SoxProspects News
|
|
|
|
Legal
Forum Ground Rules
The views expressed by the members of this Forum do not necessarily reflect the views of SoxProspects, LLC.
© 2003-2024 SoxProspects, LLC
|
|
|
|
|
Forum Home | Search | My Profile | Messages | Members | Help |
Welcome Guest. Please Login or Register.
Red Sox acquire LHP Drew Pomeranz for RHP Anderson Espinoza
|
Post by rjp313jr on Aug 1, 2017 7:44:39 GMT -5
Maybe I do need to re-evaluate my idea of a number good number two starter, but your evaluations aren't going to change that. I'm more interested in what the second best starter looks like over the years on the best teams in baseball not the average range of 16-45 on a given year. It really means little to me considering fluctuations, injuries and the fact that I don't care about an average or poor team. I care about a really good team.
What Pomeranz has shown over and over and over again is that he cannot give you 7 innings basically ever. When he goes to the mound you know there is about a 95% chance you need 3 innings from your bullpen and around a 50% chance you need more than that. If I'm building a team to win a title that's not something I want from my second best starter.
I think he's been better than we could have hoped for this year and he's been very valuable to the team. This isn't to say he hasn't. It's to say he's not enough because of his short comings in the area to be everything this team needs in a second best starter. Straining the bullpen is a problem, I'd rather leave reserved for 2 of my lower "ranked"' starters. By the way I'm not suggesting he's at all a problem for this team. He's done his job and then some. He was never supposed to be filling the 2nd starter role. He was supposed to be the 4th guy and he's done that and then some. Price and Porcello have been the problems.
|
|
ericmvan
Veteran
Supposed to be working on something more important
Posts: 8,926
|
Post by ericmvan on Aug 1, 2017 10:39:29 GMT -5
Maybe I do need to re-evaluate my idea of a number good number two starter, but your evaluations aren't going to change that. I'm more interested in what the second best starter looks like over the years on the best teams in baseball not the average range of 16-45 on a given year. It really means little to me considering fluctuations, injuries and the fact that I don't care about an average or poor team. I care about a really good team. What Pomeranz has shown over and over and over again is that he cannot give you 7 innings basically ever. When he goes to the mound you know there is about a 95% chance you need 3 innings from your bullpen and around a 50% chance you need more than that. If I'm building a team to win a title that's not something I want from my second best starter. I think he's been better than we could have hoped for this year and he's been very valuable to the team. This isn't to say he hasn't. It's to say he's not enough because of his short comings in the area to be everything this team needs in a second best starter. Straining the bullpen is a problem, I'd rather leave reserved for 2 of my lower "ranked"' starters. By the way I'm not suggesting he's at all a problem for this team. He's done his job and then some. He was never supposed to be filling the 2nd starter role. He was supposed to be the 4th guy and he's done that and then some. Price and Porcello have been the problems. I'm more interested in what the second best starter looks like over the years on the best teams in baseball not the average range of 16-45 on a given year.
My method starts with the basic idea that only good teams / contenders have aces, so there are only 15 of them. The next 30 pitchers, one for each team, are #2 quality pitchers, but half of them will be the best pitcher on a non-contender and half will be the #2 on a contender. This logic assumes that that the best starters aren't disproportionately lumped on the contenders, which would appear to be true, otherwise you'd see much more competitive imbalance. Indeed, there are just two teams this year with two aces, the Nationals with Scherzer and Gio Gonzalez and the Snakes with the Zacks, Greinke and Godley. And there are four contenders whose second best pitcher has been 3rd-starter quality, the Mariners' Ariel Miranda, the Astros' Mike Fiers, the Cubs' Kyle Hendricks, and the Rays' Matt Andriese. So, my method regards an average #2 starter as the 30th best pitcher in baseball. The average rank of the actual #2 starters on the 14 contenders right now is 34. The median is 31.5. The numbers are the same whether you regard the Dodgers 1-2 as Kershaw and Wood, or Wood and Darvish. What Pomeranz has shown over and over and over again is that he cannot give you 7 innings basically ever.
First of all, if you go 6 innings, that's not a strain on the bullpen. There are very few starting pitchers who, while pitching the 7th, are better than their team's relief option at that point. Teams with good, rested bullpens now routinely pull guys before they face the order the third time. They don't wait for the starter to get in trouble. A guy who can give you 7 full innings once in a while does have some extra value. And they're almost all aces. A great pitcher who goes no deeper in the game than the average pitcher is, pretty obviously and more or less by definition, not hurting you in any way. Your head is stuck in 1990. When he goes to the mound you know there is about a 95% chance you need 3 innings from your bullpen and around a 50% chance you need more than that.
If by 95% you meant 64%, and if by 50% you meant 29%, that's true. (Those are the figures for his last 14 starts. I'm counting the start he was lifted with a big lead after 5.0 and 83 pitches as a virtual 6 inning start. That's just smart managing.) The teams right now that can throw a #2 better than Pomeranz (based on his last 14 starts) are the aforementioned Nationals and Snakes, the Royals (Danny Duffy), the Indians (Carlos Carrasco), and the Rockies (German Marquez). None of those clubs have an ace better than Sale (although Scherzer has been his equal). The only other club that looks to have an advantage in #1 / #2 over us besides the Nationals is the Indians, with Kluber and Carrasco.
|
|
|
Post by James Dunne on Aug 1, 2017 10:59:03 GMT -5
So I went through and broke things down by team. As of this morning, simply going by Baseball-Ref's WAR calculation, Pomeranz is 31st in the league among starters. Only eight teams have gotten better performance from their #2 starter (and two teams, Washington and Arizona, have a third-best starter having a better season). There are ten teams who have zero starters having a better year than Pomeranz. I don't like to get too deeply into the #1 vs. #2 vs. #3 stuff, but Pomeranz has been better than the median second-best starter. He's good. If your expectations for what a #2 starter are different than that, those are your expectations and not current baseball reality.
