Byrd to Sox:

http://www.boston.com/sports/baseball/reds...x_get_byrd.html

Good job, Theo.

Extra Bases

Style me underwhelmed. Byrd throws junk and he's a juicer.

Can you say 'CHAMPIONSHIP'? Woot.

Dude throws junk, gives up a crapload of gopherballs, but doesn't walk many. Not the worst 5th starter you could ask for I guess.

At this point I'd say he's a good replacement for Buchholz until Wakefield and Colon get healthy. By "good replacement" I just mean he's not a guaranteed loss every 5 days. Of course we'll see how it pans out, but I think it was a good move, not that I condone steroid use or anything.

MoVaughn.Org definitely has the best user name to show up on this board lately. Quality.

In 2008 with Cleveland, he has a 7-10 record with a 4.59 ERA and a 1.32 WHIP. .282 BABIP, 73%+ strand rate, and a 5.16 FIP indicate he has been a little worse than his base stats suggest and his K/BB and HR/9 rates are worse than they have been in year's past (and his HR rate has always been suspect), but he has an ERA+ around 100 in recent years, and was even a fair bit above league average 2001-2005 (not taking into account PED usage of course).

EDIT: Didn't see that bsb also created a thread for this; Barstaff, please merge. Thanks.

ugh

i mean hooooooray

surely he will be stellar for us

look out rays ~ here we come

He has been 4-0 after the all star break with a 1.24 ERA id say thats pretty good for a 5th starter!

He might be one of those guys who pitches his best in the biggest games. He was tough on the Sox in the ALCS while Carmona and CC were getting lit up. As long as these are lower level prospects, this move can't hurt.

Good move Theo!
According to Nick Cafardo the prospect will be named by Jan 2009. Can you say Devern Hansack more of a 4A player than a prospect

Seriously, does anyone honestly think you're going to get an ace-quality pitcher in a waiver wire deal?

Byrd is a smart pitcher with good control. It's a good move to shore up a shaky staff right now.

I dont think you can get an ace pitcher at all - i just dont think Byrd is worth anything - hopefully i am wrong, and i pray that there is no real prospect going to CLE in this deal

solid low cost 5th starter acquisition.

pretty surprised other al teams like the yanks, tigers, and chisox passed on byrd for nothing with their recent pitching woes.

This is as good of a waiver wire deal as you can make. He's no doubt a "spit and glue" pitcher but he chews up innings and doesn't walk anybody. He has been terrific lately; frankly I'm stunned he cleared waivers.

The Sox have three horses in Beckett, Lester and Dice-K; get Wakefield healthy and Wake-Byrd is a fine 4/5.

I'd say this is a clear signal Colon may not contribute again this year.

I expect Zink goes for now, and Buchholz is given a start at home Friday before going down. Byrd stays and they mix and match Wake's spot until he is ready.

Theo just announced in the presser that Byrd will start for Buchholz on Friday. Likely means Zink is up indefinitely, but if he struggles, he can be hotswapped with Hansack.

I'm mixed because the Sox always suck against guys who throw 48mph, so my opinion of the guy is biased. I hope he can get some dudes out...but Bowden/Hansack/Zink/Bat Boy could have done an "adequate" job anyway...

That move makes a lot of sense. There's no reason to give Buchholz any more starts this year.

Except for the fact his peripherals indicate he's been a better pitcher than Byrd THIS season.

Not that it hurts Buchholz to get a few starts in AAA with the way his command has been recently, but I wouldn't be shocked if he wasn't back making starts for the team at some point.

This is good news for the simple fact they are doing this to replace Buchholz, not because Wake's season is in doubt. They can mix and match Wake's start for 2-3 starts until he comes back. Wake/Byrd will be a good 4/5 down the stretch.

This tells me they expect nothing of Colon the rest of the way, though.

Admittedly a Byrd fanboy (is there such a thing?), I think it's a good not great move. Byrd has turned it around since the ASB, and his Postseason stats are decent:



And his last 4 Postseason starts have totaled 22.2 IP, 8 ER, 8 K 4 BB....

It's not an earth shattering move, but Buchholz has been an automatic loss recently. I approve.



EDIT- can't get the stuff in the code box to look good enough. I suck.

Byrd had a horrendous May and June, when he lost 7 of 8 starts, but since then he's beaten the Blue Jays, Tigers, Twins and Angels. I like the veteran presence down the stretch. Not bad for a No. 5.

