The Curious Case Of: Chance Sisco

[Sports Guy]

28 minutes ago, Yardball85 said:

I have never seen a player simply swing and miss through so many hittable fastballs before.  Whatever is wrong with him, it doesn't look like it's getting fixed. 

Has to be mental at this point.

[Hank Scorpio]

He's the better defensive catcher?

[Frobby]

12 minutes ago, Hank Scorpio said:

He's the better defensive catcher?

Jim Palmer said as much last night.    Personally, I think Sisco and Severino are both significantly below average defensively.    Sisco is better than he used to be, Severino is worse than he used to be.    

Fun facts: the O’s have allowed the third fewest stolen bases of any team in the AL this year.   Also, their catchers have not been charged with a single error.

Despite that, they rank close to the bottom in pitch framing, they’ve had the most passed balls in the league, they’ve allowed the fifth most wild pitches (for which I’d say the catchers bear partial responsibility), and while I can’t quantify this, I feel they’ve had more than their share of mishandled throws to home plate where the runner has been safe because the catcher couldn’t make a clean catch-and-tag.   
 

[Sports Guy]

28 minutes ago, Frobby said:

Jim Palmer said as much last night.    Personally, I think Sisco and Severino are both significantly below average defensively.    Sisco is better than he used to be, Severino is worse than he used to be.    

Fun facts: the O’s have allowed the third fewest stolen bases of any team in the AL this year.   Also, their catchers have not been charged with a single error.

Despite that, they rank close to the bottom in pitch framing, they’ve had the most passed balls in the league, they’ve allowed the fifth most wild pitches (for which I’d say the catchers bear partial responsibility), and while I can’t quantify this, I feel they’ve had more than their share of mishandled throws to home plate where the runner has been safe because the catcher couldn’t make a clean catch-and-tag.   
 

And a lot of those stats are coming from Severino, since he is playing so much.

I just  don’t get why he is being played so much.  

[OsFanSinceThe80s]

5 minutes ago, Sports Guy said:

And a lot of those stats are coming from Severino, since he is playing so much.

I just  don’t get why he is being played so much.  

I know Sisco has been terrible, but I thought he would get more playing time this year to evaluate if he's going to hack it as an MLB catcher. 

[Can_of_corn]

57 minutes ago, Frobby said:

Jim Palmer said as much last night.    Personally, I think Sisco and Severino are both significantly below average defensively.    Sisco is better than he used to be, Severino is worse than he used to be.    

Fun facts: the O’s have allowed the third fewest stolen bases of any team in the AL this year.   Also, their catchers have not been charged with a single error.

Despite that, they rank close to the bottom in pitch framing, they’ve had the most passed balls in the league, they’ve allowed the fifth most wild pitches (for which I’d say the catchers bear partial responsibility), and while I can’t quantify this, I feel they’ve had more than their share of mishandled throws to home plate where the runner has been safe because the catcher couldn’t make a clean catch-and-tag.   
 

Why risk losing outs on the basepaths to move up runners when you get to face Oriole pitching?

[Frobby]

37 minutes ago, Sports Guy said:

And a lot of those stats are coming from Severino, since he is playing so much.

I just  don’t get why he is being played so much.  

He gets roughly 2/3 of the playing time.     Obviously, Hyde likes him better.    That’s been going on for three years now. 

These are 2021 small samples, so take with a healthy grain of salt:

Passed balls: Severino one every 70 innings, Sisco one every 53 innings.

Wild pitches: Severino one every 14 innings, Sisco one every 26 innings.

Stolen bases: Severino one every 25 innings, Sisco one every 53 innings    

Stolen base attempts: Severino one every 22 innings, Sisco one every 17 innings.    

CS%: Severino 15%, Sisco 67%.

CERA: Severino 4.62, Sisco 5.68.
 

[Yardball85]

2 hours ago, Sports Guy said:

Has to be mental at this point.

Agreed.  It really isn't, or shouldn't be, a question of talent with him. 

[Just Regular]

Entering the year I viewed Sisco and Stewart as kind of twins - the rare Orioles who can tell the difference between a ball and a strike, but unfortunately hit too little for that valuable skill to translate.

Sisco got to 70 PA last night and his 26.6 O-Swing% leads the team, faithfully followed by Stewart.   His Z-Contact% is a super lagging 71.3%, 8th lowest among 329 qualifiers today.

He basically can't hit a cookie.

There's some schadenfreude to discover Randy Arozarena beneath Sisco here, though he does damage like the Gallo/Baez/Gary Sanchez types in this section of the list.    The next several years are better if last October was a Traber-ian run, and he's not the new McCutchen.

https://www.fangraphs.com/leaders.aspx?pos=all&stats=bat&lg=all&qual=70&type=5&season=2021&month=0&season1=2021&ind=0&team=0&rost=0&age=0&filter=&players=0&startdate=2021-01-01&enddate=2021-12-31&sort=7,a

[forphase1]

6 hours ago, Frobby said:

Jim Palmer said as much last night.     
 

Jim Palmer also keeps saying our offense would be better if Chris Davis didn't need hip surgery.  I've heard him say that 2-3 times on air this year.  I like Palmer, a lot, and I love listening to his broadcasts.  And certainly he knows catching.  But sometimes he's wrong.  Maybe Sisco is better defensively than Severino, but neither one is 'good'.  Both need replaced.

[Frobby]

3 minutes ago, forphase1 said:

Jim Palmer also keeps saying our offense would be better if Chris Davis didn't need hip surgery.  I've heard him say that 2-3 times on air this year.  

I heard him say that last night.   He must think that the hip issue has been present since 2018, because nobody could think that the 2018-20 version of Davis would improve our offense.

 

[Tony-OH]

Nice recap.

Here are some other stats to consider:

He's seeing 63.6% fastballs which tells me pitchers have figured out his bat is slow and they are just throwing heat by him. He has a poor 31.8% whiff rate on fastballs and has an awful 82.8 EV on them. 

He's probably starting to cheat on them so when he does swing at breaking or off-speed, he's not hitting them either.

Add in his 11th percentile framing ability, and I honestly don't understand why he's still at the major league level. I'd probably give Cumberland a look. I don't think he's a long term solution, but why not give him a shot? 

[Tony-OH]

37 minutes ago, forphase1 said:

Jim Palmer also keeps saying our offense would be better if Chris Davis didn't need hip surgery.  I've heard him say that 2-3 times on air this year.  I like Palmer, a lot, and I love listening to his broadcasts.  And certainly he knows catching.  But sometimes he's wrong.  Maybe Sisco is better defensively than Severino, but neither one is 'good'.  Both need replaced.

I've heard that as well and was shocked every time he's said it. 

[HowAboutThat]

44 contacts in 238 pitches. One barrel. That’s...amazing. Maybe it’s not that amazing in context with the league average?

Thats making contact about once every 6 pitches. What’s league average? I dunno.

Sisco’s D may be better than Severino’s but not enough to matter. But if Mike wants him to “play through his problems” or whatever it was he said during his interview the other day, then why isn’t he playing?

Theres some kind of disconnect because statement and action. Maybe Mike and Hyde are butting heads on this one?

I Sisco’s time has gone, and there’s no reason not to let someone else have a go. BUT if he’s NOT going, why isn’t he playing?

Edited May 28, 2021 by Philip
Spelling

[HowAboutThat]

@Tony-OH

So who is our best defensive catching guy in the minors? Someone said Maverick, you briefly mentioned Cumberland?