Stay Healthy, Please: The Clayton Kershaw Thread

IIRC, in G6 of the NLCS last year there were a lot of soft hits and balls that fell just in front of the outfielders. The comeback on Friday wasn't luck -- he made bad pitches and the Cards were ringing line drives all over the place.

wouldn't argue with that, but it was, as they say, just one start.

healthy!

https://twitter.com/charliewiddoes/status/530475272249044992

are those cookies? if so you earned em buddy, we still luh you

Ah, Facebook...Koufax vs. Kershaw thread on a discussion group, and it's essentially me on one side(about equal during the regular season, obvious edge to Koufax in the postseason) and 20 other people who believe that it's not even close because 1) Koufax never needed to hand it over to a closer (ignoring that that's simply the way the game was structured then), 2) Kershaw's postseason troubles reveal some deep flaw within him (ignoring that we're basically talking about two bad innings), and 3) Kershaw has to do it for another four or five seasons before the question's even worth addressing (ignoring that Kershaw's great run is almost as long as Koufax's right now). Maddening.

ah, clemenza

Best FIP, Pitchers Age 21 to 26 seasons, minimum 1000 IP, 1950 - present:

Tom Seaver: 2.58
Clayton Kershaw 2.61
Sam McDowell 2.62
Bert Blyleven 2.68
Roger Clemens 2.79

so yeah, he's doing pretty well so far!

Of the top 30, I count 11 in the HOF; add Clemens, that would be 12. Kershaw will probably make 13 down the road (except the list will be different then). Anyway, fewer than half. I bet a comparable position player list based on WAR or OPS+ or whatever, at least two-thirds would be in or going into the Hall of Fame.

Pitchers seem to be fragile.

McDowell's stats between 1965 and and 1970 are rather nuts. Going from 8.2 FWAR to 2.7 to 7.2 again.

Drinking man.

(Something I didn't know, if true. According to Wikipedia, "The character of Sam Malone, the alcoholic ex-Red Sox pitcher portrayed by Emmy Award winning actor Ted Danson in the television program Cheers, was based on the baseball life of McDowell.")

It's Kershaw Day at BP; there are about ten free articles to read. Zachary Levine:

Kershaw is, according to the PECOTA projections, supposed to be the best pitcher in baseball this year. This is hardly a surprise. He was the best pitcher in baseball last year. By ERA+, he’s also been the best pitcher in baseball over the last two years, the last three years, the last four years, the last five years, the last six years, the last seven years, and with enough innings to qualify, the seven-year veteran has been the best pitcher in baseball over the last eight years.

The projection is something pretty familiar for Kershaw: A 2.23 ERA, 237 strikeouts in 224 innings, a 19-9 win-loss record—numbers that would give him another Cy Young Award should he be in the running against pretty much anybody other than 2014 Kershaw. The 5.8 WARP would fit right in within 0.3 wins of each of his three best seasons and a small regression from last year’s performance.

We know, though, that this is just a single line reading of what’s really a (multidimensional) continuum of possible outcomes. Specifically, it’s the median. He’s 50-50 to be above this point in each of the metrics, and he’s 50-50 to be below.

Whereas the median projection looks downright mundane given what we’re used to from Kershaw, it was the tail—and not even the extreme tail—that stood out. Kershaw’s 90th percentile projection is almost unfathomable. The raws benefit from Dodger Stadium and for it always taking a while to adjust our eyes to the light of a new run-scoring environment, but the adjusted stats tell you it isn’t just your eyes. A 1.46 ERA, the lowest since Bob Gibson in 1968 and the second-lowest of the live-ball era. An 8.8 WARP, behind only 1999 Pedro Martinez as far as seasons in the WARP time (1950-present).

http://www.baseballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=25736

the craziest thing to me about kershaw is he came up with two pitches - a sick fastball and a hammer curve.. the curve had so much movement sometimes the umps weren't calling it a strike, so he responds by developing a slider that has become one of the best in the game.. if he can perfect his change that he only throws like 5 times a game he can stretch his career out forever.

Very comparable to Seaver through 1971 (his greatest all-around year, though not as famous as '69)--one inning apart, for starters:

Seaver: 95-54, 1379.1 IP, 7.1 H/9, 1.045 WHIP, 3.28 K/BB, 2.34 ERA, 149 ERA+, 35.9 WAR

Kershaw: 98-49, 1378.1 IP, 6.8 H/9, 1.059 WHIP, 3.41 K/BB, 2.48 ERA, 151 ERA+, 39.7 WAR

Both in pitcher-friendly parks (Dodger Stadium more so, I think), both in pitcher-friendly eras (Seaver's definitely more so, although 1970 was a big hitter's year), both 26.

