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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Oct 24, 2020 15:28:54 GMT -5
He faced 13 guys in GDP situations.
He struck out 6 and walked 1.
Of the other 6 ... four hit into DP's.
Sneak preview: my sinker model has him as an 85, not a 70 (yes, in theory the 20-80 scale can go past 80).
The cost is a 40 movement / velo on his 4-seamer; part 3 of this will be an examination of how he got such good results with it.
I’m not trying to be difficult, cause I like Houck and hope he’s great, but I wonder if similar pitchers (say Masterson or worse) have strung together similar stretches that flashed stuff beyond what they otherwise sustain? In other words, is this stretch, short as it is, so rare an uptick that it becomes statistically meaningful? That's a great question that's not easy to answer with the tools I have currently (he thought, as he typed). I did just assert that pitch movement and velocity stabilizes much more quickly than stats about results, but that's just based on anecdotal experience. And the fact that we did see an off-outing helps our confidence that in the long run, when healthy, his velo and pitch movement numbers were in this ballpark.
Hmmm .. I do have all of the pitch/fx data of 820 of Masterson's pitches from 2009 in a spreadsheet. In fact, I have partial pitch-by-pitch logs for most or all Sox pitchers from 2007 to 2009. And while the '08 logs end in mid-June, the '09 logs are complete. So I could do a thorough analysis of the variation from start to start.
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Post by manfred on Oct 24, 2020 15:33:25 GMT -5
I’m not trying to be difficult, cause I like Houck and hope he’s great, but I wonder if similar pitchers (say Masterson or worse) have strung together similar stretches that flashed stuff beyond what they otherwise sustain? In other words, is this stretch, short as it is, so rare an uptick that it becomes statistically meaningful? That's a great question that's not easy to answer with the tools I have currently (he thought, as he typed). I did just assert that pitch movement and velocity stabilizes much more quickly than stats about results, but that's just based on anecdotal experience. And the fact that we did see an off-outing helps our confidence that in the long run, when healthy, his velo and pitch movement numbers were in this ballpark.
Hmmm .. I do have all of the pitch/fx data of 820 of Masterson's pitches from 2009 in a spreadsheet. In fact, I have partial pitch-by-pitch logs for most or all Sox pitchers from 2007 to 2009. And while the '08 logs end in mid-June, the '09 logs are complete. So I could do a thorough analysis of the variation from start to start.
Don’t trouble yourself... it is a lot of work, I’m sure. I just think the mystery we’ll have to see is if this was a rare peak, a peak he can often/sometimes reach (making him a backend/middle starter), or a legit step to his full potential (making him a somewhat surprising top-line starter). It’ll be one of the most fun things to follow next season.
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Post by philsbosoxfan on Oct 25, 2020 3:10:42 GMT -5
So his opponent-adjusted xERA, and his pERA (my metric) are 3.01. That's a .259 xwOBA. A nd that does not credit him for his skill in inducing GDP's (the big weakness in wOBA and xwOBA for pitchers).He faced 13 guys in GDP situations. He struck out 6 and walked 1. Of the other 6 ... four hit into DP's. Sneak preview: my sinker model has him as an 85, not a 70 (yes, in theory the 20-80 scale can go past 80).
The cost is a 40 movement / velo on his 4-seamer; part 3 of this will be an examination of how he got such good results with it.
Wouldn't that make his "significant off night" his significant on night ?
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Oct 25, 2020 3:54:11 GMT -5
He faced 13 guys in GDP situations. He struck out 6 and walked 1. Of the other 6 ... four hit into DP's. Sneak preview: my sinker model has him as an 85, not a 70 (yes, in theory the 20-80 scale can go past 80).
The cost is a 40 movement / velo on his 4-seamer; part 3 of this will be an examination of how he got such good results with it.
Wouldn't that make his "significant off night" his significant on night ? He had less velo and worse slider movement against the Yankees. I didn't look at fastball movement, but I'd be very surprised if the difference increased.
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Post by philsbosoxfan on Oct 25, 2020 4:14:29 GMT -5
Wouldn't that make his "significant off night" his significant on night ? He had less velo and worse slider movement against the Yankees. I didn't look at fastball movement, but I'd be very surprised if the difference increased. I was more thinking about usage, FB/Slider vs Sinker/Slider. Maybe the sinker/slider version is the pitcher to target for future development. No hitting the Yankees into the 6th is pretty decent empirical evidence.
