Sox Pitching Staff Discussion

[jacksonianmarch]

Back to the pitching staff discussion, the sox are 6-5 since the ASB but at 24th in baseball in ERA since then at 4.41. Surprisingly, the best team in baseball in that time are the Yankees at 2.11. Since the ASB

 

ERod- 18IP 19H 6ER 6BB 15K 3.00ERA 2.5K/BB 1.39WHIP

Porcello- 13IP 10H 4ER 11K 3BB 2.77ERA 3.67K/BB 1.00WHIP

Steven Wright- 18.2IP 16H 12ER 5BB 15K 5.79ERA 3.00K/BB 1.13WHIP

David Price- 11.1IP 22H 8ER 5K 3BB 6.35ERA 1.6K/BB 2.21WHIP

Pomeranz- 9IP 12H 7ER 4BB 11K 7.00ERA 2.75K/BB 1.78WHIP

 

You're running into the same s***, 2 guys carrying the staff since the break, 3 guys sucking ass.

[Nick]

Time for entire team to just suck it up and play better. Quit looking over the shoulder for a white knight. Got you Pmeranz, Ziegler and Hill. Kimbrel should return. Joe Kelly is now in the bullpen. Holt (everyone's good luck charm) has returned. Ortiz continues to hit.

 

Quit making excuses. As Godfather said, be a man. Get the damn job done.

[moonslav59]

Time for entire team to just suck it up and play better. Quit looking over the shoulder for a white knight. Got you Pmeranz, Ziegler and Hill. Kimbrel should return. Joe Kelly is now in the bullpen. Holt (everyone's good luck charm) has returned. Ortiz continues to hit.

 

Quit making excuses. As Godfather said, be a man. Get the damn job done.

 

Kick the tires on some top starters, but don't grossly overpay.

 

If that means we make no deals, then fine.

 

Our top 4 SP'ers, on paper, look better than most. ERod might turn the corner.

 

The pen injured should return to give us a boost.

 

Our offense is fine. Our defense could do better, but is about average now.

 

Keep Moncada and Beni, see what we can get for Swi and Devers, but don't hand the farm away.

[jacksonianmarch]

Where you guys really got screwed is with Price. You pay a guy like that to be an ace, and right now, he should have a short leash for a demotion to the bullpen. You've lucked out to some extent with Wright, but his knuckler seems to be floating a little flat more often than it did the first 2 months of the season. The only way your rotation rights itself is if Price remembers that he is a former CY winner and not the pile of s*** he has been of late.

[S5Dewey]

Where you guys really got screwed is with Price. You pay a guy like that to be an ace, and right now, he should have a short leash for a demotion to the bullpen. You've lucked out to some extent with Wright, but his knuckler seems to be floating a little flat more often than it did the first 2 months of the season. The only way your rotation rights itself is if Price remembers that he is a former CY winner and not the pile of s*** he has been of late.

 

This post ^^^ says what many Sox fans would consider unspeakable. Unfortunately it's the truth.

[robert vonhalle]

This post ^^^ says what many Sox fans would consider unspeakable. Unfortunately it's the truth.

 

agree,price has let the sox down big time and to think of the money this guy makes.

[d-money]

This team's just not clutch in low scoring games and they're too inconsistent. Home advantage's not much. They have lost a bunch of series at home.

[moonslav59]

I understood the Price signing and stated that he looked like the "safest bet" of any big-named SP'er in years, but I still was against the signing. I posted the list of the largest signings over the past few years, and how most failed to meet expectations often even in the first years of the deal.

[bowman]

All of a sudden we get him and he is messed up for most of the year. Erod is coming around but struggled. Kelly, Buch, etc. Most of it is on these guys, but you have to look at the coaching from top to bottom. As mentioned in many posts, the same with the development program. If a pitcher is on his game everything is peachy, but as soon as he starts to have problems, all you get from Farrell is the positives. Not a well coached team at all. Too many mental mistakes and very poor in game managing.

[mvp 78]

Demotion to the bullpen? No.

[moonslav59]

This team's just not clutch in low scoring games and they're too inconsistent. Home advantage's not much. They have lost a bunch of series at home.

 

One part of the game we really stink at is winning low-scoring games. We are 1-16 in games where we score 2 or 3 runs.

 

Yes, we've lost 8 games in games we score 7 or more runs, and certainly one would expect a better than 16-8 record in games scoring 7-9 runs, but to me the low scoring games are our biggest nemesis. We are 16-6 in games scoring 5-6 runs, which surprisingly is better than our 16-8 record scoring 7-9 runs, but we can't win any low scoring games.

 

We are, thankfully, 13-0 in games scoring 10 or more runs and 1-7 in 1 run scored games.

 

[d-money]

I feel like this team should be 8 games behind the orioles but they're not. Stop playing s***** baseball and get back to winning games!!!! If they can't win at home then what makes me think they can have a great road trip?

[moonslav59]

All of a sudden we get him and he is messed up for most of the year. Erod is coming around but struggled. Kelly, Buch, etc. Most of it is on these guys, but you have to look at the coaching from top to bottom. As mentioned in many posts, the same with the development program. If a pitcher is on his game everything is peachy, but as soon as he starts to have problems, all you get from Farrell is the positives. Not a well coached team at all. Too many mental mistakes and very poor in game managing.

 

Let's hope this is the "Beckett Affect".

 

Josh had a 5.28 ERA his first year after the trade then followed it up with one of his best seasons of his career, including a meteoric 4-0 in the playoffs.

 

[Bellhorn04]

Let's hope this is the "Beckett Affect".

 

Josh had a 5.28 ERA his first year after the trade then followed it up with one of his best seasons of his career, including a meteoric 4-0 in the playoffs.

