and yes, I'm proud to know that factoid. :-)

What a lame shtick.

And the only reason he's not here is that he was in Gardy's doghouse. When will we be free from this clown?

Bonderman and Verlander have been huge disappointments so far this year and there's nothing in their peripherals to suggest they'll improve very much. (And Verlander's velocity is way down.) Detroit looks to be in pretty rough shape. (Plus their defense had question marks even going into the season>)

Cleveland is pitching very well, but hitting very, very poorly.

This is the craziest PrOPS list I've ever seen. Based on their batted ball types, Cleveland's been something like the most unlucky team in the history of the universe. (Or they've played in really cold weather or they've run up against some really awesome defenses or something.) Cleveland's offense still has problems even if they start hitting where PrOPS says they belong, but they ought to rebound some.

I don't find ERA or WHIP as ridiculous as evaluating a pitcher based on only 25 percent (or less) of the batters he faces. Boof has faced 272 batters this year, and of those he has walked 40, struck out 17 and allowed a home run to eight of them, meaning that xFIP takes into account 65 of the 272 batters faced or just under 24 percent.

xFIP projects a pitcher's home run rate based on his fly ball rate (because there's randomness there, too), so xFIP takes into account strikeouts, walks, HBP, and fly balls. (This is why I'm constantly talking about why it's good for a pitcher to get a lot of ground balls.) Which in and of itself brings you to more than 24% of all batters he's faced.

But what's really ridiculous about that statement is that we can't know that Boof has struck out 17% of hitters wihtout knowing that 83% of hitters he faced didn't strike out. So it's not like we're completely ignoring hitters who don't hit into one of the three true outcomes.

Bonser's had five bad games against good hitting teams. Despite that, there's reason to believe he'll be just fine going forward. Perkins has had four good games against good hitting teams. Despite that, there's plenty of reason to believe he's way over his head and he'll regress.

Where's the evidence that ERA trumps peripherals over the course of a month? Where's the evidence that ERA trumps peripherals over the course of a season? Where's the evidence that we should throw out Bonser's track record over five bad games? (Because I guarandamntee that no one wanted Boof out of the rotation when his ERA was 3.75.) Where's the evidence that 60 career innings is enough to disregard a pitcher's consistently awful control throughout his entire career?

This is the exact same thing that we went through with Kyle Lohse, except that Lohse was a jerk so no one felt bad really laying into him. We heard all kinds of BS about how Lohse "just wasn't getting it done" based on his flukish ERA in 2006, when there was every sign in the world that it would come back to earth. And what has happened since then? Lohse has stayed healthy and had a league average ERA for every team he's pitched for since he's left the Twins.

To a lesser degree, it's the same thing that happened with Ponson last year. Did his ERA suck? Sure, but he'd only pitched seven games and there were indications that he was a better pitcher than that. So far this year, he's actually had a lucky ERA, but he's still pitched better than, say, Livan Hernandez. But Sidney was fat and had character issues, so no one minded running him out of town.

Then we shouldn't be talking at all. If all you care about is who will be in the rotation, you might as well sit back and let the team do whatever the hell it wants to do, read whatever Kelly Theiser has to say about the team and turn your brain off.

I care about whether or not they are making intelligent decisions. Because I care about that, I am forced to look at the big picture, not overreact to small sample sizes, and I am forced to conclude that yes there is a difference between pitching and run prevention, and I'm not going to let Henry Chadwick's ridiculous 19th century statistic get in the way of my understanding any more than I'm going to post the next game log by sending SBG a telegram.

If we are talking about who will be in the rotation instead of who should be in the rotation, then ERA and WHIP are what will be used to evaluate that along with walk rates (Twins don't put much stock in K rates), and we all know that. And to just disregard well-accepted stats that have been used for decades is senseless. Yes, they have flaws, but they do have value.

If we are talking about how well Perkins has pitched, that 17 percent is all that counts.

Then the devil is 6
Then the devil is 6
Then the devil is 6
Then the devil is 6
And if the devil is 6

Then God is 7
And God is 7
And God is 7

By that reasoning, +5 Twayn.

ubel, it's superior thinking like this that explains why you're The Man!

Boof = 3.55
Slowey = 4.00
Blackburn = 4.09
Perkins = 5.11
Livan = 6.16
Baker = 6.66

Clearly, Baker's Faustian bargain this year had the result one would expect.

In the last year he's had three bad months (June, August, May), one good month (April), and a couple average months.

Meanwhile, Glen Perkins' career ERA in the major leagues in 60 1/3 innings (27 games) is 2.83 (147 ERA+) and his career WHIP is 1.14.

Exactly. I'm thinking ahead to the post-season. \snark

That Perkins got good results doesn't change that Boof faced a bunch of good hitters.

Why? I can understand the utility of having a lefty in the bullpen, but unless you are specifically juggling the rotation so that Perkins faces teams that are vulnerable to left-handed pitching, by putting a lefty on the mound, you lose platoon advantage with more hitters than you gain it with.

