Send Jedi to the Glue Factory
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NopeBCsMightyJoeYoung said:
http://www.fangraphs.com/statsd.aspx?playerid=2038&position=P&type=6&gds=&gde=&season=2015
BCsMightyJoeYoung said:
He maxed out around 90,91 when he humped it up. Problem is, 2 years ago he was sitting around 92,93 and able to hit around 97,98mph when needed.
A 6 mph velocity decline is a huge red flag.
As Cellar-Door points out, he's been at 87 mph all season (though seemed even worse against Oakland).
I just saw a Farrell interview in which he said they need to get him back to the way he was pitching at the start of the season. If he really means that, it's worrisome for 2 possible reasons.
1. Farrell thinks Masterson was pitching well at some point this year.
Or
2. It confirms what some have suspected.... That Farrell has been asleep in the dugout numerous times already this year.
I just saw a Farrell interview in which he said they need to get him back to the way he was pitching at the start of the season. If he really means that, it's worrisome for 2 possible reasons.
1. Farrell thinks Masterson was pitching well at some point this year.
Or
2. It confirms what some have suspected.... That Farrell has been asleep in the dugout numerous times already this year.
You maybe want to cool it with your shtick?
Justin did have one great game against the Phillies where he went 6IP 3H 2ER 2BB 7SO inducing 9GB to 5FB. If they can get him back to that, I think everyone here would be ecstatic.
Justin did have one great game against the Phillies where he went 6IP 3H 2ER 2BB 7SO inducing 9GB to 5FB. If they can get him back to that, I think everyone here would be ecstatic.
You didn't just cite a 6 inning performance against the Phillies (with an avg fastball of 87 mph) did you?rembrat said:
Look, we get you love Farrell, and we get that you will jump on any poster that criticizes him. I was making a joke, chill out.
Hey Rad, you usually are one of the more level headed posters here but I do think you've been kinda snarky in this discussion. Masterson did pitch 5 shutout innings against a pretty good Baltimore lineup on Pats Day. Here's my $50.00 in advance since my insurance sucks and I'm sure I'll have a co-pay. LOLradsoxfan said:
Ha, I'll have to start an account. Maybe DRS can give me some pointers on how to collect.richgedman'sghost said:
I admit to being very critical of Masterson all year. It's much more about the stuff than the results, as I was worried well before the results got this bad (and said as much).
The Farrell jab, especially about sleeping in the dugout, was obviously a joke.
Sorry to those who felt the snark was over the top.
I'm not saying it's inexpensive for a reclamation project, just inexpensive for a one-year contract on a mid-career SP.AB in DC said:
If I spend $1000 on a used car and it dies after a month, clearly I did not get my money's worth--but that doesn't mean it was an expensive car.
Savin Hillbilly said:
Glad somebody gets it. You wanna split the check with me on Lose Remerswaal's dinner?
FWIW (and maybe it's not the official pitchfx gun) but the speed displayed on the o.co scoreboard all series seemed like 5 mph slow to me.
Chris Young was signed by the Royals in the middle of spring training for less than $1 million. He had a 3.65 ERA in 165 innings for Seattle last season, which was in line with his career ERA. The signing of Masterson was a huge gamble on upside, it was the equivalent of putting $10 million on Red at a roulette table. Anyone in the organization who advocated for that signing at anywhere near that money needs to be called on the carpet. A scout who said it was all in his head, a manager or pitching coach who thought is was mechanical, an assistant GM who said his SIERRA was this and his xFIP was that. As Grey Eagle pointed out in one of these threads, the major league scouting has been atrocious.Savin Hillbilly said:
Chris Young had a 2.40 ERA at Safeco, 5.03 on the road after missing the entire 2013 season. The major league scouting did their job just fine with regard to him.
Bob Montgomery's Helmet Hat said:
And his ERA this year is less than 1.00 despite not pitching in SafeCo.
And what was Justin Masterson's ERA last season, in the National League, where pitchers hit?
He's pitched 23 innings this year. He's one bad inning away from an ERA of 5.Plympton91 said:
I'm not making a judgment on Masterson. I'm simply saying that Young is a weak example of a good signing.
