week or two he added significant lower body strength? No way. His entire case is odd because it featured lots of highly publicized mechanical tampering, including stiffening up and shortening his delivery which many writers hated because it was seen as counter-productive. I think it just clicked for him, which is what can happen with pitchers who possess naturally great arms.

 

[Woodman19]

adding strength and physical control and repeatability, of course, is inextricably linked with age.

Baseball is littered with tall and lanky "stuff" pitchers who never harness it before they lose it.

 

[ShaneFalco]

Guess who's back?

Jays signed Saltalamacchia to a minor league deal.

Ok....... why?

 

[ShaneFalco]

 

[zeke]

Baseball is littered with tall and lanky "stuff" pitchers who never harness it before they lose it.

absolutely. a prime reason why so many toolsy guys fail.

In fact, Sanchez probably should have taken his strength more seriously sooner.

 

[zeke]

And who said I loved "prospect rankers"?

You seem to for some reason be confusing actual scouts and scouting with baseball writers. Uhm, when I say "actual scouting matters"...I'm not talking about what Keith Law says. In fact, my point about Pentecost was about a REAL SCOUT employed by a BASEBALL TEAM.

I don't even know what you're arguing with Pentecost. He's a 24yr old in A+. Usually we wouldn't look twice at a guy like that no matter what stats he puts up. But this is a toolsy 11th overall pick that has huge injury setbacks we're talking about, so we give him plenty of leeway.

I don't even know why you brought him up when I mentioned Jansen's promotion anyways. Are you angry that Jansen got promoted? Or are you just convinced he's a non prospect because your prospectors aren't on him?

 

[metafour]

His "strength" is only the factor if you actually believe that he put on "30 pounds of muscle in two months" or whatever that ridiculous story was.

Chris Sale looks like a cancer patient and he's still plugging away regardless of the fact that his legs barely look thick enough to support his weight.

 

[zeke]

I actually agree with you that the strength story was overdone, but at the same time I'm pretty sure that was the first summer he really took training seriously and that probably did help his core muscle strength a good bit. but much of that would have come naturally anyways.

 

[Woodman19]

His "strength" is only the factor if you actually believe that he put on "30 pounds of muscle in two months" or whatever that ridiculous story was.

Chris Sale looks like a cancer patient and he's still plugging away regardless of the fact that his legs barely look thick enough to support his weight.

Every pitcher is different. Sanchez' delivery requires lower body strength to build up torque. It's less stressful to use that force if you have more muscle just like it's easier for a muscular person to lift 30kg than a non muscular one. It's not that the less muscular one can't. Repeating the task with less effort prevents fatigue and strain from letting lazy form set in and loss of repeatable delivery (control).

Sale by contrast has a superhuman elbow that lets him pitch with his arm moreso than Sanchez and as such doesn't require the strength to succeed.

 

[Eyedea]

absolutely. a prime reason why so many toolsy guys fail.

In fact, Sanchez probably should have taken his strength more seriously sooner.

There's plenty of no-tools guys that put up numbers and just end up being quad-A stars.

 

[Diamond Joe Quimby]

Baseball is littered with tall and lanky "stuff" pitchers who never harness it before they lose it.

So very true.

I guess the key with the Dirty was that he was 96-98 with ridiculous sink. That's at least why I defended him for those few years. And his delivery was always considered free and easy...except by our old friend Keith Law

 

[Woodman19]

So very true.

I guess the key with the Dirty was that he was 96-98 with ridiculous sink. That's at least why I defended him for those few years. And his delivery was always considered free and easy...except by our old friend Keith Law

I actually give a lot of credit to our "hipsters". Despite his awful command numbers, we still mostly defended his upside.

 

[Discoverer]

i've had this argument so many times. swihart is a top 10 prospect despite middling stats because tools. gausman is a better prospect than stroman despite lesser numbers because tools. Travis is a non prospect becausee tools.

but don't ya know that tools are not enough.

In their 2013 seasons, while both 22 at AA, Gausman had better stats. Stroman stayed at AA the entire year, and Gausman moved up to AAA, where he maintained his outstanding numbers, then he moved up to the majors and had a 3.99 FIP and 3.04 xFIP at 22 years old.

If you were looking purely at the stats, including age/level, you absolutely should have viewed Gausman as a better prospect.

 

[Eyedea]

I actually give a lot of credit to our "hipsters". Despite his awful command numbers, we still mostly defended his upside.

I was monitoring all of his AAA starts leading up to that call up. The way he was throwing it made perfect sense that he would succeed in a ~2 inning role in the pen. I don't care what Zeke says about his 2015 start though, he wasn't good and his RA9 was complete SSS flukeness. Thankfully he figured out how to keep that fastball command later into games this past season.

