ESPN's MLB RPI

 

The only team who has a harder strength of schedule is baltimore, who is the worst team in the ML and in an extremely tough division.

 

We are still +18 in runs scored. This team "should" be 4 or 5 games above .500. They're 7-12 in 1-run games. I would guess that some of this can be attributed to the bullpen, but it also seems unlucky.

 

Right now, things are miserable, but several players are under-performing expectations, and we appear to have been the recipient of poor fortune. Many things suck, like the injuries to Baker and Hensley, but there are at least some reasons to think we are a good bit better than our record and how we've been playing.

 

It's actually the opposite of past years, where we've been known to outperform our Pythagorean expectation.

ESPN's MLB RPI

 

The only team who has a harder strength of schedule is baltimore, who is the worst team in the ML and in an extremely tough division.

 

We are still +18 in runs scored. This team "should" be 4 or 5 games above .500. They're 7-12 in 1-run games. I would guess that some of this can be attributed to the bullpen, but it also seems unlucky.

 

Right now, things are miserable, but several players are under-performing expectations, and we appear to have been the recipient of poor fortune. Many things suck, like the injuries to Baker and Hensley, but there are at least some reasons to think we are a good bit better than our record and how we've been playing.

 

It's actually the opposite of past years, where we've been known to outperform our Pythagorean expectation.

 

 

There isn't a team out there who hasn't suffered injuries and most of them have had more serious ones. It says a ton about this team that losing an average catcher and one reliever (albeit a very good one, but sadly our only good one) can be held up as reasons why we've had a bad season. I'd say our bullpen has been an absolutely huge factor in losses (how can it not be, when we've seen them blow tremendous leads), but just as much of a factor is that we've had extremely poor situational hitting from every guy not named Jorge Cantu, or more accurately actually named Hanley Ramirez. When you're not capable of doing the small things that are called upon to be a legitimate contender in the MLB, it should be no surprise if you have a losing record.

 

As far as strength of schedule goes, if we wouldn't have lost, our opponents couldn't have won.

I've never really put much into bad records/good run differential teams. Normally, that means the bullpen sucks, as you said. That has been the case with us. At the end of the day, we're 31-35, and that's really all that matters. I don't see much to be optimistic about, at this point. Injuries to Baker and Hensley (Hensley's being recent, actually)...I consider the team fortunate to only have suffered those injuries. There are other teams with bigger injuries, who are overcoming the injuries.

ESPN's MLB RPI

 

The only team who has a harder strength of schedule is baltimore, who is the worst team in the ML and in an extremely tough division.

 

We are still +18 in runs scored. This team "should" be 4 or 5 games above .500. They're 7-12 in 1-run games. I would guess that some of this can be attributed to the bullpen, but it also seems unlucky.

 

Right now, things are miserable, but several players are under-performing expectations, and we appear to have been the recipient of poor fortune. Many things suck, like the injuries to Baker and Hensley, but there are at least some reasons to think we are a good bit better than our record and how we've been playing.

 

It's actually the opposite of past years, where we've been known to outperform our Pythagorean expectation.

 

 

There isn't a team out there who hasn't suffered injuries and most of them have had more serious ones. It says a ton about this team that losing an average catcher and one reliever (albeit a very good one, but sadly our only good one) can be held up as reasons why we've had a bad season. I'd say our bullpen has been an absolutely huge factor in losses (how can it not be, when we've seen them blow tremendous leads), but just as much of a factor is that we've had extremely poor situational hitting from every guy not named Jorge Cantu, or more accurately actually named Hanley Ramirez. When you're not capable of doing the small things that are called upon to be a legitimate contender in the MLB, it should be no surprise if you have a losing record.

 

Much of this has nothing to do with my post.

 

Even if we suck at situational hitting, we've still scored 18 more runs than we've given up, and that's not bad.

 

I didn't necessarily point to the Baker and Hensley injuries as reasons why we suck but instead as reasons to not think we'll improve going forward (despite my assertion that we've been unlucky and "could/should" improve moving forward), since our starting catcher and our setup guy are both banged up.

