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10/19 Red Sox vs. Tigers ALCS Game 6 Thread
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Post by rjp313jr on Oct 19, 2013 15:44:33 GMT -5
No more so than blindly thinking he's an idiot because he's not putting the player with the best OPS on the field. There's also plenty of anecdotal evidence. You just choose to dismiss it with vigor. Just because someone doesn't put 100% faith in saber metrics doesn't make them an idiot.
Those of you who think they should start Nava because he's played vs righties during the year and has a better OPS are fine. Nothing wrong with that. However, those of you who flat out say if its not measured in a stat then it's useless are baffling to me. How people ignore the things that those who have experience in these situations say is equally baffling.
It's not like he's going with his gut and starting Quinton Berry over Jacoby. Jesus Nava has .701 OPS.
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Post by James Dunne on Oct 19, 2013 15:48:43 GMT -5
No more so than blindly thinking he's an idiot because he's not putting the player with the best OPS on the field. There's also plenty of anecdotal evidence. You just choose to dismiss it with vigor. Just because someone doesn't put 100% faith in saber metrics doesn't make them an idiot. Those of you who think they should start Nava because he's played vs righties during the year and has a better OPS are fine. Nothing wrong with that. However, those of you who flat out say if its not measured in a stat then it's useless are baffling to me. How people ignore the things that those who have experience in these situations say is equally baffling. It's not like he's going with his gut and starting Quinton Berry over Jacoby. Jesus Nava has .701 OPS. OPS has been mentioned five times in the past two pages - ALL of them by you. People, specifically Jmei, have gone into great detail about statistics that are not OPS, and you keep going to the exact same dismissive comeback. You can disagree that Nava is better than Gomes, but I'm starting to wonder if you're even reading peoples answers to your posts. Not one person has argued that Nava should play because he has a higher OPS, but you keep dismissing that same straw man.
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Post by rjp313jr on Oct 19, 2013 15:57:21 GMT -5
Guess that lineup was to be expected. And now for my pointless, drastically changed, unimaginable lineup I think would have been kind of cool: CF Ellsbury 3B Bogaerts DH Ortiz 1B Napoli LF Nava 2B Pedroia C Salty RF Victorino SS Drew Also, everything jmei said on Nava/Gomes on this page is spot on. Can't really argue it any other way, IMO. Why move Pedroia? He's had better ABs the last couple games and Ortiz has struggled more then minus one huge AB. I agree with Bogie 2 and I'd slide Victorino to the bottom third.
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Post by johnsilver52 on Oct 19, 2013 15:59:28 GMT -5
Other than the thing I posted regarding Farrell going with Gomes being his new "pedey" earlier on another topic, rather than use Nava, which was mostly a joke. The real reason I think he has been using Gomes in the PO so far? Detroit's staff has been tough. Their rotation has been nothing sort of dominant in this entire series even. Very tough to score on. low scoring games. 1 run, a solo HR by Gomes could mean the difference and he gives the team that ability at the plate. He works the pitcher fairly well. Nava is a fine player and he didn't see a tremendous downside with throwing him up their vs the Tiger RH pitchers when the upside with him possibly giving the team a solo HR was constantly there.
Just a thought.
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Post by mainesox on Oct 19, 2013 16:04:46 GMT -5
re: Nava/Gomes, Sliders are the pitch Nava has the most trouble with (he hits them on the ground a lot, and whiffs on them more than any other pitch), and the Tigers' pitchers throw a lot of sliders. I would actually still advocate starting Nava over Gomes (he's still an overall better hitter, and a better defender), but I wanted to throw that out there.
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Post by mattpicard on Oct 19, 2013 16:05:34 GMT -5
Guess that lineup was to be expected. And now for my pointless, drastically changed, unimaginable lineup I think would have been kind of cool: CF Ellsbury 3B Bogaerts DH Ortiz 1B Napoli LF Nava 2B Pedroia C Salty RF Victorino SS Drew Also, everything jmei said on Nava/Gomes on this page is spot on. Can't really argue it any other way, IMO. Why move Pedroia? He's had better ABs the last couple games and Ortiz has struggled more then minus one huge AB. I agree with Bogie 2 and I'd slide Victorino to the bottom third. Just to (nearly perfectly) balance out the lineup, and infuse some power up top with X and Ortiz. Even with good AB's, Pedroia isn't much more than a sold singles hitter right now. With some good OBP guys in front of him, it could be valuable to have him come up and spray hits with greater likelihood than Salty/Gomes/Drew in the lower half. Obviously though, as I noted, I'm just having fun by switching up the lineup dramatically.
