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ashbury

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Everything posted by ashbury

  1. ashbury
    Of late the Sox are taking nearly a video-game approach to their contracts: use superior talent evaluation, lock up young talent for several years, use early-30s guys on shorter contracts to supplement. So far it seems to be working. There is core of their roster that could very possibly be what you see intact in 2024. I hate them for this.
  2. ashbury
    League average OBP is .320. We have exactly two guys with sufficient PA to qualify for a batting title, who are above that. Arraez is injured at present. Nelson Cruz would be a bold strategy at leadoff; I'm not going to suggest we see if it pays off for us. Of the rest, Polanco is at .318 and hasn't hit with a lot of pop, so he might indeed be a logical candidate. Kepler and Rosario profile similarly, though with a few more home runs. By a different view, leadoff could be for your best OPS guy (or whatever overall offensive metric you prefer) whose value isn't concentrated in his home runs. Kepler has better OPS than Polanco, but not so many home runs as Rosario. With no ideal candidate present, Kepler is at least in consideration.
  3. ashbury
    Yeah, the game summary here really missed an important detail with Kepler's offline throw. Doesn't show up in the box score as anything, but it was the difference between two out nobody on, versus a speedy guy on first base with one out. We had the lead. We didn't exit the inning with it. Game changer right there. Gave away two outs that inning, Buxton's baserunning booboo being the other.
  4. ashbury
    Considered by whom? Not by Rocco, surely. Dobnak had a very short leash, in terms of innings (he completed 6 just one time) and in terms of pitch count (reached the 90s twice), despite starting the season with a string of five very nice games. I think our manager was handling him like a ticking time bomb. That last may be overstating it. It could be that Dobnak carves out a nice career in the lower part of a rotation for a few years.
  5. ashbury
    I tuned in late, and only briefly, and did not see Buxton's round-tripper. Just now I watched the video. I swear, the man wasn't even going at his hardest*, just the long-legged stride, for most of the way, until after he rounded second! Incredible. At his best he makes the game seem easy. * Don't misconstrue - that long stride involves a lot of effort, and he was still reading the defense's play on the ball. Reread my last sentence.
  6. ashbury
    Now, care to share any prophecies for tonight's game?
  7. ashbury
    No.
  8. ashbury
    Time to try someone whose is good.
  9. ashbury
    I tuned in only briefly, the fourth inning I think. Berrios's stuff and command looked so sharp. Every pitch had movement, and they went to good locations. I figured the one run scored against him must have been a fluke. Seeing this writeup corrects that impression. Seems like Jose often has trouble harnessing his ability, early in the game. That hardly makes him unique. But are there measures that can be taken, to improve the warmup process?
  10. ashbury
    The position player gets a fine, the pitcher gets a fine plus one-day suspension, the latter consequence having no real teeth since he likely wasn't going to pitch on consecutive days anyway. But the league gets the message across that physically instigating by walking toward the player is qualitatively worse than an inappropriate smile. It's all fine. I hope it's the end of it. It's dumb.
  11. ashbury
  12. ashbury
    I for one welcome our Yankee overlords, who treat their vanquished with great kindness despite our inherent inferiority. Send Help. Hurry.
  13. ashbury
    If the best case scenario plays out, the team didn't need your mad managerial skillz in the first place.
  14. ashbury
    Next time, book mouth-breathing woofers for the opponents' proxies. These guys were too good!
  15. ashbury
    Was about to post something similar*. Eddie's been roughly an average major leaguer the last couple of years. I like him and he's not by any means at replacement level, but he's not above average either, taking his whole game into account. RoY by contrast is an extremely high bar, and the hitters who win it typically put up monster numbers for their rookie season. The worst RoY of the past 10 years was arguably Wil Myers, and he put up better OPS than Eddie has this year. https://www.baseball-reference.com/awards/roy.shtml * And, apparently, I still will.
  16. ashbury
    Someone's already posted a useful link to Fangraphs. My go-to is baseball-reference.com, and they provide a "splits" page for each player and also MLB-wide (among other options): https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/split.fcgi?id=rosared01&year=2020&t=b#all_bases https://www.baseball-reference.com/leagues/split.cgi?t=b&lg=MLB&year=2020#all_bases They don't provide ready-made percentages, but a quick bit of division gives Eddie having someone on base in 44.77% of his plate appearances, versus a 44.04% across the majors, this year. Basically league average, and his opportunity is high because he's got a lot of plate appearances.
  17. ashbury
    We won the close game he started. What better use for him did you have in mind?
  18. ashbury
    Odorizzi's four-seamer teasing its way just above the strike zone for a futile swing is an underrated pleasure to watch, as well.
  19. ashbury
    By George, he's got it.
  20. ashbury
    Advanced stats like we're talking about aren't tremendously useful when looking through the rearview mirror only. I don't want a Cy Young award based on FIP. But advanced stats may help you determine whether a guy's playing stats are likely to bounce back. "Luck" is not a very satisfying term when dealing with human beings trying their absolute best against other human beings trying to defeat those efforts. I lean toward "unreproducible", when it's something that experience seems to show evens out over time. Batting Average on Balls in Play is noted for coming in just under .300 for most batters and pitchers who are good enough in the first place to reach the Show, and is an example of a guideline to help tell when someone is about to bust out of their slump or come down from the stratosphere. If a pitcher's ERA is high and the BABIP isn't, then what you're seeing might be simply who he is. As Matt Braun says, Taylor Rogers is currently sporting a .436 BABIP, "leading" the team. Unlucky, unreproducible, whatever we call it, he might indeed be pitching better than the results are showing. Duffey is at .161, also leading the team, but at the other end of the scale. Good for him; I hope he keeps it up (and thereby makes history of some obscure sort - nobody who's faced 200 batters in a season has done it).
  21. ashbury
    The stat I want, though I won't phrase it precisely enough, is percentage of the time the pitcher hits the target. I just looked through some of the bad games Taylor had in 2020, and while "luck" may be a culprit, a lot of the hits were occurring when the ball went somewhere different than the catcher set up for. Now, that form of analysis is the classic statistical mistake, looking only at a biased sample. And I will also acknowledge, after looking at some 2019 footage, that some of Taylor's strikeouts occur where the catcher is fooled too. So I want a complete picture. The technology has to be there - they draw that little box on the screen, and presumably software could locate the catcher's mitt as well, and automate the whole process. How do you define "hitting the target" so it's foolproof and can't mislead you? No idea. And what kinds of "missing the target" are OK? Surely a center-cut fastball when the catcher sets up... well, probably literally anywhere else... is different than just a wild toss that gets away from you high and outside. Details, schmetails. Anyway, I can ask.
  22. ashbury
    They played 9 innings last night and it was still little league.
  23. ashbury
    Stats are a snare, I agree. I tend to take a shut-down bullpen seriously when I see opposing batters slam their bat in disgust after swinging late on a fastball. That tells you the mix of pitches is so deadly that the batter can't defend against the heater, which is the last thing any batter with an ounce of pride allows himself to get beaten on. A very subjective metric, obviously, but one that the opponent isn't very good at hiding so it seems trustworthy. And I don't think we're there yet, compared to some other teams' pens that have been difference makers in the post-season.
  24. ashbury
    This is an area where IMO regular season and post-season differ greatly. I consider the jury very much still out, and right now I don't see this bullpen as of the shut-down variety at all, not even necessarily playoff caliber. "Pretty decent" won't cut it, a month from now.
  25. ashbury
    I thought they were settling matters with tiebreakers this year? Was this written before or after Kepler (guessing) pulled the hamstring?
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