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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on May 18, 2023 11:44:56 GMT -5
I think I said this a couple weeks ago, but my rotation still looks like: 1. Sale 2. 3. 4. 5. Everyone else All of the starters have an ERA over 5.25, there's reasons for all of them to go and reasons for all of them to stay. Sale looks like he may be on the uptick, but they need at least 2 more to step up or they're going to need a significant trade to stay competitive. Revising this a little bit since a few things have settled out I think my rotation looks a little different than most: 1. Sale 2. 3. Bello 4. 5. Kluber, Paxton, Whitlock BP. Houck, Pivetta AAA. Crawford I'm not sure when everyone is coming back so just going to assume full health. I've seen enough of Houck, he needs to go back to the pen. I think Eric mentioned it's likely a stamina issue with him which isn't going to get fixed during the season so why waste his elite 3 innings by having him pitch 2-3 poor innings? For as good as he's been, I don't want to see Crawford in the bullpen again this year. I'd start him in AAA until he's needed, and with this starting five I think it's a foregone conclusion that he will be needed a lot. Keep him stretched out so that he can be called on in a moment's notice. Besides, Houck and Winckowski should be more than enough for long relief. I still don't think this team has anyone you'd want to call a #2 starter. Someone might step up, but I'll be pounding the table for a trade. Crawford was hammered in his first outing (I believe on extended rest), and was hit hard but was lucky in his last outing, after which he immediately went on the IL.
In between, from April 4 to May 2, there were 215 pitchers who faced 50 or more hitters. Crawford faced 74.
Crawford's ranks among the 215:
xwOBA: 1st (.192)
wOBA: 3rd (.185)
He was pretty much the second best pitcher in MLB, after de Grom (.200 / .173 in 94 PA) for nearly a month, with 5 dominant outings in a row, a 5 IP start, and relief stints of 3, 6.1, 2 and 4 IP. I agree with you that he should be starting rather than relieving, but pretty obviously he's one of their five best starters if he is.
I spent all winter arguing that Sale and Paxton would return to their prior statuses as 1 and 2 starters. That has happened so far (granted, just for one start by Paxton). There's no correct argument that we should expect less.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on May 18, 2023 3:29:36 GMT -5
It's still the case that we have 14 pitchers who are either out of options or (in a perfect world) are too good to option -- Houck, Whitlock, Crawford, Bello; Winckoswki, Schreiber.
Presumably if all 14 are healthy at once, they'll discover that someone has a hangnail that is messing up their grip on their gyroball ... ideally either Pivetta or Kluber.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on May 17, 2023 1:07:04 GMT -5
First, there's no question that Houk's problems after the 3rd is a stamina issue, and not a being-seen-for the third time issue. (I'll put that argument and numbers like .515 and .365 in his thread, within the next day or two). That's not going to be fixed during the season, so the first thing you wan to do is swap him and Crawford, who has shown he can go deep in games.
This doesn't mean that he starts no games. He's now competing with the low-leverage long man for the 6th starter role; if the latter is pitching OK in relief, you may well want to keep Houch in a killer 3-inning high-leverage relief role. You'll need the 6th starter whenever someone's on the IL, and you'd give him a start whenever you want to give the others an extra day; if it's Houck, you make sure Winck is available to pitch 2+ innings. I said "low leverage long man" because you cannot have two such guys on the roster. If the starters are so bad that there's actually innings for two such guys, you're already screwed.
And we're about to have two such guys on the roster in Kluber and Pivetta. Easiest solution: use Pivetta as a short man and hope he's good enough to deserve the job. He gets the same promise as Houck and you use him as 6th starter often enough to keep his stretched out. Problem with this idea: he's had first-inning troubles for three years in a row now. He probably won't like it, either.
