Pitching

[jup]

@CDAV45
So I watched Hentges start today, he needs innings. Hard to say what you have with him.

Clearly has tools, needs a lot of refinement. I realize he is up because of the problems in the rotation, but if today is any indication, and it sounds like it is on the control/command side, he isn't going to be an effective MLB starter for the Indians any time soon (as in this year). But at least he is getting innings and that can't be bad for him.

I don't think they are getting everything they can out of him. I think there is more there on the velo side. But with his lack of command (at least in the start today), he clearly isn't throwing with a lot of confidence and therefore abandon. When the Indians don't have the rotation problems that they currently do, they should send him to a level below where they think he should be, tell him to throw it as hard as he can and learn to command the ball while throwing with max intent. He clearly is dialing it back right now to try and place the ball, which is part of the problem with his command currently.

Has a slight elbow climb due to his pronated take away but not enough that it is really of concern. Throws across his body slightly, but for a big guy like him, that can be problematic on the command front. They should straighten out his direction to the plate, which will get his hand in a better position to delivery the ball, add some to his velo while making his FB and CB play much better with better axis orientation and spin rates. Rotates on his lower half pretty well for a guy his size. If they get him to us his glutes (sit like when you are taking a shit) a little more to correct his direction to the plate he will rotate even better. Looks durable enough. Could be a serious force at the big league level if they finish his development properly.

In general, like what I see, but he is just not big league ready. And if he doesn't go back to the minors at some point soon, to work on his development, they will lower the ceiling he has to offer. Good development for a year and a half or two the Indians could have a 26 or 27 year old pitcher that could really be a force at the big league level.

Between he and Quantril @CDAV45, Quantril is the much better pitcher and much closer to a finished product.

Will try to get you some thoughts on Quantril at some point. But that is a couple pitcher (Mejia/Hentges) you asked me about that I have knocked off the list at least.

Just my opinion without even looking at his minor league numbers or any such thing. So take it for what it is worth (which could very well be nothing) @CDAV45

 

[sportscoach]

@jup

It feels like with a lot of these arms, they have potential but needed more minor league time... How bad do you think losing 2020 hurt them?

 

[KluberSociety]

The developmental issue is maybe the primary reason why I think we need to get some kind of arm. Failure to do so is not only costing the Indians present day wins but also stalling the development of pitchers like Hentges who by all means should be in AAA.

Anyone have a clue of what the story is with Brad Peacock? I know he's signed to a minor league contract but not much more.

 

[sportscoach]

The developmental issue is maybe the primary reason why I think we need to get some kind of arm. Failure to do so is not only costing the Indians present day wins but also stalling the development of pitchers like Hentges who by all means should be in AAA.

Anyone have a clue of what the story is with Brad Peacock? I know he's signed to a minor league contract but not much more.

At the moment, Peacock is an insurance policy for the second half of the season... He struggled in 2020, but otherwise I am not sure why he signed so late into the season...

 

[jup]

@jup

It feels like with a lot of these arms, they have potential but needed more minor league time... How bad do you think losing 2020 hurt them?

With pitchers a lot of it is just the repetitions in live game situations dealing with an array of hitters and in game situations. Not dissimilar to hitters needing so many live at bats to get seasoned.

He spent the '20 season at the alternate site, but no matter how hard you try, doesn't quite mimic the adrenaline rush and vast array of hitters you face in a season. So he got some reps in '20, what quality of reps is debatable I guess. But I would say it cost him roughly a year.

 

[Wham with the Right Hand]

@CDAV45
So I watched Hentges start today, he needs innings. Hard to say what you have with him.

Clearly has tools, needs a lot of refinement. I realize he is up because of the problems in the rotation, but if today is any indication, and it sounds like it is on the control/command side, he isn't going to be an effective MLB starter for the Indians any time soon (as in this year). But at least he is getting innings and that can't be bad for him.

