Hairyducked Idiot

Gray's fastball is supposed to have some late sink and a good plane, so I don't think it's just velocity that gets him the grade (though obviously that's a huge part of it).

That's my suspicion as well. *If* the 80 power is legit, then I want. But I doubt that's the consensus number.

If Bryant really does have 80 power, then forget Gray and maybe Appel too.

3.73 FIP in a league with an average FIP of 3.79.

A brief semantic quibble, nothing more. I really want to like him, and his numbers are a little better this year than any other time he's been a starter. But even if he keeps these numbers up all season, what does that leave you with? A 25-year-old coming off an average AA season.

****less**** dramatic? That doesn't make a lot of sense. I'm not following you.

Glad we have Castro and not this guy. Can't stay healthy.

OK. I amend my previous statement. "Cabrera needs to stop walking more than average, especially considering his age and level, before I become much more than passingly interested in him as a starting pitching prospect."

OK. What walk percentage do we consider "the world"? Can I get a ruling?

The MLB average is 8.2%. When you are worse than MLB average in your fourth AA stint, it's bad enough for me to consider it a major issue. I mean, there's no objective definition of "walking the world," but it's bad enough for me.

I would like it if Cabrera would stop walking the world.

Make that -4. Seriously.

Our run differential is down to -6 and we're threatening for me. Crazy.

I want really badly to believe in this team's ability to make a run back to .500. It seems plausible, but just so unlikely.

They will, and it's still dismal. Epstein and Hoyer have been scrambling for pitching since the day they took over, and it's still this bad, which just goes to show what a hole they started with in that department. They did an amazing job of patching as many holes as they could with mid-level pitching free agents this offseason, but it still just took two injuries and a Baker setback to sink the ship. All of a sudden we've got Kevin Gregg closing and trying to figure out if we can get away with Michael Bowden in high-leverage 8th-inning situations. Contrast that with the Cardinals (a bit of an unfair comparison, because they are the best in baseball in this category). They've had just as many pitching injuries, and they still have the Baseball America podcast this week fapping over how they don't have room for three more young pitchers who could easily hold down an MLB rotation spot in a pinch. Under contract for 2014 (and excluding the indistinguishable waiver-wire replacement-level guys), we've got Jackson, Samardzija, Wood, Villanueva, Fujikawa, Russell, Vizcaino. Even if we rather prematurely add in the No. 2 draft pick, that's eight guys including a fresh draft pick and a recent TJ rehabber. That's half-a-dozen pitchers short of where we probably need to be to be comfortable, given the attrition rates the position experiences.

That's fine with me. Big-money 16-year-olds are enough of a crapshoot without them being pitchers on top of it.

Sure. I mean, they have to no matter what. Our organizational pitching situation is still pretty dismal above rookie ball. We're going to need to add a bunch of pitchers in the upcoming offseason just like we did in the previous one, and that's not an easy thing to do in free agency alone no matter how much you have to spend.

I'm glad we're looking for such trades, but such pitchers aren't exactly flooding the trade market each year. I won't hold my breath. Seems like they are at least playing around with the idea of making a major push in 2014, which is cool.

Free agents are going to be insanely expensive. All the new TV money each team is getting plus a very weak supply. I figure we'll get an outfielder (probably Ellsbury) and either extend Garza or sign a Garza-equivalent. Anything more would be exciting, anything less would be disappointing.

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-9QjARWd5a84/T3OXHJJbe1I/AAAAAAAAA34/OVtLNvwpMvI/s190/nod-of-approval.gif

So we buy out two pre-arb years, four arb years and one free agent year. Can't really tell without knowing the extent of the escalators, but that sounds like a very reasonable deal for both sides. Club options are always awesome.

A 28% K rate in AAA is pretty close to disqualifyingly awful, even if it's slightly better than last year.

Don't forget we have the #2 pick this year as well. If we draft either Gray/Appel as expected at #2, I'd expect them to be up by the end of 2014. We should be in a pretty good position going forward. I'd say the rotation going forward looks thin but adequate. There's not a lot of margin for attrition (which is always a big threat with starting pitching), but if we avoid that it should be acceptable.

When looking for the guy to remove from the rotation, might I suggest anyone else besides our best pitcher?

The best part is that someone did it. I have a friend from college who has a parody twitter account mocking everything he does at his job, and I'm quite jealous. This may be as close as I get.