Napoli: 'I Don't Feel Too Comfortable'
- Thread starter ponchsox
- Start date
Bradford said on the radio cast tonight that Nap and Pedey spent the better part of the flight back east looking at Nap's 2013 swings v. this year on their phones, and Nap thought they hit on something. Something to consider going forward.
adam42381 said:
Indeed. So many good things. But it does beg the question - if two guys streaming video on their iPhones whilst sat on a plane can figure this out, what has Chili Davis been up to? Isn't it his job to be all over this type of thing? Perhaps Pedey should take on hitting coach duties as well as 2B, club house leader, cheerleader and general face of the ball club.
Also sounds like Pedey is gonna be in Boston a LOOOONG time in some way or another. We can hope, anyway.
pockmeister said:
The real question is -- if these two guys can stream video on their iPhones on the plane, why can't I? Or, should they be threatening the safety of the entire team?
No kidding...this implies no one on the Red Sox staff has looked into this...sound similar to Clay Buchholz noticing his grip changed in the cafeteria. Nearly two hundred million in payroll and they don't have anyone pouring over video of these guys?pockmeister said:
I disagree.
I do think that Davis could be doing a better job but real life may not work this way. An example - I'm currently the top "tech" guy at my office. I can look at a problem a billion different ways, try a billion different things, but sometimes nasty problems get fixed when two of my level one techs lock themselves in a room and stumble upon an "aha!" moment. Hell, 2004 was even kind of like this, by all accords the entire atmosphere was an awesome collaborative one. Schilling basically served as assistant pitching coach.
I think the fact that Pedroia was able (and willing) to do this is a much more positive sign than anything that David did or did not do.
The overall record of Davis thus far is.... unimpressive. That's my concern. I don't think that this incident necessarily lends itself to him being a good coach or not.
More importantly: fuck him for hitting that home run. I hate him.
I do think that Davis could be doing a better job but real life may not work this way. An example - I'm currently the top "tech" guy at my office. I can look at a problem a billion different ways, try a billion different things, but sometimes nasty problems get fixed when two of my level one techs lock themselves in a room and stumble upon an "aha!" moment. Hell, 2004 was even kind of like this, by all accords the entire atmosphere was an awesome collaborative one. Schilling basically served as assistant pitching coach.
I think the fact that Pedroia was able (and willing) to do this is a much more positive sign than anything that David did or did not do.
The overall record of Davis thus far is.... unimpressive. That's my concern. I don't think that this incident necessarily lends itself to him being a good coach or not.
More importantly: fuck him for hitting that home run. I hate him.
To take Nip's thought a bit further, I don't think that this incident necessarily lends itself to meaning Pedey and Napoli figured anything out. Two for four and a homer that essentially wins the game is a beautiful thing considering what Nap's been showing this season, but his 3 other homers weren't signs that he was busting out. I hope there is something to all of this, but until we see some consistency here I'm not quite ready to marvel at Pedrioa and Napoli's mile high adventure.
AlNipper49 said:
Considering the Red Sox are a billion dollar business, I'm amazed that they seemingly do not have play by play analytics of every pitch/swing. With all of the video that's out there nowadays, one would think they'd be able to have triggers to immediately alert them when a pitcher's arm slot drops or a hitter's swing changes.
There isn't really much to analyze about hitting a home run off of a hanging breaking ball since it was on a tee, and then the weak infield hit, but he did hit another fly ball fairly well.
Fly ball Napoli, is way better than groundball Napoli.
All that said, until he hits fastballs, we can't really tell if he's back. He is at -7 fastball runs below average compared to 14.7 above in 2013, and 8.2 in 2014. Pitchers are clearly noticing and have thrown him fastballs at the highest rate since he has joined the Red Sox.
If it has to do with the swing, give Pedey the assist.
Fly ball Napoli, is way better than groundball Napoli.
All that said, until he hits fastballs, we can't really tell if he's back. He is at -7 fastball runs below average compared to 14.7 above in 2013, and 8.2 in 2014. Pitchers are clearly noticing and have thrown him fastballs at the highest rate since he has joined the Red Sox.
If it has to do with the swing, give Pedey the assist.
