mrdannyg 274 Posted April 18, 2016 Share Posted April 18, 2016 It really does! And on one hand, it says something pretty bad about a hitter if they strike out with, say, guys on first and second and no outs, or a guy on third and less than 2 outs, because you know they were really trying not to. My point was awkward, but it boils down to two things: - a strikeout may be bad, but they've been thought of as really bad for so long that hitters who strike out a lot are often underrated (like Chris Davis, Mark Trumbo) - advancing a runner with an out is good, but even ground balls and fly balls often don't advance runners. And unless they score a runner, they don't actually improve your chances of scoring as much as we like to think. If all they do is make a second out and move a runner up, your chances of scoring have barely improved at all. In short, I totally agree that a strikeout feels a lot worse than another type of out when you have runners in base. The stats seem to back up though that putting a ball in play (allowing for outs, errors, Ellsbury-type bloops) weakly doesn't help that much, assuming the guy who is striking out a lot is also doing other good things more often (dingers!) than the guy who strikes out less. Link to post Share on other sites
mrdannyg 274 Posted April 18, 2016 Share Posted April 18, 2016 A few random opinions: - I like seeing Saunders at leadoff. Not as good as if it was Donaldson, Bautista or Tulo, but I'm happy with it. - I like that they were willing to make a switch only a few games in, even though Pillar hadn't been horrible. - Nice to see Pillar taking some pitches - Pillar is a better hitter than Goins, but should hit 9th instead of Goins so his speed is there for the other guys. Minor quibble. - I think that having Cecil as a '7th inning' guy or '8th inning guy' is bad - I think it has only happened because of injuries or not wanting to use guys for 3 straight days, but if he is your only lefty (or your only good lefty), you can't use him like any other reliever. - Really good to see the Jays with quite a few quality at-bats against really good relievers in the late innings of a getaway game. Lot of teams/players would just go up there swinging, great to see the Jays have solid approaches. - I wish they weren't giving up so many late-inning runs, but hopefully that evens out later in the year! - Glad to see Venditte being called up. He's had good minor-league numbers across the board, and if the Jays aren't going to have two dependable lefties in the pen, I'd take his versatility over one of the other back-end bullpen guys. - I have liked a lot of what I've seen from Happ, Sanchez and Estrada. If those guys are even just solid, Dickey doesn't explode, and Stroman is the man, the Jays could win a lot of games this year. 1 Link to post Share on other sites
mrdannyg 274 Posted April 18, 2016 Share Posted April 18, 2016 Also, it would be nice if guys stopped getting beaned in the damn head Link to post Share on other sites
mrdannyg 274 Posted April 18, 2016 Share Posted April 18, 2016 Love this: http://mlb.nbcsports.com/2016/04/18/blue-jays-1b-gets-gift-from-sox-pitcher-wright-after-beaning/ 2 Link to post Share on other sites
pezeveng 207 Posted April 19, 2016 Author Share Posted April 19, 2016 Traditionally umpires either call the high strike or the low strike not both. For some reason all umps that I've seen have really expanded the strike zone to call high, low, inside, and out. Was this mandated by MLB? For a league that need more scoring, this makes no sense. Link to post Share on other sites
mrdannyg 274 Posted April 21, 2016 Share Posted April 21, 2016 Another poopy loss. Some bad luck early this year on batted balls and calls it seems like, and good opponents, so I'm reasonably happy we are around .500. If our starters stay this good, we are going to have a great year. And while it pretty much worked (Biagnini took the loss, but he pitched pretty well), it is insane for Gibbons to be pitching Floyd (for TWO innings) and Biagnini late in a tied game. That whole "don't use your best pitchers in a tie on the road" is outdated thinking, and using not even your second or third best guys is crazy. I haven't looked up how many pitches Storen threw, and was glad we used him, but if you use Floyd in the 7th and 8th, you're just not trying to win a winnable game, and that's inexcusable. I'm really happy with how Floyd has looked this year and think we might have a solid reliever there, but you have too many other strong quantities to be putting that much leverage on a waiver wire guy in week 3. Thole is a terrible player, and I said this before, but Dickey is just not good enough to be taking a downgrade every game by having a useless bench player. I'm ok with them not subbing Martin in yesterday, since Martin is old and needs his rest, but Dickey is pitching about, say, 6% of the time. I have a really hard time believing that whatever value Thole provides to Dickey offsets how much better we'd be for all the times when Dickey isn't pitching. Link to post Share on other sites
