JJ is climbing back. Scary to think how good this team could be with the games best pitcher throwing likes he's supposed to.

 

 

Well, he's not the games' best pitcher, but yeah. It was bound to happen sooner or later because part of his failures early on had to do with incredibly bad luck.

When he's at full strength he is the games best pitcher.

He can be and he's shown it ERA wise in past years.

Not really. I think the only year he was at the top of league in ERA (qualified) was 2010, but he only threw around 180 innings. I'd rather have Roy Halladay's or Adam Wainwright's numbers because they threw a ton more innings with only a slightly higher ERA.

 

And of course, his 2.30 ERA for one season isn't enough to make him MLB's best pitcher. He's probably not even top 5.

 

^This.

JJ is climbing back. Scary to think how good this team could be with the games best pitcher throwing likes he's supposed to.

 

 

Well, he's not the games' best pitcher, but yeah. It was bound to happen sooner or later because part of his failures early on had to do with incredibly bad luck.

I don't think that "luck" was what was hurting him. He was giving up a ton of hits then, but hitters were locked in on him and the numbers support this.

 

I don't think his "luck" has changed; I think he's made whatever adjustments he's needed to make.

 

Namely his command is back. He was having trouble locating his pitches in April. He's hitting his spots now and hopefully he velocity comes back up to help him even more.

I think that's a lot of it. I don't know what he changed, but he seems like he's especially locating his breaking stuff better than he was before.

 

I don't think that anyone can say he was pitching at this level in April and was the victim of bad luck.

He was never allowing HR's or XBH's really so there were positive signs. His K/BB ratio was fine, and while he was allowing plenty of line drives, his .BABIP was near .500; LD's or not, that's not sustainable. Some LD's find gloves occasionally.

 

He's definitely made his adjustments, but bad luck was also a part of his bad start to the season.

 

The low HR rate and K/BB numbers don't mean he was the victim of bad luck. And the LD% doesn't really say anything to the success of those balls in play; it addresses the type of contact hitters were making against him (they were smoking him). That pretty much says that he wasn't being overwhelmed by bloop hits or soft ground balls leaking through the infield. Anyone who watched those games would see how locked in the hitters were.

 

I could be mistaken, but I don't recall his BABIP ever going beyond the low .400s. His high LD% would account for much of that.

He was never allowing HR's or XBH's really so there were positive signs. His K/BB ratio was fine, and while he was allowing plenty of line drives, his .BABIP was near .500; LD's or not, that's not sustainable. Some LD's find gloves occasionally.

 

He's definitely made his adjustments, but bad luck was also a part of his bad start to the season.

 

The low HR rate and K/BB numbers don't mean he was the victim of bad luck. And the LD% doesn't really say anything to the success of those balls in play; it addresses the type of contact hitters were making against him (they were smoking him). That pretty much says that he wasn't being overwhelmed by bloop hits or soft ground balls leaking through the infield. Anyone who watched those games would see how locked in the hitters were.

 

I could be mistaken, but I don't recall his BABIP ever going beyond the low .400s. His high LD% would account for much of that.

 

We clearly disagree and it's not as if I've changed my stance on this from about a month ago when we disagreed, as well.

 

His .BABIP was definitely in the .430's at one point. I actually believe it was near .450 at one point after a couple of starts.

 

It's a combination of him making the adjustment and the fact that his bad #'s were not sustainable.

Coming into today's start (despite a couple of good starts before this one), his .BABIP was still at .385. There are pitchers with higher LD%'s than him with .BABIP's much lower near the mean. LD's don't automatically mean base hits every time.

 

Part of it is bad pitching but part of it was also sh*tty luck.

So where did you get .500 from?

 

His BABIP was definitely way high, but that was because he was giving up an obscene amount of line drives and well hit ground balls. One could certainly expect those numbers to go down, but I don't see how you can justify "luck" being a major factor. I mean, he clearly wasn't pitching the way he is now. That pretty much says everything.

Sorry, the Rays couldn't help you guys out in the standings today. Braves' Hudson was good (perfect game through 3 IP) and we just had horrible luck offensively, punctuated by the out that ended the Bot 8th.

