Aside from focus/command issues, I think he has to offer more consistent deception in the vertical plane.  One of his best starts, possibly his last good one, he showed a nice 12/6 slider that seemed to greatly help keeping everyone off his fastball.  He needs to further develop a third pitch.  Get more comfortable with the changeup.  Throw a few thousand of them this off season.  A splitter with his arsenal could be fantastic.  But I don't think that rabbit is being pulled out of the hat anytime soon as his hands don't look big enough to me. 

Lopez' second half numbers (5-7, 4.62 ERA, 1.37 WHIP) would be just fine for a number 5 starter, especially within the context of the Sox having a great veteran FA pitching pickup and Cease, Kopech and Giolito rounding out the other slots.

He has the highest xFIP over the last two years.  Second from highest last year, highest this year. 

He needs a third pitch he can throw for strikes and fix his command.  If he doesn't make any changes this off season he's going to be the same guy which is a fringe #5.

Edited September 24, 20196 yr by BackDoorBreach

1 hour ago, Juschill said:

He has the highest xFIP over the last two years.  Second from highest last year, highest this year. 

What are his xFIP splits first half / second half?

Edit: I looked it up. 5.74 first half/4.95 Second Half. Second half doesn't seem TOO horrible...

Edited September 24, 20196 yr by Greg Hibbard

Lopez has actually been a league average starter this year according to FanGraphs. We can live with him being that as long as we get a big fish starter this off-season and Kopech and Cease take steps forward next year.

I looked at his statcast page and there are a lot of blue boxes. Hopefully that means there are things he can work on and not that he is just untalented. One of the questions I have is will he have the same ability as Giolito to work on stuff in the offseason? If he has to go back to the DR, do they have the same type of analytics based training that they do here at places like driveline? Or will he be able to stay or come back to work on that stuff?

Just from looking at his numbers, I would wonder if he tries to add a cutter. His slider gets pretty good results from an xwoba perspective even though its flatter than normal. On the other hand, his four seamer get hit around even though it has above average horizontal break. Maybe by adding a cutter between those two there are no longer two distinct pitches batters can recognize, but one pitch which looks like another which looks like another. Three different speeds, two directions of break, and two degrees of break in the same direction. I would also call up James Shields and get him to coach him up on the changeup and see if he can get some more vertical break to it. A four pitch mix of 4 seam, cutter, slider, change with the occasional curve thrown in could probably be more effective than he was this year.

https://baseballsavant.mlb.com/player-scroll?player_id=625643#pitchTypes

23 hours ago, GenericUserName said:

I looked at his statcast page and there are a lot of blue boxes. Hopefully that means there are things he can work on and not that he is just untalented. One of the questions I have is will he have the same ability as Giolito to work on stuff in the offseason? If he has to go back to the DR, do they have the same type of analytics based training that they do here at places like driveline? Or will he be able to stay or come back to work on that stuff?

Just from looking at his numbers, I would wonder if he tries to add a cutter. His slider gets pretty good results from an xwoba perspective even though its flatter than normal. On the other hand, his four seamer get hit around even though it has above average horizontal break. Maybe by adding a cutter between those two there are no longer two distinct pitches batters can recognize, but one pitch which looks like another which looks like another. Three different speeds, two directions of break, and two degrees of break in the same direction. I would also call up James Shields and get him to coach him up on the changeup and see if he can get some more vertical break to it. A four pitch mix of 4 seam, cutter, slider, change with the occasional curve thrown in could probably be more effective than he was this year.

https://baseballsavant.mlb.com/player-scroll?player_id=625643#pitchTypes

I like the cutter idea but with our team use of it, I bet it has been tried if not we have the teacher.  I would think Gio and/or our staff could help with change.  Sometimes guys need to hear it from someone different.  Everyone talks about focus issues.  Maybe adding more stuff in complicates things and makes him focus more?

Advanced metrics aside, Lopez is a worse pitcher this year than he was his first 2 plus years in MLB.

2016-18 :  280.1 IP  36 HR  4.21 ERA.  (7.8 IP / HR)

2019:          176.  IP.  34 HR. 5.57 ERA. (5.2 IP / HR)