Dubey 1,035 Posted April 21, 2016 Share Posted April 21, 2016 Plus he can't even catch the knuckleball anyway Link to post Share on other sites
FCP Bob 1,312 Posted April 21, 2016 Share Posted April 21, 2016 Plus he can't even catch the knuckleball anyway Yup, Thole sucks. Floyd was exactly the correct pitcher to use in that spot. He looks pretty damn good to me and has probably been the 2nd best reliever so far. I feel better about him than Chavez Link to post Share on other sites
mrdannyg 274 Posted April 21, 2016 Share Posted April 21, 2016 I feel much better about Floyd than Chavez. But that was a very high-leverage spot, and the best you could argue is that Floyd is our 4th best reliever right now (which I don't think you really can, though I wouldn't be surprised if we can confidently say he is among our best by the end of the year). Use him for the 7th, maybe, but using him for two in the 7th-8th than Biagnini in the 10th is just a poor understanding of leverage. Link to post Share on other sites
FCP Bob 1,312 Posted April 21, 2016 Share Posted April 21, 2016 I feel much better about Floyd than Chavez. But that was a very high-leverage spot, and the best you could argue is that Floyd is our 4th best reliever right now (which I don't think you really can, though I wouldn't be surprised if we can confidently say he is among our best by the end of the year). Use him for the 7th, maybe, but using him for two in the 7th-8th than Biagnini in the 10th is just a poor understanding of leverage. In that spot wouldn't you want somebody to go more than one inning ? Floyd is the best bet to pitch more than one right now in a tied game. He's a veteran and he's pitching really well so there is no reason to think he can't continue to pitch well assuming he stays healthy. Link to post Share on other sites
mrdannyg 274 Posted April 21, 2016 Share Posted April 21, 2016 Well I'm not sure he is the best bet to pitch more than one inning right now. As a former starter, he's probably the best bet if we wanted four innings, but I'm not sure his previous experience means he is better able to go 2 than another pitcher. You may be right on that though. I don't think you are looking for someone to go multiple innings there though. The 8th and 9th inning of a tie game are super high leverage - the consideration of whether a guy can go more than one, when you have 12 pitchers on your roster, should be irrelevant. If it is the 11th inning and you have already burned 4 guys, it is a different story. I haven't checked pitch counts, but if Floyd got out of the first really easily and was locating well, then maybe they made an unplanned decision to let him keep going. I don't mind sending him out for the 7th if the plan isn't for him to go 2, so if that's how he came to pitch the 8th, I'm willing to trust the baseball people on that one. Link to post Share on other sites
mrdannyg 274 Posted April 22, 2016 Share Posted April 22, 2016 Can't wait to read what Gibbons (and others) said about bringing in Cecil to face 3 righties with men on base. I'm all for trying new things, but the confused look on Cecil's face when Gibbons called for him was priceless. Link to post Share on other sites
mrdannyg 274 Posted April 22, 2016 Share Posted April 22, 2016 Stolen from Joe Posnanski on twitter, but here are Jake Arrieta's last 24 regular season starts: 24 starts. 20-1 record, 24 quality starts. 2 no-hitters, 0.86 ERA, and most impressively in my mind, no runs allowed in 14 of those starts. No runs in 14 of 24 starts!? Must be among the most dominant runs of all time. Link to post Share on other sites
pezeveng 207 Posted April 22, 2016 Author Share Posted April 22, 2016 my boy Bello busted. Silver lining in this is Smoak gets a chance to heat up. Link to post Share on other sites
pezeveng 207 Posted April 22, 2016 Author Share Posted April 22, 2016 Stolen from Joe Posnanski on twitter, but here are Jake Arrieta's last 24 regular season starts: 24 starts. 20-1 record, 24 quality starts. 2 no-hitters, 0.86 ERA, and most impressively in my mind, no runs allowed in 14 of those starts. No runs in 14 of 24 starts!? Must be among the most dominant runs of all time. and to think how crap he was in Baltimore! Link to post Share on other sites