I got wanting to look at some video to try to compare Steve Carlton and Clayton Kershaw's pitching. Haven't found a comparible Kershaw montage, but man check out the movement on some of Lefty's pitches in this video.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-iHFkgs1zx8

liner off the face; just a little dental work.

http://espn.go.com/los-angeles/mlb/story/_/id/12530522/clayton-kershaw-los-angeles-dodgers-gets-extra-dental-work-being-hit-face-line-drive

James had a long piece a few months ago about ranking starting pitchers; his site now ranks all the current starters and updates the rankings daily. Kershaw started the year with a sizeable lead, but Scherzer and/or Felix may pass him within a start or two. (Not saying I agree with this--I'm inclined to question any system that has R.A. Dickey in the Top 20.)

http://www.billjamesonline.com/polls_ratings/starting_pitcher_rankings/

It's based on game scores, and it's all explained here:

http://www.billjamesonline.com/the_worlds_1_starting_pitcher/

that's interesting, i'll have to check in on it occasionally. as you'd expect, it incorporates a lot of past performance into the score, so strasburg is still top 25 even though he's been awful so far this season, and wainwright is at 12 even though he's already been out for a while and won't be back til next year.

Yeah, it's very much a rolling thing that goes back three, maybe four seasons (and includes postseason, hence Bumgarner up near the top). I like this:

When a pitcher is a candidate for the Hall of Fame, the fact that he was the #1 ranked pitcher in the world for two years is going to be a major credential that his supporters can point to--or, vice versa, if the pitcher was never #1, it’s a major hole in his resume.

If you tracked this through the '80s, I bet Morris only made it into the top half-dozen for one or two short stretches (and was never close to #1).

yeah for me you had to have been one of the best 5 players in the league for at least a few seasons to be a hall of famer. i use the same argument with the NBA HOF, which is much more of a "big hall" than baseball's. i prefer the small hall tbh

Awesome last night. I didn't know what to make of his slow start--most of his peripherals were still good, but we've seen (admittedly older: Verlander, Sabathia) some pitchers suddenly go south recently, so I wasn't sure if there was something going on there.

Scherzer just edged ahead of Kershaw for the #1 spot in James's rankings.

http://www.billjamesonline.com/polls_ratings/starting_pitcher_rankings/

Kershaw's been bumped one more night, but when he faces Trout tomorrow, it will evidently be the first reigning-MVP-to-reigning-MVP regular-season match-up ever.

(According to Facebook according to Reddit according to whoever they got it from. But it sounds reasonable.)

Eight more scoreless innings for Kershaw, his scoreless streak is up to 37 innings.

He's on pace for 300 K this year too.

First Kershaw-Trout AB yesterday:

http://m.mlb.com/video/v320177383/laalad-kershaw-strikes-out-trout-looking-in-the-1st/?game_pk=415196

(xpost) Didn't realize how long its been since someone did this: Randy Johnson in 2002. As strikeouts go up and up, find that odd. The five-man rotation and rote use of bullpen was all in place 15 years ago, no?

have to think # of IP by starters per game has decreased since then

Trout and Harper are historic, but Kershaw is clearly the most dominant player in baseball right now. I assume they know what they're doing with the 132 pitches.

doyers called up bolsinger, which leads me to believe they're gonna six-man the rotation to lighten his load

not quite as dominant as Dallas Keuchel, really.

Keuchel or not, he is building a case for a 4th cy young

seager called up too btw

unless you are giving enormous weight to Ks, Kershaw is probably not the best pitcher on his team this year.

Kershaw has the lead in Fangraphs WAR

& counterpoint, greinke does on baseball-ref

WARP computed using DRA, Greinke by 6.70-6.49

(BP)

'building a case' doesn't mean 'automatic winner', but yeah, I do give importance to xFIP.

what is DRA?

I like James's rankings, which take a longer view than four or five months (the logic that every year puts a couple of guys into the All-Star Game on the basis of a fast start and little else).

http://www.billjamesonline.com/polls_ratings/starting_pitcher_rankings/

The gap between Kershaw (#1) and Greinke (#2) there is as large as the gap between Greinke and Cueto at #9. I think the Top 6 are exactly right. (Bumgarner gets credit for what he did in the postseason; ignore that, and he probably drops out.)

xp deserved run average, here's the BP explanation http://www.baseballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=26195

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CO9jMi2UsAEMjmi.png:large

http://www.latimes.com/sports/dodgers/la-sp-dodgers-20150915-story.html

Definitely a Cy argument for Kershaw--a strong one--but unless he has a couple of bad starts, Greinke will win. Which is fine.

300 K

@based_ball

Clayton Kershaw, OPS allowed, final

2013: .521
2014: .521
2015: .521

Totally missed his first start. Not too shabby, says Adam Sandler.

95 Game Score today--and knocked in the only run.

Missed that last start of his...Has a 19.25 K/BB ratio (77/4); the record's 11-something. Basically takes one lousy start to cut that in half, though.