Rick Porcello: What's Wrong?

[Harry Hooper]

 
Yeah, right.  Let's move Porcello when his trade value is at an all-time low.  Do you want the Sox to package him with Mookie and get a mid-level prospect in return?  That might get it done.  Or they can just toss 2015 off as an adjustment year for Porcello, and hope he returns to form as a solid #2-#3 in a good rotation.

 
 
Here we go again, a la Crawford. Is his value low, yes. Could it go even lower, yes.

 

[Savin Hillbilly]

Yeah, right.  Let's move Porcello when his trade value is at an all-time low.  Do you want the Sox to package him with Mookie and get a mid-level prospect in return?  That might get it done.  Or they can just toss 2015 off as an adjustment year for Porcello, and hope he returns to form as a solid #2-#3 in a good rotation.

 
At this point I'd settle for returning to form as a solid #4-#5 in a good rotation.
 
 

This. It's pretty funny that Ben played Lester (who will be attached to Porcello for at least a few years in these parts) and Porcello the complete opposite ways in terms of contract negotiations..and ended up playing them both the completely wrong way.

Three months in seems a little early to decide that Ben played the Lester negotiations the wrong way, no? 
 
 

Someone earlier in the thread mentioned that Porcello is changing the way he pitches and the type of pitcher he is in some misguided attempt to justify his contract and I think that's exactly right.

If so, then the problem here is stupidity, which might be tougher to fix than mechanics.
 

 

...the quotes that really caught my eye and made me wince were him talking about how the AL Central and AL East are completely different because the East had much better fastball hitters (in reference to why he threw his terrible change up so much yesterday) and how in Comerica if you hit a 410 foot fly ball to center it's an out and in AL East parks it's a home run.

In fact, the only AL East park he has a career ERA under 5 in is Tropicana. So I'd say he's onto something, except that this year he's been just as bad in AL Central parks.
 
But if the AL East spooks him so much, why on earth did he sign on for an extra four years here? Did he figure that he'd probably have shitty numbers pitching in this division, so this might be his last chance to get paid like a good pitcher? 

 

[Smiling Joe Hesketh]

Post-Crawford deal, you would think and hope that this would be a a bigger focus for the FO (is the player ready to play to his new deal...and do so in Boston?)

With a guy like Porcello (far from an established stud), I think it's pretty clear that they should have let him "earn" the big contract. Do we really think his price would have run far away from $20MM per? Even if it did, it would have been worth it.

It's all the more befuddling when they lowballed a guy in Lester who DID have a track record of success in Boston.

 
 
Not for nothing, but Lester is 4-6 with an ERA+ of 102 and a much worse K/BB rate this year than last despite going to the NL where he gets to K opposing pitchers. This doesn't make anything about Porcello better, but Lester's off to a slow start for his new team as well, so there's likely an adjustment period for everyone.

 

[smastroyin]

Everything is revisionist, but I do think that my initial feelings on this deal - that they weren't getting enough of a discount to take on the risk, is valid.  It may work out in the end but I'm not sure that matters to my thinking.  The only reason to give the contract is because you think you won't be able to sign him as a FA and/or will get a discount signing him early.  Maybe they thought there was a chance he would step up into the upper echelon and get $25 million on the open market, but it's more realistic to think that he would be a $22 million or so guy given the other pitchers on the market, and assuming he repeated his 2014.  So you took on the risk that he would continue to be good for the savings of $3 million per year or so?  Obviously I am making up numbers since this is fantasy land, but I do think they took on a bit much risk for too little reward, particularly given Porcello's history.  
 
I know there was some pressure on them to not repeat the Lester mistake, letting a guy pitch his contract year and then walk after he performs really well, and that probably tipped the scale, and frankly I am more concerned about the guaranteed roster spot than the size of the contract.  Hopefully he spends the next few years making me regret this post, because the Sox can afford throwing $20 million into a hole, I'm not sure they can afford giving starts to a pitcher this bad.

 

[johnnywayback]

The Sox seemed to focus way too much on Porcello's age and durability; ignoring that he wasn't a particularly great pitcher and his peripherals don't suggest he could become one.

 
They weren't counting on him to be or become "particularly great," although his 87/93/96/114 ERA+ trend, the idea that we might offer better IF defense, and his age all suggested a bit of upside.  His age and durability were the point -- they figured they could have a durable, healthy, in-his-prime mid-rotation starter for the next several years.
 
So, acquiring him made sense.  Planning, in acquiring him, to extend him made sense.  Guessing that he had less chance of collapsing in 2015 (and thus destroying his FA value) than an older pitcher made sense.  So trying to get a deal done early made sense.
 

So you took on the risk that he would continue to be good for the savings of $3 million per year or so?  

