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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Apr 24, 2024 14:00:14 GMT -5
Guardians, Brewers, Orioles, Braves, Red Sox.
That's the five best teams in MLB, according to bRef's SRS.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Apr 23, 2024 17:02:49 GMT -5
Per Chris Cotillo - “ Cora says Red Sox/Guardians are in communication with MLB about weather and that they may not play. Doubleheader tomorrow if not. WooSox in Toledo, about two hours away, were rained out.” Presume they'd play 2 tomorrow. That sets up a Cubs series of Crawford, Winck, and No Idea (because Houck has been pushed back a day). Maybe a bullpen game with Criswell contributing on 3 days rest.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Apr 23, 2024 3:46:05 GMT -5
Much that is mind-boggling has happened this year, but I think this takes the cake.
No, it's not that the Sox are the 8th best team in MLB according to B-Ref's SRS (schedule-adjusted run differential) even though neither Devers nor Casas is are in our top 12 in bWAR. That's the runner-up.
You might guess that Kutter Crawford leads all MLB starter in bWAR. But who has been the top reliever?
Yup ... Justin Slaten.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Apr 22, 2024 18:09:19 GMT -5
I'm all for crazy hypotheticals- Also not falling for it. Tanner has added a cutter this year, (he's not throwing it a lot but something worth noting).Dropped his 4 seam fastball entirely. But the biggest change in Houck is the splitter. Splitter. Splitter. Splitter. That extra inches in vertical drop is the difference between a LHB fouling off the pitch or spitting on it, versus not recognizing more spin and swinging through it (or making weak contact.) The foul pitches drives up the pitch count, where he can't make it past 5 innings, (can't put batters away). And thank you. Tanner has added a cutter this year, (he's not throwing it a lot but something worth noting)
He threw it 187 times last year, with good results (.308 xwOBA, .285 wOBA).
Re the splitter ...
First of all, there are large differences in pitch movement from to game. In Houck's first start last year the threw the splitter twice in the first 3 innings and averaged 42.7 inches of drop! He threw it three more times but managed only 34.8.
Second, there is this thing called "gravity" that causes all pitches to drop at a fixed rate. The lower the velocity, the more time goes by for the pitch to drop. So pitch drop including gravity is combining two different things. You know who has more vertical drop (measured this way) that Houck, on any pitch you can name? Me! At my age I've probably shed 10 or 15 pounds of muscle, so I don't think I can get the ball to home plate. That's 75 inches of drop!
Seriously, the way you measure this is to exclude gravity, and Statcast has that data, too. (I don't blame you for this mes. Rather, the completely clueless clown who cited the data on X.)
There are 127 pitchers who have thrown a change or splitter 20 or more times this tear. Tanner Houck ranks third in most downward with -2.6 inches (where negative means the spin on the ball caused it to go down relative to gravity), trailing only Cooper Criswell and Logan Webb. That's -2.6 plus or minus 1.4. He's had games with -3.3, -0.8, -1.0, and -4.0.
Where was he at this point in the season last year, after four starts? Second to Webb, with -1.6 plus or minus 1.4. Note that the one inch difference in years is smaller than the variance (plus or minus), so the difference is not significant.
As I have have been mentioning all winter and spring, Houck was the second best pitcher in MLB last year when he got hurt -- through inning three, before he hit the stamina wall, which no loner exists. A big part of that was the already elite splitter. He had a .159 xwOBA and .110 wOBA with the splitter through inning three -- better numbers than this year overall.
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If you think about pitching a baseball, you'll see that it is extremely difficult to avoid putting backspin on the ball without contorting the hand to go over the ball in the curveball grip. The average off-speed pitch has 5 inches of rise relative to gravity.
The "sinker" is the same: it rises a lot less than a four-seamer, but almost without exception, it still rises relatively.
Whose sinker sinks the most, in all of MLB? The average is 9 inches of rise ... Houck led last year with -1.0. He leads so far with year with 0.4, but that's 0.3, 0.5, 0.8. -0.8.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Apr 20, 2024 4:57:03 GMT -5
There are three questions you have to answer (in the form of projections) in order to make the SS decision.
1) If you put Abreu in right, move O'Neill from right to left, and Duran from left to center replacing Rafalea, how much defense do you lose?
2) What is the defensive impact of replacing Hamilton with Rafaela at SS?
3) If you replace Hamilton with Abreu in the lineup, how much offense do you gain?
