Doug Fister, 2-7 Texas

Q. Hm, 4.2 innings, 5 runs. What happened out there?

A. The Rangers just flat-out beat him.

They had at least three sharp hits off of his vaunted change; they had several laser beams off FB's that got too much of the plate; a long HR onto the centerfield "sod farm" came off of a hanging 73 change-curve.

Another three or four outs were stroked deep to outfielders.

Q. Did he not execute his pitches?

A. Actually, Doogie executed alll three of his pitches fairly well, considering that his fastball velo was back down to the 85-86 range on Sunday.

Without the velo to make the Rangers respect his heater, they often sat in between, and Bernie-Moyer'ed him by waiting back on the change and adjusting fastball. ...in one sequence, Kinsler belted a change just foul down the line, and the next pitch fouled an 87 fastball back over the dugout, late on it.

Q. So was he "booked" or does he get downgraded now, or what?

A. Nah. Guys like Chris Bosio and Brad Radke lost games, sometimes going down in flames.

The Rangers had a good offense, a good strategy, a good park. They deserved to win and did win.

.................

And it's not like Doogie walked five guys, gave up eight hits and left in the second or third, as has happened to French & Snell & etc.

Doogie had three terrible plays behind him -- Jack Wilson threw two balls away and Beltre dropped an easy grounder. One of the homers was about 340 feet again. Fister was a few defensive plays, and a cheap homer, away from 6 innings and 3 earnies.

He lost, but it wasn't a sulfuric chemical fire out there.

Q. What would Doogie have to do differently, to beat the Rangers tomorrow?

A. For one thing, it makes a lot of difference when his fastball is 88, 89 miles an hour. It creates the separation he needs.

It's later in the year than he's ever pitched, and he's 20-30 innings beyond where he's been in the past, so his workload bears some watching now.

..............

But on those days that his fastball is 85-86, he's going to need either (A) hair-fine command, (B) an easier opponent or (C) three or four batted balls' worth of luck.

Which is fine. Guys like Bosio and Radke had like a 50-50 chance on their off days, too.

What I did like, was that Doogie kept working his game, kept mixing pitches, and made the Rangers beat him. They did, but a lot of teams wouldn't have.

Q. How are the TTO's?

A. Today's loss leaves him at a low-ebb of 5.4 strikeouts, 2.5 walks and 1.67 homers.

As to the K's: Shandler's magic number is 5.6 for guys like Fister to be TOR starters. Today's 1 strikeout dropped him from 5.8 to 5.4. No worries about the K's -- we think he has several reliable ways to finish batters off.

The HR's are the thing to watch, and are in my mind the only question left on Doogie. 1.4 is unacceptable gopheritis, 1.1 is average and Doogie really needs to be no more than 1.25.

Obviously, 42 innings is very few, and of the 8 homers he's given up, at least two have been cheap. HR/F does tend to bounce back and forth based on luck, and Doogie's G/F ratio is fine. So we'll keep an eye.

Q. Exec Sum?

A. Finesse pitchers get splashed some days. Good game by the Rangers.

Felix went out and got the Mariners a series win, as he just did against the Angels. That the M's are still "spoiling" on these guys is another feather in Wok's cap.

Cheers,

Dr D

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The regression is

The regression is starting.

5.25 FIP, 5.69 tRA

Interstingly enough this is nearly identical with French's season lines:

5.17 FIP, 5.90 tRA

Fister was looking like a viable back of the rotation candidate for a while, but he needs to keep the HR rate under control...and we NEED that velocity back. The Ms will probably end up waiting to see how Morrow, Fister, French, Silva, and the others are throwing next spring before deciding those two back-end spots.

Beginning to become disturbing

Let's face it -- Ks are the number one item that attracts pundits and fans to pitchers. NOBODY gets thrilled about watching guys like Washburn or Wang or Lowe work. Even when they have non-K methods of getting outs beyond the normal "random" BABIP, the fans largely don't care - and the bulk of the math says they should be ignored, too.