Chris Young is a 36 year old who generously counting has pitched 1 full season as a starter post 2007. Masterson is 30 and was a very good starter as recently as the year before last. Add in his injuries last year, the fact that his FIP was half a run better than Young, and his xFip more than a run better and it isn't a surprise they were in wildly different price brackets.Plympton91 said:
23 good innings by Young this year more than half in relief doesn't retroactively change their value last offseason unless our scouts have time machines.
Cellar-Door said:
Their value last offseason was apparently $9.5 million for Masterson and $685,000 for Young. But, hey, if John Henry is happy with that decision making process, more power to him. It is noted that Young has pitched quite a bit in relief this year, and that the Red Sox bullpen is only escaping scrutiny because it doesn't suck quite as badly as the starting rotation.
You can't really think that signing a guy who was hurt every year from 2008-2013, then was terrible in 2014 but had great luck and his ERA looked like he was only mediocre/bad can in any way be compared to signing a much younger guy who pitched in all those years, and was between mediocre and excellent over them, who was coming off an injury plagued year where he was still arguably the better pitcher.Plympton91 said:
Explain to me what a team would look at and say... we should get Chris Young to be in our rotation.
Masterson the explanation is clear.... He was a really good pitcher who turned down a huge payday and had an injury plagued season, if the doctors say they think he'll return to the form that had CLE offering him a 3years 42M before the season then he's a steal. Sure it turned out he hasn't recovered his velocity, but that is more of a medical staff issue than a bad use of funds.
Yeah, I'm sure it's not hard to troll through all the offseason signings and find a pitcher who's performing better than Masterson. Because it was just so obvious to everyone that Chris Young was going to be so much better than Masterson this season. Yeah, OK....
If Masterson doesn't work out, it should hardly be fatal to this team's chances. It's easy enough to stash him or DFA him and replace him with Wright or someone else and move on. If Porcello, Miley, and Kelly were pitching to their past performance levels then Masterson's failures wouldn't be an issue at all.
If Masterson doesn't work out, it should hardly be fatal to this team's chances. It's easy enough to stash him or DFA him and replace him with Wright or someone else and move on. If Porcello, Miley, and Kelly were pitching to their past performance levels then Masterson's failures wouldn't be an issue at all.
lexrageorge said:
The point isn't that anyone thought Young would be better, it is the HUGE difference in their salaries.
For instance, ZiPS, Steamer, and Depth Charts had Young's projected ERA this year as 4.32, 4.39, 4.36, respectively. They had Masterson's as 4.50, 4.53, 4.53. Each had Masterson with ~ 40 more IP so there is some value there.
Young is getting paid < $1M, Masterson $9.5M.
Even in the current salary era, $9.5M is pretty high for a flyer like that.
tims4wins said:
Thank you for quoting the official projections, and showing that they back up the point that there was no reason to expect Masterson to be better than Young. In fact, it looks to me like Young's home/road splits are very much a factor of a ridiculously high HR/FB rate on the road, which could be expected to normalize. Another reason to prefer Young to Masterson is that it is much easier to replace a $1 million pitcher as soon as a better option comes along--either through development or trade--than it is to replace a $9.5 million pitcher who bombs.
Plympton91 said:
No it isn't.
Your whole schtick here is just incredibly trollsome.
Ownership is not cheap just because they're not willing to spend what it takes to sign everyone you think they should sign.
Flexing financial muscle to get better players on the bottom half of the roster is a legitimate strategy and one that paid huge dividends very recently.
The fact that a decision didn't work out doesn't mean it was a bad decision.
The fact that a decision didn't work out doesn't mean the decision making process is flawed.
A ten million dollar, one year contract is not a big commitment for a team with the financial advantages the Red Sox have.
If you wanted to criticize the Masterson signing, the time to do it was when it was made, not months afterwards where you can use terrible arguments that assume the people making the decisions should have been psychic enough to see the short sample size success of someone else who was cheaper. The way to criticize the Masterson trade was to say there's a very good chance he's just done and that he didn't have a role on the team which is what I was saying before they traded away both RDLR and Webster. It's incredibly easy to see that they were gambling that Masterson would be good enough long enough for one of Owens/Rodriguez/Johnson to be a reasonable option. They almost won that bet.
