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8/18-8/21 Red Sox @ Tigers Series Thread
danr
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Post by danr on Aug 21, 2016 20:43:23 GMT -5
Give Owens a break. He was parachuted in at the last minute and had no chance to catch his breath. I wasn't a bit surprised by what happened. I remain fairly optimistic about his future. I hope it is with the Sox but I would not be surprised if it is with another team.
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Post by ancientsoxfogey on Aug 21, 2016 21:08:48 GMT -5
Give Owens a break. He was parachuted in at the last minute and had no chance to catch his breath. I wasn't a bit surprised by what happened. I remain fairly optimistic about his future. I hope it is with the Sox but I would not be surprised if it is with another team. I'd say that the worse he looks now, the MORE likely it is that, if he ever finds himself it will be with the Sox. You can't get anything for him right now, so why get rid of him? Except that Dombrowski may just shrug his shoulders and include him as a secondary piece in a deal somewhere.
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ericmvan
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Supposed to be working on something more important
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Post by ericmvan on Aug 21, 2016 22:48:37 GMT -5
Give Owens a break. He was parachuted in at the last minute and had no chance to catch his breath. I wasn't a bit surprised by what happened. I remain fairly optimistic about his future. I hope it is with the Sox but I would not be surprised if it is with another team. I'd say that the worse he looks now, the MORE likely it is that, if he ever finds himself it will be with the Sox. You can't get anything for him right now, so why get rid of him? Except that Dombrowski may just shrug his shoulders and include him as a secondary piece in a deal somewhere. The only posts I'm reading now are the last posts in the thread I want to contribute to ... The first two innings of today's start actually demonstrated his upside. Folks still want to argue that his lack of FB command will negate the changeup's effectiveness against MLB hitters? OTOH, his last 3 AA starts notwithstanding, there remains no good evidence that he's improved his FB command at all over the course of this season. I'm more convinced than ever that he has a solid chance of turning into a Lester-level talent, and nothing I've seen has changed my feeling that, if it happens, it happens when he's 27 or 28. Now, the reason I came here is that today's apparently terrible JF decision casts some light on his thought processes. Recall that he had what seemed like a perfectly solid rationale for choosing Tazawa over Ziegler two games ago (it apparently didn't occur to him that he should have just let Ross continue), based on matchups and styles. He was actually making a pretty solid evaluation of the trees. What he missed, of course, was the forest: that Ziegler was at present a hugely better pitcher. Why did he walk Cabrera to face Martinzez? It turns out that Cabrera, in his career, has killed changeups (although he is below average against them this year), while the change is the one pitch that gives Martinez trouble. So the gap between them was larger than it seemed. With a changeup artist on the mound, it was in the area where you can debate whether the difference in hitter quality was large enough to make the IBB a good idea. Working in the other direction a bit: men on 2nd and 3rd is Cabrere'a worst (least great) base situation, which makes perfect sense: it's the one situation where you can pitch around him where he has two guys to knock in. So it makes sense that if he ever gets too eager and chases pitches he shouldn't, this is it. But it's unclear whether Owens could exploit that. (In a SSS, Martinez likes the bases loaded, but so do most hitters.) Of course, the forest here is that you never load the bases on purpose when your pitcher is walking more than a batter an inning and has been plagued by control problems his whole career. You can argue whether he should have come after Cabrera or pitched around him, but putting him on was not correct. It may not have mattered in this game, but it still makes you worry about what tactics we'll see from him in the post-season. He seems like he is working to use all the fine data they give him and missing the big picture in the process.
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Post by kyla13 on Aug 21, 2016 23:01:38 GMT -5
At least the good news is that despite losing out on an opportunity to go into first place, this is the kind of loss that doesn't sting at all. Verlander vs Owens at Detroit? The Sox aren't supposed to win this game anyways, and it's not like they "gave it away". And TOR (even with Stroman), BAL, SEA, and heck even the NYY all lost too so this is probably the least painful loss of the season for me.
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Post by fenwaythehardway on Aug 22, 2016 8:17:47 GMT -5
I'm more convinced than ever that he has a solid chance of turning into a Lester-level talent, and nothing I've seen has changed my feeling that, if it happens, it happens when he's 27 or 28. Jet fuel can't melt Henry Owens.
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Post by tjb21 on Aug 22, 2016 9:13:54 GMT -5
Comerica Park is always fun to visit, had a great time seeing both games over the weekend.
I've been over the Henry Owens SP experiment for awhile now, but not sure what the clear alternative was. I'm not sure he could even make it as a RP right now with, the poor guy can't throw enough quality strikes.
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Post by patford on Aug 22, 2016 9:26:18 GMT -5
Owens has shown improved control this year. He's still up and down but his overall trajectory shows improvement. It would be very foolish to give up on the guy and just give him away.
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Post by sox fan in nc on Aug 22, 2016 9:26:29 GMT -5
This series, as most of agree, could have gone 3-1 in our favor. But, with those loud outs and Upton's near miss, we could have also been 1-3. So I'll quietly take my par (split) and move onto the next hole.
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Post by fenwaythehardway on Aug 22, 2016 9:31:28 GMT -5
Just eyeballing the pitchF/X numbers on the season here....
Owens has thrown 46 sliders and curveballs in the major leagues this year and has yet to induce a single swinging strike with either. Batters are swinging less at every single pitch type. They're only swinging at about a third of the fastballs he throws, but when they do, it's getting absolutely obliterated. 27.3 % of the fly balls he's allowed on the fastball have gone for home runs. Dudes are just waiting on him and blasting the BP fastballs he's eventually forced to throw. It's ugly.
