Jon Lester and the Fenway bugaboo

[jung]

I have no idea why we would downplay mechanical issues. They are very difficult to resolve. For the most part you have to break down your motion and build it back up again for each pitch in your arsenal.

[Emmz]

Nonsense. No baseball park is actually going to increase a pitcher's ERA by 4 runs. It's an obvious fluke as logic and his past history would dictate.

 

Your precedence for something you just invented called the "Fenway Bugaboo" is equally nonsense. Frank Viola had a 3.40 ERA with the Red Sox and a 3.14 ERA in his last full season with them.

 

Dutchy^^

[Emmz]

On topic: Lester just flat out sucked. Has nothing to do with the "Fenway Bugaboo", whatever the f*** that is.

 

This is just classic Jacko, really.

[jung]

Jacko appears to be looking at Lester's Fenway numbers and trying to make the case that they are tied. I would contend that Lester in 2012 was a struggling LH pitcher and any struggling LH pitcher is going to generate crummy numbers in Fenway. Fenway did not cause Lester's problems.

 

This is why we would prefer not to have three LH starters in a Sox rotation as the green monster makes life miserable for LH pitchers.

[jacksonianmarch]

Per usual, Jackso refuses to dispute proper statistics that prove his home splits were a fluke.

 

Tell me why his walk rate was higher? Tell me why his HR rate was higher? Oh, and since I didnt want to school you too badly, lets look at some of the sabremetric stats, shall we?

 

His line drive percentage was at a career high 22%. Meaning that it wasnt a fluke at all, guys were absolutely f***ing crushing the ball off of him. When he was in his solid yrs, that % was between 15 and 20%. His GB% dipped below 50% for the first time since 2009. His K/9IP is down 2.7 per 9IP from his best season in 2009. His HR/FB was up to a career high of 13.9%, yet his FB percentage dropped due to the massive increase in his LD%. Know what that means? When they werent completely f***ing ripping seeds off this guy, he was giving up deep fly balls that went out of the park.

 

His average fastball velocity was 1.1mph from his peak yr in 2009 while his cutter was at a career high velocity of 90.3. When your fastball and your cutter are the exact same speed and the bite isnt as nasty, it means hitters have to only see one plane and get the bat head out there at one speed. Lester was much, much better when he had a near 5mph difference between his cutter and his heater. In 2012, there was only a 2mph difference.

 

His pitch selection, something that has gotten a lot of play here, was really no different than his previous career numbers.

 

Taking a look at his runs above average based on pitches, when he was at his best, his cutter was an absolutely deadly pitch. In 2010, his cutter was 16 runs above average. In 2012, it was 4 runs below average. Meaning that the pitch itself has become a minus for him. As a matter of fact, the only pitch that graded out positively on this scale was his changeup.

 

At his best, Lester got guys to swing outside the zone nearly 30% of the time and those that did made contact around 56% of the time. He was close to the 30% mark in 2012, but batters made contact 65% of the time when swinging outside the zone. IE, his stuff doesnt miss bats when he's going for the kill pitch as much as it did in the past. For the first time since 2008, batters are making contact with a Lester pitch over 80% of the time while he is throwing a career low 45% of his pitches inside the zone.

 

Overall, the guy's stuff isnt biting as much, his velocity has dropped a bit, guys are teeing off on him and either hitting seeds in the field of play or long home runs instead of GBs and cans of corn. He's not striking guys out as much, he isnt getting guys to chase and miss outside the zone and he is throwing less strikes inside the zone, getting himself into bad hitters counts. I wish I had this info for home and away, but this is the fangraphs report, and it ain't pretty

[a700hitter]

I have no idea why we would downplay mechanical issues. They are very difficult to resolve. For the most part you have to break down your motion and build it back up again for each pitch in your arsenal.

I am not downplaying it, but a guy who has reached Lester's level of sustained success at the MLB level got there by working out all the kinks over several seasons. He maintained his success by repeating his delivery thousands of times. He has built up muscle memory that is robotic like every other successful ballplayer. I don't think that he could have strayed from his mechanics so radically that he would have to rebuild the whole thing. Usually, after achieving his level of sustained success, it is a minor fine tuning situation as opposed to a major overhaul. He should have worked it out over the course of a season. I think there is very possibly something else at work whether it be mental or damage to his arm.