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Post by Chris Hatfield on Oct 25, 2020 11:36:05 GMT -5
The number of conclusions being drawn from a three-start sample here is staggering. His second-best pitch is an 85 on the 20-80 scale? lol. OK. He was tremendous in a three-start sample. That was a very positive development. It looks like there's a chance he can start, justifying his top-10 in the system ranking. These are all good things! But the extrapolation of the limited data we have from a weird season and a small sample size to, apparently, Houck suddenly being one of the best pitching prospects in the game or something is absolutely insane. Might he be better than he think he will be? Sure!! Does he have an off-the-scale sinker? I'm going with "no" for that one. His biggest question is how he'd fare against LHH. He's faced 22 left-handers in the major leagues. We heard all about this splitter he'd added in order to attack LHH. He's thrown like, 9 of them (Brooks Baseball has him with 6, all from the first game, but I think he threw a handful in the second and third start). Drawing any kind of large-scale conclusions from this sample size that are drastically different from prior projections is foolish. EDIT: Will stand on this and my previous thoughts on the subject: forum.soxprospects.com/post/430470/thread
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Post by redsox04071318champs on Oct 25, 2020 13:28:09 GMT -5
The number of conclusions being drawn from a three-start sample here is staggering. His second-best pitch is an 85 on the 20-80 scale? lol. OK. He was tremendous in a three-start sample. That was a very positive development. It looks like there's a chance he can start, justifying his top-10 in the system ranking. These are all good things! But the extrapolation of the limited data we have from a weird season and a small sample size to, apparently, Houck suddenly being one of the best pitching prospects in the game or something is absolutely insane. Might he be better than he think he will be? Sure!! Does he have an off-the-scale sinker? I'm going with "no" for that one. His biggest question is how he'd fare against LHH. He's faced 22 left-handers in the major leagues. We heard all about this splitter he'd added in order to attack LHH. He's thrown like, 9 of them (Brooks Baseball has him with 6, all from the first game, but I think he threw a handful in the second and third start). Drawing any kind of large-scale conclusions from this sample size that are drastically different from prior projections is foolish. Thank you. I know we're all desperate to cling to something positive in the 2020 Red Sox season, but 3 starts, well that's a bit over the top. It's highly encouraging, but we're talking a sample size of count-em, 3 starts. I'd be pleasantly surprised if he remains a starter, let alone the other stuff being talked about here. As it was he walked 4.5 batters/9. I don't think he can remain successful if he doesn't lower that rate. Especially if guys start laying off pitches more often when they're more used to seeing him.
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Post by unitspin on Oct 25, 2020 17:34:39 GMT -5
The number of conclusions being drawn from a three-start sample here is staggering. His second-best pitch is an 85 on the 20-80 scale? lol. OK. He was tremendous in a three-start sample. That was a very positive development. It looks like there's a chance he can start, justifying his top-10 in the system ranking. These are all good things! But the extrapolation of the limited data we have from a weird season and a small sample size to, apparently, Houck suddenly being one of the best pitching prospects in the game or something is absolutely insane. Might he be better than he think he will be? Sure!! Does he have an off-the-scale sinker? I'm going with "no" for that one. His biggest question is how he'd fare against LHH. He's faced 22 left-handers in the major leagues. We heard all about this splitter he'd added in order to attack LHH. He's thrown like, 9 of them (Brooks Baseball has him with 6, all from the first game, but I think he threw a handful in the second and third start). Drawing any kind of large-scale conclusions from this sample size that are drastically different from prior projections is foolish. Thank you. I know we're all desperate to cling to something positive in the 2020 Red Sox season, but 3 starts, well that's a bit over the top. It's highly encouraging, but we're talking a sample size of count-em, 3 starts. I'd be pleasantly surprised if he remains a starter, let alone the other stuff being talked about here. As it was he walked 4.5 batters/9. I don't think he can remain successful if he doesn't lower that rate. Especially if guys start laying off pitches more often when they're more used to seeing him. If we are going to disregard his 3 impressive starts. We also have to disregard his walk rate since it is only over 3 games, correct? Anyways I think he should get a hard look in the rotation this year, esp if that bum Weber is going to get looks.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Oct 25, 2020 18:52:39 GMT -5
The number of conclusions being drawn from a three-start sample here is staggering. His second-best pitch is an 85 on the 20-80 scale? lol. OK.He was tremendous in a three-start sample. That was a very positive development. It looks like there's a chance he can start, justifying his top-10 in the system ranking. These are all good things! But the extrapolation of the limited data we have from a weird season and a small sample size to, apparently, Houck suddenly being one of the best pitching prospects in the game or something is absolutely insane. Might he be better than he think he will be? Sure!! Does he have an off-the-scale sinker? I'm going with "no" for that one. His biggest question is how he'd fare against LHH. He's faced 22 left-handers in the major leagues. We heard all about this splitter he'd added in order to attack LHH. He's thrown like, 9 of them (Brooks Baseball has him with 6, all from the first game, but I think he threw a handful in the second and third start). Drawing any kind of large-scale conclusions from this sample size that are drastically different from prior projections is foolish. I certainly didn't intend that. So much for sneak previews that rely on previously established context!
