On to south Florida. Quickly, before the seas rise and leave it all underwater.
Here's another way to look at it:
AL Starter Most Likely To Complete:
5 Innings - Joe Ryan and Bryan Woo. Every single time, and you can't beat that. We can also single out Carlos Rodon, Garrett Crochet, Framber Valdez, Tarik Skubal, and Jakob deGrom - they've each come up short just once. (Least likely? Jonathan Cannon, Bowden Francis, Luis Ortiz)
6 Innings - Bryan Woo. Again, every single time and this morning the Athletic noted that he was the first pitcher to work through six innings in each of his starts since Zack Greinke in 2015. Still six weeks to go, of course. Also impressive are some of the usual suspects: Valdez, Crochet, Skubal. (Least likely: Cannon, Ortiz, Simeon Woods-Richardson)
7 Innings - Lucas Giolito. This is extremely weird, but if Giolito can just make it through four innings - something not at all guaranteed - he's going deep into the night! Crochet and Skubal are next in line. (Least likely? well, a dozen of the 68 AL starters here have not once made it through 7 innings this season. The four who've already come up - Cannon, Ortiz, Francis, Woods-Richardson - plus Povich, Gusto, Rasmussen, Anderson, Morton, Sears, Kochanowicz, and Smith)
OK, enough of this nonsense. What's happening tonight?
Well, Cal Quantrill was the scheduled starter for the Fish tonight. Seeing as how the Braves just claimed him on waivers, it seems rather unlikely now. They'll find someone, I'm sure. Meanwhile Shane Bieber makes his much-anticipated Blue Jays debut.
In the second half of July, the Marlins put together a nice stretch of baseball, winning 13 of 17 and drawing even at .500 (55-55) for the first time since mid-April. Did they dream of getting hot, and sneaking into the post-season, just as they had in 2023? They were, at that time, six games back of the final Wild Card spot. But a long, painful road trip (3-9) has probably put any such fantasies to rest. They may only be one game further back, but those two weeks have come off the schedule and they're not coming back.
Matchups
Fri 22 Aug - Bieber (---,-.--) vs S.Guy (?-?, ?.??)
Sat 23 Aug - Berrios (9-5, 4.00) vs Junk (6-2, 4.04)
Sun 24 Aug - Gausman (8-9, 3.78) vs Perez (5-3, 3.48)
In the Pirates thread, I took a quick look at how deep AL starters were going into games. I called the metric I had come up with Depth Points. It was a goof, based on simple accumulation., It simply assigned everyone 1 point for completing 5 innings, an additional 2 points for completing 6 innings, another 2 for completing 7, and 2 more for making it through 8 or 9.
This is some real high-level analysis here, folks. But look, how much did you pay for the ticket? That's right - exactly what I'm getting paid for the product.
I also threatened to produce a Data Table with the complete findings, but in the meantime it occurred to me - wouldn't it be cool if I could call my metric Depth Charges? It just sounds neat.
But a Depth Charge is something you probably want to avoid. I'm not a military man, but I do prefer to avoid charges whenever possible. They seldom seem a good thing, especially when law enforcement gets involved. So while I had originally just accumulated the Goodness of pitching deep into the game, I instead needed a nifty way to chart the Badness of getting knocked out early.
First I simply reversed the formula, assigning the same penalties on the same sliding scale for progressively earlier exits from the game. That didn't seem to work. The pitchers with the smallest Depth Charges were guys like Clarke Schmidt and Tyler Mahle - because they've only started 14 games, which puts a ceiling on the accumulation of Badness.
A simple solution presented itself. I took my Depth Charges, divided them by the number of starts, and hey presto! Did I get something a little more meaningful? Let's not get carried away. Not quite as meaningless, perhaps.
But, by some happy (and completely unanticipated!) coincidence, you may regard the resulting Depth Charge as something that measures what will be required from your bullpen after this starter hits the showers.
