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Post by rjp313jr on Jul 18, 2019 6:46:54 GMT -5
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Post by James Dunne on Jul 18, 2019 8:29:02 GMT -5
I’m annoyed by the bullpen as much as the next guy, but let’s face it this team is under performing because they are playing bad baseball as a group. When one part does well another one or 2 stink. They run into outs, don’t hit timely and don’t pitch well when they need to pitch well. It hasn’t been one thing. And yes those are general statements but I think it’s the reality. I'm gonna lose my damn mind having to point out to people that they have scored the most runs in baseball. The offense is no part of the problem for this team.They have a tremendous offense and mediocre pitching. Result: they're 52-44. It's not complicated. Part of the perception is how absurd people's standards were after last year. Mookie Betts is hitting .281/.396/.470 and people are treating him as if his terrible offensive season is killing everything. Dude is fifth in the AL in OBP and has the second highest wOBA of his career.
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ianrs
Veteran
Posts: 2,421
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Post by ianrs on Jul 18, 2019 13:04:19 GMT -5
Those of you looking for bullpen reinforcements might enjoy this slider from Houck. Just nasty.
Honestly, my move at the deadline is don't sell or buy. You basically gain a solid couple of arms in Hernandez, Houck, and Eovaldi to shore up the pen.
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Post by rjp313jr on Jul 18, 2019 16:17:06 GMT -5
I'm gonna lose my damn mind having to point out to people that they have scored the most runs in baseball. The offense is no part of the problem for this team.They have a tremendous offense and mediocre pitching. Result: they're 52-44. It's not complicated. Part of the perception is how absurd people's standards were after last year. Mookie Betts is hitting .281/.396/.470 and people are treating him as if his terrible offensive season is killing everything. Dude is fifth in the AL in OBP and has the second highest wOBA of his career. To be fair to people regarding Mookie. There’s a couple factors at play: 1. He’s set himself up to be judged based off of last year. If he wants to be paid $35m a year then he needs to be MVP level Mookie not this year Mookie. Or maybe he doesn’t but he will be considered a disappointment if not. 2. He’s been on fire in July so those numbers don’t really reflect where he was the first half when people were complaining about him. 3. Regardless, his wOBA is .366 right now last year it was .449 and thru June it was .354 which really puts it more in line with the rest of his career and makes last year look way out of place. He’s on about a 5.3 WAR pace which is a far cry from 10.4 and even his 8.3 from his first full season.
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Post by pedrofanforever45 on Jul 18, 2019 21:02:02 GMT -5
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Post by telson13 on Jul 18, 2019 21:33:58 GMT -5
With the trade for Cashner, are the Red Sox still under the salary cap and if so by how much? If they are still under but with little room to spare, I am content with not getting someone else this year for the bullpen if it means going over the cap to do it. Give the young guys a shot and if they can't do it, get ready for next year. The Sox have zero room. Basically minimum level contracts from here on out if they want to stay under. Maybe 2 million until the third threshold. The Sox are done if they want to stay under the third threshold. Stinks because they need another arm. Eovaldi is probably not enough, especially if you want him starting by the end of September. Add- There's only one arm in baseball who's making the minimum and can help this team this year- Edwin Diaz is the best trade target the Sox might have right now. He's the only option if the want to stay under the third threshold. Agreed. I think going over the threshold is a terrible idea, too. In that sense, and given his buy-low status, I think Diaz makes a ton of sense, but I also think it’s just not gonna happen unless the Mets (Wilson in particular) go all-Mets and panic on Diaz as a mistake, hoping to recoup some losses. Doubtful the Sox can put together a package, and I’d be concerned at any significant outlay because of the riskiness of RPs, but if a reasonable deal came together I think Diaz is by far the best candidate out there. *Maybe* Giles with some creative cash management, but that’s a big if too.
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Post by telson13 on Jul 18, 2019 21:42:52 GMT -5
I’m annoyed by the bullpen as much as the next guy, but let’s face it this team is under performing because they are playing bad baseball as a group. When one part does well another one or 2 stink. They run into outs, don’t hit timely and don’t pitch well when they need to pitch well. It hasn’t been one thing. And yes those are general statements but I think it’s the reality. I'm gonna lose my damn mind having to point out to people that they have scored the most runs in baseball. The offense is no part of the problem for this team. They have a tremendous offense and mediocre pitching. Result: they're 52-44. It's not complicated. And tbh, that the offense has been marginally disappointing due to Mookie, JDM, and to some extent JBJ (given the swing change) says a lot about how badly pitching has dragged them down. Sale and Porcello in particular have really hurt, as has the Eovaldi injury and inability to get any production at all from their 6-8 starters. I’m very hopeful Sale rights himself and Eddie stays hot, and Cashner pitches like the 4 in the 5 that they need (and I do mean *need*). If Eovaldi can produce in the ‘pen, I think a lighter workload will help Barnes/Walden/Workman/Brasier, and hopefully continued development of Taylor will clarify/solidify the ‘pen. Mookie’s heating up, and Bogey looks like a darkhorse MVP candidate (love to see him go 2018 second-half Yelich here), so they could make a big run with just solid, consistent pitching. Doesn’t have to be spectacular.
