Horrible

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ARIZONA WILDCATS BASEBALL NATIONAL CHAMPIONS 1976,1980,1986,2012

Or maybe the extreme hubris is on duncan/stewart's part, thinking they can "fix" any pitcher they bring into the fold.

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What can we say about the Diamondbacks Franchise that hasn't already been said about Afghanistan?

The problem is there is nothing to fix here. Even in his best seasons, his FIP was mid 4's.

Now if by fix, you mean bringing over the Tampa Bay defense and having workable pixie dust, then yes he can be fixed.

Now if by fixed, you mean eliminating the ability to procreate....

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"Having data available to you is great but using it is even better.”--Craig Breslow

Spanning Multiple Seasons or entire Careers, From 1975 to 2014, Younger than 27, Throws RH, (requiring fip>=4, SOp9<=7, IP<=1000, earned_run_avg<.9*fip, At least 60% games started and At least 500 Innings Pitched), sorted by greatest Adjusted ERA+






Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Play Index Tool Used
Generated 11/17/2014.


Age 28-29 seasons of these comps will not encourage

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Good depth often has to come from within, in the form of younger talent. Depth is hard to build overnight, but it’s easy to deplete. Jeff Sullivan

#4 is especially discouraging, and his 2006 season reeks of a team sticking with sub mediocre starters, and keeping potentially better starters in the bullpen "for the good of the team". No Déjà Vu again, one hopes.

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There's no success like failure
And failure's no success at all

Ha ha.......please don't mind me for chuckling over the 2006 Trachsel/Heilman reference.

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Good depth often has to come from within, in the form of younger talent. Depth is hard to build overnight, but it’s easy to deplete. Jeff Sullivan

This quote really rubs me the wrong way:

"“They [Williams and Velazquez] could both be All-Stars, but from our standpoint they’re three or four years away from being major league players,” says Stewart. “We have an opportunity to get a good starter to put in our rotation now and go along with our plans for our team with the 2015 season.”"

So, what's that plan? Is it that we should sell out our future to maybe (but probably not) become a .500 team that most likely wouldn't make the playoffs?

We need to stop this "be mediocre now" mentality and either be bad and build up our resources and not forfeit the future or sell the farm part and parcel and just go big. Anything in between isn't going to work.

Agree totally, I have been meaning to address that quote as well.

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Good depth often has to come from within, in the form of younger talent. Depth is hard to build overnight, but it’s easy to deplete. Jeff Sullivan

Facts is facts, laughter can be the best medicine, and it would seem that some never learn from history. Now if Jose Lima was one of the comps it would be totally hilarious.

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There's no success like failure
And failure's no success at all

Well, it could be worse.

Look what the Braves just got in return for Heyward!

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Kevin Towers, not smarter than the so called experts

That actually does make me feel a little better.

ugh. I feel like we are sentenced another 4 year tenure of crappy management.

Me too.

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Meet the new FO... Same as the old FO. The bag may be permanent.

Well, they just added an Analytics department, can someone check with them and see what their opinion was on the last trade and see if they can get a mulligan?

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Kevin Towers, not smarter than the so called experts

It doesn't exactly inspire confidence in our new front-office regime when, with all due respect to shoe, a guy from the Internet can, in a clear and concise forum post using readily available data from the Internet, tell you why dealing for Hellickson is a bad idea.

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Greinke good, uniforms bad.

Well, in fairness, it's a lot easier from the couch than it is from within the office. For a GM it's very very hard to make the tough, cold hard decisions that need to be made to turn a franchise like this around. That takes the full backing of ownership. In Arizona they won't even use the word rebuilding, ever, let alone commit to a rebuilding strategy.

In that environment it's tough to be the lone advocate of a rebuilding course. If you do it with enough tact so as not to offend people you are not effective and possibly even get sucked into group think and survivalism. If you push the rebuild agenda too hard without regard to your political standing within an organization, people tune you out as too radical.

Thats why a lot of analytic guys get marginalized. They either go soft to fit in, waffling in their advocacy one way or the other, going with half measures, or they don't have the social and political skills to navigate conflicting philosophy and present their case strongly without offending or alienating people.

When I worked for the team I worked for a GM who was totally open and encouraging to all forms of input, and I never had to be shy about offering my opinion with him, or sugar coating my viewpoints. I had a direct unfiltered line to JB. But the 2007 playoff run really had everyone thinking the team was further along that it was, and the somewhat disappointing results of QUDJY (not the poster, the players) was never overcome. Oh....and bullpen shit happens. Relievers are a pain in the ass.

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Good depth often has to come from within, in the form of younger talent. Depth is hard to build overnight, but it’s easy to deplete. Jeff Sullivan

More comp work HERE

Click through if you're feeling brave. I took a different approach, and got a different group of pitchers, but equally discouraging.

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Good depth often has to come from within, in the form of younger talent. Depth is hard to build overnight, but it’s easy to deplete. Jeff Sullivan

Linky

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Good depth often has to come from within, in the form of younger talent. Depth is hard to build overnight, but it’s easy to deplete. Jeff Sullivan

How long until he's announced to be injured for 6-8 weeks?

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The god damned plane has crashed into the mountain.

Pay attention folks. How can a team that had record revenues last year. (But still lost money ) not be able to afford a backup catcher for $5 million.

But hey the value of the franchise is up 44% in one year (Thank You Donald Sterling) and they got the new TV deal just before the bubble burst.