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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Aug 15, 2022 1:25:52 GMT -5
Devers making hard contact it’s only a matter of time Good call! I've been on a bit of a roll here ... called the HR off of Whitlock semi-seriously, called Kutter's's bad game two starts ago just before looking up the play-by-play online, saying, "man, Crawford's overdue for a bad outing."
As soon as Pham reached I said "Devers is going yard here." Tone of voice = "sun will rise tomorrow."
After it happened I figured out how my subconscious figured that out (if in fact it did). When a guy is 4 for his last 41, opposing teams know that, and they know how to attack the slump-specific weaknesses. The starting pitcher's going to stick to that game plan even if the slumper has lined a rocket off of him last time up.
And my brain knew that Devers knows that and would be looking for certain pitches in certain locations, and most of all I had a strong sense that Raffy had fixed whatever mechanics were messed-up.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Aug 14, 2022 21:57:46 GMT -5
Red Sox Mt. Rushmore: Ted, Pedro, Ortiz, Yaz That is an easy choice, like they said ... if you can't remember Roger Clemens. Which they couldn't.
(The question is, which franchise has the better omission from their Rushmore, Sox (Papi) or Yankees (Joe D. because you can't leave Mo off)?
The numbers say DiMaggio, but he was a narcissistic asshole and Papi is one of the great teammates of all time.)
Now, that one's on them, but whoever does game-prep research for ESPN is not very good at their job. That the Sox are 0-11-1 in series against the 4 teams in the division ahead of them and are looking for their first series win never gets mentioned.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Aug 13, 2022 2:25:53 GMT -5
There were 10 hard-hit balls in that game with an xBA of .5 or better. The Yankees had 8, and Alex Verdugo went 1/2. Gotta love it.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Aug 4, 2022 10:45:58 GMT -5
Seen on Twitter Groome was the key to getting Padres to pay the complete contract and they wouldn't have without him. I tend to believe Erics take that they had already written him off. Yet Padres GM played hardball. I can't help but think Bloom should have gotten more. That GM clearly wanted Groome since the draft, needed to unload Hosmer and save that $5 million in AAV. You already had leverage, the minute he demanded Groome you should have known you had him even more. Bloom gets some level 40 prospects. You can certainly say it's decent, like most of his moves. I just want to see him value better prospects over more lesser guys. I don't like taking two nickles over a dime, yet that seems to be Blooms MO. Is there any planet where the Padres like Groome better than Bello, Walter, Mata, Murphy, or Wincokowski? That seems unlikely. I'm not even sure they'd rank him ahead of Seabold.
I had pointed out a while ago that the Sox projected to have at least 6 guys for the Woosox rotation next year, and I may have even talked about moving one at the deadline. Preller knew that. It follows that the "we have to have Groome" thing is very likely "we have to have one of your surplus AAA-ready SP. Bloom: "How about Groome?" "Groome would be great."
I think the Sox win the trade without the two lottery tickets.
Oh, and the Padres were not going to give us anything better, after the Soto deal.
Next: four reasons why Hosmer should hit better for the Sox than in San Diego,
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Aug 4, 2022 1:21:13 GMT -5
I'm watching the Padres. Orsillo! Palpable excitement. Got a grand slam in the first inning from one of their acquisitions. Great to watch and hear such excitement, happy for Osillo! I really don't like the Padres. They've modeled their personality around Machado, which is to say simultaneously macho and whiny. I'd love to be able to root for their young stars but I just can't. I also don't like when they walk across my lawn when they could just as easily use the sidewalk.... I'm torn because I don't like Machado or their GM. However ...
And admittedly, other than two family trips to D.C., I have never visited a major American city outside of New England and New York for other than a science fiction convention, the SABR convention, or a Mission of Burma gig. Which mandates a very limited form of tourism!
(I did see a game at Safeco with two of the Burma guys the night before they played the Fillmore -- we were in RF and Ichiro not on homered at us, but threw out a man on third.)
I've been to San Diego twice and it's pretty much my fave city of the bunch, edging SF. Downtown is way cool and is amazingly walkable, and the great ballpark is right in the middle. The fans are also some of the best in the country.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Aug 4, 2022 1:00:37 GMT -5
Whatâs everybodyâs Healthy lineup look like? Duran/Kikè 8 Bogaerts 6 Devers 5 Martinez DH Hosmer 3 Story 4 Verdugo 9 Pham 7 McGuire/Plawecki 2 1-8 could be a lot worse (as weâve seen in recent weeks) I like X in the 2 hole, wanna see them give that a whirl Well, first you have to figure out what the starting lineup is. And there's a bunch of different ones.