I don't think they are getting everything they can out of him. I think there is more there on the velo side. But with his lack of command (at least in the start today), he clearly isn't throwing with a lot of confidence and therefore abandon. When the Indians don't have the rotation problems that they currently do, they should send him to a level below where they think he should be, tell him to throw it as hard as he can and learn to command the ball while throwing with max intent. He clearly is dialing it back right now to try and place the ball, which is part of the problem with his command currently.

Has a slight elbow climb due to his pronated take away but not enough that it is really of concern. Throws across his body slightly, but for a big guy like him, that can be problematic on the command front. They should straighten out his direction to the plate, which will get his hand in a better position to delivery the ball, add some to his velo while making his FB and CB play much better with better axis orientation and spin rates. Rotates on his lower half pretty well for a guy his size. If they get him to us his glutes (sit like when you are taking a shit) a little more to correct his direction to the plate he will rotate even better. Looks durable enough. Could be a serious force at the big league level if they finish his development properly.

In general, like what I see, but he is just not big league ready. And if he doesn't go back to the minors at some point soon, to work on his development, they will lower the ceiling he has to offer. Good development for a year and a half or two the Indians could have a 26 or 27 year old pitcher that could really be a force at the big league level.

Between he and Quantril @CDAV45, Quantril is the much better pitcher and much closer to a finished product.

Will try to get you some thoughts on Quantril at some point. But that is a couple pitcher (Mejia/Hentges) you asked me about that I have knocked off the list at least.

Just my opinion without even looking at his minor league numbers or any such thing. So take it for what it is worth (which could very well be nothing) @CDAV45

I would just add that in his last start he went five innings against the Pirates giving up one hit (the other hit should have been an error). He faced 17 Pirates and walked one.

Yesterday his command was all over the place and he walked four Twins in under four innings. Keep in mind it was his first career start at Target Field, 20 minutes from where he grew up. All his friends and relatives were there and he had to deal with an intimidating lineup that included Donaldson, Nelson Cruz, Sano, and Polanco. There must have been a lot of jitters involved which may have contributed to the wildness. Let's see how he does in his next start, which unfortunately will be against the Astros.

When Hentges kept the ball down he was fine. He got Cruz to hit into a double play in the first inning on a fastball on the outside corner at the knees. Both home runs came on balls that were up. Donaldson's single and home run were on belt high fastballs.

I agree he should focus on improving his fastball location as his #1 priority. In addition he has to keep his slider down. Simmons and Cruz both went deep on the same pitch - a slider dead center of the zone, one from Hentges and the other from Vargas.

It looks to me like his curveball has very good break, but he throws it in the dirt too much. I'll bet if he can improve the command on his fastball and curve he wouldn't even need the slider.

Five of the six runs allowed yesterday were on walks or home runs. The only one that wasn't was on the check-swing blooper that was ruled a single after the collision in the outfield. That guy scored on the home run off Garza.

If Hentges can keep the ball down and throw strikes he should avoid walks and home runs. I see a lot of Andrew Miller in this guy. Miller did not have an ERA lower than 4.85 until age 27 and was at his peak from age 28-34.

 

[CDAV45]

@CDAV45
So I watched Hentges start today, he needs innings. Hard to say what you have with him.

Clearly has tools, needs a lot of refinement. I realize he is up because of the problems in the rotation, but if today is any indication, and it sounds like it is on the control/command side, he isn't going to be an effective MLB starter for the Indians any time soon (as in this year). But at least he is getting innings and that can't be bad for him.

I don't think they are getting everything they can out of him. I think there is more there on the velo side. But with his lack of command (at least in the start today), he clearly isn't throwing with a lot of confidence and therefore abandon. When the Indians don't have the rotation problems that they currently do, they should send him to a level below where they think he should be, tell him to throw it as hard as he can and learn to command the ball while throwing with max intent. He clearly is dialing it back right now to try and place the ball, which is part of the problem with his command currently.

