The Starting Rotation Performance Thread

[S5Dewey]

More height on the seams = more affect of air flow = more break

 

So less height on the seams = less affect of air flow = less break.

 

We seem to agree that the new and improved baseball is the problem...but disagree as to why. Oh, well!

[Slasher9]

So less height on the seams = less affect of air flow = less break.

 

We seem to agree that the new and improved baseball is the problem...but disagree as to why. Oh, well!

 

the lower seams on the baseball do a few different things to the advantage of offense.

- the lower seams have less drag when traveling thru the air and over the fence. lower seams = longer distance travel in the air.

- the lower seams have less drag when traveling to home plate from the pitchers hand. the CB will have less break. also due to grip (lack thereof) there is a greater chance for that CB to be hanging. hanging CB's = jog around the bases.

- the lower seams give the pitcher less "feel". less feel means less confidence. less confidence = higher ERA.

 

the above are all opinions of poster Slasher9 and are not authorized by TalkSox or any of TS sponsors.

[jung]

Prior to this season, Porcello has been plagued by the HR ball — hence the term “Porcello’s “. He went to the high fastball, because the sinker was playing right into the hands of the new launch angle philosophy. If you want to get outs, you need to pitch up in the zone and go above the uppercut swings. The problem is that Porcello doesn’t have the kind of heat to live upstairs. He needs to be perfect to succeed upstairs. There is nothing wrong with his arm. He needs to make some adjustments to the way he is attacking hitters and needs to have better command.

 

The only year Rick hit the kind of velo he had from 2015-2017 was in his rookie season, 10 years ago in 2009 when he was only throwing 17% FB's. He threw his FB a hair harder than that at 93.5 in 2012 but only threw a FB 13% of the time that year.

 

Right in the middle of his big run here including the Cy year he started throwing his FB virtually as hard as he has ever thrown it at a rate of 27, 21 AND 29% in successive years. This year he is throwing it 32% of the time at the lowest velo of his entire career at 91.5% on average.

 

I just don't see him getting the kind of juice back on his FB that will allow him to pitch like that again. It hardly matters. With 1,973 innings on that arm to this point this year the Sox would be out of their minds to extend him. Would be dumber than extending Sale through 2024 at the start of this season.

 

 

Have you seen Rick generate the kind of velo on his FB he was generating in his Cy year? I haven't. It started to slide last year and he is nowhere near the kind of velo he was generating in his Cy year this year.

[a700hitter]

The only year Rick hit the kind of velo he had from 2015-2017 was in his rookie season, 10 years ago in 2009 when he was only throwing 17% FB's. He threw his FB a hair harder than that at 93.5 in 2012 but only threw a FB 13% of the time that year.

 

Right in the middle of his big run here including the Cy year he started throwing his FB virtually as hard as he has ever thrown it at a rate of 27, 21 AND 29% in successive years. This year he is throwing it 32% of the time at the lowest velo of his entire career at 91.5% on average.

 

I just don't see him getting the kind of juice back on his FB that will allow him to pitch like that again. It hardly matters. With 1,973 innings on that arm to this point this year the Sox would be out of their minds to extend him. Would be dumber than extending Sale through 2024 at the start of this season.

 

 

Have you seen Rick generate the kind of velo on his FB he was generating in his Cy year? I haven't. It started to slide last year and he is nowhere near the kind of velo he was generating in his Cy year this year.

I don’t think velocity is his issue. I don’t think losing a tick on his FB should turn him from Cy Young into a punching bag with a 5.5 ERA. He hasn’t lost 5 mph. He was a punching bag last August and September with a 5 + ERA, but he got his shot together to pitch some very good games in the post season. He didn’t find extra velo for the offseason. This juiced ball is forcing him to be perfect up in the zone. He may have to go back to his sinking 2 seamer from his Detroit days.

[jung]

I don’t think velocity is his issue. I don’t think losing a tick on his FB should turn him from Cy Young into a punching bag with a 5.5 ERA. He hasn’t lost 5 mph. He was a punching bag last August and September with a 5 + ERA, but he got his shot together to pitch some very good games in the post season. He didn’t find extra velo for the offseason. This juiced ball is forcing him to be perfect up in the zone. He may have to go back to his sinking 2 seamer from his Detroit days.

 

The thing is, he can't often if at all throw his FB up and out of the zone any longer and there is often very small degrees of dif between the pitch thrown with enough velo to have it rise out of the zone and not having enough zip to do that. It is certainly not the dominant pitch it was for Rick for a couple years. Its not even a good pitch for him now where its landing at 91 or so.

 

Sale is trying to overthrow it to get it up there. Thankfully, Rick does not appear to be trying that approach.