And I'll note that I used B-Ref because it's runs-allowed measure allows us to simply look at their performance retroactively without trying to take into account predictive. Fangraphs actually rates Pomeranz very slightly higher rank wise, and both systems give him a WAR of 2.2 on the season.
|
|
ericmvan
Veteran
Supposed to be working on something more important
Posts: 8,926
|
Post by ericmvan on Aug 1, 2017 11:17:16 GMT -5
So I went through and broke things down by team. As of this morning, simply going by Baseball-Ref's WAR calculation, Pomeranz is 31st in the league among starters. Only eight teams have gotten better performance from their #2 starter (and two teams, Washington and Arizona, have a third-best starter having a better season). There are ten teams who have zero starters having a better year than Pomeranz. I don't like to get too deeply into the #1 vs. #2 vs. #3 stuff, but Pomeranz has been better than the median second-best starter. He's good. If your expectations for what a #2 starter are different than that, those are your expectations and not current baseball reality. And I'll note that I used B-Ref because it's runs-allowed measure allows us to simply look at their performance retroactively without trying to take into account predictive. Fangraphs actually rates Pomeranz very slightly higher rank wise, and both systems give him a WAR of 2.2 on the season. The 2.2 is 0.2 over his first 7 starts and 2.0 over his last 14. That's bWAR, estimated. But fWAR has to be similar, as he went from a 110 FIP- to 76. The latter would rank 16th or 17th in MLB.
|
|
gerry
Veteran
Enter your message here...
Posts: 1,666
Member is Online
|
Post by gerry on Aug 1, 2017 11:35:55 GMT -5
So James.and Eric have dug up factual data that demonstrate we currently showcase an elite Ace and an above average #2, if such "snapshot in time" titles are meaningful. That anchors a powerful rotation which includes two recent Cy Young winners and a 23 year old with great promise, each of whom could be a dominant #2 if things go well, and an easy #3 even now ... and a suddenly viable Fister who pitched like a #2/3 last night.
The trade for Pom is not only working but getting better every outing. Let's wait and see how he finishes 2017. I, for one, am liking his odds of improving as he regains health and confidence in his prime.
|
|
|
Post by jodyreidnichols on Aug 1, 2017 11:53:38 GMT -5
Maybe I do need to re-evaluate my idea of a number good number two starter, but your evaluations aren't going to change that. I'm more interested in what the second best starter looks like over the years on the best teams in baseball not the average range of 16-45 on a given year. It really means little to me considering fluctuations, injuries and the fact that I don't care about an average or poor team. I care about a really good team. What Pomeranz has shown over and over and over again is that he cannot give you 7 innings basically ever. When he goes to the mound you know there is about a 95% chance you need 3 innings from your bullpen and around a 50% chance you need more than that. If I'm building a team to win a title that's not something I want from my second best starter. I think he's been better than we could have hoped for this year and he's been very valuable to the team. This isn't to say he hasn't. It's to say he's not enough because of his short comings in the area to be everything this team needs in a second best starter. Straining the bullpen is a problem, I'd rather leave reserved for 2 of my lower "ranked"' starters. By the way I'm not suggesting he's at all a problem for this team. He's done his job and then some. He was never supposed to be filling the 2nd starter role. He was supposed to be the 4th guy and he's done that and then some. Price and Porcello have been the problems. I'm more interested in what the second best starter looks like over the years on the best teams in baseball not the average range of 16-45 on a given year.
My method starts with the basic idea that only good teams / contenders have aces, so there are only 15 of them. The next 30 pitchers, one for each team, are #2 quality pitchers, but half of them will be the best pitcher on a non-contender and half will be the #2 on a contender. This logic assumes that that the best starters aren't disproportionately lumped on the contenders, which would appear to be true, otherwise you'd see much more competitive imbalance. Indeed, there are just two teams this year with two aces, the Nationals with Scherzer and Gio Gonzalez and the Snakes with the Zacks, Greinke and Godley. And there are four contenders whose second best pitcher has been 3rd-starter quality, the Mariners' Ariel Miranda, the Astros' Mike Fiers, the Cubs' Kyle Hendricks, and the Rays' Matt Andriese. So, my method regards an average #2 starter as the 30th best pitcher in baseball. The average rank of the actual #2 starters on the 14 contenders right now is 34. The median is 31.5. The numbers are the same whether you regard the Dodgers 1-2 as Kershaw and Wood, or Wood and Darvish. What Pomeranz has shown over and over and over again is that he cannot give you 7 innings basically ever.
First of all, if you go 6 innings, that's not a strain on the bullpen. There are very few starting pitchers who, while pitching the 7th, are better than their team's relief option at that point. Teams with good, rested bullpens now routinely pull guys before they face the order the third time. They don't wait for the starter to get in trouble. A guy who can give you 7 full innings once in a while does have some extra value. And they're almost all aces. A great pitcher who goes no deeper in the game than the average pitcher is, pretty obviously and more or less by definition, not hurting you in any way. Your head is stuck in 1990. When he goes to the mound you know there is about a 95% chance you need 3 innings from your bullpen and around a 50% chance you need more than that.