What I'll be showing next is that in his 3 starts, his 22 sinkers grade out as 85 in terms of movement and velo, for a starting pitcher. As far as I can tell (and the model has features which make surprising but perfect sense), that's a fact. The "85" number is just a way of expressing how outrageously good his sinker movement was in this tiny sample, in a language we're all familiar with.
Now, I'm only putting a number on the movement (and velo). Command seems to be much more important, so there is usually regression to the mean to get the overall pitch grade. Mike Soroka has got the best sinker in this study, 80 on the nose (which is to say, 3.0 SD above average). But he'd have to have 80 command of it to have a sinker that good.
It's also true that I'm only using SP in this study because relievers only face guys once and they would distort the scale a bit. Tomorrow I'll see what Zack Britton is.
I do have the data to see how much variation there is in pitch movement in a 90-100 pitch sample (slider, 4-seamer) or 25-30 (sinker), and that's not an elaborate study at all. I plan to do that next.
The other thing that is confounding you is that a good part of sinker effectiveness is invisible if you're just looking at the sinker. Hauck so far has showed a 6.8" movement difference (sinker vs. 4-seamer), and that is what contributes to effectiveness (for guys who throw both pitches), not the raw movement. He can go down to 6.3 and still grade out at a 75, and 6.0 to grade out as a 70. Can you throw 22 sinkers and average 13% more armside run than your true level? Probably ... but what are the odds?
BTW, I know it does seem counter-intuitive to hand out grades higher than 80, even as a measurement of what you've seen in a small sample, but this is for a component of a tool. If you stop and think about it, there are guys with tool components that are so off-the charts that putting a mere 80 on it is insufficient. What was the late Steve Dalkowski's FB velo grade? Putting an 80 on it is laughably underselling it. He was way more than three standard deviations above average.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Oct 25, 2020 19:11:24 GMT -5
The number of conclusions being drawn from a three-start sample here is staggering. His second-best pitch is an 85 on the 20-80 scale? lol. OK. He was tremendous in a three-start sample. That was a very positive development. It looks like there's a chance he can start, justifying his top-10 in the system ranking. These are all good things! But the extrapolation of the limited data we have from a weird season and a small sample size to, apparently, Houck suddenly being one of the best pitching prospects in the game or something is absolutely insane. Might he be better than he think he will be? Sure!! Does he have an off-the-scale sinker? I'm going with "no" for that one. His biggest question is how he'd fare against LHH. He's faced 22 left-handers in the major leagues. We heard all about this splitter he'd added in order to attack LHH. He's thrown like, 9 of them (Brooks Baseball has him with 6, all from the first game, but I think he threw a handful in the second and third start). Drawing any kind of large-scale conclusions from this sample size that are drastically different from prior projections is foolish. EDIT: Will stand on this and my previous thoughts on the subject: forum.soxprospects.com/post/430470/threadI missed this in my first reply! And I just re-read the post you linked to.
1) I haven't drawn any conclusions at all. All I'm doing is evaluating the movement/velo quality of his pitches as best as I can, and reporting it. I know that's a scouting job, but it can also be done analytically. And of course the entire current revolution in baseball scouting is the use of analytics instead of eyeballs.
2) Your post is all high-level metrics like K rate ... for the task at hand, that's circular. We know he got great results. I've already figured out that his true ERA was 3.01. (That's after adjusting for luck on balls in play, two different ways which happened to agree to the second decimal point.)
The question I'm trying to answer here is, is there a reason to believe those results had a real component? A guy with that scouting reputation who had those tremendous results can be safely assumed to have had luck relative to his tools. In a three-game sample, you can have most of your mistakes fouled off. We all get that.