Possible solution: trade Pivetta to an NL team willing to gamble in his upside. But that leaves you thin overall, so you have to trade for a guy with options left who can not embarrass himself when called up to be the 5th-starter ... a consequence of Mata, Walter, and Murphy all having awful seasons so far. Here are all the starts by the two, ranked by xwOBA. MLBL average is .333. Klu 3 .234 Klu 5 .258 Piv 4 .313 Klu 2 .324 Piv 2 .336
Piv 3 .371 Piv 5 .399 Klu 6 .401 Klu 7 .402 Klu 8 .402 Klu 4 .404 Piv 1 .417 Piv 6 .432 Piv 8 .438 Piv 7 .453 Klu 1 .524 You'ii note that Pivetta's last three starts are his three worst, while Kluber's last 3 starts are (along with his 4th start) his worst since opening day.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on May 14, 2023 23:03:53 GMT -5
The FO gave $10m to a guy coming off a 3 WAR season to be their sixth starter? They started their sixth starter on opening day? Rationale 4: delaying roster decisions makes some sense for a pitching staff with a slew of injury prone arms and/or extra rest for same makes some sense, in May, since even if healthy, every starting pitcher besides Pivetta and Kluber would be facing potentially dangerous innings bumps if required to make 30+ starts. Diagnosing Kluber seems easy enough: 6% more pitches out of zone, but hitters are also swinging at 6% fewer pitches out of zone. Hard hit and barrel rates both up. Too many noncompetitive pitches. Then he gets back in the zone in unfavorable counts, and doesn’t have the stuff to miss barrels. Fixing that is a ten million dollar question. Why is he throwing his cutter less? It’s been his best pitch since peak Kluber’s curveball.. Hocuk and Crawford were not projected to be as good as they had been. They signed Kluber very late, and you really do need 6 good starters. If they thought he would be higher in the depth chart, they would have very likely signed him sooner.
Kluber was #6 in every projection. I had him as #6 before the season started. He had a solid chance of passing Pivetta and becoming the 5, but Pivetta had that upside from the first half of last year, so he had a chance of moving up beyond 5.
When the season opened the 2, 3, and 4 guys were on the IL.
That left Sale, Pivetta, and Kluber. Cora specifically said that he didn't want Sale pitching opening day because he didn't want him making his debut in a situation where he would be extra pumped-up.
That leaves #5 Pivetta and #6 Kluber, and you obviously go with the guy who has done it before and has 3 CY's in his resume, not the guy that you paid nothing for in a trade.
I said all of this at the time.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on May 14, 2023 21:52:27 GMT -5
It's not often that I disagree with Cora, and in the past, when I have, I've always been able to figure out what he had in mind.
But going to a 6-man rotation (which is what they are doing based on on the scheduled pitchers for the next series) when 2 of your 6 best starters are on the IL and there has been a big drop-off to 7 and 8 -- that's just flying-mammal-excrement crazy.
Initiating that 6 man rotation immediately after having 2 off days in the span of four days? There are no words in the English language to describe how little sense can be made of that. Or in Klingon or the Black Speech, for that matter.
It's "I know, we'll give our four really good healthy starters almost 6 days rest (*) for two turns through the rotation .... so we can squeeze in one extra start each for the two veterans that are getting clobbered!"
Rationale 1: lets give Pivetta and Kluber extra chances to straighten things out. Rebuttal: and if they do, do they actually move up in the depth chart? They were the 5 and 6 guys in spring training, and then Houck and Crawford zoomed past them.
Rationale 2: let's find out which one is better! Rebuttal: does it matter?. Can you even do that in a small sample?
Rationale 3: show respect for veterans. Rebuttal: do the positive vibes thereby actually outweigh the negatives vibes of sending out struggling pitchers needlessly?
It seems to me that Cora is doing the opposite of what he does best: demonstrating to the team
that he is doing everything in his power to help them win.
They are 1-4 beginning with the first needless start.
* Sale and Houck 7 then 5, Bello 5 then 6, Paxton 6 then 5. And then more 5's for everyone, maybe.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on May 12, 2023 13:43:24 GMT -5
Two years ago the Sox were also 22-16 at this point in the season, which came just one day later.
Kiké then vs. now:
124 PA, .239 / .298 / .425, 90 wRC+, .307 xwOBA, .310 wOBA
147 PA, .239 / .299 / .358, 78 wRC+, .258 xwOBA, .292 wOBA
Kiké after this point in the season in 2021:
461 PA, .253 / .347 / .456, 114 RC+, .357 xwOBA, .345 wOBA
The things is, is, he struggled until June 5, after which he was one of the best hitters in MLB.
Given that he's spent most of the year having difficulty throwing accurately from SS, you can cut him further slack in terms of where his focus for improvement likely is. He had 5 errors in his first 8 games at SS, 3 in his next 9, including the infamous 2 in an inning, and since then he's rocked an 8-game errorless streak.
