SoxProspects News
|
|
|
|
Legal
Forum Ground Rules
The views expressed by the members of this Forum do not necessarily reflect the views of SoxProspects, LLC.
© 2003-2024 SoxProspects, LLC
|
|
|
|
|
Forum Home | Search | My Profile | Messages | Members | Help |
Welcome Guest. Please Login or Register.
|
Post by jimed14 on May 8, 2015 8:37:56 GMT -5
Exactly. All the media clowns were criticizing this move yesterday because the Sox don't have the most talented pitching staff, but that's a completely different argument. Just because there isn't a supposed ace on the roster doesn't negate the fact that the entire staff (minus the last two Porcello starts) has underachieved all season. And, like FTHW said, Nieves doesn't have any success stories to his name either.Who knows if this move will make a difference, but it's certainly not worth criticizing at the moment.This is really unfair to Nieves, and probably wrong (I don't know for sure, and I doubts anybody here really knows). But this is the kind of thing you say after the fact to justify a move like this, but that doesn't make it true. And this is not an argument for not firing him. The pitching staff is terrible, you fire the pitching coach. Fine. But shoving him off like he's some kind of bum isn't really helpful either. First, nobody here (unless you're an insider) really knows whom he helped. And when Nieves first came here from the White Sox, I remember seeing stories about guys he helped. Second, if the standard is success stories of a Jake Arrieta-magnitude, you probably need to fire half the pitching coaches. Third, Nieves was perfectly fine when they were winning the World Series in 2013. Lester pitched well; Lackey, Taz; Buchholz was very good until he got injured. Doubront. Mortensen. Badenhop. But that was all Farrell, I guess. I've said it earlier, but maybe Ross was the guy who deserved a lot of the game planning credit. It seems lacking this year now that he's gone.
|
|
|
Post by Guidas on May 8, 2015 8:45:11 GMT -5
Actually no. Cafardo was not mentioned. Can you or anyone name even 5 teams who would gladly switch pitching staffs with the Sox? As far as damning Bowden for being considerably less knowledgeable than many posters here, is there anyone who would now consider the referenced ratings of our starters on a World Series type team as widely disparate from what Bowden & Co said? For me, Porcello is the only one in whom I would have relative confidence to start a Series game...and not likely to match with the top starter on the opposition side. I would carry that down the line with all our starters vs their counterparts. Does anyone think that we are one starter i.e. Hamels or Cueto away? Can we lock down games in the 7th, 8th and 9th with comparative consistency? Do we have the capacity to come from behind? Our better shot will be a year or two down the road when the young guys are seasoned and the staff is re-built. I was listening to it. Cafardo was on the phone with him. It was just another circle jerk of the typical negative Boston baseball media we've heard a million times. It's so easy to pile on when you don't understand sample sizes or advanced stats like SIERA or what the difference between ERA and FIP might mean. These morons would blame the pitcher for pitching badly if he gave up 18 infield hits in a row. The name of the game is winning. That includes the entire roster. Singling out the pitching is simplistic. This should be a better lineup than any team in the majors. That also counts.FWIW - this line-up in April produced almost the same line as the 2011 offense, which - though I hazard to use that team as a beacon for anything but choking - had a very good offense. Of course the whole Craig/Nava/Victorino thing needs to be resolved. Castillo or Bradley need to be regulars out there ASAP. Personally, I still think Nava will bounce back, and Craig could, as well, but I also believe that, like most ballplayers, they both need regular at bats to do so. At least Craig has an option where he can be sent down to get reps and his timing down. Also remember, that reports during the off-season had a LOT of teams trying to trade for Nava, but no idea how he can regain that value if he's riding the bench.
|
|
|
Post by Chris Hatfield on May 8, 2015 8:54:15 GMT -5
One of the most damming things that went on while Juan Nieves was our pitching coach was the lack of improvement of any of our young pitchers when called up. Maybe Allen Webster or Rudy or Workman or Raunado don't have it at all, but maybe Juan never could get them consistent and productive. Nobody ever came up and really reached their ceiling. In some cases, they were barely hovering over their floor. Rubby De La Rosa seems to be putting it together with Arizona this year. The Red Sox may regret that trade. I see why, looking at De La Rosa's line, you (and others here for sure) would think that, but go look at his game log: He's not really doing anything he didn't do in Boston. He's given up 3 or more runs in 4 of his 6 starts, and has given up 6 home runs already (and before anyone points to the park, which would be a fair point to raise, 4 have been on the road). Interestingly, he's not really beating up on the pitcher's spot in the lineup - his splits for each spot in the order are pretty consistent. I'll be interested to see what his line stabilizes at once the sample size gets bigger. The one thing RDLR is doing well is getting through at least five in all 6 starts, which is the thing that, say, Miley isn't, having exited in the third with 7 runs being charged to him 2x in 5 games.
