Chapman to bullpen now official

[klw]

When mom and dad fight, who do you side with?

Neither, you play on their guilt to get what you want.

[757690]

% of lineup spot faced in 2012
                 LO      AC      SL      AS			
Split 	        %	%	%	%
Batting 1st 	9.5%	9.1%	11.9%	10.1%
Batting 2nd 	9.9%	9.4%	10.2%	11.3%
Batting 3rd 	11.5%	12.3%	10.6%	12.2%
Batting 4th 	13.6%	14.1%	9.8%	12.6%
Batting 5th 	14.0%	13.8%	10.6%	12.2%
Batting 6th 	12.8%	13.0%	11.5%	10.9%
Batting 7th 	11.9%	11.2%	10.6%	10.9%
Batting 8th 	9.5%	8.7%	12.8%	10.1%
Batting 9th 	7.4%	8.3%	11.9%	9.7%

Ondrusek, Chapman, LeCure and Simon.... looks like they all face roughly the same number of guys throughout the lineup to me.

Doesn't look that way to me.

Here's how often they faced the middle of the lineup - 3-6:

Chapman - 53%
Marshall - 44%
LeCure - 42%
Simon - 47%
Ondrusek - 51%
Arredondo - 43%

Outside of Ondrusek, the rest of the pen faced the middle of the lineup each around 10% less than Chapman. That's significant.

And as I said before, that doesn't tell the whole story. It's about matchups, not just lefty righty, but pull hitter vs. slap hitter, contact hitter vs. free swinger, simply individual player by player matchups. Those will change if you take any one pitcher, especially the closer, out of the pen.

[RedEye]

And as I said before, that doesn't tell the whole story. It's about matchups, not just lefty righty, but pull hitter vs. slap hitter, contact hitter vs. free swinger, simply individual player by player matchups. Those will change if you take any one pitcher, especially the closer, out of the pen.

When Chapman was in the pen, the collective ERA was 2.66. When left out, it was 2.82. That's something, but not a big something.

[dougdirt]

Doesn't look that way to me.

Here's how often they faced the middle of the lineup - 3-6:

Chapman - 53%
Marshall - 44%
LeCure - 42%
Simon - 47%
Ondrusek - 51%
Arredondo - 43%

Outside of Ondrusek, the rest of the pen faced the middle of the lineup each around 10% less than Chapman. That's significant.

And as I said before, that doesn't tell the whole story. It's about matchups, not just lefty righty, but pull hitter vs. slap hitter, contact hitter vs. free swinger, simply individual player by player matchups. Those will change if you take any one pitcher, especially the closer, out of the pen.

Aroldis Chapman faced 276 batters. Sean Marshall faced 256 of them. The 9% between the two of them accounts for 1 batter per week from the 3-4-5-6 spots combined if applied to Chapman's 276 batters faced. Yes, it is a difference, but the difference is rather marginal.

[RedsManRick]

That's not even close to what I said.

If Chapman isn't the closer, then Marshall is. Marshall is facing difference hitters in different situations than he did last season. That means Arredondo is probably in Marshall's role, also facing different hitters in different situations. LeCure is probably now in Arredondo's role, and Ondrusek in LeCure's and Simon's in Ondrusek's, etc.

They aren't facing the same hitters in the same situation, so we don't know how they will do. I'm not saying they will do worse, or better, just that we can't assume that they will produce the same numbers in their new roles.

History has shown us that, by and large, pitcher performance is not correlated with leverage. Guys who are good pitchers tend to pitch well regardless of when they pitch and vice versa

The amount of uncertainty we have around whether a guy will pitch as well this year as he did this year even against the exact same set of players and situations is orders of magnitude greater than the additional uncertainty added because he's pitching a different inning this year.

And if Dusty is going to refuse to use his clearly more effective "8th inning guy" in the 7th inning when 2-3-4 are coming up because, well, it's not the 8th inning yet then that's a different problem.

[757690]

History has shown us that, by and large, pitcher performance is not correlated with leverage. Guys who are good pitchers tend to pitch well regardless of when they pitch and vice versa

The amount of uncertainty we have around whether a guy will pitch as well this year as he did this year even against the exact same set of players and situations is orders of magnitude greater than the additional uncertainty added because he's pitching a different inning this year.

And if Dusty is going to refuse to use his clearly more effective "8th inning guy" in the 7th inning when 2-3-4 are coming up because, well, it's not the 8th inning yet then that's a different problem.

I agree with all of that, but there still is the issue of matchups. Again, I'm not even saying that the pen would be worse without Chapman, it might have performed better without him and other guys in different roles. We just don't know.

I'm just saying we can't simply remove a guys innings from the overall stats and assume the other guys stats would be the same. They would be pitching in different circumstances, and we can't assume they would have the same results.

[Sea Ray]

I don't know for sure if this decision is set in stone but if they did, there are two reasons why:

1) This is probably the most important reason: because Aroldis doesn't want to start. If he's not invested in starting and the work it takes then it won't work out. He's got to be on board

2) This was from Buster Olney yesterday. He said that Aroldis has arguably the best FB in MLB but his other pitches are below avg. Such an arsenal screams closer.

In a vacuum, I'd put him in the rotation but if he doesn't want it then I think we have to pick the path of least resistance. Obviously the Broxton signing showed that management had every intention of putting him in the rotation. But in this day of multimillion dollar primadonnas you can't go against their wishes. It'd be sorta like putting Joey Votto in LF.

[RedEye]

It'd be sorta like putting Joey Votto in LF.

Except for putting Votto in LF wouldn't appreciably decrease his overall offensive contribution to the team.

[Nasty_Boy]

When mom and dad fight, who do you side with?

The parent that wants Chapman in the rotation

[membengal]

I hesitate to term anything that allows Mike Leake to throw 150+ innings as a "win now" move.

Amen.

[Brutus]

Good grief, this "Mike Leake is terrible" hyperbole has reached a new level of insane.

The guy has a career 3.87 xFIP and 4.23 ERA at 25 years old, just 485 innings into his professional career. Anyone thinks that is "terrible" doesn't pay much attention to fifth starters and clearly wasn't paying attention to the last decade of the Reds' organization.

[M2]

Good grief, this "Mike Leake is terrible" hyperbole has reached a new level of insane.

The guy has a career 3.87 xFIP and 4.23 ERA at 25 years old, just 485 innings into his professional career. Anyone thinks that is "terrible" doesn't pay much attention to fifth starters and clearly wasn't paying attention to the last decade of the Reds' organization.

Completely agreed. I'm pro-Chapman in the rotation, but not because I have anything against Leake.

[wheels]

It's easy to be tougher on Leake than another run of the mill number five guy. He's a former first rounder and all of that. I always have to remind myself not to confuse what I him to be with what he actually is.

I'm fairly content with him in the fifth slot, but...damn. I really want to see what Chapman could do as a starter.

[jojo]

Leake and backend starter seems like a pretty fair characterization.

[Caveat Emperor]

Good grief, this "Mike Leake is terrible" hyperbole has reached a new level of insane.

The guy has a career 3.87 xFIP and 4.23 ERA at 25 years old, just 485 innings into his professional career. Anyone thinks that is "terrible" doesn't pay much attention to fifth starters and clearly wasn't paying attention to the last decade of the Reds' organization.

He was a batting tee last season and somehow even more dreadful in the postseason. In order to be effective, he has to dial his velocity back to a level where he doesn't miss bats, and he lacks anything resembling an out pitch.

ZIPS has him as a 4.50+ ERA pitcher in '13, and I think they're being generous. The fact that he's better than Joey Hamilton or Jimmy Haynes is really irrelevant to the greater discussion of his value.