Blue Jays Discussion: Off-Season Madness the 14th: Who is bigger, Dickey or Johnson?

[Bjindaho]

And with the former you will also have series where you have and 85, 90, 95.. like I said there really isn't much difference. You're just going the opposite way. But the real difference is the lefty righty split




The bullpen replaces don't mean much... they're isolated incidents to get out a batter or 2. The lefty righty split for your starters forces the other team to have different views from game to game, as well as separating the pitch speeds.

You have still yet to provide any explanation of how separating the lefties provides ANY benefit...

 

[Sokil]

Rays. Their #7 is still probably better than our #4.

Lol troll

 

[theaub]

Yeah I'm not sure how you could put a guy like Chris Archer ahead of Buehrle at this point.

In a couple years sure, but not now.

 

[Leafsdude7]

Lol troll

Yeah I'm not sure how you could put a guy like Chris Archer ahead of Buehrle at this point.

In a couple years sure, but not now.

In my defense, I retracted the statement in post 710. For next season, I'd take Buehrle over any of their 5-7 guys just because we know what we're getting in Buehrle. I'd still argue Archer/Cobb/Odorizzi over Romero for this season, though.

 

[Eyedea]

I think every single starting position player and starting pitcher on the roster will be drafted in standard fantasy drafts. That's insane to think about, in my years of playing fantasy baseball, I have never seen that.

Lind is waiver wire.

 

[Suntouchable13]

Lind is waiver wire.

And he is going to be hitting 5th

 

[weems]

I bet Lind has a good season next year.
Mostly gut feeling and the fact that Murphy is gone.

 

[Canada4Gold]

I can't believe how strongly held some people have opinions about the order of the rotation.

Does everybody realize that the club has zero control over who pitched against the opposition a full 1/3 of the season? Are we going to push back/up one of these five pitchers because one type of pitcher started for the Red Sox before the Yankees came to town? Are we going to push back Morrow because the Royals just faced Verlander?

Other than spreading out the lefties, it's not that important.

You can't really control how someone adjusts in the 1st game of the series because you have no control over the last series they played, but you can control the 2nd and 3rd(and possibly 4th) games. Yes when you have 5 quality pitchers it almost not important but if you're willing to intentionally order righty, lefty, righty, lefty righty then I think you got to look at all the secenrios, and imo power, knuckle, power will be more of a change than the above even with having the 2 lefties in a row at the end.

It won't affect the 1st game, but the adjustment in the other games will be more difficult for the other teams hitters with the power, knuckle adjustment than the righty, lefty adjustment. It might not be a lot but you squeak out every possible advantage you can in this game, no matter how small. If it's in your control you do your best to get every advantage out of it that you can.

 

[Mr Knies Guy]

Why is Ricky being thrown to the wolves and treated like he's the second coming of Rick Ankiel the pitcher?

Yeah, he was very bad last season, but is he really going to completely fall off a cliff and never recover after several very good seasons?

 

[theaub]

I expect Romero to tilt slightly to the worse side of the midpoint of his very luck-based 2011 and his somewhat unlucky but also just outright bad 2012.

 

[weems]

http://www.cbssports.com/mlb/story/...-pitching-rotation-that-could-be-hard-to-beat

"Enter Dickey (233 2/3 innings pitched in 2012), Buehrle (202 1/3) and Johnson (191 1/3). Together, they combined for a 3.46 ERA last season.

Look past the quality innings, and there's another angle that isn't getting nearly enough attention: The different looks Toronto pitchers offer only increase the degree of difficulty for rival hitters.

They go lefty (Buehrle, Romero) and righty (Dickey, Morrow, Johnson). They go flamethrower (Johnson, Romero, Morrow) and finesse (Buehrle, Dickey). They go fluttering knuckleball (Dickey) and searing slider (Romero).

"I think it's going to be a factor, I really do," Braves hitting coach Greg Walker says of the varying looks. "It will be interesting to see how they set it up.

"It's a very unique rotation."

 

[TieClark]

Part marks.

You're right, there is more to the game than just what stats can tell you, and that's why managers, coaches, scouts and GMs combine advanced statistical analysis with everything from video analysis to psychological makeup assessments to biometrics to the naked eye (several naked eyes, actually) to get a complete picture of a player.

And yes, it's a good idea to use stats to help you evaluate matchups - in any sport - and help to predict likely outcomes. But stats are next to useless when predicting any single game's outcome. They're really only useful in aggregate across a large sample size to indicate trends and probabilities.

It's fair to look at the stats and say a healthy Encarnacion is likely to hit more home runs over the course of a season than a healthy Bonifacio will. But it's impossible to look at stats and say with certainty that Encarnacion will hit a home run in a particular game and Bonifacio will not.

Fair enough... the statistical anomalies are across the board though. The Packers are 10-4 and yet they are not in the top 10 in any stat across the board (from my spreadsheet). The Eagles have really started to suck lately, but about a month ago they had great running and passing yards every game and yet were near the bottom for points. Didn't make sense. The difference here being if you watched the games, you know the Packers are good. You know the Eagles suck.

 

[Mr Knies Guy]

I expect Romero to tilt slightly to the worse side of the midpoint of his very luck-based 2011 and his somewhat unlucky but also just outright bad 2012.

Definitely, I admit, I certainly don't expect him to rekindle his 2011 magic numbers. But he's not a teetering 5 like some are making it out to be it seems. That said, he's not an ace either. But I think he's good enough to be a 3.

 

[dredeye]

I bet Lind has a good season next year.
Mostly gut feeling and the fact that Murphy is gone.

