Edro nobilis

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mikey lowell of the sandbox
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Eduardo Rodriguez took up his place in the starting rotation without missing a beat. Fastball velocity averaged 93, with most of the pitches in the strike zone (sometimes too much in the strike zone). Edro's fastball and changeup were an excellent combination, with enough contrast and enough movement to get swinging strikes on 4 changeups out of 15 swings off 23 changeups. Edro survived throwing 7 sliders, but grooved most of them middle-middle or middle-up, so he's still a two-pitch flyball pitcher who throws hard to contact. That's fine, for this outfield defense, but he's still not missing a lot of bats. Stamina could also be a problem -- Edro barely touched his 2015 fastball average of 94 mph, and fell off noticeably by the sixth inning.

Price-Wright-Porcello-Kelly-Edro looks like June's rotation.
 

mauidano

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Yeah, those sliders were up in the zone and fat. Optimism and a great first start. The fact that he went six is a huge plus.

Enjoy long relief Clay and spot starter. It could be a "thing" for him. Confidence building in play already. You can't have enough starting pitching.
 

chrisfont9

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The hard contact wasn't great, and really he was pretty lucky to get out with less than 4 runs (considering Young's catch), but his comments afterward suggest that he's really just getting started. No reason not to think he'll sharpen his execution from here on out. Good times.
 

joe dokes

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If Pedro says "his legs need to get stronger," then his legs need to get stronger.
 

czar

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Interesting that the FBvel wasn't down as much as minor league reports (which implied he sat 89-90 and touched 92-93) led me to believe: http://www.fangraphs.com/pitchfxo.aspx?playerid=13164&position=P&pitch=FA

That said, the lack of stringing strikes and the fact that he got away with some pretty hard contact in the air (e.g., both SIERA and xFIP think that should have been a ~6 IP, 4 ER performance -- Chris Young did save 3 ER) are areas he hopefully can improve with more starts.

In aggregate, he didn't look quite as good as I hoped (in a best-case scenario) but not as bad as I feared.
 

mfried

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If Pedro says "his legs need to get stronger," then his legs need to get stronger.
I'm happy to agree that Edro's ceiling is high, but his stuff wasn't overwhelming to my eye. He didn't take the full windup and his fastball didn't look like it averaged 93. The changeup fooled the hard swingers but stayed very high. He hit some nice arm-side corners but was very lucky to limit the damage to two runs. Hoping for considerable improvement. Can't help but think that the knee brace is hampering his overall motion.
 

joe dokes

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I'm happy to agree that Edro's ceiling is high, but his stuff wasn't overwhelming to my eye. He didn't take the full windup and his fastball didn't look like it averaged 93. The changeup fooled the hard swingers but stayed very high. He hit some nice arm-side corners but was very lucky to limit the damage to two runs. Hoping for considerable improvement. Can't help but think that the knee brace is hampering his overall motion.
Maybe pitch f/x is wildly off, but it has the fastball over 94.
http://www.brooksbaseball.net/pfxVB/pfx.php

If the brace was changing his motionl, he wouldn't be pitching with it, as that's the express lane to an arm injury. I dont think it's the brace, so much as the after-effects of the injury. His knee is healed, but when he hurt his knee, I assume he was then unable to keep his lower half in shape as usual. I really dont think its anything more than that. His arm is ahead of his legs right now and that will show up both in terms of execution and fatigiue. Pitching to major leaguers is harder than to minor leaguers.
 

czar

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Maybe pitch f/x is wildly off, but it has the fastball over 94.
http://www.brooksbaseball.net/pfxVB/pfx.php

