Balta1701

Well hey this poster is insisting that Katz clearly will be a key guy in charge of handling Crochet now and so I shouldn't worry. Talk to him, he said earlier that the manager won't be in charge and here you say that the pitching coach clearly wouldn't get to overrule the manager.

Yes, absolutely weird how a guy who was injured might get exhausted after 120 innings one year and then be able to throw 178 innings the next year. No one could possibly have foreseen how that might work out. Why, you'd think that muscles get stronger when you use them, but everyone knows that isn't true, muscles get stronger when your elite pitching coach says they are strong.

They were both all pro players and you'd be happy with either of them?

I don't think it's as obvious that he was using in 2020, he may well not have been, there's a solid suggestion that he started using it in April of 2021 and then stopped on the day the ban began coming from his game by game spin rates. In 2020 he averaged 2516, in 2022 he averaged 2507, in May of 2021 his 4 seamer averaged 2647 rpm. No other month in his career comes close to May of 2021, it's like he was throwing a different pitch.

In his career, his 2 highest fastball spin rate months are April and May 2021. His 2nd lowest is July 2021. Super narrow range in 2022-2023 with the exception of a very low April of 2022. On his last start before the spin rate checks, his fastball spun at 2592 rpm. The next start it was at 2318. He clearly made some mechanical changes or other types of changes later in the year to account for this drop-off so we see his spin rate recover later in 2021 (just not to the same peak of April), but yes 100% Dylan Cease was using the sticky stuff in April and May of 2021 and he had a 270 RPM drop on the day they started the foreign substance checks.

Please go look what happened to the spin rates of Dylan Cease, Lucas Giolito, and Lance Lynn before and after June 15 of 2021. Each of them had a huge spin rate drop starting the exact week of the sticky stuff ban, not matched any other time in their career. Hell I have some of the images in my old attachments on here. Boy what a conspiracy theory that is to say that giant dropoff in his fastball spin rate that happened on the exact date the sticky stuff ban started was because of the sticky stuff ban. Rodon, Fwiw, was clean. Keuchel shows no big change in spin rate, but his career also fell apart basically after June of that year, so never was certain about him. The other guys were major sticky stuff users.

Sing it with me folks, “It’s not Ethan Katz’s fault that the pitching staff collapsed…”

Giolito who, without sticky stuff, put up a 4.90 ERA in 2022 Is something we brag about. I mean, that isn’t the pitching coaches fault, we give him credit when bad things happen that aren’t totally his fault/ And while we are at it, how about the super responsible time we raced him back from COVID and another injury in April of 2022? Our best defense of Katz continues to be “oh there’s too much blame to place it on any one person.”

You’ve pretty much backed off to saying “sure there’s no reason to have any confidence in Ethan Katz but Hahn did a terrible job too”, and you’re right. But that is the point, there’s no reason to have any confidence in Ethan Katz! The best you have is “the mess wasn’t all his fault”, but that leaves no reason to think he is going to be a powerful voice for wisdom and responsibility with this pitcher all of a sudden. “It’s not the majors fault that the stadium collapsed!”

Yes, Katz was important in helping Rodon turn his career around. But the specific subject was whether we had confidence in them using Crochet responsibly, and how Katz would totally use a guy responsibly. Except, with the biggest reclamation project in Katz's career, Rodon, the pitcher was used totally irresponsibly! He threw a 9 inning, 114 pitch no hitter in the 2nd game of the season, and then he was back on the mound 6 days later, no extra rest! They had him throw 90+ pitches per start in literally every outing he had until after the All Star Break. He threw 430 pitches in 4 starts in June. Somehow, this pitcher broke down, how could that have happened when they took such care of his arm? That seems pretty darn relevant. Other stuff that seems relevant from those breakout pitchers. Davis Martin - had a pretty decent 2022. Blew out his elbow. Gregory Santos - Had a good 2023. Has had multiple injury issues since September. As of right now, I don't see any reason why "Ethan Katz totally knows what he's doing why are you criticizing Pedro" is anything I should believe.

