jacksonianmarch

Tanaka shouldn’t be pitching to Chavis

Beni should have had a granny on that one

Tanaka cannot locate anything. Consider this a pen game. Get Green up then Cortes

Get the pen warming. Tanaka looks awful

Tanaka didn’t hit his spot there. Might be a high scoring affair

Got it in reverse

How’s the game going?

That Chavis error was huge

30 games in a row. 6-0! Boom!

It’s the double show

German’s velo was down and he got rocked in his AAA start, yet they’re rushing him back for Wednesday. I don’t get it. With all the days off, we’ll need only one pen day. I’d stash him in AAA through the break

Yup, it’s not basketball or even football where the best teams always win.

DD is always willing to empty the farm or spend top dollar to improve.

DD is the ultimate gambler. He got safe after a title. Hence why his team isn’t great this year

They shouldn’t scare you. They’re so far ahead of you that you cannot see them enough to be scared

Except everyone has said the Sox won’t do that. Wright’s knee won’t allow him to pitch back to back or pitch many innings. Consider him a multi-inning reliever

Another way to look at the save percentage question is to look at holds and blown saves. For the sake of reference, the Yankees have 29 saves. They have had 41 chances. But they've also had 62 holds. Consider a hold is a late and close situation as well and if you blow a hold, it's counted as a blown save. Therefore, adding holds and saves and then dividing by save opps and holds gives you a hold/save percentage of 88.3%. Looking at the sox, they have 42 holds. A blown hold is a blown save, so if you count that, the sox hold/save percentage is 78.6%. This number is essentially the chance that a pen pitcher handed a close lead is going to either finish the game with the lead or hand it off to someone else with the lead. 21.4% of the time the sox hand a lead to their pen, the pitcher they hand it to will blow the save. That's rather impressive.

The bullpen overachieving is all about what you expected them to achieve. Did you expect them to replicate last year? Did you expect them to drop off? Many Kool Aid drinkers on this site said the sox "would be fine" with their pen. One by one, Walden, Barnes, Brasier and Workman are having good individual seasons. The problem comes about when they are used to procure close leads and it's become worse come June. The makeup of a pen is not about the individual parts. You could have one long reliever who is just getting bombed but you need a live body to absorb garbage time. They will skew the stats. The makeup of a pen is how they can take a close lead and finish the game. That is really when you need them. Going by the sox website... Saves and Save opps March 1 for 1 April 7 for 10 May 4 for 10 June 5 for 12 Now the stupid blown save stat counts anything I think beyond the 6th inning, but it could include any lead handed over. Not entirely sure. But it doesn't just incorporate the 9th inning. As it stands, per MLB.com, the sox are 17 for 33 in saves, leading to a 51.5% conversion rate. The big league average is 65.5%. Only the Mess at 48% are lower. The sox are 29th in save percentage. The sox have had the 8th most save opportunities in baseball, so considering that they have the second worst conversion rate yet have the 8th best amount of chances, this is why the pen is failing. I get the pen WAR and ERA is good. Heck, the sox pen ERA is a few points lower than the Yankees vaunted pen. But the Yanks convert 70% of their save chances in total and when we get to the 9th, we have a closer with a 92% conversion rate.

Stanton has been snakebit this year. Two straight healthy years. This year, he tweaks his bicep during a swing, decides to get his shoulder injected and it didn’t go well. He finally hits the rehab trail, gets hit by a pitch and strains his calf. Finally returns, is hitting the piss out of the ball and sprains his knee sliding into a base. I’d say the first two injuries can be of the “injury prone” variety as they were unprovoked soft tissue injuries. Getting hit by a pitch and an awkward slide are dumb luck. Stanton is expected back in August for the stretch run, per Cashman. I’m still happy as hell to have him. Next year will be a different year

Interesting stat, Barnes has an ERA over 11 on 0 days rest. You cannot use him back to back

The first month of the season was on the manager. Cora decided to play April like it was still ST and his starters were not ready. They rebounded, now the pen is folding under their workload and under their tall expectations. That’s on DD. You’ve essentially got management failure at the end of your window. That shouldn’t have happened

That Betts 2018 was more the exception than the rule

Both teams are away in a foreign environment on a foreign field in a foreign time zone. The Yanks are throwing their ace (Tanaka) in one game and the Sox are throwing their Yankee cryptonite (Porcello) in the other. I called a split a few days ago and I’m doubling down on it.

As anyone can imagine, I really enjoy being proven right. Kimbrel was a lock down closer. He stumbled late last year, but he was elite level for almost the entire year. You knew about 90% of the time that he was gonna lock it down. You lost him. Kelly was hit or miss, but when he was on, he was lights out. Not re-signing those guys isn’t the sin here. Not replacing them is. We all know Barnes isn’t a closer. Wicked stuff, high K rates, folds in the 9th. Reminds me of Betances, the guy just cannot close. Brasier was a flash in the pan as a dominant reliever, but his peripherals pointed to a big regression. Nobody here wanted to see that. There was a reason why he was in the Japanese minors. Workman has earned a bigger role, but he’s walking 6 per 9. You cannot have a closer without elite stuff who walks guys at that rate. Your pen pushed quality middle relief options into setup and closers roles and you’re being burned. You’ve got a month til the deadline. Prices now are gonna be high beyond salary dumps and they’ll drop closer to the deadline. You’re probably gonna have to hope your underwater pen can hold out for another month, but my bet is, it won’t. And I love it

I made the same point over the winter. Man, I am absolutely killing it