 
They took on the risk for the savings of $50 million overall or so -- the "discount" wasn't in the AAV of the deal, but in the short years.  Wouldn't a Porcello who had a 2015 like his 2014 -- or even like the average of his 2012-2014, which means you don't think he's any better at 26 than he was at 23 -- would have gotten a six or seven year contract?

 

[Rovin Romine]

In hindsight, how does a team expect a guy with such middling peripherals (1 HR, 2 BB, 5+ K / 9) to become elite? A guy like that will never dominate and any spike on HR or BB rate equals disaster. Porcello is unique in that pitchers with his profile don't usually become established big leaguers so young (guess Mike Leake is another), but a lot has to go right for Porcello to even be average, and I'm sure not being able to hide at the back of a very good a Tiger rotation doesn't help either.

 
Sometimes it seems like the Sox have had a tendency to acquire guys whom they're going to "fix" or "convert" to a different type of player - ignoring that what they are, when acquired, may be the best they can be.   I recall reading somewhere that Farrell thought Porcello wasn't throwing his best pitch often enough - with the implication being that the jump he made in 2014 was solid and could be better.  
 
Perhaps one of the problems with Porcello is that he's been asked to pitch in a different way than he has in previous years.  (Whether or not he's actually doing so is another matter.)

 

[johnnywayback]

Eh, I don't think you gave a mid-rotation starter that kind of money. 
 
 
I know many disagree, but I don't think a guy with a K rate under 6 and a career ERA+ ~100 would have gotten a 6 / 7 year deal at $20M+ per on the open market.  I mean, is Mike Leake going to get that kind of money?
 
If you look at the deals signed last year...you've got Scherzer (7 / $110), Lester (6 / $155)...then Shields (4 / $75), Santana (4 / $55), McCarthy (4 / $48), and Liriano (3 / $39). 
 
Year before you had the unique case of Tanaka (7 / $155), and then Nolaso, Garza, and Jiminez all in the 4 / $50 range.
 
Porcello is certainly different in that he's a lot younger than a normal free agent, but performance wise you'd have to be projecting a lot of improvement to put him in the class of Lester, when his performance is a lot similar to the Santana / McCarthy crew.

 
I think where we disagree is in how significant this difference is.  Shields is 33, Santana is 32, McCarthy and Liriano are 31.  Porcello will be 27 in December.  You could sign him to a six-year contract without having to pay for his age 34-35-36 seasons, dramatically lowering the likelihood that you'll end up with a Mike Hampton on your hands.  He had also been far more consistent than McCarthy or Liriano, at least.  
 
You're right, though, in that Leake will be a good test case.  I'd be willing to bet he gets a bigger deal than Porcello, but if he gets 4/48, it will make the guess on Porcello's market look less wise.

 

[glennhoffmania]

Everything is revisionist, but I do think that my initial feelings on this deal - that they weren't getting enough of a discount to take on the risk, is valid.  It may work out in the end but I'm not sure that matters to my thinking.  The only reason to give the contract is because you think you won't be able to sign him as a FA and/or will get a discount signing him early.  Maybe they thought there was a chance he would step up into the upper echelon and get $25 million on the open market, but it's more realistic to think that he would be a $22 million or so guy given the other pitchers on the market, and assuming he repeated his 2014.  So you took on the risk that he would continue to be good for the savings of $3 million per year or so?  Obviously I am making up numbers since this is fantasy land, but I do think they took on a bit much risk for too little reward, particularly given Porcello's history.  
 
I know there was some pressure on them to not repeat the Lester mistake, letting a guy pitch his contract year and then walk after he performs really well, and that probably tipped the scale, and frankly I am more concerned about the guaranteed roster spot than the size of the contract.  Hopefully he spends the next few years making me regret this post, because the Sox can afford throwing $20 million into a hole, I'm not sure they can afford giving starts to a pitcher this bad.

 
This was and still is my view as well.  I liked the trade and I didn't think the extension was horrible, but I also didn't think it was a bargain.  Yes, they had to increase the AAV to get him to agree to only four years, but he was also a full year away from FA and it didn't seem like any discount was built in to account for that.  Unless he had a very good year, I didn't think someone was going to blow him away with something like 7 years at more than $20m per.  So I think it was an overpay but not an egregious one.  No one expected him to be this bad though.

 

[Rovin Romine]

 
This was and still is my view as well.  I liked the trade and I didn't think the extension was horrible, but I also didn't think it was a bargain.  Yes, they had to increase the AAV to get him to agree to only four years, but he was also a full year away from FA and it didn't seem like any discount was built in to account for that.  Unless he had a very good year, I didn't think someone was going to blow him away with something like 7 years at more than $20m per.  So I think it was an overpay but not an egregious one.  No one expected him to be this bad though.