Not for nothing, he has completely owned the Jays lineup, who he will be facing Friday:

http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/players/bvsp...7&teamId=14

Also, I wonder if there is a possibility that Buchholz is sent down and prepped as a reliever for September. He gets hit hard his second time through, but has had some dominant innings early on. His changeup would really be devastating in a relief role.

Can't wait for his first 1945 style double windup. Good move though.

Nah, there really are never quality players moved in waiver wire deals....just crap like Adam Dunn...

(Obviously, I know that pitchers are a little different, sure, but...the fact that everybody else passed on the guy tells you something). Plus, I really grew to hate him during the ALCS because he got caught juicing and basically blamed it on the Sox.

Other teams passed on Dunn before he fell to the D'Backs. That must tell you something.

He blamed it on the Sox? Can you refresh my memory?

The only contending team in the NL that could have taken him first were the Dodgers, who had no room for him whatsoever. No one passed on him.

Im not a huge fan of this move because Byrd is a pretty bad pitcher, but if it was a salary dump then I dont hate it. Nothing wrong with flexing our financial muscles.

Two things that havent been discussed:

1) We keep him from the Yankees and White Sox. We know the Yanks had interest and both teams could use SP help. IMHO, the Yanks really needed him a lot more than we did. The ChiSox and Yanks both lack starting pitching depth in their systems. Neither team has near MLB ready SPs to call up. Egbert, Igawa, Broadway, Rasner, etc... all suck pretty badly. Keeping a #5 starter from our two rivals for the wild card is really a nice benefit.

2) Possible draft pick compensation. Its unclear what if anything we would receive, but we do know the Elias formula for determining free agent type uses Total games, IP, Wins, Winning percentage and ERA. These are all areas where Byrd might appear better than he actually is and in fact he was pretty good in those categories last year. OTOH, I do think they would be reluctant to offer him arb, because even if he loses we can only reduce his salary so much... and certainly not to a level we'd be comfortable with. It is possible we work out an agreement to offer him arb where he agrees not to accept it. The Padres were aggressive with that strategy last year and it paid off really well. This is especially true if he turns out to be a type B - which is what we are likely hoping for - as we would simply receive an extra draft pick. The pick doesnt come from the team signing him so he's not hurt at all by it. I think he would qualify as a Type B, but Im not sure.

This is a lateral move at best, though, and doesnt really improve us... but man, the way we stockpile pitching is just something to admire.

EDIT: Forgot to mention, the guy fits the organizational philosophy of pounding the strike zone. With Bay out there we now have an excellent defense(and in fact we have been highly ranked all year despite having ManRam playing every other ball on the bounce. We're 5th in MLB and 3rd in the AL in defensive efficiency. Byrd doesnt beat himself and he makes guys swing the bat so he should be helped a bit by our defense. Cleveland is 20th in MLB, 9th in the AL in Def. Eff..

Doesn't really improve us? He's posted a 1.24 ERA since the AS Break. Not saying he's going to sustain this, but to say this isn't a dramatic upgrade over what Clay is giving us is pretty laughable. When we get Wake back, him and Byrd will give more value out of the 4/5 slots than any rotation in baseball, with Colon waiting in reserve.

I agree it is hard to fathom the Yankees not claiming him. He had already cleared apparently when Contreras went down again, so the ChiSox figured he wasn't needed at that point. The Yankees passing on Byrd and apparently Freddy Garcia almost has a feel of them punting at this point. To go with Rasner, Ponson and Giese/Kennedy as 3/5 of your rotation is unbelievable.

I think this says more about the team's appraisals of the physical health of Bartolo Colon and the adaptability of Clay Buchholz than it reflects some very high appraisal of the quality of a pitcher that Paul Byrd is. He sucks less than our other options, which makes him a worthwhile upgrade at this point in time. I was hoping to see Buchholz turn the corner Lester-style this season, but there's always next year. I guess the powers that be decided that letting Buchholz suck in August is a tad different than waiting on Lester to throw a strike in mid-May.

I'll say it: He's almost certainly not going to sustain that. If he does sustain it, it will be merely a happy coincidence.

Which one would you take based on their periphs:



Pretty even, if you ask me, but Id go pitcher A. He's missing bats. The other guy looks toasted. When we remove defense (FIP) we get the picture that Pitcher A's performance is generally more effective than Pitcher B's despite Pitcher A's control problems.

Those also arent park adjusted numbers, which likely would help pitcher A a little bit more as he pitches in a hitter's park while Pitcher B pitches in a pitcher friendly park. 2008 Park factors are Park A(Fenway): 1.084 and Park B(Progressive/Jacobs): .972. 1.000 is neutral. Higher than 1.000 favors hitters while lower favors pitchers.