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Post by telson13 on Jul 19, 2019 1:05:26 GMT -5
And tbh, that the offense has been marginally disappointing due to Mookie, JDM, and to some extent JBJ Red Sox have scored the most runs in baseball this year by an increasingly wide margin, they're on pace to score 913.5 runs this year which surpasses last year's 876 by a considerable amount, but somehow this year's production doesn't stack up to last year's production. Offense.is.not.the.problem. That’s my point: they’re awesome and it’s with arguably the two most important hitters having down years (and another key one in Benintendi). That says a lot about the quality of their pitching. Frankly, it also says a lot about what we might expect next year. The staff, starters especially, need to step up. It’s certainly possible this is a career year for Bogey (or Devers, or Vazquez), but while Vaz might regress a little to a lot, Bogey certainly seems for real, just entering his prime, and Devers is a reasonable bet to get even better. And that’s not to mention Chavis, who might also be reasonably expected to get better with experience. Add in Mookie closer to ‘18/‘16 and JDM (who’s been solid but not spectacular), and hopefully Beni finally stepping it up some...that’s an incredible offense. JBJ probably stays roughly the same, and Holt’s been great, so maybe he’s a bit worse. But Marco looks terrific (imagine subtracting all of those Nunez PAs?). Pearce and Moreland will be gone, in all likelihood. The offense probably has a better chance of being improved or similar next year than it does being much worse. Pitching will determine their fate, this year and next. They need to start planning for this playoff run with that in mind. I like the Cashner move as a stabilizing influence, but they could really use a guy who’ll contribute next year.
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Post by pedrofanforever45 on Jul 19, 2019 3:22:31 GMT -5
Those of you looking for bullpen reinforcements might enjoy this slider from Houck. Just nasty. Honestly, my move at the deadline is don't sell or buy. You basically gain a solid couple of arms in Hernandez, Houck, and Eovaldi to shore up the pen. That is extremely risky relying on pitchers with basically zero major league experience and zero bullpen experience. You don't know how they'll bounce back on back to back nights or how they'll adjust to their new roles. I mean, both Darwinzon and Houck *just* switched to the bullpen. Heck, so has Eovaldi. We don't know how he'll do in this role. The one hope is that they (the rookies) miss a ton of bats and the control isn't as big of a problem in this role. The other hope is if Eovaldi can stay healthy enough to make it to the end of 2019. He's had one or two set backs already. I'd trade Houck in a minute for Diaz, for example. Like give me some experience there. Give me someone who we know is healthy, too.
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Post by pedrofanforever45 on Jul 19, 2019 3:28:01 GMT -5
The Sox have zero room. Basically minimum level contracts from here on out if they want to stay under. Maybe 2 million until the third threshold. The Sox are done if they want to stay under the third threshold. Stinks because they need another arm. Eovaldi is probably not enough, especially if you want him starting by the end of September. Add- There's only one arm in baseball who's making the minimum and can help this team this year- Edwin Diaz is the best trade target the Sox might have right now. He's the only option if the want to stay under the third threshold. Agreed. I think going over the threshold is a terrible idea, too. In that sense, and given his buy-low status, I think Diaz makes a ton of sense, but I also think it’s just not gonna happen unless the Mets (Wilson in particular) go all-Mets and panic on Diaz as a mistake, hoping to recoup some losses. Doubtful the Sox can put together a package, and I’d be concerned at any significant outlay because of the riskiness of RPs, but if a reasonable deal came together I think Diaz is by far the best candidate out there. *Maybe* Giles with some creative cash management, but that’s a big if too. Yeah I hope the Mets are that stupid, but probably not. The one hope is that they are the Mets. Diaz is as good of a bet as you can take on a reliever considering the service time, age, stuff, peripherals, and closing experience. Like he'd immediately would become the team's best arm in the bullpen if added today.