 

In hindsight, how does a team expect a guy with such middling peripherals (1 HR, 2 BB, 5+ K / 9) to become elite? A guy like that will never dominate and any spike on HR or BB rate equals disaster. Porcello is unique in that pitchers with his profile don't usually become established big leaguers so young (guess Mike Leake is another), but a lot has to go right for Porcello to even be average, and I'm sure not being able to hide at the back of a very good a Tiger rotation doesn't help either.

 
Do sinkerballers fit the standard profile for good peripherals?  I was just perusing Derek Lowe's stats - he had some really effective years with a SO9 of 4-5 and a BB9 of 2-3.  Porcello's been a touch more HR happy (and very much more this year.)  Whereas Lowe usually clocked in with a HR9 of .6 to .7, Porcello's career is around 1, as you said.  Although Porcello's '13 (age 24) and '14 (age 25) campaigns had a HR9 of .8.  
 
Lowe's best years had a FIP roughly around 3.3, but he was an effective starter with a FIP as high as 4.   Again, Porcello's '13 and '14 campaigns had the lowest FIPs of his career to date at 3.5 and 3.6.  (Porcello also seemed a lock for 31 starts a year.)
 
Perhaps they thought they were getting something like Lowe at age 26.  Seems like Porcello had only to make a small step forward to get there.  Even if they thought he was a 90% version of Lowe, it seems like a very reasonable contract.    
 
Was Ben suckered by two years of data?  Was it reasonable to expect a 27 year old to make a slight step forward in his pitching?  Again, as with so many of the disappointing results this year, I can't say it was an obviously bad call, or even a "risky" signing. 

 

[WenZink]

 
 
Here we go again, a la Crawford. Is his value low, yes. Could it go even lower, yes.

And just how could it go lower?  Porcello currently has the worst ERA in the league for qualifying starters.  Do you think he can get worse than that?  He has no trade value, right now.  A contending team doesn't want a pitcher in the worst funk of his career, and those clubs out of contention are not going to add payroll in a down year.  But Porcello will almost surely pitch better one month, two months  or three months from now.  Whether or not he ever pitches up to his contract is another matter.
 
I heard the same nonsense about Buchholz two months ago -- that the Sox should cut him or trade him for next to nothing.  Now, in July Buchholz is a valuable trade chip, with two $13 million club options.  Now is the time to trade Buch, not Porcello.

 

[smastroyin]

I just want to point out that you aren't saving $50 million.  Not in a practical sense.  In year 6 you will still need to fill the roster spot, which will cost you some money. 
 
Of course a shorter deal grants you more flexibility and may also give you more ability to trade him if this goes on.  These things have some value.  I'm still not sure they actually make the difference.  The point of why Porcello was willing to sign a shorter contract is the expectation he will be good at the end of it and have a chance at another big contract still.  In which case you will have wanted to have had him locked him.  So there are both sides.

 

[WenZink]

 
They took on the risk for the savings of $50 million overall or so -- the "discount" wasn't in the AAV of the deal, but in the short years.  Wouldn't a Porcello who had a 2015 like his 2014 -- or even like the average of his 2012-2014, which means you don't think he's any better at 26 than he was at 23 -- would have gotten a six or seven year contract?

 
Excellent point.  I've heard commentary by "the experts" that in this year's potentially, pitching-rich free-agent market, that Porcello wouldn't have commanded much more that the AAV that he got in his extension from the Sox.  But the years would have been much longer, of course.  The Sox were trying to avoid having to pay for a 5th/6th/7th year for a pitcher in his 30's.  At his age, there's valid optimism that Porcello turns it around.  If he were 32, there'd be a whole lot less validity.

 

[GaryPeters71]

Help is on the way for struggling Rick Porcello
http://www.bostonglobe.com/sports/2015/07/02/help-way-for-struggling-rick-porcello/XjWnExx55ewCDo9TmBtJrI/story.html?event=event25
 
By Peter Abraham GLOBE STAFF  JULY 02, 2015
TORONTO — The person who can fix Rick Porcello will be added to the Red Sox roster on Thursday. It’s catcher Ryan Hanigan.
 
Porcello is 4-9 with a 6.08 earned run average and hasn’t won a game since the middle of May. Simply put, he is the worst starter in the American League.

 

[Smiling Joe Hesketh]

Please don't post full articles here. A link and a synopsis will do. I edited your post. Thanks.

 

[bobesox]

Gravitas. Jeez. Do we know if Blake was calling for 2 seamers and getting shaken off? Does "The Plumber" figure out scouting reports all by himself? If so can he share this info.

Are the Sox going to need to carry like 3 or 4 catchers so every starter has his own binky?

If Porcello has that little conviction that the catcher is why he sucks then this is a big problem.