I argued two years ago that there was a strong real component to that offensive breakthrough. Patience is warranted.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on May 11, 2023 12:07:30 GMT -5
Also, learning to win without much from Devers, Yoshida is a good sign too Devers actually started hitting like himself the day after Casas did, on May (the) Fourth.
.381 / .435 / .619 = .453 wOBA (23 PA) .361 / .417 / .648 = .454 expected
He was great in the last Jays game and the first 2 vs. the Phillies. Almost nobody hit on Sunday. In this series he was a bit above the team average in wxOBA (.303 vs. .292), best among the guys who didn't hit well, but he had some bad luck (in game 1) while Kiké and Valdez had good. All the other guys who started just one game (Ref and the catchers) did nothing. Last we saw of him he smoked one off of Iglesias (99.1, .920 xBA) so we can hope that they just pitched him well in the two games where he didn't hit.
Re Yoshida, he and Casas were the only two guys who did anything in the Sunday Phillies game, so his complete awfulness in this series (both by results and eyeballs) came out of nowhere. It's definitely something to watch -- how long he stays cold will tell us something about him.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on May 11, 2023 6:21:58 GMT -5
Divisional distribution of 10 best teams in MLB, according to b-Ref's Schedule-Adjusted Run Differential
0 AL Central
1 NL East 1 NL Central 1 NL West 2 AL West 5 AL East
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on May 11, 2023 6:05:10 GMT -5
Casas might actually come around and i pray that he does but he was lost for the first month. Luckily for him were riding or dying with him at 1st. Casas in his last 6 games (23 PA)
.333 / .435 / .667. The wOBA of .453 ranks 26th out of 236 guys with 20+ PA.
But he's actually had crap luck on balls in play.
His expected stats:
.330 .470 / .815. The .573 xwOBA ranks 2nd.
But he's actually heated up over this time span.
In his last 4 games he's hit .250 / .462 / 1.000 (13 PA). The .528 wOBA ranks 19th among 309 guys with 10+ PA.
And his luck on balls in play has remained rough.
His expected line: .319 / .572 / 1.044. His xwOBA of .696 is not just the best in MLB, he's .087 ahead of the runner-up.
In the last 6 games he's been far and away the best hitter on the team. Turner has been the runner-up, and Casas has an .032 edge in wOBA and a .156 in xwOBA.
I'm going to cut you some slack and assume you were asleep for 6 days and posted the above immediately upon awakening.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on May 9, 2023 18:18:13 GMT -5
Our long not-The-Natural nightmare is over ...
Previous time I checked Kiké was the worst qualifying SS defender in MLB (38th of 38 in Success Rate Added) and Valdez was the worst 2B, minimum 10 attempts.
Now Kiké is 37th out of 38, and Valdez is 47th out of 49, minimum 25 attempts. Progress!
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on May 9, 2023 17:38:14 GMT -5
Ah thanks for this! June/July is going to be a very interesting time for this lineup and roster w/ Story, Duvall, Chang and Mondesi all coming back around the same time. Is Story coming back that soon? That same link philsbosoxfan posted says: "...hopes..."
I'd be surprised if he's back before August. And I wouldn't be surprised if he doesn't play at all this year.
I believe that the talk of Story coming back early in the second half had him as a DH. (There would be plenty of playing time for Turner as a 10th player.) Which made sound sense at the time for a team that seemed to have nothing else in terms of dangerous RH hitters. You might remember me saying, before the injury, that a Kiké return to something like 2012 would be a big factor in the quality of the offense ... pretty much a need.
Then the killer D's happened. Duvall demonstrated how perfect a fit he was for Fenway, and the space aliens who had replaced Duran with an exact (but grossly inferior) duplicate a few years ago returned the real thing to us. So Duran has grabbed the 26-man spot that Story as a DH would have had, Duvall will fill his projected spot in the batting order, and with Duvall in LF, Yoshida fills the DH spot.
Hopefully it remains true that we don't need another RH bat, to DH or otherwise. I expect they'll try to bring Story back as a 2B, beginning 9/1.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on May 8, 2023 19:43:40 GMT -5
Casas now with a .561 xwOBA (and .393 wOBA) in his last 4 games / 16 PA.
That ranks 6th out of 282 guys with 10+ PA in those 4 days. (Point of that is to establish how much variance there is in a sample this small.)
