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E-Rod 2021: As If We Need Another Enigma
ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Jun 30, 2021 17:34:15 GMT -5
With one or two exceptions, E-Rod's starts this year fall neatly into three groups, which also correspond very closely to his April, May and June.
This is his first three starts of the season, plus his June 5 start in NY:
.278 +/- .021 xwOBA .281 +/- .017 wOBA
Here are all his May starts except for the next to the last, on 5/23 in Philly:
.341 +/- .013 xwOBA .410 +/- .030 wOBA.
He's pitching badly, and his karma (the difference between the two) is lousy, to boot.
His 4th start in April? A hybrid. xwOBA of .190, his best of the season, but a wOBA of .265. The results fit with the April group perfectly, but his karma is almost identical to his May group. It's like a foreshadow of what was to follow.
Here's the start in Philly plus the three starts in June after the good start in NY:
.253 +/- .051 xWOBA. This is absolutely indistinguishable from his April-ish phase. The p value is .58. .389 +/- .026 wOBA. This is largely indistinguishable from his May-ish phase. The p value is .32.
Now, the latter may be a fluke, because his karma has gotten so much worse that's it's borderline statistically significant. It's just crazy to allow a .253 xwOBA and a .389 wOBA.
What about his last start?
.329 xwOBA .242 wOBA.
Seriously, dude? Now he's pitching like May but getting April results, the exact opposite of what he did in his previous three starts plus the sneak preview in Philly.
My fervent wish is that he just starts pitching like April again and I can leave all of this as a mystery. If he keeps this up, I'm going to feel compelled to break down the three phases in detail, and especially to figure out where the bad karma is coming from. His last start broke up a string of 11 straight starts with bad karma. The odds against getting that specific run of bad karma at random are 1 in 9,560.
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Post by incandenza on Jun 30, 2021 18:44:44 GMT -5
Hmm. I'm not sure what this dicing up of his results into non-sequential chunks is meant to show, other than the fact that his results have been weirdly random. In any event, I've been beating the drum for weeks that he's been on a world-historical run of bad luck - worst ERA on the team, best xFIP, ERA 2.46 runs worse than his xERA, etc. etc. It's 9 starts in a row now that his ERA has been worse - usually much worse - than his FIP.
Having watched most but not all of those starts, my diagnosis is: crazy bad luck. Untimely errors, infield singles, bloops, Pesky homers - the works.
tl;dr: there is no god and we are lost orphans in a universe that does not care about us
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Post by jmei on Jun 30, 2021 20:13:56 GMT -5
I feel like we’ve had this argument for a decade now, but a reminder that statistical analysis requires that you have a hypothesis first before testing it by looking at the data. If you’re cherrypicking the data after the fact, the p-values that you generate are not meaningful.
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Post by unitspin on Jun 30, 2021 20:37:44 GMT -5
Yikes, I've seen some stretches in my day but that takes the cake. Unlucky? Still running with that.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Jul 1, 2021 3:17:00 GMT -5
I feel like we’ve had this argument for a decade now, but a reminder that statistical analysis requires that you have a hypothesis first before testing it by looking at the data. If you’re cherrypicking the data after the fact, the p-values that you generate are not meaningful. It is cherry-arranged, so some skepticism is warranted.
I started off by simply reading down the game log: wOBA, xwOBA, and karma (the difference). The first three starts in April jump out at you as roughly identical. So did the first four starts in May. And the start in between seems to fit perfectly with either one, depending on whether results or karma is your criterion.
Then three straight starts in June jump out at you as roughly identical. The hypothesis is simply that the streaks in each month represent three different types of pitching, that might therefore be fruitfully looked at.
The three starts in the April streak have a different wOBA from those in the May and June streaks, p = .0004, pooled variance. The difference in karma has p < .00006.
The four starts in the May streak have a different xwOBA from those in the April and June streaks, p < .015, but .006 if you don't assume equal variance (and since they were temporally contiguous and the others were not, maybe you shouldn't).
Having done all of this, there's a stretch of 3 starts, the last two in May and the first in June, that do not form a streak. But the first of those starts fits very well with the June streak, the second fits perfectly with the May streak, and the third fits well with the April streak. That seems to support the idea that there are three distinct types of pitching going on.
