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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Aug 31, 2022 0:05:31 GMT -5
Wow - Brasier has allowed 13 of 20 inherited runners to score. That's hard to do. He's vaulted past the Giants' Tyler Rogers and now has the second worst leverage-adjusted WPA in MLB in MLB. Former Sox property Joel Pyamps is off by himself in last.
Re inherited runners ... no one tracks theoir value any longer (BP used to) despite the fact that the methodology has been known for maybe forty years and is completely straightforward. When a reliever enters the game, you grab the Run Expectancy of the current base-out situation, and then subtract the RE if the bases were empty. That's the run value of the inherited runners. You charge the pitcher leaving the game with those, regardless of what happens, and you credit or charge the reliever with the difference once the inning is over (or he leaves).
All pitching WAR is fucked up because of this failure.
What's more, they can and should change the rules for inherited runners. The notion that a starting pitcher who leaves the game with 2 outs and a runner on first is responsible for that man if he scores is laughable. It's obviously on the reliever.
And the way to do this is simple.
A pitcher who enters the game with 2 outs inherits responsibility for all the runners.
A pitcher who enters with 1 out inherits the runners on 1st and 2nd.
A pitcher who enters the game with 0 outs inherits the runner on first.
That actually maps pretty well to the numbers you get in the full adjustment.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Aug 28, 2022 1:54:13 GMT -5
I believe we can safely assume the following, That doesn't mean things are certain, but if they don't play out this way, it will be unexpected.: 1) Reese McGuire will be either the starting or backup catcher. 2) The infield will consist of Triston Casas, Trevor Story, Xander Bogaerts, and Rafael Devers. 3) Alex Vergugo is in LF and Kiké Hernandez is in CF. 4) The bench includes either McGuire or Connor Wong, Christian Arroyo, and Rob Refsnyder. TO be determined, with in-house options: A) RF: absolutely no one B) DH: Franchy Cordero, Eric Hosmer; both extreme longshots C) Last man on bench: Bobby Dalbec, Hosmer; longshots Cordero, Jarren Duran
1) McGuire had a .243 / .249 (actual / expected) wOBA with the Wrong Sox. With the Right Sox, he's .391 / .310, and in a very sample, his big platoon split has disappeared completely. He's playing like the first-round pick he was rather than the backup he became.
The trade of Christian Vazquez makes vastly more sense if they thought there was an easy tweak they could make to McGuire as a hitter. They knew it would shake up the clubhouse. And if you have a tweak you want to test, trying it out for two months is vastly better than committing to it in advance in the off-season.
And check this out ("Prev" is his entire career before he came here: Stat Prev RSox LD% .288 .471 GB% .322 .294 FB% .479 .235
The odds of getting the before-and-after LD% split in a random simulation are precisely in 100 (p = .0100) .
The catch here is that no one has a .471 LD% -- Bryce Harper, who leads MLB in Baseball Info Solution's less generous numbers, has a a .338. McGuire's success (his .310 xwOBA matches CV's season figure exactly) is likely due in part to pitchers using an outdated "book" on how to get him out. And the high xwOBA relative to wOBA is likely in part a function of outmoded positioning.
Obviously everyone has to wait and see how he does in the remainder of the season, as pitchers and defenses adapt to him. But I'm convinced they believe he might be an above average starting catcher. You don't trade CV if McGuire's ceiling is top backup or below-average starter. How likely they think that is we have no way of knowing, but the odds are apparently not negligible.
So fret not -- signing Contreras or trading for Murphy are very likely still on the table. But if McGuire can be an above-average staring catcher, that money or talent might well be better used to fix an actual hole.
The remaining 6 points will each get their own posts. Note that I won't respond to any disagreements with this until I get to the corresponding point, when I'll try to address them all.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Aug 27, 2022 20:25:15 GMT -5
Kiké coming back went 1/10 and then sat a day.
Since then he's played every game and hit .321 / .367 / .571 in 30 PA. This is the guy we saw in the second half last year.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Aug 27, 2022 19:57:12 GMT -5
Forget about Jamaica, Connor Wong is hotter than the surface of the sun rn Shouldn't this man be in the show? He also started at 2B, the first time in the organization he didn't start at C.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Aug 27, 2022 19:50:08 GMT -5
Casas has 111 PA since 7/28 (i.e., after his first 5 AAA games after the long layoff) and is .326 / .441 / .554. He has a 2B and 2 BB so far tonight.