 

tl;dr: Sorry the Rays couldn't help in the standings.

 

no hard feelings

So where did you get .500 from?

 

His BABIP was definitely way high, but that was because he was giving up an obscene amount of line drives and well hit ground balls. One could certainly expect those numbers to go down, but I don't see how you can justify "luck" being a major factor. I mean, he clearly wasn't pitching the way he is now. That pretty much says everything.

 

 

I'm not sure how to get the exact #, but his .BABIP before these last 3 starts was extremely high.

 

http://www.fangraphs.com/statsd.aspx?playerid=4567&position=P&type=&gds=2012-04-04&gde=2012-05-04

 

I'm guessing that's actually near .500.

 

.231 one game. .350 second best. Then you get .455, .462, .524, .566.

 

I get that his LD% was ~30, but even LD%'s of 30 don't translate to half the balls put in play being base hits.

Coming into today's start (despite a couple of good starts before this one), his .BABIP was still at .385. There are pitchers with higher LD%'s than him with .BABIP's much lower near the mean. LD's don't automatically mean base hits every time.

 

Part of it is bad pitching but part of it was also sh*tty luck.

 

What were the numbers like after the Arizona start?

 

No not all line drives are hits but a lot of them are; that's why there is a strong correlation with LD% and BABIP. Your logic is also flawed in citing those other pitchers because you are suggesting that Johnson is the victim of bad luck but corresponding don't consider that those other pitchers might be getting obscene good luck.

 

The LD/GB/FB is also imperfect because there is a wide variance in how well struck some of those balls are. Whenever there is some deviation, it shouldn't automatically be assumed that "luck" is the reason. This is something to keep in mind until there is a way to better rate the quality of ground balls.

 

Those numbers do substantiate what we all saw, though. He was legitimately getting hit hard a couple of weeks ago. That's not so much the case now.

So where did you get .500 from?

 

His BABIP was definitely way high, but that was because he was giving up an obscene amount of line drives and well hit ground balls. One could certainly expect those numbers to go down, but I don't see how you can justify "luck" being a major factor. I mean, he clearly wasn't pitching the way he is now. That pretty much says everything.

 

 

I'm not sure how to get the exact #, but his .BABIP before these last 3 starts was extremely high.

 

http://www.fangraphs...&gde=2012-05-04

 

I'm guessing that's actually near .500.

 

.231 one game. .350 second best. Then you get .455, .462, .524, .566.

 

I get that his LD% was ~30, but even LD%'s of 30 don't translate to half the balls put in play being base hits.

You can't average the % from each individual game to get the cumulative BABIP.

Verlander is baseballs best pitcher, after that it's a toss up between a couple guys including JJ. He's been as dominant as you can be when healthy which is huge. Look at his K numbers and H/9

His BABIP was .413 before Arizona and .446 after it. Do you think that he was just getting bad luck in the Arizona game or was he giving up a ton of line drives, well hit ground balls, or fly balls in the gap?

So where did you get .500 from?

 

His BABIP was definitely way high, but that was because he was giving up an obscene amount of line drives and well hit ground balls. One could certainly expect those numbers to go down, but I don't see how you can justify "luck" being a major factor. I mean, he clearly wasn't pitching the way he is now. That pretty much says everything.

 

 

I'm not sure how to get the exact #, but his .BABIP before these last 3 starts was extremely high.

 

http://www.fangraphs...&gde=2012-05-04

 

I'm guessing that's actually near .500.

 

.231 one game. .350 second best. Then you get .455, .462, .524, .566.

 

I get that his LD% was ~30, but even LD%'s of 30 don't translate to half the balls put in play being base hits.

You can't average the % from each individual game to get the cumulative BABIP.

 

Yes, I get that.

 

I told you that I can't find the # right now, but I'm positive it was well over .400 when we basically had this same discussion weeks ago.

So where did you get .500 from?

 

His BABIP was definitely way high, but that was because he was giving up an obscene amount of line drives and well hit ground balls. One could certainly expect those numbers to go down, but I don't see how you can justify "luck" being a major factor. I mean, he clearly wasn't pitching the way he is now. That pretty much says everything.

