Is Mark Ellis really platooning? I may be asleep at the wheel, but I thought he had started every game except yesterday (and day games after night games are generally a good time to give someone a rest).
That’s the thinking that ruined Daniel Bard, and would have ruined Jonathan Papelbon if Boston had gone ahead with it. ISTM you have to put the player in the role he’s most comfortable with, for one thing. For another thing, you can get above-average performers much more easily than untouchable ones. Put your untouchable guys in the roles in which they’re untouchable, and you can backfill the rest of the roster with the more interchangeable types.
Well, if you insist 
2012, Kimbrel outdid Chapman in the following rate stats: K/9, BB/9, HR/9, ERA and FIP. Kimbrel also did better than Chapman in K% (an absurd 50%; Kimbrel struck out one of every two batters he faced). Both Kimbrel’s K/9 and K% are single-season records (with a minimum of 60 innings pitched).
He also had more saves than Chapman, and fewer blown saves (not that saves are a particularly meaningful statistic).
Chapman’s one advantage over Kimbrel was in innings pitched, where he pitched about 15% more innings. Given that innings advantage, the two wound up with the same WAR in 2013, so at best you could say they had equal value.
Wow. How come I have never heard of this guy before? I remember in one of these baseball threads from last season sometime in the summer when Chapman had some ridiculous strikeout to batters faced ratio and me making note of it then. How come nobody pointed Kimbrel out at that time?
If you’re team played in the NL East, you’d know who Kimbrel is, the guys like a terminator sent back from the future.
Kimbrel hasn’t been around long enough, or been deep enough into a postseason, to quite build up a reputation outside his division. After all, lots of closers have a couple of huge seasons.
But Kimbrel’s dominance is dominant to the point of being weird. Last year he struck out 16.7 men per nine innings, a rate I don’t think anyone’s ever had before pitching that many innings. I can’t say that for sure because I don’t know how to figure it out (the official records only hold for people who qualify for the ERA title) but I can’t find anyone else who’s done that. And he walked only 14 people all season. He LOOKS unhittable.
Chapman, of course, has insane K/9 numbers as well. It’s interesting that recently we are seeing relief pitchers with absolutely Nintendo-like strikeout numbers. I guess that started with Billy Wagner, whose K/9 numbers were unprecedented, but now they’re all kinds of guys like that. Toronto’s Steve Delabar last year last year had 12.5 K/9, a number so high that when I saw it on TV I assumed they were wrong and went to look it up. Have you even heard of Steve Delabar? Until Toronto got him, I hadn’t. He isn’t even good enough to be Toronto’s closer, but last year he had a much higher K/9 ratio than any season Goose Gossage ever had. Gossage was a terrifying power pitching reliever, the absolute fireballing ace of his time, but his numbers are quaint compared to today’s.
When Tom Henke blew away 12 men per 9 in 1987, his ferocity and dominance were highly noteworthy. Today there’s guys blowing away 11-12 men per nine innings all over the place. Last year, aside from the guys already named, you had David Hernandez, Carlos Marmol, Sean Marshall… someone named Rex Brothers had 11K/9 for Colorado. Who the hell is Rex Brothers? Kenley Jansen, John Axford, Antonio Bastardo, Johnathan Papelbon, Jason Grilli, Joe Thatcher, Jesse Crain, Brayan Villareal just missed 11K/9, Tim Collins, Greg Holland, Sean Doolittle, Jake McGee, Joel Peralta. There are strikeout artists EVERYWHERE.
I was wondering why this is. I have a hypothesis that it is two things:
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Strikeouts are up overall, so naturally you’d expect this to happen. That doesn’t explain it all, but it explains it some.
