If the Reds do convert Chapman...

[klw]

Originally Posted by DGullett35

I wouldnt trade anyone from the rotation. its highly unlikely that even all 6 of these guys stays healthy like in 2012. Leake will prove to be valuable in some capacity. I would almost consider betting my life that someone will have to fight the injury bug and Im not trying to be a negative nancy but im just being realistic.

+1
I vehemently agree with you! The Reds were one in the few teams to get through a season with a 5 man rotation without having to rely on a 6th starter (That 1 game was not due to injury) and to expect that to repeat is not realistic. I don't think they should rely on having Corcino or Villareal to fill in for the long term. I think stashing Leake or Cingrani as a 5th man has merit. Unless the Reds fell that Cingrani is ready or an emergency starter is signed and in Louisville, they should not move Leake.

[Superdude]

Originally Posted by klw

+1
I vehemently agree with you! The Reds were one in the few teams to get through a season with a 5 man rotation without having to rely on a 6th starter (That 1 game was not due to injury) and to expect that to repeat is not realistic. I don't think they should rely on having Corcino or Villareal to fill in for the long term. I think stashing Leake or Cingrani as a 5th man has merit. Unless the Reds fell that Cingrani is ready or an emergency starter is signed and in Louisville, they should not move Leake.

I'm generally not one for tying up value in contingency plans, but we almost certainly need a capable 6th starter if Chapman is in the rotation next year so +2. Leake stays, at least until Cingrani or Corcino presents themselves as better options.

[Blitz Dorsey]

I'm just not buying any of this. I'd be willing to bet a large chunk of cash right now that Aroldis Chapman will be the Reds' closer in 2013.

[mth123]

Keep them all and make Leake the swingman. I'd wager he'll end-up with at least 10 starts and over 100 IP.

[_Sir_Charles_]

Originally Posted by cinreds21

And he did poorly. I don't think Bailey is too much to give up. Yes, he had a good year in 2012, but before that he was barely a fourth or fifth starter. I am just not fully sold on his turnaround. Perez is a very under-the-radar closer who doesn't get much publicity (minus him throwing the front office under the bus.) But he's not some horrible closer. A 59/16 K/BB ratio is pretty good. And if you take away his bad August (where his ERA was over 6) he had a really good year.

No. He didn't do poorly. That is a common misconception IMO. He had some crummy luck that's for sure. But the guy was missing a bunch of bats, his babip was incredibly high during that period IIRC too. He wasn't given a long enough chance to show what he could do (may 19th the switch was made).

16 games as closer. 7 saves, 1 blown save. 13-3 record during those 16 games. 21 k's, 3 bb's. 25 ground balls, 18 fly balls.

I can't find the babip stat for that period, but I'd take those numbers from a closer any day of the week in our ballpark.

[Blitz Dorsey]

Originally Posted by _Sir_Charles_

No. He didn't do poorly. That is a common misconception IMO. He had some crummy luck that's for sure. But the guy was missing a bunch of bats, his babip was incredibly high during that period IIRC too. He wasn't given a long enough chance to show what he could do (may 19th the switch was made).

16 games as closer. 7 saves, 1 blown save. 13-3 record during those 16 games. 21 k's, 3 bb's. 25 ground balls, 18 fly balls.

I can't find the babip stat for that period, but I'd take those numbers from a closer any day of the week in our ballpark.

This is where BABIP can be a flawed stat IMO. A ball put in play against a soft-tossing lefty would seem to have a better chance of "finding a hole" than a ball put in play against a flamethrower. The problem with BABIP is that it pretends that the odds are the same once the ball is put into play no matter which pitcher you are facing. I would love to see the numbers over a long period of time, but I would not be surprised at all to learn that Sean Marshall's BABIP is consistently higher than that of Aroldis Chapman's. Once it becomes "consistent" it's no longer "bad luck."

[_Sir_Charles_]

Originally Posted by Blitz Dorsey

This is where BABIP can be a flawed stat IMO. A ball put in play against a soft-tossing lefty would seem to have a better chance of "finding a hole" than a ball put in play against a flamethrower. The problem with BABIP is that it pretends that the odds are the same once the ball is put into play no matter which pitcher you are facing. I would love to see the numbers over a long period of time, but I would not be surprised at all to learn that Sean Marshall's BABIP is consistently higher than that of Aroldis Chapman's. Once it becomes "consistent" it's no longer "bad luck."

I disagree. Some batters are going to square up a baseball from time to time no matter what. But Marshall's got fantastic swing n' miss stuff. When they DO hit the ball, it's on the ground most often. And we've got one of the best IF defenses in the majors.

While you could label Marshall as a "soft tosser", the fact that he throws mostly breaking balls makes his FB look alot faster to the hitter. He throws it around 92 or so IIRC, but after a large helping of that NASTY breaking ball...that heater must look like 95+.

