Chris Young’s career turned on a 1,168-word email the Royals right-hander wrote to a St. Louis surgeon in 2013 where he diagnosed himself as suffering from thoracic outlet syndrome, writes Andy McCullough of The Kansas City Star. Dr. Robert Thompson, director of the Washington University Center for Thoracic Outlet Syndrome concurred, and performed a decompression procedure to free the nerves in Young’s shoulder. “I feel better now at 35 than I did when I was in my late 20s, early 30s, because I was dealing with so much pain,” Young said. “I forgot what it was like to be healthy. Now I try to make up for lost time.” And that he has. Nearly two years after undergoing the career-saving operation, Young, the reigning AL Comeback Player of the Year, has been a relevation for the Royals pitching to a 1.06 ERA in seven games (including one start) with a 8.5 K/9 and 2.6 BB/9 over 17 innings of work.
Elsewhere in the American League:
- The next start for Tigers ace David Price will be pushed back from Thursday to Saturday to give his mild hamstring strain extra time to heal, reports Anthony Fenech of the Detroit Free Press (Twitter links). Price says he could have pitched on normal rest, so the move is simply precautionary.
- The Tigers have a need for a left-handed power bat off the bench, but risk losing out-of-options infielder Hernan Perez to waivers if they attempt such an move, according to MLive.com’s Chris Iott.
- After throwing 108 pitches in winning his MLB debut as a starter, the White Sox remain coy on whether Carlos Rodon will remain in the rotation or return to the bullpen, writes MLB.com’s Scott Merkin. “You’re also somewhat protecting the amount of usage you’re going to get out of him over the course of the year, so there’s some factors that go into it for him and his learning curve and things like that,” said manager Robin Ventura. “There’s more to it than he’s just ready to go.” If Rodon remains in the rotation for the rest of the season, Merkin calculates the left-hander will approach the team’s unofficial innings limit of 160.
- The Red Sox’s July 2014 trade of John Lackey for Allen Craig and Joe Kelly is looking worse and worse, Nick Cafardo of the Boston Globe opines. Craig performed poorly down the stretch in 2014 for the Red Sox and has been just as bad this year, and while Kelly’s radar gun readings have been impressive, his performance hasn’t (although his peripherals this season have been much better than his 5.72 ERA). Meanwhile, Lackey has pitched well for the Cardinals while making the league minimum salary.
Way to early to properly evaluate the Lackey for Craig and Kelly trade. There’s plenty of time for that to work out well for both sides.
I wrote the same thing a few months ago here that Cafardo wrote and got blistered.
The Cardinals got rid of a contract for an OF they weren’t playing and saved over $20M. They got a veteran pitcher back that is better then the one they gave up, and Lackey is pitching for $500k this year, $100k less then Kelly. Meanwhile the Red Sox are paying the OF $9M to play in the minors.
Sure, Kelly could work down his 6.35 ERA. Or maybe someone would trade a hot prospect for him……but why anyone would do that is questionable. Or Lackey could refuse to resign with the Cardinals – but with the money they saved they can easily afford to sign a decent free agent starter to take his place.
The moves the Red Sox have made since the end of the 2013 season are straight out of George Steinbrenner – before he gave up and turned things over to his “baseball people”.
I don’t think Boston really cares about the money owed to Craig; they are like the Dodgers and Yankees in that their payroll is basically unlimited. The Dodgers, for example, are paying about 50 million dollars to players no longer on their roster. To their way of thinking, having the roster spots is more valuable than the cash.
If they took the money they are stuck paying Craig and added to the Lackey offer he would be their ace. One bad decision begets another.
Right now it certainly seems that way
The Red Sox have Kelly and Craig for far longer than the Cardinals have Lackey. There’s still plenty of time for them to get their money’s worth. Meanwhile, if the Cardinals get one good year out of Lackey at league minimum that’s great for them. But what if Kelly turns into a lights out late inning reliever for the next three years? What if Craig gives the Red Sox three years of .300 hitting while starting at first base? Neither would be a huge stretch given their past results and history. 3 years of a good starting first baseman and 3 years of a quality reliever definitely equates to a successful trade. Heck even if they’re average to slightly above average players who play full-time the Red Sox could still get good value out of the trade. It’s tough to judge a trade with long term implications based on the first four months. Keep in mind that the same front office that is responsible for the trades in 2012 and signings pre-2013 that directly contributed to winning the World Series. Just because you’re not crazy about the results of their last trade doesn’t invalidate their previous successes.
