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Tuesday, June 17, 2008

Gammons: A lot of upside in Lester

Ever hip Art Martone, points out this transcribbled Gammo-ray blast from Hacks with Haggs.

I can’t imagine there are many teams around baseball that have greater pitching depth than the Red Sox, and if they do then that list is pretty miniscule.

PG: It is. You look and you still have Buchholz back at Triple-A Pawtucket, and he has great stuff. He can go back and learn at Pawtucket rather than go through what guys like Phil Hughes, Ian Kennedy and Joba Chamberlain have had to do in New York. There are those who think that Michael Bowden, who is at Double-A right now, is the best of that whole group.

The depth they have is really important. I had an interesting conversation with Jason Varitek the other day. He was talking about all this and all of the fun that he is having with [the pitching depth]. He was saying that he thinks Josh Beckett is going to have a dominant second half. He said one thing that really stunned me. He said that Jon Lester had the highest ceiling of anyone on the staff.

He said that [Lester] is at about 60 percent of where he is going to be next year and he said that he’s going to be the best left-hander in the American league. He didn’t make it a maybe or an if, it was his belief. That kind of enthusiasm keeps everyone energized and the pitchers are feeding off one another. The depth has been the story. The Sox haven’t had a great year. They don’t have people having monster seasons, but their pitching depth is so good.

Repoz Posted: June 17, 2008 at 06:57 PM | 36 comment(s) Login to Bookmark
Tags: minor leagues, red sox

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1. Cooperstown Schtick Posted: June 17, 2008 at 07:25 PM (#2823041)

PG: It is. You look and you still have Buchholz back at Triple-A Pawtucket, and he has great stuff. He can go back and learn at Pawtucket rather than go through what guys like Phil Hughes, Ian Kennedy and Joba Chamberlain have had to do in New York.

You can tell that the Red Sox have the greatest pitching depth by comparing them to a team that has absolutely no pitching depth? Was it not worth mentioning, say, the Rays or Dbacks as better comps?

2. Shooty: Applying to be Fearless Leader

Posted: June 17, 2008 at 07:27 PM (#2823047)

You can tell that the Red Sox have the greatest pitching depth by comparing them to a team that has absolutely no pitching depth? Was it not worth mentioning, say, the Rays or Dbacks as better comps?

Maybe Oakland?

3. Dizzypaco Posted: June 17, 2008 at 07:29 PM (#2823048)

4. Cooperstown Schtick Posted: June 17, 2008 at 07:32 PM (#2823050)

Even if the Rays, DBacks, and Oakland has better pitching depth (which I'm not sure they do), the list can be described as "pretty miniscule". Which means Gammons was right. Unless you can come up with lots of teams with better depth.

Gammons is right. My point was that he does his argument no service by introducing a team on the opposite side of the spectrum. Why not say, "Here are the Rays and D-backs and A's and Blue Jays, and yet Boston still seems to come out on top in pitching depth?"

5. PASTE is not impressed by Albert Pujols (Zeth) Posted: June 17, 2008 at 07:32 PM (#2823051)

Wait... who are these 'Rays' and 'Oakland' and 'DBacks' (what the hell is a DBack?) that you people are talking about? Are those farm teams for the Red Sox and Yankees?

6. SoSH U at work Posted: June 17, 2008 at 07:36 PM (#2823058)

There's nothing wrong with what Gammons did here. He said the Red Sox have great pitching depth, and illustrated by showing they can take a contrasting approach with a player than a team (the Yankees in this case) without such depth.

7. Rich Posted: June 17, 2008 at 07:38 PM (#2823063)

There's nothing wrong with what Gammons did here. He said the Red Sox have great pitching depth, and illustrated by showing they can take a contrasting approach with a player than a team (the Yankees in this case) without such depth.

The Yankees' depth is on the DL. Stuff happens.

8. Cooperstown Schtick Posted: June 17, 2008 at 07:38 PM (#2823064)

He said the Red Sox have great pitching depth, and illustrated by showing they can take a contrasting approach with a player than a team (the Yankees in this case) without such depth.

So you're saying it was more important to illustrate that having pitching depth is good than to illustrate the point of the question, that Boston's pitching depth is among the best?

9. Cowboy Popup Posted: June 17, 2008 at 07:39 PM (#2823067)

There are those who think that Michael Bowden, who is at Double-A right now, is the best of that whole group.

Is this true?

10. bibigon Posted: June 17, 2008 at 07:43 PM (#2823074)

Time to pick nits!