And Wong is now 11 for his last 18 with 2 2B and 3 HR ... as soon as I type that, he fans! As does Casas after I forget to post this.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Aug 27, 2022 19:01:35 GMT -5
There's evidence that Pivetta is better than his numbers, and maybe way better. His season: Dates GS wOBA xwOBA to 5/11 5 .452 .496 5/7 - 6/4 6 .242 .307 6/9 to 7/5 6 .352 .370 7/10 - 8/10 6 .512 .432 8/16 - 2 .219 .254
He seems to have very unprepared for a short ST. When he finally got it going, he then pitched like an ace for almost a month.
On June 4 his rotation mates were Eovaldi, Wacha, Whitlock and Hill.
On June 16th, Winckoski replaced Eovaldi. Two days later Crawford subbed for Whitlock as the 5th starter.
On the 27th Seabold became the 5th starter. On July 4 Crawford replaced Wacha, and two days later Bello replaced Hill.
Now, Pivetta started to fade before his rotation mates started to domino. That again suggests someone not in ideal shape.
. You'll note that his transformation from bad to awful coincides exactly withe the last domino falling.
If you were Nick Pivetta and you had a dead arm, of the sort that doesn't hurt but just just robs your stuff of its quality, would you mention this to anyone under these circumstances? No--as the last man standing, you're just going to gut it out.
Sale did return after his first awful start and Eovaldi just before his second ... and Sale broke his finger the day after it.
At some point I may look at pitch velo, etc. But he has shown the stuff of a much better pitcher than his season numbers indicate.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Aug 27, 2022 17:51:53 GMT -5
BTW, the odds of picking up another Wacha are slimmer than i thought. This doesn't change the math for picking up a guy with upside. I think that Richards would have been another feather in Bloom's cap had they not taken away his best pitch, the sticky-stuffer, and it seems as of they were right about Perez and just not patient enough ... although that spot did go to Wacha.
So, since 2018, when Wacha first evinced a skill for karma on balls in play, just two starters have had two seasons with wOBA - xwOBA that was -.030 or better -- Wacha and Brett Anderson.
Except that Wacha has done it three times. And he has the 2nd and 4th best seasons for the differential ... out of about 750 seasons.
If you lower the bar to .025 of good karma, you get 13 pitchers who have done it twice. And I didn't set a different balls-in-play minimum for 2020, these are guys who have done it half the time. If this were random, you'd expect about 4 repeaters. Some of the repeaters are likely avoiding pulled fly balls. I don't know who else has an an at'em ball skill like Wacha seems to. But that can be researched.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Aug 27, 2022 17:16:21 GMT -5
So, Eovaldi is gone and will not get a QO after this latest IL trip. What do we have?
I'm curious why you're confident Eovaldi won't get a QO. I don't think it's a lock anymore, but I think it's at least a toss up. Here's my thinking: 1) Would someone offer Eovaldi a multi-year deal this offseason, even at lower than QO AAV? I think yes - I could totally see a 3/39 or something in that ballpark. Next year is his age 33 season and he has had injury issues, but he's found a way to start a reasonable amount of games most seasons and he was 4th in the Cy Young voting last season. Would this sort of deal be off the table if a QO were attached, or off the table *enough* for Eovaldi to accept the QO? I would say probably no to the former and maybe to the latter; it's hard to say.2) Would Eovaldi on a ~1/19 be the end of the world next year? There's plenty of bust potential if he gets hurt and I would prefer to spend the money differently if we don't go over the tax (who knows), but I don't think that would be the end of the world either. If we do intend to go over the tax, that money means little; I think the possibility of a comp pick would be worth the QO. I don't think any decision about the tax will have been made by the time QOs are due, but Bloom & Co. may at least have a thought, and that might influence their QO decision. 1) I think 3/39 is absolutely in the ballpark for his nexr contract. But giving up a draft choice, too? So my answer to the two questions are, very likely yes, the QO scares everyone else away, and, yes he accepts the QO, in a heartbeat.
