Personally I'm just surprised he doesn't trust Harris at all. To me it's more of a "is Verlander really much better than Harris in relief?" I mean if Hinch feels the need to use his ace as middle relief in a game 4 (not game 5) I'm not sure we are looking good going forward in a 7 game series.
My initial gut reaction was that it worried me (not having Verlander in a potential Game 5) more than it excited me; however, I'm thrilled that Hinch didn't play it safe and hold out hope that we would have won Game 5. I like the aggressive strategy, and it certainly worked out in the end.
Harris is the Astros' 4th best reliever - behind Giles, Musgrove, and Devo. I don't think picking your ace starter over 4th best reliever shows a lack of confidence in the latter. It's just that you have a better optoin. The idea is to avoid a game 5 where anything can happen, and they had a fully rested ace available for that game in Keuchel anyway. If you get 6 from him, 1 from Devo, 1 from Musgrove, and 2 from Giles, you have 10 innings covered in game 5, which means you have the luxury of using Verlander in game 4. They had already planned to use Verlander before the game ever started - it had nothing to do with Harris in particular.
Well it was way more clever than the “your mom” joke we all learned in 5th grade. What a clown shoe you are lmao hahahahaha
The chances that Verlander gives up a run over the next 3 innings was nearly 100% given his career era, his regular season era, and his postseason era. The same could said for Sale although lthe chances were lower. That proved to be true on both accounts as both pitchers gave up runs. That really shouldn't have surprised anyone, most of all the two managers. Using starters, no matter how great they are, in long relief, in a 1 run game makes no sense to me if you plan to use them in game 5 or later in a series. And so I think if you simply look at the math and the analytics it was obvious a 2-1 game wasn't going to be decided in the 4th or 5th inning by throwing your ace out there. The likelihood of burning Verlander was 100% in my opinion and the odds of winning the game stilll around 55% at the time with no discernible change by adding Verlander to the equation vs. any of our top relievers. It was risk when you consider the risk reward of starting Verlander in game 5 against an inferior pitcher. At home no less. That's just the analytics, then you factor in Hinchs history of using starters as relievers in high leverage situations and he's basically pulled an o-for from Keuchel to Liriano to Martes and McCullers and now Verlander and it hard to justify the decision qualitatively, let alone quantitatively. To his credit it worked, That's what they pay him to do. Make the hard decisions, take the glory or the criticism, but that decision went in the face of all reason.
Metrics get interpreted and used slightly different in 1 or 2 “must win game” events, vs looking at guys performances over a larger sample size. Even though we are seeing some of these moves backfire... I understand the need for increased urgency/aggressiveness. When you start managing these games one at a time, without much consideration for the next, you’re going to use your best, most available, arms in winnable games that can determine a series win or loss. We’ve all seen the desperation in elimination games... welcome to the concept of “aggressiveness in clinching games,to avoid desperation in elimination games.”
Plus, as detailed, you needed at least 8 outs; maybe more. Harris' longest outing this year was 6 outs (2 innings). So why burn two relievers getting those 8 outs (and, again, possibly more) when you had a guy capable of getting 8+? It saves Harris + additional arm(s) for game 5. I had ZERO issue with the move. It was smart and urgent. And anyone still complaining about, I'd be willing to bet, has a built-in Hinch bias. There is almost no downside to Verlander in that situation (on paper).
Silly to use data in this way. Using an ERA to determine likelihood of giving up a run over the course of 3 innings is crazy. If that was how you looked at pitching, every game would be guaranteed to have pitchers give up 3 runs or more on each side. Strasburg's career ERA is 3.07 and season is 2.52. How could he have possibly gone 7 scoreless?
This is bad math. Do you really think a 3-ish ERA means there's a nearly 100% chance a player gives up a run every 3 innings?
I would think even if you going to argue that he might go 3 scoreless at any given time, which is fair, as that is a possible outcome, then you'd have to equally argue that he had a 50% chance ( a coin flip ) to give up 2 runs In the next 3 inning event just to even out and hit his norm. That sounds even scarier, as it means a coin flip as to getting the great Verlander vs bad Verlander in any event. Technically, what played out Is that we got the bad side of that equation in that scenario as he actually gave up the 2 runs, Exactly as you would have predicted. Which meant that Hinch lost the coin flip. So I think even from that perspective it has an even greater risk of a poor outcome because the win probability was 55% at that point in the game and that reduces it down to a coin flip, which Hinch lost.
I don't wanna be completely rude, but do you understand how statistics work...? Based on your logic Kluber should have won both the games he started against the yankees bc he should have only given up 1-2 runs in each start.
Based on your logic there was no pitcher the Astros could have brought in that wasn't going to give up a run at some point the rest of the game since their team ERA is over 3.
Sorry, I get what you are trying to say, but this is even worse math. But using your methodology, Verlander has a lower expected ERA than Morton, and equal to Harris. So netiher of those other choices would have been any better. And you seem to be assuming that the entire remainign Boston pitching staff has an ERA of 0.00, given that you're assuming we would score no runs going forward in your win expectation analysis.
