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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Feb 15, 2020 15:52:05 GMT -5
Remember when Perez was marginally #5? Now he is solidly #4. I think it is fair to say #5 should be whoever comes cheapest. No, I certainly f***ing don't, because from the day we signed him I was saying he had top of the rotation upside and was penciled in as Price's replacement.
It's getting tiresome. One more person to block, now.
Edit: I never did read the start of this thread (too busy) and only saw this answer because of the ProBoards bug that sometimes gives you page 1 instead of the last page. But I'm glad I stumbled on it.
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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 Feb 15, 2020 15:57:27 GMT -5
I say sign Taijuan Walker, Danny Salazar & Clay Buchholz all to minor league deals The thing is, you don't want to give the #5 job to an actual starter because you'll do better using the opener. But once you start getting injuries, then you do need a real starter.
So you do want to sign one or (better) two guys with some life and upside left in them to minor league deals.
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Post by jimed14 on Feb 15, 2020 15:59:01 GMT -5
I think people are confusing using an opener with a bullpen game. An opener comes out and faces the top of the order then exits after just an inning or, at most, two. It's usually a reliever around the talent of a setup guy. As stated above, this guy gives way to a long reliever who tries to go 4 or 5 innings. Think the Rays using Yarbrough or Beeks in this fashion. Beeks isn't an opener. He's the long reliever who follows. The theory is that the long reliever can be more effective if he faces the other team's best hitters less often in turning the lineup over. What a lot of people seem to be talking about is bullpenning - just using guys to try and get through, at most, 2 or 3 innings. THAT is what would kill your bullpen. In theory, using an opener does not put any more strain on your bullpen than a typical fifth starter would - you're just starting one of the relievers you'd use anyway, but at the start of the game in a favorable match-up. Using an opener, the Sox would start, say, Darwinzon against a LHH-heavy top of the order. He'd go 1-2 innings, then someone like Velazquez would come in with the idea he'd get through the 6th or so. We often get asked "would prospect X make a good opener?" and I don't know how to respond because an opener is just a reliever. I get the theory. But in this case, the question should not be "Who is the #5 starter?" but instead should be "Who is the 4+ inning follower for whoever the opener is?" I still don't see a decent option for that guy and that's probably why a lot of people are confusing using an opener with a bullpen game. Because as of now, that's probably still what they'd be doing unless they know something that not many people are guessing. Both Velazquez and Brian Johnson had trouble getting through 2 innings last year. IMO, followers are a lot more important than openers.
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Post by jimed14 on Feb 15, 2020 16:02:24 GMT -5
I say sign Taijuan Walker, Danny Salazar & Clay Buchholz all to minor league deals The thing is, you don't want to give the #5 job to an actual starter because you'll do better using the opener. But once you start getting injuries, then you do need a real starter.
So you do want to sign one or (better) two guys with some life and upside left in them to minor league deals.
Why is it assumed that it's so drastically easy to pitch 4+ innings well as the follower? Why wouldn't any of these bottom of the barrel #5 starters be assumed to be followers instead of #5 starters?
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Post by manfred on Feb 15, 2020 16:15:12 GMT -5
Remember when Perez was marginally #5? Now he is solidly #4. I think it is fair to say #5 should be whoever comes cheapest. No, I certainly f***ing don't, because from the day we signed him I was saying he had top of the rotation upside and was penciled in as Price's replacement.
It's getting tiresome. One more person to block, now.
Edit: I never did read the start of this thread (too busy) and only saw this answer because of the ProBoards bug that sometimes gives you page 1 instead of the last page. But I'm glad I stumbled on it.
