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Post by raftsox on Aug 10, 2015 15:09:34 GMT -5
People need to inform themselves. There are dozens of guys who could not take the stress from the innings they pitched, with their careers either petering out or never reaching their full potential. Pointing out the ones who did go through the sieve is winner's bias with those other guys being ignored. One example, there are so many: The best pitcher on the 1975 and 1976 Angels teams wasn't Nolan Ryan, not by a long shot. It was a 21 and 22 year-old Frank Tanana. But the team insisted on sticking 750 innings on that arm by age 24. He was done as a power pitcher after that. While he went on to rack up almost 160 more wins, largely on guile, that was a HOF career shot to hell. That is if you believe Don Drysdale, then the Angles color man. He couldn't get enough of Tanana while Ryan drove him bats**t. The majors just burned through a lot of guys back then, shuffle them in, shuffle them out, till they found those magic arms. It wasn't till players started being properly valued, thanks to Marvin Miller - another HOF candidate in my opinion - that management started paying the proper attention to the talent. Let them throw all those pitches and see what happens to those multi-million dollar arms? There's a lot more reluctance to do that. What's that got to do with the current discussion ? Ray, What Norm is saying is that we're talking about increased prevalence of Tommy John Surgeries. The first procedure was in 1974, and at the time return to MLB form was rare; though it has improved greatly of late. Norm notes that pitchers were hurt all the time back then, too, but because the surgery either wasn't available or because recovery success was low so they never returned. You can't make the argument that "back in my day pitchers weren't coddled and we never had injuries" because it's not true. There were plenty of injuries throughout the history of baseball; just spend time on B-R looking at how many pitchers were fantastic for a season or two then either disappeared or were terrible. There usually isn't an account of their injury, but it's there to see. Also, frequency of throwing isn't causal; it has some correlation, but not nearly as strong as velocity. There IS an increase in velocity league-wide, and there have been some solid studies showing it's the strongest indicator of future elbow problems (I believe Dan Brooks of Brooks-baseball is one of the leading researchers in this field). You can look nowadays at minor league teams and see that players who throw mid-80s have no MLB future, but 50 years ago they certainly did. So, a few hundred things go into possible elbow problems; most of which we don't know anything for certain. We can say it's frequency of pitching, intensity of pitching, velocity at certain ages, etc., but there's nothing that is certain.
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Post by Oregon Norm on Aug 10, 2015 15:11:35 GMT -5
I hate to be evil but What is everyone going to do when Dr. James andrews is not going to be around to repair all these knees and elbows? He is getting old. Like if sports medicine was a sport he's probably the Michael Jordan of it. There may just be another surgeon or two willing to take his place. More to the point, does he have a deep bullpen? I'll bet there are few guys watching his performance over his shoulder.
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Post by jimed14 on Aug 10, 2015 15:39:40 GMT -5
I hate to be evil but What is everyone going to do when Dr. James andrews is not going to be around to repair all these knees and elbows? He is getting old. Like if sports medicine was a sport he's probably the Michael Jordan of it. There may just be another surgeon or two willing to take his place. More to the point, does he have a deep bullpen? I'll bet there are few guys watching his performance over his shoulder. I'm sure that's the jackpot of residencies.
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Post by m1keyboots on Aug 10, 2015 20:52:56 GMT -5
I don't have much to say on the James Andrew stuff, because it's just depressing. What I do have to say is, I hope the Red Sox move quickly, not rush but move him quickly because what seems obvious is the guy that throws hard in their early twenties, lose that velocity in their mid to late twenties. There's so many examples I know all of you well versed baseball fans know what I'm talking about. I just don't want to see espinoza have to prove himself more than once at Portland, OR in Pawtucket, and then he's in the league at 24, 25. If he has the stuff I'd like to see him up here at 20, 21 and let the stuff play. I can't comment much on his command, but his control is there, and with that mix of pitches and that fastball one would have to think he would experience some measure of success early at the big league level and build on that as it goes. Just my $0.02 on him moving quickly I'm going to go put on a limb and say he makes his debut in 2017, at age 19. if only my dreams could come true
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Post by telson13 on Aug 10, 2015 21:36:26 GMT -5
I hate to be evil but What is everyone going to do when Dr. James andrews is not going to be around to repair all these knees and elbows? He is getting old. Like if sports medicine was a sport he's probably the Michael Jordan of it. UCL surgery is pretty common nowadays. Obviously, there are a limited number of orthopedists that pro athletes go to (Bill Morgan at UMass was a truly superior hand surgeon), but they're out there. Somebody's always working on ways to improve technique, materials, healing, etc. Life will go on just as it did before, just with one less UCL specialist, and one less prime fellowship locale.
