DJ's left nut |
12-07-2018 02:22 PM |
Quote:
Originally Posted by Prison Bitch
(Post 13941409)
He threw 207ip last year with 3.5 fWAR. Obv your thesis isn't showing up yet. And what SP isn't occasionally knocked around? Even Kershaw and Bumgarner and
To that point I pulled up gis dasgboard to see what his slider is doing. That and his FB are now avg, but his changeup ia now one of the best in MLB. He's got such good command he can just shift into a superior pitch (Kershaw and Bumgarner can't). He's also extremely durable.
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He hasn't fallen off - yet. That's what I'm saying; it's not a viable long-term plan. It can work for awhile but ultimately you become a RH junk-tosser and those guys aren't long for this earth.
And again - that's operating under an assumption that he doesn't continue to lose velocity, an assumption that I'm not sure is wise to make. You say his fastball is average and even that is a heck of a stretch; it got hit HARD last season. I'm hard pressed to find a single positive trait for it - the velocity is well below average and the movement may actually be worse. At best, he knows how to use it to effect outside of the zone to get guys to chase - which again is just another profile of a junk tosser. When the best thing I can say about the guys fastball is that it works okay when he doesn't throw a strike with it, that leaves his paths to success as being limited at best.
His slider started to get hit as well (and that's not surprising; he lost the depth he had on it a few years ago and he knew it when he stopped using it nearly as often as a putaway pitch). He does have two good pitches in his change and his curve but again - when you're trying to use them to set up an 89 mph fastball, that's only going to work to a point and that period of time is limited at best.
He's become a slow, slower, slowest kind of pitcher and there's a clear floor there. Moreover, that approach also makes him a 5, maybe 6 inning pitcher. If you let that guy face the order a 3rd time, you're just asking for abuse. He doesn't have the stuff or the myriad of available ways to get guys out to face an order a 3rd time through.
I think he's a fine guy to take a flyer on at 2 years, $32 million. But at 3 years and north of $90 million? Oh hell no - that's lunacy. There are way too many flags and no upside in it. He's a righthanded pitcher with an aging lefthanders arsenal. That arsenal as a righty puts him so close to the borderline against RH hitters that even a small amount of decreased effectiveness (likely given his age) will make him borderline unpitchable. He'll still be able to work around some of the worse RH matchups and attack lefties with his change to keep rallies from snowballing (while leaning on his curve against weaker righties) but literally EVERYTHING in his profile says 3rd starter at best with 4th being likely and swingman being a distinct possibility.
There isn't a good reason to take Greinke even if the D-Backs ate half his contract.
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