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Braves Ongoing Season Comments Thread..
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Comments
What tells you he is regressing? What stats are you looking at? If you just go by ERA, this is the worst year of his career. But that’s hardly a regression really. He has been injured somewhat frequently as well, that would give me pause as a buyer.
But his peripherals seem more or less in line with his career norms (K/9, BB/9, Hr/9), and the run environment this year is crazy so everybody is giving up more runs than normal. He also plays on a horrible defensive team, which is going to make his ERA look worse. He is giving up slightly less ground balls but still has a 48% GB percentage. That’s good, and will play up with the Braves strong infield defense.
By WAR he would be our second best guy behind Soroka.
I'm very analytical, I just use a different set of criteria than you and GG rely on. I think too much focus on non-production stuff can make you lose sight of the obvious in some cases. To me those more technical stats are more useful in evaluating a minor league players prospects of making the leap to The parent club. Once we have actual production the bar moves to the more obvious measures, at least that is my approach.
You have a good point, and to each his own.
What tells you he is regressing?
His ERA+ is down.
That is a pretty good indicator he isnt pitching as well as he was.
In 2015 it was 155. League average being 100. He was well well above an average pitcher. Now its 95. Which means he is actually performing worse than the average guy you could run out there. Pretty big drop.
BTW I use OPS+ as a general indicator on hitters as well.
who "pitches as well as he was" when he is having an off year?
who "pitches as well as he was" when he is having an off year?
Nobody. And many times an off year is the slow road to being out of MLB altogether.
Is it a blip or a trend? No way of knowing.
But he is definitely trending in the wrong direction.
If it's a trend and not a blip, right? That's why AA gets the big bucks.
Take Soroka for an obvious example since he has been the focus of most of our back and forth. We have excellent production at the major league to look at, but it's limited to a small sample. So I take the obvious and evaluate the man and his methods. I see a guy who was very consistent throughout the minor league process. What he did at every level in the minors has been duplicated in Atlanta so far. Ok, we have that.
Now I ask myself if it's sustainable, which of course we'll only know for sure after the fact so we make our best educated guess.
I see a pitcher with an excellent frame. He has a very calm, focused and consistent demeanor. He shows an advanced approach. He has an easy non stressful and repeatable delivery. All of his pitches have excellent late break when he's right. The last is the question we have debated most. Does he have the type of stuff to remain elite. This is where the Verlanders and Scherzers are easier to project.
When a pitcher has explosive velocity he has a predictable asset. Mike has good velocity, but nothing special. That means we have to put more weight on those things I touched on in projecting Soroka over a long period. That's where I have to rely on the person more, the human factor is what I call it.
That’s a good point, but isn’t ERA+ just park adjusted ERA and adjusted for league average? If so, its kind of similar to me saying his era is up this year. It’s the same park after all (albeit era+ does account for the crazy run environment).
I was thinking his era could be high because of some bad luck in sequencing combined with bad defense behind him. Something like FIP indicates he’s been better than his ERA this year. Again, I still really like him to be a TOR guy based on his peripherals.
He hasn’t been in 2016 form, true, but maybe expecting him to replicate that year is too much. I don’t think you’d have to pay quite that price for him in a trade today.
Kirb. these park specific and other such things even out over time. That is why the obvious results are what determines a player's value, in my opinion of course.
I think certain parks have been shown to be more/less run friendly over time, hence the park adjustment. It probably won’t play a huge factor, but it is a factor. We just saw in philly there were a few questionable homers that’s would have been doubles or outs in San Francisco, for example.
The meta play in a very pitcher friendly park, for what it is worth.
Ultimately I don't think the Mets trade him to a division rival unless they get a mega-package in return. Seems destined for San Diego
but trust me...you don't want him. he will tantalize you, but leave you wanting
but isn’t ERA+ just park adjusted ERA and adjusted for league average?
Yes meaning taking lucky ballpark home runs out and adjusting for league average (which also accounts for fluctuations in offense) he is worse than the average pitcher.
Where just a few years ago he was way ahead of that curve
That is nothing at all like saying his ERA is up etc. Not trying to argue mind you. I know how much having simple cognitive differences about something is frowned upon around here.
If we could get him cheap sure do it. Otherwise. Pass.
Id rather having the Greene guy ( or similar ) from Detroit and shore up the bullpen anyway.
I agree you have to look at home vs road production when evaluating a player, at least those whose home parks vary a lot from the average in the areas important to that particular player. Of course Coors has been the obvious example since it opened. It's not quite that simple with most parks though. Playing at home is in itself an advantage. All football fields have identical dimensions yet many home fields have proved to be big advantages, Oklahoma's comes to mind.
I will always maintain that era based stats are flawed, even if park adjusted. They don’t look at how bad the defense is, if he has just had unlucky hit sequencing of certain innings, a really low or high strand rate, a high BABIP against, etc. I view baseball as a game with a large amount of statistical variance (read: luck) over shorter samples and generally lean towards things that try to take luck out of the equation. That’s just a personal thing, @WCDawg goes the other way and leans more towards what has actually/literally occurred.
I don’t entirely disagree with you, and also you’re allowed to argue here. I just mostly don’t think era based stats dont tell the whole story. And the mets are quite a story this year haha.
Do you not think he would be slotted somewhere into our top 3 starters and be a playoff starter? Or are you more thinking he is just over rated?