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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Jun 20, 2023 10:00:05 GMT -5
Updating ...
Sox have gone 5-0 over a 6-day span, while their 6 rivals for three the wild cards spots have collectively gone 10-20. Sox gained 4.5 games on the 0-4 Yanks, 4.5 on the 1-5 Astros, 3.5 on the 2-4 3 Jays, 3 on the 2-3 O's, 2.5 on the 2-2 Mariners, and 2.0 on the 3-2 Angels.
That's a pretty good week, so far.
Sox now trail the Yanks by 1.5 games, the Astros by 1, and the Jays by 0.5.
And the Sox are now 3rd in the AL in Schedule-Adjusted BaseRuns Standings. And they are still 2nd in pitching starting May 26 (4th in SP, 3rd in relief).
They are tied for 6th in MLB in b-Refs SRS (Schedule-Adjusted run differential. The AL is killing the NL in Run Differential, but that's because the NL teams have been lousy at turning raw results into runs.)
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Post by ericmvan on Jun 20, 2023 0:44:15 GMT -5
Updating ...
Sox have gone 5-0 over a 6-day span, while their 6 rivals for three the wild cards spots have collectively gone 10-20. Sox gained 4.5 games on the 0-4 Yanks, 4.5 on the 1-5 Astros, 3.5 on the 2-4 3 Jays, 3 on the 2-3 O's, 2.5 on the 2-2 Mariners, and 2.0 on the 3-2 Angels.
That's a pretty good week, so far.
Sox now trail the Yanks by 1.5 games, the Astros by 1, and the Jays by 0.5.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Jun 19, 2023 21:42:59 GMT -5
Rafaela has gotten hot in the last couple weeks, hitting .378/.380/.667 since May 25th with four doubles and three homers.
On the one hand, it's hard to complain about a 1.047 OPS. On the other hand, I kind of want to complain about the OBP being only .002 higher than the AVG. (He has just two walks in 50 PA.)
Actually, it goes back to May 13. (I missed that, too, at first). And he has continued to rake.
.236 / .263 / .327 (114 PA) .353 / .399 / .531 (138 PA)
I think that's huge.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Jun 19, 2023 18:05:09 GMT -5
Today's collection of fun facts:
1) While the Sox were going 4-0 over a 5-day span, their 6 rivals for three the wild cards collectively went 10-18. They gained 4 games on the 0-4 Yanks, 3.5 on the 1-4 Astros, 2.5 on the 2-3 O's and Jays, 2 on the 2-2 Mariners, and 1.5 on the 3-2 Angels.
As a result, the Sox are now just 2 games behind the 3rd WC with 90 games left to play. This seems like an impossible hurdle to overcome. They've played the 3rd toughest schedule in MLB and are 10-4 against the two teams with the toughest (Jays and Yanks).
2) After the offense put up a disappointing .320 xwOBA while going 14-21 from May 5 to June 13, they rocked out a fabulous .322 while winning 4 straight.
The joker in this deck is of course the fact that wOBA - xwOBA, "karma" as I like to call it, is a real skill. We went from .320 / .309 to .322 .403 Some of this was mostly luck -- McGuire was .056 / .443 -- but a lot looked like skill. Yoshida had the next biggest karma split, .474 / .732, and a large part of that seemed to be taking outside pitches off the wall for Fenway doubles.
3) Most meaningful standings!
A quick refresh: the difference between BaseRuns Wins and actual Wins is real but not predictive. Based on a lot of of data I've looked at, it's clear that team offensive karma ("clutch") is both real and streaky. Teams collectively press or relax.
Karma is what's called a state variable rather than a trait variable. A team can be hugely "clutch" in the first half and terrible in the second. The O's may look like a powerhouse, but the schedule has handed them a win and good karma has snagged them 3 more. They have a -1 due for the former and the latter projects to zero. And the three extra wins they have in hand can be erased very quickly if they go into a recent-Sox-like funk.
There is definitely rounding errors in FG's separate Pyth Wins and BaseRun wins, in that at present there are two fewer of the former than there are actual wins, and 1 more of the latter. So let's just go to two decimal points for Schedule-Adjusted BaseRuns standings.