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The role of relief pitcher has now fully evolved into all full time relief pitchers being essentially one-inning specialists. Multi-inning relief appearances are rare, or given to spot starters and swing men. As relief pitchers become accustomed to being one-inning men, the emphasis on keeping something in the tank - or even caring if your mechanics might hurt you - stop mattering. If you’re only going to throw 10-20 pitches and you know you will never be asked for more, then a pitcher’s training, development and even their selection into the world of professional baseball will naturally emphasize sheer power, the ability to blow away three guys as quickly as possible. There is no need to worry about how long the guy can last. He just needs to dominate one inning.
Plus Kimbrel’s mannerisms are weird too, find him on YouTube on the mound, just weird and kind of frightening.
I wonder if the end of the steroid era coinciding with the rise in strikeouts has any viable correlation.
Strikeouts weren’t this high BEFORE steroids were common, though. They were rising during the steroid era, and the crazy numbers started when they were in full swing.
Maybe it just seems that strikeouts are up, especially among power hitters, more than they were during the McGwire/Bonds/Sosa era. I am prepared to be called totally full of shit. I do realize that a lot of players like them (Adam Dunn, as a former member of my beloved Reds comes to mind) are utterly feast or famine as well.
I think part of it is that managers have realized that strikeouts aren’t quite as anathema to offensive performance as previously thought. They let their sluggers swing and swing and swing even if they strike out 200 times.
It may just be confirmation bias, but I also think that pitchers (relievers in particular) are throwing harder than in the past. I don’t recall so many guys that can touch 100 and sit in the high 90s.
In actual game news, the Cardinals scored 9 runs in one inning on Sunday. Then they gave up 9 runs in one inning yesterday. Can they go three games in a row tonight? I’ll be there to find out.
If the Dodgers could arrange to play the Pirates every game, we’d be in good shape!
Oh, well. The Padres will have to do.
(If the Dodgers win, I’m happy. If the Padres win, the wife is happy. Happy wife, happy life. I’m conflicted.) 
And Justin Upton continues on pace to challenge the 140 HR season mark, with his 6th round tripper in the braves’ first 7 games.
Schumaker started the last game of the Giants series at 2B, looks like Mark came in to pinch hit for the pitcher later in the game. So I guess he is getting in there most days, I just don’t get why he’s not starting with the rest of the left side in flux. I figured he was one of our ‘solids’ going into this season.
Dude…you’re screwed.
I think your only option at this point is to embrace the Light and become a Giants fan 
Let’s watch the recap of that ninth inning, shall we?
http://mlb.mlb.com/video/play.jsp?c_id=mlb&content_id=26123699&query=game_pk%3D346841
I don’t have the time, I have to get ready for tonight’s game.
You may be in luck. Dusty has apparently decided that the Reds are scoring too many runs, so he has moved Zack Cozart to second in the batting order tonight. I like Zack Cozart, he is a good defensive shortstop and manages to stay sane while having to listen to Brandon Phillips constantly during the game, but his on-base percentage is .107, the lowest of any non-pitcher on the team. It is not a fluke either, he had a lousy on-base percentage last year also.
I really hope the Reds talent stays healthy enough to overcome Dusty’s lineup construction and in-game management this year.
You know, I agree with this mostly. I hated a lot of Dusty’s lineups and in-game changes last season…especially the call to hit and run in game 5 of the playoff series that caused an unnecessary out when we had runners on base and the series was on the line…the Reds hadn’t done that in that situation even ONCE the entire year! Why change then?
Anyway, Cozart will come along and I’m not sure it really matters if he’s batting 2nd or 7th. But yeah, Dusty does some head-scratching tinkering for sure.
On a brighter note, Bronson Arroyo has managed to not give up a run through 5 innings, so that’s good. I keep holding my breath with him…he’s getting old, makes a LOT of money and has never had “good” stuff, and the fifth inning has usually been where he gets nailed. When is this guy going to go from “average pitcher that eats innings” to just “bad”? I don’t know and I don’t think the Redsdo either, but it has to be sooner rather than later. Dude pitches a ton. Hopefully he holds up through this season. He’s also not an ideal pitcher for GABP.