April 2010 Archive

The Ballad of Ricky-Bobby: Jake Peavy, Seriously?

by Bobby Loesch on April 30 at 12:21PM

BOBBY: What a week. Draft picks, Habs over Caps, Spurs over Mavs (not too crazy), the emotional Bulls playoff exit, back-to-back White Sox walk-offs, and the 'Hawks playing a game so thrilling that I almost couldn't focus on driving due to the intensity of the radio broadcast.

While I completely acknowledge we should be talking about the Blackhawks (one hundred percent.), I'd rather talk about Jake Peavy and how much he sucks. Why does he suck so much? Is there any chance to turn this around? Seriously, suck.

I certainly believe in numbers and advance stats, but I don't know enough to use them coherently. But here's an old-school concept we can all agree on: his ERA of 7.85 blows.

Following Wednesday's loss to the Rangers, Cowley had some Peavy quotes on his Twitter that I found compelling...

Peavy on the loss: "Anyone that watched the game can see it coming together. ...The bottom line is I'm still searching, but it's coming.''

Is that a threat?

Also:

More Peavy: "The end result is not about finding it, though. It's about winning games. You're not paid to try and find your mechanics.''

Accountability = good. Peavy's line in that game? 6 1/3 IP, 6 hits, 6 runs, 5 BB, 7 Ks and one HR, 112 pitches. That's a whole lotta everything. Everything = not good.

I mean, are the high number of K's indicative of some sort of high turnaround potential? Or do we really need to put the idea of him being an "ace" back on the shelf?

RICKY: Nobody is a bigger proponent of sample sizes than I am. I am not one to freak out about a slow start, be it from an individual or from a team. That being said, I am absolutely, definitely, for sure worried about Peavy. But before we get to that debacle, let me give a you a few reasons not to quit the 2010 Sox just yet.

Is it a little troubling that the Sox are already 5.5 games out in the division before we've even hit May 1? Of course. The Twins are smokin' and Sox are basically struggling across the board. But before you even think about saying the season's dead, please, I beg you, just look at some of the stats.

Pierre has already lost leadoff duties due to a .200 start. A.J. is hitting .172. Quentin is hitting .183. Beckham and Alexei are each just a shade over .220. That's four really good hitters who are all struggling mightily + Juan Pierre, who, jokes aside, is exactly a .300 career hitter.

Batting average is a terrible way to judge a batter, everyone knows that by now. But the fact the fact of the matter is that the Sox are struggling because a lot of their best players aren't getting hits. Sometimes it's just that simple.

It won't last forever, though. Even if you're cautiously optimistic, A.J. will probably finish 2010 with a batting average that's .100 higher than it is currently. Q! will at least be around .260, and that's probably worst case scenario. It wouldn't shock anyone to see Bacon and Alexei be right around .300. Even Pierre, who's as much of a punchline as a baseball player at this point, isn't going to hit .200. The dude has never finished with a BA lower than .276.

The hits will come. Trust me. Just because they aren't in April doesn't mean they won't show up for the other five months. This all has to do with batting average on balls hit in play (BABIP), a category that is just murdering the offense right now.

When the Sox make contact, it's resulting in a hit just .226 percent of the time. That's dead last in the league, and the next closest team sits an insane 40 points higher.

Translated into layman's terms: the offense is just super unlucky at the moment. But over the course of an entire season, these things have a tendency to even out.

Peavy is another story.

He can't get out of innings efficiently, his command is way off, his velocity is down. Yes, it's only been five starts, but we really haven't even seen a glimmer of hope yet. White Sox Examiner has some theories on his poor start.

Maybe it's a product of the cold weather--perhaps he isn't feeling comfortable with his mechanics or grips thanks to chilly temperatures. Or maybe there's something else behind it that we don't know about.

But whatever it is, Peavy hasn't looked like the guy the Sox thought they were trading for last July.

I really don't know what they're going to do about him, man. It's not like this is coming totally out of the blue, there were always very real concerns even when the trade went down. I just hope he doesn't suck forever, but hoping may be all we can do at this point.

Peavy is making $15 mil a year this season, $16 and $17 million the two years after. He can turn into an Alphonso Soriano/Luol Deng albatross real quick.

* * *

* * *

BOBBY: (Luol Deng is still a good player -- he's just overpaid, dammit!)

Everything you said sounds totally valid, but at what point does the sample size become the trend become the end of the season for this team? Hopefully what you're saying ends up panning out. But at this point, it's hard to stay positive.

As for Peavy, you talk about command and velocity issues... why isn't this something that got brought up in spring training? Or is it something that wasn't a problem in spring training? When Jake came over, a lot of the skeptics said he'd do bad because of NL to AL and pitcher's ballpark to hitter's ballpark. I'm wondering if those blanket statements are actually part of the reason for the early struggles.

Also, have we reached a point where the team can realistically count on Andruw Jones? He's top three on the team in OBP, SLG, and OPS. That's 500K well spent (so far).

And with Pierre benched and/or hitting 9th, who replaces him at the top of the order?

Lastly, I just discovered the Sox are first in the AL in stolen bases. This made me kind of happy and kind of mad.

RICKY: (Luol Deng is a good player, probably the most underrated athlete in Chicago. If he made $8 million a year instead of $12/13/14 million, everyone would love him. I give his 2010 a B+, but that's probably another post for another day that I'll never get to. But yeah, Lu Deng = solid starter. It could be much worse.)

Answers to your first paragraph: You generally start to know what you have in your team by June. Now, with the Sox already finishing 1/6 of the season with such a startlingly low BABIP, that number will probably remain pretty low all year. They still could finish in last in that category easily, and if that happens, I doubt they'll win more than 75 games this year. Like you said, just hope for the best. It's like Bulls free agency.

Second paragraph answers: It was an issue in spring training, but sometimes spring training numbers and performances can be deceiving, particularly for pitchers. But Peavy got shelled in Arizona. That definitely happened. You never want to write someone off after a bad spring though, so most people gave him the benefit of the doubt. Given his track record, he probably earned it.

I'd say the league and park definitely have a lot to do with it. Two very jarring switches.

When this year started, I thought the Sox could be really good if Peavy challenged for a Cy Young. That possibility looks like it's out the window. Now I'm just hoping he can be reliable, maybe eat around 200 innings and finish with an ERA not much over 4. I have to be honest, though: we've really seen nothing from him thus far that would lead me to believe a turnaround from him is likely.

Third paragraph answers: Jones is OPS'ing a staggering 1.024 right now, and no, that won't last. He won't finish the season as the 11th best hitter in the majors. That's not to say he'll fall off the face of the Earth, though.

I'm approaching the Andruw Jones situation with a lot of caution, but ultimately think he could be pretty good all season. You probably don't want to *count* on him, but given his contract, everything he gives the Sox is gravy. He's been great so far, and a lot of fun to root for.

Fourth paragraph answers: Common sabermetric logic says that if you put your five best hitters as the first five hitters in the order, everything will take care of itself. The problem is that the Sox don't really have any ideal candidates for the top of the order: this is more or less an entire team of low OBP guys.

That being said, I think I'd like to see Ozzie go with Beckham and Teahen atop the order for now. Teahen has actually been really good (.380 OBP), and you have to figure Beckham will break out of this slump soon. He's too good of a hitter not to.

BobbyStompy is the assistant editor of Tremendous Upside Potential. He can be reached at stompaberdeen [at] aol.com. Follow him on Twitter @bobbystompy.

April 2010 Archive

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