Completed Innings DEPTH
Pitcher & Team STARTS 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 CHARGES
1 Woo SEA 24 0 0 0 0 0 0 18 6 0 0 3.50
2 Crochet BOS 25 0 0 0 0 1 6 7 8 2 1 3.52
3 Valdez HOU 25 0 0 0 0 1 5 10 6 2 1 3.60
4 Skubal DET 25 0 0 0 0 1 6 7 10 0 1 3.68
5 Giolito BOS 19 0 1 0 1 4 0 1 8 3 1 4.00
6 Brown HOU 25 0 0 0 0 1 7 12 4 1 0 4.24
7 Houser TBR 14 0 0 0 0 1 4 6 2 1 0 4.29
8 Fried NYY 25 0 0 0 1 1 8 7 8 0 0 4.40
9 Rodon NYY 26 0 0 0 0 1 10 10 4 1 0 4.46
10 Gausman TOR 25 0 0 1 0 2 8 7 4 3 0 4.48
11 deGrom TEX 24 0 0 0 0 1 10 8 4 1 0 4.50
12 Ryan MIN 24 0 0 0 0 0 11 8 5 0 0 4.50
13 Eovaldi TEX 21 0 0 1 1 1 5 7 4 1 1 4.57
14 Bubic KCR 20 0 0 1 0 1 7 5 6 0 0 4.70
15 Kremer BAL 24 0 0 0 0 3 11 3 6 1 0 4.75
16 Bello BOS 22 0 0 0 0 5 3 11 2 0 1 4.82
17 Castillo SEA 26 0 0 0 0 4 8 9 5 0 0 4.85
18 Soriano LAA 26 0 0 0 2 4 6 6 8 0 0 4.92
19 Pepiot TBR 26 0 1 0 0 2 6 15 1 1 0 4.92
20 Wacha KCR 25 0 0 0 0 2 12 8 2 1 0 4.96
21 Cecconi CLE 16 0 0 0 1 3 4 4 3 1 0 5.00
22 Kirby SEA 16 0 0 0 1 1 5 7 2 0 0 5.00
23 Martin CWS 18 0 0 0 0 1 8 8 1 0 0 5.00
24 Severino ATH 24 0 0 0 1 3 8 8 3 1 0 5.00
25 Lugo KCR 24 0 0 0 1 3 6 13 0 1 0 5.08
26 Bibee CLE 25 0 0 0 0 5 10 5 4 1 0 5.12
27 Schmidt NYY 14 0 0 0 1 2 3 6 2 0 0 5.14
28 Cameron KCR 18 0 0 0 0 3 6 8 1 0 0 5.22
29 Berrios TOR 26 0 0 0 1 4 8 10 3 0 0 5.23
30 Kikuchi LAA 27 0 0 1 0 2 13 7 4 0 0 5.26
31 Mahle TEX 14 0 1 0 0 0 6 5 2 0 0 5.29
32 Baz TBR 25 0 0 0 3 3 8 6 4 1 0 5.36
33 Bassitt TOR 26 0 0 2 0 2 10 9 3 0 0 5.46
34 Sugano BAL 24 0 0 0 2 5 7 5 5 0 0 5.50
35 Spring ATH 24 0 0 2 2 2 4 12 2 0 0 5.67
36 Williams CLE 25 0 0 1 2 3 8 9 1 1 0 5.68
37 Paddack DET 25 0 0 0 1 4 14 3 2 1 0 5.68
38 Lorenzen KCR 19 0 0 1 0 5 5 5 3 0 0 5.68
39 Bradley TBR 21 0 2 0 0 3 5 8 3 0 0 5.71
40 Ober MIN 21 0 0 1 1 4 6 6 3 0 0 5.71
41 Mize DET 21 0 1 0 2 2 7 6 3 0 0 5.81
42 Hendricks LAA 24 0 0 0 3 2 10 8 1 0 0 5.83
43 Anderson LAA 24 0 0 0 0 7 8 9 0 0 0 5.83
44 Evans SEA 15 0 0 0 0 4 8 2 0 1 0 5.87
45 Allen CLE 23 0 0 0 2 4 9 7 1 0 0 5.91
46 Eflin BAL 14 0 1 0 1 1 5 5 1 0 0 6.00
47 Hancock SEA 15 1 0 0 0 2 6 5 1 0 0 6.00
48 Corbin TEX 23 0 0 1 1 3 13 3 1 1 0 6.00
49 Flaherty DET 25 0 0 1 2 4 8 9 1 0 0 6.00
50 Morton DET 21 0 0 2 1 2 7 9 0 0 0 6.10
51 Lopez ATH 16 0 1 1 1 3 3 3 4 0 0 6.13
52 Sears ATH 24 0 0 0 2 4 12 6 0 0 0 6.17
53 Gilbert SEA 18 0 0 1 1 2 10 3 1 0 0 6.22
54 Rasmussen TBR 25 0 0 2 1 2 13 7 0 0 0 6.24
55 Buhler BOS 22 0 0 2 1 6 5 5 3 0 0 6.27
56 Lauer TOR 14 0 0 0 2 4 4 3 0 1 0 6.29
57 Povich BAL 14 0 0 0 1 5 4 4 0 0 0 6.43
58 Leiter TEX 22 0 0 0 4 4 9 4 1 0 0 6.55
59 Smith CWS 22 0 0 1 2 5 9 5 0 0 0 6.64
60 Gusto HOU 15 0 0 1 2 4 3 5 0 0 0 6.80
61 Burke CWS 20 0 0 0 5 4 6 4 1 0 0 6.80
