The Rangers and Yu Darvish would be wise to shut down the prized righty, opines Jeff Passan of Yahoo Sports, who says that the “macho baseball culture” that would suggest otherwise is simply wrong. As Passan rightly notes, minor injuries (like Darvish’s, according to reports) can often be a precursor to a more significant problem, and that risk is simply not worth it with Texas playing out a clearly lost season.
Here’s more from the game’s western divisions …
- Looking ahead to the offseason, the Giants face many impactful and emotionally difficult decisions on pending free agents, GM Brian Sabean said in an interview on The Sports Virus podcast. Emphasizing the club’s oft-noted loyalty, Sabean indicated that monetary constraints would play an important role in how the offseason unfolds (while also seemingly to imply that he could make a run at bringing back Michael Morse). “[A]t the end of the year, your starting third baseman, your closer, one of your starters, and your left fielder that you’ve fallen in love with has got a chance not to be back with the team, or you may have to pick and choose due to budget considerations,” he said. “… I don’t remember a year about to end … with those kind of decisions at hand, including keeping it all within a manageable budget.”
- Athletics GM Billy Beane said that his club’s recent struggles do not change the considerations that led him to deal away Yoenis Cespedes for Jon Lester, as John Hickey of the Bay Area News Group writes. “I’m happy to have Lester’s three wins,” said Beane. “Those are three wins I don’t know we’d have without him.”
- Diamondbacks hurler Patrick Corbin is likely not to return until June of next year, at the earliest, as Adam Lichtenstein of MLB.com writes. The club is taking a fairly conservative approach with its prized young lefty.
- Though Arizona surely has plenty of needs to address after a fairly miserable 2014 campaign, one fairly specific desire is to add an on-base machine to the lineup, GM Kevin Towers tells Nick Piecoro of the Arizona Republic. “It would be nice to have another bat that was not only an offensive player, but somebody who works the count, gets on base and can create more scoring opportunities,” said Towers. The club is looking to find that package in an outfielder, Towers added, and has already begun scouting possible free agent or trade targets. Players like Nori Aoki and Chris Denorfia could fit the profile, says Piecoro.
Except, it’s Corbin’s FIRST Tommy John surgery. Someone is probably confusing him with Daniel Hudson.
That’d be me.
Sounds a lot like Towers is describing Adam Eaton… Hmmm…
Well at least he has moved on from needing a power bat to replace Justin Upton…
Do you think he’d settle for a 1st baseman, instead? Because if you want an on-base guy, Carlos Santana’s the guy. The Tribe has options at 1st base. And we need starting pitching real bad.
Oh, yeah, Carlos also ‘plays’ 3rd and catcher. He probably be more than happy to try OF. ;)
Passan is such a load as a writer. Call off the pitchforks and torches, Ron Washington isn’t going to force Darvish to pitch out this season and risk blowing out his elbow. Jon Daniels would fire him so fast, his head would spin.
You nailed it. I think some writers and radio talk-show people are frustrated fans who think they should be GM’s. Then again, there are those who were GM’s that were fired because they acted like frustrated fans….
Aoki is probably one of the most under-valued players of the last couple seasons. He’s not having the best year this year due to advanced metrics not liking his defense nearly as much as it did but he has demonstrated the things Towers said he’s looking for. rWAR puts his value at over 6 wins for his first two seasons in MLB and the Brewers signed him for very little.
I like WAR for a lot of things, but those numbers usually need to be taken with a grain of salt. There was an FG article a couple weeks ago about how WAR has Alex Gordon as the best player in baseball, and another about how a certain metric had Casey McGehee essentially pegged as the most nimble baserunner in the game, because of some weird anomaly in his hit distribution.
What’s crazy is that Kershaw has a 1.3 WAR…….That would be a 1.3 WAR over 2nd place in the NL (and he’s first overall in Baseball). Wonder how high he would be in the NL MVP race.