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Post by soxfan06 on Aug 10, 2015 22:19:26 GMT -5
So what are the odds of seeing Espinoza in Top 100 lists this winter?
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Post by larrycook on Aug 10, 2015 22:41:09 GMT -5
I hate to be evil but What is everyone going to do when Dr. James andrews is not going to be around to repair all these knees and elbows? He is getting old. Like if sports medicine was a sport he's probably the Michael Jordan of it. There may just be another surgeon or two willing to take his place. More to the point, does he have a deep bullpen? I'll bet there are few guys watching his performance over his shoulder. There is another surgeon in Birmingham. He was with the lemak group last I saw. his name is Ortega. Supposed to be an elbow savant.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Aug 11, 2015 0:33:02 GMT -5
That's probably the perfect-world projection [debut at 19], yeah. Greenville and Salem in 2016, placed in Portland in 2017 and dominates. Easier said than done but certainly not crazy. It's interesting to compare him to King Felix at the same age, even though Felix was pitching in short-season A ball and even had two great starts in low-A. Felix's BB% and HR/Contact were exactly league average, and his BABIP of .316 was actually higher than the league's .307. The only thing he had going for him statistically to reflect his prodigy status was his K rate of .318 versus league .195. You definitely give up harder contact when you try to strike everyone out. In contrast, Espinoza has a K rate of .198 versus league .201, BB of .081 versus .090, but hasn't given up a HR and has allowed a .256 BABIP versus .303 league. IOW, for all his velocity and stuff, he's getting the results of a finesse guy. Very interesting, in that it suggests that he's already pitching at an age when Felix was still just throwing. That plus the scouting report suggests he could move very quickly. BTW, of the 46 pitchers aged 17 or 18 in stateside Rookie ball (including the R+ leagues) with 20+ IP, only 3 have both a lower FIP and BABIP than Espinoza: the Blue Jays' Jose Espada, the Phillies' Edgar Garcia, and our own Kevin Steen. He ranks 8th in FIP and 11th in BABIP.
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Post by bookiemetts on Aug 11, 2015 0:43:26 GMT -5
Is this really true? Sorry to bring this up in the Espinoza thread but I'm curious. Is this Porcello's problem?
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Post by ethanbein on Aug 11, 2015 7:26:20 GMT -5
You definitely give up harder contact when you try to strike everyone out. Is this really true? Sorry to bring this up in the Espinoza thread but I'm curious. Is this Porcello's problem? Grabbed GCL stats (because maybe this is different in the minors) and ran a correlation of BABIP on K%, and they're negatively related, to the tune of about 1.3 points of decreased BABIP for each 1% increase in K%. That's not the end of the story obviously (correlation doesn't equal causation and all that) but I'm not really sure this is universally true.
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Post by jmei on Aug 11, 2015 8:19:55 GMT -5
Yeah, to flesh out Ethan's point, in the majors, higher strikeouts generally mean lower BABIPs, not the other way around. This makes intuitive sense-- the guys with the stuff (and deception, command, etc.) to get swings-and-misses are also likely to be the guys who can more easily induce weak contact, as those two skills should be side-by-side rather than on opposite ends of the spectrum.
I'm very skeptical that we can draw even the most tentative conclusions about Espinoza's level of polish based on 28 innings of GCL BABIP and home run rate.
