There is no other way to say it, but to just say that Bobby Miller needs to be… has to be in the Dodgers rotation THIS year. I know that Andrew Friedman is committed to Andrew Heaney and that Bobby will go back to OKC for a few weeks, but it won’t be long. The kid is ready. I remember back to when I first saw Clayton Kershaw. His stuff was so electric that it made the hair on the back of my neck stand up! Bobby Miller impressed me even more. Let me say that again: I was more impressed with Bobby Miller when I saw him the first time than I was when I saw Clayton Kershaw the first time. OK, I will admit that Clayton was 19 when I first really saw him and Bobby Miller is 23, which is all the more reason for him to be pitching in LA and not OKC!
Bobby Miller’s pitches just sound different. If you are sitting and not really watching him, the sound of his pitches will make your head turn – “WHHHAAATTTT?” He throws effortlessly and the ball just explodes. He has four pitches and he “pinpoint” control. He is 6′ 5″ and 235 pounds, calm, collected, intimidating, and totally in control on that mound. You can see he is a fierce competitor and that look in his eyes is one of “steely resolve.” The downside is that he should probably not pitch more than 130 to 140 innings this year… because… well… he never has done it.
Now you should understand why Andrew Friedman did not want to block Bobby Miller. Odds are, one of Tony Gonsolin or Andrew Heaney will not pan out in the next month… or maybe there will be another injury. Rest assured, by May or June, it will be Miller Time!
OKC Dodgers Win Opener in Grand Fashion
Ryan Pepiot was dominant over four innings, showing why he is so highly regarded. 49 pitches in 4 innings. He did walk 2 but gave up just one hit. The hitters had no chance. Carson Fulmer pitched two shutout innings and Darien Nunez struck out 3 in his 2 innings pitched. In the bottom of the 9th Jason Martin hit a walk-off HR for the 3-2 win. Nunez got the win and Pepiot, Fulmer, and Nunez all looked unhittable… at least for a night.
I know what you mean when you say it SOUNDED different.
A few years back I watched and LISTENED Yadier Alvarez throw at ST . That too was amazing. His pitches just sounded harder than everyone elses.
Kid had so much talent and it is a shame his mental makeup was not up to his physical tools though I have read he is giving it another shot at AA Tulsa .
Bobby Miller might just be the NEXT BIG Dodgers pitching star. Hope he stays healthy and we see him soon making his big league debut.
With him, Buehler and May when he is fully back we would have 3 hard throwing RHP for our rotation for years to come.
Go Dodgers!!!!!!!!!!
Almost half of Miller’s 55 pitches were four-seam fastballs, averaging 99.4 mph. Seven hit triple digits on the radar gun, including three fastballs to Shohei Ohtani looking in the first inning.
Please let me know why Lux looks at so many strikes?
You hit it right on the head. I think the same thing when I watch him up there. He used to be really aggressive, he needs to go back to that approach and protect more with 2 strikes.
Well, to say that was impressive was an understatement. Bobby Miller sure looks like the real deal. The way he throws those darts is so effortless. That fastball looks so heavy, it was tough to square it up. He alluded to his secondary pitches not being that sharp and he still dominated. I guess he just needs to work on offspeed pitches. I’m not sure why they’re calling him a mid rotation starter, he certainly looks to have Ace stuff. He looked like he could have easily kept throwing for a few more innings. The word is that there’s some concern that he doesn’t get more whiffs on the fastball.
The bullpen pieces used last night looked as good as it gets as well. Kahnle really stood out to me. He looked like he was throwing wiffle balls with all that movement.
Watching Kimbrel made me feel really good about letting Kenley walk. Kimbrel just goes right after guys. No worrying if the cutter had the right action, no worrying about 89-91 on his first 5 or 6 pitches. No nibbling. One of his curveballs really stood out to me. It came in right above the knees then dived into the dirt. Wicked!
I was listening to a prospect report yesterday the guy from future Dodgers. He was extremely high on Bruns and Nastrini. Both are really turning heads in camp and look like steals. They seem to have the same pitch mix featuring high nineties fastballs, two distinct breaking balls and a change. Both are rated as top of the rotation guys. Both have had command/control issues and if they get that “under control” they’re going to be blue chippers.
