Josh Hader appreciation thread

[homer]

Dude, deserves his own topic.

 

[Madhawk23]

The 8 K's in 2.2 IP of relief is both ridiculous and historic. But, I think even more impressive might be that very first K he got against Votto. I'm not sure if I've ever seen Joey Votto look as clueless and helpless as he did in that 3 pitch AB. Just straight filthy!

[homer]

Per Fangraphs, Hader as a WAR of 1.0. That ties him with the likes of Sean Manea, Patrick Corbin, and Blake Snell.

 

Pitching WAR

[MrTPlush]

The 8 K's in 2.2 IP of relief is both ridiculous and historic. But, I think even more impressive might be that very first K he got against Votto. I'm not sure if I've ever seen Joey Votto look as clueless and helpless as he did in that 3 pitch AB. Just straight filthy!

 

I’ve seen it many times.

 

 

By Josh Hader

[Ron Robinsons Beard]

Per Fangraphs, Hader as a WAR of 1.0. That ties him with the likes of Sean Manea, Patrick Corbin, and Blake Snell.

 

Pitching WAR

 

Looking at that, it makes Hader about as valuable as a #2-3 starter. That seems significant.

[monty57]

I appreciate Hader a lot. As a stater, he could be one of the most valuable pitchers in the game. As a reliever I agree that if he continues to dominate he could be as valuable as a middle-of-the-rotation starter.

[homer]

I think he'd need a third pitch to be an effective starter. He might have trouble getting through the lineup the second and third time.

[markedman5]

Heard on sportscenter last night

 

Opposing hitters facing Hader this season are 0-41 when he gets 2 strikes on them.......

 

So basically he changes the rules to 2 strikes and your out!

[MrTPlush]

The ability to bring him in when he is truly needed is really hard to peg value wise...but it has to be a lot. I think you could argue his impact so far has been just as valuable as a top of the rotation guy so far this year.

 

How many times does a starter pitch like an ace only for his offense to score one or zero runs? Or the offense makes it a blow out. Anyone could pitch those games.

[MadScientist]

Heard on sportscenter last night

 

Opposing hitters facing Hader this season are 0-41 when he gets 2 strikes on them.......

 

So basically he changes the rules to 2 strikes and your out!

 

Given that he has 39 K's that means that only 2 out of 41 batters that got 2 strikes on them even managed to put the ball in play. He's given up 4 hits and 5 walks, so at the moment the best strategy for batters facing Hader might be to give up and stand there with the bat on the shoulder and hope he misses.

[pacopete4]

So far Hader has said all the "right" things when being asked about his role. It will be very interesting to see how that plays out with him and the organization as he continues to have such great success in the major leagues.

[ThisIsMyCrew]

Hader tied the Brewers season high for strikeouts in one game yesterday. April 7 Davies had 8 strikeouts in 6 innings of work. Hader needed less than half that! Wow!

[3and2Fastball]

Declining comment, not wanting to jinx anything. Reserving comment for postseason

[Greenleaf1]

Since Chris Sale is probably the easiest comp to make to Hader, Sale spent a season and a half in the Sox bullpen, then they converted him at the beginning of his 3rd season to the rotation, where he obviously did quite well for himself.

 

Hader's numbers in the pen thus far are even more dominant than Sale's, but Sale also had more pitch types than Hader, whose FanGraphs "changeup" is actually still just his slider according to Hader.

 

I'd be concerned about that, but (small sample size alert) Hader's numbers against righties have been just as dominant as against lefties, so it seems like that slider is working well against righties too (and the fastball is best described as unhittable at this point if you look at those contact % stats).

 

Hader has also shown dramatic improvement in other areas that might've worried me about his role in the rotation even last year (sorry for lack of formatting):

 

2018 2017 (Majors) 2017 (AAA) 2016 (AAA) 2016 (AA)

Pitches Per Inning 15.94 16.34 17.83 18.06 16.96

BB/9 2.50 4.15 5.37 4.70 3.00

 

In addition to being better than ever this year, he's putting up his best numbers of his career in K/9 and BB/9 (except for 5 games in low-A with the Orioles in 2012), and is also getting more efficient as he goes. A lot of the things that might've worried people about his inability to go deep in games might not be as big of a deal anymore.