 

[Savin Hillbilly]

Gravitas. Jeez. Do we know if Blake was calling for 2 seamers and getting shaken off? Does "The Plumber" figure out scouting reports all by himself? If so can he share this info.

 
I thought the pitches were being called from the dugout when Swihart was out there anyway. If so, he's not shaking off Blake, he's shaking off Farrell and Willis.
 
Either way, if the people around you are telling you not to do something, and you keep doing it anyway, and you get terrible results, and you still don't listen to them....well, again, it's starting to look like the problem with Porcello is not physical or mechanical.

 

[Red(s)HawksFan]

 
I thought the pitches were being called from the dugout when Swihart was out there anyway. If so, he's not shaking off Blake, he's shaking off Farrell and Willis.
 
Either way, if the people around you are telling you not to do something, and you keep doing it anyway, and you get terrible results, and you still don't listen to them....well, again, it's starting to look like the problem with Porcello is not physical or mechanical.

 
Which is why I want to hang on to my hopes that this is Porcello's version of Josh Beckett 2006.  Not that he'll come around next year and have a CY caliber performance, but that whatever is going on in his head will click and he'll be the pitcher the Sox expected, if not better next year.
 
IIRC, Beckett's biggest problem in 2006 was over-reliance on his fastball and a bit of gopher-ball-itis (career high of 36 in 204 IP).  When he got it in his head that he needed to mix his pitches better (arguably translated to "listen to Varitek") and not try to blow everyone away with heat, he became a better pitcher.
 
Whatever Porcello's issue, if he can (re-)discover whatever it is that made him so attractive to the Red Sox in the first place, that'd be a step in the right direction.  This team doesn't need him to be an elite starting pitcher.  They need him to be at minimum an average starting pitcher, paycheck be damned.

 

[geoduck no quahog]

Not to rain on anyone's parade, but I remain skeptical that his only major problem is pitch selection and that Hanigan is the miracle cure.

Although it does sound like a nice piece for the Globe to write...as speculative.

 

[Harry Hooper]

And just how could it go lower?  Porcello currently has the worst ERA in the league for qualifying starters.  Do you think he can get worse than that?  He has no trade value, right now.  A contending team doesn't want a pitcher in the worst funk of his career, and those clubs out of contention are not going to add payroll in a down year.  But Porcello will almost surely pitch better one month, two months  or three months from now.  Whether or not he ever pitches up to his contract is another matter.
 
I heard the same nonsense about Buchholz two months ago -- that the Sox should cut him or trade him for next to nothing.  Now, in July Buchholz is a valuable trade chip, with two $13 million club options.  Now is the time to trade Buch, not Porcello.

 
 
First of all, it's not about trading for value, it's finding a suitor who'll take on a major chunk of his salary betting on your proposed significant turnaround with the shift to a bigger ballpark or whatever. Secondly, His value could certainly go lower the longer his struggles continue. If he becomes a mop-up guy in the pen in the coming months, the Sox will be paying almost all of his salary to find a taker.

 

[WenZink]

 
 
First of all, it's not about trading for value, it's finding a suitor who'll take on a major chunk of his salary betting on your proposed significant turnaround with the shift to a bigger ballpark or whatever. Secondly, His value could certainly go lower the longer his struggles continue. If he becomes a mop-up guy in the pen in the coming months, the Sox will be paying almost all of his salary to find a taker.

If you want someone to take a major chunk of his salary, right now, then you're going to have to bundle him with Betts or Swihart.  Same way the Sox had to ship off A Gonzalez in order to move Crawford.  Porcello isn't worth a third of his contract, right now, and no way do I want the Sox to pin $55 million to Porcello's bib and leave him on the doorstep of the Seattle Mariners.
 

 

[Savin Hillbilly]

 
 
First of all, it's not about trading for value, it's finding a suitor who'll take on a major chunk of his salary betting on your proposed significant turnaround with the shift to a bigger ballpark or whatever. Secondly, His value could certainly go lower the longer his struggles continue. If he becomes a mop-up guy in the pen in the coming months, the Sox will be paying almost all of his salary to find a taker.

 
I'm not sure this is true at this point. It might have been true a few weeks ago, but by now isn't his broken-ness pretty firmly established? It's hard to picture anyone giving up non-trivial value for him absent some evidence that he's begun to turn things around. I don't think the Sox moving him to the bullpen at this point would be read as indicating anything that wasn't already obvious.

 

[Sampo Gida]

 
Yeah, at least results wise, it seems like Porcello has some serious issues on his non-fastball stuff - if you believe pitch f/x's pitch classifications, his changeup is getting crushed to a .982 OPS, and his slider hammered to a .929 OPS. Having better secondary pitches could certainly help Porcello's fastballs be a little more effective. Of course, Porcello throws mostly fastballs, but he might not have to if he could rely a little more on his other pitches. 
 
