SBNation.com User Blog: Garrett Hooe

Washington Nationals PDB: The Dodgers' Clayton Kershaw, Opposing Starter for May 14, 2013

Garrett Hooe — Mon, 13 May 2013 22:32:43 -0000

One of the most memorable characters in American literature for me and many others is Judge Holden, the antagonist in Cormac McCarthy's unparalleled Blood Meridian or the Evening Redness in the West.

The Judge is a scalphunter in the mid-19th century, traveling with a roving band of criminals, miscreants, and other undesirables across the vast expanse of the southwestern U.S. and Mexico. A hulking albino, he's a bad, bad dude. Kid, the book's "protagonist" -- many of McCarthy's characters aren't traditional heroes -- catches on with the gang. Although he's no saint either, one thing the Judge says to him and others makes the differing degrees of badness obvious:

"Whatever exists, [the Judge] said. Whatever in creation exists without my knowledge exists without my consent."

Take out the knowledge bit, and this describes the relentless way in which Clayton Kershaw pitches.

Early Career

Kershaw, taken with the 7th overall pick in the 2006 draft, has always had a fine prospect pedigree. Brandon Heikoop of Bleacher Report reviewed the reports of major scouting services in May 2008. The Hardball Times, Baseball Prospectus, and John Sickels all endorsed the young southpaw as a special talent. For example, Sickels stated that "Kershaw projects as a number one or number two starter at the major league level, assuming his command improves and he remains healthy."

Year	fWAR	bWAR
2009	+4.1	+4.7
2010	+4.5	+5.5
2011	+6.6	+6.5
2012	+5.4	+6.2
Total	+20.6	+22.9

Baseball America joined the chorus too, ranking Kershaw as the 24th best prospect before 2007, and the 7th best minor-leaguer before 2008. Since putting up +1.3 fWAR and +1.4 bWAR in '08, Kershaw has ripped off the seasons you see at right. He won the Cy Young award for his efforts in 2011. Also, he led all big league pitchers in bWAR last season.

If wins are your pitcher metric of choice, he got 21 of them in his Cy year. He hasn't had a full-season ERA over three since George Bush was President. His 78 FIP- over 700+ career innings ranks 8th out of 78 hurlers. And, to round out the statistical gluttony, he ranks second among that number in K% (25.5%).

2013 has been no exception. Kershaw's 1.63 ERA and 2.78 FIP tell us he's continuing to achieve success by getting strikeouts (26.7%), limiting walks (7.6%), and giving up few big flies (just 4 over 8 starts). He's averaging 7 innings pitched per start, with one complete game. He's capable with the lumber. Finally, he's currently 3rd in the league by bWAR at +2.5; I'll go out on a limb and say he's on his way to a +5.5/6 win season.

"A Legion of Horribles, Hundreds in Number"

As if he needed the help, the Dodgers ace is current seeing a career-low 17.3% line drive percentage on batted balls against. This partially explains his career-low .224 BABIP and .175 average, which could be even lower if the defense behind him were better.

Kershaw uses a four-seam fastball, slider, curve, and change up to generate outs. By run value, his fastball has been his best pitch this year (+2.04 runs per 100 pitches), but his slider has typically been the equalizer (+1.79/per 100 career), and the curve has emerged recently, too (+3.1/100 in '12 and +1.61/100 this year). Look at the hook, which drops about five feet with gravity:

How about the heater? Kershaw's 2013 fastball generates 11 inches of upward movement, 10th most in the league. Using Dave Allen's maps and combining with his neutral horizontal movement, the Texan's four seam ends up well into the negative run value area. There's a 19 MPH and fourth dimension difference between the number one and the curve, which makes the entire exercise of identifying, swinging, contacting, and succeeding against either pitch a really ludicrous proposition.

The third head of Kershaw's hydra of pitches, the slider, is getting the third most whiffs/swing among pitchers who have thrown 100 of them this year. Batters are hitting just .111 while striking out in 23 of 36 at-bats with two strikes. F.P. and Bob will just call it nasty.

Kershaw will throw each pitch over 200 times during the course of a year; here is the distribution:

The curve shows up late against left and right handers, while all hitters can count on heat early. He's a little more reluctant to use the slider as an out pitch against lefties, but apparently it's not hurting him.

The low and in zone to righties -- low and away to lefties -- is where Kershaw gets a red whiff rate, and he generally peppers righties inside and lefties outside. As you might imagine, he's most often hurt when pitches end up middle-middle.

Kershaw doesn't give any quarter on favorable hitters' counts, either. Over 900 big league at-bats this year have gone to a 3-1 tally, where overall batters are slashing a Ruthian .353/.688/.719. On the 20 occasions over 210 plate appearances where Kershaw has gone 3-1, hitters are performing miserably (-24 sOPS+). Small sample size aside, this is what dominance looks like: Give the opposing side the best case scenario, and they still find themselves dragging the bat back to the pine. And he's only 25.

Conclusions

It's been stated here before, but the Nats offense isn't setting the world on fire this year. Even if they were, it might not matter. Ambushing Kershaw hasn't been all that successful (he's performing 78% better than the average hurler on first-pitch balls in play), and although he's not as tough on righties as he is lefties, it's still pretty rough going (.556 OPS). I suppose some combination of plate discipline, good BABIP fortune, and a mistake pitch or two could lead to favorable situations, but that's optimistic.

Other writers have effectively cataloged Kershaw's talents -- Johan Keri at Grantland did so just a few days ago, in fact -- but Grant Brisbee succinctly hit it when he wrote about the .gif above:

Regardless of the outcome, regardless of your team loyalties, there are moments where you can appreciate the overall design of the game -- it starts with a pitcher standing 60 feet, six inches away, and it includes a ball with irregular seams that, when gripped and spun a certain way, can make a hitter fear for his life.

Whatever in the batter's box exists exists without Kershaw's consent.

Washington Nationals PDB: Analysis of and Report on the Cubs' Burgeoning Jeff Samardzija

Garrett Hooe — Thu, 09 May 2013 23:15:12 -0000

The Washington Nationals get right back on the field tonight after an encouraging two-game sweep of the Detroit Tigers. Twenty-eight year-old Chicago Cubs righty Jeff Samardzija opposes both the team and my ability to type swiftly. Let's see how he's has gone from "thrower" to "pitcher."

Early Career

Before the Cubs selected him out of Notre Dame in 2007, there was a question of just what to make of Samardzija. John Sickels wrote at the end of 2007 that the Cubs "knew they were getting a strong arm, but it was unclear how quickly it would take him to transition from thrower to pitcher. It is still unclear."

Fast forward to 2010, where Jim Callis of Baseball America observed that

There are two main issues with Samardzija. The biggest is that he’s still more of an arm-strength guy than a true pitcher. Even when he was throwing in the mid-90s at Notre Dame, he didn’t miss a lot of bats. His fastball straightens out when he overthrows, and while his slider and splitter have their moments, neither is a consistent weapon. His command also isn’t as strong as it needs to be.

The other problem is that in the last three years, the Cubs have moved him from a starter in Triple-A to a reliever in the majors, and back and forth again . . . again . . . and again. That’s tough on any pitcher, especially one who’s as raw and relatively inexperienced as Samardzija. I don’t ever seeing him becoming a starter, so I’d commit to making him a full-time reliever going forward.

Samardzija's stats in limited 2009 major-league duty supported Callis' concern, to be sure. However, the Notre Dame alum posted a +3.0 fWAR/+1.8 bWAR value over 170+ innings last year, improving every pitch in his repertoire over that time.

Why is he good?

Samardzija -- they call him "Shark" too, by the way -- got a lot of strikeouts in 2012 (24.9%) and did a fair enough job of limiting walks (7.8%). He's actually increased his punch-out rate this year, getting almost three strikeouts for every ten batters faced. His relationship with the strike zone has gotten a bit more complicated (9.4% BB%), but it hasn't hurt him as much in part because he's stranded an above-average number of runners.

Stat	2013
ERA	3.09
FIP	3.11
xFIP	3.02
BABIP	.283

It's appropriate to put some stock in Samardzija's current strikeout numbers. Recall that K% is one of the statistics that stabilizes for pitchers around 150 batters faced. The tall righty has seen over that amount; 181, to be precise. While it might not stay as high as the current 28.7% value, he's struck out an above-average number of hitters each year since 2011. In other words, I would be surprised (barring injury) to see him go below 25% for any extended period of time, and he'll likely continue to strike out around or over a quarter of hitters going forward.

Unfortunately for us Nats fans, line drive and ground ball rates also begin to level off at this threshold, too. And the dude is getting the right kinds of numbers for each: a worm-burning 54% ground ball rate, and a puny 15.7% line drive rate. What is more, he's getting plenty of infield fly balls.

Add it all up and Samardzija is one-third of the way to last year's fWAR total after just seven starts. He is also sporting a not-too-shabby +1.2 bWAR.

Pitch-wise, his slider is a plus. It's earned him 30% of his strikeouts and also ranks 25th of 79 pitchers by value per 100 pitches. Unless it's first pitch or he's ahead to a lefty, he'll deploy it most any time.

You'll also notice he goes to the splitter on occasion. The 84-MPH offering was a quality pitch last year, and apparently Samardzija is a fan of the Propellerheads, because history is repeating itself in 2012 (I'll show myself out). Indeed, it's the second best split in the league. And look, there's Dan Haren!

Check out the spike in whiffs on the split ("FS"):

Samardzija goes to the split less frequently that his other pitches -- interestingly, the slider is thrown the most -- but it's very effective when he uses it. Over half are located down in the zone, which is good, because north of there things get more dicey:

Credit: Baseball Prospectus

I mentioned Samardzija's worm-burning proclivity earlier. Come on down if you guessed that he's gotten ground balls with every split put in play, save two. Look with a little larger lens, and you'll see that batters are plowing infields when hitting both the split and the sinker. Aside -- what's up with the terrible performance on pitches right down the middle?

Zero line drives? Oh.

Conclusions

Despite working with a 94 MPH-plus fastball, Samardzija relies more on his slider and split-finger. One might simply see his 1-4 record and conclude that prior projections were accurate, and that he won't develop into a quality starter.

But that would be a mistake. Unlike in 2010, his slider and split are now both weapons. Also give credit to Samardzija for improving his craft -- he even dumped his girlfriend to make sure nothing got in the way of getting better (he did, but not really). I think there's some Gio Gonzalez-ness in him, if you squint.

On tonight: The Nats haven't fared well against the slider, but they've hit the sinker well enough. The team has looked capable at the plate recently, too (for an inning or two at a time, anyway). There will surely be strikeouts though, given Samardzija's talent and that the Nats are league average in K%.

Look for how well Samardzija is able to locate his split against what will probably be a majority-lefty lineup; it's oft refrained, but discipline against that pitch when it's out of the zone is critical to late-count success. If Jason Werth can't go, I'm hoping the real Shark comes through and rightfully stakes his claim to the name.

Washington Nationals PDB: The Tigers' Anibal Sanchez, A National Issue

Garrett Hooe — Tue, 07 May 2013 00:12:08 -0000

Anibal Sanchez has had a pretty spectacular 2013 so far and has also owned the Nationals throughout his career, going 8-0 over 19 starts. For the Nats, familiarity must be breeding contempt. How is he accomplishing his results?

2013

Sanchez is currently pitching to a 1.82 ERA, 1.33 FIP, and a 2.45 xFIP. Fangraphs and Baseball Reference are both on board, rating him as +2.0 and +1.8 WAR, respectively. He throws a fastball, sinker, slider, curve, and change.

Interestingly, he throws the change to same handed batters (righties) nearly as frequently as he does lefties, which is not really normal -- typically, change ups are thrown to opposite handed batters far more often.

Stat	2013
K%	31.5%
HR/FB%	0.0%

What has been the secret this year for the career 3.69 FIP/3.96 xFIP pitcher? Well, Sanchez's change has been worth +4.2 runs per 100 pitches, which is good for third best in the major leagues. Several other stats stand out, specifically those pulled to the right: The Venezuelan's K% and HR/FB% are career-best numbers.

Concerning the strikeouts, Sanchez's PITCHf/x data shows that he is generating more whiffs/swing on nearly all of his pitches this year. Unsurprisingly, the nasty change leads the way. But Brooks registers his 2013 pitch usage, velocity, and movement as largely similar to 2012 and 2011. So, repertoire and pitch speed/trajectory don't really explain the strikeout increase.

Logically, what is different is the percentage of contact generated off Sanchez's offerings. Batters are hitting the ball nearly 10% less often when a pitch is outside the zone this year when compared to his career rates (52.1% to 61.6%). Where previously those pitches were fouled off or hit weakly, batters are whiffing on a rate basis more often than usual in 2013, as the click to switch graphic shows:

Click to switch between 2012 and 2013 whiff rates. Courtesy
Baseball Prospectus.

You can see how 2013 Sanchez is getting more swings and misses in non-strike locations. 2012, though, was more in line with his career figures. Considering this, and knowing his velo and movement are largely the same this year as they have been in years' past, I'm not sure I would bet on these particular 2013 results holding over the long run.

Still, Sanchez has banked some serious performance already this season -- see his seventeen strikeout game against the Braves for evidence -- and he'll come at the Nats with several quality offerings regardless of his pitch location.

Likewise, you can count on that HR/FB% going up, and that's all there really is to say about that.

Sanchez Against the Nationals Over Time

Federal Baseball knows Sanchez has dominated Washington ever since the franchise made the trip south across the border. Sanchez's stats against the Nats are below.

Split	GS	IP	Triple Slash	K/BB	tOPS+
Nationals	19	118.2	.206/.295/.294	2.13	68
Career	150	908.2	.254/.322/.384	2.37	100

Probably no shocker, but it's nice when the stats match the impression.

I took a look at Brooks' game logs for each start Sanchez has made against the Nats and tried to identify something (anything!) he may be doing against the good guys to succeed.

2008-2010

Between 2008 and 2010, Sanchez made six starts against the Nationals. When he ended an at-bat with a strikeout, he often pitched away from right-handers, and in to lefties (all views from catcher, all images courtesy Brooks Baseball). For example:

On the rare occasion where a hit went for extra bases, the ball was elevated:

There's a decent amount of contact against Sanchez during this time, but batted balls are just going for outs rather than hits.

2011

In 2011, Sanchez again achieved success against the Nats by getting strikeouts down and away, while also seeing limited damage on pitches over the middle. This start, from May 8 of that year, demonstrates that desirable pairing well: 2 hits versus 11 strikeouts and no walks over seven innings. Washington made nearly as many outs outside the strike zone (9, by my count) as they did inside the zone (13).

The Nats showed better plate discipline later that year, touching up Sanchez for three runs (two earned) over five innings while drawing five walks against "just" five strikeouts. And what is more, the Nats even won the game in a classic (click it, click it, click it). You can also see more solid contact (lineouts) when he ventured over the middle of the plate:

2012

In Sanchez's first of two starts against the Nats last year, he continued to generate punch outs by going away to righties (in to lefties). The NL East Champions did pop two solo home runs when he left them middle-in to righties, but were unable to generate any more hard contact.

The Nats' last faced Sanchez on May 29, 2012. He went seven innings, striking out five against just one walk and one unearned run. This time, the Nats struggled more on pitches inside to righties, and were similarly (again) unable to do much on their contact opportunities over the plate. They also expanded the zone low a fair amount in grounding out:

Anything to Learn?

Looking backward, we see just how Sanchez accomplished his results. The veteran's strikeout percentage versus the Nats (25%) is better than his career average (20%), and his BABIP is lower, too (.252 against D.C., but .305 career). Many times, the Nats expanded the strike zone. Combined with their additional trouble generating hard contact inside it, one can start to offer some explanation of his success.

Of course, there are several things to note: these results were against different players at different times, and getting weak contact/having batters expand the zone can hurt any team. So, as many readers suspected, there is really not much to take forward. It is interesting in retrospect, however, to add some substance to Sanchez's dominance.

Conclusions

Historically, Sanchez has obtained a fair number of his strikeouts on down and away breaking balls. This has changed somewhat in 2013, but I don't think that trend will last if hitters understand where he's getting his punchouts this year.

But that doesn't mean the Nats can, or will, get to Sanchez; after all, they've yet to beat him. And as imperfect as the "loss" stat is, I'd venture that any Nats stat head -- indeed, any fan -- will simply take a curly W against Tigers' righty, regardless of his underlying performance.

Washington Nationals PDB: The Pirates' A.J. Burnett, S.P. Hammer

Garrett Hooe — Fri, 03 May 2013 00:30:39 -0000

A note going forward: I was convinced recently that K% and BB% are better metrics to use than K/9 and BB/9, so I am going to employ those from now on. James Gentile at Beyond the Boxscore explains that

What happens when we use the 'per 9' metrics is that we lose accuracy, because our measurements have become subject to the tyrannical forces of BAbip. As a pitcher allows more Hits per Ball in Play, he becomes less efficient. He ends up facing more batters and getting fewer outs, which consequently means fewer innings. But if he's still striking out batters at the same rate (say 20%) all the while, his K/9 is going to look a lot shinier with those fewer Innings.

Essentially -- and Gentile later clarified what he meant when he used the term "accuracy" -- K% or BB% removes the some of the distortive effect of per 9 metrics when explaining overall performance. Here's an example:

But with K/9 we end up rewarding the high BABIP for Pitcher 'R' by using his much smaller IP denominator to make our K/9 calculation. He ends up with a K/9 of 8.0 while Pitcher 'F' ends up with a K/9 of just 7.38, despite striking out batters at the same rate!

Obviously, this is a fairly extreme example, as not many pitchers post a .345 BABIP over the course of a full season. But the hypothetical pitcher with a league-average BABIP of .297 in this table posts a K/9 of 7.65, almost a half of a strikeout per game higher than Pitcher 'F' with the low-BABIP. In my mind, this is very much a significant difference.

For perspective, here are some numbers on K% and BB% from 2012:

Stat	Lowest	League Average	Highest
K%	9.8% (Henderson Alvarez)	20.2%	29.4% (Max Scherzer)
BB%	3.3% (Cliff Lee)	8.2%	13.1% (Edinson Volquez)

Let's jump right into A.J. Burnett's profile, he of the 2.83 ERA, 2.56 FIP, +0.8 fWAR and +0.5 bWAR.

Pitches, Velocity, Usage, Value

Burnett offers a pair of 93-MPH offerings with differing movements, although the four seam gets the most play. A close second is his curve ball, which is without much question his signature offering.

2013 Pitch	Velocity	Usage	Value
Fourseam	93.0	34%	2.2
Sinker	93.1	29%	0.2
Curve	83.0	33%	3.9
Changeup	87.7	4%	-0.9

The curve is actually something of a spike or knuckle-curve. And it's nasty, too: The overall value makes it the best curve ball in the league.

Also of note is that Burnett's fastball velo is down from years' past. Despite this, he's rocking nearly his highest K% with the pitch of his career. And ditto that for the knuckle-curve. Fifty-three percent of the time a curve ends a plate appearance, it's a strikeout. The other 47%? Batters are "hitting" to an OPS of just .328.

Here's the offering in the wild, thanks to Jeff Sullivan's Pirate catcher-skill article on Fangraphs:

via cdn.fangraphs.com

Add it all up, and Burnett boasts a K% of 32.9%. That is one way to get by without top-shelf command (9.6% BB%).

More generally, curb any doubt about Burnett using an Arroyo "pitch backwards" approach; early in the count, batters get the fastball or sinker, and when he's ahead it's better than a coin flip that lefties and righties will see a curve.

Batted Ball Profile

The infield fly ball and BABIP figures stand out a little bit, but the latter may be explained in part by a LD% that is almost 3% greater than his career average.

Year	GB%	LD%	FB%	IFFB%	HR/FB%	BABIP
2013	46.3%	21.3%	32.5%	0.0%	7.7%	.321

Striking out a ridiculous number of batters will get you over a .100 point difference between your BABIP and opponents' average (.211!). Take every qualified pitcher since 2000 (1,243 hurlers), and that difference (0.111) would be 4th most all-time. This is mostly a function of limited data this year I'd figure, but it brings home the point sufficiently (Randy Johnson's 2001 was nuts by any measure, not the least of which was his 0.115 difference over the entire season).

Additional Analysis

Unsurprisingly, Burnett has tossed the most curve balls in the league this year -- over 200, in fact. And why not? He's getting an above-average amount of swings on the pitch, and the second most swings and misses (46.74%) within that subset. So, batters are coming up empty 47% of the time that they swing at Uncle Charlie. It's a good thing, too, because Burnett isn't too good at getting called strikes with the pitch, ranking a paltry 62rd of 75 (.34) with his called strike to ball ratio among hurlers who've thrown 50 or more curves.

Burnett's game, then, is a). throwing a curve well enough to convince batters to swing; and b). getting swings and misses (and outs, based on when he usually throws it).

How is he accomplishing a).? By getting a ton of late, downward break to the bottom of the strike zone. Here's a side view. Look at the height of the yellow dot over 2/3 of the way to the plate -- around the "cutout" dirt area in front of home:

From above, we know the fourth yellow dot from the right is where the curve often crosses the front of the plate. Below, just 5 yellow dots closer to Burnett (or upward, if you like) is the height of the pitch with only about 17 feet left in the pitch trajectory (roughly the top of the box; it's a little hard to pinpoint just looking below) . In that time, the half-tumbling, half-fluttering knuckle-curve nosedives almost the entire height of the strike zone. Put in other words, assuming a release 55 feet from the batter and an entry speed of 70 MPH, that's over 2 feet of break in .15 seconds.

