Point Blank – April 5, 2017
Cavs/Celtics and the showdown in Beantown…Meanwhile 2.5 miles down the street, will it be smooth “Saling” in Fenway…And just when you were so proud of how your early baseball statbooks look…
There is a lot to see in Boston tonight. In the NBA it is Celtics/Cavaliers not just being about who takes command of the #1 seed in the Eastern Conference, but also bringing some clues as to what a playoff matchup might look like. And just down the road a bit at Fenway Park there are some important notions about whether or not that ballpark will be a good fit for Chris Sale.
With multiple topics in play the jukebox will be plugged in all week, the theme being a tribute to the 2017 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame class, to be inducted on Friday night. With tonight’s NBA showdown having so much impact on the Eastern Conference seedings, and Tyronn Lue and Brad Stevens wondering where they will be tomorrow, it is time to bring in Journey for “Wheel in the Sky”, live from Tokyo back in the Steve Perry days -
Item: As the C’s meet, it will be mostly about the “D”
Bringing Cleveland/Boston as the lead does have some risks attached – even though the teams are tied at 50-27, there is the chance that Lue might back off the throttle, especially after LeBron James toiled 37:06 in a 20-point win over a 27-51 opponent last night. James is now just a slight tick behind Kyle Lowry for the minutes-per-game lead this season, which would be coaching malpractice by Lue if indeed it could be certified that he is the one pulling all of the player rotation strings, and not James himself.
For the purposes or argument let’s set the game up as an all-in, which provides a valuable exercise because this could be a preview of the Eastern Conference finals. And we can go to “The Game Inside the Game” approach that is used often here to set up a key dynamic in a matchup – in this instance how each team defends the point guard position is critical. Isaiah Thomas is the #4 offensive player in the NBA on Real +/-, while Kyrie Irving is #15. And neither can play a lick on defense.
How bad are they defensively? You have to take Real +/- with a grain of salt, but there are 32 point guards that average 26.0 minutes or more per game, and here is how the bottom of the defensive chart lays out -
NBA PGs Real +/- Defense
26. Kyrie Irving
27. Dennis Schroeder
28. Derrick Rose
29. Zach LaVine
30. Reggie Jackson
31. Jordan Clarkson
32. Isaiah Thomas
In terms of DBPM at Basketball Reference, Thomas is at -3.4, the very worst defender at any position of players that have played 2,000 minutes or more, and Irving is -2.2.
Now for the matchup key – Stevens will rarely have to use Thomas on Irving, because he has other options in Avery Bradley and Marcus Smart. But Lue lacks a similar counter. J.R. Smith (6-6) and Iman Shumpert (6-5) can compete on defense against many opposing PGs, and Shumpert was brought in largely to help make up for Irving’s weakness, but they are too tall to stay with Thomas, and Deron Williams is too old.
This assumes, of course, that Lue could maximize the prospects available with his defensive options anyway, which remains an open question. Want to have some fun with his tactics on that end of the court? How about this rather dubious slide over the course of Lue's tenure with the HC clipboard in hand (as always, using PP100 as the metric) -
2016 Pre-Break 101.1 (#7)*
2016 Post-Break 104.4 (#12)**
2017 Pre-Break 106.5 (#20)**
2017 Post-Break 111.8 (#28)**
* Mostly David Blatt
** All Tyronn Lue
Now Lue also has to draw things up sans Tristan Thompson (who did not make the trip, staying in Cleveland for an MRI on his injured thumb), with a roster that is painfully depth-shy up front, and it all adds up to me being in play in this one, the early markets pricing of -3.5 allowing for #506 Boston (8:05 Eastern) to go into pocket. It’ll take the deeper, fresher and better-coached side in a reasonable range, and while getting the #1 seed is not huge for the Cavaliers, who have been through all sorts of playoff permutations through the years, I believe it really does matter to the Celtics. With two full days to prepare, Stevens may shine here.
Meanwhile over at Fenway…
Item: Will it be smooth sailing for Sale in Fenway
It looks like an almost perfect baseball marriage, doesn’t it – the pitching of Sale, with his 74-50/3.00 lifetime tracking, and the offense of the Red Sox. The markets certainly see it that way for his Fenway debut, with a range from -185 to -195 out there in the early trading. But before bettors start backing him they might want to consider a pre-nuptial first. What will the 2017 version of Sale look like, and will he be a good fit in Fenway?
To understand the cause for concern goes back to notions that were written about here in 2016, starting with David Price, and whether a left-hander at his career stage (with the accompanying declining velocity), was going to be as good of a fit as the contract was projecting. Price worked to a 4.11 from this mound in his first Red Sox campaign, which does not equal what he was paid. There was even more open speculation about Drew Pomeranz when he was brought to Boston, his style being a particularly poor fit for Fenway, and Pomeranz worked to a 6.43 form this mound, as opposed to a 2.72 everywhere else.
