Comments on: Cliff Lee, Ace

By: BW

BW — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 16:39:22 +0000

Agree on the Fox broadcast, and Tim McCarver in general, but the downside to listening on the radio is having to hear the seldom lucid Joe Morgan talk about how 20 ABs is an effective sample size to judge a player’s performance.

By: verd14

verd14 — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 14:00:09 +0000

Cameron great article as usual. A note about your bringing up the FOX network in the article.

I’m tired of watching the MLB playoffs on mute! Is it just me?

By: Archie

Archie — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 13:28:58 +0000

I was sitting there thinking during the game how depressing it must be to be an Indians fan watching your two old pitchers going at each other like that. Add in Carmona and that would be one heck of a pitching staff today.

By: Chris

Chris — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 23:26:33 +0000

How did Cliff Lee become Cliff Lee? I remember watching a spring training game in 08 and he was going to be shipped out to the minors if he didn’t pitch good that game. He did and went on to win the CY. Did he add a pitch or is it just a confidence thing. Like was mentioned earlier, Lee was really an average pitcher up to 08…

By: gnomez

gnomez — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 20:59:41 +0000

In defense of Fox, did you SEE that curve at the end of the game? That was one of the filthiest pitches I have ever seen.

By: Evan

Evan — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 20:20:06 +0000

To give Fox a little bit of a pass, that first curve that Lee through to Jeter had amazing movement. Its easy to say how good the changeup is in retrospect, but at the time I was completely dazzled by the movement on Lee’s curve as well.

That said, the change was brutually effective, but everything he was throwing was pretty good.

By: PhD Brian

PhD Brian — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 20:05:12 +0000

developing pitching is a crap shoot most of the time, so the current thinking is have a tons of good arms and some will turn into good pitchers. That is why the Indians took those 4 guys. Recall Cliff Lee was nothing special most of his career, but he found himself at the age of 30. He had 2 awful years one ok year and one above average career until 2008. He did not even start in the majors until he was 25. Of those 4 guys chances are fairly solid one is the next Cliff Lee or perhaps just Gil Meche, But I would not wager much on any one of them being the guy.
http://www.fangraphs.com/statss.aspx?playerid=1636&position=P

By: Kevin S.

Kevin S. — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 19:30:50 +0000

That’s the first thing I thought when they showed us the grip – how is this all that different from what Moose threw?

By: Bryz

Bryz — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 19:23:38 +0000

I’ve never heard of a “spike” curveball, but have heard of a knuckle-curve….yet “knuckle-curve” was never spoken of last night, if I remember correctly.

By: Logan

Logan — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 19:11:50 +0000

Okay, this is why I love this site. Articles like these. Incredibly enlightening.