Consider that .15 seconds is also the time it takes most batters to swing, and you can see where things get really difficult really quickly.

As if that wasn't enough, swings and misses on the pitch are in pretty unhittable locations. Compare location in 2010, when his curve was getting lit up like Christmas, and this year. You'll note when clicking between that Burnett left more curves middle-middle and center-medium low to righties in 2010, whereas this year he has (so far) kept the pitch down/down and away from righties (view from catcher):

Click to switch between 2010 and 2013 curve location

All those whiffs are coming low and away to righties, and low and in to lefties so far:

Conclusions

Whether Burnett has a greater "feel" for the curve this year is unclear; on the one hand, some believe his command overall has improved. On the other, his BB% sits right at his career average. Nor is his called/strike ball ratio great. Perhaps he's just locating the important ones?

The Nats will face a tough assignment if 2013 Burnett continues to show up. True, the team has a positive run value against the curve (if only slightly), and they aren't close to the most free-swinging team in the majors (17th of 30), but the way Burnett has pitched, it hasn't much mattered. Somewhat similar to Tim Hudson, it's unlikely Burnett will achieve these numbers by the time the calendar turns to October. Optimism seems appropriate for that reason, and particularly if Span and Harper are able to work counts early by laying off pitches that can't be squared up.

Washington Nationals PDB: The Braves' Tim Hudson, Sinkerballing Opposing Starter for April 30, 2013

Garrett Hooe — Tue, 30 Apr 2013 00:36:26 -0000

Drafted out of Auburn University in the 6th round of the 1997 draft by the Oakland A's, Tim Hudson is entering the 14th year of his career in the major leagues. He first pitched for Oakland from 1999 through 2004, and was later traded to the Atlanta Braves for Juan Cruz, Dan Meyer, and Charles Thomas.

It should be no surprise to any Nats fan that Hudson has tossed his signature sinker the most this year. What may be more unusual is that, having compiled a 15-5 record lifetime record against the D.C. squad (with a 2.60 ERA), Hudson has been less than his normal self in 2013. To wit, he's accumulated a total of -0.1 fWAR and +0.1 bWAR over five starts and 28 innings pitched this year.

Stat	2013 Value
ERA	4.50
FIP	5.00
xFIP	3.95

Hudson's output numbers aren't all that favorable, as the chart to the right indicates. Nor does he strike that many hitters out (5.79 K/9) or minimize walks (nearly 3 BB/9). Let's see why, and how, batters are doing damage.

Pitches, Velocity, Usage, and Value

"I throw more of a cutter than I do a slider, but I’ve also developed a curveball. I’m more of a sinker, cutter, curveball, split guy now," Hudson told Fangraphs' David Laurila last July. Brooks' data agrees that he's the same guy this year for the most part:

Pitch	Velocity	Usage	Value
Fourseam	89.5	8%	-0.3
Sinker	89.3	43%	-2.1
Cutter	85.2	23%	2.2
Curve	76.7	16%	0.1
Splitter	80.7	10%	-1.7

Earlier, I mentioned that Hudson's primary offering is a sinker, which just breaks 89 MPH. It's slower than his career value by about 2 MPH, but he also sat at ~89 last year en route to +2.2 fWAR campaign. As you see above, the pitch has been worth -2.1 runs in 2013. It's value each year between 2010 and 2012? +25.9, +11.2, and +10.2, respectively. It's early, but the pitch hasn't been a plus offering this year like it has in the past. And as Hudson himself has stated,

The more life you have on your pitches — including the more sink you have on your fastballs — the less important velocity is. If you’re a control guy whose fastball is pretty straight, 86-87, as opposed to 88-89, can be a pretty big difference. You have to really spot it, because there’s not a lot of room for error.

Below you'll notice Hudson has thrown the sinker a little less overall to righties in favor of the curve, but his pitch selection has largely remained the same between 2012 and 2013.

Batted Ball Profile

Two things should jump out at you below. First is Hudson's huge HR/FB rate, and second is Hudson's BABIP on the sinker (SI).

Year	GB%	LD%	FB%	IFFB%	HR/FB%	BABIP	SI BABIP
2013	52.2%	18.9%	28.9%	7.7%	19.2%	.271	.318

If you like Fangraphs' data more than Brooks, you can bump his sinker BABIP up to .341. Using PITCHf/x data from 2007 onward, Hudson's average SI BABIP has been somewhere between .293 (Brooks) and .276 (Fangraphs). The discrepancy is likely because Brooks has manually classified 23 more sinkers pitched (199) than Fangraphs, but the total frequency is close enough to illustrate the point: The offering is getting touched up for hits more often than ever.

Not much needs to be said about a 19.2% HR/FB rate; Hudson's career value here is 10.5%, league average is usually around 11%, and as we know, this statistic varies pretty dramatically year-to-year. xFIP is therefore probably the closest picture of reality going forward for Hudson in 2013.

Additional Analysis

To the two earlier pieces of information (the HR/FB% and SI BABIP), we can add Hudson's 2013 first-strike percentage (70.9%) and his LHB split (125 sOPS+) as remarkable numbers -- in the comment-worthiness sense -- when compared to his career rate (60%) and split (112 sOPS+). Are these dragging Hudson down? It's somewhat unclear as to the former, but it does appear that the latter, along with SI BABIP, has hurt Huddy.

First, below is a PITCHf/x map for Hudson's sinkers in 2013 by BABIP:

As mentioned earlier, Hudson's 2013 SI BABIP is greater than his career average for the pitch.

Has his SI BABIP rose because he's traded in grounders for line drives? Not really, actually. Brooks has him earning 63.8% ground balls on the offering this year, compared to a 65.5% rate since 2007. Nor is his movement on the pitch all that off from his usual figures, meaning one can't really say based on that information that the sinker isn't sinking as much this year. It is true that he is leaving a few more up in the zone, but you can see above the upper-zone BABIP is not all that red; if anything, he's hurt most low, where most sinkerballers make their living.

Is the sinker fairing poorly because it's getting popped for home runs? Again, the answer here appears to be no -- just one of Hudson's five home runs allowed has come on the sinker (in the chart below, the top left corner of the strike zone was the sinker).

From this, it just appears ground balls are getting through for hits. Line drives aren't up, and home runs aren't sailing out of the park. Digging a little deeper, we see that lefties have raked against Hudson's sinker. The below chart compares Hudson's average, slugging, and BABIP since 2007 against this year's numbers.

Batters are also having some success taking advantage of Hudson pumping first-pitch strikes (small sample warning). In the 12 at bats where the ball has been put in play, hitters are slashing .333/.333/1.000, good for a sOPS+ of 182 -- in other words, he's 82% worse than league average on 0-0 counts. It bears repeating (like with Bronson Arroyo) that swinging early doesn't cause success, but lefties have parked first-pitch cutters twice this year on middle-in and low-away pitches. So, it's hard to say if opponents are keying on first pitch strikes any more than they have in the past, despite Hudson getting ahead at a career-high rate. Here's one first pitch tater you might remember:

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And here's the second:

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In conclusion, although Hudson's sinker "struggles" largely concern BABIP- and platoon-related issues, these don't appear to be attributable to a marked decrease in velocity, movement, quality of defense, or a sustainably poor batted ball profile. Indeed, he's earning grounders as often as ever, throwing with fairly normal velocity and normal movement (for him), and isn't teeing up sinker meatballs that are driven out of the park. It seems then that Hudson's just had an unusually difficult run against lefties when using the pitch early this year.

Will this misfortune continue tonight? It's really anyone's guess, but Span and Harper should offer other batters opportunities to drive in runs (if Harper doesn't do it all himself). Still, considering Hudson's underlying profile, it's probably safe to expect another close contest against the division leaders.

Washington Nationals PDB: The Cincinnati Reds' Bronson Arroyo, A Cerebral, Curve-Hurling Righty

Garrett Hooe — Thu, 25 Apr 2013 01:06:49 -0000

I'm not saying anything up front that the commentariat doesn't already know: The Nationals have not looked very good recently, getting poor hitting performances and rickety defense from the players who contributed in 2012. Having faced several really good pitchers recently -- Matt Harvey, Shelby Miller, and Adam Wainwright, among them -- their hitters have an opportunity for a measure of relief against Bronson Arroyo tonight.

Early Career to Present

Arroyo broke into the bigs at age 23 with the Pittsburgh Pirates, making 12 starts over the course of his 20 appearances. After an unremarkable three-year stint in Boston, in March 2006 Arroyo was dealt with cash to the Cincinnati Reds for Wily Mo Pena. He earned All-Star honors that year en route to a +4.1 fWAR and +6.8 bWAR season, marks which he has yet to approach again.

Arroyo has been with the Reds ever since, and the-now 36-year-old is enjoying something of a performance rejuvenation this year, sporting an ERA of 3.54 to go along with a 3.12 FIP and 3.77 FIP.

WAR	2013
Fangraphs	+0.6
Baseball Reference	+0.4

Most interesting among his single component stats has to be his career-low walk rate of .96 walks per nine innings. But because Arroyo only strikes out a tick over 5 batters per nine, his performance is based as much on his approach, peripherals, and defense as it is his own ability to limit walks.

Pitches, Velocity, Usage, Value

Honestly, you're guess is as good as mine here. Here's a matrix of what Fangraphs, Brooks, and Red Reporter figure:

Fangraphs	Brooks	Red Reporter
Four seam	Four seam	Four seam
Sinker	Sinker	Sinker
Splitter	Cutter	Splitter
Slider	-	Slider
Curve	Curve	Curve
Change Up	Change Up	Change Up
		Cutter

The Red Reporter link includes additional information on his offerings and a good breakdown of Arroyo circa 2011; since he's largely the same pitcher today, I've used their information to offer a third opinion to Fangraphs and Brooks Baseball.

Here's my go at the normal table based on 2013 data, with everything but value from Brooks.

Pitch	Velocity	Usage	Value
Four seam	87.8	13%	-0.2
Sinker	87.4	28%	-0.5
Cutter	83.6	1%	?
Slider	75.6	?	4.1
Curve	73.4	32%	1.1
Change/Split	77-78	26%	~2.6

Red Reporter and the great Mike Fast have the change and split as the same, so I've tried to keep that consistent here.

David Laurila of Fangraphs recently interviewed Arroyo and asked him what he threw. Arroyo responded that

I really don’t throw that many pitches, but I throw a lot of variations of my pitches. I throw a four-seam fastball, a two-seam fastball, a sinker, a curveball and a changeup. I cut the ball once in a blue moon.

Great! So why do databases and people think he is throwing a slider? Dan Rozenson of Big Leagues Magazine is here to help. Rozenson states that

[a]fter converting all his sliders to curveballs, the results were clear: curveballs that actually "rose"—that is, the pitches previously assumed to be sliders—mostly came from a considerably lower and wider release point than his curveballs that "dropped."

So from here on I'm just going to call all sliders curves.

On value: Over 100 pitches, the curve is worth something like a whopping 6+ runs when you combine slider/curve values (enough for best in the league) and the change up is a pretty darn good offering, too.

You won't see it reflected below, but against righties Arroyo went to his change far less in 2012 -- 11% overall -- than he has this year. This assumes one can differentiate between his pitches which, as Red Reporter pointed out, Arroyo himself sometimes can't do.

Arroyo'll (sorry, couldn't resist) throw pretty much anything at any time, save for the cutter. As far as defending against the curve, he appears to pitch lefties somewhat "backwards" by eschewing the breaking ball late in the count in favor of pitching it early. This is also true to an extent against righties, although they can expect a curve ball both late and early. I wouldn't be surprised to see at-bats of all hammers tonight.

Usage By Inning

Here's a cool tool from Brooks showing Arroyo's usage by inning in 2013.

via www.brooksbaseball.net

Not only will Arroyo pitch batters "backwards" in individual at-bats, but he'll also establish his off speed stuff early so he can transition to sinkers later. To be sure, there is likely a relationship between throwing first pitch breaking stuff and seeing more breaking stuff early in the game, but if you believe teams prefer to feel a hurler out the first time through, then you could make the case he pitches both hitters and the game generally backwards.

Small sample size you say? Here is the same graph, but for all years since 2007:

via www.brooksbaseball.net

Between batter and inning usage, it seems to be a safe bet that Arroyo will come out firing off-speed and breaking pitches the first time through the order from the outset of each at-bat.

Movement

Arroyo gets his own movement section. I'll use Fangraphs' chart to illustrate what Rozenson described above.

Viewing the movement from left to right, a horizontal anchor-like pattern emerges. Arroyo generates 9 inches of break away from right handers when using the curve, good for 8th most among qualified pitchers this year. This is the "Frisbee" effect of the pitch that you may hear Charlie and Dave or Bob and FP talk about during the game.

Release Point

Arroyo will use a more exaggerated 3/4 delivery for his curve and splitter/change on occasion.

As Rozenson found, the more exaggerated Arroyo's horizontal release point, the more vertical (in an upward direction) the curve is likely to move, and vise versa. It's unclear what statistical effect this has had over Arroyo's career, but one could make a case that it makes hitting more difficult because the batter has to adjust to a foreign release and movement very quickly.

Additional Analysis

Four parts data, one part report here.

First, Arroyo's curve has the 5th best called strike to ball ratio, at nearly 1:1, in the major leagues this year. So, although batters may decide to simply spectate when Uncle Charlie comes knocking on 0-0, 1-0, 0-1, or other early counts, they are equally as likely to let a strike go by and get down in the count as they are to get ahead. This is unlike other curve ball pitchers, because a batter can often bet on the pitch being a ball if they are able to identify the pitch early enough.

Second, so far he has thrown a first pitch strike 72.2% of the time this year -- way above the MLB average of 59.8% and his career average of 62.7%. He is third in the majors by that measurement.

Third -- and sort of bringing the above together -- batters aren't swinging at the curve and change early, where both offerings are far more often thrown for called strikes than in all counts combined.

Those swings on 0-0 curves and changes have resulted in a .363 batting average, compared to a .202 average on all counts when you subtract out the 0-0 results. Additionally, out of the 82 curves and change ups, he's only thrown 23 balls - a 73% strike rate, like his overall line. Yes, this is a small sample size. But the point is that between the three statistics, you can see how he is sporting an incredibly low walk rate, getting in favorable situations, and generating outs.

Fourth, batters have performed better against Arroyo early in the count relative to their overall performance against him in all counts throughout his career (a tOPS+ that is 100 is a career average performance).

Count	AVG/OBP/SLG	tOPS+
0-0	.319/.326/..525	123
0-1	.303/.310/.487	109
1-0	.332/.334/.560	133

Finally, here is how Arroyo himself approaches pitching:

I’ve been successful over a long period of time by mixing and matching pitches a little differently than most guys. I pitch backwards a lot. I throw a lot of off-speed stuff in fastball counts. I’m also aware of my surroundings. I’m pitching, sometimes — not on a hunch, but on calculations based on a guy’s body language, his eyes, what he did to me last time. He’s watching a videotape of the last time I faced him, and I’m watching the same videotape. I know he’s making adjustments and I have to make them too. Who is going to beat the other to the punch?

Precise and calculated: Arroyo knows how he has to succeed, and so far this year, he is executing.

Conclusions

Arroyo's earning value in part by throwing the curve early and getting called strikes while hitters leave the bat on their shoulder. Perhaps a consequence of being down in the count frequently means compromising approach-wise; particularly when you're started off with a curve or change.

Given the funk the offense is in, considering Arroyo usually approaches batters with breaking and off-speed stuff early and often, and finally considering the Nats have a positive run value against change ups and a nearly-neutral value against curves, maybe Arroyo is what the team needs to pick things up with its recent swing-first-take-walks-maybe-later mindset. At the same time, swinging early doesn't by itself cause success, so some measure of discipline -- which the team is certainly capable of -- will be required.

Washington Nationals PDB: The Cardinals' Shelby Miller, Opposing Starter for April 22, 2013

Garrett Hooe — Sun, 21 Apr 2013 22:58:56 -0000

The Major League Baseball schedule is both relentless and redemptory. Off a rough series against the New York Mets, the Nationals get right back at it tonight against the St. Louis Cardinals. Their assignment, in part, is to score against the Cards' Shelby Miller, which has been no easy task for his opponents this season.

Early Career to Present

Miller was taken by the Cardinals with the 19th pick in the 2009 draft out of Brownwood High School in Texas. Baseball America ranked him as the 50th best prospect in the game before 2010. That year, Miller threw 104 innings at Low-A Quad Cities. His strikeouts per nine innings -- just over 12 -- were excellent, and he limited walks fairly enough.

Baseball America had Miller as the 13th best prospect before the 2011 season. Miller continued to rack up K's between two levels, averaging over 11 K/9 between High-A Palm Beach and Double-A Springfield while pitching nearly 140 innings. Midway through 2011, John Sickels said of Miller that "[r]eaching Double-A at age 20 is no easy feat, and Miller has the makings of a future ace." Sickels ultimately concluded that

Miller works with a 94-98 MPH fastball. His curveball is already plus and his changeup has rapidly improved, giving him three strong pitches. He has mound presence beyond his years and is a pitcher, not a thrower. His mechanics are clean, repeatable, and consistent, which should help him stay healthy. He has all the physical and mental attributes of a number one starter, and we should see him in the majors sometime next year. Barring an injury or unlikely collapse in Double-A, Miller is a clear Grade A prospect.

Baseball America and MLB.com both ranked him in their top 10 prospects in the game before 2012, with the former pegging the Texan at 8th best, and the latter placing him at 5th overall. 2012 was in some measure a disappointment statistically, as a high home run rate (1.5 HR/9) drove Miller's worst ERA as a professional (4.74). Because of the home run issue, FIP wasn't much a fan either (4.48).

But minor league stats don't portend future success, particularly for a kid pushing rapidly through a deep system. Late last year, Sickles discussed adjustments that Miller made to his delivery during the second half of 2012, remarking that

[t]he improvement [in performance during the second half of 2012] is attributed to mechanical adjustments that improved his command, more willingness to use his curveball and changeup, and a better attitude overall. With a mid-90s fastball, two impressive secondary pitches, and better control, Miller still profiles as a top-of-the-rotation starter.

Miller mostly worked out of the pen when the Cardinals called him up late last year, and over 13 innings earned a 1.85 FIP on the strength of strikeouts (10.54 K/9) and home run prevention. In 2013, he's picked up where he left off last year, only now as a full time starter. Over 18 innings, his strikeouts are down to a still-impressive 8.84 K/9, while free passes have been limited to just under 2 1/2 per nine. FIP (2.75) and xFIP (3.26) both like him, too.

Having already accumulated around half a win (+.4 fWAR, +.8 bWAR), Miller's been pretty darn good this year.

Pitches, Velocity, Usage, Value

Miller has brought a four seam fastball, curve ball, and a change up to the table in 2013.

Pitch	Velocity	Usage	Value
Four seam	93.4 MPH	69%	3.8
Curve ball	79.8 MPH	26%	2.1
Change up	86.5 MPH	2%	-0.8

Brooks Baseball also shows him having thrown 4 cutters and 2 sinkers this year, but I've omitted those. On a value basis, his fastball is 10th best in the league among 101 pitchers, while the curve is 5th out of 84. Rate-wise, Miller's curve appears to be his best pitch (worth 2.6 runs per 100 times pitched). The fastball, at 1.74 runs per 100, is also pretty impressive in the early going.

Here's the breakdown by batter handedness and situation:

Miller doesn't use his fastball as often as, say, Ross Detwiler, but you can see above he's really a two-pitch guy. Now, both of those pitches are above-average offerings, but as a batter one can pretty much expect something either hard or bendy. Lefties could probably focus more on seeing a curve ball with two strikes, although I'd suppose that guessing is probably limited to 0-2, 1-2, or 2-2 counts.

Batted Ball Profile

Miller's batted ball profile is below.

Year	GB%	LD%	FB%	IFFB%	HR/FB%	BABIP
2013	46.8%	19.1%	34.0%	6.3%	6.3%	.217

Miller's BABIP is pretty low for a guy giving up line drives 19% of the time, a tick under the league average of 20%. Check out the following group of pitchers this year who have a line drive percentage similar to Miller's rate:

Player	BABIP	LD%
Felix Hernandez	.266	19.8%
Clayton Kershaw	.239	19.4%
Roy Halladay	.233	19.4%
Ricky Nolasco	.270	19.2%
Shelby Miller	.217	19.1%

The talents of the first three guys on this list are widely known, so there may be something to their results that would make the statement "they are below league average BABIP value, so they are due to regress" accurate, but not entirely thorough. Time to dive a little deeper into Miller's results to see where his BABIP is coming from.

Additional Analysis

We can take a look at Miller's xBABIP, or expected batting average on balls in play, to see how fortunate he has been on contacted balls. xBABIP tells us what a player's BABIP should be based on batted ball data. Using last year's formula, Miller's xBABIP (if I'm working it right) is .296 -- pretty far above his .217 rate. So something is causing him to perform better than league average and his expected average.

