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Post by azblue on Aug 30, 2013 9:54:00 GMT -5
"This thread combines two of the worst types of discussions that continually re-occur on these boards-- "what is an ace" and "what is his ceiling". Lets move away from these mostly semantic discussions. Thanks."
I found Eric's explanation of why you cannot place an arbitrary ceiling on Owens quite enlightening. It was not at all a "semantic discussion." Eric was making your point that Ceiling caps do not make a great deal of sense.
Keep up the good work, Eric. SoSH has become stale. Glad you are investing time here.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Aug 30, 2013 9:56:28 GMT -5
It's good to see some admission that one of your heroic tales is wrong, but you're still making very bad arguments. You argued that people didn't understand park effects and did not understand that Maddox was very good in Wrigley Field. Citing extreme examples like Lou Gorman on a bizarre minor park he'd never seen and Dan Shaughnessy on the Astrodome does not help; this is like saying "human beings can't hit curveballs" and then citing three guys who can't. Even scouts whose idea of statistics was to count the empty bottles in the morning to see how much they drank knew that Wrigley Field, which was on everyone's cable TV screen every day, was small, with a low fence, just as everyone knew 60 years ago that it was very impressive for a RHH to hit 46 hrs in Yankee Stadium. And your "presumably" on why the Sox did not go after Maddox has no value whatsoever; maybe they, unlike the Yankees, knew he would not pitch in the Northeast (I am not asserting this--just saying you have no evidence). We all have selective memories; it's one reason we should be careful about telling stories in which we are the lone hero. Good point about Gorman. I've been so pissed at him all these years for not getting Beehive (which I believe also permanently damaged Sam Horn and Greg Blosser, psychologically) that I've assumed he was underrating Maddux, but, yeah, that's not credible. It certainly seemed that way at the time, though! I will cede not an inch on the assertion about sportswriters, however. There was a tiny fraction of today's national press coverage. No Web, no Sports Weekly. You had SI, The Sporting News, and BA, and that was it. I read every word of it. (I'll admit to not watching ESPN regularly in those days, but the expertise level on TV has generally lagged behind that of the print media.) I don't recall reading a word about Maddux being underrated because he pitched half his games at Wrigley, and if I'd ever read that, I think I would, because such articles were indeed so rare. I'm not a "lone hero" in this story, nor have I ever remotely suggested I was one. There were thousands of people who had read Bill James and Palmer and Thorn's The Hidden Game of Baseball (or, before that, Earnshaw Cook's Percentage Baseball, which got me started in 1971) and knew the truth, and you can't imagine how weird it was to be part of that community and realize that you understood much more about the game than virtually every professional sportswriter, and seemingly many GMs and field managers. Yes, we were heroes, since we were ultimately vindicated completely, but by the late 1980's we were legion, too.
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Post by brendan98 on Aug 30, 2013 10:08:17 GMT -5
It is really interesting to note the differences in opinion with regard to Owens, he might be becoming the Sox most polarizing prospect. Last year, in his first pro season, his strikeout rate was enough to at least make you take notice, but his performance this year, especially considering his youth in relation to the competition, has been nothing short of dominant, I don’t think that anyone can argue that. I have not seen Owens pitch, but have seen numerous scouting reports, and can definitely understand the tempering of expectations when the scouting report indicates average fastball velocity, with average to below average command. Regardless of Owens having pretty untouchable stuff, that combination does not suggest future frontline MLB starter. Based on that, I would say, that if Owens’ statistics this season were flipped, ie… he started the year in Salem with 5 starts, a 1.09 ERA, a .141 BA against, and striking out nearly 14 batters every nine innings, and then went to Portland and posted a 2.92 ERA, a .180 BA against, and striking out 10..5 per nine, over 20 starts, than I would say that the more advanced hitters in AA are having a lot more success against Owens (even if only in comparison to the 5 starts in Hi-A). That scenario would lead me to believe that as Owens keeps moving up the ladder, facing hitters that have a better approach, better plate discipline, and that are just more talented overall hitters, his stats would continue to trend back to that of a pitcher with average fastball velocity and below average command. That whole scenario, of course, is backwards, Owens first 20 starts in Salem led to the lesser stats, while the video game numbers were posted in his first 5 AA starts, and while I am fully aware that 5 starts is a very SSS, the ability to dominate competition is what it is, he has given up less than a hit every other inning, and approximately half his outs have come via strikeout, not to mention only giving up 3 ER in 5 games. Will there be some regression in AA? Almost certainly, but right now Owens is one of the youngest pitchers in AA, he has blown through 3 levels in his first 2 pro seasons, he has been about as dominant as any pitcher in all of baseball this season, and he has only become more dominant after being promoted to AA (which is usually where you start to separate the prospects from the suspects).