.381 +/- .024 wOBA, .242 +/- .054 xwOBA, June streak .416, .287 first start of unaffiliated 3. The wOBA is 1.5 SD high, but that's actually part of a trend, as the three June starts went .404, .393, .351.
.409 +/- .033 wOBA, .339 +/- .013 xwOBA, May streak of 4 starts
.415, .350, second start of unaffiliated 3
.274 +/- .014 wOBA, .275 +/- .023 xwOBA .301, .287, third start of unaffiliated 3. Again, the wOBA is on the high side.
I didn't expect this, but once the streaks were identified, they jump out instantly. I think it's natural to wonder whether the three starts do in fact represent a sneak preview of his June type of pitching, more of his May, and a return to his April.
If I ever do look into this, I will begin with the one fact we know about karma: fly balls hit straightaway have great karma and pulled fly balls have lousy karma. In fact, I can do that right now ... and there's no relationship at all between the number of fly balls hit per game to the three directions (including Oppo) and karma.
Nobody has karma as bad as E-Rod had in his 11 game steak by true luck. But if you start with a baseline of bad defense, it's possible for a pitcher to have a streak like that.
He had .002 Karma in his first 3 starts, and he had .138 (good) on 17 ground balls, 5 to the left side (.253) and 12 up the middle (.090).
In his next 3, he had -.065 karma, and he had -.234 on 25 ground balls, 12 left (-.343), 9 middle (-.012), 4 right (-.406). It's not all defense here -- he went from 71% of his grounders up the middle (probably into shifts) to 36%.
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Post by foreverred9 on Jul 2, 2021 15:27:05 GMT -5
The seeing-eye singles have been painful. incandenza here's the video to support your arguments over the past few weeks. Many of these hits seem to be to where the second baseman normally plays. Is shifting hurting him? I wonder if there's any reason to think that they should apply a different shift when ERod pitches than when others do.
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Post by incandenza on Jul 2, 2021 16:12:06 GMT -5
A couple people in the responses to that are like "well, that's you get when you try to nibble," but his K-rate and BB-rate are both at career bests. (Relatedly, so are his xERA, FIP, and xFIP.) Really he should be credited for not reacting to the bad luck by trying to nibble and driving up the walk rate.
He's basically become the pitcher we've always wanted to see him become and is even having a sort of shadow career year but all the gods (and possibly the shifting strategies) are against him, so it's all been for nought.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Jul 3, 2021 4:06:11 GMT -5
A couple people in the responses to that are like "well, that's you get when you try to nibble," but his K-rate and BB-rate are both at career bests. (Relatedly, so are his xERA, FIP, and xFIP.) Really he should be credited for not reacting to the bad luck by trying to nibble and driving up the walk rate. He's basically become the pitcher we've always wanted to see him become and is even having a sort of shadow career year but all the gods (and possibly the shifting strategies) are against him, so it's all been for nought. Actually, too good a K/W ratio can lead to harder contact. But then again, harder contact has not been his problem.
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cdj
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Post by cdj on Jul 3, 2021 7:18:19 GMT -5
I was able to chalk everything up as WOAT luck when I looked at the quality of contact against him a couple starts ago and it was pretty much the same as it was in 2018
Also that video makes me want to put my head through a wall
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Post by FenwayFanatic on Jul 3, 2021 13:50:30 GMT -5
ERod probably still gets a QO, right? If he gets offered one, he takes it, right?
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Post by incandenza on Jul 3, 2021 14:01:29 GMT -5
This whole saga of his bad luck (or, if you are Dave O'Brien, Eduardo's horrible and embarrassing failure as a pitcher) looks like it will have been just a 7-game stretch of bleeders, bloops, and a couple of the dumbest dingers I've ever seen.
First 6 starts: 3.82 ERA/3.67 FIP/3.37 xFIP Next 7 starts: 8.55 ERA/3.57 FIP/3.39 xFIP Last 3 starts: 2.50 ERA/2.94 FIP/3.37 xFIP
Absolutely nothing changed for him at any point this season. Look at those xFIPs!
