Edro nobilis

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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.
Could the pitching taller thing be a residual effect of the knee injury? Perhaps he's not driving forward as much as he usually does, and as a result pitching more upright, because he's subconsciously (or consciously) trying to protect himself.
 

geoduck no quahog

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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!
We don't know what "our" pitching coaches are doing. We're not privy to the discussions, tape reviews, off-day workouts, tweaks, minor league instructions, etc. that the coaches do. I guess that makes it really easy to blame them for a player's poor performance. If only the Red Sox had good coaches, the pitching staff would be in the top 10. Or we could blame the catchers. Or we could blame Pedroia for not doing a better job with Barnes.

It's too easy to assign the reasons for suckitude to a specific target without knowing the details. I think it's a waste of time. We don't know if it's a coach-ability issue or a physical issue or whatever. I'd rather await some sort of attribution from a writer or another inside source. Until then all we know is what we observe.
 
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Al Zarilla

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We don't know what "our" pitching coaches are doing. We're not privy to the discussions, tape reviews, off-day workouts, tweaks, minor league instructions, etc. that the coaches do. I guess that makes it really easy to blame them for a player's poor performance. If only the Red Sox had good coaches, the pitching staff would be in the top 10. Or we could blame the catchers. Or we could blame Pedroia for not doing a better job with Barnes.

It's too easy to assign the reasons for suckitude to a specific target without knowing the details. I think it's a waste of time. We don't know if it's a coach-ability issue or a physical issue or whatever. I'd rather await some sort of attribution from a writer or another inside source. Until then all we know is what we observe.
Maybe 2 out of 3 pitchers the Red Sox send out to the mound just plain suck and no pitching coach could help them. I tend to doubt that though. If they were a corporation and sales were off like ERA is way high for this team, heads would be rolling. I know they fired a pitching coach last year (Nieves) and you can't go all Steinbrenner on the whole thing, but Red Sox pitching is getting into laughing stock territory.

People pine for Dave Righetti or Dave Duncan. Righetti is not going anywhere and Duncan is 70 and has a pitching consultant job with the
D-Backs. Doubt if he's available. Rick Honeycuty is highly regarded but would he leave the Dodgers? Bud Black currently has a FO job with the Angels. Offer him the pitching coach job with a sweetner that the mgr. job is his next year. Don't tell Farrell!
 

geoduck no quahog

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No, I understand. But going after coaches has the same problem as proving a negative. There's little or no data to show a coach sucks (other than a 3b coach fucking up runners). They could very well suck but there's nothing specific to point to, including win-loss. Managers are easier targets. Coaches are obscured.

I'd love to think a new coach could solve Rodriguez, Buchholz or Kelly. I'm willing to listen to any evidence that justifies that.

(Also, why does the Viagra single pack label show up on an airport X-ray? Is it radioactive?)
 

Sprowl

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Edro is back a month later, dominating the Yankees with heat (fastball ~94) and lots of sliders (~83-89), a category which includes both his usual slider and his newfound cutter.

Location -- lots of belt-high fastballs, so it's just as well that the 2016 Yankees are a bunch of feeble, over-the-hill batters.

Repertoire -- the slider (25 thrown, to both platoons) replaced the changeup (only 5) as alternative to the fastball.

Tmy eye, the new slider has better movement (less gyroball and more bend) and better location (less middle-middle, but not so far out of the zone that they didn't tempt). Mistake avoidance with the slider was vital.
 

Rasputin

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If Rodriguez can pitch even remotely like that with anything resembling consistency, our rotation problems are solved and we may well have five better-than-average starting pitchers for the whole second half.

I'd also like to point out that this is another example of fans not having complete information. There were many folks--myself included--who doubted whether it was even possible for Rodriguez to get his mechanical issues straightened out in just two AAA games. It's just one game back and all that, but the results were night and day.
 

SouthernBoSox

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Well, the Yankees are a really poort hitting team and they swung at some pretty bad pitches for quick outs.

I found the slider to almost look like a totally different pitch with significantly more break, extremely encouraged by his ability to throw is for a strike.

Few change ups was strange, but even the change looked different to me, not nearly as firm.

Certainly encouraging, but I'm not ready to pencil him as being back.
 

Rasputin

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Well, the Yankees are a really poort hitting team and they swung at some pretty bad pitches for quick outs.

I found the slider to almost look like a totally different pitch with significantly more break, extremely encouraged by his ability to throw is for a strike.

Few change ups was strange, but even the change looked different to me, not nearly as firm.

Certainly encouraging, but I'm not ready to pencil him as being back.
Sure, it's just one game, but consider that he got clobbered by the Rays pretty recently.
 