62 Kochanowicz LAA 22 0 0 1 3 6 6 6 0 0 0 6.82
63 Warrren NYY 26 0 2 0 2 5 12 4 1 0 0 6.85
64 Woods-Richardson MIN 16 0 0 0 1 7 7 1 0 0 0 7.00
65 Rocker TEX 14 0 1 0 3 3 4 2 1 0 0 7.29
66 Ortiz CLE 16 0 0 0 3 6 6 1 0 0 0 7.38
67 Francis TOR 14 0 1 0 3 4 3 3 0 0 0 7.57
68 Cannon CWS 17 0 1 3 2 6 4 1 0 0 0 8.59
Here's another way to look at it:
AL Starter Most Likely To Complete:
5 Innings - Joe Ryan and Bryan Woo. Every single time, and you can't beat that. We can also single out Carlos Rodon, Garrett Crochet, Framber Valdez, Tarik Skubal, and Jakob deGrom - they've each come up short just once. (Least likely? Jonathan Cannon, Bowden Francis, Luis Ortiz)
6 Innings - Bryan Woo. Again, every single time and this morning the Athletic noted that he was the first pitcher to work through six innings in each of his starts since Zack Greinke in 2015. Still six weeks to go, of course. Also impressive are some of the usual suspects: Valdez, Crochet, Skubal. (Least likely: Cannon, Ortiz, Simeon Woods-Richardson)
7 Innings - Lucas Giolito. This is extremely weird, but if Giolito can just make it through four innings - something not at all guaranteed - he's going deep into the night! Crochet and Skubal are next in line. (Least likely? well, a dozen of the 68 AL starters here have not once made it through 7 innings this season. The four who've already come up - Cannon, Ortiz, Francis, Woods-Richardson - plus Povich, Gusto, Rasmussen, Anderson, Morton, Sears, Kochanowicz, and Smith)
8 Innings - Lucas Giolito, still. Next in line are Crochet, Skubal, and Kevin Gausman. (Least likely? Almost everyone. This is terra incognita for 44 of our 68 starters)
**************************
OK, enough of this nonsense. What's happening tonight?
Well, Cal Quantrill was the scheduled starter for the Fish tonight. Seeing as how the Braves just claimed him on waivers, it seems rather unlikely now. They'll find someone, I'm sure. Meanwhile Shane Bieber makes his much-anticipated Blue Jays debut.
In the second half of July, the Marlins put together a nice stretch of baseball, winning 13 of 17 and drawing even at .500 (55-55) for the first time since mid-April. Did they dream of getting hot, and sneaking into the post-season, just as they had in 2023? They were, at that time, six games back of the final Wild Card spot. But a long, painful road trip (3-9) has probably put any such fantasies to rest. They may only be one game further back, but those two weeks have come off the schedule and they're not coming back.
Matchups
Fri 22 Aug - Bieber (---,-.--) vs S.Guy (?-?, ?.??)
Sat 23 Aug - Berrios (9-5, 4.00) vs Junk (6-2, 4.04)
Sun 24 Aug - Gausman (8-9, 3.78) vs Perez (5-3, 3.48)
