Thoughts about David Hess in 2019?

[Moose Milligan]

7 minutes ago, Satyr3206 said:

You're in mid season form and it's not even Christmas, lol.

Close!  

If it was mid-season form I'd definitely be pitching a fit about Cashner, fully aware that he's our crappy pitcher.  Now my morning has been ruined since I've remembered he's on our roster.

[Tony-OH]

I still believe Hess' best role will be in relief. Hess was who he was in the minors, and that's a guy who can be a major league pitcher one start, but then the next start look awful. His stuff is just never consistent enough from start to start over a long haul. I think his stuff would play up out of the pen where his velocity could spike.

[wildcard]

Hess might be able to develop into a pitcher like Miguel Gonzalez.

David Hess has thrown 1,750 pitches that have been tracked by the PITCHf/x system in 2018, all of them occuring in the MLB Regular Season. In 2018, he has relied primarily on his Fourseam Fastball (92mph) and Slider (80mph), also mixing in a Change (84mph) and Curve (73mph). He also rarely throws a Sinker (93mph).

González throws five pitches: a four seam fastball at 92-93 MPH, a sinker at 91 mph, a curveball at 77-80, a slider at 84-86 and a splitter at 82-85 for his out pitch.

 

 

[Frobby]

10 minutes ago, wildcard said:

Hess might be able to develop into a pitcher like Miguel Gonzalez.

David Hess has thrown 1,750 pitches that have been tracked by the PITCHf/x system in 2018, all of them occuring in the MLB Regular Season. In 2018, he has relied primarily on his Fourseam Fastball (92mph) and Slider (80mph), also mixing in a Change (84mph) and Curve (73mph). He also rarely throws a Sinker (93mph).

González throws five pitches: a four seam fastball at 92-93 MPH, a sinker at 91 mph, a curveball at 77-80, a slider at 84-86 and a splitter at 82-85 for his out pitch.

 

 

From what I’ve seen, Hess does not exhibit the command that Gonzalez had.

[wildcard]

20 minutes ago, Frobby said:

From what I’ve seen, Hess does not exhibit the command that Gonzalez had.

Not yet.   Hess played 2018 at 24/25.  Miguel didn't even make the O's major league team until he was 28.  I think Hess may develop better  command.

[Frobby]

3 minutes ago, wildcard said:

Not yet.   Hess played 2018 at 24/25.  Miguel didn't even make the O's major league team until he was 28.  I think Hess may develop better  command.

Let’s hope he does.    A lot of pitchers never really improve much in that area, but some do.  

[Roll Tide]

14 hours ago, Moose Milligan said:

BTW, I can't stand the "Well if we take away his 10 terrible starts, he's a Cy Young candidate!!!" argument.  Please.  Just stop. 

For me and with all due respect....

He started off 5 starts at under 3.3 era. He was real bad in the middle 10.0+. And then gave us another ten at close to a 3.00 era.

That gives at least the thought that he was able to adjust to the adjustments. I feel much better that if he was really good or really bad every others starts or in shorter spurts.

I don't know if he will be a capableMLB starter or not. But I can think of a number o pitchers that did not have great stuff that includes a blazing fastball ...Jamie Moyer comes to mind.

Greg Maddox never had elite fastball velocity ...but he was the king o control and was a master at getting guys to swing at his pitch.

Not saying he's Maddox or is going to be ...but it's worth giving him a look in a year that we lose 90+ games 

Just my 2 cents!

[Moose Milligan]

 

9 hours ago, Roll Tide said:

For me and with all due respect....

He started off 5 starts at under 3.3 era. He was real bad in the middle 10.0+. And then gave us another ten at close to a 3.00 era.

That gives at least the thought that he was able to adjust to the adjustments. I feel much better that if he was really good or really bad every others starts or in shorter spurts.

I don't know if he will be a capableMLB starter or not. But I can think of a number o pitchers that did not have great stuff that includes a blazing fastball ...Jamie Moyer comes to mind.

Greg Maddox never had elite fastball velocity ...but he was the king o control and was a master at getting guys to swing at his pitch.

Not saying he's Maddox or is going to be ...but it's worth giving him a look in a year that we lose 90+ games 

Just my 2 cents!

I understand the argument and the reasoning behind it.  But for me, IMO, it's selective storytelling to a certain degree.  It's excusing the bad starts by propping up the good ones almost as if to say "He's really a 3.30 ERA pitcher, just don't look at the bad stuff!" 

You're right about Maddux, he didn't have dominant fastball velocity but he had pinpoint control and exceptional movement, too.  He had command of all of his pitches.  More importantly, he was incredibly smart and knew all about setting up hitters.  Moyer, IIRC, had some similar tendencies and by the end of his career his fastball was around like 80 mph...I threw harder in high school.  He also had like 4 or 5 pitches and great command, too. 

If you are not going to be a power pitcher who can get by on sheer stuff, you need to do the other things exceptionally well if you want to stick around and succeed.  There needs to be plus command, there needs to be two or three absolutely fantastic pitches that you can throw at anytime for strikes.  There needs to be a genius Maddux-like brain between the ears.  

So when we take away Hess' bad starts and say "Hey, look at what he CAN be," I find it a bit misleading.  Because I didn't see someone with exceptional command last year, I didn't see fantastic offerings other than a pretty good curve.  Again, I'm not saying every pitcher we have has to have Severino power, but there's gotta be something to identify who can get by and succeed without throwing in the upper 90s.  