Has a slight elbow climb due to his pronated take away but not enough that it is really of concern. Throws across his body slightly, but for a big guy like him, that can be problematic on the command front. They should straighten out his direction to the plate, which will get his hand in a better position to delivery the ball, add some to his velo while making his FB and CB play much better with better axis orientation and spin rates. Rotates on his lower half pretty well for a guy his size. If they get him to us his glutes (sit like when you are taking a shit) a little more to correct his direction to the plate he will rotate even better. Looks durable enough. Could be a serious force at the big league level if they finish his development properly.

In general, like what I see, but he is just not big league ready. And if he doesn't go back to the minors at some point soon, to work on his development, they will lower the ceiling he has to offer. Good development for a year and a half or two the Indians could have a 26 or 27 year old pitcher that could really be a force at the big league level.

Between he and Quantril @CDAV45, Quantril is the much better pitcher and much closer to a finished product.

Will try to get you some thoughts on Quantril at some point. But that is a couple pitcher (Mejia/Hentges) you asked me about that I have knocked off the list at least.

Just my opinion without even looking at his minor league numbers or any such thing. So take it for what it is worth (which could very well be nothing) @CDAV45

Thanks jup! Awesome info and I too see the potential even though there are some mechanical issues as you stated.

 

[DCTribefan]

 

[Wham with the Right Hand]

Fangraphs has an interview with former Tribe farmhand Eric Haase about the Indians pitching factory. Here's what he said about his time in Cleveland.

Eric Haase is having a breakout season with the Tigers. Acquired from Cleveland in January of last year, the 28-year-old catcher has a 128 wRC+ and a team-leading 18 home runs. Opportunity has helped fuel the production. Coming into the current campaign, Haase had appeared in just 26 games at the big-league level.

As impressive as Haase has been with the bat, it’s his background that drove a conversation that took place at Comerica Park on Thursday. I began by asking the Detroit-area native about his old organization’s well-earned reputation as a pitching-development machine.

“I think it starts with the guys you’re taking the draft,” opined Haase, who was in the Cleveland system from 2011-2019. “Obviously, there some are high-upside guys, and some organizations pick those top guys and kind of say, ‘Go out there and pitch.’ They think they’ve got themselves more of a finished product. With Cleveland, it was more about picking guys that already had a good feel for pitching, and then implementing things that would give them little spikes in velocity. They were big on weighted balls, big on strength and conditioning. Basically, they’d take guys who already had good command and give them some more legitimate weapons to get hitters out.”

Haase cited Shane Bieber, Aaron Civale, Mike Clevinger, and Zach Plesac as prime examples, and technology played a big role in their respective development paths. Drafted out of Dearborn Divine High School in 2011, Haase was there when the organization began transforming itself.

“I was right in the heart of it turning over from being super old school,” Haase said of his time with Cleveland. “When Trevor Bauer got over there [in December 2012] it really started that revolution of tech. They bought in on technology leaps and bounds before some other organizations, and then began integrating it system wide. From Triple-A on down, pretty much every midweek bullpen for the starters there was Rapsodo data. Sometimes they’d throw on the game mound and get TrackMan data.”

The Tigers were far from the forefront of that revolution. When Haase first reported to his new club in the spring of 2020, he encountered the same old-school ways he’d initially experienced in Cleveland. Much to his approval, that has begun to change as well....

Sunday Notes: Detroit’s Eric Haase Caught on to Tech in Cleveland

Plus Phillies prospect Ethan Evanko, Javier Báez and Bryce Harper polls, the Olympics dissed softball, stats galore, and more.

blogs.fangraphs.com

My concern is that other organizations who were late to the tech party like Detroit are going to start catching up. But it was nice having an edge for a few years. I guess we have Trevor Bauer partly to thank for that, but also give credit to the organization for being open minded about it. I recall reading that one reason the Diamondbacks were willing to trade Bauer relatively soon after making him the #3 pick in the draft was his insistence on doing things differently was irritating them.

 

[xmasbuck]

Fangraphs has an interview with former Tribe farmhand Eric Haase about the Indians pitching factory. Here's what he said about his time in Cleveland.