Yes, Carlos Rodon's 2021 is truly a relevant example. A hard throwing left hander who had gone through multiple surgeries, was coming off TJS, and where they pitched him in the first half like there were literally zero restrictions on his arm only to have his body wear out in the 2nd half. That should totally raise your confidence in how they will handle Crochet.

Why exactly should I have any confidence at all in Ethan Katz when basically I haven't seen anything positive in terms of big league pitching performance since the sticky stuff ban started?

The White Sox were worse than the A's?

I will be excited to be proved wrong, but I don't think they can resist their own urges enough to use him as a true 3 inning opener. I think Grifol is going to say he's a starter so we have to use him as a starter and that means 5 innings first time out. They couldn't resist the temptation of using him on opening day, why should we expect them to be responsible about his innings total?

But opening day is already spoken for.

For a guy who doesn't rely on velocity and who has an issue with the long ball, there could be similar benefits to pitching in Charlotte. If those hitters push him to identify a couple things he needs to improve on, that could be important too. But anyway, the important thing right now is actually to give him time at AA. I'm only bringing this up because people here and on twitter have been talking about bringing him north this year since he was performing well in his first 10 spring training innings. Let's put him at AA, see what he does there, and figure out the path.

Didn’t he turn down 6/$150?

I'm convincible by that, if it's actually clearly beating the league for 3 months. If he's u know putting up an ERA of like 4 this year, then spending some time at AAA next year won't be a mistake. Leaping from high A to the big leagues? Naw, at least make the jump to AA first and show me he can handle AA. He hasn't done this leap yet, skipping past it because he was having a good 15 innings in spring training? Naw, go to AA.

At least to me, if you want to get him to 120 innings, the safest way to do that and perhaps the only way to do that is to drop the stress of some of those innings by making them minor league innings.

And if there's any day during a major league season that is routine and forgettable, it's opening day.

I don't want him out of the bullpen! Putting him in the bullpen was Hahns thing, it was as intelligent as every other move Hahn made. Send him to Charlotte, use him as an opener, build him up with 3 innings an outing against minor league competition for April, 4 innings per outing in May, give him a break there, move to 5 innings or so in June, then evaluate what his arm is doing, how his body is feeling, how his off speed pitches look, how his velocity has gone. If everything has gone to plan, call him back up mid-year and let him inch his way into the rotation with pretty clear innings limits in the second half. If there are any setbacks, be patient, and try to make sure you don't do anything that shreds his elbow or shoulder again. Figure out when you want to shut him down from there - I am not as into the 80 innings limit as some people are, if he works his way up to the big leagues and throws more innings than that, at least I kept the intensity low on some of the early ones rather than having him go against big leaguers, but still be super cautious in the 2nd half about making sure he gets extra rest.

I'll take the over.

I'd say right around July 1 if he stays healthy and has no set backs. Take it easy, ramp him up slowly, a couple innings per start at first, maybe even use an IL stint around mid-May to give his arm a break, and evaluate as you go. See how his arm holds up at first, build him up so maybe he can give you 5 innings, then let him face big leaguers. Frankly, it probably wouldn't hurt him to have some days where he focuses on throwing his offspeed stuff as much as he can at AAA either. Go a whole inning or two without any fastballs, get the feel for both the changeup and slider as a starter would.

Exactly. Thorpe has barely made it to AA, he has 1 full season at high-A ball. He should be at AA at least until he's so dominant there that he earns a callup to AA, or otherwise for nearly the full season. If you want to talk to me next offseason about jumping him from AA to the big leagues, I probably still wont' like it and would argue for time at AAA, but that's at least feasible. I wouldn't care one bit about him having a bad start today, he's on a new team and mid-March is normal "Dead arm period" for pitchers as they ramp up. But we heard way too many versions of "calling Thorpe up based on his spring training" here and elsewhere online over the past few days, and shutting that down is fine by me.

And when he gets hurt again, you won't blame the people who made the decisions. We've seen that before, with this pitcher.