|
|
tedf
Rookie
Posts: 79
|
Post by tedf on May 8, 2015 9:05:25 GMT -5
The one thing RDLR is doing well is getting through at least five in all 6 starts, which is the thing that, say, Miley isn't, having exited in the third with 7 runs being charged to him 2x in 5 games. My understanding is that was the biggest knock against him in the past. His results have generally been adequate. A few cherry-picked stats from an admittedly small sample: QS: 4 of 6 (last year 44%) Str%: 65.7% (last year 62.5%) Con%: 74.1% (last year 79.4%) He is still recognizably the same pitcher, but he appears to be using his stuff more effectively than last year. Meanwhile, Miley is using his stuff less effectively than last year.
|
|
|
Post by jimed14 on May 8, 2015 9:08:42 GMT -5
RDLR also pitched well for us last year for a stretch and then seemed to get tired and fell apart. Or maybe it was the batters gaining familiarity. Let's see him sustain it.
|
|
|
Post by jmei on May 8, 2015 9:16:31 GMT -5
My understanding is that was the biggest knock against him in the past. His results have generally been adequate. A few cherry-picked stats from an admittedly small sample: QS: 4 of 6 (last year 44%) Str%: 65.7% (last year 62.5%) Con%: 74.1% (last year 79.4%) He is still recognizably the same pitcher, but he appears to be using his stuff more effectively than last year. Meanwhile, Miley is using his stuff less effectively than last year. He's got the same league-and-park-adjusted ERA (111 ERA-) but has improved his league-and-park-adjusted peripherals quite a bit (from a 115 FIP- to a 103 FIP-; from a 106 xFIP- to a 91 xFIP-; from a 4.21 SIERA to a 3.34 SIERA). As everyone has mentioned, it's still early, though.
|
|
wcp3
Veteran
Posts: 3,824
|
Post by wcp3 on May 8, 2015 9:18:02 GMT -5
This is really unfair to Nieves, and probably wrong (I don't know for sure, and I doubts anybody here really knows). But this is the kind of thing you say after the fact to justify a move like this, but that doesn't make it true. And this is not an argument for not firing him. The pitching staff is terrible, you fire the pitching coach. Fine. But shoving him off like he's some kind of bum isn't really helpful either. First, nobody here (unless you're an insider) really knows whom he helped. And when Nieves first came here from the White Sox, I remember seeing stories about guys he helped. Second, if the standard is success stories of a Jake Arrieta-magnitude, you probably need to fire half the pitching coaches. Third, Nieves was perfectly fine when they were winning the World Series in 2013. Lester pitched well; Lackey, Taz; Buchholz was very good until he got injured. Doubront. Mortensen. Badenhop. But that was all Farrell, I guess. Your argument isn't really relevant to my point. Like, at all.
|
|
|
Post by fenwaythehardway on May 8, 2015 9:31:25 GMT -5
For whatever it's worth, I can't think of any reasons Nieves SHOULDN'T have been fired. There's no Jake Arrieta or Scott Kazmir reclamation project success stories on this team you can point to in his defense. The Red Sox haven't been particularly good at getting better-than-expected performances out of kids or vets under Nieves. I don't know how much of that you can hang on him, but it's not like they're firing a Leo Mazzone or a Dave Duncan here. Exactly. All the media clowns were criticizing this move yesterday because the Sox don't have the most talented pitching staff, but that's a completely different argument. Just because there isn't a supposed ace on the roster doesn't negate the fact that the entire staff (minus the last two Porcello starts) has underachieved all season. And, like FTHW said, Nieves doesn't have any success stories to his name either. Who knows if this move will make a difference, but it's certainly not worth criticizing at the moment. Yeah, it's really easy for the people pushing or buying into the "WORST PITCHING STAFF EVER" narrative to start in with the I told you so stuff right now, but the reality is that this staff is performing well under any reasonable expectation for them. Reasonable people can disagree about how Wade Miley should be performing in the AL East, but an ERA over seven? His K rate dropping from 21.1% last year to 12.9% this year? That's why worse than anyone should have been expecting. Again it's tough to know how much of this to actually pin on Nieves, but the idea that this staff was always going to be this bad just on the basis of their talent is ridiculous.
