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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Oct 14, 2023 0:22:55 GMT -5
Possible Rule 5 protects: Bastardo, Bonaci, Castro, Cepeda (maybe group below...), Fernandez, Gambrell So say they protect the three plus one or two from the next group, that alone means you need to clear 3-4 spots. Surprised that no one has mentioned (in this context) Bonaci's trip to the restricted list for either domestic violence or sexual assault. That's the tough way to reduce the candidates.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Oct 12, 2023 12:09:09 GMT -5
Best or Worst Post-season Stat ...
21 games. 2 lead changes after the 4th inning. (Also 1 in the 3rd and 2 in the 4th.)
Runner-up:
7 series have been completed and the winning clubs are 17-1.
So far, this has to be the least competitive set of series and games in post-season history.
Oh, and the 5 best regular-season teams are 1-12. The one win, of course, is the only game with a lead change in the 8th or later.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Oct 10, 2023 2:36:28 GMT -5
The better regular-season teams are now a nicely mathematical 4-12.
Of the 4 elite teams, one was eliminated in 2 games and two others need to win three straight to advance. They're 1-7, while everyone else is a more credible 3-5, and the sole win was a comeback from a .07 Win Probability.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Oct 7, 2023 21:29:41 GMT -5
I'll pass on Gray. He seemed to not handle the media spotlight very well in his only stint in a big market. I get it, a lot of writers think it's their job to be jerks. I bet I'd hate it too. I hear you on that, but he's been a darn good P, albeit only in small markets. He's got a career ERA-plus of 121 and a FIP to match. This year, he put up a 156, again with a FIP nearly identical to his ERA, and threw 184 innings. His MFY year will have been six years ago when 2024 comes and I have to think he's matured since then and that he learned something from his experience playing in that market. I'll give you and others a tip: FIP is utter f****** garbage, literally less than worthless. Never, ever, ever use it. Use xwOBA which actually accomplishes what FIP claims to be doing.
There were 145 starters who gave up 200+ balls in play (I've removed actual homers here, something I forgot to do the first time I did this). Expected BABIP ranged from Max Scherzer's .265 to Jack Flaherty's .352 The standard deviation was .0185
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Oct 7, 2023 20:52:00 GMT -5
Tanner Houck will be in the rotation. Therefore, what you need in the way of pitching is one ace starter and one top reliever, the latter to take the now unreliable Schreiber spot in the 7th.
Yes, I stated that as a fact. I'm not going to repeat my prior arguments; you can look them up. It does kinda start with Alex Cora saying as much.
I will say this: in terms of defensibility, saying "Houck's problem is times around the order, not stamina" is midway between "Alex Verdugo is laid-back and level-headed" and "the word is not so much flat as Pringle-shaped."
Here, however, are some new numbers that are relevant, breaking down Houck’s performance before his injury, versus his last four stars (after four getting the rust off–we also saw that with Sale twice, five starts, then four. No one was getting sufficient rehab because pitching was so thin.)
4 in 17: starts going 6 innings, pre 2 in 4, post
.372 xwOBA (rank 113 out of 136) in innings 4 – 6, pre .256 xwOBA (rank 31 of 138), post.
My favorite remains his pre-injury performance in the first three innings: .245, raking 2 of 137. That's the quality of his stuff. The numbers above indicate that he worked on increasing his stamina during the season, and he has publicly committed to doing that to the max this winter. I'm a big fan of his makeup, based on an impressive "My Story" on NESN. I'll be thrilled if Braya Bello ends up as good as I think Houck can be.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Oct 7, 2023 19:00:19 GMT -5
I HAVE CRACKED IT!
Here are his month-by-month xwOBA and wOBA. Because I'm insane, each "month" is actually 31 days, which just means that April 30 is in the the May bucket and May 31 is in June (and March is in April and October in September, 1 game each).
.356 / .357 April .354 / .399 May .354 / .333 June .354 / .464 July 1 to 18
.251 / .238 July 19 to 31 .268 / .277 August .263 / .265 September
What the holy hell happened on July 19?
That was the last day of the Cubs / A's road trip. And after 8 days back home they went out again for a long West coast trip.
This is not being tired, in a way that a couple of good night's sleep will refresh you. It's the brain telling the body to go into a fatigue state in order to reduce the body's energy use. It's hitting the wall and sticking there.