 

[TF97]

Leblebijian would have been nice. However, I did not think there was a chance they would bring him up over Ceciliani.

 

[metafour]

There's plenty of no-tools guys that put up numbers and just end up being quad-A stars.

Nestor Molina is the ultimate example.

9.55 K/9, 1.16 BB/9, 2.64 FIP, 2.45 xFIP in A+
13.50 K/9, 0.82 BB/9, 0.68 FIP, 1.30 xFIP in five AA starts

The scouting report that entire time was a ~90 mph fastball with little movement and a changeup with no third pitch worth anything. He had a 3.51 FIP and 3.67 xFIP the year prior as well.

Molina was of course traded for Sergio Santos and immediately flopped. I remember a lot of our fans being salty that he wasn't getting much prospect love.

 

[zeke]

In their 2013 seasons, while both 22 at AA, Gausman had better stats. Stroman stayed at AA the entire year, and Gausman moved up to AAA, where he maintained his outstanding numbers, then he moved up to the majors and had a 3.99 FIP and 3.04 xFIP at 22 years old.

If you were looking purely at the stats, including age/level, you absolutely should have viewed Gausman as a better prospect.

Actually is sometime around their 2014 callups I was arguing with Stoeten about it as he raved in jealousy of the Oriole's having this stud pitching prospects the jays couldn't match. Gausman was the future ace, while Stroman was the mid rotation guy but probably reliever guy. Stoeten mentioned how stro was good but Gausman was DOMINANT.

Yet their stats looked like this:

AAA

Stroman (23-23): 30.8k%/6.2b%, 3.03era, 2.12fip, 2.38xfip
Gausman (22-23): 23.3k%/8.2b%, 3.65era, 3.39fip, 3.28xfip

AA

Stroman (21-22): 28.0k%/6.0b%, 3.31era, 3.35fip, 2.76xfip
Gausman (22-22): 25.7k%/2.6b%, 3.11era, 2.57fip, 2.73xfip


and then there were the Sanchez/Osuna vs Bundy/Rodriguez matchups on top of that.

 

[Discoverer]

Leblebijian would have been nice. However, I did not think there was a chance they would bring him up over Ceciliani.

If they actually did have a spot on the 40-man like I originally thought they did then I think there would have been a decent chance.

 

[zeke]

There's plenty of no-tools guys that put up numbers and just end up being quad-A stars.

absolutley.

funny thing is, you won't ever see me ranking no tools guys alongside tools guys if their numbers are comparable. That's some fantasy in metafour's head.

 

[zeke]

Nestor Molina is the ultimate example.

9.55 K/9, 1.16 BB/9, 2.64 FIP, 2.45 xFIP in A+
13.50 K/9, 0.82 BB/9, 0.68 FIP, 1.30 xFIP in five AA starts

The scouting report that entire time was a ~90 mph fastball with little movement and a changeup with no third pitch worth anything. He had a 3.51 FIP and 3.67 xFIP the year prior as well.

Molina was of course traded for Sergio Santos and immediately flopped. I remember a lot of our fans being salty that he wasn't getting much prospect love.

I was a huge molina fan. Boy did he burn out quick.

Still, he was good enough to swing a trade for what looked like a very good closer on a great contract.

The real lesson i learned there was that the fact his numbers looked good compared to top prospects like Stewart and Drabek wasn't good enough if prospects like Stewart and Drabek weren't actually top prospects.

 

[zeke]

Dalton Pompey @DaltonPompey
11m
First game back today in the books, never felt so good to be back out there doing what I love!

 

[Discoverer]

Still, he was good enough to swing a trade for what looked like a very good closer on a great contract.

Presumably because the White Sox were purely scouting the stat line.

 

[metafour]

Actually is sometime around their 2014 callups I was arguing with Stoeten about it as he raved in jealousy of the Oriole's having this stud pitching prospects the jays couldn't match. Gausman was the future ace, while Stroman was the mid rotation guy but probably reliever guy. Stoeten mentioned how stro was good but Gausman was DOMINANT.

Trying to predict "aces" at the major league level is pointless because even with impeccable minor league numbers it ends up relying on un-measurable factors which either end up developing or not. That is why you see so many pitchers randomly develop into aces over guys with better minor league stuff OR stats. Again, the idea that you can predict who's going to be an ace based off of A-ball FIP/xFIP is nonsense. The same applies to traditional scouting as well, so I'm not even attacking you here.

 

[Discoverer]

Dalton Pompey @DaltonPompey
11m
First game back today in the books, never felt so good to be back out there doing what I love!

Extended spring, I'm assuming?