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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 Jul 19, 2019 4:44:42 GMT -5
Red Sox have scored the most runs in baseball this year by an increasingly wide margin, they're on pace to score 913.5 runs this year which surpasses last year's 876 by a considerable amount, but somehow this year's production doesn't stack up to last year's production. Offense.is.not.the.problem. That’s my point: they’re awesome and it’s with arguably the two most important hitters having down years (and another key one in Benintendi). That says a lot about the quality of their pitching. Frankly, it also says a lot about what we might expect next year. The staff, starters especially, need to step up. It’s certainly possible this is a career year for Bogey (or Devers, or Vazquez), but while Vaz might regress a little to a lot, Bogey certainly seems for real, just entering his prime, and Devers is a reasonable bet to get even better. And that’s not to mention Chavis, who might also be reasonably expected to get better with experience. Add in Mookie closer to ‘18/‘16 and JDM (who’s been solid but not spectacular), and hopefully Beni finally stepping it up some...that’s an incredible offense. JBJ probably stays roughly the same, and Holt’s been great, so maybe he’s a bit worse. But Marco looks terrific (imagine subtracting all of those Nunez PAs?). Pearce and Moreland will be gone, in all likelihood. The offense probably has a better chance of being improved or similar next year than it does being much worse. Pitching will determine their fate, this year and next. They need to start planning for this playoff run with that in mind. I like the Cashner move as a stabilizing influence, but they could really use a guy who’ll contribute next year. A lot of what people are perceiving is that the offense has been tremendously un-clutch. They rank only 11th in MLB in Win Probability Added.
They've been the best team in MLB with the bases empty (OPS+). They rank 20th with a runner in first and 7th with RISP. They rank 3rd with 2 outs and RISP, and second Late & Close, so the amazingly low WPA is likely the result of bad performance in the very highest leverage situations.
And in fact, you can sort almost every player's PA by LI descending and go down the list and find a bad performance. Granted, these are often against the toughest relievers, but still ... (IBB and SH are ignored here.)
Mookie is 1/12, 2B, 2 BB, SF with LI > 2.85. Devers is 5/22, no XBH or BB, GDP with LI > 2.55. Xander is 4/15, no XBH, 2 BB, GDP with LI >= 3.05. JDM is 2/16, no XBH, BB, GDP with LI > 2.70. Beni is 1/16, no XBH, BB, SF with LI > 2.70. CV is 1/8, no XBH, SF with LI > 3.70 (3/12, SF with LI > 2.70). JBJ is 3/20, no XBH, 3 BB, 2 HB with LI > 2.32. Chavis is 0/4, 3 BB with LI > 3.43. (He's a reasonable 5/13, 2B, 4 BB, GDP with LI > 2.70.) Holt is 1/9, BB, GDP with LI > 2.50.
Moreland is ... 0/1 with LI > 6.00. He is 5/6, 2 2B, HR with LI > 3.70. So it is possible to not suck with the game on the line.
In Moreland's six highest-lev PA, he's accounted for 31% of the team's positive WPA (1.76 of 5.66).
This stuff shouldn't be predictive, but the pattern is large enough to suggest that, after initial randomness, everyone is now pressing in these situations.
Dates of the XBH with LI >= 2.65
3/29 Mitch HR off of Strickland 4/3 Mitch 2B off of Buchter
4/3 Mookie 2B off of Fernando Rodney 4/11 Mitch 2B off of Giles 4/20 Beni GS off of Morton
4/20 Chavis 2B off of Alvarado
4/29 Xander 2B off of Frankie Montas
Wow. What are the odds that they all happened before May 1, randomly?
Team totals for LI >= 2.65:
.260 / .394 / .480, 1 GDP (66 PA), .303 K, .167 UBB, April
.193 / .250 / .182, 4 GDP (124 PA), .290 K, .056 UBB, since
They had no such PA from 4/30 to 5/4.
They went 2/3, BB, GDP on 5/5.
They went 0/5 on May 8th against the O's, in the 8th, 9th, and 11th before Beni homered in the 12th (lower leverage, with 2 outs and no one on) to break the 1-1 tie.
They were 2/2 on May 11th, in another victory.
On May 14h against the Rockies, Chris Sale struck out 17 of the 24 hitters he faced but gave up a late HR to cut the lead to 3-2. Workman allowed 2 runs in the 8th, but in the bottom of the frame they went 2/3, Chavis and Moreland singles, to tie the game.
But then they went 0/8. Nunez lined into a DP to end that inning, on a 96 mph ball that had an expected BA of .560, pure crap luck. JBJ walked to lead off the 9th but they could do nothing to advance him. Xander led off the 10th with a cheap hit but Chavis ended the inning with a 108 mph GDP ball, more crap luck. After Brasier allowed the agonizing run in the 11th, they made three more key outs (and had a 100 mph two-out CV single) and lost. One of the worst of the year.
So, the actual split is this:
.302 / .413 / .476 in 80 PA up to the point where they tied that game. .158 / .218 / .158 in 110 PA starting with the inability to win that game after coming back to tie it.
Not random, ladies and gentlemen.
