Price is right
- Thread starter In my lifetime
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I think there is another aspect too in the recent years in that teams don’t just let games get away from starting pitchers any more. Price in game 2 was a good example. In the regular season he doesn’t get pulled in the second inning and probably gets through 5-6 innings giving up 3-4 runs. Not a great start but not a disaster either. It seems teams used to punt games a lot more often than they do now.
This. I remember that not too long ago it was more-or-less a given that Josh Beckett would give up a run or two in the first inning, then settle down and pitch well into the seventh.
Yeah in the 2007 run he went scoreless in his DS start, but gave up a run in the first inning of both game 1 and 5 in the ALCS, and a run in the second inning of game 1 of the WS.
I completely understand (and to some extent share) the angst, but we are talking about a starting pitcher with a sub-3 ERA at Fenway this year. One of these days this guy is going to dominate in a playoff start, and it might be tomorrow. All of the people saying that we should put him in the bullpen or whatever need to keep in mind that there is actually some possible upside to starting him tomorrow.
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It’s wishful thinking that he “probably” not only gets Aaron Judge out with two runners on in the 2nd, but also gets through the Yankees’ lineup for the next 3-4 innings allowing 0 or 1 run based on the way he was pitching and how he’d pitched against the Yankees during the year.
It was an awful outing. Let’s not sugar coat it.
On the flip side, there are a couple post-season outings on Price's resume where he would have benefited from an earlier hook, at least in terms of how he's viewed. 2015 ALCS Game 2 for the Jays against the Royals. He got through the first 6 innings giving up nothing. With the way playoff games are managed now, even at only 66 pitches, he might have been done at that point. Or at the very least, he starts the seventh on a very short leash. He started the seventh allowing three straight singles, scoring one run. Today, he's done right there at ~75 pitches and leaves with a 3-1 lead hoping the pen can hold it. Instead, he stayed on to face four more batters (RBI groundout, RBI single, K, RBI double) and leaves trailing 5-3.
The fortunate thing now is that Price will never have another post-season start end like that. The manager wouldn't allowe it to happen. If after he throws six shutout innings, he might give up a run in the seventh but no way would he end up with five runs on his stat line.
The Boston press is cranked up to blame David Price for the loss of today's game, with frequent references to the size of his contract ($217 million) and an implication that he didn't deserve it or has failed to perform up to expectations after signing it. I hope that Price does well tonight and the Red Sox win the game. I have to say, though, that it's totally unfair to blame Price and his agent for his contract. The Red Sox signed it too, and they should have realized that they were vastly overpaying. Here's why.
My book, Baseball Greatness, evaluates players based on wins above average. I don't need to bore you with the details of how I computed it--it's mainly based on data in baseball-reference.com, but with some modifications--but the point is, it's a measurement independent of the league, park, and team the player plays for--including the team's fielding ability. If a pitcher earns 1 WAA in a year, that means the team could be expected to win one more game with him than they would with an average pitcher pitching his innings. There are other such measurements for pitchers and I'm confident that they would show pretty much the same thing. What do they show about David Price?
After a very brief period in the minors, Price in 2010 earned 2.7 WAA for Tampa Bay, which is a strong performance--a star performance. In 2011, however, he slipped 0.8 WAA--essentially average. In 2012, aged 26, he had a monster year: 4.6 WAA. 4 WAA is my definition of a superstar season and in a typical year there are only 2-3 pitchers in each league who post a mark that high. In 2013, however, Price fell to 0.7 WAA, about average again. He became a significant, although not overwhelming asset, in 2014, which he split between Tampa and Detroit (total 2.2 WAA). 2015 was the walk year of his contract. Once again he split the season, this time between Detroit and Toronto, and he emerged with an excellent 3.4 WAA, the second best season of his career.
It was at that point that the Red Sox signed him. Now there's nothing very unusual about this career pattern for a pitcher. An awful lot of pitchers have made long and profitable careers out of one spectacular season early in their careers. Apparently they hurt themselves during those great seasons and are never that good again--but in today's world it's not uncommon for teams to bet $100 million or more that they will do it again. That's what the Red Sox did.