 

And I'm not a big subscriber to the "bad bullpen leads to a bad 1-run record" theory anyway. Maybe there's been a study on it someone can point out. To me, though, a bad bullpen can turn a 3-run lead into a 1-run lead; they can turn a tie-game into a 2+-run deficit, and they can certainly turn a 1-run game into a deficit of two or more. So to me, a bad bullpen cuts both ways with respect to 1-run games. Walkoffs tilt the balance toward bad bullpens leading to poor 1-run records, but these are somewhat rare anyway, so that doesn't convince me.

ESPN's MLB RPI

 

The only team who has a harder strength of schedule is baltimore, who is the worst team in the ML and in an extremely tough division.

 

We are still +18 in runs scored. This team "should" be 4 or 5 games above .500. They're 7-12 in 1-run games. I would guess that some of this can be attributed to the bullpen, but it also seems unlucky.

 

Right now, things are miserable, but several players are under-performing expectations, and we appear to have been the recipient of poor fortune. Many things suck, like the injuries to Baker and Hensley, but there are at least some reasons to think we are a good bit better than our record and how we've been playing.

 

It's actually the opposite of past years, where we've been known to outperform our Pythagorean expectation.

 

 

There isn't a team out there who hasn't suffered injuries and most of them have had more serious ones. It says a ton about this team that losing an average catcher and one reliever (albeit a very good one, but sadly our only good one) can be held up as reasons why we've had a bad season. I'd say our bullpen has been an absolutely huge factor in losses (how can it not be, when we've seen them blow tremendous leads), but just as much of a factor is that we've had extremely poor situational hitting from every guy not named Jorge Cantu, or more accurately actually named Hanley Ramirez. When you're not capable of doing the small things that are called upon to be a legitimate contender in the MLB, it should be no surprise if you have a losing record.

 

Much of this has nothing to do with my post.

 

Even if we suck at situational hitting, we've still scored 18 more runs than we've given up, and that's not bad.

 

I didn't necessarily point to the Baker and Hensley injuries as reasons why we suck but instead as reasons to not think we'll improve going forward (despite my assertion that we've been unlucky and "could/should" improve moving forward), since our starting catcher and our setup guy are both banged up.

 

And I'm not a big subscriber to the "bad bullpen leads to a bad 1-run record" theory anyway. Maybe there's been a study on it someone can point out. To me, though, a bad bullpen can turn a 3-run lead into a 1-run lead; they can turn a tie-game into a 2+-run deficit, and they can certainly turn a 1-run game into a deficit of two or more. So to me, a bad bullpen cuts both ways with respect to 1-run games. Walkoffs tilt the balance toward bad bullpens leading to poor 1-run records, but these are somewhat rare anyway, so that doesn't convince me.

 

 

It's a combination of a bad bullpen, and the bats never picking up the team, either. As in, this team has comeback like once all year. That's the reason I think we always outperformed our run differentials in past years. We've normally been a good comeback team, but the team has been absolutely horrible at it this year.

ESPN's MLB RPI

 

The only team who has a harder strength of schedule is baltimore, who is the worst team in the ML and in an extremely tough division.

 

We are still +18 in runs scored. This team "should" be 4 or 5 games above .500. They're 7-12 in 1-run games. I would guess that some of this can be attributed to the bullpen, but it also seems unlucky.

 

Right now, things are miserable, but several players are under-performing expectations, and we appear to have been the recipient of poor fortune. Many things suck, like the injuries to Baker and Hensley, but there are at least some reasons to think we are a good bit better than our record and how we've been playing.

 

It's actually the opposite of past years, where we've been known to outperform our Pythagorean expectation.

 

 

There isn't a team out there who hasn't suffered injuries and most of them have had more serious ones. It says a ton about this team that losing an average catcher and one reliever (albeit a very good one, but sadly our only good one) can be held up as reasons why we've had a bad season. I'd say our bullpen has been an absolutely huge factor in losses (how can it not be, when we've seen them blow tremendous leads), but just as much of a factor is that we've had extremely poor situational hitting from every guy not named Jorge Cantu, or more accurately actually named Hanley Ramirez. When you're not capable of doing the small things that are called upon to be a legitimate contender in the MLB, it should be no surprise if you have a losing record.

