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gerry
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Post by gerry on Aug 23, 2019 4:35:35 GMT -5
Amazing after the beating this Pen took from media and fans that it does well in virtually every category. Instead of picking up a couple of RP’s for 2020, the Sox just need one. Spend those limited resources for a Kimbrel or a Koji replacement. I would be very happy with the best of this bullpen at Fenway and Pawtucket, plus just one well above average arm. Having been down this well travelled road before though (most recently Thornburg and C.Smith) I would be disappointed in a large contract or significant trade for an RP. What do you think the odds are that Barnes, Workman, Brasier, Walden, Taylor, Darwinzon, Johnson getting the ball to a new closer would form a top Pen. And would the depth in AAA of Brewer, Lakins, Houck, Feltman, Poyner, Weber, Smith be deep enough??? Especially if the Rotation pitches normally?
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Post by Chris Hatfield on Aug 23, 2019 8:04:50 GMT -5
I honestly wouldn't hate a back end of the bullpen consisting of Darwinzon, Workman, Barnes, Houck next year. Throw in Taylor who's been dealing.
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Post by James Dunne on Aug 23, 2019 8:08:50 GMT -5
Yeah that'd be solid.
There's going to be some real decisions to be made on the out-of-options guys. Hembree always seems to time a hot streak right as he's on the verge of losing a spot. Hard to see how Johnson fits. Wright generally ends up on the disabled list so if there's no 40-man crunch he's probably safe. I'd love them to bring in Collin McHugh (who is a FA) as a swingman/rover, especially if the baseballs are fixed. I think he'd be a relatively cheap get.
EDIT: Thinking for another minute, McHugh would almost certainly be a starter though with Porcello probably out of the picture.
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Post by jimed14 on Aug 23, 2019 8:10:30 GMT -5
Yeah that'd be solid. There's going to be some real decisions to be made on the out-of-options guys. Hembree always seems to time a hot streak right as he's on the verge of losing a spot. Hard to see how Johnson fits. I'd love them to bring in Collin McHugh (who is a FA) as a swingman/rover, especially if the baseballs are fixed. I think he'd be a relatively cheap get. Have you read anything to indicate this is in the plans? I have not seen one thing.
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Post by James Dunne on Aug 23, 2019 8:12:36 GMT -5
Who knows? The acknowledgement that they're different seems like the biggest step.
I'd be happy with McHugh even if they're not fixed, but I particularly like him if they are. In general I'd be in favor of trying to buy low on flyball pitchers who have been particularly snakebit by the bounceball, just in case.
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Post by pedrofanforever45 on Aug 23, 2019 8:15:22 GMT -5
Betances is the only one who seems good on the free agent market, but he's 32 and coming off of shoulder problems, so that's probably a stupid risk.
Cashner looks like the only outside option that could to join that group.
McHugh would be for a starting job.
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Post by soxfansince67 on Aug 23, 2019 8:37:57 GMT -5
Yeah that'd be solid. There's going to be some real decisions to be made on the out-of-options guys. Hembree always seems to time a hot streak right as he's on the verge of losing a spot. Hard to see how Johnson fits. Wright generally ends up on the disabled list so if there's no 40-man crunch he's probably safe. I'd love them to bring in Collin McHugh (who is a FA) as a swingman/rover, especially if the baseballs are fixed. I think he'd be a relatively cheap get. EDIT: Thinking for another minute, McHugh would almost certainly be a starter though with Porcello probably out of the picture. Looking at our 40 man, agreed on Wright - one issue after another....does he stay or does he finally go? Agree on Hembree. Porcello - alternates good years with bad, so next year should be due for a good one, except...trade bait? No tears of Johnson and Hembree exit. Velazquez as well. Brewer is at least young, as is Poyner. Smith, Weber, Kelley..we certainly have some uninspiring bodies on the 40 man and a total revamp of our roster pitching would seem a good idea.