1. Bowden as the best of that group? That reads like a bad Wikipedia entry - "There are those who think"... I'd personally rank him 4th, but a very strong argument exists for 3rd. I don't see the argument for 1 or 2 yet.

2. Lester has higher upside than Beckett?

11. jmurph Posted: June 17, 2008 at 07:44 PM (#2823076)

It is. You look and you still have Buchholz back at Triple-A Pawtucket, and he has great stuff. He can go back and learn at Pawtucket rather than go through what guys like Phil Hughes, Ian Kennedy and Joba Chamberlain have had to do in New York. There are those who think that Michael Bowden, who is at Double-A right now, is the best of that whole group.

I don't understand why this is being parsed so much, but I think the "It is" is his entire answer to the assertion that the list of teams with more depth is pretty miniscule. After answering that question, Gammons goes on to explain why that depth is so valuable to the Red Sox. I don't think he's saying "they are among the deepest because they're deeper than the Yankees!" I think he's saying "yes, they're among the deepest. Now, here's why that matters..."

12. SoSH U at work Posted: June 17, 2008 at 07:45 PM (#2823080)

So you're saying it was more important to illustrate that having pitching depth is good than to illustrate the point of the question, that Boston's pitching depth is among the best?

The Yankees' depth is on the DL.

Even healthy, the Yankees don't have the same rotation depth as the Red Sox do.

13. Cooperstown Schtick Posted: June 17, 2008 at 07:53 PM (#2823091)

I'm saying that Peter Gammons can answer the question however the hell he wants. Sure, he could have obeyed your wishes and listed those teams with comparable depth. He chose to show how the impact of that pitching depth.

He could have said, "It is," and then discussed the development of his Sea Monkey collection. All I would be looking for as Joe Reader is for him to address the issue in at least a little depth, rather than make the patently obvious statement that having pitching depth is better than not.

Trust me, if Peter Gammons had any interest in my wishes, he would have quit reporting baseball after his shameless claims to be an "insider" during the '94 Strike revealed him to be a fraud.

14. PASTE is not impressed by Albert Pujols (Zeth) Posted: June 17, 2008 at 07:55 PM (#2823093)

...is he dissing Peter Gammons?

15. SoSH U at work Posted: June 17, 2008 at 07:59 PM (#2823098)

He could have said, "It is," and then discussed the development of his Sea Monkey collection. All I would be looking for as Joe Reader is for him to address the issue in at least a little depth, rather than make the patently obvious statement that having pitching depth is better than not.

Actually, it sounds like all you're looking for here as Joe Reader is a reason to complain about Petey. And it took some work, but you found a way.

16. Cooperstown Schtick Posted: June 17, 2008 at 08:11 PM (#2823110)

Actually, all I was trying to do was make a small point, illustrating a way in which I think he would have done the question more service. I have no beef if you're satisfied with the answer. I think it would have been more interesting to see an analysis of organizational pitching depth beyond the Red Sox and Yankees. YMMV.

17. Jim Wisinski

Posted: June 17, 2008 at 08:19 PM (#2823117)

He said that [Lester] is at about 60 percent of where he is going to be next year and he said that he’s going to be the best left-hander in the American league.

Uh-huh. The chances of him being the best left-hander in just the division are very slim.

18. Russlan will never be fond of Jason Bay Posted: June 17, 2008 at 08:31 PM (#2823130)

I'd probably wait for Lester's K/BB to improve to around 1.75 before I made that claim but that's just me.

19. Walt Davis Posted: June 17, 2008 at 08:35 PM (#2823132)

The term "pitching depth" is usually meant as some combination of both quantity and quality. While obviously there needs to be some quality cutoff before you consider someone part of a "deep" rotation, seems to me depth should refer to quantity. Gammons is doing that here so no beef with him. More a beef with those of you who somehow didn't list the Cubs among your deep teams. Zambrano, Lilly, Dempster, Marquis, Gallagher, Hill, Leiber, Marshall. That's not a huge amount of quality and we all know the Dempster and Marquis collapses are coming, but it's 8 guys who would have no problem finding ML starting jobs.

20. Shooty: Applying to be Fearless Leader

Posted: June 17, 2008 at 08:41 PM (#2823142)

I like Gammons, I really do, but no one hypes players the way he does. I don't think he has an agenda, he just gets excited about potential. When I brought up Oakland I was only being mildly snarky as I'm a bit weary of the Red Sox-Yankees universe we seem to live in anymore, but considering the forum, Gammons can't really be criticized for it as those two teams are who the audience he's talking to in this interview cares about.