mrdannyg 274 Posted April 23, 2016 Share Posted April 23, 2016 Bad news on colabello. Smoak is ok but we could really upgrade at that position if we want to make a run. Or hell, put EE back at 1B and get a bat elsewhere. I swear I really don't care much about bullpen usage, but after a couple days of not using Osuna in high-leverage spots, he gets used down a run, on the road, in the opening game of a series? Between that and Cecil against righties yesterday, there just doesn't seem to be a basic or advanced reason for such suboptimal weirdness. Link to post Share on other sites
pezeveng 207 Posted May 7, 2016 Author Share Posted May 7, 2016 If we beat Kershaw this afternoon, this could be one of those 11 game winning streaks. Starting pitching has been way better than I expected. basically the team is in every game even when the bats are quiet. More PED announcements coming up. Iam really hoping its not one of the young superstars. I really thought baseball was over this. Good for Smoak with the walk off win. Hoping more playing time and confidence helps him bring the avg up. Really dissapointed with Tulo right now, but its early I am sure he'll bounce back. 1 Link to post Share on other sites
Babying 613 Posted May 7, 2016 Share Posted May 7, 2016 For me when Dickey pitches, it is a loss. Link to post Share on other sites
pezeveng 207 Posted May 7, 2016 Author Share Posted May 7, 2016 RA wasnt horrible. Bad luck loss if you ask me. Link to post Share on other sites
pezeveng 207 Posted May 8, 2016 Author Share Posted May 8, 2016 I am thinking Washington knew something about Storen, acquiring Papelbon last year should have been a red flag. Its not like we got fleeced as Revere wasn't going to do much here anyways, but the games he's costing the team is a major concern. Link to post Share on other sites
mrdannyg 274 Posted May 9, 2016 Share Posted May 9, 2016 I fully agree pez - I've seen some advanced stats stuff that suggested he was a bit overrated the last couple years. I'm ok if he isn't a powerhouse closer-level guy, since like you said, Revere wasn't helping us much anyway, but it'd be nice to have a couple dependable arms back there. I'm also starting to get nervous about Tulo. He's just been iffy for quite a while now, and no one could blame him for starting to break down with all his injuries and years at shortstop. He was SO good for so long though, keep waiting for a breakout. Mostly though, I agree that the team has looked pretty decent, and I'm not too concerned despite their record. Starting pitching has been pretty strong, and looks like it could continue to be. Sanchez, Happ and Estrada have all been better than I expected, and Dickey is basically our 5th starter so he's fine for that (though I have to try to forget what we traded for him). Bullpen hasn't been good but not a trainwreck either, and the bats will come around. Still looks like a first-place team to me! Link to post Share on other sites
pezeveng 207 Posted May 9, 2016 Author Share Posted May 9, 2016 Harper was 0-0 in 12 plate appearances yesterday. 10 walks 1 hbp and 1 sac fly! Cubs are just a sick team. Pitching and hitting is really gross. Link to post Share on other sites
pezeveng 207 Posted May 9, 2016 Author Share Posted May 9, 2016 sorry that was last 2 games. Link to post Share on other sites
mrdannyg 274 Posted May 10, 2016 Share Posted May 10, 2016 Right now, by some metrics, the Cubs have the best starters, the best relievers and the best offense in the MLB. Crazy good! Sanchez with another very strong start, I'm loving that. Link to post Share on other sites
pezeveng 207 Posted May 10, 2016 Author Share Posted May 10, 2016 Right now, by some metrics, the Cubs have the best starters, the best relievers and the best offense in the MLB. Crazy good! Sanchez with another very strong start, I'm loving that. Jays starters have best ERA in American League under 2.00 right now. Where do you stand on moving Sanchez to the bullpen for Sept. Save his innings pitched and go back to the 1-2 punch with Osuna. Here's a good article on flamethrowers. Heard about it on Jeff Blair show this moring. http://sports.yahoo.com/news/10-degrees--the-scary-trend-impacting-mlb-s-frontline-starters-035615695-mlb.html Link to post Share on other sites
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