First of all, Hosmer will platoon with Dalbec (not necessarily strictly). Hosmer has a decent-sized reverse split this year, but he's never had one before ... that is more evidence that they'll want to work on his swing.
At home, LF is a Verdugo / Pham platoon (not necessarily strict) and RF is a JBJ (.352 wOBA in this role) / Refsnyder platoon.
On the road, it's Pham in LF and a Verdugo / Refsnyer platoon in RF.
(Doogie's in RF vs. LHP home and away while Ref is out.)
It wouldn't shock me if Dalbec, who played some LF in ST, ends up playing some LF vs. RHP instead of Pham. He has the tools, and if h stays hot, he's much the better hitter.
What this OF setup is equivalent to is Verdugo platooning with Refsnyder and Pham (and Dalbec?) platooning with JBJ.
They also had Dalbec playing 2B in ST, and there may be days when he's a better option than Arroyo if Story is sitting. They can start the Dalbec as 10th man thing right now, I would hope.
All of this changes when and if Kiké makes it back. I don't even want to think about that now!
Re batting order, Cora has already said that Hosmer will hit 7th. He seems to be a reverse-protection guy (as was J.D. Drew) and you really want him as the last good bat in the lineup.
LOL: I just checked his splits this year. OPS (PA) by batting order position:
3: .356 (31) 4: .680 (84) 5: .727 (173) 6: .959 (67) 7: 1.750 (4)
Yet another reason to reasonably hope for more offense for him than he had in SD.
So, my lineups:
Vs. RHP
Duran Bogaerts
Devers Maritnez Verdugo Story Hosmer C
Bradley / Pham (H / A)
Vs. LHP
Refsnyder Bogaerts Devers Martinez Story Dalbec Pham C Duran
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Aug 3, 2022 21:12:36 GMT -5
Bobby Dalbec is .405 / .446 wOBA / xwOBA in his last 25 PA before today.
J.D. Martinez is .135 / .206 in his last 35. Which guy sits to make room for Hosmer tomorrow?
Dalbec was hitting LHP for a while further back. But JDM was .263 / .319 in the 74 PA preceding the above full collapse.
JDM's bat evaporating coincides precisely with the Sox' collapse. He was .396 / .393 on June 26th and his struggles and the team's started the next day. We went 7-18 before Dalbec started hitting; we're 4-4 since.
To answer my question, I think JDM sits for a few days while he works on his swing, which may well be a relief to him. You can't lose hitting skill mid-season like he seems to have, but you can misplace your ability to deal psychologically with a slump, especially when it coincides with a team collapse. The pressure on him to return to form was immense for five weeks. And he was trade bait much of entire time!
Getting him back to form is as high a priority as they've got. They are now set up to do it.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Aug 3, 2022 20:44:31 GMT -5
They've been window shopping with cash in their pocket at the Padres prospect store for years. It's clear they weren't selling at an attractive price. I wonder if they wanted him at minimum because they thought they were making another deal to get under the tax. If they knew that was their last move, maybe the Sox try to take more money and better prospects.
Here's what I think happened:
The Padres knew we liked Hosmer because the two teams have had multiple conversations about the Sox eating salary by getting prospects.
Padres' ownership approves eating all of Hosmer's contract in order to land Soto. That's an 18M hit on their AAV for 2023-2025. The first two of those years, you can add that to what Soto gets through arbitration and, compared to the sunk cost you had previously, you're way ahead.
The Soto deal (among others) is doing a number on their farm system. They're not exactly looking to shed more prospects. And the money for eating Hosmer's contract has already been budgeted.
So they call Bloom and offer a fully-paid Hosmer. Neither side is even thinking of the prospects-for-dollars thing because the Sox understand the circumstances. And the teams quickly settle on the players involved.
I believe the Padres had a roster crunch. It was trade him to the Red Sox (probably the only contender with an interest) or get nothing at all.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Aug 3, 2022 15:54:23 GMT -5
This probably your worst take and that’s saying something. You’re probably right. That many baserunners to go with an 8.50ERA tells me there is a BABIP issue here. There is such a thing as good or bad BABIP skills. It's allowing hard contact versus soft.
Bello has given up 7.6 expected hits on ground balls, out of 39 grounders total ... which has actually been 16 hits.
Statcast's breakdown of the quality of contact for the first 37:
0 Solid Contact 3 "Burner" 29 Poorly / Topped 5 Poorly / Weak
His average EV was 81.7 mph.
I may do a further breakdown of this tomorrow.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Aug 3, 2022 15:28:00 GMT -5
Bello's rate of BS hits per ball in play is ncredible The double was 87.9 mph, .120 xBA. The single was 47.8, .160,
Bello has 19 IP, but it would be 20+ if some of thise grounders weren't cheap hits.