Now, what if you also saw one had much better luck than the other(BABIP not being entirely luck - but Buchholz has clearly been quite unluckly while Byrd has been pretty lucky):

2008 BABIP
Pitcher A: .368 (League average is a little north of .300)
Pitcher B: .282 (Career .315)


Im not saying pitcher A has been better than pitcher B(though the case could be made), but I certainly dont see going from Pitcher A(Buchholz) to Pitcher B(Byrd) as some sort of improvement. Its a very lateral move. The big advantage is you now control both and have them in your org...

I like the addition of Byrd. I think he's better than people percieve him to be and he will rise to the occasion in big games.

http://www.boston.com/sports/baseball/reds...eran_prese.html

Thanks, I try

I'm looking forward to seeing Byrd take on the B-Jays on Friday.

BTW, is Paul Byrd related to Marlon Byrd of the Rangers?

Not likely.

About as related as Wade Boggs and the Rangers' Brandon Boggs, I assume.

Or about as related as Flavor Flav and the late William F. Buckley, Jr.

Okay.... this post wasn't my best work. F**k you.

Yanks: "We didn't want him anyway"

Counting on Carl Pavano? He said that with a straight face?

Off topic... This reminds of the time that Ralph Kiner wondered on air if Juaquin Andujar and Andujar Cedeno were related.

Well, the thing to bear in mind is that Cashman is no longer concerned with 2008 at this point...

I couldn't read it with a straight face ...

He had a 3.00 ERA in 2003 and was a highly coveted FA.

I think we should have passed on Byrd too - and just counted on Clement...

You can't use BABIP with pitchers like you can with hitters, imo. A hitter is not in control of his BABIP, he hits the ball and many different events happen, but a pitcher is generally in direct control of his BABIP, in that making shitty pitches over the plate is going to result in a high BABIP, just as nibbling can result in a low BABIP... mostly due to the nature of the pitches being thrown. There's probably some validity when you get seriously abnormal numbers, but I'm not sure why I'm supposed to chalk up Clay's 60 point BABIP increase over mean as bad luck when it very well might just be bad pitches.

I agree somewhat with what you're saying, but you have to factor in LD% too. If the BABIP is high despite a low LD% (or vise-versa) you can attributed to luck.

But that's kinda what you were saying; make bad pitches & people will tee off on you.

EDIT: F me.

Would you like to make an attribution to my new charity?

I see what youre saying, but theyre not directly in control, no...

Originally McCracken made the assertion they pitchers had NO control over balls in play, but that was later disproved. In DIPS 2.0 McCracken revised his theory to say they did have some control, especially knuckleballers. In the end, BABIP isnt the same as hitters for pitchers, but luck is still a major portion of a pitcher's BABIP.

What I was showing was that Byrd has been relatively lucky on balls in play while Buchholz has been relatively unlucky. There is no reason to believe that Buchholz would normally have that high a BABIP. We have a very good defense and his other numbers dont match up with a BABIP like that. His periphs are pretty good, other than walks. He's allowing nearly the same amount of H/9 as Byrd, so it doesnt seem realistic to me that their BABIPs should be that vastly different. Especially with Byrd striking out so few...

Here is an article from rotoauthority listing pitchers on the extreme ends of the BABIP scale. Its from July, but the point stands. Buchholz has the fourth highest BABIP among qualifiers.

http://www.rotoauthority.com/2008/07/babip-anyone.html

I would say that qualifies as "seriously abnormal numbers." I see no other way to read Clay's struggles than a big dose of poor luck. Some of it is ability/performance, no doubt. Im not saying its all luck... some of it is surely his making shitty pitches with his fastball, but it looks to me like luck is the major component right now. Basically, for his BABIP to be that high with his peripherals in front of the Red Sox defense he has to be getting unlucky, IMHO.

----------------------------------------------


Makes sense...

LD%
Byrd: 22.1
Buch: 22.1

GB%
Byrd: 36.8
Buch: 47.3

Buchholz has been a d-bag with some of the pitches he's making... Im not arguing that. BUT he's also been pretty unlucky.

EDIT: 47.3 GB% for Clay... that's really just brutal that he's allowed that many hits while striking out almost 9 guys per 9 and keeping the ball on the ground that much. Did all those groundballs go to Lugo?

On the upside, with that K% and that GB%... well, that bodes really, really well for his future.

Probably, if I knew WTF you were talking about.

If you don't know, I'll just contribute that to bad luck.