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Post by redsoxfansince94 on Jul 17, 2023 5:52:18 GMT -5
The way he throws literally hurts my arm to watch. Guy is for sure one of our better pitchers ATM. I with rather see him starting then Sale. I was hoping Sale would have a decent 1st half so we can try to unload that contract at the deadline. Praying it can still happen. No one is taking that Sale deal. On Crawford, you can’t help but love his development. He can be a weapon out of the pen come the playoffs and a solid #5 starter for this team moving forward.
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Post by ed978 on Jul 17, 2023 5:54:21 GMT -5
Stats had a chart pointing out how Crawford's fastball has less jump and break than earlier in the year yesterday.
I think that's kind of the worry with Crawford. Doesn't take much to see how violent his delivery is to his elbow.
If he can stay healthy, he's a notch below Bello in terms of talent, but it ain't by much.
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Post by redsoxfansince94 on Jul 17, 2023 6:00:34 GMT -5
Stats had a chart pointing out how Crawford's fastball has less jump and break than earlier in the year yesterday. I think that's kind of the worry with Crawford. Doesn't take much to see how violent his delivery is to his elbow. If he can stay healthy, he's a notch below Bello in terms of talent, but it ain't by much. You think he’s that close to Bello? I think BB is showing he is, at least, a #2. Crawford’s delivery reminds me so much of Keith Foulke.
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Post by benogliviesbrother on Jul 17, 2023 14:00:27 GMT -5
Stats had a chart pointing out how Crawford's fastball has less jump and break than earlier in the year yesterday. I think that's kind of the worry with Crawford. Doesn't take much to see how violent his delivery is to his elbow. If he can stay healthy, he's a notch below Bello in terms of talent, but it ain't by much. You think he’s that close to Bello? I think BB is showing he is, at least, a #2. Crawford’s delivery reminds me so much of Keith Foulke. Was thinking the same thing -- "short-armer." Foulke was so easy to watch.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Jul 17, 2023 21:25:30 GMT -5
Crawford as a starter has an xwOBA / wOBA of .320 / .338. MLB average is .328 / .323. Given that wOBA is inflated by Fenway, and by this year by defense, that puts his overall performance as just over the line between 3 and 4 starter (on the good side. That league average is the border between 3 and 4 really makes these translations easier). But here's the catch. He has never a had a start remotely like that. He has no starts with an xwOBA between .271 and .384! What do those two numbers average out to? .328. MLB average. He has six starts with a combined xwOBA of .236. How good is that? Joe Ryan leads regular MLB starters with .272. He has four starts with a combined xwOBA of .426. How bad is that? Adam Wainwright and Kyle Muller are worst among regular starters at .421. Compared to Kutter Crawford, Jekyll and Hyde are (is?) a paragon of consistency. All of his good starts would have been better than average for Ryan.
The thing is, there are probably lots of pitchers who are somewhat like this -- when they're off their game, they are dramatically worse. I say "somewhat" not just because of the huge split, but because of the 60 / 40 good / bad split. How often do guys like this have an off day? One start in five? That sounds right to me. If Crawford could keep this up, but melt down just once in four starts, he'd be an ace. If he could get it down to 1 in 5, he's be the best pitcher in baseball.
I don't mean to imply that this is possible. But given what we've seen, I think it's fair to say that he ought to be a 3 starter and could be even better.
I've saved the best (worst)? for last. He's only had 1 pair of back-to-back good or bad starts, and that exception has a big asterisk.
4/3/2023 .461 4/9/2023 .261 6/3/2023 .220 6/7/2023 .196 6/13/2023 .385 6/20/2023 .207 6/25/2023 .397 7/1/2023 .270 7/6/2023 .465 7/16/2023 .237 He was asked to pitch on short rest on 6/7 because (IIRC) they wanted to give Whitlolck extra rest, and he gave up 6 hits in 3+ innings for a wOBA of .436. But his expected hits were 2.5. I remember thinking he pitching well and was just having crap luck.
I believe his next start is Saturday vs. the Mets ... can he break the pattern and be great?
Late addition:
Days rest may be a factor. He's made 6 starts in regular rotation.
.207 -- 6 days (1 start) .305 -- 5 days (2 good and 1 bad start) .427 -- 4 days (2 starts)
I think he'll be on 5 days rest not just vs. the Mets but in his start after that, first game in SF.
An off-season working on stamina ... what would that do?
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Post by bluechip on Jul 29, 2023 8:32:51 GMT -5
Absolutely fantastic start by Crawford last night. Looking pretty solid and valuable as a member of the rotation.
