Christian Friedrich promoted to Asheville

Sheng-An Kuo was demoted to take Friedrich's place. Look in the notes section at the bottom for the mention of this.

10 months ago Russ Comment 11 comments 0 recs |

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Now I'm really excited I got my playoff tickets, I hope he's scheduled

for one of those games.

by Rox Girl on Aug 18, 2008 10:55 AM MDT reply actions 0 recs

I should add, I'm not terribly surprised at Kuo's demotion...

Out of the bullpen he was just barely touching the mid-80’s in Lexington, and while he was effective, he had the least impressive stuff of all the Tourists relievers I saw that weekend. I’m not very high on his chances at all right now.

by Rox Girl on Aug 18, 2008 10:59 AM MDT reply actions 0 recs

Sounds like a promotion based purely on talent – he’s pitched well so far, but why not promote Jonnathan Aristil as well? Aristil has pitched lights-out this year.

by onholliday on Aug 18, 2008 3:02 PM MDT reply actions 0 recs

Not really...

Aristil’s surviving with smoke and mirrors rather than stuff. I was told by a scout before Tri-City’s season began that he had the best change-up on that staff but his other pitches just don’t overwhelm anybody and the peripheral numbers back that up. Despite the ERA, he’s not really dominating to the level Friedrich is, and while he could probably be successful at Asheville next season, Friedrich looks like he should be successful at Modesto next year, and this move is in preparation for that as much as anything.

by Rox Girl on Aug 18, 2008 3:12 PM MDT up reply actions 0 recs

The only peripheral where Friedrich really has the advantage is strikeouts, and as a consequence, FIP. Still, I trust you.

I’m not saying Friedrich shouldn’t be promoted, but I don’t understand how a guy like Aristil isn’t promoted by now. If he’s surviving with smoke and mirrors, what’s his future? And does keeping him at a level where he’s dominating the competition really helping him?

by onholliday on Aug 18, 2008 3:25 PM MDT up reply actions 0 recs

ehhh

apologies for the syntax on the last sentence.

by onholliday on Aug 18, 2008 3:25 PM MDT up reply actions 0 recs

Strikeouts are a huge advantage, though..

We’re not talking about just a handful more, but of nearly tripling Aristil’s rate, while halving his walk rate. What that’s saying is that Friedrich isn’t nipping around the edges, he simply just throwing it past NWL hitters and they can do nothing about it.

There are other metrics Friedrich’s got a huge advantage in that are showing his dominance, such as batters faced per out, which I like better than WHIP and even FIP in that strength of contact seems to show up more, but in the meantime, so you don’t have to just take my word for it, look at the two pitchers’ luck neutralized FIPs according to minorleaguesplits.com:

Friedrich: 2.66

Aristil: 4.78

by Rox Girl on Aug 18, 2008 4:01 PM MDT up reply actions 0 recs