bmags Posted April 11, 2015 Share Posted April 11, 2015 First off, I am still very frustrated about this season. Like many have stated, the frustration hasn't just been because of the losing but in the horrendously unwatchable product they've put ont he field. Watching Noesi toil through 90 pitches in three innings, and wasting 20 seconds between each pitch made me hate baseball. So, I was mad and felt like yesterday that Coop now probably sucks. I sent out to prove my theory here with stats, but as I was researching, I basically found that no, Coop doesn't suck. The last 3 years it seems that we have entered the season with pitchers who either a) cannot find the strike zone or b) are terrified to pitch in the strike zone because when they do it gets crushed. This is annoying to me because of how much we hear about how long spring training is, yet our pitchers do not enter the season ready for primetime. One thing I did notice: our pitchers tended to have their highest BABIP in april/march in 2013/14/15, which may lead me to believe that it may not be that our pitching is so bad in April, but our defense is so horrendous out of spring training that they try to get hitters to chase for k/s that aren't coming. But there is another thing, maybe Cooper just isn't a good pitching coach anymore. Or maybe we aren't giving him the pitchers he succeeds with. The classic Coop pitcher is probably Matt Thornton. So it goes, give this guy a wild but powerful pitcher, and he will have them cut down on their speed for improved control, and add a secondary offering like the cutter and voila. But it seems to me that recently Hahn has focused on bringing in groundball pitchers, whose stuff is really not there. Looking through 2012-2013-2014, we don't have power arms anymore in our bullpen. Nate Jones is the last holdover. I can't figure it out, is Coop suddenly just working with horrible talent? It's possible, there isn't pitcher from our bullpen last year that is pitching today. 2013 gives us some test cases, and they are pro-Coop. Addison Reed and Santiago have performed worse and about the same, respectively. And the rest of that roster? Yep, more pitchers who never found another team again: http://www.baseball-reference.com/teams/CHW/2013.shtml So basically, our poor pitcher development has killed us in the bullpen. And we are 1-2 years away from seeing our more interesting arms come up (Montas, Danish, Trexler, Sanburn, Fry, etc etc) So no, Coop hasn't been able to turn garbage players into good players, but nobody else has been able to take our trash and improve it either. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LDF Posted April 11, 2015 Share Posted April 11, 2015 excellent post, i love the research you did to come up with the conclusion you did. it goes higher than the manager and even Hahn. the sox failure to invest into putting a good product on the field and all the blind loyalty they get as a free pass. the sox org, has never really cared about that, as long as they get fans in the stands. however i do have to say, that the org is trying to right a sinking ship of mismanagement, wrong decision makings. that can not be done over nite, but i still think that the sox should have fielded their A team more to work on the everyday course of playing ball. again. excellent post. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
caulfield12 Posted April 11, 2015 Share Posted April 11, 2015 Or look at all the rookies on the 2012 roster. How many are still on major league rosters today? Quintana Humber Leyson Septimo Addison Reed Jhan Marinez Pedro Hernandez Dylan Axelrod Zach Stewart Brian Omogrosso Deunte Heath Hector Santiago Nate Jones Donnie Veal Obviously, Humber wasnt a rookie....included as an example of a fix that didnt hold that Cooper coaxed a no-hitter out of nevertheless. Other than Q, Reed, Jones and Santiago...pretty much all roster filler, at best. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
elrockinMT Posted April 11, 2015 Share Posted April 11, 2015 (edited) Cooper has been with this team a long time. I do understand the groundball type pitcher in relief as we are looking at the Cell being a flyball HR type park. Hit it into the ground and hope for a DP. I don't see any issues myself with who we have in the pen. We have guys who can get the strike out and guys who can get the GIDP when needed. If we look at just the last four games you really have to say that all pitchers have failed and so has the offense. I admit I was a bit concerned with the late spring training displays by our pitchers. It seemed for awhile there and then in the opener we were always giving up ten runs. I am confident things will get better Edited April 11, 2015 by elrockinMT Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
