Chicago White Sox Series

[Sports Guy]

5 minutes ago, banks703 said:

He’s a guy I’d certainly take a flyer on for the right price should that be an option. My only hesitation would be that I don’t think he’d beat any of the five assumed starters going into next year: Means, GrayRod, Bradish and Wells/Irvin. You can never have too much pitching though and a guy like Kopech could allow them to slot Wells into the bullpen to begin the year though I don’t know if that’d make sense from a workload perspective.

Kopech is a certainly capable of pitching better than his number this year. On that dumpster fire team, I wonder how many of their guys packed it in from the get-go. I’d be interested to see what the O’s pitching coaches and analytics could do for a guy like Kopech. 

I’d actually love to bring him in for the closers role next year. 

Edited August 29, 2023 by Sports Guy

[Jim'sKid26]

8 minutes ago, banks703 said:

He’s a guy I’d certainly take a flyer on for the right price should that be an option. My only hesitation would be that I don’t think he’d beat any of the five assumed starters going into next year: Means, GrayRod, Bradish and Wells/Irvin. You can never have too much pitching though and a guy like Kopech could allow them to slot Wells into the bullpen to begin the year though I don’t know if that’d make sense from a workload perspective.

Kopech is a certainly capable of pitching better than his number this year. On that dumpster fire team, I wonder how many of their guys packed it in from the get-go. I’d be interested to see what the O’s pitching coaches and analytics could do for a guy like Kopech. 

I'm not convinced it's all a poor environment. I will concede that the WS are a "dumpster fire" with regard to team culture. That has been well publicized. But he has really pitched poorly. He's got a BB/9 = 6.1. His ERA is 5.08 with an xERA= 5.73. FIP is 6.43 with an xFIP= 5.63. His fWAR is  -0.7. If he's a good pitcher on a bad team it is very difficult to explain those numbers, IMHO. 

[Jim'sKid26]

8 minutes ago, Sports Guy said:

I’d actually love to bring him in for the closers role next year. 

With that BB rate? Really? What do you see that makes you feel he would be effective as a closer? Honest question.

[Sports Guy]

4 minutes ago, Jim'sKid26 said:

With that BB rate? Really? What do you see that makes you feel he would be effective as a closer? Honest question.

Well first of all, the WS are an absolute dog excrement of an organization and I think we can just make him a lot better.

He has as good a stuff as anyone in baseball. He just needs someone who can harness it. I’m not sure if I trust him enough as a starter, at least for a team like us who is a contender but as a closer?  Yea, I would like to see us be able to work with that arm.

[Jim'sKid26]

7 minutes ago, Sports Guy said:

Well first of all, the WS are an absolute dog excrement of an organization and I think we can just make him a lot better.

He has as good a stuff as anyone in baseball. He just needs someone who can harness it. I’m not sure if I trust him enough as a starter, at least for a team like us who is a contender but as a closer?  Yea, I would like to see us be able to work with that arm.

According to Fangraphs he has 3 minor league options so your idea might be feasible. He is arb 2 eligible in 2024 so he would be rather expensive, though not overwhelmingly so. He made $2.05M in Arb 1. Who would you give up for him and what do you think he gets in Arb 2?

Edited August 29, 2023 by Jim'sKid26
correct error

[Sports Guy]

Just now, Jim'sKid26 said:

According to Fangraphs he has 3 minor league options so your idea might be feasible. He is arb 1 eligible in 2024 so he would be rather expensive, though not overwhelmingly so. Who would you give up for him and what do you think he gets in Arb 1?

Can’t imagine he gets much more than 2-3M.

As for his value in trade..part of that depends on how many teams go after him. The walk rate, ERA and injury history are against him.

But age, stuff and service time are on his side.  Guys like Norby and Stowers should be names that could headline a deal for him.

[dystopia]

2 minutes ago, Sports Guy said:

Can’t imagine he gets much more than 2-3M.

As for his value in trade..part of that depends on how many teams go after him. The walk rate, ERA and injury history are against him.

But age, stuff and service time are on his side.  Guys like Norby and Stowers should be names that could headline a deal for him.

No way should the Os give up anyone of value for him. 

