Blue Jays Discussion: Off-Season Madness the 14th: Who is bigger, Dickey or Johnson?

[91Kadri91*]

Oops, that was a my bad. I thought you said that somewhere.

You said, "That's an awful, awful example. He had two season where he had BB% over 10 when he played for the Reds."

I'm not really sure what you're trying to get at.

 

[HockeyGuruPitka]

Do we all have faith that Romero can get back to his previous self? He crashed pretty hard last year.

 

[Bjindaho]

it eliminates the ability to use situational lefty and righty pitchers for more than an at bat at a time.

Not at all

 

[weems]

I'm expecting a MONSTER season from Lawrie.
All these trades and addition of talent have really pushed him to the background and he wont see nearly as much pressure.

.290 avg, 20+ hrs with great defense

 

[King Mapes]

Just curious to the answers since they asked on The Score. If Jays are in game 7 of the WS, who do you want starting?

My pick is Johnson. Not sure I'd want a 80 mph pitcher pitching. Yes it's a knuckleball, a very good one but its sometimes risky.

 

[Leafsdude7]

Honestly, the arguement can go either way, but the fact is Romero has some velocity on his FB as well, so "sandwiching" Dickey between him and Morrow is just as good, but gives an even bigger fall off for when teams are following up Morrow with Buehrle and then the jump back to Johnson and then the lefty in Romero. With Dickey as the ace, there's more balance in any given 3-game set, as well as any pair of games you may want to look at...

Dickey - Morrow
Morrow - Buehrle
Buehrle - Johnson
Johnson - Romero
Romero - Dickey

I understand what you're trying to say, but I still don't believe it's better.

I mean, let's look at what I'd like to see:

Morrow/Johnson - Dickey - 95+mph Gun of an arm to nasty knuckle
Dickey - Morrow/Johnson - Inverse of the above
Morrow/Johnson - Buehrle - 95+mph Gun to ~85mph lob from a lefty
Buehrle - Romero - ~85mph to 90-92mph
Romero - Morrow/Johnson - 90-92mph lefty to 95mph gun

You're really only seeing one unnoteworthy change in this system, and that's still a 5mph difference, and the other changes are all quite difficult to deal with. 95 to 80 to 95 righties, switch to a lefty, another quite different lefty and then back to the 95-80-95 righties.

None of those are easy transitions. I'm not saying that Buehrle - Romero is an easy transition, but I think it's easier than Buehrle - Johnson. Then you look at a 3 game sets and there's almost always a back-and forth going on...


Dickey - Morrow - Buehrle
Johnson - Romero - Dickey
Morrow - Buehrle - Johnson
Romero - Dickey - Morrow
Buehrle - Johnson - Romero

In my rotation setup, the matchups for 3-gamers would be:

Morrow/Johnson - Dickey - Morrow/Johnson
Buehrle - Romero - Morrow/Johnson
Dickey - Morrow/Johnson - Buehrle
Romero - Morrow/Johnson - Dickey
Morrow/Johnson - Buehrle - Romero

Only once you're dealing with a incremental change, and you're getting faster going from Buehrle to Morrow/Johnson, while you're getting slower with Johnson to Dickey. I think I'd rather hope that they still can't catch up to Morrow or Johnson's fastball even with the build-up than hope that they're not able to adjust to Dickey's slow Knuckle.

I gotta say, though, it's really fun discussing something where, even if they don't do it the way I want them to, it's still going to be a nasty rotation.

 

[weems]

Do we all have faith that Romero can get back to his previous self? He crashed pretty hard last year.

Even if he only gets back halfway we'll be laughing.

He should easily be the best #5 in the league.

 

[Bjindaho]

I haven't followed this whole conversation, but I will say that in an interview yesterday Gibby basically said that RA was the club's opening day pitcher and that he thought the splitting up of their lefties was a good idea. He did add that the rotation was subject to further discussions however.

From what the article I read yesterday said, and what most on here have been speculating, the main question is will JJ be #2 or #4.

The difference between 95 and 80 should be so great that Johnson/Morrow/Dickey each help one another. Whether that means game 2 is a nightmare because they are adjusting from 95+ or game 8 is a nightmare because they are adjusting from 80.

No matter how you slice it, you mitigate the Dickey advantage if you split up the lefties, because you will inevitably have to have a gradual velocity progression/regression. Lefty starters being split up shouldn't have any effect because you still have to use your bullpen.

 

[King Mapes]

I'm expecting a MONSTER season from Lawrie.
All these trades and addition of talent have really pushed him to the background and he wont see nearly as much pressure.

.290 avg, 20+ hrs with great defense

It really depends if he hits 2nd or 5th (Cabrera will be the other). If he hits 2nd his power numbers should go up. He was hitting there a bit last year but I expect bigger things next year

 

[Leafsdude7]

Just curious to the answers since they asked on The Score. If Jays are in game 7 of the WS, who do you want starting?

My pick is Johnson. Not sure I'd want a 80 mph pitcher pitching. Yes it's a knuckleball, a very good one but its sometimes risky.

I'd have to wait on how the season goes, but I'd agree in principle. Fastballs are generally more reliable than knuckleballs. Now and then I'm sure Dickey's just not going to have his knuckleball working just right, but I don't think Johnson's fastball is likely to ever drop in speed from one night to the next.

