Feeky Magee

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Apr 17, 2014 -> 08:38 PM) There is one guy who hasn't completely sucked. One. The whole bullpen has been awful this year. Like legendarily bad. There is basically no one who SHOULD be put into high leverage situations, but since baseball still requires a pitcher, you have to put someone out there. Yeah, but you don't just say "everyone is awful, let's just throw someone out there." You look at the degrees to which people have been bad, why they have been bad, how long have they been bad for. Cleto has the worst history of the lot.

QUOTE (Feeky Magee @ Apr 17, 2014 -> 07:49 PM) Semien has struck out a few times with a runner on 3rd and less than 2 outs. Please don't do that here. Or do, whatever

Semien has struck out a few times with a runner on 3rd and less than 2 outs. Please don't do that here.

Tyler Flowers has BABIP's daughter chained to a radiator somewhere doesn't he.

He'll pitch one one day though

If Sale had to be taken out due to injury, what would be the odds of a White Sox bullpen completing a combined no-hitter?

QUOTE (Buehrle>Wood @ Apr 17, 2014 -> 07:31 PM) Looked like it hit him from my seats Nope

Sale perfectly on pace for an Edwin Jackson

Sale's changeup is so damn good

First thing I thought when I saw the line-up was "seems a bit 2013sy". It's been 2013sy so far.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Apr 17, 2014 -> 07:53 PM) The entire bullpen is awful right now. Targeting one guy doesn't make sense. I'm hardly saying "Cleto is the problem of the bullpen, it's good apart from him." I'm questioning how someone with as bad a recent history as Cleto is being put in high-leverage situations, seemingly solely on the strength of his 2014 ERA, when there are clearly more sensible options.

QUOTE (beautox @ Apr 17, 2014 -> 08:05 PM) even with the strike out, chris has been screwed out of three strikes and two questionable pitches while on the other page lester has been give two out of the zone Tyler's been lunging a bit.

If Tyler Flowers had the same BABIP for this year as he did last year, he'd be hitting like .150. 18 strikeouts to 2 walks.

QUOTE (Vance Law @ Apr 17, 2014 -> 05:21 PM) And yet he has a worse ERA than Cleto. The bullpen is a pile. Nobody's supposed to care as we're not supposed to compete this year. But some early season fireworks have people hopeful, ignoring the fact that this bullpen isn't built to win. If you want to blame Ventura for the bullpen's performance, I'd like to nominate him for manager of the year because Belisario pitched a scoreless 7th inning. It was a genius move deploying that terrible pitcher with (now) a 12.79 ERA at just the right moment for him to succeed. As I pointed out in the other thread, Cleto's peripherals are bad, he has a good ERA at the moment on the strength of things he can't control and that will regress to the norm.

QUOTE (IowaSoxFan @ Apr 17, 2014 -> 03:10 PM) I don't think anyone on the coaching staff cares what his minors stats were last year. The book on him has always been that he has a great arm with little control. His control has been much improved thus far (until last night) and sometimes you have to put a guy in a spot to see how he responds. Aside from the foolishness of ignoring a guy's recent history in judging him, before last night his BB/9 on the season was 5.9. Of the 206 pitchers to throw more than 50 innings in the majors last season, dead last in BB/9 was Yoervis Medina, at 5.29. In addition to this, Cleto had walked one of the two batters he had faced, bumping him up to over 7 walks per 9, before he was put back out to start the 9th inning in a one-run game.

QUOTE (IowaSoxFan @ Apr 17, 2014 -> 01:17 PM) Why is his BABIP .118? What are the type of balls in play are turning into outs? It appears he has had a lot of pop-ups because hitters are able to square his pitches. Cleto's been the best bullpen guy this year thus far, no reason he shouldn't have been the guy until he crapped the bed. Pitchers have relatively little control over BABIP. The typical range is .290 to .300. Certain factors can controlled by the pitcher can have minor impacts to this and bump it higher or lower, but not to even close a degree as .118. And certainly Cleto's never shown that he has any particular ability to induce such weak contact that it makes his BABIP abnormally low over a long period of time, you have to go back to 2011 to find any stay he had at any level where his BABIP was lower than .300. In his 9 inning spell in the majors with the Cardinals in 2012 he had a BABIP of .474, about the same over the norm as his current one is below. It's just random, lucky variance. He has most decidedly not been the best bullpen guy this year, not before last night and certainly not after. And even if he had, that doesn't mean you take that extremely low sample size and immediately bump him into a high-leverage reliever, ignoring his extremely recent history of absolutely awful control problems - again, the second worst BB/9 in all of minor league baseball last year.

