Sure he is terrible this year with a 5 Era and tons of bombs but he did actually improve both his K and his BB rate compared to last year and while his K rate still isn't great he has some games that suggest more upside. Of course he also has those terrible 4 walk, 3 bomb for 7 runs games but giolito was literally the worst pitcher last year.

Of course this is highly unlikely and most 5 era pitchers stay bad but could you see him improving big time and especially control his bb and HRs? 

Sure, if he puts in the kind of work that Giolito did this past offseason and completely overhauls his mechanics and embraces analytics. That's what did it for Giolito. If he doesn't do something like that, I wouldn't hold out too much hope for it.

You would hope so, but 2019 should have been a year where he progressed, at least some. The Sox are in a position to give him another shot, but he is not someone you can rely on at this point. Going into 2020, the team has to realize how thin the starting staff and something needs to be done to address the problem.

32 minutes ago, Dam8610 said:

Sure, if he puts in the kind of work that Giolito did this past offseason and completely overhauls his mechanics and embraces analytics. That's what did it for Giolito. If he doesn't do something like that, I wouldn't hold out too much hope for it.

Giolito credited his change more to the mental aspect of living from pitch to pitch. He was able to maintain his focus thus maintain the mechanics throughout the game much more effectively.

3 minutes ago, NWINFan said:

You would hope so, but 2019 should have been a year where he progressed, at least some. The Sox are in a position to give him another shot, but he is not someone you can rely on at this point. Going into 2020, the team has to realize how thin the starting staff and something needs to be done to address the problem.

He will be at best #4 on the staff. They have Giolito, Cease, Kopech at least ahead of him, depending on if they sign a starter.

7 minutes ago, ptatc said:

Giolito credited his change more to the mental aspect of living from pitch to pitch. He was able to maintain his focus thus maintain the mechanics throughout the game much more effectively.

To be fair, he made a gigantic mechanical change though.  

Anything is possible but you have to assume he is what he has shown himself to be.

Gio is the exception, not the rule

While I hope ReyLo can improve, only time can tell

We know the talent is there, really about finding consistency and limiting the homers (which Gio can do too)

 I don't think Castillo helped out Reylo much yesterday. Pitch selection and location was not the best, but obviously most of that was Reylo's fault.

Yea, Reylo has decent control in most starts but needs to get more movement on his fastball, even if he slows it down 2 or 3 mph and put some English on it.

Hitters like 97 mph darts when they are straight.  He has had a few games where his slider is exceptional but he only had a couple of decent sliders yesterday.

I wouldn't write him off yet. 

I think Kopech might make a better Closer than a starting pitcher, but that is yet to be seen.  I say that because max effort to throw high 90's is not a recipe for longevity as a starter. Just my 2 cents.

 

Does he have a HS pitching coach he can go back to? 

2 hours ago, tray said:

 I don't think Castillo helped out Reylo much yesterday. Pitch selection and location was not the best, but obviously most of that was Reylo's fault.

Yea, Reylo has decent control in most starts but needs to get more movement on his fastball, even if he slows it down 2 or 3 mph and put some English on it.

Hitters like 97 mph darts when they are straight.  He has had a few games where his slider is exceptional but he only had a couple of decent sliders yesterday.

I wouldn't write him off yet. 

I think Kopech might make a better Closer than a starting pitcher, but that is yet to be seen.  I say that because max effort to throw high 90's is not a recipe for longevity as a starter. Just my 2 cents.

 

Putting any blame on catchers is a pretty big cop out IMO. Thor did it with the Mets, then backtracked a bit, but if he doesn't know what he wants to do and thinks it's all up to the catcher how he performs, he should give some money back.  The ultimate responsibility for what pitch is thrown and location is either on the pitcher or the bench if the bench is calling the game which several do. 

Renteria subtley questioned his focus yesterday.  Hopefully that is something the Sox work to improve in the off season

1 minute ago, Superstar Lamar said:

Renteria subtley questioned his focus yesterday.  Hopefully that is something the Sox work to improve in the off season

Luckily we have a "Latin Whisperer" as manager so he can have the guys ready to play in any language.

Who knows what happens, but he has a ton of talent. I think at the very least, he would be a nasty reliever. 

Rey seems like the kind of guy who would benefit from adding some spin to his fastball. Too bad the Sox don't have development guys geared towards doing that, unlike the team that just won 100 games two seasons in a row.

 

edit - sorry, 3 seasons in a row.

Edited September 23, 20196 yr by daggins

2 minutes ago, Dick Allen said:

Who knows what happens, but he has a ton of talent. I think at the very least, he would be a nasty reliever. 

I'd say he has a live arm.  As for the talent needed to be an actual pitcher and not just a thrower it's not there.   He'll need an analytics overhaul to get more spin on his fastball and a mechanics overall to get more of his stuff in the zone.  Right now he's a guy that is completely reliant on luck with his secondary stuff and having his best fastball in any given start.  Not a good combo as we've seen.

