I think there are a few things: 1. His best years have been when the team had already started its decline. If he'd been what he is now in 2005 or 2006, he'd be more highly regarded. But in those years, he sucked. His first impressions were "why is this guy on the team?!" and first impressions tend to be very strong and hard to break. Now, he's really good but his best W-L record is 14-12 because he's on terrible teams. 2. His "stuff" doesn't look dominant, and he looks like a kid in a lot of ways. He doesn't show a lot of emotion on the moound or project an aura where people are scared of facing him. Popular pitchers tend to have a bit of an attitude / fear factor that he doesn't have.
The casual fan doesn't see the ups and downs of pitchers on other teams. They only see the cumulative and average numbers. So it's easier to be hard on your guy, whose downs you're more likely to see, than a very similar guy on another team. That, and 2011 was kind of a buzzkill for Wandy. He'd finally put together a pretty strong season-long effort in 2010, without many swoons, and we were pumped for 2011. Then he came out and just sucked for April and (IIRC) into May. The rest of the year, he gravitated back to his career norms and ended the season as a solid #2/#3 guy, just like always. But that slow start was a real let-down after a stellar 2010.
Certainly - but it doesn't seem like other teams have trouble liking their own pitchers. Wandy's 2010 was actually the worst of his 4 year run of good starts (2008-2011). But this past year, Wandy had 6 starts in April - alternating 3 pretty bad with 3 great ones. He gave up 7, 1, 5, 1, 4, and 0 runs. In total, it was a not terrible, but less-than-impressive 4.26 ERA. In May, he had an ERA of 2.25. In June, he had an ERA of 1.80. Basically, after his first 5 starts, went on a crazy dominant run for 2 months.
I'll challenge you on that. I'd bet that in every town there is a contingent of fans who are hard on their own. "Familiarity breeds contempt" did not become a cliché by accident.
lol no racism. I don't dislike him as a person, I dislike that fact that he will only lose value and we should have gotten anything we could out of him the past few years, now we will just have to live with a 3.50 +Era guy who will only decline. He will not improve.
Did yall see what the A's got in return for Gonzalez? Before that I would almost be happy with a Wandy deal that centered around one prospect on the level of a Cole, Peacock or Norris. It makes me somewhat hopeful on what a Wandy return would bring (though also a little bummed at what was settled for in the Bourn trade). Now that some of the sp options are moving I hope interest in Wandy picks up. I like Wandy and think he's generally underrated, but he'll be 33 this year and it's unlikely to be as effective or still around the next time the astros are contenders. and better to sell a bit too early than too late on these guys. If Wandy gets injured or has a bad year he'll be unmovable with his contract. After Wandy's gone there's not any obvious rebuilding trade chips left to cash in although I would definitely trade Norris in the next year if you could get a package on par with the Gonzalez or Latos trade. Can't imagine Myers brings back much even if the astros eat salary.
Wandy's pitching style (soft tossing lefty) projects pretty well as he gets older. I would not be surprised to see Wandy still being effective at the end of his contract. No telling if the Astros will be contending or even a 500 team by then.
The problem with Wandy, is no one in baseball likes him either it seems. He's underpaid on the WAR scale, but soft-tossing lefties never get the respect. That he has a ++ curve ball and a developing + change doesn't matter. Nor does it seem that he's learning how to pitch means anything either. All they see is a 88 MPH fastball and go from there.
Wandy Rodriguez is mr. consistent! He will give you about 10 wins and 10 losses a year plus a 3.99 ERA. He is our number 2 guy but ranks probably as 3s on most teams.
How far we have come... now we have 5 current or recent (within the last 2 years) all-stars in the rotation.
So we traded Oswalt for Happ. Happ for Musgrove. And after Musgrove was the winning pitcher in Game 5 of the WS, we traded him for Cole. So technically, Oswalt won us Game 5 (and the series), and then got us Cole! It all worked out.
Totally in support of that! And I actually get really sick and angry when I see #44 given out to other players not even nearly worthy like it's just some other number, like most recently Luke Gregerson, and then Tim Federowicz at Spring Training. I was relieved when Fed-X chose 19 instead of 44 when he was called up. Seriously, I did. Big relief.
