Kyle Bradish 2023

[Frobby]

10 hours ago, EddeeEddee said:

Bradish barely has enough innings to qualify as a leader.  Before today's game he did not qualify at all but got enough innings today for him to show up in the mlb.com stats leaders.  He could fall off again but fingers crossed he gets plenty more innings to stay there the rest of the season.  If he does and stays near Cole he will be a much bigger name by the end of the year.

Bradish needs 34.1 innings to qualify for the ERA title.  If the O’s stick with a 6 man rotation the rest of the way, he’ll get 6 more starts.  So, he’ll need to average 5.72 IP per start to qualify.  That’s certainly doable, but not a given.  He’s averaged 5.55 IP per start on the season, but 6.22 over his last 12 starts.  If he can avoid throwing a stinker, he’ll probably make it.  

[dystopia]

10 hours ago, EddeeEddee said:

Coming into today Baseball Reference gives Bradish a WAR of 3.1 and Gibson a WAR of only 0.5.  

Bradish also has a 3.9 RA9-WAR and Gibson has 1.2. I only continue to bring up Gibson’s fWAR to illustrate that fWAR sucks for pitching (it’s great for position players though), not as a defense of Gibson. Obviously Gibson should be nowhere near CYA consideration. 

[Frobby]

9 minutes ago, dystopia said:

Bradish also has a 3.9 RA9-WAR and Gibson has 1.2. I only continue to bring up Gibson’s fWAR to illustrate that fWAR sucks for pitching (it’s great for position players though), not as a defense of Gibson. Obviously Gibson should be nowhere near CYA consideration. 

I think we all realized you were showing that fWAR can’t always be trusted.  I realized that when Ubaldo was credited with 5.1 fWAR during his time with the O’s. 

[BohKnowsBmore]

2 hours ago, Frobby said:

Bradish needs 34.1 innings to qualify for the ERA title.  If the O’s stick with a 6 man rotation the rest of the way, he’ll get 6 more starts.  So, he’ll need to average 5.72 IP per start to qualify.  That’s certainly doable, but not a given.  He’s averaged 5.55 IP per start on the season, but 6.22 over his last 12 starts.  If he can avoid throwing a stinker, he’ll probably make it.  

There's a bit of a negative skew on that from that first start where he left with injury (obviously injury is always a risk), but if we pull that start out, he's averaged exactly 5.73 IP per start (126 IP / 22 GS).

[BohKnowsBmore]

14 hours ago, dystopia said:

Can't mention Bradish without mentioning Kyle Gibson. He's got 2.5 fWAR while Bradish came into today at only 2.2. 

 

14 hours ago, Frobby said:

I’d love to know the inputs that lead to that result.  

fWAR very heavily FIP driven.

Gibson currently has a 2.5 fWAR, driven by a 3.87 FIP over 150.1 IP (vs. a 4.97 ERA)

Bradish now has a 2.4 fWAR, driven by a 3.56 FIP over 127.2 IP (vs. a 3.03 ERA)

If Bradiish maintained same rate over Gibby's IP count, he'd be at 2.83 fWAR.

There very well may be some ballpark / opponent quality factors thrown in there, I'm not really sure, but them being much closer in FIP than ERA is the biggest driver of the unexpected result.

I don't love fWAR for pitchers either, as I believe @Frobby mentions as well downthread (however, I do enjoy having two versions of WAR to consider, and sort of wish there was a third distinct one to use to triangulate). More so posting for the benefit of anyone who isn't aware of this major reason for divergence of f/bWAR re: pitchers.

[Just Regular]

fWAR and rWAR for pitchers are kind of like peanut butter and jelly.    Their contrast is a nice ongoing reminder of Voros McCracken's basic FIP insight.     Its fun when fWAR thinks Ubaldo Jimenez is an All-Star, and tough when children get excited about Jeff Ballard.

Pitcher starts and faces 22 batters in 5 innings - he strikes out 5, walks 2, yields 5 hits (one a HR), and gets 10 other outs with the help of his defense.     fWAR will say he's average - depending on the sequence those 22 things happen, his ERA driven rWAR could be almost anything.

[dystopia]

25 minutes ago, Just Regular said:

fWAR and rWAR for pitchers are kind of like peanut butter and jelly.    Their contrast is a nice ongoing reminder of Voros McCracken's basic FIP insight.     Its fun when fWAR thinks Ubaldo Jimenez is an All-Star, and tough when children get excited about Jeff Ballard.