[Jim'sKid26]

3 minutes ago, Sports Guy said:

Can’t imagine he gets much more than 2-3M.

As for his value in trade..part of that depends on how many teams go after him. The walk rate, ERA and injury history are against him.

But age, stuff and service time are on his side.  Guys like Norby and Stowers should be names that could headline a deal for him.

Sorry my original post had errors in it. I fixed them.

I think he makes more than $2-3 M in 2024. 

If he makes $4-5M in Arb 2 is he worth the risk?

[Aristotelian]

25 minutes ago, Sports Guy said:

I’d actually love to bring him in for the closers role next year. 

What a terrible idea. They keep getting worse and worse. 

[Just Regular]

Its easy to picture Kopech good in the pen same as Jorge Lopez.     

Pitchers like that tend to get extended to length roles on teams just trying to complete the season.

"We think you may be better in shorter bursts."

-Every GM, to every pitcher in the world, except Kyle Gibson and Dean Kremer

Present day Strider is kind of a new frontier for "just be a closer for 5-6 innings".     The machine broke by September 2022, even with starting the year in the bullpen.    Fingers crossed our lineup is the one that can stress test it in late October 2023.

Scoreboard watching, Sandy Alcantara (40-54) faces the Rays tonight.    He mostly beat everyone in length workload by ~10% in 2022 on a 90 loss team, and I wonder if some of the other GM's beheld that like, "Look at them wasting that precious resource".    I hope the Yankees keep firing Gerrit Cole bullets chasing that Cy Young.

If the Grayson era Orioles are as good as I hope, it'll be interesting to see where he lands most years 150, 175, 200 innings.     Pitching counting stat milestones many of us are used to are obsolete.

[Sports Guy]

3 minutes ago, Jim'sKid26 said:

Sorry my original post had errors in it. I fixed them.

I think he makes more than $2-3 M in 2024. 

If he makes $4-5M in Arb 2 is he worth the risk?

Yea, I was saying what I thought he would make as an arb 1. 
 

And yes but as an arb 2 and making more money, I wouldn’t give up as much in trade.

[Sports Guy]

10 minutes ago, dystopia said:

No way should the Os give up anyone of value for him. 

Why not? He has an incredible arm. He could be a dominant closer.  He is with an awful org that has no idea how to develop pitching.

Now, as I just said, I was under the impression his cost would be less and his service time was more, so I wouldn’t trade as much as I said (well I would still trade Stowers but not norby).

There is a lot there to work with. Olson was really impressed with him when he was talking about him when he was on the field last night.  Big Ben as well. 

There is a lot of ugliness in his stats and he has had some injury issues but that is some clay I would love to see our staff get a hold of to mold. 
 

I have a lot of faith in our development staff right now. This is a “cheap” way of potentially getting a dominant arm for the back end of the pen. 

Edited August 29, 2023 by Sports Guy

[emmett16]

25 minutes ago, Jim'sKid26 said:

With that BB rate? Really? What do you see that makes you feel he would be effective as a closer? Honest question.

Seems like our development team specializes in helping pitchers with their command control.  Bautista is the poster child for that.  

[DirtyBird]

1 hour ago, dystopia said:

Obviously I don’t want to trade for someone who is likely to regress, but we have position player prospects who have no future here on the major league roster due to surplus and they need to be traded. 

Kopech is about the level of pitcher that you are going to get for “surplus position players with no future on our major league roster”

[dystopia]

4 minutes ago, Sports Guy said:

Why not? He has an incredible arm. He could be a dominant closer.  He is with an awful org that has no idea how to develop pitching.

Now, as I just said, I was under the impression his cost would be less and his service time was more, so I wouldn’t trade as much as I said (well I would still trade Stowers but not norby).

There is a lot there to work with. Olson was really impressed with him when he was talking about him when he was on the field last night.  Big Ben as well. 

There is a lot of ugliness in his stats and he has had some injury issues but that is some clay I would love to see our staff get a hold of to mold. 
 

I have a lot of faith in our development staff right now. This is a “cheap” way of potentially getting a dominant arm for the back end of the pen. 

It’s not smart to trade top flight prospects for projects. I’m surprised you of all people would suggest doing that.