Realize that this was a worst case scenario for a "rookie" coming from Japan -- first he's at 100% helping Japan win the WBC when his teammates are all moving there in careful stages, and then his team has a schedule that can only be described as abusive.
Before he hit that wall, he was .355 / .380 in .358 PA. That put him 46th and 14th respectively among 198 players with 250+ PA. I think a solid percentage of his karma is for real -- his bat control is so good that he seems to have a legit "hit 'em where they ain't" skill. I trust that he's getting rested under medical attention and will then work very hard to increase his stamina.
**
I speak from experience here, and with some expertise (my sleep doctor wants me to present my history as a case study for his students, for instance). Chronic lack of sleep will get you into this state. Worrying that you need to get things done, that require energy ... makes you sleep less well. Once it starts, it can be a vicious negative feedback loop.
I'm in a fatigue state right now -- I can get out to shop for groceries (sometimes a day or two later than planned), but seeing a movie in a theater just sounds exhausting. And all I have that is stressing me is a huge to-do list and an accompanying ungodly mess of papers, e.g., one of them has new bank password, but where exactly is that? And no one is paying me $15M to get any of that done.
YOU HAVEN'T CRACKED ANYTHING! You cite July 19, the last game of the Chi/Oak road trip, as a truning point. He actually performed quite well in the next six games. In fact, he raked: .350/.409/.550 for a .959 OPS. The next five games, from July 26 to 31 when he went 0-18, are skewing your analysis of the July 19 to 31 period. After that horrendous hitless stretch, he went .348/.333/.478 for an .812 OPS in six games from Aug. 1 to 7. That stretch included the last two games of the road trip and then four at Fenway. It's also worth noting that the July 19 date you claim was the start of his exhaustion was less than a week after he had four days off for the AS break. Look, it's reasonable to suspect that the grind of MLB competition and travel may have caused Yoshi to wear down. But we don't even know that for sure. There are other possibilities. He could have had an undisclosed injury. He has spoken about how much he missed his family. At some point, he could have gotten some worrisome news from back home - perhaps an illness or injury, heaven forbid, that one of his kids or his wife suffered and that weighed on him. But it's pointless to look at where a player's slump began and attribute it to the start or finish of a road trip. These guys have always just started or finished a road trip. That's what they do from April to September. But your example is even more egregiously flawed because the two hot stretches and the brutal 0-18 stretch all included home games and road games. It's not like he got off a plane, passed out from exhaustion and needed a week to recover. And I don't even know what to say about the validity of using your own stamina and ability to get to a grocery store or movie theater as a comparison point for a professional athlete's stamina. You are much older the less physically fit than Masataka Yoshida. That's not a jab at your age or condition, Eric, so don't take it personally. I've slipped well into middle age and I did so with a can of Sam Adams in my hand and a bowl of ice cream on my lap. I'm no specimen, which is why I would never compare myself to an athlete who's my junior by a couple of decades. This is a great catch! In my defense, I was already past my bedtime when I discovered those numbers. I'm very glad it was you and not me that did the dirty work to break it down better.
(I have to point out that I actually enjoy being wrong, and not just because of the obvious joke that it happens so rarely. When you're wrong about something like this, it means that it is more complicated than you thought, and more complicated is more interesting. Knowing what's true is everything to me, and all the fun.)
Now ... Yoshida did have a .413 wOBA in the 5 games after my alleged turning point (you're including my last good game in your six), but he had an awful .255 xwOBA. More lucky than good. But August 1 to 7 was pretty good, and I also note that he wasn't that bad in his last 8 games (.311 / .391, expected, actual). So the fatigue state hypothesis is impossible to justify.
Now ... we had an extraordinary strong set of reasons to expect that Yoshida would get worn out this year, at some point, to some degree. And it seems to have happened as expected. Cora talked about the need for Masa to be in good enough shape to withstand the rigors of an MLB season, so he reached the same broad conclusion. I know I've heard pro players say again and again that they hugely underestimated the amount of hard work it takes to excel in MLB.
Simple explanation:
We know that every person needs a certain amount of sleep to function optimally, and we know that the brain gives you leeway. You can get by with less sleep than is optimal with no short-term effects. Ideally, you catch up on that sleep at some point, and it will have no long-term effects.
