moonslav59

Makes you wonder how many players were cut due to poor initial performance, but might have gone on to have good or great careers.

I try not to put much stock into a player's first 200-600 or so PAs in the bigs. It's a big adjustment to go from the farm to MLB. He always had enough BBs to compensate for a rather high K rate in the minors, so I always felt that would improve or "get fixed". It might have taken longer for JBJ than many other players brought up at age 23 and 24 after 1000 or so farm PAs, but I was never really that worried about his offense. I wasn't expecting some of the flaming red hot numbers he's put up for various stretches over the past 1.5 seasons either. I suspect he will become more consistent from month to month. His season OPS has been almost equal over the past two years (.832 and .835). His early struggles caused his career OPS to be .726, and I feel pretty safe in thinking his seasonal OPS should never dip below .725 until old age kicks in, but I also see his hot streaks as a "window" of what might occur more often and maybe a couple or more .900+ OPS seasons await us in the near future.

"Vowel" or "Bowel"?

In 2016, our pen finished .... 14th in WHIP at 1.28 (just 0.02 from 16th place) 12th in xFIP at 4.03 (just 0.08 from 16th place) We lost: 47 IP Uehara 0.96 WHIP/ 3.42 xFIP 30 IP Ziegler 1.25 WHIP/ 3.11 xFIP 50 IP Tazawa 1.23 WHIP/ 3.79 xFIP That's 127 IP out of 407 relief IP in 2016 (31%). We added Thornburg: 67 IP 0.94 WHIP/ 3.28 xFIP We may get some IP from a returning Carson Smith, but does anybody really feel confident about our 3-5 RP'ers? 3) Kelly (Smith when he returns) 4) Ross 5) Barnes These guys would look real good as our 5-6-7's or maybe 4-5-6's, but I'd like to see us find a solid #3 or 4 by opening day without losing a big chunk of our flex spending saved for a deadline move, if needed.

Maybe he made a mechanical adjustment after missing him in the first inning.

Or, he's just an overly streaky hitter that will always have short to long ups and short to long downs.... like Mike Napoli.

I think a lot of our evaluation of the pen depends on Carson Smith's return. Without him, I see the need for a number 3 or 4 pen arm- not a 5-6-7 type. Pushing Ross, Kelly and Barnes to the 5-6-7 slots instead of 3-4-5 or 4-5-6 would be a big plus. If we got a Holland type, I'd put him as our #3, at least until Smith returned and showed he was capable of being a 7th/8th inning set-up man. I'm not saying getting one of these guys is a must, especially if their price tag is over $4-5M, but as of right now, I view our pen and 3B as our clear weakest links. While other teams also have weak pen depth, some don't. Look at the Guardians, for example; not only are they strong at the closer and set-up roles, but they are deeper than deep. 1.2 Cody Allen 2.7 A Miller .5 D Otero .4 B Shaw .4 Z McAllister .2 C Anderson Swingmen: .7 Clevinger .5 T Cooney .3 R Merritt That's 9 pen guys with a projected WAR of over 0.2! 8 over 0.3 7 over o.4 We have 7 over 0.2. 6 over 0.3 5 over 0.4 1.6 Kimbrel 1.1 J Kelly .4 Thornburg .4 Ross .3 Smith .2 Barnes Swingmen .9 Wright .1 Elias .0 Owens & Johnson I'm usually not one to suggest we need to copy the most recent successful teams' winning strategy, but building a deep pen seems to be a wide trend for winning teams these days, especially with 2-3 strong set-up men. We lost Ziegler and Uehara (plus Tazawa) and added Thornburg (and maybe C Smith). Our pen really hurt us last year, until the end, so getting worse at an area of need is usually not a way to get better. .

Agreed, but I still think the bottom of our pen is questionable, at best, but I guess it doesn't hurt to let things play out and see what we need mid season. The problem with mid season is that we can't always expect a Brad Ziegler to come to us at such a "low" cost. We can, in theory, afford about a $4-5M FA and then still be able to trade for a $4-5M remaining contract at the deadline. I'm not sure any of the RP'ers listed below can be had for $4-5M, so waiting is likely the solution. I just hate to have a plan that involves trading away even more of the farm later.

Baseball is not roulette, otherwise everybody would hit about the same BA given a large enough sample size. Skill is involved but so is luck and randomness to a large degree. Leon's season was not all luck. His good season does not prove he "made adjustments" or suddenly became a much better hitter. Was he "in the zone"? Why did he leave the zone in September? His much higher LD% and hard hit% does show it was not all about the luck of more grounders finding their way through the holes. LD% 2014: 18.6% 2015: 18.8% 2016: 24.7% Hard% 2014: 20.9 2015: 14.1 2016: 31.3 These numbers have something to do with his better BAbip. 2014: .209 2015: .244 2016: .392 (career .257 before 2016) His small sample size numbers before 2016 were: LD% 17.7% Hard%: 16.2% He hit the ball "harder" about 15% more in 2016 than his prior career norm. His BAbip was about 14% higher than his career norm. Hmmm...

You should read more!

Agreed. And that ton of talent amounts to 1 more hit every 18-24 ABs.

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.