Quote:
Originally Posted by duncan_idaho
Probably the best thing Dodd has written all year. I miss Andy, who spoiled us.
I think the Rival exec lumping 2014's rotation into the same category as last year's is not paying attention. That www actually a very good rotation, with peak Duffy and Ventura, James Shields having a very good year,
And Vargas and Guthrie putting up solid back-end, innings-soaking seasons.
That said, 2017 will turn on what KC gets from Duffy and Ventura. I think Kennedy is a fairly known quantity (with this season as a floor). You can find back-end pieces at KC's available cash flow. If Ventura and Duffy can at least reasonably be hoped to be answers at the front end, outlook changes.
Ventura, Vargas and Minor will be pretty important/interesting to watch the rest of the year. Should give us a good idea what they're going to do about the rotation... Or need to do.
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
|
Following Andy is a cursed promotion. It's only a matter of time before he lands a lot more national presence. Just being in LA with FS1 and ESPN's west coast satellite in the same town will only speed it up.
He might not be an on-air personality(?), but it's hard to argue his humor and talent doesn't bode well for his future. Doing it even in such a limited amount of characters, like on twitter, and consistently is even more impressive because it forces you to trim the fat, cut the filler and be lean and precise.
I like Rustin, but I don’t think he's found his "voice" or a niche yet. Yes, he's the beat guy, but Carter, King, Andy, Passan, and on and on, all found a way to make their mark covering x or y team without it becoming about them.
I think he's still adjusting to the new assignment and not fully comfortable in his own skin yet. He was just starting to get settled in with KU and expanding to do more interest pieces before suddenly tapped to take over the Royals.
I agree, lumping in '14 with last year seems like a casual observer lumping them without actually looking at how different they were.
Duffy seems like a silver lining for this season, and for some reason I have this gut feeling that Ventura is going to flip the switch and have a really good 2017. I think the team and his performance this year and away from the limelight of playoff baseball and the rest will give him a chance to reflect, including talk of him being dangled as trade bait, will do him good and demonstrate some growth in maturity and hopefully dedicated to honing and tweaking his mechanics, delivery, and the rest.
Kennedy clearly needs to get a handle on cutting down on the meatballs he's been serving up. I don't think it's unrealistic that working in the offseason with the coaches he could cut his long balls surrendered by at least 1/3. He's got to be at least an average 2 or high quality 3 in the rotation next year if they want to make a run .