re: The Craig Kimbrel Conundrum

quote:

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Kimbrel had a 4.57 ERA with a BB/9 over six during the second half of the season

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I agree with the BB rate, but ERA is a difficult stat for relievers because of the small sample size. I'll tell you I watch this team every night, and he didn't have many white knuckle situations even in the second half. If you look at his game logs, this is borne out, in fact most of the effect on his ERA came on one late Sep outing vs BAL in a meaningless game where he gave up 4 ER (in fact, those were the only runs earned or unearned he gave up for the entire month of SEP). He was still really, really good in high leverage situations through out the year.

My point from this rambling is that I still think it can be minor. Pedro said last night on the postgame that he was looking at his target too late? I want to see what the NESN crew says, and have it on the DVR, but haven't watched it yet.