Well... this seems rather extreme. You are saying the position that Perez is a fingers-crossed 4th starter is less plausible than that he has top of rotation potential? He is 29, has been in the majors for 8 years, and has a career ERA+ of 96. He’s had one good year, really, and has never had a year close to being a top-of-rotation guy. Last year Price had a higher WAR hurt than Perez has had in any season but one. And if the argument is Perez finally finds himself, well, great. Maybe the Sox see something neither the Rangers nor the Twins brought out in his first 8 seasons. But don’t be so smarmy. You are arguing against most measures and likelihoods. Steamer doesn’t project any great shakes. I see Perez as a poor man’s Porcello. If he stays healthy, he eats innings. But that’s best-case. He’s thrown over 180 innings twice.
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Post by manfred on Feb 15, 2020 16:20:00 GMT -5
The thing is, you don't want to give the #5 job to an actual starter because you'll do better using the opener. But once you start getting injuries, then you do need a real starter.
So you do want to sign one or (better) two guys with some life and upside left in them to minor league deals.
Why is it assumed that it's so drastically easy to pitch 4+ innings well as the follower? Why wouldn't any of these bottom of the barrel #5 starters be assumed to be followers instead of #5 starters? . I think the argument is the opener gets 1-3 in the lineup (hopefully), giving the second guy 4-9 for innings 2-3. It is — and I think Chris said this — a way of minimizing the times you face the best hitters. I am guessing you can also use it to manipulate lefty/righty matchups... maybe bring a guy in when it is most advantageous. One underrated thing, too, might be mentality. Some guys are better starting, and some don’t like it. This allows you to play most to people’s strengths. Of the various innovations of late, this is one I actually particularly like, personnel allowing of course.
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Post by umassgrad2005 on Feb 15, 2020 16:56:35 GMT -5
The thing is, you don't want to give the #5 job to an actual starter because you'll do better using the opener. But once you start getting injuries, then you do need a real starter.
So you do want to sign one or (better) two guys with some life and upside left in them to minor league deals.
Why is it assumed that it's so drastically easy to pitch 4+ innings well as the follower? Why wouldn't any of these bottom of the barrel #5 starters be assumed to be followers instead of #5 starters? Exactly. I see the doing an opener to make a fringe starter more effective. You need innings and Swingman are that because they usually can't give you 4-5 innings every five days. Just because you do any opener doesn't mean you can just plug in any player after him and Bam magic happens and he's great. Everyone seems to overlook, the fact the Rays have pitchers that can go multiple innings. By my count Beeks is there #7 starter type guy. If you want to be the Rays you need three guys as good or better than Beeks. Which isn't that easy to find.
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Post by umassgrad2005 on Feb 15, 2020 17:09:58 GMT -5
Why is it assumed that it's so drastically easy to pitch 4+ innings well as the follower? Why wouldn't any of these bottom of the barrel #5 starters be assumed to be followers instead of #5 starters? . I think the argument is the opener gets 1-3 in the lineup (hopefully), giving the second guy 4-9 for innings 2-3. It is — and I think Chris said this — a way of minimizing the times you face the best hitters. I am guessing you can also use it to manipulate lefty/righty matchups... maybe bring a guy in when it is most advantageous. One underrated thing, too, might be mentality. Some guys are better starting, and some don’t like it. This allows you to play most to people’s strengths. Of the various innovations of late, this is one I actually particularly like, personnel allowing of course. We get the concept, yet you need more than two innings is our point. Two innings is a bullpen game and that will kill you long term over a very long season. You need guys that can give you innings no matter if you call them just a #5 starter or you use an opener. The question isn't do we have enough bullpen arms, it's do we have enough guys that can go 3-5 innings most games if we use an opener. 2-3 innings isn't enough, unless they are pairing guys up and moving around a bunch of guys. Like use Hernandez and Houck combined as a 5th starter.
