Fixed it for you...
-
Changing RCF's index page, please click on "Forums" to access the forums.
2023 Cleveland Guardians Season Thread
- Thread starter Juice is Loose
- Start date
Fixed it for you...
Out of the Rafters at the Q
Out of the Rafters
- Joined
- Aug 18, 2008
- Messages
- 26,113
- Reaction score
- 55,544
- Points
- 148
I mean, he still exists.
He shouldn't pitch again for this team, but he's a thing.
I wouldn't count on Morris to make a big league start this year, and I'd probably put Cantillo in that group too--but if we're talking emergency starter due to injury, those names stay on the list along with ol' Zachy boy.
KluberSociety
NBA Starter
- Joined
- Apr 10, 2018
- Messages
- 4,261
- Reaction score
- 3,799
- Points
- 113
I wonder what team is going to give us a big piece back for the almighty package of Plesac, Palacios, Tena, and Bryan Shaw's old hat. Too bad you can almost include Bieber in there at this point and the joke wouldn't lose much luster.
Benway
Cultural Obstacle
- Joined
- Mar 7, 2011
- Messages
- 6,380
- Reaction score
- 8,103
- Points
- 113
HammerGold
In the Rotation
- Joined
- Aug 3, 2022
- Messages
- 718
- Reaction score
- 747
- Points
- 93
With Arias and Brennan playing so well, the time is now to bench Amed. Guy is just dogshit out there. Showing no signs of turning the corner at the plate either
Criznit
Ack Ack
- Joined
- Mar 9, 2020
- Messages
- 11,345
- Reaction score
- 9,762
- Points
- 113
So it's June 1st. In about 2-3ish weeks we'll start crossing the super 2 line with guys like Rocchio, Bo Naylor and Valera. So that should mix things up (except for Valera), but as far as other moves go? Amed and possibly Myles (Brennan will need to chase him off) have to be running out of time.
Teams across the league start making changes to spots that are underperforming around this point of the season and that should happen here. Realistically it's hard to see Amed get pulled given Tito's proclivities, but 7-14 days/games from now without much/any improvement? That seat will have to be getting really hot, and if Arias keeps playing well... You make that move right? If you don't, please tell me as a fan why I should be excited about a lame duck position player putting up some of the worst stats in the league? It's pretty unexplainable at that point.
I feel bad for Amed, I actually expected a solid campaign from him this year. He's probably cost himself 10s of millions of dollars at this rate. That really sucks and he is running out of time to bounce back... At least with us.
The last Rosario we traded was an underperforming/good riddance salary dump. He ended up playing quite well for a different team, even winning the 2021 NL NLCS MVP en route to a World Series victory... Pretty sure that helped him secure a good deal all things considered. 2years/18mil + a team option.
I doubt we'll see big changes to the lineup in the next 10-21 days, but maybe we see Tito at least take Amed out of the two-hole sooner than later/give him a day or 2 off. Guess we'll see in a couple weeks where things stand.
Teams across the league start making changes to spots that are underperforming around this point of the season and that should happen here. Realistically it's hard to see Amed get pulled given Tito's proclivities, but 7-14 days/games from now without much/any improvement? That seat will have to be getting really hot, and if Arias keeps playing well... You make that move right? If you don't, please tell me as a fan why I should be excited about a lame duck position player putting up some of the worst stats in the league? It's pretty unexplainable at that point.
I feel bad for Amed, I actually expected a solid campaign from him this year. He's probably cost himself 10s of millions of dollars at this rate. That really sucks and he is running out of time to bounce back... At least with us.
The last Rosario we traded was an underperforming/good riddance salary dump. He ended up playing quite well for a different team, even winning the 2021 NL NLCS MVP en route to a World Series victory... Pretty sure that helped him secure a good deal all things considered. 2years/18mil + a team option.
I doubt we'll see big changes to the lineup in the next 10-21 days, but maybe we see Tito at least take Amed out of the two-hole sooner than later/give him a day or 2 off. Guess we'll see in a couple weeks where things stand.
Last edited:
- Joined
- Oct 3, 2019
- Messages
- 9,935
- Reaction score
- 28,503
- Points
- 135
With Aaron Civale making his return tonight I found a column on Fangraphs from April 6 in which he was one of the pitchers featured. I don't know if it's been posted before. It deals with using technology to evaluate pitchers' "stuff".
Aaron Civale, Cleveland Guardians
PitchingBot Stuff: 39, 128th among starters
Stuff+: 116, 18th among starters
Now here is a disagreement. PitchingBot thinks Civale has almost no stuff to speak of. Stuff+ thinks that he’s one of the nastiest starters in the game. What in the world is going on here? In a word, it’s everything. The two systems disagree across the board on how effective Civale’s raw pitch metrics are.
