Baseball Musings
Baseball Musings
November 02, 2006
Talking Turkey

Royals Authority makes a good case for retaining Jimmy Gobble rather than releasing him to free agency to avoid arbitration.

Now, some of the above is a little bit of apples to oranges comparisions, but they are numbers that show at least some potential. Frankly, you can ignore all that and simply look at a young lefthander whose strikeouts per 9 innings have gone from 2.98 to 6.37 to 8.57 in the past three seasons.

Kansas City would be foolish not to either get a deal done or agree to arbitration. It is likely Gobble gets something like Affeldt got last year ($950,000) and that is really pretty cheap in the baseball world - even the Kansas City baseball world.

Once that is over with, the Royals would be wise to install Gobble at the back of the rotation and not make any decision on him until he has 30 starts and 180 innings in the book next year. If he fails miserably, exactly what is the team out? If he shows promise....well, then you have just added another arm to an organization that desperately needs them.


Posted by David Pinto at 01:16 PM | Pitchers | TrackBack (0)
Comments

Like you said what do the Royals have to lose by giving Jimmy Gobble a chance. Strikeouts per inning is a very important stat to me since that means those batters are not putting the ball in play and a lot of bad things can happen when a ball is in play but on a strikeout the worst thing that can happen is a ball that gets past the catcher or the catcher make a bad throw to first if he doesn't hold onto the ball.

Posted by: Andrew Godfrey at November 2, 2006 02:12 PM

If I were a GM, I'd give him much more than a chance. Look at his strikeout and walk numbers - those are middle of the road closer-level stats, and guys with those numbers have ERA's in the 3's, not the 5's. Of course, 2006 could have been a fluke, but he's young and he might have hit his stride this year. I expect good things from him next year.

Posted by: Mike at November 2, 2006 04:32 PM

Yeah, I really don't see the logic in letting him walk. Talk about upside; he's only 25, his K/9 keeps getting better, his walk-rate is solid...seems to me that if you've got strikeout stuff but still give up a lot of hits, you're either leaving too much stuff up in the zone or you need work on pitch sequence and the like. I've got a hunch that KC gave up on Kyle Snyder a little too early, and letting Gobble go could be far worse.

Posted by: the other josh at November 2, 2006 05:04 PM

Also...no posts on the Gold Gloves yet? I feel a need to rant...

Posted by: the other josh at November 2, 2006 05:13 PM
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