ROBERT GRIFFIN III
Very seldom that Dr. D slows down to rubberneck something gruesome on the side of the road. But these QB kids who bowed in all four directions to the Subway Eat Fresh crowd, when they were yet rookies -- while Luck and Wilson were in the film room -- well, sometimes it's satisfying to see justice upheld.
Maybe that's a bit much. Of course, that's why you come to Seattle Sports Insider, to see rageous ideas stated outrageously. As y'know, we live to serve
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EDGAR OLMOS
All in the world this guy has is: a grin-inducing two plane hammer, an easy 94 MPH from the left side, and a -10 MPH change. Let me read that sentence again. Olmos has two plus pitches and another effective pitch, and he's useless. Well, unless you want to take his photo into your salon stylist to rock a Vote For Pedro look.
All he's got is an Opening Day starter's pitch arsenal. Which is a little like saying, all Colin Kaepernick has is a rocket arm, 4.5 footspeed, and an awesome rookie season in the NFL. Sometimes it just don' add up. And that is the way with Edgar.
We kid, we kid. As you also know, all these ballplayers are far richer, better-looking and cooler than Dr. D. And this is the only guy in the world who can keep Sonny Crockett under control. I've always been huge on Edgar Olmos.
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VIDAL NUNO
All in the world this guy has is: Edgar Olmos without the crackly-crunchy pitches. Nothing to see with either of this two dudes. ... well, that's not fair: Nuno is a serviceable ML LOOGY and Olmos is potentially a plus LH reliever. Supposing you want to choose them over all the other guys just like them.
It's a funny thing: the new kid on TV asked Blowers what went wrong this year and Blow reacted like a word-association game. Rodney, and Furbush's injury. And that kinda makes sense, when you think about it.
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JESUS MONTERO
It's just an accident that we lead with three amigos. Why did Montero cool down? We should watch more games, I guess. But we saw Montero swing in one game and he looked flat, listless, like somebody licked all the red off his lollipop. Dunno what else to say. He's running stairs, he's smiling in the dugout, and then he's blonking one-hoppers at the infielders. This sport isn't easy to figure out.
What will the new GM do with him? Watch him carefully in Spring Training, I guess. Which is a depressing thought, and why we're in Fizzlers here.
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MIKE MONTGOMERY
When he was throwing 20 scoreless innings in a row, SSI raved about his arm action on the change speed, and wrung its hands over his deceleration. The change speed went, the wild release point stayed. No, honestly, in this case I don't believe it was all about the league "adjusting" to him; I think that's an FKey7 auto-interpretation to say that. It says here that Montgomery's execution on the change-speed lost its edge, at least when Dr. D was watching.
And this is a guy who's going to walk people. His BB rate clocked in at 3.7 overall, and to get away with that you need K-Pax level DOM. Monty, if and when he returns, will need to come down the pipe for Strike One and to live through that he'll need to throw 50% offspeed stuff.
It's just an opinion. :: shrug :: This is the author who bought a Jack Wilshere jersey, so use caution.
More fizzlers? Here's an attempt to use batted-ball data to deduce the above. Which is a little like using yards per game to figure out whether Earl Thomas is in the football game or some scrub is letting Chargers rabbit down the sideline every play for long gainers. Um, yeah, they did square Monty up better after he started pitching worse.
;- ) We like Tony's shtick, and Tony has got a whale of a lot better baseball career than we got. But seriously, BIP data to gauge a young pitcher's next step?! The BIP stuff is fine as far as it goes. But yeah.
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ROENIS ELIAS
Blowers has been super-dee-dooper sympathetic in the booth. Hey, you win 10 games, you get used to the fancy carpet and the fresh boxes of candy bars sitting on the counter and the clubhouse kids saying Yes Sir Right Away Sir ... and then you're back down in Tacoma changing clothes in the closet. Give him a pass, sez Mikey. That would be enough to bum anybody out.
True dat. But Elias is a grown man, and he's able to deduce that he went down in favor of Taijuan Walker. Not as a personal vendetta. This 'tude is totally out of line. It's his career, right? Not to put too fine a point on it, there have been a few head cases out of that island. Bill James was just asked about Yoenis Cespedes' stint with the Red Sox. Not wanting to cause the Red Sox difficulties with his public comments, he tiptoed:
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HeyBill, Yoenis Céspedes is looking like Mickey freakin' Mantle here with the Mets. I hope we sign him. What was your take on him with the BoSox?
Asked by: OldBackstop
Answered: 8/26/2015
It seemed like he might possibly have more ability than he was using.
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Do your own Bill-O-Vision translation on that little beauty. ... and that's one more Bas Rutten shot to the livers of the sabes who try to rule everything non-mathematical out of the discussion ... oh yeah. If you need another 5 minutes off work, here's a Best Of Bas. Yes, he's kidding. Well, he's a little bit kidding.
Elias has still got the live arm, the three plus pitches, and the same need to finesse some deception out of his release point. Only now, he's got a "strike out four guys with this pitch" attitude.
One more guy who needs a complete and utter re-boot, and if so, that doesn't make him Dallas Keuchel, nor does it make him a James Paxton with so much ability you simply have to invest. If he gets the re-boot, then he's a young starter with a potential.
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MIKE ZUNINO
Is now batting .193 in more than a thousand major league attempts. The #2 worst average over the period 2013-15 is from Melvin Upton, at .202, and everybody else is over .210.
Edgar Martinez worked the right chipping drills with him, you can be sure of that, and Mikey kept sculling the ball over the green into the sand trap. Came the day the Mariners didn't want to see any more of them go over the green, and they gave up. You could call that fizzling, I think.
What does a new GM do? Fix him.
But then, that's where we came in. A new GM has quite a few busted pipes in the basement, and a good number of them may just need a coupla turns of the wrench.
BABVA,
Dr D
