Autumn Dreamin

Smith's 3.2IP, 1H, 0ER, 5BB, 8K line officially a first in MLB

Vargas makes that play

Sure, that seems about right for the vibe of this game so far

What a wild stat line for Smith through 3. Maybe the bats look stiff because they are standing out in the cold for 20+ minute innings with no balls in play?

It's just shorthand for regression to the mean, but from a level of underperformance rather than overperformance (which is what most people think when you don't include the "positive" modifier.) Not sports specific, you'll also hear it in economics, politics, and other areas that deal with trendlines. A bit different than just "progress" because the implication is returning to some expected level established by a previous sample size. I suppose "progression towards the mean" would carry the same meaning, but eh.

Rogers is an incredibly tough lefty, so if they can't get him out early then the hope will be to salvage a game tomorrow. Hopefully Smith can show some positive regression today, though the O's hit him well even when he was in good form last year.

That sucks, I'm a big Brooks fan and he seemed due for a big year. Hope his surgery and recovery go well.

Don't think they start the clock on Antonacci, who probably needs a few more OF reps anyway. Dru Baker is off to a hot start in Charlotte and had a solid spring. RHH keeps the same lineup balance. 26 and can play CF. Murray also played some OF with Tampa, so maybe he gets a look there.

A couple tidbits from BA and FG's respective prospect chats: That last note on Smith is especially interesting.

Eh. Their WP% in the 9th of this game peaked at 33.4. Their WP% in MIL, in the game where they saved him for leverage, peaked at 15.6 in the 9th. The only way to treat this as a "zero chance of winning" game is by working backwards from the fact that they didn't...in which case, both usages were a waste because they lost both games. In an absolute statistical sense, tonight's game wound up more winnable in the end, and that's before even getting to the impact of Hays' bad hammy on the first run against. So is it worth something to have Fedde leaving the game today with a 43% chance of winning in the 7th, compared to leaving with a 22% chance of winning in the 5th of his first start? If Taylor doesn't get his 3 outs then someone else would have had to. Does Fedde get them third time through, or does a different reliever if you hook him before that? If not, then are the Sox facing worse odds in the 9th than being one swing away? Does it take more than 3 arms to finish the game? Does BAL get to save their best arms? Does that impact pen availability/performance for the rest of the series? With Taylor opening for Burke, he left with a 88% chance of winning in the 7th, compared to a leaving with a 16% chance of winning after the 4th of his first start. In the latter scenario, you can theoretically save Taylor for a more winnable game* but what if the former scenario actually makes the game more winnable to begin with? *In reality, they couldn't actually save him, because he (and the team) needed innings, so he got "wasted" on a <10% win probability game anyway... Saving him for leverage on a below average team will mean some number of non-leverage "work" innings that are guaranteed to be less meaningful than any outing as an opener by default. Neither route is perfectly waste free, they just have different uncertainties. Saving Taylor could just as easily mean you traded a one hit away home 9th today for him pitching in a decided game on Wednesday or Thursday if there's no leverage spot before then to get him off the bench. Despite Taylor's absolutely elite stuff, the performance of the bullpen and the "starters" behind him have both been better with him opening in this handful of games. Obviously, a larger sample size would be needed to control for the effects of home vs. road, opponent variance, and players/teams just settling in to the season. But if the pattern continues, and Taylor opening gets an extra ~4 innings from the starters in a series combined with better bullpen performance courtesy of reduced workload + better pockets, could that have a larger cumulative effect on winning than the marginal difference between an early 0 and a late one in an individual game? Especially when you can't project how many games will have late leverage value to cash in on at all? I just think it's possible on a situational basis, and I think it's interesting that they're trying it. It's certainly led to more winnable and more watchable games in a VERY small sample size this week. I expect Taylor will still get leverage spots when the matchups for a series suggest that's better. Last year vs. TOR, he opened the opener and closed the finale. It doesn't have to be a pure either/or unless you're determined to only use Taylor in games where his inning individually is most likely to decide the game in a vacuum. In that case, I agree that he absolutely should appear almost exclusively in save situations. My thought process is based around maximizing Taylor the player and the staff overall both being higher priorities than maximizing potential leverage opportunities specifically.