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Post by James Dunne on Aug 23, 2019 8:42:38 GMT -5
Porcello is a free agent. Wouldn't have a problem at all with him on a one-year bumper contract, but he also seems like a change of scene candidate after three years of inconsistency.
Veleazquez still has an option remaining (he didn't use one in '18) and is a very useful arm and would be foolish to part with. He's an up-and-down guy without a lot of upside, but he's better than a lot of other pitchers who fit that description.
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Post by jbsox on Aug 23, 2019 9:06:31 GMT -5
Porcello is a free agent. Wouldn't have a problem at all with him on a one-year bumper contract, but he also seems like a change of scene candidate after three years of inconsistency. Veleazquez still has an option remaining (he didn't use one in '18) and is a very useful arm and would be foolish to part with. He's an up-and-down guy without a lot of upside, but he's better than a lot of other pitchers who fit that description. I wouldn’t either, but if we are doing that I hope we also think bigger getting another starter (Hamels on a short contract for example) and if need to bump up against the 3rd tax line again, and use Eovaldi as the swing guy between starter and bullpen. With Sale, Price, and Eovaldi there are obvious health concerns, and would like more insurance. Im also fine with rolling with Hernandez, Houck, Barnes, Workman, Walden, Taylor ect as our main bullpen pieces, maybe buy low on someone else. As last year’s free agent crop showed buying high on a FA reliever isn’t the wisest decision.
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gerry
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Post by gerry on Aug 23, 2019 13:07:42 GMT -5
Jb, well put that ‘last years free agent crop shows buying high wasn’t a good decision.’ After the Thornburg and C.Smith disappointments, If DDo had sacrificed another first round draft pick and draft $$$ for a couple more guys who failed, he would have been hounded out of Boston. And the Guy who grew up a nyfy fan and whose lifetime goal was to pitch for his home team, coming to Boston talk was simply not going to happen. His first choice was always NY.
As the Rotation unravelled in jaw-dropping fashion, from Sale and Porcello to Wright and Vasquez, we learned alot. We did get to see Barnes and Workman make their case, and Darwinzon, Taylor, Walden emerge as legit RP forces moving forward, with more in the pipeline including Houck and Feltman. Despite overwork due to the troubled Rotation, this has become a good Pen which appears ready to dominate in 2020.
Edit: Agree on pre-arb Velasquez, even stashed in AAA, as a long man.. Perhaps Weber fits that profile well and continues to develop. And pre-arb Johnson should add length to the likely 8-man Pen. However oft-injured Wright and Hembree could combine for ~$5M in arb, money that could be better applied to a “closer.”
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Post by orion09 on Aug 28, 2019 0:58:01 GMT -5
Lowest BA against by relief pitchers since 1900:
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Aug 28, 2019 9:18:24 GMT -5
Ryan Brasier xwOBA (raw):
.259 last year .346 this year before being sent down .276 since his recall
It looks like they may well have fixed him.
One might well ask, why did this take until August 18?
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Post by rjp313jr on Aug 28, 2019 12:42:45 GMT -5
Ryan Brasier xwOBA (raw):
.259 last year .346 this year before being sent down .276 since his recall
It looks like they may well have fixed him.
One might well ask, why did this take until August 18?
Another may ask why a 10 day sample means anything.
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cdj
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Post by cdj on Aug 28, 2019 14:34:11 GMT -5
Ryan Brasier xwOBA (raw):
.259 last year .346 this year before being sent down .276 since his recall
It looks like they may well have fixed him.
One might well ask, why did this take until August 18?
Another may ask why a 10 day sample means anything. Fair, but it does seem like he figured something out in Pawtucket- he was pretty dominant down there. Only run allowed was a solo job His command was the main issue though so who knows, his arsenal may have been enough to eat some of those guys up even if it wasn’t placed where he wanted it
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Aug 28, 2019 19:34:23 GMT -5
Ryan Brasier xwOBA (raw):
.259 last year .346 this year before being sent down .276 since his recall
It looks like they may well have fixed him.
One might well ask, if this is indeed the case, why did this take until August 18?