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Post by stevedillard on Aug 11, 2015 8:42:38 GMT -5
There may just be another surgeon or two willing to take his place. More to the point, does he have a deep bullpen? I'll bet there are few guys watching his performance over his shoulder. There is another surgeon in Birmingham. He was with the lemak group last I saw. his name is Ortega. Supposed to be an elbow savant. Over on Sons of Frank Jobe they have him at #11 Apparently the 2016 orthopedic crop is very top heavy.
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Post by brnichols19873 on Aug 11, 2015 14:38:05 GMT -5
Here's a nice write-up on Espinoza from a former Sox Prospects writer who now writes for baseball Prospectus...
"Anderson Espinoza, RHP, Boston Red Sox (GCL Red Sox) After starting his professional journey in the Dominican Summer League, the Red Sox saw enough from the 17-year-old to give him an aggressive bump to the Gulf Coast League and in the process begin the right-hander’s assimilation to life stateside, on an earlier than expected timeline. The intrigue with Espinoza goes well beyond the $1.8 million signing bonus inked by the youngster a little over a year ago, with tangible evidence this could be a special arm in the making. Though, the expectation on the timing of that type of potential payout is well down the developmental road.
Despite presently being slender and thin, possessing a typical teenager’s body, the righty already shows impressive arm strength and natural looseness which enables him to dial his fastball into the mid-90s routinely. This isn’t an arm where it’s an exercise in projection when it comes to future velocity gains. Early chatter has highlighted the late explosiveness on his fastball that gives hope that it can evolve into a premium offering with some progression of his command. That talk also extends to his two secondary pitches, with early feel for creating tight rotation on his curveball, and shaping his changeup. Both represent offerings that can grow into executable weapons as experience continues to build through repetition.
It’s important to understand where an arm like Espinoza is in his professional journey, and not get too wrapped up in focusing on an end product that is a small dot on a distant horizon. There’s going to be plenty of time to dissect and assess the Venezuelan’s progress. The initial identification of a potential special package has been made, however, and it’s likely to carry into increasing prospect status as the year comes to a close. – Chris Mellen"
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Post by brnichols19873 on Aug 11, 2015 14:46:49 GMT -5
And here's a great video from his last start...
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Post by Oregon Norm on Aug 11, 2015 17:35:14 GMT -5
I'm not a pitching coach, and I'd need to see a lot more of him and probably in slow motion. But one of the possible concerns, to my admittedly untrained eyes, is this. From the two videos in the thread, he does appear to have some of that pattern to his windup and delivery. This isn't without controversy, and I don't want to start a fight, I only want to point out what I think I see.
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Post by James Dunne on Aug 11, 2015 18:44:29 GMT -5
I don't see it myself. Certainly not at the pronounced level of Strasbourg, Prior, Wheeler, Store, etc. Though that is far from the only indicator: John Lackey, for one, has what looks to my eye like a low-stress motion and he needed TJS.
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Post by Oregon Norm on Aug 11, 2015 19:20:23 GMT -5
What got my notice was his elbow, which is up near his shoulder as he comes around. It's not very pronounced, and he's just getting started. Probably no concern at all.
