Laika

sure it takes that into account it's also very possible that he misses almost an entire season due to being old and s***

OK Dwayne, please put Lowry and Val back in

And if my grandmother had wheels she'd be a bike what is this

(LINK) Spencer Estey of Breaking Blue shows that Tulo should still be a "surplus" player or thereabouts even at the end of his deal

Everybody not named Lowry looks dead. Need to shake things up. Why doesn't James Johnson ever play?

It's irrelevant because literally nobody here has any f***ing clue who would be good

This is fantastic. Is this Jesse G-S' blog?

Chad Girodo is for real, man. Lefties that throw 87 don't grow on trees! One guy that I consider a legitimate RP prospect who I hope stays in the organization is Ben Rowen

I think their farm is still fine. Below average, obviously, but there is still depth - especially in the low minors. The 50+ number is actually a little light, in all likelihood and if we're including guys with say, bench potential or 7th RP potential.

Most organizations do, but I'm not a f***ing scout. s***, John Mayo and John Sickels can sit at home in their pyjamas and name 30+ legitimate prospects with MLB potential in basically every MLB organization. Just because BA and BP do top 10 lists and most public sector scouts don't have the resources to properly evaluate the very low minors doesn't mean that potential real talent doesn't run 50+ names deep and all the way down to the DOSL and VESL. Just as a reference, before John Sickels does his offseason top 20 for each team he does a preliminary prospect list that tends to run 40+ names deep, and then gets community input on who to cut/keep.

It was super easy to build a farm back in those good old days, if you were rebuilding at the MLB level. ps - you are a bad mod

LOL no. It was fine. Probably above average. He wasn't some wizard farm builder though.

A lot of that "restocking" was just maturation from the previous rebuild phase. Examples: Daniel Norris was a 2011 pick that matured in 2014 Franklin Barreto was signed in 2012, in the old international prospect process, before international bonus slots, for $2M. Osuna signed before 2011 Castro signed in 2012 Pompey was a 2010 pick Labourt was signed before 2011 Tinoco signed before 2012 Cordero signed before 2012 Sean Nolin was a 2010 pick Alex Anthopoulos didn't do the Marlins and Dickey trades and then "restock" the farm system before spending a bunch of it this year. That's a myth. It's not possible to rebuild a farm system in a year or two without doing an MLB level tear down. In fact, to build the 2015 playoff team he very much dipped into the same prospect capital that he dipped into to get Dickey and the Marlins guys. He went to the same well in 2015. A legitimate farm system has 50+ notable prospects. In any given MLB draft + international signing period, a team is probably lucky (or has done well) to get 10 notable prospects. It takes half a decade or a string of very good drafts to rebuild a s***** system. There's a very real chance that Anthopoulos was mis-managing the team's farm system and young talent, and it just hadn't caught up to the organization yet. (Rogers, I need an advance on that next paycheque).

Yup. AA dug himself a little hole with the Marlins and Dickey trades, and his solution was just to keep digging until he hit playoff pay dirt. If extended and given autonomy he could very well have Amaro'd this organization, for all we know.

Yes; probably not. http://ojs.sagepub.com/content/3/4/2325967115581594.full The timing of the arm and body is important, but it's not as simple as looking for the inverted W. What "early trunk rotation" means, essentially, is that the shoulders are turning before the arm is 'cocked'. Imagine the whole body firing to deliver a pitch, but the arm is a bit late, so it drags behind. This increases stress on the arm (and also, probably, velocity). There are physical things you can look for up and down the body to get a sense of timing. Look for where the arm is at foot plant. Look for where the arm is when the front shoulder is in the process of turning. Look at whether or not the hips turn before the shoulders. Look at how stiff the plant leg is through the pitching motion. Look at the path of the arm after releasing the ball. All of these things can influence injury risk - but the inverted W probably doesn't on it's own. Note that the study linked may not be perfect. At a glance, there might be sample size concerns.

Quintana absolutely

yessssssss just running a simple regression for lunch

jesus christ, lighten up signed, - the wet blanket

If his arm has any chance of being healthy at some point in 2016, then he'll be a Blue Jay this winter. Might as well get your Cliff Lee jersey now.

He's 37 and he doesn't have a World Series ring. Last chance at WS > wife and kids

What we have here is correlation vs causation. Velocity has a positive relationship with elbow torque. Elbow torque is the direct cause of elbow injury. So velocity is correlated with TJS, and any study will find that pitchers who throw harder will be more likely to have TJS. Because Carrasco throws harder it is more likely that his elbow is under more torque during his pitching motion, but we don't know for sure. Plagiarism: The Holy Grail of mechanical pitching instruction is to get your pitchers throwing harder without increasing their injury risk. Is it even possible, though? Should teams want durable pitchers, or dominant pitchers? At what level of velocity does the injury risk start to mitigate the increased performance? What are the effects of weighted ball programs, long-toss, etc.? I wish I worked as a baseball biomechanics analyst.

He rehabbed it last year. It's a torn flexor tendon, not the UCL. There haven't been any updates on his rehab since like June. Obviously if he's not healthy enough to pitch then he'll retire.

TJS rate has gone up as average velocity has gone up in baseball. But it depends on the specific pitcher, like you said, and arm exertion. Many players will adopt mechanics at an early age that increase stress on their arm and therefore increase velocity. David Price throws an easy and clean 96 --> low risk. Shaun Marcum throws a mechanically strenuous 89 --> high risk. Mark Prior threw 97 with the inverted W and terrible timing --> high risk Bark Muehrle throws 85 with impeccable timing --> lowest imaginable risk! But the general correlation does probably exist, yeah.

How many days did Thole even have on the active roster this year? I don't see the personal catcher thing as a big deal anymore. They even have the opportunity to sign a capable backup that can do a little bit more than call a game and eat cheese strings. The direct comparison is Colon vs Dickey, since Colon is a free agent. That's the choice. EVEN IF they both would sign here, I'd prefer Dickey because the knuckleball is almost ageless and Colon is a terrible bet to stay healthy, despite his past couple of years. But in actuality the choice is get Dickey's guaranteed innings or attempt to woo Colon to Toronto. So it's not even a choice. There is no choice. The chance that Bartolo would sign here for one year is probably miniscule. It's retain Dickey, or give Mike Leake 40 million dollars, or go hunting through the bargain bin and hope that Trevor Cahill etc. can recapture the magic.

Philadelphia declined Cliff's option. How much would it take to sign Cliff Lee? What is the state of his health right now? Seems like a match made in heaven. He's got a wide open rotation that will probably have a spot for him all season long, the team will have the funds to offer him an incentive laden contract, and the team has World Series aspirations so if he's healthy or if he gets healthy, it would be a huge addition much like Price and Stroman were this year. Also, Shapiro and LaCava connections! Shapiro trade Colon for Cliff way back in the day. Shapiro was GM the entire time Cliff was an Indian. LaCava was with Cleveland back when they traded for Lee and had "significant input" on his acquisition. please please please I cannot think of another fit that's even close to this good, for Lee (unless retirement is in the cards).