Throwing the term “ace” out there when talking about a minor league pitcher is really pretty silly, a #1 pitcher in AA, is not guaranteed to be a #1 in AAA, let alone the big leagues. To me an ace is a guy with a significant track record of being a dominant MLB starting pitcher, a guy who nearly always pitches deep into games and gives his team a chance to win. So does Henry Owens have a realistic chance to be a guy like that? I think he does, and the reason goes back to him consistently showing throughout his brief career, the ability to dominate opposing hitters. Then the next question becomes how likely is it that Owens becomes that kind of pitcher? The answer there is what I think is so debateable and so polarizing, and to be honest I don’t have any comfort level in predicting that other than to say that it is somewhere between 1% and 99%. If I were forced to take a guess I’d probably say 5%, not because I don’t think Owens is a great prospect, but simply because those types of guys are so rare, and even if Owens became a future #2 that is an incredibly valuable player. After all that, there is still the factor of projection for Owens, will he add velocity (and how much could he add), can he harness his control (and by how much can he improve it), those are things that we have 0% ability to predict, and they are critical if you are trying to figure out what Owens’ ceiling might be, and the odds that he might reach it. Fortunately, it seems like the Sox are very high on Owens, so I think we are going to get to watch him develop over the next couple of seasons, and I am definitely excited to see how all this plays out, and what kind of career this kid has.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Aug 30, 2013 10:21:49 GMT -5
So basically you're saying that the entire scouting community has no ability to judge or account for deception? Insert "almost," and, no, they don't. Deception of this degree is just too rare a phenomenon, and too difficult to judge just by watching a kid pitch. Read BA's writeup of #21 prospect Hideki Okajima (behind the likes of Caleb Clay), where there is no mention whatsoever of hitters being unable to pick up his unorthodox delivery, to the point where Barry Bonds memorably took a called strike three right down the middle of the plate the first time he faced him. Which is why Callis merely reported the Sox' hope that he could be "more than a situational lefty," without endorsing it, whereas an accurate projection would have been dominant eight inning guy. And I know I just read a scouting report that expressed bafflement over Owens' ability to get swings and misses, and concluded that deception must be involved -- but without any evident enthusiasm for it. Um, moving the goalposts much? How lame is that? The point was that if he threw 96 and had his 70 changeup projection, he would be universally considered as having ace ceiling. Not that he would become an ace. Oh, spare me. That best case scenario was to become the best pitcher in baseball. With what he has already, "all" he needs to do to become an ace is cut his walk rate in half and add a decent fourth pitch. The odds against it happening are maybe 9 to 1 and hence within the ordinary notion of ceiling. (I'm sorry to drag these concepts in, but what we're really talking about is how good he is and might become, and how his deception factors into that, and whether it's being omitted from his evaluation.) Again, if he were achieving his current results in A+ and AA via an actual 96 mph FB instead of a virtual one, you would see that instantly. I mean, tell me you wouldn't. Tell me that if we had a wild kid lefty who sat at 95-96 and had his outrageous strikeout rates and BABIP (which is a real skill component at this level, and works to weed out guys who are missing something) that you wouldn't think he had ace ceiling, because he had at least a 1 in 10 chance of learning to command the heater. Really, it's absurd.