Until two games ago the last of these was a ball of confusion. Abreu had had just two projected legit hits (hard hit with xBA > .500), and they were on on 3/31 (single off of Cody Bolton, 109.6, .717) and 4/3 (single off of Stripling, 102.9, .763). Statcast had his back-to-back two-hit games (4/11, 4/13) as luck, and sure enough, he went 0 for his next 15.
He had gone 28 AB without a projected legit hard hit when he doubled off of Carrasco on Thursday (100.4, .934).
And yesterday he added a homer (109.1, .95) and another double (103.6, .51) -- his first two barrels of the season.
Total bases on legit hard hits:
2 in first 36 AB. 8 in subsequent 7.
And now it seems that the offensive upgrade is so large that you don't even need to look at the other two questions. Cora seems to agrree.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Apr 18, 2024 4:07:16 GMT -5
I don't think they'd been doing anything wrong! Crawford and Pivetta took big steps forward last season. Houck and Whitlock have had injury/stamina problems but they both had track records of being good. Bello developed on the last guys' watch. Maybe Breslow and Bailey were able to ratchet these guys up another level, but the trend precedes them. Yeah I agree with this in theory but if “stamina” was such a simple thing to solve for, there would be a lot more really good SPs across the league. So far Houck and Whitlock have looked way better. This is all still fun with small samples anyway, but it’s hard not to turn your head at it. Then again, experience only helps and they would have had more of that regardless of who was in charge, and I’m definitely of the opinion that Bloom got the short end of the stick. I have heard multiple players sat that they had no idea how much work was necessary to be in shape to go deep in games. It seems to require an obsession to be as good as you can be.
Does this sequence of ERA's ring a bell?
(3.38) 5.01 3.27 4.03 3.86 5.78 2.89 (5.23)
That's Josh Beckett, with the first entry the year before we traded for hom, and the last his ERA when we dealt him to the Dodgers.
That sure looks like he's rewarding himself for each good season by taking it easy that winter, right? And in fact there is no difference among those seasons unilll you hit pitch 50. All the difference comes afterward.
By all accounts all of the 5 starters have this obsession to various degrees. It was very obvious in Pivetta and Houck's "My Story" entries, and Crawford went fron up-and-down guy to CY possibility by sheer hard work.
I do think the previous administration left it up to the players, while the new regime is (consciously or by nature) installing or reinforcing an attitude.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Apr 18, 2024 3:11:03 GMT -5
34 percent usage of the splitter for Houck. Completely different pitcher with a effective third pitch now. He had it last year; that's how he became the 2nd best starting pitcher in MLB up to his injury, but just through the third inning. (After that he was 25th worst, out of 150).
The main difference: two winters ago he was unable to work out after having had surgery. Last winters he worked his butt off to increase his stamina, with a boost in velo as a bonus. The "times around the order" effect is, on the whole, entirely about stamina rather that pitch variety. (Think Justin Verlander, who in his 2022 CY year threw his #4 pitch, his change, twice a game.)
The new regime gave all of the starters individual workout plans, and everyone has had their pitch usage tweaked. The latter is the secondary change from last year
Houck and Crawford are serious CY candidates.
(Yes, I'll continue to point this out as long as its necessary! No shame to get it wrong, as that's what everyone has been taught.)
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Apr 17, 2024 19:44:43 GMT -5
No luck needed: Houck expected hits, 2.9.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Apr 16, 2024 4:33:42 GMT -5
Which Red Sox player had 3 PA yesterday, and had EV's of 100.3, 101.7, and 102.5, in that order?
Yup, the new maybe-shortstop.
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It seems ludicrous to declare a 6-0 loss to be a coin toss plus bad luck, but the more I look into the details the more convinced I am that it's true. It's too close to my bedtime (5:30 AM) to break it down now, but if anyone cares, let me know. Teaser trailer: which team's bullpen gave up 7 lucky or cheap hits, versus one by the opposition?
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Apr 14, 2024 22:30:17 GMT -5
9-7. Oppositiion is .500. West coast trip outa way. Other than the Devistating news of Story nit terrible No one here (as far as I saw) expected them to compete. Overall mood was off the charts negative. Really they completely pissed away at least two games so they could easily be 11-5. I had their best case as WS champs and their worst (excluding excess injury scenarios) as good enough to make the playoffs in multiple other divisions, but not outs. My rationale was that the starting pitching would be excellent.
