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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Jul 15, 2023 6:18:43 GMT -5
So, who was leading MLB in bWAR / IP, minimum 10 GS, at the All-Star break?
And Paxton was 3rd.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Jul 10, 2023 23:43:42 GMT -5
The Derby is always fun but the head-to-head matchups make no sense. If you go second and the guy before you is bad, you can quit early and save stamina. The technical term for that is pure random good luck.
Worse, more often that not one of the 4 best opening rounds is up against one of the 3 best and doesn't advance, as happened to Rutschman. That's just crap luck.
Head to head seedings in tournaments are standard because the opponents are actually playing one another. That's not the case here. Everyone is playing against the clock. The same clock. MLB is borrowed the head-to-head format without thinking it through.
What you do instead:
1) Seed the 8 guys by HR/AB. Don't punish someone who missed PT with injuries. Don't punish guys for walking. Don't reward them for striking out, even though HR/Contact is a better measure of HR power.
2) The 8 to 1 seeds go in that order. Best 4 scores advance.
3) Re-seed round 2 by round 1 total. Reseed final round by total homers in rounds 1 and 2.
In round 1, the 4 seed can quit as soon as he bests all four guys preceding him. He knows he's in. But he can keep going to get the best possible slot in round 2, and hence more rest before going again.
Much more fair, and way more interesting, too. There is an immediate question: how many of seeds 5 to 8 are going to put up a great score? The whole dynamic of the four top seeds depends on that. And all of top 4 might the decision to continue or not once they're in.
One of the things that makes the Derby so entertaining is that it shows that fun and competition can go great together. Having everyone compete against everyone else makes the competitive aspect 7 times better without, I think, reducing the fun an iota. Every guys has another contestant they most admire. Take advantage of that!
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Jul 10, 2023 22:39:42 GMT -5
Sox announced Bello, Paxton, Crawford for the Cubs series after the break. That means they expect Whitlock to pitch game 2 of the following A's series, on the day he's eligible to come off the IL, with TBD / Pivetta bulk going in game 1.
If Whitlock were not going to be ready, they would have split the two opener / bulk games: x + Pivetta in game 3, Crawford starting the A's series, and then x + Murphy.
There are so many off days after the two road series that they can start the post-ASB rotation with 5 man, 4 man, 5 man while having almost everyone throw on 5 days rest. The exceptions would be Bello on 4 days to close out the A's series and Paxton on 4 days rest in his 3rd start post-break. I really hope they do that.
Meanwhile, the Houck injury will give us a long look at Pivetta as a bulk guy. His xwOBA / wOBA (PA) breakdown by role so far, which has a way cool distribution of games and batters faced:
.283 / .187 (33) short relief (8 G)
.288 / .252 (39) long relief (4G)
.174 / .243 (33) bulk (2 G)
Note that his outing when Whitlock left after 1 inning is in the middle bucket.
Do we even know if Whitlock has been throwing since he was shut down? I hope you are right, but I am not sure. After the reassuring MRI it was reported that he was expected to miss just one start because of the ASB. He missed one already, ano it seems safe to guess that he's throwing. He might have a rehab start on Friday in Jacksonville and if there's anything that is off, they can reshuffle the A's series.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Jul 10, 2023 19:04:34 GMT -5
Sox announced Bello, Paxton, Crawford for the Cubs series after the break. That means they expect Whitlock to pitch game 2 of the following A's series, on the day he's eligible to come off the IL, with TBD / Pivetta bulk going in game 1.
If Whitlock were not going to be ready, they would have split the two opener / bulk games: x + Pivetta in game 3, Crawford starting the A's series, and then x + Murphy.
There are so many off days after the two road series that they can start the post-ASB rotation with 5 man, 4 man, 5 man while having almost everyone throw on 5 days rest. The exceptions would be Bello on 4 days to close out the A's series and Paxton on 4 days rest in his 3rd start post-break. I really hope they do that.
Meanwhile, the Houck injury will give us a long look at Pivetta as a bulk guy. His xwOBA / wOBA (PA) breakdown by role so far, which has a way cool distribution of games and batters faced:
.283 / .187 (33) short relief (8 G)
.288 / .252 (39) long relief (4G)
.174 / .243 (33) bulk (2 G)
Note that his outing when Whitlock left after 1 inning is in the middle bucket.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Jul 9, 2023 14:52:41 GMT -5
I think this is accurate ...