|
|
|
Post by Coreno on May 8, 2015 9:54:37 GMT -5
Exactly. It's so easy for the confirmation bias to take over and simplify everything to "I thought they would be bad and it looks like they are."
|
|
|
Post by Chris Hatfield on May 8, 2015 10:08:45 GMT -5
Those who are more statistically inclined than me, tell me if you see this as well:
Comparing the starters to other teams' starters across baseball, they've been terrible at run prevention but about average in terms of stats that predict future performance. Comparing the relievers to other teams' relievers across baseball, they've been average at run prevention but terrible in terms of stats that predict future performance.
Of course, preventing runs is the whole point here, so retrospectively, runs are the important thing. But looking prospectively, it seems there's reason to think the rotation will straighten itself out (in a general sense) and to be worried about the bullpen. I think that squares with what we're seeing from the Red Sox right now, with the bullpen getting attention and the rotation getting more of a wait-and-see treatment.
By the way, the Rockies have had just 5 quality starts so far. Holy crap. How are they even 11-15?
|
|
|
Post by mgoetze on May 8, 2015 10:15:14 GMT -5
De La Rosa's [...] given up 3 or more runs in 4 of his 6 starts I may not have mentioned this before, because of course there's no need for the Red Sox starters, but runs allowed is actually not a good way to judge a pitcher's performance.
|
|
|
Post by telson13 on May 8, 2015 10:23:52 GMT -5
I was listening to Inside Pitch with Jim Bowden on XM radio this p.m. during a long drive. Jim and his co-host opined that the Sox had two number three starters (Buch and Porcello), a 4, a 5 and a 7 (Masterson). In their opinion, no team had ever won a world series with that kind of staff. They felt that the Sox were two top starters away and in need of significant bullpen help too. To them it was the age-old story...fire the pitching coach or the manager but not the GM who hired the personnel. I would bet that Farrell is in the on-deck circle followed by Cherington if things don't turn around. You left out the part about how it was Cafardo that was talking to him agreeing with everything he said. Nick Cafardo is straight-up awful. At least as bad as Eric Wilbur. Maybe worse, because of the larger audience. He's got the emotional stability of a middle-schooler. His opinions change about as often, too (probably because his opinions are whatever the person he talks to tells him they should be). I'm surprised he's not throwing a tantrum over the Sox not acquiring Josh Hamilton when the Angels dumped him.
|
|
|
Post by Guidas on May 8, 2015 10:29:41 GMT -5
You left out the part about how it was Cafardo that was talking to him agreeing with everything he said. Nick Cafardo is straight-up awful. At least as bad as Eric Wilbur. Maybe worse, because of the larger audience. He's got the emotional stability of a middle-schooler. His opinions change about as often, too (probably because his opinions are whatever the person he talks to tells him they should be). I'm surprised he's not throwing a tantrum over the Sox not acquiring Josh Hamilton when the Angels dumped him. Meanwhile, one can tell why Bowden has not gotten another front office job. He has some interesting stuff on his program from time to time - the near full day he did on how trades occur was fascinating - but his suggested moves/trades/decisions are often pretty bad, and change almost as often as Cafardo's opinions.
|
|
|
Post by Chris Hatfield on May 8, 2015 10:47:54 GMT -5
De La Rosa's [...] given up 3 or more runs in 4 of his 6 starts I may not have mentioned this before, because of course there's no need for the Red Sox starters, but runs allowed is actually not a good way to judge a pitcher's performance. Fair. Better point I should've made: he's basically had two great starts (14 ip, 7 h, 1 r, 2 bb, 15 k, 0 HR), two meh starts (12.2 ip, 15 h, 6 er, 3 bb, 12 k, 2 HR), and two below average starts (10.1 ip, 11 h, 11 r, 5 bb, 11 k, 4 HR). So he's been inconsistent, which was always kind of his problem, but to a lesser degree. Biggest thing seems to be the homers - in one of the bad starts he allowed 5 runs on 3 hits and 3 walks.