Chris You
And had the Red Sox signed Chris Young (who prior to last season had last made 30 starts in 2007) for $1MM instead of Masterson, we'd be hearing about how cheap they were by going bargain basement.
It reminds me of that poster DH3 from Ezboard who prior to the 2003 cited JWH not giving Esteban Yan $1.5MM as definitive proof that they were cheap and didn't care about winning. With some people they have a narrative, and use a combination of hindsight and false dilemmas to paint the picture for them.
Rasputin said:
And had the Red Sox signed Chris Young (who prior to last season had last made 30 starts in 2007) for $1MM instead of Masterson, we'd be hearing about how cheap they were by going bargain basement.
It reminds me of that poster DH3 from Ezboard who prior to the 2003 cited JWH not giving Esteban Yan $1.5MM as definitive proof that they were cheap and didn't care about winning. With some people they have a narrative, and use a combination of hindsight and false dilemmas to paint the picture for them.
Who was it that said that health was going to be the next big breakthrough in sabermetrics? Was that Ben?
I'd like to know why this front office didn't see Masterson's velocity problems coming. What made us believe his decline from 91.6 to 88.9 from 2013 to 2014 was going to rebound, rather than get worse?
The only pitchers who survive declining velocity like that are pitchers who develop exceptional command. Velocity decline on a pitcher with Masterson's mechanics is a major problem.
I admit this is retrospective thinking, but you have to admit that this was a pretty risky move.
I'd like to know why this front office didn't see Masterson's velocity problems coming. What made us believe his decline from 91.6 to 88.9 from 2013 to 2014 was going to rebound, rather than get worse?
The only pitchers who survive declining velocity like that are pitchers who develop exceptional command. Velocity decline on a pitcher with Masterson's mechanics is a major problem.
I admit this is retrospective thinking, but you have to admit that this was a pretty risky move.
I'm sorry, but none of these rejoinders make any sense. First, in a year where they're spending over the luxury tax threshold with or without Masterson's deal, it would be stupid to criticize ownership for being cheap. Second, none of these criticisms has anything to do with ownership, they have to do with how Cherington is allocating the budget that he is being given by ownership and the role that Allan Baird's major league scouting operation and unproven metrics like catcher framing are playing in those decisions. Third, someone just posted official projections from three sources showing Young was more likely to be an asset this year than Masterson. Fourth, I absolutely agree with Rasputin's bottom line -- they had the depth of 5th starter options in the organization to make signing Masterson a bad gamble and inefficient use of the budget. And signing Young for essentially league minimum would have bolstered those fifth starter options sufficiently to give a high probability of averting disaster.
Agree with the plan or not, there's no denying there could've been much better ways to burn that ten million. Young wasn't and shouldn't have been an option, but there wouldn't have been any downside to giving the job to Wright. If he sucked after five or ten starts (depending on your leash,) you send him down or move him to the pen and work toward options B, C, or D. Same result as now, ten million more in the flexibility bank (or invested in the bullpen.)
Hated the Masterson signing since day one, but most SoSHers were on record believing last season was an outlier and he would, at least somewhat, revert back to his prior form. When it comes to velocity and arm slot loss, I'm not as convinced (which is why I wouldn't touch Lincecum with a 10-foot pole right now either.)
Hated the Masterson signing since day one, but most SoSHers were on record believing last season was an outlier and he would, at least somewhat, revert back to his prior form. When it comes to velocity and arm slot loss, I'm not as convinced (which is why I wouldn't touch Lincecum with a 10-foot pole right now either.)
Despite his reputation for being an easygoing guy, Masterson appears to be peeved about the decision. He also seems to be in denial about the severity of his drop-off in performance.
Old news, I guess, but maybe this is why the DL move isn't official yet? The one entity that can stop a DL move like this is the player himself. So maybe it will end with with "Jedi to the "pen..." Which as many people have pointed out, no longer seems like a solution. The DL/rehab is much more reasonable and would be better for the team.