 

 

I'm not sure how to get the exact #, but his .BABIP before these last 3 starts was extremely high.

 

http://www.fangraphs...&gde=2012-05-04

 

I'm guessing that's actually near .500.

 

.231 one game. .350 second best. Then you get .455, .462, .524, .566.

 

I get that his LD% was ~30, but even LD%'s of 30 don't translate to half the balls put in play being base hits.

You can't average the % from each individual game to get the cumulative BABIP.

 

Yes, I get that.

 

I told you that I can't find the # right now, but I'm positive it was well over .400 when we basically had this same discussion weeks ago.

I knew it was over .400 (I thought it was .410-420 but if it's .446 as I've found then whatever), but as I've been saying there are explanations for that other than "sh*t luck."

So where did you get .500 from?

 

His BABIP was definitely way high, but that was because he was giving up an obscene amount of line drives and well hit ground balls. One could certainly expect those numbers to go down, but I don't see how you can justify "luck" being a major factor. I mean, he clearly wasn't pitching the way he is now. That pretty much says everything.

 

 

I'm not sure how to get the exact #, but his .BABIP before these last 3 starts was extremely high.

 

http://www.fangraphs...&gde=2012-05-04

 

I'm guessing that's actually near .500.

 

.231 one game. .350 second best. Then you get .455, .462, .524, .566.

 

I get that his LD% was ~30, but even LD%'s of 30 don't translate to half the balls put in play being base hits.

You can't average the % from each individual game to get the cumulative BABIP.

 

Yes, I get that.

 

I told you that I can't find the # right now, but I'm positive it was well over .400 when we basically had this same discussion weeks ago.

I knew it was over .400 (I thought it was .410-420 but if it's .446 as I've found then whatever), but as I've been saying there are explanations for that other than "sh*t luck."

 

So it was .446?

 

To answer your question about the Arizona game, he allowed 6 line drives.

Yeah, his BABIP to date after the Arizona game (combined of all games including AZ was .446). Before that it, was .413. He gave up something like ten hits in a short number of innings. That shot up the BABIP a ton. He unquestionably pitched like sh*t, but I will concede that one instance of "bad luck" was the Stanton misplay. That allowed a ton of runs in that shouldn't have, but that's one case of BABIP inflation I'll give you.

 

All I'm saying is that there are times when a pitcher does seem to have things not going is way (balls falling in and stuff). Over a short stretch of games that can happen. But over Johnson's stretch of games, he was giving up a ton of hits, but I really don't think he was being cheated.

 

I also think that "luck" is generally thrown around too carelessly sometimes when it comes to pitchers, but that's mainly because I think that batted ball data is really imprecise.

After the Arizona game was the San Diego game, which was basically rock bottom it seems. Not saying that night was bad luck as he was pretty terrible, but I think that's probably why I recall his .BABIP being a bit closer to .500 than that .446 # (which is still really high).

Oh, definitely that's high. I agree that it's unsustainable too. I think, however, there's a difference between "unsustainable" and "bad luck" though (and that's not splitting hairs). The fact that it was a handful of starts has a lot to do with it as well.

 

Something was definitely off with his command in April. I was more pessimistic because of the shoulder issues, but it seems now that if he continues to rack up the quality starts that he simply needed some adjustments.

The bats are still dead.

3-2 roadie....I'll take it

 

 

On to a not so good Rockies team and a 10 game homestand.

have no idea how we are winning

Nice to see the life on joshs stuff come back a little bit and his command as well.

 

Offense did just enough there and it got a little hairy at the end. Boy this offense needs to wake up.

 

It just never seems to be clicking all at once.

have no idea how we are winning

 

 

By having a rotation worthy of four aces and Ricky Nolasco. Conveniently, while Josh Johnson was f***ing up, Ricky Nolasco was holding his spot down quite nicely.

 

Bell and Dunn are really the only two guys struggling at this point with our pitchers. Everyone else... spot on.

Hayes with 2 hits and RBI, first RBI of year as well. Hitting .300 again...keep it up. Maybe some luck will rub off on Buck.

 

Good win. 22-19.