If by 95% you meant 64%, and if by 50% you meant 29%, that's true. (Those are the figures for his last 14 starts. I'm counting the start he was lifted with a big lead after 5.0 and 83 pitches as a virtual 6 inning start. That's just smart managing.) The teams right now that can throw a #2 better than Pomeranz (based on his last 14 starts) are the aforementioned Nationals and Snakes, the Royals (Danny Duffy), the Indians (Carlos Carrasco), and the Rockies (German Marquez). None of those clubs have an ace better than Sale (although Scherzer has been his equal). The only other club that looks to have an advantage in #1 / #2 over us besides the Nationals is the Indians, with Kluber and Carrasco. How can someone claim they are not wrong and that others think they are just smarter than everyone else then proceed to just make up numbers to support there claim? If you believe you are right you might should use factual numbers to support your claim. Eric here, myself and others have used factual evidence to support our claim. We have not made up "facts". If you refuse to concede that you may be wrong regardless of whether you believe the other person just wants to prove how smart they are then who are you really hurting? I can't think of alot of things worse then refusing to change your opinion when confronted with facts, but it's far more common than I care to admit. Please read the link for more info. www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-to-convince-someone-when-facts-fail/
|
|
|
Post by jodyreidnichols on Aug 1, 2017 11:54:55 GMT -5
So I went through and broke things down by team. As of this morning, simply going by Baseball-Ref's WAR calculation, Pomeranz is 31st in the league among starters. Only eight teams have gotten better performance from their #2 starter (and two teams, Washington and Arizona, have a third-best starter having a better season). There are ten teams who have zero starters having a better year than Pomeranz. I don't like to get too deeply into the #1 vs. #2 vs. #3 stuff, but Pomeranz has been better than the median second-best starter. He's good. If your expectations for what a #2 starter are different than that, those are your expectations and not current baseball reality. And I'll note that I used B-Ref because it's runs-allowed measure allows us to simply look at their performance retroactively without trying to take into account predictive. Fangraphs actually rates Pomeranz very slightly higher rank wise, and both systems give him a WAR of 2.2 on the season. In evaluating did you factor in NL compared to AL line-ups etc?
|
|
|
Post by jodyreidnichols on Aug 1, 2017 11:59:07 GMT -5
So I went through and broke things down by team. As of this morning, simply going by Baseball-Ref's WAR calculation, Pomeranz is 31st in the league among starters. Only eight teams have gotten better performance from their #2 starter (and two teams, Washington and Arizona, have a third-best starter having a better season). There are ten teams who have zero starters having a better year than Pomeranz. I don't like to get too deeply into the #1 vs. #2 vs. #3 stuff, but Pomeranz has been better than the median second-best starter. He's good. If your expectations for what a #2 starter are different than that, those are your expectations and not current baseball reality. And I'll note that I used B-Ref because it's runs-allowed measure allows us to simply look at their performance retroactively without trying to take into account predictive. Fangraphs actually rates Pomeranz very slightly higher rank wise, and both systems give him a WAR of 2.2 on the season. The 2.2 is 0.2 over his first 7 starts and 2.0 over his last 14. That's bWAR, estimated. But fWAR has to be similar, as he went from a 110 FIP- to 76. The latter would rank 16th or 17th in MLB. Eric, in support of this have you looked at last season for Pomeranz? His first start aside (13 days between starts after the trade) and up to Sept. when he clearly ran out of gas, check out how well he pitched, despite the masses (fed by many in the media) believing he pitched terribly.
|
|
|
Post by James Dunne on Aug 1, 2017 12:02:28 GMT -5
So I went through and broke things down by team. As of this morning, simply going by Baseball-Ref's WAR calculation, Pomeranz is 31st in the league among starters. Only eight teams have gotten better performance from their #2 starter (and two teams, Washington and Arizona, have a third-best starter having a better season). There are ten teams who have zero starters having a better year than Pomeranz. I don't like to get too deeply into the #1 vs. #2 vs. #3 stuff, but Pomeranz has been better than the median second-best starter. He's good. If your expectations for what a #2 starter are different than that, those are your expectations and not current baseball reality. And I'll note that I used B-Ref because it's runs-allowed measure allows us to simply look at their performance retroactively without trying to take into account predictive. Fangraphs actually rates Pomeranz very slightly higher rank wise, and both systems give him a WAR of 2.2 on the season. In evaluating did you factor in NL compared to AL line-ups etc? Yessir. WAR takes opponent quality into context. Here's a pretty good chart from B-Ref about what the different WAR calculations do, and don't, take into effect: www.baseball-reference.com/about/war_explained_comparison.shtml
|
|
ericmvan
Veteran
Supposed to be working on something more important
Posts: 8,926
|
Post by ericmvan on Aug 2, 2017 1:59:13 GMT -5
