moonslav59

That's been true back to the days Kareem asked out of Milwaukee and maybe before. BTW, where did Kareem end up? LA. Where did Gretsky end up?

I totally agree. It's almost always about starting pitching. I'm hopeful that the strategy of extra rest early will help our starters be "fresher" than others, and they will begin to perform like we all hoped or expected them to do.

...and my point was that with the "added rest" they got during ST'ing and less IP'd so far this season than previous seasons, shouldn't we expect the starters to carrying the load for the pen, right now as they go through severe struggles? I say yes, but in fact, the exact opposite is happening. If it wasn't for our offense, we'd be 15-20 down right now. Our starters have sucked when we've needed them most.

...and if the pen did allow 5 ERs to score as compared to the 6 by Porcello, it would have been the pen's fault, right? LOL.

Prime example of how you twist a person's statement. He never came close to even implying what you just said. He merely pointed out the true source of the situation of worry.

Porcello's mess is just 3 games deep. He was better than norm in is previous 8-12 starts. Bad for smaller sample size than the other 3. Better for larger sample size prior than others. His last 3 starts were so horrendous that it skews his May 1st to present numbers. I can't make anyone else feel concern or worry over these numbers, but I can say I don't think they are pitching to "norms", of late. 6GS ERod 4.21 (4.21 career/ 4.01 previous 2 years) 6GS C Sale 3.49 (2.97 career/ 2.85 previous 3 years/ 2.56 2 yrs) 5GS Price 4.44 (3.26 career/ 3.74 previous 3 seasons) 5-6 starts is a pretty long time. Plus, ERod actually has a worse 2019 ERA than his previous 6 starts, and he was the only one who pitched a normal amount of ST'ing innings this year. Some cherry-picked numbers ERod since May 15th: 4.73 in 10 starts. CSale since June 22nd: 7.71 in 2 starts. (5.96 last 4 starts/ 3.86 since May 15th- 9 GS) Price since June 9th: 5.40 (4.11 last 6 starts) Porcello's numbers are concerning but mostly just his last 3 starts: 11 GS'd before last 3 GS'd: 3.27 ERA (April 30-June 22) Last 3 GS'd: 12.75 ERA To me, if you are willing to discount smaller and more recent sample sizes in favor of a time frame from around May 1st (4/30 for Porcello), then Porcello should be less of a concern, right? His 4.70 ERA since 4/30 is almost totally skewed by just his last 3 starts, while ERod's last 10, Prices last 6 and Sale's last 9 seem less concerning to you.

I've been a big DHern supporter, but I have to agree, he's not a ML option, right now. Not for a contender, for sure.

I sure hope our big 4 don't continue like the last 28 games: 6GS ERod 4.21 6GS Porcello 6.54 6GS C Sale 3.49 5GS Price 4.44 I'm pretty confident our 4 starters will be fine going forward, but I realize they have to do better than they have been. While a great May was fine and dandy, the numbers after May should be concerning to us all. As for the pen, I'm fine with Workman, Barnes, Brasier and Hembree keeping key roles on the team- just not as the closer. We both agree we need pen help. The debate was about how bad our starters have been and how bad our pen has been up to now, in various time sample sizes that we disagree over the timing and importance of our sample sizes chosen. My position has been that until recently, our pen has not been as bad as the blown saves and site bashing has made them out to be, and that the starters have not gotten the same criticism as the pen has gotten. The pen has pitched many masterful games- sometimes for more than 7 or 9 innings. They have kept us in many games that the starters put us in a massive hole. They have also blown many games- some of which the starters allowed 5 or more runs in short innings before the blown save, but mostly we just hear about the pen losing games for us. No doubt, the pen has lost more games for us that most teams, but they've also been put in a hole and used more often than most contending teams. My expectations for this pen were not high before the year started. My hope was they could do alright until summer trades boosted them to respectability. Until recently, the pen had done better than I expected, which isn't the same as saying they did great or even good. They did a decent job for a while, considering their make-up. Going forward, we need to trade for a decent closer and probably a good set-up man, too. Solve the roster crunch issue by DFA'ing Thornburg and trading out-of-options Johnson. Demote Walden and maybe Velazquez, leaving this... _______ (Closer to be acquired) Workman _______ (Set up to be acquired) Hembree Barnes Brasier Wright Brewer 5th starter: Velazquez or Johnson When and if Eovaldi returns, we'll have to deal with who gets sent down or traded (Velazquez or Brewer?), of we could just try and acquire a solid ace and let the set-up men battle for the 8th inning role.

The only difference is that the pitchers being sought by the big spenders have ERAs of 3.00 and 4.00 not 2.50 to 3.00.

We also have out-of-options Johnson on the IL. There are more squeezes to come beyond Eovaldi and maybe (hopefully not) Thornburg.

Thanks for the update. Are the Sox expected to sign any top 100 IFA's?

LOL. Are you saying you saw no modest to major reasons for concern with Kyrie? Like I said, I was "not alone" or some expert visionary on the subject.

It's not like Walden (or even Velazquez) doesn't deserve a demotion, at this point, but Thornburg is toast. He's done nothing to show he belongs in the bigs right now.