If the brace was changing his motionl, he wouldn't be pitching with it, as that's the express lane to an arm injury. I dont think it's the brace, so much as the after-effects of the injury. His knee is healed, but when he hurt his knee, I assume he was then unable to keep his lower half in shape as usual. I really dont think its anything more than that. His arm is ahead of his legs right now and that will show up both in terms of execution and fatigiue. Pitching to major leaguers is harder than to minor leaguers.
Brooks calculates velocity at 55 ft and not 50 ft, so it's generally slightly higher than most other PF/X reporting. Fangraphs uses 50 ft and had him at 91.9 and 92.3 for FA and FT. Key is to compare velo to previously reported from the same site (Fangraphs 2015 had ER at 93.9 and 92.6 FA/FT last year, so he was down 1-2 mph with the caveat that it was his first start back, so assuming healthy, the natural inclination is he would seem to have room for another mph or two going forward).
 

joe dokes

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Brooks calculates velocity at 55 ft and not 50 ft, so it's generally slightly higher than most other PF/X reporting. Fangraphs uses 50 ft and had him at 91.9 and 92.3 for FA and FT. Key is to compare velo to previously reported from the same site (Fangraphs 2015 had ER at 93.9 and 92.6 FA/FT last year, so he was down 1-2 mph with the caveat that it was his first start back, so assuming healthy, the natural inclination is he would seem to have room for another mph or two going forward).
gotcha. thanks for the primer.
Better to be down the mph as he gets stronger than to try and "find" the mph by overthrowing or altering his delivery.
 

geoduck no quahog

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Question for those who may know.

Do pitchers run during the season? (Assuming that running is the only way to strengthen the legs and stamina)

How does one train that way when you have to pitch every 5 days, plus the throwing day?
I have no idea what in-season training regimens are for any baseball player.
 

InsideTheParker

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Question for those who may know.

Do pitchers run during the season? (Assuming that running is the only way to strengthen the legs and stamina)

How does one train that way when you have to pitch every 5 days, plus the throwing day?
I have no idea what in-season training regimens are for any baseball player.
Just from personal experience, I think that anyone with a recent knee injury would be working on machines with the close supervision of a physical therapist, even now, after he has begun pitching regularly again, but it would be great, as you say, to hear from "those who may know."
 

crystalline

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Question for those who may know.

Do pitchers run during the season? (Assuming that running is the only way to strengthen the legs and stamina)

How does one train that way when you have to pitch every 5 days, plus the throwing day?
I have no idea what in-season training regimens are for any baseball player.
Running has the opposite effect from strengthening the legs. Running by a sprint/explosive/pitching athlete will often result in fast twitch muscle loss.

He will probably be on a regimen of weight training, including explosive leg movements with a kettlebell or the like, perhaps mixed with some sprints or interval work. Maybe some short runs, but not too many and not too long.
 

wyatt55

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Question for those who may know.

Do pitchers run during the season? ...
I have no idea what in-season training regimens are for any baseball player.
Peter Abraham in the Globe 3/31/16 wrote an article referencing the five day rotation workout schedules for the starters. "an inside look at a starting pitcher's five day routine".

A couple years back Red Sox magazine did a great piece on the specific workouts the rotation did and how they varied. Sadly I threw it out recently.
 

geoduck no quahog

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It should be a mix of activities that include jogging for cardio (because the season is a marathon until it's a sprint, THEN IT"S A SPRINT!), weights, stretching and interval sprint training. Here is one example of a 5 day starters pitching regimen:

http://www.yougoprobaseball.com/5-day-5-man-pitching-rotation-workout-routine-for-starting-pitchers
Thanks.

From that link, here's the extracted theoretical legs routine

Day 1: Jog 20-30 minutes
Day 2: 10 to 15 - 30 yard sprints + squats, lunges, dead lifts, RDLs, leg extensions and one leg stability exercises
Day 3: 20-30 minute jog OR: time on the elliptical, treadmill, or bicycle (15-30 mins), followed by speed and agility footwork
Day 4: Drink heavily
 

geoduck no quahog

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Meanwhile, while many are looking for someone to blame for bad luck, it's still the pitching that's going to doom this team.

Not a word about Rodriguez (lack of) effort last night.

(Yes, I know this is an injury thread)
 

BaseballJones

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Meanwhile, while many are looking for someone to blame for bad luck, it's still the pitching that's going to doom this team.

