5 hours ago, CeaseAndExist said:

It's baseball dude, everyone loses games to bad teams

We just prefer not to.

9 hours ago, CaliSoxFanViaSWside said:

I keep seeing people post about Cease not being in the rotation in the playoff , but I'd like to see how he looks down the stretch. 

He is so close to being the #1 starter on the staff.

Haven't we seen this movie before?

 

I mean, isn't Cease a bit of a bumslayer? And isn't he a bit shit against the good teams?

 

Sure, he looked good. But grade on a curve: he wasn't exactly facing the best in the business. 

52 minutes ago, Two-Gun Pete said:

Haven't we seen this movie before?

 

I mean, isn't Cease a bit of a bumslayer? And isn't he a bit shit against the good teams?

 

Sure, he looked good. But grade on a curve: he wasn't exactly facing the best in the business. 

This bumslayer thing has always been a dumb narrative. This isn‘t college football where Alabama beats some directional school by 50.

Baseball is a game with a huge amount of variance. The Royals are not a good offensive team, but they are less than one run worse the Red Sox per game.

1 hour ago, Two-Gun Pete said:

Haven't we seen this movie before?

 

I mean, isn't Cease a bit of a bumslayer? And isn't he a bit shit against the good teams?

 

Sure, he looked good. But grade on a curve: he wasn't exactly facing the best in the business. 

Yes!  I look forward to Cease having a dominant stretch.  Like I said when you told everyone they were fools for even dreaming the Sox might trade for Craig Kimbrel, you are a hell of a contra-indicator.

56 minutes ago, Two-Gun Pete said:

Haven't we seen this movie before?

 

I mean, isn't Cease a bit of a bumslayer? And isn't he a bit shit against the good teams?

 

Sure, he looked good. But grade on a curve: he wasn't exactly facing the best in the business. 

This year Cease is very close to Giolito in ERA, FIP and XFIP. HIs FIP is 3.45 so far. Last year it was 6.46 and in 2019 it was 5.19 . So as far as saying haven't we seen this movie before ,  no we haven't .  I doubt he has been among the league leaders in swings and misses at all in his career nor among the top 20 in pitcher WAR. He is also 6th, tied with Rodon and Gausman in K's in MLB.

 You seem like one of those guys who never quite gets that young players can mature and develop. Cease is still only 25. Young hitters and players always have a development curve  so while the "he is who I thought he was" narrative will work with some youngsters and you can pound your chest about it  for Mazara, it isn't always that way.

Considering the majority of our schedule is against bums most of the starting pitchers have been bumslayers, probably Cease more than the others.  But he wasn't even slaying bums in the past. You have to walk before you can run. Keuchel has probably pitched best against good teams but has sucked against bad teams but over all is easily the worst pitcher on the Sox. But you can do the research on FanGraphs by just perusing the game logs.

11 hours ago, CaliSoxFanViaSWside said:

I keep seeing people post about Cease not being in the rotation in the playoff , but I'd like to see how he looks down the stretch. His stuff can be overpowering. His fastball was blazing tonight but, KC wasn't swinging at the slider . He kept it down and away and he got maybe one swing for a K on it but overall I think it just lacked depth.

That knuckle curve, now that's an out pitch liked he showed in the 6th. He probably doesn't throw them much early on because he doesn't want to hang one and the fastball slider combo is smarter if you can get them to chase the slider which wasn't happening. I wonder if he has experimented with a cutter or sinker or change up.If he could throw the fastball consistently as sinkers and cutters at slightly less MPH  like around 94/95 he'd throw off the timing of hitters even throwing it in the zone and he could be dominant without the high pitch count.

He is so close to being the #1 starter on the staff.

Who's saying that? Cease over Keuchel is a no brainer right now imo

2 hours ago, SCCWS said:

Forget the Guardians.  The Indians are w/o their manager and were sellers not buyers at the deadline. We should be focused on the Astros as Boston/  Tampa will get beat up by Yankees, Jays and each other. 

Fair point, but that's the post season.  The Sox need to play good baseball (and smart, safe baseball so no one else gets hurt) and cruise to the playoffs.  Having Cleveland way in the rearview mirror will make August and September less stressful.

I honestly don't think Cleveland, or any other Al Central team) is a threat to the Sox.  But the Sox will be tested in some series playing their potential playoff opponents.

23 minutes ago, CaliSoxFanViaSWside said:

This year Cease is very close to Giolito in ERA, FIP and XFIP. HIs FIP is 3.45 so far. Last year it was 6.46 and in 2019 it was 5.19 . So as far as saying haven't we seen this movie before ,  no we haven't .  I doubt he has been among the league leaders in swings and misses at all in his career nor among the top 20 in pitcher WAR. He is also 6th, tied with Rodon and Gausman in K's in MLB.

 You seem like one of those guys who never quite gets that young players can mature and develop. Cease is still only 25. Young hitters and players always have a development curve  so while the "he is who I thought he was" narrative will work with some youngsters and you can pound your chest about it  for Mazara, it isn't always that way.

Considering the majority of our schedule is against bums most of the starting pitchers have been bumslayers, probably Cease more than the others.  But he wasn't even slaying bums in the past. You have to walk before you can run. Keuchel has probably pitched best against good teams but has sucked against bad teams but over all is easily the worst pitcher on the Sox. But you can do the research on FanGraphs by just perusing the game logs.