For the Red Sox, Price has earned 1.2 WAA in 2016, 1.3 WAA in 2017, and 2.6 WAA this year. That was second on the team behind Chris Sale (an outstanding 4.7 WAA.) My point is that in the context of his career there is nothing at all surprising about what David Price has done for the Red Sox since they signed him and there is no reason at all to suspect that he would ever do significantly better.
There is something else that has distorted the market for pitchers. The great pitchers of generation X--Maddux, Randy Johnson, Glavine, Pedro, Clemens, and others--sustained performance of 4 WAA or more for much longer periods than the greatest pitchers of any other generation. That's why teams like the Yankees, Astros, and Diamondbacks could and did buy pennants and world championships by signing those pitchers. How these pitchers managed to do it is too obvious to mention. Clayton Kershaw and Max Scherzer have sustained peak performance for at least 4 years, but they are very exceptional. The chances that a pitcher who has had a great season will replicate it have dropped, massively, during the last 10 years or so.
There is no reason to view Price's performance in Boston as anomalous or a great disappointment. He continues to pitch some very good games and I hope he can pitch one tonight.
Chris Sale, by the way, has exceeded 4 WAA for the last two seasons--but he has hurt himself doing so, both times.
David Kaiser
My book, Baseball Greatness, evaluates players based on wins above average. I don't need to bore you with the details of how I computed it--it's mainly based on data in baseball-reference.com, but with some modifications--but the point is, it's a measurement independent of the league, park, and team the player plays for--including the team's fielding ability. If a pitcher earns 1 WAA in a year, that means the team could be expected to win one more game with him than they would with an average pitcher pitching his innings. There are other such measurements for pitchers and I'm confident that they would show pretty much the same thing. What do they show about David Price?
After a very brief period in the minors, Price in 2010 earned 2.7 WAA for Tampa Bay, which is a strong performance--a star performance. In 2011, however, he slipped 0.8 WAA--essentially average. In 2012, aged 26, he had a monster year: 4.6 WAA. 4 WAA is my definition of a superstar season and in a typical year there are only 2-3 pitchers in each league who post a mark that high. In 2013, however, Price fell to 0.7 WAA, about average again. He became a significant, although not overwhelming asset, in 2014, which he split between Tampa and Detroit (total 2.2 WAA). 2015 was the walk year of his contract. Once again he split the season, this time between Detroit and Toronto, and he emerged with an excellent 3.4 WAA, the second best season of his career.
It was at that point that the Red Sox signed him. Now there's nothing very unusual about this career pattern for a pitcher. An awful lot of pitchers have made long and profitable careers out of one spectacular season early in their careers. Apparently they hurt themselves during those great seasons and are never that good again--but in today's world it's not uncommon for teams to bet $100 million or more that they will do it again. That's what the Red Sox did.
For the Red Sox, Price has earned 1.2 WAA in 2016, 1.3 WAA in 2017, and 2.6 WAA this year. That was second on the team behind Chris Sale (an outstanding 4.7 WAA.) My point is that in the context of his career there is nothing at all surprising about what David Price has done for the Red Sox since they signed him and there is no reason at all to suspect that he would ever do significantly better.
There is something else that has distorted the market for pitchers. The great pitchers of generation X--Maddux, Randy Johnson, Glavine, Pedro, Clemens, and others--sustained performance of 4 WAA or more for much longer periods than the greatest pitchers of any other generation. That's why teams like the Yankees, Astros, and Diamondbacks could and did buy pennants and world championships by signing those pitchers. How these pitchers managed to do it is too obvious to mention. Clayton Kershaw and Max Scherzer have sustained peak performance for at least 4 years, but they are very exceptional. The chances that a pitcher who has had a great season will replicate it have dropped, massively, during the last 10 years or so.
There is no reason to view Price's performance in Boston as anomalous or a great disappointment. He continues to pitch some very good games and I hope he can pitch one tonight.
