The pitcher who just ****ed up the Stros tonight (and others) didn't do anything until he was 25 years old and was a 9th round pick out of a dipsh!t baseball school in the PNW Sometimes you develop late.
#1 he hits 100 as a SP, which is not common #2 he is lefthanded, which makes that even more rare It all comes down to command. When you have #1 and #2 you have a much larger margin for error on where you need to put the ball to have success. But even guys with #1 and #2 will get shelled if they don't get close enough. I see Brown and Arrighetti both as able to take that kind of a leap from inconsistent 4 inning starters who either give up 4 runs or 0 run innings to legitimate MOR starters. They are RH and a bit short of that fastball. They need to have a bit better command than Skubal does, but overall it's the same concept. Keep the ball out of the middle of the plate. With their stuff they don't need to throw strikes, but they do need to make pitches look like strikes as long as possible. Consistently get out of innings throwing less than 20 pitches.
A ML starter should consistently get wins by averaging less than 15 pitches per inning. Chances to win with 15 to 17 per inning could go either way. More than 17 is almost always a loss. Track it, you will be surprised how accurately you can predict outcomes this way.
Everybody is a hater because Stevie Wonder could see the ball better than him. Hell, even Jake Meyers is hitting better.
To be fair, Diaz isn't the greatest thing ever these days. He is better than Maldy though but I'm not ready to say he rocks for now anymore.
https://www.soxon35th.com/stop-the-maldonado-madness-and-start-korey-lee/ this could have been a thread here a few years ago.. just think it’s funny that this is still an issue and it wasn’t just us. Also, there should not be any desire to bring him back to “save the pitching”
Before you ask, no, Maldonado is not a defensive improvement. The two catchers are poor defenders overall and equally poor blockers, but Lee is the superior framer and steal-preventer. Additionally, Lee showcases potential with his league-leading pop time. His pitch calling has gone bad because he knows he can't block pitches anymore... but I guess he's great to socialize with by bringing his teammates to MMA matches
I think that's from that cheezy edward james Olmos movie. There’s a lot of bad baseball movies but that one may be the worst.
I still love Maldy. But he makes absolutely no sense for a team like the White Sox. He is/was a luxury for a very good team, not a rebuilding/terrible team. He worked for the Astros because we had a fantastic lineup that he couldn’t hurt and he made the pitchers happy. I’m all for playing him if it makes the pitchers feel better, even if he is offensively useless. But it makes absolutely no sense to play him in Chicago.
