Just Shake Your Head

[Midfield Thinkers]

You have a 23 yr old in his first year 'cept 5 IP(where he struck out 9). He goes 7-4 in 105 IP with 120 K and a 2.92 ERA and a 1.1 WHIP. But he does it "relying on a fastball." You need to fix him. Give him more major league pitches like the breaking ball and change-up which "will be good for his development as a starter." Now he is 2-7 in 60 IP with 58 K and a 4.68 ERA and a 1.53 WHIP and you are sending him to the bullpen. Nolan Ryan lived on a fastball for 26 yrs. Sandy Koufax pitched only 9 years off a curveball. What is wrong with a fastball no one hits? Why fix what is not broken?

[Midfield Thinkers]

Oh, and you say you would send him to AAA to put some "polish" to his game but you need him for the pennant run so he goes to the bullpen. To do what? Throw mediocre curveballs or change-ups? What does Bryan Price know about pitching?

[Edwards Kings]

You may be on to something Jody. They mentioned this last night during the (damn awful) Braves-Angels game.

From CBS Sports:

"You know when people say things like, "if that happened nowadays ... " ? Well, get that machine up and running, because exactly 40 years ago Saturday -- on June 14, 1974 -- there was a pitchers' duel for the ages.

The Angels would outlast the Red Sox in 15 innings by the count of 4-3. A two-run Carl Yastrzemski homer in the ninth tied things up and sent it to extras before a Denny Doyle double in the 15th won it for the home Angels.

One line that stands out among hitters is Cecil Cooper going 0-for-8 with six strikeouts for Boston. That's a rough one.

The work on the mound, however, gets the headline and deservedly so. Angels starter and now Hall of Famer Nolan Ryan went 13 innings, striking out 19. Luis Tiant of the Red Sox, however, topped him by never leaving the game. He went 14 1/3 innings.

The pitch counts aren't 100 percent known, as things weren't tracked quite so closely in those days as they are these, but reports indicated Ryan threw 235 pitches. Tiant's pitch count isn't available, but, again, he threw 14 1/3 freaking innings. Even if he was unbelievably efficient, he had to have thrown at least 165.

So, it's time to imagine what would happen if a pitcher these days went over 230 pitches while his counterpart worked into the 15th inning. There are no wrong answers. Imagine the possibilities."

Can you imagine? Ryan throwing 235 pitches (BTW, he is the one who struck out Cooper six times). According to the Braves announcers, Ryan came back to the dugout after one inning and asked how many pitches do they think he had thrown. The answer was about 185 at that time. Ryan..."OK...I'm good."

[Captain Hook]

You have a 23 yr old in his first year 'cept 5 IP(where he struck out 9). He goes 7-4 in 105 IP with 120 K and a 2.92 ERA and a 1.1 WHIP. But he does it "relying on a fastball." You need to fix him. Give him more major league pitches like the breaking ball and change-up which "will be good for his development as a starter." Now he is 2-7 in 60 IP with 58 K and a 4.68 ERA and a 1.53 WHIP and you are sending him to the bullpen. Nolan Ryan lived on a fastball for 26 yrs. Sandy Koufax pitched only 9 years off a curveball. What is wrong with a fastball no one hits? Why fix what is not broken?

Well if that is what they said I would question how much movement the pitcher had on the fastball which they should have realized. If he was "lucky" (which I doubt) or didn't fare as well then too often some "pitching coaches" will say that major league hitters can hit any fastball if they can wait on it - meaning the guy can't get other pitches over the plate. And while that is true, if he has enough movement on the fastball then they shouldn't be so quick to fix him.

Look at what Mariano Rivera did with basically one pitch - a cut fastball (again a lot of movement)
Look at what (at least on some days) Bartolo Colon does with basically "just a fastball"

Too often the talking heads just find a rationale to support what they want to (or think they should) say

[Captain Hook]

Looking deeper at Cingrani his K rate is down substantially this year and his control worse as is his HR rate - I don't own the kid or watch a lot of Reds game but have to question whether his troubles were from trying to throw the way Price wanted him to throw or just the inability to throw the way he did last year?

His April ERA was about the same as first half of last year but May and June have been very poor - again I don't know all the reasons why .....