 

People think that he will regain his old stuff if he abandons the cutter. I don't think it works that way. Dick Radatz used to tell an interesting story about adding a pitch to his arsenal. He was at the height of his success when one Spring Teddy Ballgame suggested that he had the perfect motion for a sinker. Teddy Ballgame was like a walking god at Spring camp. If he talked to you, you listened. Radatz worked on the sinker all spring and it was coming along really well, but when they broke camp and Radatz reached for his bread and butter, the big heat wasn't the same. He had lost a foot off his fastball and he never regained it. He had no discernable arm injury. I don't believe that he ever had arm trouble, but his dominating gas was gone. He went from being an intimidating overpowering force to a punching bag seemingly over night.

 

I am sure someone will research this and my recollection could be faulty on Radatz. Maybe William s suggested a slider and not a sinker, and he may have hit the DL at some point, but the main point stands. Lester's 4 seamer is not what it had been. Others have inferred that the cutter could have a negative impact on other pitchers. I am just saying that abandoning the cutter may not bring back the fastball.

[jacksonianmarch]

Jacko appears to be looking at Lester's Fenway numbers and trying to make the case that they are tied. I would contend that Lester in 2012 was a struggling LH pitcher and any struggling LH pitcher is going to generate crummy numbers in Fenway. Fenway did not cause Lester's problems.

 

This is why we would prefer not to have three LH starters in a Sox rotation as the green monster makes life miserable for LH pitchers.

 

I can buy that if Lester didnt totally dominate on the road. If he was, lets say a 4ERA pitcher on the road and a 5ERA pitcher at home, then maybe it's just a fluke. But he's a 3.10ERA guy on the road and a 6+ERA guy at home

[SoxFanForsyth]

Wow Jackso. Just unreal.

 

I thought you understood sabermetrics. First off, his LD went up by a mere 2%. His career LD% at home was 20%. He posted a 22% this year. That's 2% in 347 total balls in play against him at home. Yes. 7 more line drives makes him a terrible pitcher all of a sudden. Argument nullified.

 

You argue that his HR/FB should be affected by his FB%? Maybe look into this because you clearly don't understand that.

 

The disparity between cutter and FB doesn't make it a less effective pitch. In fact, the decrease in disparity would make it appear more like a fastball than a cutter and would make it MORE effective. The reason his cutter sucked was because he lost horizontal movement. His cutter lost almost 3 inches of horizontal drop from 2011 to 2012.

 

So please spare me with this 'schooling' because its ********. I've looked up a lot of information on him, much more than you have to create a thread blaming the Fenway Bugaboo.

 

The reason his ERA blew up was because of a horrid strand rate. The reason his strand rate plummeted was because of an unsustainably high BABIP. BABIPs are completely out of the pitchers hands. His HR/FB and HR/9 were complete aberrations.

 

Getting his stuff to play again, ie getting more swings and misses on out of the zone pitches, ie getting more downward action on his cutter, is just a case of getting his mechanics figured out, something that Farrell will be able to do.

 

His results last year were partially based on having a decreased amount of control in the strike zone, but also a large part was due to ******** luck.

[jung]

This is all about one month in a tough year for a struggling pitcher. In fact it is really all about one game in one month.

 

The depths of Lester's 2012 was July. In July he did not record a win going 0-3 and two no decisions. All three loses were at home. On July 22nd he gave up 11 earned runs in 4 innings to Toronto in a home game in what was an eventual 15-7 loss for the Sox. So off the top of my head Lester recorded a 24+ ERA for that game. So that is it. The whole argument boils down to one game in July.

[jacksonianmarch]

I was looking at his overall data this time. But according to fangraphs, Lester allowed 54 more line drives than he did last yr and his LD% from 2011 to 2012 jumped from a career low 15.9% to 22%. Not sure where the 7 is that you are going after.

 

The disparity may be the reason why his cutter isnt as effective. A slower cutter gets a little more time to break. 1 to 2 more inches could be the difference between a foul ball and a K, a line drive and a broken bat.

 

I know you are trying your hardest to blame luck, but his BABIP was up due to an abnormally high LD%, which is the type of contact most likely to lead to a hit. His stuff has diminished, he's lost a tick on his velocity and his bread and butter pitches are no longer plus for him. When looking at that evidence, how can one assume this was mostly attributable to luck?

[jacksonianmarch]

This is all about one month in a tough year for a struggling pitcher. In fact it is really all about one game in one month.

 

The depths of Lester's 2012 was July. In July he did not record a win going 0-3 and two no decisions. All three loses were at home. On July 22nd he gave up 11 earned runs in 4 innings to Toronto in a home game in what was an eventual 15-7 loss for the Sox. So off the top of my head Lester recorded a 24+ ERA for that game. So that is it. The whole argument boils down to one game in July.