If only MLB had an award that would distinguish the best pitcher in each league. Hmm…they could name it after the pitcher with the most wins in MLB history…perhaps Cy Young himself. What do you think?
So a pitcher can’t be the most valuable player on his team?
No. A pitcher is only in a fifth of the games played and most of the time is out after 6 IP or 100 pitches, whichever comes first. A position player has an everyday impact on the team. Relievers are much of the same. Sure they appear in more games but do not come near the amount of innings pitched. However, if there is one exception, I believe it’s for the closer. But it should be a VERY rare exception.
Then why have pitchers won the MVP before? And one just won it 3 years ago
Verlander shouldn’t have won it in 2011, though I’m not necessarily opposed to pitchers being MVPs in general.
But you probably shouldn’t be using BBWAA voting results as a defense anyway :P
Oh I agree about 2011 MVP. I think Ellsbury should have won. I’m not using BBWAA results as a defense, but what else can be used to show pitchers have won past MVPs?
I was just saying you shouldn’t use it to assert that they SHOULD have won, which I thought you were doing. That’d be like using Gold Glove results to say Jeter was a great defender in 2010!
Well gold gloves are actually picked by managers and coaches. Not BBWAA. But I get your point though.
I’m saying they shouldn’t win the MVP. They have the Cy Young that awards the best pitcher in each league. Because they don’t contribute on the field every day the way a position player might, they shouldn’t win it or even be in the discussion.
You’re treating pitchers like they’re pinch hitters, though. The performance of the SP for a team controls whether or not a team wins a game most of the time. You rarely see a team lose games when the SP has a dominant performance, unless they have an otherworldly anemic offense, they just have a historically bad day, or the opposing pitcher pitched just as well, etc. And last I checked it was MVP, not OMVP.
What you are missing is that if a starting pitcher lost every single game that he pitched in, he could still theoretically be on a division winning ball club. The reverse is also true. If you have a starting pitcher with a season like Steve Carlton’s 1972 season, 27 wins for a 59 win Phillies team…he is clearly the most valuable player in the league (arguably the most valuable player of any year). But that doesn’t mean he SHOULD win the MVP because the Phillies could have been in last place without him as well just as easily. The MVP should be a player that not necessarily makes the playoffs, but makes his team markedly better than without him. In my opinion, that player is Giancarlo Stanton in 2014. Without him, the Marlins are a last place team. The Dodgers would still be in first place (or second at the least) without Kershaw.
Pretty sure I read an article that pitchers have as much as an effect as position players if not more (on wins). Wish I could find it for you, most likely on fangraphs.
I think a starting pitcher would need to be record-breakingly fantastic in order to really deserve the MVP award. I love good pitching, but the everyday players almost always seem more suited to the award.
Another similar guy to Gordon is Heyward (he is also up there in WAR based solely on his defense).
Well the A’s offense have scored 22 runs in Lester’s 3 wins, including 1 of them were they scored 11 runs (and Lester gave up 3 that game) and another where they scored 8 (and again, Lester gave up 3 that game too). I’m certainly not saying Lester wasn’t a factor or ineffective in those 2 games, but it’s very likely they would have won both of those without him. In the 3 run scored game, Lester pitched a 9 inning shutout, so yeah it’s hard to argue against that one though.
Daniel Nava would make a lot of sense for the Snakes!
KT is not very bright. You have a good offensive team in place and they need to play together and everyday to develop a rhythm. What the team is lacking in is – pitching. With an outfield of Inciarte, Pollock and Peralta you’re set. Infield should be Lamb (3B), Gregorius (SS), Owings (2B), and Goldschmidt (1B) with Montero (begrudgingly) and Tuffy catching. I think your 3-4-5 hitters are Goldy, Trumbo and Peralta but knowing KT (assuming he is still around) he’ll trade both Trumbo and Peralta for a middle reliever.
Kevin Towers continuing to blur the line between parody and reality.