- I did a more thorough background on Jose's stuff and I'm going to talk to Josh Kalk and see if I can't get a few things from him on, say, just Jose and hopefully Clayton Richard too. Anyway, it looks like Jose may have been having some velocity problems after the Cleveland start where he threw 115 pitches. For those who want to see what I was looking at in particular, check out this and use in conjunction with a game log. Also, Jose's side arm fastball is incredibly good against RHB, a legit sinker really. He just doesn't have much against lefties, especially when he doesn't have good velocity. Without a change up, he can't really disguise his fastball to LHB, nor does he have an out pitch for them if the forkball is off.
- Yesterday's win has me thinking about Q's future. For one, expecting him to noticeably decline at this point when the run scoring environment is so much better in the second half than the first would, once adjusted for the new environ, make the underlying reality even worse than it would seem at first glance. So keep that in mind if it happens. Either way, he's sporting a .271 ISO and a .101 IsoD right now. I doubt you'd find 10 players in baseball with a better combo.
- Additionally, and this is something I never read about him and still generally don't, is that his mechanics and way of doing things on the field are very much his own. That is to say, very particular to him. He throws a little weird (way over the top, footballishly). He rolls over his backfoot in his swing. And that stance! To all of us, it's already iconic, a silhouette we'd recognize instantly. His peculiarity works both ways: it throws off prognosticators if it turns out he's legit (he's outstripping his PECOTA 90th percentile projection). But the insularity of individuality only has so much power and, in fact, it can be part of the problem. The pull toward the mean, the universal squeeze of entropy, more forcefully asserts itself against those who have no mentors, for whom the normal solutions hold no salve. Hall of Famers, of course, are by definition such and they are so incredible that they simply aren't subject to the tribulations of the weak. They are distanced by their awesome powers, the strange savant, "Manny being Manny". And they always have mythic proportions. The Big Hurt. Ironman. The Sultan of Swat. Or even...Q!perman. Which is why, as I'm watching him, I wonder if it will be less special if 5 years from now he isn't the same Q I'm watching today. If it all ends too quickly, it'll be tough to comprehend and we'll be stuck wondering about what could have been. Who's going to say they saw it coming? ...Is it crude to see he and Omar in the same light?
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