 

Again, I doubt it matters. Rick will have thrown close to if not over 2000 innings by the end of this year. The Sox are not going to extend him pitching the way he is pitching. IMO, so starts his years of real decline. I doubt he can just will his Sinker back into being either. Guys get old. If anything Rick hastened the process. But he got a Cy out of it and at the back end of it, a WC. But it probably cost him a couple more years of decent pitching at a time when the pitching is soooooooo bad at the MLB level that a couple years of even decent pitching might have been just fine for Rick.

Edited July 22, 2019 by jung

[Swiharts Ghost]

This is all conjecture on my part with the new balls but here's what I remember when I pitched from my coach .FB is the most devastating pitch there is when located .Meaning a pitcher can't just throw a ball fast to be successful hell Hanson would have been a HOFer if that was the case .Movement in the zone is created mostly by pressure on an inward or outer seam at the point of both a high conventional release or even the 3 quarter .The truth is it's not taught anylonger .Pedro Martinez at his pinnacle was a master a amotzart as you will at coloring inside the zone .Pedey would pinch the inner half hard if wanted to dot Derek Jeters ass or he would lighten up to create late movement .I see none of this and think Dana is not effective in teaching nuances.

[TylerD]

The thing is, he can't often if at all throw his FB up and out of the zone any longer and there is often very small degrees of dif between the pitch thrown with enough velo to have it rise out of the zone and not having enough zip to do that. It is certainly not the dominant pitch it was for Rick for a couple years. Its not even a good pitch for him now where its landing at 91 or so.

 

Sale is trying to overthrow it to get it up there. Thankfully, Rick does not appear to be trying that approach.

 

Again, I doubt it matters. Rick will have thrown close to if not over 2000 innings by the end of this year. The Sox are not going to extend him pitching the way he is pitching. IMO, so starts his years of real decline. I doubt he can just will his Sinker back into being either. Guys get old. If anything Rick hastened the process. But he got a Cy out of it and at the back end of it, a WC. But it probably cost him a couple more years of decent pitching at a time when the pitching is soooooooo bad at the MLB level that a couple years of even decent pitching might have been just fine for Rick.

 

Funny enough, when Sale wasn't trying to over throw he had a very nice stretch earlier this season. I don't know why he feels the need to over throw and try and be fancy when his slider, curve and breaking work just fine as is. Does he have the fast ball he used to? No he does not.... Though in the Jays game he can still get it up to 97 however the accuracy is not even close when he is throwing it that fast...... He has enough talent with his other pitches and his fast ball at 92 to give us 6 or 7 solid innings. I hope he realizes that at the end of the season. He is not the Sale of last year but he can still be very very effective if he stopped trying so damn hard and settled down. With that said he was fantastic his last start so let's hope that continues the rest of the way.

[jung]

Funny enough, when Sale wasn't trying to over throw he had a very nice stretch earlier this season. I don't know why he feels the need to over throw and try and be fancy when his slider, curve and breaking work just fine as is. Does he have the fast ball he used to? No he does not.... Though in the Jays game he can still get it up to 97 however the accuracy is not even close when he is throwing it that fast...... He has enough talent with his other pitches and his fast ball at 92 to give us 6 or 7 solid innings. I hope he realizes that at the end of the season. He is not the Sale of last year but he can still be very very effective if he stopped trying so damn hard and settled down. With that said he was fantastic his last start so let's hope that continues the rest of the way.

 

Sale pretty much stayed within himself in his last start against the Jays and that not only helped his FB command but seemed to help his command of everything else. Kept his FB between 91-93 up till the last FB he threw which he humped up to 96-97. That was a horrid 3-2 pitch that was so far out of the zone that it did not even deserve a swing. But many hitters now will swing at a pitch in the ear hole having convinced themselves that they are swinging no matter what. Sure enough, the hitter swung and bailed Sale out. Had the hitter let it go, he would have walked and Sale would have been facing bases loaded, two outs.

[Fan_since_Boggs]

I don’t think velocity is his issue. I don’t think losing a tick on his FB should turn him from Cy Young into a punching bag with a 5.5 ERA. He hasn’t lost 5 mph. He was a punching bag last August and September with a 5 + ERA, but he got his shot together to pitch some very good games in the post season. He didn’t find extra velo for the offseason. This juiced ball is forcing him to be perfect up in the zone. He may have to go back to his sinking 2 seamer from his Detroit days.

 

Porcello has been so bad that his free agent market should be pretty depressed. It might not be a bad idea for the Red Sox to resign him to a team friendly one year contract as he reinvents himself next year, relying more on his 2-seam sinker. I would only do this if Porcello is willing to sign a one year bargain contract.

[notin]

Porcello has been so bad that his free agent market should be pretty depressed. It might not be a bad idea for the Red Sox to resign him to a team friendly one year contract as he reinvents himself next year, relying more on his 2-seam sinker. I would only do this if Porcello is willing to sign a one year bargain contract.