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Jansen's expected slash line coming into this game was .117 / .411 /.161. That has started to normalize, as he had just a .225 xBA and .371 xOBA in this outing.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Apr 14, 2024 6:23:08 GMT -5
Bello going at day on 4 days rest, something did three times last year and got killed. At some point he'll find a routine that works ... let's hope it's just now. No outcome will surprise me.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Apr 9, 2024 10:32:43 GMT -5
Big deal at MLB.com over Mile Trout's hot start, after a big game against the Rays.
Against us he was looking at a .111 / .333 / .111 before his garbage-time homer. He has a .308 WPA, but that's .561 against others and -.253 against us.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Apr 9, 2024 0:03:57 GMT -5
Horrendous error by Devers. At this point the sooner he can become a full time DH the better because he is unlikely to ever solve his problems at 3B. Putting that aside, will this team ever start to hit? Duran and O'Neill and the catchers have been great but the rest of the lineup has been a black hole. One day later and the team wRC+ is up to 106.
O'Neill (281) and McGuire (187) will regress, but Casas (88) and Yoshida (92) should improve, and Reyes, Valdez, Abreu, and Dalbec are all at *19* or worse. Lots of potential for improvement there if those guys can be merely bad, rather than Hindenbergian.
Yoshida has had awful luck, and Casas and Devers bad. wOBA / xwOBA:
Y: .304 / .359 C: .298 / .343 D: .361 / .399
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Apr 8, 2024 21:06:55 GMT -5
Finally. I'll guess by this time next year Dalbec will be competing against Franchy Cordero for the home run record in Japan. Come on down Romy Gonzalez.That there is no better alternative, and yet no mention of it yet, suggests that they are looking into trades. Slim possibility, but due diligence.
Re his tremendous start:he had a very good AA partial season in 2021 (.267 / .355 / .502), was promoted to AAA and hit .344/ .382/ .750 in 9 G / 34 PA. That earned him a promotion to the show, where he had a .617 OPS in 33 PA and was sent down ... where hit .409 / .462 / .636 in 26 PA to season's end.
He spent most of 2022 in AAA and had a .620 OPS ... it seems as if he spent the remainder plus all of 2023 in MLB because the Chisox had nothing better.
Given the recent track record of of the ChiSox, it's perfectly credible that they never figure out the difference between his good version and his bad one, if in fact there is an actual difference rather than a hot / cold thing. I think we're all prepped to find out.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Apr 8, 2024 5:58:25 GMT -5
Here's a fun one: the three major bullpen additions, Slaten, Campbell, and Weissert, have each faced 18 hitters. Combined, they have a .217 xwOBA and .163 wOBA.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Apr 8, 2024 5:44:42 GMT -5
Here are the xwOBA's of the 10 best pitching staffs:
.305 .304 .304 .304 .301 .298 .298 .295 .293 ...
That's 12 point difference over 9 teams, so the final entry can be expected to be .292 or maybe .291, right?
.278. You know who. The Braves have the .293, and the gap between us and them matches the one between the them and the #12 Mariners.
Braves have a similar dominance on offense, wOBA. But that was expected.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Apr 8, 2024 0:03:52 GMT -5
When Houck got hurt last year he had the 8th (expected) or 9th (actual) best splitter or changeup among the 126 starters who finished a PA with one 10+ times (he had 16) ...
... in innings 1 to 3.
After that, among 106 pitchers, he was 57th best expected, and 5th worse actual. The big difference can be explained: he was throwing it predictably and some guys were able drop it where the fielders weren't.
Houk is the one guy of the five whose repertoire has been left untouched. He had already dedicated himself to spending the off-season getting into sufficient shape to go six innings + without fading, something he couldn't do the year before while recovering from surgery. They did give all the guys individual workout plans.
Not completely untouched - he’s dropped the 4FB and the pitch mix is different (throwing the split twice as often at 20%). Indeed! And in fact I suggested earlier that they have him drop the 4-seamer if they couldn't improve it.
What I meant was that he was not adding anything, unlike the other two non-established starters.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Apr 7, 2024 21:34:20 GMT -5
Didn't get to catch the game, but Houck's splitter must be coming along for him to be pitching like this to start the season. When Houck got hurt last year he had the 8th (expected) or 9th (actual) best splitter or changeup among the 126 starters who finished a PA with one 10+ times (he had 16) ...
... in innings 1 to 3.
After that, among 106 pitchers, he was 57th best expected, and 5th worse actual. The big difference can be explained: he was throwing it predictably and some guys were able drop it where the fielders weren't.
