still not really. scheduling, injuries and rain delays pretty much ruin that after two weeks

Grotewold wrote:

Barry Jive wrote:It's one thing to expect better results from good production

That's the thing I was doing

you're assuming Halladay and Hamels will pitch better than they have. It's a reasonable assumption but they're not just going to regress because you think they should be better. Right now, Hamels blows and Halladay might be dead. If Hamels were actually pitching well but losing I'd understand, but he's pitching poorly and losing so those W-L numbers aren't just blips on the radar

Barry Jive wrote:Right now, Hamels blows

Says the guy repeatedly taking posters to task for saying he was bad in 2009. He's not Hollywood yet but has given us a good chance to win 6 of the 9 starts. Which puts the onus back on the offense, I know

And yes, Halladay (meaning Cloyd, Zambrano, Halladay, me?) will outperform what we've gotten from Halladay

Yes, I'm taking them to task for ignoring his peripherals and focusing on the fruits of those peripherals. He pitched well in 2009 and got burned. He's not pitching well right now.

Halladay is about as big a question mark as it gets right now. We have no idea what he'll be when he comes back, so while I don't expect him to pitch like he has, I can't count on him to return to form, either.

Barry Jive wrote:Yes, I'm taking them to task for ignoring his peripherals and focusing on the fruits of those peripherals. He pitched well in 2009 and got burned. He's not pitching well right now.

Halladay is about as big a question mark as it gets right now. We have no idea what he'll be when he comes back, so while I don't expect him to pitch like he has, I can't count on him to return to form, either.

I tend to agree with you about 2009 but think you're overstating the difference between that and 2013 in a small sample

Halladay is a monstrous question mark yes, but is someone eclipsing a 46 ERA+? I wasn't waving the pennant in the air or anything, just saying there's more room for improvement than there are unsustainable successes

I see. Makes sense, just sucks that a team with an anemic offense has to depend on two unproven mid- to low-level prospects every week to gut out some wins.

I'm not saying the small sample of Hamels blowing is predictive of a bad season, I'm just saying you can't excuse those losses in his games because he didn't pitch as well as you'd expect him to. He has pitched poorly and the team has not won games for him. Those are facts that won't change if he improves. It's a small sample size so it's not terribly predictive of future performance, but to this point there aren't many positives to point to with the stats.

As for that sample size: He's faced 241 batters. Per Fangraphs, K/PA, groundball rate and line drive rate stabilize at 150 BF. Flyball rate and GB/FB stabilize at 200 BF. Popup rate and walk rate take much longer to stabilize so there's plenty of room for improvement with his control issues so far.

His K/PA is 19.5%, a career low. His GB% is the lowest it's been since 2009 (in 2010 he added that cutter which turned him into much more of a GB pitcher). His LD% is 19.8% which isn't bad but isn't at its elite 2010-2011 levels.

His cutter is getting pounded right now and he's not throwing his change-up for strikes as consistently as he has in the past. Those things are hurting him badly. Unless those things change, the small sample size doesn't matter because he's not going to get better than he has been this year.

Barry Jive wrote:As for that sample size: He's faced 241 batters. Per Fangraphs, K/PA, groundball rate and line drive rate stabilize at 150 BF. Flyball rate and GB/FB stabilize at 200 BF. Popup rate and walk rate take much longer to stabilize so there's plenty of room for improvement with his control issues so far.

Good info, thanks, and good to hear the latter

Raul Valdez to AAA; BJ Rosenberg called up.

this guy is shit, bring up the turd!

Hearing Stutes has yet to apologize for crashing Billmeyer's moped

Deck chairs. Titanic.

Missin' you mike zagurski

I guess we don't need a long relief guy anymore since we're done with Cleveland

rosenberg has been starting. i'm sure he can handle it.

Have they said Cloyd is pitching Tuesday night in Miami yet?

Adams MRI showed no damage, but he is unavailable tonight

Deitch wrote:Michael Young, who had 33 walks in 651 plate appearances last season, has 22 in 158 this season.

Doing it!

HE OBVIOUSLY DIDN'T GET THE MEMO

he's likely to regress at some point, his BB% is over 4 points higher than any other full year, and his ISO is still abysmal. i also doubt he'll maintain his BABIP, which is close to what it was when he was a very good hitter, but hard to complain with what we've got so far from him. Ended up being a good gamble by Rube.

I would have sex with Michael Young all day.