Good point except that in any given week, a team will have one or two guys who are "in a zone" (oops, sorry, Red Sox board here), and a few more hitting OK who don't want any tinkering with their swing. There will be also be some guys struggling, and finally some needing urgent care. In the last category is where Napoli was (hopefully, was). But, Chili has a really good resume, so I wouldn't blame him for anything yet. I'm happy to see a hitter and another guy on the team with a good baseball brain work out problems.rembrat said:
Al Zarilla said:
With the way the team has been hitting all year, that last category probably describes more than half the roster. Napoli's struggling, but so is Nava, Betts, Bogaerts, Sandoval (from the right side)...not to mention Craig and JBJ have been around at times, Swihart's trying to break in, etc. No doubt Chili's plate has been full since Opening Day.
Not to pin this on Chili and perhaps just to play devil's advocate to rembrat's simple answer, but all 13 of these guys didn't go south at once. Could, should or do the Sox have another source to help with this? Someone working with Chili. Is there another on the coaching staff that can help out, an assistant of sorts? I know that Arnie Beyerler also serves as outfield coach.
538.com:
They go on to show that with a batted ball velocity of 93 MPH, Napoli's .542 OPS is .280 lower than his predicted OPS, which would make him the 4th unluckiest man in baseball. Obviously it's not that simple, but Napoli's .198 BABIP is nearly 100 points lower than his career average, so that certainly backs the idea of him being unlucky.
I have no idea if Napoli is just toast, but there seems to be some evidence that he's been pretty unlucky this year.
They go on to show that with a batted ball velocity of 93 MPH, Napoli's .542 OPS is .280 lower than his predicted OPS, which would make him the 4th unluckiest man in baseball. Obviously it's not that simple, but Napoli's .198 BABIP is nearly 100 points lower than his career average, so that certainly backs the idea of him being unlucky.
I have no idea if Napoli is just toast, but there seems to be some evidence that he's been pretty unlucky this year.
Kenny F'ing Powers said:
It's a cool analysis, but OPS is pretty clearly the wrong metric to use, right? Napoli is still walking 10% of the time, which has nothing whatsoever to do with batted ball luck.
I'm not sure if they factor in career walk rates into their numbers.
Maybe they want to look at SLG% instead?
Maybe they want to look at SLG% instead?
It's not about his swing, per se. Read what he said. Read what Ferrell said. It was/is about his load position. Translation: he was/is not getting to his load early enough -- a timing matter, not technically a swing matter, and one of the hardest things to maintain in a hitter's approach. Get there too early and you stop moving into the ball -- your momentum goes, and you have to generate bat speed from a stopped/standstill position. Get there too late and you will be blown away consistently.soxhop411 said:
And that is also why Nap said after the game that it is not "fixed." Because it never is. It's a constant battle.
Yeah I mean batting average, slugging, or even (God forbid) babip would have been just as easy and more appropriate. I'm not saying the whole thing is totally invalid or that their conclusions are fundamentally flawed, just a weird choice. And mostly representative of the weirdly sloppy journalism that happens at 538.Rasputin said:
YTF said:
You know about Victor Rodriguez, right?
BroodsSexton said:
The team has a video coordinator, named Billy Broadbent, whom I would imagine travels with a laptop and a whooooole lotta hard drives. If Pedroia and Napoli want to peruse video of Napoli's swings, I don't think they need to stream them from MLB.com.
I'll be honest, Rodriquez's name is vaguely familiar and I've not heard it mentioned at all during the Sox offensive struggles. So it's safe to say that Chili is NOT trying to put out as many as 13 fires on his own at any given time?
threecy said:
How sure are we they don't have the bolded?
I'm guessing it's not a matter of too little information - instead, it's probably too much, in that Davis can look at so many swings that it becomes information overload. Also, you're looking for minute differences in tenths of seconds - it's as much art as science.
This means it shouldn't surprise us when Pedroia finds something others didn't - in fact, given the nature of the beast, that could almost be expected.
There doesn't seem to be any indication that they do. If handled like one would with video editing and overlaying, frame by frame it would be apparent that the images being compared are not the same.Alcohol&Overcalls said:
threecy said:
But it isn't as simple as that - the location of the pitch, even the count, will all force small changes to the swing that will dick up the overlay.
We should definitely start a thread for "Is - insert struggling player's name here - finished?"
Seems to work wonders.
Seems to work wonders.
Well, no, but he can win you a postseason game or two. And help you get there.brandonchristensen said:
A slow start by Napoli should not have been a huge surprise either, since the off-season surgery would have completely disrupted and eliminated much of his off season work.