There are a lot of Ifs in your argument. I could see where you were coming from IF Kelly’s FIP wasn’t always higher than his ERA, or IF Craig’s offensive production wasn’t so closely tied to his BABIP.
Also, what IF both players are released? Looks a lot more likely than your scenario.
Craig hasn’t hit .300 since his Lisfranc foot injury, which was severe enough that it could completely alter a player’s career and ability, especially if the player got permanent damage from coming back too early…which Craig did. That’s an “if” I wouldn’t count on.
Kelly could turn out okay, but keep in mind that the Cardinals did use him as a late inning reliever, and the results were pretty shaky. Although Kelly has great velocity, he seemed to struggle more than he should in a relief role. It’s one reason why he was regulated to a long relief role (in which he was wasted) and eventually wound up in the rotation when he was needed. Besides, the Red Sox saw Kelly as a mid-rotation starter at least, and if they wind up with a reliever for three years in exchange for Lackey, then they overpaid.
But the Red Sox win every trade since ’04 or at least that’s how the big 4 letter network see’s it.
Yes. This!
And also, Lackey was more of a need to Boston than what they got back. When you look at Lester’s upcoming free agency, and their reluctance to pay top dollar for long term contracts, it didn’t make sense why not hold on to Lackey. The move lacked strategy.
“His peripherals this season have been much better than his performance.” But they actually base wins and losses on performance not peripherals. You don’t get bonus wins at the end of the year because you looked pretty while losing.
The idea isn’t to change past losses to wins, it’s to win games moving forward.
But just like past performance doesn’t equal future performance, there is no guarantee that past peripherals equals future performance either. If you were to trade for Corey Kluber right now, you wouldn’t be trading for 2014 Corey Kluber, you would get 2015 Corey Kluber. There are no guarantees in life. Statistics are virtually meaningless when it comes to individual performances. Because even if something happens 99 times out of 100, you could be the 1. They are a great way to analyze the past, but we are kidding ourselves to think that they can predict future performance.
That misses the point, though. The idea is to make decisions that give us the best chance of succeeding in the future. To use the Martinez/Kelly example I used below, sometimes Martinez will be better in the future and sometimes Kelly will be, but more of than than not Kelly will be better, so that’s the horse you hitch your wagon to.
But there is no guarantee that Kelly will be better than Martinez. It is LIKELY that he will be, but likely don’t always pay the bills. There have always been players that regularly outperform their peripherals and there have always been players that underachieve as well. If you are betting on the two, then Kelly would probably have better odds than Martinez, but long shots come through every day.
I guess I’m not sure of your point other than there’s no certainties in baseball, but I don’t see the point of saying that since it’s sort of universally understood that none of us know the future with certainty.
If you’re Ben Cherington and you’re running the Red Sox, you need to make decisions based on the information you have and what’s more likely to happen.
But it isn’t universally understood because a lot of people around here treat projections as if they have already happened. You seem to have a good head on your shoulders, but some don’t.
Neither you nor I are Ben Cherington. He needs to make those decisions, not us. We can pretend what we think matters and our statistical analysis (or lack thereof) actually matters, but no real GM is actually reading our arguments. It’s fun to think that Ben Cherington or any other MLB players or execs actually read our arguments, but they almost definitely don’t.
Some players do underperform or overperform their peripherals (extreme flyball pitchers, for example, like Chris Young) but these are outliers. From a skills perspective, it would seem that Kelly might be better suited to the bullpen because he doesn’t really have an effective 3rd pitch.
Statistics aren’t virtually meaningless over the course of a season; it’s been 30 games. Performance generally regresses to the mean, unless there’s some kind of injury. And plenty of past performance indicators help us predict future performance. this is why the major projection systems are so accurate; they build in regression and age but use past performance to predict future results.
You have your way and I have mine. The world is still turning. I don’t think projections are useful in any way whatsoever because there are always variables in life. Injuries happen, surprise bounce back seasons, guys fall of a cliff production-wise. These things happen every year and nothing and no one can predict them. But I am not trying to change your mind, because I can’t and don’t want to. I am just trying to explain my viewpoint, which isn’t changing either. Have a nice night.
