Dan Duquette: "I still think that Gausman can be an elite pitcher"

[interloper]

On any other team, I agree with Dan. I don't believe the O's have the insight to figure out what's wrong with him and fix it like most other teams do. 

[esmd]

4 hours ago, Frobby said:

I doubt it's a matter of wising up.   It's a matter of not throwing the ball where you intended.    No catcher is setting his target right down the middle.    

Part of it is location as well, but the other issue is, when it's 0-2 or 1-2, why throw a FB?  Throw the splitter, or the slider that someone else mentioned.  Try and induce them to chase. 

[LookitsPuck]

6 minutes ago, esmd said:

Part of it is location as well, but the other issue is, when it's 0-2 or 1-2, why throw a FB?  Throw the splitter, or the slider that someone else mentioned.  Try and induce them to chase. 

Gausman was actually pretty good 0-2 and 1-2.

0-2 count: .213/.213/.338 - .550 OPS, 80 situations....36 strikeouts. 3 homers

1-2 count: .231/.231/.346 - .577 OPS, 130 situations....62 strikeouts, 2 homers

[tntoriole]

20 hours ago, Frobby said:

Through their age 26 seasons:

Verlander 65-43, 3.92 ERA (115 ERA+)

Sale 57-40, 2.91 (140)

Kluber 2-5, 5.35 (74)

Kershaw 98-49, 2.48 (151)

Gausman 34-43, 4.18 (101)

Kluber was a rare late bloomer, but most times if you're going to be an ace, by 26 it's already happened.    I'd be very happy if Gausman could churn out sub-4.00 ERA seasons on a fairly regular basis.

Oh I would certainly be happy about that too..but Dan and I must have a different definition of elite.   His must be more the Joe Flacco elite kind and mine is more the Tom Brady kind...lol.  

[fansince71]

Ifs and buts were candy and nuts we'd all have a wonderful Christmas.

KG is a number 4 or 5 until he shows other wise. 

[ChuckS]

25 minutes ago, fansince71 said:

Ifs and buts were candy and nuts we'd all have a wonderful Christmas.

KG is a number 4 or 5 until he shows other wise. 

Kevin threw 186 innings to a 4.68 ERA in 2017.  His ERA was better than the league average for a starting pitcher and he was top 25 in MLB in innings pitched.  That's easily a no. 3 starter in today's bloated offense environment.  

Calling him a 4/5 shows a lack of understanding of what a 4/5 really is. Yes, he was bad in the first half but he was almost equally as good in the second half.  

Gausman has pitched like a mid-rotation starter his whole career and I'm fine with that although I would prefer more consistency and closer to his 2016 version.  Not a bad expectation going forward. 

[Frobby]

9 hours ago, ChuckS said:

Kevin threw 186 innings to a 4.68 ERA in 2017.  His ERA was better than the league average for a starting pitcher 

Not true.   AL average for starting pitchers was 4.54.     It's debatable whether he pitched more like a no. 3 or a no. 4, depending on how you choose to define those things.   What's not debatable is that he had a disappointing season.    This team isn't going anywhere if he doesn't step up considerably next year.

[FlipTheBird]

17 hours ago, interloper said:

On any other team, I agree with Dan. I don't believe the O's have the insight to figure out what's wrong with him and fix it like most other teams do. 

It certainly seems true that the O's can't get pitchers "over the hump," so to speak. Tillman maybe being the only exception? Granted they didn't draft him, but they certainly had a role in his development. And prior to this year, which was injury-plagued and a mess, he was a pitcher any MLB club would have been happy to drop in their rotation.

Where that issue is coming from, I'm not sure, because it very much predates even the Showalter/Duquette era in Baltimore.

[Hallas]

On 10/3/2017 at 1:29 PM, LookitsPuck said:

Gausman was actually pretty good 0-2 and 1-2.

0-2 count: .213/.213/.338 - .550 OPS, 80 situations....36 strikeouts. 3 homers

1-2 count: .231/.231/.346 - .577 OPS, 130 situations....62 strikeouts, 2 homers

1: that's actually really bad.  See below.  Those numbers are after the said count as well, as opposed to on said count.  League average OPS after both 0-2 and 1-2 is well south of .500.

http://www.sportingnews.com/mlb/news/whats-the-most-important-pitch-of-an-at-bat-mlb-hitters-offer-their-thoughts/p8s91l136i2l1gkadyp39p14o

2: Gausman is worse than this after said counts.  .639 OPS after 0-2, .661 after 1-2.  So his outcomes are .200 OPS worse than average.  That's the difference between a pitcher batting and an actual #9 hitter.

[interloper]

7 hours ago, FlipTheBird said:

It certainly seems true that the O's can't get pitchers "over the hump," so to speak. Tillman maybe being the only exception? Granted they didn't draft him, but they certainly had a role in his development. And prior to this year, which was injury-plagued and a mess, he was a pitcher any MLB club would have been happy to drop in their rotation.

