iayork wrote a piece this morning on the .com about Joe Kelly:
Should we get our hopes up, or are we going to get disappointed again?
Will Joe Kelly Ever Fulfill His Potential?
- Thread starter Darnell's Son
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Long way to prove himself yet. regarding those 3 things these are all just obvious things that professional pitcher has to do: slow fast ball down or (have better control), pitch selection? really? or (work with the catcher a little more) and change speeds? (disrupt the timing of the swing). Honestly does a professional pitcher have to be reminded of these things? He is a number 4 or 5 pitcher
You're seriously understating the difficulty of actually pitching in the major league level, and the fine line of adjustments that pitchers need to make sometimes in order to be successful. The pitching coach used to be some guy that would stand next to the pitcher during spring training warmups and then retreat into the dugout and chew tobacco with the manager. Teams have long since moved on from the model, which indicates that teams do find value in tutoring their pitchers on some of the finer detailed point.
If one possess an elite fastball like Kelly, it may very well be relied on to the detriment of developing other pitching skills, including tinkering with the fastball to slow it down. It's not like he hadn't been fairly successful with his old approach.
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I have my hopes moderately up. Maybe Kelly won't initially have the feel/rhythm he established last year, but his final nine starts seemed, in context, to be something to give serious weight to when trying to project him for this year.
Actually I am inferring the opposite. In order to pitch at this level and to have got to this level and to stick, he should realize these things already. In other words do these things have to be pointed out?
Hitters at the minor league level couldn't force him to learn. The Red Sox told Jon Lester that he had to pitch without his cutter in the minors because it was obvious that it was becoming a crutch which would limit development of his secondary pitches and general "pitchability." Obviously you can't just force a pitcher to pitch without a fastball in the minors, so doing something similar to Kelly is borderline impossible. Obviously Kelly knows in the abstract that his elite fastball velocity is only part of what he needs to become a better pitcher, but it's hard to really commit to changing without evidence of failure.
Throwing not-fastballs -- especially for strikes -- in fastball counts is the last thing that great pitchers get great at. Kelly may never be a great pitcher, but his success last year seemed to track his willingness to do so a bit more often, and then stick with it. Even not thrown as strikes, they keep the hitter off balance and guessing just a little for the next time up.
I'm excited to see if he keeps it up.
I'm excited to see if he keeps it up.
I think most pitchers (very few of course) that can throw 98 want to show it off. Hell, can I do 99 or 100? It might not have occurred to Kelly that backing off on it a tad would lead to more control/command (I assume that's the good result, unless backing off keeps his ball from being too straight, or maybe he gets both benefits). This is what pitching coaches are for.
Let's also not forget that Kelly didn't track from HS as a starting pitcher. He was an OF in HS and turned into a closer in college. Starting is not something he's been doing his whole life.
The only problem with this theory is that Joe Kelly's minor league numbers actually aren't that much different than his major league numbers.
Joe Kelly minors: 7.4 K/9, 3.6 BB/9, 0.4 HR/9, 8.8 H/9
Joe Kelly majors: 6.4 K/9, 3.4 BB/9, 0.8 HR/9, 9.1 H/9
Other than losing 1 K/9 this is a fairly smooth transition from minors to majors (hell, even including the loss of the K/9 it's pretty smooth)
Now, this doesn't really change the thesis that the Sox are altering his approach, perhaps for the better. Although I've heard the Cardinals are pretty good at developing pitchers, so I wouldn't want to guess that they simply missed the boat and didn't understand how to help him be better. That said, one could argue that they over-promoted him and he should have been allowed to work on these things in the minors instead of being promoted because of his fastball or whatever.
Following up on uncannymanny: Obviously Kelly would pitch more innings if he pitched better/varied his pitches more; but we haven't seen real evidence that he has the stamina to be a starter. It's an additional question mark on a staff that's overloaded with them.