But even looking at his game logs, the 3.00 ERA talk is still misleading.  In the month of September he had starts where he went 4.0, 5.0, 4.1, 5.0 and then, finally, 7.0 innings.  Safe to say that if Hess is getting the start, the bullpen better be ready.  Over the month he did have a pretty good 22 strikeout, 7 walk ratio in 25 innings.  Still, opponents had an .886 OPS against him.  They hit .282 against him.

The good news is that time is on his side.  He's still young.  He can improve.  He threw 63% strikes which isn't bad. 

Can he develop?  Can he get some better command, develop secondary offerings?  I'm all for giving the guy time next year because there are some good things about him.  Can Elias and whichever new coaches identify flaws and make some tweaks?  I'd much rather watch him than Cashner.  I mean, I'd rather watch my clothes on the tumble dry cycle instead of Cashner but still.  

[Tx Oriole]

On 12/3/2018 at 3:52 PM, Frobby said:

Random topic for a slow day.   David Hess looked pretty good at times in 2018, pretty bad at other times.

First 5 games: 3.07 ERA, 1.19 WHIP

Next 7 games: 10.50 ERA, 1.96 WHIP

Final 9 games: 3.24 ERA, 1.22 WHIP

Overall: 4.88 ERA, 1.38 WHIP

My sense is, his overall stat line is pretty indicative of who he is.    Not horrible for a back-end starter, but not likely to progress far beyond that.   

Am I being too harsh here?    Too generous?

You may be right Frobby. But one hopes he can progress. 

[Roll Tide]

13 hours ago, Moose Milligan said:

 

I understand the argument and the reasoning behind it.  But for me, IMO, it's selective storytelling to a certain degree.  It's excusing the bad starts by propping up the good ones almost as if to say "He's really a 3.30 ERA pitcher, just don't look at the bad stuff!" 

You're right about Maddux, he didn't have dominant fastball velocity but he had pinpoint control and exceptional movement, too.  He had command of all of his pitches.  More importantly, he was incredibly smart and knew all about setting up hitters.  Moyer, IIRC, had some similar tendencies and by the end of his career his fastball was around like 80 mph...I threw harder in high school.  He also had like 4 or 5 pitches and great command, too. 

If you are not going to be a power pitcher who can get by on sheer stuff, you need to do the other things exceptionally well if you want to stick around and succeed.  There needs to be plus command, there needs to be two or three absolutely fantastic pitches that you can throw at anytime for strikes.  There needs to be a genius Maddux-like brain between the ears.  

So when we take away Hess' bad starts and say "Hey, look at what he CAN be," I find it a bit misleading.  Because I didn't see someone with exceptional command last year, I didn't see fantastic offerings other than a pretty good curve.  Again, I'm not saying every pitcher we have has to have Severino power, but there's gotta be something to identify who can get by and succeed without throwing in the upper 90s.  

But even looking at his game logs, the 3.00 ERA talk is still misleading.  In the month of September he had starts where he went 4.0, 5.0, 4.1, 5.0 and then, finally, 7.0 innings.  Safe to say that if Hess is getting the start, the bullpen better be ready.  Over the month he did have a pretty good 22 strikeout, 7 walk ratio in 25 innings.  Still, opponents had an .886 OPS against him.  They hit .282 against him.

The good news is that time is on his side.  He's still young.  He can improve.  He threw 63% strikes which isn't bad. 

Can he develop?  Can he get some better command, develop secondary offerings?  I'm all for giving the guy time next year because there are some good things about him.  Can Elias and whichever new coaches identify flaws and make some tweaks?  I'd much rather watch him than Cashner.  I mean, I'd rather watch my clothes on the tumble dry cycle instead of Cashner but still.  

I'm certainly not ignoring the 10+ era starts ....also was he on an innngs or pitch limit? I really have no idea and that might explain the 4 innng stuff.

[Frobby]

7 minutes ago, Roll Tide said:

I'm certainly not ignoring the 10+ era starts ....also was he on an innngs or pitch limit? I really have no idea and that might explain the 4 innng stuff.

He wasn’t very pitch efficient.   He’ll need to get better at that.

[Can_of_corn]

1 minute ago, Frobby said:

He wasn’t very pitch efficient.   He’ll need to get better at that.

Don't care, I don't want guys going deep anyway.

[Moose Milligan]

11 hours ago, Can_of_corn said:

Don't care, I don't want guys going deep anyway.

Weirdo.

[Moose Milligan]

11 hours ago, Roll Tide said:

I'm certainly not ignoring the 10+ era starts ....also was he on an innngs or pitch limit? I really have no idea and that might explain the 4 innng stuff.

Yup, not efficient.  I remember a lot of deep counts, falling behind on batters, etc.

[OrioleRedenbacher]

On 12/3/2018 at 4:52 PM, Frobby said:

Random topic for a slow day.   David Hess looked pretty good at times in 2018, pretty bad at other times.

First 5 games: 3.07 ERA, 1.19 WHIP

Next 7 games: 10.50 ERA, 1.96 WHIP

Final 9 games: 3.24 ERA, 1.22 WHIP

Overall: 4.88 ERA, 1.38 WHIP

My sense is, his overall stat line is pretty indicative of who he is.    Not horrible for a back-end starter, but not likely to progress far beyond that.   

Am I being too harsh here?    Too generous?

Keep in mind that those last 9 games were after Hess switched from the third base side of the rubber to the first.  It will be interesting to see if that adjustment helps him hold that kind of stat line in 2019 or if he'll fall back to the median.  I also wonder how using analytics will help somebody like Hess.  He was probably a little too fastball heavy last year and it seemed like he improved that some during the year.  I think the analytics folks might look at things like swing and miss % - which is high on his slider - and adjust some of his sequencing, which will hopefully improve a lot of pitchers.