Dempsey strongly implied last night that he hated Wieters' pitch-calling

[backwardsk]

1 hour ago, Rene88 said:

Dempsey was not a fan. He made that pretty clear if you ran into him...or so I heard.

Nats starting pitching minus Guthrie been ok so far though.

Different level of talent, no?

[scOtt]

6 hours ago, Redskins Rick said:

Ok, so the catcher looking into the dugout before every pitch is what?

Once and for all can every one please drop this???

 

[Moondoggie]

3 hours ago, Enjoy Terror said:

Doesn't really matter what they thought he'd do; the context of our conversation was that DD quickly wanted to shut the door and be rid of Matt Wieters. They offered him a QO last season instead of letting him go to FA, or trading him mid 2015. Seems to me that there was no haste to be rid of him, and even just an offer of QO is evidence enough to me that they entertained the thought of keeping him around.

To be fair, they gave Matt the qualifying offer primarily because they assumed he would refuse it and sign somewhere else, giving them a high compensation pick. Nobody had taken the offer before and Wieters had pretty much the last agent you would have expected would let his client take it. Trading him simply wasn't an option in the middle of 2015 because he didn't return to playing after his Tommy John surgery until June. He was too much of a risk for anyone to offer them anything close to the value of the comp pick they assumed they would get. It's not like getting rid of him was an act of desperation, but when the opportunity arose for them to move on and sign Castillo they didn't blink. There are a lot of things over which I'm critical of Duquette and the front office. This is not one of them.

[scOtt]

5 hours ago, dan-O said:

I don't question that. My comment is in regards to his broadcasting skills and opinions about the team over the years. I like the guy enough, he just makes me roll my eyes. 

Dempsey grinds my gears something awful but when he talks baseball, you listen. Played for 20 years, managed in the minors for almost as long. He probably knows more pure baseball than Buck!

And I remember Dempsey railing on the broadcast about 0-2 FBs last year maybe? Got pretty fired up about it too. Tom Davis was joking about it. He was saying if you call the same pitch over and over the hitter and the runner will know what's coming. (Duh.)

[Rich Mac]

My two cents worth...

It seems to me that Castillo relies too heavily on his glove on pitches in the dirt. I always felt that MW was very good at dropping to his knees and using his body to the keep the pitch in front of him. On the bright side, Beef seems to be very good at digging those pitches out.

I also noticed that Castillo can get very animated at times. He's almost like a cheerleader behind the plate. I like that.

[Redskins Rick]

I stumbled across this on Youtube.

Dempster about MW in 2010

 

 

[weams]

1 hour ago, Rene88 said:

Dempsey was not a fan. He made that pretty clear if you ran into him...or so I heard.

Nats starting pitching minus Guthrie been ok so far though.

Hehehe, you said Guthrie...

[scOtt]

10 minutes ago, Rich Mac said:

My two cents worth...

It seems to me that Castillo relies too heavily on his glove on pitches in the dirt. I always felt that MW was very good at dropping to his knees and using his body to the keep the pitch in front of him. On the bright side, Beef seems to be very good at digging those pitches out.

I also noticed that Castillo can get very animated at times. He's almost like a cheerleader behind the plate. I like that.

I've noticed this too. He made some very impressive one-handed stops on Britton's sinker last night but it's not the best way to do it. Matt was very good at that.

 

I like his cheerleading tho too! One of the reasons I like Caleb too. Both animated back there, giving a good target, gesturing to the pitcher to get it down on the ground or whatever.

[LA2]

3 hours ago, SteveA said:

You mean like when he said that Arrieta was the best of the young pitchers that came up around this time, and most people laughed at him?

Or that Chris Davis was going to have a 50-plus-home run season someday?

[LA2]

1 hour ago, scOtt said:

Once and for all can every one please drop this???

 

Wow I wasn't sure that Russell could actually talk.

[Can_of_corn]

So Dempsey is saying these things and everyone is talking about Wieters.

Well Joseph has caught 210 games over the prior three seasons.

So wouldn't this also be about him?

[Frobby]

What about when he says we've had the best defense in baseball the last few years?     Yeah, Rick, maybe 3-4 years ago, but not any time recently.   

[scOtt]

3 minutes ago, Can_of_corn said:

So Dempsey is saying these things and everyone is talking about Wieters.

Well Joseph has caught 210 games over the prior three seasons.

So wouldn't this also be about him?

When I saw it last year Caleb was by default guilty too.

[Dark Helmet]

I thought Buck called the pitch sequences anyhow?

[Tony-OH]

9 hours ago, Frobby said:

On the post-game show last night, Rick Dempsey was effusive in his praise of Welington Castillo's pitch calling, saying things like "finally we have a catcher who will call something other than a fastball with two strikes and a runner on base!"    He never mentioned Wieters by name, but he gave the distinct impression that he thought Wieters was a lousy pitch-caller and that Castillo is a big improvement.    I was kind of surprised how blunt he was.

I know there are some posters who were critical of Wieters' pitch-calling at times, but it was usually criticism of a specific sequence, rather than a general statement.    I think Dempsey is overstating things, as he always tends to do anyways, but I'm curious what others think.

One difference I have noticed is that Wieters always called a lot of fastballs in the first couple of innings, whereas Castillo seems more inclined to show all the pitches right away.   

Wieters poor pitch calling is widely accepted by most scouts and baseball people. As I'm sure you know, I was never a fan of his game calling and always felt the pitchers pitched better with most of the backups (besides Clevinger).