He had a 1.50 CERA through 6 innings. Seems good!
If only he had a decent pen of Paplebon, Wagner, Bard, Ramirez, Okajima, Saito to give the ball to...
With you, never. We know what you are doing. You're one of those nutjobs that constantly pines for the backup catcher. I bet you're one of the football sickos who roots for the 3rd string QB too.
https://www.fangraphs.com/players/jd-martinez/6184/heat-maps?position=DH/OF&ss=&se=&hand=&count=&pitch=&season=&view=bat&data=&grid=&blur=&type=2
He's twice as likely to swing at balls low and in though. He's much better at taking that pitch than Xander is.
He's a 2.6 fWAR guy who struggles in the field. He also makes a lot of money and could be leaving after this year. Sox fans just don't see him as a long term fit. He's a hired gun.
No. With CERA, you are taking partials and dividing them further. You say that CERA is useless on a macro level. Things like OPS+ are made to compare players across the league. CERA, by your definition, cannot. Other stats can utilize a larger sample size. You say that CERA gets worse the larger you make the sample. These two things are not the same.
Yes.
Verdugo has taken a small step back or at least slightly underperformed. Verdugo is still a starting regular, but he's not a potential All Star going forward. Downs and Wong haven't shown much at all to this point.
And what happens when sample sizes are wrong or fraught with other sample differences (opposing lineups, health of players involved, pitchers either declining or improving as time goes on, etc.)?
Randomness!