Author Topic: Rotation Considerations - 2021  (Read 4880 times)

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Offline welch

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Re: Rotation Considerations - 2021
« Reply #100: July 07, 2021, 04:03:57 PM »
Corbin now listed as tonight's starter on Baseball Press.

https://www.baseballpress.com/lineups

So when does Espino start next? Or will the Nats continue to try Lester?

Offline JCA-CrystalCity

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Re: Rotation Considerations - 2021
« Reply #101: July 07, 2021, 04:27:22 PM »
Corbin now listed as tonight's starter on Baseball Press.

https://www.baseballpress.com/lineups

So when does Espino start next? Or will the Nats continue to try Lester?
just a guess, but it looks like Lester's slot in the rotation comes up Saturday.  That'd be decision day. 

Offline Smithian

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Re: Rotation Considerations - 2021
« Reply #102: July 08, 2021, 11:49:00 AM »
If Lester is bombed again, he has to be moved to the pen or sent to the "I suck" DL. Call up Sterling Sharp.

I'm fine with pitchers in their 20's taking lumps. A little less patient with a veteran who simply doesn't have the gifts he used to have.

Why not give Jefry Rodriguez more burn as a starter?

Offline welch

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Re: Rotation Considerations - 2021
« Reply #103: July 08, 2021, 01:51:04 PM »
Prepare Lester as if he is an opener for Espino, as I posted in "Roster". Lester is unreliable, and hopeless after five innings when he is at his best. Espino is a better pitcher. Don't take him back to a two or three inning reliever.

Offline Dave in Fairfax

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Re: Rotation Considerations - 2021
« Reply #104: July 08, 2021, 02:48:06 PM »
Argument for argument's sake: Corbin is not nearly as bad as we seem to think, based on comments on the forum.

Corbin has made 17 starts.
- 8 of these have been "quality" starts by the traditional definition.
- 5 starts have not been "quality", but have been adequate by modern expectations of starting pitchers (5 to 5 2/3 innings, 3-4 runs allowed) and Corbin in fact won two of those. In two others, the offense scored only one run of support.
- 4 starts have been dumpster fires.

But of the four bad outings, three were in April and one was in the recent Dodgers series where hardly anyone looked good. Take out April, and Corbin's ERA goes from 5.40 to 4.32, in the range of Ross (4.02) and Fedde (4.53) (and Strasburg (4.57)). We appear to have stopped judging Bell and Schwarber by their early season woes. Is it time to reassess Corbin?

There are obvious counterarguments, of course, most notably being that Corbin is paid to be a No. 3 who can step up to be a No. 2 when Strasburg is injured, so being comparable to Ross and Fedde is hardly enough. Also, Corbin's regression from his career numbers.

So, ...  :popcorn:
:couch:

Offline UMDNats

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Re: Rotation Considerations - 2021
« Reply #105: July 08, 2021, 02:55:36 PM »
Corbin's stuff looked a lot better last night than earlier in the season. He still doesn't have confidence in his fastball but his slider is still pretty good. Was hitting mid-90s easily last night.

Offline rileyn

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Re: Rotation Considerations - 2021
« Reply #106: July 08, 2021, 03:17:06 PM »
Argument for argument's sake: Corbin is not nearly as bad as we seem to think, based on comments on the forum.

Corbin has made 17 starts.
- 8 of these have been "quality" starts by the traditional definition.
- 5 starts have not been "quality", but have been adequate by modern expectations of starting pitchers (5 to 5 2/3 innings, 3-4 runs allowed) and Corbin in fact won two of those. In two others, the offense scored only one run of support.
- 4 starts have been dumpster fires.

But of the four bad outings, three were in April and one was in the recent Dodgers series where hardly anyone looked good. Take out April, and Corbin's ERA goes from 5.40 to 4.32, in the range of Ross (4.02) and Fedde (4.53) (and Strasburg (4.57)). We appear to have stopped judging Bell and Schwarber by their early season woes. Is it time to reassess Corbin?

There are obvious counterarguments, of course, most notably being that Corbin is paid to be a No. 3 who can step up to be a No. 2 when Strasburg is injured, so being comparable to Ross and Fedde is hardly enough. Also, Corbin's regression from his career numbers.

So, ...  :popcorn:
:couch:


Stats, sometimes good and sometimes not so good.  It's the eye ball test that gets me.  Last night he needed to step and give us 7 innings with a 10 run lead to work with (he went 6).  It's the little things with him.  17 ER in the first inning in 17 starts, and last night he needed a nifty play by Escobar to escape a jam after getting the first 2 batters easily.  He has a lot of Gio in him.

Having said all that, he mowed down the Astros in 3 innings of relief in game 7, and I will NEVER forget that!!!

Offline Elvir Ovcina

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Re: Rotation Considerations - 2021
« Reply #107: July 08, 2021, 04:13:56 PM »
Argument for argument's sake: Corbin is not nearly as bad as we seem to think, based on comments on the forum.