21. AROM Posted: June 17, 2008 at 09:02 PM (#2823163)

At the beginning of his sophomore season, Gammons claimed that Shea Hillenbrand was the 3rd best righthanded hitter in the league, after Manny Ramirez and Edgar Martinez. Never mind that Nomar was playing 30 feet to his left, or the other 50-100 better righthanded hitters in the league.

Claims like this make me wonder if the Red Sox will be looking at moving Lester in a trade this summer. If they want to play pump and dump, Gammons will always do his part.

22. PASTE is not impressed by Albert Pujols (Zeth) Posted: June 17, 2008 at 09:16 PM (#2823181)

After Sabathia, you think, AROM?

23. Danny Posted: June 17, 2008 at 09:20 PM (#2823184)

I guess he tired of the "several teams are pursuing Coco Crisp" pass-along.

24. Mister High Standards Posted: June 17, 2008 at 09:45 PM (#2823211)

I'm not betting against Lester. Their is no doubt in my mind his makeup is off the charts, according to every single source this kid has every you mentally need to be a stoper in the rotation. He kicked cancers ass, and I have little doubt he will be among the best pitchers in baseball over some intermediate time frame (not starting now). I was on reccord as saying Lester would blow away his projections this season, and he is on the way to proving me right... then again I was also on record as being long the Padres (also the brewers, cards, d-backs, dodgers and whitesox at various long odds) to win the world series at 28 to 1 comming to the season.

25. Dingbat_Charlie

Posted: June 17, 2008 at 10:24 PM (#2823250)

Wait... who are these 'Rays' and 'Oakland' and 'DBacks' (what the hell is a DBack?) that you people are talking about? Are those farm teams for the Red Sox and Yankees?

well, yes.

26. SoSHially Unacceptable Posted: June 17, 2008 at 10:27 PM (#2823254)

At the beginning of his sophomore season, Gammons claimed that Shea Hillenbrand was the 3rd best righthanded hitter in the league, after Manny Ramirez and Edgar Martinez. Never mind that Nomar was playing 30 feet to his left, or the other 50-100 better righthanded hitters in the league.

Claims like this make me wonder if the Red Sox will be looking at moving Lester in a trade this summer. If they want to play pump and dump, Gammons will always do his part.

Well, to be fair to Gammons, at least in this case he wasn't citing some anonymous scout's glowing report about Lester, but directly attributing such remarks to Varitek. That's a big improvement for him.

27. Rough Carrigan

Posted: June 17, 2008 at 11:12 PM (#2823291)

This great Jon Lester we're going to see in the future, he'll stop walking hitters on 4 pitches that don't come within 2 feet of the strike zone just when you think he's getting into a groove?

28. Rough Carrigan

Posted: June 17, 2008 at 11:14 PM (#2823294)

Claims like this make me wonder if the Red Sox will be looking at moving Lester in a trade this summer. If they want to play pump and dump, Gammons will always do his part.

Blue horseshoe loves Jon Lester.

29. buddy Posted: June 18, 2008 at 12:23 AM (#2823430)

uh. scott kazmir might argue that point. and david price.

30. Rough Carrigan

Posted: June 18, 2008 at 12:30 AM (#2823453)

It's a catcher talking about one of the pitchers on his staff. Isn't hyperbole expected?

31. AROM Posted: June 18, 2008 at 01:22 AM (#2823641)

"After Sabathia, you think, AROM?"

Scott Kazmir's the best lefty in the AL. Might be the best pitcher, probably him, Beckett, or King Felix.

32. Social media assassin (Templeusox) Posted: June 18, 2008 at 01:31 AM (#2823674)

This great Jon Lester we're going to see in the future, he'll stop walking hitters on 4 pitches that don't come within 2 feet of the strike zone just when you think he's getting into a groove?

Maybe you should give him a break for a little. Since May 1st, he's got a 40/15 K/BB in 56.1 IP. That's a 2.4 BB/9. He also has 1 walk in 20.1 IP this month. He's also 9th in the AL in GB% this season.

33. Darren

Posted: June 18, 2008 at 02:54 AM (#2823983)

He's guilty of making up fictional people who think Bowden's the best of the group. Who is he talking about?

34. Big Train Posted: June 18, 2008 at 03:09 AM (#2824009)

Bowden has nice stats, but c'mon.

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Gammons: A lot of upside in Lester

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