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Post by rjp313jr on Oct 19, 2013 16:11:42 GMT -5
My apologies I get carried away at times and this clearly is one of them. But people's reliance on statistics but more importantly their arrogant, belittling attitude towards anyone who suggests there are factors at play that can impact a team outside of what's measured in a statistic really pisses me off. I'm not sure if it's because their snarky attitudes (Keith Law jrs) makes me embarrassed at times to even sound like them when talking stats or if it's because I think they are incorrect (prob somewhere in the middle),but it's irrelevant. I wasted a page of posts and I'll move on.
I enjoy the debates but there are no debates with the Keith laws of the world. Advanced stats have been great for baseball, but people treat them like Gospel and belittle anyone who doesn't as stupid. It's beyond annoying.
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Post by mattpicard on Oct 19, 2013 16:19:09 GMT -5
Alex Speier ?@alexspeier 23s Farrell said centrality of defense, base running in this series has tipped lineup decisions to Gomes over Nava.
Defense? Gomes made two plays that were made "exciting" because of his own limitations. Nava doesn't have to dive on that first one, and he starts running back a lot sooner than Gomes on the deep fly. Gomes is definitely a better baserunner.
Pete Abraham ?@peteabe 1m Farrell said sitting Nava is very difficult. But he believes Gomes has and will contribute. #RedSox
Also of note:
Alex Speier ?@alexspeier 1m Farrell said fatigue has been evident in Uehara's body language, as with diminished high fives. Still, Farrell said he can still go >3 outs
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Post by rjp313jr on Oct 19, 2013 16:26:11 GMT -5
Koji was clearly tired and I'm worried Tazawa has run his course in this series. He better not face Cabrera again unless he stops throwing the same pitch.
Two factors on Gomes defense in Fenway may be, he plays the wall very well and has a stronger arm. You can argue in the short left field arm strength is mitigated but to me its extremely valuable at Fenway. Stop guys for getting to second on balks off wall and prevents some runs from second scoring on a base hit to left.
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Post by FenwayFanatic on Oct 19, 2013 16:28:50 GMT -5
I would like to see Breslow get more time on the mound. He is not only a great pitcher but a very smart one as well.
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Post by Chris Hatfield on Oct 19, 2013 16:32:08 GMT -5
I can't let this go unanswered. Middlebrooks' post all star game stats were excellent (.276/.329/.476). His numbers this postseason arent great but neither are anyone else's, and they are better than Drew's. When I heard Bogaerts was starting his first game I assumed he was playing for Drew Amen. Agree that soxfanatic goes too far, but again, Middlebrooks has also been brutal for the whole playoffs, and Drew at least gives you significantly better defense at shortstop than Bogaerts would, whereas WMB is probably a step above Bogaerts, but not quite so much. See my post in the last gameday thread about how I think everyone's thinking re: Drew is unfairly skewed.
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Post by beasleyrockah on Oct 19, 2013 16:33:40 GMT -5
My apologies I get carried away at times and this clearly is one of them. But people's reliance on statistics but more importantly their arrogant, belittling attitude towards anyone who suggests there are factors at play that can impact a team outside of what's measured in a statistic really pisses me off. I'm not sure if it's because their snarky attitudes (Keith Law jrs) makes me embarrassed at times to even sound like them when talking stats or if it's because I think they are incorrect (prob somewhere in the middle),but it's irrelevant. I wasted a page of posts and I'll move on. I enjoy the debates but there are no debates with the Keith laws of the world. Advanced stats have been great for baseball, but people treat them like Gospel and belittle anyone who doesn't as stupid. It's beyond annoying. [/b] You started this conversation by claiming advocating for Nava "isn't even a good debate", and only softened your stance as it progressed. I'm not trying to be confrontational or continue the argument, I just think it's important to acknowledge this dynamic for the sake of future discussion. No hard feelings hopefully. Now, to switch gears, I hope Gomes hits 3 bombs tonight. Go sox.
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Post by Chris Hatfield on Oct 19, 2013 16:34:48 GMT -5
I would like to see Breslow get more time on the mound. He is not only a great pitcher but a very smart one as well. He has pitched three of the five games in this series. Not quite sure what else you want there. He's walked four guys in 2 1/3 innings. He and Tazawa have been the epitome of "bend-don't-break" as the setup men for Koji.
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Post by jmei on Oct 19, 2013 16:38:23 GMT -5
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Post by fenwaythehardway on Oct 19, 2013 16:49:00 GMT -5
My apologies I get carried away at times and this clearly is one of them. But people's reliance on statistics but more importantly their arrogant, belittling attitude towards anyone who suggests there are factors at play that can impact a team outside of what's measured in a statistic really pisses me off. I'm not sure if it's because their snarky attitudes (Keith Law jrs) makes me embarrassed at times to even sound like them when talking stats or if it's because I think they are incorrect (prob somewhere in the middle),but it's irrelevant. I wasted a page of posts and I'll move on. I enjoy the debates but there are no debates with the Keith laws of the world. Advanced stats have been great for baseball, but people treat them like Gospel and belittle anyone who doesn't as stupid. It's beyond annoying. Can you quote any specific examples of the behavior you're talking about here?
