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bushwick_bill posted a video in the Oakland series thread of Austin Hedges being interviewed after the opener. Hedges said some really interesting things about the new and improved Shane Bieber.
It's the same arsenal, it's just we added a changeup. All the stuff is the same, we're just not overdoing the curveball, we're not overdoing the slider. He's got some velo and some rise to the fastball now - we're just pitching and honestly we're just waiting for the hitter to tell us what to throw. It's not this crazy game plan where we're predetermining, you know, "We gotta go spin guys" and that's kind of how it was in the past and he had so much success with it so it was tough to go away from his strengths and the league adjusted to him and now we're adjusting back and now they will have to make another adjustment.
Wow. So after spending the winter mostly at the Driveline facility tweaking his mechanics Beebs now has both a changeup and more velo and rise to his fastball. He still has the curve and slider. The last couple of years he lost velo on the fastball and didn't throw a change, so batters just sat on the curves and sliders.
Now with four viable pitches, including a legit fastball, and more separation in velocity Bieber and Hedges can let the hitter "tell us what to throw". IOW, attack his vulnerability rather than go in with a predetermined plan as to what they will throw him.
It looks like Shane has set himself up for a big year which will make it interesting if he is in the CY conversation come July and the big offers are rolling in.
Major League Baseball formally opens its 2024 season Thursday, and the list of great pitchers on injured reserve resembles a future Hall of Fame ballot.
Among the starting pitchers projected to be out for weeks to months with various arm and back injuries are the New York Yankees’ Gerrit Cole, Los Angeles Dodgers’ Walker Buehler and Clayton Kershaw, Houston Astros’ Justin Verlander, Texas Rangers’ Max Scherzer and Jacob deGrom, and Diamondbacks’ Eduardo Rodriguez.
To replace Rodriguez, the D-backs this week signed left-hander Jordan Montgomery to a one-year contract worth $25 million with a vesting option for 2025. But given that he hasn’t thrown a live pitch all spring, he likely won’t be ready for a while. - Sportico, 3/28/2024
Montgomery is a good pitcher. He's 31 and was 10-11 with a 3.20 last year. But you can see the desparation already starting to set in and it could only get worse as more starters go down on teams that have invested huge dollars in making a run this year.
If Bieber stays healthy and continues to pitch like last night, the Guardians could be getting some offers that would surpass the deal they got for Civale last year. If they feel there's no way they could possibly sign Bieber as a free agent (and there won't be) they may have no choice but to move him in July, even if they lead the division.
Since he would be a half-year rental they won't get a haul like they got for Clevinger, who had 1.5 years of control left, but they should get more than they got for Aaron Civale, even though Civale had a 2.34 ERA at the time of the deal.
It's the same arsenal, it's just we added a changeup. All the stuff is the same, we're just not overdoing the curveball, we're not overdoing the slider. He's got some velo and some rise to the fastball now - we're just pitching and honestly we're just waiting for the hitter to tell us what to throw. It's not this crazy game plan where we're predetermining, you know, "We gotta go spin guys" and that's kind of how it was in the past and he had so much success with it so it was tough to go away from his strengths and the league adjusted to him and now we're adjusting back and now they will have to make another adjustment.
Wow. So after spending the winter mostly at the Driveline facility tweaking his mechanics Beebs now has both a changeup and more velo and rise to his fastball. He still has the curve and slider. The last couple of years he lost velo on the fastball and didn't throw a change, so batters just sat on the curves and sliders.
Now with four viable pitches, including a legit fastball, and more separation in velocity Bieber and Hedges can let the hitter "tell us what to throw". IOW, attack his vulnerability rather than go in with a predetermined plan as to what they will throw him.
It looks like Shane has set himself up for a big year which will make it interesting if he is in the CY conversation come July and the big offers are rolling in.
Major League Baseball formally opens its 2024 season Thursday, and the list of great pitchers on injured reserve resembles a future Hall of Fame ballot.
Among the starting pitchers projected to be out for weeks to months with various arm and back injuries are the New York Yankees’ Gerrit Cole, Los Angeles Dodgers’ Walker Buehler and Clayton Kershaw, Houston Astros’ Justin Verlander, Texas Rangers’ Max Scherzer and Jacob deGrom, and Diamondbacks’ Eduardo Rodriguez.
To replace Rodriguez, the D-backs this week signed left-hander Jordan Montgomery to a one-year contract worth $25 million with a vesting option for 2025. But given that he hasn’t thrown a live pitch all spring, he likely won’t be ready for a while. - Sportico, 3/28/2024
Montgomery is a good pitcher. He's 31 and was 10-11 with a 3.20 last year. But you can see the desparation already starting to set in and it could only get worse as more starters go down on teams that have invested huge dollars in making a run this year.
If Bieber stays healthy and continues to pitch like last night, the Guardians could be getting some offers that would surpass the deal they got for Civale last year. If they feel there's no way they could possibly sign Bieber as a free agent (and there won't be) they may have no choice but to move him in July, even if they lead the division.
Since he would be a half-year rental they won't get a haul like they got for Clevinger, who had 1.5 years of control left, but they should get more than they got for Aaron Civale, even though Civale had a 2.34 ERA at the time of the deal.
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