Quote:
Originally Posted by Palaaemon
To me the main thing to keep in mind about Harry Lyerly is that he is interesting as hell. From the beginning you have asked yourself many questions about him and his future, even reaching out to the community for opinions and thoughts.
This is part of what makes the game so fun, the intangible part that draws you in. The excitement about a fictional player that becomes however "real" you want them to be. From the exercise we have just gone through with Harry to creating entire stories surrounding either individual players, teams, leagues, worlds or more!
Concerning my experience with a player template of Harry's type, assuming you have poor movement, it is essential to have near to or topped out Stuff, minimum above average control (so as to minimize hr damage). Pitch speed as it develops you hope it maxes out. As far as pitches are concerned, the 4-seam fastball (aka Fastball in OOTP) is usually a default main pitch given to you of course. Hope for groundball pitches. 2-seam fastball (sinker), slider, curveball, split-finger, change up (including circle change) are good ones. In our template ideally you would like to see at least 2 near to or topped out pitches and at least one other average or better pitch.
The build you saw with Harry was actually right in line with this template. As he grows your first hope is for his movement to increase to at least average. Barring that, hope for his control to max out to his potential as well as his knuckle curve if possible (but we don't want to be too greedy). Even if he stays where he is I believe that he will have a fine career barring I#@%!Y (that is a dirty - 6 letter should not be uttered in polite or otherwise conversation - word).
Last of all, why in hell would you even entertain the thought to trade this guy anyway?  Again, this is a game, the idea is to have fun and enjoy ourselves. We look for outliers like Harry all the time and say "How will he turn out?" They don't come around that often. When they do, run with them! Or not, your choice. From what I have read of your posts I believe you may think a little bit like I do. At least about this.
Enjoy...and I will be watching the Denver Brewers! |
Thanks!
This mirrors very much my own theory on why Lyerly has been successful so far and why he might be for at least a few years if not more. My sense always with this player was that he likely had a very high potential stuff rating. And with him having received several velocity boosts since the time I drafted him, and with his fastball having been very good from the start, I suspect that he may be one of those guys with a stuff rating in the outlier territory (over 200). I refuse to look behind the curtains to see his actual ratings in the editor as this would take some of the fun out of it for me. But given what I suspect is once in a generation stuff and control developing towards excellence, I believe that his weakness for giving up the long ball is pretty well mitigated. When he does give up homers, which he will, they are often of the solo variety. And the more strikeouts he accumulates, the fewer opportunities for hitters to make any contact, let alone power contact. And given that many of the hitters with the best HR power are also prone to striking out, this also is a factor.
Should he develop into more of a groundball pitcher, even more mitigation of his movement troubles.
That's just part of my theory. Getting over a bad cold so brain a bit fuzzy right now. But you pretty much hit on it above.
My expectation is that Lyerly will probably have several good years ahead of him. But I also expect that if and when the time comes that his stuff starts to drop and if he ends up having control that isn't as good as currently projected (or as currently trending) the drop off could come quick and be pretty brutal.
Regardless, it should be a fun ride.
