Randy Johnson

It will be interesting to see if Randy can make it through this season, let alone next season, but it is an interesting question…what happens if the man is 5 wins or so away from 300?

I am not going to touch the idea of the Dbacks wanting him as a starter because I do not see this happening, so I am looking at this as more of a BP role for him as a Dback.

I think it is an interesting idea to send him to the pen, but the argument for this is supposedly longevity of his career. So, if that is the pro, then A)will it really work better for his back to be in the pen vs. starting and B) will he get the wins in a BP role?

So, will his back be better in a BP role? I have heard some people say that it might, but others say that the problem with his back is how long it takes to recover. I am not sure if that is a big deal if he only throws 15 pitches or if the recovery is simply because of 100 pitches, but I am just not sure a BP role will better suit him if he needs a few days in between each outing.

Lets assume he can pitch in 60 games as a reliever next year. Does this help him? He will already be #2 in strikeouts, has a ring and really the only thing he would be looking for is those elusive few wins (again going with 5 as the magic number). Does a BP role give him a chance to get those 5 wins? Probably not likely.

I am hoping he can continue to stockpile wins even when he pitches badly (all old school Dback fans know that he deserves them…..see his run support in some games in 99, 00 and 2001….ugh) and can ride off in the sunset.

One last note I have is this….does 300 really matter? If Randy gets 295 will that hurt his legacy more than if he had 305? Anyone that has seen Randy pitch can testify that his dominance is more than a number of 300 (see strikeouts/9 Innings vs. his BB in comparison to Clemens and others in his era)

I will be going to Atlanta this Saturday to watch Randy pitch against the Braves. It is a trip that Myself, my boys and a friend from Arizona do every year when the Dbacks come to Atlanta! I have always wanted to see him pitch in person. I hope he does as well as Micah did last year when i went but I don’t expect Randy to hit 2 HR’s.

Good stuff, Wimb. Thanks.

I don’t think there’s really any chance Randy gets to 300 this year, so I think your speculation here is well founded. I think that he can be an asset to the team next year. Randy will likely not want anything more than a one year contract and will almost certainly be willing to give us a hometown discount. I think one year, $4M is a very reasonable offer for both sides. He would provide us with the ability to let some of our younger guys mature on their own time table and we would provide him the opportunity to get the 300 W mark (by the way, peeklay, I think that 300 means a great deal to Randy, and although it shouldn’t affect the way he is viewed in posterity, it, in reality, will).

I agree with dahlian’s repeated assertion that, “You pay someone for how you think they’ll do, not how they did”, but I think RJ might be a very important exception to this rule. The guy will be our first HOFer, (hopefully not our last!) and we basically built the success of this franchise on his back, so he gets a LOT of leeway.

As for next year, well, I’ve said all along that I didn’t think RJ would be able to reach 300 Ws this year, and I thought it’d take another season, but it would seem that if he could stay healthy for this entire year, he has a decent shot at it. Many things will need to repeatedly break in his favor, of course - he’ll have to stay in games long enough to be eligible and see us get the lead for him, he’ll have to stay healthy, (most importantly) he’ll have to not watch the BP blow games for him, etc. I think if RJ gets to 300 this year, he absolutely retires at the end. Is 300 important? Well, only psychologically; his career is equally as impressive by the raw #s if he wins 299 games or 300, and he’s a HOFer either way. Still, it’s clear that 300 is very important to HIM, especially since there’s a very good chance that he’ll be the last 300 game winner ever. (IIRC, Mussina is close too, but I don’t see him getting it) Pitchers just don’t win games the way they used to; they don’t stay in for enough innings, etc. If RJ doesn’t win 300 by the end of this season, I think he’ll want to try coming back next year - with the glaring exception that I think if we were to win the WS again this year, I think he’d retire—go out on top, and all that.

So if he doesn’t make it this year, do we resign him next year? Well, obviously not if it’s going to be $10-12 million, but for half that, I think Randy would much rather stay here than play for $10 million somewhere else. I’d like having him around in the locker room, especially with Scherzer around and Parker coming through the system, (dunno whether Parker will be up by next year…. maybe not) and I could definitely see hanging on to him as perhaps a 5th starter. I don’t see him coming out of the bullpen, and if he somehow turns just TERRIBLE for the rest of the season, or tweaks his back again, I think both sides might agree that it’s time for him to retire. But if we think we can get league average pitching out of him next year, I’d rather do that for $5 million than, say, Kip Wells or Josh Fogg, even at 2 years for $3 million, or something like that.

If we resign him for next year, would he stay the full season, or retire midseason after 300? I don’t know. He’s talked this year about how frustrating it is for him to not be able to do the things he used to be able to do, pitchingwise, but I think he’d probably stick around as long as the team asked him to. However, if Randy DOES comes back next year, as far as I’m concerned, he can retire whenever he wants. He’s earned that, at least.

Summa summarum, if he can keep on pitching the way he has so far, (inconsistent, but on the balance, about average; according to Baseball Reference, his ERA+ this season is 101, and he was at 123 last year) and he doesn’t make 300 Ws and wants to return, and will give us a reasonable rate, we ABSOLUTELY resign him, knowing full well that he may not last the entire season.

Besides—you KNOW how J.Mo likes marketing tools. Randy chasing his 300th? Putting more distance between himself and that asshole Clemens on the career K list? (Hopefully) Great for pr, even if he’s no longer the FOTF.

Webb, Haren, Owings, Scherzer, Davis. At least, that’s what I would do. And I certainly don’t want his production for the money we are paying him.

but that still leaves us with 6 starters.

I’d rather pay him 5-6kk than pay the same amount for another back of rotation starter…
I mean, bar his back problems Randy could easy pitch until he’s 50 y/o
teh velocity is there (find another 44yo guy throwing 94 mph IN THE WORLD)
his slider still breaks and he’s pitching some sinkers and splitters, and that’s the diference that makes him a HOFer, his ability to change his game plan…
Let Randy pitch until his 50’s =X
o/

Will he do that.