Other Sports: Philadelphia Phillies: The Road To .500 (2023 Edition)

[Magua]

"Strider stinks! We have his number!"

Lots of Phillies fans after he pitched injured and touched 93 on the gun by inning #3 in the playoffs

Strider’s mustache and quads remind me of someone……

 

[Rebels57]

I like Lorenzen and hope he sorts it out, but he has stunk since his no-hitter. Go figure.

He's compensating for the fact that he hasn't won a World Series.

And I hope that he never will.

 

[Rebels57]

Lorenzen throws strike 3...Ump calls it Ball 4...not a peep from Topper.

 

[Hollywood Cannon]

GG.

 

[Hollywood Cannon]

Good for Lorenzen. He got an out. Well done. Showed the Braves he’s a force to be reckoned with.

At least they almost got me to 9PM for Ahsoka.

 

[DancingPanther]

We'll always have the 5 homers last night

 

[JojoTheWhale]

Schwarber's OF defense rates so poorly that he actually loses WAR compared to being a DH even with the DH WAR adjustment which is like -17.5 runs over a 162 game*4 AB season.

It’s also worth reminding ourselves that defensive metrics don’t agree on the degree of incompetence involved here. In UZR (fWAR), Schwarber is one of the worst regular Outfielders, but he’s also comfortably better than Castellanos. In DRS (bWAR), he’s subtracted the most value by a mile.

 

[FatTugboatFlahr]

It’s also worth reminding ourselves that defensive metrics don’t agree on the degree of incompetence involved here. In UZR (fWAR), Schwarber is one of the worst regular Outfielders, but he’s also comfortably better than Castellanos. In DRS (bWAR), he’s subtracted the most value by a mile.

I’ve found that if you don’t fully understand how to grasp defensive metrics, ask someone, or just trust your eyes.

It’s not easy.

 

[FLYguy3911]

SSS defensive metrics, even one season aren't always reliable either. Guys go from elite to below average year-after-year.

 

[JojoTheWhale]

I’ve found that if you don’t fully understand how to grasp defensive metrics, ask someone, or just trust your eyes.

It’s not easy.

Exactly. They all have their uses, so the best way to do it is look at them all and paint a picture.

I like to take a look at 3 year samples of the usual suspects and then see if the differences match up to the topic at hand. I know UZR is a flatter metric than DRS. I know DRS never accounted for Shifts. I know OAA doesn’t take Position (1B, etc) into account at all. I know UZR does.

It’s also useful to know tidbits like this — the major stats disagree most often at SS and agree most often at 1B. If you roughly tiered it up, it would look something like this from Most Agreement to Least:

1B
CF
2B, RF, 3B, LF
SS

 

[deadhead]

Eyeballs tell me Schwarber is on the same level as Bull in terms of mobility,
Castellanos is a bit better, but still subpar.
Marsh is an excellent corner OF but about average in CF.
Pache is above average in CF.
Rojas is the reincarnation of Garry Maddox.

 

[Rebels57]

One of the stranger stats I came across is regarding JT. Last year he was #1 in throwing guys out. This year, he is still #1 in Pop Time but has dropped to 22nd in throwing guys out. Is he arm cooked or is it a combination of things including a pitching staff not holding guys on as well as they should?

 

[JojoTheWhale]

One of the stranger stats I came across is regarding JT. Last year he was #1 in throwing guys out. This year, he is still #1 in Pop Time but has dropped to 22nd in throwing guys out. Is he arm cooked or is it a combination of things including a pitching staff not holding guys on as well as they should?

Velocity on throws to 2B is down a bit, but this mostly fits with his career arc. He had two seasons where he spiked in this area — 2019 and 2022. There’s also 2016 where he was solidly above average, but the rest of his seasons were just passable. This is probably what he is most of the time.

 

[Hollywood Cannon]

Le sigh.

 

[SolidSnakeUS]

3 walks, 1 hit and and only 1 run. f*** that.

 

[Hollywood Cannon]

Braves got Nola right where they want him.

 

[Halladay]

Braves got Nola right where they want him.

At this juncture it would be the time just have someone throwing in the bullpen.

 

[Hollywood Cannon]

 

[FLYguy3911]

Well Nick still chases in laughable fashion, but at least he has pop this year to do damage when he squares up a ball.

One of the stranger stats I came across is regarding JT. Last year he was #1 in throwing guys out. This year, he is still #1 in Pop Time but has dropped to 22nd in throwing guys out. Is he arm cooked or is it a combination of things including a pitching staff not holding guys on as well as they should?

Arm strength is baked into pop time and even so he's 6th in raw arm strength.

Fun fact, Stubbs is second in average pop time and hasn't had a good year throwing out runners either.

This would lead me to believe the pitchers haven't done as good holding runners on with the new rules. Statcast has some interesting numbers for striping this out, but it's an average and I imagine can get skewed pretty easily. Without watching, you could maybe argue his accuracy went to shit since it's a tag play, but that is tough to measure.

Players steal for 3 reasons.

1) The baserunner is good at it.
2) The pitcher exceeds the standard time to home. Anything above 1.3 seconds is usually a green light.
3) Catcher pop time and obviously with JT being the best, he's going to deter teams unless 1 & 2 are really green.

There's also situations when teams will basically conceded a base, either intentionally or otherwise that is not factored into the raw CS% numbers.

 

[FatTugboatFlahr]

Nola throwing 48mph is insane to me.

Dude turned down a deal for more money, then came into the season with no arm.

 

[Halladay]

Aaron has somehow gone 5 innings and allowed 2 runs. Could have been worse. Should be done now.

 

[SolidSnakeUS]

I legit still don't f***ing get why Cave is still playing this much...

 

[Halladay]

I legit still don't f***ing get why Cave is still playing this much...

Cause Bryce isn't playing 1st everyday. No way should he play the outfield over Rojas though.

 

[Rebels57]

They're gonna likely need at least 2 more runs to squeeze this one out.

 

[Hollywood Cannon]

Tom,

It is a shocker that Rob is actually doing his job.