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5/1-5/4 Red Sox vs. Blue Jays Series Thread
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Post by blizzards39 on May 2, 2023 13:39:38 GMT -5
On top of all of this is the fact that one/ some of these guys may get injuried. Also no way to know he lays 4/5 eggs before he figures it out. Wasn’t that sone of the reasons for the extra minor league starts
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Post by oldfaithful2019 on May 2, 2023 13:50:06 GMT -5
It is a viable option to do so if he is not performing in his 1st 2-3 starts. Low amount of suncken salary. Hope not, but at some point it may be time to call the experiment done, especially as the choices of who does go become more consequential. Is it sweeping conclusions based on tiny starting pitcher sample size day in this thread? To me its more of the pitching staff is getting crowded day and despite his history, I do not wish to see him handed a spot without earning it. Short leash.
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Post by orion09 on May 2, 2023 14:00:22 GMT -5
My concern with Whitlock is that his stuff has looked less sharp as a starter. We’re also not sure if he’s ever been fully healthy as a starter, so there’s that. but at the same time it’s not unexpected for a guy to look better in short outings. Remember how untouchable Porcello looked out of the pen in 2018?
All that said, you have to give him every chance to succeed as a starter - at LEAST another half-season. He’s under control for a long time, there’s plenty of time to move him to the pen if necessary
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Post by jerrygarciaparra on May 2, 2023 14:02:02 GMT -5
Kluber should not be the #1 pitcher on a staff...that is a problem. he is on my sh*t list after this debacle. He was very clearly signed to be the #6 guy, in that 5 guys projected to be better. But we opened the season with 2, 3, and 4 on the IL.
They're about to decide whether Paxton makes his debut in his next start or the one after. If the former, he'll very likely take Kluber's next turn. Next week they have both Monday and Thursday off, and I don't think they want to give anyone 6 days rest, so it's quite possible that after Pivetta's start Wednesday, neither him nor Kluber even get a chance to start until May 14 (last game of the Cardinals series), when they decide on a 5th starter ... which may well be Whitlock.
(How do they make room for Paxton? Has to be Brasier. Whitlock? Who knows. Bernardino has been better than Bleier, so far, and Crawford has been the 3rd best pitcher on the team by xwOBA and 4th by wOBV.
If they decide to start Kluber again in Phillie's game 2, I'll redo the above ...
I don't really agree. They aren't gonna pay a guy 10.5 million to be 6th in line. I agree, they likely didn't fashion him as the #1, which they probably hoped would be Sale, but there really weren't enough innings for the other guys to jump ahead of him. Maybe Whitlock. I would guess they viewed him as the #3 or 4. Not likely they would place Paxton ahead of him. He is an entirely unknown commodity with the health risk / inability to pitch even 100 innings.
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Post by Guidas on May 2, 2023 14:04:14 GMT -5
Sorry, Cora - I'd ride with Duran over Tapia vs. a lefty any day. Duran's your hottest hitter, has shown he can hit lefties and he's still young. Everyone gets two days off next week. Ride or Die, Alex. Ride or Die.
RF Verdugo
1B Turner
LF Refsnyder
3B Devers
SS Hernández
DH Yoshida
2B Arroyo
C Wong
CF Tapia
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Post by scottysmalls on May 2, 2023 14:08:14 GMT -5
It's completely unfathomable to me that people would give up on Whitlock as a starter after 16 IP. And this, after he had a 3.60 FIP/3.64 xFIP as a starter in 39 IP last season. It would be criminally negligent not to at least find out if he can be a starter long-term. I'm optimistic he can be a really good starter, but if he can't then lockdown reliever is not a terrible fallback option. But why on earth would you not at least test his ceiling - let alone after admitting that injuries may be a factor in why he's had trouble as a starter in this tiny sample size? Moreover - this bullpen is good and the rotation is very iffy! Why detract from a weakness to add to a strength? “Bullpen Whitlock” was a force on the 2021 team and was one of the big factors in that team’s success. “Starter Whitlock” vacillates between decent and subpar. What is his ceiling as a starter? Do you see a potential #1 or #2 in there? I’d rather have him impact more games in a role I know he’s great at than hope he can excel in a different role. There’s a long list of guys who tried(and failed) this experiment with Papelbon, Dan Bard and Joba Chamberlain among them. A 3.6 FIP would make him one of the top 25 starters in MLB this year, and that's what he did when he was hampered by injuries last year. He's had a few starts this year, and I would define the range as subpar - excellent, but we're talking 16 innings. Why give up on a guy who was really good in the role last year after 16 innings? He's also already demonstrated a high ceiling at starter this year, he has the pitch mix and makeup to excel at it, and I'm not sure there's a clear reason to think he's more likely to get injured there than in the bullpen.
