"Spoke to a scout who says for all the attention being paid to Matt Harvey, Jeurys Familia has "significantly" better stuff. #Mets"- Klapisch

Here's to hoping he can develop a solid change up.

If he's Doc Gooden without the change, how good do you think he'll be WITH one?

No offense but Familia is nowhere near Doc Gooden. There might be one minor league pitcher in all of baseball even close to Dwight Gooden and that is Matt Moore.

I was joking, Wally backman said familia reminded him of doc last summer.

Wally may or may not be a good manager but his scouting = horrendous lol

BTW, Harvey discusses how pleased he was with his sinker in Newsday today (print edition, not sure about online). Says that was the pitch he threw to get Paul to GIDP in that spot, if anyone remembers that pitch to gauge if that 87-89 thing was indeed the "sinker."

I know the general consensus was that it didn't look like much, but he was happy with it, for whatever that is worth.

On Santana's velocity, I'd like to see much more than 85 to be honest. I know people always talk about how guys gain velocity as ST wears on but its really not a dramatic gain. Especially when you consider that he's going 35 pitches today and he's going to have to go 100 regularly in about 4 weeks. So while he'll gain arm strength as March continues, I don't know if that necessarily translates to higher velocities in longer stretches.

Gee was right where he normally is last night, Harvey was maybe just a tick below, Lannan appeared to be right where normally is, etc. Sometimes those adrenaline-fueled, max effort relievers are lower early in spring because they're 1 inning guys regardless, so as a guy like Francisco builds arm strength, yeah, you'd expect a uptick, and especially when they get into their usual situations. I remember Wagner was always in the 80's at the beginning of March, for instance.

I think Santana was REPORTED to be 88-90 in one of his summer rehab starts where he threw 3 IP. He should be in better shape, shoulder-wise, now than he was then, but I'll give him the benefit of the doubt that he had been on a throwing plan and building arm strength for quite a while at that point vs. being shut down for most of the winter and jsut starting to throw again a couple of weeks ago now. But I think he needs to be near there to give you some hope he may be something approximating "Santana" ever again. 85-86 mph means he's going to need to be a completely different pitcher.

(cue someone discussing that velocity doesn't matter, location is important and most of all, something something TOM GLAVINE something)

This is actually true, velocity stabilizes pretty quickly. Of course, I still trust the official PFX guns once we get to regular season play over SNY's spring gun, but it seemed okay yesterday. As for Johan, I'd like to see 87+. Anything lower would have to be a bit concerning.

By the way, Law is continuing his Pineda velocity scare tangent:

MJ,
I don't specifically recall the DP pitch but the other pitches he threw at 89 were up in the zone. I can't imagine they were sinkers. They were generally all called balls up and away. Unless he simply had horrific command I don't see any way it was a sinker as it didn't sink and they were all not only up but up and away. I know I'm viewed as Mr. Negative and I thought Harvey looked solid but I doubt you will find one person on here who 1) thought that pitch he threw at 89 5-6 times was sinker 2) Thought it was a good pitch.

Nmig,
You watched the game.... do you think those 89's Harvey were throwing resembled a sinker in any way?

Yeah thats why now I'm thinking those were just fastballs that got away, or had no feel for his slider.

I know you guys were saying that pitch did nothing, and we had assumed it was his sinker that he was working out the kinks on, so I just found it odd that he specifically singled out his sinker as a pitch he was pleased with.

Maybe just a wonky ST gun.

Fair enough. My expectations have been pretty tempered for Johan. I'm not expecting anything close to the old Santana, so I'll be happy with 85-86, and ecstatic with anything else.

Yikes.... payroll that high and...


Pete Abraham ‏ @PeteAbe

Carlos Silva (shoulder) out of the rotation mix for the #RedSox. That leaves Doubront, Aceves, Padilla, Miller and Cook among candidates