There are 462 pitchers with 20+ IP and Bello ranks 4th in GB% at .655, after Holnes, Joe Kelly, and Framber Valdez.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Aug 3, 2022 15:14:43 GMT -5
Seems like a lower back discomfort for Bello. I hope it’s minor. Not a big fan of altering these promising young arms routines at the major leagues level. Hindsight 20/20 of course. I think the idea was to limit his innings by having him pitch in relief on his scheduled day. That's actually trying to keep as much of his routine as possible, as opposed to skipping him entirely and inviting rust. And of course it gives us a look at him in a relief role.
Unfortunately, I don't see the 40-man roster space (as projected) for adding Murphy or Walter at the present time. But Mata could be the next guy to get an MLB look, if needed.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Aug 3, 2022 14:58:53 GMT -5
So, I've done the analysis of Kutter's opponents on a player-by-player basis, using their wOBA and xwOBA on the season vs. RHP.
(There's only one guy with a tiny sample size, the Ray's Jonathan Aranda, 15 PA, .379 wOBA; I took his xwOBA of .350 and split the difference with league average.) The first somewhat startling thing is that there is a solid correlation between hitter quality and what they've done against Kutter if you use wOBA (r = .165, p = .18), but none at all if you use xwOBA (r = .045, p = .72). This suggests that pitcher wOBA - xwOBA has a very real component that is separate from fielding support, which is to say that pitchers have a horizontal launch angle skill, namely, the ability (or inability) to prevent balls from being pulled. Statcast could adjust for this very easily, BTW.
So ... the league has hit .309 / .311 (actual, expected wOBA) vs. RHP. Kutter has allowed .267 / .276 since being called back up and making his first start on 6/12.
The hitters he has faced have hit .326 / .322 against RHP.
When you adjust for that, he's allowed .250 / .265.
There are 172 SP who have faced 150+ hitters as a starter. Kutter has faced 169 including his bulk outing (and note that this methodology accounts for that, since the purpose of an opener is to let the virtual starter face a weaker set of hitters).
Kutter's hitter-adjusted wOBA would rank 5th in MLB. Shane McLanahan, Justin Verlander, Spencer Strider, Sandy Alcantara.
(And it's probably better than that -- half his outings have been against the AL East, where the hitters' numbers have been dinged downwards by having to face the AL East pitchers, whose numbers in turn have been dinged down by facing the AL East hitters, and so on until the actual adjustment is probably five times as large as the simple one that is inherent in the way I'm doing this, based on the way it works for teams. McLanahan is the only AL East pitcher in the top 15 -- Manoah is 16th).
His hitter-adjusted xwOBA would rank 14th. Still ace quality.
He has a lot of headroom to end up as a 3 starter or better.
I've got some interesting stuff about his pitch effectiveness; that's next.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Aug 3, 2022 2:47:25 GMT -5
It should surprise nobody that I am now going to find out if anyone this year has struck out Alvarez twice in a row on 3 pitches. Took me just 20 minutes reading through 18 play-by-plays (all his 2 K games) because no starting pitcher fanned him on three pitches the first time. Two relievers did it B2B om a game, but they're relievers because they don't have to face guys twice.
So, yeah, no pitcher has done that this year. Can someone with a twitter account tweet that?
It may be that he's just on a hot streak where he has stellar command ... but this is 7 starts and a bulk that he's had it, in a row. If his good and bad days are random, the 90% confidence level for his good start % is 75%.
I of course had to go back and find out who the last guy to do this was.
Department of pretty good company ...
Gerrit Cole, 7/10 of last year. The second K was the last out of a 1-0 shutout win.
Only other pitcher to do it, Brett Anderson, 8/18/19.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Aug 3, 2022 0:46:37 GMT -5
I can't believe I didn't do this first thing. Seduced by Statcast!
Hosmer vs. the Red Sox at home .221 / .302 / .484 (106 PA)
Hosmer in Fenway .354 / .404 / .485 (109 PA)
For easy comparison (and because it's worth repeating)
.221 / .302 / .484
.354 / .404 / .485
Note that a split like this (though doubtlessly exaggerated) is much more meaningful than is usual, when you already expect or predict it, because you know exactly why it should happen.
It seems as if he's messed with his swing in his Padre years, and maybe more than once. Translating his current numbers to Fenway seems to add just .006 to his wOBA, because he doesn't hit the ball the other way all that often. But at times in his career (2020 especially) he's hit the ball more in the air and pulled it more, with very good results.
I'm not going to crunch any further numbers. If they haven't already broken down all his different plate approaches over the years at a level of detail that would make our brains coagulate, they're doing it now. He very likely recalls his Fenway success and he'll be very eager to work with the team to find an approach that will yield maximum results.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Aug 2, 2022 22:18:28 GMT -5
Last time we won 3 in a row ... we won 8 in a row.
