2012 Tampa Bay Rays Thead

[Woy]

The "162 Landing" area is an awesome idea.

 

[RyanLeaf16]

Thanks for creating this thread. Now we have one central area to discuss the best organization in baseball without it getting lost among a simple comments thread.

 

[RyanLeaf16]

The movement of Pena to #2 in the batting order has really helped “Los” get off to a fast start. As I said a few days ago, Maddon wanted Carlos to see more fastballs, but, that was not the only motivation to move him into the #2 hole. Apparently Maddon, Friedman and the rest of the “think-tank” in the R&D department of the organization came up with the idea that if Pena was batting in the #2 hole and the #9 or #1 hitter was already on base, then the shift that Pena sees when he is at-bat, would not be nearly as dramatic. Couple this with Pena’s OBP, high walk rate and Longoria batting behind him, they figured he would see more fastballs, since most teams would not want to pitch to Longoria with two men on and Luke Scott waiting on deck. So far it has worked well in the Rays favor.

Check out this article from Jason Collette: http://www.draysbay.com/2012/4/12/2943177/something-is-afoot#storyjump

It’s a good read on how the Rays have moved some of their pitchers from one side of the mound to the other and it has produced much higher groundball rates and better results.

 

[RyanLeaf16]

Fucking bullpen blows right now. I don't think AF can sit around and wait for this to correct itself. It's one thing to lose close games, law of averages says you'll bounce back, but, if this kind of performance (from yesterday & today) keeps up over the course of the next week or so, something has to be done.

 

[RyanLeaf16]

Rays sign a Dominican SS prospect in Christian Toribio for $65k per the Dominican Prospect League.

links: http://www.dplbaseball.com/index.ph...ribio-signs-with-the-rays&catid=1:latest-news

 

[RyanLeaf16]

Per Marc Topkin:

The Rays acquired right-hander Matt Buschmann from the Nationals for cash and assigned their new acquisition to Double-A. The 28-year-old posted a 6.16 ERA with 6.2 K/9 and 3.5 BB/9 in 134 1/3 innings with the Padres' top affiliates last year.

 

[RyanLeaf16]

With the waiver claim of Brandon Allen and BJ Upton being activated, the Rays did option Reid Brignac to AAA Durham last night. Not surprising since Brignac still has options and Elliot Johnson doesn't. Also not surprising because Reid needs consistent, everyday, at-bats. Defensively, he is one of the best in the league, but, his performance at the plate needs to improve if he is ever going to have a chance at a sustained career at the big-league level.

TBH, I am shocked with the claim of Allen off of waivers. His BABIP isn't bad (~.302) and his ISO is above average (.169), but his wOBA, K% rate and O-Swing rate 30%+ leaves something to be desired. I guess they envision him as a power-bat off the bench, but, I can't see him getting everyday plate appearances.

 

[RyanLeaf16]

After last night's start by James Shields I did some looking around and I honestly feel like he is the unsung hero of this franchise. Obviously, people know of Shields' talent and his ability, but, I still think it is underplayed at times. A couple of things that I think are not realized till you look at the numbers:

- Shields has had 102 starts since the 2008 season. In 60 of those starts, the Rays have scored 3 runs OR LESS and he still holds a winning record of 54-47.

- He has pitched 200+ innings in each of those seasons and a career high of 249.1 last season.

- His FIP has in two of those season left something to be desired (2009 & 2010) as they were over 4 (4.02 & 4.24). However, in both of those seasons his Flyball rate and LOB% were the worst of his career and, coincidentally, he threw his changeup the fewest times of his career in those two years.

At 30 years old, he is heading into options years on his contract in 2013 that will pay him $11m+ and there is talk of the Rays trading him or letting him leave via FA. Based off his start to this season, I think it would be a mistake to let him walk. I believe that the window for a player's peak performance is wider for a pitcher and I think an extension of 3-4 years at around an average of $14-16m annually could keep Shields in a Rays uni. Obviously this amount is currently a tad bit high for our current financial position, but, if the stadium issue gets off the ground here and there is a commitment from the area to help finance a new park, then Sternberg has stated that the purse strings could be loosened.