The 2.2 is 0.2 over his first 7 starts and 2.0 over his last 14. That's bWAR, estimated. But fWAR has to be similar, as he went from a 110 FIP- to 76. The latter would rank 16th or 17th in MLB. Eric, in support of this have you looked at last season for Pomeranz? His first start aside (13 days between starts after the trade) and up to Sept. when he clearly ran out of gas, check out how well he pitched, despite the masses (fed by many in the media) believing he pitched terribly. I think I noted it at the time. I thought he was a #2 when we traded for him. His first four starts were actually shaky, but then he ran off six with very good numbers: 62 ERA-, 83 FIP-, 84 xFIP-. We knew he was hurting when they got him, so I thought that demonstrated that the talent was there. There's another big reason to like the guy, though. It's my favorite secret split: career OPS versus 3 and 4 hitters minus OPS versus 7 through 9 hitters (excluding pitchers). It's a proxy for a more accurate split by opposing hitter quality. Guys with a small split fare relatively better in the post-season when they face better (sometimes elite) lineups. I first cooked this up in 2004 and used it to predict that the Cardinals' rotation, which many thought was underrated, would get destroyed by the Sox offense. They had all feasted on weak lineups. It also pretty much explains why Lester was so good for us in the postseason. He wasn't rising to the occasion--he was just always relatively better against the best hitters and not fattening his numbers by unduly dominating the bottom of the order. Here is the split, from best to worse, for all of the guys who pitch for AL contenders and have pitched like a 3rd starter or better this year, excluding the Indians' Mike Clevinger and the Yankees' Jordan Montgomery, whose careers are too short for their splits to have even tentative meaning. W/G is bWAR per 30 GS, as of a few days ago. PQS stands Proxy Quality Split. A word on interpreting this: the better a pitcher is, the bigger his split will tend to be, because they naturally do dominate bottom of the order hitters. So you want to look at both how good they have been and how you'd adjust it for the split. From these numbers, for instance, Corey Kluber may well be a tougher post-season pitcher than ether Sale or Keuchel, but they're probably still the top 3. The numbers can also be misleading if a guy is pitching much better or worse than his career. If King Felix's decline has been more a lack of dominating bad hitters, then his true split right now is smaller. Jason Vargas's may be bigger. Also, smaller samples (like ERod's) are very crude. Name Tm W/30 PQS Edu. Rodriguez* BOS 2.3 -49 Drew Pomeranz* BOS 3.1 -7 Jason Vargas* KCR 5.9 29 Alex Cobb TBR 3.0 32 Carlos Carrasco CLE 5.1 67 Sonny Gray NYY 3.2 70 Luis Severino NYY 6.0 79 Jaime Garcia* NYY 2.1 79 CC Sabathia* NYY 3.5 86 Danny Duffy* KCR 5.3 89 James Paxton* SEA 5.7 107 Corey Kluber CLE 7.2 114 David Price* BOS 3.0 117 Charlie Morton HOU 1.9 119 Mike Fiers HOU 2.3 123 Ian Kennedy KCR 2.1 124 Brad Peacock HOU 5.7 127 Chris Archer TBR 1.9 147 Felix Hernandez SEA 2.0 149 Dallas Keuchel* HOU 8.0 155 Chris Sale* BOS 7.7 157 Ariel Miranda* SEA 2.6 157 Matt Andriese TBR 2.0 328 One thing to note: Price's post-season struggles can't be explained this way. A 117 split is good for a guy with his career.
|
|
|
Post by rjp313jr on Aug 2, 2017 16:49:00 GMT -5
Maybe I do need to re-evaluate my idea of a number good number two starter, but your evaluations aren't going to change that. I'm more interested in what the second best starter looks like over the years on the best teams in baseball not the average range of 16-45 on a given year. It really means little to me considering fluctuations, injuries and the fact that I don't care about an average or poor team. I care about a really good team. What Pomeranz has shown over and over and over again is that he cannot give you 7 innings basically ever. When he goes to the mound you know there is about a 95% chance you need 3 innings from your bullpen and around a 50% chance you need more than that. If I'm building a team to win a title that's not something I want from my second best starter. I think he's been better than we could have hoped for this year and he's been very valuable to the team. This isn't to say he hasn't. It's to say he's not enough because of his short comings in the area to be everything this team needs in a second best starter. Straining the bullpen is a problem, I'd rather leave reserved for 2 of my lower "ranked"' starters. By the way I'm not suggesting he's at all a problem for this team. He's done his job and then some. He was never supposed to be filling the 2nd starter role. He was supposed to be the 4th guy and he's done that and then some. Price and Porcello have been the problems. I'm more interested in what the second best starter looks like over the years on the best teams in baseball not the average range of 16-45 on a given year.
My method starts with the basic idea that only good teams / contenders have aces, so there are only 15 of them. The next 30 pitchers, one for each team, are #2 quality pitchers, but half of them will be the best pitcher on a non-contender and half will be the #2 on a contender. This logic assumes that that the best starters aren't disproportionately lumped on the contenders, which would appear to be true, otherwise you'd see much more competitive imbalance. Indeed, there are just two teams this year with two aces, the Nationals with Scherzer and Gio Gonzalez and the Snakes with the Zacks, Greinke and Godley. And there are four contenders whose second best pitcher has been 3rd-starter quality, the Mariners' Ariel Miranda, the Astros' Mike Fiers, the Cubs' Kyle Hendricks, and the Rays' Matt Andriese. So, my method regards an average #2 starter as the 30th best pitcher in baseball. The average rank of the actual #2 starters on the 14 contenders right now is 34. The median is 31.5. The numbers are the same whether you regard the Dodgers 1-2 as Kershaw and Wood, or Wood and Darvish. What Pomeranz has shown over and over and over again is that he cannot give you 7 innings basically ever.