What I've found is that there's every reason to believe his tools were good enough to represent a sizable real component of that success, and that those tools are better than the scouting reports.
I will add that command comes and goes start-to-star much more than pitch movement and velo. Having plus-plus sinker and slider movement (which seems very likely right now) doesn't make him one of the best pitching prospects in baseball, for reasons that are too obvious to name. It does make him a considerably better prospect than currently regarded. That's all.
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Post by philsbosoxfan on Oct 25, 2020 19:24:48 GMT -5
The number of conclusions being drawn from a three-start sample here is staggering. His second-best pitch is an 85 on the 20-80 scale? lol. OK. He was tremendous in a three-start sample. That was a very positive development. It looks like there's a chance he can start, justifying his top-10 in the system ranking. These are all good things! But the extrapolation of the limited data we have from a weird season and a small sample size to, apparently, Houck suddenly being one of the best pitching prospects in the game or something is absolutely insane. Might he be better than he think he will be? Sure!! Does he have an off-the-scale sinker? I'm going with "no" for that one. His biggest question is how he'd fare against LHH. He's faced 22 left-handers in the major leagues. We heard all about this splitter he'd added in order to attack LHH. He's thrown like, 9 of them (Brooks Baseball has him with 6, all from the first game, but I think he threw a handful in the second and third start). Drawing any kind of large-scale conclusions from this sample size that are drastically different from prior projections is foolish. EDIT: Will stand on this and my previous thoughts on the subject: forum.soxprospects.com/post/430470/threadStrawman much ? Where did anyone say one of the best pitching prospects in the game ? Most I've seen is 3rd in our system.
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Post by johnsilver52 on Oct 25, 2020 19:50:13 GMT -5
Will see and have seen Sox prospects propelled into greatness for no reason currently and in the past for who knows what reasons. One currently getting huge hype that has many things about his game hard to see hold up.
Take with grain of salt with many writeups, but do enjoy reading them is best advice.
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Post by philsbosoxfan on Oct 25, 2020 20:06:16 GMT -5
I'm sorry but I find that people that jump on details and draw conclusions from those details then attribute them to everyone to be quite frankly wrong both in assessments and justification. I appreciate eric's work and I'm pretty sure he knows a wee bit more about evaluations than others. It's one thing to ask questions, quite another to make what appears like an attack.
eric was pretty clear when he said: "My argument here is that the odds of him reaching his 6 upside are much higher than his current ranking indicates. (He should also go from a 4.5 projection to a 5)." That's not an outrageous conclusion.
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Post by Chris Hatfield on Oct 25, 2020 20:37:38 GMT -5
Ray, at one point you said he should be a top 50 prospect. That would make him one of the top pitching prospects in the game no?
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Post by philsbosoxfan on Oct 25, 2020 22:49:11 GMT -5
Ray, at one point you said he should be a top 50 prospect. That would make him one of the top pitching prospects in the game no? I also said should be and would be are two different things and it was also in reference to how many top prospects have graduated this year. It was also after the Pitching Ninja tunneling videos which eric hasn't even touched on. About ten posts ago, I said I thought #3 was my expectation, #1 or #2 optimistic and #4 or #5 pessimistic. Also on many occasions, I've had him ranked third behind Casas and Duran. If I thought top in the sense that you meant it, he'd be my hands down #1. In any event, anything I've said should not warrant an attack on eric's work by someone who's an "editor" without even presenting any facts to counter the points made by eric except to refence stats which have nothing to do with pitch analysis.
