#jp howell

[jaysgirlemily]

New guy seems nice. I like what he said about the ‘swag’ lol, clearly he’s on team Make Baseball Fun Again

[thinkpurpledrank]

Early Season Observations by Drank

Remember when Jackie Robinson taunted Buster Posey?

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Well, the 2016 season may only be two weeks old, but the 2016 season has already had a season’s worth of drama.

Think back to the offseason: a sad loss of Greinke, a relatively quiet series of offseason moves while division rivals upgraded, questionable expectations, questionable rotation, questionable bullpen, then injuries, injuries, and hella more injuries. It was all going to hell.

Then the season started, and the Dodgers reminded us that baseball can still be fun sometimes, posting the largest shutout in major league history--a 15-0 shellacking of the Padres. The Dodgers then posted 2 more shutouts in sweeping the Padres, who figure to just be awful. Anyway, we were feeling great about ourselves! 162 SHUTOUTS HERE WE GO!!!

Then, reality hit us hard... 3 losses in San Francisco, all in varieties of devastating fashion. All 3 losses started with a lead! Baseball was not fun, again. Well, except for Charlie Culberson of course! The Dodgers did manage to play poorly and win one!

Then the bullpen continued their collapse on opening day, and everybody was really freaking out as baseball was seriously not fun. And then the Dodgers won 4 of 5, including 2 of 3 against the Giants. And Kiké Hernandez hit two home runs off that asshat Madison Bumgarner, and all was right in the world. Super, super fun. Baseball.

Anyway, that’s a season’s worth of drama summed up in 2 weeks. The season has been good and bad. Let’s summarize both.

The Bad

Scott Kazmir

Holy fuck, what is happening? It has only been three starts, but Scott Kazmir looks to have no ability to locate anything. Sure, the 6 shutout innings in San Diego were great! But then again, the 28mph fastball of Jamie Moyer could also shutout the Padres. In other words, against not shit hitting teams, Scott Kazmir is shit.

Luckily, Scott Kazmir is not shit because of his velocity. He is throwing the ball hard, which is a good thing! The problem is, he is repeatedly missing AJ Ellis’ and Austin Barnes’ mitt by--and I’m not exaggerating--14 feet. AJ can set up in the fucking dugout, and Kazmir would still find a way to catch the meat of the plate. Fix that now, please.

JP Howell

Last year, JP Howell was not a disaster, but he could have been. The 1.43 ERA was shiny, but the 3.53 xFIP indicated meh for the lefty specialist. The swings-and-misses went away, and JP Howell became a contact pitcher with relatively slow pitches.

This year, those slow pitches got slower, and JP Howell is predictably getting crushed. The hittable pitches are now hittable-er, and now, we are all scared.

The good news is that JP Howell decided to find some of that velocity back on the homestand! But Christ, please don’t throw a slower pitch ever again.

The other bullpen guys

Namely, you Joe Blanton, Chris Hatcher, Yimi Garcia, and Pedro Baez. Be better than that.

The Good

Kenta Maeda

After losing Zack Greinke to Arizona, Kenta Maeda and Scott Kazmir became the poster boys for the Front Office and their , and their electing to spread $200+ million over multiple players instead of Zack Greinke immediately thrust the two into the spotlight... if Maeda and Kazmir fail, then the people who bitch about everything will have another thing to bitch about.

Well, Kazmir so far has failed! But Maeda has been great! Super, awesomely great! Only 1 run surrendered in 19 innings, with 15 strikeouts to 4 walks. As we now know, Maeda mixes about 149 different pitches at 1,483,398 different speeds. Not an exaggeration.

If I may so myself, that certainly sounds like Zack Greinke.

Also, he hit a home run in his first major league game! Zack Greinke did that for us, too.

Basically, Kenta Maeda is Zack Greinke, but without the $200 million contract. At least in dollars, anyway.

Yasiel Puig

Yasiel Puig showed up to Spring Training looking in incredible shape... one might say, the BSOHL. The lesser weight certainly has not diminished the strength, and has not inhibited his ability to beat the shit out of the baseball.

All his hits have come off the bat at like 1,392 miles per hour. Again, that is not an exaggeration. He hits the ball fucking hard. It is great.

2 weeks in, Puig has put up 0.6 WAR. Extrapolate that over 24 weeks, and Puig is a 7 WAR player. That definitely does not make sense in this context and is totally useless, but it is fun to think about.

Joc Pederson

His stance is stupid, but oh hey his power is back. Joc is going to be a staple in this offense for years to come, as long as he keeps using that lighter bat!

Let’s watch that again, shall we?

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Oh, also the season is only 2 weeks old. RELAX! It is nice to not be 0-13!!

[gfbaseball]

Jimmy Rollins makes a great play off a ball deflected by Corey Seager to get out of the inning, and becomes J.P. Howell’s friend for life - September 6, 2015

[realdetective]

[googletranslatekoreanbaseba-blog]

Joc Pederson is so cool that he gets a nickname that doesn’t make any sense.

(Source)

[realdetective]

“J.P. Howell is the kind of guy who would have fun with just about anybody.” - Vin Scully

Happy Birthday, J.P.!

[dodgerbluenation]

Your 2015 Dodger Bullpen 

Chris Hatcher 

JP Howell 

Paco Rodriguez

Juan Nicasio 

Pedro Baez

Joel Peralta 

Yimi Garcia 

[realdetective]

everything makes sense