 

Much of this has nothing to do with my post.

 

Even if we suck at situational hitting, we've still scored 18 more runs than we've given up, and that's not bad.

 

I didn't necessarily point to the Baker and Hensley injuries as reasons why we suck but instead as reasons to not think we'll improve going forward (despite my assertion that we've been unlucky and "could/should" improve moving forward), since our starting catcher and our setup guy are both banged up.

 

And I'm not a big subscriber to the "bad bullpen leads to a bad 1-run record" theory anyway. Maybe there's been a study on it someone can point out. To me, though, a bad bullpen can turn a 3-run lead into a 1-run lead; they can turn a tie-game into a 2+-run deficit, and they can certainly turn a 1-run game into a deficit of two or more. So to me, a bad bullpen cuts both ways with respect to 1-run games. Walkoffs tilt the balance toward bad bullpens leading to poor 1-run records, but these are somewhat rare anyway, so that doesn't convince me.

 

 

It's a combination of a bad bullpen, and the bats never picking up the team, either. As in, this team has comeback like once all year. That's the reason I think we always outperformed our run differentials in past years. We've normally been a good comeback team, but the team has been absolutely horrible at it this year.

 

To me, attitude has a lot to do with a team's ability to come back. They first have to believe that they can comeback before they actually do. Honestly, this doesn't seem that different than the year we had Jorge Julio blow the season from the get-go. Once 80 percent of the team has done its darndest to be in a position to win the game, and then one part of the team (bullpen) consistently turns it over, it really seems like it takes the wind out of the rest of the team's sails. I'm sure every player on this team was well aware of the joke that was the bullpen coming out of the gate this year. Contrary to what Beinfest has stated, there was absolutely no reason to believe that this year's bullpen would be successful and it hardly could have played out worse, except our closer has been more irrelevant and shaky than completely terrible.

 

I really think that this current team, which has been the same core since 2006, has had issues believing in themselves because they know they're underdogs. As you've said, they were actually a great comeback team the last couple years, but our issues always manifested themselves in the playoff race, where this team would fight very hard to be relevant even with slow starts, yet just as soon as they work their way into the picture they start to collapse under the weight of it once the promised land is actually possible. Seeing Volstad last year completely crumble down the stretch, along with Leo giving it up late in the season, were probably the most easy to find examples of this last year. The teams the Marlins are competing against aren't told all throughout the season that they're lucky to be .500 with their payroll, and it's just like the Marlins press way too hard with the knowledge that their trying to do something that some say shouldn't be possible.

There was reason to believe this bullpen would be good. We had Meyer, Badenop, Sanches, Nunez, and Pinto in the bullpen, which was basically the same as the bullpen from the year before.

 

Also, how has Nunez been irrelevant and shaky?

There was reason to believe this bullpen would be good. We had Meyer, Badenop, Sanches, Nunez, and Pinto in the bullpen, which was basically the same as the bullpen from the year before.

 

Also, how has Nunez been irrelevant and shaky?

 

 

Hasn't been involved in many games, mostly because we blow them before he comes in, and he has blown 3 saves. Also, he was a significant question mark coming into this season, he was pretty awful down the stretch last year. As for the other guys, Meyer was the only one with back of the bullpen experience. Pinto has proven inept, Badenhop was a long guy who should never have had to be thrown into setup in the first place, and Sanches pitched over his head in middle relief- not quite the same as coming into the game in the 8th inning.

 

So among the guys we started the year with, the only ones with late inning success at all were Meyer and Nunez. That doesn't have the makings of a good bullpen at all. You can't tell me honestly that you expected it to be passable this year, as it was pretty evident in ST this year that the typical savior of the bullpen in guys resurrecting their careers wasn't going to happen even with the 20 or so reclamation projects we brought in, as none of them were worth a flip. Now, Hensley has stepped up, but he was actually in NO last year and was over-looked, and the FO even sold him short by not giving him the 5th starter role he earned. It was a gift that he has emerged as a setup guy, but that was a complete accident that only happened after the failure of every single other option.