3 hours ago, Superstar Lamar said:

Renteria subtley questioned his focus yesterday.  Hopefully that is something the Sox work to improve in the off season

I was delighted to see Ricky show some life in this regard.  Even parents who love you let you know when they are disappointed in your effort.

Focus has been a repeated issue mentioned all year.  He has shown flashes of brilliance where he has been effective and still hitting 97-98 late in games.  If improved focus leads to improved mechanics/repeatability then he could improve.  He is still young and maturing.  I doubt he has a night and day switch like Gio.  He had a longer bad stretch, then a good stretch and finishing disappointing.  You hope for more consistency.  Shorten the length of bad to ok and still have a real good stretch and you have a valuable pitcher.  The one thing he offers which can't be underestimated to this team is innings.  He takes his turn and generally pitches a decent amount of innings.  When we have guys who can't get out of the first it helps.

5 hours ago, daggins said:

Rey seems like the kind of guy who would benefit from adding some spin to his fastball. Too bad the Sox don't have development guys geared towards doing that, unlike the team that just won 100 games two seasons in a row.

 

edit - sorry, 3 seasons in a row.

I dont know. I think his fastball is too straight and would benefit from less spin.  Keeping the velocity and decreasing the spin would be the trick.

Personally I think Lopez is a reliever but we'll see. Hopefully I'm wrong and he's more than that.

2 minutes ago, aryzner said:

Personally I think Lopez is a reliever but we'll see. Hopefully I'm wrong and he's more than that.

That is why we need to sign two starters this offseason.  Between Lopez inconsistency and Kopech an unknown quantity...need to be sure of quality arms being available until we are firing on all cylinders.

2 hours ago, ptatc said:

I dont know. I think his fastball is too straight and would benefit from less spin.  Keeping the velocity and decreasing the spin would be the trick.

This post sent me out to find some info about Rey's spin rates, specifically on his 4-seamer. So, after some googling, I got to the StatCast site, where, in addition to finding out that the longest HR this season was hit by future White Sox Nomar Mazara (505 feet!) I found some info on said pitch:

58.4% of pitches thrown

avg velo 95.8 mph

avg spin rate 2135 rpm

wOBA against = .362

That wOBA is...not good. The site also has comparative metrics on his FB velo (top 17% in MLB) and spin rate (bottom 20%). Rey is getting swinging strikes on 19% of his FB. Again, that is...not good.

Going further and looking at the movement on the pitch, he actually has pretty good lateral movement, but nearly no horizontal movement. Generally, subtracting spin would give him more negative horizontal movement - kind of turning the pitch into a sinker. I guess that could work, but Rey has another problem - his other pitches aren't particularly good either, so he really has nothing to back up the FB.

So, after all that, I think he could add (up to 2400 or so RPM) or subtract (down to 1900 or so RPM) spin (adding would cause the pitch to rise slightly, effectively giving him another plane of movement) but his real issue is that he doesn't have an elite pitch. So, making him into a reliever might not be as good an option as it seems.

 

5 minutes ago, daggins said:

This post sent me out to find some info about Rey's spin rates, specifically on his 4-seamer. So, after some googling, I got to the StatCast site, where, in addition to finding out that the longest HR this season was hit by future White Sox Nomar Mazara (505 feet!) I found some info on said pitch:

58.4% of pitches thrown

avg velo 95.8 mph

avg spin rate 2135 rpm

wOBA against = .362

That wOBA is...not good. The site also has comparative metrics on his FB velo (top 17% in MLB) and spin rate (bottom 20%). Rey is getting swinging strikes on 19% of his FB. Again, that is...not good.

Going further and looking at the movement on the pitch, he actually has pretty good lateral movement, but nearly no horizontal movement. Generally, subtracting spin would give him more negative horizontal movement - kind of turning the pitch into a sinker. I guess that could work, but Rey has another problem - his other pitches aren't particularly good either, so he really has nothing to back up the FB.

So, after all that, I think he could add (up to 2400 or so RPM) or subtract (down to 1900 or so RPM) spin (adding would cause the pitch to rise slightly, effectively giving him another plane of movement) but his real issue is that he doesn't have an elite pitch. So, making him into a reliever might not be as good an option as it seems.

 

he has bad spin rate, bad command, bad control, up and down velocity and struggles with runners on more than most.  bad pitcher.  

short answer is: hell no, because what Gio did was historic and it hardly ever happens that's what it's, uh, historic.  I'll tell you what tho if Don Cooper stays away from him maybe he'll have a fighting chance this offseason!

No Lopez just not a very good starter

One shortcut would be to eliminate his changeup entirely. He only threw it 15% of the time, and hitters had a laughable .421 wOBA against. Essentially, the average hitter was Mike Trout against the pitch. Big yikes.