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Post by fenwaythehardway on Aug 22, 2016 9:32:34 GMT -5
Owens has shown improved control this year. He's still up and down but his overall trajectory shows improvement. It would be very foolish to give up on the guy and just give him away. ummm... are you sure you're looking at the right pitcher?
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Post by James Dunne on Aug 22, 2016 9:35:40 GMT -5
Owens has shown improved control this year. He's still up and down but his overall trajectory shows improvement. It would be very foolish to give up on the guy and just give him away. His walk rate is the highest of his career, by a lot. Even if you throw out his major leauge time, he's walking 14.3% of batters at Pawtucket. On top of that, he's hit 12 batters. Only two players in all of pro baseball have more walks, and only one (Josh Staumont) has more BB+HBP. Owens is still young and his changeup is spectacular, but it's hard to see this season as anything other than a setback.
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nomar
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Post by nomar on Aug 22, 2016 9:37:47 GMT -5
Owens wasn't ready for yesterday. He was a victim of circumstance. They were a step or two away from conceding the game when we gave him the start, and took the remaining couple steps when Owens was left in after getting shelled and then letting the broken Tazawa follow.
There's no point in complaining about Owens. He needs some fixing, and wasn't going to get that done before yesterday's game. At least he went out there, ate some innings and let our injured arms rest.
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Post by fenwaythehardway on Aug 22, 2016 10:01:19 GMT -5
Owens wasn't ready for yesterday. He was a victim of circumstance. They were a step or two away from conceding the game when we gave him the start, and took the remaining couple steps when Owens was left in after getting shelled and then letting the broken Tazawa follow. There's no point in complaining about Owens. He needs some fixing, and wasn't going to get that done before yesterday's game. At least he went out there, ate some innings and let our injured arms rest. If that circumstance is "being terrible all year", yes, he was a victim circumstance. Again, I don't like being so hard on the guy, but let's not make excuses here. He's been bad, period, and his struggles have not been caused by some outside factor.
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Post by James Dunne on Aug 22, 2016 10:05:21 GMT -5
Owens wasn't ready for yesterday. He was a victim of circumstance. They were a step or two away from conceding the game when we gave him the start, and took the remaining couple steps when Owens was left in after getting shelled and then letting the broken Tazawa follow. There's no point in complaining about Owens. He needs some fixing, and wasn't going to get that done before yesterday's game. At least he went out there, ate some innings and let our injured arms rest.Yeah, the circumstances and late notice and everything were well short of optimal yesterday. But "hey, he was a warm body, and nobody got hurt" isn't really where I hoped to be with Owens by now. That's sort of the Sean O'Sullivan treatment.
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Post by Guidas on Aug 22, 2016 16:06:35 GMT -5
Owens wasn't ready for yesterday. He was a victim of circumstance. They were a step or two away from conceding the game when we gave him the start, and took the remaining couple steps when Owens was left in after getting shelled and then letting the broken Tazawa follow. There's no point in complaining about Owens. He needs some fixing, and wasn't going to get that done before yesterday's game. At least he went out there, ate some innings and let our injured arms rest. What happened to seizing the opportunity, give me the ball and get out of my way and you never know if you'll get another shot at the bigs mentality? As edifying as his continued lack of control and high BB/9.
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Post by jmei on Aug 22, 2016 16:31:42 GMT -5
Owens wasn't ready for yesterday. He was a victim of circumstance. They were a step or two away from conceding the game when we gave him the start, and took the remaining couple steps when Owens was left in after getting shelled and then letting the broken Tazawa follow. There's no point in complaining about Owens. He needs some fixing, and wasn't going to get that done before yesterday's game. At least he went out there, ate some innings and let our injured arms rest. What happened to seizing the opportunity, give me the ball and get out of my way and you never know if you'll get another shot at the bigs mentality? As edifying as his continued lack of control and high BB/9. Is there any indication that Owens had any different mentality?
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Post by Guidas on Aug 22, 2016 19:58:28 GMT -5
What happened to seizing the opportunity, give me the ball and get out of my way and you never know if you'll get another shot at the bigs mentality? As edifying as his continued lack of control and high BB/9. Is there any indication that Owens had any different mentality? An assertion was made tgat he wasn't ready. I was countering with the point that any AAA player shoild always be ready. But my sense is giving up 8 runs means he wasn't ready either mentally or skillwise for an MLB call-up. My point for the last two years has beenit's the latter as I have no information regarding the former. Owens is not an MLB-level starter.
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Post by jmei on Aug 22, 2016 21:05:08 GMT -5
Good-- so you admit you have no information regarding his mental state and shouldn't be speculating about it. I agree.
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Post by Guidas on Aug 22, 2016 21:23:18 GMT -5
Not unless someone else does first. Once that line of inquiry has been introduced, even speculatively, it may deserve and equally speculative retort.
But basically I believe Owens is not an MLB level pitcher, a point for which substantial data exist to support - regardless of theorized states of "readiness."
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Post by fenwaythehardway on Aug 23, 2016 9:42:38 GMT -5
Yeah, the whole "this was a last-minute thing, he wasn't ready" excuse is really weak. No idea what his mental state is, won't speculate on it, but it's absolutely part of his job to be ready -- mentally, physically, spiritually, whatever -- to seize this kind of opportunity.
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