Now the checkbook is opened up for another left-hander, and the reason it is an issue is that Sale became a different pitcher in 2016, one that was just as effective overall, but in a style that may not work as well here. The combination of understanding the art of pitching a little more deeply, and also the realization that the White Sox had a vastly improved defense last season (they climbed from #27 in PADE in 2015 to #14 in 2016), had Sale turning his focus from trying to strike out almost every batter, to reducing pitches and getting more weak contact outs.
Let’s go to the files for his words first, then the numbers - “You have a Ferrari, right? You put the gas pedal to the floor. Driving fast. This is great. I’m doing what I always wanted to do. Then you go to hit the brakes, and there are no brakes. You’re going to run into something, crash and burn, and it’s gonna suck. Why not take a couple steps down?”
“I’m looking for efficiency. You can throw 100 miles an hour and punch out 12 guys. But if you’re going five innings, it’s a waste. I want to do everything I can to be as good as I can once a week. … If I take a little off, I get more movement, and it’s down in the zone, which creates more ground balls, more weak contact. I can strike him out and use five pitches. Or I can throw a couple sinkers, and he’s out in two.”
Note how that played out on the mound. Let’s focus on three key areas, K/9, SWS (the percentage of his pitches that ended in swinging strikes), and PPI (pitches per inning) -
K/9 SWS PPI
2015 11.8 14.6 15.9
2016 9.3 11.3 15.1
Sale struck out far fewer batters and had far fewer swings and misses, but the reduced PPI count shaved 181.3 pitches off of what his 2015 rate would have called for. That is nearly two full games worth of workload.
But now the key point - Fenway Park is not a place for a left-hander to reduce velocity and pitch to contact; too many routine fly balls become doubles off of the Green Monster, and those elevated a bit allow the batter to trot around the bases. Want something concrete? Price allowed 1.34 HR/9 at Fenway in 2016, nearly double his career rate of .69 from all other mounds. Hence why Sale goes under the microscope tonight. Will his awareness of that wall in left field have him go back to his pre-2016 levels of attacking hitters, or will it be a carryover of last season’s philosophy?
I will be making a small wager on #979 Pittsburgh (7:10 Eastern) at +170 or better, even with all of the adrenaline that Sale may be pitching with tonight, because the value is too good to pass up, and it only takes a small flutter to get a nice return. Some of this is Sale being over-priced by the markets, but there is also an under-appreciation of Jamison Taillon – it is rare that we get a team this good, and a starter this good, in this price range.
Gauging the upside of Taillon is a challenge because of his injury-riddled career arc, but note that he was the #2 pick in the 2010 draft, which shows where his potential was once projected. Taillon missed all of 2014-15 because of injury, but when healthy last year opened 4-2/2.04 at AAA, before a solid 5-4/3.38 with the Pirates. His command was outstanding (1.5 BB/9), and a 94-mph sinker helped build a 52.4 GB%. There is a lot of upside here, even if those lost years may limit Taillon’s ceiling just a bit.
About Last Night, MLB…
Baseball brings more numbers into play than any other sport, which makes for so much opportunity for the shrewd handicapper, but there is also that not insignificant matter that many of the numbers either flat-out lie, or at best mislead. Fortunately there is a sporting justice that tends to be in play over the long haul, line drive outs and broken-bat bloop hits coming close to equaling out over time, but in the short run some added diligence is needed to get the best perspectives. And of course the fact that these plays exist are a prime reason why beating baseball requires so much patience.
Tuesday night offered a couple of prime examples. With two outs in the third inning at Tampa, Matt Holliday hit a routine fly ball off of Jake Odorizzi that would have ended the frame about 99 percent of the time. But the Tropicana roof is new to Peter Bourjos, in his first start as a member of the Rays in LF, and he simply lost the ball in that backdrop. It fell in for a rbi double, the scoring rules of MLB not allowing for an error to be called on such a play. That both rewards Holliday, and penalizes Odorizzi, for what should have been an easy out.
And then there was a beauty in the bottom of the 7th inning at Oakland. With two runners on base Rajai Davis got a late swing on a pitch from Bud Norris but still made pretty good contact, lining the ball towards Angel 1B Jefry Marte. Marte got a glove on it, but not enough to make the play and it deflected on an almost perfect angle for the offense into the spacious foul area at the Oakland Coliseum, turning into a two-run triple for the annals of baseball history, Davis scoring on the same play when Danny Espinosa retrieved the ball and made a wild throw to 3B.
There is such a fine line between a line-out and a two-run triple, and note that in this instance there is also a ballpark factor involved – it is likely only a double just about anywhere else in the Majors, hence no throw from Espinosa, and likely no run on the play. And it is all a part of that beautiful pageant that will be unfolding in front of us over the months to come.
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