Cade Povich 2024

[Rbiggs2525]

I think an example to hope for is someone like Luis Gil. He and Povich have very similar ML numbers. Then it just clicked this year for Gil. There is some success around the league with pitchers who are effectively wild. 

[sportsfan8703]

@Tony-OH Do you think the cutter is good enough to be a real weapon versus RHH inside with the wall in LF?  I couldn’t tell if it was sharp enough/hard enough to really get in on RHH hands. 

[Just Regular]

15 minutes ago, Rbiggs2525 said:

I think an example to hope for is someone like Luis Gil. He and Povich have very similar ML numbers. Then it just clicked this year for Gil. There is some success around the league with pitchers who are effectively wild. 

Scouts and stats - those two guys have a pretty gigantic contrast though.

Povich and Irvin are I think kind of similar to Santander and Kjerstad or O'Hearn and Mayo roles wise for the ballclub.

[Just Regular]

18 minutes ago, sportsfan8703 said:

@Tony-OH Do you think the cutter is good enough to be a real weapon versus RHH inside with the wall in LF?  I couldn’t tell if it was sharp enough/hard enough to really get in on RHH hands. 

Brach was specific in his analysis he saw Vlad targeting RF all afternoon long, even though it looked like Povich was trying to get in some.     Granted Vlad is an unusual RHH.

Edited June 7 by Just Regular

[Rbiggs2525]

10 minutes ago, Just Regular said:

Scouts and stats - those two guys have a pretty gigantic contrast though.

Povich and Irvin are I think kind of similar to Santander and Kjerstad or O'Hearn and Mayo roles wise for the ballclub.

What are you referring to? I am talking about strikeouts, walks and hits per inning. Povich was third in the minor leagues in strikeouts last year. Irvin has never struck out more than a batter per inning. Stuff doesn’t always mean k’s. Jack Flaherty leads the AL in strikeouts with his 93.7 MPH fastball.

[Just Regular]

21 minutes ago, Rbiggs2525 said:

What are you referring to? I am talking about strikeouts, walks and hits per inning. Povich was third in the minor leagues in strikeouts last year. Irvin has never struck out more than a batter per inning. Stuff doesn’t always mean k’s. Jack Flaherty leads the AL in strikeouts with his 93.7 MPH fastball.

The scouting grade on the fastball has a lot to do with a pitcher's upside.    Orioles fans have seen a bunch of slow throwing lefties dominate AAA.

I agree Cade Povich is better than most of them and hopefully also Cole Irvin.    Successful Brian Matusz?

[Malike]

55 minutes ago, sportsfan8703 said:

@Tony-OH Do you think the cutter is good enough to be a real weapon versus RHH inside with the wall in LF?  I couldn’t tell if it was sharp enough/hard enough to really get in on RHH hands. 

In my opinion, you have to get the notion that the LF wall in Baltimore is far enough away to make bad LHP into good LHP out of your head. I'm not saying that Povich is bad, but you reference the wall a lot regarding LHP, and it won't be a savior. 

[TommyPickles]

I'm excited to watch Povich pitch again. 

Feel like he had some tough luck yesterday...

Only 2 hard-hit balls over 100 pitches is promising.

[sportsfan8703]

2 hours ago, Malike said:

In my opinion, you have to get the notion that the LF wall in Baltimore is far enough away to make bad LHP into good LHP out of your head. I'm not saying that Povich is bad, but you reference the wall a lot regarding LHP, and it won't be a savior. 

Savior?  My expectations for Povich is that he can be a #3.5 SP in the MLB around his 2nd full season in the MLB. Next year, he’s got a shot to break in as the #5.

But yeah, I think LHP is a real weapon at OPACY because of the wall and park dimensions. Obviously. Look at the park. 

If Burnes leaves next year then Povich is our #5. Is Burnes stays, then Povich is our #6 SP and a LH RP on next year. 

Because of park factors, I think Povich is less likely to be dealt than McDermott. Johnson and DeLeon are more likely to be traded as well. But keep in mind DeLeon is a LHP too. 

Edited June 7 by sportsfan8703

[Malike]

3 minutes ago, sportsfan8703 said:

Savior?  My expectations for Povich is that he can be a #3.5 SP in the MLB around his 2nd full season in the MLB. Next year, he’s got a shot to break in as the #5.

But yeah, I think LHP is a real weapon at OPACY because of the wall and park dimensions. Obviously. Look at the park. 

If Burnes leaves next year then Povich is our #5. Is Burnes stays, then Povich is our #6 SP and a LH RP on next year. 

