Series Thread: Rays @ Jays| August 24th- 26th

[zilby]

carlson's in... this can't be good.

[tsherkin]

Ugh, my session timed out and I lost my post.

The highlights:

Cecil's been getting smacked around all season; his high H/9 rate isn't something that developed in July/August. He walks guys on a regular basis, and while that HAS risen a lot lately, he walked a ton of guys in July and his control, like Zep's, really isn't hot. He also gives up a lot of home runs.

His baBIP is almost .330, which is ridiculous. He induces 20% line drives, which isn't great but isn't terrible, and induces 44% grounders, which is pretty good.

He's got above-average velocity across the board, especially on his slider and curve.

His 4-seam fastball and slider are terrible in terms of runs above average (and per-100 pitches, the slider is even worse because it's got terrible movement on it). His curve is his best pitch, in terms of both movement and wRA(/C).

He's inducing only a league-average contact percentage. For a guy without dominating velocity or a great third pitch, he REALLY needs to be getting more contact. I think he needs to either fix his slider or drop it in favor of a cutter that he can use to get more grounders. He definitely needs to be in the zone more (he throws a below-average percentage of first-pitch strikes, too, and doesn't see 0-2 counts very often, also below average).

Of course, he's young, he's a rook, he's had some injury issues, he's running into the innings barrier, there are a lot of reasons he's looked really bad in August, but there are longer-standing issues that have been around since he started pitching for us in May that are concerns for his long-term projection as a starter (or at least where he belongs in the rotation), and these are some.

EDIT: Heh, decent enough game by Zep. Too bad about the walks.

[imgrindin247]

Gotta cut Cecil a lot of slack. He was supposed to spend the year in AAA building up his stamina and working on certain things. Now, he has to get Major League batters out and can't work on the things he was supposed to be doing this year He was a Closer in College and this is only his second Pro season and he's already pitching in the Majors. It's obvious he is tiring right now and will be shut down soon. He's had some flashes of brilliance mixed in with some awful outings. All in all, it's be expected from a Rookie pitcher who is not ready for the Majors.

Most of his starts he has done pretty well for the first 3 innings. The trouble usually starts when he gets to the 4th inning and starts to tire a bit and has gone once through the batting order.

[s e n s i]

BRANDON LEAGUE! Must tune in. Nike should shift Lebron's 'Witness' campaign right to League.

[s e n s i]

Rod Barayjays with a bomb!

[zilby]

BARAJAS!!!!!!! OH MY GOD.

[Geddy]

Take that Zaun!

[s e n s i]

Bahaha nice. Vern got bailed out though on his payoff pitch.

[zilby]

wooo win

eat that JP

[youngLion]

Wow that was an ugly win if there ever was one. I'll take it though.

I was at the game tonight. Pretty entertaining. Zep had a no hitter going for a while, and although he was walking guys left and right his slider was pretty effective and he looked good. The lineup once again looked awful.

[tsherkin]

Gotta cut Cecil a lot of slack.

Yeah, I'm not trying to rip on him... he's too young and has too many questions around his performance (especially of late) for it to be time for that. And as you said, he was brought up early and wasn't really working even as long relief for a very long time.

What worries me about his pitching is that he's got basically one good pitch (the curve), two decent pitches (the 2-seamer and the changeup), two pretty bad pitches (his 4-seamer and his slider). I don't know if that's going to be enough for him as a starter. I really think he'd benefit from throwing a cutter in the high 80s. That's a pitch that a pitch-to-contact guy can really thrive on even as the velocity dies with age. Maddux, Glavine, Doc, Santana from 04 through 06 (his three best seasons), Pedro, all those guys used a cutter with a fair bit of regularity. It's tough to really see, because the data only goes so far back, but you get my point.

Cecil could really benefit from swapping out that detestable "slider" he throws for a cutter and seeking more contact, IMO.

But yeah, he's young, he's got tools, he's left-handed and he's up way early, so ragging on him isn't going to achieve much. Worst-case, he becomes a kick-ass relief pitcher for us, I'd think, and there's value in that, no question.

Also, WIN!!!!!

Barajas with another homer! Nice.

[Mike Hunt]

Vernon Wells struck out looking except the ump forgot to make the call. Sadly, that was the greatest contribution Vernon has made in a game in months... I guess, technically, the 3-1 pitch was pretty boderline meaning Vernon could have already been on first.

[imgrindin247]

His slider is actually the pitch he was best known for and was dubbed Major League ready before he was drafted. The problem right now is he's leaving everything up in the zone, which is a sign of fatigue. When we see him working well, he has good sink on his pitches and he hasn't done that his last few starts.

You seem to have a totally different scouting report on him than most. His 2 seamer is pretty good with sink at 92. I've generally not seen him use his curveball all that much at all. When he's going very well, his changeup is the pitch he has going for him and his slider is his strikeout pitch. He's mixing speeds and confusing batters when he gets his changeup going.

He was thinking of using a cutter last year, but scrapped it and decided to focus more on his slider. I believe his stuff is good enough where he will miss bats. With his numbers where they are, I'd rather he have those gems for some starts and get blown up for others than to be consistently mediocre. It at least shows he has potential to shut guys down.