[ToddZ]

Cingrani was indeed EXTREMELY lucky last season sporting a .241 BABIP. His xFIP was 3.49 but since he's a fly ball pitcher in a hitter's park, his FIP may be more telling and that was 3.78 -- still decent but a far cry from the 2.92 actual ERA.

The .241 BABIP was likely to correct and when it did, there'd be trouble as Cingrani allows a lot of HR by nature.

Allowing HRs unto itself is not an issue. Schilling and Johan were FB pitchers with such good control it wasn't an issue. Cingrani's walk rate is 3.7 BB/9 so for him it would be an issue once more hits started coming.

So he had to

a. improve his control
b. develop a secondary offering to get more grounders

In addition, his pitch efficiency was terrible. Taking out a start where he went 1 2/3 IP - Cingrani averaged 96 IP over 5 2/3rds. You need your starter, especially a front-line starter, to go deeper into games and with such a high pitch count due to so many whiffs and walks, a change in approach was necessary.

I prefer to judge the process not the result and the process was justified. The results (to this point) are lacking.

And FWIW -- Cingrani's average velo is a tick under 92 mph so using Ryan as a comp doesn't work. Johan is a much better comp in terms of style and he had a great slider and better change to complement his 92 mph high heater.

[TParsons]

Cingrani was indeed EXTREMELY lucky last season sporting a .241 BABIP. His xFIP was 3.49 but since he's a fly ball pitcher in a hitter's park, his FIP may be more telling and that was 3.78 -- still decent but a far cry from the 2.92 actual ERA.

The .241 BABIP was likely to correct and when it did, there'd be trouble as Cingrani allows a lot of HR by nature.

Allowing HRs unto itself is not an issue. Schilling and Johan were FB pitchers with such good control it wasn't an issue. Cingrani's walk rate is 3.7 BB/9 so for him it would be an issue once more hits started coming.

So he had to

a. improve his control
b. develop a secondary offering to get more grounders

In addition, his pitch efficiency was terrible. Taking out a start where he went 1 2/3 IP - Cingrani averaged 96 IP over 5 2/3rds. You need your starter, especially a front-line starter, to go deeper into games and with such a high pitch count due to so many whiffs and walks, a change in approach was necessary.

I prefer to judge the process not the result and the process was justified. The results (to this point) are lacking.

And FWIW -- Cingrani's average velo is a tick under 92 mph so using Ryan as a comp doesn't work. Johan is a much better comp in terms of style and he had a great slider and better change to complement his 92 mph high heater.

Based on your response, it would seem you foresaw this, but as I recall, you had Cingrani's projected to earn about the same as Hamels, Iwakuma, and Shields. What was it that made you look past the above concerns?

[ToddZ]

I expected better results -- I didn't think Cingrani would have as much difficulty adapting.

Plus, it terms of pure roto -- much of that value was derived from a high K total.

I have Cingrani on a few teams so I'm paying for my optimism.

[TParsons]

I expected better results -- I didn't think Cingrani would have as much difficulty adapting.

Plus, it terms of pure roto -- much of that value was derived from a high K total.

I have Cingrani on a few teams so I'm paying for my optimism.

Thanks for the response, Todd. I assume you use some sort of predictive model for your projections. In the case of a young pitcher like Cingrani, for whom you are optimistic, does your model "spit out" a much less optimistic projection based on the information you provided previously, and then you tweak based on your own opinion of the player?

Hope this isn't coming off as me bashing you. I really enjoy the info you provide and am just trying to gain a better understanding.

[ToddZ]

The system is almost completely objective. I may override some stuff for young players if their MLE's are out of whack and injured players, but overall, I trust the translations and regressions.

I remember looking at the Cingrani projection since it was so optimistic. I'm not surprised about the walks -- I am surprised about the big drop in K-rate though my projection was admittedly too optimistic.

[TParsons]

Thanks, Todd. I appreciate you taking the time to answer.

[knuckleheads]

The Reds are mishandling Cingrani.

Cingrani has 29 career starts. He's given up more than 4 runs once, which was last Sunday. He's given up 4 runs in a game just three other times. So, that would be 29 games started, 25 games with 3 runs or less allowed. He's never allowed more than 7 hits in a game. What's the problem the Reds have with that?

[knuckleheads]

Though, it does seem Cingrani is a little off since returning from the DL. Maybe long-relief is what he needs. I retract my "midhandling" assessment.