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Post by bdub on Oct 9, 2019 13:16:12 GMT -5
I would be curious to see what all the advanced "Moneyball stats" say about every pitcher in our system, not just Mata.
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Post by umassgrad2005 on Oct 9, 2019 13:29:22 GMT -5
I agree with you, I guess how this all started is I just feel potential and ceiling are one thing, a very important thing. but actual success is another. and so as we measure 2019 lets not kid ourselves and mix the two. 2019 should have two reports on pitching. Actual success is way down the list of importance. A pitching prospect has to work on things they are not good at instead of getting everyone out with an advanced fastball like he could get away with at lower levels. He may be working on pitching to contact when the poor minor league defense doesn't help him out like it would in the majors. Some guy like McGrath could be the Cy Young of all the minor leagues, but he's still not going to get many people out at the majors because his stuff isn't nearly good enough. Some guy like Henry Owens can get everyone to chase his changeup in the minors, but in the majors it's never going to happen and he'll never get anyone out with his poor fastball and bad command of it. And that's what happened with him. That's why scouted ceilings are far more important than just looking at box scores. I have to say something because Owens was my guy. I think your comp is horrible. Like McGrath doesn't have the stuff to most likely do well at the major league level. Owens had the stuff and actually did well in the majors before they tried to fix him and whatever happened destroyed him. His walk rate has basically been double ever since then. The scouts agreed, everyone had him top 50 and some even had him top 20. If you gave both pitchers perfect command and control Owens could be a 2/3 and McGrath would still be a fringe starter.
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Post by umassgrad2005 on Oct 9, 2019 13:43:25 GMT -5
I would be curious to see what all the advanced "Moneyball stats" say about every pitcher in our system, not just Mata. They don't have those. Like money ball was based on things like on base percentage being underrated and sluggers being overvalued. Closer being overvalued and overpaid. It was a theory on the most cost effective way to build a team because the A's had no money to spend on payroll. It was revolutionary in it's day, but every team does stuff like that now.
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Post by bdub on Oct 9, 2019 13:45:46 GMT -5
Perhaps a "W.A.R." score
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Post by redsox04071318champs on Oct 9, 2019 14:11:19 GMT -5
You can't take the stats necessarily at face value. There's a lot of context to be had, considering age, league factors - ie, when the Red Sox had a team in Lancaster, the offensive numbers were bonkers and pitchers routinely got shelled, but it was less their skill and more where they were playing that really skewed the numbers, same with the PCL, and of course the AAA ball was a rabbit ball this year, too. I'm not saying stats without context don't really paint much of a picture. WAR isn't really going to change any of that. It's not going to tell you that a 20 year old prospect has great stuff and the arrow pointing up as opposed to a 26 year old in A ball with gaudy numbers that doesn't really have an arrow pointing anywhere.
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Post by thegoodthebadthesox on Oct 9, 2019 14:38:54 GMT -5
Actual success is way down the list of importance. A pitching prospect has to work on things they are not good at instead of getting everyone out with an advanced fastball like he could get away with at lower levels. He may be working on pitching to contact when the poor minor league defense doesn't help him out like it would in the majors. Some guy like McGrath could be the Cy Young of all the minor leagues, but he's still not going to get many people out at the majors because his stuff isn't nearly good enough. Some guy like Henry Owens can get everyone to chase his changeup in the minors, but in the majors it's never going to happen and he'll never get anyone out with his poor fastball and bad command of it. And that's what happened with him. That's why scouted ceilings are far more important than just looking at box scores. This reminds me of Brayan Bello in the first half of the season. I remember reports where he was working almost exclusively on a single pitch during starts and was getting hammered. So the results and the box score said he sucked, which obviously isn’t accurate. You can’t completely discount either one. Potential/scouting and actual results need to be considered hand in hand. I believe this was the case with Durbin Feltman a lot of the year as well.