Let’s start with his two fastballs. They’re not going to grade out incredibly well by either measure, sitting in the low 90s without extreme movement, but PitchingBot hates them. It gives them grades of 26 and 28 on the 20-80 scouting scale. Stuff+ is more sanguine; it checks in at 76 and 101 on a plus-stats scale. That’s not a huge deal, because Civale mostly relies on a cutter, but it explains some of the disagreement.
Both models like Civale’s cutter just fine, though PitchingBot thinks it’s slightly below average while Stuff+ thinks it’s slightly above average. The biggest disagreement of the whole bunch is in his curveball, which everyone agrees is good. The question is how good. PitchingBot thinks it’s a 60, comfortably above average, but Stuff+ happens to think it’s the second-best curveball in baseball, behind only Taijuan Walker’s. I can see it; it’s a truly fearsome hook. It gets both more drop and more horizontal movement than average, and it’s not even that slow for a pitch with that much movement.
On the other hand, that’s the only swinging strike that Civale garnered out of 20 curves, and he also only landed one for a called strike. You might be tempted to write the pitch off given that. But this is one great strength of pitching models: they look at the raw building blocks rather than what hitters did against the pitch on a single day. Civale’s curveball looks mostly the same as it did last year, when it had a 19.7% swinging strike rate. It looks mostly the same as it did in 2021, when it had a 14.8% swinging strike rate, and in 2020, when it had a 19.7% swinging strike rate. The Mariners did a great job against it, but that doesn’t mean it’s not a good pitch. It’s reasonable to expect good season-long numbers given that we have a mountain of data suggesting that this pitch shape works for him.
The truth on Civale is probably somewhere between the two models...I’ll direct your attention to Graham Ashcraft, who is fourth in Stuff+ and 27th according to PitchingBot’s Stuff grades, as a similar case. Modeling baseball pitches isn’t easy. That doesn’t mean that it’s not useful, though, and I hope this was a helpful look at the way our leaderboards work.
The rest of this season will be crucial for Civale, if I'm not mistaken. The Guardians have a wave of talented young starters beginning to surface and Civale has been injured five times in the last two years. None of those times were fluke injuries like being struck with a batted ball. It's been different things; a finger, a forearm strain, an oblique strain, and a hammy.
Civale needs to make every start the rest of the season and show he can get hitters out with an average at best fastball and cutter plus a wipeout curve. Otherwise he won't be in the plans going forward.
Aaron Civale, Cleveland Guardians
PitchingBot Stuff: 39, 128th among starters
Stuff+: 116, 18th among starters
Now here is a disagreement. PitchingBot thinks Civale has almost no stuff to speak of. Stuff+ thinks that he’s one of the nastiest starters in the game. What in the world is going on here? In a word, it’s everything. The two systems disagree across the board on how effective Civale’s raw pitch metrics are.
Let’s start with his two fastballs. They’re not going to grade out incredibly well by either measure, sitting in the low 90s without extreme movement, but PitchingBot hates them. It gives them grades of 26 and 28 on the 20-80 scouting scale. Stuff+ is more sanguine; it checks in at 76 and 101 on a plus-stats scale. That’s not a huge deal, because Civale mostly relies on a cutter, but it explains some of the disagreement.
Both models like Civale’s cutter just fine, though PitchingBot thinks it’s slightly below average while Stuff+ thinks it’s slightly above average. The biggest disagreement of the whole bunch is in his curveball, which everyone agrees is good. The question is how good. PitchingBot thinks it’s a 60, comfortably above average, but Stuff+ happens to think it’s the second-best curveball in baseball, behind only Taijuan Walker’s. I can see it; it’s a truly fearsome hook. It gets both more drop and more horizontal movement than average, and it’s not even that slow for a pitch with that much movement.
On the other hand, that’s the only swinging strike that Civale garnered out of 20 curves, and he also only landed one for a called strike. You might be tempted to write the pitch off given that. But this is one great strength of pitching models: they look at the raw building blocks rather than what hitters did against the pitch on a single day. Civale’s curveball looks mostly the same as it did last year, when it had a 19.7% swinging strike rate. It looks mostly the same as it did in 2021, when it had a 14.8% swinging strike rate, and in 2020, when it had a 19.7% swinging strike rate. The Mariners did a great job against it, but that doesn’t mean it’s not a good pitch. It’s reasonable to expect good season-long numbers given that we have a mountain of data suggesting that this pitch shape works for him.
The truth on Civale is probably somewhere between the two models...I’ll direct your attention to Graham Ashcraft, who is fourth in Stuff+ and 27th according to PitchingBot’s Stuff grades, as a similar case. Modeling baseball pitches isn’t easy. That doesn’t mean that it’s not useful, though, and I hope this was a helpful look at the way our leaderboards work.
