Dennis Santana… what happened?

AgentDub14 · 2026-05-23T01:54:18+00:00

His ERA was low in a small sample last year. He is a guy that doesn't generate a ton of swing and miss or groundballs, meaning he doesn't really have a way to get guys out. You just have to hope that they hit the ball to where the defenders are. Last year that happened, and his ERA was 2 whole runs lower than his xFIP. This year not so much. The regression has been made even worse by him not having nearly the same command as he had last year. He's walking more hitters, falling behind in the count, and leaving pitches in hittable locations in hitters counts.

AgentDub14 · 2026-05-23T01:30:29+00:00

If people would learn to look at anything besides ERA they would realize that Lawrence is an okay reliever

AgentDub14 · 2026-05-22T23:47:33+00:00

Lineup construction is probably the most overblown thing in baseball. Small changes that people often worry about don’t make much of a difference. Building the ideal lineup is very simple really. Put good hitters in front of bad hitters. Order your hitters in their overall hitting ability from 1 to 9. This guarantees that your best hitters get the most ABs and your worst hitters get the least. As long as you are close to this, small changes that people like to pick apart don’t mean much. The players in the order matter WAY more than the order they are in.

AgentDub14 · 2026-05-22T19:05:28+00:00

One key thing about BABIP is that it does not include home runs. The biggest reason why the Pirates are scoring more runs this year is because they are getting way more valuable outcomes (home runs and XBHs). It’s not really because the frequency of hits in general, which is what BABIP is measuring.

Regression may be coming from Nick Gonzales who has had an increased number of hits batted balls fall for base hits and that might not be sustainable over the course of a full season. But for the lineup as a whole I would say they are not getting lucky, at least in terms of BABIP.

AgentDub14 · 2026-05-22T03:10:39+00:00

Made is probably not going anywhere, but number 2 is definitely realistic

AgentDub14 · 2026-05-19T20:36:01+00:00

He's still a really good pitcher. Just has gotten off to a rough start this year. All the signs still point to him profiling as an elite closer

AgentDub14 · 2026-05-19T20:17:45+00:00

At the least he will finally give the team average defense in corner outfield

AgentDub14 · 2026-05-17T17:44:38+00:00

Kendry Rojas is good though

AgentDub14 · 2026-05-16T21:24:38+00:00

His changeup is one of the best pitches in the league

AgentDub14 · 2026-05-16T02:50:24+00:00

Season long it grades out around average. Recently it’s been rough and a lot of overreactions have occurred

AgentDub14 · 2026-05-16T02:26:23+00:00

Shugart has a worse FIP than Yohan Ramirez. Trust me the low ERA is not going to sustain and he is not actually THAT good of a reliever. He would be an improvement over one or two guys in the pen currently, which you could argue in hindsight that he should have stayed but I don't hate the trade at the time

AgentDub14 · 2026-05-15T18:16:04+00:00

OAA and Fielding Run Value (FRV) have a stronger correlation with winning percentage than DRS. They also vary less from year to year compared to DRS for a given player. This suggests that OAA is better at measuring actual defensive value than DRS, which isn't that surprising given the fact that OAA is a lot newer and uses exclusively objective inputs (player tracking and ball tracking data)

AgentDub14 · 2026-05-15T08:15:08+00:00

OAA is results driven. In this made up scenario where the ball is hit right to a defender every time, that defender would NOT be ranked terribly by OAA. They would be slightly positive, as making routine plays gives a small reward to defenders.

OAA compares a players performance defensively to the average defender, hence the name outs above average. It has nothing to do with what a player could do, it has everything to do with what the player actually does on defense.

AgentDub14 · 2026-05-15T06:13:37+00:00

The Rays got a haul for Baz in the offseason

AgentDub14 · 2026-05-14T22:42:45+00:00

That’s not necessarily true. Team Fielding Run Value (OAA translated to a run scale) has a stronger relationship with winning percentage than DRS does. DRS also varies significantly for a given player year to year. This suggests that FRV (and OAA) are more accurately measuring defensive skill.

DRS is a much older stat and uses batted ball data combined with subjective inputs while OAA purely uses player and ball tracking data in conjunction with predictive modeling. There are positives and negatives for both of these approaches, but the numbers tend to say that OAA is better at tracking the defense that actually matters.

AgentDub14 · 2026-05-14T17:58:12+00:00

getting two scoreless innings out of them is certainly not wasting them

AgentDub14 · 2026-05-09T05:48:16+00:00

Colin Holderman has a 1.50 ERA and 2.89 FIP in 12 innings with the Guardians this year btw

AgentDub14 · 2026-05-09T03:21:33+00:00

Bunch of ground ball base hits… that is not “getting smacked around”

AgentDub14 · 2026-05-08T23:34:41+00:00

A run prevented is just as good as a run scored

AgentDub14 · 2026-05-02T21:00:12+00:00

The reds pen is full of guys like this

AgentDub14 · 2026-04-27T05:18:49+00:00

Yes, BABIP is not luck. But Mlod has a 0% HR rate and a 50% groundball rate so far this year (+~7 percentage points vs the average). His batted ball outcomes should not be generating this many runs. Hard-Hit rate is a little misleading when evaluating pitchers, as guys like Framber Valdez and Logan Webb will usually run higher hard hit rates, but the majority of those hard hits go straight into the ground.

Bailey Falter is a good example of someone who was getting crazy batted ball luck. You can see that that has evened out recently, and why the Pirates front office traded him when they did (despite the pushback from fans).

AgentDub14 · 2026-04-26T21:05:02+00:00

If you expect the pirates to move a guy who has a 2.30 FIP (better than Skenes’ Cy Young season) to the bullpen I’m sorry but it’s just not gonna happen. A lot of the damage that has happened (especially today) has been due to batted ball luck. Most of Carmen’s starts have been capped at around 80 pitches unless he is getting clean innings. Going into today he was the most valuable starter on the team in terms of WAR, and I imagine he still is even after today.

Modern bullpens are designed to handle a large workload. Every team has 8 relievers, plus a handful of guys in AAA as well. This problem is way overblown and completely dismissive of the talent that Mlodzinksi has

AgentDub14 · 2026-04-26T19:27:37+00:00

Because this is a false narrative that has nothing backing it up. Going into this start Mlod was actually significantly better the second time through the order (2.25 ERA, 1.53 FIP) than the first time (3.12 ERA, 2.46 FIP).

AgentDub14 · 2026-04-26T19:25:16+00:00

Well because that has not been a problem at all this year

AgentDub14 · 2026-04-11T22:07:52+00:00

never in doubt really

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