Perhaps slightly premature, but here goes:
Eduardo Rodriguez has finally (*knocks wood*) thrown a healthy season. With three starts remaining, he has thrown 185.3 IP of 3.64 ERA baseball, going 17-6. He struck out 9.2/9, walked 3.3/9, and allowed 1.1 HR/9. He's averaging just a fraction shy of 6 IP/start.
The first half wasn't great: through mid-June he had a 4.87 ERA and was allowing a .782 OPS (.332 BABIP). Due to generous run support he somehow managed to go 8-4 in that span, and the team won all of his no-decisions. But the second half was unambiguously good: since his last start in June — an admittedly cherry-picked boundary to produce a contrast — Rodriguez has gone 9-2 with a 2.50 ERA, allowing only a .663 OPS (.290 BABIP). That doesn't include his excellent start in a no-decision against Philadelphia tonight. That's an ace-level performance for half a season.
He had eight games where he went 7 IP or more, and he allowed 1 or fewer runs in seven of them, including in starts against LAD and MIN, two of the leagues better offenses.
His RA/9 is considerably better than his FIP (due, at a first approximation, to good timing on HR — 13/23 were solo shots) , so he's a guy who Baseball-Reference (5.5 rWAR – 11th in baseball, between Steven Strasburg and Sonny Gray) likes way more than Fangraphs (2.8 fWAR – 44th, between Frankie Montas and John Means). This was Eddy's last pre-arb season, and we will have three more years of team control.
Rodriguez' health and his strong second half was lost a bit in the team's struggles and fall from contention, but I think it's one of the most optimistic developments for the franchise in a disappointing season, right next to Devers' breakout and Gilberto Jimenez's fantastic season in Lowell.
How are people feeling about Rodriguez with an eye to 2020 and beyond? Has he turned a corner, or is his second half just a good string of starts amidst an up and down career?
Eduardo Rodriguez has finally (*knocks wood*) thrown a healthy season. With three starts remaining, he has thrown 185.3 IP of 3.64 ERA baseball, going 17-6. He struck out 9.2/9, walked 3.3/9, and allowed 1.1 HR/9. He's averaging just a fraction shy of 6 IP/start.
The first half wasn't great: through mid-June he had a 4.87 ERA and was allowing a .782 OPS (.332 BABIP). Due to generous run support he somehow managed to go 8-4 in that span, and the team won all of his no-decisions. But the second half was unambiguously good: since his last start in June — an admittedly cherry-picked boundary to produce a contrast — Rodriguez has gone 9-2 with a 2.50 ERA, allowing only a .663 OPS (.290 BABIP). That doesn't include his excellent start in a no-decision against Philadelphia tonight. That's an ace-level performance for half a season.
He had eight games where he went 7 IP or more, and he allowed 1 or fewer runs in seven of them, including in starts against LAD and MIN, two of the leagues better offenses.
His RA/9 is considerably better than his FIP (due, at a first approximation, to good timing on HR — 13/23 were solo shots) , so he's a guy who Baseball-Reference (5.5 rWAR – 11th in baseball, between Steven Strasburg and Sonny Gray) likes way more than Fangraphs (2.8 fWAR – 44th, between Frankie Montas and John Means). This was Eddy's last pre-arb season, and we will have three more years of team control.
Rodriguez' health and his strong second half was lost a bit in the team's struggles and fall from contention, but I think it's one of the most optimistic developments for the franchise in a disappointing season, right next to Devers' breakout and Gilberto Jimenez's fantastic season in Lowell.
How are people feeling about Rodriguez with an eye to 2020 and beyond? Has he turned a corner, or is his second half just a good string of starts amidst an up and down career?