For starters, his fastball BABIP is a microscopic .194. Viewing Miller's batted ball profile for four seams can help us understand in part why his fastball BABIP (and overall BABIP) is so low. Small sample size caveats apply, of course, so keep that in mind here and as we look at the next two charts.

First, below displays Miller's 2013 line drive percentages on fastballs by location. Note that just 15% of his fastballs get put in play (Strasburg has about a 21% fastball BIP rate, for reference). Batters just aren't making a whole lot of hard contact against the heater:

Indeed, the overall LD% on Miller's fastballs is a measly 9.38%. This rate places 14th best in the majors among 125 qualified pitchers (do NOT look at the last name on that list! Don't do it!). If you include all pitch results, that number drops to just 1.42%. And even when batters are catching the heater flush, they may not be getting the benefit of the close to ~ .700 league average BABIP on line drives:

2013 BABIP on Four Seam Fastballs By Location

Admittedly, it's unclear whether the hits on fastballs at the low and in and low and away (from right handers) location came from line drives, but it is clear that the line drive down the middle turned into an out. I suppose if you assume the other two did fall in, you're looking at a .667 BABIP on line drives, close enough to league average to make this point pretty meaningless beyond sample size concerns. But at the same time, it is illustrative of how well Miller has limited hard hit contact, and how he has leveraged that into three pretty good starts.

Conclusions

So, what we know at this point: 1). Miller goes to the four seam about 70% of the time. 2). When he throws the fastball, it's put in play just 15% of the time; 3). Of that small opportunity, only 9% of balls in play are line drives; and finally 4). Even then, he may not be hurt that much when batters make the best contact.

It's worth repeating that Miller's only thrown about 212 total fastballs, a number which will be far, far greater by the end of the year. Like we said with Harvey, some of these numbers have to start swinging in the hitters' favor sooner or later. Watch tonight for quality of contact against the fastball; Miller hasn't seen a ridiculous amount of whiffs on it this year, so contact isn't -- or shouldn't be -- a tremendous issue against the pitch. However, like a SAFER barrier at Talladega, the impact of hard contact against him has been limited. That itself doesn't fully explain why his BABIP is so low, but it does help to understand how he has pitched and why he's been successful this year.

Washington Nationals PDB: The Mets' Matt Harvey, Opposing Starter for April 19, 2013

Garrett Hooe — Thu, 18 Apr 2013 01:16:43 -0000

The Pitching Daily Brief is back after a short out-of-town-real-world-work hiatus with a signature Friday night matchup, featuring Matt Harvey against the Nationals' Stephen Strasburg. Harvey has been really, really good early this year. Although he isn't as talented as he has pitched so far, he's still nasty.

Early Career to Present

Harvey was selected with the seventh overall pick in the 2010 draft by the New York Mets after pitching for the North Carolina Tar Heels in college. In 2011, he kicked off his professional career with the high-A Port St. Lucie Mets. Harvey generated strikeouts at an impressive clip, and after 76 innings pitched, was promoted to double-A Binghampton. The 22-year-old experienced more success there, although his 4.53 ERA hid a little bit of that.

Team	K/9	BB/9	FIP
Port St. Lucie	10.8	2.8	2.66
Binghampton	9.6	3.4	3.23
Combined	10.3	3.1	2.94

His 2011 achievements earned some attention from prospect watchers. Baseball America ranked him as the 54th best minor leaguer in the game before 2012, while MLB.com had him at 38th. Project Prospect was even more optimistic, ranking him 25th, which was a significant improvement on his pre-2011 ranking of 48th. SBNation's own John Sickles stated that "[h]e can be a number two starter and someone to build around. Some evaluators see him more as a closer if his changeup remains erratic, but I'm cutting him some slack on that issue and am optimistic" at the beginning of 2011, and Sickles still viewed Harvey as a #2 at the end of the year.

Harvey had a quick rise to the Show. After posting 9.16 strikeouts and a below-average four walks per 9 with triple-A Buffalo, he debuted with the Mets in 2012 at age 23. In nearly 60 innings with the Metropolitans, Harvey showed his strikeout promise -- punching out 10.6 batters per nine -- while also experiencing some control issues.

But for a 23-year-old, the debut was a success: A 2.73 ERA showed a great year by traditional statistical measures, while a 3.30 FIP and 3.49 xFIP told fans that he did well to limit big flies, get punchouts, and not let walks hurt him too much. All told, he was worth +1.2 fWAR and +1.7 bWAR.

So far this year, Harvey's numbers over 22 innings are nuts: 0.82 ERA, 2.17 FIP, 3.03 xFIP. He's already surpassed the 1-win bWAR mark (+1.4) and is nearing the same in fWAR (+0.7). Indeed, Harvey is nearly tied for the Major League lead in bWAR. But he isn't the type to get complacent, recently commenting that

"Whatever I’ve done so far, it’s not going to mean anything at all if I don’t keep doing it...I’ve appreciated the praise, but more than anything it becomes fuel for the fire to go out there and try to dominate."

The Nats will face a stiff challenge tonight, so let's see what Harvey goes with.

Pitches, Velocity, Usage, Value

Harvey employs five pitches, but primarily relies on his fastball to get ahead, stay ahead, and generate outs like Exxon prints money. The below numbers are combined for 2012 and 2013, except for value (which is 2013). His usage is pretty much the same between both years, so I've combined for a little larger sample.

Pitch	Velocity	Usage	Value
Four seam	95.4 MPH	60%	7.9
Sinker	94.6 MPH	4%	-0.1
Slider	88.8 MPH	14%	.5
Curveball	82.4 MPH	9%	.1
Change up	86.5 MPH	12%	2.0

Note that Harvey has gone to the four-seam much more against righties on the first pitch and when he is behind or even in the count in 2013. Similarly, when Harvey is ahead in the count or there are two strikes against a right-handed hitter, he is much more inclined to drop a slider:

Briefly on slider location against righties (view from catcher):

via www.fangraphs.com

The Fastball

Yea, so, about that four seam. Scouts love it:

Scout on Harvey's fastball: "Dare I say he has a Dwight Gooden-ish hop up on top? Guys are swinging and missing by 3 to 5 inches." #Mets
— Ken Rosenthal (@Ken_Rosenthal) April 9, 2013

Fangraphs and .gif watchers love it (note the arm-side run on this bad boy):

via www.fangraphs.com

And, among others, the Old Gray Lady loves it:

Harvey’s fastball, though, is what has propelled him to this eye-opening start. It can dial up a radar gun and send a charge through fans and teammates. And it has earned him generous comparisons, even if the people doing the comparing have had to reach way back in their memories.

Get this. So far this year, Harvey has generated a 47.1% whiff percentage when using the heater. For context, here are the top fastball whiff rates since Baseball Prospectus started keeping the stat (minimum of of 200 fastballs pitched):

Year	Player	Fastball Whiff Rate
2007	Hong-Chih Kuo	29.5%
2008	Anibal Sanchez	27.8%
2009	Tom Gorzelanny	29.3%
2010	Edinson Volquez	26.2%
2011	Nathan Eovaldi	26.8%
2012	Steve Johnson	29.2%

OK, so before we get too carried away with fastball whiff rate and overall success -- there are some middling names, to say the least, on there -- it's still a crazy percentage. And it will probably come down. But what makes the fastball successful?

Obviously, there's velocity. That's easy. Another reason may be movement. Keeping the sixth of Mike Fast's commandments in mind, it's important to note that movement does not equal pitcher success. But there are some pieces of information we can bring together to make a reasonable case that it helps Harvey achieve success with the heater.

First, here's where Harvey is throwing his fastball this year:

Mostly up, and occasionally in. When one throws 95+ MPH, one can get away with such location. This is particularly true when one has ridiculous vertical and horizontal movement on the offering, like Harvey does.

Just how much movement does Harvey's four seam generate? PITCHf/x has him getting the 13th most vertical rise in the league this year out of 105 pitchers, with 10.9 inches of upward movement when compared to a spinless pitch thrown without gravity. But that's not all -- his movement in to right-handed hitters (6.3 inches) is tied for fifth most among the same sample (with some pitchers not having data). That's a little more than 1/2 inch less left-to-right movement on a fastball than Chris Sale gets with his slider (-7.0 inches). A .gif of that slider is below -- for some reason, you may have to click to get it to run.

via www.fangraphs.com

Dave Allen figured out the best location for fastballs by run value; as I've mentioned before, the data is from 2008. However, considering the offensive environment has been slightly more depressed since that time, it's probably reasonable to think the values have adjusted downward slightly. The circles represent my best, and likely samsonite, placement of Harvey's fastball on the chart (click to enlarge):

Against righties, Harvey's fastball movement places him on the cusp of where batters' efforts are generally futile. The movement and corresponding run value isn't too bad for lefties, either. And even when hitters make contact, only 10%(!) of fastballs in play end up as line drives.

Harvey's career numbers against righties also suggest that velo isn't his fastball's only signature feature. Hitters from that side of the plate have a 89 sOPS+ over 136 career plate appearances, including a fairly incomprehensible -29 sOPS+ this year. I suppose I could say that's 129% better than the average MLB pitcher has performed against right-handers this year, but I can't figure out what that even means. Anyway, that's what a .083/.154/.083 line will earn you.

Yes, it's only 26 PA's against righties, and there are a lot of numbers bound to move upward -- BABIP (.116), HR/FB (4.3%), ERA (0.82) -- and downward -- strand rate (94.3%) -- but Harvey's going to be a pitcher for the Nats to reckon with for a while. And since the Nats aren't hitting the fastball this year like they did last (currently 25th of 30 teams by run value), hopefully a run or two and a Strasburg gem get the job done.

Washington Nationals PDB: The Atlanta Braves' Julio Teheran, Opposing Starter Game 1 Of 3 In D.C.

Garrett Hooe — Thu, 11 Apr 2013 00:44:01 -0000

The division-rival Atlanta Braves are in town tonight to face the Washington Nationals in a battle of the top dogs of the National League East Division. Toeing the rubber for the Braves in game one of the series is Julio Teheran. Because Teheran has only tossed 31 big league innings in his career, I'll focus more on scouting reports and assessment than major-league statistical data.

Early Career

The Braves signed Teheran as an international free agent in 2007. The 17-year-old Colombian debuted with the Rookie League Danville Braves in 2008, showing impressive strikeout numbers over 15 innings. His ERA (6.60) did not reflect how well he actually performed (3.87 FIP). However, shoulder tendonitis limited his workload.

2009 Team	K/9	BB/9
Danville Braves (Rookie)	8.04	1.44
Rome Braves (A)	6.69	2.63

In 2009, the precocious pitcher was assigned to Danville as an 18-year-old, hurling 43 2/3 innings of 2.68 ERA and 2.97 FIP ball, which was, um, pretty good for someone his age. Teheran struck out 8 hitters per nine innings and managed to walk less than a batter and a half over that span. Moved to Low-A Rome later in the year, Teheran didn't perform quite as well, but FIP still liked him enough (3.68) that it wasn't a bad year for one of the youngest pitchers in the South Atlantic League.

Teheran's performance began to attract the attention. Before the 2010 season, Baseball America ranked him as the 51st best prospect in baseball, and Project Prospect had him at 86.

A Fantastic 2010

What Teheran did to three different minor league levels during 2010 at the ripe age of 19 was illegal.

2010 Team	K/9	BB/9
Rome Braves (A)	10.3	2.2
Myrtle Beach Pelicans (A+)	10.8	1.8
Mississippi Braves (AA)	8.5	3.8

At Rome, he just pitched to a 1.14 ERA in 39 1/3 innings (2.39 FIP). Promoted to High-A Myrtle Beach in May, he upped his already excellent strikeout rate while also decreasing his walks. Sure, the 2.98/2.88 ERA/FIP was higher, but it was an impressive 63 1/3 innings. His performance earned him a promotion to Double-A Mississippi in late 2010, where over 40 innings he put up a 3.38 ERA and a 3.30 FIP.

Adam Foster of Project Prospect scouted Teheran in early 2010. He concluded that "[i]f he can learn to spin his curveball consistently and hit his spots with his fastball and changeup, Teheran could turn into an above-average MLB starter. If not, his arsenal is already explosive enough to feature in a big-league bullpen."

Foster broke down his offerings:

Fastball: Sat 92-94 MPH and touched 95. Though it had some movement into righties and he could throw it for strikes, Teheran didn't command the pitch well. It did not have any sink when I saw him pitch. The velocity of the pitch is special, but big league hitters will drive fastballs that get too much of the plate.

Curveball: Ranged from 69-76 MPH and featured sharp, late two-plane break. Teheran did not exhibit much command of his curveball, a near 12-to-6 downer, but he's going to be able to give plenty of hitters jelly legs with it. He pitched up a lot with his curve, opposed to burying it in the dirt. Still, it flashes a lot of promise.

Changeup: Was 81-86 MPH. I like the late tumble and fade (away from lefties) that Teheran gets with the pitch. He did, however, slow his arm and body down noticeably when he threw it, something that big league hitters will pick up on. Like his curveball, Teheran's change has the potential to become an above-average pitch.

Teheran vaulted up prospect lists after the season. Baseball America ranked him as the fifth best prospect in the minors, while Project Prospect had him as twenty-second best. The latter group offered a bit of caution, however: It evaluated his risk as "high."

On His Way to Atlanta

Promoted to Triple-A Gwinnett née Richmond before 2011, the Colombian went 15-3 in 24 starts. His walk rate was below-average, and his strike outs weren't otherworldly, but the Braves couldn't argue with a 2.55 ERA and a 3.06 FIP.

On May 7, 2011, Teheran made his major league debut. The day before his first start, Foster filed an updated scouting report. He concluded that

Teheran has not made a lot of progress since I saw him last year....I don't know what areas of his game he can improve in order to surface as a true ace. He'd be hard pressed to re-work his high-velocity fastball to gain movement. And with his tempo and quick arm, he's not going to be able to easily improve his command. Maybe he can learn to throw more quality strikes with his secondary offerings and mix them in better. Even then, though, that may only make him a good No. 2, not a true ace.

Teheran is one of the best pitching prospects in baseball, no doubt. It's extremely rare to be able to call someone his age a likely No. 2-3 starter in the big leagues. I'm standing by what I said about him at first glace a little over a year ago, though: He's more of a thrower than a pitcher.

Teheran lost to the Phillies the next night. After a brief May stint with Atlanta, he was sent to Gwinnett until September. After the year, however, Baseball America still ranked him as the fifth best prospect in baseball, while Project Prospect had him at 20.

A Disappointing 2012; Mechanics and Stuff

Teheran performed worse at Triple-A in 2012 than he did previously, striking out just over 6 1/2 per 9 and hurling to a 4.83 FIP. John Sickles' mid-year impressions in 2012 represented a consensus of mild concern with the young twirler, as he dropped him from the 10th best prospect in the game to 28th.

Our friends at Talking Chop noted in late 2012 that

One of the biggest mysteries of the past two years in the Atlanta Braves system has been the disappearance of the prospect star of Julio Teheran. Once considered among the top young pitchers in the minor leagues, he may struggle to find his way into the top-100 this year.

Baseball America named him the 44th best prospect in the game not long after that article, but the number wasn't what was important. Talking Chop went on to observe about his diminished performance that

In their top-10 Braves prospects Baseball America parses through [delivery change] rumors with their prospect writeup of Teheran:

Teheran has an electric arm, but his delivery had some violence that the Braves wanted to iron out in order to reduce his risk of injury. In 2012, they decided to reduce the bend on his back leg during his windup. He had been turning and coiling his body to generate more momentum toward the plate, placing additional strain on his right knee and elbow. Atlanta worked with Teheran on keeping his back leg straighter in order to create a better center of balance, particularly in his core.

Time to visualize these changes. Here is footage from Project Prospect in 2010, when Tehran was a more desirable place for batters to be than in the box against Julio (I read about international affairs in my mom's basement, too):

Obviously, it's after he has separated, but it's enough to get the idea about the old Teheran. Now, here is 2012 Teheran:

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As many others have noticed, that delivery is not 2010's up-tempo windup; it's downright glacial in comparison.

Talking Chop later noticed that Braves G.M. Frank Wren told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution this past offseason that Teheran was getting back to his more "natural delivery" and understood this to mean that "[t]he quote from Wren above tells me that the Braves asked Teheran to abandon the changes they made to his delivery, described in the first quote from Baseball America."

2013

So here is 2013 Teheran, thanks to Fangraphs:

At the beginning of 2010 and 2013, Teheran appears to be in similar position, if a little slower to the plate overall. However, using similar mechanics three years apart may not mean you'll sport the same stuff, JD Sussman of Fangraphs believes. The entire article is well worth a read, but he concludes that

In [his first] start [of 2013] against Chicago, Teheran did not demonstrate significant growth from last year, but there were positives...The biggest highlight was his reliance on his two seam fastball, which could be a plus offering. However, his reluctance to use his changeup was baffling. Against right-handed hitters the decision left him with three pitches – an average four seam fastball, a below average breaking ball, and the new two seamer. Further, his preference for his breaking ball against left-handed hitters caused him to be ill-equipped to get outs....[I]f Teheran incorporates his changeup with his two seamer and improving command, he could still wind up as a solid mid-rotation arm.

Concerning the four seam, Sussmann was concerned about the lack of arm side run -- the pitch's horizontal movement in toward right handed hitters. He also described the curve having a "one plane break," as demonstrated in the final .gif above. Numbers back up his observations (via Brooks Baseball):

2012 MLB Pitch Data:

Pitch	Count	Freq	Velo (mph)	pfx HMov (in.)	pfx VMov (in.)	H. Rel (ft.)	V. Rel (ft.)
Fourseam (FA)	65	66%	92.82	-5.11	8.47	-1.97	5.22
Curveball (CU)	24	24%	74.77	9.35	-3.61	-1.68	5.29
Changeup (CH)	9	9%	83.69	-6.22	5.26	-1.68	5.31

MPH data reflect a lengthened (y=55ft) trajectory to better approximate a major league release point.
pfx Movement reflect movement data as specified in the Gameday files.

2013 MLB Pitch Data:

Pitch	Count	Freq	Velo (mph)	pfx HMov (in.)	pfx VMov (in.)	H. Rel (ft.)	V. Rel (ft.)
Fourseam (FA)	27	31%	92.56	-3.74	7.83	-3.16	5.17
Sinker (SI)	34	39%	89.44	-7.66	3.92	-3.08	5.24
Curveball (CU)	23	26%	75.69	8.71	-2.32	-3.22	5.28
Changeup (CH)	4	5%	81.43	-5.18	4.81	-3.13	5.28

MPH data reflect a lengthened (y=55ft) trajectory to better approximate a major league release point.
pfx Movement reflect movement data as specified in the Gameday files.

The fastball is moving toward righties more than an inch and a quarter less early this year, and the curve is dropping less by that same amount, giving it a flat horizontal movement. This is in stark contrast to Foster's observations of a two-plane break in 2010.

Mechanics, stuff, approach...more issues for fringe-MLBers than those of Teheran's pedigree. Perhaps the expectations resulting from his 2010 were a bit too high and have led to disappointment that he hasn't developed -- and indeed may never develop -- into an ace. But as observers have noted, a quality, young, mid-rotation arm is still a valuable asset. Just not someone you can dream on.

Conclusions

Teheran has had to fight mechanical and stuff changes for two consecutive offseasons, which the Braves organization justified because the goal was for him was to be a long-term starter. It is unsurprising that mechanical tinkering may lead to different pitch velocities and movements. But as Sussman reminds us, approach is vitally important as well. It's also something that mechanics don't directly affect.

Perhaps these three things will come to the fore tonight, and Teheran will bring it all together, or have it all fall apart. Or, more likely, something in between. Watch for the up-tempo delivery from the full windup, the radar gun, movement, and his approach. Because the Nationals handle curves and fastballs quite well, and because Teheran is still developing in several respects, I think the team has a good chance of continuing its recent offensive performance.

Washington Nationals PDB: The Chicago White Sox' Jake Peavy, Opposing Starter for April 9, 2013

Garrett Hooe — Tue, 09 Apr 2013 00:52:28 -0000

Off an up-and-down series against the Cincinnati Reds, the Washington Nationals welcome the Chicago White Sox to Nationals Park for a three game set. Interleague match-ups in April: As Harry Dunne said, "that's a special feeling, Lloyd."

Early Career Through Present

Peavy was drafted in the 15th round of the 1999 draft out of a Mobile, Alabama high school by the San Diego Padres, sandwiched between Casey Baker and Bryan Edwards. Neither Baker nor Edwards made the big leagues, but Peavy arrived in 2002 at the old age of 21, striking out over 8 hitters per nine while walking around 3 per over 97 innings.

Peavy's appearance on the national radar surely came by the end of the 2004 season, where he pitched to a 2.27 ERA/3.14 FIP/3.52 xFIP triple-slash. Fangraphs credited him with +3.6 wins above replacement, while Baseball Reference valued him at +4.9 wins above replacement. The next season, Peavy led the National League with 216 strikeouts in 203.0 innings pitched.

In 2007, Peavy earned the NL Cy Young award on the strength of a 19-6 record and 2.54 ERA. Advanced metrics placed him at +5.8 fWAR and +6.2 bWAR. By nearly every measure, he was nasty.