EDIT: Unless I'm totally reading this wrong, there's something weird happening  with the classification of whatever slider-type pitch Porcello is throwing. Brooks has Porcello as throwing 8 sliders all year, and pitch f/x has 153. That kind of disparity seems....strange. Does that mean Porcello's stopped throwing his slider and pitch f/x is just classifying his slower moving fastballs as sliders, or is his slider's movement so 'non-movementy' that it's now classified as just a slow moving fastball by the Brooks' system? Whatever it is, it seems like whatever slider-like pitch he's throwing probably isn't very sharp.

 
I noticed this too on the slider/cutter at Brooks.  I recall in the offseason an article where Porcello credited his cutter with his improved performance last year, but Brooks had him throwing more sliders.  I think they are just classifying it correctly now as cutters.  Good question to ask him though.
 
Looking at the vertical movement on the cutter this year and last, it looks like its a bit flatter this year with less vertical drop.  Batter are hitting 400 against the cutter with a 571 SLG, both of which are higher than last year.
 
His problems are likely multi-factorial though, location, increased use of the 4 seamer, smaller park, tougher offensive division, etc, all of which have been discussed before are likely all contributors to his regression

 

[Auger34]

 
Sometimes it seems like the Sox have had a tendency to acquire guys whom they're going to "fix" or "convert" to a different type of player - ignoring that what they are, when acquired, may be the best they can be.   I recall reading somewhere that Farrell thought Porcello wasn't throwing his best pitch often enough - with the implication being that the jump he made in 2014 was solid and could be better.  
 
Perhaps one of the problems with Porcello is that he's been asked to pitch in a different way than he has in previous years.  (Whether or not he's actually doing so is another matter.)

What's worrisome is I dont think he is being asked to do this, I think he is doing this on his own. He has conscientiously decided that with his new contract, new division, and new stadiums that this is the pitcher and pitch mix (going for more K's, more four seamers and less 2 seamers) he needs to use. (None of us can ever have definitive proof but the Porcello and Farrell quotes to the press seem to heavily suggest this)
Now the optimistic view is, as someone suggested earlier, that this could be a 2006 Beckett scenario where he gets out of his own head/stops being so stubborn and listens more to Farrell/Willis. Pessimistic view is this guy is somewhat of a head case and can't handle the pressure cooker of Boston (and doesn't have the stuff of a Buchholz to overcome the fragile mental state)

 

[uncannymanny]

 
 
First of all, it's not about trading for value, it's finding a suitor who'll take on a major chunk of his salary betting on your proposed significant turnaround with the shift to a bigger ballpark or whatever. Secondly, His value could certainly go lower the longer his struggles continue. If he becomes a mop-up guy in the pen in the coming months, the Sox will be paying almost all of his salary to find a taker.

"it's not about trading for value, it's finding a suitor who'll take on a major chunk of his salary" -- so you're expecting BC finds an insane party to just take Porcello because...why exactly?

 

[alwyn96]

 
I noticed this too on the slider/cutter at Brooks.  I recall in the offseason an article where Porcello credited his cutter with his improved performance last year, but Brooks had him throwing more sliders.  I think they are just classifying it correctly now as cutters.  Good question to ask him though.
 
Looking at the vertical movement on the cutter this year and last, it looks like its a bit flatter this year with less vertical drop.  Batter are hitting 400 against the cutter with a 571 SLG, both of which are higher than last year.
 
His problems are likely multi-factorial though, location, increased use of the 4 seamer, smaller park, tougher offensive division, etc, all of which have been discussed before are likely all contributors to his regression

 
Oh yeah, Porcello's problems are totally multifactorial. Other than injury/mechanical issues, "messed up in the head/isn't understanding pitching right now," or "just isn't a very good pitcher in general," which are all further up on the causal chain and more the why than the how, it's tough to pick out any one thing and say it's the sole cause of Porcello's problems. It's all a rich tapestry.
 
EDIT: Just to clarify my why v how of Porcello's suckage (not intended to be an exhaustive list):
 
How (hittability):
poor command
predictable sequencing?
breaking pitches that don't break well / bad finish/bite/late life on pitches
not getting groundballs - too many HR
fastball too straight? (I have no idea)
bad luck (maybe a little, but clearly there's legit bad pitching here)
 
Why:
injury?
mechanics?
bad gameplans/catching/coaching?
mental (confidence/stupidity/distraction/general messed upness)?
just not a good pitcher?
 