2) If you do everything else right, there's no guarantee that Eovaldo is good enough to start a postseason game. If you have Sale, Pivetta, Wacha, and Whitlock, you really want to fill the last rotation spot with a relatively inexpensive upside guy.
Let's do the math. If you don't offer a QO, you obtain the best bang-for-buck starter available and their long-terms value. Let's call the excess value of this guy BBAV (bang-for-buck acquisition value).
And let's call the odds of Eovaldi signing with a team despite their losing a draft pick SRLM (somebody really likes me).
Finally, Eovaldi's excess value projects to be roughky zero, so we can leave that out of the equations.
If you do not offer him a QO, you get:
BBAV.
If you do offer him a QO, you get:
SRLM * (BBAV + value of draft pick)
If the SRLM odds are 50%, your returns is half BBAV plus half the value of the draft pick. That's obviously way lower than BBAV, since BBAV is way larger than the draft pick value.
The SRLM odds have to be way above 50%, when in fact they don't approach that.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Aug 26, 2022 6:25:59 GMT -5
So, Eovaldi is gone and will not get a QO after this latest IL trip. What do we have?
Sale (limited innings) Pivertta Wacha * Whitlock (limited innings) Crawford (ditto?)
Bello (ditto)
Winkoswki
Seabold
Walter, Mata, Murphy, Ward
* I'll be stunned of they don't re-sign Wacha, and quite possibly it happens in the exclusive negotiating period. See my last post in his thread for the rationale and the argument that he's really pitched as well as his results.
Given Sale and Whitlock, I think you want two guys on the roster who are spot starters and long relievers. Ideally, they are long relievers who can pitch in high leverage.
If you count down to 7 on that list, you get Winkowski, and he'd be a great guy to have in AAA when 7 guys ahead of him were all healthy (which is rare), and as a spot starter and long man (but not working in high leverage) when someone was on the IL. But you'd be in much better shape if you added someone who projects to be a top or strong mid-rotation starter rather than in the back end. Winkowski in the rotation whenever 2 of the 6 guys ahead of him is pennant contender's depth. Having him in the rotation whenever 3 guys are hurt at once is closer to championship depth.
Five options:
1) Sign one of the big FA's. I'm resisting the urge to rank the guys after deGrom and Verlander.
2) Sign or trade for an even better version of Wacha.
Wacha was an average 5th starter the previous two years; with us, his xwOBA has improved to below-average 4th starter. And he has the 11th best wOBA in MLB!
As we've seen with Winkowski and Crawford, in a small sample you can get a disproportionate percentage of outings where the pitcher has his best command. It takes much longer to assess how often that happens in the long run. Wacha's results over 83 innings are almost certainly not sustainable, but it's impressive enough to project him as at least a good #3 starter in the long run -- if I'm right about what they've done with him.
What if you took a guy who was already, say, a borderline 2/3 stater due to great command and good but nothing-special stuff, and called his pitches as smartly as they seem to be doing with Wacha? You might get a legit ace or borderline ace, in terms of results. This seems the the best option to me ... if it actually exists!
3) Sign or trade for another Wacha; pay a back-of-rotation cost to get strong mid-rotation results.
4) A different sort of upside play, a la Pivetta. The problem here is that these involve actually changing the way a guy pitches, and that can take time.
5) Paxrton? They liked him and if he projects to be healthy, another contract like his current one wouldn't be a shock.
Compared to the situation with the position players, this is easy.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Aug 26, 2022 4:10:41 GMT -5
Ohtani Wacha Pivetta Bello Whitlock Marcelo, Yorke, Wink, Ward and Crawford for Shohei That doesn't even come close to getting ohtani. I know Soto has an extra year of control but that's probably the package it'd take. Soto had 1 1/3 years more of control left and is impacting three pennant races before he would have been available as a free agent, instead of Ohatni's one. That's a huge difference.
Nobody trades for Ohtani without signing him to a huge extension. It makes sense to trade excess talent to get an extra year of control and a somewhat lower cost. Both the Dogers and Yankees have more money to spend than the Sox and a deeper farm system. It's hard to see the Sox outbidding everyone on talent, just to begin with.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Aug 26, 2022 3:04:58 GMT -5
Can't imagine Paxton won't exercise his player option. The Red Sox were willing to invest $10M on him with the assumption of a normal rehab from TJ. He was a little behind schedule, but once he started to throw he was by all reports looking good. Then he tears the lat, and I don't think any of us know what that means long-term. Is a grade 2 lat tear a worse thing to be coming off of than a TJ repair? Is it an injury that has an inherent risk of repetition? I don't know any of that (if anyone does, chime in!).