Traded to the White Sox in 2009, Peavy never achieved the same level of success as he did with the Padres. Switching from a favorable pitchers' venue in Petco Park to U.S. Cellular Field ("the Cell") in Chicago certainly didn't excite commentators. Traditionalists will consider his 2010 and 2011 seasons on the South Side forgettable:

Year	Win-Loss Record	ERA
2010	7-6	4.63
2011	7-7	4.91

Peavy eclipsed just 100 innings pitched in each of 2010 and 2011, and hadn't crossed the 120 inning mark since 2008. The reason for this is because he tore his right latissimus dorsi tendon completely off the bone mid-year 2010. "I just felt like somebody shot me," Peavy said at the time. It was certainly a unique injury.

Upon returning to action in 2011, the Jeremy Renner look-alike was solid. For example, he managed to put up +3.1 fWAR, largely because he struck out over 7.5 batters per nine while walking less than 2 per. He also benefited from his lowest HR/FB since the '07 Cy Young season.

Why did Peavy have a poor ERA? He stranded just 64% of the runners that reached base (against a 75.6% career average) and batters hit .317 on balls in play (against a .284 career average). He also had Carlos Quentin playing defense behind him. Finally, there was discussion about inconsistent release points possibly affecting his play.

Peavy performed more in line with his career numbers in 2012, hurling 219 innings of ~ 8 K/9 and ~2 BB/9 while stranding over 75% of runners. Fangraphs valued his effort at +4.5 WAR, while Baseball Reference placed him at +5.2 WAR.

Pitches and Value

Peavy throws six pitches: a fastball, sinker, cutter, slider, curve, and change up.

Pitch	Velocity	Usage	Value
Four seam fastball	91.5	47%	9.3
Sinker	91.5	4%	6.1
Cutter	85.9	14%	3.4
Slider	82.8	11%	-1.9
Curve	80.3	12%	1.1
Change up	84.0	11%	-1.3

As you can see to the right, the fastball, sinker, and cutter are all pretty effective. On a rate basis, the sinker (which Fangraphs labels a two seamer, even though Peavy says he throws a sinker) was actually his most valuable pitch, saving 1.38 runs per 100 pitches.

However, this highlights some of the issues when using both Fangraphs (for value data) and Brooks Baseball (for classification/usage): Brooks says Peavy barely threw the sinker, while Fangraphs has the two seam at 6.1 runs saved. Likely, some of Peavy's "two seamers" are being classified by Brooks as sinkers, while far more are considered four seam fastballs. Fangraphs had him throwing 441 "two seam fastballs" against 1251 four seam fastballs, a .35 ratio -- or much greater than Brook's sinker/four seam ratio (.09).

In sum: accounting for both the large difference in classification and Peavy's own admission, I think Brooks' pitch type categories are correct, but I am less sure regarding the frequency.

In 2012, Peavy used his pitches as follows:

Peavy pitched a steady diet of fastballs relative to his other offerings, while righties saw many more sliders than lefties. Peavy's breaking ball of choice to left handed hitters was, in contrast, the curve. In one start this year, he has used his pitches as follows:

Big-time small sample warning, of course, but against the Kansas City Royals last week Peavy went to the fastball less than in 2012. Apparently, he didn't have his best stuff, which may explain why he went to off-speed offerings more.

"'I didn’t have great stuff by any means. Command-wise we were on point with throwing where we needed to throw it...[a]nd you’ll take that over ‘stuff’ any day to win.'" -Jake Peavy, after first start of 2013

It's pretty obvious, but if it appears Peavy isn't getting a lot of movement on the heater, look for him to audible to more off-speed offerings.

Movement

Peavy's four seam and sinker get a fair amount of movement, even though he does not top the league in either vertical or horizontal movement for the those offerings.

However, his fastball (blue circle) and sinker (orange (? I'm horribly colorblind) circle) appear to have reasonably similar vertical movement movement overall. His sinker also moves in to righties more, as the following chart shows:

Recall that Peavy throws the fastball and sinker at pretty much the same velocity, too. So, how does he use these two pitches to succeed? Check out the late downward movement generated by his sinker; the black (four seam) and greenish gray (sinker) dots begin to separate very close to the plate, and are about half an inch apart by the strike zone if you believe that some of his four seam pitches as classified by Brooks are actually sinkers -- a meaningful difference when a hitter's decision-making time is minimal.

Versus lefties, view from third base:

via www.brooksbaseball.net

Versus righties, view from third base:

via www.brooksbaseball.net

The fastball and sinker also separate horizontally pretty late as well (location is to right handed hitters):

via www.brooksbaseball.net

What is more, his release point for each pitch is pretty indistinguishable, based on 2012 data (again, here we're going with "FT" as the sinker):

Similar velo, similar release, similar movement for about 45 feet. And that's where things get tough for the opposition. If batters incorrectly identify sinker or fastball, it's probably too late to adjust to the different trajectory by the time the "swing" decision has been made. Weak contact, swings and misses, and outs, result.

Batted Ball Data

Peavy earned around 4% fewer grounders in 2012 than his career average would suggest, and his increase in FB% may have contributed to the .012 BABIP decrease on his career figure:

GB%	LD%	FB%	IFFB%	HR/FB%	BABIP
36.5%	18.9%	44.6%	11.2%	9.5%	.272

Additional Analysis

Batter mis-identification of fastballs and sinkers could help explain how in 2012 Peavy yielded only seven hits on thirty-six pitches on fastballs in the middle of the plate. The map below shows batting average against Peavy fastballs in 2012 against lefties and righties:

An equally low BABIP could also reflect this mis-identification, although this does not explain why pitches middle-in to righties were hit hard. Indeed, very few balls contacted down the middle resulted in solid contact, as shown by his 2012 fastball line drive map:

There are a fair amount of line drives in the middle-low area of the zone (excepting middle-middle), but in some of those areas Peavy had low batting average. So maybe his performance isn't all attributable to deception resulting from 91 MPH pitches that appear to be the same for the majority of the trip to the plate, which is expected. And, anyway, a good defense could also explain why it was hard to square up the fastball/sinker. Last season, the White Sox weren't slouches with the glove, although they weren't amazing, either.

Ultimately, the Nats will have to perform well against Peavy's fastball and sinker (as they did against those pitches last season) to succeed tonight. A few hanging curves wouldn't be bad, either.

Washington Nationals Pitching Daily Brief (PDB): The Cincinnati Reds' Homer Bailey, Opposing Starter for Nats' First Game Against the Reds

Garrett Hooe — Thu, 04 Apr 2013 00:48:26 -0000

After sweeping a series from the Miami Marlins, the Nationals look to maintain momentum in Cincinnati. Opposing the Nats' bats are several capable hurlers, and this PDB examines the first pitcher the Nats will face in the series, Homer Bailey.

Early Career Through Present

David Dewitt Bailey got his nickname "Homer" from his great-grandfather, which is ironic when you consider the fact that Bailey was really, really good at pitching a baseball in high school. Drafted by the Cincinnati Reds with the 7th overall pick in the 2004 draft, Bailey was touted as a top-100 prospect by Baseball America on several occasions (ranking in the top 5 as well), and was more well-regarded within the organization than Joey Votto, Jay Bruce, and Johnny Cueto at one point.

Redsminorleagues.com's write-up on Bailey is quite good, and highlights his progress through the minor leagues. After some "ups and downs" in 2005, Bailey had a "bit of a breakout year, at least statistically" in 2006.

Bailey was sent to Sarasota to play for the Reds in the Florida State League. After 13 starts with a 3.31 ERA and 70.2 innings with 22 walks and 79 strikeouts he was promoted to the Double-A Southern League with the Chattanooga Lookouts. Just like his time in Sarasoa, Bailey made 13 starts, this time stretching 68 innings and he posted a glowing 1.59 ERA with 28 walks and 77 strikeouts. His walk rate dropped dramatically overall in 2006, but it was better in Sarasota than in Chattanooga, where it was still below-average but improved from 2005.

After a brief stint in the big leagues in 2007, Bailey began 2008 with the Reds' Triple-A affiliate, the Louisville Bats. It was at this point, according to Doug Gray (the author of the website article), that Bailey began to work on a slider. Statistically, he didn't perform very well either in the minors or majors; for example, his 7.93 ML ERA was accompanied by a 6.41 FIP and 5.10 xFIP. Not awesome.

Bailey put up +1.1 and +1.8 fWAR (+.6 and +.4 bWAR) in 2009 and 2010 with the Reds, tossing a little over 100 innings each year. The Christian Bale look-alike had a similar 2011, but managed to reduce his walks per nine from 3.30 in '10 to 2.25 that year.

via www4.pictures.zimbio.com

2012 saw Bailey toss over 200 innings and sport an ERA in the mid-three's, 3.68 to be precise. The major WAR calculators also seemed to find common ground, valuing him around +2.5 WAR (+2.6 fWAR and +2.5 bWAR). His rate stats were pretty good, as he struck out 7.27 per nine and only walked 2.25, maintaining gains from 2011. Bailey also stranded a few more runners and saw his ground ball rate jump from below league average to around average (~45%) while trading out some line drives (22.3% in '11, 19.7% in '12).

Pitches and Value

Bailey throws five different pitches according to Brooks Baseball: a four seam fastball, sinker, slider, curve ball, and splitter (pretty similar to Ricky Nolasco, actually). Fangraphs' Pitchf/x shows his splitter actually as being a change-up; since Brooks manually classifies pitches, I'm going with them. Have a look at his 2012 velocity, usage, and pitch values:

Pitch	Velocity	Usage	Value
Four seam fastball	93.3	53%	1.4
Sinker	92.1	8%	-.3
Slider	87.9	20%	11.3
Curve ball	78.5	10%	-7.5
Splitter	86.1	9%	-4.1

The slider is the star of Bailey's repertoire, and unlike Nolasco, Bailey's slider is fairly filthy.

As you can see, Bailey likes to work with the fastball in most situations. Only when Bailey is ahead against righties will he go to a breaking ball more often than a heater.

A little more on the slider: It ranks sixth in the league when sorting by vertical movement, but not in the direction you might think. Bailey's slider actually rises by 3.9 inches more than a ball thrown without spin in the absence of gravity. If you go by Baseball Prospectus' Pitchf/x stats, his vertical movement -- (+)4.37 inches -- puts him second behind only Clayton Kershaw. Admittedly, I don't know why there is a difference, since both Fangraphs and BP are purporting to measure by Pitchf/x (and Brooks has him at 4.5). I suppose we can just agree that his slider rises a lot. Or, explaining this with a statement requiring less mental gymnastics (for me, at least): It simply doesn't drop as far vertically as other pitchers' sliders do.

Unlike his teammates Bronson Arroyo and Mike Leake, Bailey doesn't get a lot of horizontal movement on the offering, sitting somewhere around an inch of movement in toward lefties, depending on which website you get your measurements from. But like the pre-season PDB's indicated, it's unclear that less movement equals a less effective pitch; this is evident when you consider Bailey's horizontal movement places him in the company of Felix Hernandez and Edwin Jackson.

The great Dave Allen looked at run values for particular pitches based on movement and concluded that "sliders that tail away from the hitter the most [are] the most successful." Below is an overlay of Bailey's 2012 slider movement, and Allen's heat map with the relative run values (the slider is red on Bailey's pitch movement chart):

Click to switch between Bailey's 2012 movement (Brooks Baseball image) and the slider pitch values.

It's a little difficult to match them up exactly, but Bailey's slider lines up in the mid to light-green section of the map, corresponding with a (small) negative run value per pitch. Note that Allen's map was based on 2008 data, and value by location may have changed since that time (especially with fewer runs being scored the last several years). However, it's something, and it will be interesting to watch Bailey's use of the slider this evening.

Here's where you can expect the slider to go, if 2012 is any indication:

Away, away, away from righties (and in to lefties). And batters aren't doing any damage on pitches in these locations, either.

Batted Ball Profile

Nothing particularly unusual or far from the league average in 2012 here:

GB%	LD%	FB%	Infield Fly Ball%	HR/FB%	BABIP
44.9%	19.7%	35.4%	7.1%	11.5%	.290

If you want to put Bailey's IFFB% a little closer to the league average of 10%, you can knock the BABIP down a bit.

Additional Analysis

Bailey shows a marked home/road split, where in 2012 he posted a sOPS+ of 52 on the road over 16 starts, while pitching rather poorly overall in 17 starts at home (a 145 sOPS+!). For more context, his triple slash against at home was .299/.348/.526, and his ERA was in the 5's. I know Great American Ballpark is known to be one of the better hitters' parks on the schedule, but these numbers are a little beyond that effect, I think. He also showed a little bit of a reverse platoon split, too, with lefties performing about 17% worse against him than the average major league pitcher.

In addition to Bailey's slider usage and its effectiveness, notice what else Bailey had going for him in 2012:

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Among full-time MLB starters last year (this is the reason why you don't see #1, Kris Medlen), Bailey was arguably the second-toughest pitcher on batters leading off an inning. Bonus PDB! The same went for Bailey's rotation mates, Cueto and Arroyo. Anyway, only 23% of leadoff hitters reached base against Bailey last season, and his 63 OPS+ was in the top 10 by this split, too.

That it is important to retire the leadoff hitter is pretty much a truism to even the most casual baseball fan, so I won't belabor the point beyond noting that the expect run differential between no outs, none on and one out, none on is .2256 runs:

2012 MLB Run Expectancy Matrix	No Outs	1 Out	Difference
None on	.4886	.263	.2256

Not the most "valuable" play by run expectancy, but it beats the alternatives.

Bailey's slider could well have earned much of its value by being used to retire all these lead off hitters; after all, he was pretty awesome against leadoffs in 2011, too, and he also had a pretty good slider that year. Or it could be something else. Either way, it will be interesting to watch how the undefeated Nats handle Bailey tonight, perhaps their toughest assignment to date.

Washington Nationals PDB: The Miami Marlins' Ricky Nolasco, Opening Day Opposing Starting Pitcher

Garrett Hooe — Sun, 31 Mar 2013 18:34:23 -0000

Opening Day 2013 for the Washington Nationals is here, and with it the expectations of a deep run into October. Undoubtedly, the Nationals' players will be the first to tell folks that great seasons are put together one game at a time. Consistent with that, I plan to offer a Pitching Daily Brief for an opposing starter each series during the year. Opposing the Nationals in game 1 is Ricky Nolasco of the Miami Marlins.

Early Career

Drafted in 2001 by the Chicago Cubs, Nolasco debuted with the then Florida Marlins in 2006. Nolasco's first good year was in 2008, where he pitched to the ERA/FIP/xFIP triple-slash of 3.52/3.77/3.69, accumulating +3.9 fWAR. He got an above-average number of strikeouts, limited walks, and turned a bunch of his fly balls into outs.

2009 saw Nolasco rock a 5.06 ERA, imbalanced significantly by his 3.35 FIP and 3.23 xFIP. As you may have guessed from his FIP and xFIP, his underlying strikeouts, walks, and to a certain extent his HR/FB value all pointed towards a much better performance than Alan Jackson's favorite time of day. So, despite a high ERA, he still registered a career-high +4.1 fWAR (because Baseball Reference does not use FIP in its WAR calculations and instead evaluates by runs allowed, it saw a pitcher who was worth much less -- only +.7 bWAR).

Fundamentals: Strikeouts and Walks

Nolasco's strikeout numbers have dropped off a cliff since 2009, while his walks have remained fairly consistent:

Year	K/9	BB/9
2009	9.49	2.14
2010	8.39	1.88
2011	6.47	1.92
2012	5.89	2.21

Marlins manager Mike Redmond implicitly seems to recognize this in describing Nolasco as someone who "know[s] how to pitch." If you're not striking out an above-average number of batters, and aren't limiting walks at an elite level, you'd certainly better know how to pitch. Considering both strikeouts and walks, he's just about league average at the end of the day -- below the mean with regard to strikeouts, but above the mean with regard to walks.

Pitches and Value

Nolasco throws six different pitches according to Brooks Baseball: a four seam fastball, sinker, slider, a slower curve ball, a faster curve ball, and split-fingered fastball. He rarely throws the "fast" curve. The below chart shows his 2012 velo, usage, and pitch value per Pitchf/x:

Pitch	Velocity	Usage	Value
Fastball	90.7 MPH	25%	-6.9
Sinker	90.5 MPH	21%	-1.0
Curve Ball (slow)	79.5 MPH	17%	.6
Slider	83.8 MPH	23%	1.4
Splitter	81.4 MPH	14%	.1

Notice how much he's gone away from the fastball since earlier in his career:

Back to 2012. Nolasco generally favored hard stuff last year, despite not having the elite velocity of a Jordan Zimmermann, Gio Gonzalez, Ross Detwiler, or Stephen Strasburg. That these offerings were "only" coming in in the low-90's may also explain why batters were able to tee off on both the fastball and sinker (especially the fastball).

Situationally, Nolasco abandons the sinker when ahead in the count or with two strikes. This is in favor of a more slider-heavy diet for right handers, and a splitter preference when facing left handers. On the flip side, 59% of the time he throws a fastball or sinker when lefties are ahead in the count. Denard Span, Bryce Harper, Adam LaRoche, and Danny Espinosa should therefore have opportunities to feast if they work into favorable hitters' counts.

Batted Ball Profile

Nothing from Nolasco's 2012 batted ball profile jumps off the page; noting that, he had a more favorable HR/FB rate than the average major league pitcher last year:

GB%	LD%	FB%	Infield Fly Ball %	HR/FB%
46.6%	21.6%	31.7%	8.6%	9.1%

Again, most of these values track league-average performance. Nothing elite.

Additional Analysis

Nolasco throws a first-pitch strike 62% of the time, 3% greater than league average. Like most pitchers, he did his best work (relative to his own performance) when he was ahead in the count. We've seen how Nolasco will likely approach many of the lefties tomorrow -- fastball/sinker early, splitter late, with some curves mixed in when he's ahead in the count -- but what about right handers? After all, Nolasco performed 31% better against righties than lefties last season, as supported by his 5.42 K/BB rate against hitters of that handedness (he put up a far more pedestrian 1.71 against lefties).

Courtesy Brooks Baseball

Whether he's even, ahead in the count, or behind in the count against a right handed hitter, Nolasco will go to the slider. Overall, righties swing at this pitch about 52% of the time, and when they swing, those batters whiff about 31.5% of the time.

Why is this significant? According to Baseball Prospectus Pitchf/X statistics and my own math (buckle up), the average whiff rate on sliders thrown to right-handed hitters for pitchers who threw more than 200 sliders last year was 32.3%. Pretty attenuated, to be sure, but the slider appears to be Nolasco's go-to by usage, and he's just "meh" there.

Even as his go-to offering against right-handers, the slider isn't very effective relative to his peers. We can see this by plotting strikeouts and Put Away %, which measures the percentage of two-strike plate appearances that ended in strikeouts. The following chart should be pretty telling; the threshold to make the sample is 500 sliders to righties during 2012:

Nolasco doesn't generate punch-outs against right-handers relative to other major league pitchers who use the slider as frequently as he does. It wasn't really a wipeout pitch, and the following chart, which displays righties' batting average against the pitch, shows what happens when you don't get strikeouts or outs (view is from catcher):

More often than not, the slider ends up in the zone, and in those cases (in addition to some outside the zone), it's put in play for a hit. He doesn't come inside, and the pitch was best when used low and away, but still in the zone (I'm guessing that the 3/8 in the bottom right is BABIP-aided with such a small sample).

Finally, here is where Nolasco was hurt the most in 2012. The following chart measures slugging percentage against all of Nolasco's pitches by both righties and lefties:

It's not entirely red -- and it appears offerings middle-in to righties are fairly successful -- but it does show pitches which are frequently being hit hard both inside and, to a smaller degree, outside the strike zone.

Conclusions

Lack of elite velocity, a below average out pitch relative to other pitchers in the league, and average peripherals makes for a fairly average pitcher. This is no slight; average major league pitchers are valuable assets when paid accordingly and can make a meaningful contributions over the course of the season.

Compare Nolasco's profile to that of the Nationals' hitters, though, and you know about how in 2012 the Nationals pounded fastballs to the tune of 6th best in the league by run values, and hit curve balls (5th best in the league) even better. Although they "hit" sliders to a -8.2 run value, that was still a top-10 league-wide performance; only two teams had positive values against the pitch.

So that sets the stage: Nolasco is not bad, and while that's something, he is the type of hurler the Nationals are capable of beating (and should beat). This is because even in favorable counts, Nolasco lacks a high-quality out pitch, and that offering indeed has been hit hard in the past. Furthermore, when he doesn't work ahead against lefties, it works in the batters' favor because Nolasco will most likely go to the hard stuff -- and the Nats generally hit that.

Regardless of what happens, baseball is back. And that's a great thing for everyone.

Washington Nationals PDB: Jordan Zimmermann's 2012 and 2013

Garrett Hooe — Thu, 28 Mar 2013 00:27:52 -0000

Jordan Zimmermann's performance in 2012 was largely similar to his play in 2011. Each season, Fangraphs had him at or close to +3.5 WAR. And, notwithstanding Baseball Reference's differing values (+2.8 and +4.4 for 2011 and 2012, respectively) (edit: they just unified), many other statistics were similar, too. Indeed, Zimmermann's back-to-back above average years have many predicting a "breakout" year. How likely is this?