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Post by awall on Aug 30, 2013 10:38:01 GMT -5
Good lord, people. The kid is 21 years old, finishing his second year of ball working with professional coaching. If Ball is performing like this in 2 years I think most people will be tickled pink.
Do people know of any studies that look at the relationship between top FB velocity and the ability to throw the off-speed pitches with the same slot/arm0speed, as Owens does? I wonder if it just it's possible to maintain that great separation between the FB and CU if he tries to throw harder? Personally, I would love to just see better FB command if throwing harder would hurt any of the secondary offerings.
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Post by jmei on Aug 30, 2013 10:53:42 GMT -5
Once again, a discussion of "ceiling" has devolved into everyone making up mostly arbitrary percentages. The rest of the discussion is fine (How likely is it that Owens will improve his command? How important is deception vis-a-vis velocity?), but please, no more unsupported quantitative odds and the like.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Aug 30, 2013 10:56:27 GMT -5
I like Owens, but here is the problem, as I see it: several pitchers are excellent even though they only throw 89-92. Quite a few pitchers succeed with walk rates over 12%. I can't think of any who succeed with both. In the minors, Owens deception and pitchability play up, as does his plus curve and change against the type of hitters who are in Double-A or High A because they can't hit a curve or identify a change. In the majors though? Where pitch recognition and plate discipline are key skills, those players are going to see those pitches coming. If he misses in the zone with his fastball, those pitches are going to be punished, because major league hitters will know that it's a fastball, and if it's 91 they are going to destroy it. The comparison with a guy like Uehara because he throws 89-91 doesn't hold any water. He's walked 4% of his batters. He's putting his fastball and his splitter exactly where he intends. A pitcher can succeed without hitting spots, and he can succeed without a plus fastball, but I'm not sure he can succeed without both. That's why, for me, Owens is still behind Ranaudo, Barnes, and Webster. Maybe his perfect-world projection is higher, but there's just a much, much higher chance that he doesn't reach it. That shouldn't be taken as an insult - he's a top eight prospect in a very deep system, he's a young pitcher in Double-A, and may have the highest upside of any pitcher in the system. It's just my feeling that he's much further away from success than his dominance at Salem would lead us to believe. I think you're missing the essential point of this entire discussion. Let's take it from the top. One important thing that makes a FB effective is the amount of available reaction time a hitter has. (The other big one, as you note, is command, and the third is movement.) That reaction time is demonstrably a function of just two things: the FB velocity, and the time it takes the hitter to pick the FB up. Again: FB velocity is not the factor. The factor that matters is the available time the hitter has to react. Now, for nearly all pitchers, the time to pick the fastball up is the same, and so the FB velocity translates perfectly to the hitter's available time to react. But if a guy has a deceptive delivery, so that it takes hitters a tiny fraction of a second longer to pick the ball up, that has the precise same effect on the hitter's time to react as throwing harder does. It's important to realize that deception is not compensating for lesser velocity. It is completely and exactly equivalent to actually throwing harder. Because all we care about is how much time passes from the moment the batter picks the ball up, to the time it gets to home plate. Now, if MLB hitters were better at picking up deceptive deliveries than minor league hitters are, you would expect this to work less well in MLB. And, in fact, you would expect deception to work less and less well as one moved up the ladder. But there's no reason to think that this happens. Deceptive deliveries are so rare that dealing with them is not a skill than can be easily learned, and it is absolutely not a skill that is selected for as hitters move up the ladder and are weeded out. It is likely that the skill for picking up a deceptive delivery correlates with the skill for picking up the spin on a pitch quickly, and that is selected for, but it's also true that picking up the spin on a ball is a skill that takes a ton of practice, one where experience really trumps whatever innate talent a hitter might have for it. I think it's reasonable to think that a guy with a tremendously deceptive delivery would start to lose his effectiveness after he'd been in the league for a bunch of years and guys had seen him 30, 40, times, but for the most part, deception should play up just as well in MLB as it does in the minors. Now, the thing is, we don't know for certain that Owens has a virtual 95 or 96 mph FB because he has the equivalent of 3 mph of deception. That's just an inference we're making from his results and from observations that his delivery appears to be deceptive. And I think that the debate should move onto that question, because it's a really interesting one. But if he does have that deception, your entire argument is wrong. Because actual FB velocity is just a usually accurate proxy for what actually matters, which is hitter's available reaction time. And if Owens truly has that kind of deception, he needs to be thought of, in every way, shape, and form, as a guy who throws 95-96 because that is precisely what the batter is experiencing.
