Tanner Houck 2024
- Thread starter mikeford
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Houck in the 1st round and Cutter in the 16th from Dombrowski. Also Bello was signed that summer. So the top three pitchers currently all brought in during his regime yet they needed to bring in Bloom to “rebuild” the farm.
Dombrowski wasn't fired because the farm system was light or weak. In fact, the people in charge of drafting and player development under Dombrowski remained there under Bloom and some even remain there now (or have been promoted) under Breslow, so apparently the powers that be thought something was working on that front.
SoxProspects listed Houck at #7, Bello at #20, and Crawford at #29 on their list in September 2019 (when Dombrowski was fired). I don't think anyone is going to argue that they were/are Bloom guys. The only credit Bloom gets for them, and this is still important, is that he held on them rather than trading them for short term fixes (in the vein of Espinoza for Pomeranz or Kopech for Sale).
Came across this on Reddit. DiNardo with a quick look at how Houck has simplified his mechanics and closed his setup this year to go more to the plate.
View: https://twitter.com/nesn/status/1782897230539563144
View: https://twitter.com/nesn/status/1782897230539563144
Kopech for Sale was a fantastic trade that you would do every time and twice on Sunday. Espinoza pitched 7 games in the MLB and had a ridiculous high BA ranking based on 40 innings of rookie ball when he was 17. It is weird you point out two good trades by Dombowski as negatives especially with two guys that contributed to WS win (Drew was way better in 2017 obviously).
Bloom sure does get a ton of credit for doing nothing.
Houck is pitching great once they great reduced his use of the cutter and four seam fastball. The slider has always been his killer pitch. Now he is locating his sinker and slider, and keeping his split finger in the zone, he has greatly reduced his walks. Between the slider, sinker (which he throws high in the zone away from where his slider locates), and split (which once again he is throwing within the strike zone instead of the dirt because the sinker sets it up well) he is still getting good whiff rates but does not need to move the ball out of the zone to keep hitters off guard. Hitters have to swing defensively against him and get awful contact. It is why he is pitching way further into games.
Where did I say they were negatives? I was just pointing out that Bloom could have moved any or all of them during his tenure and did not, and now it's paying off. By no means was that intended to be a slight toward Dombrowski or those trades.
...and any attempt to credit Dombrowski for drafting those guys must be weighed against the consideration that he wished to continue his spend both money and prospects to "win now." The blind squirrel may be able to find the nut, but it takes a watchful squirrel not to lose it to one of his fellows.
The Sale trade is a great example of Dombrowski's strengths and weaknesses as an executive. He acted quickly and made a ballsy move trading away premier talent that was redundant to a degree (Devers made moving Moncada much more palatable). It worked out wonderfully.
Where I think you can legitimately gripe is that there was no need to include both Alexander Basabe and Victor Diaz as sweeteners. Ultimately, that didn't matter by why the hell did they need to include to high upside prospects with limited trade value to close that deal out? Basabe was a guy with some helium at the time. It was not inconceivable that he'd crack some top 100 lists the following year (instead, he flatlined). Victor Diaz was an interesting relief lottory ticket.
Ultimately it didn't matter... but I can't imagine the White Sox balking if the trade were only Moncada and Kopech who were both top 25 prospects in baseball at the time.
RE Anderson Espinosa: I think you're underselling how good he was, but yeah, he was a teenage pitching prospect. Those guys break all the time. Also, (again a Dombrowski strength) I've always suspected they were more comfortable dealing him because Jay Groome fell to them in that year's draft. Groome was also super well regarded before injuries got him.
How do we know that there was no need to include those guys, though? Seems like speculation, that because a deal was 4 for 1, that it would have been done with just 2 for 1? Theoretically, a lesser offer at the very least isn’t accepted immediately and, with time, potentially allows for other bidders to enter- which reduces the likelihood of a deal, or potentially raises the value of the package?
We can say that he gave Price too much, and that surely if Price would accept $217M, he could have been had for $207, or $197, or $197…or whatever. But who knows?
We can say that he gave Price too much, and that surely if Price would accept $217M, he could have been had for $207, or $197, or $197…or whatever. But who knows?
He's throwing the split in the zone because it's not a split anymore. It's a changeup. Here's an excellent breakdown of how he's using it:
https://www.overthemonster.com/2024/4/22/24135444/how-tanner-houck-turned-into-one-of-baseballs-best-pitchers-2024-red-sox-news-analysis
Houck's game log...
