Point Blank – July 20
Do the Eagles have a Past/Present/Future crisis (and is Doug Pederson ready to handle it)…About those good things that were written here about Drew Pomeranz a little while ago…Fenway Park looks like a bad place for Matt Cain to spend a summer evening…
Things could get rather awkward in Philadelphia this season. The Eagles were not too far from a playoff spot last year and naturally believe they are close. Yet there has been a complete coaching overhaul, with major systems changes on both sides of the ball, and making those transitions difficult is that the team sacrificed some draft picks that might have contributed immediately, for a player that apparently won’t be part of the picture this season.
So do they want to win now in 2016? Or do they instead want to transition into the future, taking the time to get the new playbooks installed, and filling those X’s and O’s with players better suited to the schemes? There are mixed signals galore, and because serious questions about the ability of Doug Pederson to fill out the crossword puzzle, there is a lot of potential volatility.
Pederson had a non-descript career as an NFL back-up, wrapped around time with the WLAF. His only head coaching experience was four seasons at Calvary Baptist Academy in Shreveport, Louisiana. He has had all of three seasons as an NFL coordinator, handling a Kansas City attack under Andy Reid that did not see off many fireworks. Little of that, from one of the thinnest resumes to be a HC in the modern NFL era, suggests that Pederson is ready for this particular challenge, especially with the Eagles saddling him with a reduced present, in exchange for Carson Wentz and the future. If that is indeed to be Pederson’s future anyway.
Now comes the conundrum for both the Eagles and those of us that have to power-rate them. With a significant re-design on offense from Chip Kelly’s uptempo schemes, and Jim Schwartz converting the defense from a 3-4 to a 4-3 (at least Schwartz has some HC experience to help Pederson settle in), this would be a savvy season for a franchise to be happy with a 6-10 or 5-11, in order to set the tone for 2017 and beyond, perhaps also time to begin getting Wentz involved. Instead, here is the pressure that Pederson is feeling -
"In this league, I don't think there is time any more. I've seen coaches get fired after one year, after two, after three. You've got to win now. You do everything you can in the offseason with free agency, with draft picks, to bring guys in that help you win now. … So, as far as time, I don't think there's time. I'm going to coach every game to win now. That's the way we're going to approach it."
That is a tough approach when taking over a team off of a losing campaign, and one that did not exactly move the needle in terms of adding personnel. Except for Wentz, of course. But what is his role going to be? More from Pederson -
“Typically, the third quarterback is down (not on the game day roster). It’s hard right now to look down the road, but if we had to play this week, Carson would be down. He’d be the third quarterback. He’d be deactivated. That’s probably the direction we’re heading, I would think is going that route.”
That would be fine if Wentz had been taken in a middle round, with a pick the team already owned. Instead the franchise paid a premium to move up to select him, despite needs at so many positions. That is not the ideal way to welcome in a new coach, especially someone that lacks experience in the very transition he will be sorting through. By believing they are positioned to both win now and win later the Eagles may not accomplish either, and for Pederson there may not even be a “later” – will he even last long enough to be the HC for Wentz? I see the ceiling being low for this team in 2016 even if things mesh well, and the chance for the floor beneath them to be unsteady if they don't.
Item: My read on Drew Pomeranz may have to change
The betting markets have not wasted any time in getting behind Pomeranz in his BoSox debut, Pinnacle already going from -185 to -215, and money for the Under (more on the latter in a moment). That might even appear to be in line with a recent take on the left-hander on these pages just two weeks ago, noting how a couple of major changes in his pitching style would render the early part of his career as being rather meaningless, with putting more weight on his recent form a genuinely proper thing to do. But there may be a problem for Pomeranz, and the Red Sox may not have necessarily brought in the best fit – Fenway Park is not Petco, and also important is that Camden Yards is not Dodger Stadium nor the Rogers Center comparable to AT&T Park.
Here is the rub – a significant part of the Pomeranz success is that knuckle-curve, a pitch that he now throws nearly 40 percent of the time. It is a terrific weapon, but ialso clocks in at an average speed of 79.4 mph. It is not an easy pitch to square up, and even when a hitter does he has to put his own power behind it, which can mean long fly-outs in the West Coast ballparks even when the contact is good. So a big part of Pomeranz opening with a 2.47 ERA through 102 innings is having a lot of fly balls get caught – his HR/FB% is just 8.8, compared to the league 2016 MLB average of 12.8. But what happens if that home run rate is league average, which xFIP adjusts the numbers to? That 2.47 ERA becomes 3.62. Pomeranz would still rate as a good pitcher, but that is a rather significant difference, and note that SIERA chimes in with a similar read of 3.71.
Now the problem. A left-hander throwing a significant percentage of his pitches around 80 mph can be a bad fit for Fenway. Lazy flies to left field that would be outs at night just about anywhere in the state of California, where 12 of the 17 Pomeranz 2016 starts have taken place, now become doubles off of the Green Monster, and those hit high enough turn into home runs. A similar fate could await him in key division showdowns at Toronto and Baltimore in the battle for the A.L. East, although note that while Yankee Stadium has high HR rates, that is mostly attributed to the short porch in right field, where a left-handed pitcher is less vulnerable.
So now Pomeranz becomes the latest pitcher to go under the microscope, as those starts in his new home require extra scrutiny. How many softly hit fly balls to left field are going to end up putting batters on base? And if that indeed happens, will he stick to his same ratio in usage of that knuckle-curve? Trading for another starter made sense for the Red Sox, but style-wise the organization may not have traded for the correct one.
And I will be watching extra closely tonight because there is a financial stake involved…
In the Sights…
It is not just Fenway Park being an awkward place for Pomeranz to pitch, but tonight in particular being a challenging setting – he will be pitching for the first time in 13 days, and while his unique repertoire can be difficult against batters that lack experience against him, this will be the fourth time this season he has been matched up against the Giants. Connect it up with the vulnerabilities I expect from Matt Cain and it calls for #930 Boston Over (7:10 Eastern), with the betting markets helping out by turning 10.5 into some reduced-vig 10’s this morning (with 10 at +105 available in a couple of key precincts, it means a shot at 9.5 later on).
In cashing a Red Sox Run Line ticket in this spot on the page yesterday, the focus was on Jake Peavy’s fly-ball rates, and how like Pomeranz he could survive them on cool California nights, but not in Fenway, which turned out to be the case as David Ortiz and Brock Holt hit home runs. That is Cain’s very issue here. After turning in eight straight seasons of 180 innings or more from 2006-13 there just is not much left in the tank – the last three campaigns show a combined 5-16/4.97, with a 4.86 FIP, and that is with a lot of his innings being churned in favorable pitcher’s parks. Cain’s 1-5/5.34 so far this season is based on declining zip, a career-low in SWS%, and hitters getting too much elevation of that contact they are making, the 35.3 GB% also being the lowest of his MLB years. I am not sure there are any reasons for optimism, and in his rehab start for Class A San Jose on Friday he was rudely knocked around for nine runs in just four innings, with more walks than strikeouts, laboring to 93 pitches. Cain will have a difficult time preventing the Boston offense from making contact, and much of that contact should end up going for extra bases.
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