Sox Pitching Staff Discussion

[mvp 78]

So are wins a meaningless stat or not?

[Bellhorn04]

So are wins a meaningless stat or not?

 

I don't think they are 100% meaningless. But they are meaningless without other data like run support.

[Slasher9]

So are wins a meaningless stat or not?

 

i was just providing the info that another poster had requested. they may not mean anything to you. only you can decide what is meaningful for you.

[Slasher9]

24 starts.

start 1 is thrown out because it was game 1 of the season.

that leaves 23 starts.

 

LL (team Lost in Price start coming off a Loss in the previous game)

7

 

LW (team Won in Price start coming off a Loss in the previous game)

3

 

WW (team Won in Price start coming off a Win in the previous game)

7

 

WL (team Lost in Price start coming off a Win in the previous game)

6

 

definitely not a "Stopper". unless you mean Winning streak Stopper.

 

only a 30% success rate team winning when Price starts after a Loss in the previous game.

but for those with Price colored glasses: a 70% success rate in the team Losing when Price starts after a Loss in the previous game!

[jacksonianmarch]

http://www.fangraphs.com/statss.aspx?playerid=3184&position=P

 

Nope.

 

Sorry, 2.6 off his career high, 1.3 off last year. And btw, his velo last I checked was down 1.6 or so from last yr, so I rounded up

[illinoisredsox]

I don't think they are 100% meaningless. But they are meaningless without other data like run support.

 

Case in point, Lackey in 2011. His ERA was 6.41, among the worst in the HISTORY of major league baseball over a full season. Somehow, he managed to go 12-12.

[illinoisredsox]

only a 30% success rate team winning when Price starts after a Loss in the previous game.

but for those with Price colored glasses: a 70% success rate in the team Losing when Price starts after a Loss in the previous game!

 

Nobody with Price colored glasses is claiming he's having a great season. But neither has he "stunk" as several have said. For whatever reason, when he has pitched well over the past 3 months, the team has decided to take the night off with the bats. Oddly, when he has pitched poorly, the offense has shown up most of the time.

[Bellhorn04]

When Price takes the mound now you can't help but wonder 'what kind of weird s*** is going to happen this time?'

[Slasher9]

Nobody with Price colored glasses is claiming he's having a great season. But neither has he "stunk" as several have said. For whatever reason, when he has pitched well over the past 3 months, the team has decided to take the night off with the bats. Oddly, when he has pitched poorly, the offense has shown up most of the time.

 

good points.

i will say "stunk" is a relative term. has he stunk compared to league average? no way.

has he stunk compared to what most of us expected from him during the regular season? i would say yes.

when your numbers are closer to clay buchholz then they are to a knuckler that kind of smells funky....

[moonslav59]

Nobody with Price colored glasses is claiming he's having a great season. But neither has he "stunk" as several have said. For whatever reason, when he has pitched well over the past 3 months, the team has decided to take the night off with the bats. Oddly, when he has pitched poorly, the offense has shown up most of the time.

 

No, he hasn't "stunk", and he's had some bad luck with our pen holding the lead in his starts, and our offense scoring low in games he allows 3-4 runs.

 

My point has been that Price and most other big FA signings have not come close to meeting expectation- not only over the length of their massive deals, but even in the early years, when they were supposed make up for the poorer latter years.

 

Even players that are doing well out of the gate, like Robinson Cano, has seen his OPS+ go from 148 and 147 the last two years with the Yanks to 142, 117 and 135 with Seattle.

[sk7326]

Sorry, 2.6 off his career high, 1.3 off last year. And btw, his velo last I checked was down 1.6 or so from last yr, so I rounded up

 

strikeout rate every bit his career norms ... walk rate has been normal too ... has been location mostly it seems

[moonslav59]

strikeout rate every bit his career norms ... walk rate has been normal too ... has been location mostly it seems

 

His early years really taint his "norm".

 

Here are recent trends:

 

K/BB ratio

'10 2.38

'11 3.46

'12 3.47

'13 5.59 (League Leader)

'14 7.13

'15 4.79

'16 4.42

 

K/9: 8.1> 8.7> 8.7>7.3> 9.8> 9.2> 9.2

 

BB/9: 3.4> 2.5> 2.5> 1.3> 1.4> 1.9> 2.1

 

His velocity is definitely lower, although it's higher now than early season:

 

http://www.fangraphs.com/pitchfxo.aspx?playerid=3184&position=P&pitch=FA

 

 

[devildavid]

Price has failed to perform up to his level of talent. He all too often lets bad innings get worse. He rarely pitches a dominant game. We can cherry pick stats and find all the good stats we want but he is not pitching consistently strong games. Too many hits given up, too many pitches leading to too many early exits. The occasional strong game is just not enough. It boosts his seasons numbers, but doesn't change his inconsistency. Look at Wright and Porcello for better consistency, even though they have had their bad outings.