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Post by redsox04071318champs on Oct 25, 2020 23:09:46 GMT -5
Thank you. I know we're all desperate to cling to something positive in the 2020 Red Sox season, but 3 starts, well that's a bit over the top. It's highly encouraging, but we're talking a sample size of count-em, 3 starts. I'd be pleasantly surprised if he remains a starter, let alone the other stuff being talked about here. As it was he walked 4.5 batters/9. I don't think he can remain successful if he doesn't lower that rate. Especially if guys start laying off pitches more often when they're more used to seeing him. If we are going to disregard his 3 impressive starts. We also have to disregard his walk rate since it is only over 3 games, correct? Anyways I think he should get a hard look in the rotation this year, esp if that bum Weber is going to get looks. The point I was making that if he walked that many batters when he's pitching awesome how many would he walk if he wasn't? I'm probably doing the opposite of what I intend - I mean you could not pitch much better over a 3 start start than Houck did. I mean, you cannot draw it up any better, right? I loved what I saw. It makes me hopeful that there's a starter there. Let's be honest. Even at the worst case scenario there wasn't, he would still be useful as a guy who can pitch high leverage in the late innings and dominate righties, so we're talking somebody who will be a big part of the Red Sox future. The question still very much remains, is he truly going to be a starter for them? I mean it wouldn't surprise me to see him struggle along with too many walks and an ERA near 5, and wind up being transitioned to the bullpen and doing well there. But the good news is that now it's a possibility that he can be a successful starter, too. It's still just a wide range of outcomes still. I mean he has never really dominated in the minor and we do know why - we know that he got away from what made him successful based on the Red Sox request to work on some different things. We know he went back to his old style and had better success but nothing that screamed out "future star starting pitcher". Maybe that could have happened had we had a minor league season this year. Who knows? I just feel that I still don't know anywhere enough about what he can be based on three starts, and I zeroed in on his BB/9 because I knew that was a bit of a concern in the minors.
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Post by mwgray13 on Oct 26, 2020 8:47:13 GMT -5
If we are going to disregard his 3 impressive starts. We also have to disregard his walk rate since it is only over 3 games, correct? Anyways I think he should get a hard look in the rotation this year, esp if that bum Weber is going to get looks. The point I was making that if he walked that many batters when he's pitching awesome how many would he walk if he wasn't? I'm probably doing the opposite of what I intend - I mean you could not pitch much better over a 3 start start than Houck did. I mean, you cannot draw it up any better, right? I loved what I saw. It makes me hopeful that there's a starter there. Let's be honest. Even at the worst case scenario there wasn't, he would still be useful as a guy who can pitch high leverage in the late innings and dominate righties, so we're talking somebody who will be a big part of the Red Sox future. The question still very much remains, is he truly going to be a starter for them? I mean it wouldn't surprise me to see him struggle along with too many walks and an ERA near 5, and wind up being transitioned to the bullpen and doing well there. But the good news is that now it's a possibility that he can be a successful starter, too. It's still just a wide range of outcomes still. I mean he has never really dominated in the minor and we do know why - we know that he got away from what made him successful based on the Red Sox request to work on some different things. We know he went back to his old style and had better success but nothing that screamed out "future star starting pitcher". Maybe that could have happened had we had a minor league season this year. Who knows? I just feel that I still don't know anywhere enough about what he can be based on three starts, and I zeroed in on his BB/9 because I knew that was a bit of a concern in the minors. The initial results were superb. I think he is a starter now and in the long term. For me I see 2 plus pitches (Sinker & Slider), an average 3rd pitch (4 Seam), and potentially above average Splitter. With that arsenal, I think he is a 3/4 starter (Tanaka, Dobnak, Yarbough, Weber). The best pitchers in baseball will create about 35" of vertical and horizontal movement between pitches (Sale, Morton, etc). Houck already has the horizontal movement needed between his sinker slider combo. The vertical separation on his 4 Seam, and Slider is a weak 17". His 4 Seam he gets a elite downward movement, his fastball is a bowling bowl instead of a riser, which actually works against him. I like the splitter (the few we have seen), and it looks to have significant drop vs average but I question if that is the right pitch for him. I think he would benefit more from added a cutter or a 1-7 curveball. At best his splitter would get 38" of drop which would be 3" less than his slider, and have close horizontal movement to the 4 Seam FB, and Sinker. A Cutter wouldn't drop as much but would provide a better option horizontally (second option here would be to add a "cutter" by commanding his current slider at two different MPH ranges; creating two clusters of 2 pitches). If he were to add a curve (I know he tried a knuckle curve years ago), but if he were able to drop a 2 MPHs off the slider, and add 10" of depth (essentially average curve) hitters would be baffled, and he would be a frontline starter. That potential curve doesn't even need much horizontal movement just the drop. At the end of the day the 4th pitch he develops will be critical to his ceiling.
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Post by wcsoxfan on Oct 26, 2020 10:09:45 GMT -5
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Post by mwgray13 on Oct 26, 2020 13:48:56 GMT -5
Would high recommend the pitch mix link, gives a great visualization.
