Do you believe Ubaldo will be productive for us in 2015?

[Frobby]

I struggled a bit with how to word the thread title. Will he be better than last year? Will he be one of our best five starters? Will he start a majority of the time even if he isn't one of our best five starters?

I'll begin with this: I don't put too much emphasis on how Ubaldo performed in 2014. He's had good years and bad ones, and just because 2014 was bad doesn't mean 2015 will be. He signed very late in the offseason and that may have been disruptive and it put him a little behind schedule at the start of spring training, not a good thing for a guy who is a slow starter anyway.

So, consider me guardedly optimistic that, with the help of Wallace and Chiti, Ubaldo can bounce back and be productive for us in 2015.

That said, Buck has a really tricky task ahead of him. He's got five starters who performed a lot better than Ubaldo in 2014. I think it's likely that eventually, an injury to a starting pitcher will solve any logjam. But until such an injury takes place, what does Buck do? Does he decide his starting five solely on who looks best this spring, or does he find a way to put Ubaldo in there even if the other five are ahead of him? Tough decisions ahead.

[mdbdotcom]

There is no question that Ubaldo wants to do better. I think he will be. He may not be great for all the time left on his contract, but he can still be a big contributor.

[Aristotelian]

Nowhere to go but up. If he is only #2 in the league in BB/9 that would be an improvement.

[srock]

[Ruzious]

Unless there's an injury issue, I would think that the previous year is the best indicator of what he's likely to do. And if he couldn't correct the problem he had for an entire season, what reason is there to believe he'll correct it this season?

[Aristotelian]

Unless there's an injury issue, I would think that the previous year is the best indicator of what he's likely to do. And if he couldn't correct the problem he had for an entire season, what reason is there to believe he'll correct it this season?

1) Players in general often come back from bad seasons; 1) Ulbado in particular has a history of coming back after bad seasons; 3) his career stats are better than last year; 4) he did OK in his last two starts after doing some work on his mechanics.

I am not saying it will happen, but just because he had a bad year does not necessarily doom him to another bad year.

[foxfield]

Even going by statistics, it would seem that at the very worst, we will see improvement in Ubaldo. I am also optimistic that he will make a contribution to the team. With guarded hope that we even see some of the "really good" Ubaldo. We will see, and I do agree that Buck has a tricky situation, but I also agree that the likelihood of an injury clears any log jam.

It's great to have quality depth.

[SticksandStones]

The best I can come up with is cautiously optimistic. He cant be much worse than last year, and maybe another year in a comfortable setting will be good for him.

If he can somehow turn into the Ubaldo of 2 years ago with the Indians then we'll really be onto something with him Tillman and Gausman.

[WEAVERMAN]

Nowhere to go but up. If he is only #2 in the league in BB/9 that would be an improvement.

He may improve, but I don't think he's as good as the other five starters.

[TonySoprano]

A $14M pitcher and we define "productive" as one of out top 5'starters, if that? Frobby's being generous as always but I feel a better question is will be live up to his contact value? I don't thnk so. If he can eat a lot of innings with an ERA of 4.50 than he will have some value. I hope he proves me wrong and bounces back this year.

[Scrat1]

Might as well throw a dart at the wall. Ace/#2 would be great, but I'd be thrilled if he even became league average.

[MarylandAaron]

Voted the first option, but even if Ubaldo indeed does decent, he still might not be one of our five best starters. He would have to be well above average to be one of our top five starters imo.

[Frobby]

A $14M pitcher and we define "productive" as one of out top 5'starters, if that? Frobby's being generous as always but I feel a better question is will be live up to his contact value? I don't thnk so. If he can eat a lot of innings with an ERA of 4.50 than he will have some value. I hope he proves me wrong and bounces back this year.

What constitutes living up to his contract value, in your view? Fangraphs would say a 2 WAR season about fits the bill. By the way, Ubaldo is "only" making $12.2 mm this year (some of which is deferred), not $14 mm.

For me, in today's run scoring environment, I'd say Ubaldo need to have an ERA under 4.00 to be worth $12 mm. I'm hoping for that, but not necessarily expecting it.

[LookitsPuck]

Unless there's an injury issue, I would think that the previous year is the best indicator of what he's likely to do. And if he couldn't correct the problem he had for an entire season, what reason is there to believe he'll correct it this season?

He started the season late. He had a new pitching coach. He started with a new team. He was hurt at one point. He pitched to *4* different catchers (Wieters, Clevenger, Joseph, Hundley). And yet there were glimpses of brilliance:

May: 3.12 ERA, 1.212 WHIP

June: 3.71 ERA, 1.472 WHIP

He was hurt in July. August he was bad in only 2 games he started.

In September in 3 games (2 starting) he had a 3.27 ERA with a pristine 1.091 WHIP.

So basically April and August were horrible. July he was hurt. May and June he was effective as were his small sample in September.

He'll bounce back. Always does.

[TonySoprano]

S

What constitutes living up to his contract value, in your view? Fangraphs would say a 2 WAR season about fits the bill. By the way, Ubaldo is "only" making $12.2 mm this year (some of which is deferred), not $14 mm.

For me, in today's run scoring environment, I'd say Ubaldo need to have an ERA under 4.00 to be worth $12 mm. I'm hoping for that, but not necessarily expecting it.

I already talked about eating innings. If he gives us close to his 2013 in Cleveland, with 14+ wins, an ERA of 3.50 in 180 IP then that's the best value we can reasonably hope to get.. Having said that, I expect his ERA will be at least 0.75 higher than that. We'll see if he makes some adjustments in Spring Training.