The Mariners were very good last year against fastballs and very bad against breaking balls.
I'd imagine it depends on the type of breaking pitches being thrown too. Some are more stressful on the arm than others. While a factor in those guys demises, I imagine the 250+ innings per season and 130+ pitches per start had as much or more to do with their breakdowns.
Yep. Although I would suggest that while this remains a thread to look at the pitching staff both globally and as individuals, it is not the place for long speculative "how I would have done things" digressions that involve magically creating a pitching staff we do not actually have.
It's long been conventional wisdom that breaking pitches are damaging to arms, but I'm not sure there's any definitive data to support it. If there is, I'd love to see it. There is definitely data showing that increased velocity leads to increased injury risk, however. So having the Red Sox pitchers emphasize breaking stuff may be a lesser-of-two-evils approach when it comes to preventing injuries.
It's pretty hard to untangle pitch type (in terms of how the ball moves in the air) from things like conditioning, mechanics, effort, pitch use over time, peak use of pitches, peak use in terms of outings, pitcher age, and the genetic lottery.
I wish i had something better, but this isnt a bad (inconclusive, but enough for me) analysis:
If Slaten has a good season/career (still early), they will be notable for their success with Rule5 pitching. The list is pretty short:
It's a good start, but you'd really want to notice any other league wide changes from 2015 to 2023. . .and then work back to see if there's a correlation between any of those (or combinations of those) and the actual injured pitchers. A big project.
Slaten was pretty widely seen as a candidate to get popped in rule 5, but still, that suggests pretty nice work by pro scouting, I’d say. A few scouts might be in line for retention raises.
This is very interesting. It does seem like we should be aiming for a rotating cast of long men to square the circle in terms of managing bullpen IP, and given the new limits on option use, we probably need a bunch of them.
Good to see the Joely replacement options doing well, since Joely himself is not...
In fairness, Joely would've been out of that inning yesterday if not for a missed call by the ump. Youk was all over it, saying he needed to get that call.
Hard agree with this take. I wouldn't read too much into this as some risky strategy the Sox are implementing for the full season and are therefore flirting with injury. It was a good game plan vs. the Mariners and it worked.
His bigger sample sizes say he's a 3.50-ish FIP guy with a 9 k/9 rate, so I am happy to see if he shakes off the rust from a lost season.
We probably need someone who can sort the data better, but his recent year to year splits are nuts - so you wonder how much that FIP is worth. Rounding a bit:
He had shoulder issues all last year, so even though he got in 15 innings, I wonder how much value there is in those numbers. But otherwise yeah, your point stands.
Probably not a lot, so I'm fine with trusting the coaching staff's assessment of his likely effectiveness.
I am very intrested in him as well. But please don't follow him in this thread? He's not one of ours.
What did you think of Slaten coming in when he did yesterday? [He's a better matchup than Joely probably... if he's feeling "ready".]
Sorry, didn’t know the appropriate thread to post it in. This will be my last Imanaga…until we trade for him as a reclamation project in 2027.
We've got a generalish monthly thread going in the MLB forum where Sale and others are being discussed. There's also the adopt-a-team threads. You don't really need to adopt a team wholesale to post in them about particular players. You could also probably create an adopt-a-player thread there. I'd certainly read it. Seriously - I'm very interested in following a number of non-Sox (and ex-Sox) pitchers this year; Sale, YY, Imanaga, E-Rod, Wacha, etc.
Personally? I loved it. And the proof is in the pudding, as they say. I think he's got a ton of upside and I'm very excited to seem him pitch this year and in the future.
Pitching Ninja has always loved Houck, a pioneer in the "righty Sale" comps. Dude was outstanding yesterday, his stuff will always play, it's a matter of not being behind in the count and having to throw fastballs, if he can live off speed it's good night.
Hopefully not, they've had several controversies about the seams and the sticky stuff in recent years, and I think people have heard enough about the ball for a while.
That's a great look at Bailey's philosophy, but I don't think combining four seamers and two seamers is all that useful. I look at Bello as a guy whose four-seamer got crushed last year, and then he threw none of them in his first start (even though he threw plenty of sinkers). Same with Houck going two-seam heavy with, again, zero four-seamers. I think that's meaningful. On the other hand, they didn't scrap it for Pivetta as his four-seamer has a ton of rise and carry and can elicit swings and misses.
I agree but couldn't quickly find further breakdown between 2-seam and 4-seam as compared to the Giants last year. The A's are terrible against fastballs (and most other pitches) so it will be interesting to see what the usage looks like the next few days.
Yeah, I also think a lot of that is context. Even with what Bailey said about not believing you need to throw fastballs to climb back into counts, Houck was painting the strike zone last night, it won't always work that way with a guy with his command, so odds are he'll have outings that are more fastball centric (even though I still believe they will focus on the two seamers and cutters with him). But speaking strictly of four-seam fastball usage, the 2024 Red Sox are currently dead last in the league, at about 10% (the Giants are 29th). Couldn't find the data for 2023 to contrast, though.
Wow, it makes me happy to see this. "Off speed pitches for strikes when down in the count" has been my quick-and-dirty go-to for pitcher evaluation for a long time. It takes both skill and commitment. While I've never seen a breakdown of which pitchers do it regularly, it *seems* like it correlates with success. Pitchers that don't do it *can* succeed. Pitchers that actually do it are likely to succeed.
For sure, but keeping that walk total down is going to go a long way towards keeping your starters in the game through that 5th inning and beyond.
It makes sense. A batter up in the count is going to try to sit fastball. It's one of the few times they can get comfortable and look for a particular pitch expecting it to come. Being able to upset that expectation makes the lives of batters way more difficult.
And only 1.1 IP behind Houston for most from starters (third place, excluding LAD/SDP who have extra games/lower average).
Yeah, I was feeling pretty bullish on the pitching staff going into the season but this is more than I could have guessed. Bailey is a wizard, and good on the pitchers for being humble enough to work with him and make the adjustments. What's even wilder is we had three guys go 6 innings all while staying under 85 pitches. In another era they would've squeezed another inning out of all three of them if they could.
