GDT 5/10 Braves @ Marlins

There's also been some recent stories written about how to quantify command. Eno Sarris wrote this yesterday on The Athletic about a statistic they have created: https://theathletic.com/346863/2018/05/10/exclusive-a-big-step-forward-in-measuring-command/

Then today, he wrote a fantasy baseball story (https://theathletic.com/350058/2018...y-arms-for-whom-command-matters/?redirected=1) about sell highs and buy lows using their new stat. One of the sell highs? Sean Newcomb:

"If you use a minimum of 15 innings, the Braves’ Sean Newcomb is currently showing the best walk rate he’s ever shown at any level in his career so far. It’s still 11th-worst in the big leagues. And the bad news is that there’s little hope in his command stats to suggest that even this modest improvement will hold.

Sure, Newcomb has upped his first-strike percentage this year — it’s above average right now. And he’s throwing the change more and the curve less than he used to, and as you can see above, he has better command of the change than the curve.

Still, the Command+ report card tells the same story that his results told last year. That’s the second-worst curveball command among starters, and his overall command actually rates worse than it did last year. Newcomb probably has more walks, and worse results, in his future."
 
I'm not arguing newk has great command.

You were about the last person to realize that Folty wasn't going to be an ace and you will be about the last person to realize that Newk isn't either. They are both flawed pitchers who are living on borrowed time with the walks. Neither commands it well.

And yet, you spend every Folty game day thread crushing him for his best season to date and proclaiming how you were right about .... something. I have no idea what.
 
Newcomb's 10.62 K/9 ranks 29th in the big leagues among pitchers with a minimum of 20 IP (there are 174 of those). His 0.66 HR/9 ranks 38th.

As long as Newcomb is striking guys out at a good clip and is keeping the ball in the park, the damage of the high walk rate will be limited and he'll be a very useful pitcher. This is why I was higher on Newcomb than most here. I felt he had a high likelihood of being a valuable asset.

I tend to think that Newcomb's improvement this year is actually fairly legitimate largely due to the improved changeup. If he's struggling with one of his pitches one night he can rely on the other two.

It wouldn't surprise me if his BB went up a bit because I think it's artificially low based on some recent good results but it shouldn't jump anywhere near as high as it was last year.
 
You were about the last person to realize that Folty wasn't going to be an ace and you will be about the last person to realize that Newk isn't either. They are both flawed pitchers who are living on borrowed time with the walks. Neither commands it well.

And yet, you spend every Folty game day thread crushing him for his best season to date and proclaiming how you were right about .... something. I have no idea what.

The difference is Folty has demonstrated better command in the past. This is easily his worst season in terms of control.
 
Right. Nobody is saying Folty is Maddux, or even a pitcher with decent command.

The silliness is when folks ding Folty and pimp Newk, and then hide behind the conveniently impossible to prove "control vs command" cliche because they have zero data to back up their claim.


This is what I was trying to explain.

Why ding him, what did he do to you to receive such scorn TheThe? It is not like he banged your wife, scat on your porch or something. And then you pimp a similar pitcher in almost every way except he has A stuff and not A+ stuff like Folty. Are you jealous because Folty has the filthy stuff and a good pitching coach away of being a legit TOR?
 
Newk is Maddux since Maddux is the last Braves pitcher to throw at least 6 shut out innings in back-to-back starts while allowing no more than 2 hits. That's what Newk did his last two times out.
 
This is what I was trying to explain.

Why ding him, what did he do to you to receive such scorn TheThe? It is not like he banged your wife, scat on your porch or something. And then you pimp a similar pitcher in almost every way except he has A stuff and not A+ stuff like Folty. Are you jealous because Folty has the filthy stuff and a good pitching coach away of being a legit TOR?

don't rile him up
 
I'm not sure why we are having an argument here. It was obvious to me that Folty had trouble locating his pitches last night. Suzuki would set up in one spot, and that ball would be a good three feet from it.. A couple times, that three feet from it managed to also be a strike, and he got away with most of those pitches. A few other times, Suzuki was set up on the outside of the zone and Folty missed right down the middle, and you could tell he was upset. This was all in first inning alone.

I don't get to watch these guys every start, but it seems like Folty is still a thrower and not a pitcher, yet. He might just be getting away with it for now. Sometimes, you can be wild in the zone and it's strangely effective. Probably because hitters can't figure out how you're setting them up.
 
Back
Top