QUOTE (scs787 @ Apr 17, 2014 -> 11:45 AM) When you include ST Cleto had 7 walks in 17 innings(before last night) and he's been damn near unhittable. I have zero problem with them trying him out at closer. I don't care what he did last year, he was the hottest RP this year. He's been "unhittable" because his BABIP is .118.

QUOTE (Hawkfan @ Apr 17, 2014 -> 11:01 AM) Answer seems pretty obvious to me. Cleto was being tried out for closer, considering that Lindstrom sucked. he was sent out there to close. Webb is the long relief man so you don't put him in when there is nobody left in the pen. Don't you then question why a guy who walked 53 guys in 53.1 innings at Memphis just last year is being tried out for closer at the major league level? The guy who had the second-worst walks per 9 innings in the entire minor leagues? And the guy who really hadn't started well for us, if you looked at anything but ERA?

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Apr 17, 2014 -> 10:37 AM) No offense, but I'm sure Robin knows more about baseball and numbers than probably anyone on this board. Lindstrom was hammered on this board and others. Now all of a sudden, people are up in arms he didn't start the 9th inning last night on all White Sox message boards. I wasn't hammering Lindstrom. So I get to say this. QUOTE (The Ginger Kid @ Apr 17, 2014 -> 10:42 AM) I don't see how you can blame Cleto, he's not the only one handing out free passes. Throw a dart out there and you'll hit a turd. This bullpen is just bad (at least right now), as in '07 bad. But if the Sox are going to be better this year they need guys like Cleto to get better and in pressure situations. He's not the only one, but he's the one with by far the worst history of it. 53 guys in 53.1 innings at Memphis last year. 8.94 per 9. Donnie Veal is the worst of the rest and the most he's walked in a year where he pitched over 50 innings was 5 per 9. QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Apr 17, 2014 -> 10:48 AM) And while everyone sings Webb's praises, he promptly walked the first guy he faced last night and let him score. Webb will walk guys. He doesn't have impeccable control. But, again, he's never come close to the sort of problems Cleto has. Nobody in the pen has. And these are problems Cleto had at his worst ever just last year, at a lower level.

Why the f*** was Cleto in to pitch last night, specifically in the 9th? Before last night his K/9 was a little over 4, his BB/9 about 6, his BABIP .125 and his xFIP over 6. The only positive thing on a statistical side of things was that he had a 0.00 ERA. This despite giving up the game-winning run at the Royals to Perez with an awful hanging pitch. All things (largely) outside of his control being equal and his ERA would have been 6+. This is a dude who walked 53 guys in 53.1 innings at AAA for the Cardinals last year, and then 21 in 38 innings for the Royals AAA. He had faced 2 guys in the 8th last night and walked one of them. So why, why, why was he brought into start the 9th inning in a one-run game? I get that he's a reclamation project and his stuff has the potential to be nasty etc. etc. but you have Lindstrom and Webb available. Lindstrom has been pretty bad but his peripherals were still comfortably better than Cleto. Webb is obviously the best arm in the pen right now. I get that you don't want him to close just yet, but then s***, put him in for the 8th before Cleto even gets in the game. It was a really high leverage situation too, right where you want your best relievers. Is it as simple as Robin seeing Cleto's 0.00 ERA and thinking "wow, he's been good, I'll put him in for the highest leverage situations right now"? For the 9th it was probably a case of realising only Lindstrom and Webb were left and trying to avoid using them so the pen would have something in reserve, but if that was the case, use Webb in the 8th and to start the 9th, and when you have to use Cleto it's probably in a lower-leverage situation. I sure as s*** hope we're not facing a similar situation and Robin looking at his 1.35 ERA and throwing him in. His K/9 is now 4.05, his BB/9 9.45, BABIP .118 and xFIP 7.59. He's still due to regress pretty fast, pretty soon, ERA-wise. Until he shows progress in his peripherals, specifically his control, he should be up in the lowest-leverage situations possible.

QUOTE (BigHurt3515 @ Apr 15, 2014 -> 10:43 PM) That should tell you everything you want to know about that stat I don't understand? What it tells me is that Tyler has been exceptionally lucky and set to regress pretty hard? What does it tell you?

Heck of an at-bat framing-wise there by AJ

Flowers BABIP update: .600, with a batting average of .342. K% 42.5. Josh Hamilton has the second highest BABIP in the majors with .556, he's hitting .444.

QUOTE (CaliSoxFanViaSWside @ Apr 15, 2014 -> 10:29 PM) No I'd expect him to be on the bench or in the minors. But if he stayed on the team due to every other outfielder in the system tearing their labrums (labri?)?

QUOTE (CaliSoxFanViaSWside @ Apr 15, 2014 -> 10:04 PM) Watching his AB's it's safe to say it's lousy hitting. So if De Aza continued to bat this way for the rest of the season, you'd expect his BABIP to be close to .138?