Two things will reduce your leeway: chronic sleep deprivation, and extra energy expenditure.There's a strong evolutionary rationale for the change in leeway to happen as a discrete jump rather than gradual, and we do experience that.
The numbers I are posted are fairly eye-opening. I still think he hit a point where he began needing more sleep, more than he could sometimes get. That pretty much explains things.
What I want to do at some point in this winter is do a five-game running xwOBA relative to team. And maybe that's just for starters.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Oct 7, 2023 12:02:26 GMT -5
Performance by month can be hugely misleading. Yorke had a .995 OPS in the first 10 days of June and a .549 the rest of the way, so at no point in the season was he ever a .705 hitter.
His season breaks down easily into four discrete stretches, and gives a very convincing picture of how good he is when he's not awful. .303 / .408 / .511 (223 PA) to June 10
.218 / .244 / .339 (131) June 11 to July 30
.325 / .404 / .538 (93) August 1 to 29
.173 / .271 / .321 (59) August 30 to Sept. 17
This is not really "feast or famine" -- it's closer to "gourmet meals served by movie stars, or famine." Yorke had 2 PA against pitchers younger than he was. To put up .309 / .407 / .519 in 326 PA in AA at his age is terrific, and in terms of upside pretty much supports the take on him after his first year, when he was ranked #31 (BA) to 55 (MLB).
The catch of course is that when you lose your mechanics, as all hitters do, you have to learn how to get them back in 2 weeks, not 9. That seems to be the one thing he needs to learn, and it will make the difference between being an All-Star caliber hitter and just another guy.
(Obviously, getting the slumps down to 3 or even 4 weeks would be a big help.)
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Oct 6, 2023 10:30:58 GMT -5
As good a place to put this as any.
Mike Trout! Angels would be smart to eat a ton of money and trade him to a contender for prospects.
.283 / .409 / .602 (138 PA) home vs. the Sox
.309 / .418 / .447 (146 PA) in Fenway
He has 14 extra-base hits at home and 14 in Fenway.
It's 3 2B and 11 HR at home, and 12 2B, 1 3B, and 1 HR in Fenway.
So this is not an option.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Oct 5, 2023 22:16:00 GMT -5
I HAVE CRACKED IT!
Here are his month-by-month xwOBA and wOBA. Because I'm insane, each "month" is actually 31 days, which just means that April 30 is in the the May bucket and May 31 is in June (and March is in April and October in September, 1 game each).
.356 / .357 April .354 / .399 May .354 / .333 June .354 / .464 July 1 to 18
.251 / .238 July 19 to 31 .268 / .277 August .263 / .265 September
What the holy hell happened on July 19?
That was the last day of the Cubs / A's road trip. And after 8 days back home they went out again for a long West coast trip.
This is not being tired, in a way that a couple of good night's sleep will refresh you. It's the brain telling the body to go into a fatigue state in order to reduce the body's energy use. It's hitting the wall and sticking there.
Realize that this was a worst case scenario for a "rookie" coming from Japan -- first he's at 100% helping Japan win the WBC when his teammates are all moving there in careful stages, and then his team has a schedule that can only be described as abusive.
Before he hit that wall, he was .355 / .380 in .358 PA. That put him 46th and 14th respectively among 198 players with 250+ PA. I think a solid percentage of his karma is for real -- his bat control is so good that he seems to have a legit "hit 'em where they ain't" skill. I trust that he's getting rested under medical attention and will then work very hard to increase his stamina.
**
I speak from experience here, and with some expertise (my sleep doctor wants me to present my history as a case study for his students, for instance). Chronic lack of sleep will get you into this state. Worrying that you need to get things done, that require energy ... makes you sleep less well. Once it starts, it can be a vicious negative feedback loop.
I'm in a fatigue state right now -- I can get out to shop for groceries (sometimes a day or two later than planned), but seeing a movie in a theater just sounds exhausting. And all I have that is stressing me is a huge to-do list and an accompanying ungodly mess of papers, e.g., one of them has new bank password, but where exactly is that? And no one is paying me $15M to get any of that done.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Oct 5, 2023 19:36:25 GMT -5
We know how PR conscious the Sox are and what they’ve done in the past based off that. That alone is going to have the Sox in the Ohtani discussion until the end And exactly why should we give an excremental act if they fake interest in order to have clueless writers like Pete Abraham keep them in the news, while placating the less intelligent fans?