.68 Rays .67 Rangers .565 Twins
.55 Blue Jays .55 Red Sox .54 Angels .53 Orioles .53 Yankees .52 Astros .51 Mariners
The span from Jays to Mariners amounts to less than 3 wins.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Jun 18, 2023 4:52:02 GMT -5
Speculation is that the Sox will call up a starter for the opener with Bello pitching the nightcap. That way Paxton can pitch Monday and they won't need a magic starter Thursday. I assume this is speculation by a random very, very stupid person.
Yes, because we just went off-day, Hauck, rainout, we have a huge gap in the rotation, with none of the 5 starers available for either Wednesday or Thursday vs. the Twins. The obvious thing to do, of course, is to give those starts to Pivetta and Kluber (not necessarily in that order).
But wait! Let's not pitch the two best pitchers on the team against a wild-card rival, going on 6 and 5 days rest! If we start someone subpar now, then we can start someone better against the Twins! With everyone going on 6 days rest!
They'll call up Murphy to replace Houck on the roster, and Ort as the extra Doubleheader guy.
Twins: Crawford (5), Whitlock (5), Kluber, Pivetta.
Chisox: Paxton 4, Bello 5, Crawford 5
off day
Marlins: Whitlock (6), Pivetta (5), Paxton (5)
Jays: Bello (5), Crawford (5), Whitlock (4)
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Jun 18, 2023 1:47:37 GMT -5
All five starters in the current rotation have an xFIP under 4.00.
Bello: 3.92 Whitlock: 3.91 Houck: 3.71 Crawford: 3.32 Paxton: 3.10
I think this is sort of vindicating my thought going into the season that with like 8 starters, each of whom is a big question mark, things would probably turn out okay because with that many options you only need to hit on about half of them. So we have a very solid looking rotation despite Pivetta disappointing, Kluber imploding, and Sale most likely being out for the rest of the year.
Of course the caveat here is that now we have used up all the margin for error and another injury would open up a hole in the rotation. Also in an ideal world Houck would be in some role where he never has to go through a lineup a third time.
Someone as savvy as you using xFIP as a seemingly meaningful stat got me thinking.
FIP and xFIP were useful stats before Statcast, because there is so much noise in the results after the ball leaves the bat.
Statcast -- specifically xwOBA on fair batted balls -- has not just made FIP irrelevant, it has exposed it as a colossal misunderstanding. While it's true pitchers have limited control of balls in play because of all the noise, it has never been true that pitchers do not vary much in the quality of contact they give up. Which was the belief that made FIP reasonable.
(Geekage notes for this study will be added sometime in the next two days.)
Last year (chosen as a full sample size), for regular starting pitchers, the average xwOBA on batted balls was .363. The individual numbers run on a continuum from .307 to .412.
Fourteen of the 15 best pitchers at limiting good contact (.307 to .333 contact-xwOBA, or cxwOBA for short) had above-average strikeout / walk results (i.e., their xwOBA on SO, BB, and HBP was less than the league average of .190), and the exception, Framber Valdez, was just a bit below (.199). These guys were collectively 20% better than average on balls not in play.
As you move down the list, you start encountering guys like Martin Perez (16th, but 100 in K/W) who limit hard contact by nibbling, and guys like Michael Kopech (21st, but 134 in K/W), wild but with velocity and stuff that that are just hard to square up.
At the other end, 19 of the 24 guys with the worst contact allowed were below average in K/W, and all but two of the exceptions were just a bit above average. The remaining 22 guys averaged .216, 14% worse than average.
One of the exceptions ranked 133 in quality of contact allowed but 9th in K/W, and the the other ranked 135 and (tied for) 10th. An eerie similarity! These guys pound the zone and if they give up some solo homers, so be it. They are of course Gerrit Cole and Nate Eovaldi.
There are enough guys with unusual approaches or skill sets to bring the correlation of K/W and cxwOBA down to .25. But that is still very significant (p =.002). It should be possible to divide pitchers into groups and isolate a population of pitchers for whom K/W and cxwOBA correlate really well.
There is, BTW, one inherent weakness in xwOBA, in that (this year) 8.2% of batted balls are expected weak hits -- 7.7% bloops and 0.5% swinging bunts. Those are poor quality PA that are scored as good. Whitlock gave up 5 likely bloop hits while beating the Yankees, which wrecked his xwOBA for that start. In his other 3 excellent starts in this stretch (tossing out first 3 because of the injuries) he's allowed 4 expected bloops hit, which is totally as expected.
