Yes, he has an ugly 4.55 era but consider that this is greatly inflated due o his days as a member of the Royals rotation since making his move to the bullpen the guy has been lights out. The last two years as a member of the Colorado and Cincinnati bullpen he has posted era's of 3.51 and 3.33 respectively and also appeared in a total of 149 games which is an average of 68 and a half games over those last two years the true definition of a workhorse. You may be concerned that he's been overworked but I say say nay! Here's why up until the second half of 2006 he was a starting pitcher so he surely has the endurance to pitch in these games. He only threw 137 innings the past two years which is a far cry from the 194 innings he threw in 2006. Also consider the fact that he's been pitching half his games at Coors and Great American ballpark which have been known to take pitchers as their prisoners. Also you could expect him to put even better numbers than last year if his road numbers serve as a telling sign. On the road he held opposing batters to a .203 average and a .573 ops (obp plus slg) ladies and gentleman those are Brian Bocock numbers! Also eh's a true power pitcher whose average fastball is 94.1 mph according to fangraphs.com my favorite part is that he struck out a ghastly 9.7 batters per nine innings last year. Guess what? That's the second highest on the Giants! Tha's right go crazy folks go crazy! We all know he who shall not be named is first but he even beat out Brian Wilson and his bazooka fastball. (9.21/per 9)
Folks I pleased to say this is truly a very, very intelligent free agent signing I tip my hat to you Brian Sabean for being quick and moving in on the prey. I also must admit this signing whomps my "wishlist" signee Joe Beimel whom I like but I put up there because if they Giants had signed him it would have made me look very intelligent. I must say followers, fans and close friends our garlic fry money was put to good use.
6 comments:
affeldt=loogy, jk, but not really, maybe he's just a late bloomer, because aside from the last 2 seasons his career has been awful, hen what can you attribute to his late career sucess
he was moved from the rotation to the bullpen..and before he pitched for the lowly Royals which indirectly affects performance level. Jay is a bit jealous I can see...
mike your shrewd effort in arguing is amusing, look at his career numbers before you talk, the amount of runs your team scores doesn't effect how many runs you give up genius ala lincecum, he's been in relief since 2004, and only started a full season once, he was moved to the bullpen because he has only two good pitches, he basically had to ditch his changeup, he's good once through the lineup and that's it, he should be good in a setup role, is it a coincidence he had his best year in a contract year?
LAY OFF OF MIKE! but seriously, seriously Jay there's a number of things you can attribute to his success. For one many pitchers improve upon transitioning to the bullpen and vise versa. For instance Eric Gange flourished there after he was a starter because of his strong two pitch arsenal and not much else. (Fastball change) Like Gange, Affeldt also has a strong two pitch arsenal fastball curve that he elies on to et batters out. He was a top pitching prospect as a starter because he was able to overpower minor league hitters with his two plus pitches. Everyone assumed he would eventually get a feel for an at least average change and improve his control sadly, he never did. He bounced around the league for a little bit until he found a home in Colorado and then bolted when the Red's showed him money. At the same time his fastball velocity now arrives to the plate at an average of 94.1 mph compared to 92.3 when he was a starter so switching to the bullpen allows for his stuff to play up a notch, also he greatly benefits from only usually throwing an inning per appearence so his lack of a true change-up isn't exposed which prevents hitters from sitting on the fastball as the game goes on. Also no jay I don't think it's "coincidence" his best year came last year becuase he posted very similar numbers in the second half of 06 until now in the pen. Interesting Henry Schulman claims he might start to but I highly doubt this probably just trying to be exciting.
first off as I said competitivness of a team can indirectly affect performance, "a la" Matt Cain, I guarantee cainer would throw much better if his gem from his last outing getting squandered by lack of hitting or bad bullpen wasnt fresh in his mind. although it isnt quantifiable being with a winning team can sometimes help a pitcher maintain a competitive attitude==> better performance. and u are agreeing with me when you say he got good when he moved to the bullpen so his lack of pitch variation wouldn't be exposed with hitters only batting against him once. thats what i said just above you (see my comment) so ha
mikey, mikey, mikey, i wasn't disagreeing about affeldt, but your matt cain argument is that of a 3rd grader, matt cain pitched plenty decent on a bad team as you can tell by his 3.7 era, his w-L were ugly but that's a poor indicator of how good a pitcher is, mr. affeldt pitched plenty bad while playing on a bad team as you can tell by his career 5 era as a royal, just because your on a bad team doesn't mean you're a bad pitcher, but if you pitch poorly on a bad team, than you're just taking up space, mike=owned, i'm gonna stop reading after this post, and just to reiterate...mike=owned
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