And of course the starting point of this discussion is that this hypothesis, that he does have this deception, explains his otherwise somewhat baffling success, including his lack of a dropoff after moving up a level (admittedly in a SSS).
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Aug 30, 2013 11:07:55 GMT -5
Once again, a discussion of "ceiling" has devolved into everyone making up mostly arbitrary percentages. The rest of the discussion is fine (How likely is it that Owens will improve his command? How important is deception vis-a-vis velocity?), but please, no more unsupported quantitative odds and the like. I'm more than fine with that, and plead guilty as charged! Owens is perhaps the most interesting pitching prospect in my lifetime as a Sox fan. I'm all for keeping the discussion on how he's achieving his remarkable success, and on the ins and outs of how pitchers improve their command (rather than the odds on their doing so), since we all agree that's crucial. So we can talk more about deception, and even better, we can talk about what separates guys like Sabathia, Sale, and Santana, all of whom halved their walk rates, from guys like Sisco (and Miller, if you force me to use the rest of the alphabet) who have never shown any improvement. It the ability to repeat your delivery everything? Or are there other factors? Why can some guys improve their ability to repeat their delivery, and others can't? Has anyone been able to project whether that happens? We can have this discussion without worrying what the odds of it happening to Owens, because, you know it will either happen or it won't.
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Post by ray88h66 on Aug 30, 2013 11:16:43 GMT -5
Never thought I'd ever be interested in stat head debate but I'm enjoying it.
Some good stuff eric.
jmei ,your new avatar just caught my eye, good choice.
I haven't even seen Owens pitch in person yet so I'll hold my fire on him.
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Post by James Dunne on Aug 30, 2013 11:54:29 GMT -5
I think you're missing the essential point of this entire discussion. Let's take it from the top. One important thing that makes a FB effective is the amount of available reaction time a hitter has. (The other big one, as you note, is command, and the third is movement.) That reaction time is demonstrably a function of just two things: the FB velocity, and the time it takes the hitter to pick the FB up. Again: FB velocity is not the factor. The factor that matters is the available time the hitter has to react. Now, for nearly all pitchers, the time to pick the fastball up is the same, and so the FB velocity translates perfectly to the hitter's available time to react. But if a guy has a deceptive delivery, so that it takes hitters a tiny fraction of a second longer to pick the ball up, that has the precise same effect on the hitter's time to react as throwing harder does. It's important to realize that deception is not compensating for lesser velocity. It is completely and exactly equivalent to actually throwing harder. Because all we care about is how much time passes from the moment the batter picks the ball up, to the time it gets to home plate. Now, if MLB hitters were better at picking up deceptive deliveries than minor league hitters are, you would expect this to work less well in MLB. And, in fact, you would expect deception to work less and less well as one moved up the ladder. But there's no reason to think that this happens. Deceptive deliveries are so rare that dealing with them is not a skill than can be easily learned, and it is absolutely not a skill that is selected for as hitters move up the ladder and are weeded out. It is likely that the skill for picking up a deceptive delivery correlates with the skill for picking up the spin on a pitch quickly, and that is selected for, but it's also true that picking up the spin on a ball is a skill that takes a ton of practice, one where experience really trumps whatever innate talent a hitter might have for it. I think it's reasonable to think that a guy with a tremendously deceptive delivery would start to lose his effectiveness after he'd been in the league for a bunch of years and guys had seen him 30, 40, times, but for the most part, deception should play up just as well in MLB as it does in the minors. Now, the thing is, we don't know for certain that Owens has a virtual 95 or 96 mph FB because he has the equivalent of 3 mph of deception. That's just an inference we're making from his results and from observations that his delivery appears to be deceptive. And I think that the debate should move onto that question, because it's a really interesting one. But if he does have that deception, your entire argument is wrong. Because actual FB velocity is just a usually accurate proxy for what actually matters, which is hitter's available reaction time. And if Owens truly has that kind of deception, he needs to be thought of, in every way, shape, and form, as a guy who throws 95-96 because that is precisely what the batter is experiencing.