Sox are 1 for 15, 2B, BB, SF, GDP with men on.
3/6, 2B, HR, 3 BB, HBP with bases empty.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Jul 8, 2023 3:12:51 GMT -5
Both Chris Murphy and Brandon Walter have pitched better this year than either Richart Bleieir or Joely Rodriguez did last year. I'll have numbers for Joe Jacqeues and Brennan Bernadino tomorrow.
I had some questions about the Bleieir signing because he was coming off an off year at age 36. I did a trust-the-F.O. thing and figured they had reason to believe this was not the beginning of a decline. But he hasn't been good at all this year, by numbers or eyeballs.
Rodriguez is due to come off the IL any day now, and Whitlock is likely next. Justin Gazar's been fairly terrible (.374 / .321 xwOBA / wOBO, -0.63 WPA despite pitching in just .58 Leverage} and Tayler Scott has pitched just once, in garbage time, so those two are likely to be optioned, even though that will leave them with 5 LHR.
Whether it's worth giving Bleieir another chance will depend, I think, in how well Walter and Jacques pitch from now until Bleieir is ready, and how good the latter looks in his rehab.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Jul 7, 2023 15:46:39 GMT -5
Would love for these bullpen games to stop This isn't one, I'm pretty sure -- its an opener and 5 innings of Pivetta. That ought to be a rotations slot for a while.
The true bullpen game on Sunday will be the last in this stretch if Whitlock can pitch in the first rotation after the ASB (and no one else gets hurt!).
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Jul 7, 2023 4:16:27 GMT -5
To bring this back to 2023 ... Cora has made it clear that they are stretching out Pivetta to be a bulk guy -- exactly what I hoped for a while back. He outche 4 innings his last time out and has four days rest for the first game of the A's series. I'd expect him to go 5.
In his Sox career he has a .317 xwOBA and .321 wOBA as a starter after the first inning, as opposed to .368 / .359 in the first. He's been borderline 3/4 starter after the first. .
It's easy to see him sticking in the bulk role (eventually as the virtual 5th starter) while Houck goes to the pen
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Jul 4, 2023 3:18:12 GMT -5
Sox WPA per 350 PA: Name PA Rate Adam Duvall 110 3.09 Jarren Duran 233 2.34 Justin Turner 351 1.73 Yu Chang 47 1.49 Alex Verdugo 344 1.42 Rafael Devers 350 1.07 Masa Yoshida 313 0.69 Rob Refsnyder 155 0.52
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Jul 3, 2023 19:48:29 GMT -5
Everyone is missing one of his best attributes.
From certain angles, he's a dead ringer for Ethan Hawke.
(Does this make my Ethan Hawke story on-topic?)
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Jul 3, 2023 19:13:15 GMT -5
Then what qualifies as elite? Being the best RF defensively in the AL this year while being the most clutch player on our team since Ortiz leading the team in WAR, Has single handedly won us like 7 games now with walk offs and outfield assists. He's been our best player this season. If we want to take pride as a fanbase we should have voted for him. Him not being in the top 20 for OF is pathetic. We can do better then that. A guy going into FA has to feel some type of way knowing his own fans are not voting for him. I see Verdugo being another guy who we don't appreciate until he's gone. That just drives me CRAZY. Verdugo has the most Clutch value in baseball since 2021, and is top 20 in WPA. YMMV on how much you think that reflects a real skill It's a real skill. I mean, JDM is an All-Star and Turner hasn't been mentioned as a candidate, JDM has a 127 to 120 edge in wRC+, but Turner is clobbering JDM in WPA exactly as expected.
(1.79, 5th among DH, versus 0.89, 10th).
