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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Sept 18, 2023 13:35:51 GMT -5
A breakdown of his balls in play, by type: Hard-Hit expected Hits, Hard-hit expected Outs, Soft-hit expected Hits, Soft-hit expected Outs.
Not including yesterday (did it last night)
Type PA Freq+ BA xBA SA xSA Extra H Extra TB Hard x Hit 5 104 1.000 .705 2.200 1.683 1.48 2.59 Hard x Out 5 107 .600 .292 .800 .397 1.54 2.02 Soft x Hit 4 164 .750 .737 .750 .848 . 05 -.39 Soft x Out 13 86 .308 .170 .308 .170 1.79 1.79 Tot 4.86 6.00
The one good thing is that his hard-hit % is above average.
He's been lucky in every possible way. An extra 1.5 hits or so in 3 of the 4 categories, and in the legitimate (expected) cheap hit bucket, he's been normal in results but he's done that 64% more often than norm. If there's a skill for that, it's not that big.
If you give him credit for the extra hard hits, the lucky hits may be as low as 4.5. It's a tricky adjustment!
Actual, then expected, up to date:
.320 / .346 / .540 = .376 wOBA .224 / .254 / .360 = .266
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Sept 15, 2023 9:43:33 GMT -5
Abreu Statctast, Expected top line, actual beneath:
.299 / .375 / .513 = .384 wOBA (55 PA)
.367 / .411 / .510 = .411
Since 8/22 when he made his debut, there are 250 players with 50+ PA. Abreu ranks 38th in xwOBA and 27th in wOBA, 85th and 89th percentile respectively.
He has a -2% Success Rate Added in CF, which puts him 99th out of 123, but he's 0 overall, which means he's been very good in LF in too small a sample size to show up in the rankings. The CF numbers, which aren't awful, translate to plus defense in LF.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Sept 15, 2023 0:26:46 GMT -5
Part of me wonders if things would be different now if not for that stupid quote about Bogaerts being the #1 priority, later followed by the media somehow convincing themselves that a signing was imminent. Need to manage fan expectations. A few things mentioned in this thread that might be strung together:
- the supposed botching of the 2022 trade deadline by staying over the LTT - the manifest desire to re-sign Eovaldi and Bogaerts after the 2022 season - the commitment by Bloom, evident in many things he did and in the horse's mouth as well, to not overpaying for players - awalkinthepark's observation that Bloom seems incapable of the irrational leap when it's called for
I think Bloom had a sense of Bogaerts' value, and felt that the Red Sox could afford him at that value, especially since a tie would go to the hometown team, given Bogaerts' fondness for playing for the Red Sox. And he figured his estimation of value would be similar to what other front offices around the league would arrive at (since, as you've pointed out many times, this is all close to a science by now). But he projected his rationality onto those other front offices, and his sense of restraint, and just never saw Preller coming. Similar story re: their likely ability to re-sign Eovaldi.
So what I kind of think happened is that they stayed over the limit in 2022 because he thought it wouldn't matter anyway since they'd keep Bogaerts and Eovaldi. And then they lost both. And then the holes at shortstop and SP have been the two conspicuous deficiencies of the 2023 Red Sox.
Re bullet point 4 ...
Coming into the final stretch I was insisting that they needed to add a competent SP and go to a six-man rotation. I wanted them to trade for a guy (ideally younger, with options left) with a low ceiling and high floor (established as a 4 or 5 starter, excess depth on his team, no projection for anything better), by trading a significant prospect or two, especially from among the guys who were looking like Rule 5 additions.
Bonaci was an obvious choice for the latter, a guy who is blocked by a better prospect and who at age 20 was hitting as well in AA as he was the year before in low-A. If it weren't for the fact that a decent percentage of such apparent breakouts turn out to be mirages, you'd have him much higher, and in fact someone had him in their top 100, IIRC. So find a team that thinks he's for real and swap him and a someone else they like for the extra starter.
Bloom made it clear that he thought the farm system was a year away from having enough depth to start trading prospects. In a vacuum, that was wise.
