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sk7326

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Everything posted by sk7326

  1. sk7326
    Quality of the season? No. The value of his quality over say, a Cody Allen. Yes, a little.
  2. sk7326
    Oh I don't know - anytime you get to the rodeo, losing sucks. Once you see an 83-79 team win the World Series with Jeff Suppan as a playoff series MVP, the idea of a team being roadkill in baseball strikes me as crazy. Even the biggest underdog is 40-60 at worst.
  3. sk7326
    You pitch in a ton of big games, you're going to lose occasionally. Baseball is a funny game. If you remember, the ball Rivera threw to lose the 2001 Series was a perfect pitch. In 2011, you never know what would have happened if the Red Sox had stumbled into the tournament. Baseball is weird. I certainly did not predict the last 7 games of the 2004 World Series coming off of an 11 run loss. Papelbon was a good closer for us - and early on a great one. Now did he add a ton relative to a decent replacement? No - but that is because that job does not have that much separation leaguewide. The win expectancy for entering a game with the bases empty and a one-run lead is 80% or 84% (depends on whether you're at home or not). With a three run lead it's more like 95%. So the "average" level of win conversion is very very high.
  4. sk7326
    I think the big question for them is whether Lovullo would take the job permanently - he is ridiculously qualified. He might be sensitive to replacing his best friend under these circumstances. Jason Varitek has never filled out a lineup card at any level - the idea of him managing is cute but a generally poor idea. If you are going to go a route like that, Alex Cora would be a far far more reasonable guy to look at.
  5. sk7326
    Uehara has been unambiguously better than Papelbon over the last three years. even with 15 fewer IP over the comparable three year span.
  6. sk7326
    That's what Hazen, Farrell and Dombrowski get the big bucks for. There is a solid case for starting him in extended spring - if the Sox want to make it. You could also argue that he could use some more at-bats. I feel bad that injury problems put Vasquez a little behind in the competition but that happpens.
  7. sk7326
    Really the Sox have made a point to sign great athletes and put them in the most athletically demanding positions - at least as a starting point, and let internal competition sort the rest out. Making conclusive anythings about Swihart at the dish without considering context is a bit silly. http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/blake-swihart-the-red-sox-mythical-third-prospect/
  8. sk7326
    I actually agree with you - but I don't think being a "good outfielder" in a standard way matters. Carl Crawford was an excellent LF and a disaster his one season in Fenway. I just think it's enough of an outlier that simply having any sort of new guy playing the position is the challenge. It says little about the principle of moving an infielder to LF to hide his glove.
  9. sk7326
    Not so much. The job is a job - pitchers do not like to be shuffled around innings. I understand the human beings at work here - it's like any other job. You want to know your station. But it's very much something you can figure out in house (at least enough to be okay at the position).
  10. sk7326
    The Red Sox mowed through the 2013 season with their THIRD choice for Closer. Three of the four semifinalists that year were using closers they did not start the season with. The Giants won the World Series in 2014 after demoting the guy who was their closer in 2012. The Royals won the World Series with their closer injured and unavaialble Mark Melancon, a pitcher with not especially good stuff who was driven to the airport from Boston became an accomplished closer in Pittsburgh Closers are made not born largely.
  11. sk7326
    I don't know - that put him on par with a #3 starter, which is pretty extraordinary in only 70+ innings. I do agree that a win probability added is a more interesting measure.
  12. sk7326
    (one of Alfonso Sorianio's extensions with the Cubs IIRC) LF is where teams park guys who can't field and the DH spot is occupied - the history is long and vast. Hanley's inability to it is a remarkable outlier. LF is the easiest position on the field (well that or 1B, and you can argue both). For whatever reason it didn't work - on to the other easiest position.
  13. sk7326
    I think that number is higher than you think and largely a function of opportunity. For instance, compare with Tampa Bay (who is a useful control group here) and their highest save guys since 2010 2010: Rafael Soriano v Papelbon (93.8% v 82%) 2011: Kyle Farnsworth v Papelbon (80.6% v 91%) 2012: Fernando Rodney v Papelbon (96% v 90%) 2013: Fernando Rodney v Papelbon (82.2% v 81%) 2014: Jake McGee v Papelbon (83% v 91%) 2015: Brad Boxberger v Papelbon (87.2% v 92.3%) Tampa Bay could approximate Papelbon's performance (and if you think of it - the differences in pct results in only a couple of wins over a season if that) while sifting through the dumpster. I am sure Papelbon could deliver a solid closer's performance this year. But so could a lot of others for a lot less. Hopefully Kimbrel can do a lot more than that.
