Wade LeBlanc’s Houdini Act

Wade LeBlanc is in a fantastic situation as a result of pitching in a cavernous park behind quality fielders. But eventually, he’s going to get himself into some jams from which he won’t be able to escape.

almost 2 years ago Wonko 6 comments 0 recs |

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Yeah I saw that.

Pretty much my impression, and I’m sure everyone else’s as well.

"This is no ordinary honey!"
Bolts From The Blue - Heavy with the facts, slightly less heavy with the opinions.

by Zach (maestro876) on Jul 23, 2010 10:27 AM PDT reply actions

Corey Brock says Cory Luebke will be called up in September.

With the struggles from LeBlanc, Richard, and Correia, it’ll be nice to have a fresh arm in there,

by theodore donald kerabatsos on Jul 23, 2010 3:43 PM PDT reply actions

LeBlanc is struggling?

A quality start is 3 runs or less in six innings (for a 4.50 ERA!). Leblanc has 13 of 17 quality starts, and has 3 quality starts in his last four games pitched.

Look at the game logs.

In 17 starts, he’s had one 8 run blowout, gave up 4 runs 3 times, 3 runs once, and 2 runs or less 12 times.

He’s got 5 no-decisions in which he gave up 2 runs twice and one run three times. He even pitched 7 innings of one run ball and lost the game 1-0.

He’s our hard-luck pitcher in terms of wins and losses, but with a 3.28 ERA, he’s been pitching consistently well.

by wegotballsley on Jul 24, 2010 2:02 PM PDT up reply actions

ERA doesn't tell the whole story.

As explained in the article, a big reason why his ERA is only 3.28 is because he’s getting lucky in ways that are unsustainable.

"This is no ordinary honey!"
Bolts From The Blue - Heavy with the facts, slightly less heavy with the opinions.

by Zach (maestro876) on Jul 24, 2010 3:51 PM PDT up reply actions

I love those "unsustainable" pronouncements.

I’ve watched enough baseball (53+ years) to have seen more than a few pitchers whose ability to work out of jams managed to get sustained for most of their careers. Okay, the guy with the formula says he’s lucky. I say he’s lucky to be pitching for a great fielding team instead of a crappy one like the D’Backs. Jon Garland is lucky he’s not pitching for them this year too- he didn’t look so hot for them last year, but he’s winning for the Padres.

My bottom line is that fielding-independent measures are not applicable to the real world, and should be used as only one component of an assessment of a pitcher’s talent level, not a measure of performance or luck.

by wegotballsley on Jul 24, 2010 8:45 PM PDT up reply actions

These are all true(ish) things you say

However, even with all that, for him to continue to do what he’s doing he’d be bucking the trend of over a hundred years of baseball data, which is a lot more that you or I or all of GLB put together can ever watch. If he does that, he does that, but its just not the likely path.

No, I don't think you're an idiot. Please don't go trying to prove me wrong about that.

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by Wonko on Jul 25, 2010 1:43 PM PDT up reply actions

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