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Post by umassgrad2005 on Oct 26, 2020 13:51:46 GMT -5
Ray, at one point you said he should be a top 50 prospect. That would make him one of the top pitching prospects in the game no? I also said should be and would be are two different things and it was also in reference to how many top prospects have graduated this year. It was also after the Pitching Ninja tunneling videos which eric hasn't even touched on. About ten posts ago, I said I thought #3 was my expectation, #1 or #2 optimistic and #4 or #5 pessimistic. Also on many occasions, I've had him ranked third behind Casas and Duran. If I thought top in the sense that you meant it, he'd be my hands down #1. In any event, anything I've said should not warrant an attack on eric's work by someone who's an "editor" without even presenting any facts to counter the points made by eric except to refence stats which have nothing to do with pitch analysis. The facts are it's three games and they are crazy results in that even prime Pedro couldn't sustain Houcks numbers against hitters for a season. Just like Chavis couldn't maintain his crazy .450 or whatever it was BAbip numbers during his hot start. Before these three starts he was seen as a fringe starter or reliever, maybe swing type guy. So the facts that say we need to maybe slowdown on talking about top 50 prospect and TOR pitcher is everything besides these three starts.
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TearsIn04
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Everybody knows Nelson de la Rosa, but who is Karim Garcia?
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Post by TearsIn04 on Oct 26, 2020 13:54:17 GMT -5
Ray, at one point you said he should be a top 50 prospect. That would make him one of the top pitching prospects in the game no? We also saw a claim that he has two 70-grade pitches. Then it was an 85 on the sinker, not a 70. A guy with two 70-grade pitches (never mind the 85!) would be more than one of the top pitching prospects in the game. He'd compete for the CY. The reality is that we should all be thrilled if Houck throws 150 innings at a league-average ERA in 2021. That would make him a decent No. 3 starter and a great value at the rookie minimum. Serious questions: If he has two 70-grade pitches, why was he pitching at the alternative site until the last two weeks? Was the RS evaluation of him off by that much? What about the other 29 teams? None of them spotted this incredibly under-valued asset and made an offer to acquire him from the in-the-dark Red Sox? He showed some good things in a SSS. But he also had a high walk rate and an unsustainable BABIP. He could be a useful piece going forward. But I have to agree with Chris and Champs that we're getting a bit carried away with some of the optimism. I remember walking out of a work-related meeting and sitting in my car with the radio on one night early in the 1995 season. This guy was making me giddy: www.baseball-reference.com/players/e/eshelva01.shtml
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Oct 26, 2020 14:54:23 GMT -5
If we are going to disregard his 3 impressive starts. We also have to disregard his walk rate since it is only over 3 games, correct? Anyways I think he should get a hard look in the rotation this year, esp if that bum Weber is going to get looks. The point I was making that if he walked that many batters when he's pitching awesome how many would he walk if he wasn't?
I'm probably doing the opposite of what I intend - I mean you could not pitch much better over a 3 start start than Houck did. I mean, you cannot draw it up any better, right? I loved what I saw. It makes me hopeful that there's a starter there. Let's be honest. Even at the worst case scenario there wasn't, he would still be useful as a guy who can pitch high leverage in the late innings and dominate righties, so we're talking somebody who will be a big part of the Red Sox future. The question still very much remains, is he truly going to be a starter for them? I mean it wouldn't surprise me to see him struggle along with too many walks and an ERA near 5, and wind up being transitioned to the bullpen and doing well there. But the good news is that now it's a possibility that he can be a successful starter, too. It's still just a wide range of outcomes still. I mean he has never really dominated in the minor and we do know why - we know that he got away from what made him successful based on the Red Sox request to work on some different things. We know he went back to his old style and had better success but nothing that screamed out "future star starting pitcher". Maybe that could have happened had we had a minor league season this year. Who knows? I just feel that I still don't know anywhere enough about what he can be based on three starts, and I zeroed in on his BB/9 because I knew that was a bit of a concern in the minors. He did walk 9 guys.
Six of the nine walks were to one of the team's two best hitters. The nine guys had an average 142 wRC+ (versus MLB's 121).
The league walk rate was .102. Guys he walked, with wRC+ and walk rate:
187, .172 Freddie Freeman 187, .172 Freddie Freeman again 179, .142 Marcel Ozuna 177, .083 D.J. LeMahieu 142, .112 Miguel Rojas 133, .083 Garrett Cooper 106, .128 Gleiber Torres 096, .135 Matt Joyce 069, .114 Tyler Wade
It's mostly the result of pitching carefully to good hitters. Two of the guys having subpar seasons had good ones in 2019 and drew a lot of walks. Wade is the only "you can't walk that guy" walk.
