thxfrthmmrs

Dumbest post I have seen on this site. You’re comparing a player who has never played that position at the pro level to a MLB pitcher who has shown moderate success at his position.

Musgrove isn’t a failed to prospect by any means. He was always a mid to back up top of arm and he has been exactly that. He’s also a late bloomer poised to breakout after significantly improving his secondary pitches, think of guys like Arrieta and Morton.

So you simplify admit you choose to ignore these data points because you don’t understand it. His stats are only mediocre if you choose to ignore his best starts. If those starts are fluke performances you could ignore them, but they arent, they are dominant performances where he was mastering his curveball and slider. You could make up all the excuses they Cleveland and STL couldn’t hit (which is very funny to be honest), but the movement and command of those pitches would tough for any MLB hitters to hit (this is all backed by statcasts data, which I know you would continue to ignore because you simplify won’t take the time to learn).

A good case for someone who is less effective from the stretch is Giolito. His normal delivery is slow so he speeds up his delivery from the stretch, which has led to really bad results in 2018 (.794 OPS against overall vs. .861 with men on), that has lead to a 63% LOB rate, and a significantly higher ERA than FIP. He corrected the issue in 2019, pitching much better from stretch, which led to an elite 78% rate. As a result, his ERA and FIP were virtually the same in 2019. But then he struggled again in 2020, leading to another season with higher ERA than FIP.

I had done more research on Musgrove to figure out what else could be driving the sizable differences between his ERA and FIP (as Fangraphs calls it E-F). As I noted the bad D of the Pirates and inconsistent BP play has a lot to do with it, but one thing I have overlooked is his pitching with men on base. This is what's keep his LOB% down, in other words more men scored against him when they get on base (again, some of this could be attributed back to the Pirates BP, but a lot of it is on him also). For his career, his overall OPS against is .740. However with men on base, it is .790, which is a pretty big difference compared to other pitchers. I sampled some of the pitchers with elite LOB%, and for their career, their overall OPS and OPS with men on base are about the same (granted some of these guys have the added luxury of pitching in front of elite BPs, e.g. Clevinger, Kershaw, Ryu), in fact, a guy like Verlander actually shifts to another gear with men on base the last 5 years, he's absolutely lights out. Even for a mid rotation starter, their difference is anywhere from marginal to .30 ish. Now I haven't seen Musgrove pitch more than a start or two myself, I don't know how well he could pitch from the stretch, but that really seems to be inflating his ERA compared to his FIP the last few years. 2020 is actually a year he posted a strong LOB% (14% increase from 2019). However since 2020 stats are SSS, there isn't a large enough sample of ABs with men on base to truly tell if Musgrove has made real improvements pitching from the stretch, at least not without seeing him pitch. I still believe he's an improved pitcher from 2019 based on his much improved secondary pitches, but I would say his ability to pitch from the stretch will be the determining factor between him being a legitimate #3 or even #2, or just a #4 starter with a shiny FIP and fWAR.

Am I citing his stats from 5 years ago? It’s funny because I could have swore that you wanted to bring up his Astros stats. If that is somehow cherry picking, then I don’t think you know its definition. FIP is meant to take the randomness effect out of a pitcher’s stats by removing the events in the field of play. The only time when FIP is unreliable is when the pitcher consistently allows hard contact, e.g they allow a lot of doubles and triples yet FIP normalizes these as a regular hit. This wasn’t the case with Musgrove in 2017 and his expected stats based on quality of contact all backs up his FIP. I’ve also provided enough data to explain why his FIP is considerably lower than his ERA in his Pirate years (which aligns with how FIP is intended to work) I don’t want to rehash it. Now unless you have an argument why 2017 Musgrove’s ERs are allowed aren’t random and there were underlying factors that will contribute to him keep giving up more runs than his FIP indicates going forward, I would like to hear that. Otherwise you don’t have an argument. Even then, it’s pretty silly and irrelevant since it’s 4 years ago and as many has pointed out Musgrove has made real improvement as a pitcher in 2020.

Cherry picking is arbitrarily selecting stats without a reason to select those stats or when the stats not used are just as good of information to use for analysis as stats used. I think you absolutely knows the differences between an SP and RP, they way they pitches in their role and the pitches they use, it highly irrelevant to use Musgrove's RP stats from 4 years ago to draw conclusion on his ability as a starter going forward. For the last time, you keep stating his ERA is higher than his FIP, but you're not explaining why his ERA is a better indicator or his FIP is a worse indicator. Do you have an argument here why we need to look at his ERA instead of FIP? You just keep avoiding this question and I don't know if you really have an argument.

How is that cherry picking? Joe Musgrove will be a starter going forward, why would I want to look at his numbers as an RP? Also you didn't answer my question why FIP isn't a good indicator.

in 2017 as a starter, he had a 6 ERA and 5 FIP, a full run difference. His BABIP as a starter was .338, league average was .297, he had LOB% of 67% vs league average of 72%. His HR/FB% was 18% while league average was 13%. The first an last part, especially, is what attributed to the huge gap. But, instead of making all these counter arguments, and since I already gave you the data that explains why his FIP was half a run lower than his ERA from 2018-20, why do you not believe his FIP is not a good indicator of his ability in 2017? I would like to hear that argument.

His first season with Astros his FIP was slightly higher than ERA, second season there was it was considerably lower, but it was also a season where he struggled as a starter but also ran into tough luck with BABIP and high HR% as a starter. It was 4 years ago and his secondary pitches have improved so much since then I wouldn't read too much into it. The only argument you could make where his FIP is not a good indicator of his skillset is if he consistently allows hard contact and extract base hits and putting runners in scoring positions. Such is not the case in 2017 (and other years for that matter), his xERA, which factors in the quality of contact he allows, backs up his FIP as well.