There was reason to believe this bullpen would be good. We had Meyer, Badenop, Sanches, Nunez, and Pinto in the bullpen, which was basically the same as the bullpen from the year before.

 

Also, how has Nunez been irrelevant and shaky?

 

 

Hasn't been involved in many games, mostly because we blow them before he comes in, and he has blown 3 saves. Also, he was a significant question mark coming into this season, he was pretty awful down the stretch last year. As for the other guys, Meyer was the only one with back of the bullpen experience. Pinto has proven inept, Badenhop was a long guy who should never have had to be thrown into setup in the first place, and Sanches pitched over his head in middle relief- not quite the same as coming into the game in the 8th inning.

 

So among the guys we started the year with, the only ones with late inning success at all were Meyer and Nunez. That doesn't have the makings of a good bullpen at all. You can't tell me honestly that you expected it to be passable this year, as it was pretty evident in ST this year that the typical savior of the bullpen in guys resurrecting their careers wasn't going to happen even with the 20 or so reclamation projects we brought in, as none of them were worth a flip. Now, Hensley has stepped up, but he was actually in NO last year and was over-looked, and the FO even sold him short by not giving him the 5th starter role he earned. It was a gift that he has emerged as a setup guy, but that was a complete accident that only happened after the failure of every single other option.

 

You still didn't explain how Nunez was shaky. 1.01 WHIP with a 2.70 isn't shaky.

 

Also, I didn't expect the bullpen to be as good as it was last year, but I certainley didn't see it being this bad. You're lieing if you though Meyer and Badenhop would be this bad, which pretty much doomed our bullpen. If they pitched the way we expected them too, we would have a bullpen of Nunez/Hensley/Meyer/Sanches/Badenhop/who cares/who cares. That's a solid bullpen.

ESPN's MLB RPI

 

The only team who has a harder strength of schedule is baltimore, who is the worst team in the ML and in an extremely tough division.

 

We are still +18 in runs scored. This team "should" be 4 or 5 games above .500. They're 7-12 in 1-run games. I would guess that some of this can be attributed to the bullpen, but it also seems unlucky.

 

Right now, things are miserable, but several players are under-performing expectations, and we appear to have been the recipient of poor fortune. Many things suck, like the injuries to Baker and Hensley, but there are at least some reasons to think we are a good bit better than our record and how we've been playing.

 

It's actually the opposite of past years, where we've been known to outperform our Pythagorean expectation.

 

 

There isn't a team out there who hasn't suffered injuries and most of them have had more serious ones. It says a ton about this team that losing an average catcher and one reliever (albeit a very good one, but sadly our only good one) can be held up as reasons why we've had a bad season. I'd say our bullpen has been an absolutely huge factor in losses (how can it not be, when we've seen them blow tremendous leads), but just as much of a factor is that we've had extremely poor situational hitting from every guy not named Jorge Cantu, or more accurately actually named Hanley Ramirez. When you're not capable of doing the small things that are called upon to be a legitimate contender in the MLB, it should be no surprise if you have a losing record.

 

Much of this has nothing to do with my post.

 

Even if we suck at situational hitting, we've still scored 18 more runs than we've given up, and that's not bad.

 

I didn't necessarily point to the Baker and Hensley injuries as reasons why we suck but instead as reasons to not think we'll improve going forward (despite my assertion that we've been unlucky and "could/should" improve moving forward), since our starting catcher and our setup guy are both banged up.

 

And I'm not a big subscriber to the "bad bullpen leads to a bad 1-run record" theory anyway. Maybe there's been a study on it someone can point out. To me, though, a bad bullpen can turn a 3-run lead into a 1-run lead; they can turn a tie-game into a 2+-run deficit, and they can certainly turn a 1-run game into a deficit of two or more. So to me, a bad bullpen cuts both ways with respect to 1-run games. Walkoffs tilt the balance toward bad bullpens leading to poor 1-run records, but these are somewhat rare anyway, so that doesn't convince me.

