moonslav59

If you're talking to me about Vaz and Swihart, yes I have seen both play in Portland. Just about every scout and Sox management person would agree that Vaz is the better defender.

We all know a ton of luck is involved, and that, I suppose could be synonymous with randomness.

We'll probably sign a couple vets to minor league deals.

Yes, and I bet you can find some flowery quotes on Ross, Barnes, Scott, Hembree and Abad, but not all of these guys can be on the 25 man roster on opening day. No good GM is going to say something bad about a player of his this time of year. He wants every player thinking positively about his chances next year. BTW, I'm very optimistic about Kelly and always have been, perhaps too much so. I'd put him ahead of Ross right now as our number 3, which might be more than many here would do, but I don't see him as a lock for being on the 25 man roster opening day, especially if Wright is in the pen. Currently, this is how I rank our pen: 1 Kimbrel 2 Thornburg 3 (C Smith) 3A Wright 4A Kelly 5A Ross 6A Barnes 7A Hembree 8A Abad (phantom DL or traded or DFA'd) 9A Scott 10A Workman/Elias/Ysla/Martin/Owens or Johnson

It does seem pretty hard to explain why doing a statistical analysis of all a spread sheet of a 25% occurrence over a 650 sample size so closely correlates to an analysis of all .250 MLB hitters spread sheet over 650 ABs. Nobody expects a hit every 4 ABs. There will be "grouping" of hits and outs here and there that deviate from the from- some by a lot. I'm not saying all hot and cold streaks are 100% random. I don't think that is correct, since a skill is involved that makes some hitters 30% likely to get a hit rather than 25% or 20%. However, it's very hard to look at the similarity between random 25% occurrences and hitting logs of hundreds of .250 hitters and not think randomness plays a very strong role. It's hard to prove everything is totally random since each AB is not the same as a random generated computer program. A batter might face 10 straight bad pitchers. If he hits .350 in that stretch, would we call it "random"? Each AB is a unique set of differing circumstances that we tend to think all even out between hitters and pitchers over a large sample size, but this just isn't true. A good fastball .250 hitter playing in a division loaded with mostly fastball pitchers of questionable skill levels will probably do better than if he played in a division with a lot of good non fastball pitchers.

For years, I have mostly used just these stats/metrics to value SP'ers past performance (in order of importance): 1) ERA- 2) OPS against 3) WHIP 4) WAR 5) xFIP- It's not easy to find the league leaders in OPS against or wOBA against or better yet OPS+ against/wOBAplus or minus against.

Yes, even if ERod starts out healthy, I'd say our starter depth is a big concern. I do think we can still make the playoffs with Owens, Johnson, Workman and Elias getting 35 starts.

More on Kelly. I'm one of the few posters who liked the Lackey trade within the context of knowing he had 1 year of team control as compared to Kelly's 4 years. Kelly has some nasty stuff, but he's been more inconsistent than Buch, but without the injuries to blame it on. Kelly's ERA 1st half/2nd half 2012: 2.70/3.91 2013: 3.88/1.91 2014: 3.44/4.38 2015: 5.67/3.77 2016: 8.46/1.02 Kelly's monthly ERAs 2012: 3.38/2.67/4.70/3.28 2013: 8.31/5.40/0.96/2.55/2.08/2.10 (a great June>Oct-15 GS'd) 2014: 0.59/7.32/3.86/4.32 2015: 4.94/6.53/5.23/8.32/2.68/3.86 (Going 8-0 in his last 9 GS'd caused him to win a spot in the 2016 April rotation, but he was horrible for the first 4 months. Kinda the same for 2016.) 2016: 9.35/3.97/27.00/2.45/0.64 I still like Kelly a lot, but the guy is very unpredictable. There's no way I see him as having a lock on anything to start 2017. I do see him as having a good chance to be our 7th inning/occasional 8th inning set-up man, and I wouldn't argue with anyone who has him as our number 3 or 4 RP'er behind Kimbrel, Thornburg and maybe Ross at this moment (assuming Smith starts on the DL), but I would not be shocked, if he struggles in ST'ing and begins the year at AAA. This fact highlights my concern over our pen. The arguing over Abad, Hembree, Barnes, and to some extent Kelly and Ross is a debate over near replacement level pitchers. In many ways one could argue it doesn't matter much who we start out with on opening day. It's one reason I was so strongly against the notion of starting a healthy ERod in AAA. To me, Pom or Wright in the pen is a huge upgrade over any of our bottom feeders.

