2013 Miami Marlins Thread: Looking Forward

[lou]

I want Nolasco to stay in the rotation. See what happens the first few months in '13. If he does well, trade him. If he doesn't, it's the last year of the contract, anyway.

I don't understand why you'd want to move him to the bullpen. It's not as if the difference between playoffs/no playoffs is whether or not Nolasco stays in the rotation. He's not worse than "LeBlanc/Hand," and he'll probably put up similar, if not better, #'s than Turner next year.

He's also not going to gain value closing because the saves are going to go to Cishek (who's earned the role this year) or Bell (who's also getting paid a shitload of money).

Lets keep Nolasco in the rotation one more year and never watch him pitch for the Marlins again after '13, please.

Because LeBlanc and Hand establishing themselves as a longterm 4/5 lefty SP would be awesome and is more important to the franchise longterm than the 4.5ish era Nolasco is going to put up (which I think the lefties can do). You loved the idea of moving him to the pen and Brett Myersing him a few weeks ago, it's a good idea. Nolasco's stuff probably translates well to the pen and makes him better for the team as constructed. Who cares about the saves. If the team is good keep him in the pen, if they fall out and he is killing it in the 7th inning, he'd net salary relief and a RP prospect which is all they can hope for.
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I'd insert Ruggs in CF and try to acquire Ludwick, Ross or Swisher (depending on how much $ they want).

Nolasco is not a guy I want to pitch another inning in a Marlins uniform again. Get rid of Nolasco.

I would love to replace Nolasco with Anibal and let the rest of the rotation work itself out. Starters 1-2-3 would be JJ Buehrle and Anibal.

Acquiring Ludwick, Ross or Swisher takes a multi year deal and considering every scout on the planet thinks yelich is a LF besides the Marlins front office, and the next best OF prospect in the system is Ozuna another corner OF, and that they have Stanton... I think investing into LF is a terrible idea. It's really CF or 3B. I can understand passing on CF if they get a 3B and using Ruggiano for the time being, I just see no 3B out there which makes CF the much more obvious choice.

[Erick]

Because LeBlanc and Hand establishing themselves as a longterm 4/5 lefty SP would be awesome and is more important to the franchise longterm than the 4.5ish era Nolasco is going to put up (which I think the lefties can do). You loved the idea of moving him to the pen and Brett Myersing him a few weeks ago, it's a good idea. Nolasco's stuff probably translates well to the pen and makes him better for the team as constructed. Who cares about the saves. If the team is good keep him in the pen, if they fall out and he is killing it in the 7th inning, he'd net salary relief and a RP prospect which is all they can hope for.

I did not say that.

Regarding this, I think:
-"7th inning" guys have little to no trade value on the market. Even if Nolasco does well, you'd get a lot of nothing in return.

-Nolasco can put up better than a 4.5 ERA because saying stuff like that about pitchers is silly. Their #'s can change from year to year and it's pretty clear that Nolasco's main problem continues to be his batted ball data. Maybe if the Marlins could put a good defensive team on the field one of these years, Nolasco could possibly get his ERA under 4. Like, not having Carlos Lee and Greg Dobbs as your corner infield would be a nice start. The majority of our pitchers have high .BABIP's, probably as a result of the liabilities we have in several positions on the field. This team does not have one very good defensive player anywhere on the field.

-The reward for this is not "awesome." Wade Leblanc sucks. Brad Hand can come up and pitch after Nolasco gets dealt mid-season. It's not a big deal. I don't even think there's such a thing as a "long-term 4/5." That's an oxymoron.

[lou]

Nolasco has consecutive years of ERA at 5.06, 4.51, 4.67, and currently 4.42. His career era over 1101 innings is 4.49. I mean, I guess possibly Carlos Lee can still hit 25 HR too, but come on Erick. Really. At what point is Nolasco not who he has been his last 700 innings? We're blaming it all on the defense?

You are also kidding yourself if you don't think LeBlanc or Hand being able to throw a consistent 180+ innings at say a low 4 era would not be great to develop as an asset for this franchise. It might not be a huge franchise changing development, but its having cheap cost controlled innings in the back of the rotation or something to flip for whatever. Would be a nice development.

Innings or also innings. If a guy is killing it in the bullpen, he has value at the trade deadline. Best case scenario with Nolasco is to only have to pay 2/3 his salary next year or whatever. He is a pure dump in any scenario. Might as well see if he can gun it in the pen at this point as its not like he has found his inner 2008 the last 4 years.

[Erick]

The difference between an ERA in the mid-4's and an ERA in the high 3/low 4 range is about ~10-15 runs in a season.

Nolasco became a different pitcher last year so I don't think it's fair to use a 4 season sample size, anyway. He gets less K's now but he also gets more GB's/allows less HR's (meaning he relies more on his defense now).

Point is, he's posted a FIP under 4 again this year.