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Post by jimed14 on Oct 9, 2019 14:47:29 GMT -5
Actual success is way down the list of importance. A pitching prospect has to work on things they are not good at instead of getting everyone out with an advanced fastball like he could get away with at lower levels. He may be working on pitching to contact when the poor minor league defense doesn't help him out like it would in the majors. Some guy like McGrath could be the Cy Young of all the minor leagues, but he's still not going to get many people out at the majors because his stuff isn't nearly good enough. Some guy like Henry Owens can get everyone to chase his changeup in the minors, but in the majors it's never going to happen and he'll never get anyone out with his poor fastball and bad command of it. And that's what happened with him. That's why scouted ceilings are far more important than just looking at box scores. I have to say something because Owens was my guy. I think your comp is horrible. Like McGrath doesn't have the stuff to most likely do well at the major league level. Owens had the stuff and actually did well in the majors before they tried to fix him and whatever happened destroyed him. His walk rate has basically been double ever since then. The scouts agreed, everyone had him top 50 and some even had him top 20. If you gave both pitchers perfect command and control Owens could be a 2/3 and McGrath would still be a fringe starter. I didn't intend to comp Owens and McGrath at all. They're separate examples of guys who could get away with either a great pitch (Owens' changeup) or McGrath's command (he seems more like Brian Johnson). But the results will never continue in the majors for guys without at least a passable fastball or elite other tools/pitches.
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Post by bdub on Oct 9, 2019 15:16:51 GMT -5
IYO Who would you say are the best pitchers in MLB who don't have a throw it through the wall fastball? asking because more guys seem to be throwing hard and arm/ shoulder and elbow injuries are clearly up?
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cdj
Veteran
Posts: 13,937
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Post by cdj on Oct 9, 2019 16:05:35 GMT -5
IYO Who would you say are the best pitchers in MLB who don't have a throw it through the wall fastball? asking because more guys seem to be throwing hard and arm/ shoulder and elbow injuries are clearly up? Greinke is a really good example
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Post by jimed14 on Oct 9, 2019 16:27:03 GMT -5
IYO Who would you say are the best pitchers in MLB who don't have a throw it through the wall fastball? asking because more guys seem to be throwing hard and arm/ shoulder and elbow injuries are clearly up? Greinke is a really good example And for him to be as successful as he is, he needs pinpoint location and 3 other plus pitches. Not having a good fastball for a pitcher makes it almost impossible to be effective.
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Post by umassgrad2005 on Oct 9, 2019 17:10:40 GMT -5
I have to say something because Owens was my guy. I think your comp is horrible. Like McGrath doesn't have the stuff to most likely do well at the major league level. Owens had the stuff and actually did well in the majors before they tried to fix him and whatever happened destroyed him. His walk rate has basically been double ever since then. The scouts agreed, everyone had him top 50 and some even had him top 20. If you gave both pitchers perfect command and control Owens could be a 2/3 and McGrath would still be a fringe starter. I didn't intend to comp Owens and McGrath at all. They're separate examples of guys who could get away with either a great pitch (Owens' changeup) or McGrath's command (he seems more like Brian Johnson). But the results will never continue in the majors for guys without at least a passable fastball or elite other tools/pitches. There seems to me a massive gap in Owens and McGrath when it comes to the fastball though, like a grade different. McGrath is listed at 86-88 which is crazy low for even a lefty. Owens was 89-91, could top out at 92-94, which for a lefty is more than enough. He averaged above 90 in August and September of that 2015 season for example. Even with so so command and control it was still more than enough. It wasn't enough when he has no command or control. Like if McGrath had Owens fastball I'd look at him a lot differently. He'd have a lot better chance of making an impact.
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Post by jimed14 on Oct 9, 2019 18:03:47 GMT -5
I didn't intend to comp Owens and McGrath at all. They're separate examples of guys who could get away with either a great pitch (Owens' changeup) or McGrath's command (he seems more like Brian Johnson). But the results will never continue in the majors for guys without at least a passable fastball or elite other tools/pitches. There seems to me a massive gap in Owens and McGrath when it comes to the fastball though, like a grade different. McGrath is listed at 86-88 which is crazy low for even a lefty. Owens was 89-91, could top out at 92-94, which for a lefty is more than enough. He averaged above 90 in August and September of that 2015 season for example. Even with so so command and control it was still more than enough. It wasn't enough when he has no command or control. Like if McGrath had Owens fastball I'd look at him a lot differently. He'd have a lot better chance of making an impact. Owens never had command of his fastball. If he did, he would have been a major league pitcher along with the great changeup.
