Comments on: Tales of Feliz, Bard figure to scare off future starting conversions

By: Jeremy T

Jeremy T — Wed, 01 Aug 2012 19:15:20 +0000

Should Ogando be considered a success?

By: pipkin42

pipkin42 — Wed, 01 Aug 2012 03:21:29 +0000

Ryan Dempster spent some time as a reliever in the mid-2000s after being a pretty bad starter. Then he went back to starting and he’s mostly been above-average since.

By: sabathiawouldbegoodattheeighthtoo

sabathiawouldbegoodattheeighthtoo — Wed, 01 Aug 2012 02:31:47 +0000

Didn’t Strasburg, Beachy, Wainwright, Anderson, Sheets, Bedard, Burnett etc have the surgery too? Are they all headed to the ‘pen now?

UCL tears, like feces, happen. I don’t think Feliz’s surgery should prove or disprove anything. As m handle indicates, Sabathia would be a beast of a setup man, but that certainly would not maximize his value. If a guy has a chance to be a starter, he should be given every opportunity. Pitching well in relief does not preclude one from being a good starter.

Pitching is just tough, man.

By: sabathiawouldbegoodattheeighthtoo

sabathiawouldbegoodattheeighthtoo — Wed, 01 Aug 2012 02:24:40 +0000

Wasn’t Chapman always a starter in Cuba?

By: johnnynewguy

johnnynewguy — Wed, 01 Aug 2012 02:18:15 +0000

Didn’t the A’s in the late 90′s and early 2000′s do this with their pitchers? Harden, Duchscherer, LIlly. Now granted some didn’t work out but they were successful when healthy. Not to mention I would come to expect that just about every pitcher at some point nowadays is going to have Tommy John. The White Sox have also been fairly successful at converting. Buehrle also started in the pen.

By: metalhead65

metalhead65 — Wed, 01 Aug 2012 02:09:53 +0000

don’t forget the reds had him stretched out to be a starter this spring then switched back to the pen when injuries hit, how much can his arm take if they decide to do it again? besides now that he is almost unhitable it would be stupid to try and make him switch back to a starter.

By: seattlej

seattlej — Wed, 01 Aug 2012 02:02:24 +0000

Right, but the upside is so much higher as a starter that it’s generally worth trying. These guys were probably exceptions, as there were big red flags with each of them.

The conversion back to starting for guys like Wainwright and Lowe certainly paid off, no?

By: seattlej

seattlej — Wed, 01 Aug 2012 01:58:49 +0000

There are a number of guys that are mL starters that go to the pen for a year or two to break into the MLB before transitioning back to starting… A couple that jump to mind are Wainwright, Lowe and Billingsley, and there are certainly others.

Bard’s was a bit of a different tale (see what I did there), in that he hadn’t started since somewhere around Low-A. I suppose Felix was a bit different as well, in that while he started in the minors, he never successfully handled a starter’s workload for a full season.

By: Tim's Neighbor

Tim's Neighbor — Wed, 01 Aug 2012 01:49:02 +0000

Likely led to his TJ surgery? That’s an awfully bold and unprovable statement. I’m guessing you have some sort of study to back that up.

By: bobulated

bobulated — Wed, 01 Aug 2012 01:35:14 +0000

Same with Medlen; always a starter in the minors.Saying switching contributed to his elbow injury is kind of a leap in logic IMHO. Relievers blow out their elbows too, yes innings and over use can be part of it but injuries happen.
BTW the Derek Lowe is another guy who had success as a reliever before being converted to starter.

By: trybe29dr

trybe29dr — Wed, 01 Aug 2012 00:46:01 +0000

And dont forget the Joba Chamberlain fiasco. Some guys are starters…some guys are relievers. If it aint broke dont fix it. Not many players have arms like smoltz and to a lesser degree brett myers…not everyone can go back and forth without skipping a beat

By: phillyphever

phillyphever — Wed, 01 Aug 2012 00:17:24 +0000

Florio’s becoming a major influence for bad jokes on here huh?

By: hittfamily

hittfamily — Tue, 31 Jul 2012 23:46:28 +0000

Smoltz was in the Pen for 4 years, and he missed the year prior to that. He went 33, 35, 32 starts, after starting a combined 5 starts in the previous 5 years.

By: sabatimus

sabatimus — Tue, 31 Jul 2012 23:39:16 +0000

No mention of Joba, eh? Granted, he did the converse, but that seems to have screwed with him in nearly the same way.

By: ezthinking

ezthinking — Tue, 31 Jul 2012 23:33:58 +0000

If an elbow is going to go, it’s going to go. The bullpen can’t save it; may make it worst with the 100% effort and the up-and-down nature of the job.

By: ezthinking

ezthinking — Tue, 31 Jul 2012 23:32:06 +0000

Piss off.

By: pipkin42

pipkin42 — Tue, 31 Jul 2012 23:28:21 +0000

Forgive me if I’m wrong, but wasn’t Feliz always a starter in the minors? They moved him to closer “temporarily” and then Ron Washington didn’t want to give up his security blanket, turning him into a max-effort, short-stint guy. Bard, meanwhile, has always been a reliever, and thus might have been expected to be less successful as a starter.

By: paperlions

paperlions — Tue, 31 Jul 2012 23:26:33 +0000

Exactly….those guys (along with Sale) were the first that came to mind….so we are just going to ignore the successes and focus on the poor outcomes? Because….you know…relievers never ever get hurt?

Chapman is a very good closer, but his value as a closer is about 1/3 of what it would be if he was an above average starter, and about 1/4 of what it would be if he could have been a staff ace….and there is still no guarantee that he’ll stay healthy in the pen (you know…like the guy the Reds signed to be their closer this year). If you have a reliever with the repertoire to start, it is still worth the risk to see if he can do it.

By: paperlions

paperlions — Tue, 31 Jul 2012 23:22:05 +0000

Lance Lynn has always been a starter, he was just used out of the pen last year out of necessity

By: aaronzona2011

aaronzona2011 — Tue, 31 Jul 2012 23:20:56 +0000

How often is this actually successful? The only guys I can think of recently is CJ Wilson and Dempster.

By: Carter Dotson

Carter Dotson — Tue, 31 Jul 2012 23:20:08 +0000

The flipside of it from an Aroldis Chapman standpoint is that Chris Sale and Lance Lynn have both had great seasons so far. Though I do have my concerns about Chapman’s secondary stuff, he can be dominant in short stints, but what about when going through the lineup a second or third time with reduced velocity?

By: matt20hew

matt20hew — Tue, 31 Jul 2012 23:14:47 +0000

Reblogged this on Today's News.

By: bleedgreen

bleedgreen — Tue, 31 Jul 2012 23:04:13 +0000

Hey everybody! This guy’s a nerd! NERD!

(I loved the Bard’s Tale games!)

By: seeingwhatsticks

seeingwhatsticks — Tue, 31 Jul 2012 22:57:42 +0000

I don’t think it’s impossible to make the conversion but I think teams need to factor in what experience the player has in each role. Someone who has been a reliever for an extended period, without a ton of experience as a starter, is probably going to need more than 1 season to make the change. That might mean simply going through the routine of a starter during the offseason and spring training before returning to the bullpen, or it might mean more of a long reliever/spot starter role during a transition year. I do agree that making the switch permanently mid-season is probably a bad idea.

By: Matthew Pouliot

Matthew Pouliot — Tue, 31 Jul 2012 22:53:17 +0000

And none of you will ever know how badly I wanted to go with a Bard’s Tale headline here.