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Post by jerrygarciaparra on May 2, 2023 14:09:07 GMT -5
Fun facts: Jarren Duran is not only 2nd in MLB in fWAR since his callup, he ranks 2nd of 32 in Success Rate Added for CF -- on the season.
Not fun: Kiké has made 72 errors at SS per 150 games.
that is quite remarkable and has to be near some sort of record for any guy who fancies himself a infielder.
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Post by dirtywaterinla on May 2, 2023 14:09:45 GMT -5
Sorry, Cora - I'd ride with Duran over Tapia vs. a lefty any day. Duran's your hottest hitter, has shown he can hit lefties and he's still young. Everyone gets two days off next week. Ride or Die, Alex. Ride or Die. RF Verdugo 1B Turner LF Refsnyder 3B Devers SS Hernández DH Yoshida 2B Arroyo C Wong CF Tapia Tbh I think it's more giving Duran a breather than not trusting him against lefties. I also hope Arroyo's hammy can get better soon because I'm not sure how much longer I'll make it without having a full on panic attack w/ Kiké @ SS.
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Post by dirtywaterinla on May 2, 2023 14:10:59 GMT -5
If you throw out 2017 and everything before, his xERA/FIP/xFIP numbers are all in the 3.50-3.60 range. That's including his crummy small samples from 2020/21.
So that's a fun little stair-step journey you've taken: -Career FIP of 3.31. -But throw out 2017 and before, so really 3.50ish. -But his ERA tends to underperform FIP, so 3.79. -But this will be his ceiling rather than his average. -And he'll tank 3-5 games. -So his ceiling is a 4.00-5.00 ERA.
Conclusion: a guy with a career 3.31 FIP will be a worse starter than Pivetta.
In between Paxton's career numbers and today are three-plus years of injury. He's severely injured himself in consecutive mlb starts. He's been injured in each of the last two years before he could get into an mlb game. Criticize the "fun little stair-step journey" if you want but just quoting his career numbers without age/injury adjustments or any context is mindless. If you don't like my assessment of Paxton that's fine, but I found his Fangraphs projections and they prjoject him to have a 4.41 ERA. Admittedly, that's better than Pivetta's 4.70 projection but I'd rather have the certainty of Pivetta's innings than Paxton's slight projected upside. www.fangraphs.com/players/james-paxton/11828/stats?position=PPaxton has only pitched 4 "complete" seasons if you consider 121 innings complete (FWIW, he was also severely injured in the 2014 and 2015 seasons). He has ERA's of 3.79, 2.98, 3.76, and 3.82 in those four seasons. If you take away the one anomaly year (which is perfectly reasonable) I don't expect him to come back from a 3-year absence and at 34-years old and pitch to the level of any of those three seasons. So yes I'd take Pivetta's 4.70 ERA (and whatever other peripherals you'd like to reference) over the very, very unlikely chance that Paxton stays healthy in hopes of achieving the maybe-but-probably-not scenario where he slightly outpitches Pivetta. If you wouldn't that's fine. Again, let's please give Paxton a shot at showing what he can do before jumping to conclusions that he's toast? Thank you.
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Post by jerrygarciaparra on May 2, 2023 14:13:45 GMT -5
If Chris Sale is fighting to find his form after essentially 3 years off, i am gonna guess Paxton is likely to be rougher around the edges.
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Post by dirtywaterinla on May 2, 2023 14:15:14 GMT -5
Again, let's please give Paxton a shot at showing what he can do before jumping to conclusions that he's toast? Thank you. 1. I respectfully decline. 2. At whose expense does he get this opportunity? Pivetta. Everything has pointed a decline on all of his stuff over the last 3 years. Put him in the 'pen for now where his stuff will play better. You can always move him back into the rotation if Paxton is truly stinking it up after 5 or so starts.
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Post by scottysmalls on May 2, 2023 14:15:57 GMT -5
Fun facts: Jarren Duran is not only 2nd in MLB in fWAR since his callup, he ranks 2nd of 32 in Success Rate Added for CF -- on the season.
Not fun: Kiké has made 72 errors at SS per 150 games.
that is quite remarkable and has to be near some sort of record for any guy who fancies himself a infielder. It is pretty crazy - in 618 career innings at short stop before this year Kiké had 6 errors. In 146 innings this year he has 8 errors. Also, 6 of them are throwing errors and it's not like he has an especially weak arm and is compensating, he actually has the highest max velocity on a throw from short stop this season among guys with enough throws to qualify for the list. I wonder if he'd benefit from dialing it back slightly.
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Post by scottysmalls on May 2, 2023 14:17:41 GMT -5
Re; Paxton, I personally would be okay putting Bello in AAA to try Paxton out in the MLB rotation for a bit. Or move Houck to the pen.