Chris Sale, by the way, has exceeded 4 WAA for the last two seasons--but he has hurt himself doing so, both times.
David Kaiser
No, the Sox agreed to the big contract with the expectation that Price would be an ace both during the regular season and the playoffs. He is the third highest paid player, but was 24th in terms of ERA for starting pitchers during the 2018 regular season. That, combined with apparent lack of confidence when pitching in the post season, has resulted in him being a huge disappointment.
Mild disappointment, maybe. Of course, Price is 33 and 3 years into a contract where you expect to get better value in the front end. The next 4 years could make it a huge disappointment if his performance drops and that's probably the most likely outcome. Maybe we get lucky and he has a late career resurgence like Verlander or at the very least, doesn't drop off.
There's also the scenario we win the WS this year and David Price is one of the reasons why. If that happens, his contract was worth it regardless of the next 4 years.
A huge disappointment would be Pablo Sandoval or Carl Crawford. Not David Price. David Price isn't even Hanley Ramirez, yet. He may get there.
Comparing salary to rank in any given statistic is foolish considering how many players are severely underpaid for the production they give their teams. Salary is not determined by merit. If it was, the AL ERA leader would be the highest paid in the league, rather than someone who barely makes above league minimum.
When he's been on the field (as in, not on the DL like he was last year, David Price has been a productive enough pitcher in the last three years to justify the cost to the Red Sox. Obviously his salary comes with high expectations, but two poor starts two years apart don't negate the overall contributions.
My point was that the expectation that Price would be an ace and dominant in post season was not justified by his record. It gave the expectation that he would be a somewhat above average starting pitcher but not the kind of guy who makes the difference between winning the pennant, or not. That's exactly what he has been for most of the last three years. I don't think that was worth $216 million even if he can do it for a couple of more years--but that's the Red Sox' fault for paying it.
I was overly harsh when I described him as being a huge dissapointment and will upgrade him to "a dissapointment". But the Red Sox did not offer him such a big contact with the expectation he would continue to pitch poorly in the post season. They were already a playoff level team so that would make no sense.
I'm not a Price hater; he agreed to what Sox offered and I'm sure he's doing everything he can to pitch well, but the Sox aren't getting what they bargained for.
David Price was an absolute ace stud when the Sox signed him. There was every reason to expect him to be tremendous here, at least for the first half of his contract.
Do you think Price and his agent knocked on the Sox door and said: "Price will be a somewhat above average starting pitcher but not the kind of guy who makes the difference between winning the pennant?"
Do you think Price accepted his contract, then held a press conference and said: "I am so glad to be here because I will be a somewhat above average starting pitcher but not the kind of guy who makes the difference between winning the pennant?"
These guy sell themselves. They create an expectation based on the contract they sign.
Price has shown he's fully capable of stretches of dominance - this year, at his age. If Price can't consistently deliver his best, or close to his best, absent injury, it seems that some of the problem is Price's to own and to fix.
Your math aside. (Which frankly, seems screwy. https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/p/priceda01.shtml What about his age 26, 27, 28 or 29 year seasons fails to say "difference making starter" to you?)
The year before the Sox signed him, he put up this line:
220.1 ip, 18-5, 2.45 era, 225 k, 1.08 whip, 9.2 k/9, 2nd in the AL Cy Young race, 9th in the AL MVP race.
In the three years prior, he had a 3.05 era, 1.09 whip, 8.7 k/9, and averaged 215 ip and 209 k.
By every possible measure, he was an absolute stud ace starting pitcher. Not a guy expected to be "somewhat above average".
220.1 ip, 18-5, 2.45 era, 225 k, 1.08 whip, 9.2 k/9, 2nd in the AL Cy Young race, 9th in the AL MVP race.
In the three years prior, he had a 3.05 era, 1.09 whip, 8.7 k/9, and averaged 215 ip and 209 k.
By every possible measure, he was an absolute stud ace starting pitcher. Not a guy expected to be "somewhat above average".
Setting aside Price’s past performance, which was unquestionably dominant, my intuition is that this is how the aging curve works. I think you start seeing earlier wear, more bad outings, etc. rather than just a consistent decline in performance across the board.
