I've been watching the game and he is not throwing harder than 86 mph. I wouldn't risk signing him to a big contract. I would trade him.
we should have never put willy t. in that trade he is now hitting .320 we could realy use his speed on this team as for taylor buckholtz i dont care but jason hirsh was a prety good pitcher
that certain ROY was a RF until this year. but, of course, RF was being blocked for the next 10-12 years by luke scott and jason lane.........
Forget Lane.. but you're telling me that given a starting OF of Lee, Taveras, and Scott (and after the 2nd half Scott put together last year)...you'd have been clamoring for Pence to take his spot? And add another lefty to the lineup that only had Berkman and Scott to start the season? Color me skeptical. I think you might want Pence over Lane, but I think they'd say they'd rather keep Pence getting regular AB's than sitting on the bench a lot, and I couldn't argue with that for a guy that young.
Are you going to tell me that you wish he stayed a RF'er? It is a helluva lot harder to find 5-toolish guys who can play competent centerfield (like Pence can) then it is to get a competent corner outfielder (which Scott still is). Pence can easily carve out a nice little career in CF... his defense hasn't hurt the team thus far, and he'll only get better defensively the more he plays there (as Willy T needed 2-3 years to do). And btw... Pupura and co. had ideas of converting him to CF long before they decided to trade away Willy T (the reasons being a backup plan for Willy's inept offense, and Burke taking over for Biggio). Looks like that idea turned out to be a pretty damn good move (which, of course, nobody is going to rush to give the organization any credit over).
I'm all for trading him during the all star break. Get whatever you can for him and bring back Albers or bring up Troy from AA. He's too expensive to resign and we need some prospects. This is one simple move any GM could understand.
You'll still need to get a #2 calibur pitcher in the off-season... unless you really think Albers, Patton, or Wandy are ready to take over that role.
Regardless of whether you trade him, you still have to get a #2. You can sign him just as easily as a free agent that you traded as you could a free agent that was on your team.
Yes... agreed. I just don't see a team out there right now that is desperate enough for pitching to trade us valuable prospects... additionally, Jennings value isn't all that high right now. Of course, this could all change in just one month (or even 2 weeks).
I tend to agree. However, remember the argument for trading two decent/good prospects for him was that this was the going rate for a one-year rental of a #2 type pitcher. If we could get one Hirsh/Taveras type player back (assuming we're still 10 games out or whatever) for 2-3 months of a #2 pitcher, might as well take it. Granted, this also assumes Jennings starts pitching a bit better.
I can buy that... but there is also the impending "market correction factor" that may be something to worry about. Teams are seeing what they paid for when they gave too much money for Ted Lilly, Jason Marquis, Jeff Suppan and Barry Zito. Likewise, there has been a huge infusion of young pitchers making spectacular debuts this year... Lincecum, Hughes, Bailey, Gallardo... more-so than in recent years (notice... Hirsh and Buchholz aren't in the "spectacular" category).
I wouldn't go that far. Lincecum, the most highly regarded of the bunch, has an ERA of 5.88 - he's been worse than this year's Hirsh and is pitching in a relatively pitcher-friendly park. Bailey & Gallardo both have ERAs in the 4s, but there have been limited innings so far. Hughes had one good and one bad start before getting hurt. None of those guys have performed as good as advertised yet, but it's certainly still way too early to make any judgments. But there hasn't been a Liriano or Oswalt type debut this season yet, unless you count some of the no-names like Guthrie or Bergmann.
I would wait till Lincecum gets over the predicted "dead arm" period before judging his entire body of work... he's struggled mightily in his last 3 starts. Its the stuff I'm looking at... and all of these guys have "it"... the great track record in the minors, combined with electric stuff that until proven otherwise, translates to the majors. (injuries being the only limiting factor) Teams may tend to hang on to these guys more and more in a pitching-starved league.... at the very least, there has to be somewhat of a market correction that currently overvalues established (but not elite) starting pitchers. On the other hand, Hirsh has been about as expected based on his initial stint last year... still having trouble keeping the ball in the ballpark, has improved some on his strikeouts, but will have to keep grinding it out with pin-point control to avoid getting hit hard (which wasn't as big of a problem in AAA). He's also been pretty up and down with his performances.
yep i agree with Nick rookie ERA doesnt mean anything when determining how good he is/will be. just look at all the decent sophomore pitchers this year (cole hamels, james shields, rich hill, matt cain) basically like that for all good young pitchers. it's all in their stuff and lincecum, bailey etc... have great stuff.
