evilhand

Nah, he was painting that AB. http://www.brooksbaseball.net/pfxVB/cache/location.php-pitchSel=461829&game=gid_2012_06_09_wasmlb_bosmlb_1&batterX=38&innings=yyyyyyyyy&sp_type=1&s_type=3.gif

Again, predicting an unlikely event that happens to come true does not retroactively make the prediction a good one. The odds that the Sox would need 7 runs were very low. Add to that the fact that Daisuke has actually been fairly dominant today while suffering some awful luck, and the fact that the Nats have scored 4 already is extremely unlikely. If you had asked me what the results of a 5IP, 8K, 1BB, 5H day would be... a 4 run deficit would be one of the last things I'd come up with.

8k, 1BB and 5H through 5 innings so far. His FIP is 3.08 and his xFIP is 1.58. He's been very good and has suffered some really poor luck.

He's sitting in Pawtucket until needed. The FO realizes he's emergency rotation insurance and nothing more. He's just not that good of a pitcher. He strikes no one out and hasn't been able to keep the walks down enough to mitigate that since 2009.

Predicting an unlikely event that happens to occur does not retroactively make that prediction a good one.

He has a career 4.25 ERA with a 4.26 FIP and a 4.54 xFIP. He's a better than average starting pitcher and as a back of the rotation pitcher is very solid. Aside from one or two teams in any given year, no one has dominant starters at the back end of their rotation. Expecting every starter on the roster to be awesome isn't realistic.

One bad inning in his first start back from TJ surgery from a guy proven to be a solid back of the rotation arm and you're ready to toss him aside to make room for... um... well... uh... Daniel Bard again?

I blame this on you for being a negative-nelly.

First walk of the day, though.

No, but they aren't exactly his norm. Seems a pessimistic view considering he's been pretty good through 3. Granted, he's getting a lot of the plate, but his off speed pitches are moving real well and the hitters don't seem to be getting through his deception yet.

Based on what? Even at his worst, Daisuke giving up 7 runs is extremely unlikely. Are you expecting a bullpen meltdown?

Yep, Papi is cooked.

I'm really not sure what to think of that strike out. That wasn't so much a great pitch as it was a really bad swing. Set him up for it well, though.

But you're looking at a rookie on a hot start versus a vet who has been one of the best hitters in the game since 2008. When Youk is healthy it's ridiculous to suggest he should ride the bench, even if his eventual replacement has been hitting well. Besides, if they do intend to trade him, how do they get his value up without playing him? There is absolutely no reason to be sitting Youk right now.

Struck out the first batter on 3 pitches? We're saved!

There are some good indications that Salty has turned the corner. The first is that he's 27, the age you'd expect a player to start his prime years. Add to that the fact that he took a very nice step forward last year in his age 26 season and flashed moments of this kind of dominance here and there. I don't think anyone is going to argue that he's likely to be a .900 OPS hitter for the next 4-6 years, but expecting him to drop back down to his career averages is ignoring the fact that those numbers include his age 22-25 seasons, an age range where most guys haven't even cracked the major league roster yet. At the moment, his ISO is .297, a jump up from last year's .215 which will probably come down a bit, but his walk rate is 6.2%, almost exactly the same as his 6.3 from 2011. So his increased BA and OBP are both dependent on a 2.5% increase in his contact rate and an almost 8% jump in his HR/FB rate. So some regression is very likely, but I think some people here need to be reminded of what regression means. Or, more specifically, what it doesn't mean. When a player is due to regress, it means he's due to return to his true talent level, not that a hot streak is due to be cancelled out by an equivalent cold streak. ZIPS has him hitting .239/.300/.446 the rest of the way, which seems reasonable. If he's actually in the middle of a break out year, he'll probably hit better than that, but for now let's assume last year was a demonstration of about what to expect. That would leave him with a .306 OBP and a .495 SLG on the season which would still leave him as one of the more valuable hitting catchers in the game. And .801 OPS would have been good for 8th best in the majors last year among catchers with 300 or more PAs.

I imagine that the asking price from Ben is probably prohibitive right now. The Sox have no reason to rush into a deal and should be waiting to see if someone blinks and bites at an overpay. Until the outfield gets healthy enough to force them to demote Middlebrooks, there's no pressure to work something out. Even then, they're better off getting Middlebrooks at bats in Pawtucket while giving teams a chance to cave in leading up to the trade deadline. If they're going to trade him, and all indications are that that's the plan, I imagine it won't happen until much closer to the deadline.

I'm really not sure what to expect out of Daisuke today or going forward. The elbow injury may have built up over several seasons or it could have been sudden in 2011, so it's tough to say how much of his performance after 2008 was simply the fact that Daisuke is inconsistent and how much was his arm slowly tearing apart. I'd like to hope that we'll see the guy who's stuff was so good that even with a 5.05 bb/9 he managed a 2.90 ERA, but it would be disingenuous of me to not point out his 4.03 FIP and a 4.64 xFIP that season. Fact is, he's never had lower than a 4.17 xFIP and that was back in 2007. He's just not a top of the rotation starter and likely never will be. But a 7.5 or 8.0 k/9 with a 4.25ish bb/9 and an average of 5.5 or so innings per game would make him a solid back of the rotation arm. Getting that for the rest of the season before he departs as a free agent would make me quite happy. Let's get started on that today, hmm?

.601 OPS at 3rd and 1.010 at 1st, but the sample size is too small to mean much. It was almost identical in 2011 (.836 vs .826) and was split the opposite way in 2010 (.552 at 1st vs 1.000 at 3rd). Where he plays doesn't seem to have any impact on how well he hits. It might contribute to his injury problems, but even that is tough to prove as he started getting hurt before moving back to 3rd.

The premise of the OP is horseshit. Batting average is nearly useless for evaluating the value of a hitter. As are RBIs. Fact is, Youk has put up the following OBP/SLG since the start of 2008. 2008: .390/.569 2009: .413/.538 2010: .411/.564 2011: .373/.459 His slugging definitely dropped during his injury plagued 2011, but he was still an enormously valuable player. He had a May that was in line with his peak years after coming back from the injury he had this spring as well, which is encouraging. And his 2011 line is suppressed significantly by his August and September numbers when he was playing while barely being able to walk. His SLG had dropped a bit up to that point, but his OBP was right in line with his career norm up through the end of July. If you want to argue that he's unable to stay healthy and thus isn't worth holding onto while Middlebrooks is here if they can get a good return for him, fine. That's a reasonable argument. But suggesting he's "the most overrated player" on the team is ridiculous. Dinging him because his stance is unorthodox is like saying he's not a good player because he has no hair or because his cleats are always dirty. And I have no idea what "not a big game player" means. Even with his overall numbers being unimpressive on the year in 2011, he had a .991 OPS with men in scoring position. It's 1.024 this year. In other words, the stats say exactly the opposite of what you're claiming here.

I think the point he was trying to make was that a player being drafted as a short stop does not mean they'll end up as a short stop. Maybe he slides over to 3rd or 2nd, maybe Iglesias never reaches the bigs, maybe he ends up a super utility type. There are plenty of scenarios where he could end up a big league player, not just displacing Iglesias.