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Post by manfred on Feb 15, 2020 17:24:40 GMT -5
. I think the argument is the opener gets 1-3 in the lineup (hopefully), giving the second guy 4-9 for innings 2-3. It is — and I think Chris said this — a way of minimizing the times you face the best hitters. I am guessing you can also use it to manipulate lefty/righty matchups... maybe bring a guy in when it is most advantageous. One underrated thing, too, might be mentality. Some guys are better starting, and some don’t like it. This allows you to play most to people’s strengths. Of the various innovations of late, this is one I actually particularly like, personnel allowing of course. We get the concept, yet you need more than two innings is our point. Two innings is a bullpen game and that will kill you long term over a very long season. You need guys that can give you innings no matter if you call them just a #5 starter or you use an opener. The question isn't do we have enough bullpen arms, it's do we have enough guys that can go 3-5 innings most games if we use an opener. 2-3 innings isn't enough, unless they are pairing guys up and moving around a bunch of guys. Like use Hernandez and Houck combined as a 5th starter. No, I know and agree... I wan’t clear when I wrote 4-9, and didn’t mean to imply that would be it. I just meant those would be the first two innings, and the pressure would be off to some degree. I like the Hernandez/Houck combo — it gives both a chance to see how they look as starters. Why not? I guess my only hesitation is that Hernandez could be such a good bullpen weapon. But if the Sox think he might start in the future, let’s see what he has.
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Post by caseytins on Feb 15, 2020 18:25:36 GMT -5
The 5th starter is going to be Houck - in relief of the opener if all goes to plan.
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Post by manfred on Feb 15, 2020 18:30:32 GMT -5
The 5th starter is going to be Houck - in relief of the opener if all goes to plan. I am excited about Houck’s potential, but does anyone know where he is with a third pitch? Has his changeup progressed? I’d love to see him be able to show an ok change... he could stick as a starter if he did.
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Post by jerrygarciaparra on Feb 15, 2020 22:10:53 GMT -5
Sidd Finch.
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Post by redsoxfan2 on Feb 16, 2020 3:57:15 GMT -5
I'm still holding out hope for my Graterol vote.
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ericmvan
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Supposed to be working on something more important
Posts: 8,915
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Post by ericmvan on Feb 17, 2020 4:20:36 GMT -5
No, I certainly f***ing don't, because from the day we signed him I was saying he had top of the rotation upside and was penciled in as Price's replacement.
It's getting tiresome. One more person to block, now.
Edit: I never did read the start of this thread (too busy) and only saw this answer because of the ProBoards bug that sometimes gives you page 1 instead of the last page. But I'm glad I stumbled on it.
Well... this seems rather extreme. You are saying the position that Perez is a fingers-crossed 4th starter is less plausible than that he has top of rotation potential? He is 29, has been in the majors for 8 years, and has a career ERA+ of 96. He’s had one good year, really, and has never had a year close to being a top-of-rotation guy. Last year Price had a higher WAR hurt than Perez has had in any season but one. And if the argument is Perez finally finds himself, well, great. Maybe the Sox see something neither the Rangers nor the Twins brought out in his first 8 seasons. But don’t be so smarmy. You are arguing against most measures and likelihoods. Steamer doesn’t project any great shakes. I see Perez as a poor man’s Porcello. If he stays healthy, he eats innings. But that’s best-case. He’s thrown over 180 innings twice. He ranked 39th out of 128 pitchers (minimum 350 BFP) in xwOBA allowed last year, with a .304. That's actually a #2 starter's number.
But his starts did not have a bell curve around that .304. They had a bimodal distribution; if you sort them all by xwOBA allowed, the biggest gap between any two starts is right in the middle, which is the exact opposite of what you expect in a normal distribution. He had a .304 average, but he never had any start that was worse than .292 but better than .319.
He had 13 starts with a .242 +/- .035 xwOBA, and 16 starts with a .358 +/- .033. There's no overlap there out to 1.7 standard deviations.
A .252 xwOBA puts him 2nd between Cole and Verlander. The .358 has him tied for 121st out of 128. Dr. Jekyll would envy that.
There was no evident streakiness, except maybe from fatigue at the end of the season, when his 4 bad starts in a row was his longest streak of any sort.