If FIP were a building, I would burn it down. So this (with much more) seems likely to be my first published work.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Jun 17, 2023 18:36:19 GMT -5
Red Six felt the need to play shoddy defense and give up unnecessary runs just si thr Ysnjees wouldnt feel so lonely in that regard. I have to say it...after seeing so many damn errors ar SS I really miss Xander, even defensively. Not the greatest range but very sure handed and reliable. Not the case at SS thus year Story and Mayer will make you forget about Xander after this year. Going to sting this year only, I think. Xander has a -0.52 Win Probability Added. Kiké (in games started at SS), Chang, and Reyes have combined for -0.57.
It is true that Xander has saved 0.4 wins defensively while our trio has cost us at least us that much (Kiké -0.7, Chang +0.3, but I'm not sure if Statcast is measuring the run value of extra bases taken on throwing errors). The difference isn't remotely worth the extra $$, so (as much as I loved Xander) I'm already sting-free.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Jun 17, 2023 14:38:11 GMT -5
Current forecast is for LIGHT rain from 7:00 tp 10:00, and they usually play in light rain.
Edit: changed back to light just at 9:00, but I don't think heavy rain is expected.
Meanwhile, it was very easy to combine b-Ref's schedule adjustment and FG's most accurate measure of team talent, using BaseRuns. Note that both of these have been rounded, so there's likely some error. And then I rounded the results to get rid of partial win totals.
AL:
50-23 Rays (-1 win)
46-24 Rangers (+2) 40-30 Twins (+5) 40-31 Jays (+1) 38-32 Red Sox (+3)
39-33 Angels (-1)
38-32 Yankees (-1) 37-33 Astros (-2) 36-33 Orioles (-7) 35-33 Mariners (+1)
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Jun 17, 2023 11:50:17 GMT -5
Here's an annoying stat: even before tonight the Yankees ranked behind the Red Sox in both positional WAR (20th vs. 17th) and pitching WAR (21st vs. 20th) and yet were 5 games ahead of them in the standings. And how is it that they're bottom third in the league for both position players and pitchers, yet they're 39-30 (now 39-31)? Combination of sequencing and luck over a SSS. The Red Sox BaseRuns record is 37-32 and the Yankees' is 36-34. Looking at every team's BaseRuns record does give me some hope for the season:
Rays 49-24 Jays 38-33 Sox 37-32 Orioles 36-33 Yankees 36-34
I think this sounds about right to me...the Rays are easily the best in the division but the other 4 teams all have enough warts that they are all pretty close. Hopefully things even out a bit going forward.
I was unaware that FanGraphs had the BaseRuns standings, probably because they seem to be in the Depth Chart section ...
B-ref's schedule-adjusted Pyth standings have the Sox 10th in MLB, 0.1 runs per game behind the O's. That's about 1.5 wins. But the Sox have 3 wins on the O's in BaseRuns - Pyth. With rounding errors it might be a tie.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Jun 17, 2023 3:43:02 GMT -5
Over the last few hours the precipitation possibility during gametime has been dropping steadily. Now down to 73, 72, 62, 72%, 7 PM to 10 PM. Gope this keeps up ...
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Jun 17, 2023 2:45:25 GMT -5
Made me think of that 1999 liner off the bat of Ryan Thompson that hit Bryce Florie. Rice in the post-game mentioned Dick Pole. I was in the bleachers at the game where he was hit in the face (while having maybe the best start of his career). He was never close to what he was that day.
Big difference here with both of these guys was the EV of 89.7, which allowed Houck to try to dodge it and hence suffer far less of a direct hit.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Jun 16, 2023 3:33:30 GMT -5
The impression that offense and pitching have essentially swapped places in terms of quality is truer than you could imagine.
(I chose to use wOBA for hitting and xwOBA for pitching, since there are obvious real skills involved in the difference between xwOBA and wOBA for the former but not the latter.)
On May 4th the Sox had 3rd best offense in MLB by wOBA (5th by xwOBA).
Since then they rank 23rd (19th by wwOBA).
On May 25th the Sox had the 24th best pitching in MLB by xwOBA (and by wOBA). Both starers and relievers ranked 22nd.
Since then they rank 2nd. Starters rank 3rd and relievers 4th.
One might well ask, how do you go 8-11 while having the second-best pitching in MLB? But you know most of the answer: errors on defense and terrible hitting with runners on base.
