Giants (Verlander) vs Cubs (Rea): 5/6/25, 6:40pm

[squally1313]

18 minutes ago, CubUgly said:

Whether you want to call it closer or high leverage, for me the bottom line remains.

 

He was the sixth pitcher out of the bullpen last night. He had pitched twice in the last two weeks before last night, and the last time was the 9th inning of an 8-3 game. Before that was last Sunday. If you want to imply that Counsell trusts him in high leverage spots, why wasn't he pitching the ninth?

[Stratos]

10 hours ago, WhyCantWeWin said:

Good points, i don’t really have a rebuttal to that. Still Pressly needs to be IL’ed or something, something clearly is not working for him

To be fair to Pressly, he didn't give up any runs since March vs AZ.  

[Stratos]

42 minutes ago, squally1313 said:

He was the sixth pitcher out of the bullpen last night. He had pitched twice in the last two weeks before last night, and the last time was the 9th inning of an 8-3 game. Before that was last Sunday. If you want to imply that Counsell trusts him in high leverage spots, why wasn't he pitching the ninth?

He's gotta be still hurt so they're using him sparingly.  Extras created a need i wager.

[squally1313]

10 minutes ago, Stratos said:

He's gotta be still hurt so they're using him sparingly.  Extras created a need i wager.

Yeah I mean, he might just suck! If he's hurt to the extent that they can only use him once a week and he hasn't effective before this, you'd think they would have gone down the IL route by now. The human element plays into it a little bit, he's had a long successful career these guys by nature have to be super confident in their abilities and would (maybe!) be hesitant to taking what he thinks is a phantom IL stint, especially after going a month without giving up an earned run.

And if he's actually healthy, just bad, you probably don't want to set the precedent of abusing the phantom IL route, especially with a veteran player. Actually healthy/bad becomes where I think we've ended up, which is him being at the bottom of the totem pole but them making a calculated decision that he's at least somewhat likely to right the ship (or at least taking that chance outweighs the value of giving those minimal innings to Roberts/Hollowell in Chicago at maybe improved performance and benefit to their development). 

[Jason Ross]

Yeah, with Pressley, we're probably getting to a point of legitimate worry. His K% is currently 8.1% - it's the second lowest among all qualified relievers. That is a rate of five strikeouts on the year against 62 batters faced. The slider is grading out really poorly based on Stuff+ as is the fastball. And outside of inducing ground balls, I cannot find a single thing in his statcast profile that's positive. The Athletic brought up the fastball and how it's shape is trending more towards a cutter. None of this is really great news 

Determining what is the knee and what is age and what is something else...is hard to determine. But I've moved from "he's been productive for a while, let's see where we go" to "I don't know..." over the last little bit. The flags are transitioning from yellow to red. 

They don't need to DFA him yet, but I'd guess a reshuffle of the bullpen a bit in terms of pecking order might need to be done for bit while Pressley is continued to be evaluated. Not necessarily upset at how last night played out, but just in general, he probably belongs in more low leverage situations overall. 

[We Got The Whole 9]

I could understand if he was at, like, 20% K rate, but this far of a drop... sorry guys, nobody could have predicted this. 

[WhyCantWeWin]

Wasnt his fastball down a tick last year and it’s continued this year?

[Jason Ross]

18 minutes ago, WhyCantWeWin said:

Wasnt his fastball down a tick last year and it’s continued this year?

In terms of velocity it dropped a bit last year, but not to egergious levels, going from 94.3 to 93.8mph; noticeable, but not massive. Many times, even at this age, these things drop a bit and then stabilize. Pressley has dropped more this year even more, down to the 92 mph range. 

[gflore34]

2 hours ago, Jason Ross said:

Yeah, with Pressley, we're probably getting to a point of legitimate worry. His K% is currently 8.1% - it's the second lowest among all qualified relievers. That is a rate of five strikeouts on the year against 62 batters faced. The slider is grading out really poorly based on Stuff+ as is the fastball. And outside of inducing ground balls, I cannot find a single thing in his statcast profile that's positive. The Athletic brought up the fastball and how it's shape is trending more towards a cutter. None of this is really great news 

Determining what is the knee and what is age and what is something else...is hard to determine. But I've moved from "he's been productive for a while, let's see where we go" to "I don't know..." over the last little bit. The flags are transitioning from yellow to red. 

They don't need to DFA him yet, but I'd guess a reshuffle of the bullpen a bit in terms of pecking order might need to be done for bit while Pressley is continued to be evaluated. Not necessarily upset at how last night played out, but just in general, he probably belongs in more low leverage situations overall. 

With Palencia throwing strikes I don't see why a combination of him and Hodge can't cover the 8th and 9th.  It's time to end the Ryan Pressly experience, I believe he should be DFA' ed.

[Jason Ross]

5 minutes ago, gflore34 said:

With Palencia throwing strikes I don't see why a combination of him and Hodge can't cover the 8th and 9th.  It's time to end the Ryan Pressly experience, I believe he should be DFA' ed.

