Ollie Day IGT, 3/3/2011

[Guest John Cougar Lunchbucket]

A good performance like that even out of context can only go to help us unload him if necessary.

[metirish]

It would be a desperate team to take him on with his fastball in the low to mid 80's.

[ashie62]

Ollie had to spot an 84 mph Fastball and came up with zero walks and runs.

[Guest LeiterWagnerFasterStrongr]

Moyer and his ilk have made careers out of that. It's called "pitching."

[MFS62]

From Madden's article in Friday's Daily News.

Thanks to a running, leaping catch with a runner on second by the Mets' version of a strange-named scrubeenie, right fielder Kirk Nieuwenhuis, Frankie Fisticuffs was also able to emerge unscored on in his one inning of work.

You'd think a reporter getting paid to cover the Mets wouldn't give one of their players a snarky nickname and would know enough about the organization to not call one of their best prospects a scrubeenie.

Later

[Frayed Knot]

Madden's not a reporter being paid to cover the Mets.
He's a columnist paid to give out snarky nicknames and make pre-made connections based on ridiculously small sample sizes.

[MFS62]

Frayed Knot wrote: Madden's not a reporter being paid to cover the Mets. He's a columnist paid to give out snarky nicknames and make pre-made connections based on ridiculously small sample sizes.

Thanks for clearing that up.
Then he certaily earned his money. He did both in one sentence.
Later

[batmagadanleadoff]

LeiterWagnerFasterStrongr wrote: metirish wrote: It would be a desperate team to take him on with his fastball in the low to mid 80's. Moyer and his ilk have made careers out of that. It's called "pitching."

It might be called pitching but for every pitcher that could retire ML hitters consistently despite losing 10 MPH off his fastball, there were hundreds who couldn't. Even Tom Seaver couldn't, among hundreds ... thousands of others.

[Guest Edgy DC]

Seaver certainly is an example of a guy who continued pitching effectively after his fastball faded.

Call it "pitching well" if you prefer. The point is that veloticty isn't the last word.

[batmagadanleadoff]

Velocity isn't the last word but most pitchers can't adjust after their fastball drops by 10 MPH. I wasn't aware that Seaver's fastball was diminished by that much while he was still effective. I could be wrong, though. In his next to last season with the ChiSox in '85, Seaver was one of the AL's top 10 pitchers. But I thought he was throwing in the very high 80's, peaking at 90-91 then. Am I misremembering?

[Guest Edgy DC]

Well, I don't know that 10 is the magic number (though it's certainly an intimidating one). Nor do I know how much velocity Ollie has lost.

My expectations of Perez are not much higher than anyone else's, mind you.

[metirish]

As a lefty out of the pen his competition for that job isn't overwhelming , if he gets his shit together he could win that job, fucking guy used to have so much talent.

[Guest Edgy DC]

One other scenario: Perez could change his position and volunteer for a minor-league assignment.

[Benjamin Grimm]

I've been wondering about that one too. His perspective might be different this year. Pitching regularly in the Buffalo starting rotation might be his final last shot at reviving his career.

[Ceetar]

Benjamin Grimm wrote: I've been wondering about that one too. His perspective might be different this year. Pitching regularly in the Buffalo starting rotation might be his final last shot at reviving his career.

And it'll be presented differently than last year too. But they should present it now. No reason to let his arm strength wane to reliever level first. He obviously wants to be a starter, tell them this is the only way. Accentuate what he's doing well, what he needs to work on, and have him pitch to minor leaguers on back fields away from the reporters so we don't have to have constant updates. If someone notices (Alderson, another GM, Ronnie Paulino..) in May he's 5-0 and striking guys out, great. If not, he can quietly disappear into the '06 highlight reel.

[Guest LeiterWagnerFasterStrongr]

The thing is-- as we've discussed somewhere on the Forum before-- he's an even worse fit for the reliever profile.

Most successful relievers who aren't one-time-only flashes are guys who either don't have the stamina to be a starting pitcher, or hard-thrower/other two-pitch guys who don't have the repertoire to get through the batting order more than once. They still have to pound the zone, and avoid putting guys on base. And if they can't do this, they can't pitch in organized baseball.

Right now, he's Mark Buerhle without the control, or Mark Langston without the speed. The only difference between his coming out of the pen or coming out of the game in the fifth is the wLI when he comes in.

[TransMonk]

He shoulda been cut 9 months ago.

I'd rather see him in another team's bullpen if that it is his fate. I have little confidence in him being worth one dollar of what remains on his contract.

[Guest Edgy DC]

I'd pay a buck for him. Heck, I'd pay two.

[TransMonk]

What are you expecting him to give you for those $2?

[Guest Edgy DC]

His best effort.

