Point Blank – August 25
How bad of a QB can the Broncos still win with…Jacob deGrom may not be physically tired, but it may be another matter entirely mentally…They are going to play baseball all day (and so are we)…
It is a bit of a trip down memory lane as the NFL camp tour continues, this time with the Denver Broncos. My first experiences at watching live NFL games were with the Pittsburgh Steelers of 1968, back when they were playing up on the hill at old Pitt Stadium, and tickets were easy to come by. It was a disastrous 2-11-1 season that ultimately brought the good fortune of hiring Chuck Noll afterwards, and then history was made. But for fans that fall it only produced a QB battle between Dick Shiner and Kent Nix that was compelling because they were so even in ability, each lacking it, in one of the worst QB battles ever in the NFL*. The Broncos may be challenging that…
(* - RB Dick Hoak threw 16 passes as an emergency #3 that season, and had a higher Passer Rating than Nix)
Item: Just how bad of a QB can you win a Super Bowl with?
Denver had a season for the ages last year, especially when put into the context of the modern NFL, and the emphasis on the QB and the passing game. The Broncos absolutely won with defense, which managed to overcome the limited physical abilities of Peyton Manning, and limited experience of Brock Osweiler. How much did that defense have to off-set?
Football Outsiders Offense
#18 Overall
#25 Passing
That was the Bronco placement. If we eliminate the esoterics that FO factors in, how about the base NFL guidelines -
NFL Passer Rating
Broncos 76.3 (#31)
How successful should a team expect to be when performing at that level? Let’s look at the lower quadrant of teams in 2015 Passer Rating, #25 through #32 -
Bottom Quarter in Passer Rating:
Denver 12-4
Other 7 38-64
Let’s try it another way. What were the precedents for teams closest to the ballpark that the Broncos rated in passing from the previous two seasons -
Team Passing Rating between 74-78
2014 Tampa Bay 2-14
2014 NY Jets 4-12
2014 Oakland 3-13
2013 Washington 3-13
2013 Minnesota 5-10-1
2013 Buffalo 6-10
2013 Houston 2-14
2013 Oakland 4-12
What Denver did was remarkable. The Broncos made the playoffs with an extremely poor passing attack, then in those three post-season games they averaged 14 first downs and 254 yards, only scoring five offensive touchdowns. It was 5.1 net yards per pass attempt, a half yard below the worst team in the NFL during the regular season. Yet they won all three games, and earned the Lombardi Trophy.
So having said that, just what does it mean to be midway through the pre-season and still not have a #1 having emerged from Mark Sanchez/Trevor Siemien/Paxton Lynch? This is a bad group, but can they necessarily be worse than the QB play the team won with last year?
Perhaps they can be. Siemien is the lone holdover to the system, and he has yet to prove that he can be a #2 NFL QB, much less a #1. Sanchez was brought in as a veteran that could manage a game, and be fundamentally sound, but he has been anything but that, already turning the ball over three times in two pre-season appearances. Lynch is talented but extremely raw, and did not get many college reps either in this kind of system, or against NFL caliber defenders.
One of the problems with having three players fighting for the spot, and the folks at Pro Football Weekly (who are pretty good) are detailing it as having become a genuine 3-way, is that none of the QBs have much chance to get better in camp, since they do not get enough reps with the first-team. That is even more of an issue when two new faces are in the mix, and in truth Siemien may know the playbook, but did not get many reps with the first team offense last August.
For as limited as Peyton Manning was in terms of making plays, there was at least a knowledge of the system, and some veteran savvy that lent a confidence to the rest of the team. That will be missing this time. While any of the three candidates are a physical upgrade over the 2015 Manning, none of them will be commanding a huddle.
But that just takes us back to square one of a most intriguing notion – the Broncos may have truly dreadful QB play this season, yet they just won a Super Bowl with dreadful QB play.