Eric Haase is having a breakout season with the Tigers. Acquired from Cleveland in January of last year, the 28-year-old catcher has a 128 wRC+ and a team-leading 18 home runs. Opportunity has helped fuel the production. Coming into the current campaign, Haase had appeared in just 26 games at the big-league level.

As impressive as Haase has been with the bat, it’s his background that drove a conversation that took place at Comerica Park on Thursday. I began by asking the Detroit-area native about his old organization’s well-earned reputation as a pitching-development machine.

“I think it starts with the guys you’re taking the draft,” opined Haase, who was in the Cleveland system from 2011-2019. “Obviously, there some are high-upside guys, and some organizations pick those top guys and kind of say, ‘Go out there and pitch.’ They think they’ve got themselves more of a finished product. With Cleveland, it was more about picking guys that already had a good feel for pitching, and then implementing things that would give them little spikes in velocity. They were big on weighted balls, big on strength and conditioning. Basically, they’d take guys who already had good command and give them some more legitimate weapons to get hitters out.”

Haase cited Shane Bieber, Aaron Civale, Mike Clevinger, and Zach Plesac as prime examples, and technology played a big role in their respective development paths. Drafted out of Dearborn Divine High School in 2011, Haase was there when the organization began transforming itself.

“I was right in the heart of it turning over from being super old school,” Haase said of his time with Cleveland. “When Trevor Bauer got over there [in December 2012] it really started that revolution of tech. They bought in on technology leaps and bounds before some other organizations, and then began integrating it system wide. From Triple-A on down, pretty much every midweek bullpen for the starters there was Rapsodo data. Sometimes they’d throw on the game mound and get TrackMan data.”

The Tigers were far from the forefront of that revolution. When Haase first reported to his new club in the spring of 2020, he encountered the same old-school ways he’d initially experienced in Cleveland. Much to his approval, that has begun to change as well....

Sunday Notes: Detroit’s Eric Haase Caught on to Tech in Cleveland

Plus Phillies prospect Ethan Evanko, Javier Báez and Bryce Harper polls, the Olympics dissed softball, stats galore, and more.

blogs.fangraphs.com

My concern is that other organizations who were late to the tech party like Detroit are going to start catching up. But it was nice having an edge for a few years. I guess we have Trevor Bauer partly to thank for that, but also give credit to the organization for being open minded about it. I recall reading that one reason the Diamondbacks were willing to trade Bauer relatively soon after making him the #3 pick in the draft was his insistence on doing things differently was irritating them.

nice read
-
same with Bauer in Az - + I was told that Bauer went from "different cat" to a-hole in AZ pretty quickly

 

[jup]

Fangraphs has an interview with former Tribe farmhand Eric Haase about the Indians pitching factory. Here's what he said about his time in Cleveland.

Eric Haase is having a breakout season with the Tigers. Acquired from Cleveland in January of last year, the 28-year-old catcher has a 128 wRC+ and a team-leading 18 home runs. Opportunity has helped fuel the production. Coming into the current campaign, Haase had appeared in just 26 games at the big-league level.

As impressive as Haase has been with the bat, it’s his background that drove a conversation that took place at Comerica Park on Thursday. I began by asking the Detroit-area native about his old organization’s well-earned reputation as a pitching-development machine.

“I think it starts with the guys you’re taking the draft,” opined Haase, who was in the Cleveland system from 2011-2019. “Obviously, there some are high-upside guys, and some organizations pick those top guys and kind of say, ‘Go out there and pitch.’ They think they’ve got themselves more of a finished product. With Cleveland, it was more about picking guys that already had a good feel for pitching, and then implementing things that would give them little spikes in velocity. They were big on weighted balls, big on strength and conditioning. Basically, they’d take guys who already had good command and give them some more legitimate weapons to get hitters out.”