caulfield12 Posted April 11, 2015 Share Posted April 11, 2015 QUOTE (elrockinMT @ Apr 11, 2015 -> 10:44 AM) Cooper has been with this team a long time. I do understand the groundball type pitcher in relief as we are looking at the Cell being a flyball HR type park. Hit it into the ground and hope for a DP. I don't see any issues myself with who we have in the pen. We have guys who can get the strike out and guys who can get the GIDP when needed. If we look at just the last four games you really have to say that all pitchers have failed and so has the offense. I admit I was a bit concerned with the late spring training displays by our pitchers. It seemed for awhile there and then in the opener we were always giving up ten runs. I am confident things will get better Other than Sale or Samardzija getting hurt or Verlander coming off the DL and throwing a no-hitter, against us, its's quite hard to imagine things getting a whole lot worse than they already are....knock on wood. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bmags Posted April 11, 2015 Author Share Posted April 11, 2015 It is frustrating though that I'm not sure it's just that control is off as much as these guys seem to have no confidence to throw it over the plate. It's not attacking the batters, they are pitching away from everyone. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
shago Posted April 11, 2015 Share Posted April 11, 2015 I honestly think Flowers has a lot to do with this. He can't hit either, so would much prefer trying with a veteran game caller. What's Karkovice doing right now? AJ? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bmags Posted April 11, 2015 Author Share Posted April 11, 2015 You could have someone call pitches from dugout... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
caulfield12 Posted April 12, 2015 Share Posted April 12, 2015 QUOTE (bmags @ Apr 11, 2015 -> 11:06 AM) It is frustrating though that I'm not sure it's just that control is off as much as these guys seem to have no confidence to throw it over the plate. It's not attacking the batters, they are pitching away from everyone. Like pelfrey today...hesitant to hit a batter or throw the ball over the plate...those hbp's really seemed to get to Quintana. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TaylorStSox Posted April 12, 2015 Share Posted April 12, 2015 Don Cooper is an asset. It's not even up for discussion. /thread Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GreenSox Posted April 12, 2015 Share Posted April 12, 2015 (edited) Coop is going to have a couple of challenges this year. the one that will be coming soon is turning Noesi or Danks into a bullpen pitcher. I would lean toward Danks (although we need a righty in the pen more) because he just can't seem to go beyond 5 IP effectively in the last couple of years. He hasn't had a lot of talent to work with. Guys like Veal and Cleto throw hard and strike guys out, but just haven't got the control or command Edited April 12, 2015 by GreenSox Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
greg775 Posted April 12, 2015 Share Posted April 12, 2015 (edited) He may have a good one to work with in Robertson. Damn he was nasty yesterday. If you haven't seen the ninth I'd encourage you to watch the highlights of the ninth. I wonder if Robertson was so good yesterday it might fire up our guys A LOT. I mean that was All Star nasty pitching. It has to make our guys think, 'Man if we can get a lead to that guy it's automatic." Edited April 12, 2015 by greg775 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Panerista Posted April 12, 2015 Share Posted April 12, 2015 QUOTE (TaylorStSox @ Apr 12, 2015 -> 02:05 AM) Don Cooper is an asset. It's not even up for discussion. /thread Agreed. It's unfortunate the first few starts went poorly, but Cooper is a fantastic pitching coach. I'm more irked with the dumb plays on the field and the base paths, honestly. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jake Posted April 12, 2015 Share Posted April 12, 2015 QUOTE (bmags @ Apr 11, 2015 -> 02:56 PM) You could have someone call pitches from dugout... Mark Parent did that quite a bit, especially in the first year of RV et al. I didn't think it went well and I'm not a fan of it in general. QUOTE (GreenSox @ Apr 12, 2015 -> 10:16 AM) Coop is going to have a couple of challenges this year. the one that will be coming soon is turning Noesi or Danks into a bullpen pitcher. I would lean toward Danks (although we need a righty in the pen more) because he just can't seem to go beyond 5 IP effectively in the last couple of years. He hasn't had a lot of talent to work with. Guys like Veal and Cleto throw hard and strike guys out, but just haven't got the control or command Problem with Noesi is he struggles the most in the first inning, I shudder to think how bad it would be if he only threw first innings. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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