The Dallas Keuchel thread (what went wrong, how to fix it)

The A's just put Sonny Gray on the DL with a "trapezius muscle strain". I'm not saying he isn't hurt and it isn't the reason why he's been mostly complete crap this season...but it would appear they're just giving him a couple of weeks off to get his head right. The Astros need to do this with Keuchel. Let Feliz start a game and give Dallas some time off.

 

His arm simply isn't the same. His velocity has been down from the start, but his control is average at best, and he doesn't have stuff to compete without pinpoint control. He's frequently falling behind in the count and having to come over the plate, or his pitches are drifting over the plate early in the count and getting attacked.

I don't think there's really anything we can do about it aside from giving him time off. This is a medical issue, and that's not me saying it's necessarily an injury, just that this is an issue of a player not being at the same level physically. Hopefully his arm will rebound, but I don't think there's any baseball adjustment he can make. He's bringing a knife to a gun fight right now.

 

I agree the team needs to DL Keuchel right now. He's hurting the team. The pitching overall other then Keuchel has been coming around for the most part and I feel hitting is the biggest issue overall with the team but Keuchel can't be trusted. Keuchel is very prideful and will fight being sat down but he's not above the team.

 

I'm just going to guess that he is hurt.

 

He looks like his arms is tired to me. And he is nowhere near where he was last year. His control is bad. He not only misses his spots, he misses them in a place where the batter can hit it hard.

They need to make the decision to shut him down. If they are waiting for him to do it, it will never happen.

 

Can you DL someone for "fatigue" ?

 

I *hope* it's as simple as, fatigue --> lack of velocity, and lack of velocity --> trying too hard on control (which results in just missing or leaving the ball over the plate eventually)

 

There's also a longer-term issue to be worried about with him. He relies on the low strike call to generate weak ground balls. If they are raising the strike zone a few inches next year, what does that to do his effectiveness even if the good version of him returns? His go-to pitch goes from being a strike to being a ball.

 

Not me.

 

2 year wonder.

 

I've been hoping to go that route for years now. I guess the only objection to it is a guy like Keuchel who doesn't really have electric stuff but who is great at painting the outside edges. He lives off the inconsistencies of the umpires and his job is to see what the umps are calling and aren't calling and use it to his advantage.

But as a fan, it's beyond frustrating to see this computerized zone that shows me where exactly the pitch is and to routinely see the ump be WAY off. I think you'd still need a home plate umpire, if for nothing else than to call close plays at home, and then of course your umpires out in the field. So I really don't see much reason why they should even be fighting this.

 

Man, I hope not. But it's beginning to look that way. Dude has fallen off a cliff. Really hope he can climb his way back up.

 

The zone seems to be consistently inconsistent within individual ab's. Umps have only seemed to get worse.

 

If I remember correctly, Keuchel had the most called strikes outside the average 2015 zone (which was huge versus ten years ago) last year. Umpires, for all the calls for consistency, are likely more consistent now than ever (though not close to what a "robot" could likely do). If umpires are calling Keuchel correctly, he's going to be a much worse.

I think a lot of Keuchel's success was him finding out that umpires would call low strikes. Looking at fangraphs heat maps, it looks like he's getting the called strike just below the zone about 25% less this season than last. Loss of velocity and being forced by umpires to throw actual strikes has a very synergistic effect on decreasing Keuchel's ability to prevent runs.

 

The velocity drop is troubling, but I don't think things are as bad as they seem. .351 BABIP. 3.68 xFIP. K/9 and GB% in line with norms. I think a combo of bad luck, pressure, ump squeeze, and fatigue/injury have made for a perfect storm, but I am hopeful he will bounce back.