Could Orioles trade Jim Johnson for Porcello?

[webbrick2010]

Ya, what we need is another young pitcher who shows some promise but hasn't put it all together yet. Great idea to trade our lights out closer for something we already have an excess of.

How do we have an excess of a Porcello type starter??

Matusz/Arrieta have largely proved to be ineffective as ML starters and are 2/3 years older than Porcello

Britton who is only 1 year older than Porcello has had shoulder issues strikes out only 1 more per 9 (6.3 to 5.1), but walks twice as many (3.9 to 2.1)

Only Chen was over 170 innings last year, which Porcello has averaged in his 4 year career.

Hammel is the only guy besides Chen that has exceeded 170 innings in the majors.

I think the O's need to add a reliable inning eating starter or it's not going to matter how good a closer Johnson is.

No one on our roster has broken 170 innings in a season, which Porcello has averaged in his career

No one on our staff has ever broken

Nobody on the staff has

[Stotle]

Wasn't Guthrie an "innings eater" too. How did that work out??

He was one of the more productive arms the O's have had in a very long time and gave Baltimore about $50MM worth of production for about $10MM in salary.

[brianod]

Just to clarify, you are comping Cabrera and Ponson to Porcello, right?

In years 2-4 Porcello has had era+ of 85, 87 and 92. Cabrera has an era+ of 96, 95 and 83. Ponson has an era+ of 98, 98 and 87

Assuming because he's young the last four years can be ignored is fools gold imo.

[Stotle]

In years 2-4 Porcello has had era+ of 85, 87 and 92. Cabrera has an era+ of 96, 95 and 83. Ponson has an era+ of 98, 98 and 87

Assuming because he's young the last four years can be ignored is fools gold imo.

Strawman.

[crawjo]

Yeah and the problem with that is that a. Who plays cf for us last year with Jones gone, endy Chavez??? Yikes. And b. manny matcha do likely never gets called up and we probably don't make the playoffs without his spark and defense during the stretch run.

It's ok to admit you were wrong about wanting to trade jones and the numbers don't always get it right, as they didn't with jones. He made the leap that many people were questioning whether he'd ever make.

Thank god we used common sense and kept him when trade rumors were swirling.

Again, it is senseless to say that I was "wrong about trading Adam Jones" when there was never an offer that I would have taken. But the thing that annoys me more about this is that Jones is now being seen as a player that he's not: his defense is average at best, and while he has nice power he also chases too much. It doesn't make him a bad player, in fact he's a very good one. But it also does mean that there are potentially better offers out there that would be worth doing.

As for the Orioles making the playoffs last year, everybody has to accept that this was pretty much unprecedented, and based largely on an insanely good record in one-run games and extra inning games. We will not see anything like it again in our lifetimes, in all likelihood. If the Orioles repeat this year and win another 93 games, I can assure you it will be because of substantial improvements on the roster, and not a repeat of our performance in close games.

[crawjo]

Also let's please stop with the Johnson is the ace of our bullpen and the closer is the most important man in the pen stuff. I watched every game last year. Darren O'Day was the most valuable reliever we had. He got out lefties and righties, got strikeouts and groundballs when we needed them, and generally pitched lights out despite a fairly heavy workload. He is our best reliever and I would keep him in the role he is in. In fact, by the end of the year last year I was beginning to think he might be the most valuable player on the entire team.

[CA-ORIOLE]

I think if you are an independent third party, Porcello > JJ.

After looking through this more, it looks like Porcello's main problem is that he very inneffective against LHB's. That's gotten much worse in the past two years, which to me means hitters have picked something up with his 2S FB and his changeup is not that good. Some of the blogs are suggesting he'll need to come up with another pitch (maybe a cutter). That doesn't sound to me like a guy who is on the edge of finding himself.

[Stotle]

After looking through this more, it looks like Porcello's main problem is that he very inneffecive against LHB's. That's gotten much worse in the past two years which to me means hitters have picked something up with his 2S FB and his changeup is not that good. Some of the blogs are suggesting he'll need to come up with another pitch (maybe a cutter). That doesn't sound to me like a guy who is on the edge of finding himself.

I mean, I guess if your suppositions are true then there is something to potentially worry about. I respect your research but don't think you're really pointing to anything close to definitive.

Regardless, not sure anything you say makes him less valuable, overall, than JJ.

[Can_of_corn]

After looking through this more, it looks like Porcello's main problem is that he very inneffecive against LHB's. That's gotten much worse in the past two years which to me means hitters have picked something up with his 2S FB and his changeup is not that good. Some of the blogs are suggesting he'll need to come up with another pitch (maybe a cutter). That doesn't sound to me like a guy who is on the edge of finding himself.

I know LH groundball pitchers generally have bad splits is the same true for all GB guys?

[CA-ORIOLE]

I mean, I guess if your suppositions are true then there is something to potentially worry about. I respect your research but don't think you're really pointing to anything close to definitive.

Well the point that he's been increasingly ineffective the past two years againt LHB isn't a supposition, it's a fact. From that I did research and drew suppositions, mainly from bloggers/sites that follow him more closely. I assume you know way more about this guy than I do, especially since he was a first round draft darling by many of the scouts, so I was kinda looking for some feedback. Have you kept up with his development and what do you think his upside is at this point?

[MurphDogg]

Wasn't Guthrie an "innings eater" too. How did that work out??

Very well.

[Stotle]

Well the point that he's been increasingly ineffective the past two years againt LHB isn't a supposition, it's a fact. From that I did research and drew suppositions, mainly from bloggers/sites that follow him more closely. I assume you know way more about this guy than I do, especially since he was a first round draft darling by many of the scouts, so I was kinda looking for some feedback. Have you kept up with his development and what do you think his upside is at this point?

I think he's a back-end arm (#4ish) that could have seasons with #2 production when luck breaks his way. Potential 190+ inning arm with better defense behind him.

[CA-ORIOLE]

I know LH groundball pitchers generally have bad splits is the same true for all GB guys?

Not sure how to answer that. Most pitchers have opposite splits. It's the extreme nature and trend of the splits that are concerning. For any SP, I think that's a red flag. JJ has better splits against LHB's (I'd guess that's because of his changeup) and he throws over the top. I think guys like Pettite or Buehrle might have had fairly even splits as I recall, but I think both of those guys did/do throw cutters. So, maybe that's part of the issue that could help Porcello. I don't see a cutter helping his K rate though. I'd guess arm slot on the sinker (i.e. over the top guys having more even splits) might have something to do with it as well. I thought that was an issue with Bergesen (in addition to bad secondaries). Unlike JJ, I'm really not familiar enough with Porcello to talk much beyond the statistics.

[crawjo]

I mean, I guess if your suppositions are true then there is something to potentially worry about. I respect your research but don't think you're really pointing to anything close to definitive.

Regardless, not sure anything you say makes him less valuable, overall, than JJ.

Yeah, I think the real issue we are having here is deciding the relative value of a starting pitcher to a closer, not the skill level of Porcello or Johnson.

[CA-ORIOLE]

Yeah, I think the real issue we are having here is deciding the relative value of a starting pitcher to a closer, not the skill level of Porcello or Johnson.

Well, I do think there's more value disagreements with JJ concerning "closer" and "shutdown closer".