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cdj
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Post by cdj on Jul 29, 2023 11:35:36 GMT -5
Absolutely fantastic start by Crawford last night. Looking pretty solid and valuable as a member of the rotation. They mentioned it in the broadcast last night but he’s been effective at the bottom and below the zone lately. When he’s commanding that cutter and knuckle curve down and using that riser up he’s gonna be very difficult to hit
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Post by wcsoxfan on Sept 30, 2023 9:47:30 GMT -5
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Post by pappyman99 on Sept 30, 2023 10:50:48 GMT -5
Kutter would be an amazing 5 if slotted in that role
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Post by bluechip on Sept 30, 2023 21:03:48 GMT -5
Kutter would be an amazing 5 if slotted in that role A bright spot of 2023. He’d be a very nice four or five in 2024. Yes, they need depth, but hopefully he gives them 30 starts and 170 innings next year.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Oct 27, 2023 14:54:18 GMT -5
So, I'm adding the virtual bulk outing on April 17th, which was actually his longest outing by IP, to his starts. That would be predictive of his performance as a starter, no?
He faced 467 hitters. Here are the top 10 starting pitchers in xwOBA who faced 400+ hitters. .269 Pablo Lopez .273 Spencer Strider .274 Zach Eflin .278 Zack Wheeler .282 Max Scherzer .283 Kutter Crawford .284 Freddy Peralta .286 Corbin Burns .288 Bobby Miller .289 Gerrit Cole
If we take all 150 starters who faced 290 or more hitters, he still ranks 9th. Toss out his bulk outing and he still ranks 14th. I have always defined "ace" as one of the top 15 starters in MLB. So, how the heck did he put up a 4.26 ERA? This excludes the bulk outing.
Pitch PA PPA xwOBA wOBA All 1782 446 4.00 .290 .306 Empty 1053 266 3.96 .295 .309 1B 375 85 4.41 .190 .202 RISP 354 95 3.73 .368 .388 Of the 150 SP who faced the most guys with just a runner on 1B, Crawford ranked 2nd in xwOBA and 3rd in wOBA.
With RISP? He ranked 134th and 135th. It's not pitch usage: Pitch Empty 1B RISP 4-Seam 41% 35% 37% Cutter 26% 32% 30% Curve 13% 10% 10% Sweeper 8% 9% 6% Split 8% 7% 6% Slider 5% 7% 10% The slider was his only effective pitch with RISP, hence the boost.
There are basically two possible explanations for this: pitch selection (including location) and pitch execution.
Sox SP ranked 7th in MLB with bases empty, 8th with a runner on 1B only, and 20th with RISP.
Relievers ranked 14th, 14th and 27th.
There were 17 teams that were better overall with the bases empty, and only four of them were below average with RISP, with the Rangers and Phillies (!) having the almost the same differential as the Sox (.018 and .017 versus .019; the Tigers were .013).
Next question: how did individual Sox pitchers fare? Are the splits driven by a few extreme cases like Crawford, or it is more systemic?
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Post by incandenza on Oct 27, 2023 15:02:45 GMT -5
Seems like something a pitching-oriented and analytics-savvy chief baseball officer working with a well-regarded new pitching coach might try to do something about.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Oct 30, 2023 4:59:10 GMT -5
I knew I had another tidbit to share ...
There were 172 pitchers who had 100+ PA that ended with a 4-seam FB.
Guess whose FB (all pitches) had the 3rd most movement, and the most movement among starting pitchers?
(21.3" -- 19.0" of rise relative to gravity, and 9.5" of armside run).
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Post by ramireja on Jan 18, 2024 17:30:27 GMT -5
We know Kutter has a pretty harsh 3rd time through the order penalty...
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Post by Soxfansince1971 on Jan 20, 2024 8:41:36 GMT -5
So, I'm adding the virtual bulk outing on April 17th, which was actually his longest outing by IP, to his starts. That would be predictive of his performance as a starter, no?
He faced 467 hitters. Here are the top 10 starting pitchers in xwOBA who faced 400+ hitters. .269 Pablo Lopez .273 Spencer Strider .274 Zach Eflin .278 Zack Wheeler .282 Max Scherzer .283 Kutter Crawford .284 Freddy Peralta .286 Corbin Burns .288 Bobby Miller .289 Gerrit Cole
If we take all 150 starters who faced 290 or more hitters, he still ranks 9th. Toss out his bulk outing and he still ranks 14th. I have always defined "ace" as one of the top 15 starters in MLB. So, how the heck did he put up a 4.26 ERA? This excludes the bulk outing.
Pitch PA PPA xwOBA wOBA All 1782 446 4.00 .290 .306 Empty 1053 266 3.96 .295 .309 1B 375 85 4.41 .190 .202 RISP 354 95 3.73 .368 .388 Of the 150 SP who faced the most guys with just a runner on 1B, Crawford ranked 2nd in xwOBA and 3rd in wOBA.