There's just not a distinctly better option right now. He's getting ground balls and there's enough reason to suggest some of this is knee related that DFA'ing him is premature. I get that it hasn't always been smooth sailing, but he gave up one run prior to last night. So while last night was bad, and some of the underlying metrics are bad, it isn't like a Gavin Hollowell is so distinctly good they have to make a permanent spot. 

I'm certainly pretty skeptical of Pressley rebounding and become more so as we go. But the team isn't desperate right now and he's been good enough for long enough, and has the knee thing that you can still find an explanation short of cutting the chord entirely. They're probably okay with him in low-leverage for a few weeks as they wait to see what the fix is.

[gflore34]

1 minute ago, Jason Ross said:

There's just not a distinctly better option right now. He's getting ground balls and there's enough reason to suggest some of this is knee related that DFA'ing him is premature. I get that it hasn't always been smooth sailing, but he gave up one run prior to last night. So while last night was bad, and some of the underlying metrics are bad, it isn't like a Gavin Hollowell is so distinctly good they have to make a permanent spot. 

I'm certainly pretty skeptical of Pressley rebounding and become more so as we go. But the team isn't desperate right now and he's been good enough for long enough, and has the knee thing that you can still find an explanation short of cutting the chord entirely. They're probably okay with him in low-leverage for a few weeks as they wait to see what the fix is.

A closer should miss some bats once in a while, GB rate is good but, he's got to miss some bats.  A closer missing bats is especially important in the post season, don't want him always pitching to contact.

[Rcal10]

4 minutes ago, gflore34 said:

With Palencia throwing strikes I don't see why a combination of him and Hodge can't cover the 8th and 9th.  It's time to end the Ryan Pressly experience, I believe he should be DFA' ed.

Normally I am not one to panic quickly or overreact to situations. I tend to believe guys play to the back of their baseball card. I think many fans here overreact daily. But, that said, I think Pressly is on borrowed time. And I wouldn’t use him in a high leverage situation. Maybe he is a guy that should be DFA. Might not be when Horton is brought up (Hopefully this weekend) but maybe when Braiser is ready to come back. None of the optionable pen arms deserve to be sent back. So very possible Pressly could be released. 

[mul21]

Pressly isn't getting released after one really bad outing.  It's much more likely this is injury related and it's affecting his ability to get the same leg drive he normally does and that's diminishing his stuff.  As has been mentioned, the fall off a cliff of his whiff% is a dead giveaway that it's injury related because if he was just getting old it would be a much more gradual drop.  

[squally1313]

13 minutes ago, gflore34 said:

A closer should miss some bats once in a while, GB rate is good but, he's got to miss some bats.  A closer missing bats is especially important in the post season, don't want him always pitching to contact.

If we all agree to stop calling him the closer and instead call him the 7th man out of the pen, are you more ok with him sticking around a while longer?

[gflore34]

12 minutes ago, squally1313 said:

If we all agree to stop calling him the closer and instead call him the 7th man out of the pen, are you more ok with him sticking around a while longer?

Maybe he's been hurt all season?  I just don't have faith that once healed he'll be effective.

[squally1313]

3 minutes ago, gflore34 said:

Maybe he's been hurt all season?  I just don't have faith that once healed he'll be effective.

10 innings in a row without an earned run going into last night. I mean, you might be right, you simply aren't going to be effective with this K rate. But it's 14 innings vs like 7 years of being a good to great reliever. 

And again, right now it's not 'is he going to be a good closer at any point this season'....it's 'is he more likely to turn into an effective contributor than Hollowell/Roberts/etc' with the added caveat that we get to keep those guys in the minors as future options whereas we don't get to keep Pressly. 

The money is spent, we can and should judge the signing, especially coming off Neris the year before and the general shortage of pitching we currently have. But that's a different decision than what we should do now. 

[Transmogrified Tiger]

I find the Pressly dialogue frustrating because it seems a number of people just decided that he was a lost cause on borrowed time in March, which is why you get numerous 'why isn't he released yet' complaints in his first bad outing in ages.  But the lack of K's is worrisome and I wouldn't bet on 10 consecutive scoreless outings from now without those ticking up(I also wouldn't bet on the K's staying this low).  

 

Unlike Squally I think he's been used as a leverage arm when he's been available(the knee drain and lack of close games has kept his usage low), so I understand some concern there(though certainly not last night's usage).  But the reaction to Pressly having a rough day compared to Merryweather's Sunday trouble or when Hodge had his nightmare outing against Arizona is over the top.  

[Jason Ross]

1 hour ago, gflore34 said:

A closer should miss some bats once in a while, GB rate is good but, he's got to miss some bats.  A closer missing bats is especially important in the post season, don't want him always pitching to contact.

Well, like I said, move him to low-leverage. He's not going to be the closer in low-leverage. Ultimately, I don't disagree that your best reliever needs to miss bats, but I'm suggesting a midpoint between closer and cut him.