Where that issue is coming from, I'm not sure, because it very much predates even the Showalter/Duquette era in Baltimore.

Sure, but even when Tillman was going good, his velocity would fluctuate wildly from start to start. Or his command would abandon him for an inning or two. When I think back about Tillman, I'll still see him as a guy that never quite put it all together. Whether or not that's just his mechanics or something the O's couldn't fix, who knows. 

[Hallas]

On 10/3/2017 at 1:20 PM, esmd said:

Part of it is location as well, but the other issue is, when it's 0-2 or 1-2, why throw a FB?  Throw the splitter, or the slider that someone else mentioned.  Try and induce them to chase. 

His slider sucks.  No one's chasing it, because it's either a meatball or too far off the plate to entice batters to swing.

He can try the splitter, but you have to throw a fastball sometimes too, or they'll sit on the splitter. 

Regardless, he has enough movement and velocity on his fastball to get people to whiff with just that.  He just needs to locate it.  His fastball wasn't broken down between sinkers and 4seamers in 2017, but assuming he still threw sinkers, his swinging strike rate is above average. (7.0% overall fastball SwStr, league average for 4seam is 6.9 and for sinker 5.4.) 

[SilverRocket]

https://www.fangraphs.com/fantasy/kevin-gausmans-very-bad-but-actually-very-good-season/

This article says Gausman's release point changed significantly on the 6/21 game. His ERA from then on was 3.39, opposing OPS .715. Before that game, 6.60 ERA, .928 opposing OPS.

Release point chart from BrooksBaseball. Looks like he kept that new release point the rest of the season.

[OFFNY]

o

 

In my rat's ass of an opinion, whether or not Gausman becomes an elite pitcher is not nearly as important as the Orioles getting he and Bundy some help in the starting rotation.

The 2014 Orioles did not have an ace pitcher, but they had 4 or 5 starting pitchers that were at least pretty good or better (Chris Tillman, Wei-Yin Chen, Bud Norris, Miguel Gonzalez, and Kevin Gausman) which allowed them to sustain one bad starting pitcher (Ubaldo Jimenez) and still compete and prosper throughout the entire season.

 

If they could have some type of combination such one #2 and three #3's (or two #2's, one #3, and one #4) atop the first 4 spots in the rotation, then we would obviously be seeing a considerably better team than we saw in 2017 ...... not to mention a bullpen that would probably be less overworked than was the 2017 Orioles bullpen.

 

o

[Frobby]

17 hours ago, OFFNY said:

o

 

In my rat's ass of an opinion, whether or not Gausman becomes an elite pitcher is not nearly as important as the Orioles getting he and Bundy some help in the starting rotation.

The 2014 Orioles did not have an ace pitcher, but they had 4 or 5 starting pitchers that were at least pretty good or better (Chris Tillman, Wei-Yin Chen, Bud Norris, Miguel Gonzalez, and Kevin Gausman) which allowed them to sustain one bad starting pitcher (Ubaldo Jimenez) and still compete and prosper throughout the entire season.

 

If they could have some type of combination such one #2 and three #3's (or two #2's, one #3, and one #4) atop the first 4 spots in the rotation, then we would obviously be seeing a considerably better team than we saw in 2017 ...... not to mention a bullpen that would probably be less overworked than was the 2017 Orioles bullpen.

 

o

They are both important, obviously.   I'd agree that shoring up the other three spots is more important, but to be a 90+ win team I think someone needs to step up and be an ace.   

[OFFNY]

18 hours ago, OFFNY said:

o

 

In my rat's ass of an opinion, whether or not Gausman becomes an elite pitcher is not nearly as important as the Orioles getting he and Bundy some help in the starting rotation.

The 2014 Orioles did not have an ace pitcher, but they had 4 or 5 starting pitchers that were at least pretty good or better (Chris Tillman, Wei-Yin Chen, Bud Norris, Miguel Gonzalez, and Kevin Gausman) which allowed them to sustain one bad starting pitcher (Ubaldo Jimenez) and still compete and prosper throughout the entire season.

 

If they could have some type of combination such one #2 and three #3's (or two #2's, one #3, and one #4) atop the first 4 spots in the rotation, then we would obviously be seeing a considerably better team than we saw in 2017 ...... not to mention a bullpen that would probably be less overworked than was the 2017 Orioles bullpen.

 

o

 

 

43 minutes ago, Frobby said:

 

They are both important, obviously. I'd agree that shoring up the other three spots is more important, but to be a 90+ win team, I think someone needs to step up and be an ace.

 

o

 

I don't think that that is necessarily true.

The 2014 team didn't have an ace, and they won more than 90 games.

I think that this year's team could have been a 90-or-more-win team if they had had 4 Bundys and 1 Gausman (or 3 Bundys and 2 Gausmans), and a subsequently less overtaxed bullpen. Filling those 3 gaping holes in the rotation with reasonably good starting pitchers would have helped this team on multiple levels, most notably putting a lot less pressure on both the bullpen and the offense.

 

o