  14. sk7326
    Keith Foulke in 2003 struck out 26% of the hitters he faced, 23.7% in 2004. Better than Mariano Rivera during that time. Koji struck out 38% of the guys he faced in 2013 (to give you an idea how absurdly brilliant he was). Papelbon's seasons were generally in the high 20s with a couple higher than that. Foulke missed bats plenty. You are right - you don't need hulk smash power, but missing bats is fundamental. The thing about Foulke which was unappreciated is he pitched no fewer than 77 innings between 1999 and 2004. That is more work than Jonathan Papelbon or Craig Kimbrel have delivered in any of their big league seasons. Tito turned to Foulke in their darkest hour, yes - but few relievers of modern vintage were able to take the ball with that sort of frequency.
  15. sk7326
    That the bell curve here spans 1 or 2 wins MAX says a lot about the value of closers generally ...
  16. sk7326
    Or the Rangers signing Ian Desmond - and DOING THE VERY SAME THING What happened to Ramirez was a legitimate freaky outlier. Shaw will have a chance and clearly Sandoval looks more likely to get voted off the island than Ramirez.
  17. sk7326
    His take home pay
  18. sk7326
    The spring numbers don't bother me - I just don't know what he was supposed to work on. One hopes the strikeout-flyball approach he took last year is mothballed, because he has a track record of a very effective ground ball pitcher - I am fairly optimistic about him as a fringy #2, #3 sort. Rodriguez has #1 stuff - sometimes there looked to be issues turning over the lineup on that third look. He definitely had that "one bad inning" issue also. Those are not the sort of things he can work on in the minors - because his stuff is good enough to conquer that without worrying about feel or adjusting. Owens to me has kind of turned into an underrated prospect. He got swings and misses with big league bats - and that is much more to build on than most pitchers have. Now if I were dictator, I'd have him up here as a 100 IP kind of super-reliever where you can manage workload (twice a week, once through the lineup sort of thing), but more likely Pawtucket is the starting spot, and that's ok.
  19. sk7326
    What was interesting was that Papelbon was not really a fastball pitcher as early as 2009. There were definite cracks in his control and (eye test here) his own approach to hitters. He switched from the splitter to his slider as his primary off speed pitch, even though he did not throw it as well. He seemed to relish a more hulk smash sort of approach to me. The more important thing though is whether Papelbon now is significantly better than a median closer - that is, is Papelbon spitting out twice the value (or more) than one of those names who flies by in the later rounds of a fantasy draft (say Cody Allen or Glen Perkins). The answer is pretty clearly no. That's not even really a knock on Papelbon so much as the closer position - there are really only a few who provide a significant leg up.
  20. sk7326
    Dojji is half right. The Papelbon of 2006 to 2008 was as good a closer as ever. Clearly he morphed into a very average one after that - stopped throwing his splitter, too many fastballs (and his fastball was quite good but not amazing enough to not use other pitches)
  21. sk7326
    It was useful for Murphy to get into a camp where he has at least a chance to make it (because he is left handed and there is not tons of evidence that Castillo can hit), and just play. Obviously if a team was going to give Murphy a guaranteed deal he would have taken it.
  22. sk7326
    Koji was a machine that postseason - funny thing is that the most memorable high leverage at-bats involved Breslow and Tazawa. You just hope this team can achieve that sort of game shortening.
  23. sk7326
    What kind of message does it say when a team trades for one with that hanging over him. Not exactly gunning for the "females who didn't date Derek Jeter" vote there. Between that and their ticketing hijinks, Yankees really doing their fans a solid.
  24. sk7326
    What Foulke did was heroic - I have no idea how he got the save in that Game 6. Papelbon in 2007 had one moment for the ages in Game 7 of the ALCS, entering the 8th (when the game was still in doubt, Sox up 3-2) and slamming the door. Boston blew it open in the bottom of that inning. Koji was better in his appearances - but the Red Sox were never down to the felt in that playoff run, so I'd put it a teeny tiny half step down. Well, I'll add one missed one and drop the mic Pedro Martinez - Game 5, 1999 ALDS
  25. sk7326
    No precedent, no charges filed. No smoking gun (like say, a security cam video). The fact is the only thing that they could prove was the gun stuff - and note the only thing Chapman is copping to. Manfred was in a tough spot - this was not a pending case, and the union (correctly) would fight tooth and nail over something large because of the precedent it would set. (essentially a giant suspension on what effectively becomes hearsay) 30 games is a good outcome here. Now the Reyes business - where there ARE criminal proceedings - will be much more educational. That could be much higher. Manfred was in a tough situation here.
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