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Post by Jimmy on Jul 3, 2021 15:39:54 GMT -5
ERod probably still gets a QO, right? If he gets offered one, he takes it, right? I would definitely QO him. I don’t think he takes it, although I do think the AAV of his new deal will be lower than QO.
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Post by FenwayFanatic on Jul 3, 2021 15:59:26 GMT -5
ERod probably still gets a QO, right? If he gets offered one, he takes it, right? I would definitely QO him. I don’t think he takes it, although I do think the AAV of his new deal will be lower than QO. I would let him go if he doesn’t take it or sign something reasonable. He’s pretty up and down and not the kinda guy I'd spend big on. If he signs the QO, great.
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Post by Jimmy on Jul 3, 2021 16:05:29 GMT -5
I would definitely QO him. I don’t think he takes it, although I do think the AAV of his new deal will be lower than QO. I would let him go if he doesn’t take it or sign something reasonable. He’s pretty up and down and not the kinda guy I'd spend big on. If he signs the QO, great. I’d go 4/60... slightly doubtful that gets it done though
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Post by incandenza on Jul 3, 2021 16:20:15 GMT -5
I would definitely QO him. I don’t think he takes it, although I do think the AAV of his new deal will be lower than QO. I would let him go if he doesn’t take it or sign something reasonable. He’s pretty up and down and not the kinda guy I'd spend big on. If he signs the QO, great. Pretty up and down? His xERA has been between 3.38 and 3.87 every year since 2017. His FIP has been between 3.48 and 3.97. K/9 between 9.43 and 10.52, BB/9 between 2.23 and 3.32. He's about as consistent as they come.
And as mentioned above, in every one of these categories 2021 has been his best season yet.
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radiohix
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Post by radiohix on Jul 3, 2021 16:25:59 GMT -5
ERod probably still gets a QO, right? If he gets offered one, he takes it, right? I'll be pissed if they don't extend him. He's a damn good pitcher with one of the smoothest deliveries in MLB.
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redsox04071318champs
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Post by redsox04071318champs on Jul 3, 2021 17:23:54 GMT -5
ERod probably still gets a QO, right? If he gets offered one, he takes it, right? I'll be pissed if they don't extend him. He's a damn good pitcher with one of the smoothest deliveries in MLB. This is totally just an opinion, but I think the Sox will re-sign him for a reasonable deal as I think he really wants to stay. I could be very naive here but my gut feeling is that he'll stay.
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Post by unitspin on Jul 10, 2021 7:25:59 GMT -5
With regard to Law, as someone who follows his articles and his chats he has been very open numerous times about being wrong in his evaluation. He has gone so far as to say something in the neighborhood of it was his biggest miss. The guy is asked to evaluate thousands of players, he is going to miss many guys. He gets a lot more right than wrong, even if his opinions are not shared by the majority. Eric van I would be stunned if the RS drafting Leiter has anything to do with how they handle Evoladi going forward. You think before he does a day in the system, they are essentially saying in two years he is going to be in our major league staff as a mid rotation starter. I think there is a good chance that if they draft him that he doesn’t throw another pitch this year, and is it likely that they are more or less certain that he is 2 years away? Leiter affects the E-Rod re-signing over the next 4 or 5 years, and the E-rod re-signing affects keeping or trading Eovaldi before next year, and hence the makeup of the 2022 rotation, even though Leiter's in the minors.
I think they if they don't trade Eovaldi this winter, they likely let him walk when his contract is up after 2022, if they re-sign E-Rod. In 2023 you have Sale, E-Rod, Whitlock, Pivetta, Houck, and Seabold, and Mata, Bello and maybe Ward, Winckowski, and German as rookies.
So, if that's your plan, you do trade him this winter. You can get a prospect package that's considerably more valuable than the draft pick you'd get by keeping him and giving him a QO. You have the same list for 2022 as for 2023 minus the potential rookies.
Now, add Leiter to the 2023 list and for the years that follow, and it's too much talent to use, so if you had him in the system you might let E-Rod walk this winter. But if you also trade Eovaldi, you're 2022 rotation is a bit thin. You probably keep Perez.
