We should probably be appreciating Shoemaker more

[Oz27]

I know I'm not saying anything new by saying that Matt Shoemaker has been really, really good lately. But what he is doing now may well be unprecedented in major league baseball. Someone who was absolutely terrible made a pretty minimal change (from not throwing his splitter very often to throwing it all the time) and suddenly he is one of the best pitchers in baseball. Rich Hill did something similar with his curveball and is now very, very good. But to see someone go from sitting on the scrapheap to have such a dominant stretch is so rare. This isn't luck. This isn't Mat Latos riding the BABIP train to a good first month before crashing back down to earth. This is legitimate dominance. In his last five starts he has allowed one walk, struck out 48 and given up a .516 OPS allowed. You don't ever see better than that. Maybe we haven't been appreciating him enough because we've all been focused on how terrible the team is, but we should probably be reminding ourselves that what he's doing is absolutely crazy.

I have no idea if this will last but it's pretty awesome to watch. I've been advocating selling high if we can but the more I think about it the more I doubt myself. Nothing about this is lucky, he has legitimately had a stretch better than any Angels starter I've seen have before. Maybe he will come crashing down to earth - nothing about Matt Shoemaker's career has made much sense so far - but I'm so thrilled to see him doing well. He deserves every bit of appreciation he can get and I'm happy to give him that in the form of another (probably unneccesary) thread devoted to him. I can't wait to see how he goes in his next start.

[Billy_Ball]

I have a feeling he's going to have a very good start in Oakland.  Then we see Lincecum on Saturday.

[IEAngelsfan]

If he continues like this, there's a screenplay begging to be written about him. 

Yeah, he's been one of the bright spots of a dismal season.

[Billy_Ball]

23 minutes ago, hangin n wangin said:

I'm on the sell high train if we can get something pretty valuable for him.

But agreed, he has been extremely impressive lately.

Shoemaker doesn't become a free agent until 2021.  You want to trade him?  Even if we're sellers....keeping him is a no-brainer.

[Catwhoshatinthehat]

It really isn't a no-brainer because he's been all over the place during his career so far.  There were discussions here when Santiago was doing well about trading him and getting max value and now he's come back down to earth and wouldn't get much in return.  Of course you don't trade a Clayton Kershaw, Madison Bumgarner, etc. who you know is a proven commodity unless they won't sign an extension.  Shoemaker on the other hand has been a mixed bag over his MLB career at which point he's currently below league average based on ERA+.  There's always the risk that if you trade a guy they go on to be successful for another team but there's also the chance they bring something else back in trade that helps the team and go on to be mediocre at best or AAAA players.

[Turd Ferguson]

Sell, sell, sell. If we can get a #1/2 starter return for him, take it and run.

[Angels#1Fan]

21 minutes ago, Catwhoshatinthehat said:

 

It really isn't a no-brainer because he's been all over the place during his career so far.

 

This isn't really accurate imo. Shoemaker had a stellar rookie season only to have an all too common sophomore jinx type year last year that spilled over into the beginning of this season. And now he's pitching even better than he did his rookie year. In fact, in his rookie season Shoemaker steadily got better as the season progressed. If you remember while he was winning in the beginning he wasn't able to go very deep in the game early on then started going deeper later in the season.

I'm not going to try and predict what Shoemaker might do in the future but it would be really hard to take if the Angels traded him for a couple of unproven prospects only to see him continue to excel. Not a no-brainer at all imo, in fact, I think it would be a tough call and risky to trade him at this point.

[Troll Daddy]

Lets just say ... thank god this just a opinion forum and not reality.

i think a lot of you forget Shoemaker's record in 2014. 

16-4 3.04 ERA

Bet the farm that he's not getting traded. 

[zenmaster]

Maybe it is more than just throwing the splitter more? He might have made small tweaks or even something mental. 

[Angels#1Fan]

Just now, Troll Daddy said:

Lets just say ... thank god this just a opinion forum and not reality.

i think a lot of you forget Shoemaker's record in 2014. 

16-4 3.04 ERA

The the farm that he's not getting traded. 

It would be easy to say that Shoemaker was a fluke in 2014 if he wasn't pitching so stellar right now. But the fact is the guy is lights out at the moment. Of course he's not going to continue to pitch at this level for the rest of his life but I think it is evidence that he isn't a fluke. Flukes don't normally make comebacks after struggling like Shoe has. I admit I thought he was a one year wonder after he started out this year poorly but his performance speaks for itself.

[Troll Daddy]

9 minutes ago, hangin n wangin said:

No one forgot that. But he's been very inconsistent through out his major league career. No one is saying to trade him for a bag of chips, but if there is a trade available for a good return, we should look into doing it.