The Price homer given up to Gonzalez. 3-2 pitch, two out.
Here's Gonzalez' heat map:
Here's where the pitch was:
So here's where the pitch was located in Gonzalez' heat map:
On a 3-2 pitch, that's a pretty damned good pitch. Gonzalez crushed it, of course. But it was a pitch that I'm sure that they were just fine with the velocity (92-93) and location (in the strike zone on a 3-2 pitch, but in one of Gonzalez' weakest areas).
Here's Gonzalez' heat map:
Here's where the pitch was:
So here's where the pitch was located in Gonzalez' heat map:
On a 3-2 pitch, that's a pretty damned good pitch. Gonzalez crushed it, of course. But it was a pitch that I'm sure that they were just fine with the velocity (92-93) and location (in the strike zone on a 3-2 pitch, but in one of Gonzalez' weakest areas).
That's a great visual on the heat map. If I recall correctly, he also gave up a 3 run HR to Lonnie Chisenhall in 2016 ALDS on a pitch in his cold zone too. While Price definitely hasn't pitched well, it seems he is really snake-bit too in the playoffs.
Yeah that was like a 95 mph fastball on the inside corner if I recall. I think Chisenhall hadn't hit a homer off a left-handed pitcher's fastball on the inside corner all year but, well, there you go.
I remember seeing that home run in real time and thinking "that was a good pitch, nothing you can do." And the chart really confirms that. It was probably the perfect location in terms of being a strike he was likely to swing at, but unlikely to do much with. Unfortunately, the unlikely happened. Snakebit indeed.So here's where the pitch was located in Gonzalez' heat map:
On a 3-2 pitch, that's a pretty damned good pitch. Gonzalez crushed it, of course. But it was a pitch that I'm sure that they were just fine with the velocity (92-93) and location (in the strike zone on a 3-2 pitch, but in one of Gonzalez' weakest areas).
I posted something to this effect in the game thread but this is a great discussion of it: if all of you who have much more of an analytical handle on Price watched him pitch the last two outings, but there was not name on the jersey, would you think he's a #1a or something close to it? Because when I see him pitch I see a guy who is not quite a power pitcher, doesn't have great command, and has "show me" third and fourth pitches. Maybe a 3-4th starter on a contending team in today's MLB where you have so many good pitchers.
This isn't a knock on him - he is what he is and is getting older - but the perception is so out of touch with what you see when he pitches, and it clouds everything.
This isn't a knock on him - he is what he is and is getting older - but the perception is so out of touch with what you see when he pitches, and it clouds everything.
So you want the "analytical" folks to put aside the analytics and just judge him on how he looks? To put him in a subjective box ("1A vs 3rd/4th starter) based on subjective criteria, because why? The analytics don't fit the narrative, so therefore set the analytics aside?
The numbers say he's still a damn good pitcher, certainly more than a 3rd or 4th starter (however that is supposed to be defined). Watching him pitch a couple games and forming opinions about how he makes one feel while watching doesn't change that.
I got yelled at by a yahoo in the game thread for daring to suggest that it was a good pitch. Lol
Is that heat map when he bats right handed?
The Gonzalez homer was really the only ball hit with any serious batting profile. The rest of the hits he gave up were very much middle to lower end probability. He pitched pretty well.
With that being said... a start like that is a perfect example of how important it is to miss bats.
The Gonzalez homer was really the only ball hit with any serious batting profile. The rest of the hits he gave up were very much middle to lower end probability. He pitched pretty well.
With that being said... a start like that is a perfect example of how important it is to miss bats.
I don't know if it's his RHH heat map. It's all I could find (fan graphs, btw). I would find it hard to believe that the uppermost, outermost corner of the zone would be a great place for a LHH, but also that at the letters on the inside corner would be a great place for a RHH either. Look at most players' heat maps and that location generally is an excellent spot for pitchers.