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Post by rjp313jr on Oct 19, 2013 16:54:36 GMT -5
My apologies I get carried away at times and this clearly is one of them. But people's reliance on statistics but more importantly their arrogant, belittling attitude towards anyone who suggests there are factors at play that can impact a team outside of what's measured in a statistic really pisses me off. I'm not sure if it's because their snarky attitudes (Keith Law jrs) makes me embarrassed at times to even sound like them when talking stats or if it's because I think they are incorrect (prob somewhere in the middle),but it's irrelevant. I wasted a page of posts and I'll move on. I enjoy the debates but there are no debates with the Keith laws of the world. Advanced stats have been great for baseball, but people treat them like Gospel and belittle anyone who doesn't as stupid. It's beyond annoying. Can you quote any specific examples of the behavior you're talking about here? Absolutely I can, but I won't comb back and pull out specific posts for several reasons. Next time I see it though I'll point it out for you. I've contributed to wasting enough of this thread on this stuff it's not necessary to pull anything backup and start something else. I'm about to sign off for the night and won't be part of the in game discussion. I say this so when Gomes blows people don't think I'm hiding.
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Post by johnsilver52 on Oct 19, 2013 17:02:54 GMT -5
I have to disagree with this also. He looks good on defense at fenway and other parks the same reason Jim Rice did.. Late breaks other players (Yaz at 1st) would have initially read and made look easy, instead of reading the ball badly off the bat and having to slide, or make a basket catch, then looking good on the replay. Same with Ells fairly often compared to Crisp in CF on reads.
Nava isn't any GG'er, but he does get better reads.
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Post by rjp313jr on Oct 19, 2013 17:07:47 GMT -5
I happen to agree with your assessment on his breaks but what does that have to do with him playing the wall or throwing ability?
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Post by thelavarnwayguy on Oct 19, 2013 17:12:55 GMT -5
The base running article shows that teams do achieve excellence by paying attention to the details. And this team clearly has maximized their potential for gain through their effort and applied intelligence. The do sweat the details and make the most of their potential.
Farrell in particular seems to place a great deal of attention to detail, possibly even too much attention to the details and missing a little of the big picture sometimes. Subbing Middlebrooks for Xander the other day on the base paths was appropriate as Xander probably doesn't take that extra base to 3rd. And he did miss an opportunity to score on a play earlier than that potentially, with his current level of base running experience.
Nava is not a very good base runner and particularly not that aggressive a base runner. He's maybe too nice to take out a guy at 2nd on a DP and possibly just isn't committed psychologically to taking chances on the base paths. That is an edge Gomes probably does have. But I don't think it's enough to warrant gomes over Nava in the lineup. Does that equal an extra 50 points of OBP? Or a much high BA with comparable power. Not to mention the split discrepancies.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Oct 19, 2013 17:19:06 GMT -5
Eric, seriously, can you put a TL;DR summary in your posts or something? I'm sure there's a point buried in the numbers there somewhere, but I'm not seeing it. Since I've corrected all the numbers and figured out the necessary context, why don't I just do a series of posts running down all the guys on the team, what they've done against Scherzer, and what Scherzer's splits say about that performance. We'll start with ... Gomes over Nava. Gomes is 2/9 with 5 K (three in Game 2, and 2 in a game last May where Schezer had a solid 6.1 5 2 2 2 9 line); one hit was a grounder to 3B, the other in the SS/3B hole (both this September). Nava is 1/9 with a BB and 2 SO, but he's hit the ball a bit harder than that. The hit was the first time he faced him, a LD 1B to RF last May in a game Scherzer was 6 7 3 3 2 6. He had a deep fly ball out going 0/3 in June in the game Scherzer was bad, and a lineout to RF going 0/3, BB, in the September game where he was good. In my post on page two, I pointed out that Scherzer has had big-time problems with RH extreme flyball hitters like Gomes (allowing a .273 EqA to a group of .237 hitters, but just 14 guys with a total of 82 PA against Scherzer, so SSS caveats), while dominating extreme flyball LH hitters like Nava (.229 EqA allowed to a group of .273 hitters -- 15 guys with 172 PA). And I suggested that this decision may be based on a swing-path analysis. They'd keep quiet about that, because they wouldn't want the Tigers to alter Scherzer's approach in response to that knowledge. However, Gomes is at a big disadvantage in Scherzer's strike-zone command splits. In general, he exploits RHB who go deep in the count, which is why he's not a good matchup for us. Surprise, surprise: the biggest thing Scherzer does is utterly dominate RH hitters who strike out a ton. Those guys put up a .236 EqA against average RHP, but Max has held them (22 guys, 142 PA) to .147, a difference of -.089. They include Gomes (and Napoli and Middlebrooks). Furthermore, he's very tough on RHB with a moderate-high BB rate, holding them to .218 versus their .269 overall (46 guys with 437 PA). Gomes falls in this bucket (along with Pedroia). Nava, in contrast, is an average K and W rate LHB. Scherzer's a little tougher on those guys than usual (-.022 or -.023 versus his usual -.014), but that's close enough to neutral to regard it as such. Finally, Gomes is a low BABIP guy, and Scherzer is -.033 points tougher than average against those RHB, while Nava is an extremely high BABIP guy, and Scherzer has relatively struggled against LHB like that (+.008). This may not actually be all that different from his strike-zone command splits, since the buckets are not independent of each other. Even if they have swing-path data that supports it, I don't like this decision. I think the strike-zone command splits say that Gomes will be lucky to hit this guy, and their history is consistent with that.