Haase cited Shane Bieber, Aaron Civale, Mike Clevinger, and Zach Plesac as prime examples, and technology played a big role in their respective development paths. Drafted out of Dearborn Divine High School in 2011, Haase was there when the organization began transforming itself.

“I was right in the heart of it turning over from being super old school,” Haase said of his time with Cleveland. “When Trevor Bauer got over there [in December 2012] it really started that revolution of tech. They bought in on technology leaps and bounds before some other organizations, and then began integrating it system wide. From Triple-A on down, pretty much every midweek bullpen for the starters there was Rapsodo data. Sometimes they’d throw on the game mound and get TrackMan data.”

The Tigers were far from the forefront of that revolution. When Haase first reported to his new club in the spring of 2020, he encountered the same old-school ways he’d initially experienced in Cleveland. Much to his approval, that has begun to change as well....

Sunday Notes: Detroit’s Eric Haase Caught on to Tech in Cleveland

Plus Phillies prospect Ethan Evanko, Javier Báez and Bryce Harper polls, the Olympics dissed softball, stats galore, and more.

blogs.fangraphs.com

My concern is that other organizations who were late to the tech party like Detroit are going to start catching up. But it was nice having an edge for a few years. I guess we have Trevor Bauer partly to thank for that, but also give credit to the organization for being open minded about it. I recall reading that one reason the Diamondbacks were willing to trade Bauer relatively soon after making him the #3 pick in the draft was his insistence on doing things differently was irritating them.

You definitely have Bauer to thank for that. Even if there are more than a handful of posters here that refuse to see it.

 

[Benway]

Even if there are more than a handful of posters here that refuse to see it.

It always seemed to me that some folks were just being contrary for the fun of it.
I don't think there's any reason to deny Bauer's influence, just as there's no reason to deny that he rubbed a lot of people the wrong way.

That guy has really stood MLB on its head, and a lot of pitchers have to be pretty annoyed by his righteous sticky campaign.

 

[jup]

It always seemed to me that some folks were just being contrary for the fun of it.
I don't think there's any reason to deny Bauer's influence, just as there's no reason to deny that he rubbed a lot of people the wrong way.

That guy has really stood MLB on its head, and a lot of pitchers have to be pretty annoyed by his righteous sticky campaign.

When it comes to baseball, has been and always will be a disruptive force. No surprise that he might have some enemies.

Interesting use of the adjective - "righteous" - not sure how you figure that one.

A guy that took a problem public because what he had tried behind the scenes for years (including with his own team, GM, and league officials) had produced no results. When going public didn't seem to produce results, he raised the issue to a higher level by simply saying - good for the goose good for the gander. MLB finally was forced to open their eyes (after being informed for way to looooong a time) to what had been obvious to so many on the pitching side of the game. When they finally saw an opportunity to do something about the lack of action in the game, they used the guise of "doing the right thing" to clean up the game as a reason.

They didn't give a crap about the issue until it suited their needs. If anyone is being righteous it is Manfred and the MLB. Hiding behind - cleaning up the game - after ignoring the issue even though it was brought to their attention personally.

 

[Derek]

I don’t think you know what righteous means. It’s not an inherently derogatory term.

 

[Gson]

When it comes to baseball, has been and always will be a disruptive force. No surprise that he might have some enemies.

Interesting use of the adjective - "righteous" - not sure how you figure that one.

A guy that took a problem public because what he had tried behind the scenes for years (including with his own team, GM, and league officials) had produced no results. When going public didn't seem to produce results, he raised the issue to a higher level by simply saying - good for the goose good for the gander. MLB finally was forced to open their eyes (after being informed for way to looooong a time) to what had been obvious to so many on the pitching side of the game. When they finally saw an opportunity to do something about the lack of action in the game, they used the guise of "doing the right thing" to clean up the game as a reason.

They didn't give a crap about the issue until it suited their needs. If anyone is being righteous it is Manfred and the MLB. Hiding behind - cleaning up the game - after ignoring the issue even though it was brought to their attention personally.

Righteous from Bauer's perspective..