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The MLB Thread- 2014 Season


gmen81

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27 of 32 first place Cy Young votes isn't enough for elite status for you? Not even a down year for pitchers either, he smoked pretty solid competition in the voting. And as has been mentioned, he was pretty good the previous two years too.

No, I don't consider Dickey an elite pitcher. Brandon Webb won the Cy Young in 2006, do you consider him an elite pitcher? Bartolo Colon? Barry Zito? Aside from Dickey's 2 good seasons and his Cy Young season in New York, he's been a journeyman throughtout his career. And that's my only concern on Dickey, he is a huge question mark. He pitched in the AL before and has struggled. You can he's a late blommer, but typically when you get older you start to wore down easily, even as knuckleballer. At least with Marcum you know what you're going to get from him.

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No, I don't consider Dickey an elite pitcher. Brandon Webb won the Cy Young in 2006, do you consider him an elite pitcher? Bartolo Colon? Barry Zito? Aside from Dickey's 2 good seasons and his Cy Young season in New York, he's been a journeyman throughtout his career. And that's my only concern on Dickey, he is a huge question mark. He pitched in the AL before and has struggled. You can he's a late blommer, but typically when you get older you start to wore down easily, even as knuckleballer. At least with Marcum you know what you're going to get from him.

Brandon Webb was pretty dominant for 3 years even after his cy young season before injuries got him. Just sayin

I'm getting the sense that you think marcum is better than dickey? The only way dickey is gonna slow down would be injuries because knuckleballs. If anything dickey has pitched better as he ages so I don't understand your argument grounds

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Brandon Webb was pretty dominant for 3 years even after his cy young season before injuries got him. Just sayin

I'm getting the sense that you think marcum is better than dickey? The only way dickey is gonna slow down would be injuries because knuckleballs. If anything dickey has pitched better as he ages so I don't understand your argument grounds

No, I don't think Marcum is better than Dickey. If you're going to give up two of your top 5 prospects, than you better recieve something better than a 38yr old Cy Young winner, who has a huge question mark on him. Heck, if you're trying to acquire another top of the rotation guy, then go after Dempster, Haren, or Greinke. But like I said, they didn't really need another top starter in their rotation, past World Series winner had a deep rotation, which the Blue Jays already had prior to the Dickey trade. They needed to solidify their 4th/5th slot and find a decent 2B.

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The problem with Baseball is everything is unpredictable. Anything could happen, everything is about statistics. You could have signed or traded for any other player but you can still put a question mark behind his name. Dickey is a risk, but he's affordable. A 3 year/30 mill is fantastic deal compared to the top guys. He's a Cy young winner and he solidifies the rotation. So what the team lost 2 of the top 5 prospects? You could easily say that D'Arnaud had injury problems and Syndergard(s/p) had attitude problems like Escobar.

The Jays have a opportunity to win now, and this is what they should do. So what if they go all in? The best time is now, when every other team in the division isn't as good at the moment. If the Jays win 1 world series, no one would care about who they traded.

BTW - It had to be a trade. You honestly think that the jays were going to fork up the money for a big time pitcher? Not even that, but as if a big time player would want to go play in Toronto to begin with.

Dickey is a nice story. I have no problem with the acquisition.

There shouldn't be a saying that they didn't need another pitcher. You put the best possible team on the field.

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No, I don't think Marcum is better than Dickey. If you're going to give up two of your top 5 prospects, than you better recieve something better than a 38yr old Cy Young winner, who has a huge question mark on him. Heck, if you're trying to acquire another top of the rotation guy, then go after Dempster, Haren, or Greinke. But like I said, they didn't really need another top starter in their rotation, past World Series winner had a deep rotation, which the Blue Jays already had prior to the Dickey trade. They needed to solidify their 4th/5th slot and find a decent 2B.

Would you rather spend $160 million over 6 years on a pitcher or 30million over 3 for someone that's proven just to be as reliable if not better?

The risk involved around every newly acquired player would be the same. Dickey is coming off a Cy Young season on a weak Mets team. Izturis/Bonifacio will be #9 anyways. Upgrade on a department where you were left with nothing with a few injuries, or upgrade the #9 hitter?

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No, I don't consider Dickey an elite pitcher. Brandon Webb won the Cy Young in 2006, do you consider him an elite pitcher? Bartolo Colon? Barry Zito? Aside from Dickey's 2 good seasons and his Cy Young season in New York, he's been a journeyman throughtout his career. And that's my only concern on Dickey, he is a huge question mark. He pitched in the AL before and has struggled. You can he's a late blommer, but typically when you get older you start to wore down easily, even as knuckleballer. At least with Marcum you know what you're going to get from him.

Now, no. Then, yes. Ditto for Colon and Zito. Name me one knuckleballer who "wore down easily"? Just like finesse pitchers, knuckleballers don't have the same age concerns because the main thing that causes pitchers to age is the shoulder stress from having to whip their arm around so fast to throw heat. Hence why Greg Maddux could pitch until he was 42. Jamie Moyer pitched when he was 49 (and probably still could). And Dickey has it even easier because he doesn't have to worry about the arm stress from throwing curveballs either. It's the power pitchers that hit a wall (except maybe Nolan Ryan), not the junkballers.