First of all, if you go 6 innings, that's not a strain on the bullpen. There are very few starting pitchers who, while pitching the 7th, are better than their team's relief option at that point. Teams with good, rested bullpens now routinely pull guys before they face the order the third time. They don't wait for the starter to get in trouble. A guy who can give you 7 full innings once in a while does have some extra value. And they're almost all aces. A great pitcher who goes no deeper in the game than the average pitcher is, pretty obviously and more or less by definition, not hurting you in any way. Your head is stuck in 1990. When he goes to the mound you know there is about a 95% chance you need 3 innings from your bullpen and around a 50% chance you need more than that.
If by 95% you meant 64%, and if by 50% you meant 29%, that's true. (Those are the figures for his last 14 starts. I'm counting the start he was lifted with a big lead after 5.0 and 83 pitches as a virtual 6 inning start. That's just smart managing.) The teams right now that can throw a #2 better than Pomeranz (based on his last 14 starts) are the aforementioned Nationals and Snakes, the Royals (Danny Duffy), the Indians (Carlos Carrasco), and the Rockies (German Marquez). None of those clubs have an ace better than Sale (although Scherzer has been his equal). The only other club that looks to have an advantage in #1 / #2 over us besides the Nationals is the Indians, with Kluber and Carrasco. That's cool we will just evaluate him off his best 14 start stretch and make every other pitcher use that same period of time and ignore his career track record. I expect my second best starter to tax the bullpen less than he does. That's all. He's been great this year but that's his weakness. Admitting someone has a weakness is saying he's a bad pitcher. If you think his innings pitched are a strength then you are entitled, I'll just respectfully disagree.
|
|
|
Post by rjp313jr on Aug 2, 2017 16:52:56 GMT -5
Eric, in support of this have you looked at last season for Pomeranz? His first start aside (13 days between starts after the trade) and up to Sept. when he clearly ran out of gas, check out how well he pitched, despite the masses (fed by many in the media) believing he pitched terribly. I think I noted it at the time. I thought he was a #2 when we traded for him. His first four starts were actually shaky, but then he ran off six with very good numbers: 62 ERA-, 83 FIP-, 84 xFIP-. We knew he was hurting when they got him, so I thought that demonstrated that the talent was there. There's another big reason to like the guy, though. It's my favorite secret split: career OPS versus 3 and 4 hitters minus OPS versus 7 through 9 hitters (excluding pitchers). It's a proxy for a more accurate split by opposing hitter quality. Guys with a small split fare relatively better in the post-season when they face better (sometimes elite) lineups. I first cooked this up in 2004 and used it to predict that the Cardinals' rotation, which many thought was underrated, would get destroyed by the Sox offense. They had all feasted on weak lineups. It also pretty much explains why Lester was so good for us in the postseason. He wasn't rising to the occasion--he was just always relatively better against the best hitters and not fattening his numbers by unduly dominating the bottom of the order. Here is the split, from best to worse, for all of the guys who pitch for AL contenders and have pitched like a 3rd starter or better this year, excluding the Indians' Mike Clevinger and the Yankees' Jordan Montgomery, whose careers are too short for their splits to have even tentative meaning. W/G is bWAR per 30 GS, as of a few days ago. PQS stands Proxy Quality Split. A word on interpreting this: the better a pitcher is, the bigger his split will tend to be, because they naturally do dominate bottom of the order hitters. So you want to look at both how good they have been and how you'd adjust it for the split. From these numbers, for instance, Corey Kluber may well be a tougher post-season pitcher than ether Sale or Keuchel, but they're probably still the top 3. The numbers can also be misleading if a guy is pitching much better or worse than his career. If King Felix's decline has been more a lack of dominating bad hitters, then his true split right now is smaller. Jason Vargas's may be bigger. Also, smaller samples (like ERod's) are very crude. Name Tm W/30 PQS Edu. Rodriguez* BOS 2.3 -49 Drew Pomeranz* BOS 3.1 -7 Jason Vargas* KCR 5.9 29 Alex Cobb TBR 3.0 32 Carlos Carrasco CLE 5.1 67 Sonny Gray NYY 3.2 70 Luis Severino NYY 6.0 79 Jaime Garcia* NYY 2.1 79 CC Sabathia* NYY 3.5 86 Danny Duffy* KCR 5.3 89 James Paxton* SEA 5.7 107 Corey Kluber CLE 7.2 114 David Price* BOS 3.0 117 Charlie Morton HOU 1.9 119 Mike Fiers HOU 2.3 123 Ian Kennedy KCR 2.1 124 Brad Peacock HOU 5.7 127 Chris Archer TBR 1.9 147 Felix Hernandez SEA 2.0 149 Dallas Keuchel* HOU 8.0 155 Chris Sale* BOS 7.7 157 Ariel Miranda* SEA 2.6 157 Matt Andriese TBR 2.0 328 One thing to note: Price's post-season struggles can't be explained this way. A 117 split is good for a guy with his career. You also predicted the Sox rotation if mediocre arms 3 years ago was going to be one of the best because of its great depth and it sucked which wasn't a surprise to most of us.
|
|
ericmvan
Veteran
Supposed to be working on something more important
Posts: 8,926
|
Post by ericmvan on Aug 2, 2017 22:56:40 GMT -5
You also predicted the Sox rotation if mediocre arms 3 years ago was going to be one of the best because of its great depth and it sucked which wasn't a surprise to most of us. If your point is that I'm not infallible, I take that as a huge compliment. Thank you. I mentioned the predictive power of this metric because that's what good metrics need to do. It's not a boast about how good I am at predicting stuff.
|
|
|
Post by umassgrad2005 on Aug 3, 2017 0:40:43 GMT -5
A broken watch is right twice a day. Just saying.