It's usually SOP to fake interest when you have none, in order to drive the price up. But if were an opposing GM and someone from the Sox said they were very much in on Ohotani, I'd laugh in their face and ask "And what are you going to do with Yoshida? Concessions?"
It's worth mentioning again that Yoshida DH'd 2/3 of the time (exactly!) in each of his last of his two seasons in Japan. He was a DH when they signed him. They brought in Turner because that was a smart thing to do, but Yoshida in left turned out to be worse than expected, to the point where he needs to be DH next year.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Oct 5, 2023 16:46:00 GMT -5
nypost.com/2023/10/05/red-sox-loom-as-real-threat-to-sign-shohei-ohtani/Shohei Ohtani and the Red Sox are starting to be linked more and more. One executive with an interested team said he believes they are a real threat. Ohtani has a new big deal with New Balance out of Boston. Perhaps more important: The Red Sox need to balance things out after three last-place finishes in four years. If the Red Sox do land Ohtani, maybe their faithful forget Mookie Betts. For a little while, anyway. The Cubs are a team that can afford him. But the question is: Will they spend that big? The Angels and Dodgers both will make a play, sources say. Most are writing off the incumbent team, but Ohtani did put together three extraordinary seasons over there. The Post trying to sell some papers?
The Sox have a very good and cost-effective DH, assuming he does all the work he needs to do in the off-season to avoid a second-half collapse.
If the Sox sign Ohtani, then Yoshida stays in LF where he was -15 runs per 150 games, and thereby loses $10M of value. And (assuming they resign Duvall, which is a no-brainer) you have to trade Verdugo and send Abreu back to the minors.
It's nonsense.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Oct 5, 2023 15:39:57 GMT -5
Schilling Pedro Wakefield Lowe Arroyo ….all made 29 or more starts totaling 157 of 162 starts! True ... but Arroyo was the # 6 starter!
Byung-Yuk Kim was supposed to be in the rotation. He had a ST injury and missed his first 3 starts, then Arroyo went back to the pen as Kim made 3 starts ... and then went out for the season.
Abe Alvarez started one game of a double-header on 7/23, and Pedro Astacio started game 161 to set up Schilling for the playoffs.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Oct 5, 2023 15:18:09 GMT -5
Pivetta added a sweeper midway through the season and it was his best pitch. 116 strikeouts and 22 walks in 82 innings from July through the end of the season Yes yes yes.
Starting June 16 he faced 347 hitters and had a .262 / .261 xwOBA / wOBA. That ranked 5th and 8th respectively among 134 pitchers who faced 250+ guys in that time frame.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Oct 4, 2023 5:16:45 GMT -5
I spent all year trying to convince folks that Tanner Houck's problem was stamina. Somehow I forgot that he didn't have a chance to work out over the winter! And both Houck and Cora spent the last week or two talking about that, and Houck talked a lot about how eager he was to spend all winter gaining strength in every way possible.
So here are the xwOBA numbers, first 3 innings versus after. The first pair of number is before his June injury. The second is his first four games after rushing back, and the last pair is three of his four subsequent outings. In the one I'm skipping, he went on 6 days rest and got killed to the tune of .477 and never made it to the 4th. When you see what he did in the 3 surrounding outings you'll see why that outing was not relevant here.
.245 / .377 (154 , 134 PA) .316 / .339 (54, 38) .299 / .291 (34, 32)
It certainly looks like he was working on building stamina when sidelined with the face injury.
The .295 he had in his last 3 meaningful starts corresponds to a strong #2 starter.
The projected 2024 roster here has him in the bullpen. I'll assert right now that he has a better chance of getting a CY vote than he does of pitching mostly in relief.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Oct 4, 2023 4:10:58 GMT -5
Expected and actual BABIP for Sox starters last year, with their xBABIP ranking among the 154 guys who allowed contact 200+ times as starters:
.299 / .331 Kutter Crawford (3) .314 / .343 James Paxton (20) .315 / .336 Chris Sale (21) .322 / .344 Brayan Bello (30) .323 / .334 Tanner Houck (32) .335 / .335 Group average
.351 / .341 Nick Pivetta (130)
The insane indifference to pitch quality for balls in play is actually east to explain. The Sox were god-awful in making routine plays. The more easy outs you induced, the more you were hurt by the defense.
This shouldn't happen again.