Because of park factors, I think Povich is less likely to be dealt than McDermott. Johnson and DeLeon are more likely to be traded as well. But keep in mind DeLeon is a LHP too. 

I disagree that the wall is a weapon. It's often mentioned as such by people here, but I don't think it's really a thing.

[Hallas]

4 hours ago, Sports Guy said:

I’m not even looking at the runs allowed and I agree that he didn’t give up much hard contact. There is a lot of noise in that stat, even over larger sample sizes but it’s fair to say the contact he gave up didn’t warrant 4, much less 6 runs.

That being said, the command and control were poor, he didn’t miss many bats and I just didn’t see stuff that makes me believe he’s a ML starter.

Again, it’s one start and not only is it one start, it’s his first start..nerves, etc…so I’m not trying to take too much from it but if this is who he is, I don’t have a lot of faith that he will be even an average ML starter.

His advanced stats in the minors were very good, even last year so I’m guessing there is more there than what we saw yesterday but my biggest worry about him has always been the command and control and that the idea MiL hitters may go after bad pitches that MLers won’t. If he had to come in to hitters more at the majors, is the stuff good enough to beat them?  Based solely off of yesterday, I would say the answer is no…but it’s also not fair to base something like that solely on one start.

I still feel McDermott is the higher upside play but he has his own command/control issues right now.

As far as baseball stats go,  EV allowed reaches a significant sample (r >= 0.7) pretty quickly, at around 40 BIP, and stays more or less in that range over quite a long period.  It fluctuates oddly when you go beyond a sample of 40, but it remains fairly close to that 0.7.  There aren't many stats that show better reliability in baseball.

[Say O!]

To Tony’s point about backdoor cutter, here was location of all Povich pitches yesterday.  I would think quite unusual to backdoor so many cutters against RHHs (vs jamming on the hands which he did sporadically) while also predominantly working curveball backdoor as well.  Compare to cutters from other LHPs like Crochet, Cortes, Fried, Tyler Anderson where heatmaps show inside bias.  Povich went there more so with his four seamer.  The other thing to notice is how Povich worked basically all over parts of the zone (compare to Burnes heatmaps where he essentially is never up and away).  It’s only one start, so will be interested to see how pitch mix and location evolves for Povich.

[Spy Fox]

23 minutes ago, Malike said:

I disagree that the wall is a weapon. It's often mentioned as such by people here, but I don't think it's really a thing.

I looked into it a few months ago during one of the "why can't we hit lefties" discussions and found that our hitters were worse vs lefties at home than on the road in both '22 (.635 vs LHP at home,  .689 on the road) and especially '23 (.694 vs .835). It's just two months BUT this year that has reversed and our offense has been average vs lefties on the road, and dominating them at home to an .895 OPS... best in MLB by a mile on that split. 

Looking at our own LHPs, they did dramatically better home than away in '22 (4.03 vs 5.41). Last  year they were marginally better on the road (3.95 vs 3.86), and this year they're slightly better at home (3.04 vs 3.34). 

If we put this year's 33 game sample on hold for now, three of the four full-season splits we have showed a decent sized performance boost for LHPs in the new Camden. The fourth was close to neutral. I don't know enough about park factor stuff to know how predictive that is though. Seems pretty hard to pin down. 

[Malike]

Just now, Spy Fox said:

I looked into it a few months ago during one of the "why can't we hit lefties" discussions and found that our hitters were worse vs lefties at home than on the road in both '22 (.635 vs LHP at home,  .689 on the road) and especially '23 (.694 vs .835). It's just two months BUT this year that has reversed and our offense has been average vs lefties on the road, and dominating them at home to an .895 OPS... best in MLB by a mile on that split. 

Looking at our own LHPs, they did dramatically better home than away in '22 (4.03 vs 5.41). Last  year they were marginally better on the road (3.95 vs 3.86), and this year they're slightly better at home (3.04 vs 3.34). 

If we put this year's 33 game sample on hold for now, three of the four full-season splits we have showed a decent sized performance boost for LHPs in the new Camden. The fourth was close to neutral. I don't know enough about park factor stuff to know how predictive that is though. Seems pretty hard to pin down. 

My argument is more along the lines of the wall in Baltimore is not going to turn a mediocre LHP into an average one, even if the wall holds the ball in the park, there is a lot of damage to be done out there in ElRods corner or down the line. We've seen plenty of guys clear the wall that aren't known for their power grades, it's not an insurmountable object.

[spleen1015]