The rest of this season will be crucial for Civale, if I'm not mistaken. The Guardians have a wave of talented young starters beginning to surface and Civale has been injured five times in the last two years. None of those times were fluke injuries like being struck with a batted ball. It's been different things; a finger, a forearm strain, an oblique strain, and a hammy.
Civale needs to make every start the rest of the season and show he can get hitters out with an average at best fastball and cutter plus a wipeout curve. Otherwise he won't be in the plans going forward.
Mcreek
Sixth Man
- Joined
- Apr 11, 2021
- Messages
- 580
- Reaction score
- 1,035
- Points
- 93
Not necessarily true. Genetics play a key role as well as something we use in my field of personal training (somatotypes). A Guy like Ripken is long and lean . His body type is Ectomorph. People like this rarely if ever balloon like a Miguel Cabrera Who has a Endomorph body type that is predisposed to adding weight . Arias too me looks to have this body type. While he can take care of his body as you say, it is inevitable that as he matures physically he will outgrow the SS position . He will look more like a running back then a SS in the next couple years.
- Joined
- Oct 3, 2019
- Messages
- 9,935
- Reaction score
- 28,503
- Points
- 135
In the last week Guardians' catchers rank 16th in wRC+ and have hit .308/.667 with a strikeout percentage of 25%. I'll take it.
Also in the last seven days our right fielders are 5th in wRC+, hitting .324/.895 and a .395 OBP. These two positions have been offensive black holes but are starting to wake up.
Obviously our catchers won't hit .300 nor will our right fielders have a wRC+ of 150 the rest of the season, but I'm hopeful that Zunino, Gallagher, Arias, and Brennan are finally coming out of the fog they were in that prevented them from even seeing the baseball until it was whizzing by them. Might it be possible to get average offensive production from those two positions the rest of the year? Dare we dream?
In the last month Arias has a wRC+ of 123, ranking him 19th of 62 right fielders. Brennan ranks 48 of 62 since May 1, but in the last 15 days he's hitting .324/.813 with just four K's in 34 at-bats. He's starting to foul off those high fastballs instead of missing them.
This is encouraging stuff from our young right fielders. If they keep this up much longer I might want to see Brennan in center and Arias in right every day.
Also in the last seven days our right fielders are 5th in wRC+, hitting .324/.895 and a .395 OBP. These two positions have been offensive black holes but are starting to wake up.
Obviously our catchers won't hit .300 nor will our right fielders have a wRC+ of 150 the rest of the season, but I'm hopeful that Zunino, Gallagher, Arias, and Brennan are finally coming out of the fog they were in that prevented them from even seeing the baseball until it was whizzing by them. Might it be possible to get average offensive production from those two positions the rest of the year? Dare we dream?
In the last month Arias has a wRC+ of 123, ranking him 19th of 62 right fielders. Brennan ranks 48 of 62 since May 1, but in the last 15 days he's hitting .324/.813 with just four K's in 34 at-bats. He's starting to foul off those high fastballs instead of missing them.
This is encouraging stuff from our young right fielders. If they keep this up much longer I might want to see Brennan in center and Arias in right every day.
HammerGold
In the Rotation
- Joined
- Aug 3, 2022
- Messages
- 718
- Reaction score
- 747
- Points
- 93
No we want to see Arias at SS everyday.
Out of the Rafters at the Q
Out of the Rafters
- Joined
- Aug 18, 2008
- Messages
- 26,113
- Reaction score
- 55,544
- Points
- 148
sportscoach
RD's Guardians PR Man!
- Joined
- Dec 8, 2016
- Messages
- 20,845
- Reaction score
- 9,585
- Points
- 113
Yeah, but what's he going to do after he eats it?
As long as he doesn't make an error, he can have as many of those 4 for 4 as he wants lol
AllforOne
... and I'm all out of bubblegum.
- Joined
- Jan 17, 2014
- Messages
- 1,851
- Reaction score
- 7,596
- Points
- 113
(Brayan Rocchio has entered the chat)
I wonder if Arias could be the Gs’ Whit Merrifield - in the lineup every day, but his position will be different from day to day. There’s a lot of value in a Swiss Army knife player like that. It then opens the path for Rocchio (who has proven all he can prove in the minors, and who I think is the org’s best long-term bet at short).
More generally, I am OK with almost anything that has Not Amed Rosario batting second and playing short. (Or batting anywhere and playing anywhere.)
Out of the Rafters at the Q
Out of the Rafters
- Joined
- Aug 18, 2008
- Messages
- 26,113
- Reaction score
- 55,544
- Points
- 148
Rocchio is one of the reasons we need to see Arias and Freeman play everyday.
We need to see what these highly touted prospects can be at the major league level--because come 2024, Rocchio is ready to play shortstop every day for this club.
If he hits, which still isn't a given, I'm hoping that Arias takes over at third and Jose slides to DH.