And of course the starting point of this discussion is that this hypothesis, that he does have this deception, explains his otherwise somewhat baffling success, including his lack of a dropoff after moving up a level (admittedly in a SSS).
I actually agree with your points in general, but wonder whether they apply to Owens in particular. First off, a 4-5 difference between actual FB velo and equivalent velocity is huge - now we really are getting into Maddux territory. Maybe he does have that, and that'd be awesome, but it seems really hard for me to project such an extreme skill at something that is still hard to quantify. Beyond that though, if the Equivalent Velocity on his FB IS 95-96, but he's not locating it, would that fool major league hitters who would sit fastball against that type of pitcher? If he's not getting it inside enough or up enough or whatever, bulls like Cabrera and Trout who can lay off the pitches off the plate will hammer him. It's possible he'd create real matchup problems for lefties with his height, deception, and great curve, but unless he improves that fastball command and reigns in his control in general, I'm skeptical. I don't want to lead people to believe that I think Owens is a bum, though. He's succeeding in Double-A at just over two years removed from High School. He's made apparent improvement this year in finishing and repeating his delivery, and reports are that he's a bright guy who is willing to learn.
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Post by brianthetaoist on Aug 30, 2013 12:41:04 GMT -5
I've brought up the deceptive delivery point a few times myself as a proponent of it, but my only reservation is that I can't really think of an elite starter who relied on it. Elite relievers, absolutely (like Okajima, and Foulke hid the ball well, too) because hitters don't have time to make an adjustment in their next at-bat. But a starter ... I'm just not sure. And I think Eric's argument that the "specific skill" of picking up deceptive deliveries isn't part of the selection process for hitters as they move up the ladder is a little too limited; I'd argue that picking up pitches quickly in general and having the athletic ability to adjust from at-bat to at-bat certainly is and would be relevant.
So, am I just blanking on top-level starting pitchers whose exceptionally deceptive deliveries made their stuff play up noticeably? I feel like I must be ...
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Post by Deleted on Aug 30, 2013 12:56:50 GMT -5
There is one difference between velocity and deception. A player might not be able to swing fast enough to barrel up a high velocity pitch unless he's starting his swing early. However he can swing fast enough to barrel up the deceptive pitch as long as he picks it up early enough. It's possible that deception might not be as effective the 2nd and 3rd time a hitter faces a pitcher in a game. The hitter expects the deception and is able to time the pitch better.
The two players you mention as pitchers who didn't throw very hard but still had very effective fastballs, Uehara and Okajima are relievers. Would Uehara be able to get players to swing and miss at a 90 MPH fastball down the middle multiple times in a single game? I don't think he would.
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Post by James Dunne on Aug 30, 2013 12:59:17 GMT -5
I've brought up the deceptive delivery point a few times myself as a proponent of it, but my only reservation is that I can't really think of an elite starter who relied on it. Elite relievers, absolutely (like Okajima, and Foulke hid the ball well, too) because hitters don't have time to make an adjustment in their next at-bat. But a starter ... I'm just not sure. And I think Eric's argument that the "specific skill" of picking up deceptive deliveries isn't part of the selection process for hitters as they move up the ladder is a little too limited; I'd argue that picking up pitches quickly in general and having the athletic ability to adjust from at-bat to at-bat certainly is and would be relevant. So, am I just blanking on top-level starting pitchers whose exceptionally deceptive deliveries made their stuff play up noticeably? I feel like I must be ... Maddux. Sid Fernandez was one who used to get a ton of talk about how deceptive he was. Tony Cingrani has looked impressive so far, and Ryan Vogelsong had a couple very nice years before his stuff went south. Those are the ones who popped into my head first.
