How are we today, still nothing major, the details of Mike Minor's contract with Texas have just been released, i'll talk about that later on aa part of an article evaluating signings, just waiting until we have a few of them, too much to do an article on each one, just a quick note, contrary to popular belief it wasn't a bargain, over 9 mil for him, given his track record of injuries and his overall performance, that's a good payday, but before we deviate too much let's assess the topic at hand.
So if you have been paying attention, for quite a while now people seem to have given up on David Price, he's hardly ever mentioned in talks about the Red Sox, despite being the highest paid player on the team, and when they do talk about him, he's referred as an albatross, this declining star, he is basically one bad season away from being put in the same category as Albert Pujols, which is far from fair, why is that?
First, before we analyze his on field performance, a small but relevant contribuitor to this notion is that a lot of people, especially a lot of the media got sick of hia attitude, he's had his issues throughout hia career, but the whole situation with the media thia year didn't look good, insulting Eckersley in front of the whole team, received a lot of pushback and his lingering injury issues didn't help, and as we all know in sports when you'te great nobody cares about your attitude, you and/or the team begin to struggle for a stretch all of a sudden, he doesn't get along with teammates, disrespects the coach, big ego, boycotes the media, they will say anything really, remember last year when Green Bay had a skid in the beggjning of the season ans out of nowhere the world came down on Aaron Rodgers, former teammates, the media, fans even his family for crying out loud, oh but he's selfish, has no friends on the team, dislikes the coach, where was that his whole career, then he went on fire ran the table and no one remembers that anymore, the point is this is a real thing.
Now looking at his numbers this year, in comparison to his career. Note: I'm aware he only pitched 74.2 IP this year but it's nevertheless a decent sample size.
2017/Career
ERA 3.38/3.22
K% 24.0/23.5
BB% 7.6/6.2
HR/FB % 9.8/9.6
ERA- 74/80
FIP- 84/81
There's no huge decline there and while some underline stats, show he hasn't been as a good like FIP, SIERA, here is something Boston fans should be excited about, he has improved his SwStrike% from a career average of 9.8 to 11.9 and 11.7 ths last two years his O-Swing% has also improved 34.4 this year to a 30.5 career average, his velocity is still good and the Average Spin Rate on his Cut Fastball of 2109 RPM rivals James Paxton's 2109, my point is while there are some signs of decline, Price should not be written off, he still has a lot of gas in that tank and if he can stay healthy, should pitch well.
As always feel free to comment, subscribe, suggest, anything you feel like it, a lot of pieces coming soon.
See you later folks