I too think we are much more likely to use the phantom DL to keep Abad or Hembree in our control than start Kelly in AAA at season's start. I will say that DD's quotes on Kelly could be 100% truthful, but they could still begin with him at AAA, especially, if they want him to be our starter depth. Again, I think it's highly unlikely we start any of our best pitchers in AAA (like ERod or Kelly) just so we can keep Abad on board. If ERod starts the season on the DL, then the roster "crunch" is settled at least until ERod and C Smith return. I, for one, don't see us having a roster crunch, since I do not think Abad is worth the $2M he might get in arb this year. I'd trade him or cut him before I paid him $2M. I like Hembree, but I'd still rather sing Holland or another RP'er or swingman for $3-6M and trade Hembree.

So, maybe we should trade Henry Owens for Buchholz as Philly pays $10M of the $13.5 owed. Just kiddin'!

I like Wright a little more than Pom, but maybe both end up as starters, if ERod's knee is still an issue.

Any chance we make a play for one of these remaining FA RP'ers? (from MLBTR) The 36-year-old Santiago Casilla has saved 127 games, including 31 in 2016, but he racked up a major league-worst nine blown opportunities last season and, despite posting 10.09 K/9 against 2.95 BB/9, logged his highest ERA (3.57) since 2009. On the plus side, Casilla exceeded 50 innings for the seventh straight year (58), recorded a respectable ground-ball rate in line with his career average (47.6 percent compared to 48.7 percent) and didn’t experience a drop in velocity. Sergio Romo, who will turn 34 in March, got better results than Casilla last year (2.64 ERA), but he only threw 30 2/3 innings and saw his velocity tumble to career lows. Despite that, Romo’s 14.9 percent swinging strike rate was in the upper echelon among relievers, as was his 13.9 percent infield fly mark (slightly better than Casilla’s 13.2). Romo also yielded the second-lowest exit velocity in the majors, per Statcast, to go with 9.68 K/9 against 2.05 BB/9. While Romo didn’t figure prominently into the ninth inning over the past couple seasons, he nonetheless has an accomplished end-of-game resume with 84 saves and 141 holds in his career. No free agent has done a better job securing wins than longtime Royal Greg Holland, who has 145 saves (125 of which came from 2013-15). Holland was especially brilliant between 2011-14, a four-year period during which he combined for the majors’ fourth-best ERA (1.86) and the league’s sixth-ranked K/9 (12.57) across 256 1/3 frames. Holland then fell off in 2015 (3.83 ERA), a year in which his velocity declined and his BB/9 spiked to 5.24 (up from 3.52), thanks in part to a “significant” UCL tear. That injury led to October 2015 Tommy John surgery for Holland, who missed all of last season as a result. In spite of that, a hefty portion of the league has expressed interest in the 31-year-old this winter. Like Casilla, Romo and Holland, Neftali Feliz brings vast ninth-inning experience (99 saves), though the ex-Rangers closer worked as a setup man with the Pirates last season. Along the way, Feliz accumulated 29 holds in 53 2/3 frames and registered a 3.52 ERA, 10.23 K/9 and 3.52 BB/9 to bounce back from a 2015 in which he finished with mediocre or worse numbers in those three categories (6.38 ERA, 7.31 K/9 and 3.38 BB/9). The 28-year-old did put up the second-lowest infield fly rate of his career last year (15.4), but it was still easily above the 9.9 percent league-average figure and went well with a personal-high swinging strike mark of 14.2 percent. Feliz also saw his velocity jump in 2016, which could further entice clubs searching for late-game help. Contrary to the above four, Joe Blanton has never been a closer – the 36-year-old has mostly worked as a starter, in fact – but not many have been better out of the bullpen over the past couple seasons. Last year was Blanton’s first as a full-time reliever, and the then-Dodger finished sixth in innings (80) and compiled a 2.48 ERA, 9.00 K/9 and 2.93 BB/9. The slider-heavy Blanton also got swinging strikes a career-high 14.2 percent of the time (up from 13.0 in 2015), though both his 32.3 percent ground-ball rate and 5.3 percent infield pop-up mark stand out as concerns.