The upside should be obvious. If he had 16 good and 13 bad starts instead of the other way around, he has a .294 xwOBA allowed, which is tied with E-Rod, Stroman, and Kershaw for 24th.
And the Sox would have an enormous amount of data that can be used to try to characterize and explain the two different types of results, in an effort to shift their percentages favorably.
Steamer obviously doesn't know jack about any of this.
A quick rule of thumb: if a GM devoted to analytics, and very successful with them, jumps all over a free agent who is apparently a mediocrity, you can bet that they see upside. I saw it immediately in his game logs, and that's not exactly Statcast data.
A bit more on this: most pitchers are going to have an identifiable gap between their good and bad games. But for most pitchers with overall good numbers, good games are obviously going to be the bulk. I looked at old friend Wade Miley, who also had a .304 xwOBA allowed. He had an even bigger gap in his starts sorted by quality, but it was between his 23 good ones and 10 bad ones. And it wouldn't surprise me if all his year-to-year-inconsistency derived from that ratio. His good games averaged about .267. Jose Berrios, who was .303, has his gap between 20 good and 12 bad, with the good ones at about .244. Patrick Corbin's at .304 and doesn't seem to have a gap. Note that when the gap is well into the worse half, it's not obvious that you have an actual bimodal distribution. There's bound to be a big gap somewhere in the tail of subpar starts. I'm fairly well convinced that Perez's distribution was unusual.
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Post by manfred on Feb 17, 2020 10:19:10 GMT -5
Well... this seems rather extreme. You are saying the position that Perez is a fingers-crossed 4th starter is less plausible than that he has top of rotation potential? He is 29, has been in the majors for 8 years, and has a career ERA+ of 96. He’s had one good year, really, and has never had a year close to being a top-of-rotation guy. Last year Price had a higher WAR hurt than Perez has had in any season but one. And if the argument is Perez finally finds himself, well, great. Maybe the Sox see something neither the Rangers nor the Twins brought out in his first 8 seasons. But don’t be so smarmy. You are arguing against most measures and likelihoods. Steamer doesn’t project any great shakes. I see Perez as a poor man’s Porcello. If he stays healthy, he eats innings. But that’s best-case. He’s thrown over 180 innings twice. He ranked 39th out of 128 pitchers (minimum 350 BFP) in xwOBA allowed last year, with a .304. That's actually a #2 starter's number.
But his starts did not have a bell curve around that .304. They had a bimodal distribution; if you sort them all by xwOBA allowed, the biggest gap between any two starts is right in the middle, which is the exact opposite of what you expect in a normal distribution. He had a .304 average, but he never had any start that was worse than .292 but better than .319.
He had 13 starts with a .242 +/- .035 xwOBA, and 16 starts with a .358 +/- .033. There's no overlap there out to 1.7 standard deviations.
A .252 xwOBA puts him 2nd between Cole and Verlander. The .358 has him tied for 121st out of 128. Dr. Jekyll would envy that.
There was no evident streakiness, except maybe from fatigue at the end of the season, when his 4 bad starts in a row was his longest streak of any sort.
The upside should be obvious. If he had 16 good and 13 bad starts instead of the other way around, he has a .294 xwOBA allowed, which is tied with E-Rod, Stroman, and Kershaw for 24th.
And the Sox would have an enormous amount of data that can be used to try to characterize and explain the two different types of results, in an effort to shift their percentages favorably.
Steamer obviously doesn't know jack about any of this.
A quick rule of thumb: if a GM devoted to analytics, and very successful with them, jumps all over a free agent who is apparently a mediocrity, you can bet that they see upside. I saw it immediately in his game logs, and that's not exactly Statcast data.