I don't think that the two successive injuries and the resulting extra missed PT has a big effect. The severity of this injury is going to be most of the concern, since the TJ seems to have worked solidly. Coming off TJ is an extra factor teams will consider.
To not be worth a flyer of more than $4m by some team, either this injury has to be really severe, or for medical reasons that I'm unaware of, I'm wrong about the two injuries not being much worse than just the lat tear.
Not being worth a $4m flyer is the the criterion for his taking the player option. I'm dubious that his value, which FG had $27M + for the four years before he got hurt, is going to drop that low. My operating assumption in my following post is that he's a FA this winter. Assuming the lat tear is expected to heal 100% by next spring, I think he gets a $6M to $8M offer.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Aug 26, 2022 2:50:38 GMT -5
His service time is just as important, which he should surpass that. Which I believe with his IL stint, he's at 31 days(unless it was retroactive), which means if he's on the roster 14 more days he's no longer eligible. Service time for rookie status is on the active roster, and furthermore, 9/1 and later doesn't count. He'll end up with 26 days against rookie status.
He's not going to pitch 28 innings in the last 35 games. I suspect he'll make a couple of more starts and then they'll see what he looks like as a reliever.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Aug 26, 2022 2:38:23 GMT -5
It's indeed time for 2013 roster opinions / analysis, but a game thread is a silly place to put it!
Fun facts #1: the Red Sox record in games where they had a 25% or worse chance of winning but won, or blew a 75% chance of winning ...
Broken down by opponent.
4-2 against the Yankees (after starting 0-2). Very good.
6-6 outside the division. Exactly average.
0-10 against the rest of the AL East. 0-4 against the Rays and Jays, 0-2 vs. the O's.
They are 50-47 in other games, so asking for an equal number of clutch wins and losses is reasonable. If all of the above had been splits, they're 1/2 game behind the O's and 3.5 behind the Rays.
FanGraph's "Clutch" statistic is crude, but it's certainly in the ballpark. The Sox are 9th in pitching clutch (10th in bullpen) and 22nd in offensive clutch.
Fun Facts #2:
Through July 23, Schreiber averaged 1.70 days rest per IP, and had an OPS allowed of .468.
Since then, he's averaged 1.22 days of rest per IP, and going into last night's game had allowed a .735 OPS .
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Aug 24, 2022 3:24:34 GMT -5
I found the evidence that Wacha's insane "luck" (wOBA - xwOBA) on balls in play is for real. And it's spectacular! (The evidence, that is.) If this were for real, you'd expect him to have this this karma on each of his pitches, right? These numbers are for balls in play only, of course ...
Pitch PA wOBA xwOBA Diff Sinker 52 .119 .236 -.117 Changeup 63 .241 .348 -.107 4-Seamer 85 .339 .414 -.075 Cutter 36 .390 .451 .061 Wow. Not only is this the case, the better the pitch is by xwOBA, the better the karma.
In fact, the relationship between xwOBA and wOBA is perfectly linear. Plot the two numbers against each other, and the line between them is so straight it's almost surrreal. The correlation between the two stats in a linear regression is .997. The odds of that being random are 343 to 1 (p = .003). With four data points! How about batted ball type? Type PA wOBA xwOBA Diff LD 69 .503 .688 -.185 FB 41 .379 .448 -.069 GB 101 .173 .206 -.033
Here the correlation in the regression is "just" .990. The odds of that being random are technically not significant, but no one gets p = .08 with three data points.
How about by pitch location? Location wOBA xwOBA Diff Heart .306 .403 -.084 Shadow-Str .284 .364 -.061 Shadow-Ball .208 .258 -.027 Chase .195 .312 -.046 The "Chase line is just 11 balls in play (out of 241). It's already an outlier in that he's given up harder contact than on pitches that just miss the zone.
