...........................
BSR with a disconcerting visual for us, regarding Video Game Chapman's 2012 rampage:
[He has 47 K in 27 IP and an 0.00 ERA...] It's just funny, if he was on the Yankees doing this there would probably be a dedicated Chapman Watch minisite on ESPN.com tracking every pitch...on the Reds I didn't even know this was happening.
That IS funny, and true, too. I watch SportsCenter twice a week maybe and have not yet, this season, seen Chapman on the screen. I usually take Chapman in SBNation's "Pick Six" game; for a long time you could buy him for $3 of your $120 daily budget. He's still only like $11.
Hasegawa had a 0+ ERA at the ASB once ... it's probably not historically unusual for a reliever to take a 0.00 ERA into July. Eck had like an 0.64 ERA to finish one season ... but as to 0.00 ERA at 15K+ per nine innings, I wonder if this is the latest it's ever been done like this.
Chapman's FIP right now is 0.55, meaning that he "deserves" an ERA that is essentially zero, would have a near-zero ERA if the batted balls and fielding behind him were completely typical. You are witnessing a Sidd Finch-style perfect baseball pitching performance, or as close as you're going to see.
.....................
Asked the NL Cy Young last week, Bill James said Chapman. BSR asked about the limits for reliever WAR ... Chapman is headed for 4.5 to 5.0 WAR but that often understates the value of such a reliever.
For example, Chapman's actual "win probability added" for 2012 projects to 6.5 wins; that's 6.5 wins above what a solid major league reliever would do, meaning 8.5 wins above replacement.
WPA also fails to capture every way in which a "perfect reliever" impacts a baseball game. The bullpen leaders each season clock in at 4-5 wins above major league average in terms of bases gained and bases lost, factoring in the base-out situations and the scoreboard.
Let us say that you are aware that the Boston Red Sox can, at any moment of their choosing, "nuke" the Yankees' BEST three hitters, ARod, Teixeira, and Granderson, in any close game. That has a domino effect on the way that the Yankees' manager has to play the rest of the game. And neither WPA nor WAR take into account the fact that Chapman can eliminate good hitters.
Play me a game of Strat-O-Matic, two identical teams, and give me one "get out of jail free" card in which I can nuke three of your batters any time I say so. I'll wait until you get two guys on base, nobody out, and then cancel the inning. I'll win 60% of the games.
That's an extreme example; I doubt the Reds usually bring Chapman in to put out a fire. Still, I'll bet my 60-40 ratio long, and if that's so then a "get out of jail free" card is worth 15 (!) wins per season.
I don't say that Chapman is +17 WAR, but you'd better believe that he's worth more than the WAR column allows.
................
Stephen Pryor was asked to come into a jam in Chicago today, two men on and the AL's leading hitter at the plate. Pryor doused Paul Konerko in gasoline and tossed a road flare onto him.
I felt like on this Saturday afternoon, the curtain came down on the Mariners' "wussy" era. Pryor's going to be the baseball version of Steve Hutchison.
.
BABVA,
Dr D
...............
*photo is of a stunt man. As you know, Dr. D is a gentle soul. Not so gentle that he doesn't enjoy the faux-sadism of a Stephen Pryor appearance...
Doc...I was jazzed watching Pryor destroy Konerko too...but then he blew the lead in the 8th on a really bad looking slop slider above the belt to a mediocre hitter. So...yeah...maybe we could wait and see whether he does what he SHOULD do (i.e. show the slider only rarely and try to bounce it when ahead in counts) before we anoint him the next great thing.
As he did on a minor league one. The hundred MPH on a pitch tailing away from a righty? Yeeeeeesh.
Yes, he gave up the homer. He's still gonna be a phenomenal part of our pen going forward. Two men on for Konerko, who's hitting the stuffing out of the ball, and you're making your major league debut? Welcome to the bigs, kid. He was great.
And can I say how impressive Wilhelmsen's THREE innings of relief were? Wedge was gonna ride his best bullpen pitcher as long as he could, and he did. Tom was up to the task.
BTW, at some point Noesi's allowed to figure out how not to get killed by baserunners in the minors, right? Or Beavan can strike out 5 per in AAA with his 80 ERA+?
Cuz Hultzen's leading the Southern league in ERA (just ahead of wonderfreak Bauer) and WHIP and is second in Ks - just yawning his way through the competition.
~G
Since you pointed that one out, have been watching for it, and slap me silly if G-Moneyball wasn't right about something for once in his life...
/irony
He is sitting on a charming little 1200 OPS for the season, runners in scoring position... from the full stretch he gets ahead in the count and then moves the ball around the zone .... SCREEEEECHHHH BUT! glancing back over his shoulder at 2B the entire conversation changes...
The O/U arrival date of June 2013 is not looking bad at this point...
... but not material to the case, counselor :- )
Blowers fell out of his chair when Pryor started that AB with TWO sliders, whereupon Pryor promptly tripled up (!!) for a 1-2 count... giving the hitter a 4th look at it that AB cost Pryor dearly...
Kid has confidence in his slider, I'll give 'im that, but it's a little bit like Shaq falling in love with his 3-point shot... one (1) very louuuuud conversation with Eric Wedge is all the doctor orders in this case...
Pryor went to baseball powerhouses Cleveland State Community College and Tennessee Technological U. He is the 2nd player EVER from TTU to make the bigs (Eric Sabol threw 61 innings about a decade ago) and the third ever from Cleveland State (Jason Davis actually threw a few hundred Beavan-level innings).
Suffice it to say Pryor is the best arm in the history of both schools combined. He's never struggled when healthy. His rocky start to his minors career was after injury and in a crazy environment, and once he was promoted to AA he destroyed everyone. He still hasn't given up a AAA earned run, so it's not like he was learning anything there.
If a guy can see 3 sliders in one at-bat and hit a fourth for a HR, then that's good knowledge to have. You know how many HRs he gave up in 50+ innings in AA and AAA combined? ZERO.
How many earned runs at all? FIVE.
Knowing he can't throw 4 sliders to a hitter - or at least not 4 sliders to those locations - is valuable data he was not able to get in the minor leagues.
The improvement of a 100-MPH-with-tailing-action pitcher has begun.
~G
are not problems solved, and I don't see why Noesi has to solve this one in the bigs. He's not getting any better at containing damage. He's bringing his own gas can to the mound and stuffing a flaming rag in it whenever a guy steps on base.
I like him, and think he's got a good big-league future ahead of him, but he needs to work on this and we don't have to lose games or hair watching him do it. Any time now, once the Ms judge we're safely past Super Two (130-140ish days, so middle of May to first week or so of June), then Hultzen can be "coincidentally" promoted. I believe Hultzen starts tomorrow and the Mariners have an off day on Thursday, so he could start Friday instead of Noesi - at home - on normal rest on the 8th, almost guaranteed to be out of the Super Two danger zone. We'll see, right? Glad we won this one anyway.
And hey, with as many cockamamie ideas as I come up with, I have to be right sometime, you'd hope. Otherwise I'd really have to apologize (more) for all this rambling I do. We'll see if the Ms agree with me shortly on the solution, regardless of whether they agree on the problem.
~G
Thanks for the promote Doc! It's an honor, been a lurker since the Detectovision days :)
Completely agree on Pryor's impact on the team...FINALLY the M's are starting to get some real big league characters on this team...now if a couple of the kids can break the .800 mark as hitters and stay there, we'll be on our way to a fun team that actually demands some respect.
Or maybe we're talking about Hultzen's W/L...