A bit more on this: most pitchers are going to have an identifiable gap between their good and bad games. But for most pitchers with overall good numbers, good games are obviously going to be the bulk. I looked at old friend Wade Miley, who also had a .304 xwOBA allowed. He had an even bigger gap in his starts sorted by quality, but it was between his 23 good ones and 10 bad ones. And it wouldn't surprise me if all his year-to-year-inconsistency derived from that ratio. His good games averaged about .267. Jose Berrios, who was .303, has his gap between 20 good and 12 bad, with the good ones at about .244. Patrick Corbin's at .304 and doesn't seem to have a gap. Note that when the gap is well into the worse half, it's not obvious that you have an actual bimodal distribution. There's bound to be a big gap somewhere in the tail of subpar starts. I'm fairly well convinced that Perez's distribution was unusual.
Ok, so his expected OBA was admirable? But he was, in practice, easy to hit and not especially stingy with walks. And the latter has been consistent throughout his long career. Sometimes guys are what they are... even in defiance of selected analytics. What in his history indicates he will, say, pitch 200 innings for the first time? Get his walks under 3/9 or even high 2s? Have single digit H/9? I’d be more interested if he learned a new pitch or something. The GM thing would be more persuasive if other analytic-oriented teams were in on him... if he is a #2, one would expect him to go for a bit more money. I suspect it is more Ockham’s razor... the Sox wanted a guy who would start 28+ times, go 160+ innings and hopefully keep them in many of those games. No more than that. I hope you a right and he is a late bloomer (teehee... no pun intended).
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Post by James Dunne on Feb 17, 2020 11:53:02 GMT -5
I'm avoiding going too deep into the weeds on the difference between an opener game and a bullpen game because I don't think it totally matters. A team with a 13-person staff probably can run a bullpen day every fifth day, especially if they're willing to use their options productively. If you need an extra inning from the 8th guy in the bullpen then send him to Pawtucket for the week and call up Kyle Hart. or Colten Brewer or any of the number of available guys. I don't know if that makes sense to do with this particular staff. But even using an opener and a piggyback guy to get you through only four or five innings leaves you with a seven-man bullpen. Lots of teams run out a fifth starter who you don't necessarily get or want to have going five innings. Plus, you could use that opener and second dude on the days in between. With the better depth in the staff this year, I think you can pull that off.
The bigger problem with the Red Sox staff as currently constructed is that you don't have the guy who you're comfortable moving up a day to pitch on regular (four-day) rest when the schedule gives you the benefit of a well-timed off-day. Ideally you'd want to be able to skip that bullpen day a couple at least once or twice a month. But I'd want each of the four top starters getting the fifth day when they can. There's not a Wakefield, Porcello, Arroyo league-average-inning-eater type. And maybe you need that less with the bigger pitching staff, but it seems risky.
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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 Feb 17, 2020 12:04:29 GMT -5
He ranked 39th out of 128 pitchers (minimum 350 BFP) in xwOBA allowed last year, with a .304. That's actually a #2 starter's number.
But his starts did not have a bell curve around that .304. They had a bimodal distribution; if you sort them all by xwOBA allowed, the biggest gap between any two starts is right in the middle, which is the exact opposite of what you expect in a normal distribution. He had a .304 average, but he never had any start that was worse than .292 but better than .319.
He had 13 starts with a .242 +/- .035 xwOBA, and 16 starts with a .358 +/- .033. There's no overlap there out to 1.7 standard deviations.
A .252 xwOBA puts him 2nd between Cole and Verlander. The .358 has him tied for 121st out of 128. Dr. Jekyll would envy that.
There was no evident streakiness, except maybe from fatigue at the end of the season, when his 4 bad starts in a row was his longest streak of any sort.
The upside should be obvious. If he had 16 good and 13 bad starts instead of the other way around, he has a .294 xwOBA allowed, which is tied with E-Rod, Stroman, and Kershaw for 24th.
And the Sox would have an enormous amount of data that can be used to try to characterize and explain the two different types of results, in an effort to shift their percentages favorably.
Steamer obviously doesn't know jack about any of this.
A quick rule of thumb: if a GM devoted to analytics, and very successful with them, jumps all over a free agent who is apparently a mediocrity, you can bet that they see upside. I saw it immediately in his game logs, and that's not exactly Statcast data.