Corbin has made 17 starts.
- 8 of these have been "quality" starts by the traditional definition.
- 5 starts have not been "quality", but have been adequate by modern expectations of starting pitchers (5 to 5 2/3 innings, 3-4 runs allowed) and Corbin in fact won two of those. In two others, the offense scored only one run of support.
- 4 starts have been dumpster fires.

But of the four bad outings, three were in April and one was in the recent Dodgers series where hardly anyone looked good. Take out April, and Corbin's ERA goes from 5.40 to 4.32, in the range of Ross (4.02) and Fedde (4.53) (and Strasburg (4.57)). We appear to have stopped judging Bell and Schwarber by their early season woes. Is it time to reassess Corbin?

There are obvious counterarguments, of course, most notably being that Corbin is paid to be a No. 3 who can step up to be a No. 2 when Strasburg is injured, so being comparable to Ross and Fedde is hardly enough. Also, Corbin's regression from his career numbers.

So, ...  :popcorn:
:couch:

You lost me at the second bullet.  Corbin is being paid like a #1/#2 starter.  I'd view him through a different lens and adjust expectations for his starts if he were a back-end guy, but the second bullet is an unacceptable result considering the role he needs to fill.  Even a "quality" start of 6 IP/3 ER every outing (a 4.50 ERA) is a weak result against that.

What he's doing is like if you paid a position player $25 million and he proceeded to put up a .670 OPS in a platoon role.  In isolation, that's not a completely awful player.  Bad, not not awful: let's not lose sight of Corbin being underwater on WAR, which matches both traditional stats (an ERA in the mid-5s in 17 starts without much to justify it).  But just as with our hypothetical position player, unless you have a budget well above the luxury tax or some rookies producing a ton, that guy is likely a millstone on your season's success.

That's where Corbin is.  You can't have a guy eat up 15% of your payroll and be a fringe major leaguer or worse more than half the time.

Offline hotshot

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Re: Rotation Considerations - 2021
« Reply #108: July 08, 2021, 06:25:23 PM »
What has caused Corbin's regression? What has he lost from his repertoire of pitches? Is it velo? Something else?

Offline welch

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Re: Rotation Considerations - 2021
« Reply #109: July 08, 2021, 07:32:50 PM »
Dave is about right, and reminds us of important things. Further, it makes no sense to measure Corbin against his salary. The Nats are contracted to pay him, so it makes no difference now. Even if he pitches only as well as Fedde, what matters is winning ballgames.

- Corbin now gives the Nats a decent chance of winning each start

- Lester is -- now -- a disaster every start

- Espino has been pretty good. Good enough to be in the rotation unless and until he breaks down as badly as Lester. Let one be an opener and the other a continuer.

- Fedde looked pretty good for three innings. Maybe he'll go five next time.

- Strasburg would change things, once he proves out in a rehab.


Offline Slateman

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Re: Rotation Considerations - 2021
« Reply #110: July 08, 2021, 08:02:22 PM »
6 of Lesters 13 starts qualify as "adequate by modern expectations of starting pitchers"

Offline Smithian

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Re: Rotation Considerations - 2021
« Reply #111: July 08, 2021, 08:27:22 PM »
Corbin has shown some life recently. Even versus the Dodgers he showed some life early before just vomiting all over himself for an inning.

It is a criminally low bar, but it is a lot better than he was looking early.

My hope for Corbin is he turns into an inning eater for rest of his contract. I was hoping for three unquestionably good seasons while the Nationals window was supposedly open before turning into an inning eater, whether it be for a rebuild churning through pitchers or a rebooted core.

2019 was an unquestioned success, 2020 was weird for everyone, and let's hope this season he pulls it together and after the ASB starts eating some innings and keeping this team in the game. He always would be an overpay, but we got a World Series out of him. Let's just hope that when all is said and done that we can point to more than that in defense of the contract.

Offline Dave in Fairfax

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Re: Rotation Considerations - 2021
« Reply #112: July 08, 2021, 08:33:04 PM »
6 of Lesters 13 starts qualify as "adequate by modern expectations of starting pitchers"
And only two of those 6 have been traditional quality starts.

So for quality/adequate/bad starts it is:
Lester: 2/4/7
Corbin: 8/5/4

And the trend for Corbin has been better, while Lester's bad starts include his last three.

Online varoadking

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Re: Rotation Considerations - 2021
« Reply #113: July 08, 2021, 08:53:41 PM »

Ross to the IL...

Offline Slateman

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Re: Rotation Considerations - 2021
« Reply #114: July 08, 2021, 09:25:31 PM »
Ross to the IL...

