Quote from Randy Manese on September 13, 2023, 5:58 pm

Don't think Darvish will pitch for 4 more years - 2 at the most.  Wants to go out strong, so look for him to have a good year next year and also try to bring his replacement on board (Yoshinobu Yamamoto) during the winter.  If both these things happen, predict he'll retire after his 2024 season if the Padres are in the playoffs/World Series.

Quote from Jeremy Hill on September 13, 2023, 7:37 pm

Darvish has on average 18m reasons a year to not retire until after the 2028 season. He's making at least 14m a season for the length of his contract. Barring catastrophic injury he's not walking away from that.

Quote from fenn68 on September 13, 2023, 7:56 pm

Quote from Jeremy Hill on September 13, 2023, 7:37 pm

Darvish has on average 18m reasons a year to not retire until after the 2028 season. He's making at least 14m a season for the length of his contract. Barring catastrophic injury he's not walking away from that.

Will not walk away even with a catastrophic injury … his 2027 and 2028 seasons are at $15MM each and even at 41+/- he will probably at least say he want to continue. We might be seeing a version of Pomeranz or Hosmer were he gets paid but not play. Maybe they work a buyout … sort of what WASH is trying to do with Strasburg.

Never understood the extension going that long … the odds that injury / age will cut his career off well before the contract end … actually worried about him being more than a bottom of the rotation arm in 2024-25.

Padre prospects … en masse … need to arrive and be productive by 2025-26 … calling Snelling, Lesko, Iriate, Bergert, Lizzaraga, et al … get your motors running.

Quote from Randy Manese on September 13, 2023, 11:25 pm

Darvish has always been his own man and I'll stand by my statement that his decision to pitch or not to pitch will not be based on money but on his ability to perform at a high level.  Let's mark these comments and check back in a couple of years.

If you remember when he was offered that extension, he said that he had intended to only pitch a couple of years so, to me, that extension was more a strategy to lower the impact on the CBT payroll which Darvish was willing to accommodate.  My understanding is that when a player voluntarily retires, the unpaid part of the contract becomes void thus the CBT numbers tied to him would not count against the current active roster.

Quote from Jeremy Hill on September 14, 2023, 2:07 pm

Quote from fenn68 on September 13, 2023, 7:56 pm

Quote from Jeremy Hill on September 13, 2023, 7:37 pm

Darvish has on average 18m reasons a year to not retire until after the 2028 season. He's making at least 14m a season for the length of his contract. Barring catastrophic injury he's not walking away from that.

Will not walk away even with a catastrophic injury … his 2027 and 2028 seasons are at $15MM each and even at 41+/- he will probably at least say he want to continue. We might be seeing a version of Pomeranz or Hosmer were he gets paid but not play. Maybe they work a buyout … sort of what WASH is trying to do with Strasburg.

Never understood the extension going that long … the odds that injury / age will cut his career off well before the contract end … actually worried about him being more than a bottom of the rotation arm in 2024-25.

Padre prospects … en masse … need to arrive and be productive by 2025-26 … calling Snelling, Lesko, Iriate, Bergert, Lizzaraga, et al … get your motors running.

I should have clarified. Something like the Strasburg situation is what I meant by catastrophic injury. Something that leaves him physically unable to pitch. A situation where he still gets paid and counts against the cap, but is allowed to walk away. On a side note I really can't believe how badly the Nats botched that whole situation.

I'm not as worried about his ability to pitch effectively as he gets older as I would be with a lot of other guys. He throws so many pitches and locates well enough that I think he'll still find ways to be effective if his velocity slips. Obviously we were hoping for more this year, but with the money backend starters are getting these days the money might not be that bad even if all he's just a good backend starter going forward.

Having said that, with the benefit of hindsight I really don't get why they went 6 years though. At the time I thought it was for the lower AAV in an attempt to stay under 273m. Once they blew past that there was no real reason for such a long deal. Even if they think he is going to age well it seems like a shorter term deal with a higher AAV would have made more sense.

Quote from LynchMob on September 15, 2023, 9:29 am

Can we move the Darvish conversation to another thread?

Back to TinCaps ... per today's DFR ...

They’ll have Dylan Lesko on the mound Friday night as they show down with Great Lakes for the right to advance to the Midwest League championship.

Quote from Jeremy Hill on September 15, 2023, 7:25 pm

TinCaps lose 2-1. Lesko reminded me of Paddack a bit in the start. His fastball was ok and his changeup looked nasty at times. His curve wasn't very impressive and he was struggling to land it in the zone. Krob was really good in relief. He came on with runners on 1st and 2nd and no outs. He got out of it and put together 3 scoreless innings. The bullpen combined for 5 innings and only gave up a hit and 2 walks. Ultimately I feel like having so many of their hitters promoted did them in. Kai Murphy hit a solo shot, but I feel like Robertson and Doersching were the only real hitters they had left.

Quote from Randy Manese on September 21, 2023, 3:01 am

For a high school pitcher rehabbing from TJ surgery, the objective was to get him through the season healthy.  For Lesko to pitch 33 innings over 3 leagues and an additional 3 innings in the playoffs was a great accomplishment, irrespective of the results; actually surprised they didn't limit him to 25 IP.  You could see flashes of how good he could be with all his pitches, but command is the last thing that comes back after TJ surgery.

Lesko will likely start 2024 in Ft. Wayne and with a strong winter regimen will be ready to build up his innings to possibly the 75 - 90 range.  Don't expect him to make as dramatic an improvement as Bergert did, but have to remember that Bergert was a college pitcher and further along his recovery than Lesko.  Lesko is a far better overall pitcher than Paddack with a legitimate curveball; he'll prove he was one of the steals of the very strong 2022 draft for the Padres - Lesko, Snelling, Mazur, King, Martorella, Marsee, Krob, Pauley, Robertson, Sanabria, Lowe, Doersching and Vogt with #3 pick, rehabbing RHP Henry Williams, the key piece to the Scott Barlow trade.

Quote from WindsorUK on September 21, 2023, 9:38 am

Could someone post who they believe the top 5 starting pitching prospects are, and when they are expected in San Diego? Thanks in advance.