To me, that's one of those things that you can't tell by watching. The only person who really knows about Boof's confidence is Boof. [Side rant: this is one of my pet peeves with Bert--he assumes certain things about a pitcher's mindset based on his actions, when it's just not clear that there's a direct correlation. When a pitcher is taking a long time between pitches, he always takes that as a sign that he's timid or something, but it could just be that the pitcher is being deliberate or trying to calm himself down or a dozen other things. If I had never seen Joe Nathan before in my life, and then I saw him step into the ninth inning to pitch, I would tell you that he looks like a nervous wreck out there--and maybe he is nervous as hell when he's on the mound, but it sure hasn't affected his performance.]

I don't necessarily have a problem with speculating on such matters, it's just that I think it's good to keep in mind that it's generally difficult to correctly discern someone's emotions from their actions and it's tough to say how those emotions are going to affect their performance even if we know their emotions perfectly. In the same way that Tom Kelly said that momentum is tomorrow's starting pitcher, sometimes a pitcher's confidence could be as simple as whether he's facing the Red Sox or the Royals in his next start.

That said, players are human, and sometimes it's a good idea to give them an easier assignment to give them some additional confidence. (Again, this is a tricky business, because sometimes a demotion can equally ruin someone's confidence.) But that's the sort of thing that Ron Gardenhire and Rick Anderson know more about than I do. The difference between Bonser and Perkins for a few starts probably isn't a big deal either way, but I guess that my inclination would be to stick with Boof for now.

I tend to favor hanging on to Perkins in this case. I'm not a Perkins fan by any means, but if it's close to a push, then I'd at least like to have a lefty available in my starting five.

2) I agree with you on most of your points above. I think Boof will bounce back at some point. However, watching Boof, he just does not look confident. Can he find his groove again at the major league level, or would it actually benefit him to pitch out of the bullpen or in AAA for a while?

3) I totally agree with you on ERA. It drives me crazy when I guy gets off the hook for 6 runs in an inning because an error occured earlier in the inning.

I guess I can't argue with that. I guess when I say the 800m is easier, I'm talking mentally easier, not physically. We called our 400m sprinters "no-minds", because that's how you run it - you're put in a lane, and you run in that lane until you stumble over the finish line. The 800m has jockeying for position, drafting...much more mentally stimulating.

Sometimes I wish I could go back in time and prevent Henry Chadwick from ever creating ERA in the first place.

Personally, I would like to see Boof in the pen for awhile when Baker comes back.

For that matter, I should have added this to the original post. Since Bonser's ERA has shot from 3.75 to 6.16, he's faced the following teams:

Detroit (twice)
Boston
Texas
Toronto

Boston, Texas, and Detroit have the top three team OPS in the league. And against right-handed pitchers, Toronto has had a league average offense.

Once a pitcher lets go of his pitch, there's all kinds of stuff that could happen that he doesn't have any control over. It's not that results can vary, it's that results will and do vary. Good pitching helps to prevent runs, but there are other factors that are really, really important--especially if you are talking about five games.

Well, Cuddyer and RonDelmon shouldn't have any problem with that explanation.

I think I know what you mean, but if you phrase it that way, you most definitely will have a hard time explaining why Perkins goes and Bonser stays. To most people, including most players, run prevention is the whole idea behind pitching.

I would not have a hard time at all explaining to Perkins or to anyone else for that matter, why Perkins stays and Bonser goes. First, you tell Perkins that you like what you saw, but there's a currently a numbers crunch and he'll have to go back to Rochester, where I'd like to see him continue to improve his control. (His four major league starts don't erase his 5+ BB/9 rate that he's compiled in Rochester so far this year.) Then if the team needs an explanation about the move--which they shouldn't because their job is to play ball with the teammates I give them, not play fantasy GM--I tell them that Boof has had a bad month, but I'm confident the results will improve and that he's their teammate and they ought to have some faith in their teammate.

If Perkins thinks that he has nothing to learn in Rochester, then he's delusional and needs an attitude adjustment anyway.

Just send Perkins back to AAA. Last in, first out.

Perkins' xFIP is barely better than Bonser's so far, and that's with a really low walk rate that I don't at all believe is going to hold up. It would be nice if it did, but it would also have been nice if Boof's 3.75 ERA after six starts would have held up.

I know he's the next big thing and all, but based on his track record, at best switching Perkins and Bonser is a lateral move. Bonser and Perkins are the sort of pitching prospects that wind up with unrealistic expectations attached to them (mostly because of the high strikeout rate with bad control--the high strikeout rate indicates good stuff, but they are going to be frustrating without the good control.) It's the unrealistic expectations that lead people to believe you can't trust young pitchers or whatever. Instead, you just can't trust rookie pitchers with that kind of track record to be "consistent." They are mediocre pitchers and at times they will look good and at times they will look awful.

Unless you're going to DFA Rincon or Crain, I don't really see the point in adding someone else to the bullpen. Those two have been the worst two pitchers in the bullpen and we have reasons to doubt each of them (Rincon's persistent post-suspension decline, and Crain's injury.)