Here's Mookie's heat map, for reference:
https://www.fangraphs.com/zonegrid.aspx?playerid=13611&position=OF
The topmost inside area of the strike zone (remember, Price was trying to throw a strike there) is, along with the lowermost inside area of the strike zone, Mookie's worst section. So high and tight and down and in are the best places *in the strike zone* to pitch Mookie (up and away also fits).
So I'm guessing that Gonzalez' RHH heat map follows a similar pattern, and that they wanted to throw him in that area. So again, an excellent pitch with good velocity in a prime location for Price, but Gonzalez just did a great job handling it. The Astros are filled with great players so sometimes even when you make your pitch they do something productive with it. That AB was one of those times.
Here's Mookie's heat map, for reference:
https://www.fangraphs.com/zonegrid.aspx?playerid=13611&position=OF
The topmost inside area of the strike zone (remember, Price was trying to throw a strike there) is, along with the lowermost inside area of the strike zone, Mookie's worst section. So high and tight and down and in are the best places *in the strike zone* to pitch Mookie (up and away also fits).
So I'm guessing that Gonzalez' RHH heat map follows a similar pattern, and that they wanted to throw him in that area. So again, an excellent pitch with good velocity in a prime location for Price, but Gonzalez just did a great job handling it. The Astros are filled with great players so sometimes even when you make your pitch they do something productive with it. That AB was one of those times.
Yes! That's exactly it. This doesn't have to be connected to a particular narrative, either. If you went to a park to watch a random high school baseball game, you would make observations about the players' abilities based on your experience with baseball. These observations would have some validity despite being an "opinion". Not everything is an "analytics vs. observation" debate waiting to happen.
Chris Sale is an even better pitcher - would you just rely on past performance when observing Game 1 in real time? Would you ignore what you are seeing in real-time - loss of command, velocity down, clearly laboring, possibly with a stomach ailment? Probably not. And this doesn't mean Chris Sale sucks.
You must be referring to another post in this thread since nobody was talking about how "he makes one feel".
Sooo....about the heat map. I just went to FG and there's a wee problem: the heat map posted above shows percentages of pitches seen. So what it says is not that Gonzalez isn't good at hitting pitches there, but that pitchers rarely pitch him there. And as it turns out, there's a reason for that.
Here's Gonzalez' heat map for RAA/100p vs. LHP (the interface does allow you to filter by pitcher hand):
So, not such a good location after all.
Here's Gonzalez' heat map for RAA/100p vs. LHP (the interface does allow you to filter by pitcher hand):
So, not such a good location after all.
Good catch re the Fangraph’s heat map. I knew the percentages were pitches seen, but still assumed up and in fastball on the inside top corner was a good pitch.
Re the heat map you show, I don’t understand it. It shows Marwin “dead red” on inside pitches, high and low on balls outside of the zone. That seems odd to me. As does his apparent relative inability to hit pitches thrown middle-out.
Edit: Here’s Marwin’s Heatmap for slugging:
https://www.fangraphs.com/zonegrid.aspx?playerid=5497&position=SS&ss=&se=&hand=&count=&pitch=&season=&data=&blur=0&grid=10&view=&type=5
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Watching the video, it looks like the catcher was setting up way inside and Price missed over the plate.
So, in a case like the one above, is that on Price, or Vazquez? I mean it seemed pretty clear that is where the pitch was intended to go, and he put it in the "right" spot.
I also felt like the pitch he made to Sanchez last week that was hit out was a good pitch, but I don't know how to grab the data used above to prove it. I just remember thinking it was a low, outside pitch, that he somehow pulled the ball over the monster.
I also felt like the pitch he made to Sanchez last week that was hit out was a good pitch, but I don't know how to grab the data used above to prove it. I just remember thinking it was a low, outside pitch, that he somehow pulled the ball over the monster.
The pitch Sanchez, IIRC, was a dot on the low, outside corner, aka the perfect strike against almost every batter. That Sanchez turned it into a HR is a credit to him. That he *pulled* it is amazing.
It’d be interesting to see (but complicated to calculate) a thrown pitch version of BABIP, I pitches that are normally great pitches (as measured by speed, location and movement) but hit anyway.