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Post by azblue on Aug 11, 2015 20:42:25 GMT -5
That GCL umpire has a strange style of not getting into his crouch until the ball has been released
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Aug 12, 2015 0:08:42 GMT -5
Yeah, to flesh out Ethan's point, in the majors, higher strikeouts generally mean lower BABIPs, not the other way around. This makes intuitive sense-- the guys with the stuff (and deception, command, etc.) to get swings-and-misses are also likely to be the guys who can more easily induce weak contact, as those two skills should be side-by-side rather than on opposite ends of the spectrum. I'm very skeptical that we can draw even the most tentative conclusions about Espinoza's level of polish based on 28 innings of GCL BABIP and home run rate. Notice I said "when you try to strike everyone out" rather than "when you strike out a lot of guys." I think my assertion is obviously true if you add what I should have added, "with pitches, especially fastballs, in the strike zone." If you challenge guys continually with a plus FB in the zone, you will get more strikeouts but give up harder contact; it's the inverse function of the hugely well-established fact that MLB hitters who strike out more hit the ball harder, which is nothing less than the titanic change in the way the game is played instituted by Babe Ruth. Modern hitters are not afraid to strike out when they see a FB in the zone. they're trying to hit it very hard. The more of those pitches you give them, the more hard contact you'll allow, relative to your stuff; it's quantitative rather than qualitative. Great strikeout pitchers have to get a significant percentage of their strikeouts on pitches out of the zone, and pitching that way leads to lower BABIP as well. That's the correlation you see in MLB, where essentially every pitcher has learned that you need to do this to at least some extent. The inverse correlation between a pitcher's K rate and their BABIP allowed is something you occasionally see within a pitcher's career or even within a season, as they make adjustments. Buchholz is the poster child. In his breakthrough 2010, he apparently made an adjustment at the end of May to challenge hitters less; his K/BB declined but his BABIP went down dramatically (after removing two outlier starts where he had no command and got destroyed, he had a statistically significant correlation, start-to-start, between his BABIP and K and BB rates across the season). I said at the time that I didn't think that this could be sustained for a whole career, and that eventually you'd see his BABIP rise and his K rate as well, which is what happened this year.
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Post by telson13 on Aug 12, 2015 14:36:04 GMT -5
Ho-hum. Four more innings, one hit, one unearned run, no walks, five whiffs. That's 21 hits (no HR) and a 3:1 K:BB rate in 32 innings, for a 0.84 ERA. Nothing to see here, please disperse.
In all seriousness, I don't think he belongs in the GCL at all at this point. Lowell maybe, age/exp-wise, Greenville performance wise. He hasn't come remotely close to struggling.
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Post by vermontsox1 on Aug 12, 2015 14:41:33 GMT -5
FWIW, from Badler's chat today:
Mike (Virginia): Are there any concerns about Anderson Espinoza's delivery/effort given how hard he throws?
Ben Badler: Good delivery, does things pretty free and easy.
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Post by jmei on Aug 19, 2015 15:44:22 GMT -5
Kiley McDaniel chat today:
12:34 Comment From Mike Have you seen Anderson Espinoza yet? If not, what have you heard about him?
12:36 Kiley McDaniel: Looking to track him down at some point this summer/fall. He’s into the high-90’s, flashes plus breaker, CH/CMD/delivery all good enough at this stage to keep starting. Aged like a 2016 draft prospect and there’s two (Groome/Pint) with similar stuff/command, but they’re both 6’5+, so for now Espinoza is probably a little behind them, but in that elite group if he was in the draft class
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Post by cologneredsox on Aug 20, 2015 5:23:07 GMT -5
Kiley McDaniel chat today: 12:34 Comment From Mike Have you seen Anderson Espinoza yet? If not, what have you heard about him? 12:36 Kiley McDaniel: Looking to track him down at some point this summer/fall. He’s into the high-90’s, flashes plus breaker, CH/CMD/delivery all good enough at this stage to keep starting. Aged like a 2016 draft prospect and there’s two (Groome/Pint) with similar stuff/command, but they’re both 6’5+, so for now Espinoza is probably a little behind them, but in that elite group if he was in the draft class I don't unterstand that. He's writing about similar stuff/command and additionally, Espinoza gave no doubt about the results so far. Why would he be behind then?
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wcp3
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Post by wcp3 on Aug 20, 2015 5:42:45 GMT -5
Apparently height means more in baseball than basketball these days.
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Post by jmei on Aug 20, 2015 6:05:19 GMT -5
Height matters insofar as it helps pitchers get better plane on their pitches (including having a release point closer to the plate, thus increasing deception) and suggests that a guy can hold up better to the physical demands of being a starting pitcher. The Epstein/Cherington administrations have long preferred tall pitchers.
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