Rafael Soriano, Relief Pitcher
Dave · October 27, 2006 at 7:36 am · Filed Under Mariners
According to John Hickey, who gives Lee Pelekoudas as his source, the Mariners are not considering moving Rafael Soriano to the rotation for 2007.
Because, you know, that would make too much sense.
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Jarrod Washburn is better than “slightly above replacement levelâ€
Would you prefer “somewhat below average”?
A pitcher 10% below MLB average can reasonably be expected to post 83 major league wins and over 1300 major league innings through age 32? Cool!
Dont want to turn this into a Washburn thread, but he is not the same pitcher he was when the Angels went to the World Series. His fastball seems to top off at about 89 mph and his off-spead stuff isn’t very good.
Overall I would say he has had a good career, but as of “right now” hes pretty much a slightly above-average pitcher. Maybe if the fatsball comes back a bit..but who knows?
I can’t say im shocked about Soriano not starting next season, im just surprised they made this choice so early. The M’s may likely have to fill 3 holes in the rotation, and you never know what will happen on the free agent market, so I thought they would at least give Soriano a look.
I’ll put it this way: I’m not sure “average” is the right phrase to use when we’re dicussing a distribution that doesn’t resemble a bell curve, but a J.
Probably a better way to put it is if you put Cha Seung Baek out there for 33 starts and Jarrod Washburn for 33 starts, but everything else stays the same (team, park, league, etc.), what should be the approximate difference in runs allowed? That’s what I guess you could call “slightly”.
At least Baek seemed to have some movement on his fastball..
[ot]
#46—
Bash in my brain,
And make me scream with pain,
Then kick me once again,
And say we’ll never part.
At least Baek seemed to have some movement on his fastball..
I’m sure it’s going to move quite nicely when it leaves the park on a regular basis.
The dude’s a Korean version of Ryan Franklin, without the rubber arm (go look at Franklin’s stats in Tacoma if you don’t believe me). I don’t care if he’s the 5th starter because he’s cheap, you don’t win pennants based on your 5th starter. and Jarrod Washburn’s not worth a 8.5 million+ premium over him, but Washburn’s likely to be better over those 33 starts.
Um … why?
Reluctant as I am to disagree with the estimable Dave, I think keeping him in relief does make sense. He doesn’t have good mechanics. He bends his arm too much and puts too much strain on his elbow and shoulder. He can go an inning every other day doing this, but I suspect being a starter would only put him on the injured list.
I think we’ll be saying goodbye to Soriano shortly anyways and trading him in a package for someone like Vernon Wells if I had to guess, and then he’ll become a great closer or a pretty good #5 starter for Toronto.
I just wish we could’ve at least TRIED him as a #5 starter before making the decision of not putting him in that spot in 2007.
Well, I’m torn. On the one hand this looks like another short-sighted dumb M’s move. On the other hand, he does have only two pitches and I remember the last time he was in the rotation. I guess my greatest fear is that the M’s are making the right move for the wrong reasons, which means they will use it as justification for making a lot more wrong moves.
HE DOES NOT HAVE ONLY TWO PITCHES
Jeez. Read the thread.