If I were Chien-Ming Wang I would call St. Louis. They're looking for pitching, and Dave Duncan is a master at maximizing the talents of ground ball pitchers. Just look at Joel Piniero, Jason Marquis, Kent Bottenfield...in the NL Central he could bring Wang back to the top. I have a feeling he winds up back with Torre in LA, however. On another note I hope the Yankees kick the tires on Matt Capps. He had an awful year last season but he doesn't walk many batters, has had good success in the past, and is still young and developing. He'd probably come as a pretty cheap low risk/high reward signing.
I know your not a fair weather fan but the response of "Fuck Him" seemed like something one would say if they were. If you said "Fuck Him" about somebody like Bobby Abreu or Roger Clemens that's fine but this is a guy who poored his heart to your team and IMO if not for getting injured would still be an All-Star pitcher.
It's funny but I was in Taiwan last week and they had their pro baseball All Star game. He was one of the coaches and Dodger pitcher Hung Chi Kuo was a DH. There was talk that the two are very good friends and workout together in the offseason during the broadcast. (Of course it was translated to me as it was in Mandarin). The Dodgers love to capitalize on the Asian fan base and bringing in Wang would be a great PR move but also one that could pay huge dividends if he returned to what he was. He also wouldn't have to be an Ace with Billingsly and Kershaw on the roster.
Can someone explain to me why Wang will "never be the same"... He is a sinker-baller. He can live without velocity.
He can live without velocity, not without mechanics. His windup and delivery were both all over the place last season and it resulted in a lot of walks and a lot of balls left up in the zone. He can certainly get back into a big league rotation, but he's gonna need extensive work to get his mechanics back where they need to be. The Yankees don't have space to let him do that work on the Major League roster, so it's time to let him go.
The Yankees offered Wang a split contract that would be a minor league contract and once he'd be healthy he'd be elevated to the Major League roster. It was a fair deal, and Wang rejected it, which is his right too. At $4 million for a half season of a pitcher that looked nothing like a big league pitcher, it would have been stupid to tender him a contract. I loved Wang but you don't repeat as champions by being sentimental. I'd rather that $4 million go towards bringing in a guy like Ben Sheets.
I agree with the idea that if you're going to spend that kind of money on a injury-risk pitcher, go with Sheets. As for Wang himself, he tried too hard to become a strikeout pitcher. Forget injuries for the moment, the guy is a sinker pitcher who refused to get the ball down. As I've said dozens of times, that's batting practice in MLB. As kinghenry is saying, he's not unsalvageable. He just needs someone to take a special interest in him and fix him. He may not have the health, who knows, but as long as he's healthy and getting the ball down, he's a legit 1-2 starter. I think a minor league deal with the option to join the pro club when healthy was as much as he deserved. No more, no less. He turned it down, so whatever. At best, he was the 4th starter next year, and that's only if Hughes/Joba don't come back improved.
I think there's a difference between refusing to and not able to, but otherwise, yes, leaving the ball up in the zone was his problem. It's not like he was throwing four-seamers up in the zone. He was still throwing the sinker. It just stayed up.
So you think the problem was that he was trying, and failing? I could see that. I just think it was more his approach changed, but I could definitely believe he lost something and just couldn't keep the ball down anymore. It just seemed to me that he was looking to justify top-of-rotation status with trying to get Ks, which isn't what he's good at. Either way it's mechanically related. I just think changing his approach led him to change his muscle memory, leading to misfires on the sinker. I wonder if any of it could be a result from his persistent blister problem as well. Perhaps he changed finger placement to avoid the blisters?
Why would he continue to do something that got his pitches hit ridiculously hard? His sinker was inconsistent when he came back. It went side to side instead of down. That's why it would stay up, and why he would get hit hard. And he threw less sliders than he normally did in years past, which doesn't lead me to believe that he was trying to K guys. Seems to me like he was just trying to get a handle on his primary pitch, and would only show the slider to try to prevent batters from sitting on the sinker. But maybe that was part of the problem, too. Maybe he didn't throw enough sliders to keep them off balance. But the big thing to me is, if it were his approach that changed, and he was trying to strike guys out, why wasn't he trying to throw a four-seamer up in the zone? It'd be harder to hit, and have a little more juice on it. Throwing a shitty two-seamer up in the zone would be a pretty dumb approach.
I'm out of answers. Who knows? The easy answer is he sucks. But we've seen him pitch to almost 20 wins more than once, so it's unlikely he just sucks. Bad coaching?
BTW: I started saying he was looking like he was trying to be K pitcher before he even got hurt. I was saying it immediately following his first arbitration.
http://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2009/12/john-lackey-rumors-monday-1.html Evidently Lackey is nearing a deal with Boston. I really thought the Yankees were targeting him.
I never thought Lackey was going to be a Yankee. I'm unhappy to see him go to Boston, but maybe that stops their Halladay pursuit for good?
Yep, that's what I'm thinking. One less team to compete with for Halladay. According to reports, Lackey is getting just a bit more than AJ did last season.
i didnt want lackey because i didnt want to have to look at his ugly face. guess i will anyways, but at least i have a legitimate reason to hate him more.