At the deadline you aren't going to make a trade for a SP that that the opposition doesn't project as a win for them. And maybe you agree with them. But in this case, you do it ... because it's likely to be the difference between having a meaningful September and a bad one. That, plus extra guy you can save from Rule 5, is going to outweigh the difference between what you could get for Bonaci a year from now, and what you're settling for now.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Sept 14, 2023 22:17:47 GMT -5
According to Search, no one has posted Kiley McDaniel's take over at ESPN+. And keep in mind that he is less impressed by the current players under team control (majors and minors) than most of us, rankings the Sox 23rd. That includes putting Casas in the 3rd tier of player talent (solid rather than elite or All-star candidate).
He befins by opining that the Mookie trade was mandated by the F.O. He then runs down Bloom's performance and gives positive grades, saying that he doesn't belong in the top 10 for GM's but is solidly in the middle third. His biggest complaint is over signing Story rather than re-upping Xander, but I'm not sure that's going to hold up in the long run. He concludes:
Hopefully they're looking for someone just like Bloom, except he didn't make the Mookie trade.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Sept 8, 2023 18:12:01 GMT -5
Any word on how friendly Masa was with Orix teammate Yamamoto?
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Sept 8, 2023 18:05:44 GMT -5
Yeah, the 5th through 7th best team in MLB is going to miss the playoffs while the 17th or so will not only make it, they'll get home field advantage! But that's a topic for another time.
Teams routinely play 9 or 10 days in a row. The former happens when you have a Monday off day and then another the next week on Thursday, and the latter when the opposite sequence happens.
Longer stretches are uncommon. And a second factor in no-rest stress (as we all saw) is the number of games you have to play with just one day off ... is the epic stretch preceded or followed by a 9 or 10-er?
The Sox first, all the 13+ straight days streaks together with their before or after. .
A week after the season started they played 29 games in 30 days, 19 straight followed by 10.
In mid-late August they played 26 games in 27 days, 10 followed by 16.
And tonight we start a 13 game streak, but following a 6 gamer ... and we have an extra spot in the bullpen.
Since the Orioles have outperformed their Pythagorean by 8 wins while the Sox are even, I thought I'd start the opposition rundown with them.
Earlier they played 23 games in 24 days, 13 followed by 10. When was that? Immediately after the All-Star break. Seriously.
They are about to start another 23 games in 24 days run, 17 followed (and preceded) by 6. And this with an extra guy in the pen.
That's it.
I don't have to summarize this, do I?
I'll do the Jays, MFY's, and Rays when I have a chance, as my initial curiosity has been satisfied. Do some teams have brutal schedules compared to others, in the same division?
Oh, yes.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Sept 5, 2023 20:50:18 GMT -5
That was hilarious -- "Yoshida sucks, he can't catch that!" Well, usually not. Not always.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Sept 4, 2023 4:19:28 GMT -5
Over at MLB.com, Will Leitch has named the Reds' rookie SS Matt McClain as the runner-up to Bobby Witt as the best 23 y/o player in MLB.
On a first glance, he does more impressive than Casas.
Side by side OPS+ splits by month, McClain then Casas:
DNP - 61
164 - 110 ((McClain half month)
138 -134
133 -219
108 -148
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Sept 3, 2023 11:46:37 GMT -5
Exactly 200 guys have 125 or more PA since the ASB. Since there is a real component to wOBA - xwOBA (pulled fly balls and opposite field grounders) I averaged the two numbers, as I usually do, to rank the best hitters in MLB. Here's the top dozen guys:
Name PA xwOBA wOBA Ave Betts, Mookie 197 .429 .476 .453 Acuña, Ronald 216 .463 .434 .449 Casas, Triston 160 .438 .457 .448 Seager, Corey 147 .428 .442 .435 Ohtani, Shohei 177 .428 .440 .434 Freeman, Fred. 204 .414 .451 .433 Ozuna, Marcell 187 .427 .428 .428 Judge, Aaron 139 .452 .393 .423 Alvarez, Yord. 143 .430 .409 .420 Rodríguez, Ju. 193 .391 .442 .417 Harper, Bryce 193 .410 .423 .417 Tucker, Kyle 193 .420 .407 .414
Casas is third to Acuna and Judge in xwOB and second to Mookie in wOBA.
