Balta1701

Ha, I just discovered that Fangraphs under advanced stats allows you to sort by the difference between ERA and FIP. Guess which bullpen has the biggest difference between their ERA and Fielding Independent Pitching in the bigs right now (which suggests an ERA that might go the other way)?

Click the xFIP, FIP, BB/9, and K/9 tabs for me.

Keppinger was DFA'd after 1 season with substantial money still remaining.

Their ERA is good but their peripherals are in the bottom 5 of baseball right now. They're helped by a low BABIP and a low HR/FB number, both of which are likely to go up as the season goes along. And then, if they trade Colome, well I'm not sure there's a big leaguer out there. Can you be more specific about which guys in your top 30 you think will be in next year's bullpen? I'll grant Burdi even if he seems to be having the slowest TJS recovery in the history of TJS. But look at the other guys in the prospect list, which one are you referring to? Hamilton with the ERA of 9 in Charlotte? Jordan Stephens? Kodi Medeiros with the ERA near 7 in Birmingham (I'm amazed that's even possible). Ruiz? Burr? Guys down at A ball who we will race up? The White Sox don't have much in their system right now. Saying that guys are top 30 prospects down there doesn't mean much right now.

Can I propose a rule that we stop mentioning Madrigal as a part of a championship team until his OPS at A-Ball is no longer bouncing around .700?

Dunning just had TJS and hasn't done that much work at AA, and he'll come into next year having barely pitched in a year and a half. People have confidence in Covey now? I guess pulling the plug on Hansen as a starter does seem likely now, so perhaps he does count.

Seriously, what bullpen reinforcements do you have confidence in right now? I guess they'll have to give Burdi a shot given how highly they drafted him, but aside from him name one young reliever in our organization you think is a major contributor next year? Bummer looks improved to start this year, but he and Fry seem to have switched abilities from last year to this year. Juan Minaya has a decent ERA in the bigs this year, are we confident in him, his ERA at Charlotte was >5?

Good point. Hard to see how this team is any better than .500 next year unless they make that kind of move, but you're right, we'll see the Rick Hahn window dressing and blow $10 million on Dozier.

Well we had Adam Eaton and those 3 teams were pathetic losers who are still fighting the same fights 3 year later, so perhaps there' another ingredient.

If Yoan Moncada continues striking out at the rate he has been in May then his end-of-year numbers will wind up looking a lot like 2018. After the game on May 23 of 2018 he had an .830 OPS. We have seen this story before, his current strikeout rate is so high that his numbers will correct if that continues.

If we're putting together the list, somewhere at the top of it needs to be Robin Ventura. This mess happened under his "watch". IMO he checked out starting in 2013 and the fact that all this is still going on is a testament to how much of a problem that became.

Obviously we have 4 more years of team control after this one so it's ok to give him that time...the question is "If he needs several years to have a true breakout, does that mean we're not a competitive team until 2022 or 2023?"

I'd say it's absolutely an open question, and if I were spending that kind of money on a player I'd probably move Moncada back to 2b before I try moving Rendon away from a position he's played for nearly 5 full seasons.

Ignoring what happened last night - is a jump in K rate from 22% in April to 33% in May a "Marginal increase"? That's a 50% jump, from the range of "really good hitter" to the range of "Threatens his own season-long strikeout rate". Maybe over 1 month the BABIP is more important, but literally the difference in that number from April to May, over the course of a season, is the difference between an MVP candidate and the Moncada we saw in 2018.

Rendon also hasn't played a single inning at 2b since 2015.

I have no idea honestly. I thought we had seen genuine improvement in April, and we did. Then May hit and things went the wrong way. I do not know who this player is right now or who he will be even in June.

No, I'm saying that starting with August 17 is as arbitrary and insignificant as me randomly choosing the 16 days beforehand. You want a general statement? He seemed to be making progress in April of this year but he has slid the wrong direction in May. If he keeps doing what he's doing the last few weeks, his numbers will slowly slide back down. We need to see the April version of him more.

That followed a stretch from August 1-15 where he had a 51% K rate.

Which is why I went with the 80 PA K-rate in all of May in the previous post. Back in April people were saying that was a substantial enough data set to begin making interpretations based on it.

Since May 12 his K rate is 32.1%.

I'm not going to answer what the specific number needs to be, but I'm just going to point this part out. You say "Yes, 33% last year needed significant improvement". Since May 1 his K-Rate is 32.9%. Unless he's hitting HR at twice his current rate, we have already seen what will happen to his numbers when he's striking out at the rate he's doing right now.

Some other guys on the list include Shane Greene (Tigers, 2 years of control, similar stats to Colome), Will Smith of the Giants (a little worse than Colome, 1 year of control), you could see Wade Davis (expensive) or Greg Holland (spectacular so far) become available also given that the Dodgers already have a 6 game division lead.

Well there's one obvious problem - in no universe is he the top reliever on the market particularly after the draft. If I had the choice I'd always go for Kimbrel as good as he's been in his career, if I couldn't afford him Giles has pitched better than Colome this year and also has 2 years of control available.

Honestly, there are years where May is exactly the time to make a move. If some team clearly needs bullpen help but otherwise they think they're competitive, by Memorial day you roughly know what your teams needs are, you get a and if that's the case there's no good reason for that team to wait on making a strong offer, unless they are willing to spend the money and time for Kimbrel. You make a move in late May to fill a dramatic hole, maybe you can win 2 or 3 close games before the trade deadline hits.

So you're ok with the White Sox picking up Alonso and Jones's options next year? They worked hard for the team and loyalty and respect go both ways.