Solid chance he's turned a corner.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on May 7, 2023 22:26:54 GMT -5
Don’t think you can keep running out Kluber and Pivetta. Something’s gotta give with those two. Also I’m of the unpopular opinion that Whitlock can’t handle a starters workload and should be in the bullpen. Pivetta and Bello are starting in Atlanta, which means that Sale and Paxton will be starting on 6 and 7 days rest against the Cardinals. I don't understand that at all.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on May 7, 2023 11:24:11 GMT -5
I've been thinking about the potential roster jam.
Easiest thing: when Duvall returns, he plays LF (where he's a great defender), Masa becomes the regular DH, and Tapia is traded. Turner plays every day against LHP (with any of the lefty bats getting a day off) and is often in the lineup against RHP because of day-to-day injuries, matchups, and the like. Tapia's been a solid bench piece, but the downgrade from him to the best OF on the Woo roster is not worth worrying about.
The tough decision is of course the middle infielders. Kiké, Arroyo, Mondesi, Chang, and eventually Story. If you keep Refsnyder on the bench, there's room for just 3 of the five.
Mondesi and Chang are redundant, and you want one of them on the roster to start at SS when you're expecting a lot of grounders to be hit. Ideally, he's good enough to be the semi-regular. Mondesi seems to be the better player of the two -- if he's healthy. It would be great to get Chang through waivers when the time comes.
Point 1: the speculation about a July or August return for Story was as a DH. And that may well not be a need. It might make more sense to bring him back on 9/1 playing 2B. He can be a SS next year.
Point 2: if you keep 4 middle infielders, that frees up Kiké to play more OF, and if he's hitting well enough, that makes Refsnyder easier to deal. And that's how you would make space for Story before 9/1.
So the August roster has:
Wong, Casas, Devers, Duvall, Duran, Verdugo, Yoshida (starters)
McGuire, Turner, Arroyo (bench)
Kiké, Mondesi or Chang, Story or Refsnyder (various 2B / SS combos)
In earlier drafts I considered Arroyo being the odd man out, but I no longer can see a scenario where that makes sense.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on May 7, 2023 4:19:21 GMT -5
Taijuan Walker's first 3 starts:
.275 / .298 (xwOBA / wOBA), 4.20 ERA. Opponents Yankees (23rd wRC+), Reds (27th) twice
Next (most recent) 3:
.429 / .445, 9.88 ERA. Opponents: White Sox (24th), Mariners (19th), Dodgers (9th). We're 4th.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on May 7, 2023 3:54:42 GMT -5
Corrected projected rotation:
Given the idea that they wouldn't want Sale or Paxton getting 7 days rest and possibly putting rust back on their mechanics, we can make a good guess at the rotation going forward (4 days rest except where noted):
Phillies Sale Kluber Houck OFF Braves Bello Sale (or Paxton) OFF Cardinals Paxton (6) (or Sale 6) Houck (5) Pivetta (10), Kluber (7), or Whitlock (TBD)
Mariners
Bello (5)
Sale (5)
Paxton
They don't need a 5th starter until the middle game of the Mariners' series, so Bello or both Bello and Sale could go a day earlier.
Pitchers for the Braves series still TBD. ESPN guesses Pivetta, then Bello, which is just the established rotation, but then you'd have Sale pitching on 6 days rest and Paxton on 7 (or vice versa) --- against the Cardinals with the worst record in MLB.
A very interesting thing they could do is piggyback Bello and Pivetta (on 5 days rest) in Braves game 1.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on May 7, 2023 3:33:15 GMT -5
Brayan Bello by innings, excluding the first inning of his first game (which is a honking outlier): .274 / .260 (xwOBA / wOBA) innings 1 to 3 (42 PA)
.450 / .496 innings 4 and 5 (31 PA) What do do with him and Houck? I say, give them each another month or two and if one or both haven't made solid progress to fix the split, use them as high- and medium-leverage long relievers for at least a bit. You could even schedule them to follow the starter and pitch the 7th and 9th, which would often give everyone else in the pen the day off.
In the post-season you could piggyback them and they'd be an ace or strong #2. Crawford has no discernible such split, so he'd move up the SP depth chart if this happened.
Another observation: This is now the 3rd straight year that Pivetta has had first-inning difficulties. He's tougher on the same hitters the second time through. If he's in the rotation, he's be a perfect candidate to follow a 1-inning opener on days when the whole bullpen is well-rested .
