CDAV45
Small ball is for pussies!
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Exactly, and we need neither. What we need is for Franmil to pull his head out and become a vital part of this lineup again.
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2022 Cleveland Guardians Regular Season Thread
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sportscoach
RD's Guardians PR Man!
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Franmil didn't get extended and he is one of our higher paid players plus farther along than most in his contract status. I would be open to trading him
CDAV45
Small ball is for pussies!
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So would I coach, but your not going to get much for him right now. That could change by the deadline. I wish Franmil would come into camp 1 time looking like he used the offseason to prepare himself physically for a good year. I have yet to see it and it frustrates me.
DCTribefan
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Umm, Luplow, Zimmer, cough, cough.
AZ_
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You have 1 OF position to fill by the middle of 23 when Valera debuts.
The kid looks elite.
25 BB in 150+ PA at 21 in Double-A, with his bat to ball and elite power. Natural oppo skills.
This team is going to be very good soon. They're not very good right now, but they will be.
The kid looks elite.
25 BB in 150+ PA at 21 in Double-A, with his bat to ball and elite power. Natural oppo skills.
This team is going to be very good soon. They're not very good right now, but they will be.
CDAV45
Small ball is for pussies!
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Not only Valera, but I can envision Naylor(Bo) getting some reps in the OF as well while sharing C duties with Lavastida, and it looks like his bat is coming around again. Yeah, this team is going to be loaded by 24. Absolutely loaded.
This is part of the reason why I'm glad to see OGon get a shot now, because the more time that passed his chance for an opportunity looked to be getting smaller. Right now was a window of opportunity that won't be open long IMO.
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FanGraphs has a column called, "What's going on with Shane Bieber?"
blogs.fangraphs.com
They're saying his fastball has lost a couple MPH's and his slider is not breaking as sharply as it formerly did. His ERA- has increased from 68 in 2019-21 to 95 this year. His strikeout rate is down from 33% to 24.1%.
A couple of excerpts:
Bieber has still been an effective pitcher. He has an above-average ERA and an even better FIP and SwStr%, but these numbers still represent a drop in performance. For a pitcher who is just shy of 27 years old, it’s certainly notable, but we might chalk it up to a wonky eight-start rough patch were it not for the dip in velocity and the injury last season. But Bieber has lost three ticks on his heater from his Cy Young peak, when he averaged 94.3 mph. I wonder if we might be seeing the lingering effects of his shoulder injury. Just prior to the injury, Bieber’s velocity dipped to 92 mph and during his late September cameo, it was down to 91.4 mph. Throughout the season’s early going, Bieber has been asked repeatedly about his velocity dip and insisted that he feels fine and expects his velo to trend up as the season goes on. As we reach the end of May, however, no such increase has occurred...
They also looked at his delivery in slow motion and noted that it has been speeded up. And there's another difference.
Next we’ll look at his arm path....it looks like his entire upper body is more closed off, giving Bieber a more circuitous hand path from his glove separation all the way through to the release of the ball. The result is an arm that needs to play catch-up as his foot lands.
(It looks to me like he's turning his back to the plate more, like he's trying to get more torque from his upper body and squeeze out a little more velocity).
These mechanical changes could mean a number of things. It’s possible this is an intentional change to try and add velocity, or to mitigate a recurrence of his shoulder issue. Or these could be subconscious changes as Bieber’s body tries to find a pain-free path to delivering a pitch. If you want to assume that this change is part of the loss in velocity and that it’s helping him stay healthy, then it could be a worthwhile tradeoff. However, if this is a less intentional tweak and it’s the result of his body subconsciously favoring his shoulder, it could lead to added stress on other areas that are currently healthy.
The column states that despite a significantly lower fastball velocity, Bieber is throwing just as many as he did during his dominant years. But now he's throwing more sliders and fewer curves.
Instead of throwing fewer fastballs, Bieber has opted to change his breaking ball usage, throwing more sliders in lieu of his curveball. The problem is that his slider hasn’t been that effective for him this season (.300 wOBA, 18.8% SwStr%) after being one of the best sliders in baseball last year (.207 wOBA, 24.8 SwStr%). More than just its increased usage, the movement profile of the pitch has undergone a change as well...