This organization is loaded with pitching.
Alright, two days off and then it’s showtime. Are we ready?
Betts woke up a little last night, but he doesn’t look like he’s in go mode.
Trea Turner and Freddie Freeman look ready right now. Thank God they signed Freddie who looks very happy to be here and comfortable.
Alberto and Lux in a platoon at second should be good enough. Their defence certainly looks good and they run into enough balls at the back end on the lineup to contribute. Lux hasn’t made a bad throw since Mark called him out.
Muncy ran into one last night and struck out a couple of times. I’m a little concerned, but he’s looked pretty bad in the early going in the past. Is he fully healthy? Did he lose some power while recovering?
JT looks doesn’t look too good right now. Is this the beginning of the end? We’re going to really miss the right handed bat if it is. At least they have Rios and Lamb waiting in the wings.
Smith and Barnes haven’t warmed up too much. They’ll be fine eventually, but in the early going we need to get some production there.
Belli is at least starting to make some contact. It’s a low bar here. At least his defense is superb.
Taylor looks like Taylor. He’s gonna K a lot and he’ll come up with a lot of big hits. He looks like himself and is ready to go.
Kahnle and Bickford look fine. I think it’s a mistake starting the season without them.
Vesia finally pitched a clean inning. We’re going to need him early on.
Graterol looks great even if he isn’t racking up K’s.
Treinen and Kimbrel at the end of the game is as good as it gets. This bullpen is going to be ridiculously good this year especially when Kahnle comes back. I don’t see anyone that has so many legit pitchers with V-Gone, Graterol, Kahnle, Treinen, Hudson and Kimbrel. Phillips, White, Vesia, Bickford, Ferguson, Bruihl. Wow, the list seems endless. It looks like we have two full bullpens.
I honestly can’t remember such a deep pitching staff top to bottom.
Too bad we have to start the season on the road in Colorado, then Minnesota? The we come home to face the Reds and Braves? Who the hell made this schedule?
They just picked up the schedule the way it was set up before the lockout. Some of the first couple series were rolled into double headers. That is also why they finish with 6 home games against the Rockies. Corey Seager revealed why he left the Dodgers, besides the huge contract. His relationship with Ranger manager, Chris Woodward and the fact that the hitting coach in Texas is Tim Hyers who worked with Corey when he was a rookie. He also cited the mind set of Chris Young, former player who is now the GM in Texas.
… and the fact that Corey’s Contract (after Taxes) is almost $100 Million more than what he would have made in LA is irrelevant! 😉
Just wrote what they said he said.
Of course he isn’t going to say that the Players Union pressured him to sign that deal with the Rangers. Maybe he should have said it’s a good deal because he doesn’t have to worry about playing in all those extra post-season games with the Rangers.
“Treinen and Kimbrel at the end of the game is as good as it gets. This bullpen is going to be ridiculously good this year especially when Kahnle comes back. I don’t see anyone that has so many legit pitchers with V-Gone, Graterol, Kahnle, Treinen, Hudson and Kimbrel. Phillips, White, Vesia, Bickford, Ferguson, Bruihl. Wow, the list seems endless. It looks like we have two full bullpens.”
You said the same thing last year. Even said it was the best bullpen you’d ever seen. Yeah, I think it’ll be good, potentially great if everything falls into place. It’s very rare that everything falls into place on baseball teams, especially the relief corps. That’s why AF has accumulated so many of them.
There was a little back and forth with you and Dodgerrick yesterday about the relievers. He’s a highly logical poster, but he leans towards the pessimist end of the spectrum and has been harping on the “old and infirm” criticism since Andrew Friedman was hired. You’d think that after two WS appearances, one WS win and multiple 100+ winning seasons AF would get just a little credit for knowing what he’s doing, but that’s why we have comments sections on blogs. He wrote somewhat dismissively that AF was signing as many injured pitchers as he could in hopes that one works out.