Pitcher starts and faces 22 batters in 5 innings - he strikes out 5, walks 2, yields 5 hits (one a HR), and gets 10 other outs with the help of his defense.     fWAR will say he's average - depending on the sequence those 22 things happen, his ERA driven rWAR could be almost anything.

rWAR is overall better for pitchers IMO, but still comes up with some wild numbers every so often that make it problematic too. That’s why I think RA9-WAR on fangraphs is best, it seems to be a better version of rWAR. It’s at the very bottom of a player’s page. 

[interloper]

Bradish remains oddly under the radar. He's been awesome. 

[Jim'sKid26]

If you haven't read this: https://blogs.fangraphs.com/the-orioles-used-to-be-bad-ish-now-they-have-kyle-bradish/

you should.

"And when he’s not throwing his fastballs, he is throwing his breaking pitches. He has two of them, and they’re both nasty. One is a slider that averages 88 mph but touches 91, which has to be especially disconcerting when you consider that his fastball averages 94.6. Out of the 315 qualified sliders on Baseball Savant’s leaderboard, his has the fifth-most horizontal movement versus average."

The dude shoves.

[EddeeEddee]

6 hours ago, Frobby said:

Bradish needs 34.1 innings to qualify for the ERA title.  If the O’s stick with a 6 man rotation the rest of the way, he’ll get 6 more starts.  So, he’ll need to average 5.72 IP per start to qualify.  That’s certainly doable, but not a given.  He’s averaged 5.55 IP per start on the season, but 6.22 over his last 12 starts.  If he can avoid throwing a stinker, he’ll probably make it.  

Right, in short a pitcher needs 162 innings pitched at the end of the season to qualify.  He can make it but if he does it won't be by much.

[Frobby]

19 hours ago, EddeeEddee said:

Right, in short a pitcher needs 162 innings pitched at the end of the season to qualify.  He can make it but if he does it won't be by much.

The fact that the O’s have gone to a six-man rotation leaves him little margin for error in his six remaining starts.  If they were on a 5-man rotation he’d have 7 starts and qualifying would be much easier.  But I’m totally on board with the move.  

[dystopia]

Another good outing for Bradish yesterday, allowing 2 ER in 6 IP. Thought Hyde had a quick hook yesterday, I would have given Bradish a chance to get around the leadoff double, I feel he's earned that this year with the way he's pitched. ERA stayed at 3.03 but FIP lowered to 3.45 from 3.56.

[Sports Guy]

5 minutes ago, dystopia said:

Another good outing for Bradish yesterday, allowing 2 ER in 6 IP. Thought Hyde had a quick hook yesterday, I would have given Bradish a chance to get around the leadoff double, I feel he's earned that this year with the way he's pitched. ERA stayed at 3.03 but FIP lowered to 3.45 from 3.56.

Yea I agree especially since it was the 8 and 9 hitters coming up although the 8th hitter had doubled off of him.

Right now, we need the starters to get those extra few outs.

I also thought he was too quick to go away from Coulombe as well. Need to push these guys more and test their limits with Bautista out.

Bradish missed a ton of bats yesterday. The slider was really working.

[Aristotelian]

Bradish has really been excellent this season. He may or may not get the innings to qualify for CY but his numbers are TOR level. Has to be one of the most underrated pitchers in MLB and maybe on this board. If he can work up to 180 IP next year he is that elusive Ace. As it is, still very very good. 

[Aristotelian]

14 minutes ago, Sports Guy said:

Yea I agree especially since it was the 8 and 9 hitters coming up although the 8th hitter had doubled off of him.

Right now, we need the starters to get those extra few outs.

I also thought he was too quick to go away from Coulombe as well. Need to push these guys more and test their limits with Bautista out.

Bradish missed a ton of bats yesterday. The slider was really working.

Even if Cano is anointed closer I think Hyde could play matchups more to make everyone down the line more effective. After Bradish, each guy was set up for three hitters and then next man up until Cano. In Coulombe's case there was a RHB coming up (with a LHB following) so Webb makes sense unless you want to extend Coulombe for two more. I think Hyde wanted to get Hall in the game as well.