It's true that Casas did not start against 4 LHP , but that was the first 3 and then Juluo Urias; he has 7 starts against them and is .382 / .401 overall. He has only 9 fewer PA vs. LHP than Acuna. I think that it's fair to say he's only been the third best hitter in MLB since the break.
The key thing here is that very clearly you can't do what he's doing without being great.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Sept 1, 2023 5:07:44 GMT -5
Boston: 9th in the AL in Batting fWAR at 14.2 9th in the AL in Pitching fWAR at 11.0 15th in the AL in Defense at -54.5 Every team ahead of them in the AL is in the playoffs (BAL, MN, SEA, TX, HOU, TB) or still in the hunt (TOR), plus LAA in Batting and CLEV in Pitching. In all of MLB they are 18th in batting, 20th in pitching and dead last in defense. If this isn't the definition of mediocre/mid in comparison to their peers, I don't know what is. It also speaks to a significant deficit in roster construction/philosophy. Yeah,as chaimtine pointed out, let's double-count the awful defense by including it in the batting metric. And let's use an outdated piece of crap for the pitching metric.
I mean, wouldn't the team be below .500 if they were really 9th out of 15 in both batting and pitching?
By xwOBA they rank 7th in both batting and pitching, and the former is very likely 6th when adjusting for SOS.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Aug 30, 2023 3:52:13 GMT -5
He's leading AAA in wRC+ for guys 22 and younger, minimum 200 PA. He's 5th among guys 23 and younger, and the other four guys have all been promoted and no one has a +100 wRC+. Some are way below. (Alas, I cleared the details off my browswr.)
When you look at either the overall leaderboard or the 23 and under, his BB% looks like a misprint. A misprint so bad it's funny.
It's no secret that I think I know a lot a lot baseball, but I have no clue how he's doing what he's doing.
This will be interesting. I do know that getting some kind of handle on how much work he needs as a hitter is a key step in shaping the 2024 roster.
BTW, if they send Hamilton down when Abreu comes back from leave (and I think they might), then Rafaela is the backup shortstop.
From the limited clips I've seen at AA and AAA, most of what I've seen Cedanne hitting are anywhere between solid strikes and absolute meatballs. Which begs the question, are AA and AAA pitchers really that bad at not being able to throw something like a borderline pitch pretty consistently, letting him get himself out? If his chase rate is so bad, why would ANYONE ever throw him a strike? Or maybe they HAVE been throwing things that cause him to get himself out most of the time, but the times when they slip up and let one in the zone, he simply hasn't been missing it. That's one definition of a player on a hot streak -- or someone with extremely good bat to ball skills.
I think we simply have to face the fact that Cedanne has been, to this point, an extreme outlier as an offensive player. And chances are, unless he completely bombs in the Majors, he's going to be an outlier there also. Most likely with not as good results, which probably means he will look like a less extreme outlier. Jason Bay.
I believe I was still on the Red Sox payroll but no longer employed by them [1] when I did a little study using pitch/fx daya. I looked at the results, player by player, on pitches in the middle of the plate, in the 9-way breakown.
The first thing you notice is the overall low percentage of hard hits on these fat pitches.
I found two outliers. Unlike everyone else, Jacoby Ellsberry swung at almost every pitch in the fat zone, without especially good results. That's another story ...
Jason Bay was amazingly good at hitting these bad pitches.
When Bay left via free agency, I remember thinking that he would have either an unusually short or unusually long career.
On the one hand, if he ever lost the ability to crush mistakes better than almost everybody else ... he had nothing else.
On the other hand, there will always be mistake pitches, and it seemed to be easy for him.
When he signed with the Mets I decided I liked the short career idea better. That of course turned out to be the case.