In reality, we don't know what the trade market is for Shoemaker. So it's just different opinions and I don't think any opinion is a bad one regarding trading Shoemaker. There are solid cases posters have made on both sides.

 

I agree ... opinions is what we do here. 

[Stradling]

If you can get a legitimate prospect that can be an everyday player and get a bullpen arm with upside then you have to consider it.  We have no idea what Shoemaker is going to do going forward.  What we do know is that last year and the first 8 starts of this year he was horrible.  I am not stat guy, but something tells me that even his amazing rookie year, the record was much better than the performance. 

[Stradling]

Just looked it up and Shoe was a 2.1 fWAR and a 2.4 bWAR in 2014.  He was behind a bunch of average guys, names like Mark Buerle, Hiroki Kuroda, Aaron Harang, Jon Neise. 

[Troll Daddy]

1 minute ago, Stradling said:

Just looked it up and Shoe was a 2.1 fWAR and a 2.4 bWAR in 2014.  He was behind a bunch of average guys, names like Mark Buerle, Hiroki Kuroda, Aaron Harang, Jon Neise. 

You're joking right ?

[Stradling]

No I am not joking.  That is the facts.  He was 16-4 but all of those guys had a higher WAR than he did.  Now I know you don't care about WAR, so tell us what you care about. 

[totdprods]

I think the biggest reason we don't trade him is I just don't think he's had nearly enough sustained success for a team to pay what we'd want to receive. He's gonna have to do this for the rest of '16 at the least to garner the return we'd hope for. 

He was pretty lucky in '14 - he was good, but I don't think he was as dominant as the 16-4 3.00 ERA indicates. Fipside, his '15 was also the product of some bad luck.

I think if he went up on the block now you'd be getting offers consisting of guys who have a similar history of up and down success. 
The Cardinals? Maybe guys like Grichuk and Wong. Mariners? Maybe something around Zunino or Peterson. Royals could offer up a top prospect who floundered a bit like Starling. That feels like the most likely type of prospect return for Shoemaker at this point. Prospects who were heralded but haven't produced, or big ol' question mark type young players who've shown flashes of being great and terrible. 

[Troll Daddy]

5 minutes ago, Stradling said:

No I am not joking.  That is the facts.  He was 16-4 but all of those guys had a higher WAR than he did.  Now I know you don't care about WAR, so tell us what you care about. 

Ok I'll bite ... what do think we could get for him?

[Stradling]

I think if you find a desperate team that feels one more arm can get them to the playoffs or out of the first round of the playoffs, they might be willing to give up there top outfield prospect assuming that top outfield prospect isn't a top 20 Overall prospect.  Along with that you could probably get a bullpen arm at AAA that is ready for the big leagues or will be shortly, someone like Gott. 

[Stradling]

4 minutes ago, Troll Daddy said:

Ok I'll bite ... what do think we could get for him?

Also, nice job of answering my question. 

[totdprods]

13 minutes ago, Stradling said:

I think if you find a desperate team that feels one more arm can get them to the playoffs or out of the first round of the playoffs, they might be willing to give up there top outfield prospect assuming that top outfield prospect isn't a top 20 Overall prospect.  Along with that you could probably get a bullpen arm at AAA that is ready for the big leagues or will be shortly, someone like Gott. 

Yeah, I think that's about the best case scenario right now. 
It's a gamble for sure. If he keeps this up the rest of this year, maybe into next year, he may be worth 2-3 top prospects at that point. Or an obvious pitcher to keep. 

[stormngt]

1 hour ago, Billy_Ball said:

Shoemaker doesn't become a free agent until 2021.  You want to trade him?  Even if we're sellers....keeping him is a no-brainer.

You really think he is going to.maintain the level of play into his 30s?

[Chuck]

2 hours ago, hangin n wangin said:

I'm on the sell high train if we can get something pretty valuable for him.

But agreed, he has been extremely impressive lately.

Straight up for Wil Myers?

[totdprods]

1 minute ago, Chuckster70 said:

Straight up for Wil Myers?

Shoe + Cron for Myers maybe. I actually could see that being a little close. 

Would we move him back to LF?

[Chuck]

Just now, totdprods said:

Shoe + Cron for Myers maybe. I actually could see that being a little close. 

Would we move him back to LF?

We could flip flop Marte and Myers at the position. 

 

[Stradling]

6 minutes ago, Chuckster70 said:

Straight up for Wil Myers?

In a second, hell I would add to Shoe to get Myers.