Not a word about Rodriguez (lack of) effort last night.

(Yes, I know this is an injury thread)
As you put it, this is an injury thread. And Rodriguez didn't pitch well yesterday, but two of those homers, I thought, were on pretty nasty pitches. The Barney home run was on a good fastball shin-high on the inner black. In no world is that a bad pitch. Barney just went down and got it. The Encarnation homer was a meatball, preceded by Eckersley saying, "It's party time" for Encarnacion. Boy did he nail that.

Rodriguez went 5.2 innings and only gave up 4 hits and 3 walks (1.24 whip, which isn't bad). The problem was that all four hits were homers. You can't do that if you're literally throwing batting practice, but it happened yesterday. That game was so crazy that after 8 innings, there were only 5 hits in the game total. And all five hits were home runs.

So not Rodriguez' best outing, but if you go 5.2 against Toronto, allowing only 7 baserunners, you do not expect to give up 4 homers. So I don't give him a pass, but I also don't think he was helped by any luck at all. The bigger concern for me watching that game is this number: 0. As in, 0 strikeouts, which is hard to do given the quality of his stuff.
 

simplicio

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0 strikeouts, but also the all fastball selection; what's going on with his other pitches that he was so afraid to use them?
 

smastroyin

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Guys, it's not that hard to scroll down the page. It's been a crap week for the Red Sox but that doesn't mean every thread has to be a game thread of wailing and gnashing of teeth.

Anyway, I moved the Rodriguez discussion from the Swihart injury thread.
 

Soxfan in Fla

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My concern is that he's still not built up yet after all the time off after injury. The bigger concern is he has something nagging him physically, or is having problems mentally with the worry of re injury and is holding back from certain pitches.
 

Sprowl

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My concern is that he's still not built up yet after all the time off after injury. The bigger concern is he has something nagging him physically, or is having problems mentally with the worry of re injury and is holding back from certain pitches.
Edro lost command of all his offspeed pitches in the fourth and fifth innings, going quite wild in the strike zone, after looking very sharp through three innings. It looks to me like a stamina problem too.

Edro has been copying Price in several ways: he has added a cutter (~91 mph), and increased the number of two-seamers, relative to his four-seam fastball. He was not just a two-pitch pitcher against the Twins, contrary to the idiotic Lyons. Clusters, clockwise from lower left: slider 84, cutter 92, 4-seam fastball 95, 2-seam fastball 94, changeup 89. Not a lot of velocity separation, but more than enough variety -- possibly too much, since it's hard to master one new pitch at a time, let alone two.



The cutter has a little frisbee action, and looks like it could be an effective pitch to jam RH batters, if he can command it. He did so for three innings, and then started grooving changeups. Edro is still a work in progress, but he just became a more interesting project. I wonder what else Price has been teaching him?
 

SouthernBoSox

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Velocity is the biggest story to me. Result wasn't great, but I'm more bullish about him going forward than I was a couple starts ago.
 

simplicio

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I didn't see much of the game, are those 97s accurate? Cause that's tremendous news if so.
 

alwyn96

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That's what it said on the gun on mlb.tv. It's possible it was hot, but I bet it's accurate. He seemed to have a little more zip on his pitches than before. It could be that he wore himself out a bit throwing so hard early on.

I guess you kind of cross your fingers and hope he can build up a little more stamina as the season goes on.
 
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dwainw

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I was at the game and I don't recall the stadium gun registering anything over 95 at any point. I saw a fair number of 93s and 94s. Of course, I may have been distracted by the 9,000-degree heat.
 

j44thor

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NESN broadcast had him 93-95 through first three innings. Never saw anything higher than 95.
Velocity started going down in 4/5th and command left as well.

A shame he is having to rehab at the MLB level. Just hope this doesn't hurt him long term.
 