We may or may not have enough data on him by season's end to see if he's doing the Bay thing.
[1] Severance pay. Not common for consultants, I think!
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Aug 29, 2023 5:19:45 GMT -5
Bring back Duvall? He's about to turn 35 himself, and he's rocking a huge wOBA-xwOBA split (.376 vs. .315).
Some wondrous Duvall 2023 stats. First number is all of MLB.
FB % (of all batted balls): .263, 360
Pull % on fly balls: .268, .525
xwOBA / wOBA on pulled fly balls:
.669 / .887 (extra 32.6%) MLB
.785 / .997 (extra 27.0%) Duvall
Another goodie -- FB and LD combined --
.322, .365, .313, pull, straight, oppo, MLB
.700, .192, .108, ditto for Duvall
He does have good karma on pulled line drives on the road, but he's done that three years in a row now.
The only thing that looks like it might be lucky is his 11 pulled ground balls at home, .279 / .467. But .279 is crazy good, 95th percentile (MLB is .226). And if you spread your pulled balls from the borderline with straight to the foul line, that's going to translate to more hits. Still, overall he's 3rd in MLB in wOBA - xwOBA on grounders, out of 423 guys with 30+ grounders.
There's probably some luck here, but Duvall's GB% is .207 vs. the league .429.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Aug 28, 2023 17:53:48 GMT -5
The one thing I don't like here is Crawford going on 4 days rest in game 3. I was hoping they'd just sit Pivetta until then.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Aug 28, 2023 17:45:57 GMT -5
He's leading AAA in wRC+ for guys 22 and younger, minimum 200 PA. He's 5th among guys 23 and younger, and the other four guys have all been promoted and no one has a +100 wRC+. Some are way below. (Alas, I cleared the details off my browswr.)
When you look at either the overall leaderboard or the 23 and under, his BB% looks like a misprint. A misprint so bad it's funny.
It's no secret that I think I know a lot a lot baseball, but I have no clue how he's doing what he's doing.
This will be interesting. I do know that getting some kind of handle on how much work he needs as a hitter is a key step in shaping the 2024 roster.
BTW, if they send Hamilton down when Abreu comes back from leave (and I think they might), then Rafaela is the backup shortstop.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Aug 28, 2023 16:49:42 GMT -5
The box score looks like we were outplayed yesterday. Statcast tells a different story.
Expected hits allowed, versus actual:
Murphy 6.14 > 9
Houck 4.13 > 5 Llovera, 0.21 > 0
Dodgers at bat, 10.48 > 14
Ferguson 0.78 > 1 Stone, 7.16 > 5 Brasier .33 > 0 Phillips, 0.48 > 1
Sox at bat, 8.75 > 7.
Biggest factor: balls not hit hard, and that were expected outs. Sox went 0 for 16, Dodgers 6 for 17.
The run value difference here? 4.5 runs, even if you assume all of the hits involved are singles.
And it is possible to single out two PA of a type we never got.
I don't think the cheap 2-out double with Mookie Betts on deck escaped anyone's notice. Granted, the xBA on that was .500, but the EV was 71.3, and when the closest fielder is Alex Verdugo, the actual xBA is lower. So there's a run or two
But the killer was Rojas' leadoff double in the 8th that was 89.0 and had an .020 xBA. Now, everyone on both sides knows the Wall is there, so I have never regarded hard-hit Fenway doubles or homers as lucky. But this was a pitcher making a good pitch and getting ordinary to weak contact, and it's a routine out everywhere else. That ended up costing 2 runs.
The point of this? As I said at the top, the box score looks like we were outplayed. We weren't. They got the breaks, we didn't, and that was the game --- and that's baseball. We should expect to record a win just this lucky before the season ends. Ideally, within the next three days.
I watched the game, not the box score, and it sure looked like we got outplayed. We were flat with the bats, and short in the pen. I not only watched the game, but scored every pitch, like I did for 95% of the Sox games from 2003 to 2008 (the last four years as part of my job), and as I continue to do for most of the games I watch (which includes every post-season game excluding a couple of first-rounders when they have 4 games in a day, going back maybe 8 years when I decided (correctly!) that I would find it totally worthwhile).
