Jorge Lopez keeps improving

[wildcard]

3 minutes ago, Moose Milligan said:

Live look-in at me wallowing in my negativity:

Again, you can call it negativity, I'll call it reality.  Maybe Lopez is trending up, and if so that's great.  Chances are he's probably not.  

If I don't understand what's occurring with Lopez, you don't understand small sample sizes.  

Fine, WC, what are we betting that Lopez is making some sort of miraculous transition?  You set the terms, as long as they're past something like 12 more starts.  

I would not bet on Lopez.  But I will enjoy his progress and realize what has happen to make him have a good month.  i know where he has been for years.   But he has talent that Holt and company have  tapped into and shown him the way to improve.  Hope he keeps it up.

[Sports Guy]

5 minutes ago, wildcard said:

The Twins are 8th in the MLB in OPS.   Nats are 15th which should be about average. Boston is 1st.

Nats are at the bottom in runs scored.

Boston is good but again, that day they weren’t.  I don’t think that was Lopez as much as a checked out mentally type day. Teams have those games.

 

[Yardball85]

3 hours ago, wildcard said:

Lopez made 6 starts in May and had a 3.68 ERA in 29.1 IP   His last 2 starts have been 6 IP.   Two other starts were 5 innings or more.   His WHIP in May was still quite high at 1.43 so he still has work to do in the area.  This is a huge improvement of his April 7.48 ERA.

If Lopez continues to improve he is positioning himself to stay in the starting rotation and be part of the 2022 team.

I have been a Lopez guy for a while.  Sure, it is a small sample size, but he has good stuff, gets K's, and was cruising through the first 3-4 innings usually. Maybe he harnessed somerhing that has allowed him to find success in the middle innings. 

[Just Regular]

1 hour ago, Camden_yardbird said:

He weirdly, in a world where spin rate is king, ranks in the 1st percentile (bad) for spin rate on his FB.

Is that measured 1st percentile like his spin rate is exactly MLB average (i.e., 50th percentile of all fastballs)?

If it is just "lowest spin", that might be a feature, not a bug.   As I understand it, the thing with raw spin rate is just you want to be away from the league average so your fastball doesn't look like "everyone else's".

I'd never heard of Lopez's pitches having that Britton, Bummer, Brandon Webb super sinker attribute, which is what super low spin rates call to mind.

For May his 24.2 K% was the same as John Means.   I still never want Batter 19 unless we are way up (ha!), but I'm starting to think he might get tendered and be the third best paid Oriole next year.

[Camden_yardbird]

20 minutes ago, Sports Guy said:

His Bb rate is 4..that’s not very good.

His BABiP is basically in the range of expectations, so he hasn’t been unlucky in that regards either.

You are slightly correct.  His walk % has risen since I last looked at it.  Its 9.8% a little below average, but last year and the year before he was well above average (79th percentile last year), showing a pitcher capable of keeping walks down.  You are correct that his BABIP is not an outlier, so I think you are probably correct there and looking at his hard hit % probably shows a pitcher whose grounders are even a little hot to handle (above league average).

I will still maintain that I think he could be a league average pitcher with some small tweaks.

[Sports Guy]

5 minutes ago, Camden_yardbird said:

You are slightly correct.  His walk % has risen since I last looked at it.  Its 9.8% a little below average, but last year and the year before he was well above average (79th percentile last year), showing a pitcher capable of keeping walks down.  You are correct that his BABIP is not an outlier, so I think you are probably correct there and looking at his hard hit % probably shows a pitcher whose grounders are even a little hot to handle (above league average).

I will still maintain that I think he could be a league average pitcher with some small tweaks.

No, I’m correct.  His BB rate is currently 3.88.  There are 84 ML pitchers that have thrown at least 50 innings this year.  Only 9 pitchers have a worse walk rate than he does.

His control isn’t good.  Perhaps it’s improving and we have to wait and see but overall, the str% is below league average and his BB rate is high.  
 

WC said he is hitting 96-97 with control regularly.  That’s a false statement.  His control (and his command) are not consistent.  His last start against Minnesota saw his str% in the 50s and he walked 4 guys.  That’s not showing control regularly.

Means is showing control regularly.

[Frobby]

I’ll agree with wildcard that Lopez is showing  some improvement.   He really only had one poor start all month (which, naturally, was the one game I’ve attended so far this year). He’s certainly not the worst guy in our rotation at the moment, so his job is in no immediate jeopardy.   We may as well keep giving him the ball and see whether the improvement is real or just a SSS fluke.   

[BRobinsonfan]

1 hour ago, Sports Guy said:

No, I’m correct.  His BB rate is currently 3.88.  There are 84 ML pitchers that have thrown at least 50 innings this year.  Only 9 pitchers have a worse walk rate than he does.