A third component seems to be bad luck in relief. They are .291 / .306 (expected, actual), the latter ranking 12th.
It's not unreasonable to think that they might at some point in the season have both really goof hitting and pitching. Wouldn't that be fun!
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Jun 14, 2023 19:56:56 GMT -5
This game getting rained out? Should clear up by 930/10, if the conditions on the field are playable I could see them pushing through and ultimately playing. Might be hard to schedule a makeup for these teams On July 3 the Sox have a travel day coming home from Toronto and the Rockies have one flying to Houston. So that's reasonably doable.
There are also mutual days off on the 20th and 27th of of that month but both are Sox travel days to or from the Bay area (home from Oakland, out to SF).
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Jun 12, 2023 16:21:08 GMT -5
As we get ready for tonight's game, I just have to leave this here. Bello was approaching "Pedro-esque" vibes last night, to my eyes. Feeling very optimistic about his career. I would like to think that Bello is on a one-man campaign to force FanGraphs to punt the utterly indefensible use of FIP in their WAR.
In his last four legit starts (not on 6 days res) he has an expected BABIP of .255. It was .227 against the Yankees.
Right now, the expected BABIP's of the top 150 starters in # of BABIP plays range from .240 to .427.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Jun 12, 2023 14:34:08 GMT -5
So, there are 8 teams in MLB with a score of less than -0.5 in b-Ref's schedule-adjusted run differential metric: A's, Royals, Tigers, Rockies, Nats, White Sox, Mets, and Marlins.
Games against them played so far by AL East and other WC candidates:
22 Orioles 19 Rays 19 Angels 16 Astros 13 Blue Jays 6 Yankees 3 Red Sox
And we're 4 games back in the WC race, with 96 games left.
While the O's are hosting the Jays and the Angels are playing the Rangers, the other contenders are also playing another of the Lame 8: Rays - A's, Astros - Nats, Yankees - Mets.
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Post by ericmvan on Jun 12, 2023 14:18:29 GMT -5
This story in The Globe has Whitlock starting on Weds in the last paragraph: The Red Sox begin a three-game series with the Rockies at Fenway Monday. James Paxton is scheduled to start against Connor Seabold, who has made 14 appearances for Colorado after being traded there for cash in January. Kutter Crawford will toe the slab against Chase Anderson Tuesday, followed by Garrett Whitlock against Austin Gomber Wednesday. Colorado is last in the National League at 27-40, its 367 runs allowed worse than all but Oakland. And Abraham in the Globe yesterday said that the TBD was because they were waiting to see how Whitlock felt.
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Post by ericmvan on Jun 12, 2023 13:23:25 GMT -5
It would be insane to insert a spot starter before a day off, and then have the same three pitchers face the Yankees, all on 6 days rest, while not allowing Paxton, who is very likely their best pitcher now, to face them. As I've pointed out, Bello has been awful on six days rest -- his strike % goes from good to bad.
The TBD has to be about Whitlockl going on 4 days rest. The alternative would be a bullpen game on Wednesday, and then Whitlock piggybacking on Houck in the opener. That might be better. Whitlock days rest this year: 4 (rehab start) 4 4 5, injured 4 (rehab) 5 6 5 The first start on 4 days was bad, the second great. I think they're deciding whether they want to continue babying him a bit. If they do this, then you have: Crawford 5, bullpen, Houck 4, Whitlock 5 at Twins Bello, Paxton, Crawford , all 5, at ChiSox. I think they're very into giving the extra day, given everyone's history
Bello has six career starts on six+ days' rest (127 total PAs). That's a pretty aggressively small sample size to be drawing any conclusions. I'm just looking at the six starts he's made beginning with his first good outing (by xwOBA), under the assumption that he's using the same between-starts routines for 5 days rest for all of those starts. We know that his 6-day routine (or routines) has to be different.
Let's adjust each xwOBA by normalizing for the season xwOBA vs. RHP of the offense he was facing.
The four starts on 5 days rest are .266, .278, .259, .239.
The two starts on 6 days rest are .393, .398. (Strike % is distinctly lower, exactly as you'd expect.)
That's being the 3rd best SP in MLB vs. the 4th worst (current xwOBA of the 150 SP with the most PA).
The odds of this happening at random are 1 in 5027.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Jun 12, 2023 4:57:14 GMT -5
Series totals (xwOBA / wOBA):
.351 / .306 Sox hitting / Yankees pitching .295 / .239 Yankees hitting / Sox pitching
Bello was .237 / .170. He's now .271 / .254 over his last 4 starts with less than 6 days rest.