If the front office is going to dump Porcello, then they should probably be focusing on the "why" of Porcello's suckage (and of course for each how there is a set of plausible whys). 'Just not a good pitcher' seems the most troubling. He's never had big strikeouty stats or a particularly great season, but if you have good control and keep the ball on the ground, that can be ok. Worked for Roy Halladay and Roy Oswalt. Porcello used to be able to keep the ball on the ground and has good not great control that maybe could get better cause he's young? It's not insane, but it requires some improvement to get there. Given that Detroit brought him up early and kept him in the rotation despite his struggles, that's at least some 'outside the Red Sox organization' confidence that Porcello has some talent/potential and isn't just a bad pitcher - or at least baseball people believed he had the potential to get better. Plus his FIPs were decent lately or something (and if you're into some deep fangraphs shit, his SIERA ERA is almost exactly the same as last year's - 3.91 v 3.88). So there's that, for what it's worth.
 
If he's got some mental issues, like seemingly every other Red Sox pitcher ever (or maybe all pitchers? pitchers are weird), then who knows. I guess you hope he figures that shit out? If it's career-killing injury or something they have no hope of ever figuring out then yeah, trade the hell out of him.
 
EDIT2: I guess this was less of a reply and more of a general musing. Sorry.

 

[alwyn96]

 
I thought the pitches were being called from the dugout when Swihart was out there anyway. If so, he's not shaking off Blake, he's shaking off Farrell and Willis.

 
I gotta think it's best if the catcher can call the pitches, right? Farrell/Willis can only see so much from the dugout. It's a ways away, from a funny angle, and they're old dudes with old eyes. They can't see what the hitter is seeing, while the catcher can. Plus the catcher has most close-up view of how the hitters are reacting to the pitches. It seems like calling the pitches from the dugout has got to be a couple levels worse than a knowledgeable catcher calling pitches.
 
At any rate, if it wasn't a mental thing before, I'd imagine being one of the worst starters in MLB would start to get in Porcello's head now. There's probably a storm of advice/coaching/emotions churning around in there. He's not too demonstrative on the mound, but that's gotta be tough for him.
 
Or not. It would certainly eat me alive inside, but that's one of the many reasons why I'm not a major league pitcher.

 

[Harry Hooper]

"it's not about trading for value, it's finding a suitor who'll take on a major chunk of his salary" -- so you're expecting BC finds an insane party to just take Porcello because...why exactly?

 
Because of his track record pre-Fenway, his age, and a subsidy from the Sox which would lower his salary into the worthwhile turnaround proposition range for another club.

 

[Red(s)HawksFan]

 
Because of his track record pre-Fenway, his age, and a subsidy from the Sox which would lower his salary into the worthwhile turnaround proposition range for another club.

 
So if we're expecting that another team buys in on his track record pre-Fenway and hopes for a return to that form, enough to give back something of significance, why can't the Red Sox bank on that return to form and ride this low point out?
 
Hate to keep going back to it, but the last time the Red Sox unloaded an "albatross" contract, they were more than 3 months into said deal (nearly 2 years in, in fact) and they had to staple the guy to a perennial all star performer to a) keep the subsidy low and b) make the return package relatively attractive.
 
I can't see a team taking a flier on Porcello in a deadline deal.  IF there is to be a dumping of Porcello on someone else, it's going to be an off-season deal anyway.  And either way, it will probably take attaching him to a more attractive/affordable player to get the deal done.  I, personally, would not want to see them do that.

 

[NDame616]

"it's not about trading for value, it's finding a suitor who'll take on a major chunk of his salary" -- so you're expecting BC finds an insane party to just take Porcello because...why exactly?

Well, in theory you could replace "Porcello" in that statement and replace it with "Crawford and Beckett" a few years ago....

 

[Red(s)HawksFan]

Well, in theory you could replace "Porcello" in that statement and replace it with "Crawford and Beckett" a few years ago....

 
So, in theory, who do you replace "Gonzalez" with in this analogy?  Because he's the reason they were able to move Crawford and Beckett without having to subsidize much of the deal.  Betts?  Bogaerts?  EdRod?
 
One once in a lifetime bail-out trade doesn't mean they can just do it anytime they need to.

 

[grimshaw]

Truly apropos of nothing:
Clay's ERA when Willis arrived and as of today (6.03 to 3.48)
Porcello has gone from 4.38 to 6.03
Kelly's didn't budge, Miley's has improved
Finding the tipped pitch thing with EdRo was helpful, though not sure if Farrell or Willis caught that.
Let's see what happens with Masterson v 2.0

 

[WenZink]

 
So, in theory, who do you replace "Gonzalez" with in this analogy?  Because he's the reason they were able to move Crawford and Beckett without having to subsidize much of the deal.  Betts?  Bogaerts?  EdRod?
 
One once in a lifetime bail-out trade doesn't mean they can just do it anytime they need to.