The other three locations again form a perfect line when you plot wOBA vs. xwOBA. In fact, (and it's about to get silly) the regression correlation is .9988. If you use xwOBA to predict wOBA, the former explains 99.8% of the results (r^2 .998). The rest is noise!
It's worth breaking down how Wacha does versus the league by pitch location. I'll give all the league days first, and then what Wacha has done in the form of + statics. For instance, Wacha has 52% more strikes on the corners (as a fraction of all his pitches put into play) and is 100-83 = 17% more effective with them. Location Lg% wOBA xwOBA Wa-% wOBA xwOBA Heart .650 .366 .368 77 84 110 Shadow- Str .207 .341 .345 152 83 106 Shadow - Ball .106 .302 .296 129 69 87 Chase .037 .267 .253 124 73 123
The first thing you notice is that much fewer of Wacha's balls in play come from pitches in the heart of the zone. It's essentially just half (.502). The average pitcher's strikes hit into play are 76% from the heart of the zone; for Wacha, it's 61%.
The next thing you notice is that, relative to the league, what he's doing with strikes in the heart of the zone is clearly the same as what's he's doing with strikes on the edges. It's one approach. In both cases he seems to be trading harder contact for more effective defense.
Anyone who saw a lot of Yaz knows that if you threw him just the right pitch, he would hit it right at the second baseman. From a physics POV, it makes perfect sense that, given a hitter's swing, there will be certain pitches he will hit in a predictable fashion.
That Wacha gets below-average-quality contact on balls near the strike zone is interesting. Look at the big decline in both numbers compared to strikes within the edges. When a pitcher can get a hitter to put a pitches like that into play, it is on average a good thing. Wacha seems to have the command to hit predictable spots (not really cold spots in the usual sense), so it makes sense that he'd use that command to attack hitters in a conventional fashion with balls just off the plate, and that he'd furthermore be good at it.
This is a guy who has been given an analytics plan and has executed it consistently.
I don't think anyone is going to offer Wacha quite what he's worth, even if they've figured out what the Sox are doing with him. They can't know for ceerain that they can figure out the hitter-by-hitter approaches that the Sox have. Keep in mind that these ""predictable spots" may not be absolute but may well depend on pitch sequencing. And Wacha will have even less confidence that a new team can give him the data he needs.
So that's one rotation member for next year that seems very likely.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Aug 21, 2022 19:08:38 GMT -5
Yes, we do have the six hardest-hit balls in this game.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Aug 21, 2022 4:03:30 GMT -5
Some folks are citing Casas' excellent numbers since he returned to AAA, but those include a 2/20, 1 BB, 1 SF, 7 SO in his first 5 games.
Since then he's .319 / .437 / .569 in 20 G / 84 PA, with 14 BB and 17 SO.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Aug 21, 2022 2:27:50 GMT -5
Franchy coming up is to play 1st as it appears Hosmer is hurt, not for Duran. Although Duran is regressing. Castig never criticizes the Sox players, but he was ready to lose it on Duran on his lazy throw to Xander today. Cora suggested that Hosmer would miss 1 game (tonight). And if he's out, Dalbec is the backup.
I wonder if we might see Franchy get some time at DH.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Aug 20, 2022 22:14:57 GMT -5
Twins lose in 10.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Aug 20, 2022 22:00:35 GMT -5
The Yankees are 9-20 since the All-Star Break! It's worse than that. Their season breaks down (pun initially unintended!) very clearly:
49 - 16
21 - 18
3 - 14
They're 24-32 since June 18. If they keep that up they'll finish with 90 or 91 wins.
They had a 15.5 game lead on July 8. The next night we walked them off scoring 3 in the 10th (one of the best regular-season games I've ever seen) and the lead has shrunk ever since. They've lost 8.5 games in their last 27 played.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Aug 20, 2022 19:29:26 GMT -5
Was this supposed to be sarcasm? 51 PA down there, .386 / .451 / .705/ ? I was saying Casas didn't earn a call up. In response to a post that mentions Franchy but not Casas!
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Aug 20, 2022 18:50:19 GMT -5
I hope that it isnt to push back service time. It's not like [Franchy] earned the call up. Was this supposed to be sarcasm? 51 PA down there, .386 / .451 / .705/
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Aug 17, 2022 1:02:26 GMT -5
Matt Barnes from beyond the grave, I’m wildly impressed One thing I'm proud of is never rebutting all the pessimists who were writing Barnes off ... once I do something like that it becomes a habit!
