I think we need to be worried about Chen.

[Sports Guy]

How did Chen's k rate matchup with the league average last year?

[Rockford]

I was stuck watching the YES telecast yesterday. I hate to refer to this because I know all they ever do is praise the Yankees, but John Flaherty, who played for New York last year, said after the Yankees saw Chen early last season and he pitched so well against them, the team had solved Chen. I do recall them hammering him in early July. Giambi had a big game then, too.

I don't know if that is true or not, but it is a game of adjustments, and surely the league has a better idea of what to expect from Chen and how to approach at-bats.

Still, Jamie Moyer has been successful in the majors being a soft-tossing lefthander. He's one of seven current pitchers with more than 200 wins.

I just think the keys for Chen, moreso than other pitchers, is to throw strike one and get the ball down. Right now he's doing neither. Chen relies on the hitters' aggressiveness, and they are simply waiting him out and getting themselves into a good hitters count. At the same time, I do doubt whether he will ever be able to come up with a pitch to consistently get left-handed hitters out.

[AgentOrange]

I don't think so. I don't care if you throw 50 MPH if you find away to not walk guys, strike out some guys, and keep the ball in the ballpark. Maybe Chen's speed has something to do with why he can't strike out more guys or allows so many homers, but all that matters is the result. Speed is just a way of getting there and it doesn't effect my opinion of a pitcher.

Ok, well you are not grouped in that opinion then.

Chen has a career K/9 = 7.24

K/BB - 2.06

He tends to give up a few homeruns, but he is a fly ball pitcher, things like this happen.

[McLovin]

Jumping in the middle of the discussion here... Just wanted to put something I read somewhere. From Buster Olney's ESPN blog:

"in the same game that Bruce Chen's fastball was clocked at 89, Johnson never went higher than 91 mph."

Amazing. First that Chen was throwing that hard. And second that Johnson was so dominant with a fastball that 'slow'.

Chen needs to get his location down...

[mweb]

Yes you did...And here is the guy you wanted, Esteban Loaiza:

http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/players/profile?statsId=5368

Good point, I'd rather have Chen for half of the price of Loaiza, and without two more years on his overpriced contract.

[Sports Guy]

In my opinion, you adversely changed the direction of this thread with this comment.

That Bryan wanted to drop Chen from the rotation is not the point at all - in fact, it isn't even with the same neighborhood.

The point is that Bryan predicted his ERA would go up - and he has been right so far. Is it still too early to say that he was absolutely right? You better believe it.

By the way, I don't agree that he should have been dropped from the rotation going into this season.

Well, i ORIGINALLY stated that many of us predicted that his ERA would rise.

The discussion grew from that.

As i said, where Bryan differed from most of us is how high his ERA would go up and that he should not even be in the rotation at all.

[Sports Guy]

First off, yes you are against DIPS. :002_stongue:

As for the rest, I agree completely that you can't base anything on four starts - and that is exactly why I have been purposely using qualifiers such as "thus far."

And no, none of the other stuff proves anything, including Chen.

As for your last paragraph, that is exactly where Bryan has been right thus far (just wanted to highlight that for you). He didn't expect Chen to just "come back to earth", he expected him to fall off the face of the earth (so to speak).

4.90 ERA is falling on his face?

[mweb]

In my opinion, you adversely changed the direction of this thread with this comment.

That Bryan wanted to drop Chen from the rotation is not the point at all - in fact, it isn't even with the same neighborhood.

The point is that Bryan predicted his ERA would go up - and he has been right so far. Is it still too early to say that he was absolutely right? You better believe it.

By the way, I don't agree that he should have been dropped from the rotation going into this season.

And he also thought DC's era would go down, but he can't be held accountable for his control. So if Wily Mo Pena becomes better I'll just say I can't be accountable for his work ethic.:002_sbiggrin:

[mweb]

Yes, you did - and it was quickly pointed out that Bryan was the most boisterous person about it on here, and should receive credit for it.

But the discussion grew into the whole "he shouldn't be in the rotation" business for some odd reason.

I think it's too early to get credit for it.

[Sports Guy]

Which is exactly why people keep saying thus far.

Well, i think it is ridiculous that you act as if you are 100% right after just 4 starts.

[Sports Guy]

He wasn't acting as if he was 100% right.

It was a joke.

Do they have a DIPS for jokes?

[mweb]

Which is exactly why people keep saying thus far.

How many times does that have to be pointed out?

It should be pointed out as many times as people say Brian deserves credit.

[mweb]

What the world does this comment have to do with the post you quoted?

Just that he's saying he should get credit and receiving it from some regarding Chen, but then he says he can't control DC's control, therefore he can't be held accountable for that prediction. Just a contradiction if you ask me. Might not have had much to do with that post I quoted though.:002_sbiggrin:

[bryanman8]

It should be pointed out as many times as people say Brian deserves credit.

I don't care about my freaking credit.

This has all stemmed from a little one-line, half-joking post I made about how Chen's fate was unavoidable and the poor DIPS had doomed him?

I don't think I'm right at all yet, and neither does 1970. It's way too early. If I had started a thread about how I was right about Chen and all that, this would be reasonable.

Instead, SG is showing me Esteban Loaiza's stats and using it as an example. Neither of them can be used. So far, SG was right on Loaiza, I was right on Chen. It doesn't matter. If Chen puts up an ERA near 5, then that's the fall-off I predicted. I won't care at all until the season is over.

IMO, Cabrera is a different case. The idea of DIPS is that peripherals matter most. Even if Chen remained a very similar pitcher, I thought he would have the huge fall off in ERA.

If Cabrera remained the same pitcher, not even DIPS people thought he'd be very good. The walks needed to stop. From the information we're privy to regarding Cabrera's work ethic and what Mazzone thinks, we thought the control wouldn't be a problem. If the guy pulls a Rick Ankiel though, which none of us, unless you're Dave Ritterschpuch, could be able to call, that's out of our control.

The main point is simply that ERA is a poor predictor of next year's. This ties into all of 1970's great articles about how the groundball strikeout pitcher should have the best ERA while the fly ball, low k, hgih walks pitcher has the highest. It's a fundamental idea. My idea, as well as everyone else who thinks Chen's ERA will be near 5 this year, is that last year somehow he had a great defense, got lucky, basically that the low ERA was not a result of him changing drastically and finally putting things together.

[mweb]

I have no idea about anything he said about Cabrera.

Ok, well it's mentioned in this thread.