So what do you suggest? Teams should base signings on… ??
reasons other than the opinions of two random posters on the Internet.
Those reasons being… ??
Ask them because I am one of the two random posters.
Okay. They are pretty accurate but there are outliers every season. No computer algorithm can build in every variable; that’s why I’m a baseball fan first, because fun stuff happens all the time when you watch the games. But having more information has never dulled my enthusiasm for baseball.
Only someone who has spent zero time actually studying statistics and probability would say this. Professional projections are quite accurate. Sure you can cherry pick misses, but to do so is to ignore overall trends. Not to mention it is silly to declare projections to be misses one month into the season.
I had 4 statistics classes in college with a B average. I know statistics and I also know that you can make them say whatever you want if you try.
Maybe you should have studied harder if all you got out of four statistics classes was “statistics can be manipulated, and therefore should always be disregarded! No deeper analysis necessary!” Don’t try to play the conciliatory role. Not all opinions are created equal, and they’re not all deserving of respect. We’re not talking about unfalsifiable religious claims here where “it’s just a matter of opinion”. You’re demonstrably wrong, and you shouldn’t be fine with that. All it would take to figure this out for yourself is to look at player projections for the last year or two and compare them to actual performance results, and you’d see that the two match up pretty well far more often than not. So acting like advanced stats have no practical value is simply, factually incorrect, and demonstrating this to yourself should be trivial.
I guess it’s not surprising, though. Humans aren’t hardwired to intuitively understand the concept of probability.
And exactly what species are you?
If you base performance on wins and losses then that isn’t the proper way to evaluate. If a player pitches a one run, complete game and ends up with a loss, then he looked pretty good losing. Sometimes, it is just bad luck.
That isn’t the proper way to evaluate in your opinion. I respect the opinion of everyone that wants to use advanced metrics to evaluate players. I just ask for the same. I am not an advanced scout and neither is anyone else here, so when it comes down to it, it really doesn’t matter what system we use to evaluate players.
BTW, I would much rather my team have a pitcher that wins while giving up 4 runs than a pitcher that loses while giving up 1. A pitcher doesn’t have to give up zero runs, he just has to give up less runs than the other guy. It’s like the old joke of being chased by a lion. I don’t have to outrun him, I just have to outrun you.
The other day Fernando Rodney got a win after blowing a lead and giving up 4 runs in the 9th and then they won it in the 10th. If that doesn’t show how stupid basing wins/losses on I don’t know what is
I’m not talking about the stat of pitcher wins. I’m talking about team wins. I don’t think pitching wins are meaningless, but I do believe RELIEF pitcher wins are virtually meaningless. Wins can still be somewhat useful for evaluating starting pitchers.
Basing the pitcher you prefer on wins seems shortsighted. It doesn’t take advanced metrics to evaluate this. Example: In 2014 you’d rather have Justin Verlander and his 4.54 ERA than Chris Sale and his 2.17 ERA because Verlander finished the year with three more Ws. But if Sale is consistently allowing half the number of runs, who is putting his team in a better position to win more often?
This is a bad example for two reasons. First, Sale missed over a month on the DL, Second, Sale was 12-4 on a team that finished 17 games behind the Tigers. You have to consider wins and losses.
Thank you for making my point. Doesn’t the fact that Sale went 12-4 for a team that finished 17 games out prove just how good he was? Would it make a difference if I had used Cole Hamels, who won only 9 games in the same number of starts as Verlander, but with an ERA almost 2 full runs lower? No. It’s entirely clear to anyone who watched baseball last year that Chris Sale and Cole Hamels were better pitchers than Justin Verlander, yet the original poster claimed he would take the pitcher who allowed more runs but had the wins.
n.m
I’d rather have the better pitcher, period.
I’d rather have the winner.
A pitcher who consistently pitches well is far more likely to help his teams win games than a pitcher who doesn’t. For fun you should look up Willie Blair’s 17-win season and what happened after.
Your definition of fun and mine seem to be quite different, but yes I do remember Willie Blair. I am not talking about fluky seasons like that. I am talking about pitchers that have the intestinal fortitude and drive to beat the other guy ahead of padding their own stats.
