Comments on: Putz Looks Hurts

By: joser

joser — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 22:19:58 +0000

And yet here we are: Dave was right, and the only sign of “a massive amount of garbage” is the scent wafting in from your direction. Of course I’m quite sure you have neither the class nor the cojones to return to this thread and concede that, but perhaps you’ll surprise us.

By: joser

joser — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 22:11:47 +0000

Right, because no pitcher in the history of baseball had a good couple of years and then got hurt. Koufax must’ve been on ‘roids.

As was fairly well-documented at the time, Putz learned a new pitch — the splitter — from Guardado sometime in 2004-2005, and that helped him “putz” it all together. As for the speed…. throughout 2004, he was used as an ordinary reliever, and often pitched more than one inning (sometimes as many as 3 or 4). Coming into the 6th or 7th inning with potentially several innings to go, pitchers tend not to throw as hard as an 8th or 9th one-inning specialist. And throwing harder can lead to injuries a year or two down the line.

I’m not saying Putz didn’t dope — clearly, we don’t know — I’m just saying there are alternative explanations. Considering that’s the timeframe when testing began, it would be kind of an odd time to start, but given how toothless the early regime was perhaps it’s not that strange.. If that “list of names” ever gets out perhaps we’ll know.

But it is a little tiresome to go through this every time a player gets hurt. That may be the worst legacy of PEDs — not that records are tainted, but that every health-related development of any player will immediately bring on this endless and rather fruitless speculation.

By: Dr. Remulak

Dr. Remulak — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 20:27:08 +0000

I’m sure this will catch a lot of flak and the dreaded “thumbs-down” votes but maybe, just maybe, J.J. was like a lot of other major-leaguers and experimented with PEDs…

Not saying he did and I have no proof to support it, but we can’t overlook that perhaps he “juiced” for a couple of years, had great results, then went through some of the complications that many “juicers” experience (several unusual injuries) and did not come back using PEDs. (Hello, Eric Gagne!)

In 2005, Putz had a nice spike in mph of about 2 mph in his fastball and slider. A year later he “putz” it all together and has one of the more spectacular seasons ever by a closer. Sometimes pitchers do gain spikes in mph, but at 29-30 years old?

Don’t kill me for providing a real rationale as to why J.J. went from a mediocre nobody to elite closer to mediocre ex-closer in a span of 4-5 years.

Talk amongst yourselves…

By: big baby

big baby — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 02:41:46 +0000

TOLD YOU SO!

god dammit.

god god dammit

By: OregonJunco

OregonJunco — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 19:54:17 +0000

Big baby, how can a 12-sentence post that concludes that Putz might be hurting due to decreased velocity and poor command be “a massive amount of garbage” and full of “a lot of poor arguments”? Dave makes a pretty simple, harmless observation. This isn’t some piece of investigative journalism he’s been slaving away at for years; it’s not a graduate thesis. It’s a freaking blog post, one of dozens that he and other Fangraph bloggers are writing every day on multiple websites. If you and dudes like Wally think you can write better and construct more well-researched arguments, get your own blogs. Please, I would really like to see what kind of engaging, readable content you guys would produce 5-6 times a day.

By: big baby

big baby — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 19:00:07 +0000

absolutely. his k rate is poor. but a couple of sharp outings and it’s back on track. i’m not saying he’s guaranteed to be great and his performance up to this point isn’t somewhat concerning. i’m saying that this article is predicated on a lot of poor arguments and faulty reasoning.

By: ThundaPC

ThundaPC — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 18:53:19 +0000

The article also points out Putz’s strikeout rate which, as of right now, pretty much blows.

If he’s not striking people out, he’s nothing like what the Mets traded him for. His K/BB is lower than last year when he was injured and no where near the levels in which he was good.

It’s something the Mets are going to have to keep an eye on. They wanted the Putz of 2006/2007 and they’re nowhere close to getting it.

By: big baby

big baby — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 18:27:44 +0000

Maybe he is injured/over the hill/whatever, but the entire premise for this article is article is looking at his fastball velocity for the entire year with absolutely no analysis beyond that. And the person who wrote the article waited until Putz had a bad outing to bring up the point; not exactly going out on a limb. Didn’t see this when his WHIP was 1.1 and his only bad outing was a result of a misplayed ball by Dan Murphy.

It’s just cherry picking and superficial analysis. Maybe Putz is overthrowing the ball and IS injured; this article doesn’t address that at all. All he is doing is looking at the numbers, ignoring the sample size, and not pointing out the relevant circumstances of the outing in question (the fact that he was throwing plenty hard yesterday). All in all you get a huge load of garbage.

By: joser

joser — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 18:20:36 +0000

…assuming he actually accumulates a significant sample size with the Mets this year.

By: joser

joser — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 18:18:48 +0000

Yeah, that makes no sense (though the evidence suggests that’s not necessarily a requirement for the folks posting comments here). From what I can tell — and as you can see in this very comment thread — when it comes to JJ Putz, the only bitter people are Mets fans. Mariners fans (after years of tasting the bitter fruits of Bavasi’s trades) are reveling in the sweet, sweet ambrosia of a deal with nothing but upside for them.