But, the thing that REALLY pumps FIP (or any of the other 'true' ERA methods) is HOME RUN RATE. When Olson and Vargas were winning ugly early, I was one of the lone Olson supporters --- but with the codicile that he HAD to get his HR rate down. It went up (2.3/9) ... which happened to French (2.0/9) ... and Morrow (1.8/9) ... and Fister (1.7/9) ... and Vargas ... (1.6/9) ... and Jaku (1.5/9).

In point of fact, RRS is the only non-ace sporting a reasonable HR/9 rate (1.0).

The club doesn't play at Coors field or Arlington. There's NO blaming these numbers on the park. When one guy comes in and has a dinger problem, you blame him. When you get two, you blame one and chalk the other up as bad luck. When you get a HALF DOZEN guys all showing the same problem, then your problem almost HAS to be at a higher level.

Early in the season, there was a massive split in dingers surrendered between Joh and Johnson. After Joh's return, Johnson was catching the "good" pitchers, and Joh the "bad" ones, so it gets a LOT more complex figuring out if Joh is really the problem or not. But, at this point, IMO, the HR problem *HAS* to be blamed on "something" beyond the individual pitchers.

Possibilities: Johjima (always has carried a horrid comparitive CERA and opponent OPS compared to his teammates. In 2009, this manifested early as a massive HR difference, which has shrunk a bit as the year has gone on -- and Johnson has seen his PT significantly cut). The .779 to .665 OPS is driven by an 80 point slugging differential.

Coaching/Strategy: The veteran pitchers (and Felix), have had success this season in keeping the dinger totals down. The HR barrage has been specifically limited to the long line of young guns, (except RRS). Snell, who has pitched miserably in terms of K-rate, BB-rate, and has an absolutely dreadful K/BB ratio, is next up with a liveable 1.3/9 rate. Perhaps what the club is TEACHING the young guys is a mitigating factor that "might" be artificially inflating their HR rates.

Player selection: The dinger-fest is also largely focused on Z acquisitions. Olson, Vargas, French and Snell had no contact with Seattle coaching until they arrived. Olson only had 1.1 and 1.2 HR rates before arriving. But, in addition to the 4 imports, you've got Fister and Jaku and Morrow as home grown HR explosions.

My suspicion? I think the club likely has a very good aggregate plan that could possibly keep the HR totals down. They just don't have guys talented enough to execute that plan w/o making too many mistakes. ANY of them could grow out of that with continued work, as they're all so relatively new to the bigs. I also think Johjima likely exacerbates the situation.

My recommendation? I think the club desperately needs to trade Johjima, (even if he isn't the problem), because I don't think it will be possible to figure out what the core problem is while he remains. I think the club needs to SERIOUSLY reassess its game planning with its young pitchers. I have a sneaky suspicion that they may have OVER-stated (to themselves), the ability for Safeco to suppress HRs. It helps "some", yes. 75 to 87 HRs as I write this. But, not as much as hoped for ... AND it's likely teaching bad habits to the young guys. Maybe the young guys can eventually learn to adapt to home/road changes in game planning. But, for 2009, the 0.38 ERA edge at home seems more about the 45 hit difference, and not the 12 HR difference.

In any case, one of the top priorities for 2010 will be locating the root cause of the problem, whether it is catcher, coaching or Z ... and fix it. Because, the club at this point is looking at having Felix and 4 prayers for a rotation. Hopefully RRS continues impressing. But, if the Seattle staff does its best to surrender gophers as if they played 1/2 their games in Arlington, the club can kiss any hope of leading the league in ERA buh-bye REAL fast.

As usual, too many great ideas to reply to :- )

Maybe you should split out your posts or something. :- )

That's a great point about Johjima (of whom I'm a big fan, of course, but rue his match with the M's org). What are Fister's HR splits throwing to Johnson?

In Fister's case all but 5

In Fister's case all but 5 PAs are from Johjima. Maybe theres an argument to be made that Fister would have magically done better with Johnson behind the plate. Personally, I'm not seeing it.

When glancing over Fister's AAA numbers I noticed a sky-high HR rate vs Lefties despite an enormous home park.

His HR rate vs lefties in AAA was 1.6 per 9, in the bigs its 2.4 HR/9. The more logical conclusion here seems to be that for whatever reason Fister's changeup is FAR more effective vs righties than lefties. He can't handle lefties if his life depended on it (its logical that a major weakness in AAA would get further exposed in MLB).