 

His ERA sans that game was 4.42. Still well of career norms for Jon

[SoxFanForsyth]

I was looking at his overall data this time. But according to fangraphs, Lester allowed 54 more line drives than he did last yr and his LD% from 2011 to 2012 jumped from a career low 15.9% to 22%. Not sure where the 7 is that you are going after.

 

The disparity may be the reason why his cutter isnt as effective. A slower cutter gets a little more time to break. 1 to 2 more inches could be the difference between a foul ball and a K, a line drive and a broken bat.

 

I know you are trying your hardest to blame luck, but his BABIP was up due to an abnormally high LD%, which is the type of contact most likely to lead to a hit. His stuff has diminished, he's lost a tick on his velocity and his bread and butter pitches are no longer plus for him. When looking at that evidence, how can one assume this was mostly attributable to luck?

 

In 2011, his LD% at home was 19.4%. In his career, it is 20%. In 2012, it was 22%.

 

Look at his splits man. It's simple.

 

He's got a career 20% LD% at home with a career .311 BABIP.

His LD% going up to 22% does not translate into his BABIP increasing to .341.

 

It doesn't add up.

[jung]

The argument is gibberish....nonsense...a waste of time and energy. Sometimes I don't know why I should even make the effort.

[SoxFanForsyth]

Now, a LD should result in a hit 71% of the time. In 347 balls in play, a bump of 2.9% in LD at home (22.9% in 2012) is 10 more LD's.

 

10 LD's times 71% = 7 more hits.

 

Take out those 7 knocks, and his BABIP was still .323, a bump of 12 points from his career norm. Not to mention that its not just flat out 7 more hits, because the extra 2% of Ld replaced something else (GB or FB) which still resulted in hits, just not as often. The most likely scenario is that the increase resulted in 4-5 hits, and his BABIP would have still been .328-.330

[jacksonianmarch]

Where are you getting the breakdowns for LD and FB for home and away. I can only get the total numbers which show a marked difference in LD% from 11 to 12

[jung]

Mother of God...to think we started a war to find Weapons of mass destruction in Iraq that did not exist in the first place. All we really needed to do was invite a few Iraqi scientists and high level Military Intelligence types to visit TalkSox. Under the stress of that torture we would have squeezed the truth out of them in about 40 posts.

 

"Can I please have my strychnine capsule back...I can't take anymore. I promise you Sadam has no WOD's and he wear's ladies undergarments under his fatigues".

[jacksonianmarch]

This kind of gibberish wouldn't even make it past Boston talk radio screeners. I'm not wasting any more time trying to bring this fanboy back to reality. He's too far gone in his half-baked pipe dream.

 

Hey Dutchy, how have you been?

[Emmz]

Hey Dutchy, how have you been?

 

I could tell as soon as I saw the user handle, but then his posting style was the icing on the cake.

[Emmz]

That's funny, I always assumed you suffered from psychosis.

[Emmz]

It fits perfectly. I'm not your shrink, but you post disturbing images every time you're about to get banned, and as far as I can tell you don't realize what a douchebag you are.

[Emmz]

I really do have you pegged, don't I?

[Emmz]

Disturbing images means someone has psychosis? You're just making yourself look more ignorant.

 

You're delusional. You are constantly trying to do the internet version of talking over someone, most likely because you're insecure about the s*** you say. You freak out every time someone has a argument against your position, and you seem to take it personally. That's not normal, dude. Whether it's psychosis or you're just neurotic is up to your therapist.

[Emmz]

Pathetic. Too bad a mod probably won't log in for a few days, so we're probably stuck with your dipshittery until then.

[jacksonianmarch]

I enjoyed Dutchy's back and forth. Now, he has degenerated into a terrible troll. Oh well, you've been broken

[jacksonianmarch]

Is that all you really have Dutchy? Lose an argument, devolve into a loser. Your life must suck

[jacksonianmarch]

I could use a good maid

[iortiz]

Guy is out of control

[jacksonianmarch]

Yes, he is. He'd make a good window washer or snow shoveler. I'm willing to offer you (Dutchy) $10 an hour, probably 3 times what you make on a daily basis

[Emmz]

Just block him for now. Dutchy is just way too predictable.

[jacksonianmarch]

Dutchy, I think your pimp is calling. You should return to the position in front of the glory hole.