Five Young Pirates Who Could Make An Impact Next Year

There’s unnecessary snark going on in this argument- if you want to keep it up, I can dish it out, but we can probably have a more direct discussion.

 If you are going to refer to a comment made 2 posts up the thread, context helps- which is why instead of posting “This is horribly wrong”, it’s good to add your reasoning so that people aren’t confused by your use of pronouns. Also, that’s why nouns are used, so that in case of ambiguity, you use them, so regular people understand! Some writing fail going on…

My argument is based entirely off games watched. I know xFIP is in his favor. But, let me refute the obvious ones first-

1.

if I kept pitching, the odds would be on me getting hit more, but the point was I COULD get lucky

It’s irrelevant. The discussion was about people getting unlucky. I understand sample sizes perfectly well, thank you.

2.

Small sample size is the whole point, and I’d say 10 starts is pretty darn small.

For the most part, Morton was getting shelled, and the overwhelming majority on this side supported him being sent down. One of Charlie’s posts earlier in the year sums it up very nicely-

Plainly, Morton has great stuff, so much so that it’s become a cliche to even point that out. But his command (particularly of his breaking stuff) is bad, or at least intermittently bad, and he pitches horribly with men on base. In the past, I hadn’t wanted to send him with the minors, because of sample-size issues and because we needed to see him a few times before we even knew why to send him there. Now we know. Morton can work on those things in the minors, so it isn’t like the Pirates would just be banishing him there for no reason other than being awful.

3.

And you also just said his stuff was magically better his 2nd time up this year?

I didn’t. If you’re going to attribute something to someone, at least attribute correctly. I have no doubt Morton has the stuff to be a successful SP. I have doubts he can put it together in the major leagues. The argument goes as follows: Morton has good stuff. Now, when he gave up a few hits early in the year, he seemed to lose his composure, and perhaps his confidence in his stuff. Then he nibbled. When he did, and missed, he fell behind. Then he put his pitches down the middle. Those got whacked. Hence, the ERA.

When he came back, he had more confidence in his stuff perhaps. Perhaps something else. Either way, he was able to pitch better. That is, you know, the reason people get sent down. Not because their stuff “magically improves”, but because they need to work on a few things, perhaps get their confidence in their pitches back.

 Now, to get to the core argument I was trying to make. The argument is that the HR/FB rate or the BABIP rate or the strand rate that you are citing holds true for league average pitchers. If you throw someone in there, who (for whatever reason) is not a league average pitcher, his ratios are not going to conform. That’s not bad luck. That’s bad pitching. (In my previous post(s), I already mentioned his HR/FB rate, and why I felt they didn;t hold)

Let me repeat here again: I think Charlie Morton has enough stuff to succeed in the bigs. The Apr-May version, in my opinion, was too mentally fragile to do it, and we’ll see if he can turn it around next year.

In his Apr-May starts, IIRC, Morton had something like a 25% LD rate. That gives his other stats some context. Sure, he may have been getting somewhat unlucky. But he was also getting hammered.

So he then went down to Indy, and his first 6 starts ended up with a 4.5 ERA and 23/13 K/BB (I cant find entire gamelogs for his minor leagues, so this is off comments in posts). Hardly exciting, but under control.

Here’s one of your comments about Morton from earlier this year:

Both homeruns were 90mph

meatballs.

I’m not sure if that’s because balls that get hit naturally read out slower or not though.

by Mr. E on May 28, 2010 2:14 PM PDT

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The comment is SSS but that’s the general feeling. If you have good stuff but cannot use it, is it good stuff? Maybe when you are in the lower minors and have time to harness it, but at this point, I would say there’s a legit doubt about his ability to turn his stuff into a skill.

been a longggggggggg time just for that