Past Scouting Reports

Before the 2007 First-Year Player Draft, Zimmermann was on Baseball America's radar. This was the case at least since he earned Region Most Valuable Player honors during the Division III College World Series while attending the University of Wisconsin at Stevens Point. In a May 2007 chat on Baseball America's website, Aaron Fitt stated that he believed Zimmermann's low 90s fastball and plus slider would merit a second or third round selection.

Fitt was right. The Nationals selected Zimmermann in the second round of the 2007 draft, with the 67th overall pick. Debuting in low-A ball, Zimmermann racked up strikeouts and boasted an impressive 2.57 ERA and 2.18 FIP. Moved up to high A in 2008, he continued to succeed by earning K's and largely limiting walks.

By 2009, Zimmermann was making appearances on prospect watchers' radar. In February 2009, Baseball America pronounced him the 41st best prospect in the game. Two months later, a scout told the Washington Post's Dave Sheinin that he believed

[Zimmermann's] going to be a solid rotation guy—or maybe better than that. He has the potential to be a [number] 1 or 2. If I had to pencil him right now, I'd call him a 2. But I tell you, if they draft [Stephen] Strasburg and get him signed, and if this kid [Zimmermann] does what he's supposed to do, that's a hell of a back-to-back.

In what could only be described as an effort in humility, the author of the article who relayed Sheinin's conversation stated that Strasburg and Zimmermann would be at the front end of a potent rotation:

John Lannan would then become the No. 3 starter, which is what most scouts believe he is. Add Scott Olsen and Shairon Martis and the Nationals could have a formidable rotation, and sooner rather than later.

Anyway, whatever.

Zimmermann debuted to measured optimism in 2009, striking out over a batter per inning, but with a 4.63 sported a tight end's 40 time for an ERA. The excellent Adam Foster of Project Prospect -- also the homepage of the Anthony Rendon fan club (sorry, and at the risk of a train wreck in sentence syntax, I can't let those links pass without mentioning how hypnotic Rendon's swing is in the .gifs, and also how approachable Project Prospect's analysis is) -- scouted Zimmermann after he made his major league debut, concluding that

Zimmermann's a very unique pitcher. I've never felt so comfortable endorsing a guy without much of a changeup. I was really impressed with his ability to pound the strike zone. His command is better than I expected….I'm not sure he needs to bother with a traditional changeup at this stage of his development….he's a safe bet to stick as a big leaguer. The Nationals absolutely stole him in the 2007 Draft.

Sadly, after suffering a torn UCL later that year, Zimmermann underwent Tommy John surgery. Upon returning to the mound in late 2010 and early 2011, Zimmermann told a local radio show that he alternated "feeling" between his slider and curve; basically, his slider went away on him after surgery, the curve emerged, but then the slider feeling came back.

Zimmermann adjusted to the vagaries of rehabilitation and pitched quite well in 2011. In addition to his statistical performance, he changed his approach somewhat. As Patrick pointed out in 2011, General Manager Mike Rizzo wanted him to consciously dial back the strikeout numbers so that he was more economical during games. Zimmermann himself also stated that he could further improve in 2012 by working on his change-up, remarking that "I hope I can figure it out come this offseason. I found a pretty good grip that I feel comfortable with the last month here, and I'm excited to start throwing all offseason."

Zimmermann has again renewed his pledge to go to the change more, and so far this spring, he admits that he has. This adjustment has the potential to be important for the reasons that follow.

Pitches and Movement

Zimmermann throws a fastball, slider, curve ball, and change-up:

Pitch	2012 Velocity (Career)
Four-seam fastball	93.8 MPH (93.4 MPH)
Slider	86.4 MPH (86.2 MPH)
Curve Ball	77.9 MPH (78.0 MPH)
Change-up	86.6 MPH (86.0 MPH)

As the chart shows, his velocity was pretty consistent between 2012 and his career figures. But that's not all that was mostly the same. Compare his pitch movement with gravity for both years, with 2011 being the starting image (clicking will allow you to compare movement in the same position each year; measurement is in inches...and yes, that's around and over 4 1/2 feet of break on a hook in the time it takes to read these last four words):

Click to view 2011 and 2012 movement

As you can see, his movement in 2011 and 2012 was largely the same, with the slider a little more tight horizontally while occasionally achieving greater depth, and the curve offset slightly less horizontally.

Here is Zimmermann's pitch selection in 2012:

If you're a left-handed hitter, three out of four at bats you're going to see the hard stuff early, and when you're ahead in the count. Righties must be a bit more reserved, and late in the count Zimmermann prefers to go to a breaking ball. Keep some of this count data in mind as we go forward.

Pitching Statistics

Zimmermann achieved a +3.5 fWAR and +4.4 bWAR in 2012. Again, you'll note how he was pretty consistent by most measurements with his 2011 performance:

	2011	2012
ERA	3.18	2.94
FIP	3.16	3.51
xFIP	3.78	3.78
BABIP	.291	.288
fWAR	3.4	3.5

So you probably get the point. His ERA and FIP were both above-average, and by WAR standards Zimmermann wasn't far from an "all star" designation: It was two really solid years.

Some numbers stood out. Zimmermann's HR/FB% was up from 5.9% in 2011 to 9.2% in 2012, each good figures in their own right. But the HR/FB% variability refrain should be familiar by now. Zimmermann's 22.2% rate in 2010 testifies to the stats' schizophrenic nature. That variability, and his below average fly ball percentage in 2012, explain why his 2012 xFIP is greater than his 2012 FIP.

Zimmermann showed an ability to work ahead of batters, besting the Major League average in first-pitch strikes by 10% last year (69% to 59%). This helped him to 10% more 0-2 counts than the average pitcher, too (33% to 23%). On the downside, opposing hitters stole successfully all but twice, taking 10 of 12 bases. On the year, the average success rate was around 73%, but it's unclear whether this is more on Zimmermann's end, or Ramos/Zuk/Flores.

Pitch Values

Zimmermann's fastball and slider were his best pitches last year, saving 11.3 and 6.9 runs respectively. In fact, on a rate basis, the slider was the more valuable pitch because it approached nearly a run saved per 100 pitches thrown.

Approach

If you're looking to differentiate between Zimmermann's 2011 and 2012 while also looking to figure out where he can improve, you have to get into the weeds a little bit I think.

Let's start by looking at Zimmermann's splits. #27 shows a reverse platoon split, which means he pitches better against opposite handed hitters. This is somewhat unusual. By sOPS+, we see this:

Also, and before going further, keep in mind we've taken the exit ramp to (relatively) small sample size city here.

Something else is interesting, too, and that is Zimmermann's performance against opposing batters in 1-2 and 2-2 counts. Bluntly, it was pretty bad last season. OPS+ also helps to understand this. It measures how far above or below league average a player was using a "100" baseline (the league average). For a pitcher, a number above 100 indicates worse performance than league average. sOPS+ is OPS+ for a particular split, like above (hitter handedness) and below. Note the values in the right-hand column:

sOPS+ by count	2011	2012
1-2 Count	113	169
2-2 Count	53	163

In 2011, Zimmermann was 13% worse than league average on 1-2, and 47% better than league average on 2-2. In 2012? Way worse (by 63% and 69%). And in total both counts represent 240 of 782 total at-bats against the Wisconsin native, or 30.6%. In other words, in nearly a third of opposing at bats he was getting below average results. It's a reasonably meaningful sample in this regard (again noting appropriate cautions).

Here's a breakdown of some statistical components in these counts against the league average:

2012 Split	AB	OPS	BABIP	sOPS+
1-2 Count ZNN	128	.547	.325	169
1-2 Count MLB AVG	26,524	.411	.285	100
2-2 Count ZNN	112	.623	.347	163
2-2 Count MLB AVG	25,183	.471	.294	100

Certainly, OPS values of .547 and .623 aren't otherworldly, but it's the performance relative to league average that highlights where Zimmermann can improve. Indeed, over a quarter of the runs he allowed came on either 1-2 or 2-2 counts (19/69, or ~27%, if you're doing the math).

Remember earlier where we saw Zimmermann shy away from the fastball when he was ahead in the count or with two strikes? Against left handed batters in 1-2 and 2-2 counts, Brooks Baseball shows us he goes to the heater even less, at 50% and 51% respectively, than he did with two strikes generally against lefties (55%). Recall lefties were frustrated by Zimmermann in 2012, and make of that what you will.

The other figure in the chart above that stands out is Zimmermann's batting average on balls in play. This figure is higher in part because he was giving up more line drives with his fastball and slider in both counts as against his 2012 average, which the following chart shows:

Strikeouts and Davids

Obviously, with two strikes, batters can strike out. And when a pitcher is performing poorly with two strikes, one may wonder if they are lacking in punch-outs relative to their peers. It turns out that Zimmermann is. What you see below charts Zimmermann's strikeouts per plate appearance ("K/PA") on 1-2 and 2-2 counts against the league average rate. I also included the overall average for both Zimmermann and MLB pitchers at the end for comparisons' sake (2012 data).

	Zimmermann	MLB Average
1-2 Count K/PA	34%	45%
2-2 Count K/PA	34%	41%
K/PA	19%	19%

I'm unsure whether Zimmermann maintains his pitch to contact approach with two strikes; I'm inclined to think not, because he's already at a point a pitch to contact strategy could seek to avoid: A two strike count. At the same time, perhaps he feels he already has a batter in a defensive posture at 1-2 or 2-2 and is inclined to not be too "fine" in executing these two strike offerings. So, he maintains a pitch to contact strategy and doesn't attempt to induce chases. Perhaps a little of each; both options seem reasonable enough. In any case, considering he is around league average in K/PA generally, it's a little curious why he didn't ring more batters up in 1-2 and 2-2 counts.

Pitch location data by count is not easily obtainable, particularly for just 2012 (that I could find, at least). However, I wondered whether Zimmermann gave up an above-average percentage of home runs in these counts (which information I could find).

In short, and total small sample size warning, he did this too: 4 of his 18 home runs came on either 1-2 or 2-2. This works out to ~22% of his HR total. The league average? Only 16% of home runs last season came on 1-2 or 2-2. Take a home run away (for 3/18) and he is just about at the mean.

I also looked up each of the four home runs to see if any were cheapies. ESPN's Home Run Tracker shows that just one of the four was. I've included the relevant info and videos below.

Home Runs off Jordan Zimmermann in 1-2 or 2-2 counts in 2012

Logan Morrison: 5/28/12, middle-middle location, fastball, none on, none out, leaves 28 of 30 MLB parks

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David Ortiz: 6/10/12, upper-middle, fastball, none on, none out, leaves all 30 MLB parks

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David Wright: 7/23/12, middle-middle, fastball, none on, two out, leaves 17 of 30 MLB parks

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David Freese: 9/1/12, low-middle, curve ball, one on, none out, leaves only 2 MLB parks

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Painful, sorry. Freese's hit was probably a double, and with no outs, even pretending he didn't go deep probably wouldn't affect Zimmermann's overall 1-2 and 2-2 numbers that much.

Conclusions

It's pretty nitpicky to single out Zimmermann's performance on 1-2 and 2-2 counts, but the fact that it took nitpicking to find somewhere he could improve is pretty great. And he doesn't exactly need outstanding performance there to approach the stats to be a 4-5 WAR (read: near ace) pitcher in 2013; average will do.

I believe this is where the change-up can play a role.

First, although change-ups aren't often thrown to same handed hitters, I think throwing one to right handed batters could be effective simply because it's the last thing on their minds when preparing to face Zimmermann. This appeals more to the game theory idea and its decision-making value. If effective, the change-up helps address his reverse platoon split, but I admit this is far from a certainty.

Second, dropping a change in 1-2 and 2-2 counts forces batters to reckon with an additional pitch, with different speed, trajectory, and movement. If batters were -- for whatever reason -- better able to hit Zimmermann's offerings in these counts before, a change-up could be just the remedy to get him back down to league average, or better, by inducing whiffs or weak contact.

In conclusion, keeping his peripherals consistent for the third year appears possible since nothing was significantly out of whack or really odd between '11 and '12. If Zimmermann's claim to focus on offerings down in the zone continues to help limit his home runs, we can actually see how the change-up can be a meaningful vehicle for improvement in 2013 across several statistical categories, namely versus right handers and in 1-2 or 2-2 counts.

Washington Nationals PDB: Gio Gonzalez's 2012 and 2013

Garrett Hooe — Tue, 19 Mar 2013 00:22:04 -0000

Maurice Sendak's children's picture book Where the Wild Things Are offers more, I think, than an opportunity to play on the title of the 1964 Caldecott Medal award winner. The book, which many here may be familiar with, stars a young boy named Max. After poor behavior, Max is disciplined and sent to his room, where his imagination takes him to the eponymous location above. He encounters many terrifying creatures, but is eventually made king of the wild things, and ostensibly learns to deal with various difficulties along the way.

Sendak described the theme of the book as addressing "how children master various feelings - danger, boredom, fear, frustration, jealousy - and manage to come to grips with the realities of their lives.'' Reviewing Gio Gonzalez's scouting reports, interviews, and statistics reveals much the same maturation and development process: Although obviously more adult-oriented, Nat Gio has overcome many, if not all, of the hurdles scouts and commentators projected he would face.

Minor League Tenure

And when he came to the place where the wild things are

they roared their terrible roars and gnashed their terrible teeth

Gonzalez earned much attention throughout his decorated prep career in Florida leading up to his selection as the 38th pick in the 2004 Rule 4 (first-year player) draft. His entry onto the scene wasn't without unwelcome attention and critical observation, however. Baseball America reported on an incident where Gio was dismissed from his high school team after a reported dispute between his mother and high school coach over the playing time given to his brother, also (coincidentally) named Max.

Gonzalez never appeared to sweat the matter -- or other pitching difficulties -- during the early part of his professional career. His frontline potential was salient since at least 2005, when a scout remarked that "[w]hen I saw him earlier in the year he couldn't find the plate. But he's just on a different plane than everyone around him now. We're getting a clinic on what it's like to live in 0-2 city."

"To be successful, he's going to have to get his emotions under control...that's his whole thing. Gio is too emotional on the mound. His ability is there. He's got all the pitches." -Pat Gillick, Phillies GM, 2005

After being traded to the Philadelphia Phillies in December 2005, Pat Gillick, the team's General Manager at the time, said of Gio that "'[t]o be successful, he's going to have to get his emotions under control...that's his whole thing. Gio is too emotional on the mound. His ability is there. He's got all the pitches. He's a great competitor, but sometimes he gets excited on the mound.'"

Noting his laid back demeanor, Baseball America in 2007 highlighted his accomplishments with the Double-A Birmingham, but also mentioned to Gio that "[t]he one thing people always say about you is that you get too emotional on the mound when things go wrong," and inquired about how he reacted to adversity. The lefty emphasized that his focus was on limiting walks, and not getting upset with the umpire. His performance that year -- 11.1 K/9, 3.42 BB/9, a 3.18 ERA over 150 innings -- backed up Gio's self-admitted development of confidence and aggressiveness. And Baseball America placed him 26th on their top 100 prospects list in early 2008.

Reasonable doubt remained. In June 2008, Baseball America noted that

It’s been a mixed bag for Gonzalez, the centerpiece of the Nick Swisher trade, in his first Triple-A season, as evidenced by his strikeout [second in his league] and walk totals [fifth highest] above. Prior to yesterday’s game, Gonzalez, 22, had alternated good turns with bad over his previous eight appearances, dating back to May 18. The Good Gio was 3-1, 1.08 with 31 strikeouts, nine walks and no home runs allowed in 25 innings. Standing in stark contrast, the Bad Gio was 0-3, 13.25 with 22 strikeouts, 11 walks and seven homers in 17 2/3 innings.

Oakland Athletics watchers were hoping Gio would debut shortly after the organization dealt Joe Blanton in July 2008, but Gio remained consistently inconsistent, and it was not unusual to wonder whether he would be able to overcome concerns identified by those in the industry.

Major League Debut and First Two Full Seasons

and they rolled their terrible eyes and showed their terrible claws

Gonzalez ultimately debuted for the A's in 2008, issuing 6 free passes per 9 innings over 34 innings. The industry's skepticism -- maybe even frustration over his inability to harness his ability -- remained palpable: "Gio Gonzalez's wildness truly manifested itself in the big leagues (25 walks in 34 innings), but his walk rate in Triple-A (4.4) and for his career (4.0) are on the high side." And Gonzalez himself understood what was going on, telling MLB.com A's writer Mychael Urban that he was focusing in 2009 on his mental game. "'It's easier said than done,' Gonzalez said earlier this spring. '[Last season] I was over-reacting, over-analyzing, over-everything. ... But you have to be in control of your emotions.'"

In 2009, Nat Gio went 6-7 with a 5.75 ERA over nearly 99 big league innings; walking over five hitters per nine innings did not help. There was some good news: Gio did have a fairly high BABIP. However, commentators seemed to roll their eyes at Gio's reformed composure, at least going by the numbers. With no one on base, opposing hitters rocked a .835 OPS off Gonzalez, and that number inflated to .858 OPS with men on. Each were around 25% greater than league average. FanGraphs' David Golebiewski probably summarized the late 2009 consensus when he stated that "[w]e can dream of a day when he’ll still be whiffing bunches of batters, without the walks flowing as freely as Gatorade in the dugouts." The prognosis wasn't quite as dire as Max's environs appeared, but it wasn't rainbows and unicorns, either.

2010 and 2011 saw Gio take a meaningful step forward in producing back to back fWAR 3+ win seasons, and back to back bWAR 3.5+ win seasons. Working with a fastball, curve, sinker, and change, he posted the following figures each year:

Year	Wins	Losses	K/9	BB/9	ERA	FIP/xFIP
2010	15	9	7.67	4.13	3.23	3.78/4.04
2011	16	12	8.78	4.05	3.12	3.64/3.73

Gonzalez got much better at limiting damage once he got into tight spots. With men on base in 2011, for example, he yielded an OPS+ of just 67 -- 33% better than the league average pitcher with runners on. And he also appreciated his role in the larger context of the rotation, remarking after he beat the Boston Red Sox one night after the A's gave up a major league record three grand slams against the New York Yankees that "[i]t's stopping the bleeding right away and not letting it spiral out of control.

"Go ahead and focus on his walks, if you must, but at least be fair and look at the strides he's made in other statistical departments." -Pete Kerzel, MASNSports.com, December 2011

Validation, maybe? Sort of. In an article reviewing Gio and the question marks presented after his trade to the Nationals, Pete Kerzel of MASNSports.com posed the following hypothetical question and subsequent answer:

Aren't Gonzalez's high walk totals a concern?

Anytime a pitcher leads the league in walks - as he did with 91 free passes in 2011 - it's a concern. And Gonzalez has had some control issues - his 183 bases on balls over the past two seasons are the highest total in the majors. Lots of walks coupled with a suspect defense might frustrate some pitchers....Go ahead and focus on his walks, if you must, but at least be fair and look at the strides he's made in other statistical departments.

While Gio's walks were still relatively high, Kerzel pointed out that the lefty had shown he could pitch successfully in the majors. Others believed that mental concerns appeared overblown and looked at statistics that measured a pitcher's ability in high leverage situations (think of when Doghouse's WPA graph spikes or strays from the centerline to envision "clutch" moments) to prove it.

Some measured developmental worry remained: Reputable sources (including Keith Law) were concerned with Gio's talent relative to the package the Nationals surrendered to Oakland in late 2011. Other sources concluded after the Nats' trade that "[t]he fact that the Red Sox 'fell short' in acquiring Gonzalez should be looked upon as a blessing from the baseball Gods. The Nationals can have him, a fifth starter at best on our [the Red Sox] roster."

2012

till Max said "BE STILL!"

and tamed them with the magic trick

of looking into all their yellow eyes without blinking once

Gio's performance in 2012 delivered on the significant promise and marginalized the concerns previously identified by talent evaluators. Fangraphs has already done a good job identifying the things that made Gio Cy Young worthy last season, and these quality pieces deserve mention here.

First, Michael Barr pointed out that Gio switched his approach in 2012. Instead of throwing his curve ball more (a pitch he has historically had difficulty controlling), #47 went to it less often:

	CB% to LHH	CB% to RHH
2011	32%	27%
2012	26%	19%

His two strike approach also reflected a decreased reliance on the hammer. According to Barr, it all translated into success, specifically that "[h]e modified his repertoire to help him get ahead in counts more frequently, and simply utilized his curve ball more effectively than he had in the past."

Jeff Sullivan offered a slightly different explanation for Gio's 2012 success. Sullivan discovered that Gonzalez had a historic year when facing opposing pitchers, who had a triple slash of -- seriously -- .019/.037/.019 against the Nats' lefty. "In all, Gonzalez had 57 matchups against pitchers. Of those, 41 ended with strikeouts, and three ended with sacrifice bunts. One ended with a hit. One ended with a walk."