That said, if Morrow can pitch like he did last season before the injury, he'd be my choice ahead of Johnson.

 

[weems]

I'm expecting a MONSTER season from Lawrie.
All these trades and addition of talent have really pushed him to the background and he wont see nearly as much pressure.

.290 avg, 20+ hrs with great defense

Thats actually not that Monsterous.

Maybe .300, 25 HRS, mid .800's OPS

 

[Leafsdude7]

it eliminates the ability to use situational lefty and righty pitchers for more than an at bat at a time.

Uh...He's talking about pitching rotation orders.

Everyone knows why it's a good idea to go righty-lefty-righty in the batting order.

 

[King Mapes]

Even if he only gets back halfway we'll be laughing.

He should easily be the best #5 in the league.

I still see Buehrle as 5. Us or Nats probably have the best 1-5s in the league. Others (like Dodgers) have sick 1-3s but our has more depth.

 

[Jozay]

I'm not really sure what you're trying to get at.

You were trying to make a case that EE had a good BB% before, when you clearly stated he didn't.

 

[Leafsdude7]

I still see Buehrle as 5. Us or Nats probably have the best 1-5s in the league. Others (like Dodgers) have sick 1-3s but our has more depth.

Rays. Their #7 is still probably better than our #4.

That said, our rotation could match up with any other team's, and our offense is much better than the Rays.

 

[King Mapes]

I'd have to wait on how the season goes, but I'd agree in principle. Fastballs are generally more reliable than knuckleballs. Now and then I'm sure Dickey's just not going to have his knuckleball working just right, but I don't think Johnson's fastball is likely to ever drop in speed from one night to the next.

That said, if Morrow can pitch like he did last season before the injury, he'd be my choice ahead of Johnson.

I was debating Morrow. Power pitchers.

Thing is, sometimes you have little movement on the knuckle. But I'm always interested in watching knuckleballers pitch. Should be fun.

 

[Suntouchable13]

Do we all have faith that Romero can get back to his previous self? He crashed pretty hard last year.

I am not expecting an ERA in the high 2s, but I expect him to be in the 3.5-4.25 ERA range.

 

[Leafsdude7]

Thats actually not that Monsterous.

Maybe .300, 25 HRS, mid .800's OPS

The only thing is Lawrie is probably not going to get many RBI opportunities. Bautista and Encarnacion are likely to be well over 100. I'd be shocked if Lawrie gets more than 65-70, especially if he bats 6th like many are projecting. That's really more of a bad thing for Lawrie personally, though, not so much for the team. Might not be able to cash in quite as well in arb.

 

[weems]

Rays. Their #7 is still probably better than our #4.

That said, our rotation could match up with any other team's, and our offense is much better than the Rays.

Whos the Rays #7?

 

[dredeye]

I've been using stats to make my football picks every weekend. I've gone through and looked at teams offence passing, rushing and points and their defence passing, rushing and points. I've looked at home/away splits, games against the same team etc.

Last week Detroit beat Arizona in every single matchup and yet got blown out. The stats didn't lie... they weren't wrong. It's just that sports is far more than numbers.

Yes you used teams stats to make an educated guess. We are talking about individual stats. They are not the same thing. Not to mention they are different sports.

 

[SeenSchenn2]

The National Sports near me is having a pretty big sale... looking for advice haha; the jerseys are on sale.

I really like Rasmus (but there's the risk he'll be traded). Obviously like Lawrie but eh same thing as Bautista, I don't want his jersey. I'm a pitcher so I love pitchers, and want JJ but there's the wait of an extension.... and then there's Arencibia who I like (albeit gets a lot of hate here haha), and Reyes.

So tl;dr ---- JJ/Arencibia/Reyes?

 

[King Mapes]

Rays. Their #7 is still probably better than our #4.

That said, our rotation could match up with any other team's, and our offense is much better than the Rays.

For some reason I'm drawing a blank. Who are their 4-5 starters (since they delt Shields). Moore, Hellickson and Price are 3 starters but not sure who the others are.

Rays also have a crazy bullpen.

 

[topched]

edited.

 

[Jozay]

The National Sports near me is having a pretty big sale... looking for advice haha; the jerseys are on sale.

I really like Rasmus (but there's the risk he'll be traded). Obviously like Lawrie but eh same thing as Bautista, I don't want his jersey. I'm a pitcher so I love pitchers, and want JJ but there's the wait of an extension.... and then there's Arencibia who I like (albeit gets a lot of hate here haha), and Reyes.

So tl;dr ---- JJ/Arencibia/Reyes?

Reyes. You can bank him not being dealt for another 5+ years. And he's not a bad player.

 

[Suntouchable13]

The National Sports near me is having a pretty big sale... looking for advice haha; the jerseys are on sale.

I really like Rasmus (but there's the risk he'll be traded). Obviously like Lawrie but eh same thing as Bautista, I don't want his jersey. I'm a pitcher so I love pitchers, and want JJ but there's the wait of an extension.... and then there's Arencibia who I like (albeit gets a lot of hate here haha), and Reyes.

So tl;dr ---- JJ/Arencibia/Reyes?

Get a Dickey jersey. Do it, do it!