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Post by Chris Hatfield on Oct 9, 2019 20:37:18 GMT -5
bdub, you're pointing out Mata as someone who didn't have a good ERA in Portland (where you happened to watch him, apparently) like he didn't spend the first half of the season carving up High A. If the kid pitched to a 5.00 ERA all season or something then yeah, that wouldn't be good. But you're pointing to a 20-year-old's ERA in 10 AA starts like it's the only indicator of how good he can be. Think you're also relying way too much on ERA. FWIW, the system's ERA leaders (80 IP min) by year: 2019 Daniel McGrath (1.98) 2018 Denyi Reyes (1.97) 2017 Hildemaro Requena (1.98) 2016 Aaron Wilkerson (2.14) 2015 Brian Johnson (2.53) 2014 Brian Johnson (2.13) 2013 Luis Diaz (1.96) 2012 Justin Germano (2.40) So clearly this isn't useless - Johnson and Wilkerson are major leaguers, albeit replacement level ones, roughly. But it also isn't completely predictive of future success - Diaz never got above AA, Germano was a bad MLB pitcher both before and after 2012, and Requena spent this year at a level LOWER than the one he was at in 2017. One final point - the teams aren't the ones evaluating players when they're being written about. Speaking only for this site, while we do hear things from within the organization, we mostly rely on our own evaluations and those from other scouts and sources we trust. I don't see how outside evaluations relate to "coddling" top prospects by organizations. Speaking again for this site, we evaluate players based on what we've learned doing this for more than 15 seasons. Are we perfect? Good lord no. Do I think we generally know what we're doing here when we say, generally, that things like ERA are really bad ways to evaluate players? I do. Also, you asked for statistics. I would point you to the following: Our site: www.soxprospects.com/stats/pitching.phpFangraphs: really long linkBaseball-Reference: www.baseball-reference.com/register/affiliate.cgi?id=BOS&year=2019
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Post by bdub on Oct 9, 2019 22:14:47 GMT -5
Chris, i didn't mean to offend you, if i did, i apologize. Just to be clear, what i said about "a 20 year old" Mata was
"I think Mata tops the charts for 20 year olds, and certainly has the "tools""
I asked a serious question about how players in the minor leagues are evaluated, i.e. on tools or performance. Your right, i didn't see all of mata's games pre-Portland. in fact i only saw a few of his portland games. My point was he didn't perform better than guys there. You don't have to agree with that, i was simply going by the numbers.
As for the coddling thing, yeah i believe they are treated differently, that's the organizations right to do so. But it certainly doesn't level the playing field. That's why i love the underdog thing.
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Post by bdub on Oct 9, 2019 23:18:31 GMT -5
BTW thanks for the stat links they were very helpful.
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Post by Chris Hatfield on Oct 9, 2019 23:41:58 GMT -5
Not offended. Just pointing out that I can only speak for the site and not other publications on the amount of input sources from within/without the organization that goes into their reporting, and on whether things like ERA are a thing we look at/care much about.
Any good evaluation is going to take all possible data points into account, weighted appropriately. For us, we definitely look at statistics, but I wouldn't say ERA is one we ever discuss. Strikeouts, walks, hits to some degree - XBH to a larger degree. Then there's context: Level, age relative to level (very important), narrative reasons why a player's performance may have changed (did he add a new pitch like Mata did this year? Get in much better shape? Playing through injury? Or is it likely just BIP luck that will regress to the mean in one direction or the other?). And the most important thing is going and see the guy play, multiple times. Why is the guy succeeding if he is? Why isn't he if he's not? The road to the majors has been paved over guys who succeeded at a level for reasons that weren't going to work in the majors or even AAA or AA.
Nobody is claiming Mata was the best performer in the system or on the Portland Sea Dogs this year. The point is that is not the only thing that goes into player evaluation, which seemed to be the point you were originally getting at. Mata was the second-youngest pitcher at the AA level. He literally learned his second-best pitch this offseason and his fastball has added like 6 mph over the last 2 years or something crazy. He got in much better shape than he was in last year and improved his command and control considerably. In person, I saw him once and he was f-ing atrocious. He just didn't have it that game, at all. Ian saw him and he was much better. With a 20 yo, you're projecting what the stuff is going to look like in 2, 3 years. That's what we do here. It's not a science at all, but it's fun to do for us at the site and for the posters here at the forum.
Would be very interested in what ways you think players are coddled and what you mean by a "level playing field." Not sure I'm following your point.
Loving an underdog is great. Who doesn't love an underdog? That's just very different than "why is this underdog not considered as good of a prospect as the system's top pitching prospect?", which if it was not your intent certainly seems to be how many took what you were trying to say.