Five days ago I pulled the numbers of the 150 SP with the most BFP. These rankings have likely not changed much since then:
Bello's numbers would rank 6th and 7th in MLB.
Ranks of the offenses he's faced:
1 / 2 Braves
7 / 6 Angels 4 / 1 Rays 10 / 23 Yankees
This is insanely impressive.
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Post by ericmvan on Jun 12, 2023 4:02:10 GMT -5
Assuming that the t.b.d. Sox starter in the Wednesday games vs the Rockies is a spot starter, Whit, Houck and Bello would be on vs Yankees next weekend. It will be a good test of their ability to adjust and respond to the Yanks adjustments. It would be insane to insert a spot starter before a day off, and then have the same three pitchers face the Yankees, all on 6 days rest, while not allowing Paxton, who is very likely their best pitcher now, to face them. As I've pointed out, Bello has been awful on six days rest -- his strike % goes from good to bad.
The TBD has to be about Whitlockl going on 4 days rest. The alternative would be a bullpen game on Wednesday, and then Whitlock piggybacking on Houck in the opener. That might be better.
Whitlock days rest this year:
4 (rehab start) 4 4 5, injured
4 (rehab) 5 6 5
The first start on 4 days was bad, the second great. I think they're deciding whether they want to continue babying him a bit.
If they do this, then you have:
Crawford 5, bullpen, Houck 4, Whitlock 5 at Twins Bello, Paxton, Crawford , all 5, at ChiSox.
I think they're very into giving the extra day, given everyone's history
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Post by ericmvan on Jun 12, 2023 0:17:15 GMT -5
It's hard to overstate how much the Sox dominated this game at the bat-to-ball level, and how much effort it took for the Yanks to lose despite all the breaks they got. And I'm not just talking about scoring their only 2 runs on a 2-out double with an xBA of .300 (and EV of 77.1) followed by a grounder with a .200 xBA that hit the bag.
There were 11 hard-hit balls balls in this game with an xBA of .360 or better and the Sox had 9 of them. The Yankees had Donaldson's .540 grounder leading off the 4th that Reyes mad a nice play on, and LeMahieu's .600 (101.4) line single with two outs. That was the extent of their offense against Bello and 3 relievers.
How about this breakdown of the 4 likeliest hits of the game?
Casas follows Turner's cheapo homer (96.6, .360) with a 103.4 barrel but just a .650 xBA, because of it's high launch angle. Hit 390' to center, it's an easy out.
Duran in the 3rd smokes a 109.8, .820 single to right. (Verdugo follows with a 98.4, .480 one-hop grounder and it hits Duran.)
7th inning, man on first, 1 out, Casas smokes a 112.1, .650 one-hopper ... right to SS for a GDP.
10th inning, with 2 outs and a man on and the Sox thirsty for insurance, Reyes clouts a a 101.6, .780 barrel, a 379' homer in 18 parks but an out here when McKinney robs him of an RBI double.
That's right, the Sox had the four best AB's of the game and the Yankees got four ours with them ... and still lost.
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Post by ericmvan on Jun 11, 2023 9:29:36 GMT -5
The starting pitching has been so much better in this stretch, and if it hadn't been for the strange and complete collapse of what should be a an elite offense, everyone would be psyched up for a playoff run. I am dubious that the current malaise has any predictive value. And speaking of which ...
In this doubly frustrating loss, the Sox had 22 PA with the bases empty and 17 with runners on, while the MFY's had 22 and just 8.
The Sox hit .333 / .455 / .500 with the bases empty while the MFY's had to settle for .238 / .261 / .571. The extra .071 of SA is ordinarily way less valuable then .192 of OBP. You'd take the Sox' numbers any time.
The Sox of course went 1/16, BB, with runners on -- .063 / .118 / .063. But the Yankees were at least as futile stat-wise, going 1/7, BB, 2 GDP, which equates to .143 / .000 / .143 (since they made 8 ours in 8 PA).
Bases empty / runners on splits are as a rule random and not predictive. The Sox overall hit .206 / .308 / .294, the Yanks .214 / .103 / .464. And in a low-scoring game with excellent pitching, SA becomes more important than OBP.