Another may ask why a 10 day sample means anything. I was going to do a t-test on his xwOBA by game before and after, but didnt have time. You can also look to see if he ever had a stretch like this previously. O may do that after any couple of appearances, if they go well.
I should have included the italicized phrase, which was implied (but not clearly) by "may well have."
To answer your question, eyeball reports suggest he's genuinely pitching better, so that gives you some reason to think a SSS improvement in numbers is for real.
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Post by larrycook on Aug 28, 2019 22:05:14 GMT -5
Does feltman get his control back and become a factor in next ywar’s Bullpen. Man, his stuff is electric, but mechanically, he needs to get the issues with control figured out,
I think Houck is our closer by end of next year. Weird delivery, but good stuff.
Do the Sox move Shawaryn back into a starter role, the bullpen thing seems to have messed up his head a bit.
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Post by rjp313jr on Aug 29, 2019 8:25:27 GMT -5
Another may ask why a 10 day sample means anything. I was going to do a t-test on his xwOBA by game before and after, but didnt have time. You can also look to see if he ever had a stretch like this previously. O may do that after any couple of appearances, if they go well.
I should have included the italicized phrase, which was implied (but not clearly) by "may well have."
To answer your question, eyeball reports suggest he's genuinely pitching better, so that gives you some reason to think a SSS improvement in numbers is for real.
Yea, but the problem is guys can genuinely pitch better for small stretches. Most guys can do things in small stretches; it’s the consistency that separates guys. Braiser had a nice year last year but he has no real track record so it will be hard to say he’s “fixed” based off of any small sampling.
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Post by James Dunne on Aug 29, 2019 8:32:23 GMT -5
I was going to do a t-test on his xwOBA by game before and after, but didnt have time. You can also look to see if he ever had a stretch like this previously. O may do that after any couple of appearances, if they go well. I should have included the italicized phrase, which was implied (but not clearly) by "may well have."
To answer your question, eyeball reports suggest he's genuinely pitching better, so that gives you some reason to think a SSS improvement in numbers is for real.
Yea, but the problem is guys can genuinely pitch better for small stretches. Most guys can do things in small stretches; it’s the consistency that separates guys. Braiser had a nice year last year but he has no real track record so it will be hard to say he’s “fixed” based off of any small sampling. And it's also possible he's still good and has basically been good since the start of last year and his poor stretch was just one of those random blips and he didn't need "fixing" per se. He had a 3.16 ERA and 33K:10BB ratio on July 6 and then got lit up a couple times. And he hadn't been as effective as last year but he'd been a useful piece in the bullpen, more like a third or fourth righty than a top two. That's the problem with the small sample stuff - sometimes you get hit harder more frequently than you'd expect in a short stretch because these events aren't evenly distributed. There are have been about 19,000 pitcher appearances in MLB this year, so even events that would seem statistically very unlikely - say 1 in 1,000 - are just going to happen sometimes.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Aug 29, 2019 15:35:45 GMT -5
Yea, but the problem is guys can genuinely pitch better for small stretches. Most guys can do things in small stretches; it’s the consistency that separates guys. Braiser had a nice year last year but he has no real track record so it will be hard to say he’s “fixed” based off of any small sampling. And it's also possible he's still good and has basically been good since the start of last year and his poor stretch was just one of those random blips and he didn't need "fixing" per se. He had a 3.16 ERA and 33K:10BB ratio on July 6 and then got lit up a couple times. And he hadn't been as effective as last year but he'd been a useful piece in the bullpen, more like a third or fourth righty than a top two. That's the problem with the small sample stuff - sometimes you get hit harder more frequently than you'd expect in a short stretch because these events aren't evenly distributed. There are have been about 19,000 pitcher appearances in MLB this year, so even events that would seem statistically very unlikely - say 1 in 1,000 - are just going to happen sometimes. His xwOBA through July 6 showed him to be really lucky to that point.