The walks in context:
Rojas: 2 outs, man on 1st. Fanned Jazz Chisholm. Joyce: 1 out. Fanned Brian Anderson, them walked ... Cooper: Fanned Rojas. Wade: 2 out, nobody one. Got LeMahieu 5-3 (weak GB). Torres: lead off BB. Got Gardner on a short fly to LF, fanned Frazier and Sanchez. LeMahieu: Man on 3rd (after 2B, PB), 0 outs. Got Voit to hit into a 6-4-3 DP and Hicks 4-3. Freeman and ... Ozuna: Leadoff walks. Fanned D'Arnaud and Albies and got Duvall 6-3. Freeman: Leadoff walk. Got Ozuna on a foul pop, fanned D'Arnaud, got Albies to pop to 3B.
After walking a guy in an inning:
8 strikeouts 4 groundballs (1 for a DP) 2 popups 1 short flyball 2 further walks, but no hits
He fanned exactly one-third of the hitters he faced, but 47% of the hitters when he had previously walked a man in that inning. Only 22% of the batter he faced hit balls in the air that weren't popups, but that was 6% after walking a man in an inning.
This strongly reinforces the notion that all of these but Wade were the result of pitching guys carefully, rather than any loss of command.
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ericmvan
Veteran
Supposed to be working on something more important
Posts: 8,936
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Post by ericmvan on Oct 26, 2020 15:09:54 GMT -5
I also said should be and would be are two different things and it was also in reference to how many top prospects have graduated this year. It was also after the Pitching Ninja tunneling videos which eric hasn't even touched on. About ten posts ago, I said I thought #3 was my expectation, #1 or #2 optimistic and #4 or #5 pessimistic. Also on many occasions, I've had him ranked third behind Casas and Duran. If I thought top in the sense that you meant it, he'd be my hands down #1. In any event, anything I've said should not warrant an attack on eric's work by someone who's an "editor" without even presenting any facts to counter the points made by eric except to refence stats which have nothing to do with pitch analysis. The facts are it's three games and they are crazy results in that even prime Pedro couldn't sustain Houcks numbers against hitters for a season. Just like Chavis couldn't maintain his crazy .450 or whatever it was BAbip numbers during his hot start. Before these three starts he was seen as a fringe starter or reliever, maybe swing type guy. So the facts that say we need to maybe slowdown on talking about top 50 prospect and TOR pitcher is everything besides these three starts. I AM NOT TALKING ABOUT THE F****** RESULTS. I just explained that. Ray, at one point you said he should be a top 50 prospect. That would make him one of the top pitching prospects in the game no? We also saw a claim that he has two 70-grade pitches. Then it was an 85 on the sinker, not a 70. A guy with two 70-grade pitches (never mind the 85!) would be more than one of the top pitching prospects in the game. He'd compete for the CY. The reality is that we should all be thrilled if Houck throws 150 innings at a league-average ERA in 2021. That would make him a decent No. 3 starter and a great value at the rookie minimum. Serious questions: If he has two 70-grade pitches, why was he pitching at the alternative site until the last two weeks? Was the RS evaluation of him off by that much? What about the other 29 teams? None of them spotted this incredibly under-valued asset and made an offer to acquire him from the in-the-dark Red Sox? He showed some good things in a SSS. But he also had a high walk rate and an unsustainable BABIP. He could be a useful piece going forward. But I have to agree with Chris and Champs that we're getting a bit carried away with some of the optimism. I remember walking out of a work-related meeting and sitting in my car with the radio on one night early in the 1995 season. This guy was making me giddy: www.baseball-reference.com/players/e/eshelva01.shtml I claimed nothing of the sort. I said that he had 70 movement (factoring in velo) on his slider and 85 movement on his sinker.
There's not just a world of difference between a pitch that grades as a 70 and pitch movement that grades as a 70, there's the entire freaking universe. And I just explained that, too.
To call these strawman arguments would be an insult to actual strawmen. Both Dorothy and the Scarecrow are spinning in their graves.
To answer your serious question (more sneak preview): he's spent the last few years learning a new pitch: a very unusual 4-seamer (so unusual that it might even be a new pitch in the sense that they invented it for him) that, via contrast, would make his sinker into a deadly weapon. They're not going to promote him to MLB until he could throw that pitch consistently.