I crunched the numbers because I saw a game that seemed to be determined by luck.
It's too bad that you can't do that, but your subjective impressions don't necessarily bear any relationship to the truth.
We were flat with the bats ...
So flat that we had the only two homers that were homers in more than half the ballparks, and were in fact homers in 29 and 30. But maybe you were asleep and missed that, since it was just two pitches. Consecutive.
I mean, the inning before Wong smoked a 99.7 grounder with a .510 xBA, Urias smoked a 104.2 liner with a .900, and Verdugo launched an 89.7 soft liner that was a .650 -- and they were all hit right at fielders. You didn't notice that?
and short in the pen
Murphy had a .319 xwOBA, which is a tad better than MLB average for a 3-inning reliever and pretty much matches my impression of his outing. He had a .483 wOBA because crap luck turned three extra outs into hits.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Aug 28, 2023 2:59:08 GMT -5
The box score looks like we were outplayed yesterday. Statcast tells a different story.
Expected hits allowed, versus actual:
Murphy 6.14 > 9
Houck 4.13 > 5 Llovera, 0.21 > 0
Dodgers at bat, 10.48 > 14
Ferguson 0.78 > 1 Stone, 7.16 > 5 Brasier .33 > 0 Phillips, 0.48 > 1
Sox at bat, 8.75 > 7.
Biggest factor: balls not hit hard, and that were expected outs. Sox went 0 for 16, Dodgers 6 for 17.
The run value difference here? 4.5 runs, even if you assume all of the hits involved are singles.
And it is possible to single out two PA of a type we never got.
I don't think the cheap 2-out double with Mookie Betts on deck escaped anyone's notice. Granted, the xBA on that was .500, but the EV was 71.3, and when the closest fielder is Alex Verdugo, the actual xBA is lower. So there's a run or two
But the killer was Rojas' leadoff double in the 8th that was 89.0 and had an .020 xBA. Now, everyone on both sides knows the Wall is there, so I have never regarded hard-hit Fenway doubles or homers as lucky. But this was a pitcher making a good pitch and getting ordinary to weak contact, and it's a routine out everywhere else. That ended up costing 2 runs.
The point of this? As I said at the top, the box score looks like we were outplayed. We weren't. They got the breaks, we didn't, and that was the game --- and that's baseball. We should expect to record a win just this lucky before the season ends. Ideally, within the next three days.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Aug 27, 2023 12:33:34 GMT -5
Three teams have, between them, 10 of the top 25 hitters in Win Probability Added per 600 PA (minimum 250 PA, which gives you 9.7 guys per team).
The Astros have Chas McCormick 1, Kyle Tucker 3, Yordan Alvarez 12, and Jose Altuve 17.
The Rays have Luke Raley 9, Josh Lowe 12, and Yandy Diaz 16.
The Red Sox have Adam Duvall 15, Jarren Duran 21, and Justin Turner 25.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Aug 27, 2023 12:08:12 GMT -5
Random thoughts:
I tried and failed to find a bulk guy to follow opener Ferguson. Looks like a bullpen game, which should be interesting.
Lots of emphasis on the Dodgers' record in August, but it's 17-1 followed by 5-3, with the latter 39 RS and 37 RA. Sox are 6-3, against hugely tougher opponents -- average schedule-adjusted run differential 0.5 (= Astros) versus -0.1 (Reds, Giants), and that excludes our playing 2 more games on the road and one less at home ... and of course we're 65 RS and 43 RA.
In his first 3 IP in his last appearance, Chris Murphy faced 13 Astros batters and had a .172 xwOBA and .231 wOBA. (He then ran of gas.) Sure, he was going to be unavailable for two days, maybe 3, but do you really want to send him down for 15 days just so Llovera can be be used in that span? Llovera ended up pitching the 7th the next day, in a 7-3 loss, and then, two days later, pitched the last 2 innings of the monster blowout. This is not a second guess -- I assumed Llovera would be the guy sent down for Houck and was shocked that they optioned Murphy instead.