Teams pay perfectly sound money for modest talent that falls by the wayside every year, each one a ticket in a horse race. It may cash in, but more likely gets crumpled on the floor. Oliver, bought at a $2 ticket window, is still a sounder bet than many. And a mere $2 lost if it doesn't pay out. I say stick around and watch the race, for the sake of curiosity and the thrill of the chase.

At this point, he's paid for and virtually free --- excepting meal money during spring training. I have no problem seeing it through until it becomes professionally untenable. Right now, it's merely emotionally so for some people. But that's not going to get us anywhere.

If he's upsetting to the callers at FAN, they should turn away. It's spring training, for Pete Flynn's sake.

[Guest Edgy DC]

Here's an interesting way to look at it. Ollie-Ollie has a career 4.63 ERA and a career ERA+ of 91 at 29 years old. This time last year, R.A. Dickey was at 5.43 and 87 and six years older.

[TransMonk]

Apples and oranges.

-Power vs. finesse
-Ollie had something, then lost it...Dickey never really had it, then found it
-Dickey made a fraction of the amount Perez did during the points in their carrer that you are referencing
-Dickey has worked in the minors every year of his career while Ollie refuses to go

Whatevs. IMO, management has given him more than enough opportunity to show that he has something left (not just this spring...I'm talking since 2008, when he lost whatever dominance he once had), and he hasn't proven that he has it to me. I believe that they should focus on looking to pieces that do fit into this puzzle, rather than trying to find find a way to fit a square peg into a round hole.

[bmfc1]

I concur with TransMonk. I wanted them to dump him before ST began to avoid wasting innings on somebody that wasn't going to make the team. They kept him, gave him a chance, and he failed. I think that they have three viable candidates for the lefty BP spot so they aren't desperate for another. Guys! said yesterday that they might as well keep him because he's under contract. Using that logic, they might as well put him on the roster because they're paying him either way. To me, he's had numerous chances and has continuously failed. They're throwing good money (innings) after bad by keeping him any longer.

[Benjamin Grimm]

At this point in the spring, I think there are still plenty of innings to go around. Other guys with an equally slim chance of making the team are still getting innings.

My guess is that they're hoping to coax Perez into pitching for Buffalo. If he accepts an assignment in the Bisons rotation, and pitches well, then maybe they'll be able to trade him during the summer to a desperate contender who'll be willing to take on part of his contract. It may be a longshot, but if there's a chance of somebody picking up one or two million of Perez's contract, it really doesn't cost them anything to keep him around.

You could make a similar, less contrived, argument for Castillo. Rumblings from Philadelphia indicate that Chase Utley may miss the entire season. I don't know if that's a rational fear, or the result of panic, but there may end up being a market for Castillo after all. And if that's the case, then it's good that they didn't release him over the winter.

[Guest Edgy DC]

-Power vs. finesse

I'm not sure how that's relevant.

-Ollie had something, then lost it...Dickey never really had it, then found it

He found it because he got opportunities from teams that thought he just might find it and he's worth entertaining on the fringes. At the right price. The price now is nothing. Except meal money.

-Dickey made a fraction of the amount Perez did during the points in their carrer that you are referencing

I'm not sure how that's relevant. He costs the same in uniform or out right now. Or in my example, he costs two dollars.

-Dickey has worked in the minors every year of his career while Ollie refuses to go

Well, if I sign him for $2 and he plays himself into the minors and refuses to go, that's a different story. But that's not where we are right now. Way too much is made of that.

Every team "wastes" innings in spring training on guys that aren't going to make the team. Every year. Every week.

[TransMonk]

He's all yours.

[Guest Edgy DC]

For another week or so, anyhow.

[batmagadanleadoff]

Nobody's wasting Spring innings on Ollie, according to Terry Collins:

�We�ve got lots of innings, innings are not an issue, we can create innings,� he said. �Yesterday we had a couple guys throw on the back fields. There�s lots of opportunity here. There�s not a finite reservoir of innings.�

[Guest Edgy DC]

I also want to dispute the notion of the power/finesse dichotomy. Ollie's best weapon was always his slider, rather than his fastball. What fastball he had certainly helped set the slider up, but still, even last year, lefty batters did absolutely nothing with it. In some ways, that repetoire makes him comparable to Pedro Feliciano when he fell into the lefty-specialist role.

Obviously, he still got to get his game together, but I don't see any reason not to work with him hopefully on that, like they do with every pitcher with some good pieces and some missing ones.

[TransMonk]

The power/finesse was in response to your Dickey comparison. It's no secret that Ollie's best years were when his fastball was effective enough to set up his slider. Dickey never had the fastball that Ollie did.

Edgy DC wrote: Obviously, he still got to get his game together, but I don't see any reason not to work with him hopefully on that, like they do with every pitcher with some good pieces and some missing ones.

We've been waiting for him to get his game together for years. Has the coaching staff not been working with him during that time?