sk7326
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Everything posted by sk7326
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Sox have 8 hitters with above league average OBPs in today's starting lineup ... and Middlebrooks has his numbers dragged down from the early season obviously. THAT is how you generate a lot of runs.
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it's fun to show up with guys on base
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Truth here - but at the same time, you see starters get knocked out earlier - not because they pitch worse, but that (and there have been a lot of scouting and coaching sorts who talk about this) higher leverage pitches tire pitchers faster. The outings are just more stressful. Also, hooks are a LOT quicker in October (as well they should be).
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Gomes looks like he thought he got it all ... I could see X possibly taking out Papi soon.
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Chen's a good pitcher - but yeah having a bad day. Just no feel at all. Predictable or not, seriously missing spots. Pitch to Napoli was a meatball, pitch he struck out Middlebrooks on was a meatball (imagine such a fat pitch that Middlebrooks was totally crossed up by it). The pitch to Pedey was probably one of his better ones and look what happened.
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Funny - imagine this inning if Middlebrooks wasn't caught guessing wrong on a BP fastball.
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Interesting small move - Berry is just a guy, but another outfielder is useful. If we get to a wildcard round, where we get a free roster reset, could easily see adding him (you don't expect to need 11 pitchers, or even 7 - for a one game playoff)
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It is an odd quirk. That said 8 HR in 59 IP is not the sort of thing you like out of relievers - but the walks and strikeouts are excellent, enough to work with. He doesn't throw his split enough and gets the ball up in the zone more than you'd like. But the results the last 2 years are there - he is a fine reliever. I think he would have done a solid job closing if they rode him out - but obviously things have gone well this way too . Breslow's K rate this year is below what you'd like too - but the results are hard to argue with. He has been good, better than strictly a matchup lefty. I'm not worried about that part of the team. The interesting choice is who becomes the swing guy. Dempster is the likely, and obvious choice (and I support it definitely). But - I could see an argument for Doubront, not because he has not done a solid job starting, but because his stuff could be very nasty in a "Lincecum 2012" role.
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It's not actually bad at all .. Breslow/Tazawa/Uehara is as good a bridge to the end of the game as any team puts out there. Thornton, Britton are decent. Dempster being converted into a swing man I am confident in (he has bullpen experience, swing and miss stuff and the fastball could be more 92-94 than 90-91 in relief).
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Lopez was a solid lottery ticket sort of trade - Red Sox gave virtually nothing, and Lopez at least "HAD" been an excellent hitting catcher. Bat speed was gone, but dem's the breaks.
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Very much agreed here. If you look at the AL contenders, only Darvish and Verlander are any sort of solid candidates to pitch on 3-days rest. The Sox are in good shape in almost every #3/#4 vs #3/#4 matchup. The top 2 is a little trickier, but a team with Boston's approach at the plate could easily scuffle against a Price but still chase him before the 7th on just pitch counts.
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Yeah they were mucking along until the Buchholz no-hitter, which is an arbitrary endpoint granted - but felt like a lot of weight came off of their shoulders
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Oh whatever. I have memories before that. When Aaron Boone hit the home run - it was the first time I thought I will never see the Red Sox win it. Obviously made 2004 taste so much better - has been hard to really get mad after 2 titles in 5 years. I saw a much drier well.
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the sport would benefit by more balanced schedules. For instance, 13 vs division, 8 against everyone else = 52 + 80 = 132 + 30 against other league. Could end up making it series' vs 10 teams instead of just 5. Basically means everybody in the AL will have 142 of the 162 games be the same - which is a large improvement over the current situatons.
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It is hard to be great every month - it's baseball, even the best records would (if you scaled their record for the number of games) barely qualify for the NFL playoffs or get a top 4 seed in the NBA playoffs. Unless you are the 1998 Yankees (114-48) or 2001 Mariners (116-46), there is going to be some stretches of slogging along. That they have avoided any really bad stretches has been their hallmark all season.
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Foulke was not a 1-inning closer and Francona deployed him in the 7th inning when the outs got very important in the ALCS. The Pirates of the early 90s worked quite successfully with a lot of reliever with a lot of saves. That closers matter is fair - that your best reliever be charged with a relatively adversity free situation is not. The relief ace is not an argument against the closer - but an argument against keeping him in a glass case while letting inferior pitchers get bigger outs in earlier spots in the game. The 2003 Red Sox did not identify a relief ace - Grady drew names out of a hat. Francona identified a relief ace - Foulke and treated him like one. Old timey baseball like Rich Gossage, Dick Radatz, Mike Marshall seemed to figure it out reasonably well - this is not new so much as a refutation of an idea which makes pitching staffs much too large and saddle (especially) NL benches who need all the viable hitters they can get.