That assumes that it's the inning number and not the first inning he pitches. That doesn't sound logical to me. He's also the perfect candidate for trade bait. Over the three years in question, Pivetta has made 69 starts and pitched once in relief. So even if I made the error you assumed I did, it would be inconsequential.
But of course I actually looked at the first inning, in the sense that the scoreboard says it's the first inning of the game ... and I also filtered for starts only. Both are trivial to do with Stacast data.
In fact, compiling stats for first, etc. inning of work is much harder.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on May 7, 2023 0:04:47 GMT -5
Overlooked in the AL East collective performance:
Games played within division:
8 Yankees 9 Ray's and O's 10 Jays 14 Sox
Record outside the division
21-4 Rays 18-6 O's 14-7 Sox 16-8 Jays 14-12 Yanks
83-37
That's .692 ball.
Meanwhile, the Central has played .382 ball outside the division and every team is below .500.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on May 6, 2023 23:19:21 GMT -5
I just love the rule changes - 7-4 game, 8th inning already, only 9:30. Love, love, Love this! For years I would read the daily paper (or a mag) between pitches, while scoring every pitch. That started in '03.
I now just watch the game while still scoring. And it's better. The time I'd spend reading has just been collected together and moved to after the game! I never miss a pitch because I was still reading. The time between pitches is perfect for absorbing what just happened.
Biggest challenge to me was how to score the penalty balls and strikes. I settled on "A" (next to "B") for "automatic ball" and "T" (next to "S") for "too much time strike."
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on May 6, 2023 2:53:05 GMT -5
We should do a poll: which is more comical, Law's take on Yoshida, or his statement that "Dustin Pedroia lacks the bat speed to hit major-league pitching" and that this upside was utility infielder, which, however, he was unlikely to reach?
Interesting that both guys have insanely great hand-eye-coordination / bat to ball skills. Maybe he's allergic to it.
It's also funny that Willson Conteras has 0.6 bWAR and Connor Wong has 1.3, despite playing 14% fewer innings and making 4.4% of his salary. That makes him 57 times as valuable.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on May 6, 2023 2:19:45 GMT -5
What a difference a -clean- week makes. I heard Casas after the game and he doesn't sound particularly worried about (potentially) being sent down. But it would behoove him to get over the Mendoza line soon. He has a .370 expected BA in his last 3 games (12 AB + SF. He may not get credit at Stacast for the sac fly, but it had an xBA of 890).
Before that, in 37 PA going back to April 19, he had a .167 / .415 / .316 expected line, which is above-average MLB production (.352 xwOBA).
He's been working on things for 3 weeks now, solving his strike zone swing choice problems, and may well have turned the corner on making hard contact.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on May 5, 2023 23:11:50 GMT -5
Brayan Bello by innings, excluding the first inning of his first game (which is a honking outlier):
.274 / .260 (xwOBA / wOBA) innings 1 to 3 (42 PA)
.450 / .496 innings 4 and 5 (31 PA)
What do do with him and Houck? I say, give them each another month or two and if one or both haven't made solid progress to fix the split, use them as high- and medium-leverage long relievers for at least a bit. You could even schedule them to follow the starter and pitch the 7th and 9th, which would often give everyone else in the pen the day off.
In the post-season you could piggyback them and they'd be an ace or strong #2.
Crawford has no discernible such split, so he'd move up the SP depth chart if this happened.
Another observation: This is now the 3rd straight year that Pivetta has had first-inning difficulties. He's tougher on the same hitters the second time through. If he's in the rotation, he's be a perfect candidate to follow a 1-inning opener on days when the whole bullpen is well-rested .
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on May 5, 2023 22:50:22 GMT -5
Do the Phillies just stink? Maybe b-Ref has them as 24th in MLB in their Simple Rating System.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on May 5, 2023 20:01:41 GMT -5
my god Casas is just missing 107.7 barrel, .890 xBA, 401 feet, homer in 5 parks.
The 3 hits in the inning have an average EV of 79.7.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on May 5, 2023 19:52:06 GMT -5
Expected hits in 4th inning: 1.9.
Average EV: 79.4
Average EV through all 5 innings: 79.5
Number of hard-hit balls off Sale through 5 innings: 1 (97.3).
xBA of sole hard-hit ball: .360.
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