Old news, I guess, but maybe this is why the DL move isn't official yet? The one entity that can stop a DL move like this is the player himself. So maybe it will end with with "Jedi to the "pen..." Which as many people have pointed out, no longer seems like a solution. The DL/rehab is much more reasonable and would be better for the team.
Where are you getting those numbers, I assume they are updated or ROS because they definitely aren't the original offseason projections.tims4wins said:
The originals were.....
ZIPS:
Masterson: 157.7 IP at 4.28 ERA 0.9 WAR
Young: 122.7 IP at 4.47 ERA 0.3 WAR
STEAMER:
Masterson: 166 IP at 4.34 ERA 1.5 WAR
Young: 104 IP at 4.58 ERA 0.0 WAR
DEPTH CHARTS:
Masterson: 167 IP at 4.26 ERA 1.1 WAR
Young: 106 IP at 4.53 ERA -0.2 WAR
At a value of something between 6 and 7 dollars per war Steamer and Depth charts estimated the salary differential between Young and Masterson was correct, ZIPS estimated that Young was a bit underpaid and Masterson overpaid. Of course all three were insanely optimistic on IP for Young to me, it would be only the third time he'd broken 105 IP in 8 years.
FOX Sports: MLB @MLBONFOX 28s28 seconds ago
The #RedSox announce they have placed Justin Masterson on the 15-day DL with right shoulder tendinitis.
The #RedSox announce they have placed Justin Masterson on the 15-day DL with right shoulder tendinitis.
The article is very, very poorly edited overall. It's clear that JM is saying he is not down with the DL decision, and that he thinks a few adjustments would fix everything. But the reporter has dropped in transcriptions without giving them adequate context.
Rovin Romine said:
Let me translate:Rovin Romine said:
He feels like he just needs to make a few adjustments and his performance would improve. He thought that on Tuesday, but obviously he didn't find the right adjustments in game,
He is also saying that if the team were doing better he would be given more time to work himself out, but since the team was struggling and is just now turning it around he isn't getting a long leash.
The last two starts have been "different" than the first five, he doesn't deny it, however he told John Farrell that he isn't happy about a DL trip.
I don't expect Masterson to be happy about the move. He's a professional athlete, a starter on a MLB team. He's competitive by nature.
Justin spoke his mind when asked and gave a truthful answer not some cliche response. I can appreciate that. Figure it out dude and prove everyone wrong.
Justin spoke his mind when asked and gave a truthful answer not some cliche response. I can appreciate that. Figure it out dude and prove everyone wrong.
PrometheusWakefield said:
I think that's probably true, though it's obviously a very complicated topic. I have some ideas, some probably dumb, some possibly already being done for all I know (the Red Sox can contact me for a small fee if they want to know more
). But bottom line is that predicting health and forecasting injuries is very hard. Speaking just to the radiology aspect, pretty much none of these players, especially pitchers, have completely "normal" imaging studies. And many of these players have been performing at a very high level with these abnormalities already present. Trying to predict who will get hurt, which injuries are short term and will heal, and which injuries even matter in the first place is no simple task.
As to Masterson specifically, I'm sure even with all of his medical history and MRIs, it was hard to know ex ante if he'd be worth the 9.5M investment. So for me, or anyone else, to speculate without a large portion of that info is even harder. With that caveat, (and someone correct me if I have the public info wrong), Masterson went on the DL with "knee inflammation" in July last year. His game logs have a gap from July 7 to Aug 2, during which time he was also traded. Taking the injury at face value, the docs likely didn't find much wrong. Just about every athlete has something you could point to as inflammation, though it is possible they found something they just didn't want to disclose. But regardless, Masterson didn't require surgery or a very long time off.
I have no idea how much the Red Sox felt, internally, that the knee issue was to blame for the major velocity drop and poor performance. A nonspecific "minor" injury can be looked at in two ways. One, it's good that he shouldn't have any long term knee issue to worry about. But at the same time, is that a good enough reason to explain why he has so consistently bad last year, and had such a significant velocity drop?