Its also worth noting is that the learning curve seems to be longer for the taller guys.  Almost like to learn to control all of those levers and switches with precision, it just takes longer to get it all synced up right.

47 minutes ago, mqr said:

Who's saying that? Cease over Keuchel is a no brainer right now imo

It's been said many times over the past month or 2. I've noticed it and the post I responded to by @wegner has also.

2 hours ago, mqr said:

Who's saying that? Cease over Keuchel is a no brainer right now imo

Cease in the bullpen makes a lot of sense in the playoffs. If one of our starters struggles out the gate. You can get him out and  have cease dominate for 5 + innings and give you a chance to win without taxing the rest of the pen. Remember Dallas is good 2x times through the lineup. Then you could get him out and cease stuff will look extra hard after the soft tosser. Less pressure on inexperienced for playoffs cease just give him clean innings in relief. We will need 3 starters for round 1 and 4 the rest of the way. 

Also with Cease (and Kuechel for first round) to the bullpen I expect we will leave Ruiz (lopez) of playoff roster in favor of Hamilton (Burger 1st round?)

Edited August 4, 20214 yr by kleedawg

Dylan Cease and Carlos Rodon are tied for 6th in the majors with 149 strikeouts. I love baseball. 

Cease is a completely different guy this year.  Sox are doing a helluva job developing pitchers at the MLB level.  The Royals blog crew went on a huge rant about it in their postgamer they are insanely jealous.

 

11 hours ago, CeaseAndExist said:

It's baseball dude, everyone loses games to bad teams

But I hate losing to Royals and Cubs.

58 minutes ago, chitownsportsfan said:

Cease is a completely different guy this year.  Sox are doing a helluva job developing pitchers at the MLB level.  The Royals blog crew went on a huge rant about it in their postgamer they are insanely jealous.

His ERA is not completely different. If we like the way he may be in the process of unlocking some potential, some day soon (we hope), fair enough. The hyperbole over him however does not seem quite accurate.

Edited August 4, 20214 yr by Chick Mercedes

1 minute ago, Chick Mercedes said:

His ERA is not completely different. If we like the way he may be in the process of unlocking some potential, some day soon (we hope), fair enough. The hyperbole over him however does not seem quite accurate.

He's generating a tremendous amount of whiffs.  He's a completely different pitcher.  Whatever he did to figure out his fastball ride has worked.

Just now, chitownsportsfan said:

He's generating a tremendous amount of whiffs.  He's a completely different pitcher.  Whatever he did to figure out his fastball ride has worked.

The scoreboard carries runs, not strikeouts however. If I said Carlos Rodon is completely different, then that is the kind of hyperbole which has some merit.

1 minute ago, Chick Mercedes said:

The scoreboard carries runs, not strikeouts however. If I said Carlos Rodon is completely different, then that is the kind of hyperbole which has some merit.

Good lord. DIPS is a thing.

Just now, chitownsportsfan said:

Good lord. DIPS is a thing.

When the league carries that to determine the final score, we can talk.  I get it, tou want to say he looks like he is doing something which looks different to you. But in the end, the team wont pay him for DIPS, because the league won’t recognize it to determine who won the game.

5 hours ago, chitownsportsfan said:

Had good stuff and decent command but left a couple balls over the plate.

Ah that’s cool. As long as the stuff is there. The best part about his season has been his command. If he’s just having a regular issue, good. I hate to be paranoid, and I didn’t actually see him pitch the game before when he gave up all the runs, but the last time he did anything like after being dominant he had his issue. So I wanted to know how he looked. Just to ease the angst.

58 minutes ago, Chick Mercedes said:

His ERA is not completely different. If we like the way he may be in the process of unlocking some potential, some day soon (we hope), fair enough. The hyperbole over him however does not seem quite accurate.

Is ERA the only thing you are looking at there in 1984?  Because if not, you would note that literally every single supporting statistic has seen a big year over year increase in Dylan's favor.

His FIP has dropped almost in half from 6.36 to 3.45! That FIP is actually a half of a run BELOW his current ERA.  His WHIP is down 0.2, his K rate almost doubled, his walk rate has fallen by about 40%, and his HR/9 is down by half.

The hype is REAL.

2 hours ago, southsider2k5 said:

Is ERA the only thing you are looking at there in 1984?  Because if not, you would note that literally every single supporting statistic has seen a big year over year increase in Dylan's favor.

His FIP has dropped almost in half from 6.36 to 3.45! That FIP is actually a half of a run BELOW his current ERA.  His WHIP is down 0.2, his K rate almost doubled, his walk rate has fallen by about 40%, and his HR/9 is down by half.

The hype is REAL.

Ya, literally every metric will show how much he has improved.  Despite his era, he was bad last year, this year he’s good.  That simple.  

On 8/4/2021 at 11:01 AM, hogan873 said:

Fair point, but that's the post season.  The Sox need to play good baseball (and smart, safe baseball so no one else gets hurt) and cruise to the playoffs.  Having Cleveland way in the rearview mirror will make August and September less stressful.

I honestly don't think Cleveland, or any other Al Central team) is a threat to the Sox.  But the Sox will be tested in some series playing their potential playoff opponents.

Agree except playing safe baseball. In juries are part of the game. Injuries can happen playing safe or not. Some injuries even happen off the field. It is fair to assume every playoff team will suffer an injury preventing a key player from participating. You have to hope it isn't multiple players on a team or the star player going down.