(Of course, when that streak ended we went 8-21.)
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Aug 2, 2022 21:56:17 GMT -5
Wow I thought that was trouble on contact. One more Edit: got it! And as a bonus Duran used two hands catching the ball 96.8, .510 xBA.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Aug 2, 2022 21:47:09 GMT -5
Davis has been much better in high leverage than not. That double came after I typed "better."
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Aug 2, 2022 21:41:15 GMT -5
Crawford is looking like a beast...this might be the best development of the season. It should surprise nobody that I am now going to find out if anyone this year has struck out Alvarez twice in a row on 3 pitches. Took me just 20 minutes reading through 18 play-by-plays (all his 2 K games) because no starting pitcher fanned him on three pitches the first time. Two relievers did it B2B om a game, but they're relievers because they don't have to face guys twice.
So, yeah, no pitcher has done that this year. Can someone with a twitter account tweet that?
It may be that he's just on a hot streak where he has stellar command ... but this is 7 starts and a bulk that he's had it, in a row. If his good and bad days are random, the 90% confidence level for his good start % is 75%.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Aug 2, 2022 21:02:37 GMT -5
Crawford is looking like a beast...this might be the best development of the season. It should surprise nobody that I am now going to find out if anyone this year has struck out Alvarez twice in a row on 3 pitches.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Aug 2, 2022 20:12:16 GMT -5
Kutter Crawford fans Yordan Alavez on 3 pitches and no one in the booth (including Clemens) mentions it!
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Aug 2, 2022 18:50:36 GMT -5
If you go back that far, how did you feel when the Sox picked up Bill Mueller as the new 3B?
He had an OPS+ of 98 the last three years.
First year with the Sox was 140, and it was all about Fenway park.
I'm going to try to come up with a statistical projection for Hosmer based on his current 107 wRC+, and the entire history of Sox LHB in Fenway in the Statcast era.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Aug 2, 2022 17:47:09 GMT -5
They have too many position players, apparently because there was too little interest in JDM, and too many SP, because they didn't move Hill despite some interest.
Right how it's:
McGuire, Hosmer, Arroyo, Xander, Raffy, Verdugo, Duran, JBJ. The bench is Plawecki, Dalbec, Refsnyfer, and Pham, who will get little PT O want to see Dalbec used as a 10th player, given the way he's been hitting of late). Franchy is optioned. Dalbec or Raffy has to be your backup 2B until Story is ready. When he is, you either have to DFA Pham or go to a 5 man bench.
You really can't have JBJ start in RF on the road vs. RHP. Try Refsnyder? DH Dalbec and play JDM? Pham in LF and Doogie in RF?
Kiké is probably out until September, so adding him will be possible.
Once all the active pitchers are healthy, how many is that?
Rotation could be Eovaldi, Pivetta, Wacha, Crawford, Winckowski or Hill, with the other as long man / spot starter. Pen is Houck, Whitlock, Scheiber, Davis, Barnes, Bello (limiting his innings, and a possible force), and if there's room for 13, Sawamura or their next-favorite rookie as a multi-inning guy. Brasier is optioned.
Strahm, Paxton, Sale, maybe Taylor in September.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Aug 2, 2022 16:56:58 GMT -5
You've taken one of best hitters LH for Fenway park ... and put him in Fenway Park.
The issue with this analysis is that Hosmer is currently pulling the ball at a career-high rate, going oppo at a near career-low rate, and has basically stopped hitting the ball with much oomph (big drop in hard hit rate and EV), so I don't know how relevant his whole statcast era profile is at this point. I hope you're right and that being in a place that's suited to what his game was at it's peak unlocks something, though I'm honestly fine with the deal just as long as he catches the balls thrown his way and doesn't strike out 50% of the time. I'll take a look at those numbers ... but he still has above-average numbers, and Fenway's going to juice them. A lot. I think he projects better than JDM the rest of the way, and that's all that matters.
Now, if he can alter his approach, that's gravy.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Aug 2, 2022 16:48:31 GMT -5
I still think they're trading JDM. Not enough room on the roster, and not enough PT to go around. That it's dragging out tells you they might get something for him, because that likely means two suitors, and maybe even an escalation of bids.
Hill has to be going, too, as reported. No need for him with all the kids.
Speaking of which, take the best 2 or 3 and make them multi-inning relievers a la Whitlock and you solve the bullpen problem for this year.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Aug 2, 2022 16:43:57 GMT -5
Eric Hosmer is an opposite field f***ing MONSTER.
He's quite possibly the best fit for Fenway Park in all of MLB.
See my post in his trade thread.
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