 

I know there's been some concern that he can't hold his velocity late into games but I'm not sure where that originates from (probably in the minors a few years ago), and that's just something you're not going to know unless you give him a shot in the rotation I guess.

 

The only other concern I have is that we have plenty of potentially good to great starters lined up who deserve shots in the rotation, but I'm not sure that's a good enough reason to leave Hader in the bullpen when he has shown that he can be as dominant as this. While Chacin is still in the rotation, I'm not going to be worried about us having too many good starters to not give Hader a chance.

[homer]

Josh Hader doesn't miss the plate. The plate moves because it's scared of Josh Hader.

[bill hAll Star]

Since Chris Sale is probably the easiest comp to make to Hader, Sale spent a season and a half in the Sox bullpen, then they converted him at the beginning of his 3rd season to the rotation, where he obviously did quite well for himself.

 

Hader's numbers in the pen thus far are even more dominant than Sale's, but Sale also had more pitch types than Hader, whose FanGraphs "changeup" is actually still just his slider according to Hader.

 

I'd be concerned about that, but (small sample size alert) Hader's numbers against righties have been just as dominant as against lefties, so it seems like that slider is working well against righties too (and the fastball is best described as unhittable at this point if you look at those contact % stats).

 

Hader has also shown dramatic improvement in other areas that might've worried me about his role in the rotation even last year (sorry for lack of formatting):

 

2018 2017 (Majors) 2017 (AAA) 2016 (AAA) 2016 (AA)

Pitches Per Inning 15.94 16.34 17.83 18.06 16.96

BB/9 2.50 4.15 5.37 4.70 3.00

 

In addition to being better than ever this year, he's putting up his best numbers of his career in K/9 and BB/9 (except for 5 games in low-A with the Orioles in 2012), and is also getting more efficient as he goes. A lot of the things that might've worried people about his inability to go deep in games might not be as big of a deal anymore.

 

I know there's been some concern that he can't hold his velocity late into games but I'm not sure where that originates from (probably in the minors a few years ago), and that's just something you're not going to know unless you give him a shot in the rotation I guess.

 

The only other concern I have is that we have plenty of potentially good to great starters lined up who deserve shots in the rotation, but I'm not sure that's a good enough reason to leave Hader in the bullpen when he has shown that he can be as dominant as this. While Chacin is still in the rotation, I'm not going to be worried about us having too many good starters to not give Hader a chance.

 

I think the assumed issue is that there will be games where teams can foul off the fastball/slider enough to boost his pitch count or finally start to get to it 2x or 3x around the order since he doesn't have a changeup like Sale.

 

Hader is burning through innings quickly right now, I don't know if that would translate to a game he starts and if he could get through the 2nd time around an order easily without a changeup.

[bork]

He was so filthy last night, I had to take a shower after the game.

[adambr2]

The ability to bring him in when he is truly needed is really hard to peg value wise...but it has to be a lot. I think you could argue his impact so far has been just as valuable as a top of the rotation guy so far this year.

 

How many times does a starter pitch like an ace only for his offense to score one or zero runs? Or the offense makes it a blow out. Anyone could pitch those games.

 

That's the thing. I don't believe people are properly valuing Hader as a reliever vs. as a starter. I also don't believe WAR is going to properly value him. People see 175 innings from him as a starter and 90-100 as a reliever and just assume, "175 is more than 90-100, so he's more valuable as a starter." It's not that simple. At least I don't believe it is.

 

I can't properly evaluate how much it means to be able to pick and choose your spots with him, but I believe our front office is trying to do so. We have a very analytically driven F.O. and these short hooks for starters and long innings for the pen are not a coincidence. And for the most part, it's working. The fact that we are sitting at 17-13 with the 5th WORST offense in baseball is a testament to how perfectly the pitching staff has been managed.