RoDaddy

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Clusters, clockwise from lower left: slider 84, cutter 92, 4-seam fastball 95, 2-seam fastball 94, changeup 89. Not a lot of velocity separation, but more than enough variety .
89 changeup - jeez, that's so high. Will his lack of much changeup-fastball separation forever limit his ceiling?
 

fenwaypaul

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A shame he is having to rehab at the MLB level. Just hope this doesn't hurt him long term.
This is what worries me. I think I'd rather see Buchholz back in the rotation than chance ruining EdRo. If nothing else, it would make for some entertaining game threads.
 

nvalvo

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89 changeup - jeez, that's so high. Will his lack of much changeup-fastball separation forever limit his ceiling?
You might recall from last season that he broke out in the Boston system because, unlike Baltimore, the Sox let him throw his changeup that hard.
 

iayork

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NESN broadcast had him 93-95 through first three innings. Never saw anything higher than 95.
Velocity started going down in 4/5th and command left as well.
Brooks shows him topping out at 96.3. He did lose some velocity but he was still over 94 by the end of his outing. That is an encouraging sign.speed.png
 

j44thor

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If you agree with Brooks, I think that that was juiced by approx 1 mph. The reality is he was decent early, poor late and was mostly inefficient because he isn't missing bats. This was all against one of if not the worst team in MLB. A similar effort against a team such as TOR would have been much, much worse. I'd like to see him optioned for at least a month, let him rehab/build up strength in AAA where results don't matter and he can focus on pitching, not results. It is so frustrating to see what is going on because the results thus far are entirely predictable and not fair to Erod.

Elias pitched 7 scoreless on Friday for AAA with 7K's and 0BB. He now has a 3.54 ERA. Time for him to get a chance. Doubtful he will be worse than 80% Erod.
 

O Captain! My Captain!

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You might recall from last season that he broke out in the Boston system because, unlike Baltimore, the Sox let him throw his changeup that hard.
FWIW, harder changeups and similar offspeed pitches (like sliders) are coming into fashion. In particular, some of the success of the Mets' young pitchers is because they've all been taught to throw an extremely hard slider. What the pitcher loses in velocity separation and movement, he gains in being harder to distinguish from the fastball and the fact that faster pitches are harder to hit. Hard changeups lose the swing-and-miss, but tend to induce ground balls and other weak contact.
 

pantsparty

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Elias pitched 7 scoreless on Friday for AAA with 7K's and 0BB. He now has a 3.54 ERA. Time for him to get a chance. Doubtful he will be worse than 80% Erod.
Wouldn't calling Elias up not displace Eddie from the rotation? There's currently only 4 starters because Clay is in the bullpen and Kelly is in AAA. Not that I'm opposed to giving him a shot at the 5th rotation spot at this point, though.
 

In my lifetime

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ERod's performance just screams out "injury not 100%." Then add to that the known right Patella Subluxation and you have plenty of reason for the performance, especially since it is his landing leg. I would think the RS are medically all over this and hope that if there is any issue at all, they shut him down and continue to rehab or make the decision to surgically repair the knee. It could just be that he is guarding a little bit and even that would be enough to cause pitching problems.
 

Rudy's Curve

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With tonight's third straight bad performance coupled with the possibility that he's tipping pitches and Buchholz's strong performance out of the bullpen, it's tough to give ERod the ball again at this point. In addition, three of the four offenses this slot is going to face before the break are much better vs. LHP:

6/21 vs. CWS: 99 wRC+ vs. LHP/90 vs. RHP
6/26 at TEX: 116/94
7/2 vs. LAA: 96/106
7/8 vs. TB: 119/98
 

Sprowl

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Edro's cutter is still in the toolkit, and that's mostly a good thing.

The two-seam fastball, however, blew up in his face several times:

 

FanSinceBoggs

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With tonight's third straight bad performance coupled with the possibility that he's tipping pitches and Buchholz's strong performance out of the bullpen, it's tough to give ERod the ball again at this point. In addition, three of the four offenses this slot is going to face before the break are much better vs. LHP:

6/21 vs. CWS: 99 wRC+ vs. LHP/90 vs. RHP
6/26 at TEX: 116/94
7/2 vs. LAA: 96/106
7/8 vs. TB: 119/98
I think this makes the most sense. Send Rodriguez down. At this point, he has to earn a promotion and pitch his way back to the major leagues. As much as I dread saying it, I would give his rotation spot to Buchholz, with Elias in the rotation as well. Maybe the Red Sox will get lucky and catch a Buchholz hot streak.
 

