Tag Archives: Josh Collmenter

Thor Drops the Hammer on the Brew Crew (and other notes from 5/17/15)

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***I apologize for the delay in these notes from Sunday 5/17/15.  I had jury duty all day Monday!  But I am catching up.

Noah Syndergaard of the New York Mets is commonly known as “Thor” amongst his teammates and soon the whole baseball community will be calling him that and will understand the power he wields.  After watching him pitch on Sunday versus the Brewers, I see why he has that moniker, with his big frame and flowing locks of blond hair.  He even has “Thor” embroidered on his glove so obviously it is something that he embraces, but who wouldn’t?  Whether it’s the Norse mythological god or the Marvel superhero character that he is being likened to (though essentially it is the same thing since the Marvel character is based off Norse mythology), it must be nice to be seen in the same light as someone so mighty.

Syndergaard shut down the Brewers on Sunday, going 6 IP allowing 1 ER on on 3 H and 1 BB while logging 5 K on his way to his first Major League victory.  After his first Major League start last week versus the Cubs at Wrigley Field, I said that his mediocre start went as I would have expected out of him in his debut, as he had some command and control issues but was able to miss some bats to get the strikeouts.  Well, before his second Major League start with the Brewers, I told a friend that this matchup  was much more favorable for Syndergaard and I expected him to come out and show an ace type of line.  The reasons that I told my friend that I believed this were because this was his first start in front of his home crowd that he would be pumped up for and he already got the big league jitters out at Chicago, and that the Brewers are not a patient hitting team as they ranked third to last in walk rate, which would help Syndergaard have better results in the end.  I watched this whole start and I loved what I saw from Syndergaard.  I know that I said after his first start that he’s not a must own in redraft leagues, but I am going to say that he is very close to a must own (if not one) after seeing him with my own eyes.  I don’t think that he will be as dominant as Matt Harvey was in his first full season, as he will likely experience some growing pains and some control issues every now and again, but in the right matchups he is going to be a very good play.

So with Syndergaard, the Mets have Thor who wields a mighty hammer (his devastating curveball) that only he has the strength and power of picking up.  Mets’ incumbent ace who has returned from Tommy John surgery, Matt Harvey, has earned the nickname of “The Dark Knight” for being the hero that the borough of Queens in New York City had been waiting for to come and save them to instill hope within the Mets organization that they could rise again soon.  So what other superheroes do the mets have on their pitching staff? Jacob deGrom is a really skinny guy as in his 6’4″ frame he only weights 180 lbs. and he looks like he is going to break whenever he is up to bat.  He also was a relative unknown before his 2014 breakout rookie campaign.  So for these reasons I will deem him as Steve Rogers, a frail young man who was enhanced to perfection to become Captain America.  Jon Niese can be Hawkeye just for the mere fact that he is a lefty and the Jeremy Renner portrayal of Hawkeye in The Avengers films is also left-handed (though in the Marvel comics he was right-handed).  And Bartolo Colon can be Groot from Guardians of the Galaxy for reasons that may or may not have to do with the attraction (or lack thereof) of each of their faces.

Let’s go ahead now and recap the Sunday fun day action.

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The Bigger They Are, Samardzija They Fall (and other notes from 5/11/15)

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Jeff Samardzija became a full-time starting pitcher with the Cubs in 2012 and spent that season and the next season in fantasy baseball purgatory as he posted pretty good peripheral statistics that did not match up with the “glamour stats” of fantasy baseball, such as ERA, WHIP, and W-L record.  Still with an awful Cubs team at the beginning of the 2014 season, destined for another sub-.500 W-L record, Samardzija’s other stats were at least looking very pretty and finally matching up with what his skill set was.  Then came the trade that sent him from the NL to the AL (Cubs to the A’s), which is rarely good for a pitcher and his stats.  It was as if the fantasy gods were truly against him and his long flowing locks.  He went on to finish the season with a nice looking stat line (excluding W-L record), but it was clear that the league switch did have some negative effect on him.

Prior to the 2015 season, Samardzija was traded once more and was staying the AL heading to the White Sox.  The negative trending stats in his move to the AL in 2014 along with the move to hitter friendly U.S. Cellular Field in Chicago are the main reasons why I was not going to even come close to sniffing Samardzija this year.

With Monday’s outing that saw Samardzija post a line of 6 IP, 8 H, 5 ER, 1 BB, 6 K, the big righty now is 2-2 with a 4.80 ERA, 1.36 WHIP, and 35 K/8 BB in 45 IP.  In 4 of his 7 starts, he has allowed 4 ER or more and he is just being knocked around a lot.  The home run rate is up from 0.82 to 1.20 HR/9, and the strikeout rate is down from 8.28 to 7.00 K/9.  These are the two things that I expected to happen with him this year, and those current rates are some pretty realistic numbers that can last for the season.  While his overall numbers are going to improve, I do not think that he is a super great buy low candidate, and I still am a firm believer that Samardzija is not going to be the type of pitcher that the White Sox envisioned him to be when they traded for him.  Samardzija has fallen from fantasy baseball purgatory to fantasy baseball hell in one fell swoop for the time being.

Let’s check out what else happened in Monday’s action… Continue reading →