Okay. I don’t know how to measure intestinal fortitude and drive. Nobody does.
Exactly.
Nolan Ryan won the Cy Young with a losing record.
Bert Blyleven is in the Hall of Fame despite a career .534 winning record.
Pitchers only control half the game. Team wins aren’t a very good measure of how good a pitcher is.
It must be frustrating having a guy like Kelly on your team, and getting results like he’s had so far. So much potential but lack of true command to harness it all into results. Eovaldi in NY is a similar case, #1 stuff without an ace performance, although w/much better results than Kelly, and a year younger.
When did Eovaldi get #1 stuff?
Did he steal Billy Martin’s jersey, socks or glove? Only way he could have #1 stuff.
11.6 hits/9. 1.55whip. 6.6K/9. 4.49FIP.
NOT #1 stuff. Not even close. He led the league in hits allowed last year with 223 hits allowed. He is currently on pace for 257 hits allowed if he hits 200ip, IF.
Scouting reports graded a 55 fastball, 45 slider, 35 curve.
Expect regression from him soon.
And Kelly with his 4.49FIP….. being just 1 year older… does not have #1 stuff either. No. Nope. No way. No how.
Okay, here we go: There’s a distinct difference between stuff and results, which you’re tying together. A guy can have fantastic stuff, stuff that has the potential to be coming from a number 1, without getting that type of result for a variety of reasons. Both Kelly and Eovaldi are prime examples of this. I didn’t say either WAS a number 1 right now, or that they would ever be for that matter, I said they have the stuff to be, raw stuff may be a better way to key it.Giving me stat lines does nothing to tell me how good a pitchers stuff is, it tells me how well they used it. Carlos Marmol has always had fantastic stuff for example, closer stuff even, yet he’s just now getting back to the pro minors w/CLE because he’s never been able to execute consistently and walked a ton. Also, grading a pitcher’s pitches individually is very subjective and can be greatly effected by how they utilize them in sequence as opposed to movement and other individual defining factors.
Per Fangraphs (they know more than me):
The parameters for being considered a high-end stuff guy are basically a high velocity fastball (with a few bonus points for having movement) and a hard breaking ball; either a 12-6 curve or a wipeout slider. If you have a hard fastball and a hard breaking ball, you’ll generally be considered a premium stuff guy, regardless of what the rest of your game looks like. To bring this back to the question that spawned this post, Brandon Morrow has both a mid-90s fastball and a hard slider, which is why the question was asked about where his stuff ranks in regards to other starting pitchers.
While Eovaldi throws a hard fastball, his secondary pitches are nothing like the above description. If you have #1 stuff and have 85 starts under your belt….youd have results.
It’s fair to say that his secondary stuff isn’t as impressive as his Fastball, sure. It doesn’t help that his Slider is kind of a blah pitch, yet he uses it second most. But, to say he doesn’t get hard breaks on his other stuff isn’t factual, namely his Curve and Splitter, can have some impressive movement going on, but he doesn’t use either as much because he’s not as comfortable with them yet in sequences, he’s definitely a work in progress, but a promising one. And no, a guy with downright filthy stuff could have made 175 career starts, but never honed the art of execution. Stuff is simply not a result-driven factor.
Jeremy Bonderman had great stuff, but never put it together. He always had that one pitch he would Hang at the wrong time.
Stuff doesn’t always equal results. The earlier mentioned Morrow is another example.
Showed that #1 stuff tonight.
Joe Kelly is destined for the bullpen….he has good stuff but lacks the command. His #1 pitch is his 4 seam fastball which he throws 96-99 mph…he only needs 2 solid pitches to be a reliever…he already has the arm power….he could be dominant coming to the mound late in the game getting a few swing and miss strike outs.
Agreed, he could be an effective late-innings guy.
I feel the exact same way as well. I know a while back FanGraphs did a comparison between Britton of the Orioles (as a starter) and Kelly, and both had very similar statistics. I’m not saying he would end up Britton 2.0 (as a righty), but his fastball and whatever is his second best pitch is, should be effective enough to make him a quality one-inning reliever. And, it gives Boston a power arm to use in the bullpen which they lack.
Issue Ive see with Kelly going back to St. Louis is that his fastball flattens out. His stuff might actually translate better to the pen…but it will leave him prone to some rough outings.