His control isn’t good.  Perhaps it’s improving and we have to wait and see but overall, the str% is below league average and his BB rate is high.  
 

WC said he is hitting 96-97 with control regularly.  That’s a false statement.  His control (and his command) are not consistent.  His last start against Minnesota saw his str% in the 50s and he walked 4 guys.  That’s not showing control regularly.

Means is showing control regularly.

And his walk rate in the minors, over 8 seasons, was 3.6.  His WHIP in the minors was 1.38 and in the major he's put up a career WHIP of 1.48.  This year his WHIP is 1.43... right in line with his career numbers.  He's a 28 year old who has pitched to a -1.6 WAR in parts of 6 major league seasons.  I'm glad he's eating some innings for us, but I'm not betting he's "figured anything out" and he'll never be anything more than a placeholder.  If anything, Lopez is a consistently slightly worse than average.    

[wildcard]

3 hours ago, Sports Guy said:

No, I’m correct.  His BB rate is currently 3.88.  There are 84 ML pitchers that have thrown at least 50 innings this year.  Only 9 pitchers have a worse walk rate than he does.

His control isn’t good.  Perhaps it’s improving and we have to wait and see but overall, the str% is below league average and his BB rate is high.  
 

WC said he is hitting 96-97 with control regularly.  That’s a false statement.  His control (and his command) are not consistent.  His last start against Minnesota saw his str% in the 50s and he walked 4 guys.  That’s not showing control regularly.

Means is showing control regularly.

You  are full of it.  Lopez has walked 13 in his 6 May starts.  That about 2 a game.  And yesterday he was hitting 96 with is four seamer and sinker regularly.    Here is the play by play and he can see he held 96 throughout the game.  That is a little different from the MASN version where I know I saw 97  a few times.

https://www.espn.com/mlb/playbyplay/_/gameId/401227853

[Sports Guy]

1 minute ago, wildcard said:

You  are full of it.  Lopez has walked 13 in his 6 May starts.  That about 2 a game.  And yesterday he was hitting 96 with is four seamer and sinker regularly.    Here is the play by play and he can see he held 96 throughout the game.  That is a little different from the MASN version where I know I saw 97  a few times.

https://www.espn.com/mlb/playbyplay/_/gameId/401227853

LOL!!!

2 a game?  Who does it like that?  By your definition, Tanner Scott is a control artist because he is walking less than 1 batter per game!!!

So, getting beyond that, Lopez had a BB rate of 3.99 in the month of May.

Im not doubting the velocity...I’m talking about the control.  He isn’t showing regular control.  You are factually incorrect on that.

[interloper]

My only beef here is the "keeps" part of "keeps improving". I think we can say that in another month. Guy's had a good May, for sure. I love his fastball. There's no obvious reason right now to punt him from the rotation, especially with Harvey turning into a pumpkin and angling for a DFA (though Hyde is going to fight Elias on it, I haven't seen a manager so in love with a player since Buck and Craig Gentry). 

[wildcard]

2 minutes ago, Sports Guy said:

LOL!!!

2 a game?  Who does it like that?  By your definition, Tanner Scott is a control artist because he is walking less than 1 batter per game!!!

So, getting beyond that, Lopez had a BB rate of 3.99 in the month of May.

Im not doubting the velocity...I’m talking about the control.  He isn’t showing regular control.  You are factually incorrect on that.

Who does it like that? You do.  You said he had 4 in his start vs the Twins so you thought that was note worth.   Lopez was hitting Wynns glove with the fast ball pretty well yesterday.

[OsFanSinceThe80s]

9 minutes ago, interloper said:

My only beef here is the "keeps" part of "keeps improving". I think we can say that in another month. Guy's had a good May, for sure. I love his fastball. There's no obvious reason right now to punt him from the rotation, especially with Harvey turning into a pumpkin and angling for a DFA (though Hyde is going to fight Elias on it, I haven't seen a manager so in love with a player since Buck and Craig Gentry). 

Or Buck and Taylor Teagarden. 

[interloper]

Just now, OsFanSinceThe80s said:

Or Buck and Taylor Teagarden. 

Or Buck and [insert veteran guy]. 

[Sports Guy]

30 minutes ago, wildcard said:

Who does it like that? You do.  You said he had 4 in his start vs the Twins so you thought that was note worth.   Lopez was hitting Wynns glove with the fast ball pretty well yesterday.

Everyone does BB rate.  EVERYONE!

And btw, BB rate is based off of 9 IP.  That is the length of a baseball game, in case you weren’t sure.  
 

So, you really think Scott has good control?  He has walked 19 in his 26 games.