 

About the only reason for missing Baker would be the overuse of Paulino. Defensively speaking at least. If Hayes could hit anywhere near about .250 vs righties then this whole point would pretty much be mute. The guy can catch and handles the pitchers very well, he just can't hit. Problem is we have no other catcher ready to make the jump.

There was reason to believe this bullpen would be good. We had Meyer, Badenop, Sanches, Nunez, and Pinto in the bullpen, which was basically the same as the bullpen from the year before.

 

Also, how has Nunez been irrelevant and shaky?

 

 

Hasn't been involved in many games, mostly because we blow them before he comes in, and he has blown 3 saves. Also, he was a significant question mark coming into this season, he was pretty awful down the stretch last year. As for the other guys, Meyer was the only one with back of the bullpen experience. Pinto has proven inept, Badenhop was a long guy who should never have had to be thrown into setup in the first place, and Sanches pitched over his head in middle relief- not quite the same as coming into the game in the 8th inning.

 

So among the guys we started the year with, the only ones with late inning success at all were Meyer and Nunez. That doesn't have the makings of a good bullpen at all. You can't tell me honestly that you expected it to be passable this year, as it was pretty evident in ST this year that the typical savior of the bullpen in guys resurrecting their careers wasn't going to happen even with the 20 or so reclamation projects we brought in, as none of them were worth a flip. Now, Hensley has stepped up, but he was actually in NO last year and was over-looked, and the FO even sold him short by not giving him the 5th starter role he earned. It was a gift that he has emerged as a setup guy, but that was a complete accident that only happened after the failure of every single other option.

 

You still didn't explain how Nunez was shaky. 1.01 WHIP with a 2.70 isn't shaky.

 

Also, I didn't expect the bullpen to be as good as it was last year, but I certainley didn't see it being this bad. You're lieing if you though Meyer and Badenhop would be this bad, which pretty much doomed our bullpen. If they pitched the way we expected them too, we would have a bullpen of Nunez/Hensley/Meyer/Sanches/Badenhop/who cares/who cares. That's a solid bullpen.

 

3 BS still happened regardless of what his WHIP was. Honestly, he could be 100 percent perfect in all of his actual saves, but if he still blows 10 it doesn't matter how great his WHIP is because the end all is actually closing out the game.

I don't think we have been unlucky. Yet again we have made far too many errors and poor defensive plays and this does not translate to a winning baseball team

Forget luck, we have terrible fielding, our pitchers cant field either, we have terrible plate discipline, and we cant get from the 7th to the 9th while holding a lead and our starting rotation has been solid but also somewhat inconsistent. So no, we arent unlucky, we just dont have a very good team.

A flawed team who is underachieving... not a good combo. I think a change should be made at manager.

The worse you play the unluckier you get...This team is not performing right now

Forget luck, we have terrible fielding, our pitchers cant field either, we have terrible plate discipline, and we cant get from the 7th to the 9th while holding a lead and our starting rotation has been solid but also somewhat inconsistent. So no, we arent unlucky, we just dont have a very good team.

 

 

 

According to fan graphs Nolasco has 3 errors, Johnson has 3 errors, Robertson has 2 errors Sanchez has 1 error and Volstad has 0 errors. The infielders seem to make too many errors. Plate discipline is weak and our bullpen needs to step it up. Even though Vandenhurk got roughed up last night and Badenhop gave up all 3 inherited runners again those two seem like the best options

ESPN's MLB RPI

 

The only team who has a harder strength of schedule is baltimore, who is the worst team in the ML and in an extremely tough division.

 

We are still +18 in runs scored. This team "should" be 4 or 5 games above .500. They're 7-12 in 1-run games. I would guess that some of this can be attributed to the bullpen, but it also seems unlucky.

 

Right now, things are miserable, but several players are under-performing expectations, and we appear to have been the recipient of poor fortune. Many things suck, like the injuries to Baker and Hensley, but there are at least some reasons to think we are a good bit better than our record and how we've been playing.

 

It's actually the opposite of past years, where we've been known to outperform our Pythagorean expectation.