Bieber is getting significantly less depth on his slider while gaining a small amount of horizontal movement....As a result, his slider has more cutter-like qualities and he’s lost about 200 rpm from last year, leading to a pitch that is generating fewer whiffs and fewer swings outside the zone than at any other time in his career. If you look closely, you can see the subtle change in his fingers, which are pushing a bit more behind the ball, giving the pitch a touch more backspin than before.
These changes to his slider have given him a bigger movement and velocity difference between his slider and curveball, which is helping to diversify his arsenal after years of having a slider and curveball that were eerily similar. But it’s hard to say whether this is a good change, especially considering that it is now his most used pitch. His curveball, on the other hand, has been his best pitch (.201 wOBA, 16.8% SwStr%) and may be benefitting from these changes to his slider.
This new movement profile coupled with the mechanical changes highlighted earlier may be creating some issues when it comes to his typically great command of the pitch. Bieber is currently leaving double the number of sliders up in the zone compared to 2020...
Bieber could be finding better ways to use his slider, and his command of the pitch could be improving as he gets more used to its new movement profile. Bieber really needs his breaking pitches to carry the weight if he’s going to remain successful with below average fastball velocity, and this outing [against the Tigers Sunday] serves as a proof of concept for how he can still dominate a lineup even if his Cy Young stuff stays firmly in the rear view mirror.
My comment:
The question is whether Bieber's days of throwing a 94 mph fastball and a slider with a sharper drop are over and he's going to settle in as a starting pitcher that is 5% above average as opposed to 32%. If his stuff has been permanently affected by his arm problem last year, will he be able to adapt and come close to his previous level of effectiveness but at a lower velocity and maybe getting back to using his curve more?
What’s Going On With Shane Bieber?
Cleveland’s ace has lost velocity, yes, but perhaps more importantly his slider is less slider-y.
They're saying his fastball has lost a couple MPH's and his slider is not breaking as sharply as it formerly did. His ERA- has increased from 68 in 2019-21 to 95 this year. His strikeout rate is down from 33% to 24.1%.
A couple of excerpts:
Bieber has still been an effective pitcher. He has an above-average ERA and an even better FIP and SwStr%, but these numbers still represent a drop in performance. For a pitcher who is just shy of 27 years old, it’s certainly notable, but we might chalk it up to a wonky eight-start rough patch were it not for the dip in velocity and the injury last season. But Bieber has lost three ticks on his heater from his Cy Young peak, when he averaged 94.3 mph. I wonder if we might be seeing the lingering effects of his shoulder injury. Just prior to the injury, Bieber’s velocity dipped to 92 mph and during his late September cameo, it was down to 91.4 mph. Throughout the season’s early going, Bieber has been asked repeatedly about his velocity dip and insisted that he feels fine and expects his velo to trend up as the season goes on. As we reach the end of May, however, no such increase has occurred...
They also looked at his delivery in slow motion and noted that it has been speeded up. And there's another difference.
Next we’ll look at his arm path....it looks like his entire upper body is more closed off, giving Bieber a more circuitous hand path from his glove separation all the way through to the release of the ball. The result is an arm that needs to play catch-up as his foot lands.
(It looks to me like he's turning his back to the plate more, like he's trying to get more torque from his upper body and squeeze out a little more velocity).
These mechanical changes could mean a number of things. It’s possible this is an intentional change to try and add velocity, or to mitigate a recurrence of his shoulder issue. Or these could be subconscious changes as Bieber’s body tries to find a pain-free path to delivering a pitch. If you want to assume that this change is part of the loss in velocity and that it’s helping him stay healthy, then it could be a worthwhile tradeoff. However, if this is a less intentional tweak and it’s the result of his body subconsciously favoring his shoulder, it could lead to added stress on other areas that are currently healthy.
The column states that despite a significantly lower fastball velocity, Bieber is throwing just as many as he did during his dominant years. But now he's throwing more sliders and fewer curves.