I'm not saying Dickey's going to be one of the "all-time" elite pitchers, but he is an elite pitcher now. Some guys can prolong their success better than others, so who knows how it'll work out. But your argument about Colon and Webb is silly. By that rationale, Pedro Martinez isn't an elite pitcher now either, but would I have wanted him on my team in 1998 after he won his first Cy? Hell yes.

By the way, one thing that tends to be predictive of a decline in pitching numbers or indicative of an outlier "overachievement" year is a low strikeout rate. Going along with your previous comment, it's quite notable that Webb, Colon and Zito all had comparatively low K rates in their Cy Young years in fact they are the owners of three of the five lowest K numbers by a Cy winner since 2000 (the others are Cliff Lee and Eric Gagne, though the latter shouldn't count since he's a reliever). To me the most typical example of a guy whose overachievement was predicted everywhere was Chien Ming Wang, who finished 2nd behind Santana in 2006 AL Cy voting but only struck out 3.1 batters per 9 IP. Sure enough, he flamed out two years later and has been awful ever since. Now you can't necessarily say that Webb or Zito or Colon just had individual good years, because all three had a period of multiple seasons where they were effective: Colon got Cy Young votes in 3 different seasons, Zito's a three time all star and Webb was the runner up in 07 and 08 and was more a victim of injury than anything else. However, the point is that strikeouts correlate well with longevity at a high level. And Dickey led the league in strikeouts last year. That's also a place where the Wakefield comparison drops off, since Tim never hit 170 K in a season. So I think on that basis the Dickey signing looks more sound than would bringing in someone with numbers that didn't seem internally consistent (eg: low ERA but low strikeouts) that would make the "fluke" alarm bells go off.

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Bonifacio could be a decent second baseman. He was terrible at that position when he first came into the league but in limited playing time there over the last couple of years he's actually been above average. Maicer Izturis is also an average but plenty serviceable infielder and is consistently so across three infield positions. Really, to get offence out of your 2B, either you have one of the few really good ones like a Cano or a Pedroia or a Brandon Phillips, or you've got a young guy who hasn't been paid yet (Ackley) or you're willing to accept subpar fielding there to get a bat in the lineup (like Rickie Weeks or Ben Zobrist). Otherwise, with top notch well rounded second basemen at such a premium, it's a plenty good spot just to put a glove and hit around it.

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No, I don't consider Dickey an elite pitcher. Brandon Webb won the Cy Young in 2006, do you consider him an elite pitcher? Bartolo Colon? Barry Zito? Aside from Dickey's 2 good seasons and his Cy Young season in New York, he's been a journeyman throughtout his career. And that's my only concern on Dickey, he is a huge question mark. He pitched in the AL before and has struggled. You can he's a late blommer, but typically when you get older you start to wore down easily, even as knuckleballer. At least with Marcum you know what you're going to get from him.

"He was 4-0 with a 1.71 ERA in those six games, which included consecutive one-hitters against the Tampa Bay Rays and Baltimore Orioles."

source: http://espn.go.com/blog/statsinfo/post/_/id/58085/r-a-dickey-potential-trade-post

I think the AL East will struggle against him.

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Now, no. Then, yes. Ditto for Colon and Zito. Name me one knuckleballer who "wore down easily"? Just like finesse pitchers, knuckleballers don't have the same age concerns because the main thing that causes pitchers to age is the shoulder stress from having to whip their arm around so fast to throw heat. Hence why Greg Maddux could pitch until he was 42. Jamie Moyer pitched when he was 49 (and probably still could). And Dickey has it even easier because he doesn't have to worry about the arm stress from throwing curveballs either. It's the power pitchers that hit a wall (except maybe Nolan Ryan), not the junkballers.

Wakefield never threw more than 200+ innings after the age of 38, his highest after 38 was just over 180. Niekro was in a different era, where they didn't really have to go through grueling strength and conditioning exercises in the off-season like they do now.

I'm not saying Dickey's going to be one of the "all-time" elite pitchers, but he is an elite pitcher now. Some guys can prolong their success better than others, so who knows how it'll work out. But your argument about Colon and Webb is silly. By that rationale, Pedro Martinez isn't an elite pitcher now either, but would I have wanted him on my team in 1998 after he won his first Cy? Hell yes.

Let's be honest here, the only reason why Webb and Colon won the Cy Young in their seasons, was because they had more wins then the rest of the field. The voters seem to care more about how much wins does the pitcher have, then the rest of the stats. Both players numbers weren't even all that great, when they won it.

"He was 4-0 with a 1.71 ERA in those six games, which included consecutive one-hitters against the Tampa Bay Rays and Baltimore Orioles."

source: http://espn.go.com/b...tial-trade-post

I think the AL East will struggle against him.

Great he faced the AL East 6 times in 3 seasons, with the Mets.

Lets see how well he does facing them 4-7 times a year.

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Edwin Jackson is now making $13 million a season with the Cubs. Edwin Jackson. THIRTEEN million. Yah that makes sense.

10-11, 4.03 ERA, 1.22 WHIP (not bad)

THIS gets you $13 mil a year? Damn, I could get better numbers than that. I'll play for $200,000 a year.

Meanwhile, Dickey is making 10mil B)

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So Dickey only walked 54 batters in 233 innings last year and seems to be averaging about 50 a year which is good for any type of pitcher let alone a knuckleballer. That's an amazing amount of control of that pitch.

I can see why the Jays would take the chance that he's no fluke.

If that rate holds then he may be the best knuckleball pitcher of all time. Basically, he's something the League hasn't seen before.

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