Fields peripherals are glittering. They suggest a pitcher that should be dominant. It's the same reason the Astros gave him so many opportunities despite consistently having mediocre to terrible results. The Dodgers are clearly banking on being able to have him pitch up to those peripherals, which would make him a great weapon. Having said that he's about to turn 31. At a certain point you realize a guy simply is what he is, despite the peripherals. Seems like a gift to me, because he was never gonna help us again.
Fields was pretty good last year. His FIP is usually going to be lower than his ERA due to his style. Astros have a lot of better options, but most teams don't have 4 relievers better than him.
Did you actually watch him pitch? He was horrible... and worse if the situation had even the slightest leverage.
I went back and looked at all the regular season games that Fields pitched in that were decided by 2 runs (either way). There were 30 of them. He did not give up a run in 26 of them. His WHIP in those 30 games was around 1.15. 27.2 innings 32 baserunners. (might have miss counted and didn't look for HBP). Take away one game where he gave up 4 runs and 5 baserunners in 1/3 of an inning and his WHIP drops below 1 for those games. He was far from 'horrible' last year.
Seems circumstantial. I want to see his individual stats when he came in with runners on, or the game was close when he was actually pitching and protecting a lead. My guess is those 4+ games you excluded would have had some pretty dissapointing or WTF Sequences. The situations you described wouldn't have shown any runs charged to him if he allowed inherited runs to score nor would he have necessarily been pitching trying to protect a lead. I guess I shouldn't say "horrible", but "pretty good" should also be excluded from describing him... using overall stats to backup a situational guy like Fields doesn't paint the overall picture. He has a (straight) fastball...But his other stuff and his mental state is extremely questionable. And if you really believe in his value, not only should the trade be entirely plausible... Perhaps Luhnow didn't get enough for him!
Here was a very interesting article about Fields in high leverage situations: http://www.crawfishboxes.com/2016/8/4/12370432/ken-giles-saves-closer-astros-bullpen-josh-fields A couple of minor league related thoughts -- with Teoscar up, the Astros have 3 guys (Bregman, Teoscar Hernandez, Musgrove) from their opening day AA roster -- 4 if you count Gattis. Also, Devenski and Hernandez were unprotected in the Rule 5 draft -- and thankfully floated under the radar.
I didn't exclude any games. I simply posted the 'circumstantial' stats of the games he pitched in last year where the eventual outcome was 2 runs or less, either way. No where did I extol the value of Fields or say anything about the trade positive or negative. Simply posting statistical information. Frankly, I don't care at all and it would not have bothered me to see them simply release him....
Then why even bother to go through each and every game?? As the link above showed, digging deeper and isolating his higher leverage numbers only told more of the story. He did get a big K in the playoffs last year (I believe it was game 2)... But just not enough positive appearances when it really mattered.
I thought you didn't care? Given that he didn't last long enough per appearance, the number of games he was in was more. They would have loved it if he could have taken a late inning role and thrived with it. They've been trying since 2013. His failures in many ways helped open the door to them getting Neshek and Gregerson, and eventually Giles.
I said I didn't care that they traded Fields. Last year Fields was not "horrible" as you originally posted. As you said, he was also not "pretty good". Based on his 6.1 "high leverage" innings, he was also not "horrible" in 2015. What are you reading into posts today? Commodore observes that the Astros are starting 4 rookies and their average experience in today's lineup is 1.7 years. That's all he said...no emoticons or anything. Your response - "Are you really begging for Castro and Marisnick?"
Sue me for initially thinking it was a negative comment complaining about Hinch and the lineup decisions... I know they're so rare around here! :grin: Also, how many appearances accounted for those 6.1 innings? If they were as bad as the stats suggest, I can't imagine he was going an inning per appearance.
"Fields was horrible in those circumstances." "I went back and looked, he really wasn't that bad." "Your stats seem circumstantial." That made me chuckle.
Well, he was bad in the leverage situations (medium and high leverage). The stats posted were all his appearances, hence circumstantial.
