Orioles Claim Pitcher Cole Sulser Off Waivers From Tampa Bay

[sportsfan8703]

On 10/1/2019 at 2:38 PM, Luke-OH said:

He was 44th on my Rule 5 Preference List last December.

44    Cole Sulser - Indians - RHP

92-94, average command, two solid offspeed pitches, change 80-83 and slider with depth about the same velo. Works up and down well. Fastball would get mashed if left on the plate. Misses a lot of bats in AAA but I don’t know if there is enough stuff to repeat the trick in MLB.

He hasn’t been mentioned a lot this season. He had a really good AAA season last year, then a nice up of coffee with the Rays. The Rays are stacked with relievers. 

Is he more of an under the radar type that has a chance, or his he just a guy that will inevitably be DFA this offseason?  Last guy on the 40 man type?

[Luke-OH]

5 minutes ago, sportsfan8703 said:

He hasn’t been mentioned a lot this season. He had a really good AAA season last year, then a nice up of coffee with the Rays. The Rays are stacked with relievers. 

Is he more of an under the radar type that has a chance, or his he just a guy that will inevitably be DFA this offseason?  Last guy on the 40 man type?

Not the last man on the 40. He’s not very exciting, but he should be useful in 2020.

Some of that ambiguous “misses bats in AAA but will it play in the majors?” that I wrote about him has been quantified by spin data.

He has solid fastball spin at a really high spin efficiency, so he gets good life on his fastball and has the command to use the pitch where it’s most effective.

[sportsfan8703]

3 hours ago, Luke-OH said:

Not the last man on the 40. He’s not very exciting, but he should be useful in 2020.

Some of that ambiguous “misses bats in AAA but will it play in the majors?” that I wrote about him has been quantified by spin data.

He has solid fastball spin at a really high spin efficiency, so he gets good life on his fastball and has the command to use the pitch where it’s most effective.

I remember last offseason when Austin Brice was Elias' first "spin rate" player he brought in.  Now we have a handful.  

[Frobby]

Isn’t the cat kind of out of the bag on spin rate at this point?    I think the days of getting excess value from pitchers with relatively low velocity but high spin rate are probably over.   All 30 teams are factoring that stuff in by now.    

[wildcard]

33 minutes ago, Frobby said:

Isn’t the cat kind of out of the bag on spin rate at this point?    I think the days of getting excess value from pitchers with relatively low velocity but high spin rate are probably over.   All 30 teams are factoring that stuff in by now.    

So are you saying that Sig and Elias are behind on analytics?

[Philip]

On 10/1/2019 at 2:25 PM, Tony-OH said:

Looks similar to Evan Phillips

Call me a cynic, but that is hardly a ringing endorsement.

The other hand, rejects from Tampa Bay tend to be worth having, so charge on.

[OsEatAlEast]

1 hour ago, Frobby said:

Isn’t the cat kind of out of the bag on spin rate at this point?    I think the days of getting excess value from pitchers with relatively low velocity but high spin rate are probably over.   All 30 teams are factoring that stuff in by now.    

I think with all the focus on spin rate. We'll start to see guys with big 12-6 curveballs become the new hotness. Not many pitches complement a fastball that stays on plane better than a hook that drops off the table.

[makoman]

1 hour ago, Frobby said:

Isn’t the cat kind of out of the bag on spin rate at this point?    I think the days of getting excess value from pitchers with relatively low velocity but high spin rate are probably over.   All 30 teams are factoring that stuff in by now.    

Couldn’t you say the same about velocity? Everyone knows throwing harder is generally better, all else being equal...guys that throw hard are still valuable. Ultimately the more successful teams will be those that can translate those raw traits into on field results, which is the hard part. I imagine not every team has the patience or ability to do that. We’ll see if we can. 
 

I’m just glad the O’s have decided to join the modern age. Too often it has seemed like when “everybody already knows X” the O’s were one of the handful of teams ignoring X. 

Edited December 19, 2019 by makoman

[Philip]

So we got him back?

It seems that the post I made a couple of minutes ago duplicates a comment I made back in October, so at least I’m consistent.

[murph]

1 hour ago, Philip said:

So we got him back?

It seems that the post I made a couple of minutes ago duplicates a comment I made back in October, so at least I’m consistent.

I think the thread was just bumped, don't think anything changed in his status with us, unless I am missing something.  

[interloper]

The ol' Cole Sulser thread is making a triumphant return!!!

[Scalious]

3 hours ago, wildcard said:

So are you saying that Sig and Elias are behind on analytics?

Only that it's likely gotten to a point that its an over focus on a very specific trait of a pitcher. A quality pitcher is the sum of a lot of parts.

Example:  Brewers re-build  had a very saber metric focus on targeting pitchers. They targeted guys with very FIP friendly numbers, also looked for guys with a-typical deliveries that could lead to deception.

The biggest fruit they bared from this was trading for Josh Hader. However, the draw back of this focus was they ignored repertoire depth. So they ended up with a lot of guys who could only throw 1 quality pitch that were the reason for all their K's. Hardly any of them could throw a quality change up. 

So they haven't really produced any quality SP from this outside of Woodruff. They ignored key starter traits by tunnel visioning high K% and deception.

I think Elias's phislopshy is much more complex and wont have those same pitfalls. IMO

Edited December 19, 2019 by Scalious

[Luke-OH]

6 hours ago, Frobby said:

Isn’t the cat kind of out of the bag on spin rate at this point?    I think the days of getting excess value from pitchers with relatively low velocity but high spin rate are probably over.   All 30 teams are factoring that stuff in by now.    

I don’t know what every team’s process is, but yeah, I think it’s a consideration/factor for every team. 

I think there is still some hay to be made as far as taking guys with good spin qualities and tweaking their grip or release to achieve more active spin or a more favorable spin axis. I’m not sure every team is onto that yet and if so, I don’t think every team is good at that yet.

I do think that eventually there will probably be a swing back towards 2S/sinkers once someone quantifies what makes them most effective (if someone has done it, there hasn’t been much in the public sphere) like they’ve done with 4S fastballs.

[LookinUp]

2 hours ago, Scalious said:

Only that it's likely gotten to a point that its an over focus on a very specific trait of a pitcher. A quality pitcher is the sum of a lot of parts.

What you're describing is bad analytics, understanding that bad really just means incomplete.

People think big data is the end all, be all. It might be in baseball, but just because data exists doesn't mean it's the right data. This stuff isn't easy. It will take time to get closer to perfect. See defensive metrics, for example.

[Frobby]

6 hours ago, wildcard said:

So are you saying that Sig and Elias are behind on analytics?

Not at all.    But I’m saying that what was cutting edge and state of the art when those guys started with the Astros is conventional wisdom now.     They have acknowledged as such, and have pointed out that to be the best, they need to be innovating and keeping ahead of the curve.    And the last year was really spent catching the Orioles up to industry standard.     
 

There was an interesting article on Fangraphs the other day about how some teams have been paying for technology to be installed at junior colleges for the schools to use in exchange for the funding team having exclusive major league rights to the data.   Junior colleges!     And now MLB is clamping down and saying that information has to be shared.     https://blogs.fangraphs.com/mlb-outlaws-amateur-trackman-data-exclusivity/

It’s a whole new world out there, and spin rate is pretty old news at this point.    Three years ago I didn’t even know what it meant.