Pitching behind a bad defense and bad bullpen has a lot to do with that. In an environment where those areas are league average or better, I think his stats should look a lot better. Since arriving to Pittsburgh, he has the 2nd worst LOB % of all pitchers over 300 IP, and the Pitt defense has been in the bottom 3rd during that stretch as well.

So why ignore the 60 innings before and after the 32 starts, within the same years, where he was pitching at ace level? Is it that just to fit your narrative? If you truly want to be unbiased, why ignore that? And did you recognize that the 5.28 ERA is inflated by pitching behind a shitty bullpen and literally having the worst LOB% out of everyone in the league over that period of time? Reylo sucks and the underlying stats support it. Likely I said you keep quoting ERA, but you fail to understand the context behind it, and a raw ERA alone is a bad indicator to project future performance, but you keep preaching it like gospel and ignoring everything else everyone is posting on here that are much better indicators for future performance. You keep that up. No point of debating with you.

Got it, so ignore the 1st month of 2019 and last 25% of 2020 where he was dominant to fit your argument so he looks like a shitty pitcher. That is the definition of cherry picking stats. But let me try this, if I take Musgrove's April of 2019 an September of 2020, his ERA was 1.80 over 60 innings, looks like an ace to me. The point is, you either use the full 2 years, or 2020 alone, cherry picking stats like you're doing makes for a faulty argument. And if you want to use 2 years stats, you are conveniently ignoring the fact that pitchers could make improvement during off seasons (especially with modern day data and technology), Musgrove has shown he's drastically improved his secondary pitches in 2020, but you're still stuck in the 90s with your ERA argument. Edit - I decided to look at this all so important 32 game sample myself. He had not 5.50, but 5.28 ERA, 4.26 4,30 xFIP. Still pretty solid underlying numbers in this arbitrary date range where we conveniently ignored his best stretches. What's influencing the 5.28 ERA? a 63.4% LOB rate, literally the worst out of all the 80 qualifying pitchers over that period. In other words, he has the shitty Pitt bullpen to thank.

It all depends on how you see Patino. There are many who didn’t see him as an SP in that frame. And between the Snell deal and Darvish deal, I think Snell deal was reasonable for both sides, and Darvish definitely went for less than expected.

I don't know if he is at that level, prime Q was a strong #2, borderline 1 by fWAR measures, but he's a solid #3 from what I can see. I wouldn't deal from top 5, but if it's Stiever as the headliner, I think it makes sense for both sides. Let's just hope the reasonably low cost of Snell and Darvish helped drive Musgrove's price down also.

He was hurt in August this year. and came back for a few starts late in the year, and looked much better after that. If you look at his overall body of work (and ignore the improvement he's made in 2020, which I will get to) the last 2 years, 3.74 FIP and 4.10 xFIP. That's good for 23rd and 26th out of 60 pitchers who pitched at least 200 innings over that span, respectively. If ReyLo has made improvement that carried over from 2019 to 2020, he deserves a spot. Such is not the case, he got even worse, he's literally one of the worst pitchers in 2020. The only hope for him is Katz can fix him, but Sox are not a rebuilding team, they don't have the luxury of experimenting. Musgrove on the other hand has made real improvements in 2020, which is fairly common for a pitcher entering his prime. Namely, his sliders was filthy in 2020, he was able to improve the spin rate, active spin, and h and x movement on that pitch, improved his whiff % on that pitch from 39 to over 50%. Opponents are expected to hit .120 against on that pitch. So you can quote 2 year stats all you want, the more important numbers to look at in a pandemic shorten season is to look at underlying skills of the pitcher and look for trends and improvements. Musgrove has took a sizable step forward from 2019 to 2020, Lopez has regressed significantly. As I have said from the very first page of this thread, Musgrove is a decent #3 with 2 years of control that Sox should target if the cost is reasonable. Edit: I didn't even look at this curveball. It's even more filthy. He's throwing it twice as often in 2020, active spin jumped from 60% to 80%, a ton more movement, expected BA on that pitch is .080

He was injured before then and finally got healthy and got on a roll before the end of the season. But sure ignore those 2 dominant starts, and the fact that it was against two playoff teams in a playoff hunt. All the posts the last 2 pages are you manipulating stats to fit an argument on a subject you already made up your mind on and refuse to see the other side of the coin. So why bother.

This. If we could get Hendricks on a 3/$39M deal, I'm all in. But if it's a 4/$50M+ deal, I'm out. There is a reason why you don't see teams give aging RPs 4 year deals. Too much risk at the backend of the deal, heck he might even fall apart by year 3. I get people want to see Sox spend, but I rather them spend smart than spend recklessly.

Where did you get that from?

How is the #2 closer in the market, someone who commands $10M AAV, a bargain bin signing?

Padres traded Davies, a 2nd round pick, and 3 LatAM kids signed for $3.8M total for Darvish. Sox traded millions of international bonus to get players off their roster or trade for org depth players.

No.

Sox have maybe $100K left, if that. It’s a 2022 signing.

Whatever it is, it's definitely the largest extension for a pre-arb player in MLB history. I wanted to use Acuna's extension as a baseline, but he will blow that deal out of the water, even with a discount.

They're not fucking around. I bet they want to use the momentum and excitement to lock up Tatis next.