OmarComing25

Its main purpose is to avoid having your backend starters facing the top of the lineup a third time through the order when they're probably going to get hammered.

Bringing the heat that inning.

https://www.fangraphs.com/scoutboard.aspx?draft=2018updated&type=0&pos=all&team=all&page=1_100 Eloy - #3 Madrigal - #19 Kopech - #24 Robert - #27 Collins - #66 Basabe - #83 Adolfo - #87 Cease - #95 Dunning - #96 Burdi - #116 Hansen - #130

It seems like the Sox are taking more heat for keeping down Eloy than the Blue Jays are for keeping down Vlad, or does it just seem that way because of local coverage?

I honestly think the vast majority of players take the $350 million offer, $20 million is still a lot of money to turn down.

The Red Sox fans were gushing over Gio’s 2 seamer in that gamethread. It’s also amusing seeing all the usual negative gamethread comments you see here even for a team that is 50 games over .500.

Giolito looked as good as I’ve ever seen him that inning against three great hitters.

Statcast supports this too. He’s 4th among all OF this year in Outs Above Average and was third last year. Statcast doesn’t account for the arm though, and it’s clearly a big weakness.

To further bring home the point, only 4 teams have a 5th starter in that range, and 2 of them (Red Sox and Cardinals) should barely count because they haven't had a dedicated 5th starter all year, it's a spot that has been shared by various guys throughout the season. Also Eduardo Rodriguez hasn't pitched in nearly 2 months and Porcello's ERA is just barely in that range so I'm hesitant to even include them. Very few teams are even going to end up with a 5th starter pitching over 100 innings.

That would make him a top 60 starting pitcher going by the 2018 season. Might be a bit much of an ask for the 5th starter.

Outliers go in both directions. Also it’s not like there’s only a couple really bad hitters significantly dragging down the averages. The true outliers aren’t affecting the average as much as you think.

For your average baseline you can’t just ignore everyone at the bottom, then it’s no longer an average.

That doesn’t make sense. You’re separating relief pitchers and starters when their jobs are FAR more similar than position players’ are. The job of a catcher or SS is significantly different than a 1B or LF. You also continue to argue against yourself. You admitted yourself that good hitting middle IF or catchers are very rare. Good hitting first basemen are a dime a dozen. Hence the big difference in value.

LOL so defense and positions don’t matter but somehow relief pitchers get a pass?

Got to love it when OP debunks his own argument.

Yeah I believe you want either very low or very high levels of spin, being in the middle is the least desirable.

I still don’t think 2 WAR players are that easy to get either. That was the problem with the Sale/Quintana/Eaton led teams, we couldn’t find any 2 WAR players to support them.

“I never want to get it up too early, get it going too early because I want to save it for when I truly need it,” Rodón said. “It works out. I’ll start out kind of slow, upper-80s, low-90s and work my way up by the fifth or fourth to low-90s, mid-90s, then kind of pitch at mid-90s at the end of the game.” This is from Fegan's article. He says it's not intentional and has tried to change his warmup routine to get it going earlier but says he can't seem to find his velocity until later in the game.

Yeah I don't see him making the list solely due to age, if he keeps hitting in AA though then he'll get attention.

Your argument was more about runs than hits, but even if you just look at runs the numbers still go against your theory. You said he often implodes when the game is late and close but he's at his most dominant in those situations, and he not only gives up fewer hits but fewer runs and homeruns than normal as well. He performs better with runners on base than with the bases empty, he also performs significantly better when he has the lead than when he's behind. You can say this all means nothing to you, but if he really wasn't pitching well when the game was on the line it would show up somewhere in the numbers. Instead all of the results show the opposite.

That logic doesn't make any sense. Of course hits in high leverage situations are bad, but the point is he gives up fewer of them than he usually does in those situations. Every pitcher has blown games, you're just using selective memory to pick out the games he did blow while conveniently forgetting all the games where he was dominant. Show some actual evidence that he blows up in big moments more often than the average pitcher does instead of just meaningless anecdotes. The numbers mean a lot more than your memory does.

You're just making stuff up. Sale's slashing line against in high leverage situations in his career: .207/.264/.334. That's actually better than he's performed in low leverage situations: .231/.286/.369 Late and close: .192/.257/.297 Tied: .212/.267/.333 Within 1 run: .209/.264/.331 His numbers are actually better when the pressure is on (late and close and 2 outs with RISP are when he's been most dominant) and worst when the score differential is 4 runs or more, seems like your memory is faulty. Got the numbers from here. https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/split.fcgi?id=salech01&year=Career&t=p

Incredible? Velocity is down, strikeouts are way down, walks are up, he's no longer getting groundballs, and he's giving up the hardest contact of his career. He's just been bailed out by their amazing defense and getting very lucky on balls in play, he's been completely average this year.

I think the framing stats are volatile because it also relies on your pitchers somewhat. Framing for a guy with pinpoint control like Kluber is probably a heck of a lot easier than framing for a guy like Chatwood.

Great recovery by Fry