Corona and Crowning Aces

Post Reply
DOUGHBOYS
Posts: 13088
Joined: Sat Feb 05, 2005 6:00 pm

Corona and Crowning Aces

Post by DOUGHBOYS » Wed Mar 11, 2020 11:37 am

I try not to watch news. I figure 90% of news is either about politics, bad weather, bad things, or about bad people.
After watching these things on the news, people get fired up.
Right now, they are fired up about the Corona Virus.
These type of things are always worse on and in our own minds. Especially if watching the news a lot.
A square mile of property was quarantined in New York.
THAT is the big news.
You know what property was Not quarantined in America?
The rest of America.
Yep, millions of square miles don't count to the press.
The news makes us that way. We focus on the bad. And, we make it even worse in our minds. It's just how we function.

Every day there is reports about more cases. The press eats it up and regurgitates it at us.
Of course there are more cases! There can't be less. Right?
Those that already have recovered are never counted! Only those that die.
That, that is how the press rolls.
And the fired up folks are buying up Purel like it is a safety base in olly olly oxen free.
What a world.

Screw real life news, and for you Corona...a special 'screw you'.

In the first draft of the year, the first round went like this...

1. Acuna Jr.
2. Yelich
3. Trout
4. Turner
5. Bellinger
6. Betts
7. Bregman
8. Lindor
9. Cole
10. Story
11. deGrom
12. Verlander
13. Soto
14. Arenado
15. Tatis Jr.

I have to hand it to these PreMature drafters. They pretty much nailed what was to be the ADP for the rest of the drafting year in the first round.
In subsequent drafts, I have noticed some interesting things happen as pitchers start to go down with injury.
Drafters in the 13, 14, 15 spots of the drafts were taking advantage of their positioning to double down on pitchers.
Verlander was paired with Scherzer. Or Scherzer was paired with Snell. Or Snell was paired with Buehler.
Then, when injuries hit, pitchers with a lower ADP were brought up to replace the injured.
Flaherty was paired with Verlander. Bieber was paired with Scherzer. Bieber with Clevinger.
Now Clevinger, Verlander and Scherzer are hurt. And Snell is in no man's land with Chris Sale in that, yeah, there's something wrong, we just don't know how bad it'll be when/if the shit hits the fan.

It is almost like pitchers going down is like the Corona.
Our job is to avoid it.
But, we are also doing something else.
We are moving up pitchers on draft boards that we think to be healthy.
Luis Castillo, a fifth rounder then, is now a third rounder.
Same for Chris Paddack.
Same for Yu Darvish.
Aaron Nola has moved up.
So has Patrick Corbin.

These pitchers have not improved during the off season. They are the same.
WE are the one's that have changed.
We read the news and get fired up.
We HAVE to have our pitching. Especially our Aces.
No matter if Aaron Nola is not really an Ace.
It's peculiar because this is only happening in the first seven rounds or so. After that, we are satisfied and don't move up any more pitchers.

We don't do this with other positions.
If JT Realmuto were to get hurt, Gary Sanchez would not take his place in the fourth round.
Same for Bellinger and Freeman. Pete Alonso and Paul Goldschmidt would not become first and second rounders.
Yet, we have no qualms in anointing Ace status to pitchers who may not be Aces at all.
Some will say it is supply and demand.
Clevinger, Sale, Verlander, Scherzer, Snell, Severino, Paxton, Carrasco and Ohtani have either gone down or are scaring us away.
The demand is for healthy pitchers. And we feel better with a healthy Ace.
Even though without the pitchers listed, there are not 15 Aces in baseball.
So, we anoint a good pitcher as an Ace to relieve the fear that our teams will look bad without a top pitcher.

There will be more news about Corona and more news about pitchers going down.
Our job is to not overreact to either.
Good luck with that :D
On my tombstone-
Wait! I never had the perfect draft!

Post Reply