iortiz

Seems like Keuchel is the real deal this year. Los Astros seem pretty good thus far.

Haha you are right Bell, we have said everything about him already. Time to track his performance from now on, and not only from him but the whole staff as well since this thread is about the whole rotation, isn't it? So let's do it!

Well, you are at stage 1, kind of sensitive when your team L. Some of us are at stage 3 already. We get mad when we lose but do not overreact that much since we realize that it was coming anyways. Hopefully we do not get into stage 4. In that stage you just don't give a f*** about a L. LOL!

That sucks. Hopefully it is nothing serious, we need his bat.

just arrived home and turned the TV to watch the game and is already 4-1? Wow, Clay.

...or probably other teams won't drink that kool aid and won't pay what the sox paid for a #3 LOL!. I think almost all the board has agreed that he is a #3 with a potential to become #2 (which I doubt since the BABIP death will kill him sooner or later to survive in ERAs below 4)

Those are aces. No 1s are in the range of 4-5. No. 2? 3-4. As I said he needs to improve. It is what the Sox are expecting from him to justify the contract since the DR% is below 2 digits and the contract is not that long.

Name me 2.7 WAR pitchers who made/will make 20 M and are committed to do so for 4 Y like Porcello.

You do not like ERA, fine. Around 2.5 WAR players are not #2s or #1s by any means.

As you said, only if he improves, otherwise it will be a bad one.

I would take a longer sample. At least 10 Y to normalise the chart. This is what FG suggests as a good rule-of-thumb Scrub 0-1 WAR Role Player 1-2 WAR Solid Starter 2-3 WAR Good Player 3-4 WAR All-Star 4-5 WAR Superstar 5-6 WAR MVP 6+ WAR #1s in my book are in the last three categories.

Based on his career numbers he is a 4.3 ERA pitcher #3-#4 type on my book.

you are correct.

100 % this and mostly the underlined. This is exactly what I was thinking when I realised that we were going to go with this pitching staff. Kepping proportions, this was what happened in SEP 2011.

At 5%? Lester Porcello $131.12 $73.14 $25.83 $20.63 $25.83 $20.63 $25.83 $20.63 $25.83 $20.63 $25.83 $25.83 It is a bad deal regardless the DR% if he keeps posting what his track record suggests. the lower the rate is, the more likely you can not justify paying high AVV to a middle rotation guy. On there other hand, the higher the DR% is, you better go after better players (like Lester). Said that, the only possibility as I said this contract works out is that this guy becomes a No 2 and in my books a No 2 posts something around (and sustained) 3.5 ERA/3.5+ WAR which is to be seen. BL LIM DR% ---> 0%; High AVV% & mid/long terms are absurd. LIM DR% ----> INF; Better go after better pitchers who have better #s/stuff/durability and have mid-term contracts.

This team has produced a lot of runs. They are at No. 7th in all baseball and just 9 Runs behind SDP which is at No 2 in that department. There's not the issue. On the other hand the pitching is one of the worst pitching staffs in baseball thus far. The NYY, TBR and even the O's haven't been this bad thus far. On the other hand and on the bright side, the FIP (11) and XFIP (12) is not that good as a staff but encouraging in order to expect some regress. The 1 M question is if this regress (if so) will be enough to right the ship.

Yup. Using the discount rate that Bell presented which is around 7.5%, Lester's NPV is around 120 and Porcello's around 70 and not to mention that Porcello is 3 steps downstairs from Lester (4 to me). I can live easily with those 120 M with a durable No 1 type for the next 6 Y if you ask me.

Durability AND sustained good numbers, say over 6 Y, is rare to see in pitching, reason why I would be willing even to overpay, even in early 30s. Lester, Shields and at the time Papelbon are some of the names I like(d).

He has proved several times that he can command an ERA around 3 (No 1 type) and last year below that (ace type).

Divinity put a list of very good pitchers. Problem with some of them is that they are not durable, and Lester has been. I think the risk regarding his durability is not a problem or at least manoeuvrable for the cubs. The same goes for Shields. On the other hand, Porcello could stay forever in 25 and the stuff will never be there to become a No. 1 (5+ WAR pitcher) not even close.

Keep the ace label behind. He is a ~2.5 WAR/4+ ERA pitcher. Not sure if those numbers could apply even for a No 2.

Well, not sure which metric(s)/splits you want to compare. He is a durable & 30 WAR pitcher over 9 Y, thing that some of those above are not.

Sure, problem is that there's not too much good things to talk about. My only hope in this rotation was Kelly but is not performing as I thought.

You keep beating the betting drum. The betting thing was/is just for fun. Where I live is a very common practice, especially at soccer games. We do it all the time in the office, with family, friends, etc. I'm still not sure why is this a big deal. It's not like we are betting our houses or our cars. I'm not trying to rub that I have a couple spare bucks in my wallet. That's BS. Nor I'm trying to match my economic output, again that's BS. Again It's just to put pepper and make the thing more interesting, nothing more. The problem is not to bet or the act of bet as you are presenting since most of the posters were willing and showed some kind of interest to bet at least their sigs and in your case you said that you weren't willing to bet vs me because you hate me, otherwise you would have bet LOL. The problem was what was on the table to bet. My guess is that probably 100 bucks is too much, as YTN said. Probably if the bet was around 20 USD or something like we do it in the fantasy context, probably more were willing to bet, IDK. Either way I respect those who do not want to bet money reason why I already closed my offer. But again, I do not see a big deal about this. The real problem is that you hate me as you said more than 100 burning suns or something LOL!. If my posts irritates you that much why not you put me on ignore as you said you had me once. Not sure why did you decide to remove me from your list. Most of the times I talk about baseball, sometimes good things (like the offense) and sometimes bad things (like this pitching staff and the strategy behind). Problem is that you irritate so easy when the FO is called out, and take this very personal. Still do not know why. Also you have a loooooong track record of fights with a lot of posters since agin, you take so personal when somebody emit a bad opinion specially against the FO. You can defend the FO without insulting other posters and making cliche comments. You think that by doing this you sound more interesting or something but you do not.

It's just for fun Kimmi, and in order to put some pepper and make it more interesting. Thing is that some of you are very sure about Porcello so I found an opportunity to cash some money; as I said, you can't blame me for trying haha. Anyways, we have an agreement, the only doubt I have is how long the sign is going to be managed by the winner? A month? Or how long do you suggest?