|
|
ericmvan
Veteran
Supposed to be working on something more important
Posts: 8,926
|
Post by ericmvan on Aug 3, 2017 9:01:52 GMT -5
A broken watch is right twice a day. Just saying. I don't mention my track record unless challenged. How many people here remained high on Travis Shaw after last year? How many thought Devers might be in MLB next year, as soon as they'd burned a year of service time? (Which may well have been what happened if they'd had the luxury*). I insisted two winters ago that Porcello has been a #2 starter when we got him and should be able to return to that level. I was as high or higher than anyone else here on Steven Wright, Christian Vazquez, and Shaw, three guys that the consensus had as having marginal value. (Cute fact: Wright and Vazquez have been on the 40-man roster longer than anyone but Pedroia.) Do I have to keep going back in time? That's where the actual impressive stuff is. *Yeah, I also thought the offense would be great even without Ortiz. But I wanted to keep Shaw and sign Eric Thames, while those who worried about the offense wanted to sign Encarnacion or the equivalent, giving up a pick and either going over the luxury tax or blocking other moves. The offense has disappointed because a) guys have been hurt and/or underperformed, and b) MLB juiced the ball significantly and we've been one of the teams least helped by that. We're still 6th in MLB in OBP despite the off years.
|
|
|
Post by wkdbigpckfan on Aug 3, 2017 10:47:17 GMT -5
Just because Pomeranz has been our second best starter doesn't mean that's what he was brought in to do. He was brought in to stabilize the rotation when we had no idea what we were doing after Porcello and Price last year and he was pretty meh at that but he kept us in the game for five innings. This year he was slotted in as the 4th guy and it's not difficult to envision him being the fourth best starter going forward without his performance dropping off. Even if he's never going more than six innings he's still giving you six solid innings every time and every team in baseball would take that from your #4, or even your #3 starter. If he started two games in a playoff series how would you feel? I would feel pretty good about it
|
|
|
Post by James Dunne on Aug 3, 2017 10:59:52 GMT -5
It's been hard to evaluate Pomeranz without the context of this trade, but that's not really fair to him and it certainly has no bearing on a retroactive evaluation of how his performance has been so far in 2017. It is okay to think that Pomeranz has been good and will continue to be good, and also that the price to acquire him was too much based on the relative values of the players traded at the time. Those aren't at all mutually exclusive.
|
|
|
Post by jmei on Aug 3, 2017 11:19:53 GMT -5
A broken watch is right twice a day. Just saying. I don't mention my track record unless challenged. How many people here remained high on Travis Shaw after last year? How many thought Devers might be in MLB next year, as soon as they'd burned a year of service time? (Which may well have been what happened if they'd had the luxury*). I insisted two winters ago that Porcello has been a #2 starter when we got him and should be able to return to that level. I was as high or higher than anyone else here on Steven Wright, Christian Vazquez, and Shaw, three guys that the consensus had as having marginal value. (Cute fact: Wright and Vazquez have been on the 40-man roster longer than anyone but Pedroia.) Do I have to keep going back in time? That's where the actual impressive stuff is. *Yeah, I also thought the offense would be great even without Ortiz. But I wanted to keep Shaw and sign Eric Thames, while those who worried about the offense wanted to sign Encarnacion or the equivalent, giving up a pick and either going over the luxury tax or blocking other moves. The offense has disappointed because a) guys have been hurt and/or underperformed, and b) MLB juiced the ball significantly and we've been one of the teams least helped by that. We're still 6th in MLB in OBP despite the off years. Let's not continue this line of discussion in this thread. In general, let's try to avoid letting substantive arguments turn personal. Thanks.
|
|
|
Post by umassgrad2005 on Aug 3, 2017 12:04:07 GMT -5
I'm sorry but Porcello is now in his 3rd year here. One great year, one horrible year and a not good year. I think that proves our point, not yours. You can't predict we were getting a great #2 and then claim you were right when he was that one out of three years.
|
|
|
Post by soxjim on Aug 7, 2017 22:11:39 GMT -5
I'm more interested in what the second best starter looks like over the years on the best teams in baseball not the average range of 16-45 on a given year.
My method starts with the basic idea that only good teams / contenders have aces, so there are only 15 of them. The next 30 pitchers, one for each team, are #2 quality pitchers, but half of them will be the best pitcher on a non-contender and half will be the #2 on a contender. This logic assumes that that the best starters aren't disproportionately lumped on the contenders, which would appear to be true, otherwise you'd see much more competitive imbalance. Indeed, there are just two teams this year with two aces, the Nationals with Scherzer and Gio Gonzalez and the Snakes with the Zacks, Greinke and Godley. And there are four contenders whose second best pitcher has been 3rd-starter quality, the Mariners' Ariel Miranda, the Astros' Mike Fiers, the Cubs' Kyle Hendricks, and the Rays' Matt Andriese. So, my method regards an average #2 starter as the 30th best pitcher in baseball. The average rank of the actual #2 starters on the 14 contenders right now is 34. The median is 31.5. The numbers are the same whether you regard the Dodgers 1-2 as Kershaw and Wood, or Wood and Darvish. What Pomeranz has shown over and over and over again is that he cannot give you 7 innings basically ever.