 

 

What else do you think he’ll get?

[a700hitter]

The thing is, he can't often if at all throw his FB up and out of the zone any longer and there is often very small degrees of dif between the pitch thrown with enough velo to have it rise out of the zone and not having enough zip to do that. It is certainly not the dominant pitch it was for Rick for a couple years. Its not even a good pitch for him now where its landing at 91 or so.

 

Sale is trying to overthrow it to get it up there. Thankfully, Rick does not appear to be trying that approach.

 

Again, I doubt it matters. Rick will have thrown close to if not over 2000 innings by the end of this year. The Sox are not going to extend him pitching the way he is pitching. IMO, so starts his years of real decline. I doubt he can just will his Sinker back into being either. Guys get old. If anything Rick hastened the process. But he got a Cy out of it and at the back end of it, a WC. But it probably cost him a couple more years of decent pitching at a time when the pitching is soooooooo bad at the MLB level that a couple years of even decent pitching might have been just fine for Rick.

I think that he is still capable of pitching to his career ERA of 4.25 while eating innings.

[TylerD]

Give E Rod all the starts. He has been beautiful.

[moonslav59]

The team record with ERod since 2018:

 

35-9

[SPLENDIDSPLINTER]

Give E Rod all the starts. He has been beautiful.

 

Similar to when Roy Orbison performed with the Traveling Wilburys. Tom Petty told his bandmates "let Roy sing all the songs."

[SPLENDIDSPLINTER]

The team record with ERod since 2018:

 

35-9

 

35-9? Totally unacceptable.

[moonslav59]

35-9? Totally unacceptable.

 

The damn pen!

[Fan_since_Boggs]

What else do you think he’ll get?

 

I don't know, but maybe his free agency will be similar to Dallas Keuchel? That is, no team will step up with a long term lucrative offer. With Keuchel, draft compensation was involved and that won't be the case with Porcello. Regardless, Keuchel was coming off a better year than Porcello and still couldn't get a long term deal.

[moonslav59]

I don't know, but maybe his free agency will be similar to Dallas Keuchel? That is, no team will step up with a long term lucrative offer. With Keuchel, draft compensation was involved and that won't be the case with Porcello. Regardless, Keuchel was coming off a better year than Porcello and still couldn't get a long term deal.

 

Keuchel is a great comp. They will be almost the exact age at the point of free agency (BD's 5 days apart). They both won a CY Young at age 27 and have not really come close before of after, although Keuchel has come closer than Porcello.

 

Keuchel had better numbers over his previous 5 seasons:

 

Keuchel/ Porcello

ERA+

132/113 (DET)

157/87

86/142

141/98

109/103

WHIP

1.18/1.23

1.02/1.36

1.29/1.01

1.12/1.40

1.31/1.18

 

No QO will make the situation much different for Porcello. He'll probably get something like $40M/3, IMO.

 

[notin]

I don't know, but maybe his free agency will be similar to Dallas Keuchel? That is, no team will step up with a long term lucrative offer. With Keuchel, draft compensation was involved and that won't be the case with Porcello. Regardless, Keuchel was coming off a better year than Porcello and still couldn't get a long term deal.

 

The big difference is Keuchel rejected a Qualifying Offer. If Porcello gets one, he might not reject it...

[Fan_since_Boggs]

Unless he turns it around quickly, I doubt the Red Sox make Porcello a qualifying offer. At this point, I suspect Porcello would accept the qualifying offer.

 

The other big difference: Porcello has an ERA+ of 85. Keuchel entered the free agent market with an ERA+ of 109. If Porcello doesn't significantly improve his ERA+ by the end of the season, I would expect Porcello's offers to come in below whatever Keuchel was offered.

[YastrzemskI]

The stage was set for Sale to make a statement tonight.. what grade would you give him? What has happened to the dominant Sale? He’s right when he called himself “a liability”. An “Ace” has got to do better than what we saw tonight.

[TylerD]

He has simply sucked against the top teams. Simple as that. Any decent offense makes him look like a joke. It is what it is. He was a fail again tonight. When was the last quality start he had against the Yankees?

[jacksonianmarch]

ESPN had a graphic about Sale’s fastball velocity. When under 94, his OPS against is over 1.000. When over 94, it’s under .600. Sale’s fastball wasn’t the issue last night. He couldn’t keep his slider in the zone and his change was just hanging there. He had some velocity last night with some 95+ pitches, but mostly sat right around 92-94.