Does anyobody really want to shed either Duval or Doogie this winter?
Speaking of which, I'm about to re-do the leaderboard for WPA per PA. I don't think Duval was eligible the last time I did it, and Doogie is climbing up, I think.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Aug 24, 2023 13:27:38 GMT -5
No they won't. Not remotely. Situational hitting is a real thing. It may not be predictive, but it happened. A player's worth is based on what actually happened.
Here's the list of Red Sox players (present and past), minimum 260 PA (which gives you 271 players), sorted by Win Probability Added per 600 PA. ... In terms of actual impact on winning, Xander has performed like a bad #8 hitter. This is the fourth straight year that he's been a bad situational hitter. Casas, BTW, had a -1.73 rate through July 4 and is 2.77 since. That's going from 239th ranked to 37th. EDIT: Duval is 2.56.
This is an interesting perspective, but to play devils advocate the Padres are also otherworldly bad in crucial situations. They have a +52 run differential and are one of the worst teams in baseball still. They can’t win close games. So I think as a team they collectively must be in their own heads when it comes to situational hitting. Regardless, Bogaerts hasn’t hit in the clutch, continues to impact the ball less hard, and nobody in SD will care if he was worth his contract this year considering his bleak long term outlook and this being a lost year for that franchise. This is a great point. I have data from c. 2005-2008 that shows that expected team runs in a game (based on all PA results) versus actual runs tends to go in streaks. This year I did the same thing for the Sox, hitting with the bases empty versus with runners on ... teams have streaks, good and bad. Collective relaxation vs. collective pressing.
This is a case where being conscientious actually backfires. Xander, already a guy who puts pressure on himself to hit well when the team offense is faltering, seems to be surrounded by guys doing the same thing. That just makes it worse for everyone.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Aug 24, 2023 13:05:00 GMT -5
This works:
Duval LF, Duran CF, Rafaela RF at home
Duran LF, Rafaela CF, Duval RF on the road, sometimes.
As far as injuries go, Abreu would be a first-rate up-and-down guy.
Playing Duran in center half the season is, IMO, a not ideal outcome, he is not up to par as a CF. If anything here I'd keep Duran or Duvall in right in both scenarios*. *caveat that the Red Sox have not played Duran in right at all which maybe suggests that they think he reads the ball better in center or left Both DRS and UZR have Duran as below average in throwing. That's the likely reason he's been kept out of RF.
Duval has great in LF, OK in CF. If swapping positions back and forth is a bad idea (and it might be, depends on the players), having Rafaela start his career in RF would work.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Aug 24, 2023 13:00:11 GMT -5
Mookie trade was the most painful thing I've endured as a Red Sox fan, but at some point we just have to accept he didn't want to be here. And that's fine, he did good by the franchise while he was here. Or accept that he was looking to be paid Trout money as Trout was the best player at the time and comparable to Mookie and that's likely the yardstick he had in mind, and the Sox werent willing to go there. And if they had there's a reasonable chance he would have stayed, or reached free agency and seen if the Sox had the highest bid. If so he's probably a Red Sox. This he wanted to leave Boston stuff isnt as real as he wanted to be paid the most money he could get and if it was Boston, great, he'd stay, otherwise he'd go if it wasn't Boston. This is so hugely wrong that I literally don't know where to start.
1) No one in their right mind -- and I mean that literally, too, no one who is not an insecure narcissist -- takes the most cash on a huge contract without regard to where they are playing, both in terms of the chances of winning World Series, and the atmosphere games are played in (figuratively and maybe literally, too).
2) The Dodgers have dominated their division and have more cash to spend than anyone. The front office is the best in MLB. They're the #1 pick if you want to get rings. The Sox have been very successful but at present are playing in an insanely competitive division ... and they had just changed GM's.
3) Mookie grew up in Nashville. Which city has the more similar weather, Boston or LA?