First of all, if you go 6 innings, that's not a strain on the bullpen. There are very few starting pitchers who, while pitching the 7th, are better than their team's relief option at that point. Teams with good, rested bullpens now routinely pull guys before they face the order the third time. They don't wait for the starter to get in trouble. A guy who can give you 7 full innings once in a while does have some extra value. And they're almost all aces. A great pitcher who goes no deeper in the game than the average pitcher is, pretty obviously and more or less by definition, not hurting you in any way. Your head is stuck in 1990. When he goes to the mound you know there is about a 95% chance you need 3 innings from your bullpen and around a 50% chance you need more than that.
If by 95% you meant 64%, and if by 50% you meant 29%, that's true. (Those are the figures for his last 14 starts. I'm counting the start he was lifted with a big lead after 5.0 and 83 pitches as a virtual 6 inning start. That's just smart managing.) The teams right now that can throw a #2 better than Pomeranz (based on his last 14 starts) are the aforementioned Nationals and Snakes, the Royals (Danny Duffy), the Indians (Carlos Carrasco), and the Rockies (German Marquez). None of those clubs have an ace better than Sale (although Scherzer has been his equal). The only other club that looks to have an advantage in #1 / #2 over us besides the Nationals is the Indians, with Kluber and Carrasco. That's cool we will just evaluate him off his best 14 start stretch and make every other pitcher use that same period of time and ignore his career track record.
I expect my second best starter to tax the bullpen less than he does. That's all. He's been great this year but that's his weakness. Admitting someone has a weakness is saying he's a bad pitcher. If you think his innings pitched are a strength then you are entitled, I'll just respectfully disagree.I respectfully disagree with your analysis as well. As Red Sox fans imo we know that Pomeranz was not healthy to start the year. We know when he was traded for, it was because of his 3rd pitch - the cutter. We also know the point he started to throw his cutter more this year - was around the 14 game stretch. If you choose not to use that as a barometer / disregard it-- or say "many people are hurt like him" etc-- that is certainly your right - and I respect it. I just feel we aren't in a court of law here if there is a counter to my opinion. I know what I read and see and I know the 14 games are more representative of what he more likely is. I know he wasn't throwing his cutter early on now (I didn't know that to start the season.). I know once he does throw it along with his other two pitches he's been clearly the Red Sox number 2 pitcher for a strong pitching baseball team. IE one of the best pitching teams in baseball this year - I know Pomz is our number 2 as of right now. For me that's a 2. And now that I think he has been pitching like a 2 once he started using his cutter -- he continues to maintain the "2 level" as a starter - I make this trade every day every minute twice on Sunday considering we're trying to win now. And at the time we made the trade - we still had a solid farm. And I don't agree a pitcher that averages 6 innings per start (5.9 and rising) like he has done once he started using his cutter again "taxes the bullpen." I do expect the rest of the way he'll be a consistent 6 inning pitcher unless Farrell is comfortable at the end of the season and gives him additional rest to be ready for the playoffs. But once he steps on the mound, he is a 2 now imo as long as he is healthy.
|
|
|
Post by James Dunne on Aug 8, 2017 9:01:55 GMT -5
Soxjim - I agree with the content of your argument, but the bolding of "know" every time you write it is condescending and obnoxious.
RJP - your ideal of what a #2 starter should be just isn't really important - you keep falling back on your "taxing the bullpen argument" but that just isn't the standard. It'd be like if I said Wade Boggs wasn't a good third baseman because I need a third baseman to put up 15 homers or something. Pomeranz has a 3.1 WAR in 189 innings since coming to Boston. He makes up for (very slightly) sub-optimal durability with excellent performance - 8th in the AL in ERA+, 9th in FIP. Divorcing his performance from what Espinoza was worth at the time can be tough, but Pomeranz has, on his end of the deal, proven his defenders correct. Wanting a #2 starter to be more than what Pomeranz is just isn't a realistic ask.
|
|
|
Post by ryan24 on Aug 8, 2017 15:41:23 GMT -5
How many starters in the AL average 7 innings per? How many complete games have there been this year? Baseball is different . Teams use the bullpen a lot more than ever. Until this year I do not believe that I ever heard someone talk about bringing in one of your best relievers in in the 7th, because it is a high leverage situation and a winnable game. That's seems to be the way the game is played now.