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Jul 2, 2023 19:06:51 GMT -5
I actually wasn’t literally counting days. I don’t recall *not* hearing rosy talk. Being told things are much better than my eyes are telling me — when a team is 120-126 since opening day last year… seems far more factually dubious than what I wrote. Or go back to 2020, 236-232. That is pretty consistent. About .500 for 4 years. About .500 for 2 years. About .500 this year. Fans are optimistic about the future. More at 11. By the way, .500 is not exactly a scarlet letter. It doesn’t take a lot to turn a .500 team into a playoff team, which explains some of the optimism. They're also a .500 club that has played .596 ball in their own division, which has in turn played .597 ball against everyone else. That's the equivalent of playing
.686 ball (against average teams) ... in your 27 most important games. It's hard to do that without having the talent to be very good.
Someone called making the playoffs "unrealistic" twice in one post (IIRC). I hope that's a semantic mistake and that they meant unlikely. It is unlikely that I will become a professional film critic (rather than just getting $200 worth of The Hollywood Reporter every year for my online "most helpful" reviews). It is unrealistic that I will date Roony Mara.
The Sox are 3.5 games behind the two teams current tied for WC 2 and 3, with 77 games left. They have 7 games with each of the teams, and those games do not begin until August 18, when we may well have Chris Sale and / or Trevor Story back. It's also true that a bunch of players project to have more value the rest of the way then so far.
It's very much doable. Note that if you can finish ahead of the Yankees and Astros, it's very unlikely that both the Jays and Twins will finish ahead of you, so the "chasing four teams" isn't really as much of a problem as it seems.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Jul 2, 2023 16:34:10 GMT -5
Not only Jaques first career save (as a 28 y/o rookie!), and not just his first career save opportunity, but the first time in his career he had pitched with a lead of less than 12 runs.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Jul 2, 2023 4:51:01 GMT -5
So, how good has Bello been?
I had an argument in the Yanknees series thread about Bello pitching on 6 days rest, and it was objected to. But if you toss out those games as non-predictive rather than including them, you get massively better projections. This crazy notion that players should be regarded as human beings rather than random number generators has served me well -- its success was probably 80% of why John Henry hired me personally. So .... xWOBA, with games with 6 days rest in the right column, starting with his first good outing on May 10.
.284 .394 .290 .380 .273 .237 .308 .249 .184
He was 37% "worse" his first two times on 6 days rest and cut that to 26% in his third try at it. Could this make any more sense?
If you include the three outlier outings, he's still damn impressive. He has a .287 / .251 (xwOBA / wOBA) which ranks him 15th and 9th respectively out of 124 pitchers who faced 150+ hitters from May 8 on (going back two days from his start to get guys in the same rotation cycle). That's an ace.
Admit it ... even if you're dubious about tossing out the three outliers, you want to know what happens if you do, right?
It's .253 / .237, in 153 PA.
How good is that?
In that time frame, he's only tied for 2nd in wOBA, with Blake Snell, behind only ... oops, Michael Wacha.
The .253 leads MLB in xwOBA. The runner up, Max Scherzer, at .267.
The gap between the two is as large as that between Scherzer and #11 (Eury Perez).
No, he's not going to be another Pedro. No one ever will be. But right now, he looks like a perennial CY contender.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Jun 28, 2023 3:24:18 GMT -5
Amazing scheduling in the current series -- none of the 11 AL contenders are playing another, so maximal swings can happen.
Seven clubs are playing the NL and all lost last night.
The other 4 contenders are all playing one of the 4 non-contenders. Last night, Angels beat the White Sox, Rangers beat the Tigers, Guardians beat the Royals ... but the Yankees lost to the A's.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Jun 27, 2023 23:49:04 GMT -5
This is sort of a weird year where I'm not too excited about buying or selling. Most of our outright holes are only holes because of guys who are injured, and the team isn't good enough to want to pay a premium to fill those temporary holes at the deadline. And while you can never have too many prospects, I don't think this team is in a place where it really needs to tear things down for prospects either unless playoff odds are quite slim; ideally we'd just be winning more games given the quality of the roster we already have. I couldn't agree more that you stand pat on the deadline at the MLB level. The injured guys are your additions.
I might trade one of our SS prospects for an equally valuable AAA starting pitchers who projects to be an adequate 4/5 starter if called up. (Ideally, one with an upside the selling team is unaware of, of course.) But maybe Walter has turned a corner -- the team seems to think so.