4) Boston is maybe the most intense place to play. LA is maybe the most laid-back.
5) Mookie is too nice a guy to ever dis the city he was playing in, in terms of how well a personal fit it was for him.
Saving the smoking gun for last ...
6) Mookie said again and again and again that he would go to free agency to "see how much he was worth." As soon as he was traded to the Dodgers, he signed a contract that was somewhat team-friendly because so much of the cash was deferred. Which, BTW, allows the team to have a higher effective payroll if and when they are going under the tax limit to reset it.
Do the math.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Aug 24, 2023 12:23:37 GMT -5
Until you consider that he is 34 with that body type (NFL fullback) and historically not super durable. The performance cliff could be minutes away... I do like the guy a lot though. Duvall does make sense if he is a right fielder getting most of his ABs against LHP (to reduce wear on him). This works:
Duval LF, Duran CF, Rafaela RF at home
Duran LF, Rafaela CF, Duval RF on the road, sometimes.
As far as injuries go, Abreu would be a first-rate up-and-down guy.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Aug 24, 2023 12:15:30 GMT -5
The Bello day / night split that looks so bad ... doesn't seem to be that.
His first 3 starts of the year were at day, and he didn't look sharp. Two of the other three were on 4 days rest.
He's pitched just once at day on 5 days rest, on June 5 vs. the Rays, and was .273 / .244 (xwOBA / wOBA). Today is on 5 days rest.
He's had only one good game on 4 days rest, on June 23 against the White Sox, .249 / .289.
His other starts on 4 days rest? His 4th start of the season, whose numbers are just like starts 2 and 3, so that might have been part of the slow start. He got killed on July 19 in Oakland, and maybe that was because he knew he'd be leaving in a couple of days for the birth of his kid. But there's no excuse for August 12, at home vs. the Tigers, .355 / .485.
They've kept him away from 4 days rest, for the most part. Just the fact that he's done it so rarely after the start of the season would lead to struggles, from the alteration of between-start work.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Aug 24, 2023 11:31:49 GMT -5
1) They knew he was not a good defender when they signed him.
2) At that point the starting OF consisted of Kiké and Verdugo (and pray for Duran).
3) WAR positional adjustment for DH is demonstrably wrong. It's closer to pinch-hitting 3 to 5 times, and pinch-hitting is hard. On the defensive spectrum, it's harder than 1B and close to LF. Now ...
In contrast to a year ago, they do not have room in MLB next year for the given OF / DH -- Duran, Yoshida, and Refsnyder on the bench -- plus Turner, and all of Verdugo, Duval, and Rafela. The latter trio gives them four starting outfielders, so they are likely either trading Verdugo or (less likely) not re-upping Duval, or blocking Rafela for a year (although injuries would likely give him a decent amount of MLB action).
I think he is primarily a DH next year, and becomes a full-time DH when Turner retires. His bat will be worth the $.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Aug 21, 2023 19:12:15 GMT -5
I love Reyes and I hope I’m wrong in my implication here, but I hope Cora understands the likely true talent level of his new binky I'm of the frame of mind to play Reyes until he gives us a reason not to at this point. Could it all be a mirage a-la Leon? Sure, but you have to ride the wave you get otherwise you just end up treading water. Plus I really love when guys like Reyes get some success. Nava, Mcdonald, Ciraco, etc etc. It's nice to see their commitment to the game rewarded, even if it's only for a brief period of time. Merloni had an interesting take on this that rang true to me -- that confidence plays a very big part for guys on the AAA / MLB cusp. Think about the effort of trying to prove you belong in the show, and the pressure most people put on themselves. Compare that to actually believing you belong in the big leagues.
I'll add that the Sox valued "makeup" as much as any team does, going back to the Theo days. I think they still do. We know that they had an interest in Reyes already and spent a few days digging deeper before they decided he was the guy to fill in for Arroyo when he was on the IL. I'm guessing they saw something in his makeup that they liked, and that's been a component in his confidence.
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