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Post by incandenza on Jul 19, 2019 10:16:16 GMT -5
That’s my point: they’re awesome and it’s with arguably the two most important hitters having down years (and another key one in Benintendi). That says a lot about the quality of their pitching. Frankly, it also says a lot about what we might expect next year. The staff, starters especially, need to step up. It’s certainly possible this is a career year for Bogey (or Devers, or Vazquez), but while Vaz might regress a little to a lot, Bogey certainly seems for real, just entering his prime, and Devers is a reasonable bet to get even better. And that’s not to mention Chavis, who might also be reasonably expected to get better with experience. Add in Mookie closer to ‘18/‘16 and JDM (who’s been solid but not spectacular), and hopefully Beni finally stepping it up some...that’s an incredible offense. JBJ probably stays roughly the same, and Holt’s been great, so maybe he’s a bit worse. But Marco looks terrific (imagine subtracting all of those Nunez PAs?). Pearce and Moreland will be gone, in all likelihood. The offense probably has a better chance of being improved or similar next year than it does being much worse. Pitching will determine their fate, this year and next. They need to start planning for this playoff run with that in mind. I like the Cashner move as a stabilizing influence, but they could really use a guy who’ll contribute next year. A lot of what people are perceiving is that the offense has been tremendously un-clutch. They rank only 11th in MLB in Win Probability Added.
They've been the best team in MLB with the bases empty (OPS+). They rank 20th with a runner in first and 7th with RISP. They rank 3rd with 2 outs and RISP, and second Late & Close, so the amazingly low WPA is likely the result of bad performance in the very highest leverage situations.
And in fact, you can sort almost every player's PA by LI descending and go down the list and find a bad performance. Granted, these are often against the toughest relievers, but still ... (IBB and SH are ignored here.)
Mookie is 1/12, 2B, 2 BB, SF with LI > 2.85. Devers is 5/22, no XBH or BB, GDP with LI > 2.55. Xander is 4/15, no XBH, 2 BB, GDP with LI >= 3.05. JDM is 2/16, no XBH, BB, GDP with LI > 2.70. Beni is 1/16, no XBH, BB, SF with LI > 2.70. CV is 1/8, no XBH, SF with LI > 3.70 (3/12, SF with LI > 2.70). JBJ is 3/20, no XBH, 3 BB, 2 HB with LI > 2.32. Chavis is 0/4, 3 BB with LI > 3.43. (He's a reasonable 5/13, 2B, 4 BB, GDP with LI > 2.70.) Holt is 1/9, BB, GDP with LI > 2.50.
...
Dates of the XBH with LI >= 2.65
3/29 Mitch HR off of Strickland 4/3 Mitch 2B off of Buchter
4/3 Mookie 2B off of Fernando Rodney 4/11 Mitch 2B off of Giles 4/20 Beni GS off of Morton
4/20 Chavis 2B off of Alvarado
4/29 Xander 2B off of Frankie Montas
Wow. What are the odds that they all happened before May 1, randomly?
Team totals for LI >= 2.65:
.260 / .394 / .480, 1 GDP (66 PA), .303 K, .167 UBB, April
.193 / .250 / .182, 4 GDP (124 PA), .290 K, .056 UBB, since
They had no such PA from 4/30 to 5/4.
They went 2/3, BB, GDP on 5/5.
They went 0/5 on May 8th against the O's, in the 8th, 9th, and 11th before Beni homered in the 12th (lower leverage, with 2 outs and no one on) to break the 1-1 tie.
They were 2/2 on May 11th, in another victory.
On May 14h against the Rockies, Chris Sale struck out 17 of the 24 hitters he faced but gave up a late HR to cut the lead to 3-2. Workman allowed 2 runs in the 8th, but in the bottom of the frame they went 2/3, Chavis and Moreland singles, to tie the game.
But then they went 0/8. Nunez lined into a DP to end that inning, on a 96 mph ball that had an expected BA of .560, pure crap luck. JBJ walked to lead off the 9th but they could do nothing to advance him. Xander led off the 10th with a cheap hit but Chavis ended the inning with a 108 mph GDP ball, more crap luck. After Brasier allowed the agonizing run in the 11th, they made three more key outs (and had a 100 mph two-out CV single) and lost. One of the worst of the year.
So, the actual split is this:
.302 / .413 / .476 in 80 PA up to the point where they tied that game. .158 / .218 / .158 in 110 PA starting with the inability to win that game after coming back to tie it.
Not random, ladies and gentlemen.
This seems awfully cherry-pickish - you're choosing different LI levels for different guys. I'm pretty sure that's not a statistically valid method. What if you set everyone to the same level - say, LI>2.5? Plus those are all tiny sample sizes. Even added all together it's only 122 ABs, which is not that large, and again, it's a cherry-picked 122 ABs. The numbers for the team overall since May are a little more compelling (though again, LI>2.65 seems arbitrary). But those numbers are so bad that it kind of beggars belief. Like, I can't imagine that "pressing" is enough to cause all these really good hitters to suck so bad. You'd have to be consciously thinking "boy, we haven't done very well in high-leverage situations, better not screw up here," and then that psychological process would have to have a negative effect on performance, and it would have to be a team-wide phenomenon. Maybe it's part of the explanation. Maybe it's an issue for a couple of guys. But I feel like mostly what I'm looking at is random noise and bad luck. (In regards to the latter, it would be interesting to know BABIP and xwOBA in these situations.) And just a last thought: my understanding of the thinking about "clutchiness" is that most statisticaclly-minded people think it's not real, or a small effect, for individual batters. And whatever effect there is would be diluted when you're spreading the phenomenon out over a whole team. So it's very hard to believe that if the team has a .376 OPS in LI>2.65 since May or whatever that that is due to a lack of clutch. Like I said in another thread with regards to Sale having a 6.68 ERA when throwing to Vazquez, it proves too much. Maybe one's personal catcher can affect one's pitching performance but not that much; maybe the team is "pressing" and that's making a difference at the margin, but there's no way it's having that much of an effect.
