So, are Pitchers Hobby Good now or what?

[cardsin47]

Skenes was the inspiration for this Thread.

[ThoseBackPages]

absolutely not

Skenes is on the Pirates and has not had TJ yet

[PuddleMonkey]

I don't mind calling anyone investing in pitchers an idiot.

[johnlocke36]

Originally Posted by PuddleMonkey

I don't mind calling anyone investing in pitchers an idiot.

As long as you have a willingness to not hold long term I think pitchers will outperform hitters in term of ROI with far less variance as well.

To answer your question I would say yes, just look at what Chase Burns and Hagen Smith are going for out of draft this year. Even compared to last year there were tons of pitchers that could be purchased for next to nothing that had elite stuff and a solid chance to be top 10 MLB arm (most of these guys were frequently mentioned in the pitchers thread) vs this off season where there were few less deals to be had.

[PuddleMonkey]

Originally Posted by johnlocke36

As long as you have a willingness to not hold long term I think pitchers will outperform hitters in term of ROI with far less variance as well.

Well yeah, they're like a 3x leveraged ETF. I'm talking about those dips prospecting for rookie pitchers and thinking if they hold for 20 years they're gonna be rich.

[johnlocke36]

Pretty much I remember this commercial as it sums up the hobby pretty well. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UjkuJPvMrI8

But now velocity is cool. Everyone loves pitching ninja, driveline content. Young kids want to throw as hard as possible and will idolize guys throwing 104 more and more, perhaps even above guys hitting 40 bombs. It's not a stretch that this love for velocity and pitching carries over to trading cards.

The biggest obstacle will be collecting pitchers will be cool/popular for young collectors. People 55+ have generally terrible views on pitching generally and unlikely to invest in pitchers.

[PuddleMonkey]

I think the 55+ crowd loves pitchers, but they also grew up with studs that were allowed to go longer than 6 innings. Analytics and injuries neutered pitchers.

[fabiani12333]

Originally Posted by johnlocke36

Pretty much I remember this commercial as it sums up the hobby pretty well. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UjkuJPvMrI8

But now velocity is cool. Everyone loves pitching ninja, driveline content. Young kids want to throw as hard as possible and will idolize guys throwing 104 more and more, perhaps even above guys hitting 40 bombs. It's not a stretch that this love for velocity and pitching carries over to trading cards.

The biggest obstacle will be collecting pitchers will be cool/popular for young collectors. People 55+ have generally terrible views on pitching generally and unlikely to invest in pitchers.

There was a period of time during the 90s and early 2000s when some of the hottest baseball prospects and rookies in the hobby were pitchers -- Ben McDonald, Hideo Nomo, Kerry Wood, Mark Prior, etc.

I think Mark Prior flaming out really did a lot of damage to the perceived investment potential of young pitchers.

I think the fact that starting pitchers are throwing fewer and fewer innings each year, and losing more and more time to injuries, continues to put downward pressure on the values of pitchers in the hobby.

[rwperu34]

Originally Posted by johnlocke36

As long as you have a willingness to not hold long term I think pitchers will outperform hitters in term of ROI with far less variance as well.

To answer your question I would say yes, just look at what Chase Burns and Hagen Smith are going for out of draft this year. Even compared to last year there were tons of pitchers that could be purchased for next to nothing that had elite stuff and a solid chance to be top 10 MLB arm (most of these guys were frequently mentioned in the pitchers thread) vs this off season where there were few less deals to be had.

Draft prices across the board have been bananas, so I don't think that's a great comparison.

[hermanotarjeta]

Skenes hype is good.

Pitchers is not good.

[jimz]

Originally Posted by PuddleMonkey

Well yeah, they're like a 3x leveraged ETF. I'm talking about those dips prospecting for rookie pitchers and thinking if they hold for 20 years they're gonna be rich.

3x leverage? That's might sound like a lot on Wall Street but we're in the age of crypto where anything under 25x on a coin that isn't some obvious rug pull the president is shilling is considered "eh safe enough". 3x might as well be nothing since presumably you'd be hedging somewhere else.

I think that while it's hard to predict the potential for TJ or really, how they come back from TJ, there's value in the likes of Japanese pitchers with established track records of pitching without injury. Also, some teams handle rehab better. The Angels might finally be learning their lesson after 10 years of ruining arms at least. Andrew Heaney ignored team advice and even though he was a pitching machine at times he had the occasional insanely dominant game (ironically almost always against the Rangers), about 1 a year, but when you keep changing pitching coaches unless you're Shohei and can't understand every little detail - translators, even the best ones, lack the precision of native speakers sometimes purely because there's no analogous term or the difficulty in conveying the unspoken but assumed to be understood aspect of conversations - not that he cared much since he called his own games when nobody else on the team did. The Angels could only screw up his pitching career so much, and after Sosh left they let him do his thing and he did it ridiculously well.