To put things in perspective, one of those "#3/200 inning guys" that you mention could easily be a guy like Kyle Lohse this offseason. What is the main difference between Nolasco and Lohse beside the fact that the Cardinals catch the ball better? Brandon McCarthy is another one. What's the difference between them? To say Nolasco can't luck into an ERA in the 3's is rather absurd to me. If the Marlins would put a good defensive team on the field, maybe we'd have some pitchers overachieve too. The defense certainly plays a part. There's no other explanation for it.

As for Leblanc/Hand...
Leblanc is not a big-league starter. I don't see why we have to move Nolasco to the pen to see if Leblanc can be a good #5 for us or whatever. That's a waste of time as well considering that Leblanc should have no future with us/no future in any rotation. He's nothing more than a stopgap at best. He's a 27-year old with a career 85 ERA+. A contact pitcher who gives up a lot of flyballs/HR's despite the fact that he's pitched in Petco Park/Marlins Park for his 2 home ballparks. There's nothing exciting about him. I'd rather watch Eovaldi start, really. That's more exciting and I, like you, believe Eovaldi is a bullpen arm. Shows how I feel about Leblanc.

As for Hand...as I said, he could just start mid-season once we're out of contention and get rid of Nolasco. I don't see the big deal about that. He's probably not even big league ready yet; he's not proven himself to be ready. Another couple of months in the minors isn't going to hurt his development.

[lou]

I think the explanation is Nolasco gives up a lot of HR and has a radically decreasing K rate. Basically, he stinks. And I don't necessarily disagree with you about LeBlanc and Hand, but I think the organization should invest some real starts into them to see if they can hang or not. They have the room and they both profile as finesse lefties. Hand maybe a little bit more.

[AdamRavs]

Hand needs to be able to find the strike zone tho. He walks way too many batters.

Nolasco is serviceable at 4 or 5

We can talk about pitching til we're blue in the face but we need a lineup that can actually score runs on a regular basis. But with how awful this yrs FA pool is I don't see us improving unless we deal JJ and then our pitching suffers.

[Erick]

I think the explanation is Nolasco gives up a lot of HR and has a radically decreasing K rate. Basically, he stinks. And I don't necessarily disagree with you about LeBlanc and Hand, but I think the organization should invest some real starts into them to see if they can hang or not. They have the room and they both profile as finesse lefties. Hand maybe a little bit more.

The explanation for why Nolasco can't put up Lohse/McCarthy-like ERA's? I don't think that's it. Their HR/9 rates are rather similar. Nolasco's HR/9 rate has gone down the past 2 years as he became more of a GB pitcher. His K rate has gone down, but the guys I'm comparing him to aren't strikeout pitchers.

Nolasco isn't those guys because of the defense behind him when he pitches. Look at any # you'd like aside from ERA and you'd see that the 3 are very similar. I actually don't see a difference, really.

I think Nolasco can put up an ERA under 4 with a better defense behind him and, thus, have value by the trade deadline next year. He's been durable and provides a lot of innings throughout his career; that, itself, is valuable to teams.

[HUGG]

The day BJ Upton signs with someone else will move into my top 10 dates in franchise history.

/responding to stuff from last page

[Todd]

Luckily, shitty players that Lou inexplicably falls in love with rarely find their way to the Marlins.

[Erick]

Yeah, they've acquired other shitty players instead. We're so lucky.

You're being a real dick for no reason. All because Lou said we should go after someone like Joey Gathright about 5 years ago when Joey Gathright was a pretty good player.

[Todd]

Its ok to be a dick from time to time.

I think you are a fucking tool too but you arent worth the time or energy.

[HUGG]

[Erick]

You're right; I am a fucking tool. That's not the point, though.

It's just been rather comical that you've done this the past couple of days for no reason. It's as though you've been stalking him for 5 years and you couldn't wait anymore to say what you had to say. Lou hadn't even responded to one of your posts recently or anything. Weird.

And now you're making it seem like he knows nothing and likes shitty players because he was wrong about Joey Gathright that one time. Pretty hilarious considering the things you've said in the past.

[Todd]

Actually, I have pointed this out fairly regularly over the years as far as Lou is concerned, both on here and on the board who shall not be named. This didnt come out of thin air. I just get a wild hair every now and then and honestly there have been other players, Gathright was just the most ridiculous(and no, he was never "pretty good", Gathright at his best could be considered "not completely worthless").

[Erick]

Gathright was pretty good.

In 2007, he put up a 1.4 WAR in 74 games. It was a good buy low option at the time and you took his (Lou's) comments out of context because you hate him or whatever.

Anyway, Gathright was very good defensively, a + on the bases, etc. He basically did everything except hit for power. He was also putting up some fantastic K/BB rates in AAA.

You're making it seem like he was Gorkys Hernandez.

In '07, he put up a .371 .OBP in the majors. In the minors that very same year, he had a 15.5 BB%/8.7 K%. Very impressive and something you'd like from anyone, especially a guy who can run.

Must be easy to imply that someone is an idiot when your argument is based on hindsight and taking comments out of context.