Sox @ Cubbies

[msgkings322]

From the article, this is interesting:

Certainly, the trend can reverse. Beginning Monday, teams are forced to cut their rosters back to 26 players and no more than 14 pitchers; staffs will be capped at 13 pitchers by the end of May as new rules to stimulate offense are enforced after a post-lockout grace period.

That will force starters to go a bit deeper into games, relievers to appear more frequently in back-to-back games and, ostensibly, hitters to get better and more frequent looks at both. Yet with roughly 14% of the season completed, it will be difficult to reverse many offensively-depressed trends.

 

[richig07]

Remember, the flip side of all of baseball not hitting (as they aren't right now, historically low league wide batting average) is a lot of pitchers have gaudy stat lines right now

Except ERA+ is a metric that normalizes you across the entire league. It also accounts for external factors like ballparks, opponents, and some other things. A 100 ERA+ = league average. Then, for example, a 150 ERA+ means his ERA is 50% better than the rest of the league. This would be very good.

Kopech has a 308 ERA+. This means his adjusted ERA is 208% better than the league average.

That is astonishingly good.

His 1.17 ERA and 1.2 WAR are also only 2nd to Logan Gilbert. He is doing a lot more than simply riding a trend.

 

[Mingo]

One other factor - a dead baseball.

 

[podsox]

Runs are down league wide and people are starting to wonder what's going on

How bad is it for MLB hitters? Baseball has its worst batting average in history

Never in Statcast’s history have batting average and slugging fallen short of their full-season expected marks.

www.usatoday.com

It seems to be on purpose. I’m all for anything that gets launch angle out of the gm. It’s the worst thing that’s happened to the gm imo.

 

[Jiddy]

Kopech and Cease are going to have to be the difference makers if we are to do anything this season. So far so good in that regard. If they both pan out, hahn/reinsdorf better thank a higher power. Now we just need the rest of the pieces to fall into place and injuries to chill the f*ck out.

Never losing again ftr.

 

[Jiddy]

Richi re: Kopech :


Jiddy re: Kopech:

 

[Mingo]

Giolito - Cease and Kopech are a nice trio of starters - Velasquez might surprise, but Keuchel won't surprise anyone especially batters.

 

[Lake Shore Drive]

Giolito - Cease and Kopech are a nice trio of starters - Velasquez might surprise, but Keuchel won't surprise anyone especially batters.

Thought I read something that if Keuchel makes it thru the year or pitches X number of innings....something like that.....then an automatic bonus of $20 mil kicks in for next year. Not sure what the complete ramifications would be, but if any of this is remotely true, Hahn needs to either somehow trade or even cut Keuchel at some point down the road. The man is useless.

 

[Lake Shore Drive]

Now we just need the rest of the pieces to fall into place and injuries to chill the f*ck out.

You just had to jinx us, din't ya.

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[Mingo]

Thought I read something that if Keuchel makes it thru the year or pitches X number of innings....something like that.....then an automatic bonus of $20 mil kicks in for next year. Not sure what the complete ramifications would be, but if any of this is remotely true, Hahn needs to either somehow trade or even cut Keuchel at some point down the road. The man is useless.

I think the benchmark is 160 innings pitched. The Sox have Johnny Cueto hanging out in Charlotte. He had a very nice 4 inning outing recently. He is also kind of a pitching guru for the younger guys as I understand it.

 

[Lake Shore Drive]

I think the benchmark is 160 innings pitched.

Ok, that makes sense. And this can't happen, plain and simple.

 

[richig07]

It seems to be on purpose. I’m all for anything that gets launch angle out of the gm. It’s the worst thing that’s happened to the gm imo.

Chopping off a noticeable chunk of home runs is very dangerous to the sport. Maybe not to you and me. However, to the average fan, it is. The average person in any given baseball stadium on a summer evening is mostly there to watch and see if their favorite player can jerk one out of the yard. So, they can catch it on their iPhone cameras. If that happens, they'll leave happy, regardless of the score. Probably couldn't even hold a conversation about launch angles or how shifting has changed the game.

 

[richig07]

You just had to jinx us, din't ya.

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Fortunately, this appears to truly be a 10 day IL stint, as it's just a bruise they want to fully heal. I'm sure if it was September in a playoff push he would be out there.

But I mean... sheesh man. It really is wild. These injuries also aren't like last year with guys pulling muscles, etc. This has nothing to do with conditioning or being injury prone. These are all freak occurrences. Really shitty.

 

[podsox]

Chopping off a noticeable chunk of home runs is very dangerous to the sport. Maybe not to you and me. However, to the average fan, it is. The average person in any given baseball stadium on a summer evening is mostly there to watch and see if their favorite player can jerk one out of the yard. So, they can catch it on their iPhone cameras. If that happens, they'll leave happy, regardless of the score. Probably couldn't even hold a conversation about launch angles or how shifting has changed the game.

It will still happen. Just not at the craze rate we’ve seen the last 5-6 yrs. I just think the Joey Gallo’s are terrible for the gm