It's not often that a team has all three of the guys on their pre-season SS deth chart on the 60 day IL at midpseason ... and the great cheap pickup that was saving our bacon on the IL as well. That's just cruelty. I do wonder why Arroyo isn't playing SS, though.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Jun 27, 2023 23:26:24 GMT -5
Yankees lose! To the A's. Higanshioka fans with the tying run on 2nd and go-ahead on first.
Also losing: the O's, Jays, and Astros (and Rays).
Anges leading 4-1, Mariners tied.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Jun 27, 2023 22:16:27 GMT -5
I don't know how Whitlock looked -- I woke up and checked the score -- but Statcast has him with crazy bad karma. HH is hard hits, SO Soft outs, and I think you can figure out the other two. "Prob" is the probabilistic total of a batted ball type, "Disc" (for discrete) is the above or below .500 xBA count, and Act is Actual hits or outs recorded.
Prob Disc Act HH 3.5 3 6 HO 5.5 6 3 SH 3.2 3 5 SO 5.8 6 4
It's not often that a guy gives up just three hard hit balls with an xBA of .50 or more ... and 11 hits total.
The .356 xBA on soft contact is also a factor here -- MLB average is .226. Difference was bloops. Again, not too many games with a .556 BA on soft contact, versus the average .225.
(Note that my hard hit starts at 96, which is what it would be if they weren't rounding off to make pretty.)
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Jun 25, 2023 22:59:50 GMT -5
This game is on Cora (and this is not a second guess.)
Here's Winck's season, xwOBA / wOBA (PA). This is an easy breakdown to see if you just look at his game log in Statcast.
.247 / .232 (85) through May 1 .307 / .310 (53) May 2 to June 1 .339 / .365 (43) Since 6/2.
In this game, he's already given up a go-ahead 113.0 mph, 445 HR to a guy with a .275 OBP, as well as a fairly hard-hit ball by Benintendi (97.1, .460 xBA). Both hitters are battling shadows.
Casas then puts then in the lead.
You have 4 innings left, and you have the lead. Martin's got the 8th and Jansen the 9th if you can hold it. That leaves 2 innings to fill.
On what planet is having Winck come back and take one of those two inning a good idea, when you have Pivetta, Murphy et al available?
It made no sense at the time and, alas, even less in retrospect.
On a separate note, if Casas makes that play (102.9) you say "good play!" Yes, some guys male it, but it has to be scored a hit.
My guess is that Winckowski is Cora's annual sacrifice to the overuse gods. He's on pace for 92 IP, which is about 10 innings more than any reliever in the majors threw in either of the last two seasons. A post-mortem for game 2 ... What was Cora thinking, and when did he stop?
Martin and Jansen had pitched on 2 days rest, then 1 day, and were looking at 0. Clearly Cora wanted to stay away from Martin, and that's reasonable.
Pivetta pitched the day before - 1 batter, 6 pitches. Coming into this year he had pitched three times on no rest and been very good, but he had done it 12 days previously and walked 3 of the 5 Rockies hitters he faced. Also clearly staying away from him, and in both of these cases it seems they were thereby made available for game 3 of the series.
Keep in mind that going to the pen in the 5th was not in any plan. I think we know that Cora's solution was 2 innings each of Winck and Murphy ... since that's what he did.
In the last week Winck had pitched twice and put up a .230 / .312 (xwOBA / wOBA). There was reason to hope his June funk had ended.
Winck comes in and gives up a .675 xwOBA and .748 wOBA.
Murphy had not been used by Worcester after being returned after the Yankees double-header. He was being saved for MLB, it seems, and was about to pitch on 5 days rest. He could have easily gone three innings instead of two.
The White Sox had three RHB and a switch hitter due up. Murphy has a reverse split in MLB so far.
Cora nevertheless sticks with his plan.
It turns out that .675 / .748 was the good inning. Winck allows .732 / .809.
All three homers he allowed were barreled and were homers in all 30 parks. His hard-hit % in this outing was 70% -- 60% in the 5th and 80% in the 6th. And this with the hitters wrestling with shadows!
-----
So, what is the rationale for limiting Murphy to 2 innings? It fractionally increases his availability for the upcoming Marlins series? Maybe. That's the best I can come up with. I think there really isn't one.
