Right-hander Jeremy Hellickson’s November decision to accept the Phillies’ qualifying offer in lieu of testing free agency came as a surprise, but he believes it was the correct choice. “I feel like I made the right decision,” Hellickson told Ryan Lawrence of PhillyVoice.com earlier this month. “And seeing how it all went down, I definitely feel like I made the right decision.” Only three free agent starters – Rich Hill ($48MM), Ivan Nova ($26MM) and Edinson Volquez ($22MM) – ended up scoring deals worth more than Hellickson’s $17.2MM qualifying offer during the winter, and each did so via two- or three-year deals. Hellickson was actually eager to join them in a weak market before receiving advice from his agent, Scott Boras “The first few days I was set on declining it,” Hellickson said of the QO. “There really wasn’t too much stress involved. But then after hearing from Scott after the (GM Meetings), I didn’t know what I was going to do.” Ultimately, the market developed as Boras expected it to, per Hellickson, who added that he’s content in Philly and “glad” the Marlins’ attempt to acquire him last summer failed.
The latest on a few other pitchers:
- While the possibility of the Dodgers stashing Julio Urias in extended spring training to begin the year has come up, they’re now “leaning toward” having the left-hander open the season in their rotation, according to Ken Gurnick of MLB.com. In that scenario, the 20-year-old wunderkind would make shorter starts to tamp down his workload, per Gurnick. Including postseason play, Urias tossed a career-high 127 2/3 innings between the majors and minors last year.
- Marlins righty Dan Straily enjoyed perhaps the best season of his career last year, when the then-Red totaled 191 1/3 frames of 3.76 ERA ball with 7.62 K/9 and 3.43 BB/9, and he attributes much of his 2016 success to analytics, writes Barry Jackson of the Miami Herald. One of Straily’s friends, a banking analytics specialist who “loves baseball,” helped the 28-year-old determine “which are the best pitches to throw against certain hitters.” Straily also studied one pitcher per division with similar velocity, spin rate and spin angles. “Now going into the game, there’s not a lot of guesswork,” Straily told Jackson. “I have a plan. I had a big change in terms of pitch selection more than anything else. I threw way more changeups last year. Just mixing speeds a lot more; not being predictable.”
- After working mostly as a reliever from 2015-16, including all of last season, Twins righty Trevor May is ready to leave the bullpen behind and win a starting job this spring. “I think I have a little bit of a chip, being unclear about knowing what I was going to be doing the last two years,” May, 27, told Rhett Bollinger of MLB.com. “It wasn’t ideal for me or the vision I had for myself of my career. I’m going at it at 100 percent. There’s no, ’Oh, I could fall back to the bullpen.'” May, who has logged a 5.61 ERA (3.85 FIP), 8.17 K/9 and 2.7 BB/9 in 126 2/3 career innings as a starter, is competing against several other candidates for a rotation spot, as MLBTR’s Steve Adams detailed Friday.
Mike Scioscia “We’re confident we have the depth that is going to give us a championship-caliber rotation”. Okay…. sure…. what ever you say BIG guy. At least the real LA team has a championship caliber rotation. Urias without a doubt would be the Halos #1 guy, and he will be the 4 or 5 on the Dodgers. Just an example to the Halo fans that think the Angels have that championship rotation.
Urias is a 20 year old rookie, fercrissakes. He looks like he could be really good, but it’s a little early be stacking him up against a 5-6 year veteran.
Get a new team
Behind Richards and Shormaker. Then maybe.
please take the halo out of your name, your attempt at trolling the angels on every article is giving halo fans a bad name
Just telling it how I see it. I’m a fan too, just not a homer. And as a matter of fact, I have season tickets as well. It’s unfortunate that your so thin skinned, that you can’t handle another’s opinion.
I don’t think haloshane is saying anything to crazy
it is sad to see it. I’m a cubs fan. Anyone who doesn’t think they are gonna win 104 games next year is a debbie downer. People just don’t want to hear legitimate concerns about a team, for some reason.
Thank you. Just call it as I see it.
It’s not even that he is always negative and seems to be a waste of his time to even be angels fan so why not get a new team.
politicsNbaseball, idk if your new to the site or what, but haloshane comments on just about every article to troll.
chester, i’m well aware of the angels problems and i’m glad to talk about them. But i don’t like haloshane trolling on every article and turning everything into a “angels are the worst team in sports” conversation
Urias is not “without a doubt” better than Garrett Richards if he’s healthy, like he supposedly is.