[vjcsmoke]

Case in point, Lackey in 2011. His ERA was 6.41, among the worst in the HISTORY of major league baseball over a full season. Somehow, he managed to go 12-12.

 

I just hope he can bounce back like Lackey did. Lackey looked bad initially. But became a very good pitcher for us in 2013 and 2014. Actually, if we hadn't traded him away, we probably wouldn't be so worried about depth right now.

 

I'd like to see improvement in E-Rodriguez. And Pomeranz has yet to show us why he was brought on board. Some strong starts would help.

 

Of course the elephant in the room is our 200 million dollar man. Price's issues are more mental than anything. Bad mental leads to bad mechanics leads to bad pitching.

 

Hopefully he can iron those issues out. We still have over 60 games to play!

[moonslav59]

Price has failed to perform up to his level of talent. He all too often lets bad innings get worse. He rarely pitches a dominant game. We can cherry pick stats and find all the good stats we want but he is not pitching consistently strong games. Too many hits given up, too many pitches leading to too many early exits. The occasional strong game is just not enough. It boosts his seasons numbers, but doesn't change his inconsistency. Look at Wright and Porcello for better consistency, even though they have had their bad outings.

 

I agree, and the numbers back us up:

 

QS%

68% Porcello

68% Wright

58% Price

48% League Average

36% ERod

23% Buch

 

OPS Against

.615 Wright

.680 Porcello

.738 Price

.746 League Average

.799 Buch

.869 ERod

[Nick]

I just saw an article ranking mlb projected starting rotation prior to 2016 season. Price, Porcello, E Rod, Buchholtz and Kelly were #10 or so, ahead of Baltimore and Toronto.

 

Factor in Price getting to horrendous start (but winning because of historical offensive prowess) and E Rod being hurt, Sox basically went 1-5 on projected starting pitchers. We've had incredible run of bad streaks projecting out.

 

They are simply not getting the job done. I'm not a big fan of John Farrell but he's had some rough patches. Puts in his closer last night and the guy is not reliable, simple as that.

Edited August 10, 2016 by Nick

[SoxnCycles]

I just hope he can bounce back like Lackey did. Lackey looked bad initially. But became a very good pitcher for us in 2013 and 2014. Actually, if we hadn't traded him away, we probably wouldn't be so worried about depth right now.

 

I'd like to see improvement in E-Rodriguez. And Pomeranz has yet to show us why he was brought on board. Some strong starts would help.

 

Of course the elephant in the room is our 200 million dollar man. Price's issues are more mental than anything. Bad mental leads to bad mechanics leads to bad pitching.

 

Hopefully he can iron those issues out. We still have over 60 games to play!

 

 

Well, TJ surgery helped quite a bit.

I don't think you can really compare the two.

There doesn't seem to be anything physically wrong with Price, other than he's getting older.

[oldtimer]

The latest news about the pitching staff sounds bad for the club. Wright was scratched from his start Thursday night as he is suffering from a sore shoulder.

[bowman]

Jamming from pinch running the other night. Why would he be pinch running. Farrell = bad carma

[SoxnCycles]

My coffee has gotten cold.

I blame Farrell.

[illinoisredsox]

Jamming from pinch running the other night. Why would he be pinch running. Farrell = bad carma

 

Sunday against the Dodgers,the Sox had pulled to within 1 run. Farrell sent Brentz up to hit for Price. LA countered with the right handed Joe Blanton and Ortiz hit for Brentz. Big Papi walked and once he got to second, Wright ran for him. At that point, Hill had already replaced Holt, so the bench was down to Hanley and Leon, and it makes sense that they would be saved until later in the game. So that left a pitcher, and since relievers might still be needed, by extension, a starter.

 

While Wright was on second, Blanton broke the pitchers' fraternity rules by faking a throw to second, Wright dove back in and hurt himself.

 

I had no issue with a pitcher running for Papi there; NL pitchers are used as pinch runners all the time. I might have used Pomeranz, who has pinch run this year, but Wright had the longer time to the next start so I can see using him. Frankly, AL managers would greatly increase their flexibility by doing so as well, even if it would be less frequently. It would not kill AL pitchers to work on it in spring training and run some drills on it during the year.

 

You've heard of the Midas touch? Right now, Farrell has whatever the opposite of that is, no matter what the move.

[Slasher9]

My coffee has gotten cold.

I blame Farrell.

lol. +2 points.

[a700hitter]

Sunday against the Dodgers,the Sox had pulled to within 1 run. Farrell sent Brentz up to hit for Price. LA countered with the right handed Joe Blanton and Ortiz hit for Brentz. Big Papi walked and once he got to second, Wright ran for him. At that point, Hill had already replaced Holt, so the bench was down to Hanley and Leon, and it makes sense that they would be saved until later in the game. So that left a pitcher, and since relievers might still be needed, by extension, a starter.