What do you mean by this? He averaged 95 pitches per start in his major-league starts in 2015, which seems reasonable to me. Between the majors and the minors, he started in 27 games last year, which again seems pretty reasonable. So, do you have some numbers to support your claim? Are you arguing that his fastball slows down after X pitches or that he loses effectiveness at an unusually fast rate? Again, I don't think there's evidence for that. In fact, I would say that we've seen evidence that Kelly has at least normal, and perhaps exceptional, stamina for a starter. Do you have something that argues otherwise?
I really think its only a matter of "changing" 1 or 2 pitches per inning. Maybe he just wasn't quite mature enough to take what the Cardinals were giving and they got tired of waiting.
In St Louis, Kelly was pitching to Yadier Molina, and he's said that he never called his own pitches -- just did whatever Yadi told him to do. So yeah, maybe you know more about pitch calling than the Molinas do, but you shouldn't blame Kelly for following his lead. In Boston, throwing to a rookie catcher who wasn't supposed to be in the majors at all, Kelly seems to have made adjustments at an impressive rate, taking on his own responsibilities and doing a pretty good job of it.
In general, these psychodrama explanations about why baseball players don't do something physical strike me as complete bullshit. He doesn't throw the right pitch mix because he was too immature. He was afraid to throw a fastball because they look like penises. Matt Clement couldn't pitch right because he was afraid of comebackers.
Or maybe Clement couldn't pitch right because his arm was literally falling off, and maybe Kelly didn't change speeds on his fastball because it's not so easy to throw a fastball at 97.5 instead of 98.5 MPH. He's still learning his job, and he's apparently picked up as much in the past few years as most major-league pitchers learn in 15 years.
Maybe Kelly won't become a front-rank ace. But if not, saying it's because he's immature is a lazy way out. He might not become an ace because almost no one does become an ace, no matter how hard they work and how much talent they start with.
For the most part I agree. I'm usually among the first to call bullshit on psychobabble. But I'm not talking about taking a mile off the fastball. *That* is probably harder than any of us can imagine. (Pitching in MLB is harder than any of us can imagine.). Throwing not-fastballs is more of a choice.
As to the adjustments, maybe we are talking semantics here. What you call "taking on his own responsibilities," I called "maturity." But I wasn't talking "making a doo doo in the potty" maturity. I was talking baseball maturity and pitching maturity, which involves occasionally not throwing 2-0 fastballs or a million other adjustments that come with experience. Besides, in life in general, "taking on one's own responsibilities" is a sign of "maturing."
To your Molina point, perhaps that's why he had better results in STL than he first did in Boston. And why his worst results (May and June), were when Hanigan was out.
Someone called into WEEI making the point that last year all of Boston's pitchers had lower ERAs when pitching to Sandy Leon. I have tried and failed to come up with a site that gives me that info. If anyone knows how to find that, I would appreciate the link.
http://www.baseball-reference.com/teams/split.cgi?t=p&team=BOS&year=2015#catch
This tells you that Boston pitchers as a group had a better ERA throwing to Leon than to Hanigan or Swihart. To get it broken down pitcher by pitcher I think you have to go to the split pages for the individual pitchers, though there may be a way to get Play Index to spit this out.
ESPN has Catcher ERA. As potentially flawed as that is as a measure of catching, you could probably sort through the Sox catchers to answer the question.
http://espn.go.com/mlb/stats/fielding/_/year/2015/position/c/league/al/order/true
EDIT: But not by individual pitchers, as pointed out above.
http://espn.go.com/mlb/stats/fielding/_/year/2015/position/c/league/al/order/true
EDIT: But not by individual pitchers, as pointed out above.
iayork and I looked at how the pitchers did, minus Wright, with the different catchers. We came to the conclusion that there just wasn't enough data. I think I saved it all. I'll look later and post it here. I know that Speier wrote up something about it a month or two ago, and said much the same thing.
It looks like the majority of Leon's starts were with Buchholz, so not a representative sampling of the starters. Which is one way Catchers ERA can be misleading.