 

Sale is in a transition phase, which makes his extension just extraordinarily stupid. They didn’t have to offer it when they did. Sale needs to focus on the lower part of the zone. Nibble corners, sweep the slider for the K. Use the change more. With Sale’s stuff in flux, you’re still gonna see high K numbers, but he’s gonna leave more than his fair share of balls in the middle and that’s gonna result in high Hr totals and high ER totals. We saw this with CC in 2012-2013. He became unreliable. He never regained ace level reliability, but he gained respectability and consistency when he transitioned to a crafty lefty vs a power lefty

[Bellhorn04]

Sale is in a transition phase, which makes his extension just extraordinarily stupid. They didn’t have to offer it when they did.

 

It was a gamble, that's for sure. But it was likely the only opportunity they had for an extension. A lot of players won't talk contract once the season starts.

 

Based on Henry's comments, they didn't want to make the same mistake they made with Lester.

 

This could turn out to be a different kind of mistake, of course.

[moonslav59]

It was a gamble, that's for sure. But it was likely the only opportunity they had for an extension. A lot of players won't talk contract once the season starts.

 

Based on Henry's comments, they didn't want to make the same mistake they made with Lester.

 

This could turn out to be a different kind of mistake, of course.

 

If Sale was having a great year, we'd all be saying what a great extension it was. The Lester example is perfect. Look how much Sox fans roasted Sox management over that one.

 

The deal may still turn out to be worth it. I remember many people thinking Sale should and would get more than Price got. He got less years, less money and structured it so the luxury tax hit would be lower.

 

 

[Kimmi]

Sale has been frustrating to watch this year, much like Price was in his first season with Boston. He may be transitioning, and the extension may have been a little premature, but I'm willing to bet that Sale will re-establish himself as an ace very soon. Provided he stays healthy, that is. He works too hard and he is too much of a fierce competitor not to.

[Kimmi]

If Sale was having a great year, we'd all be saying what a great extension it was. The Lester example is perfect. Look how much Sox fans roasted Sox management over that one.

 

The deal may still turn out to be worth it. I remember many people thinking Sale should and would get more than Price got. He got less years, less money and structured it so the luxury tax hit would be lower.

 

 

 

I bet when all is said and done, Sale will be well worth his contract.

[moonslav59]

I bet when all is said and done, Sale will be well worth his contract.

 

I agree.

 

If not, I doubt he turns into a total bust.

 

As frustrating as he has looked this year, he has had some nice games and nice short runs of dominance.

 

He started May off with a 1.29 ERA in his first 3 games with 41Ks and just 1 BB!

 

Here's a breakdown:

 

First 4 starts:

8.50 ERA (.943 OPS Against)

 

Next 11 starts:

2.24 ERA (.540)

 

Next 4 starts:

7.59 ERA (.974)

 

Next 2 starts:

1.50 ERA (.496)

 

Then, yesterday's start:

5.1 IP 6 ER

 

He's basically been ok to great for 13 starts and horrible for 9. We are 8-14 in his 22 starts.

 

[YastrzemskI]

I agree.

 

If not, I doubt he turns into a total bust.

 

As frustrating as he has looked this year, he has had some nice games and nice short runs of dominance.

 

He started May off with a 1.29 ERA in his first 3 games with 41Ks and just 1 BB!

 

Here's a breakdown:

 

First 4 starts:

8.50 ERA (.943 OPS Against)

 

Next 11 starts:

2.24 ERA (.540)

 

Next 4 starts:

7.59 ERA (.974)

 

Next 2 starts:

1.50 ERA (.496)

 

Then, yesterday's start:

5.1 IP 6 ER

 

He's basically been ok to great for 13 starts and horrible for 9. We are 8-14 in his 22 starts.

 

 

Good grief what a mess. His last start was the icing on the cake. It really was. We had a sweep on a silver platter with our supposed

"Ace" on the mound to seal the deal. He has not had the run support this year. I will be the first to admit that. But he has been inconsistent

AT BEST, this year. If anyone knows what is going on with Chris this year please fill the rest of us in. Seriously.

[moonslav59]

Good grief what a mess. His last start was the icing on the cake. It really was. We had a sweep on a silver platter with our supposed

"Ace" on the mound to seal the deal. He has not had the run support this year. I will be the first to admit that. But he has been inconsistent

AT BEST, this year. If anyone knows what is going on with Chris this year please fill the rest of us in. Seriously.

 

I'm no expert on Sale, but he has lost some velocity. The "juiced ball" has taken some of the movement away from breaking balls. Sale is trying to adjust to these changes. I have faith he will get back on track, but I have no idea how long it may take to do so. I'm hopeful it will happen before October, and maybe he'll finally break the mold of late season decline and be the ace when we need him most.

 

BTW, Price gets paid more than Sale and is pitching like an ace (for 5 innings/game). ERod has been our true ace for 2+ months.

 

Maybe we just need Sale to be a solid #3 this year and be a co-ace in 2020 and beyond. (We basically won without him, last year.)