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It’s not me, it’s Yu

OleMissCub

By OleMissCub,
in Chicago Cubs Talk

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soccer10k Cooperstown

soccer10k

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Dodgers fans trying to apologize and he's not having any of it

 

He only pitched once in Houston in that series. Game 7 was in LA. Obviously could have mattered in Game 3.

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Cubswin11 All-Star

Cubswin11

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Yu’s Twitter timeline is wild right now. Based on the translations, it looks like Yahoo Japan ran a story about a hit and run where a guy killed someone(s) but used a photo of Darvish in the headline.

 

 

 

There’s also this

 

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UK First Round Pick

UK

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Caratini reminds me of the default face when you create a player in the '11 MLB The Show.
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Cubswin11 All-Star

Cubswin11

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I wandered onto his Bbref page including the NPB years and....is Darvish a guy on a HoF track? These next 4 years would have to go amazing probably but between the NPB and MLB he's already got over 2300 innings with a sub-3 ERA and RA9. Guy's an animal. It helps that my last/only memory of 2019 Darvish is him blacking 97 on foes

Did Nomo have any traction for the HOF? He’s probably the best proxy for Yu’s chances.

Bertz Knoxville Smokies

Bertz

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From an Eno Sarris article in The Athletic about pitchers who changed in September:

 

It doesn’t look as compelling as maybe the change in release point graph for Yu Darvish, but the pitch mix graph contains a few subtle changes that were just as important for Darvish’s awesome late-season run as his mechanical change was. By throwing his curve and cutter more, and his fastballs less often, he concentrated on three of his four best pitches more often, pushing his stuff number from really good to one that would sit fifth right behind Tyler Glasnow, Gerrit Cole, Garret Richards, and Walker Buehler.

 

He still doesn’t have good command, but, hey, this change also improved his Command+ number because, look at this, the pitches he commands least are his fastballs and his changeup. So using the cutter for strikes and the four-seam, slider, and curve for whiffs… that’s a thing that can stick with Darvish even if his release point slips back to where it was before. This is one of the benefits of having so many pitch types.

Bertz Knoxville Smokies

Bertz

Old-Timey Member
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Fell down a Yu Darvish rabbit hole this morning. Looking at the 2nd half league wide, here are Yu's ranks among starters with at least 50 IP (109 pitchers):

 

K% - 3rd (37.8%)

BB% - 1st (2.2%)

ERA - 10th (2.76)

FIP - 7th (2.83)

xFIP - 2nd (2.37)

GB% - 51st (43.1%)

HR/FB% - 104th (19.7%)

% of Balls in the Zone - 26th (50.2%)

Opponent chase rate - 3rd (40.4%)

Contact % - 11th (70.2%)

 

Those are legit, true ace numbers. Basically Cole and Verlander are the only guys who were consistently above him.

 

I'm a bit torn. Historically 1st Half/2nd Half splits are meaningless. For every guy who makes a permanent change that carries forward there's three for whom it was just a hot streak. However, Yu made a number of significant changes over the course of the season, so I want to believe they're real and permanent. It's also possible he was just knocking the rust off for the first month after missing so much time in 2018.

 

On the other hand, it's somewhat rare for extreme HR/FB numbers in either direction to be more than dumb luck. And Yu's full season numbers still have him as the 15th best starter in the league by xFIP. So as much as regression might take away K and BB wise from him it's likely to give back dong-wise.

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