Regardless, there weren't that many hard hit balls off of Marshall those first few weeks. If they were hit a foot to the right or left, a large portion of them would've been outs. That screams poor luck to me. Oh well, it's a moot point anyway. I'm really not sure why I'm arguing about it. LOL. Boring week I guess. :O)

[_Sir_Charles_]

Oooh, cool. I found this. Really highlights my point. The second graph, look at the first half of 2012. Yikes. That's Marshall's time as a closer. That's some crappy luck right there.

http://www.fangraphs.com/graphs.aspx...ge=7&type=full

(didn't realize I could just post the graph...well, here it is)

[RedsManRick]

Originally Posted by Blitz Dorsey

This is where BABIP can be a flawed stat IMO. A ball put in play against a soft-tossing lefty would seem to have a better chance of "finding a hole" than a ball put in play against a flamethrower. The problem with BABIP is that it pretends that the odds are the same once the ball is put into play no matter which pitcher you are facing. I would love to see the numbers over a long period of time, but I would not be surprised at all to learn that Sean Marshall's BABIP is consistently higher than that of Aroldis Chapman's. Once it becomes "consistent" it's no longer "bad luck."

Randy Johnson had a career BABIP of .291. Jamie Moyer has a career BABIP of .283.

If inducing weak contact was all about velocity, it would be a very different game.

And speaking of "consistent", Marshall has a career BABIP of .294. His BABIP in April was .400 and in May it was .444. If that was all we looked at, we might wonder if he was just getting beat around legitimately. But these outputs don't exist in a bubble. All of his other peripherals were very much in line with his career norms. Personally, I find it much, much more likely that he simply had an unsustainable stretch of "bad luck" (combination of more hard contact than usual, bad defense, balls finding holes) than that he experienced a temporary shift of true talent to the point of being unable to induce any weak contact while still striking out a ton, not walking many and keeping the ball in the yard.

As for Chapman's career BABIP, he may very well end up in the historically low range. But I wouldn't bet on it, nor rely on that as any type of argument in regards to what role he should pitch in.

[Sea Ray]

One thing I don't do is blindly throw him into the rotation. He has to earn it like anyone else. That means that he has to show that he can change speeds and throw enough strikes to get to 7 innings. If he doesn't show those things then he will fail and why set him (and the team) up for failure? I haven't seen enough from him to say that I think he can be a better starter than closer. As a starter he'll have to win with a 94-96 mph FB. That will require two other pitches that he can throw for strikes. I'm not sure he can do that but I have no problem giving him the chance to show me

[Patrick Bateman]

Varying BAPIP's generally have more to do with unpredictable movement than it does velocity.

Ie. guys like Rivera, knuckelballers, etc. are the guys that seem to post low BAPIP's over large sample sizes because hitters have to adjust their swings last second.

[Blitz Dorsey]

OK, fair enough. I think you guys (Sir Charles, RedsManRick) correctly outlined that it WAS bad luck for Marshall in 2012 during his brief time as the Reds' closer. I'm with you on that.

However, would you not agree that with someone like Chapman, there are less hard-hit balls in play than there is with someone like, say, Mike Leake? I just think that while BABIP is a good and useful stat, it does have one flaw and that is pretending like it's the same no matter the pitcher you are facing. Someone like Chapman is going to get a lot more bleeders and break a lot more bats than someone like Leake who we see getting rocked quite often. So, that's where BABIP goes wrong. Overall, I'm glad the stat exists though. It definitely has its place.

To get back to the premise of this thread, it's clear "Chapman To The Rotation?" is by far the biggest storyline of the offseason. Makes things interesting for sure.

[Patrick Bateman]

I think there's no question that Mike Leake's poor BAPIP was not indicative of luck. The home run rate and BAPIP were likely more due to horrendous pitch location and poor movement.

I don't think it has a lot to due with his lack of velocity compared to Chapman. Guys like Arroyo don't throw 100 either.

[Blitz Dorsey]

Yeah, I never used the word "velocity." That was used by others. My point was that it's no coincidence that the BABIP for Chapman and Leake are so vastly different. It's not just that Chapman throws with excellent velocity (although that's a big part of it). He's just flat out nasty.

So, if you take a pitcher with "nasty" stuff and a pitcher with "Mike Leake" stuff ... how can you view both of those pitchers exactly the same when it comes to measuring BABIP? Aren't there going to be more rocket shots off a pitcher like Leake? Of course. And that's exactly why BABIP is a flawed stat, IMO.

[Sea Ray]

Originally Posted by Blitz Dorsey

Yeah, I never used the word "velocity." That was used by others. My point was that it's no coincidence that the BABIP for Chapman and Leake are so vastly different. It's not just that Chapman throws with excellent velocity (although that's a big part of it). He's just flat out nasty.

So, if you take a pitcher with "nasty" stuff and a pitcher with "Mike Leake" stuff ... how can you view both of those pitchers exactly the same when it comes to measuring BABIP? Aren't there going to be more rocket shots off a pitcher like Leake? Of course. And that's exactly why BABIP is a flawed stat, IMO.

More significantly, a guy like Leake will have a lot more balls in play to begin with. For example Leake might give up 2 hits per inning, Chapman one but they'd have identical BAbip.

Leake Inning:

2 hits
2 groundouts
1K
____
4 balls in play/ 2 hits

Chapman Inning:

1 hit
1 flyout
2Ks
______

2 balls in play/ 1 hit

Their BAbip are identical but Chapman is the much more effective pitcher, so what does the stat tell you?