Will Tigers Pony up for Skubal

[gehringer_2]

40 minutes ago, Shelton said:

I’m struggling to see what benefit he provides by being right handed when he can’t hit.

And McKinstry had a reverse platoon split last season. He's only had 8 AB against LHP and is hitless so far. IDK, somtimes it seems the management is slave to statistics until there's one that doesn't meet with their prejudices.

Edited 14 hours ago by gehringer_2

[chasfh]

2 hours ago, Edman85 said:

 

I think this was the plan, but a few things happened.

• Torres never got better. Short is basically the right handed option. Remember he was DFA'ed, but then brought back once Torres had to go on the IL.
• Around that time, they signed Paul DeJong, who could very easily be a better option than Short. Hell, you could probably call him up right now if you wanted to... except, he's out for the year with an injury now.
• Trei Cruz is still on rehab, and wasn't exactly banging the door down in AAA before his injury.
• And now Torres had a setback.

So now your primary shortstop in AAA is Max Burt, who they tried to send to AA before having to drag him back up when DeJong was hurt. Burt is a fringe guy with a career minor league OPS around 0.600. It's not some indictment on the org that he's their AAA SS right now. It's just been injury after injury after injury. Heck, Jack Penney, who was playing with the squad late in camp is just now getting his rehab going.

Hard to say if the injuries are bad luck or if something is afoot with the strength/training staff.

Not for nothing, It didn't help that Rainer's progress got pushed back a year by injury. Not that he'd be ready to help us now, but still.

[chasfh]

1 hour ago, gehringer_2 said:

And McKinstry had a reverse platoon split last season. He's only had 8 AB against LHP and is hitless so far. IDK, somtimes it seems the management is slave to statistics until there's one that doesn't meet with their prejudices.

Or maybe they saw something during live BP against LHPs that concerned them.

[Edman85]

2 hours ago, gehringer_2 said:

And McKinstry had a reverse platoon split last season. He's only had 8 AB against LHP and is hitless so far. IDK, somtimes it seems the management is slave to statistics until there's one that doesn't meet with their prejudices.

Season long platoon splits are a very small sample.

[gehringer_2]

2 hours ago, Edman85 said:

Season long platoon splits are a very small sample.

true enough but what else have you got then besides old-school conventional wisdom, the thing from whose errors and prejudices we are trying to inoculate ourselves in the analytics era? If a guy holds his own for 120 PA against LHP and in particular has a reasonable K rate - a number which usually does stabilize pretty fast, where's the strength in the argument against letting that keep playing out? It comes down to someone saying "well I've been managing baseball for X decades and I believe most guys will crash back to earth"

But any particular guy is not necessarily "most guys", so if all you have is a general prejudice, as the  Dude would say: "Well, that's like..just your opinion man"  

this also an area where you would think tech should start making a difference. The reason given that LHH have worse platoon splits on average then RHH is that RHH have no choice but to see a lot of RHP. But with Trajekt (et al), a LHH who wants to work at it can practice against good LHP as much as he wants. We'll see if that has any effect across the league over time.

 

Edited 9 hours ago by gehringer_2

[Edman85]

You need 1000+ PA vs LHP for a platoon split to be meaningful using traditional statistics. These days with swing path data and the like teams can very likely spot things with much smaller samples.

[Shelton]

12 hours ago, gehringer_2 said:

And McKinstry had a reverse platoon split last season. He's only had 8 AB against LHP and is hitless so far. IDK, somtimes it seems the management is slave to statistics until there's one that doesn't meet with their prejudices.

I think McKinstry might still be dealing with something and keeping him from playing SS, but I also find myself not tuning in very much during this period, so maybe he is getting time there and I just haven’t noticed. But to me I’m seeing way too much short at SS and Kevin at 3B. The season was probably cursed when we started playing Javy at SS and Kevin at 3B first thing. 

[Edman85]

McKinstry played 3B his first game back and has been exclusively 2B and RF since. You may be onto something. He may have been rushed back just because of all the other injuries.

Which got me thinking how many other players aren't getting a day off when they may need one and the mechanisms about how injuries and inderperformance can spiral.

[Shelton]

Just for argument’s sake, could we not simply call up Max A to see if he can hit major league pitching, and DFA short again? Kevin just had a day off yesterday. We can use workman there in an emergency. This is assuming McKinstry isn’t an option (but I’m not sure how much I believe my own theory; I think they just prefer him in the other spots and they have short on the roster so AJ gonna use him for that sweet sweet platoon advantage).

These are now desperate times. Teams have been able to bounce back before in situations as dire as this, but they don’t do so by going 1-5 this week. 
 

Madden is also close to a return. The traditional solution is to send him to Toledo because there is no spot for him in the rotation for some reason. But I think this is the perfect opportunity to give Jack a break to clear his head and maybe come down with a mild oblique strain. 

[Edman85]

The league is cracking down on phantom IL stints. Use that with caution with Flaherty.