Yankees non-tender Chien-Ming Wang

[battlekow]

link

 

Interested?

[kilgore37]

nope

[Hammer]

He would be a very good buy low guy in my book. Answer: Yes.

[Invader3K]

I'd be interested, but so will a lot of other teams. I would guess he wouldn't have much interest in playing in Milwaukee.

[JohnBriggs12]

I'm not interested in Wang. But I'm keeping an eye out to see if the Nationals non-tender Scott Olsen. He's 4 years younger than Wang and reportedly will be ready for spring training. Olsen was very good in 06 and 08, got off to a terrible start for the Nats (13 ER in his first 8 IP) last year, and after a short stint on the DL came back with 3 solid starts before ending up needing surgery and shutting down in early July.

[JoeHova]

I'd be interested, but so will a lot of other teams.

I agree. I think he'd be a great signing for a couple million bucks. The problem is, at that price a lot of teams will be calling and if the price goes up, that makes him not such a great bargain. Also, he probably won't be ready until May, but I don't think that's a huge deal. Until last year, he was far better than Randy Wolf in his career. I think he's worth a shot.

[Flood Pants]

Very interested. He's the buy-low guy I'd most like to see the Brewers pursue. Probably riskier than Mark Mulder, but the payoff is potentially a lot bigger.

[KCBrewerfan34]

Non-tender Bush so we can keep our options open. Please Doug http://forum.brewerfan.net/images/smilies/smile.gif

[Ennder]

Non-tender Bush so we can keep our options open. Please Doug http://forum.brewerfan.net/images/smilies/smile.gif

If this is how we go after him then no thanks. Bush is better than his salary is likely to be and we need Bush AND another pitcher still imo.

[crewcrazy]

It definitely raises questions about whether he'll be able to pitch or not this season -- if a team like the Yankees is unwilling to pay you to rehab, I'd have my doubts. It seemed pretty likely this would happen after hearing Cashman talk about having Joba Chamberlain and Phil Hughes both prepare as starters this offseason, making it seem like they were willing to go with a rotation of Sabathia-Burnett-Pettitte-Chamberlain-Hughes if they don't have the money to go after Lackey or the prospects to go after Halladay.

 

Right now it seems like the rumor mill has him going to the Dodgers, being reunited with Joe Torre.

[jerichoholicninja]

He'll be overpaid by a team that can afford to take the hit like Boston. If we were able to get him at the amount he is actually worth I would be interested but that's not gonna happen.

[strawbossisevil]

Non-tender Bush so we can keep our options open. Please Doug http://forum.brewerfan.net/images/smilies/smile.gif

Non-tendering Bush would almost guarantee that Suppan would be in the starting rotation as I doubt they would add two more legit SP options at this point. Having Bush on the roster gives us flexibility (versus cutting him and signing another high priced starter to a long term contract). He'll be signed to a one year deal, probably at a fairly decent rate due to last season's numbers.

 

His career numbers and the first half of last season (prior to injury problems) suggest that he is a guy who will put up an ERA in the mid 4s. That's worth the 3 million or so he will make in arby.

 

I'd rather have him than be locked into a contract with Washburn or Davis for three or four years. Those WOULD be Suppan-esque contracts.

[JohnBriggs12]

Washington Post has reported that Nats will non-tender Scott Olsen. Apparently they think they can sign him for less than the $2.8 million he earned last year. How is a 26 year old lefty like Olsen not worth a buy low bid of $3 million?

[Oldcity]

Olsen stunk last year and really hasn't ever been good. Wang is somewhat interesting. Bill James is projecting a 3.81 FIP for Wang, for what it's worth.

[DHonks]

I'd love to get Wang and his sinker. Would Rodney Dangerfield come too?

[tigerbrew]

I like Wang and I hope the Brewers sign him. I think he'd make a good SP for the Brewers when he recovers from his injury. Also it'd be nice to have another Asian Brewer since Tomo Ohka.

[BREWERPRIDE]

Yes.