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ericmvan
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Supposed to be working on something more important
Posts: 8,941
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Post by ericmvan on Jul 19, 2019 12:16:59 GMT -5
A lot of what people are perceiving is that the offense has been tremendously un-clutch. They rank only 11th in MLB in Win Probability Added.
They've been the best team in MLB with the bases empty (OPS+). They rank 20th with a runner in first and 7th with RISP. They rank 3rd with 2 outs and RISP, and second Late & Close, so the amazingly low WPA is likely the result of bad performance in the very highest leverage situations.
And in fact, you can sort almost every player's PA by LI descending and go down the list and find a bad performance. Granted, these are often against the toughest relievers, but still ... (IBB and SH are ignored here.)
Mookie is 1/12, 2B, 2 BB, SF with LI > 2.85. Devers is 5/22, no XBH or BB, GDP with LI > 2.55. Xander is 4/15, no XBH, 2 BB, GDP with LI >= 3.05. JDM is 2/16, no XBH, BB, GDP with LI > 2.70. Beni is 1/16, no XBH, BB, SF with LI > 2.70. CV is 1/8, no XBH, SF with LI > 3.70 (3/12, SF with LI > 2.70). JBJ is 3/20, no XBH, 3 BB, 2 HB with LI > 2.32. Chavis is 0/4, 3 BB with LI > 3.43. (He's a reasonable 5/13, 2B, 4 BB, GDP with LI > 2.70.) Holt is 1/9, BB, GDP with LI > 2.50.
...
Dates of the XBH with LI >= 2.65
3/29 Mitch HR off of Strickland 4/3 Mitch 2B off of Buchter
4/3 Mookie 2B off of Fernando Rodney 4/11 Mitch 2B off of Giles 4/20 Beni GS off of Morton
4/20 Chavis 2B off of Alvarado
4/29 Xander 2B off of Frankie Montas
Wow. What are the odds that they all happened before May 1, randomly?
Team totals for LI >= 2.65:
.260 / .394 / .480, 1 GDP (66 PA), .303 K, .167 UBB, April
.193 / .250 / .182, 4 GDP (124 PA), .290 K, .056 UBB, since
They had no such PA from 4/30 to 5/4.
They went 2/3, BB, GDP on 5/5.
They went 0/5 on May 8th against the O's, in the 8th, 9th, and 11th before Beni homered in the 12th (lower leverage, with 2 outs and no one on) to break the 1-1 tie.
They were 2/2 on May 11th, in another victory.
On May 14h against the Rockies, Chris Sale struck out 17 of the 24 hitters he faced but gave up a late HR to cut the lead to 3-2. Workman allowed 2 runs in the 8th, but in the bottom of the frame they went 2/3, Chavis and Moreland singles, to tie the game.
But then they went 0/8. Nunez lined into a DP to end that inning, on a 96 mph ball that had an expected BA of .560, pure crap luck. JBJ walked to lead off the 9th but they could do nothing to advance him. Xander led off the 10th with a cheap hit but Chavis ended the inning with a 108 mph GDP ball, more crap luck. After Brasier allowed the agonizing run in the 11th, they made three more key outs (and had a 100 mph two-out CV single) and lost. One of the worst of the year.
So, the actual split is this:
.302 / .413 / .476 in 80 PA up to the point where they tied that game. .158 / .218 / .158 in 110 PA starting with the inability to win that game after coming back to tie it.
Not random, ladies and gentlemen.
This seems awfully cherry-pickish - you're choosing different LI levels for different guys. I'm pretty sure that's not a statistically valid method. What if you set everyone to the same level - say, LI>2.5? Plus those are all tiny sample sizes. Even added all together it's only 122 ABs, which is not that large, and again, it's a cherry-picked 122 ABs. The numbers for the team overall since May are a little more compelling (though again, LI>2.65 seems arbitrary). But those numbers are so bad that it kind of beggars belief. Like, I can't imagine that "pressing" is enough to cause all these really good hitters to suck so bad. You'd have to be consciously thinking "boy, we haven't done very well in high-leverage situations, better not screw up here," and then that psychological process would have to have a negative effect on performance, and it would have to be a team-wide phenomenon. Maybe it's part of the explanation. Maybe it's an issue for a couple of guys. But I feel like mostly what I'm looking at is random noise and bad luck. (In regards to the latter, it would be interesting to know BABIP and xwOBA in these situations.) And just a last thought: my understanding of the thinking about "clutchiness" is that most statisticaclly-minded people think it's not real, or a small effect, for individual batters. And whatever effect there is would be diluted when you're spreading the phenomenon out over a whole team. So it's very hard to believe that if the team has a .376 OPS in LI>2.65 since May or whatever that that is due to a lack of clutch. Like I said in another thread with regards to Sale having a 6.68 ERA when throwing to Vazquez, it proves too much. Maybe one's personal catcher can affect one's pitching performance but not that much; maybe the team is "pressing" and that's making a difference at the margin, but there's no way it's having that much of an effect. There's certainly some bad luck involved, as I noted with the Nunez and Chavis failures in the Sale game.