A bit more on this: most pitchers are going to have an identifiable gap between their good and bad games. But for most pitchers with overall good numbers, good games are obviously going to be the bulk. I looked at old friend Wade Miley, who also had a .304 xwOBA allowed. He had an even bigger gap in his starts sorted by quality, but it was between his 23 good ones and 10 bad ones. And it wouldn't surprise me if all his year-to-year-inconsistency derived from that ratio. His good games averaged about .267. Jose Berrios, who was .303, has his gap between 20 good and 12 bad, with the good ones at about .244. Patrick Corbin's at .304 and doesn't seem to have a gap. Note that when the gap is well into the worse half, it's not obvious that you have an actual bimodal distribution. There's bound to be a big gap somewhere in the tail of subpar starts. I'm fairly well convinced that Perez's distribution was unusual.
Ok, so his expected OBA was admirable? But he was, in practice, easy to hit and not especially stingy with walks. And the latter has been consistent throughout his long career. Sometimes guys are what they are... even in defiance of selected analytics. What in his history indicates he will, say, pitch 200 innings for the first time? Get his walks under 3/9 or even high 2s? Have single digit H/9? I’d be more interested if he learned a new pitch or something. The GM thing would be more persuasive if other analytic-oriented teams were in on him... if he is a #2, one would expect him to go for a bit more money. I suspect it is more Ockham’s razor... the Sox wanted a guy who would start 28+ times, go 160+ innings and hopefully keep them in many of those games. No more than that. I hope you a right and he is a late bloomer (teehee... no pun intended). The good / bad split actually looks better with raw numbers than with xwOBA. His first 8 starts last year:
49.2 40 12 12 17 44, 2.17 ERA, .221 / .290 / .354 (200 PA)
He also had these two 3-start stretches:
19 15 8 7 4 13, 3.32 ERA, .214 / .267 / .329 (75 PA) 16 16 5 4 9 10, 2.12 ERA, .239 / .329 / .299 (76 PA)
Totals:
84.2 71 25 23 30 67, 2.44 ERA vs the remainder, 80.2 113 79 71 37 68, 7.92 ERA
The GM argument doesn't fly, either. We don't know whether the Sox were the high bidder, and we don't know how easy it is to figure out a way to get more Jekyll and less Hyde. Every analytic-oriented team is going to have an acquisition board, ranking the upside starting pitchers. Perez was certainly on every one of those team's boards. But it takes a lot of smarts and extra work before you put him on the top of your board. There may have been only a few teams that had him there ... and the Sox may have been outbid by teams that were less competitive and/or couldn't match the Sox in painting the picture of how he could take a step forward.
You have to work backwards from what you know the Sox had to be thinking, as an analytic-savvy team, and what they did. The entire way you win at baseball now is to identify guys with upside and get them. What round did Mookie Betts get drafted in? Did or did not Taylor Glasnow have -1.7 bWAR in 17 starts and 39 relief appearances for the Pirates -- a very savvy analytics team, BTW -- and 3.2 bWAR in 23 GS (nothing in relief) after being traded to the Rays, an even savvier team?
There's no way that perceived upside wasn't the reason they signed him from among a host of others. And you can see that in every single one of Bloom's acquisitions.
The Sox wanted a guy who would start 28+ times, go 160+ innings and hopefully keep them in many of those games. No more than that.
The number of guys who had that floor was huge. From among that group, you go after the guy who has the most upside, pitching the way you think he should pitch. At the same time, the Earth is actually round instead of flat, and orbits the Sun.
I know you're smart enough to see both of these things. You're just reluctant to accept the first one for some reason I can't identify.