His two-seamer really isn’t that good. He threw that all the time in St. Louis. I think his four-seamer is a much better pitch, he just can’t throw strikes consistently enough,
He’s going to have to call Orel Hershiser in and get that 2 seamer diving. Why not just add a solid cutter…. Move it side to side. Same arm angle and speed as his fastball coming out of the shoot…. It’d be filthy in the pen.
It’s very easy to psychologically want to overthrow the 2 seamer. If you can crank it up like Kelly..it can be hard to back off. Kelly might actually age into having some good secondary offerings. Would rather see a guy lose a few off the top end and find an extra pitch.
All I know is that the Red Sox could sure use a Lackey right about now.
And a Lester, Scherzer & Hamels!
Or just a healthy Christian Vazquez.
Yeah, a .240 hitting C would really help overcome that abysmal rotation.
Pretty sure the point is that Vazquez’s pitch framing/game calling skills would make the entire pitching staff better. Maybe those skills have been overstated by some, but they’re definitely better than what they’ve gotten out of Hanigan/Swihart defensively so far.
Please keep in mind that 90% of the teams pitching stats to this point have been with Vazquez behind the plate. The pitching didn’t just go bad since he went down with injury.
Huh? Didn’t he go down with injury just before the season began? I think you’re mixing up Vazquez with Ryan Hanigan.
I may be. I thought he started the season with them. My apologies.
Vazquez hasn’t played in 2015, and won’t. You must be thinking of someone else.
Have to wonder if Kelly would be better off in the bullpen. His fastball may play better in a relief role, and the Red Sox need help in the bullpen as well.
I think he would but then again the Red Sox need him in the rotation.
I’m not sure they need him in the rotation, but they must feel that way. IMO, they should give him and Masterson another one to three starts and see what they can do. If they continue to struggle, they should put them in the bullpen. They have Eduardo Rodriguez, and Brian Johnson, who are both near-ready to where they should be able to contribute effectively as starters. They also have Owens, but he got to get his control back, and I guess it could be argued Johnson does as well.
I think they do need him as a starter. For as bad as he has been this year he has shown that he can be an effective starter in the past. As for the prospects that you mentioned, yeah, they might be a better option but they could turn out to be ineffective as well. At least Kelly has proven that he can be adequate as a starter at the big league level.
Maybe you’re right. He can be so frustrating to watch though at times.
He’s frustrating for me to watch, and I’m a NY fan,lol. I hate seeing guys with raw stuff that good, yet can’t piece it together. It’s 10x worse than watching a guy with mediocre stuff get knocked around, just knowing what he could possibly be capable of.
That fastball was hard and flat in St. Louis. I suppose that translates better to the pen…but it’ll still get him lit up.
I’m always impressed with David Price. Detroit and Tampa rode him like a rented mule last year (led the AL in IP and batters faced). This year he again leads the AL in BF, a walk year for him. Everyone saw how James Shields’ IP hurt his price last off-season, If I were his agent I’d be calling DD every week campaigning to get Price more rest. Price seems fine letting Detroit squeeze as much as possible from that left arm. Keep that elbow healthy David, save some bullets for your next team too.
Price’s ability to face so many batters is his ability to throw so few pitches per batter. He, himself, states that he tries to get each batter out in 3 pitches. Detroit has kept his pitch counts in the 100-115 range, normal for most starters. With Price, he just goes deeper on that number of pitches. Very refreshing after Scherzer, who was usually at 100 in the 6th inning.
the white sox should just put rodon in the rotation as their 5th starter, and for the red sox and cards trade, it’s a shame about allen craig, in 2013 he was an mvp candidate in my eyes , hit like over .400 with risp. if he could get back to that form and over come injuries from last year, he will be a good bat for a team at the deadline.
I have a hard time believing that Hernan Perez would be claimed off waivers. He looks like he will become a nice utility fielder. The Tigers bench is terribly weak with Romine, Perez and now Holiday. Only player of substance is Rajah. No one from the rest is going to hit a long ball as a pinch hitter. Even Don Kelly would be an improvement, and I’m not suggesting to bring him back. The starting line up is going to get tired over time if these are the guys Ausmus must choose from in order to rest a starter.