the only pitcher on the staff i don't trust is Morrow....too erratic. He'll be replaced by Drabek in the near future anyway. Too bad McGowan hasn't turned the corner yet...i had high hopes for him.
Hey, I'm not saying they're going to stay hot this year; I don't expect their offense to continue to belt HRs at this rate. All I'm saying is that they have a lot of very good, very young pitching. Romero is 25. Marcum is 26. Cecil is 23. Morrow is 25. And they all have the ability to be top-notch starters. If that happens, the Jays could be very, very good, regardless of what the offense does.
I would have thought Drabek would replace Eveland or Tallet. Morrow's erratic now, but he was jerked around by Seattle. (Similar to what the Yanks have done to Joba.) But he's got a ton of talent.
Eveland was traded to the Pirates last week.....and Tallet is just a stop-gap....i wish the Jays would just use Tallet as a long reliever to be quite honest. I like Morrow's talent too....but he's really inconsistent.
Well, I was worried about a sweep (that MB called) going into Sunday. Not so much because I feared Javy pitching, but because this lineup has been DOA. It's always rough when your best hitters are slumping (Earth to Tex, it's summer, time to join the team) but when everyone is slumping, what do you do? The biggest problem is, there are only 2 role-players in the lineup. Cervelli and Gardner are the only guys who might bunt or swing for a single. Everyone else is trying to hit the "5-run homer" to win games. Anyway, we got some great pitching this weekend. AJ got beat up, but Andy is phenominal, and Javy was just fantastic. Even the pen was very good, sans the Gaudin suckage, but if you can't hit in the first 13 innings, you can't blame the pen for a loss. (Though I disagree with Girardi that you preserve Mo. I'd rather lose later after having used him than have lost with him still available.) Toronto is better than I thought they were. Impressive. I think that team needs to be subject to some "random" testing though. Bautista already has more homers by the end of the first week of June than he's ever had in a season. Can I just ask why yet another team chose to walk Teixeira to pitch to ARod with the bases loaded? What is the wisdom behind that move?
Morrow has good stuff for sure but zero consistency and I don't think you can count on him to be a good major league pitcher. Romero and Marcum are very good, and if McGowan could get healthy and stay there...
They were talking about Molina working with Morrow though, to try to stabilize him. Who knows? Plus, even if he isn't consistent, he wouldn't be a bad option in the back of the rotation. So now this is a real division with 4 teams competing, huh? Damnit. We're all going to start cannibalizing each other.
although being competative in this division is nice.....I wish we were in another division....I miss the playoffs :sad:
I doubt anyone would argue that Morrow has been anything but inconsistent. However, he is in his first season with Toronto after after Seattle did their best to fuck him up, and he's only 25 years old. I'm not sure anyone is counting on him to be a good major league pitcher right now, but he would hardly be the first young, highly-talented pitcher for become more consistent with experience. And if he's the Jays' fourth-best pitcher in the years to come, then they'll be doing quite well, I would think.
I'm waiting and seeing for Morrow, and 25 is not exactly young when we're talking about pitchers who have not established themselves in the majors with consistent success. I'm more optimistic for Drabek, McGowan, Romero, Cecil, and Marcum.
Right, it's not that young for pitchers taken on it's own... but my point was that he's been bounced around a bit, and this is usually around the age when pitchers start to either make it or falter. No one says, "He's already 25... oh well, he is what he is," when you're talking about performance at the major league level. Given his situation and past usage, I'd give him another year or two before writing him off as "inconsistent." That's why I meant when I said, he's "only" 25; it's still reasonable to think that he's got time to figure it out, if he's given a chance to do so. Maybe he figures it out, maybe he doesn't. But the talent is certainly there. And then some. Agreed, and I wasn't trying to say otherwise... but if you want to look at the original conversation, think about where that puts the Jays in terms of potential for success if Morrow is their sixth-best option in two years.
Yeah, he has another year or two. Waiting and seeing. There have been some positive signs this year, so it's at the point where you say "ok, let's check back on the guy in August 2011 and see where he is then."
I view Morrow along the same lines as the Yankees' rotation situation this year. Javier Vazquez isn't a front-line starter on any but the lowest-tier teams in baseball. On the Yankees though, he only needs to be a fourth or fifth guy, and in that role, he's far superior to the vast majority of the league's back-end starters. Morrow is the same. Even if he doesn't always have his best stuff, he's still going to be a helluva option on the back-end of that rotation for quite a few years.