Exactly.  And the math isn't that difficult.  Just subtract the projected monetary equivalent of Porcello's WAR(as of July 3rd) over the next 4.5 years from the cost of his contract.  And you'll see that you have to offer a team something like a Betts or Swihart that is projected to be that much more (WAR)productive than what their cost-controlled salaries will be.
 
Of course, the Sox aren't go to do that.  Betts and Swihart are a big part of their future.  So Porcello stays in Boston until if/when he gets better.

 

[iayork]

Finding the tipped pitch thing with EdRo was helpful, though not sure if Farrell or Willis caught that. 

According to multiple reports, Buchholz, Miley, Ortiz, Sandoval, Farrell, and Willis all caught it independently; Buchholz may have been the first to tell EdRod because Farrell and Willis were still, like, managing the game. 

 

[Harry Hooper]

 
So if we're expecting that another team buys in on his track record pre-Fenway and hopes for a return to that form, enough to give back something of significance, why can't the Red Sox bank on that return to form and ride this low point out?
 
Hate to keep going back to it, but the last time the Red Sox unloaded an "albatross" contract, they were more than 3 months into said deal (nearly 2 years in, in fact) and they had to staple the guy to a perennial all star performer to a) keep the subsidy low and b) make the return package relatively attractive.
 
I can't see a team taking a flier on Porcello in a deadline deal.  IF there is to be a dumping of Porcello on someone else, it's going to be an off-season deal anyway.  And either way, it will probably take attaching him to a more attractive/affordable player to get the deal done.  I, personally, would not want to see them do that.

 
 
Where did I ever suggest getting something back? I think I was very clear.

 

[Byrdbrain]

So you think his value could go lower than none?
Trading him now would be dumb and it isn't going to happen, hopefully he gets his shit together and becomes a decent mid-rotation starter. It would be nice if they could skip him this time through but since it appears the Sox have another starter who is as bad and has little chance of getting better I don't see that happening.

 

[Thelobsterroll]

So how about instead of trying to diagnosis what is wrong or assessing his trade value we discuss what to do with him. I think best case is a DL stint where he can get a "rehab" assignment and work on whatever ails him, but if he won't agree with that you got to at least pull him from the rotation and throw him in the bullpen. I think Steven Wright and Brian Johnson should come up to take the spots of Masterson and Porcello. DFA Breslow and Masteron to make room.

 

[soxhop411]

“@TomCaron: Pitching news: Farrell says Miley will start Tue vs #Marlins and Porcello on Wed. Masters on out of bullpen for rest of homestand. #RedSox”

 

[Eck'sSneakyCheese]

Just browsing some maps over at Brooks Baseball and it would seem to me that his mechanics are way off this year. The sinker has way less movement and his release point is too high. I would post the screenshots if I wasn't on mobile.

Porcello can be fixed. I'm not going to damn him in his first year here. The guy needs a phantom DL stint at this point. It's a little frustrating that the head coach is an ex pitching coach and he can't seem to right any of this. Unless Nieves really screwed this staffs collective heads up, I'm not sure what Willis and Farrell are actually doing...
 
Edit: So, I finally got to a computer and I still can't figure out how to post the charts from Brooks. If you use Month as the timeframe and use vertical movement as the y and horizontal as the x from 2013 to 2015 there's about a +2 inch difference in vertical movement. The sinker isn't sinking.

 

[StupendousMan]

Here are the graphs Eck'sSneakyCheese mentioned. First, from 2009 through the end of the 2013 season:
 
View attachment 1176
 
Next, the 2014 season:
 
View attachment 1177
 
Finally, the current 2015 season:
 
View attachment 1178

 

[Savin Hillbilly]

I notice that not only is the sinker sinking less, but so is the slutter--I'm using this term because all the graphs at Brooks make it look as if this is basically the same pitch that has morphed from more slider-like tendencies (less velocity, more drop) to more cutter-like tendencies (faster, less drop) over the past year or so.
 
This leads me to ask, is there a common mechanical thread to both those pitches (sinker and slider) losing vertical movement? And could this suggest a possible mechanical or (hopefully not) physical problem?

 

[StupendousMan]

Hmmmm.   Actually, the way that I would phrase it is that Porcello's sinker (aka 2-seam fastball) hasn't _lost_ vertical movement -- it has actually _gained_ it: the pitch moves farther away from the zero-point of the diagram, which corresponds to a pitch thrown without any spin.   So, I'd say that the 2-seam fastball has increased its vertical rise, which can happen in two ways:
 

• he's providing more backspin, or
• he's changing the orientation of the spin axis to make it more horizontal

The same type of change appears to happen to the pitch identified as "slider" or "cutter": the 2015 version has more vertical rise than the earlier versions.  Once again, this increased vertical rise can occur for the same two reasons.
 
On the other hand, the horizontal motion of these pitches doesn't seem to change by a significant amount -- does it?  
 