When healthy, that very well could be. The upside to Urias is much great than Richards “without a doubt”. Richards unfortunately has become that injury prone guy. You definitely can not count on GR to play a full season.
I am mystified by this concept of “upside.” Does that mean Urias could be a lot better than most are expecting? Seeing as he’s already expected to be a top-of-the-rotation starter, I don’t see much “upside” left for him. Unless he proves out at the expected level, then it seems like pretty much everything left for him is actually “downside.”
Get a new team
Angels suck. I will love watching them sink to the cellar.
the angels will be better then what experts think
They’re projected to be in a wc hunt, do you really think they are better than that? Or are you just yappin’?
I think they are projected to be a wildcard team, but they could surprise and win the al west, but experts on the mlb network will say not enough depth
Countdown to Urias’ first Tommy John in 3…2….
Classy!
Haha, and what do Dodgers fans know about “class”? Oh right, nothing.
Urias should definitely start the year in extended spring training. Look at Felix Hernandez, he was dominate from age 19 but now he’s lost a ton of velocity because of all the innings he threw. Of course though, unlike Felix, the innings that Urias throw will actually matter. But for the long long they need to save his arm.
Considering they got over 2000 quality innings out of him before his velocity cratered, I don’t see the issue. What’s the problem – were those 2000 too soon? Is 2000 not enough?
Besides, he’s still plenty serviceable now.
Verlander has lost some velocity, still put together a cy young caliber season. The drop in velocity only means that adjustments have to be made
Not to mention people act like Felix is in the high 80’s. His average fastball was actually 91 other than 1 month of the season where it was 89 and regularly hit 93-94 during the season. Yeah he’s not 21 anymore but he doesn’t throw slow
Precisely, he’s still effective at the low 90s. I’m just shocked someone pointed to Felix’s body of work in any negative light.
I’m guessing what he was getting at was Felix being brought up and wasting so many years on bad teams. That’s definitely not a good comp, because the dodgers are in a different situation. I agree in one sense though, I do think he should start in extended. I think what separates Urias from many guys is his pitch ability.
This is the part that troubles me. I really hope Urias starts in extended. I hate the idea of shutting him down mid season. Start him late let them let him go. So now if you start Urias you need to carry an extra reliever, Strippling, just to piggy back him. I think this says more about Kaz, McCarthy, and Ryu’s availability and readiness.
yeah it doesn’t show much faith in those guys
So how does Boras appear to get it so right on the lower-tier starting pitcher market for Hellickson, but completely miss the mark with Wieters and the starting catchers market?
How did he misjudge the catcher market, I think he got weiters a decent contract. Maybe blame weiters for being mediocre
Exactly.
Misjudge the catcher’s market? Wieters signed a 1-yr. contract for $10.5M w/ a $10.5M player’s option. Now compare him to Wilson Ramos.
Ramos had a much higher BA, OBP, SLG, & OPS, & had more HRs & RBIs. And while he isn’t as good overall defensively as Wieters is, Ramos is solid defensively & he’s got just as good a throwing arm as Wieters. Also, Ramos is a yr. younger than Wieters. All that, & Ramos signed a 2-yr. contract for $12.5M. So despite having a much better yr. w/ the bat than Wieters, Ramos is guaranteed to make $7.5M less than Wieters over the next 2 yrs.
It may seem like Wieters didn’t get market value b/c Wieters was 1 of the last big-name FAs on the market, but when you compare his contract to his peers, it seems like Boras did okay for Wieters…
Just as an FYI; in 2008, Kershaw threw 107.2 innings in the big leagues after throwing 61.1 innings in the minors earlier that season. That means he threw a total of 169 innings as a 20 yr. old. He’s thrown 1652.1 innings in the 8 yrs. since his rookie season.
If Urias pitches around 160 innings this season, I’d be happy w/ that.
I also wonder how the new DL rules will play into things. Makes me wonder if the Dodger front office has some roster flexibility ideas to keep shifting pitchers in.
Also, I’d rather have Urias make more 5 inning appearances than fewer 7-inning appearances since he’d likely be more effective facing hitters fewer times through the lineup. Some young pitchers struggle the third and fourth time through the lineup.