About Last Night…
Sometimes you just miss them, and that was certainly the case here in backing Jacob deGrom as part of that First Half Under equation in St. Louis last night, deGrom being so bad that it wasted a good outing from Carlos Martinez. Despite being given an extra day off to come in fresh, the second time over three starts the Mets had done that for him, deGrom’s line vs. the Cardinals was eerily similar to what happened at San Francisco – in facing 52 batters across those games he was tagged for 25 hits, and allowed three walks.
It would seem easy to blame the downfall on physical fatigue, but much of the zip was still there – if we measure deGrom’s average fastball across those two games it was a full mph above his season prior to that point. But what happens when a pitcher goes bad and does not trust his stuff? Doubts set in. Those were evident at St. Louis – deGrom threw changeups on 18.1 percent of all pitches, which is nearly double his 10.3 rate entering the game. That was a sign of a pitcher that did not trust his stuff, and was instead trying to rely on fooling hitters. It didn’t work. Instead of dreams of another World Series run the Mets rotation has now become a muddled mess, Seth Lugo and Robert Gsellman set for starts in the days to come.
Now time to get busy on a Thursday MLB board that brings some items that can work, and it looks like we will be in play all day…
In the Sights, MLB afternoon…
Playing into extra innings at night, and then having to come back to the ballpark for an early start before heading to the airport, is not a great setting for hitters, especially this late in the season. Managers will usually cancel batting practice to keep the players fresher, and when they get taken out of their preferred routines it can have an impact. I believe it does in the early stages in Tampa today, and the path with be #912 Rays/Red Sox First Half Under (1:10 Eastern), with 4 easy to find in the early trading (you'll have to lay some juice when the lineups get posted; value extends to -125).
Drew Pomeranz is one of the pitchers a hitter would least like to face in such a setting, although batting practice might not have helped the Rays anyway – who has someone that can throw a left-handed knuckle-curve in the low 80’s at them? The projected Tampa lineup has little experience against Pomeranz, and what experience there has been is not good, a .226/.294/.323 slash line over 43 PAs.
Meanwhile Jake Odorizzi has worked to a dynamic 5-0/1.64 since the All Star break, despite six of the seven starts coming against winning teams, and four of them being against division opponents that know him well. That is a sign of someone making quality pitches, and his task will be made easier today by the expected absence of David Ortiz and Sandy Leon from the Red Sox lineup
In the Sights, MLB night…
I was not sure this one was going to stay in range, but some Cleveland money in the morning marketplace has returned the value point, and in a game in which I expect a vast difference between the way the two starting pitchers handle a pressure setting, #916 Texas (8:05 Eastern) works, with as low as -145 available in the current trading (value extends to -155).
The Rangers didn’t just bring in Cole Hamels to be good, they also brought in a guy they thought would be good under pressure, and they correctly believed their roster was on the way to playing pressure games. They have gotten their money’s worth – Texas has gone 28-9 across his 37 starts since he joined the team, with a 20-5/3.11 personal line. And it is not just a quality issue in terms of pressure, but delivering what a team needs – with the starting rotation thinned by injuries eating some innings also became a priority, and since the All Star break Hamels has given them 7.0 per start. With no fatigue issues in the bullpen (Diekman/Bush/Dyson got through the last three innings in 32 pitches yesterday), the latter stages are in good hands as well.
Josh Tomlin is at a much different end of the pitching spectrum right now. His rather unique arc of Baseball Being Baseball was a feature piece here back in June, and if you don’t have first-rate stuff the sport does not allow you to remain at the higher altitudes too long. Tomlin is a competitor with excellent control, but doesn’t have the stuff to breathe the air that elite pitchers do. As such things have come crashing down around him to where he is now a below average pitcher on all metrics, FIP and SIERA agreeing at an alarming 5.11, and his confidence may be at a particularly low ebb for this setting – after entering August at 11-3/3.43 it has been a dismal 0-4/10.02 comeuppance. The team behind him is mirroring that form, the Indians coming back to earth after over-achieving across a strong cycle, but the top end of the pitching staff has presented it from being worse – they were drubbed 14-3 in Oakland over the last three days, but managed to go 1-2 because of a beauty from Carlos Carrasco on Monday.
U.S. Election 2016 Power Rating: Democrats -675
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