[mothershipconnection]

Absolutely. Offer him jack squat with generous bonuses for starts and see if he bites.

[JohnBriggs12]

Olsen stunk last year and really hasn't ever been good. Wang is somewhat interesting. Bill James is projecting a 3.81 FIP for Wang, for what it's worth.

 

Olsen was better last year than Parra and he's younger. Career-wise he's far more accomplished than Parra, In 06 and 08 (when he tallied over 200 IP), he didn't miss a start and posted WHIPs of 1.301 and 1.309. That's viritually the exact same WHIP as Wang posted the year he won 19 games.

 

I don't see how you can say he was never good. Your memory must be foggy or you'd recall that in 2008, in back to back starts against the Brewers, he allowed 0 runs and 6 hits in 16 innings.

[Oldcity]

Anibal Sanchez threw a no-hitter. Chad Moeller hit for the cycle. Bad players can have good games. 2006 was Olsen's best year, and he was average--maybe slightly above. In 2008 he threw a lot of innings, but they were at a poor level. 1.64 k/bb, 5.02 FIP... Those are bad numbers. His FIP has been above 5 each of the last three seasons. That shows that Washington knows what they're doing by non-tendering him.

[JohnBriggs12]

Anibal Sanchez threw a no-hitter. Chad Moeller hit for the cycle. Bad players can have good games. 2006 was Olsen's best year, and he was average--maybe slightly above. In 2008 he threw a lot of innings, but they were at a poor level. 1.64 k/bb, 5.02 FIP... Those are bad numbers. His FIP has been above 5 each of the last three seasons. That shows that Washington knows what they're doing by non-tendering him.

 

If you're one that believes in FIP, I'll never convince you. FIP is a phony stat as it implies a pitcher has no control over which part of the bat the ball makes contact with. I've been watching baseball over 50 years and that's baloney. I'm sure Tommy John's FIP wasn't very good and he had K/BB ratios of 1.71 and 1.39 in the back to back years he finished 2nd and 4th in the Cy Young vote. I was there the night Olsen threw 8 innings of 2 hit ball against the Brewers. He was in complete and total command from start to finish and that was just one of 17 total quality starts he made that year at age 24.

 

If he's healthy (and he says he's 100%) the odds are Olsen will be a solid middle of the rotation pitcher in 2010 for somebody. At 26, he's one of the biggest bargains out there. The Brewers figure to pay Dave Bush close to $5 million. The Brewer record in Bush's starts since 06: 55-58. Olsen's team record in his starts in the same period: 51-57 and those teams were the Marlins and Nats.

 

Since you brought up Anibal Sanchez, I'd take him in a heartbeat too.

[Ennder]

Tommy John's career ERA was 3.34, his career FIP was 3.38. This same trend holds true for almost every pitcher who pitches a long time. FIP is just a stat that takes some of the noise out of a smaller sample of IP. ERA is a horrible stat to use over a 200 IP or 400 IP sample, it just is too erratic. Now there are some few rare exceptions like Tom Glavine but FIP and ERA almost always are close after 1000+ IP.

 

Scott Olsen has a career ERA of 4.77, career FIP of 4.95 and career xFIP of 4.65. At this point it is pretty clear that he is not a very good pitcher, regardless of how good he was one random game you happened to watch.

 

Now if he could ever repeat his 2006 season we'd have something, that year he had a 4.04 ERA but it also came with a 4.33 FIP and 4.07 xFIP. That was his only good year of his career. 2008's ERA was mostly just good luck with variance.

[endaround]

Except as told before you'd be wrong. Tommy John's FIP was good due to him not giving up home runs. Olsen at best is a 5th starter. He had one good year.

[battlekow]

Olsen re-signed with the Nationals.

[twobrewers]

Anibal Sanchez threw a no-hitter

I hate that example as a "any one can get lucky" story.

 

Anibal Sanchez was a really good prospect and pitcher. His career was derailed by injuries - it doesn't mean he was "lucky" to throw a no-hitter.