Joe Kelly's slider got the 17th most whiffs per swing out of 67 RH starters in 2015... but when contact is made it allowed the 9th highest BA and 10th highest ISO. So it's truly boom or bust.
Of the 130 RH pitchers that had 150 slider spin rates tracked last year his came in at 124th (1757 RPM) ... Garrett Richards best at 2722 RPM, Jet Blue had Anderson Espinoza at 2800+ last year.
Of the 130 RH pitchers that had 150 slider spin rates tracked last year his came in at 124th (1757 RPM) ... Garrett Richards best at 2722 RPM, Jet Blue had Anderson Espinoza at 2800+ last year.
I deferred to my respect for iayork in not giving a flippant response initially. However, I'm now upset I didn't jest about him reaching said potential in the bullpen, which is where he belongs.
Straight fastballs and hanging curves out over the plate play better out of the bullpen?
The answer is no. He should have figured it out by now and its pretty clear he hasn’t. I still think he could be a good reliever as he would have to worry about pitch mix as much and would only have to focus on 1 inning. His fastball would also play up as well.
I think the umpire squeezed him a bit which forced him to catch too much of the plate at times. Plus the Jays are a really good hitting team, especially at home I won't make too much of it, but its not what you wanted.
For whatever reason he lost command of his slider in the 4th. It seemed he had been relying on it early in the count to get ahead. So he was behind in the count the whole inning. Not that he had much command of the fastball either.
The Toronto lineup plus bad command is a recipe for disaster.
The Toronto lineup plus bad command is a recipe for disaster.
Actually, yeah. They kind of do...especially when those fastballs come in at 96+. A starter needs to show the ability to change speeds and consistently hit their spots over multiple innings to be effective, whereas that's not necessarily true for a 1IP reliever with a serious arm. Kelly's stuff will play up a bit and his mistakes will be mitigated coming into a game for one inning (or one batter, even) at a time.
Exactly, his fastball would consistently sit in the upper 90’s (97-98) combined with his slider he could have success. Especially since he would only have to worry about 1 inning. He wouldnt have to worry so much about mixing his pitch speeds and varying his pitch mix. Simplifying the game for him could do wonders.
But he SO wants to be a starter, and the team needs starters more than relievers right now. Of course, they need good starters, not what he showed last night, but they'll weigh what he did the last couple of months last year against the one bad start and keep sending him out. Question is, how many stinkers before Dave D. orchestrates something else?
Can we give these starters a couple of rounds through the rotation? Please?
Who wants to judge a pitcher (or reliever) in mid-April?
Who wants to judge a pitcher (or reliever) in mid-April?
The team does need starters, but not starters who pitch 4 inning and allow 7 runs. And despite his 8 good starts last year, he still had a 5.09 era and was absolute garbage for most of the year. (to the point where he got sent to AAA) He should be on a very short leash. And we have a guy named henry owens in pawtucket
No kidding. The Blue Jays are going to do that to a lot of teams this year. Just like we will. We've knocked around Kluber, Carrasco, and Stroman so far, I think all three of those guys are good bets going forward.
He could of been facing the Mudchickens last night and he wouldn't have got through 5 innings. Have you people watched baseball before?
Leaving over half your fastballs belt high is a certain recipe for disaster. Someone needs to work with him on the finish side of his delivery.
No question he has a phenomenal arm--but this ain't gonna fly.
Leaving over half your fastballs belt high is a certain recipe for disaster. Someone needs to work with him on the finish side of his delivery.
No question he has a phenomenal arm--but this ain't gonna fly.
Exactly. Nobody is reacting only to the one start yesterday, it's the much larger sample size of him not being a reliable starter since coming over here. The guy has all the potential in the world, but sooner or later, you have to utilize him in the manner which minimizes his biggest fault. Given that his is consistency, that's one inning at a time out of the pen.
No, but I'd consider sliding him out of the role, and not Wright, as soon as Rodriguez is healthy.
Maybe when Ortiz said "You make me so excited about next year" he thought he was an opposing pitcher and David would have had a chance to break the record?