My ex-wife / housemate / best friend likes the human element of baseball, has a keen and appreciative eye for athleticism and stuff, and understands lots of nuances (while still being unclear about some basics). After Barnes fanned the first batter I hit pause and called her in from the kitchen (next room). I explained to her how great Barnes had been, how he'd been hurt and pretty much awful for more than a year after signing a big contract, and that he was looking like his old self. And then we watched him get the second out on that hellish curveball, and the final out. She dug it so much that she thanked me!
I don't know if folks heard Barnes' post-game interview, but he sounded like the the most relieved and confident dude on the planet. He's 3 2 0 0 0 6 in his last 3 outings. I expect that he gets the 9th for the rest of the season, and that's very big.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Aug 16, 2022 3:11:03 GMT -5
Fun fact #1: Verdugo's numbers in a Sox uni vs. RHP (869 PA), expected and then actual: .294 / .346 / .470 = .353 xwOBA
.300 / .351 / .462 = .340 wOBA.
The slightly higher BA and lower SA is exactly what you'd expect playing half your games in Femway, so over three years his xwOBA appears to have no noise at all.
So his bad wOBA - xwOBA this year is almost certainly bad luck, as was his good differential in 2010.
He's hot at the moment and if his .340 this year continues to rise, he'll end up projecting to better than .350.
There are 81 OF's who have 400 PA vs. RHP the last 3 years, and Verdugo ranks 20th in xwOBA. Mookie Betts ranks 26th at .347.
There are 90 OF's with 700 total PA the last 3 seasons. FanGraph's "Clutch" calculation is sloppy, but it's still in the ballpark, and Verdugo ranks 3rd. (Mookie ranks 75th.) You've seen that, of course, and it seems to have a real component.
As half of a platoon, when you factor in some real clutch, and his average range in LF and plus arm (accuracy and quick release) he's just a tad shy of All-Star quality.
Against LHP, he's gone .244, .282, .322, and he actually has a mild reverse split in his current hot streak. If we take .320 as his current level, he's .340 overall, and that's still a first-division starter without factoring in clutch or defense.
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They'll re-sign Kiké. That's easy.
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The rest is not. You have three options for RF.
1) Acquire a full-time RF who can field the position in Fenway (as Renfroe couldn't quite; he was also 90th, dead last by a mile, in FG Clutch) and platoon Refsnyder with Verdugo. Upsides: highest quality option; give you flexibility at 4th bench role and DH, which is to say either one can be your backup 1B. Downsides: expensive in dollars or talent; lose Pham's clubhouse presence.
2) Acquire a platoon LHB for RF, platoon him with Refsnyder, and keep Pham to platoon with Verdugo. Upsides: RF production may be even better than option #1, for much lower expense; keeps Pham in the clubhouse. Downside: You have to fill DH with an acquisition who can play 1B, or keep Hosmer in that role when he may not project to hit well enough; it's deeply unclear whether the offensive upgrade in LF is worth the Pham roster spot. Pham is .346 this year vs. LHP but .330 over the last 2 seasons.
3) Same as #2, but continue to use Verdugo full-time, let Pham go, and fill DH and the last bench spot freely as in #1.
Given that the last bench spot might be either Duran or Dalbec, option 2, with its lack of flexibility, seems unlikely. But options 1 and 3 are very viable and I am at present resisting the urge to try and find the available OF's (if any) who fit the platoon description.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Aug 15, 2022 17:32:27 GMT -5
About last night ... a Quora question and my answer.
Was the ending of Drew Rasmussen’s perfect game bid against the Orioles one of the worst cases of how a potential perfect game ended in the 9th inning?
Eric M. Van Chair, SABR Science and Baseball Committee
I’d say it was one of the fairest outcomes. The second batter of the game, Adley Rutschman, barreled a 396′ fly ball, exit velocity 102.4, hit probability 76%., the highest of any hard-hit batted ball of the game for either side. He hit it to straightaway CF.
Rasmussen didn’t eve have the best pitching performance of the day.