Right elbow inflammation. He never should have sat out

Offline Elvir Ovcina

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Re: Rotation Considerations - 2021
« Reply #115: July 09, 2021, 09:57:15 AM »
Dave is about right, and reminds us of important things. Further, it makes no sense to measure Corbin against his salary. The Nats are contracted to pay him, so it makes no difference now. Even if he pitches only as well as Fedde, what matters is winning ballgames.

- Corbin now gives the Nats a decent chance of winning each start

- Lester is -- now -- a disaster every start

- Espino has been pretty good. Good enough to be in the rotation unless and until he breaks down as badly as Lester. Let one be an opener and the other a continuer.

- Fedde looked pretty good for three innings. Maybe he'll go five next time.

- Strasburg would change things, once he proves out in a rehab.

Corbin is definitely better than Lester, now and going forward. 

But you have to judge the performance against the contract.  The presence of that deal and Strasburg's are why the Nats don't have a better lineup and don't have the flexibility to add payroll to get one.  They chose signing Corbin and Strasburg over Harper and at least a shot at Rendon (even if the latter probably wanted to leave) or a whole pile of other guys.  If Espino were stinking, they could cut him with no consequence.  As it is, they could trade him.  Corbin's contract makes him unmoveable via trade or DFA.  The question isn't whether he stays despite being bad: it's how best to mitigate the damage.

And let's make no mistake: the performance has been bad.  If Strasburg had been healthy, Corbin might have been taken out of the rotation earlier in the year.  Corbin has a negative WAR.  He has the third-worst ERA among qualified pitchers.  The only things that are saving him from total excoriation are (1) Lester, (2) Strasburg, and (3) his incremental improvement.  Right now the team has five starters: Scherzer and four "I hope he keeps us in the game today" dudes.  For this team to succeed, Corbin has to be more than that.   

Offline hotshot

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Re: Rotation Considerations - 2021
« Reply #116: July 10, 2021, 08:07:56 PM »
Lester is throwing batting practice at this point.

Offline welch

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Re: Rotation Considerations - 2021
« Reply #117: July 10, 2021, 08:36:11 PM »
Give Lester until after the All-Star break to retire. If he doesn't, then release him. I have no attachment to him...he is just a pitcher who threw for the Red Sox and the Cubs. I had more attachment to Anibal, who did a lot in 2019.

Who fills in? Anyone. Nobody in Rochester is MLB-caliber, although Sharp is the best of a bad bunch. Harrisburg has Cavelli, but he should be given more time. Maybe there are other veteran pitchers who have been released, but anyone is likely to be as bad as Lester.

Offline Dave in Fairfax

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Re: Rotation Considerations - 2021
« Reply #118: July 11, 2021, 01:35:13 AM »
Give Lester until after the All-Star break to retire. If he doesn't, then release him. I have no attachment to him...he is just a pitcher who threw for the Red Sox and the Cubs. I had more attachment to Anibal, who did a lot in 2019.

Who fills in? Anyone. Nobody in Rochester is MLB-caliber, although Sharp is the best of a bad bunch. Harrisburg has Cavelli, but he should be given more time. Maybe there are other veteran pitchers who have been released, but anyone is likely to be as bad as Lester.
Heck, what's Aníbal up to?

Offline welch

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Re: Rotation Considerations - 2021
« Reply #119: July 11, 2021, 03:58:48 PM »
Heck, what's Aníbal up to?

Ha! I keep thinking about him, as well as MAT. Returning to last October, I wish the Nats had kept Anibal and Taylor over Lester and depending on Robles.

Offline Natsinpwc

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Re: Rotation Considerations - 2021
« Reply #120: July 11, 2021, 04:08:13 PM »
Ha! I keep thinking about him, as well as MAT. Returning to last October, I wish the Nats had kept Anibal and Taylor over Lester and depending on Robles.
Sanchez had an ERA of 6.00 last year.  So it’s a push with Lester.

Offline JCA-CrystalCity

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Re: Rotation Considerations - 2021
« Reply #121: July 19, 2021, 04:27:09 PM »
Looks like I get to wear my Lester tee shirt to one of his starts. Had it since 2007. Hope it restores him.

Online varoadking

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Re: Rotation Considerations - 2021
« Reply #122: July 19, 2021, 04:29:06 PM »
Looks like I get to wear my Lester tee shirt to one of his starts. Had it since 2007. Hope it restores him.

Hopefully he's pitching for the Red Sox when you do...

Offline Slateman

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Re: Rotation Considerations - 2021
« Reply #123: July 19, 2021, 04:47:39 PM »
Hopefully he's pitching for the Red Sox when you do...
Two hour trade

Offline welch

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Re: Rotation Considerations - 2021
« Reply #124: July 19, 2021, 06:17:51 PM »
Sanchez had an ERA of 6.00 last year.  So it’s a push with Lester.

2021 Lester cannot match Anibal Sanchez. Nats need to bring up Taylor Sharp, a mediocre AAA pitcher but the best they have at Rochester. Put Lest on the DL until rosters open up. Or just DFA him.