Strengths
- "Was really surprised by the guy…..too bad our offense and relief staff wouldn’t allow him a win." - fsudude
- "Dude was supposed to be nothing, and was pretty good for us for a dozen or so starts." - Sensurround
- "Great Win-Win Trade is worth a 4! Diamondbacks gained a starting pitcher worth 1 to 2 WAR per year, at league minimum for two years, and arbitration eligible for an additional 3 years." - Makakilo
- "Pitched well enough to win about 3/4 of his starts." - GuruB
- "There was a game he was one out away from winning, then the bullpen blew it for him. Yeah, I’m surprised Nuno didn’t kill anyone so far." - AzRattler
Weaknesses
- "5-27 in McCarthy/Nuno Starts, 193 IP, 6 IP per game, and sub 4 FIP. If the team managed to go 15-17 in those games they would have been 74-88 instead of 64-98. Oh, what might have been..." - shoewizard
- "How can a pitcher with a 0-7 record have a positive WAR?" - TylerO [/sarcasm]
- "Only four Dback pitchers have ever thrown as many innings in a season as Nuno (83.2) with a lower baBIP (.257*)" - Diamondhacks
- "He was unlucky in the win department, but he was also extremely lucky to have been in a position to win so many of those games. His peripherals suggest he shouldn’t have been."
Towards 2015
- "He may end up being nothing going forward." - Sensurround
- "A young, cost-controlled lefty, with decent control? That’s a pretty valuable commodity. The only concern is that he’s given up A LOT of home runs during his time in the major leagues, but he didn’t in the minor leagues, and that improved substantially after the trade. He’s still a fly ball pitcher, though, so unless he can figure out how to keep those fly balls in the park he’ll always be a risk here." - preston.salisbury
Comment of the Thread:
The Tally
- 5 - Highly Satisfied: 26%
- 4 - Mostly Satisfied: 52%
- 3 - Neither Satisfied nor Dissatisfied: 15%
- 2 - Somewhat Dissatisfied: 4%
- 1 - Very Dissatisfied: 2%
After a brief delay, to enhance the anticipation (that's my story, and I'm sticking to it!), more than half of the voters awarded Vidal Nuno a four, with the balance roughly split between fives and down the chart. This is one case where expectations probably benefited a player: his track record in New York was far from stellar, and I think many of us probably felt like TucsonTim, that this was simply the team getting out from under a bad contract. That Nuño ended up being almost as valuable for Arizona this season as Martin Prado, was an entirely unexpected pleasure. He may not be in the Opening Day rotation, but I suspect we will see Vidal at some point next season.
The Scoreboard
- Evan Marshall: 4.76 (119 votes)
- Josh Collmenter: 4.71 (151)
- Paul Goldschmidt: 4.64 (168)
- Ender Inciarte: 4.51 (111)
- Chase Anderson: 4.18 (161)
- Vidal Nuno: 3.96 (92)
- Eury de la Rosa: 3.63 (91)
- Tuffy Gosewisch: 3.50 (113)
- Brandon McCarthy 3.43 (542)***
- Jake Lamb 3.31 (115)
- Wade Miley 2.94 (122)
- Didi Gregorius: 2.75 (106)
- Miguel Montero: 2.67 (128)
- Mike Bolsinger: 2.67 (117)
- Bronson Arroyo: 2.63 (125)
- Will Harris 2.49 (61)
- Randall Delgado: 2.25 (122)
- Aaron Hill 2.11 (91)
- Trevor Cahill: 1.07 (147)
Nuño moves into sixth place on the leader-board, bridging a half-point gap between Anderson and de la Rosa, and coming just short of a four. Not bad, considering I doubt many of us had even heard of him, before the middle of July!
When we traded for Nuno
I thought it was a pure salary dump and he’d be in Reno almost immediately. The fact that he pitched as well as he did for 14 starts gets a strong 4 from me. Obviously a candidate for regression based on his BABIP, but may still be in the starting rotation in 2015 holding a spot til one of Corbin/Arroyo/ Bradley force him out. At 1-2 WAR at league minimum I’m happy to have him.