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Post by umassgrad2005 on Oct 26, 2020 15:38:31 GMT -5
The facts are it's three games and they are crazy results in that even prime Pedro couldn't sustain Houcks numbers against hitters for a season. Just like Chavis couldn't maintain his crazy .450 or whatever it was BAbip numbers during his hot start. Before these three starts he was seen as a fringe starter or reliever, maybe swing type guy. So the facts that say we need to maybe slowdown on talking about top 50 prospect and TOR pitcher is everything besides these three starts. I AM NOT TALKING ABOUT THE F****** RESULTS. I just explained that. We also saw a claim that he has two 70-grade pitches. Then it was an 85 on the sinker, not a 70. A guy with two 70-grade pitches (never mind the 85!) would be more than one of the top pitching prospects in the game. He'd compete for the CY. The reality is that we should all be thrilled if Houck throws 150 innings at a league-average ERA in 2021. That would make him a decent No. 3 starter and a great value at the rookie minimum. Serious questions: If he has two 70-grade pitches, why was he pitching at the alternative site until the last two weeks? Was the RS evaluation of him off by that much? What about the other 29 teams? None of them spotted this incredibly under-valued asset and made an offer to acquire him from the in-the-dark Red Sox? He showed some good things in a SSS. But he also had a high walk rate and an unsustainable BABIP. He could be a useful piece going forward. But I have to agree with Chris and Champs that we're getting a bit carried away with some of the optimism. I remember walking out of a work-related meeting and sitting in my car with the radio on one night early in the 1995 season. This guy was making me giddy: www.baseball-reference.com/players/e/eshelva01.shtml I claimed nothing of the sort. I said that he had 70 movement (factoring in velo) on his slider and 85 movement on his sinker.
There's not just a world of difference between a pitch that grades as a 70 and pitch movement that grades as a 70, there's the entire freaking universe. And I just explained that, too.
To call these strawman arguments would be an insult to actual strawmen. Both Dorothy and the Scarecrow are spinning in their graves.
To answer your serious question (more sneak preview): he's spent the last few years learning a new pitch: a very unusual 4-seamer (so unusual that it might even be a new pitch in the sense that they invented it for him) that, via contrast, would make his sinker into a deadly weapon. They're not going to promote him to MLB until he could throw that pitch consistently.
When did I comment on a single thing you said?
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TearsIn04
Veteran
Everybody knows Nelson de la Rosa, but who is Karim Garcia?
Posts: 2,835
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Post by TearsIn04 on Oct 26, 2020 17:47:12 GMT -5
We also saw a claim that he has two 70-grade pitches. Then it was an 85 on the sinker, not a 70. A guy with two 70-grade pitches (never mind the 85!) would be more than one of the top pitching prospects in the game. He'd compete for the CY. The reality is that we should all be thrilled if Houck throws 150 innings at a league-average ERA in 2021. That would make him a decent No. 3 starter and a great value at the rookie minimum. Serious questions: If he has two 70-grade pitches, why was he pitching at the alternative site until the last two weeks? Was the RS evaluation of him off by that much? What about the other 29 teams? None of them spotted this incredibly under-valued asset and made an offer to acquire him from the in-the-dark Red Sox? He showed some good things in a SSS. But he also had a high walk rate and an unsustainable BABIP. He could be a useful piece going forward. But I have to agree with Chris and Champs that we're getting a bit carried away with some of the optimism. I remember walking out of a work-related meeting and sitting in my car with the radio on one night early in the 1995 season. This guy was making me giddy: www.baseball-reference.com/players/e/eshelva01.shtml I claimed nothing of the sort. I said that he had 70 movement (factoring in velo) on his slider and 85 movement on his sinker.
There's not just a world of difference between a pitch that grades as a 70 and pitch movement that grades as a 70, there's the entire freaking universe. And I just explained that, too.
To call these strawman arguments would be an insult to actual strawmen. Both Dorothy and the Scarecrow are spinning in their graves.
This is verbatim from your post at 3:49 a.m. on Saturday: "And what we know is that he seems to have the velocity and movement on both his slider and sinker to project as 70 pitches (the sinker analysis should be up tomorrow), and of course he fared way better than that with them in these starts.
"Did anyone on the staff think that Houck could display a 70 slider and a 70 sinker over his first three MLB starts? It's a plain fact that he did, and I don't believe he was supposed to be able to do that ever, let alone immediately."I don't know how anyone can interpret that as anything other than a claim that he showed a 70 slider and a 70 sinker. And I therefore do not feel that I owe Dorothy and Scarecrow an apology.
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