Cora loves to plan ahead and I think that's a strength. He doesn't seem to have much of a knack for improvising, or changing his plan when that's obviously a good idea.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Jun 24, 2023 18:42:24 GMT -5
This game is on Cora (and this is not a second guess.)
Here's Winck's season, xwOBA / wOBA (PA). This is an easy breakdown to see if you just look at his game log in Statcast.
.247 / .232 (85) through May 1 .307 / .310 (53) May 2 to June 1 .339 / .365 (43) Since 6/2.
In this game, he's already given up a go-ahead 113.0 mph, 445 HR to a guy with a .275 OBP, as well as a fairly hard-hit ball by Benintendi (97.1, .460 xBA). Both hitters are battling shadows.
Casas then puts then in the lead.
You have 4 innings left, and you have the lead. Martin's got the 8th and Jansen the 9th if you can hold it. That leaves 2 innings to fill.
On what planet is having Winck come back and take one of those two inning a good idea, when you have Pivetta, Murphy et al available?
It made no sense at the time and, alas, even less in retrospect.
On a separate note, if Casas makes that play (102.9) you say "good play!" Yes, some guys male it, but it has to be scored a hit.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Jun 24, 2023 16:21:45 GMT -5
Duran = first legit hard hit for Sox.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Jun 24, 2023 16:14:24 GMT -5
Line out Robert was the first hard-hit ball for either team with an xBA of .500 or more.
Lynn, like Giolito, is in his walk year.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Jun 24, 2023 12:32:14 GMT -5
Current AL Schedule-Adjusted BaseRuns Standings ...
.66 Rangers .65 Rays
.55.5 Twins
.55 Angels .54 Red Sox
.54 Yankees .53 Blue Jays .53 Mariners .51 Astros
.50 Orioles
.46 Tigers
.43 Guardians .40 White Sox
.40 Royals
.30 A's
Banked Wins (Actual - BaseRuns)
(Unlike the above, order of ties has no meaning)
+8 O's +3 Yankees +2 Astros +2 Jays +2 Guardians +2 White Sox
+1 Rays 0 Red Sox -1 Angels -2 Tigers
-3 Rangers -3 Mariners -3 A's
-4 Twins -9 Royals
A small element of this is high-leverage relief, but it's mostly non-predictive luck.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Jun 21, 2023 5:16:11 GMT -5
All the signs are pointing to the obvious choice, Pivetta.
xwOBA / wOBA:
.396 / .378 (183 PA) Piverra as starter
.278 / .217 (65 PA) Pivetta as reliever.
That's hugely more than typical and raieses the possibility that he's figured something out.
.448 / .401 (78) 4/9 to 4/26, 2002
.256 / .221 (171) 5/1 to 6/4 .317 / .305 (162) 6/9 to 7/5
.350 / .377 (362) thereafter
It's been less than a year since he had a 2-month run at .286 / .262.
-----
One thing I'd like to see them do .... these numbers are for his Spx career as a starter.
From 2nd inning on:
.318 / .315 (788) vs. RHB .316 / .330 (536) vs. LHB.
Pretty much no split.
1st inning:
.351 / .333 vs. RHB .393 / .396 vs. LHB
I want to see a LHR as an opener against certain lineups. Thy can do that if they settle on 3 LHR (Rodriguez, Murphy, Bleror if he's not washed up as I fear, Bernardino or Jacques if he is).
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Jun 20, 2023 10:23:16 GMT -5
After last night, since May 1st Casas has a 125 wRC+ a BB% of 14.3 and a K% of 23.8. His slash line is .264/.367/.456, he's also positive in fWAR on the season now. If they can get his defense up to where it needs to be I'd say I'm pretty confident we have a starting caliber 1st for the next 5+ years with him. Since May 3:
.270 / .371 / .467 (143 PA)
HOWEVER ... expected line:
.251 / .360 / .553.
That's an actual .365 wOBA but .398 expected.
He's gotten some cheap singles but has lousy luck on his power blasts (confirming observations that folks have noted).
24 guys have had 100 PA at 1B in this time period. The xwOBA leaders:
Freddie Freeman (.432 / .422) Triston Casas (.397 / .360) Pete Alonso (.383 / .360)
Then Matt Olson and Yandy Diaz.
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