R.A Dickey: enough is enough

[Skin Blues]

The problem is that he is overpaid and eats 2 roster spots with Thole having to be around. Once Dickey gets into the WAR value of 0 or so, he becomes a net loss as he's not getting paid to perform as a replacement value pitcher AND have Jose Thole be on roster subsequently making this team worse.

The thing is, Dickey is not a 0 WAR player. Since we got him he's done this for RA9-WAR (ERA estimators are not meant for large sample sizes like this, nor knuckleballers in general, hence WAR based on ERA rather than FIP):

2013: 2.4
2014: 2.6
2015: 3.6
2016: 0.6

It may not be pretty at times, and it certainly isn't Cy Young material, but it has a lot of value. As for Thole, we need a backup catcher anyway, and the difference between a typical catcher and Thole is minimal. He actually lies directly on the median line as far as WAR for backups goes. Same WAR as Dioner Navarro in half as many games. We aren't paying much of an opportunity cost, here.

[emptytheclip]

The thing with Dickey is.. you get 200 innings.
When he starts, either the Jays score 5+ runs and win or they lose. That's basically what a 5th starter does.
He's not going to give up 7 Runs (vs Padres) and 6 Runs (vs Mariners) every game. And keep in mind he had a short 3 days rest against the Padres to help setup the series against the Orioles.

The only thing with Dickey is the personal catcher problem. But if any team can carry the offense with a 8 man lineup it's the Blue Jays, who's been averaging @6 runs per game. And to be fair to Thole, he has actually got on base a few times the past month, not a total minus.

[RalphWiggum]

Half the teams in the league would be happy with Dickey as a 5th starter.

I highly doubt it. If he wasn't making $12M per and didn't require a personal catcher who is among the league worst offensively, then perhaps.

It's a question of opportunity cost. Would I be better with $13M in my pocket and two extra roster spots to play with, or R.A. Dickey and Josh Thole? For me it's a no brainer. $13M is enough to have brought in a better backup catcher, a solid bullpen piece, and a veteran fifth starter like a Jesse Chavez.

The money is irrelevant to what he's done on the field, he's getting the cash no matter what. Going forward next year you'd obviously not want to spend that type of cash on a 5th starter although in today's baseball he's only slightly overpaid.

As for Thole he is horrible but so are most teams back up catchers (albeit not Thole horrible). Most teams hope to get around 120-130 games out of their starting catcher and deal with the drop off for the other 30-40 games. It just happens that almost all those game are when Dickey pitches.

I'm not making a case to keep Dickey around beyond this season or beyond another 2-3 bad starts but I think people are really overreacting to a couple bad starts and ignoring that in his previous dozen starts he was pretty solid for a 5th starter.

[RalphWiggum]

I guess RA is now an acceptable 5th starter again?

[Mak]

we need more than one good start out of last 5..... and Thole ...

He was great today though, good to see. I hope he can keep it up.

[Santoki]

Or maybe we can just stop bringing this thread up after every Dickey start and accept the fact he's a decent major league starter with some flaws. He's not the sole reason the Jays potentially won't make the playoffs and he's not likely going to be a saviour for them down the stretch.

[The_Hater]

we need more than one good start out of last 5..... and Thole ...

He was great today though, good to see. I hope he can keep it up.

Actually 2 of his last 5 starts have been excellent. And before that, the last time he had a terrible start was April 26.

He generally finishes well so I would expect him too again this year.

[Mak]

Time to go back to a 5 man rotation

[The_Hater]

Time to go back to a 5 man rotation

August starter ERA's

Stroman 3.13
Dickey 3.22
Happ 3.33
Liriano 3.97
Sanchez 5.29
Estrada 6.00

So it's Estrada you want to drop or Sanchez?

[Mak]

So archaic going by ERA, whats next wins?

[RalphWiggum]

So archaic going by ERA, whats next wins?

Wins are archaic because you can give up 6 runs a game and be 18-6. ERA isnt what it used to be but it's still a very valuable stat. You either give up runs or you don't. Teams scoring runs is what makes it harder for you to win. If somebody as a 5th starter is giving up just over 4 runs a game (that are directly attributed to them) and are eating up innings then they are doing their job pretty well.

The Thole argument is tired. Every team plays a backup catcher 30-40 times a year. Thole would definitely be one of the worst backup catchers but by a tiny margin. We're talking about .2-.3 WAR compared to 80% of other backups. That's 1 win ever 3 years on the high end, not what I'd call backbreaking.

Baltimore who is in the wildcard spot is starting a 6.6 era and two 5.5 era pitchers against us over the next 3 days in the most important series of the season for them and people are complaining about Dickey who today aside has been one of our best pitchers over his last 5-6 starts?

[The_Hater]

So archaic going by ERA, whats next wins?

Says the guy using FIP/xFIP for a knuckleballer.

So I'm guessing that ERA is completely useless and both Estrada and Sanchez out pitched Dickey in August?

[Jays4WS]

So archaic going by ERA, whats next wins?

Says the guy using FIP/xFIP for a knuckleballer.

So I'm guessing that ERA is completely useless and both Estrada and Sanchez out pitched Dickey in August?

Yeah we should trade Sanchez and Estrada and sign Dickey to a 10 year contract.



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[Mak]

So archaic going by ERA, whats next wins?

Says the guy using FIP/xFIP for a knuckleballer.

So I'm guessing that ERA is completely useless and both Estrada and Sanchez out pitched Dickey in August?

Yeah we should trade Sanchez and Estrada and sign Dickey to a 10 year contract.

I don't like this idea.

[Fairview4Life]

So archaic going by ERA, whats next wins? :D

Says the guy using FIP/xFIP for a knuckleballer.

So I'm guessing that ERA is completely useless and both Estrada and Sanchez out pitched Dickey in August?

Yeah we should trade Sanchez and Estrada and sign Dickey to a 10 year contract.



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Damn! Strawman now has a lifetime 0 - 47,567,875,789,435 record. You destroyed him yet again!

[Mak]

Wonder how many more games we can afford to throw away with Dickey.

[Fairview4Life]

Wonder how many more games we can afford to throw away with Dickey. :banghead:

Any thought on Marco Estrada or JA Happ? Marcus Stroman? Even Sanchez had **** outings against KC and Cleveland in August.

[Mak]

I will take Estrada or Happ or Stroman + Martin verses Dickey + Tohle any day. Happ and Estrada have era under 3.6 , and Stroman has similar ERA but no Tohle. I can't wrap my head around this argument that all of our pitchers are equal.

We can all pick and choose time when Dickey was okay and somebody else was not but lets take a look at the season in full here.

[Fairview4Life]

I can't wrap my head around this argument that all of our pitchers are equal.

Thankfully, no one has made that argument, so you don't have to.

[Mak]

I can't wrap my head around this argument that all of our pitchers are equal.

Thankfully, no one has made that argument, so you don't have to.

Good good, a couple of people with questionable judgment are trying to imply it.