Now the interesting part. When Sullivan took out the results Gio earned against opposing pitchers, he found that his raw totals in 2012 were largely similar to those he posted in 2011:

Adjusted strikeout rates:

2011: 22.8%
2012: 21.7%

Adjusted walk rates:

2011: 10.6%
2012: 9.8%

Sullivan couldn't be sure whether this meant that Gio hadn't really taken a "step forward." But Gio's location, velo, and batted ball profile didn't show tremendous variation (although his .267 BABIP was assisted in part by just a .657 BABIP on line drives (where closer to 70% go for base hits), which accounted for 21.9% of his batted balls, easily a career high).

There appear to be a few signs that there was a step forward beyond Gio's performance against an opposing pitcher. In 2012, Gonzalez sported the lowest OPS and OPS+ of his career with runners on base, at .588 and 59, respectively. That last number means Gio was over 40% better than the average league pitcher with runners on base when measuring by OPS. Perhaps he was walking the #8 hitter to get to a favorable matchup against a pitcher in some of those cases, though? It doesn't appear that way -- Gonzalez walked the #8 hitter four times, never intentionally, and by my count only once where a runner was already on base with two outs.

Gio also was more "clutch" than at any other point in his career, as the following stats show:

Split	OPS+ (league average 100; lower is better)
2 outs, RISP	62
Late & Close	91
Tie Game	40
Within 1 R	54
Within 2 R	50
Ahead	83

In fairness, although Gonzalez pitched better than the league average pitcher when the Nats were ahead or late and close (by 17% and 9%, to be precise), it was not as good as he was compared to his own average (19% and 24% worse). But Gio still limited the big inning better than he ever had; through 2010, he had allowed 3 runs or more in an inning over 9% of innings he had thrown in his career, against the MLB average of roughly 5.7%. In 2012, over 199.1 innings pitched, Gonzalez gave up 3 or more runs in an inning only 6 times (also counting a game against the Mets where he gave up 2, 1, 2, and 1 run(s) each inning over 4 innings), which works out to a 3% average. Notably, pitchers sacrificed against him only three times, not often enough to seriously account for the improvement.

Gonzalez continued to acknowledge his maturation, saying in late 2012 that "'I'm 27 now . . . and if I could go back to when I was 20, I'd probably slap myself in the face a couple of times.'"

2013

and they were frightened and called him the most wild thing of all

Does Gonzalez still show frustration when things go poorly? Sometimes. And there is probably a reasonable argument that this affects his performance; stats can't prove or disprove this one way or another, I don't think. Even more recently, the Biogensis clinic incident raised more doubts about Gio's ability for some, even though he did no wrong .

But underneath that, Gio's concurrent strides in statistical and non-physical performance are real, and impressive. Sure, pitchers will probably experience more success against him this year. Batters may also look for more first-pitch heaters. His pretty low HR/FB rate could go up. On the flip side, perhaps his career high line drive percentage will decrease some, he'll reduce free passes for the fifth consecutive year, Denard Span will play better defense than Michael Morse, Ryan Zimmerman will turn in a full campaign of Gold Glove defense, and no one will run on Bryce Harper.

Developmental concerns are, to be sure, not unique to pitchers of Gonzalez's ilk; the extended metaphor here can be used with many other players. However, I believe that, beyond the irresistible teaser title that plays on an outdated evaluation, it offers a perspective to view his parallel physical and mental improvement in the face of doubts (which were often merited, even by Gio's own admission) eight years' long. Now, hitters fear Gio for reasons other than the trajectory of a wayward fastball. Appreciating where Gonzalez has come from, and where he can still go, makes him an exciting player for all fans to follow in 2013.

What do you expect from Gio this year?

Washington Nationals PDB: Ross Detwiler's 2012 and 2013

Garrett Hooe — Tue, 05 Mar 2013 01:21:20 -0000

OK, the teaser is a bit misleading: Ross Detwiler was already in the positive in 2012, serving as a reliable (when in the rotation) starter for the Washington Nationals throughout the year. There are number of reasons why I didn't explain WAR in the pre-season PDBs, but by that measurement Detwiler (+1.8fWAR, +1.6bWAR) was what Fangraphs would call a "role player" and a borderline "solid starter." Sounds about right, but I'd bet Detwiler would be the first to say that he can do better.

Undoubtedly, it takes more than one number to really understand the hows and whys of pitcher performance, and since Reddington is "right there with his hawk-eyes on," let's review Detwiler's performance in 2012 and look forward to his 2013.

Past Scouting Assessments

Before Detwiler was drafted out of Missouri State with the 6th overall pick by the Nats in the 2007 draft, Baseball America scouted him in a collegiate start, observing that

"He was good but not as good as he was vs. Dallas Baptist. His fastball was 90-92 and touched 94. His command was just OK. He was behind a bunch of hitters. His breaking ball was very good at times. His change is definitely his third pitch. It was just OK. I think he has first-round stuff. The arm works and he is so thin that I think as he gains weight he can become even better."

Detwiler saw early returns on his prospect status, ranking out as the second-best prospect in the Nats' system in November 2007, five spots above Jordan Zimmermann. Baseball America awarded him best fastball in the organization, a harbinger of things to come.

In April 2008, the publication ranked Detwiler as the fifty-first best prospect in Major League Baseball, ahead of other hurlers like Max Scherzer, Justin Masterson, Luke Hochevar, Collin Balester, Neftali Feliz, and Jeff Niemann, and behind Joba Chamberlain, Rick Porcello, and Jair Jurrjens.

By January 2009, Detwiler had performed well enough for Baseball America to again list him as the second best prospect in the Nats' organization. Zimmermann, however, had performed better and grabbed the top prospect (and fastball) billing.

During the 2009 year, Detwiler pitched in the bigs for 75.2 innings. A 5.00 ERA made his performance forgettable, but a tremendous HR/FB rate (which, admittedly, varies in equally tremendous fashion) depressed his FIP to a ~3.85 mark. In this case, ERA probably told the more accurate tale: Rare is the pitcher who gives up just 3.7 home runs per 100 fly balls, particularly considering the sample size.

2010 was a lost cause, as National Det underwent hip surgery for injuries. He also had another DL stint after an attempted mid-to-late season return.

In March 2011, one of Baseball America's resident prospect experts, Jim Callis, had this to say about Detwiler:

Jay (South Riding, VA): Do you think Ross Detwiler can be a #2 or #3 type pitcher now that he is healthy and has stopped throwing across his body so much? I watched him at spring training and he looked great. Also, could Espinosa be the ROY of the year? He's a flat out stud with the glove at 2B.

Jim Callis: Not that optimistic about Detwiler. Not usually a good sign when they're changing your mechancics [sic] after you got drafted sixth overall with those mechanics.

The 2011 season was again unremarkable. 2012, however, was a meaningful step forward.

2012 Pitches and Pitch Movement

BrooksBaseball's manual classification system had Detwiler throwing a fastball, sinker, curve ball, and change in 2012. As the table shows, he liked the hard stuff:

Pitch	Percentage Use	Speed
Four-seam fastball	39%	94.1 MPH
Sinker	42%	92.7 MPH
Curve Ball	13%	79.7 MPH
Changeup	7%	85.1 MPH (~10% difference from hard stuff)

Regarding movement, Detwiler shows a noticeable difference between his fastball and sinker, despite the similar speeds, as the graph below indicates.

Where you see the vertical line of changeups (CH), you'll also notice the general movement of the fastballs (FA) and sinkers (SI). Specifically, almost every pitch to the left of those changeups is a fastball; almost everything to the right is a sinker. Over the course of the year, the difference averaged out to about 5 additional inches of both horizontal and vertical movement -- not insignificant when considering the similar speed and release point of the offerings.

Many here likely saw the following passage earlier this year, but Detwiler favored the fastball/sinker diet in 2012, with good results:

Detwiler accomplished the successful run by leaning on his sinking fastball. Last year, he threw fastballs on 80.3 percent of the pitches, more often than any other starter in the National League. One start, he shut out the Philadelphia Phillies for seven innings while throwing 85 sinkers in 88 pitches.

"He has an idea what he wants to do," pitching coach Steve McCatty said. "Sometimes, he can be stubborn. But he’s learned how to change what his game plan is, because he’s seeing what’s going on, reading the situation of the games."

Check out his September start against the Dodgers. Many of the outs he earned were via either the fastball or sinker, but note that the curve ball makes a few late-count appearances too (later, we'll see this was generally true throughout the year). Working up, down, in, and out, Det turned in a really good performance, getting 5 strikeouts in 6 innings pitched.

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But the team isn't allowing Detwiler to rest on his laurels this year:

The Nationals, especially Johnson, want Detwiler to throw more curves and change-ups, to keep hitters guessing and to set them up for later in the game. "I don’t think it’s about developing. I think it’s about trust," Suzuki said. "He’s got it. It’s there. You have to be confident when you’re throwing it. I think towards the end of the year, he’s got more success with it, which allows him to be more confident. If he mixes some off-speed pitches in, I think it’ll put him over the top."

Detwiler built a 10-8 record, and pretty good sabermetric season, by leaning on the fastball. Yet the team wants more diversity in pitch selection. What might be the reason for this?

Statistics

First, some of the core stats that help to evaluate performance, with league averages on bottom:

	K/9	BB/9	HR/9
Detwiler	5.75	2.85	.82
NL Average	7.69	3.08	.97

Above-average performance in walks and home runs per nine innings earned Detwiler a 3.40 ERA, which was 14% better than the NL average in 2012. FIP, which only really looks at strikeouts, walks, and home runs, saw Detwiler as closer to an average pitcher, with a mark of 4.04 -- 4% below the NL mean. xFIP wasn't much of a fan either. Detwiler's 4.34 mark in this statistic, which uses a league average HR/FB rate, was higher because the league average HR/FB rate was higher than his.

Part of the reason Detwiler succeed in limiting the long ball -- and in his 2012 performance generally -- was his ability to get ground balls. 50.8% of balls in play against him burned worms, against a league average of 45.7%. He also gave up around 5% fewer line drives than the average pitcher, suggesting that his .263 BABIP wasn't all "luck" because: 1). Less line drives generally means a lower BABIP; and 2). Extreme ground ball pitchers have lower BABIPs on grounders than normal ground ball pitchers. 2012 is what happens when you post career best marks in GB% and LD%.

Below is a GB% graph for qualified NL starters last year, which helps place Det's 2012 in context.

The other number in his batted ball profile that stands out is the amount of contact made by opposing hitters outside the strike zone. While the average pitcher saw 63.6% of pitches swung at outside the zone contacted, Detwiler was hit 71.5% of the time a batter swung at a wayward offering. I know more swings and misses would result in more K's, but it's unclear how hittable these pitches were. Additionally, pitch location information can vary with left handed pitchers. So make of this what you will.

Split-wise, Detwiler was death to lefties, who slashed .165/.255/.259. Right-handed batters fared much better, batting to a .258/.320./414 line.

Finally, recall that SIERA is a pitching stat that incorporates batted ball data into its calculus and is scaled to ERA. Detwiler's SIERA was 4.35. Basically, Det's above average GB performance couldn't overcome the lack of strikeouts for SIERA's affection. But what if he had a league average strikeout rate? Well, that would translate to a mark of ~3.76, giving him a performance that was better than league average and a peer group that includes Zimmermann, Edwin Jackson, and Mat Latos.

Pitch Values

Fangraphs does not use Brooks' classifications, so sadly this isn't a strict apples to apples comparison. However, confirming the scouting reports and general observations on the effectiveness of his hard stuff, Detwiler's fastball and sinker both sat at 7.4 runs above average, a good value considering that the best pitches in the league usually return around 15-25 runs above average.

Unfortunately, Det's curve ball (which Fangraphs labels a slider) hurt him, as reflected in his -5.2 run value. The change was around average, at 0.

Approach

I can't do it any better than Brooks:

Det's love of the hard stuff wanes late in the count when he is ahead or has two strikes: lefties see fewer straight four seamers while righties dodge the sinker. Yet pretty much any other time, as a hitter, you can bet you'll see a hard one or two.

Pitchf/x Card

Detwiler's success is predicated on the effectiveness of his hard stuff. If the fastball and sinker aren't generating grounders in exchange for fewer line drives or home runs, he will struggle to be effective. Duh.

But what's up with the lack of strikeouts, and how is that related to the 2013 "more breaking/offspeed" initiative?

As Baseball America noted, he had good K/BB ratio and the best fastball in the organization at one time. He also had respectable strikeout numbers through 2010 while in the minors. His Pitchf/x card, and some other information, helps to see how his 2013 more-breaking/offspeed-heavy approach could pay dividends.

First, Detwiler's fastball was whiffed 19.09% of the time when batters swung. That's better than Stephen Strasburg, and placed Detwiler 24th out of 118 qualifying pitchers.

Second, Detwiler's sinker generated 12.47% swings and misses - not elite overall, but 33rd out of 82 qualified pitchers.

If he's throwing these pitches often, and they are getting more swings and misses than his peers, why is he below average when measuring strikeouts?

Recall Detwiler's approach was more curve-centric when he was ahead in the count, or had two strikes. His curve whiff rate? 26.45%. The MLB average, however, was 29.17%, and Detwiler's rate placed him only 67th out of 103 qualified pitchers. This may explain in small part his below average strikeout performance.

On the curve, there is cause for optimism: he threw the bender far, far less frequently than the hard stuff overall, yet still earned nearly the same amount of total strikeouts with the pitch (31) as he did with either the sinker (32) or fastball (38).

Maybe there was a reason he didn't go to the curve a lot, though. When the curve was in the strike zone, batters didn't swing and miss all that much. While some of these looks may have been on two strike counts, his negative run value for the pitch suggests that contact was made. Moreover, Detwiler's called strike to ball rate on the curve ranked an unimpressive 93rd out of 103 among qualified pitchers, at .31 strikes per called ball. Throwing one strike per three balls isn't ideal, and it will decrease the value of the pitch.

The chart below shows Detwiler's whiff rate against lefties and righties in 2012 on breaking pitches and the relative lack of cuts and misses:

Now, here is the swing rate to put the above numbers in context:

Batters were hacking at the curve fairly frequently, and that (maybe unsurprisingly) went for out of the zone, too.

So if the curve was in the zone, and the batter didn't whiff or take the pitch, what happened? The next graph shows batters' slugging percentage with the same parameters as before:

Detwiler sustained some damage on curve balls in many of the places you want the pitch, and in all the places you don't.

In sum, batters could reasonably figure they were getting a curve late, didn't worry about it being unhittable, and also weren't concerned with his ability to throw the pitch for a strike on demand. The last chart displays the product of this calculus, and may be the consequence of going to a pitch that neither generates a lot of swings and misses relative to his peers nor is thrown for a called strike as often as it is a ball.

2013 Thoughts

Perhaps illogically, I believe the more breaking and offspeed-focused approach is the correct call. One reason I think this is because Detwiler is still a young pitcher who has worked through injuries and doubts concerning his ability to succeed in the bigs. As shown above, he built a pedestal of confidence on the strength of favorable results on hard stuff. Now appears to be as good a time as any to attempt capitalize on his promise.

The second reason, and it's a bit of a corollary to the first, is that in his current mold Detwiler won't approach the long-term success of pitchers who work with better strikeout rates. And while that is perfectly fine for many big league twirlers, the Nationals (and perhaps more importantly Detwiler) don't seem content with "role player" or "solid starter" performance.

If Detwiler does go to the curve and change more, he must show that he can command those pitches to keep batters honest. This is especially important against right-handers, who performed much better than lefties against Detwiler in 2012.

Considering the small curve ball sample from last year, I wouldn't be surprised to see an increased whiff rate and corresponding increase in strikeouts, all else being equal. If he doesn't develop those offerings, I worry that Detwiler will have to maintain his 2012 performance on his hard stuff to approach ~1.5-2 WAR. It's not an unreasonable proposition, but even with just the variability of HR/FB rates, it may not be the best idea to throw cheese all day long. Fortunately, it appears that the Nats and Detwiler think the same thing.

Washington Nationals PDB, Part IV: Pitchf/x Concluded

Garrett Hooe — Thu, 21 Feb 2013 01:20:32 -0000

It may be early in spring training, but Reddington is already in mid-season form posting and news-wise. He clearly has come to camp in the "best shape of his life" and is "ready to get things going." No word on Doghouse, but I hear he may have some credential issues. I am sure those will be worked out in time for his usual Win Probability awesomeness.

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In the final pre-season PDB look at pitcher evaluation, I've chosen a few of the newer and more helpful Pitchf/x tools to use when trying to get the word on a particular pitcher.

Heat Maps

Fangraphs explains that heat maps "represent where a pitcher threw a particular type of pitch the most often." Fangraphs' heat maps draw their pitch classification data from MLB Advanced Media, which means that one may see some inconsistency between MLBAM labeling and that of Brooks Baseball (where they classify their own material by visual observation, rather than using an algorithm like MLBAM).

Here is Stephen Strasburg's fastball heat map for 2012, beginning first with left handed batters:

via www.fangraphs.com

What information does this map display? First, heat maps use the catcher's perspective, like other similar visuals. Second, the greater the intensity of color (from redish-orange at the low end to light yellow at the other), the higher the frequency of pitches in that location. That's really it -- we don't see velo, movement, or results.

With the fastball against lefties, Strasburg most often attacks across the middle third of the zone, working in and out frequently, but also going middle-middle too. If he's not working that area, he's most likely offering lefties the heater down, or possibly upper-middle of the plate.

Now, here is his fastball usage against right-handed hitters in 2012:

via www.fangraphs.com

A more clear pattern is visible here. Strasburg works righties away more often than he works lefties away, while also hitting the upper and lower portions of the zone more frequently. Reduce the point size and switch the image over to "rainbow" format to really see the contrast:

via www.fangraphs.com

Away's the place wherein Zuk catches the heater, at least against same-handed batters.

Heat Maps are helpful to visualize location and frequency quickly and relatively easily. But we can pair these with other visual information to get a better idea of why Strasburg locates where he does as often as he does.

Baseball Prospectus/Brooks Baseball Pitcher Profiles

Here is where pitcher information starts to get more comprehensive and helpful. Baseball Prospectus and Brooks Baseball teamed up create BP Pitcher Profiles, which offer a visual display of the strike zone overlaid with a variety of stats and colors for pitchers (and hitters, as we will see).

These graphs draw on Pitchf/x information, just like the heat maps above. Noting that "location is perhaps the most important attribute of a pitch," Pitchf/x gurus Harry Pavlidis and Dan Brooks believe the tool "will revolutionize the way people look at PITCHf/x data."

Once again, we'll use Strasburg as an example. Here is his BP Pitcher Profile, sorted first by batting average against righties in 2012 on his four-seam fastball. Keep in mind we are only assessing instances where the ball was struck or where there was a strikeout, and not the overall frequency of heaters to righties:

Strasburg was most successful when he located his fastball away and the hitter attempted a swing, either making contact or striking out (yielding a "result," as I'll call it). For as (relatively) infrequently as he went inside with the heater overall against righties, he often had a result on those pitches. On results middle-in and upper-in, Strasburg allowed one hit over twenty-three results. As Larry David likes to say, "that's prettay, prettay good." But just a little bit lower, and the story was different. Lastly, it probably is no surprise to see batters have the greatest success on offerings over the middle, even when Strasburg unlimbers 97+ MPH cheese.

Here's a look at Strasburg's whiff rate on fastballs against righties in 2012:

Strasburg ranked in the top quarter of starers in 2012 on heater whiff rate, registering an 18.9% mark (Yu Darvish led the Majors with a whiff rate of 27.76%). This offers a bit more of an explanation as to why Strasburg does not go inside with the four-seam against righties more often: Although he has a low batting average against in that area, he isn't earning those outs with swings and misses all that often, generating only 4 whiffs on 53 swings.

Sure enough, at first glance the BABIP gods appear to have been kind to #37 on inside fastballs to right-handers:

4/28 on inside pitches in the zone works out to a ~.143 BABIP. But to really determine if we're looking at luck, let's cross check against his GB rate on inside pitches.

Recall from earlier in the series that pitchers who get a large number of ground balls will have lower BABIPs than pitchers in the middle of the pack. How did Strasburg rank on worm-burners? Well, he was 66th out of 118 in the league when sorting by fastball grounder rates, getting them at a 33% clip. We see he was slightly above that mark on inside pitches, generating 11 grounders on 28 batted balls:

So, when using his fastball inside against right handers in 2012, we can say:

Heat maps told us he works outside more often;
One BP Profile reading told us he was pretty good BA-wise when he went inside;
A second look revealed that this wasn't really due to his ability to get swings and misses, which he was pretty good at overall;
A final look gave us improved confidence that his inside success may largely be built on BABIP values, which, considering his overall GB performance wasn't otherworldly, may be a bit unusual; but!
Recall SIERA told us power pitchers generally generate weaker contact, so that could explain some of the gap between observed BABIP (.143) and the average BABIP on grounders (.246). Other batted ball rates also explain the gap. Five of his 28 contacted inside fastballs were line drives (which result in hits 68% of the time), which equaled his inside pop-up rate (almost never hits). Combine the pop-ups with his fly ball rate inside, and you have nearly half of his pitches with an average BABIP equal to or lower than .123, meaning that his batted ball profile suggests that maybe the results were about what we'd expect.