Again, hard to get into the minds of the Sox medical staff, but I hope they were at least considering these issues. From afar, my hunch is the knee injury was at most a minor contributing factor to his poor performance all year. I hope the Red Sox explored other possibilities as well, like shoulder and elbow problems. For all we know, they did, and this is just a case of an unpredictable, persistent decline rather than some giant red flag that was missed.
Without more info, I have a tough time passing any sort of definitive judgement on the signing. Most of my criticism this year has not been about the signing itself, but rather the team continuing to throw him out there when it was clear his stuff is not major league caliber.
I wonder what message has been relayed to Masterson that makes him so outward about this. I wonder if they told him he's going to the pen in AAA (you know...."when healthy") and he thinks he has the ability to start.
His agent should sit down with him and show him Andrew Miller's terrible splits and stats as a starter, and show him his contract he just received. Masterson knows he's currently on a "make good contract" and he has not "made good" and that if he continues down this path his next "make good" contract will certainly not be for $9.5M, but will have the qualifier of "...with a spring training invitation"
His agent should sit down with him and show him Andrew Miller's terrible splits and stats as a starter, and show him his contract he just received. Masterson knows he's currently on a "make good contract" and he has not "made good" and that if he continues down this path his next "make good" contract will certainly not be for $9.5M, but will have the qualifier of "...with a spring training invitation"
NDame616 said:
The Miller comp is apples and oranges, though. Miller never had sustained success as a starter, and no team ever committed to using him as one. When he pitched what was presumably his last start in the major leagues, he hadn't hit his 27th birthday yet. None of this applies to Masterson.
A better comp might be Eck, and it's not inconceivable that Masterson has an Eck-like second act in him.
I've always wondered why Masterson signed here in the first place for a make-good contract, even if the money was better than other options. It's a tough division, he was well aware of the number of other guys bidding for starting jobs, and that the Sox were not approaching this as a building year. Makes you think some of this might be a reflection of miscommunication (or just plain mistakes on JM's part) regarding how much rope he was going to get.
If he didn't think about it, he should be firing his agent for not making him think about the pros and cons of the deal Boston was offering, and doing a little basic reality testing with him.Rudy Pemberton said:
The presence of his former pitching coach with whom he'd had success in a position of influence can't have hurt.
Firing his agent for getting him the (likely by far) biggest deal out there? If anything he'd want to fire him for not getting him a multi-year deal at these numbers or more.P'tucket said:
You don't get to this level and remain at this level without confidence and ego that makes one delusional about their actual value. Once you do you are toast.
"Jedi to the pen" eventually and Wright to the starting staff.
There was some banter around here on the effects of knucleballers on hitters the next day or next at-bat? Maybe Miley should thank Wright for putting Oakland in a mild funk on Weds.
Too bad we have Wright going Sunday instead of Saturday vs. the Mariners.
Hopefully Farrell can manipulate the starting rotation to get Wright pitching at the beginning or middle of a series.
There was some banter around here on the effects of knucleballers on hitters the next day or next at-bat? Maybe Miley should thank Wright for putting Oakland in a mild funk on Weds.
Too bad we have Wright going Sunday instead of Saturday vs. the Mariners.
Hopefully Farrell can manipulate the starting rotation to get Wright pitching at the beginning or middle of a series.
Bump
http://www.rotoworld.com/recent/mlb/4955/justin-masterson
"Justin Masterson (shoulder) is scheduled to make his first minor league rehab start with Triple-A Pawtucket on Sunday."
http://www.rotoworld.com/recent/mlb/4955/justin-masterson
"Justin Masterson (shoulder) is scheduled to make his first minor league rehab start with Triple-A Pawtucket on Sunday."
benhogan said:
Since he is knuckleballer, who have legendary durability, Wright needs to clearly start every other game. Then we would win all the games that he doesn't pitch as a result of the aftereffects, and some that he does as a result of the effects. We would be unstoppable, I am telling you.
Not my intent but you're right!rajendra82 said:
Here's the new slogan for NESN: "Wright... every other Night"
We'd be at least a .500 team and .500 baseball is all the rage in the AL East.
Wait one second didn't he pitch yesterday? Oh crap, scrap that theory, back to the drawing board.
