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Post by agastonguay13 on Sept 30, 2022 14:07:10 GMT -5
I agree with no RH back up 1B. With a bench of say Arroyo, Wong, Refsnyder, and maybe Chang, the Red Sox would need Hosmer as a LH bench bat (assuming no full time DH). Dalbec is toast, Hosmer has a lifetime of reverse splits. Only downside here is that given his price tag, Hosmer would potentially be a major trade chip. Casas isn't going to get enough ABs to make any kind of call. I think everything you're saying here lends itself extremely well to keeping what they've got right now and running with it. Casas is the opening day starter; gets 100% of PAs v righties. Hosmer and his reverse splits get 50-60% of PAs v lefties with Casas being given the other 40-50% to gain more experience against lefties and build confidence. Dalbec starts in AAA and is used as a fill in when Hosmer inevitable gets hurt, (hopefully) rebuilds some trade value and could then be dealt in a package to fill a position of need. Hosmer, similarly is on a 3-year, virtually league minimum contract that will become a more and more appealing asset in trade the closer to the end of it we get as well as the better he performs. Does no harm to pay 3 guys all the absolute minimum when 1 is /looking/ to be an absolute studmuffin and the other 2 can use their part time roles to build momentum and trade value for themselves.
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Post by incandenza on Sept 30, 2022 14:09:58 GMT -5
0:32-0:45 is a grand master level cliche string. "I chase OBP, not SLG." MORE OF THIS IN THE RED SOX LINEUP PLEASE.
This is the undervalued metric currently in the homer-mad/power-thirsty MLB. Stop trying to turn singles/doubles hitters into HR hitters and instead have everyone focus on OBP and working the count. If you have a basher or two, great. Otherwise, you can go buy one or more and surround them with "pesky" high on-base pros. I remember listening to Brandon McCarthy on a podcast back in 2018 explaining why the Red Sox lineup was tougher than the Yankee lineup for pitchers and his explanation was that the Sox lineup worked as a whole in a way that was unrelenting for the pitcher, whereas the Yankees were just one guy after another swinging for the fences. You could deal with each one as an individual without that mounting pressure.
I don't know why the Red Sox have gotten away from it. To hear Cora talk, he'd like to go back to the unrelenting approach, manage the strike zone better, etc. Maybe part of it is just that their best hitter is a free swinger who hits the ball 150 mph. Another part might be that JDM has lost some of the discipline he used to have (maybe because his bat has slowed and he has to guess more). And they just haven't had the personnel to execute that sort of approach.
But it just seems to me to make such a difference to the whole lineup. That's how it felt when Schwarber got here and that's how it feels now with Casas. I feel like it adds more to the offense than the stats are directly capturing.
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keninten
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Post by keninten on Sept 30, 2022 14:14:18 GMT -5
This is the undervalued metric currently in the homer-mad/power-thirsty MLB. Stop trying to turn singles/doubles hitters into HR hitters and instead have everyone focus on OBP and working the count. If you have a basher or two, great. Otherwise, you can go buy one or more and surround them with "pesky" high on-base pros. I remember listening to Brandon McCarthy on a podcast back in 2018 explaining why the Red Sox lineup was tougher than the Yankee lineup for pitchers and his explanation was that the Sox lineup worked as a whole in a way that was unrelenting for the pitcher, whereas the Yankees were just one guy after another swinging for the fences. You could deal with each one as an individual without that mounting pressure.
I don't know why the Red Sox have gotten away from it. To hear Cora talk, he'd like to go back to the unrelenting approach, manage the strike zone better, etc. Maybe part of it is just that their best hitter is a free swinger who hits the ball 150 mph. Another part might be that JDM has lost some of the discipline he used to have (maybe because his bat has slowed and he has to guess more). And they just haven't had the personnel to execute that sort of approach.
But it just seems to me to make such a difference to the whole lineup. That's how it felt when Schwarber got here and that's how it feels now with Casas. I feel like it adds more to the offense than the stats are directly capturing.
Wasn`t Nomar a free swinger in the lineup when he was in Boston?
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Post by Oregon Norm on Sept 30, 2022 14:28:40 GMT -5
In short, he knows where he is and what he's doing. Add: As for Garciaparra, in his years with the Sox his contact rate was so good that his batting average carried his OBP to the tune of .370+ during those years. For me, Casas is on the Jim Thome track. That's not a bad place to be.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Sept 30, 2022 17:17:51 GMT -5
I've got Casas' splits in this 34 PA hot streak, by opposing pitcher quality.
Note that the smaller the sample is here, the more you want to measure what the pitchers faced have done against all batters. What we're looking for here is evidence that the hot streak has been bolstered by feasting off of subpar pitching. The results at best will be mildly or somewhat encouraging or discouraging, but that's better than nothing!
All numbers are xwOBA / wOBA
Overall .440 / .599 Casas .298 / .289 Opposing pitcher allowed .276 / .268 Ditto, with estimated adjustment for all pitchers being from AL East
Really good pitching overall.
Those with a small sample-size aversion are encouraged to stop here!
Vs RHP (24 PA)
.503 / .651 .312 / .303 .288 / .280
Vs LHP (10 PA)
.288 / .472 (10 PA)
.266 / .257 246 / .236
Or here. Really!
I broke both splits down into two buckets, elite versus others, largely because it was easy to do and I was curious. Yeah, Silly Sample Sizes, but the overall pattern might tell you something. (Because AL East, he hasn't faced any bad pitchers in this stretch, and in fact when you try to split the other RHP into above average and below, it's obviously a noisy result.)
Elite RHP (7 PA) .425 / .422 .270 / .247 .250 / .228 (Cole, Logan Gillaspie, Scott Efross, Ron Marinaccio, Loasisiga)
Other RHP (17 PA)
.535/ .746 .329 / .326 .304 / .301
In this SSSS, there's no discernible split between his relative performance against the elite (185 xwOBA+) and others (176) pitchers. That's encouraging, and you know by how much!
Elite LHP (7 PA) .186 / .351 .250 / .210 .232 / .194 (Cortes, Keagen Akin, Chapman, Cionel Perez)
He's been lucky against the elite guys, but below average by xwOBA.
Other LHP (3) .529 / .754 .303 / .368 .280 / .341
It's just 3 PA, so this may well not be meaningful, but the big take-home point here is that he's faced mostly elite LHP and hasn't been awful.
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