Dealing with uncertainty is a huge part of pitcher evaluation, and it is a fool's errand to offer 100% confidence when projecting future or explaining prior performance. But, there are still cool things to see with Pitcher Profiles. For example, Strasburg:

Had a 80% whiff rate (high) on curve balls down and away from righties (8/10);
Had a 68% whiff rate (high) on change-ups down and in to righties (13/19);
Was hit pretty good by lefties on fastballs over the middle and outer-lower half of the zone (.541 BA);
Saw quite a high swing rate for pitches up in the zone ("chase" pitches); and
Provided it wasn't low-away or low-middle, his change-up was successful against lefties, who hit only .200 against it everywhere else (8/40)

How about Strasburg against individual batters?

Pitchf/x Matchup Analysis Tool

Baseball Prospectus/Brooks Baseball brings it again with individual pitcher/batter matchup pages. Here is how Strasburg has faired against Nats nemesis Jimmy Rollins of the Philadelphia Phillies:

Pitch	Count	Freq	Velo (mph)	pfx HMov (in.)	pfx VMov (in.)
Fourseam (FA)	12	52%	97.30	-6.12	7.94
Sinker (SI)	2	9%	95.13	-7.20	6.50
Curveball (CU)	5	22%	81.81	8.34	-8.20
Changeup (CH)	4	17%	90.99	-9.28	3.29

Detailed Matchups:
1. 2010-08-21 [Strikeout] FA(98) CU(83) FA(98) FA(98) CU(84)
2. 2010-08-21 [Groundout] FA(97)
3. 2012-05-04 [Strikeout] FA(98) FA(98) CH(92)
4. 2012-05-04 [Lineout] FA(98)
5. 2012-05-04 [Strikeout] CU(82) CH(91) FA(98) CH(91)
6. 2012-07-31 [Strikeout] FA(96) CU(80) FA(97) CH(90)
7. 2012-07-31 [Flyout] CU(80) SI(96)
8. 2012-07-31 [Home Run] FA(95) SI(94) FA(96)

Strasburg has balanced his approach against Rollins, going with 60% hard stuff versus 40% off-speed (all sample size caveats considered). And, excepting Rollins' last at-bat on July 31, 2012, he's had great success.

One can also see that Strasburg prefers to attack Rollins, a lefty, outside more often than his fastball heat map suggests for all lefties:

Other images on the screen also show that Rollins sees more first-pitch fastballs and curves than the average lefty against Strasburg. How did Rollins do against outside fastballs from right-handed hurlers in 2012? Yea, BP also does hitter profiles:

The Nationals' 2009 first round pick played with a little bit of fire when he worked middle-middle and lower-middle of the zone, and less so middle-away. Where did Rollins burn him? Have a look for yourself:

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(In case the video doesn't appear, it was borderline middle-middle/middle-away). Because of small sample sizes, it's a good idea to take some of this information at face value. At the same time, as Christy Mathewson explained, sometimes you just pitch certain guys certain ways when you're getting good (or bad) results.

Last but not least, let's learn about pitch sequencing on a more macro scale.

BP/Brooks Baseball Pitch Sequencing

Pitch sequencing helps to determine a pitcher's plan of attack against batters.

What you see below at the top of the sequence tells us "whether the pitch is in the strike zone; where it’s located in (or out of) the zone (if its location can be specified); and finally, the type of pitch, which can be as specific as an individual pitch type or as general as 'Hard Pitch' or 'Any Pitch,'" according to BP.

via cdn.brooksbaseball.net

Strasburg's top-ranked right-handed hitter sequence shows that he would thow back-to-back four seam fastballs high and out of the zone, but over the plate. The more red the blocks in the sequence, the more often he used this pattern. So, in 2012, he started fastball up/fastball up frequently early in the year, then adjusted his approach about midway through the year.

The below chart shows how Strasburg fared on this sequence. In 2012, he saw early returns of strikeouts, walks, and line drives. This may not be that surprising considering the sequence: either guys chased and got themselves into a hole, or didn't and either got something to hit or took a walk after earning two balls. But a little later in the year, he got a lot of fly balls (again, intuitive, because when hitters swing at high pitches they improve the chances of a fly ball).

via cdn.brooksbaseball.net

There is more information on Strasburg's player card, and not enough room within these pages to discuss it. Check it out and see what you find -- it is an enjoyable experience.

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With that is my look at the litany of factors that aid in evaluating pitchers and pitching performance. In-season PDB's will be more brief, incorporating things from this series at different times. And if the community wants to see something in particular, just let me know.

Washington Nationals PDB, Part IV(A): Pitchf/x and Pitching in Major League Baseball

Garrett Hooe — Thu, 14 Feb 2013 23:46:41 -0000

Pitchf/x may be the most enjoyable pitching tool to use because it involves a lot of graphs and visual information. To understand most of that information, however, it helps to know how Pitchf/x does what it does.

According to Sportvision, the company that created Pitchf/x, the system "tracks and digitally records the full trajectory of live baseball pitches to within an inch of accuracy, enabling new forms of baseball entertainment and analysis for leagues, teams, broadcasters, and fans." Debuting in 2006, the system was installed in all major league parks in 2007 and has been refined each year to finer-tune measurements.

Two cameras inside each stadium are used to triangulate the position, speed, and movement of the ball. Alan M. Nathan, a professor at the University of Illinois and a highly-regarded commentator on the system, heralds Pitchf/x:

[its] data allow[s] us to record with unprecedented precision such quantities as the pitch speed and the location at home plate. But even more importantly, we have measures of quantities that we never had before. As a result, we now have new and novel ways to study the art of pitching.

Why a baseball moves during flight

Break out the nerd glasses, we're talking physics (briefly).

The Magnus Effect explains why a baseball moves during flight. Understanding why a baseball moves relative to gravity can help to understand what we see when we look at some of the Pitchf/x visuals later in the article.

The Magnus Effect, described by Issac Newton in 1672, is the distribution of air around (in this case) a spinning baseball, and the resulting movement of the baseball due to the envelope of air around it.

Here is a visual of the Magnus Effect to help out, courtesy of TexasLeaguers:

Faster air = lower pressure = upward movement due to higher pressure air below the baseball. So, the greater the backspin, the greater the lift. Generally, fastballs - particularly four-seam fastballs - have the highest backspin RPM, and fastball speed is positively correlated with vertical movement.

Because a curve ball spins in a forward fashion (snap a baseball between your middle finger and thumb for a do-it-yourself visual), the Magnus Effect also explains why, even in the absence of gravity, the curve ball has downward movement: there is no backspin to create lift like there is with a fastball or changeup. Instead, the slower air over the top of a curve pushes the pitch down after the pitcher's release.

Aside: be thankful that no one can throw at or close to the speed of light, because: this ("The answer turns out to be 'a lot of things', and they all happen very quickly, and it doesn’t end well for the batter (or the pitcher)."

What can Pitchf/x tell us?

Fangraphs is a good place to go to find numerical Pitchf/x data. I've included Stephen Strasburg's Fangraphs Pitchf/x page in different places below, and will explain certain numbers from left to right.

Pitch Values

Below are the Pitchf/x pitch/run values for Strasburg as provided by Fangraphs.

Fangraphs explains,

The Pitch Type Linear Weights ("Pitch Values") section on FanGraphs attempts to answer the question, "Which pitch is a pitcher’s best weapon?" The changes in run expectancy between an 0-0 count and a 0-1 or 1-0 count are obviously very small, but when added up over the course of the season, you can get an idea of which pitch typically yields the best results for a pitcher. If one pitch is hit especially hard or a pitcher can’t locate one pitch for a strike, these problems will show up using Pitch Type Linear Weights. Also, if a pitcher gets lots of strikes and outs with a specific pitch, this success will show up.

You’ll notice that there are two different types of Pitch Type Linear Weights: total runs by pitch (which is shown as wFB, wSL, wCB, etc.) and standardized runs by pitch (shown as wFB/C, wSL/C, wCB/C, etc.). The first category is the total runs that a pitcher has saved using that pitch. However, it is tough to compare these total numbers since pitchers throw different amounts of each pitch. The second category corrects for this, standardizing the values on a "per 100 pitch" basis. In other words, when you see wFB/C, that represents the amount of runs that pitcher saved with their fastball over the course of 100 fastballs thrown.

To understand exactly how the values are calculated, all one really needs to understand is that strikes and outs lead to positive (good) values, while balls, base hits, and home runs lead to negative values. The value for each pitch represents the difference between the run value for before the pitch, and the run value after the pitch. Here is a more comprehensive explanation from Dave Allen if you want to check it out, and Dead Cat's Bounce looks at the actual run values by count if you want to actually see what they look like (2009 data).

For perspective, Fangraphs states that the range of values is usually -20 to +20, or -1.5/c to +1.5/c.

In 2012, Strasburg's curve (CU) was a hammer. His 1.82/c registered 6th best in the majors last year. His four-seam fastball (FA) was good, too, as was his change up (CH).

Keep in mind sample size - if a pitcher only throws a pitch 3-0, when hitters often take, he can rack up positive values for strikes, or much greater negative values for balls. But this doesn't really reflect how effective a pitch is, and for that reason, quantity of pitches is important.

Additionally, run values can overstate the actual quality of a twirler's offering. Beyond the Boxscore uses R.A. Dickey as an example for the proposition that, although he has a great knuckleball, his fastball often has a high run value because

batters facing a knuckleballer aren't expecting the fastball so they let the pitch go by, where it's nearly always a strike. Thus when you look at run values, the fact that a pitcher's less used pitch has a better run value per 100 pitches DOES NOT MEAN that the pitcher is using his pitches inefficiently.

So, a pitch may be good, but that fact doesn't necessarily mean a pitcher should start going to it a lot (remember game theory!).

Movement

Here, we see Strasburg's pitch movement information.

Look over at the two columns almost all the way on far right: x-mov and z-mov. I'll focus on those to start. Also, note that Pitchf/x measures movement without the effect of gravity on the baseball. If you're like me, this can be difficult to imagine. But, it makes sense -- with gravity, and not to sound ridiculous, everything is going to fall. Pitchf/x just neutralizes that effect.

Anyway, visualize a spinless pitch traveling straight from 55 feet out (the point where Pitchf/x begins to measure) to the middle-middle part of the plate -- "center cut" as Bob and F.P. say -- to get a pitch with 0, 0 movement.

By the way, here are the abbreviations listed above and their pitch associations:

FA	Four-seam fastball
CU	Curve ball
CH	Change-up
FT	Two-seam fastball

And here is a link to Strasburg's grips for these pitches.

X-MOV

x-Mov measures horizontal movement in inches across the batter's box area. To understand which direction negative indicates, pretend you are the catcher. From this perspective, anything that breaks in to right handed hitters from the middle of the plate is classified as (-), whereas pitches moving towards left handed batters from the view of the catcher are (+) values.

So, horizontally, Strasburg's pitches mostly move in towards right handed hitters. The exception, his curve, breaks in to left-handed batters, so it's x-mov value is positive: 7.7 inches of break in to lefties.

Z-MOV

z-Mov measures vertical movement in inches across the batter's box area. For z-Mov, a positive value indicates lift in the absence of gravity, whereas a negative number indicates a downward movement opposite of lift (weight? Unsure if that's the proper term).

These numbers compute: Strasburg's fastball offerings and change up have positive values, because they generate lift. And a z-Mov of -6.4 confirms what everyone already knows: his curve drops a lot, although only slightly above league average (Strasburg's 2012 movement placed him around 37th out of 86 in the league, where the maximum value was -10 for Tommy Hanson and, amazingly, +1 for Francisco Liriano).

VISUALIZING

The below charts plot Strasburg's vertical and horizontal movement to correspond to the averages above. Note that the source, Brooks Baseball, manually categorizes every pitch. This explains the distinction with "FT" in the Fangraphs classification and "SI" (which is a sinking fastball) in the Brooks' classification. I'm going with Brooks, but the movement is the same.

We see again that the fastball and change-up offerings break in to righties, and that they almost always have a positive (or upward) vertical movement. On the other hand, the curve breaks down and away from righties. Same information, more samples, less numbers than above. Keep in mind these only represent movement, and not necessarily where a pitch ended up and whether that offering was in the strike zone.

WHAT MOVEMENT IS GOOD?

Succinctly, current research finds it unclear. Although some work has been done, one prominent Pitch F/x researcher cautions that "we're far from having the final answers at this point."

Nonetheless, there is some information out there that can help us understand at what value horizontal and vertical movement becomes favorable to pitchers. Bringing run values, discussed above, and movement information together can be helpful. Dave Allen at the Baseball Analysts examined fastball movement and associated run values in this 2009 article.

Unfortunately, I have been unable to find an updated version of this promising work, and the relative downswing in offense league-wide since 2009 makes me think that applying these values may overstate the effect of pitches in certain locations. To account for the reduction in offense, we may do well to slightly adjust our expectations down from these values.

The charts show the run value at various points across the horizontal and vertical movement spectrum for right-handed pitchers who throw a fastball against both right and left-handed batters. For quick reference purposes, red indicates a more favorable result for the pitcher, while blue indicates the opposite:

Allen explains,

In same-handed at-bats the more vertical 'rising' movement the better. This trend is not unexpected, but strikingly consistent. For these same-handed at-bats horizontal movement has very little effect. In opposite handed at-bats a large central region of pitches has a very high run value. These fastballs have 'average' movement, and left handed batters have no trouble with them.

As noted in the pitch values section, there are some drawbacks to combining information: context can be lost, and small samples may be exposed. Still, this is something. And comparing Strasburg's fastball to 2009 data, it looks like he is just shy of the extreme red area against right-handed batters, which corresponds with his good-but-not-great fastball run value data.

Velocity

Pitchf/x also measures velocity, of course. Here is Fangraphs' page again:

The far three columns have the bulk of our focus, and are pretty straightforward: we get the minimum, maximum, and average speed for Strasburg's four pitches. But also keep in mind the total number of pitches in the third-most left column when facing sample size issues. Strasburg has enough data to say he can bring it, but these also come in handy when evaluating the value of his pitches.

Pitchf/x also allows for some pretty cool graphs to show velocity. First, here's the average data that corresponds with the above numbers for Strasburg, as displayed on Brooks Baseball:

Next, we can see more game-by-game data using either Fangraphs (for one pitch)

or Brooks (for all pitches each year):

Although Strasburg's velo appears down across the board since '09-'10, I wouldn't be surprised to learn that some of that is a consequence of his trip back from Tommy John surgery, perhaps also combined with a tactical pitch-to-contact approach. And it's still elite velocity for all of his offerings.

Before making conclusions based on information like that shown above, keep in mind that velocity and movement readings can vary by stadium.

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Values, movement, and velocity are the at the core of Pitchf/x assessment, but are certainly not the only tools to use.

In the final Pitchf/x article and pre-season PDB on pitching evaluation, I'll look at Heat Maps, Pitchf/x matchup analysis, pitch sequencing graphs, BP pitcher profiles, and more - with plenty of visuals and cool information to use throughout 2013.

Washington Nationals P.D.B., Part III: Pitching Statistics, from ERA to BABIP to SIERA

Garrett Hooe — Wed, 06 Feb 2013 00:53:13 -0000

Mark Twain is reputed to have popularized the saying, "[t]here are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics." Twain was right -- stats, when used in ways beyond their designs, can skew our understanding of information.

The purpose of this article is to identify common and popular stats that evaluate pitching performance and also understand the limitations of these stats. During the regular season, I will use many of the below measurements for opposing pitcher PDBs. No one number can tell us how well a pitcher performs, however.

Instead, PDBs will present a comprehensive picture where stats are just a piece in the puzzle. That means I will use game theory, external factors, stats, media reports, scouting observations, and Pitchf/x in PDBs.

Unless otherwise noted, all data is courtesy of Fangraphs.

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In Parts I and II, I reviewed ways to understand pitching performance that weren't necessarily related to the pitcher's delivery of the ball. Some of these factors limit stats in important ways when trying to figure out how effective a hurler has been, is, or can be. I'll refer back to those articles where appropriate, but they aren't required to understand what's going on below.

Also, I imagine that the readership has a range of understanding on the topic. I've tried to review a swath of information to hopefully add something for everyone.

Sample Size

Before drawing conclusions on whether a statistic is valid -- that is, whether the measurement corresponds accurately to the real world -- the size of the underlying sample must be considered.

Take an extreme example. No one really believes that Stephen Strasburg's true talent is giving up 5 earned runs in 9 innings pitched. Yet, if you only reviewed his September 2012 splits, it would appear he wasn't awesome.

Pizza Cutter studied the reliability of pitching statistics at certain numbers of plate appearances in his 2008 "Statistically Speaking" study. He concluded that with certain sample sizes, you can't tell a lot about a pitcher to get an accurate idea of true talent.

So, when can we start to trust certain pitching stats? Below, I've listed Pizza Cutter's observed stabilization rates:

How many batters until we trust?	Stat that starts to stabilize
150 Batters Faced	Strikeout percentage (K%); ground ball rate (GB%); line drive rate (LD%)
200 BF	Fly ball rate (FB%); ground ball to fly ball ratio (GB/FB)
500 BF	Strikeout to walk ratio (K/BB); pop up rate (IFFB%)
550 BF	Walks per plate appearance (BB%)

As he summarized, "you can get a pretty good idea of how often [a pitcher] walks and strikes batters out, and what type of batted balls he gives up generally… but that’s about it."

Nearly all at Federal Baseball probably know the refrain: when presented with pitching data, keep the sample size in mind.

Earned Run Average (ERA)

Explained

ERA "measures the mean of runs given up by a pitcher per nine innings pitched," as Marilyn Green at RedBird Rants explains. The stat can be calculated by multiplying the number of earned runs given up by nine, and then dividing the product by the number of innings a pitcher has thrown.

For your viewing pleasure, here is the average Major League ERA since 2008:

ERA does show depression in run scoring, which is accurate. But, we'll see why it's not great at capturing pitcher talent.

2012: Qualified Leaders and Followers

Lowest	ERA Value
Clayton Kershaw	2.53
David Price	2.56
Highest	ERA Value
Ricky Romero	5.77
Luke Hochevar	5.73

Limitations

I mentioned this in Part I, but ERA may include many different things that are outside of a pitcher's control. Defense, ballpark, and luck can all affect ERA (also known as stat "noise"), but those things don't tell us about talent level or performance. Because of this, ERA is not the best stat to use to evaluate pitchers.

But don't take my word for it. Derek Johnson, who recently accepted the Chicago Cubs' minor league pitching coordinator position and who previously was the pitching coach at Vanderbilt, has stated that he believes that "ERA is a relatively poor indicator of what the pitcher is actually doing or not doing in his outings," later emphasizing the role of defense and contact rates when trying to evaluate pitchers. Certainly, the industry is coming around to this view.

See also

ERA- is used by some to evaluate how far a pitcher's ERA is above or below league average, which is designated as 100. Because lower is better, a pitcher with an ERA- of 80 is considered to be 20% better (on an ERA basis) than the average big-league hurler.

Our own dc_Roach also came up with a nifty measurement, (e)ERA, detailed here. This stat uses inherited runners and run probability percentiles to better evaluate ERA.

Walks and Hits Plus Innings Pitched (WHIP)

What it is

WHIP measures how many baserunners a pitcher gives up an inning. It is calculated by adding walks and hits together, then dividing the sum by innings pitched. Any pitcher around or under 1.20 is going pretty good.

2012: Qualified Leaders and Followers

Lowest	WHIP Value
Jered Weaver	1.02
Kershaw	1.02
Highest	WHIP Value
Ricky Romero	1.67
Ubaldo Jimenez	1.61

Limitations

WHIP isn't too bad a number to use when trying to get a rough idea of baserunners per inning, but it doesn't entirely help to understand a pitcher's talent for a couple of reasons. First, not all hits are created the same. A single is better for a pitcher to give up than a double or triple, for instance. Second, umpire strike zones -- discussed in Part I -- can influence whether a pitcher walks a batter, and both are outside the hurler's control. Finally, the next statistic can affect the underlying hit data, too.

Batting Average on Balls in Play (BABIP)

What it is

BABIP measures how frequently balls in play become hits. This number focuses only on pitches that hitters make contact with. You can see from the table below that BABIP doesn't vary much by year; on average, once a ball is put in play, it will drop in for a hit 29% of the time.

Year	League Average BABIP
2012	.293
2011	.291
2010	.293
2009	.295
2008	.296

2012: Qualified Leaders and Followers

The Detroit Tigers had two hurlers with pretty high BABIPs. Rick Porcello took "honors" at .344, and Max Scherzer registered .333. Maybe this has something to do with Miguel Cabrera manning the hot corner (pure speculation).

On the flip side, interestingly, the Los Angeles Angels had pitchers with the lowest BABIPs in 2012. Jered Weaver led the league with a .241 mark, and his former teammate Ervin Santana checked in at .241 as well.

Limitations

BABIP isn't the holy grail (well, nothing is) because a pitcher's defense can influence hits on balls in play. Also, BABIP varies significantly when you break down hits by batted ball type:

Type of Hit	BABIP
Line Drive	.682
Ground Balls	.234
Fly Balls	.123

For this reason, it is best to pair BABIP with batted ball rates to see whether a pitcher is closer to unlucky, or was giving up frozen ropes left and right.