Despite the catestrophic gopher problem against lefties Doug has managed a .720 OPS vs lefties thanks to a .178 BABIP vs lefties. That OPS vs lefties is going to go UP. WAY up. And when it does it aint because of Johjima.

Not sure the argument would depend on magic

Johjima - 23 homers per 550 AB's (2,000 AB's)

Johnson - 16 homers per 550 AB's (2,400 AB's)

.............

According to their season ratios, Johnson would have cut Fister's HR's from 8 to 5 without any help from Zatanna. :- )

I just don't buy it.Johnson

I just don't buy it.

Johnson caught Felix-Bedard-Wash for a while before the trade and injury. Now asides from Felix they are having basically the same results.

Would Fister actually have given up 5 HRs behind the plate "if only" Rob Johnson were there? No, lets be realistic. Its not like Fister is a vet or someone who despises throwing to Joh like Felix.

Fister is just plain lousy vs LHs. Unless maybe Johjima was catching Fister in AAA too.

Johnson might be no factor

But of Fister's 8 homers, 2 were among the cheapest of all time :- )

I don't get why you say Fister is lousy vs lefties amigo? His OPS is lower against LH's and his change is the ultimate lefty-basher.

Hes also had some warning

Hes also had some warning track outs as well.

Fister's BABIP vs lefties is .171, his HR rate is 2.4 HR/9 (1.6 HR in AAA). That OPS against is going to skyrocket. Hes as bad or worse against lefties than French is vs righties.

I apologize for the frustration here.. but I don't think French has been given a fair shot. I also think that Fister's issues vs LHs were his biggest question mark coming up from AAA.

With French and Fister you have two potential BOR-types that really struggle vs opposite handed hitters.

I'll take the other side of this one :- )

The 8 homers are what make the FIP look bad. If it were 32 homers in four times as many innings, sure.

I like Doug Fister's game. I'm betting the over on him. :- )

What specifically are you

What specifically are you betting on though?

I think you have to assume that lefties are going to be playing batting practice with him at this point, so hes really going to have to minimize those BBs, and maximize his effectiveness vs RHs.

French has been written off more than once on this site. Its interesting to note that hes been slightly better than Fister at BOTH the AAA and MLB level this year.

I think whats warping opinions is that over the past 4 weeks we've just happened to see Fister at his best and French at his worst. These guys are similar prospects (potential BOR starters with issues vs opposite handed hitters) and either could emerge next spring. Personally I think French has slightly more upside, but also slightly more bust potential (slider.. where are you at?).

Your point is well taken on French-Fister

... if your point is that Fister's results are hanging in there with Fister's, early on, in terms of xERA.

However, I agree with James that K/BB is the single most important ratio in evaluating a pitcher, and Fister's 26/12, compared to French's depressing 22/17, to me is a good place to go to see the difference in ability reflected.

..................

Your point about Fister-at-his-best, French-at-his-worst, that one has real traction my friend. :- ) I'd go to that pitch more often.

Fister's potential

In my mind, if he can sit 88 with his fastball, is to top out as a Radke-, Bosio-type. Making $425k.

I'd give him about a 25% chance of doing that, at this point.

...............

His changeup is just about Campillo-class, and his makeup is special, and he MAY have excellent command.

Again, I think the 7k and 0+bb in the PCL get wayyyyyy undersold.

The BB/9 in AAA wasn't backed

The BB/9 in AAA wasn't backed up by a 70+ Strike%. Hes more likely a 2 BB/9 type.

I agree with the upside scenario (don't agree with the %), I just don't get the super extreme valuation on Luke French and Doug Fister.

Fister has a 50% shot of contributing and French 1/30 or whatever? Its beyond extreme. They are pretty similar prospects.

The 0+ walk rate in AAA

isn't interesting because it implies a 0+ walk rate in the majors. It's interesting because the 7:1 control ratio implies a 6-SD type mastery over his own arsenal.

Ya, the command is what makes

Ya, the command is what makes him interesting.

I'm just saying that the AAA BB/9 probably should have been something like 1.8 as opposed to a sub-1 rate. If you throw Fister in AAA next year he likely runs a walk rate somewhere around 2 BB/9.

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