Looks to me like he's setting up on the inside corner. On a 3-2 count I doubt they intentionally set up way inside on a fastball.
I can't remember the pitch progression (and that may have played into strategy) but if Price is being told to throw a 3-2 fastball into Marwin's hottest zone then that's mostly on the catcher (and the coaching staff). Price seems to have executed the pitch perfectly, but it looks like a dumb pitch to call.
Pitch progression is about 10 posts up.
Vazquez's glove is down by and almost near the batter's knee. There's an article posted elsewhere (ALCS thread?) that the Red Sox aren't afraid to walk batters so long as the pitch doesn't go into their "hot zones". Price definitely missed up and over the plate.
I can believe that the pitch was supposed to be lower. It doesn't look to me like it was supposed to be off the plate. Hit the glove and that's a pitch (from a left handed arm angle) right on the inside corner.
Ok yeah so I misread the heat map. Good catch indeed. But now based on dhappy42's link, it would seem that the pitch was in the .118 section of the heat map. Looks like the better location would have been down and in.
Either way, it was on the inside corner, not out over the plate. But yeah, based on this, I'd say it was the wrong place to plan to pitch him. Maybe they should rethink that next time.
That's vs. all, BTW. But even if you choose vs. L, the value of that zone depends on the smoothing level you choose, and I'll admit I'm in over my head at that point. If you choose no smoothing, the slugging value for that high-inside zone is a .000 -- but right next to it, just a little further out over the plate, is a .625. If you choose 1 radius smoothing, the values become .250/.396, with 2 radius smoothing, .250/.320 -- and rather confusingly, those zones are marked as red even though those are piss-poor slugging percentages.
Based on that no-smoothing version, it looks like that's a good place to pitch Gonzalez if it's far enough in -- but danger lurks very close by.
You guys are reading too much into one pitch. A hitter can get their pitch and still hit a grounder or foul it back. You'll see pop ups even in the all-star home run derby.
I think I see where you are coming from, but this is methodologically unsound. In effect, if team pursues the "analytics vs. observation" debate this way, there is a reasonable probability that that team's judgment will be poorer than if they didn't look at analytics altogether, because the analytics would be pro-cyclical to tendencies in judgment rather than a check, so someone might win the lottery, but it's a two-tail lottery and winning might suck.
The issues raised by disagreement between observation and analytics is not scientifically resolved by choosing one of the two based on intuition. Doing so is tautalogical to the observations themselves--if you throw out analytics when they do not conform to observation, why were you doing them in the first place?
I mean, the answer could be: We shouldn't bother because they suck. But that's where we need to show our work, and the maths don't support that conclusion. Unless you throw out the maths... which is what this is about.
Instead, we can look at the discrepancies and try to work them out. @Buzzkill Pauley has been killing it on the board this season working out how to understand JBJ and by extension the Red Sox OF defensive strategy by looking at the discrepancy between observation and analytics.
But he notably did not just ditch the analytics for his observations. In fact, his observations and approach to observation has evolved through his understanding of the discrepancy.
In this vein, it's also noteworthy that @Red(s)HawksFan here is pretty reliable about doing this stuff too--just the other day, @Deathofthebambino inquired if some of Price's problems against the Yankers could be from close juxtaposition with Sale who has similar but superior composition (an issue closely related to this subject matter) and wondered if anyone could pull the data for him because he can't look it up himself, he's only able to post here at all because Nip leaves a 2400 baud modem installed for Deathy to dial in on with a cup and string and a kazoo which his office assistant installed for him through a private vendor. Anyway, the point is, he pulled the numbers the same afternoon so we could look at them. That's some science.
In fact, a very interesting possible explanation for the discrepancy is emerging. Manny Delcarmen said a couple weeks ago that one of the keys to Price in this new phase of his career is to pitch such that when he misses, he misses in the right places. This approach has been confirmed in the Alex Speier article posted above, with the beginnings of a proto-explanation of why that can at once look ugly feel awful make you feel like shit when it doesn't work but still be effective--and they are going with what is effective, not what feels right.