With RISP? He ranked 134th and 135th. It's not pitch usage: Pitch Empty 1B RISP 4-Seam 41% 35% 37% Cutter 26% 32% 30% Curve 13% 10% 10% Sweeper 8% 9% 6% Split 8% 7% 6% Slider 5% 7% 10% The slider was his only effective pitch with RISP, hence the boost.
There are basically two possible explanations for this: pitch selection (including location) and pitch execution.
Sox SP ranked 7th in MLB with bases empty, 8th with a runner on 1B only, and 20th with RISP.
Relievers ranked 14th, 14th and 27th.
There were 17 teams that were better overall with the bases empty, and only four of them were below average with RISP, with the Rangers and Phillies (!) having the almost the same differential as the Sox (.018 and .017 versus .019; the Tigers were .013).
Next question: how did individual Sox pitchers fare? Are the splits driven by a few extreme cases like Crawford, or it is more systemic?
I wonder what percentage of Crawford’s earn runs allowed were attributed to 1) relievers, 2) poor defense?
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gerry
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Post by gerry on Jan 20, 2024 13:51:45 GMT -5
Re-read this thread and Eric’s analyses. Wow. Is it possible that Crawford might actually be a better 2024 choice for a 3 or 4 than most of what is out there in FA? Pivetta too? So a Bello, Giolito, Pivetta, Crawford top 4 looks like a good move by Breslow/Bailey!?!?!
If that is true (who knew?) then adding one of the very talented Houck, Whitlock or Winck as the #5 with the other two + for injury protection and bulk innings sounds like a pretty good rotation. Sorry Boras.
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Post by pappyman99 on Jan 20, 2024 14:10:30 GMT -5
I think Crawford can peak at a Jameson Taillon like 2017-2018 type season over the next 3 seasons if in the rotation
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Post by dominicansoxfan on Jan 20, 2024 14:43:55 GMT -5
For some reason he doesn’t have stamina. He needs 6 days of rest, and pitches better earlier in the game. He pitches like a solid number 3 with enough rest.
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Post by ephus on Jan 22, 2024 13:25:22 GMT -5
Kutter is a potential all-time TNSTAAPP player. While rising through the system, only made the Top 30 here twice and peaked at 16 on the April 5 update in 2022. His summary: "Projects as middle reliever. Ceiling of a high-quality swingman, capable of pitching in short or long relief outings with the occasional spot start as well." Now he could go into spring training penciled in as a key part of the rotation. Life comes at you fast. I am not being facetious when I say that I am excited to see how he comes into camp with with a full winter prepping to be a starter.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Feb 17, 2024 18:31:57 GMT -5
A bit more, with updated numbers from Statcast ... I checked the top 30 starting pitchers by xwOBA (of the 150 that had the most PA) for bulk starts ... Crawford was the only one who even pitched in relief, and his 7-inning bulk outing was the only one by any of the 30.
Crawford ranked 10th in xwOBA, with a .285. Here's some new numbers, all including the bulk outing ... With the bases empty he faced 282 hitters and had (again) a .285 xwOBA, which ranked 18th. With a runner just on first, he faced 87 hitters and had a .184 xwOBA. The leaderboard: .182 Taril Skubal (.008 added for regression to mean in small sample size, 62)
.184 Crawford .229 Zack Wheeler (142 PA) .236 Cristopher Sanchez (.004 added for 75 PA; see the geekabe note at the end) .251 Bobby Miller (87 PA)
After that the rankings are closely clustered. What Skubal and Crawford did was insane. And Skubol led MLB in xwOBA with .246 (.235 before regression). Here's the top 5 pitchers for non-RISP PA : Name Non-RISP RISP Ratio Tarik Skubold .226 .348 1.54 (adjusted for sample size) Kutter Crawford .262 .365 1.39 Zack Elfin .264 .301 1.14 Zack Wheeler .264 .340 1.29 Freddy Peralta .268 .357 1.33
Wow. This is somewhat of a thing. The MLB average for RISP is .329. While Crawford was hit hardest, Peralta was not far behind. Eflin was the only guy who was better than average.
All of these made the top 15 xwOBA (= ace-level performance) out of the 150 that faced the most hitters. I did the other 10 xwOBA aces and the worst case was Max Scherzer, a .333 with RISP and a ratio 1.22.
Some thoughts:
If this were just one or two guys, and the effect size smaller, you'd say "luck." But 4 guys whose median performance translates to 2nd best in MLB with no RISP and 28th worst with RISO--super ace vs. average 5th starer? Not happening.