6.0 ip, 3 h, 0 r, 0 er, 0 bb, 10 k (W)
6.0 ip, 4 h, 0 r, 0 er, 2 bb, 7 k (W)
5.2 ip, 12 h, 7 r, 4 er, 0 bb, 2 k (L)
9.0 ip, 3 h, 0 r, 0 er, 0 bb, 9 k (W)
6.0 ip, 5 h, 2 r, 2 er, 3 bb, 4 k (L)
6.2 ip, 4 h, 1 r, 1 er, 0 bb, 9 k (ND)
TOT: 39.1 ip, 31 h, 10 r, 7 er, 5 bb, 41 k, 1.60 era, 0.92 whip, 9.4 k/9, 3-2 record
Current AL ranks (among qualified pitchers):
ERA: #3 (1.60)
Wins: #4 (3)
IP: #2 (39.1)
K: #3 (41)
K/9: #18 (9.4)
WHIP: #3 (0.92)
WAR: #6 (1.4)
I have a question about this WAR ranking. Houck is at 1.4 WAR while Blanco of Hou is at 1.9 WAR. But here's a comparison of the two:
Houck: 39.1 ip, 31 h, 7 er, 5 bb, 41 k, 1.60 era, 0.92 whip, 9.4 k/9
Blanco: 32.2 ip, 16 h, 6 er, 14 bb, 40 k, 1.65 era, 0.92 whip, 8.3 k/9
So Houck has pitched more innings, has the same whip, a better ERA, better K/9, but has a 0.5 fewer WAR? How does that make any sense at all?
6.0 ip, 3 h, 0 r, 0 er, 0 bb, 10 k (W)
6.0 ip, 4 h, 0 r, 0 er, 2 bb, 7 k (W)
5.2 ip, 12 h, 7 r, 4 er, 0 bb, 2 k (L)
9.0 ip, 3 h, 0 r, 0 er, 0 bb, 9 k (W)
6.0 ip, 5 h, 2 r, 2 er, 3 bb, 4 k (L)
6.2 ip, 4 h, 1 r, 1 er, 0 bb, 9 k (ND)
TOT: 39.1 ip, 31 h, 10 r, 7 er, 5 bb, 41 k, 1.60 era, 0.92 whip, 9.4 k/9, 3-2 record
Current AL ranks (among qualified pitchers):
ERA: #3 (1.60)
Wins: #4 (3)
IP: #2 (39.1)
K: #3 (41)
K/9: #18 (9.4)
WHIP: #3 (0.92)
WAR: #6 (1.4)
I have a question about this WAR ranking. Houck is at 1.4 WAR while Blanco of Hou is at 1.9 WAR. But here's a comparison of the two:
Houck: 39.1 ip, 31 h, 7 er, 5 bb, 41 k, 1.60 era, 0.92 whip, 9.4 k/9
Blanco: 32.2 ip, 16 h, 6 er, 14 bb, 40 k, 1.65 era, 0.92 whip, 8.3 k/9
So Houck has pitched more innings, has the same whip, a better ERA, better K/9, but has a 0.5 fewer WAR? How does that make any sense at all?
Oh I misread. Yeah but ok, so here's the next question. When it comes to offensive players, we often hear that an out is an out, and there's no difference between a strikeout and a popup. So HOW a hitter makes an out really doesn't impact their WAR at all. But for pitchers, strikeouts DO impact their WAR? Why, if outs are just outs?
But even so...a full have WAR more just because he has a better k/9 than Houck, even though Houck has pitched more innings and has more overall strikeouts and a better ERA? I don't understand the formula.
You're doing bWAR? Because by fWAR Houck leads Blanco 1.4 to 0.6. bWAR take Runs Allowed into its formula, while fWAR takes FIP. Houck has 10 runs allowed, though only 7 earned, while Blanco has 6 runs allowed. That's likely accounting for the difference. fWAR being more predictive and bWAR more descriptive/outcome based.
Baseball-Reference has an explanation of how they calculate their version of WAR for pitchers It also goes into how Fangraphs calculates their version.
Seems like the RA9def might be the difference. Houck's is 0.13, whereas Blanco's is -0.38.
So there's this guy named Voros McCracken, and ~25 years ago he came up with an idea called DIPS, or defense-independent pitching statistics. This is the basis for a bunch of statistics like FIP and xFIP. McCracken observed (not for the first time) that many of the then-common pitching statistics, notably Wins and ERA, really recorded the efforts of a pitcher's team (and the official scorer) more than that pitcher.
But his next step was the radical one: to address this, we need a statistic that only includes "what a pitcher can control," which he understood to be strikeouts, walks, and home runs — and maybe not even home runs. Balls in play were just... ignored. Too noisy. And the thing about this is that it sort of works? A pitcher's FIP in a given season is actually more predictive of their next year's ERA than their current ERA.
As others have noted, Fangraphs uses FIP in their WAR for pitchers, while B-R doesn't; they use RA/9, so earned and unearned runs allowed per nine innings. One could hypothetically do something similar for hitters using statcast statistics: you could make a WAR whose batting component was based on xwOBA, for instance; i.e. based on what we could have expected to happen based on a given batting performance, rather than what actually did.
(Does this exist?)
