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.
Hoping to change my username to 75769024
“Every level he goes to, he is going to compete. They will know who he is at every level he goes to.” -- ED on EDLC
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.
Games are won on run differential -- scoring more than your opponent. Runs are runs, scored or prevented they all count the same. Worry about scoring more and allowing fewer, not which positions contribute to which side of the equation or how "consistent" you are at your current level of performance.
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.
Hoping to change my username to 75769024
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.
Caveman Techie (03-22-2013),WildcatFan (03-21-2013)
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.
"No matter how good you are, you're going to lose one-third of your games. No matter how bad you are you're going to win one-third of your games. It's the other third that makes the difference." ~Tommy Lasorda
Ga_Red (03-22-2013),M2 (03-21-2013),mth123 (03-23-2013),Patrick Bateman (03-21-2013),Plus Plus (03-21-2013),puca (03-21-2013),REDREAD (03-22-2013),reds1869 (03-21-2013),redsfandan (03-22-2013),thatcoolguy_22 (03-22-2013),wheels (03-21-2013),wlf WV (03-21-2013)
Caveman Techie (03-22-2013),Chip R (03-21-2013),OnBaseMachine (03-22-2013),puca (03-21-2013),wlf WV (03-21-2013)
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.
"Baseball players are smarter than football players. How often do you see a baseball team penalized for too many men on the field?" ~ Jim Bouton
Leake and backend starter seems like a pretty fair characterization.
"This isn’t stats vs scouts - this is stats and scouts working together, building an organization that blends the best of both worlds. This is the blueprint for how a baseball organization should be run. And, whether the baseball men of the 20th century like it or not, this is where baseball is going."---Dave Cameron, U.S.S. Mariner
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.
Cincinnati Reds: Farm System Champions 2022
Board Moderators may, at their discretion and judgment, delete and/or edit any messages that violate any of the following guidelines: 1. Explicit references to alleged illegal or unlawful acts. 2. Graphic sexual descriptions. 3. Racial or ethnic slurs. 4. Use of edgy language (including masked profanity). 5. Direct personal attacks, flames, fights, trolling, baiting, name-calling, general nuisance, excessive player criticism or anything along those lines. 6. Posting spam. 7. Each person may have only one user account. It is fine to be critical here - that's what this board is for. But let's not beat a subject or a player to death, please. |