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Post by ericmvan on Oct 2, 2023 20:42:23 GMT -5
I did a basic schedule adjustment based on the Win % of each division when playing outside their division. And that was:
.580 AL East 4.2 .535 NL East 1.8 .498 NL Central -0.1 .498 NL West -0.1 .475 AL West -1.3 .415 AL Central -4.4
The number on the right is the win adjustment for teams in that division. This gives the following overall ranking. I've added playoff seeds. Team Wins Seed Atl 106 1 Bal 105 1 TB 103 4 LAD 100 2 Tor 93 6 Mil 92 3 Phi 92 4 Hou 89 2 Tex 89 5 Mia 87 5 Sea 87 --- NYY 86 --- Ari 84 6 ChC 83 --- Min 83 3 Bos 82 Cin 82 SD 82 SF 79 Pit 76 NYM 76 Det 74 Was 73 LAA 72 Cle 72 StL 71 Col 59 ChW 57 KC 52 Oak 49 That's right, the 15th best team in MLB has the 3rd seed and is hosting the 5th best team, who has a 6 seed. And perversely, because of this, the 5th best team has an appropriately easy playoff schedule!
SOS in opponent wins for each team in this round, followed by their rank among all teams:
103 Tex (9)
93 Min (15)
92 Ari (13)
92 Mia (10)
89 TB (3)
86 Phi (7)
84 Mil (6)
83 Tor (5)
So there are really only three anomalies here: the wrong team has the home field advantage in the Blue Jays / Twins game, and the Rangers and Rays are facing much better competition than they deserve. And they're playing each other! It's hard to feel compassion for the Rangers given that a win in their final game would have given them a better-than-deserved bye. So it's very easy to root for the Rays to crush them.
===
On a general note, that there were four super teams and 4 helpless ones is interesting. The entire NL advantage in interleague play was due to the AL having three of the four awful teams.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Oct 1, 2023 2:35:46 GMT -5
Congrats, MLB!
Due to your brilliant playoff design ...
The #2 wild card team in the AL is due to face a 102-103 win team (when adjusting for division strength), and if they advance, a 105-106 team.
The #3 wild card faces an 83-win team, and when they advance, an 88-89 win team.
The incentive for the Rays to to lose tomorrow is immense. And the same is true of the Astros, who can keep the 3 seed by also losing. The #3 WC is in fact better than the #1.
Given that there's a 5-win difference between the East and the West, the Astros facing the easier schedule would be criminal.
I hope that both teams try as hard as possible to tank tomorrow and then make a big stink about MLB's incompetence.
I missed that the Astros can win the division if they win and the Rangers lose, as they have the tiebreaker ... so the Astros will be trying to win. The Jays will presumably rest all their regulars, and they deserve the better #3 spot more than the Rangers do.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Sept 30, 2023 22:45:28 GMT -5
Congrats, MLB!
Due to your brilliant playoff design ...
The #2 wild card team in the AL is due to face a 102-103 win team (when adjusting for division strength), and if they advance, a 105-106 team.
The #3 wild card faces an 83-win team, and when they advance, an 88-89 win team.
The incentive for the Rays to to lose tomorrow is immense. And the same is true of the Astros, who can keep the 3 seed by also losing. The #3 WC is in fact better than the #1.
Given that there's a 5-win difference between the East and the West, the Astros facing the easier schedule would be criminal.
I hope that both teams try as hard as possible to tank tomorrow and then make a big stink about MLB's incompetence.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Sept 26, 2023 12:44:25 GMT -5
I can't put into words how awesome this site is, or how important it has been to me in two separate dimensions: the scouting reports / rankings, and the forum. The quality of discussion has been outstanding.
I first became smitten with Red Sox prospects when I picked up the 1962 Red Sox Yearbook, when I was 8. In the back of the book there were all these photos and write-ups of guys I had never heard of, but they were all supposed to be great! Eventually. It's so alluring, to dream on these guys ... there's nothing like it in any other sport.
I should be able to find my copy (and the Yearbooks for the rest of the 60's) and maybe at some point I'll collect some juicy quotes from the profiles and share them. Look for that for the 25th anniversary.
Is there a record of when folks signed up? I know I was on a panel discussion of some sort with Mike after the 2006 season (and that I told him that he has Jed Lowrie way too low, after his injury-ruined second season). And I may have been a member at that point, but not posting much if at all. I do know that I quit shadow-of-its-former-self SoSH and moved here, and have never looked back. One of my better lifetime decisions!
