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HIT THAT LIKE BUTTON Dept.
We sez, if you'll throw a line or two in the comments, we'll try to be as daily as possible. That way, we both get to read baseball with our morning java. Dr. D maybe wasn't much in the mood, but this thread is here 'cause you did hit the like button. So, you have only yourselves to blame for the following inane shtick. That, and we wanted to change the subject off His Heebie-Jeebie'ness.
Speaking of which, we applaud the gracious attempts to be friendly. Returning evil for kindness, Dr. D reminds that he admires said #5 pitcher. Reminds him of Bosio, when Bosio was done. And Bosio is one of my all-time faves. Only jeebies here are that Gallardo's terrible.
:: innocent smile ::
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COOL GROKS
The Hardball Times has a math professor who made a game attempt to quantify "Quality of Pitch" (QOP) -- using 3 factors: velocity, location, and overall (not late) break. HERE IS THE LINK. On several grounds, Dr. D shakes his head No, smilingly. But any stat, such as ERA or HR, reflect useful information at some points. This article rated "nastiness" for each pitch from 1-10, 5 being average, and found this trend for batters 1-27 in a game:
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So: (1) Starters as a group don't "get loose" the second time through. They get hit more.
More importantly, (2) number 9 hitters see really nasty pitches. For that matter, 1-2 hitters see nastier pitches than 3-4 hitters. This means that --- > when a pitcher is unafraid of a batter, he will pitch great. When the guy in the box scares him, he'll make objectively worse pitches to that guy. So it's a compounding effect: Boomstick gets 35 homers both because he's good and 5 more because pitchers are tentative. Or something.
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Here is another Hardball Times link. The author investigates whether the April 2016 Astros were +7 -17 because their SP's threw fastballs all the same speed (making it easy to "time" them in a series). Great idea! And if true, James Paxton would all by himself make a rotation better!
Unfortunately it ain't so. All your SP's could throw the same 91 but it wouldn't hurt them. Their angles are different, or something.
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JEAN SEGURA IS --- > SUDDEN
SWING - He's got a very unusual motion, doesn't he? Very little action below the waist. Hands low. Turns inside a phone booth, like a golfer. Lots of muscle. Very explosive and short. I think of this as the "Eric Davis" swing. He's got a "sudden" swing and is a sudden man.
DEFENSE - Manny Acta was quoted, don't worry about his playing 2B last year. Segura is a natural SS. For his career he is average-plus by UZR at short. Seems quite legit there.
BASEBALLHQ - says his power is overestimated but his speed is underestimated. They've got CWAZY! speed indexes on Segura, like 165-190. They see him as a .280 hitter with gap power and genuinely elite baserunning.
COMPS - if Segura turns out to hit .275/.325/.400 with excellent speed at SS then comparable players would be the older Jose Reyes, the slightly older Jimmy Rollins, and generally Asdrubal Cabrera. Right now that's looking like the --- > floor. Yes, if Segura had been a free agent add he would have counted as a "big fish" of the winter.
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MANIGER
Digging in to the yellow pad archives fer yer ... Got a fastball up from Danny Duffy, who throws as hard as Yovani or harder. Effortlessly topped it hard and far, off the RF fence. Servais says Maniger handles all kinds of pitching. And Dr. D sees all kindsa gainz for the lad.
He doesn't have to rake to get 3 WAR. But he sure looks like he gonna.
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ATHLETIC OUTFIELD
Dipoto last year threatened to make the M's athletic. Have we noticed that this objective has been completely attained? Dr. D expects that this right here will be the fastest team of Jerry Dipoto's career, though it last 30 more years.
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8 RP's
Had you noticed that the M's barely even have 8 RP's healthy? Count them up. Right now they would have to take 2 out of these three: Pazos, Kiekhefer, Aro. Two of 'em. Maybe that's what Servais meant yesterday, "Right Left doesn't play in as much as people think?" Maybe they take both Kiekhefer and Pazos, if there's no trade.
Random Servais comment, per Shannon Drayer: "only 3-4 percent of relief outings are more than 4 outs." And if the game is gone, who cares anyway. So long men don't matter any more.
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KK: MANDELA EFFECT
Thanks for the hookup BPJ! Several hours of interesting reading on that and still going.
Was it Jonezie who brought up the Hypogeum of Malta? Another amazing example of advanced ancient culture. You think they got that 110 MhZ effect by just chipping at the limestone here and there, trial and error? Or a few of those civilizations had their Da Vinci's?
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IWAKUMA
Was totally back to All-Star status in his last start. Had them trying to hit mosquitoes with willow switches. Fastball up, shuuto down, sneak a strike with the change curve, just vintage Hisashi. Had them all arm-swinging ... you remember the Billy Beane quote of yore, "We get better swings off of Pedro than we do off of Jamie Moyer." That was the way with WBC-san last start.
And it's one of the great sports moments, watching Iwakuma strike a guy out and then frown at himself, sweeping his hip and right palm in a pantomime of what would have been a better pitching motion. It ain't like Iwakuma just started pitching.
Reminds you of an old aikido shihan, age 70+, who went through a practice and end the end gushed happily to his American biographer, "I think I'm getting the hang of Shiho-Nage!" ... stay curious, Matty. You're interested in growing even though you're no longer a kid. Not so many people are. Lot of "growth" type baseball fans around here.
Iwakuma is a growth kind of guy too.