Well … actually, that’s pretty much exactly what he’s doing. There is nothing more unreliable than a relief pitcher. They have iffy command, get injured, become less effective. The 1rst and 2nd half performance of Kimbrel is a good example. V-Gon’s sporadic control is another.
So, you get a bunch of them that have upside and good fundamentals and you see you who rises to the top. The Dodgers relief corps was pretty mediocre in the 1rst half last year. As things settled and Roberts figured out who to use, they got a lot better.
Expect a lot of those guys to not be as good as we’d hoped. Expect a couple to be really good. By the end of the year expect the bullpen to be top 5 and solid heading into the playoffs.
Yes, I did say the same thing last year. They finished second in ERA, third in WHIP, first in Average Against. Only the Giants finished in the top 3 in each of those categories.
Thanks for pointing out how right I was. You don’t get that very often on this site. This bullpen is better than last year’s, so there’s that.
Yes, Rick and Patch tend to be pessimistic.
You don’t get what very often on this site? People here telling you how right you are all the time? I think your expectations are a little unrealistic. The relievers were 7th in FIP, 6th in xFIP, 22nd in BB%, 11th in K% and 5th in WAR. It was a good squad.
Ok fine. You convinced me. The world of Dodger blue will be all rainbows and unicorns. Every relievers will have a 0.0 ERA. Bobby Miller will throw 10 no-hitters on his way to winning 30 games, the Cy Young, the MVP and leading the Dodgers to a 162-0 record and running the table in the playoffs and winning the WS in 4. Ok, I’m in.
What is relevant about WAR, FIP, BB% and K%? Go ahead and sort players by those stats and tell me they tell you how good they are. What a joke.
WAR – Bullpens with more innings will automatically have a higher WAR all other things being equal. It’s a counting stat. It’s like telling me one player is better than the other just because he has 30 homers vs 29 homers nevermind it took him 200 more abs to get there.
FIP takes into account BB, K’s and HR only. I can see why you chose that stat, BB% and K%. Just letting you in on a little secret. Walks and Strikeouts don’t necessarily win games. xFIP is even worse. Instead of HR’s it uses fly balls. So fly ball pitchers that get outs get penalized unfairly.
How about how did the league hit off you, how many runs did you allow? Oh yeah, those are the stats I listed.
Ok, I suppose you’re gonna tell me that a pitcher’s value is based on the number of wins he has. Forget about ERA altogether. Why not just use wins as the one all-important stat? The game really boils down to winning, right?
Nobody really argues that because everybody understands that the total number of wins a pitcher has are based on factors out of a pitcher’s control – like playing for a lousy team, for instance. Are you going to argue that the ERA of every Rockies pitching staff since they entered the league is bad because of some lousy streak of luck – or does it maybe have something to do with where they play?
ERA is based partly on things that are out of a pitcher’s control – the defense and the sequence of events that result from a batted ball. All FIP does is count the things that the pitcher actually has control over and strip out the things he doesn’t.
Personally I’m not a big fan of FIP, xFIP or WAR by themselves. I prefer to look at ERA, and then I glance at FIP to compare. Then I like to look at the strikeout rate, followed by the BB%. There is no such thing as a perfect stat.
I don’t even know why you’re arguing with me. I think the Dodgers bullpen will be really solid. I just don’t expect it to be the best bullpen in history. If it is I’ll be pleasantly surprised. Your Panglossian outlook already cost you twenty bucks – still need to try that gelato place.
Well, you did win $20, but it took a blown call to get there. You want to make the same bet this year?
I’m going to be one of those people who’s gonna rain on the Miller Time Parade just a little.
Yes, his fastball was really impressive. I’m not sure that it was going exactly where he wanted it to, but I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt, and besides, the hitters didn’t either, and it showed. They looked overwhelmed.
I was less impressed with his secondary pitches. He threw the slider more than the curveball, but he didn’t have very good command of it at all. In the abbreviated highlights I watched, I saw him throw one curveball that missed badly.