Shields has completely redefined himself as a pitcher. He has evolved and has become an ace. He uses his changeup more, he challenges hitters more and he expects waaay more of himself than any other pitcher on the staff. Last night, after giving up a hit against the Twins in the 3rd. He K'd the next hitter and was yelling at himself heading back to the dugout in a 0-0 game and after only allowing a single hit through 3 innings of work.

Some will say that you lock-up Price long-term, but, I don't know that Price definitely wants to stay here long-term, he has made a few comments, nothing major, about wanting to get a deal done when other guys have signed long-term deals and he has mentioned only signing if the "numbers are right." Plus, he has not been as effective as he once was when he threw that exploding slider he had. The Rays got him away from that due to possible injury concerns, but, it seems to have had an effect on his BABIP as it has risen each year since he stopped throwing it. He almost completely took it out of his arsenal in 2010 and 2011 only throwing 4.9% and 9.6% of the time. Since then, he has become very reliant upon his fastball and guys are starting to catch up to it.

At this point in time, if I had to choose one to keep and one to trade for a bundle of prospects - it would be to keep Shields and trade Price for a shit-load of talent.

 

[RyanLeaf16]

Bored this morning, so I apologize for what seems like a bunch of useless posts lol. Anyway, I am looking over the Rays "closers" since AF began running the baseball ops and, other than 2010, the Rays have never really employed a single closer. It has always been a platoon type of role and AF seems to follow the Billy Beane path of pump/dump if you think you can attract some buyers. In fact, it appears that was the case with Rafael Soriano in 2010, however, the Rays made the playoffs that year and didn't trade Soriano at the deadline. Instead they let him walk and sign with the Yankees in the off-season.

Rays closers since Andrew Friedman took over the baseball ops:

2006: Tyler Walker
2007: Al Reyes
2008: Troy Percival & Dan Wheeler
2009: JP Howell & Troy Percival
2010: Rafael Soriano
2011: Kyle Farnsworth
2012: Fernando Rodney

Pretty interesting crop of guys. Especially Tyler Walker and Al Reyes lol.

 

[RyanLeaf16]

Lineup tonight vs Angels:

Jennings lf, Zobrist 2b, Pena 1b, Longoria 3b, Scott dh, Joyce rf, Upton cf, Molina c, S-Rod ss, Price p

 

[MVPete]

Looks like Longo might be out for 6-8 weeks.

 

[FedEx227]

Could've been way worse. Just hamstring right?

 

[MVPete]

Could've been way worse. Just hamstring right?

That's the word just a hamstring issue. Happened on a 3-2 count steal with 1 out.

 

[FedEx227]

:verlander:

Was he on first?

 

[MVPete]

:verlander:

Was he on first?

Ya Scott has a bad hamstring as well and leads the league in double plays so Joe was probably trying to prevent that with him at the plate. Scott strikes out, throw down to second, hard slide by Longoria.

 

[FedEx227]

Still pretty silly micro-managing. I expect better out of Maddon.

 

[MVPete]

Moore's pitch chart from last nights game. He was missing his spots by FEET not inches at times.

 

[RyanLeaf16]

DRaysbay profiled how Moore is a notoriously slow starter and has issues with control in his first 4-5 starts. It was actually a pretty revealing piece b/c it has been consistent throughout his career in the minors and it has been that way thus far as well. He really isn't getting deep into games and is having a relatively high level of walks.

 

[MVPete]

Dana Eveland did everything to give away that game yesterday and the Rays would just not accept the gift. 13 runners got on in 6 innings, 6 walks, 2 HBP, 5 hits. Leave it to the Rays to only get 3 runs out of that. Pena is in one of his usual slumps where he just needs to be moved down till he gets back in a rhythm, right now he is just striking out and looking terrible at the plate. Team looks like complete dog shit at the plate without Longo and Jennings, and all these AAA players.