That would belong to the Red Sox’ Michael Wacha, and it’s not even close. He was facing the Yankees, average hitter in the lineup 104.6 wRC+, versus 93.1 for the O’s. Let’s start with how each pitcher handled the two best hitters they were facing, who were also the four best hitters in either lineup.
Rutschman has a 126 wRC+. Besides that first-inning blast, Rasmussen got him on grounders of 92.4 and 77.4 (hit probabilities of 21% and 11%).
Anthony Santander also has a 126 wRC+. Rasmussen got him on two flyballs of 98.4 and 86.3 mph (21% and 1% hits)
Not bad.
Anthony Rizzo has a 136 wRC+. Wacha fanned him swinging on 4 pitches, got him on a 71.8 grounder (25% hit), and fanned him again swinging on six pitches.
And of course there’s Aaron Judge. Judge, with the 202 wRC+ coming into the game.
Wacha gets him on three pitches, on a 71.6 mph grounder (5% hit). He fans him on six pitches, all the strikes swinging—it takes him six because he likely got squeezed on the fifth. It only takes him four pitches to fan him again, swinging again, and on a pitch up and in where Judge has ridiculously good numbers.
Wacha fanned 9 of the 24 hitters he faced, all but one swinging; Rasumussen fanned 7 of 28 (also all but one swinging). Wacha’s K rate was 50% higher.
Wacha was actually perfect through 4.2, at which point he had allowed 0.7 expected hits, a mark exceeded by Rasmussen two batter into the game. He had given up just one hard-hit ball, a sky-high fly to Josh Donaldson (104.9 but 15% hit). He lost it when he gave up a 73.8 mph bloop single to Miguel Andujar (69% hit). He followed that with his only walk of the day, and in fact missed the zone with 4 or 5 of his first 7 pitches out of the stretch—but that’s not uncommon for someone who has gotten that far into the game without needing to.
In contrast, Mateo’s double was smoked at 100.3 mph (47% hit). At that point, Rasmussen had already given up 3.8 expected hits.
Rasmussen’s average exit velocity allowed was 90.0 mph (median 93.1), and in the 3rd he allowed another hard-hit ball that was a likely hit (100.1 mph, 62% hit), to Tyler Nevin.
Wacha’s average exit velocity was 79.6. His median was 72.8 mph, and Rasmussen held precisely one batter to less than that. The only hard-hit ball that was a likely hit was in the 7th, but to the next-to-last batter he faced, Gleyber Torres, who smashed a 108.6 mph liner with an 86% hit chance, right to CF. But he was clearly tiring, having thrown 85 pitches.
Why would he be tired at that point? Because this was his first start since June 28, and had just 2 rehab starts, neither of which lasted 5 innings.
Don’t confuse the combination of good pitching and good luck with dominance. The former can be suspenseful, but only the latter is thrilling.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Aug 15, 2022 2:33:57 GMT -5
Duran down, Jaylin DFA I would imagine I think I would prefer an Ort DFA you could also drop Sanchez since Kiké and Arroyo can cover 2b and Arroyo would not be needed as RHH OF It's pretty straightforward. (All facts from MLB.com.)
Refsnyder and Kiké are expected to be activated for Tuesday's game in Pittsburgh. Sanchez would be DFA'd and Jaylin Davis optioned.
Story might not be ready until September, in which case there's no need to option Duran, and if they have to, they'll bring him back to fill one of the two extra September roster spots as soon as they can (with Davis in the interim).
On the pitching side, Danish, Strahm, and Bello are all likely to be ready during the upcoming road trip. Hill is starting game 2 of the Pirates series and I already don't see an argument for him as the 5th starter ahead of either Winkowski or Bello. I'd like to see them DFA Familia (who seems to have been added to the roster just as emergency depth) and Hill, option Danish (who was OK but not all that good), and have Bello and Winck share the 5 starter / multi-inning reliever roles until Paxton is ready in September.
OTOH, it wouldn't surprise me to see Pivetta go on the IL, which would buy Hill some more roster time.
All this would open up a 40-man spot for either Taylor, Murphy, or Walter.
Houck's return date is unclear; if everyone else were somehow healthy, Winck, Bello, Samamura, and Brasier (who may be over his recent struggles)
are all options to be optioned.
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