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Post by maxwellsdemon on Aug 30, 2013 13:01:36 GMT -5
Eric, excellent point about reaction time being the deciding factor in determining effective FB velocity. It is the exact point made by some physicist about hundred years back when he realized that accelerated motion was the exact same thing as gravity - worked out pretty well.
The point I failed to make earlier and you have so well is that HO is an very unusual case who may well not have reached his physical peak and so adamantly capping his ceiling was premature. Hopefully his command will improve and he can add a serviceable 4th pitch, but if not would you take 9.55K per nine with 4.67BB? Because, although HO's career won't run as long, those numbers put Nolan Ryan in the HOF?
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Post by jchang on Aug 30, 2013 13:07:08 GMT -5
I am not convinced that Owens stuff will not play in the big leagues. There are a number of 24+ year olds in AA with polished repertoire, but not quite big league stuff (ok, most of these are in AAA). These guys would also be posting elite numbers in AA then. But Owens is just 21, his stuff is not fully polished, and he is not at full strength age wise. So there is every reason to believe he will become a better pitcher than he is now, regardless of whether this manifests in velocity, control or something else. I also admit that I did not think his stuff at the beginning of the season would work well in AA, hence I suggested he stay the full year in A+ and even the beginning of next year until he was stronger. Well Owens blew my theory of how he would do in AA. I do not have stronger position in exactly how our top pitching prospects (Webster, Barnes, Ranaudo and Owens) should be ranked. All have strong points and all currently have deficiencies. That's why none are grade 7. However, watching Owens is so fascinating that I try to catch every game in the DC area. Too bad Portland does not play many down here.
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Post by brianthetaoist on Aug 30, 2013 13:29:16 GMT -5
Maddux. Sid Fernandez was one who used to get a ton of talk about how deceptive he was. Tony Cingrani has looked impressive so far, and Ryan Vogelsong had a couple very nice years before his stuff went south. Those are the ones who popped into my head first. Yeah, but as mentioned before Maddux's stuff is hugely underrated. His command and movement were among the best ever. Maddux is such a freak, it's not really fair to include him in any discussion, probably. Sid Fernandez is a pretty good one, though.
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Post by jmei on Aug 30, 2013 13:33:13 GMT -5
Kershaw is a starter who is often lauded for his deception. Obviously has great stuff, too, but he might have the best fastball in the game despite regularly sitting 93, and his deceptive delivery is a huge reason why. Of course, his command is miles better than Owens'.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 30, 2013 15:00:19 GMT -5
Kershaw is a starter who is often lauded for his deception. Obviously has great stuff, too, but he might have the best fastball in the game despite regularly sitting 93, and his deceptive delivery is a huge reason why. Of course, his command is miles better than Owens'. I think the discussion is more about pitchers who use deception to mask weaker command or velocity. Looking at the pitch f/x cards is very interesting. Uehara for instance either got a strike or a popup on a pitch down the middle nearly half the time. The reason he's able to do this despite not having great velocity is likely that he's deceptive. Kershaw on the other hand is a pitcher with great stuff who happens to be deceptive. He's not a soft-tosser, in the past he's been able to get it up to 97 and has gotten to 95 this year. In this case I am not sure he's the best example.
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Post by awall on Aug 30, 2013 15:48:28 GMT -5
Did Valenzuela throw more than 90-92?
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Post by fenwaythehardway on Aug 30, 2013 16:46:45 GMT -5
I'll respond to more things in this thread when I have the chance, but for the record, Keith Law recognizes and loves Owen's fastball deception, and he gives him a #2 ceiling.
(And yeah, I know we're trying to stay way from those terms, but A) Keith's words, not mine, and B) words have meanings even if people don't want to recognize them, and I'm not going to stop using "ace" because people want to redefine it anymore than I'm going to stop using the word "valuable" because BBWAA writers like to play games with it for the purposes of giving someone other than the best player in the league the MVP award.)