You realize Wright hasn't even made one start?!?!?! So if Wright gets lit up in 3 innings will you change your mind and geez... Only 3 innings...hmmmm... May he's not even cut out to be a long reliever...
Thanks for the useless snark, but no, that's not how this works. Wright has consistently been a decent starter over the course of his career and I believe he's capable of giving us league-average or maybe slightly below production, which is really all we'd need out of the #5 spot. Kelly, however, has far too many peaks and valleys to lean on him on what should be a playoff contender, especially when he could likely be better utilized out of the bullpen, the same of which you can't say for Wright. When EdRod is ready to come back, that's a call you're going to have to make, and I'd rather roll the dice with Wright at the end of the rotation and try to capitalize on the strengths of Kelly's golden arm.
I know, radical concept and all, attempting to put players in the best position to succeed.
You call Wright a "consistently...decent starter over the course of his career" as if he has a track record worth noting. He's made just 11 big league starts spread out over three seasons. 58.1 innings (5.1 IP/start), 4.01 ERA, 1.234 WHIP in those 11 starts. Meanwhile, Joe Kelly in 74 career starts has thrown 412 innings (5.2 IP/start), 4.02 ERA, 1.405 WHIP.
There's an argument to be made that Kelly might not be cut out for the #5 spot or reliable as a post-season starter (I'm not going to make it) but I don't think Steven Wright is any kind of clear cut and obvious upgrade over him. If it's a matter of who does Rodriguez bump out of the rotation when the time comes, it's going to be a matter of who is the better pitcher over the next 4-5 weeks. And if it is a dead heat in that regard, I don't think Steven Wright wins out based on career numbers.
.2 WHIP difference isn't insignificant, nobody's talking about viability in the postseason, and you have to factor in Kelly's NL numbers in your comparison, which we haven't (and likely won't ever) see here. Plus, you're ignoring his highs and lows, and that he's likely a better fit as a bullpen arm whereas Wright will show more value as a back end starter.
Oh c'mon. 11 starts was the key number thrown out not WHIP. There is no statistical basis to think that Wright will out perform Kelly as a starter going forward. You may believe that, but there is no evidence. In fact, the limited evidence indicates they're about the same. It's early, give them both a chance to earn or lose a spot when ERod comes back. Hell, it might be Clay or Rick that gets bumped from the rotation then.
BTW from a stats perspective a 0.2 diff in WHIP with that sample size is not significant.
The numbers I presented are Kelly's career numbers as a starter, so they include his time in the NL and are therefore "factored" into the comparison. Unless you are suggesting they should be left out, which is nothing more than cherry picking to suit your argument.
My larger point, as Ellis points out, is the fact that you are basing your argument for Steven Wright on a mere 11 starts spanning three seasons. Eleven starts in which he's compiled quite similar numbers to Kelly's overall. The 0.2 WHIP difference is a matter of one baserunner every five innings, or based on each pitcher's average start length, about one per start. Not all that significant in the long run, and very well could be nothing more than statistical noise from the quite significant difference in their sample sizes.
0.2 WHIP is insignificant if one of the data points in the comparison is 11 starts vs 400+ innings.
Every pitcher has highs and lows, so there's no point considering those in the equation. Wright will have his highs and lows once he gets 400 innings under his belt as well.
However, I don't think how they pitch over the next 4-5 weeks is going to be the only factor in this decision. One of the main frustrations with keeping Kelly in the rotation (aside from the results when he pitches like he did in the opener), is that literally everything about his make-up as a pitcher suggests he would be better suited for a bullpen role. Some people simply aren't cut out to be starters, and I feel Kelly has been given a much longer leash to try out the starter role than a lot of others have been (because of the obviously higher upside). So why not just move him a spot where he's likely to be better and more likely to succeed? It's only a matter of time at this point.
And just to bring it back to the conversation at hand, there are no such illusions about the possibility of using Wright in a bullpen role. He's either in the rotation or in AAA, which makes the decision over who to bump from the rotation not solely performance based.