Masa career splits:
Vs. RHP .810
Vs. LHP .669
Home .814
Away .740
The poor numbers against lefties have induced Cora to sit Yoshida against some lefty starters, further limiting his usefulness.
Oh, I do accept it. They have to max out the money. But I'm also aware of how it rewards mediocrity.
The fact we stunk so bad for so long does make the impact of the Sale trade less painful, I readily admit.
They did, thanks to the participation badge playoff format.
What seems to be a little under the radar is exactly how putrid they were after the ASB. Even after Casas and Story returned they were putrid. And the pitching staff was relatively healthy compared to a lot of other teams.
It really is something how low expectations have sunk that we're still somewhat upbeat after playing .420 ball for our last 2.5 months.
True. It was 2012 when he started to really tail off.
Power expectations for him were a bit inflated I guess. People thought if he could hit 30-40 HRs a year in San Diego, you could bump that to 35-45 in a better hitting environment.
He's talking about the analytics on the pitching side:
We have been heading here for years via the metric revolution. It became understood that all pitchers should throw it harder, spin it more and max out on every pitch. That has led to both more injuries and shorter starts. The shorter starts are due to not holding back anything pitch to pitch for a marathon. And why hold back? Many starters these days are not allowed to go around a lineup more than twice —sometimes once this time of year.
Copying this link to article by Joel Sherman on how analytics is shredding pitching staffs, because:
a) No one is paying much attention to that thread on The Future of Baseball, perhaps because of where it's situated;
b) This thread has been temporarily re-purposed as the 2024 Postseason Thread; and
c) I don't think moderators should devote undue time to moving posts around. Trying to get Talksox posters to follow posting rules would be like trying to herd cats.
😀
https://nypost.com/2024/10/18/sports/mlb-bullpens-appear-to-be-reaching-a-breaking-point/
Agree on Weaver and Homes, but Clase only pitched in Games 3 and 4. Considering what an amazing season Clase had, yeah, this has been a tad surprising to me.
But it's baseball and that explains just about everything...