 

[MVPete]

Might as well bump this thread as we head into the last quarter of the season.

http://www.draysbay.com/2012/8/24/3263779/david-price-brings-super-quality-to-each-start#storyjump

The term quality start was developed by Philadelphia Inquirer writer John Lowe (now with the Detroit Free Press) back in 1985 and was defined as a starting pitcher going at least 6 innings and giving up no more than 3 earned runs. The statistic in itself is often mocked due to the fact that the minimums for being credited for a quality start equates to a 4.50 ERA so where is the quality in that?
To be fair, most quality starts aren't the minimum 6 inning 3 run variety and it is also true that a teams winning percentage is very good when the starter delivers a quality start. For instance, in the American League this year there have been 883 quality starts and the pitchers team has won 619 of those games for a .702 winning percentage, in 2011 it was .679 (815/1200), and in 2010 it was .681 (818/1200).
Andy K while blogging for Baseball-Reference.com (currently at High Heat Stats) took a look at the quality start and produced the following two charts showing the year to year overall percentage of quality starts in MLB and the teams winning percentage in those game in an article titled Is Quality Starts a Useful Stat? (not really).

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ESPN.com has built off of the Quality Start statistic with two categories. The first is a tough loss and this is earned when a pitcher loses a start in which he delivers a quality start and a cheap win is earned when a starting pitcher earns a win in a non quality start. The ESPN.com leader board with the tough loss and cheap win statistics is provided here. The AL Leader in tough losses is Jeremy Hellickson (tied with C.J. Wilson andJake Peavy) with 5.
Nolan Ryan has been one of the more vocal critics against the traditional Quality Start statistic and believes that a better measure would be 7 innings pitched and no more than 3 earned runs allowed. Wayne G. McDonnell, a contributor at Forbes Magazine, took Ryan's model and developed a model for a Quality Start Factor based on earned runs, number of pitches thrown, and innings pitched.

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David Price has thrown 12 quality starts in a row, in 80% of his starts he's earned a quality start, and he leads the AL with 20 of them. Teammates Jeremy Hellickson and James Shields have 15 quality starts (65%) and 14 (64%) respectively This led me to wonder how would David Price and others stack up if evaluated by the Nolan Ryan definition which we'll call the Super Quality Start and would we be able to discern anything from the Quality Score Factor?

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Using Baseball-Reference's Play Index I queried all AL starters who had a minimum of 10 traditional quality starts and this list returned 44 names. I then ran the same search using the Super Quality Start metric and eliminated pitchers with less than 8 Super Quality Starts and this list included 24 pitchers.
The table below shows the 24 pitchers who had at least 8 quality starts. The data includes the number of starts, quality starts, percentage of quality starts, super quality starts, percentage of super quality starts, the quality start factor, and the convert percentage (# of traditional quality starts that were maintained to super quality start status). I have presented the Quality Start Factor but there doesn't seem to be much variance. For reference the score for pitchers will be somewhere between 10-20 and the lower the score the better.

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The table above shows that David Price has converted 90% of his quality starts from the traditional quality start to super quality start and the only pitchers to best him are Felix Hernandez who has converted all 100% of his,Clay Buchholz who has converted 91.91%, and Bartolo Colon who had converted 91.67 of his. There are certainly some interesting names on the above list that caught me by surprise including Phil Hughes, Clay Buchholz, and Henderson Alvarez.
The table below presents some of the more traditional pitching metrics to the QS% and SQS%.

​

As the data shows above their are several pitchers who have a high frequency of quality start percentage and super quality start percentage. As can be expected these pitchers form an elite group led by David Price. Although the quality start may be a great minimum statistic for a starting pitcher to achieve the ability to consistently achieve super quality starts is what separates the top of the rotation pitcher from the rest.