However ...
When I worked for the Sox I calculated the difference between actual runs scored and expected runs for each game, using my (independently invented) version of BaseRuns as the metric and including events like WP/PB. I graphed the cumulative differential, and every year it clearly seemed to run in streaks. It would slope downward or upward for, say, 30 games at a time. So team clutch seems streaky.
Next ... what are the odds that this split starts happening in the middle of what people regard as one of the worst losses of the year? You can see me discovering that as I tried to find where the clutch hitting actually went south.
(It reminds me of the numbers I ran on J.T. Snow as we were acquiring him. After the 2000 season, when he turned 33, he had gone from awful to great in Late & Close, and the difference was ridiculously significant. It was so extreme that I wondered if something had happened in between the suckage and the excellence. Well, yes: he had hit a game-tying pinch-hit three-run homer in the bottom of the 9th in game 2 of the NLDS.)
So I'm equally as certain that there's a real component here. There's no way there isn't. It's not necessarily conscious in terms of thinking how the team has hit in high leverage. But is the team consciously aware of how well they're doing to win close games, of late? I think they have to be.
Finally, you can find other numbers like this that are so extreme that they beggar belief. What the Sox did batting in the bottom of the ninth for most of 2012 was mind-shattering. I can't find my spreadsheet (there are 2,086 of them in C:\Data\Excel\Bball) but IIRC they went months without drawing a BB, while fanning 30 or 40 times.
As far as 2.65, it's certainly cherry-picked (to include Benintendi's grand slam but exclude a Xander double with LI = 2.64.) That's shameless, and I'll 'fess up to that. But if you pick any number in that neighborhood, you're going to get splits nearly as dramatic.
As far as the general number neighborhood being arbitrary, the actual conclusion is that I've possibly identified a leverage neighborhood that actually affects performance, the degree of leverage that feels important to MLB hitters. To test that, you could run the numbers for every MLB team or hitter at 2.50, 2.75, and 3.00 and look at the distribution of results compared to what's expected by chance. The key is not to use samples that are too big, because clutch is a state of mind, not a skill (a state variable, not a trait variable, mood rather than disposition).
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ericmvan
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Supposed to be working on something more important
Posts: 8,941
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Post by ericmvan on Jul 19, 2019 12:41:57 GMT -5
So, what about the pen?
Eovaldi will be activated on Saturday and Weber will be sent down.
Darwinzon has faced 14 batters in his first inning of work and allowed a .109 xwOBA. No one in the Statcast era has been below .143 in a season with that many PA. And we're not cherry-picking any data here. And his minor league numbers for this are terrific. And scouts agree he should be very good in this role. And if you eliminate the first batter he faced in MLB ever, it's .067:
Foul popout, foul popout, K swinging, K swinging, K swinging, K swinging, K swinging, walk on a 3-2 pitch, soft deep line out (xBA .124, EV 91), K swinging, K swinging, K swinging, groundout (xBA .026, EV 85). That's pretty solid.
Conclusion: he's good enough to join the Trusted Group.
Barnes and Workman are obvious members of the Group. Josh Taylor has better numbers than either one.
Hembree, Johnson (who is about to start rehabbing), and Wright (who is unlikely to be out till 9/1) have no options. And that makes a full staff of 8 pitchers.
And what about Marcus Walden?
Here's the thing with him: if you simply take his days rest and add the days rest of his previous appearance, the correlation to his xwOBA allowed has p = .01. Each extra day of double-rest knocks a whopping .043 off his xwOBA. You cannot use him every other day and expect him to remain good. He's useful a la Hembree if you can give him 2 days rest alternating with 1. But if you can use him every third day (or alternate 1 days rest with 3), he can pitch the 8th for a contender. With five other guys capable of pitching in the 7th and later, you have that luxury. And it seems as if you could use him for 2 innings often enough for his total workload to be equivalent to the other guys.
So acquiring a pitcher without dealing one makes no sense. You already have a roster jam where, if no one gets hurt, you have to pretend that Steven Wright's toe is hurt really badly.
The least useful guy of the 9 is Hembree. He's a 6th-inning sort of talent.