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Post by oldfaithful2019 on May 2, 2023 14:21:26 GMT -5
1. I respectfully decline. 2. At whose expense does he get this opportunity? Pivetta. Everything has pointed a decline on all of his stuff over the last 3 years. Put him in the 'pen for now where his stuff will play better. You can always move him back into the rotation if Paxton is truly stinking it up after 5 or so starts. Pivetta will make 30 starts again this year. As I've said before, he is not sexy, but he is important. And dependable. Maybe, Paxton should prove himself out of the bullpen in the low leverage role.
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radiohix
Veteran
'At the end of the day, we bang. We bang. We're going to swing.' Alex Verdugo
Posts: 6,583
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Post by radiohix on May 2, 2023 14:22:44 GMT -5
I’m curious, why would you think that? I mean, Paxton’s velocity has been 95-97 mph in his rehabs while Kluber throws an 88 mph sinker with mediocre movement. Those 2 things aren’t similar. I think people forget how an awesome pitcher Paxton is when healthy. Fair question. I am not comparing Paxton and Kluber in terms of raw stuff. Paxton is definitely more of a power arm. I have a couple major reasons for expecting very little from Paxton when he returns: -He’s thrown 21 innings since 2019 -He’s mostly been getting rocked in AAA Assuming he’s healthy(and can stay healthy), there will be a lot of starts where he’s trying to “find it” this year(much like we’ve seen from Sale and Kluber). So he might have one promising start and then 2-3 where he’s brutal. I am not sure vintage Paxton is still in there, but we will see! I get the 1st reason and it’s a legit concern but I strongly believe that even if we get 70% of the old Paxton that’s a better pitcher than Kluber, Pivetta or Houck. As for your 2nd point, I don’t agree with it, these are rehab starts, just like spring training starts, pitchers are working on things, they’re not attacking opposing hitters with a specific plan to get them, they’re meaningless and you can’t draw any conclusions out of them. IMHO The only thing that counts in these starts is “how was the velocity?”
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Post by jerrygarciaparra on May 2, 2023 14:22:46 GMT -5
what was absolutely astounding last night was Hernandez with the unbelievable play and then the 2 throwing errors, the second of which the world's tallest man wouldn't be able to snare. LOL.
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Post by ematz1423 on May 2, 2023 14:24:10 GMT -5
If Chris Sale is fighting to find his form after essentially 3 years off, i am gonna guess Paxton is likely to be rougher around the edges. Not going to deny that Paxton may be cooked, time will tell but I don't think looking at a guy with a delivery like Sale and saying his struggles to get back his form is indicative of Paxton in any manner. Paxton has a much more conventional delivery while Sale is a lot of moving parts and an overall funky delivery.
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Post by jerrygarciaparra on May 2, 2023 14:28:48 GMT -5
If Chris Sale is fighting to find his form after essentially 3 years off, i am gonna guess Paxton is likely to be rougher around the edges. Not going to deny that Paxton may be cooked, time will tell but I don't think looking at a guy with a delivery like Sale and saying his struggles to get back his form is indicative of Paxton in any manner. Paxton has a much more conventional delivery while Sale is a lot of moving parts and an overall funky delivery. let's hope. I don't mind admitting to be mildly annoyed (or more) that he has been making bank for over a year and not pitching for our club. That fact leads me to an anti-Paxton bias that increases my level of distrust. I hope he can finally get us some quality innings, because we need them from our starters.
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Post by ematz1423 on May 2, 2023 14:43:22 GMT -5
Not going to deny that Paxton may be cooked, time will tell but I don't think looking at a guy with a delivery like Sale and saying his struggles to get back his form is indicative of Paxton in any manner. Paxton has a much more conventional delivery while Sale is a lot of moving parts and an overall funky delivery. let's hope. I don't mind admitting to be mildly annoyed (or more) that he has been making bank for over a year and not pitching for our club. That fact leads me to an anti-Paxton bias that increases my level of distrust. I hope he can finally get us some quality innings, because we need them from our starters. That's fair and I get it. Personally the only aspect that bugs me is that they went over the luxury tax last year and if I'm not mistaken would have been under without his contract on the books but that assumes they wouldn't have just replaced his $s with X,Y,Z free agent but that's probably not an avenue the mods want us going down in the game day thread. I'm with you and probably every Sox fan, hopefully he can give them at least a handful of quality starts. I'm not exactly going to peg him to even be on the roster by the time August/September rolls around but hopefully I'm wrong there.
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Post by incandenza on May 2, 2023 14:47:10 GMT -5
If you throw out 2017 and everything before, his xERA/FIP/xFIP numbers are all in the 3.50-3.60 range. That's including his crummy small samples from 2020/21.
So that's a fun little stair-step journey you've taken: -Career FIP of 3.31. -But throw out 2017 and before, so really 3.50ish. -But his ERA tends to underperform FIP, so 3.79. -But this will be his ceiling rather than his average. -And he'll tank 3-5 games. -So his ceiling is a 4.00-5.00 ERA.