Yes, and the Yankee run differential does not indicate they should have 4 more wins than they do. That was the poster's point, and he was right. Jacko is correct about having a lights out pen, but that is not really the issue. They had a great pen last year, too and had just 1 more win than "expected" over 162 games.

You've been praising the starters despite bad numbers over their last 5 starts and bashing the pen non stop. I've tried to show our starters are more to blame for our predicament than the pen. You twist this to imply I think our pen is good, we need SP'ing not pen acquisitions and because I have no excuse for why this is the case (a totally different debate), my points are unfounded.

No decisions should be made over just 2 starts, so you have a good point. Before the last 2 games, his ERA was... 3.73 in his previous 8 starts 3.30 in his previous 12 starts

Great response, Tyler. I was a big supported of the Porcello trade and extension due to all the contract years being within prime years. He will be post prime this winter, and it is showing. I'd take him back at a big reduction in price, but my guess is some team will overpay by more than my liking, so I'm thinking it will probably be better to let him go elsewhere.

Yes, but his point was about Pythag. not run differential.

A Tale of 3 Starters: GS'd/ERA First 30 games (ST'ing IP 2019 v 2018) 6 ERod 6.16 (15.0- 0.0) 6 Porcello 5.52 (12.0- 16.0) 6 C Sale 6.30 (9.0- 14.2) 5 Price 3.60 (6.2- 12.0) 4 Eovaldi 6.00 (7.0- 16.s w TBR) 3 Velazquez 3.86 (12.0- 18.2) 5.39 team Even if you throw out ERod, our top 4 starters pitched about 6 ST'ing IP less on average than 2018. It's absurd to claim it takes 5-6 starts to make up for "restgate". Second 30 games 6 ERod 3.79 6 Porcello 4.14 6 C Sale 2.82 5 Price 1.88 4 Velazquez 8.71 2 R Weber 7.20 1 J Smith 10.80 4.03 Team This is the only period our starters have done well- the top 4 exceptionally well. Last 28 games: 6 ERod 4.21 6 Porcello 6.54 6 C Sale 3.49 5 Price 4.44 2 Johnson 1.13 1 Velazquez 11.57 1 DHern 9.00 1 J Smith 9.00 1 R Weber 13.50 4.75 Team Nobody here, except for Johnson (2 GS'd) and maybe ERod are close to their recent 3 year norms. Pen IP ERA/ WHIP First 30: 111 IP: 4.47/ 1.36 2nd 30: 115 IP: 3.69/ 1.19 Last 28: 122 IP: 5.04/ 1.57

You keep going, too. Explain why long after restgate, our starters have pretty much sucked or been worse than the norm over the last 5 weeks- the same time length as March-April? You keep wanting to claim that just because a great May 1st to May 31st skews the May 1st to present numbers to barely show our starters are close to but still worse than their previous 3 year norms shows our starters have been doing fine. Throw out the April numbers. Throw out the June 1st to present numbers, and our starters are fine because you choose to not count April and May evens out June, despite evidence that shows 2 starters actually pitched more in ST'ing than last year and the others pitched 4-8 inning less. Stop saying I am the one bringing up the pen. You've been roasting them while praising our struggling starters all along.

That wasn't the point. Despite their impressive run differential, they still have 4 more wins than they should based on Pythagorean. That was the point made.

Yes, and my simplified "non saber" methodology also leaves out games where a RP enter the game with bases loaded, allows a triple, and no runs are charged to him. There was only so much analysis I was going to do for each and every game one-by-one, but I tried. My point was not to show that our pen was great, but there was a time it was doing well enough that I called it a "strength" not a weakness, but that was only in the sense of what they had done up to a specific point in the season- not what I felt they were as trade value or in any sense of what I expected going forward. There hasn't been a day since the end of last season that I haven't felt our pen was the area of greatest need- not even a close second place area. On the Velazquez thing. I think our team is 10-8 in starts by our 5 slot, so my system may have given some wins to the "starter" in a pen game, when if it was truly a "pen game." should have been given to the pen. Either way, the +2, +1... system should flush that out to some extent. The main reason I did this analysis was to show that although our pen had blown way too many saves, they have not been the main reason for our poor record. That's a totally separate issue from what is our weakest area going forward. I found we had two blown saves in one game, so we were double counting as 2 losses not one. I found that we ended up winning some games where a blown save was made further lessening losses that could be blamed on the pen. I found some games where a starter let up 6 runs in 2 IP and the pen let up 1-2 runs in 7 IP, but got a blown save and were "blamed for a loss" that was clearly on the starter. No system of analysis is perfect, and I invited anyone to argue the merits of my system of assigning wins or losses or my point system, or to argue my scoring on any particular game- may one where the pen allowed 3 IR's to score but got credited with a +2. Yes, the pen does have a sort of built in advantage, but starters often got pluses by pitching very few innings or credit for wins for just doing less lousy than the pen. To me, the differential between the pen and the rotation is so great in both or my methods, that I seriously doubt any closer analysis would flip enough grades to change the outcome. Our starters have been more responsible for our losses than the pen, to date. Our pen has been more responsible for our wins than the starters, to date. I'm fairly certain, through game-by-game analysis this is true. I welcome a debate on any grade or W-L assignment I made. Until someone does that or provides a similar or better game by game analysis that shows otherwise, I'm sticking to my position. I also think our pen has been overused, and not just with "pen games" despite having 8 pen arms all year- something we rarely have done in the past. DD & Cora have tried a quantity over quality approach, something I have never been for- either in the pen or the rotation. Due to the last few weeks, I no longer view the totality of our pen's season as a strength. All pens are expected to have more good games than bad. They pitch fewer innings. They can have a 5.00 ERA but pitch 7 scoreless inning for every 2 innings letting up 5 runs combined. That would show a 7-2 success rate. I get that. However, our starters, as a whole, and not just Porcello and the 5 slot, have done poorly this year. Excluding April due to "restgate"is a cop out and contrived to support a position that has very little merit. The fact is our starters have done worse than our pen, but that has not changed my position that our pen needs outside help- big time.

