Lackey to the Padres?

[jung]

You can get a lot of this just watching a guy pitch a few times. The guys who get hit are the ones that throw it right down the middle --in the heart of the plate. Lackey is one of those guys. Beckett gets himself in trouble that way, too, though less frequently.

 

This is exactly right. A good comparison would be Holland in Sunday night's game against the Cards. He was never in the middle of the plate until he tired very late, his arm angle changed and he could no longer keep the ball down. The ball was creeping closer to the middle of the plate as well but usually high enough so that the batter could not even tomahawk it. Fortunately for him his last 5-6 pitches were the worst 5-6 pitches he had thrown in a row all night. If anything he was close to being wild outside the strike zone and the ball no longer had much movement. I don't necessarily mean worst pitches in relation to balls and strikes but worst in that he clearly could no longer keep the ball down and there was no longer any movement on anything.

 

Lackey was almost always in the middle of the plate all season long. The most telling statistic for him was swinging strikes. His swinging strikes went down drastically for 2010 and then went straight off a cliff for 2011. The only pitch he could get batters to miss at all was his slider and even that was abysmal.

[jung]

Well the Lackey controversy is solved. He is a Red Sox for the term of his contract I would guess. He will undergo TJ this off season. So he gets paid, he stays a Red Sox and we don't see him again till 2013 on the other side of a surgical procedure for which there are no guarantees what-so-ever other than that he surely could not pitch worse. TJ is as much about how the pitcher adapts to what is arm does post surgery, how hard he works and then whether he can in fact throw the same arsenal of pitches that made him a MLB pitcher in the first place. It has worked well for some, not so well for others.

 

What bothers me a bit is that it became clear that Lackey has had multiple MRI's that the Sox have reviewed over time. Given that it has only been two years since he left Anaheim, and looking at the issues that Lackey had even in 2010, I am left with even more consternation about that move than I was when they made it. In point of fact you could look at 2010 and see that there were signs that 2011 was on the way in 2010. I have often said that the biggest stat difference for Lackey was swinging strikes as they fell dramatically in 2010 and then went off a cliff in 2011.

[a700hitter]

I'm not a doctor' date=' so I'll leave it to the medical profession, but my understanding of elbow problems are that they don't respond well to rehabbing, because tendons and not muscles are involved. Rest might help, but if you are a pitcher that has recurring elbow issues, you are probably headed to TJ surgery. Get rid of him. He is a sinking ship. Granted that it would be hard to do worse than this season, but I don't see him as being a productive member of the rotation going forward.[/quote']From October 20th^

[Laser Show]

From October 20th^

 

Gammons said that 4 months ago.

[a700hitter]

Gammons said that 4 months ago.

Hey Gammo is an HOFer.

 

Ongoing elbow issues are a red flag. Almost all of them end up getting TJ. He never should have been signed. His elbow issues date back to the Angels.

[SoxSport]

Hey Gammo is an HOFer.

 

 

Gammons is in the writer's wing of the HOF. The distinction seems to have been lost in the media between ballplayers in the HOF and writers. I have an appreciation for the great sportswriters and sportscasters, but I don't view them in the same light as ballplayers. The core HOF belongs to the ballplayers and MLB related people. The writers/sportscasters HOF should be prefaced as such, as it used to be.

[mvp 78]

Gammons>>>>>Rizzuto

[Dawgma]

Lackey: Anywhere but Boston............. Dice K: Anywhere but Boston.

$$$$$$$$ losers $$$$$$$$