Splits by bases empty / runners on are common and can be ascribed to pitching better or worse out of the stretch. Those splits should be be looked at.
I still suspect that this is at least partly a psychological thing. If a pitcher has RISP rarely, does he tend to put too emphasis on them? Overthinking it, and/or trying to be too fine, getting behind in the count and then forcing things?
Zack Wheeler's ERA off-year looks like it may have been entirely a product of bad RISP outcomes. Comparing his 2023 to the few previous years might be very helpful.
It blows my mind that you can be the second best stating pitcher in MLB without runners in scoring position and the 19th worst (out of 150) with.
The next step is to do all 150 starting pitchers, broken down multiple ways. Easier than it sounds ... maybe next week.
Next: Houck.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Feb 23, 2024 4:49:04 GMT -5
OK, this is a very big step forward.
Crawford actually didn't have a RISP problem. He had a first base open problem.
Recall that he had a .262 xwOBA allowed without RISP, including his tremendous bulk game.
With runners on 1st and 2nd, 1st and 3rd, or the bases full, he had a .258 -- without including the bulk game.
He had 73 PA with a man on 2B, 3B, or both, and gave up a .418 xwOBA.
And of course pitchers change their approach with men on but first base open ... especially with good hitters up.
I also found decently strong suggestion that stamina was a factor, including stamina within innings, but that's a small factor in comparison.
He's worked all winter to add stamina. All he needs is for someone to tell him to ignore the fact that first base is open.
What I think was happening ... OK, no need to come right at him, let's see if I can get him to chase outside the zone ... damn, that didn't work, but I don't want to walk him.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Feb 26, 2024 0:48:45 GMT -5
Final numbers! (Including the bulk outing.)
Kutter Crawford faced 63 hitters with runners on and 1B base open, and had a .416 xwOBA, which ranked as the 7th worst performance among the 150 SP who faced the most hitters.
(He also ranked 40th worst in his 8 PA with runners on the corners, with a .381 xwOBA. The average sample size was 14, but you would still expect some correlation with overall pitching ... and in fact there was hone at all (slightly negative, actually). That was the situation toughest to handle with the new SB rules, and the lack of correlation can be attributed to pitchers taking widely different approaches. In any case, it didn't affect his numbers tangibly.)
Without these two problem areas he had a .261 xwOBA (in 375 PA), which ranked second, and he still ranks second with the 8 runners on the corners included.
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jimoh
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Post by jimoh on Feb 26, 2024 8:42:56 GMT -5
Interesting to hear Giolito say yesterday that watching and talking to Kutter Crawford was helpful to him in getting back the deceptiveness in his motion, the way he hides the ball.
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Post by itinerantherb on Feb 26, 2024 9:44:58 GMT -5
Final numbers! (Including the bulk outing.)
Kutter Crawford faced 63 hitters with runners on and 1B base open, and had a .416 xwOBA, which ranked as the 7th worst performance among the 150 SP who faced the most hitters.
(He also ranked 40th worst in his 8 PA with runners on the corners, with a .381 xwOBA. The average sample size was 14, but you would still expect some correlation with overall pitching ... and in fact there was hone at all (slightly negative, actually). That was the situation toughest to handle with the new SB rules, and the lack of correlation can be attributed to pitchers taking widely different approaches. In any case, it didn't affect his numbers tangibly.)
Without these two problem areas he had a .261 xwOBA (in 375 PA), which ranked second, and he still ranks second with the 8 runners on the corners included.
Honest question: Does anyone have an educated guess about much of this is noise and how much is actually attributable to a difference in approach when 1B is open? Like, after how many hitters faced would we expect real differences in runner-on scenarios to stabilize? Or, if we were to examine a veteran SP's 10-year career, would we see substantial (say, .100 or more) year-to-year variations in xwOBA for, e.g., 1B open or RISP. I'd love it to be real, obviously, because it would suggest that Crawford's biggest problem is simply one of approach, but I don't know how to think about what seems like a really small sample.
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Post by vokuhila on Feb 26, 2024 15:28:22 GMT -5
www.masslive.com/redsox/2024/02/how-kutter-crawford-hopes-to-use-stronger-legs-confidence-to-pitch-deeper.html"...Crawford had difficulty with physical stamina, to the point where it impacted his stuff." "If you look at the numbers from pitch 75-85, his stuff went down very quickly" "You look at the numbers, the fastball quality, the breaking ball...all that stuff is really good. Now, we’ve just gotta take that next step. We’re not talking about six more outs; we’re talking about two or three. He should be able to do that." Pretty interesting that they made out stamina as Crawfords "third time through the order" issue.
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