Totally unrelated nonsense. Just because some scrubs RP'ers have overachieved above awful pre-season expectations does not mean any have trade value now. Our pen has done better than our starters. That could mean both have sucked. In evaluating each game, one-by-one, not using sabermetrics, our pen has done decent to well more than they have done poorly. Even bad pens do that. Our starters have done poorly more than they have done well. They have underachieved. It doesn't mean they suck. It doesn't mean I want to trade one away or acquire one. It just means, to date, they have largely sucked. To date, the pen has done better than I expected, but they are not a team strength. They are worse than other pens, and our pen needs to be fixed in a major way. Stop twisting my position into some weird convoluted thing. It's a simple and easily understood position by everyone but you.

Again, you fail to understand clearly stated positions. I have been a strong advocate of acquiring a pen arm since say one of the off season. I do not want us to get a 5th starter because I think we need to spend every last dollar of the available budget on our pen. Our pen need help. It has over achieved for much of the year, but I have no confidence in just about the whole pen, except for maybe Workman and Hembree. I still hold out hope on Barnes and Brasier, but none of these guys should be our closer going forward. I don't think anyone but you has trouble understanding my position. You constantly conflate the fact that I think our pen has done better than our starters, so far this year with the idea that I think they will continue to do better or have done better recently. (By the way, using you twisted logic, our pen has done better over twice as long of a sample size than our starters.) If you actually fread my posts, it has nothing to do with sabermetrics. I actually old-schooled it and went back and examined each and every game we played this year and evaluated who was more responsible for the win or loss- the pen or the starters. It wasn't even close. The pen has been way better at helping us win and keeping us from losing than the starters over the 2019 season. Someone questioned my methodology of using in game ERA to determine who gets credit or fault, since sometimes both did well or poorly, so I went back and assigned a +2, +1, 0, -1 or -2 for each game to the pen and the starters based on IP and ERs allowed. Again, the pen blew the starters away. You look at blown saves and blame the pen for our woes. Certainly, they have lost way too many games for us this year, and that's why I want us to acquire a closer, but the so far this year, the starters have been more responsible for us being 10 down on the Yanks than the pen. It's not a complicated position to hold, but you keep acting like I'd cry if we lost someone from the pen. Or, that by saying our pen has overachieved (from very low expectations) I'm saying they are good and will be good going forward. They've been horrible recently, but you don't like using the last month as a sample size for the starters-- only the pen. Here are the updated results of a non saber look at our pen vs the starters: BTW, Updated last 5 games Starter vs Pen Numbers: 85. W10-6 TOR: Price 6 IP 2 ER- Pen 3 IP 4 ER (Price gets W and +2, pen gets -2) 86. L 3-6 TOR: Sale 5.2 IP 5 ER- Pen 2.1 IP 1 ER (Sale gets L and -2, pen gets -2) 87. W 8-7 TOR: Velazquez 2.1 IP 3 ER- Pen 6.2 IP 4 ER (Pen gets W and -1, SP -2) 88. W 9-6 DET: ERod 5 IP 1 ER- Pen 4 IP 5 ER (ERod gets W and +2- pen -2) 89. W 10-6 DET: Porcello 5.2 IP 6 ER- Pen 3.1 IP 0 ER (Pen gets W and +2, SP -2) By Wins and Losses Responsibility Game by Game: Starters 19-24 (-5) Relievers 30-16 (+14) Alternative Scoring System (+2, +1, 0, -1, -2 given for each game) SP +18 RP +35 If you disagree with a game's grading, I'd be happy to adjust, if warranted. Blown saves suck. We've had way too many. s***** starts suck. We've had way-way-way too many. Again, this does not mean I am arguing the starters will continue being worse or that we need a starter not a reliever. This is ONLY Meant to show you that are starters have been worse than our pen- any way you look at it, except maybe your twisted view that May first to June first counts as much as June first to July 6th and March and April don't count, and May first to now tells all we need to know.

The Jazz could surprise. I'm not sure I'd count the Rockets out either. I think both conferences are pretty wide open. There are certainly some teams with no shot, but a lot of teams look to have improved and were not bad this year.