Laser Show

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I didn't get to watch today, so I'm just going by the box score, but: I'm not convinced. It's concerning to me that he only had 1 K. Looks like he got a decent amount of weak contact but until he's missing bats with some frequency I'll be waiting for the other shoe to drop.

Still 1000 times better than the last time he was up though.
 

SouthernBoSox

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I didn't get to watch today, so I'm just going by the box score, but: I'm not convinced. It's concerning to me that he only had 1 K. Looks like he got a decent amount of weak contact but until he's missing bats with some frequency I'll be waiting for the other shoe to drop.

Still 1000 times better than the last time he was up though.
As someone who watched the game, the strikeouts don't really concern me. The Yankees were extremely aggressive and, outside the home run, didn't hit anything remotely hard.

Really felt more like the Yankees approach limited K opportunities than not having any swing and miss stuff.
 

YTF

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The one thing that I really found encouraging was his pitch count. I realize the Yankees helped by allowing a couple of quick innings, but Rodriguez only threw 97 pitches through 7 complete. More often than not it seems that he's fighting that 100 pitch mark in the fourth or fifth inning. If he can find a way to get into and possibly through 7 innings on a semi regular basis it will not only bode well for his position in the rotation but also take some pressure off the pen.
 

Laser Show

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As someone who watched the game, the strikeouts don't really concern me. The Yankees were extremely aggressive and, outside the home run, didn't hit anything remotely hard.

Really felt more like the Yankees approach limited K opportunities than not having any swing and miss stuff.
If that's the case, a reason to be optimistic. Looking forward to seeing him against a more patient lineup.
 

geoduck no quahog

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Weak contact vs. swing and miss.

One results in deep games.

Regardless, need a couple more starts to conclude anything. Optimistic though.
 

ragnarok725

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If that's the case, a reason to be optimistic. Looking forward to seeing him against a more patient lineup.
To my eyes, there were also a few times where he got a bit squeezed. There was one at-bat with ARod in particular, where he painted the corner a couple times with the slider from 2-2 and wound up with a walk when he should have had a K.

That certainly happens in games, but it seemed like he had stuff that would yield Ks in most games and they just didn't occur. There were very few hard hit balls in general.
 

geoduck no quahog

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As someone who watched the game, the strikeouts don't really concern me. The Yankees were extremely aggressive and, outside the home run, didn't hit anything remotely hard.

Really felt more like the Yankees approach limited K opportunities than not having any swing and miss stuff.
Agree. Look at the first pitches to each batter:

B - K - L7 - K / GB3 - K - K / K - K - K - GB1 / B - K - B - K / B - K - K - B - P4 / K - K - K / B - K - K

Swing and Miss in RED, Looking in BLUE , Contact in GREEN

20 / 26 First Pitch Strikes. 11 of them looking ,1 swing and miss, 4 foul balls, 4 first pitch outs and no hits.

The Yankees were either putting themselves in a hole by looking, or swinging at the first pitch for unproductive contact. Only one of those 20 circumstances led to a hit (Fuckface's homer) and 1 led to a walk (Slappy).

Don't blame Edro for getting the upper hand and then watching the opposition flail with poor contact.
 

StabMastaArson

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Eddie actually looked kinda great, a lot of swing and misses on the changeup. Didn't watch the whole game but interesting to see him use two different off speed pitches since coming back from Pawtucket. There could be an argument made that Farrell took him out too early since he was at only 95 pitches and his stuff still looked good.
 

Rasputin

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Eddie actually looked kinda great, a lot of swing and misses on the changeup. Didn't watch the whole game but interesting to see him use two different off speed pitches since coming back from Pawtucket. There could be an argument made that Farrell took him out too early since he was at only 95 pitches and his stuff still looked good.
Yeah, I think he took him out almost entirely because of the matchup. There was a man on, Edro looked a little tired, and Brian Dozier was up. Dozier hit the home run earlier in the game and has been killing lefties to the tune of a 1.113 OPS this year. I suspect that if Edro had gotten the first guy, he'd have faced Dozier and that if the guy coming up had been anyone but Dozier, he'd have stayed in, but with a man on giving Dozier the chance to turn it from a tie game to a two run deficit, he made the change.
 

StabMastaArson

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Yeah, I think he took him out almost entirely because of the matchup. There was a man on, Edro looked a little tired, and Brian Dozier was up. Dozier hit the home run earlier in the game and has been killing lefties to the tune of a 1.113 OPS this year. I suspect that if Edro had gotten the first guy, he'd have faced Dozier and that if the guy coming up had been anyone but Dozier, he'd have stayed in, but with a man on giving Dozier the chance to turn it from a tie game to a two run deficit, he made the change.
Yeah, not Farrell's fault Hembree was the best he had for that particular matchup so a completely defensible move.

Doesn't take away from the fact it was a second encouraging start from Edro.