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Tie considerations: A division winner or a tie for WC #2, only cases where we get a tiebreaker game ... Tiebreakers: 2-way 1. Head to Head 2. Division Record 3. Record in last 81 non-interleague games 4. Record in last 81+X non-interleague games (X = as many games not involving the two tied teams as needed to break the tie) Three way tie: Teams A, B and C ... game 1: A hosts B, game 2: winner of game 1 hosts C. Team that wins tiebreaker chooses which team they want to be. (host 2 games, or win one road game). Order of draw determined by a process similar to 2 team and not worth getting into
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It is in terms of how runs are scored ... but situational hitting is not a specific skill - the OPS there is not something particularly controllable.
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Lot of good stuff here, and I don't think we're that far apart. That said, while the distribution is decidedly different between Detroit and Boston, in aggregate the teams are almost truly identical offensively. Nearly identical OBPs, SLGs, runs scored, triples. One team uses more homeruns and singles, the other uses more walks and doubles - basically. The total base framework, and it's not a bad one - is more forcefully argued by the difference between Detroit and Boston, two high OBP take and rake squads ... and Baltimore, 3rd in the AL in runs but with a below average team OBP, .317. They do not get many runners on at all - but they have mashed a ton of homeruns and been able to make the comparatively scant number of baserunners count. (if you also want an example of a team that could go into a teamwide funk during a crucial stretch here)
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This team is much better than the 2012 Orioles - and the 2013 Orioles are also a lot better than the 2012 ones. Orioles were a .500 team which had an excellent bullpen (and we know that is unreliable year to year) and an incredibly lucky record in close games. This team has been kicking a lot of butt - and it has not been worse vs good teams ... I mean they have been around .500 against the iron, but you expect that. A team with the general approach at the plate that this team has will create opportunities for itself, even against good pitchers.
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The Buch wait is a concern ... but they have been trucking along anyway. Dempster is clearly the bullpen arm that gets swung - a place where his stuff might play up as the Tim Lincecum of the pitching staff. Like Lincecum Dempster has been shaky as starter, and like Lincecum has legit swing and miss stuff that might be channeled in a short season bullpen. How many of these series would a team bring their #1 back for Game 4 ... the teams with true horses ... Tigers, Rangers, Rays sort of (in theory, but I am not sure they think that their top 3 guys are sufficient) ... it's a short list.
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You're right in the long run certainly ... where hitters are deployed in the long term make very little difference. However, in close games and in the sorts of situations which statistics don't really offer any insight for - being a bit platoon vulnerable can matter. The 1-inning closer thing is much stupider - that is pure misuse of resources.
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The math for scoring runs is very simple: Step 1: Gets lots of baserunners, Step 2: See step 1. If you have a bunch of guys who can just make good at-bats, you are going to get a lot of baserunners and you can get into a team's bullpen quicker. Also, you get the pitcher working from the stretch a lot, and there is some evidence that this is helpful. Do those things, and a lot of good can happen. Even when the Dodgers were slumping earlier, they were getting on base a lot - it was a good omen for turning things around. Good baserunning helps - not stolen bases necessarily but taking bases where you can, avoiding mistakes. With lineups - I am not sure how much protection matters (it might, but not a lot of evidence). But yeah get your best hitters as many PAs as possible and preferably as many PAs with run scoring chances. Batting your best guy either 2nd or 3rd balances those two out well.
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I'd think assuming he is healthy enough to go, Buchholz makes the rotation - usually guys coming off of arm trouble need some regularity, so he wouldn't add value to the bullpen. For me, Dempster is the odd man out - and maybe only having to get 6ish outs at a time, his stuff might play up more. (if you could add another 2 mph to the fastball, that splitter makes a very powerful tandem)
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One of the revelations of the first wave of dorkball analysis was that the willingness to take pitches is really born, not made. Middlebrooks is always going to be a hacker to some degree. You just want to see some evidence of a game plan, foul off some tough stuff, look for "his pitches" at least early in the count. He looks a lot more comfortable than he did in his previous tour - he's never going to be a 50 walk sort.