My guess is that a small change of the grip is responsible for the changes, but I can't justify it.  One would hope that the Sox pitching staff would be doing a thorough video analysis of Porcello's motion and grip over the years; they must have the resources to do so.
 
(edit) On the third hand, the vertical rise of the 4-seam fastball ALSO increases in 2015.   That could either mean that there's some systematic change in Porcello's delivery that is affecting all his pitches -- which might indicate an arm motion, shared by all pitches, rather than a grip, which would differ from one to the next -- OR it could indicate that the Pitchf/x system might have changed in some way this year.

 

[Eck'sSneakyCheese]

The pitch moving farther away from zero ( positively) means that its not sinking. The closer it gets to zero the more it sinks.

 

[The Tax Man]

The Red Sox are now 5 games out of first place with a 3 game series coming up against the first place Yanks. They've also won 7 out of their last 10 games. Tonight they've got one more game against the lowly Marlins. This seems like a pretty important one for Porcello. As analyzed today on sonsofsamhorn.com by Abs, Porcello is a huge piece of the puzzle if the Sox are going to put up a serious fight for the playoffs.  

 

[JesusQuintana]

Not only is Porcello a huge piece of the puzzle, tonight's start is his most important as a member of the Red Sox.  Being 13-7 in their last 20 games, and five games out, tonight's start is monumentally important.
 
The AL East standings approaching the break are kind of ridiculous:
 
Yankees 44-39, .530, --
Orioles 43-41, .512, 1.5
Blue Jays 44-42, .512, 1.5
Rays 43-43, .500, 2.5
Sox 40-45, .471, 5
 
If Porcello fails miserably tonight, it could really stifle the Sox current momentum.  Alternatively, if he goes out and plays even close to the value that the Sox are paying him, he could continue this torrid streak (and the momentum) into the Yankees series.  In that case, the Sox would be riding a four game win streak, and 8 of their last 10 into Fenway for a three-game set against the Bombers - a series win (or a sweep) would be enormous.
 
The O's, Rays and Jays are all playing against non-AL East teams before the break.  There's a mathematical possibility that the AL East could be all of 1.5 games apart from first to last.  That would make for an exciting trade deadline and second half.

 

[AB in DC]

That seems awfully myopic. A game against the Marlins is not nearly as important as a game with a division rival. And if "momentum" is an issue, then the games in May were much more important, because that's when the team dug the hole there's still trying to climb out of.
 
That's especially true since the offense is much stronger now, to the point where the Sox have won games despite a poor starting pitching performance -- something that was completely unheard of a few months ago.

 

[The Tax Man]

Not only is it about building momentum for the team, but the Sox also need Porcello to get off his snide. If they are going anywhere, he's going to have to be a big contributor to that. If he can't toss a decent start against the Marlins, I'll be very pessimistic. 

 

[absintheofmalaise]

That seems awfully myopic. A game against the Marlins is not nearly as important as a game with a division rival. And if "momentum" is an issue, then the games in May were much more important, because that's when the team dug the hole there's still trying to climb out of.
 
That's especially true since the offense is much stronger now, to the point where the Sox have won games despite a poor starting pitching performance -- something that was completely unheard of a few months ago.

How so? If the Sox win tonight against Miami amd the O's, or one of the other teams in the division lose, don't the Sox still get one game closer to the team that lost?

 

[AB in DC]

How so? If the Sox win tonight against Miami amd the O's, or one of the other teams in the division lose, don't the Sox still get one game closer to the team that lost?

 
That would be true for every single game this season.

 

[jscola85]

Every game from here out is important.  While the Sox have closed the gap in the last 15 games substantially, it's unlikely they can close 5 games in the next 15 like they just did.  The reality is it will likely take better than .600 baseball the rest of the way to make the playoffs.  .600 even gets to 86 wins, right on the cusp of a playoff spot.  Playing .600 ball is not easy - only the Cardinals have done that over the first half of 2015.  So yes, this next game is critical, but not because of some silly idea about momentum.  It is important because they are playing a bad team at home they should beat.  The Sox can't afford to drop many games from here out against teams on pace to win 65-70 games.

 

[JesusQuintana]

 
That would be true for every single game this season.

 
My point was that this would help them enter the Yankees series at home on a high note, which could carry them to a series win and narrow the AL East to 1.5-2.5 games by the break.  In this particular situation, the AL East is way closer than it was back in May.  This win could mean more (short term) if it dovetails into a sweep and then the All-Star Break.
 
It could also mean more to Porcello's confidence if he goes out in a "big spot in the standings" and pitches well - I mean, he's had a largely atrocious first half.  If he throws a great start tonight and has the ability to reset his head during the break, it would help him, as well as the Sox, in the long term.