|
|
|
Post by soxjim on Aug 9, 2017 6:46:09 GMT -5
Soxjim - I agree with the content of your argument, but the bolding of "know" every time you write it is condescending and obnoxious. RJP - your ideal of what a #2 starter should be just isn't really important - you keep falling back on your "taxing the bullpen argument" but that just isn't the standard. It'd be like if I said Wade Boggs wasn't a good third baseman because I need a third baseman to put up 15 homers or something. Pomeranz has a 3.1 WAR in 189 innings since coming to Boston. He makes up for (very slightly) sub-optimal durability with excellent performance - 8th in the AL in ERA+, 9th in FIP. Divorcing his performance from what Espinoza was worth at the time can be tough, but Pomeranz has, on his end of the deal, proven his defenders correct. Wanting a #2 starter to be more than what Pomeranz is just isn't a realistic ask. Whoa!!! When I made my post and even now when I read it-- I meant in no way for it to be even close - even close to condescending. I apologize to you and anyone else who thought that. I specifically put two separate paragraphs of "what we know" vs "what I know." I specifically said I respect rip. In the part that I said "what I know" I specifically said "it was my opinion" - had in the same paragraph for a reason of "what I know." In addition I made a point of something "I didn't know." I fully expected someone to disagree with "what I know." There was an active debate going on. James/rip-- I meant in no way to be condescending. I really thought someone might (maybe you rip or maybe someone) have had an issue with Pomz for only pitching 5.9 innings. Or possible cite his injuries as maybe someone you can never trust to be a 2. Or cite some advanced stat. I recently read posts from jmei and ericvman on another thread in which they were discussing WOBA. I had to look that up. The next time anyone uses it, I'll have to look it up again. The point I'm getting at is what I had said to either the poster redsox or jody on the Dave Dombrowski thread that many many people know more than me.And many of you know a ton about advanced stats. My post I fully expected a reply "you don't know . . ." James/rip I am sorry if my post appears that way - I did not mean it to be even close. I put in there in two seperate paragraphs rip - I respect you/. your opinion. In that 2nd paragraph I specifically put in it was "my opinion" -- "that I know." Sometimes someone can have a "soft opinion" other times you have "a hard opinion." I just wanted to show that my opinion was "a hard one." I didn't mean it to be condescending in any way. jmei- -- I didn't mean it. I can see another time I make a post similar you mention "I've been warned about this before . . ." This was not my intent to be condescending. I must have written it awfully. And again james/rip and anyone else sorry - but it was not my intent. I fully expected someone to disagree and I just tried to show what I felt was we would agree on vs what I felt strongly on. There was a debate going on before my post. I thought someone would pick off something I was wrong and come back at me and tell me where I'm wrong. These are stats issues. I can't ever be condescending on this site when it comes to stats. Not even close. I know that with every post. I didn't mean it!!
|
|
|
Post by Chris Hatfield on Aug 9, 2017 10:36:26 GMT -5
How many starters in the AL average 7 innings per? 2: Sale and Kluber 44. Ervin Santana of all people leads MLB with 5, followed by Kluber with 4. Scherzer, Nova, Stroman, and (believe it or not!) Porcello have 2 each. Then there's a whole bunch of guys with 1 each. It's a concept that's been around for a while. Theo Epstein built the 2003 bullpen based on this concept - at the time a much fringier concept limited to the Sabr crowd - and it failed spectacularly, leading to the Kim trade. I think that we've learned two things since then: 1) players are human and value knowing what their role is entering a game, and you can't assume every pitcher will respond just as well to "we'll use you any time between the 6th and 9th" to "your job is to pitch the Xth inning in a close game", and 2) in order to make it work, you basically need to have two excellent relievers (e.g. Allen and Miller in Cleveland) such that your closer is still great, allowing you to deploy the other guy as needed. While we're here, pitches per GS leaders: 1. Sale, 109 2. Verlander, 107 3. Porcello, Gio Gonzalez, Archer, 106 ... T-8. Price, E. Rodriguez, 4 others, 103 ... T-41. Pomeranz, Fister, bunch of others, 98 That said, looking at the leaderboard, it's pretty meaningless - pretty much everyone is clustered around 100. Spots 6 to 30 are the pitchers averaging 105 to 100 pitches. 31-161 are the pitchers between 90 and 99 pitches. At this point IP per start is probably more a measure of how efficient a pitcher is than how much his manager is letting him pitch, because guys are all coming out of games at about the same point if they're pitching well enough to stay in. EDIT: Also interesting, just 12 pitchers have thrown 120 pitches in a game this year. Pomeranz is the only Red Sox to do so. 44 have thrown at least 115 in a game - again, 120 seems to be the about absolute limit guys are allowed to reach.
|
|
ericmvan
Veteran
Supposed to be working on something more important
Posts: 8,926
|
Post by ericmvan on Aug 9, 2017 12:21:58 GMT -5
How many starters in the AL average 7 innings per? 2: Sale and Kluber 44. Ervin Santana of all people leads MLB with 5, followed by Kluber with 4. Scherzer, Nova, Stroman, and (believe it or not!) Porcello have 2 each. Then there's a whole bunch of guys with 1 each. It's a concept that's been around for a while. Theo Epstein built the 2003 bullpen based on this concept - at the time a much fringier concept limited to the Sabr crowd - and it failed spectacularly, leading to the Kim trade. I think that we've learned two things since then: 1) players are human and value knowing what their role is entering a game, and you can't assume every pitcher will respond just as well to "we'll use you any time between the 6th and 9th" to "your job is to pitch the Xth inning in a close game", and 2) in order to make it work, you basically need to have two excellent relievers (e.g. Allen and Miller in Cleveland) such that your closer is still great, allowing you to deploy the other guy as needed. While we're here, pitches per GS leaders: 1. Sale, 109 2. Verlander, 107 3. Porcello, Gio Gonzalez, Archer, 106 ... T-8. Price, E. Rodriguez, 4 others, 103 ... T-41. Pomeranz, Fister, bunch of others, 98 That said, looking at the leaderboard, it's pretty meaningless - pretty much everyone is clustered around 100. Spots 6 to 30 are the pitchers averaging 105 to 100 pitches. 31-161 are the pitchers between 90 and 99 pitches. At this point IP per start is probably more a measure of how efficient a pitcher is than how much his manager is letting him pitch, because guys are all coming out of games at about the same point if they're pitching well enough to stay in. EDIT: Also interesting, just 12 pitchers have thrown 120 pitches in a game this year. Pomeranz is the only Red Sox to do so. 44 have thrown at least 115 in a game - again, 120 seems to be the about absolute limit guys are allowed to reach. It's a bit off-topic, but now that we have Reed for the 8th and both Workman and Kelly / Abad for the 7th, Matt Barnes as Miller-style relief ace seems to be a no-brainer.
|
|
|