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Post by onbase on Aug 30, 2013 18:40:32 GMT -5
Did anyone else see him Tuesday night?
I am "just a fan" but watching the Red Sox is a lot more fun when you've read about the kids here, and seen them in AA. What I saw Tuesday is pretty much what I'm reading from Eric. And a lot of what I saw relates to various comments in the thread - please forgive me for not copying and crediting, it would take me all night.
About his low BABIP - There were two hard hit low line drive singles in a row in the third inning. It was after he started mixing in the off speed stuff. Spring walked out to the mound, said something emphatic, or at least that's how it looked, and that was that. No more walks, no more hits, lots of K's and poor contact. Other than a grounder early on that almost got though (Marrero made a nifty dive and belly toss to second for the out), no luck involved.
About a deceptive pitcher being successful as a starter, as opposed to the Koji / Oki model - He mixed speeds of 90, 79 and 69, he mixed elevation, I couldn't tell while sitting behind third base, but he probably moved in and out too, batters swung straight through the zone at balls that landed in the dirt. I don't know if MLB batters would swing at his out of the zone stuff, but he clearly had the Fisher Cats flummoxed and he looked better and better as the game progressed. When he was lifted in the 7th, it was after two quick, easy outs. Time will tell whether batters figure him out. How do you estimate that?
About cutting his walk rate in half - He went from 7 to 1 pretty darn quick. I vote we keep him and give him a chance.
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jimoh
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Post by jimoh on Aug 31, 2013 6:36:32 GMT -5
.. I will cede not an inch on the assertion about sportswriters, however. There was a tiny fraction of today's national press coverage. No Web, no Sports Weekly. You had SI, The Sporting News, and BA, and that was it. I read every word of it. (I'll admit to not watching ESPN regularly in those days, but the expertise level on TV has generally lagged behind that of the print media.) I don't recall reading a word about Maddux being underrated because he pitched half his games at Wrigley, and if I'd ever read that, I think I would, because such articles were indeed so rare. ... This is still nonsense. You admit that you did not remember that the Cubs and Yankees offered more money to Maddox, but you claim would have remembered if ANYONE had said Maddox was very good because he had success in hitter-friendly Wrigley? What you said originally was that "Maddux was completely underappreciated as a Cub, because, really and truly, no one understood park effects. No writers, few GMs." MY memory is that tons of people--GMs, beat writers, broadcasters, feature writers, Gammons--had a rudimentary knowledge of crude park effects, and everybody understood that it was easier to hit and harder to pitch in Fenway and Wrigley. And actual memory trumps absence of memory any time. You make some good arguments when you use facts. But using your wildly selective memory or non-memeory as though it involved facts is nonsense. If you want to claim that people underrated Maddox, do actual research.
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dd
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Post by dd on Aug 31, 2013 9:26:33 GMT -5
"MY memory is that tons of people--GMs, beat writers, broadcasters, feature writers, Gammons--had a rudimentary knowledge of crude park effects, and everybody understood that it was easier to hit and harder to pitch in Fenway and Wrigley."
Yup. I remember at least as far back as the 60's Yankee fans harassing me saying that Red Sox batters were overrated because of the small park, to which I responded that Yankee pitchers were overrated because of the big park.
Maybe the "experts" knew less than we did, but I doubt it.
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Post by wcsoxfan on Aug 31, 2013 9:30:23 GMT -5
"MY memory is that tons of people--GMs, beat writers, broadcasters, feature writers, Gammons--had a rudimentary knowledge of crude park effects, and everybody understood that it was easier to hit and harder to pitch in Fenway and Wrigley." Yup. I remember at least as far back as the 60's Yankee fans harassing me saying that Red Sox batters were overrated because of the small park, to which I responded that Yankee pitchers were overrated because of the big park. Maybe the "experts" knew less than we did, but I doubt it. A bunch of Ivy League grads know more about their profession than us fans? ABSURD!