Conclusion: a guy with a career 3.31 FIP will be a worse starter than Pivetta.
In between Paxton's career numbers and today are three-plus years of injury. He's severely injured himself in consecutive mlb starts. He's been injured in each of the last two years before he could get into an mlb game. Criticize the "fun little stair-step journey" if you want but just quoting his career numbers without age/injury adjustments or any context is mindless. If you don't like my assessment of Paxton that's fine, but I found his Fangraphs projections and they prjoject him to have a 4.41 ERA. Admittedly, that's better than Pivetta's 4.70 projection but I'd rather have the certainty of Pivetta's innings than Paxton's slight projected upside. www.fangraphs.com/players/james-paxton/11828/stats?position=PPaxton has only pitched 4 "complete" seasons if you consider 121 innings complete (FWIW, he was also severely injured in the 2014 and 2015 seasons). He has ERA's of 3.79, 2.98, 3.76, and 3.82 in those four seasons. If you take away the one anomaly year (which is perfectly reasonable) I don't expect him to come back from a 3-year absence and at 34-years old and pitch to the level of any of those three seasons, or even close to it. So yes I'd take Pivetta's 4.70 ERA (and whatever other peripherals you'd like to reference) over the very, very unlikely chance that Paxton stays healthy in hopes of achieving the maybe-but-probably-not scenario where he slightly outpitches Pivetta. If you wouldn't that's fine. You were explicitly characterizing his ceiling as not being anything that should displace Kluber and Pivetta. I can totally understand having little faith in the current version of Paxton; it would be crazy to project him for a 3.30 ERA. I just think you're bending over backward to deny that there's any upside there.
So for instance: yes, fangraphs projects him for a 4.41 ERA. Seems reasonable enough to me! But that's a mean projection; his upside is by definition considerably better than that. And those projections take account of the injury history and every other factor you point to. So what's your reason for being significantly more pessimistic than those projections.
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Post by philsbosoxfan on May 2, 2023 14:53:48 GMT -5
I'm a bit weird on Paxton. I want to watch him pitch before I form an opinion.
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Post by Soxfansince1971 on May 2, 2023 15:07:36 GMT -5
Did I miss Paxton being activated and starting today!
Moderator can we move all things Paxton to the Paxton thread….makes sense to me….
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Post by philsbosoxfan on May 2, 2023 15:18:44 GMT -5
Kluber should not be the #1 pitcher on a staff...that is a problem. he is on my sh*t list after this debacle. He was very clearly signed to be the #6 guy, in that 5 guys projected to be better. But we opened the season with 2, 3, and 4 on the IL. They're about to decide whether Paxton makes his debut in his next start or the one after. If the former, he'll very likely take Kluber's next turn. Next week they have both Monday and Thursday off, and I don't think they want to give anyone 6 days rest, so it's quite possible that after Pivetta's start Wednesday, neither him nor Kluber even get a chance to start until May 14 (last game of the Cardinals series), when they decide on a 5th starter ... which may well be Whitlock. (How do they make room for Paxton? Has to be Brasier. Whitlock? Who knows. Bernardino has been better than Bleier, so far, and Crawford has been the 3rd best pitcher on the team by xwOBA and 4th by wOBV. If they decide to start Kluber again in Phillie's game 2, I'll redo the above ...
So, at the time, Sale, Paxton, Houck & Whitlock all on the DL. Bello barely not a rookie and Pivetta's Jeckle & Hyde imitation and Kluber coming off a solid year, he was clearly signed to be the #6 ? Also for the SSS peeps, so far, Kluber's been similar to last year in that he started awful then turned it on at about this time. A repeat would be great.
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Post by yuchangclan on May 2, 2023 15:37:44 GMT -5
Sorry, Cora - I'd ride with Duran over Tapia vs. a lefty any day. Duran's your hottest hitter, has shown he can hit lefties and he's still young. Everyone gets two days off next week. Ride or Die, Alex. Ride or Die. RF Verdugo 1B Turner LF Refsnyder 3B Devers SS Hernández DH Yoshida 2B Arroyo C Wong CF Tapia Has Casas become a platoon guy now?
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cdj
Veteran
Posts: 15,659
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Post by cdj on May 2, 2023 15:41:18 GMT -5
Sorry, Cora - I'd ride with Duran over Tapia vs. a lefty any day. Duran's your hottest hitter, has shown he can hit lefties and he's still young. Everyone gets two days off next week. Ride or Die, Alex. Ride or Die. RF Verdugo 1B Turner LF Refsnyder 3B Devers SS Hernández DH Yoshida 2B Arroyo C Wong CF Tapia Has Casas become a platoon guy now? I hope not, he’s hit lefties much better than he’s hit righties this year
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