So, like, in that vein, you're right, it's not an "analytics vs. observation" debate waiting to happen. But that's because it's not a debate--or, rather, when best understood by professionals it's not because doing so would limit the usefulness of not just analytics but also observations too*. It's a discussion to share information and develop better conclusions and future hypotheses.
*by introducing the problem of pro-cyclical bias confirmation, etc.
I love this heat map stuff, but I’m happy with my eyeball opinion that Price’s pitch to Gonzalez — a 93mph fastball, up an in, just inside the top inside corner, was a “good pitch,” not a “mistake,” even though it was belted over the Monster. Good hitters hit good pitches sometimes. Same for Sanchez’s HR. That was an even better pitch, imo.
To that point, we have seen many times in this postseason opposing pitchers throw 93-96 mph fastballs middle-middle to JD and Betts and Bogaerts and the result has been groundouts, popups, and foul balls. On any one particular pitch, yeah, we can see a bad pitch still result in an out, and a good pitch still hammered. Pitchers play the percentages really, but even that comes in context. The situation, the count, the location, the velocity, the movement....it all comes into play.
The pitch Sanchez hit over the wall off Price was 2-3 inches off the outside part of the plate, below the knees, and the sumbich just yanked it over the wall. This pitch to Gonzalez, yeah, I misread the heat map, but it wasn't a meatball by ANY stretch of the imagination. It was in the top inside edge of the zone which in theory should be a hard ball for anyone to crush. But he did it. Such is life.
Whether or not it's a good pitch on its own, he had already gone to it a few times. He got Gonzalez to foul off a similar pitch in the 2nd, and he struck out Gurriel in the 1st with a 92 MPH fastball up and in (tailing back over the plate).
I remember thinking the pitch to Gurriel was nasty, and it was because it froze him. But it's possible Gonzalez was looking for it, which would make it...not a good pitch.
In real time I thought it was a good enough pitch and some really good hitting. The way he seemed to pull back and got the barrel of bat on the ball and not hook it foul suggested he guessed right.
This is just good work--thanks. It helps to have the puzzle we're trying to solve stated correctly!
Thanks also for indicating the source of FanGraphs.
Given how this pitch seems to have sailed based on the comments about how Vaz is set up, I wonder where this pitch was supposed to go and, to that, to where it was supposed to miss if it was to miss.
Speier said that Price is working on that pitch that looks like it's coming right at the belt buckle and then breaks to catch the inside corner, right? Well, what if the "plan" is that if it hits, it's a killer strike, but if it misses, it just doesn't break enough so it's a ball. So that probability is that it's a safe pitch even if he misses... but there is still the small probability that it will miss the other less likely way, e.g. break too much which is obviously less likely (good problem to have tho).
So is that how they are working strategy now? So, like, pitch locations would be planned based on not just best attempted outcome but a minimax solution incorporating the likelihood of the top two or three likely outcomes? Example: It might be preferable to aim for the second most desirable spot if the spots next to it likely to be hit are also reasonable desirable, but whereas the spots next to the optimal spot will punish you.
That would be the scenario with the front-door cutter to a LHH, but with a front-door cutter to a RHH, it's kind of the opposite: if it breaks enough, it's a ball that's very difficult to hit, if it doesn't, it's a hittable strike.
Looking at the clip again, I think Vazquez wanted that pitch not so much further inside but further down, which makes sense in terms of the heatmaps -- on the inside edge, Gonzalez hits LHP harder right at the top of the zone than about belt-high. So Price missed up.
And to Patek & dhappy's point, yes, of course we're over-analyzing that one pitch in terms of the outcome. Good hitters hit good pitches as well as bad ones. We're just trying to figure out which of those two things happened here.
On the other hand, the fact that Gonzalez missed the same pitch in the 2nd and he struck out Gurriel with it might make it a good pitch to throw again. Go with what works. Until it doesn’t. Baseball.
Again... this discussion leads me to wonder about pitch calling and sequence. Who is calling the games for Price?