For players like Imanaga and other with no pronounced elbow injury history and entered MLB effectively mid-career the pitcher tax is silly. They throw a lot of nasty breaking stuff over there and now also fastballs that are just as hard if not more than most major leaguers. Not everyone is RA Dickey but you don't need to be RA Dickey to be durable. Only 38% of pitchers get TJ anyway. In fact there's been a Google Sheet that tracks reports and have fairly detailed data going back to 2016 with more scattershot data going back even further: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets...it?usp=sharing

Fangraphs keeps track of current injuries on their RosterResource page: https://www.fangraphs.com/roster-res...-charts/angels

Cross reference the two and it becomes pretty clear that the hobby largely fell to the availability heuristic in news reportage. No writer will publish an article in seriousness title "Paul Skenes did not suffer an injury today", or "Planes land safely with no crashes as every other day this year at LAX". If all you see are reports to pitcher injury - which in the MLB for TJ topped out in 2012 and settle in the mid 20s, although teams use more pitchers than before by quite a bit. Unfortunately, it's one thing to know the facts and it's another thing to convince the card buying public, and the madness of crowds can last a long time, damn any evidence to the contrary.

(HIPAA doesn't really come into play here, if anyone was about to mention that. There's not only no private cause of action so the violation triggers enforcement but none of it goes to you, and keeping mum has a cost in public perception that is far higher than a single HIPAA violation can fine anyway). There are other injuries that are not UCL related, but I have literally never heard of "prone to tearing labrums" as a rationale for anything.

I informally (as in, I don't actively look for, but if I acquire one and I don't have a copy/better copy I will keep) have a PC for both Maddux and Randy Johnson. I feel fortunate that I not only saw Maddux pitch (at the tail end of his career, but still) and got paid for it - I was working at the stadium. His outing was shorter than my shift but barely. We shut down in the 7th if we did not have a supply issue (or in one case, a straight up race riot, not at Dodger Stadium, but same job, different venue. The tip-stealing supervisor was the icing on the worst cake in the world). If his cards get neglected because this belief that pitchers have a significant increase of TJ and velo is to blame, might as well as burn down the department education because all that funding went to everything but teaching, it appears.

I get the sense that people don't see pitchre's duels that are actually like, two dominant pitchers go at it to see who blinks first, bsically, coloring the view. I dont know when you suddenly lost the ability to refer to a pitcher's duel that doesn't go all 9 innings anything but. It's the part of baseball that is easily the most compelling mismatching the expectation that a pitcher's duel ends in a CGSO at the end, I think, when the greatest pitching duel was Thor v Jose Fernandez in one of his last starts at Citi when Jose Fernandez pitched 5 full innings and Thor pitched 7. Thor was mowing hitters down - 12 Ks - and Fernandez pitched like he really didn't care about where it landed until with the bases loaded and 2 outs no jam was impossible to overcome at a time of need. Completely contrasting skills - and one from someone who is a strikeout pitcher - and just seeing it live in the grounds - ridiculous stuff, on most pitching for Thor, and On every pitch that mattered for Jose. But you know, if Smoltz or anyone who thinks RBI is a measure with important keep acting like it's some weird witch magic geometry that is made up or nerdy guesses or whatever, well, 30-31 games might sound short but That's almost 2 football season' worth of games, if they are top of the depth charter. People tend stick to the insane beliefs because you don't have to do antything to do that And so good luck with that

[premium1981]

Originally Posted by ThoseBackPages

absolutely not

Unless you are referring to quality of investment, this is absolutely wrong. Yes, investing in pitchers is pretty dumb. But so is investing in most players. But the question at hand is if they are good for the hobby. It is undeniable that Paul Skenes was lighter fluid on our hot hobby this past year. And before him, Spencer Strider was one of the hottest cards for Braves players (still is). The hobby loves pitchers when they are worth loving. It doesn't make them good investments, but they are great for the hobby. How can anyone say Skenes, Strider, Ohtani when pitching, etc aren't good for the hobby? They obviously are.

PS. I'll add another note. I'm assuming you were in the hobby for the Kerry Wood and Mark Prior hype years. Add in Strasburg. These guys single handily carried the hobby during their hype peaks. Pitchers are great for the hobby when its the right talent. It just doesn't last as long as hitter hype.

[Bosoxfan5990]

This pole stinks.

[OhioLawyerF5]

Elite pitchers have always been hobby good. The perception and narrative that they aren't has been created by investors and flippers who get burned by pitching prospects. Pitchers are more prone to injuries, but those who have great careers and avoid those injuries can be hobby good. But make no mistake, when a pitching prospect comes up and looks like the next Nolan Ryan, they are hobby good. Heck, Strasburg was probably the most hobby good prospect ever.