So dealing Hembree and acquiring yet one more guy who can pitch in high-leverage (not necessarily in the same deal) -- that makes a lot of sense. If you acquire a rental, it shouldn't harm the farm system, as Hembree has two years of control versus 1/3. And you can gamble on a guy with extra upside, a guy who looks very likely to be good but has a chance to be great, whose price will thus be a bit lower than it should (because not every team will be smart enough to identify his potential).
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Post by jimed14 on Jul 19, 2019 13:34:44 GMT -5
I don't think anyone is going to trade for Hembree when his fastball is 3-4 mph slower than it usually is.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Jul 19, 2019 14:55:00 GMT -5
I don't think anyone is going to trade for Hembree when his fastball is 3-4 mph slower than it usually is. It's actually just 1.8 mph, over his last 5 outings (92.7 down from 94.5), but I went back to 2016 without finding a stretch of 5 appearances where his velo was as consistently down this much (no outing above 93.5). I was unaware it was that many games, BTW.
This is actually good, because there's no way anyone can argue with a DL stint for a guy suffering a mysterious and significant velo drop. That solves your roster crunch and keeps him around for a possible September recovery.
Let's see:
Eovaldi > Weber optioned Johnson > Hembree to DL or traded (if he somehow bounces back impressively)
Acquisition > Brewer optioned Wright > whoever gets hurt
If the deadline prices are too high (or if there's no one they can get without blowing through the next tax limit marker), I'm perfectly comfortable with what they've got.
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Post by tizzle on Jul 19, 2019 16:33:22 GMT -5
If there is a workable deal out there for a bullpen guy who can really help, the prospect of losing Wright, Johnson or Hembree would give me exactly zero pause about pursuing it.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Jul 19, 2019 17:26:20 GMT -5
If there is a workable deal out there for a bullpen guy who can really help, the prospect of losing Wright, Johnson or Hembree would give me exactly zero pause about pursuing it. One of these things is not like the other.
Brian Johnson over two years has a substantial body of work as a starter and has pitched like a borderline #3/#4. Having him as the 6th guy in your rotation is what wins you pennants. He may well be the 5th starter next year when we need to get under the cap limit. He has four years of control after this one.
Steven Wright is a former deserving All-Star starting pitcher who has pitched just as well as that on the admittedly rare subsequent occasions when he was both healthy and unsuspended. He very likely has the best knuckleball since the days of Niekro, Hough et al, which is to say his is better than Tim Wakefield's. He could pitch until he's 40, and keeping him around to see if he can get and stay healthy is a no-brainer.
Heath Hembree is a slightly better than average MLB relief pitcher, with two years of control left, in a day when you're not allowed to visit a ST facility without wearing a hard hat as protection against the average MLB relievers falling out of trees.
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Post by telson13 on Jul 19, 2019 21:44:24 GMT -5
Agreed. I think going over the threshold is a terrible idea, too. In that sense, and given his buy-low status, I think Diaz makes a ton of sense, but I also think it’s just not gonna happen unless the Mets (Wilson in particular) go all-Mets and panic on Diaz as a mistake, hoping to recoup some losses. Doubtful the Sox can put together a package, and I’d be concerned at any significant outlay because of the riskiness of RPs, but if a reasonable deal came together I think Diaz is by far the best candidate out there. *Maybe* Giles with some creative cash management, but that’s a big if too. Yeah I hope the Mets are that stupid, but probably not. The one hope is that they are the Mets. Diaz is as good of a bet as you can take on a reliever considering the service time, age, stuff, peripherals, and closing experience. Like he'd immediately would become the team's best arm in the bullpen if added today. Well, he’s struggled significantly this year, so I’m not sure he’s a savior. But he certainly has the talent to be, and you’re right, he immediately becomes their best arm. Barring an edict from Wilson to blow it up and go full rebuild, tho, it’s not happening. And even then you’d have to think Diaz would be a guy they’d ask a ton for, despite the struggles. But, idk, cuz...Mets. Watching Kelenic (and to some extent, Dunn, who I liked in the draft) be as good as they have has *gotta* hurt, especially with how incredibly disappointing the Mets’ MLB club has been. Interesting take on Diaz’s struggles: blogs.fangraphs.com/edwin-diaz-is-worse-but-to-what-extent/I don’t think he’s a guy who’ll be consistently what he was last year, but I do think he’s (and will be) very good. And yeah, the cost/service are right in line with what the Sox need. But given that Dunn was/is a better prospect than Houck, and Kelenic better than Casas, adjusting for a half year less control and a half a crappy season still gives an idea around what you’d think NY would ask. Like you I’d probably trade Houck, but absolutely not Casas. I’m not doing a middle-order positional player for a RP, especially with Casas having an ETA around JDM’s departure. Dalbec/Houck? That’s a tough one. As James D once said, Dalbec’s gonna hit 40 HR for Oakland someday.