 

Ironically, the biggest selling point to me on how much value Hader has as a reliever is a very simple stat -- we are 11-0 in games when he is used. What would our record be in those games without him? Its impossible to say, but consider that almost all 11 of those games are, by design and how we like to use him, very close and competitive games. And we've won them all, large in part to what he brings to the pen.

[bill hAll Star]

I'd imagine that he's taking games where we have a lead in the 7th, where I'd guess the winning % is something like 85% for the average team, to 95%. Not only is he a dominant pitcher, but it also trickles down that you can use other good pitchers in the next-highest leverage spots.

 

I have nothing backing it up, but my suggestion is that he's going to win you a handful of 1 or 2 run games (the 85% to 95%) note above. He may be a 5 or 6 WAR type guy but it would be really hard to quantify.

[tmwiese55]

So far Hader has said all the "right" things when being asked about his role. It will be very interesting to see how that plays out with him and the organization as he continues to have such great success in the major leagues.

 

Good point and obviously it's good that he's being a team player. But yes if this continues at some point he and his agent see the 200 mil contracts starting pitchers get and they likely have to look at that route.

 

Adding to bill hall's post. The taking 2-3 innings also trickles down to saving the other top guys in the pen days off. With the current BP usage strategy that will be big later on to try and keep these guys from being overworked.

 

I do grant the 11-0 is skewed in that he's probably had a lead in almost all of those games when he came in. But still, he basically ices the game which of course is great.

[adambr2]

The problem with many modern statistics is that people take them too literally sometimes and just run with it, especially WAR. I've been totally guilty of that myself.

 

You're right, it's very hard to quantify Hader's value in terms of wins and losses.

[pacopete4]

The problem with many modern statistics is that people take them too literally sometimes and just run with it, especially WAR. I've been totally guilty of that myself.

 

This is one of the best things written in this thread. We do tend to use WAR when it fits our agenda it seems.

[tmwiese55]

WAR should be renamed to something like Player Efficiency Rating. People take the "replacement" thing way to literally.

[Baldkin]

I'd imagine that he's taking games where we have a lead in the 7th, where I'd guess the winning % is something like 85% for the average team, to 95%. Not only is he a dominant pitcher, but it also trickles down that you can use other good pitchers in the next-highest leverage spots.

 

I have nothing backing it up, but my suggestion is that he's going to win you a handful of 1 or 2 run games (the 85% to 95%) note above. He may be a 5 or 6 WAR type guy but it would be really hard to quantify.

 

You're really talking about WPA (Win Probability Added) in your second paragraph. Hader is already at 1.44 WPA this season per fangraphs, which puts him 4th in baseball.

 

While his player leverage index has him as the 51st highest leverage reliever across baseball..... so, in reality, Counsell could still use him even more effectively.

[monty57]

That's the thing. I don't believe people are properly valuing Hader as a reliever vs. as a starter. I also don't believe WAR is going to properly value him. People see 175 innings from him as a starter and 90-100 as a reliever and just assume, "175 is more than 90-100, so he's more valuable as a starter." It's not that simple. At least I don't believe it is.

 

Very few relievers ever hit the 90 inning mark, and no one has hit 100 since Scott Proctor in 2006. Over the last decade there's generally only a handful of guys that get over 80. If they plan on using him for 90-100 innings regularly as a reliever, I'd plan on him having a short career.

 

In the "Andrew Miller role," Andrew Miller has pitched 74.1 and 62.2 innings over the last two seasons.

 

If we're trying to decide which role is more important, what does anyone thing the odds are of Boston converting Sale back to a reliever, since they know he can be dominant there? Does anyone think that Boston should convert Sale back to a reliever, where he could be used in "important innings?"

 

I'm not trying to throw off an appreciation thread. I really appreciate what Hader's doing. I just think that he could be much more valuable as a starter, and has the potential to be one of the best starters ever to wear a Brewer uniform. I just worry that he's doing such a good job that he'll get himself stuck in a less valuable role for fear of "messing up a good thing."