To me, it looked like he was over reliant on his triple digit fastball. To be a pitcher and not a thrower he’s going to have to refine his secondary pitches and learn to sequence through them. According to scouting reports, he can hold velocity deep into games, but that matters less if batters learn to time his fastball.
What you seem to think is a weakness, I see as a strength. He overwhelmed the Angels (who overwhelmed Bueller and Urias), with just one pitch. He threw a couple of hard biting sliders and had a couple of good changeups. It’s very early in the season, the secondary pitches will get better. Last night’s outing was a floor, not a ceiling. As a guy that just turned 23 (younger than Lux), I can’t help but think he will improve. That’s scary!
It seems as long as he doesn’t throw that heater right down the middle, he’ll be okay.
Every prospect that’s coming up right now all had one thing in common. They lost at least a full year of development because of COVID. A little more fine tuning and the Millers, Pepiots, Vargases, Pages and Busches will be good to go.
He’s gonna need to learn how to throw those sliders and changeups more often and where the catcher wants them to go. If his sliders wind up in the dirt and he doesn’t have confidence throwing it, then hitters are going to be looking for his fastball. He needs to learn how to pitch.
He looked really impressive. I need to see more before I anoint him as the next Kershaw.
“The sound the ball made when it hit the catchers mitt tells me he’s gonna be a future Hall of Famer”
Come on, now!
Miller said that he was hyped and did not have good command of his secondary pitches last night.
I presume that is correct because he has walked 13 while striking out 70 last year in the minors.
The thing is: he was off, but it wasn’t off by much. He was always around the Zone.
His stuff is just plain outtathisworld.
If he had his good stuff, you would have been planning my funeral today… It would have been the Big One!
Most fun for me was watching his parents reactions. His dad looked like he was going to have a heart attack. His mom was more composed. But when he struck out Ohtani, you might have thought it was the third out of game 7 of the World Series, dad was high fiving everyone! Pretty cool. The kid was very impressive, He was also very intense.
BTW – neat old Miller commercial. That was back in a time where blue collar workers and an honest living were held in higher esteem then they are now.
Personally, the Uecker commercials were my favorites.
https://youtu.be/Huu0Dfh9WIQ
My favorite was Norm McDonald playing darts in a bar with Jim Hunter. Norm can’t get his name right. Calls him Catfood. Then, Hunter get a bullseye and Norm says “Bullsear Catnip!” R.I.P.
The three highlights of our spring training 2022. 1. Bobby Miller 2. Bobby Miller 3. Nobody got injured
FWIW Miller is on the Tulsa roster for now … speaks to how loaded the Dodgers organization is at pitching.
The team formerly known as the Indians locked up Jose Ramirez for 5 years, just shy of $25M per year. Good to see that team able to keep one of their stars.
Good for us. I think the Pads were in on him. He’s a total stud. I think he only trails Trout and Betts in WAR the last several years.
Lots of last minute roster moves happening. Some non roster players making other teams. I do not like them carrying 16 pitchers. I think that is way too many. But, AF and Dave seem to think they are going to need them.
I wouldnt be surprised to see one of the relievers “injured” when they return to Dodger stadium and a position player brought up
LOL – Padres just traded Darvish’s personal catcher, Víctor Caratini to the Brewers for minor leaguers. Darvish isn’t good enough to have a personal catcher.
Carson Fulmer had a nice 2ip for OKC last night.
I didn’t watch, so I don’t know how good he looked, but this is a good reliever to watch for when someone needs to come up and help the bullpen
Padres and Minnesota working on a trade that would send Paddack to the Twins for closer, Taylor Rogers to the Pads. But it is believed there are more than just those two players being discussed. Padres still trying to unload Hosmer. This report was on MLBTR.
Someone was asking about the emergency catcher. It is none other than Hanser Alberto according to Dodgers Nation.
MLC. com reports that Miller will start at Tulsa, not OKC. Might be a reflection of his limited pro experience. Will the Dodgers insist on time at OKC before bringing him up? A lot could be due to injuries.
I assume the $$$ AF invested in Heaney and Anderson will give them a chance to prove themselves. But yeah, Miller looks like the real deal.