It is possible that guys were clobbering pitches that they fouled back last year -- that's definitely a luck element. There was a year where Lester had an insanely elevated HR/FB rate early in the season, and it turned out that a stupid percentage of his down-the-middle mistakes were being hit out, relative to average. It was all bad luck, and it didn't continue.
The thing is, with relievers -- they have so many outings that it becomes statistically unlikely that it's luck if their xwOBA is consistently elevated.
The way to do this would be to grab his outing-by-outing xwOBA, and then see if the results appear to come in chunks when the outings are grouped together. Get a measure of the probability that the chunks happen at random, given the cherry-picked endpoints. And if they are unlikely, then you look for statistically different differences in pitching metrics (velo, movement, release points) and in low-level results (plate discipline metrics, mostly).
Am I going to do all that? I don't think so. But I can run my relief metrics (which haven't been updated since the 8-game losing streak started) for him in two chunks, and we can continue to see what happens.
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Post by jimed14 on Aug 29, 2019 16:18:38 GMT -5
Also of note, Brasier has been hitting 99 since he has been back and sitting 97 and was down between 95 and 96 when he wasn't as good.
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Post by patford on Aug 29, 2019 21:06:35 GMT -5
I honestly wouldn't hate a back end of the bullpen consisting of Darwinzon, Workman, Barnes, Houck next year. Throw in Taylor who's been dealing. The best move Dombrowski made during the season was not trading for bullpen help. When they have struggled it's been because the failure of the starters resulted in them being abused.
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Post by patford on Aug 29, 2019 21:10:17 GMT -5
Another may ask why a 10 day sample means anything. Fair, but it does seem like he figured something out in Pawtucket- he was pretty dominant down there. Only run allowed was a solo job His command was the main issue though so who knows, his arsenal may have been enough to eat some of those guys up even if it wasn’t placed where he wanted it Poor command can easily be a result of fatigue. Guys trying to throw harder because they have lost easy velocity and the mechanics go off.
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Post by philsbosoxfan on Aug 30, 2019 0:02:51 GMT -5
Workman is tied for first with 9 relief wins.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Aug 30, 2019 2:01:11 GMT -5
Darwinzon has a .191 xwOBA and .266 wOBA in his first inning of work (including the first inning of his start).
In clean first innings (all but 3 of his appearances, all in a row July 31 to August 4), it's .170 / .225. That's 18 outings and 71 BFP.
(To give you a sense of how good that is, Workman, Barnes, and Taylor are competing for the team best xwOBA with figures from .261 to .267. The .266 wOBA figure is more in line with the others.)
Subsequent to his first inning in relief, it's .369 / .392.
They seem to have figured this out. They tried him in a multi-inning role three straight outings (8/10 to 8/14), but his last 5 have been one and done.
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Post by soxcentral on Aug 30, 2019 8:09:28 GMT -5
I honestly wouldn't hate a back end of the bullpen consisting of Darwinzon, Workman, Barnes, Houck next year. Throw in Taylor who's been dealing. I'm kind of looking at this group in 3 tiers - back end reiief 'Aces', upside arms with options, and multi-inning/sport start relievers For the relief ace category I'd like to see 3 proven arms. Year-to-year volatility notwithstanding, I see Workman and Barnes here with a FA/trade candidate needing to be added for elite depth. Upside arm with options group ideally would have 3 up and 3+ down at any point, but can expand due to injury or poor performance if warranted. If the 2020 season started today it'd likely be Darwinzon, Braiser and Taylor up with Houck, Lakins, Brewer, and Feltman down. The upside arm category is fun to dream on right now! 2 Multi-inning reliever/spot starters are definitely going to be needed with the injury history of next year's rotation. This looks like a battle between Walden, Johnson, Wright, Velasquez and maybe a re-sign of Weber or Smith. Personally, I'd like to see them sign 2 good candidates for the 5th starter spot and whoever loses that battle takes one of these spots. Gonna need some minor league depth here too, of which only Velasquez to my knowledge has options on this list. That'd make a Weber or Smith re-sign valuable if you can get them on a minor league deal.
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