Large language model, a la ChatGPT. Because obviously no actual person would make the mistake of trying to have a productive baseball discussion about baseball decisions on a baseball forum, of course. Maybe one day I'll learn that it's much easier to just go around having the same two arguments in every thread while spamming negative reacts instead.

It's not kanji in and of itself, it's the font. Like imagine seeing the back of a jersey in comic sans or something.

...What?

I would argue that shifting the discussion from "what are the merits of Taylor opening games" to "should this organization be given the benefit of the doubt" is the actual moving of goalposts... My view is: There are valid reasons to try it even if it's technically less "optimal" for the win total, because I think a team in the Sox' position should be optimizing for things other than a few extra wins this season regardless There is a possibility that it's not actually meaningfully detrimental to the win total anyway, given the larger roster context The marginal value of leverage spots increases based on how projectable those opportunities are. If the Sox were a competing team who could expect to be in most games behind a rotation of guys who reliably went 5-6 innings then the calculus would be different. But none of my reasoning is based around "give the team the benefit of the doubt" nor have I said it's some guaranteed miracle strategy. I just think it's fascinating and worth discussing deeper. Feels like a shame for the discussion of what is a legitimately interesting (to me, at least) experiment to get strawmanned into the same old "why are people defending the organization" box, but I suppose that's nothing new here. The larger conversation is probably best left for a non-gamethread anyway, so I'll just leave it there.

But regardless of what you think the chances are of it happening, is it a waste to use Taylor in a game that another pitcher subsequently loses? What if using Taylor as an opener reduces the chances of your starter getting bombed? And what if that in turn reduces strain on the remaining pen arms in a way that improves their performance? A scoreless first inning in a game is worth ~5% win probability for the home team. A scoreless 7th with a one run lead is worth ~9%. So sure, the latter leverage inning is "better" in a vacuum... But the first situation is guaranteed and the second is not. The first also comes against a known set of batters, while the second does not. The impact of the extra WPA from the later leverage situation becomes more marginal the less reliably you are able to get to it. So how likely are the Sox to be in late innings with a lead, and does opening with Taylor improve those odds? How much more valuable is going from 69% to 78% win probability once in a series compared to going from 50% to 55% twice in a series? I think those are interesting questions to consider for this particular roster at this particular time, so I kind of dig the experiment. I already gave most of my thoughts on this in the other thread, but think it's at least feasible that Taylor as opener both 1. decreases the odds of your starter getting lit up and 2. simplifies later bullpen deployment, both in ways that are potentially more impactful to winning than waiting for the team to already be in a late lead situation to begin with. Also, if they want to increase his workload, he'll be pitching some "waste" innings either way. This isn't exactly a team with 70+ save opportunities up for grabs right now. Having him open a game certainly seems like less of a "waste" than him coming in down 4 because "he just needs work" while team is in a skid.

Yep. Like I said, the same complaints exist for most MLB attempts at kanji merch. MLB should have an interest in correcting it given their clear desire to expand global reach, but they have also just been poor overall at holding Fanatics to quality/consistency standards in any number of ways in recent years. These are about Imai's HOU City Connect: It's a recurring issue that's not in the hands of Sox staff. Or, you know, maybe it's just Getz personally cutting out all the characters poorly league-wide I guess.

I don't get how this is different from basically any usage of any reliever? Was it a "waste" for him to pitch the 7th in MIL because the team gave up the lead in the 8th and lost? Is it poor non-usage to save him for higher leverage and then have a different reliever put the game out of reach? If you're judging "good usage" of an arm by the unknowable results of future innings, then the start of the 9th or extras with a lead are the only situations that don't rely on hindsight. Otherwise, "What if he pitches well but then you lose the game?" is just baseball.

This is not Sox-specific, the same complaints exist for most MLB kanji merch. The default fonts used here for kanji just don't read as well to native Japanese fans (but of course, they sell to Americans who can't judge fonts in a language they don't read)

Unexpected DH after a rainout yesterday

Jays fans starting to clamor for an Eloy call up to help their offense He's hitting well in AAA

Zavala and Gonzalez restoring some prospect shine with good starts so far.

I like when Sox "first time since..." trivia is positive rather than negative

Ishbia is at the Bulls game again. Both Ishbias actually, since it's the Suns in town. Also was hanging with fans at the Rate: