Let it go. He's no longer an Astro. No need to ridicule him or wish him ill. He's broken somehow some way. I hope he finds the root problem.
Ken Giles is not a Location Pitcher hitting Bottom Corners of the Strike Zone, His Slider goes East to West instead of North to South. His Slider is terrible. His Fasball is Flat, with no movement. In MLB you need to add pitches
I don't know why our fans hate this dude so much. It sucks things didn't work out for him here but it's not like he's a domestic abuser or something...
He was so good in 2017 regular season.. the 2017 postseason really messed him up.. i hope he finds his way again because he can be a really good reliever
He is actually, on himself Seriously though, I wouldn't call it hate. More like shattered expectations.
I think most people have an issue with him due to his performance, behavior, and how he used the Brock Osweiler playbook to answer media questions after bad outings. I agree, no need to hate on the guy, he's not a part of this org any longer.... wish him the best and move on.
The deterioration of Giles is a mystery to me. The pitch quality and swing/miss is still mainly there but his batted ball profile has gone to **** this season. Almost like he's tipping his pitches or something.
Rondon's fastball is much flatter than Giles'. Giles' slider has lost some of its former sink but it has a higher SwStr% this season than any other year of Giles' career. His fastball is what gets him in trouble but there's nothing about it that jumps out as a reason for why it's so easy to drive. I think his issues are likely due to inconsistent command of the pitch coupled with the fact that hitters haven't missed when he has failed to properly locate.
Our fans can be so bitter sometimes, haha. I'm with the "just let it go" crowd. I hope he finds whatever is wrong and gets his career back on track. Dude has a big whole to dig out of...or punch out of. Amirite?
For me it has less to do with him than his apologists on twitter. There was always an excuse..."well, he came into a game where it wasn't a save situation! how can you possibly expect him to get outs outside of that contrived situation? If you remove the bad games he's pitched, his numbers are amazing!"
Yeah, the save/non-save situation argument is dumb, as are pretty much all arguments focusing on context dependent performance. I don't know Giles' life story but I've never read or seen anything that would indicate that he didn't give everything he had to help the Astros win. He may suffer from some emotional issues but that makes me more sympathetic towards him than anything. I'm sure plenty here (including myself) have suffered from anxiety, depression and other issues, and I can't imagine how much more difficult it would be having those problems spotlighted like they were for him, along with dealing with all the negative attention for the fans. Just a shitty deal and I hope he can bounce back and have a productive career.
Why do the fans hate him? He almost cost the Astros a World Series title........ that is enough for most fans to not like him. Combine that with consistent melt downs this season against very good teams, and then going off in his manager. Giles would be really disliked by the fan base of any team.
Yes, this and self styled intellectual baseball fans that would actually argue that he hasn't been bad this season by simply looking at his FIP or the swing and miss rate on particular pitches. As for Giles, I hope he grows as a person and becomes a long term big leaguer.
He's throwing 25% more meatballs, and hitting edge about 20% less (i.e, he's either getting too much plate or not close). This has caused his BB% to go down a lot, his K % to go down a lot, and he's giving up even greater contact than normal. Batters have always been able to tee off on Giles's fastball especially when it is middle-middle. With his slider having less dip this year (only 6 games that he's had average dip or better than his 2017 average), I'm amazed that he's still getting Ks. I like FIP and xFIP, but I don't trust those stats for guys like Giles that will throw fastballs over the middle of the plate instead of giving up a walk (They are still better than ERA in short term for projecting future). Giles giving up contact instead walks is a 2018 thing.