I think the biggest factor in erod not getting a long-term deal is himself. Teams tend not to sign long-term 5.+ era pitchers. Maybe his one good season was a fluke and he isn't that guy or got there by using other means that he isn't capable of using anymore....
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Post by alan on Jul 10, 2021 7:32:03 GMT -5
Leiter affects the E-Rod re-signing over the next 4 or 5 years, and the E-rod re-signing affects keeping or trading Eovaldi before next year, and hence the makeup of the 2022 rotation, even though Leiter's in the minors.
I think they if they don't trade Eovaldi this winter, they likely let him walk when his contract is up after 2022, if they re-sign E-Rod. In 2023 you have Sale, E-Rod, Whitlock, Pivetta, Houck, and Seabold, and Mata, Bello and maybe Ward, Winckowski, and German as rookies.
So, if that's your plan, you do trade him this winter. You can get a prospect package that's considerably more valuable than the draft pick you'd get by keeping him and giving him a QO. You have the same list for 2022 as for 2023 minus the potential rookies.
Now, add Leiter to the 2023 list and for the years that follow, and it's too much talent to use, so if you had him in the system you might let E-Rod walk this winter. But if you also trade Eovaldi, you're 2022 rotation is a bit thin. You probably keep Perez.
I think the biggest factor in erod not getting a long-term deal is himself. Teams tend not to sign long-term 5.+ era pitchers. Maybe his one good season was a fluke and he isn't that guy or got there by using other means that he isn't capable of using anymore.... His underlying stats indicate that his 2019 wasn't a fluke. A career high strikeout rate, career low walk rate, .361 BABIP and 64.5% LOB rate indicates he's getting super unlucky. If anything this year would be the perfect year to resign Erod, as you can sign him to a cheaper contact than he originally would've gotten. Also we're getting off topic here
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Post by vokuhila on Jul 10, 2021 7:44:35 GMT -5
If you go by mlb statcast expected data, Erod has been the best red sox starter this year. His ERA is more than 2 points higher than his expected ERA. His xERA is 3.4 ....yes he really has been THAT unlucky. baseballsavant.mlb.com Red Sox starters
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Post by FenwayFanatic on Jul 10, 2021 7:59:19 GMT -5
Just my opinion but ERod seems like a guy that likes Boston and will work out something reasonable unless we don’t want him.
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Post by unitspin on Jul 10, 2021 13:02:47 GMT -5
If you go by mlb statcast expected data, Erod has been the best red sox starter this year. His ERA is more than 2 points higher than his expected ERA. His xERA is 3.4 ....yes he really has been THAT unlucky. baseballsavant.mlb.com Red Sox starters Unlucky is a term used by ppl that lose. I've never heard someone raising a trophy talking about being unlucky. Truth of the matter is he never was that good to begin with. He is an even war half way through the season. A replaceable player he is.
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radiohix
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Post by radiohix on Jul 10, 2021 13:09:38 GMT -5
If you go by mlb statcast expected data, Erod has been the best red sox starter this year. His ERA is more than 2 points higher than his expected ERA. His xERA is 3.4 ....yes he really has been THAT unlucky. baseballsavant.mlb.com Red Sox starters Unlucky is a term used by ppl that lose. I've never heard someone raising a trophy talking about being unlucky. Truth of the matter is he never was that good to begin with. He is an even war half way through the season. A replaceable player he is. Wow this is a terrible take...absolutely terrible.
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Post by unitspin on Jul 10, 2021 13:28:48 GMT -5
Unlucky is a term used by ppl that lose. I've never heard someone raising a trophy talking about being unlucky. Truth of the matter is he never was that good to begin with. He is an even war half way through the season. A replaceable player he is. Wow this is a terrible take...absolutely terrible. No a terrible take is someone calling erod a top 5 pitcher in the mlb. Now that's a terrible take.
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nomar
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Post by nomar on Jul 10, 2021 13:36:38 GMT -5
Wow this is a terrible take...absolutely terrible. No a terrible take is someone calling erod a top 5 pitcher in the mlb. Now that's a terrible take. Quit while you’re behind There’s more to baseball than the completely tangible results. Didn’t think that needed to be said.
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