Snake Pit Appraisals: Zeke Spruill

Strengths

• "He's actually decent out of the bullpen. Marshall is better. Delgado is out of options (and found a groove in the bullpen), Cahill had to clear waivers to be able to get sent down. Perez, Ziegler, and Reed were all locked in for the season. There wasn’t exactly much in the way of bullpen room for Spruill to stick, even though he wasn’t making a fool of himself." - James Attwood
• "Looking at nine Diamondback relief pitchers, Spruill had the lowest percent (1% of batters faced)of hit-batters/wild-pitches. This is evidence of good pitch control. His ERA(3.57) was in the middle of the pack. His GIDP rate was high, although less than Zeigler’s. He was 25 years old, made league minimum, and was one of four rookie relievers." - Makakilo
• "3, no expectations to begin with, and he pitched so few innings, but the innings he did pitch were decent enough. If he had the same rates and ratios numbers over 2 or 3 times as many innings he would have got a 4" - shoewizard

Weaknesses

• "Our pitching sucked so bad this year that if the Dude was any good at all he would have stayed." - cnsieler

Towards 2015

Zeke Spruill was designated by the Diamondbacks and subsequently moved to the Boston Red Sox in exchange for 22-year-old right-handed relief pitcher Myles Smith.

Comment of the Thread

The Tally

• 5 - Highly Satisfied: 9%
  
• 4 - Somewhat Satisfied: 20%
• 3 - Neither Satisfied Nor Dissatisfied: 52%
• 2 - Somewhat Dissatisfied: 9%
• 1 - Very Dissatisfied: 10%

Unsurprisingly, a member of the team with so few appearances, that did nothing to set himself apart, good or bad, drew very little attention from the Snake Pit. By his very virtue of being so incredibly unremarkable, Spruill managed to get himself designated for assignment in order to make room for new arms that have a chance of improving the team. Overall, Spruill's brief time with the Diamondbacks since coming over in the Upton trade was remarkable unremarkable, and his eventual grade for 2014 showed it.

The scoreboard

1. David Peralta 4.82 (162 votes)
2. Evan Marshall 4.76 (119)
3. Josh Collmenter 4.71 (151)
4. Paul Goldschmidt 4.64 (168)
5. Ender Inciarte 4.51 (111)
6. A.J. Pollock 4.48 (132)
7. Chase Anderson 4.18 (161)
8. Chris Owings 4.13 (112)
9. Oliver Perez 4.12 (94)
10. Vidal Nuno 3.96 (92)
11. Eury de la Rosa 3.63 (91)
12. Cliff Pennington 3.52 (62)
    
13. Tuffy Gosewisch 3.50 (113)
14. Brandon McCarthy 3.43 (542)***
15. Jake Lamb 3.31 (115)
16. Gerardo Parra 3.14 (122)
17. Zeke Spruill 3.09 (89)
18. Wade Miley 2.94 (122)
19. Didi Gregorius 2.75 (106)
20. Miguel Montero 2.67 (128)
    
21. Mike Bolsinger 2.67 (117)
22. Bronson Arroyo 2.63 (125)
23. Will Harris 2.49 (61)
24. Randall Delgado 2.25 (122)
25. Martin Prado 2.16 (75)
26. Aaron Hill 2.11 (91)
27. Addison Reed 1.99 (114)
28. Cody Ross 1.48 (105)
29. Trevor Cahill 1.07 (147)

He avoids replacing Cahill in the cellar [that score is looking more and more untouchable!]. But Cody is more than half a point behind third-paced Reed, and one wonders whether anyone left will displace Ross from the runners-up spot.  I don't think it's any coincidence that the bottom spots almost all go to our most expensive players who, virtually without exception, failed to play up to expectations. There's a moral in there for new management.