 

 

There isn't a team out there who hasn't suffered injuries and most of them have had more serious ones. It says a ton about this team that losing an average catcher and one reliever (albeit a very good one, but sadly our only good one) can be held up as reasons why we've had a bad season. I'd say our bullpen has been an absolutely huge factor in losses (how can it not be, when we've seen them blow tremendous leads), but just as much of a factor is that we've had extremely poor situational hitting from every guy not named Jorge Cantu, or more accurately actually named Hanley Ramirez. When you're not capable of doing the small things that are called upon to be a legitimate contender in the MLB, it should be no surprise if you have a losing record.

 

Much of this has nothing to do with my post.

 

Even if we suck at situational hitting, we've still scored 18 more runs than we've given up, and that's not bad.

 

I didn't necessarily point to the Baker and Hensley injuries as reasons why we suck but instead as reasons to not think we'll improve going forward (despite my assertion that we've been unlucky and "could/should" improve moving forward), since our starting catcher and our setup guy are both banged up.

 

And I'm not a big subscriber to the "bad bullpen leads to a bad 1-run record" theory anyway. Maybe there's been a study on it someone can point out. To me, though, a bad bullpen can turn a 3-run lead into a 1-run lead; they can turn a tie-game into a 2+-run deficit, and they can certainly turn a 1-run game into a deficit of two or more. So to me, a bad bullpen cuts both ways with respect to 1-run games. Walkoffs tilt the balance toward bad bullpens leading to poor 1-run records, but these are somewhat rare anyway, so that doesn't convince me.

 

About the only reason for missing Baker would be the overuse of Paulino. Defensively speaking at least. If Hayes could hit anywhere near about .250 vs righties then this whole point would pretty much be mute. The guy can catch and handles the pitchers very well, he just can't hit. Problem is we have no other catcher ready to make the jump.

 

 

Your hatred of John Baker and Gaby Sanchez, while pathetic, can be amusing, at times.

Forget luck, we have terrible fielding, our pitchers cant field either, we have terrible plate discipline, and we cant get from the 7th to the 9th while holding a lead and our starting rotation has been solid but also somewhat inconsistent. So no, we arent unlucky, we just dont have a very good team.

 

 

 

According to fan graphs Nolasco has 3 errors, Johnson has 3 errors, Robertson has 2 errors Sanchez has 1 error and Volstad has 0 errors. The infielders seem to make too many errors. Plate discipline is weak and our bullpen needs to step it up. Even though Vandenhurk got roughed up last night and Badenhop gave up all 3 inherited runners again those two seem like the best options

 

 

To be fair, (I hate to sound like BroncoBob), I'd say at least 3-5 of those errors have come on pitchers throwing to 1B, and Gaby not catching the ball. I've been impressed with Gaby's improvements defensively, and I think he's very good at picking balls, but he seems to have trouble when a right-handed pitcher turns around and throws him the ball to try and pick a runner off. With Josh Johnson on Opening Day it happened like twice I believe, and I think it happened again the other day. I could be wrong on the amount of times, but it's certainly happened.

We're 12th in OPS+ and 9th in ERA+ in the NL. I think we've earned the 31-35 record which is 11th best in the league.

We're 12th in OPS+ and 9th in ERA+ in the NL. I think we've earned the 31-35 record which is 11th best in the league.

 

 

 

 

This is the only post that has anything to do with my OP lol

 

I pretty much have to agree. It seems more likely that we've outscored expectation offensively and vice versa than that we've actually been "better" than our record.

The Marlins are now #1 in SOS in that RPI standings.

I agree with Mystikol that we've been unlucky and have had to face a tougher schedule. It's normal to see variations from expected W-L and strength of schedule this early in the season. By season's end, all of that stuff will even out relatively speaking. If we maintain this pace in run differential (finish, say, +50-60), I have no doubt we'll be in the playoff hunt. We just need to go on a sustained run sooner rather than later.

We are not unlucky, the bullpen stinks. Frankly, the starters need to get to the 8th just to save us from this crap.

I don't buy the tougher schedule argument either unless the SOS in that RPI standings adjusts for home / road games and I bet they don't. We're +5 in home games and that's 2nd in the NL. The Braves are -10 and the Phillies are -5.

What's the record in 1-run games?