It's because he doesn't have a WAR, isn't it?

Posted by dahsdebater on 5/26/2016 11:17:00 PM (view original):
It's not just about how good he is, it's about ceiling. Do you really think Urias is going to find the, what, 4 MPH difference between their fastballs in the next 2 years? Maybe he develops a sharp breaking ball, but I doubt it. He's not really a power guy. Sure, it's possible he's the left-handed Greg Maddux and grows into a dominant Major League starter. But it's a lot more likely that he isn't. It's not such a bad thing if he turns out to be the left-handed Hisashi Iwakuma. That's still a valuable pitcher, especially given how long his career is likely to be. But I don't see him as a guy that's going to pile up Cy Young awards in his career. I think too many scouts get caught up in results against younger hitters and don't project enough. Scouts said that Homer Bailey was going to be the next Nolan Ryan/Roger Clemens. How has that panned out?

Urias throws 90-95 and can hit 97. SO where is there a problem with velocity? Cliff Lee never had an overpowering fastball, but he was a true ace. Urias can do many of the same things he did, and has a better fastball. And - again - you say he doesn't have a good curve. Yet all I seem to read about is how he kills right handed hitters with it and has an advanced feel that allows him to move it all over the strike zone. I don't see how you think he has middle-of-the-road stuff.

I never said he has middle-of-the-road stuff. I said he doesn't have 3 plus-plus pitches. I'm saying he has Zach Greinke stuff, not Clayton Kershaw stuff.

If anything, the Cliff Lee comp makes my point for me. I think most fans would agree that he basically made something very close to the most he could have out of his arm. Cliff Lee won 1 Cy Young award and, barring a wildly unexpected career renaissance, is likely not a HOF candidate. He has 143 career wins and that's likely it for him.

Again, those numbers are good. But I think if you asked a bunch of Dodgers fans how they'd feel about Urias winning 143 games in his career, they'd mostly think you were horribly lowballing the guy. I'm not saying I don't like him, but I think people get too excited about prospects. They're called prospects for a reason, and the highest-touted guys fail to live up to expectations far more often than not. This seems like a particularly egregious case because of the relatively limited upside to Urias relative to a lot of top pitching prospects.

LOL. Still talking pitcher wins. BL will politely inform you that they don't matter.

who cares about wins?

I think people who understand baseball generally recognize that wins are a fairly easy proxy for career achievement. Obviously it's a rough number, but over a long enough career it's usually reasonably representative. But fine. Including only seasons fitting within the time frame from 1996 to the present (IE truncating careers to years after 1995) Cliff Lee is 20th in career fWAR. And he's very close to being passed by Greinke. Like 1 good start. He's one good season ahead of Peavy, 1 or 2 seasons ahead of Hamels. So basically, on average, he's good enough in terms of career WAR to be about the 2nd or 3rd best pitcher to debut in any given season?

Again, it's not bad. But I don't think a Cliff Lee-esque career is what people are thinking about with Urias.

Put another way, an average season debuts between 1 and 2 pitchers who will win 150+ games. But I would say most fans would expect at least twice that many rookies, if not 3 or 4 times as many, to be 150+ win pitchers. And the same goes for bats. Fans expect prospects to achieve too much. Most Baltimore fans remain highly disappointed in Matt Wieters because he never turned into the elite bat we were told he would be. But he's a top 10 catcher since his debut. That should be considered an asset, not a disappointment.

More simply, there are a lot more top prospects than there are MLB superstars. But fans expect every top prospect to turn into that superstar. It's not realistic.

And Urias is an obvious case to me where superstar is less likely than average. Bust is also less likely than average, as I implied in my first post. But superstar looks like a long shot to me. We'll find out. I hope he is great. I love watching pitchers who are elite without elite stuff. But guys that do it are few and far between.

Are you implying that BL doesn't understand baseball? If so, I can get on board with that.

And, yes, every fan thinks they have the next big thing hitting the majors. My guess is you get more David Clydes than Fernando Valenzuelas.

BL doesn't understand baseball. That's what I've been saying all along.

I was talking about wiley in this case...

BL has said multiple times that wins for pitchers are meaningless.

Posted by tecwrg on 5/27/2016 8:19:00 PM (view original):
BL has said multiple times that wins for pitchers are meaningless.

Which is true. It's a pointless stat.

Posted by dahsdebater on 5/27/2016 4:50:00 PM (view original):
I never said he has middle-of-the-road stuff. I said he doesn't have 3 plus-plus pitches. I'm saying he has Zach Greinke stuff, not Clayton Kershaw stuff.

If anything, the Cliff Lee comp makes my point for me. I think most fans would agree that he basically made something very close to the most he could have out of his arm. Cliff Lee won 1 Cy Young award and, barring a wildly unexpected career renaissance, is likely not a HOF candidate. He has 143 career wins and that's likely it for him.

Again, those numbers are good. But I think if you asked a bunch of Dodgers fans how they'd feel about Urias winning 143 games in his career, they'd mostly think you were horribly lowballing the guy. I'm not saying I don't like him, but I think people get too excited about prospects. They're called prospects for a reason, and the highest-touted guys fail to live up to expectations far more often than not. This seems like a particularly egregious case because of the relatively limited upside to Urias relative to a lot of top pitching prospects.

Again. Dahsebedeter says Urias doesn't have 3 ++ pitches but the people who know say he does.

And you say you 'feel' like he's gonna be average. But - again - others in the know say he's special. He has a feel for the zone.

That said, I generally agree with what you are saying. But your fixation on wins is retarded. If you don't think so, google "Nolan Ryan 1987' and then get back to me about how great wins are.

And this is for BL - you're ******* right if you think that if dahs comes back with anything about 'Nolan Ryan 1987' I will absolutely make the argument that he was the best pitcher in baseball that year - no matter what WAR and ERA+ say about it.

Gary Cohen, sharing Julio Urias story. They asked him "Did your dad tell you stories about Fernando Valenzuela?" "No. My grandfather did."

Ha!

Posted by bad_luck on 5/27/2016 8:50:00 PM (view original):

Posted by tecwrg on 5/27/2016 8:19:00 PM (view original):
BL has said multiple times that wins for pitchers are meaningless.

Which is true. It's a pointless stat.

Right.

If all you know is that a starting pitcher went 21-3 for a season, there's absolutely no way to determine if he's any good or not.

Right?