 

 

Beckett, Porcello, Price, maybe even Kimbrel. The 'Welcome to Fenway' syndrome for pitchers.

[jacksonianmarch]

Winning two games when scoring 3 or less runs is indicative of a bad rotation/staff

[jacksonianmarch]

Bellhorn, I think the Price effect has to do with a combo of diminished stuff and hence diminished command in the strike zone. When velocity changes, your stuff changes as well. He hasn't adjusted

[Bellhorn04]

Bellhorn, I think the Price effect has to do with a combo of diminished stuff and hence diminished command in the strike zone. When velocity changes, your stuff changes as well. He hasn't adjusted

 

But look at his regular season numbers with the Jays last year. When did he lose it?

[southpaw777]

John Lester did the same thing at about the same age. You can kind of prepare for it, but until the velo goes down you cant adust. His velo has gone down a little like most every 30yo starter, and Now hes making the adjustments to his pitches. My guess is it may click before the years out but im betting that this (what he looks like now) isnt permanent. Hes too talented and smart to not be able to adjust. I believe Hes got the mental makeup to handle things while going through all this.

Like I said, hopefully it clicks this year, at least somewhat. But if not, then I would bet he will be much better in 2017. I know, that doesnt help this year and he makes 30m per, but it is what it is. No amount of $$$ is going to speed this process along.

[Bellhorn04]

Setting aside his monster paycheque for a moment, you can't argue with Price's attitude. He hasn't whined about anything, he hasn't blamed anyone but himself. He takes the ball every 5th day. He's a good candidate to turn things around.

[Bellhorn04]

So, what do you do with the "exceptions" to the rule?

 

There are a lot of exceptions, and penalizing them for a lack of Ks is just downright wrong.

 

Thanks for the eye-opening stats. It goes counter to my more individualized research. xFIP is seriously flawed when it ends up placing Price so high in this year's rankings. Price's high K rate this year has been near useless. He has failed miserably to get outs.

 

My point is that WAR relies too heavily on xFIP. Placing Price as the 13th best SP'er this year out of 258 is a joke. Out of 109 SP'ers with 80+ IP this year, Price places 8th in xFIP at 3.24.

 

Here's a look the top 10 SP'er rankings by stat or metric:

 

WAR...... xFIP ........ ERA_

Kershaw .....Kershaw.... Kershaw

Fernandez ..Fernandez..Carrasco

Syndergaard Synderg..Fulmer

Aaron Nola ..J Cueto.... Bumgarner

Stasburg.....Kluber...... Hendricks

Scherzer......Bumgarner..Fernandez

Pineda.........Tanaka....... A Sanchez

Price...........Arrieta........ Syndergaard

deGrom......Quintana..... C Hamels

Kluber....... Strasburg.... J Cueto

 

I still like ERA-, even though I know there are flaws with that as well.

 

 

I think you're right that there are a lot of exceptions, and maybe we should take a closer look at a guy like Buehrle and what made him so effective over a long career.

 

A slightly amusing side-note to this - remember the Sox big game plan for pitching going into the 2015 season? We were supposedly stacked with ground-ball pitchers. That was supposed to translate to great numbers, especially with all those low strikes being called!

[illinoisredsox]

Setting aside his monster paycheque for a moment, you can't argue with Price's attitude. He hasn't whined about anything, he hasn't blamed anyone but himself. He takes the ball every 5th day. He's a good candidate to turn things around.

 

The other things is he's pretty much always been a pitcher as opposed to a thrower. That also should help the transition.

 

Eck mentioned all of what has been discussed in the past few posts when he was filling in several weeks ago.

[greenwell]

Where you guys really got screwed is with Price. You pay a guy like that to be an ace, and right now, he should have a short leash for a demotion to the bullpen. You've lucked out to some extent with Wright, but his knuckler seems to be floating a little flat more often than it did the first 2 months of the season. The only way your rotation rights itself is if Price remembers that he is a former CY winner and not the pile of s*** he has been of late.

 

I agree that Price is a big part of the problem, but he is nowhere near demotion to the bullpen.

[SoxnCycles]

Price is not a problem

He's just awesome!

[Slasher9]

(this is not in response to SnC as i know his post is sarc).

OMG. for real. we are OK with the Red Sox giving a 7 year contract at $31MM per to a guy that needs to "transition" his first season of said contract???

this is a (and this is the first time i will actually type a curse on this website) f***ING disaster.

let's all just keep making excuses for him. f*** PRICE.

[Slasher9]

S. Wright - he is now pitching like the #6 starter that we thought we were getting with him. no complaints as we should never have expected him to be our sub 3 ERA Ace pitcher.

[Slasher9]

Porcello - is pitching like a solid 2/3. exactly what many of us expected from him when we traded for and then signed him to the extension. no complaints.

[d-money]

Price's ineptitude has more to do with crappy location then velocity. He needs to throw his other pitches with note effectiveness

[Bellhorn04]

Price is not a problem

He's just awesome!

 

I think you've now officially caught the Talksox Heavy Sarcasm bug.

[Bellhorn04]

Porcello - is pitching like a solid 2/3. exactly what many of us expected from him when we traded for and then signed him to the extension. no complaints.

 

But he sure sucked hard last year didn't he?

[greenwell]

(this is not in response to SnC as i know his post is sarc).

OMG. for real. we are OK with the Red Sox giving a 7 year contract at $31MM per to a guy that needs to "transition" his first season of said contract???

this is a (and this is the first time i will actually type a curse on this website) f***ING disaster.

let's all just keep making excuses for him. f*** PRICE.

 

I agree. I wouldn't say he's gotten a free pass, but I'm surprised he hasn't gotten more s***. I think people are scared to face the possibility that the signing will be a complete bust.