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Sept 26, 2023 12:09:39 GMT -5
As good a place to put this as anywhere ...
As of today, win percentages outside the division ...
.579 AL East .472 AL West .413 AL Central
And the remaining games outside the divisions are O's vs. Nats (2) and Yankees at Royals (3). So the final number is very likely to be higher (.598 is possible).
Current adjustment for the .579 puts the Sox at 80-76. Difference between East and Central is currently 9.6 wins, so Sox would be in first in the Central, 3 up even with the collapse. If in the West, we'd be tied with the Mariners (and like them, facing tough competition within the division).
SILVER LINING
What team is getting hosed out of a playoff spot due to bad geography?
Yup, the Yankees. And right now they look like the 5th best team in the league rather than the sixth (edging the Astros).
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Sept 21, 2023 19:54:58 GMT -5
This is a bit worrisome:
He's faced 37 pitchers for the first time in his life and is .457 / .514 / .657.
He's had 25 PA against pitchers who have already seen him (including 2 relievers who saw him the day before) and is .200 / .360 / .250.
(And he had a BB and 1B against the two relievers, so I'm not fudging to get better numbers by not simply taking times faced in game.)
If he were a hyped prospect and this was earlier in the season where almost every team values every win, I'd think fluke. But you have to wonder if some pitchers are going in in with no scouting report at all, and he's taking advantage of that.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Sept 21, 2023 19:46:22 GMT -5
Cole perfect through 5 (not 6!) vs. the Jays. Jinx took just 2 batters.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Sept 21, 2023 19:17:56 GMT -5
Cole perfect through 5 (not 6!) vs. the Jays.
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Post by ericmvan on Sept 19, 2023 3:00:36 GMT -5
Today and tomorrow are the last 2 games between the 5 NL 2nd and 3rd WC contenders. D'backs need to sweep the 2 games to get the tiebreaker against the Giants.
Tiebreaker statuses:
Reds have the Dbacks and Cubs, are tied with the Marlins, and lose to the Giants.
Marlins have the DBacks and Cubs, and are tied with Reds and Giants.
Giants have the Reds, are tied with the Marlins, and lose to the Cubs, with the above TBD. Dbacks lose to to everyone but the Cubs, with the TBD above.
Cubs lose to everyone but the Giants.
Marlins / Reds and Marlins / Giants second tiebreakers:
24-23 Marlins within the East
19-27 Reds within the Central
23-17 Giants within the West
These of course will be changing.
If they did this correctly, by divisional strength, the Marlins would have both. Good to know that the odds are low for of a travesty where Marlins and Giants tie for 3rd and the Giants get the last spot.
Games left, of course.
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ericmvan
Veteran
Supposed to be working on something more important
Posts: 9,018
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Post by ericmvan on Sept 19, 2023 0:39:36 GMT -5
Yoshida DH'd exactly 2/3 of the time each of his last two years with Orix.
He is currently -15 runs per 150 games in LF. Historically, they don't let you play a position regularly if you go below -10.
He's the DH next year, and he should be a very good one. From a scouting POV, he wowed everybody. You can play him in LF once in a while on the road when you have a GB pitcher on the mound. (The only thing he does average is come in on the ball, and he really struggled with the wall in Fenway.)
Hmm ...
Yoshida had never played 7 straight days in his life. He had the WBC under his belt at seasons start, and as of May 30 he had played 8, 7, and 8 games in a row, but nothing more strenuous.
He played 8 games in 8 days from May 30 to June 6 and had a 1.219 OPS in them. That included 3 games as a DH; he played LF two days in a row just once.
At that point he had 234 PA and had slashed .319 / .393 / .502.
They kept him in the lineup for 5 more days, all in LF (for six days in a row there), then used him as a PH, and again as a LF. He had a .337 OPS in this stretch.
And starting with that stretch he had 310 PA and hit .262 / .297 / .405.
Eyeballs matter. We didn't see a league figure out how to pitch him. We saw first a guy with extraordinary bat-to-ball skills and surprising pop, and then a guy who could simply not execute his mechanics.
The performance split is so large that it demands an explanation. And we have it ... and I haven't even mentioned the travel and jet lag.
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