Instead of throwing fewer fastballs, Bieber has opted to change his breaking ball usage, throwing more sliders in lieu of his curveball. The problem is that his slider hasn’t been that effective for him this season (.300 wOBA, 18.8% SwStr%) after being one of the best sliders in baseball last year (.207 wOBA, 24.8 SwStr%). More than just its increased usage, the movement profile of the pitch has undergone a change as well...
Bieber is getting significantly less depth on his slider while gaining a small amount of horizontal movement....As a result, his slider has more cutter-like qualities and he’s lost about 200 rpm from last year, leading to a pitch that is generating fewer whiffs and fewer swings outside the zone than at any other time in his career. If you look closely, you can see the subtle change in his fingers, which are pushing a bit more behind the ball, giving the pitch a touch more backspin than before.
These changes to his slider have given him a bigger movement and velocity difference between his slider and curveball, which is helping to diversify his arsenal after years of having a slider and curveball that were eerily similar. But it’s hard to say whether this is a good change, especially considering that it is now his most used pitch. His curveball, on the other hand, has been his best pitch (.201 wOBA, 16.8% SwStr%) and may be benefitting from these changes to his slider.
This new movement profile coupled with the mechanical changes highlighted earlier may be creating some issues when it comes to his typically great command of the pitch. Bieber is currently leaving double the number of sliders up in the zone compared to 2020...
Bieber could be finding better ways to use his slider, and his command of the pitch could be improving as he gets more used to its new movement profile. Bieber really needs his breaking pitches to carry the weight if he’s going to remain successful with below average fastball velocity, and this outing [against the Tigers Sunday] serves as a proof of concept for how he can still dominate a lineup even if his Cy Young stuff stays firmly in the rear view mirror.
My comment:
The question is whether Bieber's days of throwing a 94 mph fastball and a slider with a sharper drop are over and he's going to settle in as a starting pitcher that is 5% above average as opposed to 32%. If his stuff has been permanently affected by his arm problem last year, will he be able to adapt and come close to his previous level of effectiveness but at a lower velocity and maybe getting back to using his curve more?
Last edited:
sportscoach
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Let's wait to see how he pitches after the all-star break before we judge one way or another...
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Looking at the slow motion videos you can definitely see his delivery has changed, both in tempo and arm path. Is there a connection with his different mechanics and the significant decline in the velocity of his fastball and the vertical drop in his slider?
I would think so.
So what's going on? Has he changed his mechanics to try and protect his arm? Are he and Willis not aware that his mechanics are different? (I can't believe that is the case). Did he simply fall into some bad habits and it's just a matter of tweaking his delivery and everything comes together?
If he is not able to get his average fastball velo back to 94, or even 93, can he get the same results as before throwing more breaking stuff?
94 was only something he did in a season he new he would be not pitching a lot of innings. Ya its still down and concerning but dam to me anything that happaned in the 2020 season was pretty meaningless
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His velocity is down from 2019 and 2021 as well. It started dropping a few starts before his injury last year. I think he was trying to pitch through it. Each start it got lower until he had to shut it down.
CDAV45
Small ball is for pussies!
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You guys can rip my ass all you want because you're probably not going to like what I think should happen, but here it goes. Bieber is pitching well and clearly he doesn't need 94 to be a damn good SP. Combine that with TMac looking like the staff ace and a truck load of SP prospects getting ever closer to Cleveland, I'm dealing Bieber by the break if(emphases on if) a team is willing to give a haul for him. I'm calling the Dodgers and asking them if they would like Bieber for Miller, Pages, and Cartaya. Yes, it likely lessens our chance to make the playoffs this season, but it could potentially put us over the top starting next season. Miller is a stud that you could lump right in with Espino and Williams. Yeah, I'm willing to take a hit this season to build a damn juggernaut.
cliffdawg
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On top of that if reports are true he already turn down a extension, sell high maybe ?…….And I do love the pitching factory coming up…..But with that said I would see if I can sell high on Pleasac first, and then maybe Civale if he gets on a good streak …..
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