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Post by fenwaythehardway on Oct 10, 2019 7:59:11 GMT -5
IYO Who would you say are the best pitchers in MLB who don't have a throw it through the wall fastball? asking because more guys seem to be throwing hard and arm/ shoulder and elbow injuries are clearly up? Greinke is a really good example He really is the new Maddux. Greinke sat mid 90s and touched 99 when he came up (and for a while after), and even now he can get 94-95 when he needs it. Kyle Hendricks I think has to be the best current example of a reliably good pitcher who has never thrown hard. Those guys are unicorns, though.
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Post by umassgrad2005 on Oct 10, 2019 8:38:03 GMT -5
The best modern day soft throwing lefty has to be Jamie Moyer no? I mean McGrath is a flamethrower compared to Moyer low 80's fastball. It's amazing he has almost 50 career bwar. Yet he is 100% a unicorn and the one in a thousand type pitcher.
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Post by James Dunne on Oct 10, 2019 8:52:49 GMT -5
Right, and Moyer had basically perfect fastball command. Guys like Moyer, Hendricks, Haren, Lackey all fit a type, and if a guy is coming up who doesn't throw hard, it's unfair to think he can command the ball like those guys. Even Jose Berrios, whose command rated as the best in the minors, was met with a lot of skepticism until he had a 5.6 K:BB at Triple-A as a 21-year-old. I can't think of anyone who gets by with below-average fastball velocity who doesn't have excellent command, other than knuckleballers. Look at what happened to Mike Fiers in 2017 when his control went sideways. Or, even more notably, Lackey when he couldn't keep his fastball down in 2011. Velocity gives you a margin for error. That doesn't mean you *need* to throw hard, it just means the guys who don't need to be pinpoint.
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Post by ramireja on Dec 20, 2019 14:09:40 GMT -5
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Post by telson13 on Dec 20, 2019 20:31:54 GMT -5
IYO Who would you say are the best pitchers in MLB who don't have a throw it through the wall fastball? asking because more guys seem to be throwing hard and arm/ shoulder and elbow injuries are clearly up? Patrick Corbin (sits about 90-91 I think) Ryu sits 90-91 Shane Bieber sits 93, which is totally average these days (But would’ve been plus- or double plus pre-millenium) Kyle Hendricks isn’t “great,” but he’s quite good, basically a solid 2, sitting just 86-88. He’s a consistent FIP beater with low BABIPs, by suppressing contact quality. Aaron Nola usually sits around 92, and was a true 1 in 2018 and basically a strong 2 last year. Marco González has been surprisingly good for 2 years sitting 90...basically a solid 2/good 3. If you really wanna get into the weeds, it’s arguable that Clayton Kershaw fits that profile. He could dial up 95-96 in the old days, but he’s never been a really “hard thrower.” He sat 91-94 most of his best years (averaging 92+-93+). He just had insane command and the ridiculous slider, plus an excellent curveball and the ability to change slots/angles. Cliff Lee at his peak was in the same vein but sat more like 90-92. Jaime Moyer won 20 throwing mid-80s, though that was a while ago. Mike Hampton had some great years sitting high-80s. Mike Scott whiffed 300 while sitting low-90s I think (he had a vicious splitter). He might’ve hit mid-90s earlier in his career but he wasn’t really a fireballer as I recall after 30.. Koji was incredible when he sat 90-91.
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Post by beantown on Sept 12, 2021 12:13:42 GMT -5
What's holding back Brandon Howlett from becoming a bigger name/face in the organization?
Seems he has significant swing + miss to his game with a 31% K rate this year, but as a still young-ish player (just turned 22 today) in Hi-A slashing .260/.352/.480 with 17 HR, I always feel like he should be getting more attention.
Is the scouting consensus down on him or he just hasn't had any extended stretch convincing enough to add a little helium to the overall profile?
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Post by wkdbigsoxfan on Sept 12, 2021 12:32:26 GMT -5
What's holding back Brandon Howlett from becoming a bigger name/face in the organization? Seems he has significant swing + miss to his game with a 31% K rate this year, but as a still young-ish player (just turned 22 today) in Hi-A slashing .260/.352/.480 with 17 HR, I always feel like he should be getting more attention. Is the scouting consensus down on him or he just hasn't had any extended stretch convincing enough to add a little helium to the overall profile? I think you answered your own question
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Post by larrycook on Sept 12, 2021 16:49:40 GMT -5
Same with northcut?
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