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Post by thelavarnwayguy on Oct 19, 2013 17:27:22 GMT -5
In his entire post season career of 30 AB, Jonny Gomes is a .143 hitter with ZERO HR and a wRC+ of -19. Essentially no pop at all.
Paging John Farrell....
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Post by FenwayFanatic on Oct 19, 2013 17:28:59 GMT -5
I would like to see Breslow get more time on the mound. He is not only a great pitcher but a very smart one as well. He has pitched three of the five games in this series. Not quite sure what else you want there. He's walked four guys in 2 1/3 innings. He and Tazawa have been the epitome of "bend-don't-break" as the setup men for Koji. I would just like to see him continue to get chances. He has given up some walks, true, but he has consistently been reliable and helped us win some big games. It really is crazy to think, we only clinched home field by one game in a 162 game season. Breslow was a big part of that.
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Post by semperfisox on Oct 19, 2013 17:41:09 GMT -5
Gomes better at least have 1 hit tonight.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Oct 19, 2013 17:45:17 GMT -5
How about Middlebrooks versus Drew?
Will is a career 1/8 with 6 K. Besides his 2 whiffs in Game 2, he fanned three times last July in a game Scherzer was hit hard (6.1 7 5 5 2 9), and it wasn't because he was slumping, as he took Phil Coke deep later in that game. His hit was a grounder up the middle last September.
As already noted, he's in Scherzer's toughest split, his domination against extreme K rate RHB. He's also a low BB rate RHB, and Scherzer's a bit tougher than usual on those guys (.215 allowed to a large roup of .242 hitters). And he also shares Gomes -.033 (.210 allowed versus .243 average) low-BABIP split.
Drew is 2/13, with 2 2B, a BB, and 5 SO. He was 0/3 with a deep lineout in a 2010 game where Scherzer was on (7 4 1 1 2 8), 1/3 with a lineout and a 2B in last year's ALDS Game 4 when Max was filthy (5.1 3 1 0 1 8), 1/2 with a BB and a 2B this September when he was very good. History says that, despite the seemingly weak career line, when both are on their game, Drew can still hit him.
He's only in one of Scherzer's sizable splits, and it's a good one. Scherzer has allowed .286 to moderate LH FB hitters, a group that's .276 on average. This is 77 guys with 729 PA, so it's real.
Given that Farrell says that Drew isn't doing anything consistently wrong at the plate, just isn't getting results, and given Drew's streakiness ... this is one to watch. One way we win tonight is for Drew to break out and do some damage to a guy he's damaged before.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Oct 19, 2013 18:00:19 GMT -5
Ellsbury is 5/11, 2B, HR, 4 BB, 1 SO.
The splits back this up. I said earlier that Schertzer exploits RHB who go deep in the count, but that's true of LHB, too. Ellsbury is a moderately low K rate and BB rate guy, and Scherzer has allowed .274 vs. an average .267 to the former and .269 versus .258 to the latter. For a guy who is usually .014 tougher, that's a weakness.
If we're to win this game other than 1-0 or 2-1, we need Jacoby to do damage.
Pedroia is 5/20, 2B, 2 HR, 4 SO. The two homers, though, came in games we bombed Scherzer. The 2B, of course, was in Game 2.
Pedey is in four of Scherzer's possibly meaningful splits, and three are very bad. He's a neutral GB/FB guy, and Scherzer has, well, neutralized those RHB to the tune of .205 allowed versus .250 as their group average. As mentioned already, he joins Gomes in the -.050 worse than average split for moderate high BB rates. And he's a neutral HR / Contact guy; Scherzer has held them to .200 versus .250 average. The only silver lining is one you might have guessed; Pedey's extremely low K rate puts him in a group of 10 guys who in 90 PA have a .260 EqA, .009 higher than average.
Pedey doing damage is likely a sign that Scherzer is not on his game. If Max is dealing, hope for productive outs.
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