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ericmvan
Veteran
Supposed to be working on something more important
Posts: 8,941
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Post by ericmvan on Aug 31, 2013 10:02:13 GMT -5
I actually agree with your points in general, but wonder whether they apply to Owens in particular. First off, a 4-5 difference between actual FB velo and equivalent velocity is huge - now we really are getting into Maddux territory. Maybe he does have that, and that'd be awesome, but it seems really hard for me to project such an extreme skill at something that is still hard to quantify. I'm assuming a 3 mph deception credit, and I'm adding it to the 92-93 he was sitting at in ST and as recently as June, per the scouting report here. Apparently he's been more 91-92 recently, but I figure that's just a typical late-season drop for someone yet to build up strength. We all should be -- that's how important command is. While his change is probably better than Miller's slider, Miller never improved his command and couldn't cut it as a starter, and those two things are probably very closely related. I've talked about halving his walk rate in order to become a frontline pitcher, but he's probably going to need at least a modest improvement in order to become a solid starter. (I think I'll next look at the relationship between command and starting pitching success as simply as possible and report it here.) The ability to avoid a big times-facing-batter split, and hence stay effective deep into games and keep your job as a starter, is commonly thought of as a function of repertoire size -- to be effective the third time through the order, you need a deep arsenal. But it's quite possible that it is also a function of command. The first time through the order, hitters are more likely to swing at a pitcher's strike, but once they assess just how wild a pitcher is on that day, the smart ones are likelier to take that pitch because they'll figure they'll get a better one -- either because they expect to get ahead in the count, or they've seen how prone he is to making mistakes over the heart of the plate. IOW, imagine a hitter is ahead 1-0 and then gets a somewhat hittable pitch. First time around the order, he swings at it because a) it seems likely to be the best pitch he sees, and b) he's not thinking much about getting into a better count after going 1-1. By the third time around the order, he's thinking "this kid is just not throwing strikes," he lays off that pitch thinking a) he may well make a mistake I can kill, and b) it wouldn't surprise me if he immediately gets behind 3-1, let's give him a chance, at which point I'm sitting golden. Ooh, several things that can be looked at here. Unfortunately the times-through-order splits are not available in tabular form anywhere -- you would either have to grab them from individual B-ref pages, or process Retosheet data to recreate them. But once you had that data, you could look to see what correlates to them. I'm especially interested to look at the relationships among batter quality and style, batter times-faced pitcher splits, pitcher quality and style, and pitcher times-faced-batter splits. I'd want to break down each hitters times-faced splits against guys with small splits, guys with average splits, and guys with big splits. And ditto for the pitchers. Clay Buchholz has a totally flat career split by times-faced-batter. Does he achieve that by completely flattening out the hitters with big splits, or by shifting everyone a bit, so that the big-split hitters have small splits, but the no-split hitters actually have a reverse split? Knowing the data would lead to insights about the batter / pitcher battle as it evolves through the game, and that would in turn tell you a lot about which pitchers will have much more success in the pen, seeing guys just once. Geesh, as if I need another research project to pursue! And here's a confound: some guys with inconsistent mechanics and hence shaky command tend to start the game badly, and that has nothing to do with the above theorizing. Miller's splits: 865, 769, 877. That's a very big split between second time and third time and is consistent with the above hypothesis. The first number is probably just his tendency to start the game out of synch. (And of course, some guys with decent command have a pattern of starting off less well and then settling into the proverbial groove.) To do this right, of course, you'd have to control for other confounds. Most obviously, if a pitcher has a bad outing, he never gets to face hitters a third, and sometimes not even a second, time. (Nevertheless, the overall splits for MLB this year are 701, 729, 764). And if you typically go through the lineup just 2 1/2 times, the hitters that constitute your 2nd-time split (the whole order) are not as good as the hitters who constitute the 3rd-time (just the 1 through 4 or 5 hitters). (That would tend to contribute to the observed split.) So all these splits should be adjusted for the identities of the hitters. Yeah, it's a massive project from Retrosheet data. And then there's all the pitch/fx data you could look at ... You gotta love this game -- its depths are boundless.
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