What a moron....Woody IS the 3rd best starter we have. We're talking about the 4-5 spots. Sampson, Nieve, Moehler and Albers are all better then Wandy...thats my point. Yea if someone younger was better then Woody then he shouldnt be the 3rd starter. But they arent.
wandy had his job locked up way before spring training even started. anything else we heard about competing for a spot was lip-service. completely disagree with it but we'll see what happens. he was excellent for about the first month last year so i'm ok with this as long as garner has a very short leash on him. he doesn't have the trackrecord to back up letting him stink it up start after start, particularly with solid options like sampson and albers waiting in the wings. i'm gonna guess nieve has the inside track on spot # 5.
I agree...look at Patton though. How much more could he do at A ball before they moved him to AA? It took them forever to move him up.
This is silly. Sorry. BTW: Roy O became a full-time MLB player during his 5th year in the minors. Same as Ryan Howard. Johan Santana got the call after 4, but that was only because he had to be in the bigs (Rule 5). It took him another 3 years to get it together. Some players are more developed than others when they enter the minors. Some don't put it together until their mid-late 20's. All players progress at their own pace. You're also completely ignoring the state of the big league club: are they rebuilding? Are they a competitive club where most of the positions are filled by vets? Are they cutting costs? Hell, ask your pal Woody. He didn't get the call until his 6th year of minor league ball, at age 27.
If you don't remember, Woody's 2005 stats was quite Wandy-esque. If Woody pitched like he did in 2005, then everyone on that list including Wandy are better and younger than Woody. You just better hope he pitches like he did last year and that it wasn't a fluke.
garner was on with charlie just now. said that wandy hasn't been given the 4th spot yet but he probably has the edge. said that he doesn't have to have a lefty in the rotation and if he struggles or someone else is better he won't hesitate to go all righty. as charlie said he won't pick a c + lefty over a b - righty, or something like that. talked about lidge and how even if he was scoreless through spring training, people would say well we'll see how he does in the regular season. talked about playing with nolan ryan for 5 years and how he was terrible in the spring but brought it when the regular season started. said lidge may be the same. that's all i caught before he left.
Eck... I hope Woody does better in the regular season. I'm not going to hate on him, but he is not looking good today. I love how I am treated to this suckfest for the first baseball game I have seen in months.
W-Mac, I know EXACTLY how you feel. I yell and scream at Wandy EVERY start he makes, and those few times he comes in to pitch in relief. HE SUCKS!!! I cant believe he is STILL getting this privelage because he's a lefty. All that means is that he walks people left-handed, or pitches 85 mph meat pitches over the heart of the plate left-handed, rather than right-handed. And, the fact that he has been given the 4th slot bolsters my accusation of Garner being a moron. He's a nice guy and I like him, but he's a tactical MORON!
With the number of runs scored in the 4-5 games last year, we should have been above .500 in those games. The top 3 did not get nearly the run support. Wandy's W-L record does not change the fact that he pitched terrible much of last year. I am different than some people here though. I am willing to throw him out there as one of our starters this year, but if he struggles for a month or so to start the season I want him pulled out and another pitcher given a chance (even if he is winning the games because he gets 7 runs a game). I just know that Garner is going to stick with him several months too long if he doesn't perform.
Man, everybody hates Wandy. I watched him pitch quite a bit last year and he actually pitched pretty well. He was actually one of the best pitchers in baseball the first two months of the season. He struggled a bit in June and was sent down to AAA, which I think was a bad move. At the time he led our staff in wins. His high ERA was more attributed to a few horrible games than a sustained bad performance over the whole season. Watched him pitch live in Minute Maid 2-3 times last year and he was consistently 90-91 mph range and was in control of the game.
That's certainly the conventional wisdom, that Wandy was the beneficiary of great run support. And he was, sort of. The Stros won 11, and lost 12 of Wandy's starts last year. Wandy's ERA in those 11 wins was 3.01. Wandy's ERA in the 12 losses was 8.15. In the wins, the Astros averaged 7.09 R/G. In the losses, they scored 3.42. However, in only 1 of those 11 wins did Wandy allow more than 4 ERs. This, coupled with his ERA in Ws, pretty much puts to rest the idea that he was winning largely due to exceptional run support. Contrarily, in 4 of the losses he allowed *fewer* than 4 ERs. Also, in only 2 of the 12 losses did the Astros score more than 4 runs, but Wandy allowed 3 and 2 ERs in those 2 games. This, coupled with the Astros paltry offense in his losses, pretty much puts to rest the idea that Wandy squandered great run support in the games they lost. Thoughts?