YTF

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Relying on memory here and I can't definitively say if it is injury or development related, but I'm seeing something very familiar to last season. Early in games Rodriguez has been falling behind in counts, working with men on base and fighting high pitch counts. Granted he seems like he might not be fully recovered from the knee injury and some of this may be attributed to that, but these are things he struggled with often last season as well.
 

mfried

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I think this makes the most sense. Send Rodriguez down. At this point, he has to earn a promotion and pitch his way back to the major leagues. As much as I dread saying it, I would give his rotation spot to Buchholz, with Elias in the rotation as well. Maybe the Red Sox will get lucky and catch a Buchholz hot streak.
Like everyone else I thought 2015's ERod brought a fresh burst of energy. However, this year makes me think Baltimore knew what it was doing in the Miller trade. The guy's velocity is fine but injury, tipping, etc. are making him ineffective. He didn't even do very well in P'tucket, so this time, after he is sent down, make sure he deserves the promotion.
 
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Sandy Leon Trotsky

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Definitely hoping that Elias can be the 2016 version of EdRo 2015.... and we'll also hope for some sort of Clay Buccholz redemption arc storyline (Derek Lowe playoffs 2004) to compete.
EdRo still has a bright future with this team, I'm pretty sure of it but he definitely has some things to work on. Regarding pitch tipping though... why the hell is it that our pitchin instructors never seem to notice but other teams beat the crap out of the pitcher when this happens for 4-6 starts? It seems like that's the first thing a catcher would notice and put an end to immediately
 

Koufax

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Very good question. As I was driving home last night listening to the radio broadcast someone (I don't know who) was telling the broadcasters exactly how he was tipping. It had to do with the position of his glove and the direction of his thumb. The guy seemed to know what he was talking about.
 

Norm loves Vera

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Very good question. As I was driving home last night listening to the radio broadcast someone (I don't know who) was telling the broadcasters exactly how he was tipping. It had to do with the position of his glove and the direction of his thumb. The guy seemed to know what he was talking about.
While I am not sure if Lou was on the air last night, but he was tweeting all game about EdRo tipping his pitches with his glove, I am sure it will come up today on WEEI.

Lou Merloni ‏@LouMerloni 1h1 hour ago


L is FB/cutter. R is change. Glove level on change. If I see the thumb of his glove? Not a change @mattdolloff



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L is FB/cutter. R is change. Glove level on change. If I see the thumb of his glove? Not a change @mattdolloff
 

bradmahn

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It was John Thomase on the broadcast regurgitating the Merloni observation (he credited Lou with it, for the record).
 

MyDaughterLovesTomGordon

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Yeah, that's a tip that makes sense and is pretty noticeable. He's pointing out the glove position, but it's really about how he's gripping the ball at the set. Choking the ball in his hand for the change is flattening his wrist out. That should be fixable.
 

mauidano

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Tipping pitches is one thing but the not biggest thing. You still gotta execute location, speeds etc. EdRo is not throwing strikes consistently or spotting. So he gets hammered. He's got a lot to work on obviously before he gets another start. He's had enough chances at this level and hasn't proven he's ready to be a regular starter.
 

EricFeczko

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I'm surprised no one has mentioned the fact that he's pitching taller than usual; his vertical release this year is much higher than in 2015 or even the small sample size in 2013.
While his mean velocity for FBs is definitely in the vicinity of 2015, the distribution of velocity across all FBs may differ. His fastest pitches this year are still 2+ MPH slower than in 2015.
 

Sandy Leon Trotsky

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What the hell are our pitching coaches doing? We've had Dustin "fix" Price, Porcello seems to be backsliding and everyone else has been pure pooh other than Wright!