 

While Wright was on second, Blanton broke the pitchers' fraternity rules by faking a throw to second, Wright dove back in and hurt himself.

 

I had no issue with a pitcher running for Papi there; NL pitchers are used as pinch runners all the time. I might have used Pomeranz, who has pinch run this year, but Wright had the longer time to the next start so I can see using him. Frankly, AL managers would greatly increase their flexibility by doing so as well, even if it would be less frequently. It would not kill AL pitchers to work on it in spring training and run some drills on it during the year.

 

You've heard of the Midas touch? Right now, Farrell has whatever the opposite of that is, no matter what the move.

He should have run some garbage bullpen guy, not one our better starters. It was an accident waiting to happen, especially for a knuckle ball pitcher. For Wright, a jammed finger or broken nail can cause him big problems. And they did not even send him out there with a wrist guard or special protection for his hands. I see position players wearing that stuff. Brett Gardner wears a mitten. It was an extremely stupid move by Farrell, and he did nothing to protect his pitchers hand when he sent him out there.

 

As for the pitcher's code, that goes out the window in a 1 run game. Blanton's career is day to day. If he can pick off an inexperienced base runner in that situation, he is going to do it. There is no blame on Blanton. He has to make a living and try to keep his job. He didn't throw over in a blowout game.

[illinoisredsox]

He should have run some garbage bullpen guy, not one our better starters. It was an accident waiting to happen, especially for a knuckle ball pitcher. For Wright, a jammed finger or broken nail can cause him big problems. And they did not even send him out there with a wrist guard or special protection for his hands. I see position players wearing that stuff. Brett Gardner wears a mitten. It was an extremely stupid move by Farrell, and he did nothing to protect his pitchers hand when he sent him out there.

 

As for the pitcher's code, that goes out the window in a 1 run game. Blanton's career is day to day. If he can pick off an inexperienced base runner in that situation, he is going to do it. There is no blame on Blanton. He has to make a living and try to keep his job. He didn't throw over in a blowout game.

 

Well, like I said I would have used Pomeranz, who as at least been on the bases this year. Although, as I type this, it occurred to me that holding Pomeranz back as a potential PH had the game gone on long enough would not have been a bad idea (he's got 12 major league hits and 9 sac bunts). That was probably beyond Farrell's range though.

 

Given last night, I guess he would have had his choice on "garbage bullpen" guys.

[Bellhorn04]

He should have run some garbage bullpen guy, not one our better starters. It was an accident waiting to happen, especially for a knuckle ball pitcher. For Wright, a jammed finger or broken nail can cause him big problems. And they did not even send him out there with a wrist guard or special protection for his hands. I see position players wearing that stuff. Brett Gardner wears a mitten. It was an extremely stupid move by Farrell, and he did nothing to protect his pitchers hand when he sent him out there.

 

As for the pitcher's code, that goes out the window in a 1 run game. Blanton's career is day to day. If he can pick off an inexperienced base runner in that situation, he is going to do it. There is no blame on Blanton. He has to make a living and try to keep his job. He didn't throw over in a blowout game.

 

Here's a thought:

 

When your #1 option to run for Ortiz is Steven Wright, maybe you should just let Ortiz run for himself?

[Slasher9]

maybe we can just wrap all our players in bubble wrap

[Bellhorn04]

Seriously, what was gained by bringing in a guy who has never been on base in a real MLB game, and, I am guessing, is not an especially athletic runner?

[d-money]

Pomeranz really has some issues. Reminds me of dice K. He's good for 5 or 6 innings. He starts to lose it.

[cp176]

He should have run some garbage bullpen guy, not one our better starters. It was an accident waiting to happen, especially for a knuckle ball pitcher. For Wright, a jammed finger or broken nail can cause him big problems. And they did not even send him out there with a wrist guard or special protection for his hands. I see position players wearing that stuff. Brett Gardner wears a mitten. It was an extremely stupid move by Farrell, and he did nothing to protect his pitchers hand when he sent him out there.

 

As for the pitcher's code, that goes out the window in a 1 run game. Blanton's career is day to day. If he can pick off an inexperienced base runner in that situation, he is going to do it. There is no blame on Blanton. He has to make a living and try to keep his job. He didn't throw over in a blowout game.

 

I'm fairly ambivalent with how I feel about Farrell in general. He gets too much blame when things don't work out and certainly next to no credit when they do. I have a really hard time not being critical of this move. Argueably our best pitcher who doesn't really look all that athletic. Why? can't defend this one. The only answer looks like it might be why not and that really isn't good enough. His bench coach should be fired.

[SoxnCycles]

It doesn't take a player that steals 30 bags a year to know you don't take a big lead and draw the pitchers attention.

Wright wasn't going anywhere until there was contact and then he has to run until he's out. Any player with any level of experience should be able to handle that.

Wright was dumb for taking more than one step off the bag and Blanton was a dick for throwing over there.