Houk is the one guy of the five whose repertoire has been left untouched. He had already dedicated himself to spending the off-season getting into sufficient shape to go six innings + without fading, something he couldn't do the year before while recovering from surgery. They did give all the guys individual workout plans.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Apr 7, 2024 13:41:22 GMT -5
Sox pitchers still lead MLB in both xwOBA (.268) and wOBA (.237). In xwOBA they are 2nd in starting and 4th in relief; in wOBA, 2nd and 1st.
Gaps between them and runner-ups:
xwOBA: Gap to second-place Phlllies (.284) larger than theirs to 6th place Mariners (.299)
wOBA: Gap to second-place Royals (.259) larger than theirs to 4th place O's (.275)
The Phillies are 14th in in wOBA and the Royals are 14th xwOBA.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Apr 7, 2024 3:50:42 GMT -5
First, I trust the powers that are intending to create a thread for Story's injury and move all the appropriate posts there.
Next, I think there's an ironclad argument that the Sox get out of the 6th inning scoreless if not for the two clearly blown strike 3 calls.
Weissert faces Trout and Ward with 2 on and 1 out in the fifth and gets them on 4 pitches, 3 of then strikes.
In the sixth he begins by fanning Hicks on 4 pitches, but the last strike is called a ball. He then strikes him out a second time, without a pause to rest -- which is to say, if you erase the first four pitches, you get an entire second PA that ends the same way.
He then fans the hottest-hitting O'Hoppe on three pitches, and is forced to get him again immediately, on five pitches, via a foul pop on a 1-2 count.
At this point, he has thrown 20 pitches, 16 for strikes. He has never been behind anyone 2-0.
He then gives up the first-pitch cheap single (20% hit probability) to Rengifio. Does that happen if he starts the PA at pitch 12 instead of 21? His actual pitch 12 was the first in the 3-pitch non-K of O'Hoppe. The inning likely ends with Ringifo.
But even if it doesn't, we know Weissert doesn't start tiring until pitches 20 or 21 to 22, where he gets behind 2-0 for the first time. And even then he doesn't collapse until another four pitches, all strikes.
I just can't see a version of this inning where the correct calls are made and he has to leave with the tying run is scoring position.
(Yes, in theory he could have gotten Hicks and O'Hoppe out more quickly ... but in both cases he has revealed to the hitter the identity of the pitch that would have struck him out, so the hitter's not going to take that pitch again. You really can't blame Weissert for taking too long to (unexpectedly) find a second way of getting guys out.)
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Apr 6, 2024 19:59:15 GMT -5
Google source says 6 weeks to 3 months for athletes.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Apr 6, 2024 19:56:47 GMT -5
A crazy fact from last night:
Sox pitching gave up precisely two hard hit balls that were likelier-than-not hits, and one of those was 52% and hit directly at Rafaela (who dropped it). The other of course, is Hoppe's slam, and there is an alternate reality where it broke up a shitout.
The Sox had 7, and two were outs: Casas' liner to left in 9th and Yoshida's homer in 21 parks (which also doesn't seem to count for premature thoughts about his season).
I'd report on the rank of the pitching by xwOBA, but Statcast has no data for the 7 games that ended after 7:00 PM EST. WTF?
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Apr 6, 2024 19:16:22 GMT -5
Romy Gonzalez page has him acquired in Jan. 2023.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Apr 4, 2024 11:05:58 GMT -5
Sox pitching leads xwOBA with .257; runner-up Astros are .280. The gap is bigger than the one between the Astros and #10 Reds.
Sox pitching leads wOBA with .223; runner-up Braves are .242. The gap is just about the same size as that between the Braves and #4 O's (.262), but the second-best team that has plated 6 games is the D-Backs, 7th best at .282.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Apr 2, 2024 13:24:32 GMT -5
Sox pitching now has a .247 xwOBA. The runner-up Astros are at .273. That gap is bigger than the one between the Astros and the the number 8 Mets.
Sox pitching and defense now has a .208 wOBA. The runner-up Tigers are at .246. That gap is bigger than the one between the Tigers and the the number 8 Mariners.
Only 3 other teams are in the top 8 in both metrics: the Tigers 4th and 2nd, the O's 5th and 3rd, and the Dodgers 5th and 6th.
Ranks among all 134 starters (xwOBA, wOBA)
Houck 2, 10 Crawford 14, 12 Whitlock 22, 21 Pivetta 43, 16 Bello 73, 69
The starters have 11.9 SO per 9 innings, and 0.3 walks.
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