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Post by manfred on Feb 17, 2020 12:36:20 GMT -5
Ok, so his expected OBA was admirable? But he was, in practice, easy to hit and not especially stingy with walks. And the latter has been consistent throughout his long career. Sometimes guys are what they are... even in defiance of selected analytics. What in his history indicates he will, say, pitch 200 innings for the first time? Get his walks under 3/9 or even high 2s? Have single digit H/9? I’d be more interested if he learned a new pitch or something. The GM thing would be more persuasive if other analytic-oriented teams were in on him... if he is a #2, one would expect him to go for a bit more money. I suspect it is more Ockham’s razor... the Sox wanted a guy who would start 28+ times, go 160+ innings and hopefully keep them in many of those games. No more than that. I hope you a right and he is a late bloomer (teehee... no pun intended). The good / bad split actually looks better with raw numbers than with xwOBA. His first 8 starts last year:
49.2 40 12 12 17 44, 2.17 ERA, .221 / .290 / .354 (200 PA)
He also had these two 3-start stretches:
19 15 8 7 4 13, 3.32 ERA, .214 / .267 / .329 (75 PA) 16 16 5 4 9 10, 2.12 ERA, .239 / .329 / .299 (76 PA)
Totals:
84.2 71 25 23 30 67, 2.44 ERA vs the remainder, 80.2 113 79 71 37 68, 7.92 ERA
The GM argument doesn't fly, either. We don't know whether the Sox were the high bidder, and we don't know how easy it is to figure out a way to get more Jekyll and less Hyde. Every analytic-oriented team is going to have an acquisition board, ranking the upside starting pitchers. Perez was certainly on every one of those team's boards. But it takes a lot of smarts and extra work before you put him on the top of your board. There may have been only a few teams that had him there ... and the Sox may have been outbid by teams that were less competitive and/or couldn't match the Sox in painting the picture of how he could take a step forward.
You have to work backwards from what you know the Sox had to be thinking, as an analytic-savvy team, and what they did. The entire way you win at baseball now is to identify guys with upside and get them. What round did Mookie Betts get drafted in? Did or did not Taylor Glasnow have -1.7 bWAR in 17 starts and 39 relief appearances for the Pirates -- a very savvy analytics team, BTW -- and 3.2 bWAR in 23 GS (nothing in relief) after being traded to the Rays, an even savvier team?
You say we should work backward from what we know, but your scenario is based on a lot of conjecture. Again... it seems less complex than you make it out. The Sox needed a starter (even before trading Price), someone in the reliable mold of Porcello but much cheaper. Perez was one of the guys available that could be a pretty low-cost, short term investment. I think we are actually close to agreeing in a sense -- Bloom likely saw him as having the most upside of the guys in that category. But I don't think that then means by extension that that upside is what you are making it out to be... that is, just because they chose him over the Sanchezes and Buchholzes of the world doesn't mean it is because he is the next Charlie Morton. Pitchers do -- occasionally -- have late career jumps from mediocrity to front-line status. Most of the time, though, it is when a guy finally harnesses some great stuff or he finally gets healthy. Perez really doesn't fit either of those models -- he has decent stuff and has been healthy. To your splits -- a guy who is very good half the time and very bad half the time is... mediocre. And if that pattern is years in the making, it is highly unlikely that he is suddenly going to shift that 50/50 split in a way that produces a huge jump. Indeed, in Perez's case, even his minor league numbers are consistently mediocre. Again... we are closer to agreeing than disagreeing, believe it or not -- if that number shifts even a little (which seems more plausible), he could have a solid, productive season, as he did in, say, 2013. But a guy who has thrown nearly 1000 innings and has a WHIP of nearly 1.5 and a K/BB ration of 1.77 is not likely to change his spots as he turns 29. I guess if your case were for someone who was 24, I'd say maybe he has a bright future. But Perez is incredibly consistent over a pretty long career already. That is the thing about the Glasnow comp -- he had been bad at age 22/23 in a SSS -- but remained a highly regarded arm with great strikeout stuff. I don't think it took a deep dive to see him as worth the risk. He had only recently been the Pirates #1 prospect. So that analogy does not seem relevant.
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