I never thought I'd see the day that I'd be leading with Kyle Gibson, but here we are after he went 6.2 IP, 2 ER, 7 Hits, 1 BBs, 7 Ks against the Jays. But Nick, it's just one start and, you know, Birthday Parties n all, right? Well, it's not just one start, it's two. He's fresh off a 7.0 IP 1 ER, 7 Hits, 1 BBs, 8 Ks outing against the White Sox and it's making me think a bit. Gibson hadn't fanned at least 7 batters once the entire year and now he's done it twice in a row. Yes, the White Sox and Jays are far from juggernauts, but I had to do some digging. I noticed his Slider and Curveball each received a good amount amounts - 15 across both games combined - as they accumulated 2.4 pVAL in the two starts. That's a solid indication of a pitcher having a great feel for his breaking pitch and sequencing it right to get results out of them, especially when he ha a -4.8 SL and -0.1 CB pVals for the pitches across the season. This is ignoring the fact that he's had a whiff rate above 11% in four of his last five starts (12.7% average) despite holding a 9.0% mark through the entire season. It could be a start of a major trend, it could just be two good days. My gut says this will fade - this is Kyle Gibson y'all - but if he is a new man, this is how it looks at first.
Let’s see how every other SP did yesterday:
Castillo will probably be shut down before my playoffs. Should I drop him for Roark, Snell, Giolito or Reynaldo Lopez? Also would you take Gibson over Conley?
If you have those options now, I’d prefer to hold out until something concrete is said, honestly. There’s always a chance the Reds pull a Philadelphia and let him ride like they did Nola back in 2015.
Ehhhh, I think I prefer Conley’s next start against the Phils over Gibson.
Wacha and Clevinger were just dropped. Do you like either for the playoff run?
I dropped Britton and picked up both McCarthy and Reynaldo Lopez. I already have Osuna and Herrera. Good?
I like Clevinger most among all those starters.
Tell me what is wrong with this take if you have the time – analyzing a select handful of starts isn’t particularly valuable. Breaking those starts into pitches/ pitch-types is an even smaller sample and even less valuable in terms of telling you anything about who a guy is. The only reason you are pointing out pitch values is that they have been particularly good or bad which makes it even less useful in the big picture. Everyone’s CB is great when they are throwing their best one, but nobody throws the same pitch day-in and day-out. I imagine that pitch values come from contact and swings? Over a really small sample, a few fluky swings (HR off a good pitch or swinging through a poorly located pitch) greatly influences the average outcome, which is what I assume is being measured.
I don’t disagree with you at all!
The reason I bring these up is that they might give us a peak into a change that is being made. If I see a pitch that has been generally poor or mediocre for a good while, then suddenly I see two straight games where he’s having success with it, I’m curious. Maybe he found something that made him pitch it with more consistency or he tweaked the grip. Maybe the approach changed. Maybe he just got lucky.
You’re 100% right that it could be just that day or the times he threw it, the batters just took bad swings, or whatever. Small sample size sucks.
But I stress often here that I the first step to believing in a new bar for a pitcher is see a change that would explain their success or failure. We don’t know how believable it is yet, but seeing these pitching values rise could be an indication of those changes in the right direction.
Just fun stuff to consider.
That makes sense. Thanks!
Ok so Mahle. His minor league numbers look very good and he’s maintained a sub-2.00 BB/9 almost all the way through. ERA has mostly dabbled around the high-2.00s with FIP and xFIP not too much higher. K/9 mostly over 8.00/9. Why don’t you believe he can adjust to the big leagues and get close to continuing these numbers? Also, is he up for good? Thanks!
Lots of guys come up with that description. The exception is the guys that can maintain it at MLB.
Yo Matt!
I’m not necessarily saying he can’t, I’m saying it’s not a great investment now.
I think his Fastball is good enough that he can build upon it…but his secondary pitches looked Quad-A as opposed to major league ready. It’s kinda like the Luke Sims situation.
It’s possible they simply weren’t at his best in his first start and I’ll see a second guy next time out, but considering he didn’t feature an excellent strikeout rate in the Triple-A this year makes me believe that he can’t be depended on for Ks in the majors this season.
And you know my theory of not chasing young arms that don’t carry great strikeout upside.
Fulmer or Tanaka?
Tanaka.