It takes some faith, but I think that Prior and Harden will be top-10 next year. Fortunately, I have another 1/2 of a season to figure it out before I have to turn my keeper list in. The thing about Prior and Harden is that they have proven their worth, the only question is if they are healthy. And in that case, I consider Prior or Harden being healthy a better bet than someone like Kazmir becoming an ace next year. Yeah, his stuff is awesome, but how many pitchers have had awesome stuff but never gotten the whole package together. At least we know that Prior and Harden are the whole package when healthy.
I noticed Jered Weaver isn't coming up in conversations... which, don't get me wrong, it's fine by me, with his demotion and all (can anyone explain to me why the Angels ever did that?). But it also proves to me that i may be able to draft him later next season and get great value out of him, a la Jeremy Bonderman this year.
tinfoilxtouch wrote:I won't bother ranking, but I'll make a few predictions:
2) Kazmir is going to be better than Johan. Serious.
the mets fave up on him because his mechanics seemed to indicate that he is due for a serious injury down the road. and he is throwing a lot of pitches so far this season...i doubt that he will ever be better than johan.
IMHO
On top of that, he has serious attitude problems and unless he's made a huge change in the last 2 years is going to bring a lot of bad chemistry to that clubhouse.
But the real problem with Kazmir is his unnatural motion - I think I read somewhere once that his arm moves four times the speed it should with the hip rotation he gets, meaning he puts 4x the strain on his arm than most pitchers do.
DK wrote: On top of that, he has serious attitude problems and unless he's made a huge change in the last 2 years is going to bring a lot of bad chemistry to that clubhouse.
But the real problem with Kazmir is his unnatural motion - I think I read somewhere once that his arm moves four times the speed it should with the hip rotation he gets, meaning he puts 4x the strain on his arm than most pitchers do.
Huge injury problems down the road.
Kazmirs attitude problems have settled down completely. I don't know if it is his growing older or his friendship with Crawford or not, but he has mellowed down over the last year. In fact, I would go as far to say as the he will be the leader of the clubhouse in another year or so. As far as the injury problems, of course that is a concern but he also has pitched this same way for several years now with no major problems to date yet. Kazmir has basically been injury free since the beginning of 2004 when he had a rib strain. I will admit though that the Mets should be a bit happy over the Kazmir trade. If not for the public outcry over that trade, then Minaya may never have become GM and then would Pedro, Beltran, and Delgado even be a Met in 2006?
Weaver is not mentioned because he is no where near as good as top 10, and never will be. His stuff is barely better than his brothers - he features all ML average stuff, with plus movement on his fastball. If he pitches from here on out, don't expect anything too impressive.
As for Cain, he will be top 10... heck, top 5 the second he decides to start throwing strikes. He is 7th in baseball with a .223 BAA. He has unreal stuff - a fastball that sits in the mid-90s, he can get it up to 98, it is heavy as hell and explodes at the end. He can throw it for 120 pitches, too. He has a hammer curve that if he starts anywhere near the plate, it is a guaranteed swing and miss. I've only seen him a few times, but I was lucky enough to see him pitch that no-hit bid against LAA... He was unreal. I've never seen hitters' knees buckle from a curveball so many times. He has two pitches that would have to rate an 80 on the ML scale, which is unparalleled (sp?). He also features a change in the mid-80s, which he could use some work on but it's more of a show-me pitch. If he develops control, he'll be unhittable for years to come.
Kazmir too high, peavy too low. At first glance. Some other pitchers i see are too low too, and putz probably won't be closing next year, is what i see.
The Mets [b]will[/b] win the World Series this year.
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by bellings » Sun Jul 02, 2006 2:17 am 