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Post by jimed14 on Jul 20, 2019 15:39:12 GMT -5
I'm not sure how much I'd give up for a guy who can't keep the ball in the park in Citi Field and moving him to the AL East with 4 parks that could almost fit inside Citi Field.
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Post by tizzle on Jul 20, 2019 17:14:15 GMT -5
If there is a workable deal out there for a bullpen guy who can really help, the prospect of losing Wright, Johnson or Hembree would give me exactly zero pause about pursuing it. One of these things is not like the other.
Brian Johnson over two years has a substantial body of work as a starter and has pitched like a borderline #3/#4. Having him as the 6th guy in your rotation is what wins you pennants. He may well be the 5th starter next year when we need to get under the cap limit. He has four years of control after this one.
Steven Wright is a former deserving All-Star starting pitcher who has pitched just as well as that on the admittedly rare subsequent occasions when he was both healthy and unsuspended. He very likely has the best knuckleball since the days of Niekro, Hough et al, which is to say his is better than Tim Wakefield's. He could pitch until he's 40, and keeping him around to see if he can get and stay healthy is a no-brainer.
Heath Hembree is a slightly better than average MLB relief pitcher, with two years of control left, in a day when you're not allowed to visit a ST facility without wearing a hard hat as protection against the average MLB relievers falling out of trees.
Johnson is the one I would definitely try to keep. Hembree has had one season with an ERA below 3.5 and has a history of being good in low leverage situations and horrible in high leverage ones. To call him an "above average" relief pitcher is ludicrously generous. Wright has been comically unavailable for years and has one standout season on his resume as he is about to turn 35. Again, with this being about whether to acquire a legit difference making RP, one who could go a long way to fixing this bullpen and giving the team a chance to contend, you don't pass on the opportunity because of an average (and even that is generous) middle inning guy or the hope that Steven Wright is in his mid 30s going to learn to be healthy, stay off drugs and stop beating his wife enough to contribute like he did several seasons ago. I'm not advocating dumping any of them for the sake of dumping them, but the fear of losing them isn't a reason to try to fix a contending team's overwhelming weakness.
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Post by jimed14 on Jul 20, 2019 18:12:42 GMT -5
Hembree - If he were on the Padres we'd all be talking about trading for him That's freaking hilarious.
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Post by greenmonster on Jul 20, 2019 19:57:57 GMT -5
'Kind of looks stocked from my perspective, not sure I'd even bother to go after another relief arm at this point'
Dave? Dave Dombrowski?? Is that you???
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Post by jimed14 on Jul 21, 2019 12:29:06 GMT -5
Darwinzon Hernandez so far is striking out 19.64 per 9. As a relief pitcher, slightly less, but with a higher k rate of 45.8%. His xwOBA is .266.
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Post by tizzle on Jul 21, 2019 16:26:14 GMT -5
I'm not advocating dumping any of them for the sake of dumping them, but the fear of losing them isn't a reason to try to fix a contending team's overwhelming weakness. Overwhelming weakness might have been true a week ago, but you now have: Eovaldi - Our closer until further notice, quite sure he can handle the role if he's healthy Barnes - 4 bad games in June don't take away from him being an extremely good reliever Workman - Just keeps doing his thing Hernandez - Has been literally unhitable as a reliever so far, think he'll continue to be dominant Taylor - This year's Brasier Hembree - If he were on the Padres we'd all be talking about trading for him Walden - Ideal as a long reliever Brewer - Not bad for the very last guy out of the bullpen The top 5 guys are legit with Eovoldi and Hernandez now in the fold. Houck could be an option in a week or two if necessary and there's always Feltman. Kind of looks stocked from my perspective, not sure I'd even bother to go after another relief arm at this point. Eovaldi has never been a closer or able to stay healthy. It's silly to just consider him the end of closer issues before he's thrown a pitch in that role, or any pitches in 3 months. Hernandez has some ridiculous potential, but as of now, he's still walked nearly a batter per inning on the year (including minor leagues). I like Taylor, but no way has he earned the right to be considered a 2019 version of Brasier. Hembree has a whole career of being a below average relief pitcher and right now looks like he's having arm issues. Walden is 30 and is experiencing his first couple of months of being an average relief pitcher. He also seems to need his usage carefully monitored. Brewer is nothing special at all. Now, there's a chance this will all work out into a good bullpen. I really hope it does. But just declaring it a solved problem is too much of a rose colored glasses scenario for me. Personally, I would ride with most of those guys but try to get better at a couple of spots if possible (Hembree and Brewer) so that if things go south with some of the others there is enough to make up for it. Even if you're right, and all the bullpen issues are solved, that really doesn't negate my point anyway. What I was saying is I wouldn't bypass the chance to put in bullpen arms that are needed just to save roster spots for Wright and Hembree. You don't even have a spot for Wright in your scenario (you could argue the Brewer spot, but that could also go to Johnson when he's back).
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