Sorry if this post is mostly a rant. But has anybody noticed that Burnett progressively gets worse as the game goes on? This year his ERA breakdown is as follows:
These stats don't even include tonight's game where he gave up 6 ERs in the 6th inning. Hey Gaston! Get your head out of your ass! Haven't you figured out that my 90 year old grandma has more stamina than Burnett?
The Blue Jays should either give this guy some viagra or make this guy a reliever because he certainly doesn't seem to have much after about 90 pitches.
ActionHero wrote:Sorry if this post is mostly a rant. But has anybody noticed that Burnett progressively gets worse as the game goes on? This year his ERA breakdown is as follows:
These stats don't even include tonight's game where he gave up 6 ERs in the 6th inning. Hey Gaston! Get your head out of your ass! Haven't you figured out that my 90 year old grandma has more stamina than Burnett?
The Blue Jays should either give this guy some viagra or make this guy a reliever because he certainly doesn't seem to have much after about 90 pitches.
You will find this with the vast majority of pitchers.
Not after 5 innings, but in the 6th inning he was obviously laboring. I think after he loaded the bases and then proceeded to give up 2 more hits would have been more than enough of a sign (especially since this seems to be a pattern with him this year). The Jones homer surely did not come as a surprise to anybody watching the game.
I understand that a lot of pitchers get tired as the game goes on, but the issue seems more pronounced with Burnett. But maybe I'm just bitter...
Actionhero, gotta remember that mweir145 is never wrong.
Just ask him.
I agree that Burnett is struggling after 5 or 6 inning. Gaston knows this, or should know this, and needs to pull him quickly when he starts getting shaky.
Actionhero, gotta remember that mweir145 is never wrong.
Just ask him.
I agree that Burnett is struggling after 5 or 6 inning. Gaston knows this, or should know this, and needs to pull him quickly when he starts getting shaky.
Still a bit hurt over me pointing out that Manny Ramirez is a good player, eh?
There have been many times that Burnett has pitched well through the 7th inning in his career. In fact, he did it twice last week. He does have 18 CG and 9 SO in his career for a reason.
And please, don't manage after the fact. Adam Jones has a career .680 OPS agaisnt righties, and Burnett is generally a better pitcher agaisnt right-handed hitters. And while it isn't really significant at all, he hadn't gotten a hit off him in 4 AB either. Also when you consider the Jays' best relievers are left-handed (Carlson, Downs, Ryan), with no reliable right-handed reliever, it makes even more sense that they would have stuck with AJ in that situation. If he had gotten out of it, 6 IP with 4 ER isn't that terrible or a huge blow up at all.
It's pretty easy to say Cito made the wrong move now, but think about it logically with all of the factors that went into it, and you'll see that he made the right decision at the time.
Burnett's been a puzzler this season, no doubt about it. I honestly am not sure why his 3rd time through the lineup has been so bad this year, though it could have something to do w/ his reliance on 2 main pitches (fastball, curveball) and his lack of a complete repertoire with a good change or slider. He has those pitches, they just kind of suck.
Watching him, it seems that his ordinary control issues are becoming a little worse than they usually are--he's basically walking a batter every 2 innings, vs. last year's slightly better rate (66 BB/165.2 IP). But there are some signs that he's been unlucky this year: 22% LD allowed, 47% GB (down from 55% last year...in fact, he hasn't been below 50 in like 5 years), and a 65% strand rate. His career rates on the first 2 stats are closer to 19% and 50%+, and obviously that strand rate should normalize a bit to around 72%. His FIP is also low, right around 3.5.
curious_george_43545 wrote:A lot of pitchers are like that, but that does seem a bit of an extreme increase. Might be a fluke, have to compare those numbers to past years.
So just to prove I'm not imagining things, I did just that (plus a little more):
1) Looked at other "comparable" pitchers (limited to AL for time reasons). Here are their statistics:
Generally it looks like ERAs rose slightly during the 3rd time through, but only Greinke had what I would call a statistically relevant variation. Out of curiosity, I looked up Greinke's numbers from 2007 and they were the complete opposite of this year: 4.21 -> 3.38 -> 1.72.
2) So back to Mr Burnett. Let's look at his numbers for the last 5 years:
Historically, he has been a superb pitcher the first time through, and pretty mediocre if not downright horrible the 2nd and 3rd times through. Even worse for Burnett owners is that it appears to be a worsening trend. If I were the Blue Jays manager, I would not be giving him that long of a leash.
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by ActionHero » Wed Jul 09, 2008 9:18 pm 