[Big35Hurt]

Originally Posted by PuddleMonkey

I think the 55+ crowd loves pitchers, but they also grew up with studs that were allowed to go longer than 6 innings. Analytics and injuries neutered pitchers.

This.... I am not in that crowd, but I know that some HOF pitchers from past decades are still very highly sought after.

[Thor34]

Shameless plug for Gerrit Cole; HOF Class of 2037.

[ScooterD]

Originally Posted by Thor34

Shameless plug for Gerrit Cole; HOF Class of 2037.

I’m not making fun of you, but your posting in this thread with a Noah Syndergaard inspired sign in is ironic

[fungi2510]

I love how this thread is cherry picking the outliers. Yes there have been times that a pitcher has been hot, but overall that fuel does not last long. Look at the base rookie cards from Cy Young winners and compare them to the MVP winners. You are looking at 10x difference for hitters.

[premium1981]

Originally Posted by fungi2510

I love how this thread is cherry picking the outliers. Yes there have been times that a pitcher has been hot, but overall that fuel does not last long. Look at the base rookie cards from Cy Young winners and compare them to the MVP winners. You are looking at 10x difference for hitters.

I don't think you understand the question at hand. It isn't about quality of investments and holding card value long term. You can't say that Paul Skenes wasn't good for the hobby. He 100% was. You can't say that the buzz around Roki Sasaki isn't good for the hobby. It 100% is.

[BabaORiley]

Originally Posted by premium1981

Unless you are referring to quality of investment, this is absolutely wrong. Yes, investing in pitchers is pretty dumb. But so is investing in most players. But the question at hand is if they are good for the hobby. It is undeniable that Paul Skenes was lighter fluid on our hot hobby this past year. And before him, Spencer Strider was one of the hottest cards for Braves players (still is). The hobby loves pitchers when they are worth loving. It doesn't make them good investments, but they are great for the hobby. How can anyone say Skenes, Strider, Ohtani when pitching, etc aren't good for the hobby? They obviously are.

PS. I'll add another note. I'm assuming you were in the hobby for the Kerry Wood and Mark Prior hype years. Add in Strasburg. These guys single handily carried the hobby during their hype peaks. Pitchers are great for the hobby when its the right talent. It just doesn't last as long as hitter hype.

I agree with this. I also think the buy-in is significantly lower for most non-Skenes, Stras & Ohtani guys. If you wanted to get in cheaply on Tarik Skubal, you still could today. Same for 99% of the other SPs and pretty much every RP in the game today. See the pitcher thread for plenty of examples of guys picking up premium, key cards for pennies on the dollar.

[fungi2510]

Originally Posted by ScooterD

I’m not making fun of you, but your posting in this thread with a Noah Syndergaard inspired sign in is ironic

It's like rain on your wedding day.

[fungi2510]

Originally Posted by premium1981

I don't think you understand the question at hand. It isn't about quality of investments and holding card value long term. You can't say that Paul Skenes wasn't good for the hobby. He 100% was. You can't say that the buzz around Roki Sasaki isn't good for the hobby. It 100% is.

No, I don't think YOU understand the question: are pitchers hobby good? No. Some might be for a very short time, but that is not how the phrase works. Just because a guy goes off a la Jordan Shafer or Sam Horn that does not mean they are hobby good. Buzz is not the same thing.

[premium1981]

Originally Posted by fungi2510

No, I don't think YOU understand the question: are pitchers hobby good? No. Some might be for a very short time, but that is not how the phrase works. Just because a guy goes off a la Jordan Shafer or Sam Horn that does not mean they are hobby good. Buzz is not the same thing.

Who determines the time frame for hobby good? You? Did Paul Skenes not just carry an entire product to the moon all by himself? That makes him hobby good in my book. The question wasn't if he will be hobby good in 2 years.

Originally Posted by fungi2510

are pitchers hobby good? No. Some might be for a very short time,

I do find it a bit ironic that you say they aren't hobby good, but then say they are in the next sentence. You just added a qualifier saying for a short period of time.

[cardsin47]

Originally Posted by PuddleMonkey

I don't mind calling anyone investing in pitchers an idiot.

Great point
Does Hobby Good mean Investor Good?

[premium1981]

Originally Posted by cardsin47

Great point
Does Hobby Good mean Investor Good?

Hobby means demand and chatter IMO. When it comes to "investing" in cards, 99% of players are going to go down in the future. That doesn't make them irrelevant to the current hobby. Some drop fast and some drop slow. Many factors go into the rate of decline. But at the end of the day, almost all of it is bad investments long term. So if declining value takes away the "hobby good" title, then there is no hobby. Pretty much no one is hobby good if that is how we determine it. Acuna has declined in value, guess he isn't hobby good either. Pujols has declined in value, he isn't hobby good. Nolan Ryan has declined in value, he's out. Aaron Judge has declined in value from his peak. He gone. Let's just all agree that no one is hobby good.