Which brings us to the go-ahead homer that's an out in most ballparks (.340 xBA) and a double in all the others, and the insurance run that scored from second on an infield single.
This sort of thing happens. They're pros, and they should be able to shake it off. If they can win the rubber game, this will be forgotten overnight ... and the pitching matchup is favorable.
Predictively speaking, I'm much more encouraged by the fact that Devers has gotten hot since the team arrived in the Bronx than I am discouraged by the fact that they had several high-xBA lineouts in high-leverage situations.
xwOBA and wOBA:
.359 / .288 Sox offense / Yankee pitching (6th worst luck of the day)
.303 / .313 Yankee offense / Sox pitching (10th best)
Pitching
.322 / .306 Houck
.361 / .316 German
.250 / .333 Sox pen (4th unluckiest)
.353 / .232 Yankee pen (2nd luckiest)
All these guys have 3 - 5 PA:
.483 / .182 Kahnle .361 / .279 Peralta .214 / .222 Holmes .248 / .296 Bernardino .251 / .355 Winckowski
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Jun 11, 2023 0:38:33 GMT -5
The starting pitching has been so much better in this stretch, and if it hadn't been for the strange and complete collapse of what should be a an elite offense, everyone would be psyched up for a playoff run. I am dubious that the current malaise has any predictive value. And speaking of which ...
In this doubly frustrating loss, the Sox had 22 PA with the bases empty and 17 with runners on, while the MFY's had 22 and just 8.
The Sox hit .333 / .455 / .500 with the bases empty while the MFY's had to settle for .238 / .261 / .571. The extra .071 of SA is ordinarily way less valuable then .192 of OBP. You'd take the Sox' numbers any time.
The Sox of course went 1/16, BB, with runners on -- .063 / .118 / .063. But the Yankees were at least as futile stat-wise, going 1/7, BB, 2 GDP, which equates to .143 / .000 / .143 (since they made 8 ours in 8 PA).
Bases empty / runners on splits are as a rule random and not predictive. The Sox overall hit .206 / .308 / .294, the Yanks .214 / .103 / .464. And in a low-scoring game with excellent pitching, SA becomes more important than OBP.
Which brings us to the go-ahead homer that's an out in most ballparks (.340 xBA) and a double in all the others, and the insurance run that scored from second on an infield single.
This sort of thing happens. They're pros, and they should be able to shake it off. If they can win the rubber game, this will be forgotten overnight ... and the pitching matchup is favorable.
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Post by ericmvan on Jun 10, 2023 20:12:14 GMT -5
HR in 1 / 30/
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Post by ericmvan on Jun 8, 2023 18:47:17 GMT -5
I have to chime in on Kermody, as I've written a lot on this sort of thing on Quora, and I've read the terrific book (written by an insider), Jesus and John Wayne.
I view these people as victims. They are brought up with the Heaven and Hell theology, and taught that if they question this, they will go to hell. Seriously: Evangelical parents will go to school boards to oppose the teaching of critical thinking.
Some are taught that Angels and Demons are continually fighting for their souls, and live in mild terror of the latter.
Fox News then sees that there's a big audience of folks incapable of rational thought, and targets them by feeding them misinformation that will make them angry.
Lots of folks have difficulty changing their beliefs. At no point in his life has Kermody had a choice in any of this. And that includes not keeping his beliefs to himself
I feel sorry for these people. And you should read how the people who were hard-wired to change their minds now regard what was done to them as children (they were almost all home-schooled). They feel abused.
The irony of this POV is that it is says "hate the sin but not the sinner," which is of course the standard way of defending claims that this or that perfectly OK thing is actually a terrible sin.
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ericmvan
Veteran
Supposed to be working on something more important
Posts: 9,018
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Post by ericmvan on Jun 8, 2023 17:54:49 GMT -5
There's every reason to believe that Paxton will return to his old form on a regular basis, and within the next few starts.
I've lost count of how many nationally-known sportswriters have more or less stated that the necessary rotation improvement is a crap shoot going forward. (It's either 2 or 3 guys ... that I know of.)
Paxton's two starts after I wrote that, .254 and .252 xwOBA. Joe Ryan is the only pitcher in MLB who has averaged better than that.
I remain convinced that, unless there's a host of new injuries, this team will have a monster second half and make the playoffs.
I have a before and after breakdowns of the top 4 guys (all of whom were of course coming off injuries) that I should be putting up late tonight.
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