RA Dickey Leaving Blue Jays, Signs With Atlanta Braves

[Crowned]

Was a good guy, ate a bunch of innings (some better than others) and gave us all the chance to regularly watch a knuckler on the mound. It's not his fault we traded who we did for him. Time to move on.

[The_Hater]

Because its not true. Otherwise I would for sure mention it.

Might want to actually look around at back-ups C's and what they produce...

You guys keep forgetting that other teams can put their back up catcher with their best pitcher to make up the loss in value. This is not the case here, having Thole as a single pitcher catcher is detrimental to the team, that's why neither were on the playoff roster.

As a stand alone RA you can make a case was average SP, and sure as a stand alone Thole was slightly bellow average catcher but when you are always forced to play them both together ......its not something a team wanting to win Wold Series should have.

Wait, I thought this was all about win shares?

Playing them together doesn't matter in the grand scheme of the season. Many teams will generally give their starting catcher 450-500 plate appearances a year and the backup 130-150 and that's how Thole was deployed. The only difference here is the backup catcher caught one pitcher in particular. But that's not unique either, several managers use their only backup catcher to catch one specific starter.

[Patman]

RA has probably been the most unfairly scrutinized player of this Blue Jays era. AA f'd up, but RA took the brunt of the hate.

[dagger]

Bartolo Colon signing with the Braces. That's going to be one geriatric rotation.

[Skin Blues]

Bartolo Colon signing with the Braces. That's going to be one geriatric rotation.

Imagine if, 10 years ago, somebody told you Bartolo Colon would be signing a $12.5M contract for the 2017 season. You'd think that something drastic had happened like World War 3 with all able bodied men sent away to war, and/or a devastating currency devaluation.

[The_Hater]

RA has probably been the most unfairly scrutinized player of this Blue Jays era. AA f'd up, but RA took the brunt of the hate.

Pretty much. But he had just won the CY, was brought in to be the ace and preceded to pitch like a 3-5 starter for 4 seasons. The production never came close to meeting the expectations. I wonder is knuckleballers on other teams over the years we're also hated though?

[Patman]

RA has probably been the most unfairly scrutinized player of this Blue Jays era. AA f'd up, but RA took the brunt of the hate.

Pretty much. But he had just won the CY, was brought in to be the ace and preceded to pitch like a 3-5 starter for 4 seasons. The production never came close to meeting the expectations. I wonder is knuckleballers on other teams over the years we're also hated though?

The Year 1 hate, I can understand. Even though I thought it was a bad trade from the start, and that he probably wouldn't put together a magical season again, I was expecting him to be better than he was in Year 1. However, I adjusted my expectations, and he never disappointed again. I was just expecting him to eat innings in the regular season and pitch .500 ball, which is what he did for the majority of his stint here.

[Skin Blues]

RA has probably been the most unfairly scrutinized player of this Blue Jays era. AA f'd up, but RA took the brunt of the hate.

Pretty much. But he had just won the CY, was brought in to be the ace and preceded to pitch like a 3-5 starter for 4 seasons. The production never came close to meeting the expectations. I wonder is knuckleballers on other teams over the years we're also hated though?

His RA9-WAR ranking among AL starting pitchers during his first 3 years with Toronto: 27th, 24th, 26th. Considering there are 15 teams in the AL, and the guys ranked 16-30 would be considered #2 starters, he squarely lined up as a #2 starting pitcher for those 3 seasons. Obviously things unraveled this past season, but people have had very unrealistic expectations, and a distorted idea of what a #3-5 starting pitcher actually is.

Good luck in Atlanta, RA.

[Patman]

His knuckler was on and off. But when it was on, we got to enjoy this (same pitch, 2 angles):

[Mak]

Playing them together doesn't matter in the grand scheme of the season. Many teams will generally give their starting catcher 450-500 plate appearances a year and the backup 130-150 and that's how Thole was deployed. The only difference here is the backup catcher caught one pitcher in particular. But that's not unique either, several managers use their only backup catcher to catch one specific starter.

Do they use their worst starting pitcher with their back up catcher? Playing them together does not matter? Our worst starting pitcher was playing with 8 hitters in the line up at best. I can't really make sense of what you are trying to say, logically it just does not compute.

[The_Hater]

Playing them together doesn't matter in the grand scheme of the season. Many teams will generally give their starting catcher 450-500 plate appearances a year and the backup 130-150 and that's how Thole was deployed. The only difference here is the backup catcher caught one pitcher in particular. But that's not unique either, several managers use their only backup catcher to catch one specific starter.

Do they use their worst starting pitcher with their back up catcher? Playing them together does not matter? Our worst starting pitcher was playing with 8 hitters in the line up at best. I can't really make sense of what you are trying to say, logically it just does not compute.

Dickey was our worst starting pitcher for exactly half a season over 4 years. 2 months really because Dickey/Thole didn't play in September 2016.

In terms of WAR Dickey was our #2 in 2013 and 2014 and our #3 in 2015. He was our #4 prior to the 2016 all-star break before the bottom fell out but also remember that the Jays had the best starting pitching in the league this year.

When calculating total win shares over a 162 game schedule in a sport as random as baseball, I'm not sure why it matters which pitcher the back up catcher is teamed with? Only you seem fixated on this. Is there some evidence out there that it was impossible to win games with Dickey/Thole that I'm missing?

[wamco]

Think colon calls him kid?

[Schad]

The combined age of Atlanta's five most frequently-used starters last year: 118.
Combined age of Dickey and Colon next season: 86.

If they sign Colby Lewis, they could fill the other two rotation spots with newborns and still see their average rotation age increase.