I'll second this statement. I don't think he'll be great but I think he'll have a real nice season

 

[weems]

Fair enough... the statistical anomalies are across the board though. The Packers are 10-4 and yet they are not in the top 10 in any stat across the board (from my spreadsheet). The Eagles have really started to suck lately, but about a month ago they had great running and passing yards every game and yet were near the bottom for points. Didn't make sense. The difference here being if you watched the games, you know the Packers are good. You know the Eagles suck.

Eagles racked up a ton of yards but ranked near the bottom of the league in red zone scoring percentage.

Makes sense to me.

 

[McThome]

Definitely, I admit, I certainly don't expect him to rekindle his 2011 magic numbers. But he's not a teetering 5 like some are making it out to be it seems. That said, he's not an ace either. But I think he's good enough to be a 3.

Although he's not an ace, I think he certainly can be a solid #2. He's a guy who can win you a game in the playoffs. I don't think he's a guy you want to have to rely on to win a couple in a single series, but he can go out there for a game three or game four and give you a very good chance to win (especially if the oppositions top threats bat left).

With the staff we have, their success will depend upon if they're executing and if they are 'on' or not.

Of course we should try and maximize whatever advantage we can (splitting up Morrow/Johnson and the two lefties are really the only factors that I see as being meaningful). Everything is just all of us having nothing else to talk about!

 

[Ohio Jones]

Eagles racked up a ton of yards but ranked near the bottom of the league in red zone scoring percentage.

Makes sense to me.

Exactly. This is why it's important to look at a range of stats, not just the traditional ones - underscoring that you need to take a comprehensive view of stats, and see them in context, to draw useful conclusions from them.

I'm not really a football guy, but I would think in addition to the offensive and defensive scoring numbers TieClark cited, you'd also want to look at red zone completion percentage (as you suggest), as well as differentials in sacs/sacs allowed, penalties, turnovers, time of possession and so on. No doubt there are lots of more advanced metrics for football I've never even heard of. (God knows I've barely begun to understand the plethora of advanced stats available in baseball...).

Each quality stat (as opposed to the football equivalents of unreliable/non-indicative stats like errors or RBI) provides another facet which, collectively, can paint a much more thorough and accurate picture of how teams win or lose games.

The goal of advanced stats is to capture as many of the individual decisions and actions that go into determining the course and outcome of a game, and to identify formulas by which those events can be understood and manipulated to generate realistic aggregate projections over a suitably long timeframe (like a season). Of course, this is much easier in baseball where each event occurs in isolation with a discrete number of participants contributing, and where "a season" provides 162 games' worth of data - a much more statistically significant sample size than you get from 16 NFL games.

Either way, though, the stats can help us understand what's going on - and can be particularly useful in identifying outliers or trends that can be exploited. But they merely augment and clarify the information you get from watching the games - they don't replace watching.

 

[theaub]

But they merely augment and clarify the information you get from watching the games - they don't replace watching.

This is the truth about stats. Honestly, everyone here gets it but if you venture off to the joke that is the MLB.com board some of them don't.

Stats are incredibly helpful at aiding a point of view. If they are the point of view, its probably wrong (or just not supported enough).

 

[Newbi]

does anyone know what Pete Walker does as a pitching coach and how will he affect the new rotation that we have?

How does Pete compare to the Met's and Marlin's pitching coaches?

 

[Ohio Jones]

Just noodlin'.

It occurs to me that one of the most interesting dynamics to watch over the course of 2013 will be the spirit of (presumably friendly) competition and one-upmanship among the starters. When literally any one of them can pretty much single-handedly win a game when they're on, the pressure to be "the man" is replaced by a desire to keep up to the standard set by your peers.

It might make for a positive, healthy motivator if managed properly. (Of course, it could as easily be an unwelcome and divisive distraction if handled poorly, but this is the winter of our great content, so optimism reigns.)

 

[King Mapes]

The National Sports near me is having a pretty big sale... looking for advice haha; the jerseys are on sale.

I really like Rasmus (but there's the risk he'll be traded). Obviously like Lawrie but eh same thing as Bautista, I don't want his jersey. I'm a pitcher so I love pitchers, and want JJ but there's the wait of an extension.... and then there's Arencibia who I like (albeit gets a lot of hate here haha), and Reyes.

So tl;dr ---- JJ/Arencibia/Reyes?

Reyes. I'd debate Johnson but due to no contract extension go with Reyes. He's here long term and I think he will become a big fan favorite.

Out of curiosity, why don't you want Lawrie or Bautista?

 

[weems]

I think the great part about the roster is in guys like Rasmus, JPA, Lind and Santos and them having the potential to be good to really good. Right now not really all that much is expected from those guys and still under that situation we still look like a friggin good team. If even two of them have strong seasons were laughing. I honestly have not seen this type of talent on a Toronto sports team maybe in last 15 years.

 

[King Mapes]

Why is Ricky being thrown to the wolves and treated like he's the second coming of Rick Ankiel the pitcher?

Yeah, he was very bad last season, but is he really going to completely fall off a cliff and never recover after several very good seasons?

He sucked last year and most have short term memory. I think he bounces back.

 

[Animal]

Reyes. I'd debate Johnson but due to no contract extension go with Reyes. He's here long term and I think he will become a big fan favorite.

Out of curiosity, why don't you want Lawrie or Bautista?

I'm assuming because everyone has those. I'm also a fan that gets jerseys that aren't the most popular, like Rasmus

 

[BertCorbeau]

I think between Lind and Rasmus, we'll get a quality #5 bat out of those to for that spot in the lineup .. I'm not too concerned .. Either Lind bounces back or Rasmus reaches some of his potential