I used to argue the same with Wakefield. People continually argued his knuckleball was too unpredictable and you "never knew which Wake as going to show up". I went back and calculated how many horrible starts he had as a percent and found his "blow up" rate was not worse than other starters with a similar ERAs, in fact he was better than the norm. I think many people are biased against knuckleballers. They watch them pitch and think they are just lobbing the ball in there. To me, when you see catchers having a difficult time catching a knuckler, that should not be viewed as a negative on the pitcher. Think of it this way: if a trained catcher is having difficulty catching a knuckleball with a big mitt, imagine how hard it is for a batter to hit it with a smaller round bat!

Probably because Wright is a 6th starter and Buch will be a 3-5 starter.

You are talking about 2014 with Swihart and 2013 with Vaz. 1) Swihart caught 701 innings at AA and 143 at AAA that year not 844 at AA as you presented. 2) Vaz caught 9 innings at AAA in 2013. 3) Steven Wright did pitch 5 IP at AA and 95 at AAA in 2014. I'm not sure who his catcher was. 4) Charlie Haegar, a knuckleballer, pitched 70 innings with Portland in 2013- none in 2014. He had 11 WPs in AA in 2013, so my guess is there were a lot of PBs with him pitching that year. 5) I'm not sure PBs is the best stat to choose one guy over another, especially when they both caught different pitchers and no pitch framing numbers are included in your cross study.

ERA- and ERA+ are both "better" or "more important" stats than ERA. Since most of us use OPS or wOBA to judge hitters' effectiveness, I feel OPS against and wOBA against should be a major tool used to judge a pitcher's skill level. Of course, some pitchers face much tougher opponents and play in different parks, so OPS- or wOBA- should be used to help adjust for those factors.

But, even those stats rely heavily on high Ks. They might bring Maddux up, but still short changes a large group of great low K% pitchers.66

Say Pom or Wright gets hurt, we'll still have a great 4 starters and a replacement level 5th starter. I'm not sure I'd call that "serious trouble", but it is a concern. We still won the division last year (yes, we can now say last year!) with this from some of our starters: IP Pitcher W-L ERA 117 Buchholz 6-8 5.01 107 Rodriguez 3-7 4.71 67.1 Pomeranz 3-5 4.68 22.1 Joe Kelly 2-0 8.46 22.0 H Owens 0-2 6.95 20.1 O'Sullivan 2-0 6.64 4.0 R. Elias 0-1 15.75 Wright, who was our 6th starter last year is now our 6th starter (maybe 5th depending on ERod's knee), so adding a full year and hopefully a better one by Pomeranz and Wright as the number 5 still looks so much better than 2016 that maybe having a 5.50 ERS guy as our 5th starter would not be such a horrible thing. Once we make the playoffs, our 5th starter is a non issue.

I'm pretty certain we'll end up signing one of these type pitchers for added depth.

I never thought of myself as a perfectionist. I don't think of myself as greedy either, but I think getting spoiled led to getting greedy. H A P P Y N E W Y E A R !

I feel blessed to be able to watch Papi play for the team I have loved since childhood. Add to Papi the joy I had watching Pedro and Clemens put up some of the best performances in MLB history, and I wonder why I ever complain about anything to do with the Sox of the past 2 decades.

I remember during that championship game that I was "in a zone", I went up for an uncontested 10 foot jump shot, but I spotted a wide open teammate undeR THE RIM. I drilled a pass to him and he botched the gimmie. On the way back on D, he told me, "Take the shots you know you can make!" I guess Pistol Pete would have.

I agree. Also, it seemed like an inordinate amount of Papi's great playoff OPS came at the most clutch times within the context of the playoffs being clutch by itself in its entirety. So many walk off hits and HRs. The grand slam vs Detroit when the whole team was looking shell-shocked on offense that night.

I realize that high K rates correlate closely with good pitching, but that's not the same as saying a player should be judged significantly by high K rates at the expense of lower wOBA, WHIP and ERA-..

I've accepted that K% is a better predictor for most pitchers and the league as a whole. The stats show this. Anecdotal evidence is not meaningless, however, as a whole (large) class of pitchers are short-changed. It's not an outlier when you're talking 4000 IP sample sizes. Pitchers like Maddux should not be rated poorly for not getting K outs instead of GB outs. My point is about evaluating a pitcher's performance in the past. To me, a combination of ERA-, WHIP and OPS against or wOBA show how well a pitcher did more than FIP, xFIP or other metrics that discount value due to low K%. I do value xFIP and use it as part of my evaluation of how good a pitcher is. I do think Ks matter and K/BB as well.