[imgrindin247]

Vernon Wells struck out looking except the ump forgot to make the call. Sadly, that was the greatest contribution Vernon has made in a game in months... I guess, technically, the 3-1 pitch was pretty boderline meaning Vernon could have already been on first.

LOL that was just awful. Vernon raised his arms up like the ball was inside when it was right down the middle of the plate. You could tell it was a makeup call for the 3-1 pitch.

[tsherkin]

His slider is actually the pitch he was best known for and was dubbed Major League ready before he was drafted. The problem right now is he's leaving everything up in the zone, which is a sign of fatigue. When we see him working well, he has good sink on his pitches and he hasn't done that his last few starts.

Yeah, when we see him doing well, he's a very good pitcher; he's got potential, and as I said, I acknowledge that he's a rook hitting the inning wall who's struggled of late with some injuries. He's also only thrown 78 IP, which casts doubts on a lot of things.

You seem to have a totally different scouting report on him than most. His 2 seamer is pretty good with sink at 92. I've generally not seen him use his curveball all that much at all. When he's going very well, his changeup is the pitch he has going for him and his slider is his strikeout pitch. He's mixing speeds and confusing batters when he gets his changeup going.

I'd like him to have the cutter now because I think that if he can develop even a decent one, it really changes his ability to pitch through nights where the slider isn't working. A cutter for him is actually more valuable than the sinker in many cases because he's facing a really harsh platoon split and the two-seamer is actually better against same-handed batters than against opposite-handed batters.

Anyway, his two-seamer averages just under 89 mph on the season; I guess in good starts, he's got a little extra velocity and that helps make up for the fact that a two-seamer is best against like-handers, not opposite-handed hitters. Cecil's slider has more vertical movement than your average slider but a lot less horizontal movement; it moves like a cutter and has the speed of a changeup. If he threw it 3 or 4 mph, it'd be a pretty good cutter.

However, in the interest of clarity, I screwed up BAD reading the Pitchf/x plot. Apparently, I read it backwards. In essence, his slider (as befits his scouting report and what everyone sees) is his best pitch. It's not a great one, not even a very good one, but despite the fact that it's basically an 84 mph cutter with almost no horizontal movement, it's got a negative wRA/C value, like his fastball.

Oops.

Ah well, it's been a long night.

I maintain that him pitching to contact more with a legit cutter is probably a good idea because it gives him another pitch and some different looks, we've got the defense to back it up and, aside from Mo Rivera, there isn't really a better pitcher in the league to talk to about the cut fastball.

[tsherkin]

Just on the topic of Cecil, there's a Fangraphs article about him from the end of July, which was his best month (despite a really bad walk rate).

Here are his monthly BB/9 rates:

May: 2.19
Jun: 3.38
Jul: 5.32
Aug: 4.74

The article is a basic fantasy article that mostly highlights that his FB velocity fluctuated a lot in July, especially on the 5th when he got hammered, averaging just over 88 mph on his heater.

In any case, he's got promise. He's, what, 23 years old, decent height, good frame, decent raw stuff. We all knew he wasn't really ready, so that's fine. But he's definitely got some basic chops.

I think his slider would be more effective he were a mid-90s fastball pitcher, but if he shores up his control a lot, he can do it. Santana's average fastball has been between 90 and 92 mph for the last 2+ years.

BUT, despite the fact that Santana is now a fastball, slider, changeup guy, in his best seasons, he ALSO threw a cutter. A deeper repertoire, better results. Sabathia throws a heater, a slider, a change and a curveball. 4 pitches, if they're all solid, tend to make for a better pitcher. Lefties who throw cutters at righties can have a lot of success. Santana obviously built off of his brutal changeup and Sabathia's got power and a slider that really slides (around 5.3 inches of horizontal movement, or about 7, 8x the movement on Cecil's slider).

Argh, also apparently I didn't misread the rv100 values; negative IS bad, which is what I thought. Revisiting that, his 4-seam and slider are the ones taking the pounding, not the curve. But that's almost assuredly sample-related.

Understanding that, it's interesting to note that Santana AND Sabathia both have slightly negative values on their respective sliders, but positive ratings on their fastballs and changeups (and Sabathia's changeup has been murder this year, and it isn't an anomaly).

Anyway, comforted by the fact that I'm not a gibbering moron, it doesn't surprise me that Cecil's stats are like that; he's generally been awesome or terrible this year and has only thrown 78 IP, and has barely thrown that curve, so the samples are skewed hard. His overall peripheral stats aren't great and it's worth mentioning that his WHIP has gone up with each new level he's reached (A-, A+, AA, AAA, the majors) and his baBIP has been high at each level, too. Something to note, he hasn't been smashed for homers at any other level, though; he peaked at a very good 0.87 in A+ last year but he's getting WALLOPED for 1.5 HR/9 this year.

In any case, we'll see as he moves along. I hope he gets healthy; if he and Zep can firm up their control, that makes for a really compelling rotation going forward.