|
|
|
Post by jrffam05 on May 8, 2015 11:05:20 GMT -5
I've said it earlier, but maybe Ross was the guy who deserved a lot of the game planning credit. It seems lacking this year now that he's gone. Maybe this isn't the best stat to argue the quality of game planning, but Kelly, Porcello, and Buchholz are all striking out batters better than their career/last year rates, and by a large margin too. Miley and Masterson haven't really had the command to execute any form of a game plan.
|
|
|
Post by mgoetze on May 8, 2015 11:44:37 GMT -5
I may not have mentioned this before, because of course there's no need for the Red Sox starters, but runs allowed is actually not a good way to judge a pitcher's performance. Fair. Better point I should've made: he's basically had two great starts (14 ip, 7 h, 1 r, 2 bb, 15 k, 0 HR), two meh starts (12.2 ip, 15 h, 6 er, 3 bb, 12 k, 2 HR), and two below average starts (10.1 ip, 11 h, 11 r, 5 bb, 11 k, 4 HR). So he's been inconsistent, which was always kind of his problem, but to a lesser degree. Biggest thing seems to be the homers - in one of the bad starts he allowed 5 runs on 3 hits and 3 walks. So even in his worst starts he has twice as many Ks as BBs, that's pretty awesome if you ask me. It all boils down to how much blame you give him for the homers. Sabremetrics moved from giving the pitcher full blame for homers (FIP) to none beyond the number of fly balls he gives up (xFIP), and is now moving back a bit to a more moderate position. But it seems clear to me that if a pitcher has a HR/FB ratio talent, you'll be very hard pressed to identify it in less than a full season's worth of data, unless you're playing OOTP Baseball.
|
|
|
Post by jimed14 on May 8, 2015 11:52:45 GMT -5
I've said it earlier, but maybe Ross was the guy who deserved a lot of the game planning credit. It seems lacking this year now that he's gone. Maybe this isn't the best stat to argue the quality of game planning, but Kelly, Porcello, and Buchholz are all striking out batters better than their career/last year rates, and by a large margin too. Miley and Masterson haven't really had the command to execute any form of a game plan. I'm not sure if this is always the case, but k-rates seem to be higher early in the season. I still remember Dempster in April of 2013 when he struck out 43 in 30 innings.
|
|
|
Post by okin15 on May 8, 2015 12:07:53 GMT -5
Of course, generally in MLB, k-rates have been up each year recently, and this could at least in part, be part of that trend.
|
|
|
Post by mredsox89 on May 8, 2015 12:35:21 GMT -5
So Tim Britton (PROV journal) just posted an interesting tidbit on twitter.
Tim Britton @timbritton By my (fallible) count, Juan Nieves made 19 trips to the mound this season. The next batter went 10-for-14 with five walks.
Certainly not what you would hope, but the stat itself is relatively meaningless without anything to compare it to. But 10-14 with 5 walks after a conference seems pretty terrible regardless. The mound meeting usually follows when a guy is struggling, but that's still a god awful line
|
|
|
Post by jrffam05 on May 8, 2015 14:42:43 GMT -5
So Tim Britton (PROV journal) just posted an interesting tidbit on twitter. Tim Britton @timbritton By my (fallible) count, Juan Nieves made 19 trips to the mound this season. The next batter went 10-for-14 with five walks. Certainly not what you would hope, but the stat itself is relatively meaningless without anything to compare it to. But 10-14 with 5 walks after a conference seems pretty terrible regardless. The mound meeting usually follows when a guy is struggling, but that's still a god awful line We should cross reference this against the batters line immediately after Nieves goes to the bathroom.
|
|
|
Post by jdb on May 8, 2015 22:06:05 GMT -5
Sounds like Carl Willis
A tweet from clear the bases that's been retweet by some beat guys.
Heard Columbus pitching coach Carl Willis said his goodbyes after tonight's game. Sounds like new #RedSox coach 10:32pm - 8 May 15
|
|
|
Post by cologneredsox on May 9, 2015 6:27:47 GMT -5
How Chili Davis might be sleeping these days...
|
|
|