Batted Ball Rates

What it is

Batted ball rates are pretty straightforward: the official scorer at each game categorizes each ball in play as either a line drive, ground ball, fly ball, or infield fly ball, according to the linked source. However, Fangraphs says that Baseball Info Solutions "tracks" the classification, and I am not sure if that is a distinction with a difference. Either way, the types are the same.

As the table directly above shows, line drives hurt. Although grounders go for hits more often, they go for extra bases less, and consequently are less likely than fly balls to lead to a run. In 2012, the average rates for each batted ball type were as follows:

21% line drives;
45% ground balls;
34% fly balls; and
10% infield flies (subsumed within fly balls, which is why it totals 110%. They're giving it their all!).

Between batted ball, strikeout, and walk rates, what combination leads to pitcher success? The following chart plots K/9 and GB% for 2012 pitchers. The horizontal bar represents the league average strikeout rate per 9 innings, 7.1. The vertical bar represents the league average ground ball rate. I've noted a few names, but generally speaking, if you strike a lot of guys out and get near average or better grounders, you're going to have success (unless you're a walk machine like Edinson Volquez).

Batted ball rates affect many of other stats presented here. For that reason, they are a helpful cross-check to asses validity.

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Following are ERA estimator stats, which pull together different bits of information in an attempt to isolate pitcher skill on an ERA scale. The phrase "ERA estimator" can be a little misleading; Matt Swartz (of game theory fame) describes it as an "estimate [of] how well a pitcher pitched in the present."

Fielding Independent Pitching (FIP)

What it is

FIP measures how a pitcher performed based on "true" outcomes (i.e., plays where defense is factored out): walks, strikeouts, hit by pitches, and home runs. The formula is a bit dense for this format, but the statistic uses a constant to scale to ERA so that it can be appreciated in the same way the longer-tenured ERA is. The notion is to cut out the variability of defense to have a better idea how talented a pitcher really is.

What makes a good FIP? Fangraphs' Glossary assists:

Rating	FIP
Excellent	2.90
Great	3.25
Above average	3.75
Average	4.00
Below average	4.20
Poor	4.50
Awful	5.00

2012: Qualified Leaders and Followers

Lowest	FIP Value
Gio Gonzalez	2.82
Felix Hernandez	2.84
Highest	FIP Value
Ervin Santana	5.63
Henderson Alverez	5.18

Santana should probably consider himself fortunate that more runners weren't on base (thanks to his low BABIP) when he was giving up an average of 2 home runs per 9 innings in 2012 (the reason why his FIP is so poor).

Limitations

FIP can fluctuate based on small samples. It is not unusual to have an FIP/ERA disagreement; about a third of ML pitchers have a difference of .2 or more.

When ERA and FIP disagree, the tendency is to chalk it up to "luck" (meaning, BABIP and defense), or lack thereof. But some pitchers sequence well, or can strand runners on base more frequently than others. There have been many good pieces on the FIP/ERA gap, including this recent one by Glenn DuPaul at Beyond the Boxscore. When looking at the FIP-ERA difference, check out batted ball and strand rates to evaluate whether BABIP is giving us a picture that explains a high or low ERA and any associated gap between that and FIP.

Also consider that, as Pizza Cutter found, a pitcher's HR/FB ratio can vary wildly each year. The average pitcher gives up around 11 home runs per 100 fly balls, and the elite sit around 6-7% HR/FB. So, if a pitcher happens to have a particularly high ratio one year, and a low one the next, it can be challenging to determine where his true talent lies. For this reason, we should look at FIP with a pitcher's career HR/FB, along with a pitcher's historical BB and K rates, against those for the current year. If you're not feeling up for that, the next stat can help reduce your labor.

See Also

FIP- measures how far above or below a pitcher rates relative to league average in FIP. 100 is average, and lower is better.

Expected Fielding Independent Pitching (xFIP)

What it is

Instead of using a pitcher's actual HR/FB rate, xFIP uses a league average HR/FB rate (again, about 11%) and multiplies that by a pitcher's fly ball rate when calculating a pitcher's figure. xFIP tells us how many home runs a pitcher should have given up, assuming a league average HR/FB rate.

Why is xFIP useful? Because (cue the broken record) HR/FB rates vary throughout a year, career, or part of a season, this statistic regresses information to league average. This better frames what we could have reasonably expected performance-wise. Also, it correlates well with future ERA.

Limitations?

Some pitchers give up more, or less, HR/FB consistently. Is xFIP less helpful in this case, because these pitchers have shown that they are consistently above or below the HR/FB average? Sort of, as the following charts will show.

Here is a list of NL pitchers who have higher than average HR/FB rates over the last four years, meaning their xFIP appears to paint a shinier picture than FIP:

Pitcher	HR/FB%	FIP	xFIP
Mike Leake	14.3%	4.39	3.86
Dan Haren	12.6%	3.48	3.09
Yovani Gallardo	11.8%	3.64	3.43
Cole Hamels	11.1%	3.41	3.28

Because these HR/FB rates are higher than the league average of 11%, xFIP is telling us that their performance should have been better. On the other hand, this is four years of high HR/FB data. On the, uh, third hand, both Haren and Gallardo had one year of the four under the league average HR/FB rate in the sample.

So, we're still seeing some level of HR/FB fluctuation by season within the sample, and xFIP helps to temper the conclusion that these guys are inherently homer-happy pitchers (which I am glad to say in Haren's case, not so much the other three).

Now to look at NL pitchers who, in the aggregate, have lower than average HR/FB rates between 2009-2012:

Pitcher	HR/FB%	FIP	xFIP
Kershaw	6.3%	2.87	3.36
Matt Cain	7%	3.46	3.94
Anibal Sanchez	8.3%	3.54	3.76
Kyle Lohse	8.4%	3.90	4.18

Here, the xFIPs are greater because xFIP adjusts these hurlers' HR/FB rate northward. But, again, this is four years' worth of above-average performance (due to "below" average HR/FB rates).

What issues come up? Sanchez is an interesting case. Aside from a depressed HR/FB rate in 2010 (4.5%), he's been within a percentage point of league average each year of the sample (to the good side). Yet 2010 puts him far below average overall.

The point is that for some players, aggregate historical data can explain the FIP-xFIP distinction. But, sometimes looking at a large sample to say whether a pitcher consistently out-pitches his xFIP can't be entirely trusted. Because xFIP looks at league average HR/FB rate, it helps to minimize the influence of a volatile stat while also reducing inaccurate conclusions on true pitcher talent.

Skill Interactive ERA (SIERA)

What it is

As I've gone through these stats, the measurements have gotten a little more complex mathematically. In a different way, though, their limitations have diminished.

SIERA completes the list and trend.

Like FIP and xFIP, SIERA is an ERA estimator - it evaluates what happened independent of defense. Unlike FIP and xFIP, SIERA takes into account batted balls. Of course, batted ball data underlie many of the stats in this article, so the inclusion is a significant one.

SIERA values strikeouts more than FIP, because strikeouts aren't just good in themselves; high strikeout pitchers generate weaker contact than low strikeout pitchers, and weaker contact turns into outs more often. SIERA also differentiates between high and low walk pitchers. Simply, walks don't hurt as much if you don't give up much of them. Finally, SIERA adjusts for batted balls. As Fangraphs states, "the higher a pitcher’s groundball rate, the easier it is for their defense to turn those ground balls into outs."

Final note: SIERA adjust for park and accounts for the modern run scoring environment.

2012: Qualified Leaders and Followers

Lowest	SIERA Value
Max Scherzer	2.99
Cliff Lee	3.00
Highest	SIERA Value
Ricky Romero	4.98
Barry Zito	4.89

You can see how SIERA loves strikeouts (Mad Max rocked a 29.4% K rate, best in the bigs) and low walks (Lee walked 3.3% of batters, or twenty-eight of eight-hundred forty-seven (!) batters faced). It hates the opposite (Romero was nearly even in K% and BB%).

Limitations

Other than small sample size, not a lot.

And, mercifully, that's it! I didn't bring up Wins Above Replacement, because that is probably for another post, and we're pushing 2,700 words. I'll cover the basics of Pitchf/x in the next post. Most importantly, pitchers and catchers in four.

Washington Nationals PDB: Non-Physical Aspects Affecting Pitching, Part Two

Garrett Hooe — Wed, 23 Jan 2013 01:48:31 -0000

Whaddya say! Whaddya say!

Before beginning this article, I pay tribute Stan Musial, also known as "the Man." I also wanted to highlight two of the best articles that I have read on Musial for readers less familiar with him. A member of the National Baseball Hall of Fame, Musial was a career .331/.417/.559 hitter. By all accounts, however, he was an even greater person.

The ineffable Joe Posnanski wrote this "Where are they now?" feature for Sports Illustrated in 2010, and recently offered this retrospective at Sports on Earth after Musial's passing.

------------------------------------------------

This is the second part of my pre-season look at pitching and pitching evaluation in Major League Baseball. A pitcher's performance is affected by many things, but nearly all factors are related to either his non-physical (see my first piece, along with this one) or physical performance (think actions related to throwing the baseball).

To conclude my look at non-physical aspects affecting pitching, I am excited to review current thought and research on game theory and its application to the pitcher/batter matchup.

B. Game Theory, Pitching, and Hitting

Game theory is the study of strategic decision making. It is used to understand how choices are (or should be) made in different areas of our world, including anti-trust law, fashion supply chain management, literature, and national defense. Considering the breadth and depth of information available to many over the internet, it is no real surprise that people starting applying the concept to baseball.

What does game theory have to tell us about the pitcher/batter matchup?

i). Basic Game Theory, with Examples

Assume that I am pitching, and that you are hitting. You know my best pitch, pathetically, is an 80 MPH fastball that couldn't break Moe Szyslak ("[big sigh]...Sears catalog" kills me every time). In fact, it's practically my only pitch; maybe every thirty or so pitches, I'll throw a curve ball in the dirt. Game theory is what you apply when you ask yourself what you think is coming (the fastball, of course).

310toJoba states that game theory

basically asserts that a player in a zero-sum game will select options that minimize their maximum losses. To be overly thorough and clarify even further, a zero-sum game is a situation where the "players" can only benefit at the expense of each other because the possible payoffs from any set of actions is exactly the same....Not surprisingly the interactions between batters and pitchers are zero-sum games. Either the pitcher "wins" and the batter makes an out, or the batter "wins" and gets on base.

He highlights studies that claim that pitchers probably throw too many fastballs on balance, and buttresses this point using the value of fastballs thrown by top-tier pitchers (I'll cover valuation stats in a later post).

Back to my example above. I'm probably getting shelled every time I take the mound, because everyone knows a BP fastball is on the menu. After you conclude the fastball is coming, the next application of game theory to understand is what I (the pitcher) will do about my current pitch usage pattern.

Let's even out the scenario and move forward to your second at-bat. Now assume I somehow have a great fastball, and so-so curve. I use the heater 90% of the time and the curve 10%, less drastic than above, but still weighted heavily.

Clearly, the fastball is the pitch to throw. But, I decide instead to get "cute" (baseball parlance) and throw a curve, a pitch that for whatever reason you happen to expect. As it crosses the plate, the pitch hangs, and continues hanging until it re-enters the troposphere somewhere near the Navy Yard Metro, a massive blast. I made the wrong decision, right?

Not according to Matthew Lichtman, co-author of The Book - Playing the Percentages in Baseball. Lichtman reasons that because you guessed curve, 90% of the time, I'd have you fooled with the fastball. With the curve, the numbers just happened to line up in your favor on this occasion.

So why don't I simply throw my great fastball 100% of the time? This question, he argues, is the crux of game theory in the pitcher/batter matchup:

we cannot decide beforehand (or at any time) that we are going to throw a particular batter ANY given pitch (in this case a [fastball]) 100% of the time. We can’t! Eventually he will be looking [fastball] and will "crush" the pitch 100% of the time, which will be a huge mistake. Huge! Even if he is a stone cold idiot, eventually a manager or coach or scout will tell him emphatically, "Hey moron, when you get 2 strikes, pitchers ALWAYS throw you a [fastball], so do me a favor look for one and forget about the [curve]. Assume that you are taking ‘[fast] ball batting practice’."

In essence, game theory in the pitcher/batter matchup is about optimizing one's options in an effort to keep the opponent off-balance. For this reason, no matter how good any pitch of mine may be, I should not throw it all the time, every time. Unless, maybe, I am Mariano Rivera.

ii). Getting into Count and Pitch-Specific Game Theory

Matt Swartz takes a comprehensive look at game theory in the pitcher/batter matchup over five pieces at The Hardball Times. Using simple assumptions and a normal form (the latter is game theory jargon), Swartz concludes that in full counts, as between pitchers with great out-pitches and average out-pitches, "the pitcher with the fantastic out-pitch [in his model, an out-of-zone, unhittable curve ball] should throw it less often than the pitcher with the average out-pitch in full counts!"

Again, this seems counterintuitive. In his prime and in a full count, Barry Zito had every reason to throw his ridiculous 12-6 curve ball. So why shouldn't he?

...if batters were responding optimally, they would know how unhittable these pitches were and keep the bat on their shoulder more often. To entice the hitters to be willing to take a hack, pitchers should throw more fastballs. When they [subsequently] throw curveballs, batters will be caught off guard.

The batters, on the other hand, should take more pitches, knowing that swinging too much in these counts will only encourage the pitchers to throw the hook. If they keep the bat on their shoulder more often, the pitcher is likely enough to give them a fastball when they do swing. Therefore, pitchers with great curveballs may actually get more called third strikes on fastballs than pitchers with mediocre curveballs.

The above goes for the pitcher with the great curve ball and average heater. Against the pitcher with an average fastball and average curve, on the other hand, the batter has no reason to expect either pitch: they're both average. For this reason, the average pitcher need not (on the basis of pitch strength) adjust his approach to throw a fastball like the hurler with the great curve.

Swartz adds more complexity to the scenario by looking at multiple pitchers across different counts. It's serious stuff - just look at some of these formulas:

V(g) = (-1)*(q) + (1)*(1-q) = 1 – 2q

V(b) = (1.5)*(q) + (-1)*(1-q) = 2.5q – 1

This work adds a layer - well, layers - of math to support different decision making strategies.

Keeping the above in mind, it is easy to see how Stephen Strasburg or Gio Gonzalez or Drew Storen succeed: they can stack multiple high-quality pitches to further disturb the batter's ability to guess what is coming. With two above-average offerings, the batter has no reason (again, based on pitch strength) to expect either pitch. Lethal.

But even these pitchers can fall into usage patterns which undermine these strengths. For example, if Gio constantly goes to a low curve on two strike counts, batters will ultimately stop offering. So, his best strategy is to mix a variety of two-strike pitches in over the course of the year (or even a game).

iii). Actual Examples of Game Theory at Work

Thanks again to Jeff Sullivan's work at Fangraphs, we can see how game theory applies to the last pitch of the 2012 season. His article is worthy of a full read.

Sullivan first shows that Sergio Romo, the San Francisco Giants closer, throws sliders at a high rate very effectively, and fastballs much less so. He then recounts how Tim Wakefield's fastball, although really pedestrian by radar gun measurements, was often an effective pitch because hitters did not expect it.

Sullivan then sets the stage: Romo versus Miguel Cabrera, the American League MVP, in the bottom of the ninth of Game 4 of the World Series. A one-run lead with Cabrera at the bat can disappear quick, and Romo unlimbered a volley of exceptional sliders to start the showdown, five in all.

With the count 2-2,

[t]here was every reason for Cabrera to be expecting a slider. There was every reason for Romo to stick with his slider, because he could afford another ball, and because the slider has been his reliable weapon for years. There was every reason for Posey to call for a slider. And this is where we get into game theory. Because there was every reason for one thing, Sergio Romo saw an opportunity to try another thing. We don’t know how often it would’ve worked, given a million repetitions, but we know how it worked the one time. It ended a World Series.

(emphasis mine). Sullivan notes that, importantly, Romo shook Buster Posey off to a fastball immediately before the pitch. Supporting his point, he includes a .gif of the pitch, a 88.9 MPH fastball located middle-middle:

via www.fangraphs.com

Perhaps surprisingly, use of game theory - in some form or another - actually dates back over 100 years. Christy Mathewson recounts such a tale in Pitching in a Pinch.

"Cy" Seymour, formerly the outfielder of the Giants, was one of the hardest batters I ever had to pitch against when he was with the Cincinnati club and going at the top of his stride. He liked a curved ball, and could hit it hard and far, and was always waiting for it. He was very clever at out-guessing a pitcher and being able to conclude what was coming.

For a long time whenever I pitched against him I had "mixed 'em up" literally, handing him first a fast ball and then a slow curve and so on, trying to fool him in this way. But one day we were playing in Cincinnati, and I decided to keep delivering the same kind of a ball, that old fast one around his neck, and to try to induce him to believe that a curve was coming. I pitched him nothing but fast ones that day, and he was always waiting for a curve. The result was that I had him in the hole all the time, and I struck him out three times....

He soon guessed, however, that I was not really mixed them up, and then I had to switch my style again for him.

Of note, Seymour was a career .303/.347/.405 hitter, and belted 2 HR's off Mathewson. OK, this is getting long. I'll wrap up.

iv). Conclusions

While an exact strategy for all counts and circumstances may never be found - for the better, in my view - game theory can be used by both pitchers and batters to maximize their ability to succeed. Additionally, the application of game theory in the pitcher/batter matchup can take many forms.

In some cases, it can mean simply not throwing one pitch too much generally.

In another, it can mean going to a below-average offering in a certain count to achieve positive results, when the opponent has reason to expect something different.

In still others, it can mean sequencing pitches to "set up" another pitch. Romo, for example, stuck with the same five pitches before going to a different, and successful, sixth. Mathewson, on the other hand, worked several different pitches without success, then stuck with just one for a while to get the results he wanted.

Succinctly, and at the risk of sounding incredibly obvious: the best pitch to throw is the one the batter least expects...unless you are facing one man:

There was the story that Robin Roberts told me about how one time he was so frustrated against Musial -- Stan hit .383 and slugged .679 against Roberts in more than 200 plate appearances -- that he actually threw Musial something resembling a knuckleball. "I just ran out of things to throw him," he explained.

"Did it work?" I asked.

"Nah," he said. "He lined it to right for a single."

Rest in peace, Mr. Musial.

The Nationals Pitching Daily Brief (PDB): Non-Physical Aspects Affecting Pitching, Part One

Garrett Hooe — Tue, 15 Jan 2013 01:00:52 -0000

So, Rafael Soriano? A.J. Cole? Mike Rizzo makes every visit to MLB Trade Rumors an anxious one; until the story banner loads, I've got no idea what to expect.

Anyway, for my pre-season pieces, I've broken pitching down into two very broad categories: physical and non-physical aspects of the discipline. Although somewhat arbitrary, it's a relatively clear point of separation. Additionally, if my planning is at all reliable, it breaks down relatively equally content-wise.

This first PDB (a (probably uncreative) nod to the President's Daily Brief) looks at some non-physical aspects of the position, detailing factors that, although not necessarily related to a pitcher actually throwing the ball, affect our understanding of pitching performance.

One of Yogi Berra's more famous musings is his observation that "ninety percent of [baseball] is half-mental." Mathematical gymnastics aside, Berra underscores what baseball observers have long understood: much of the game is determined by things that have little to do with one's own physical performance.

As best I can tell, the concept of pitching was first codified in the 1845 Rules and Regulations of the Knickerbocker Base Ball Club; the ninth rule requires that "the ball must be pitched, not thrown, for the bat." Without dwelling excessively on the point, pitching either starts, continues, or ends an at-bat, inning, game, series, or season. But there are a tremendous number of variables - some measurable, some immeasurable, some unmeasurable - that influence the result of any one traverse of the 60'6" distance between the rubber and the rear point of home plate.

Enough intro. Here are some of the more salient non-physical aspects of pitching that I think are important.

A. What Non-Physical Things Pitchers Can and Can't Control

Joe "Spanky" McFarland's Coaching Pitchers details strategies for educating pitchers. Inside, McFarland lists what pitchers can and can't control, some of which I've included below. Many of the following are logical to even the most casual baseball fan, so I will only add my observations where appropriate.

i). Can't Control

Weather
Field conditions
Teammates

Although wins, losses, and Earned Run Average were long the gold standard for many in the industry, a pitcher can never control how many runs his team scores for him (unless you're Stephen Strasburg, of course), nor can he control the defense behind him. So why should we evaluate a pitcher as if he can control these things? Wins, losses and ERA are not high quality statistics if the goal is to measure pitcher talent. They are descriptive, but because they lack the relative precision of other metrics, they are not the best.

Umpires/Catcher Receiving Ability

Over at Fangraphs, Jeff Sullivan used Pitchf/x measurements (which I will cover later in the series) to write two great articles on the worst called balls and strikes of the year. In case you don't want to click over, here are the .gif's:

Worst called "ball":

via www.fangraphs.com

Worst called "strike":

via www.fangraphs.com

These .gif's demonstrate the volatility of the strike zone when humans are allowed to interpret it. Are umpires and catchers related to the pitcher's own ability to throw the ball effectively? Not really. But each can be the difference between victory and defeat.

If the last .gif left any doubt, Rays catcher Jose Molina is pretty unreal when it comes to receiving skill. This area of study is still developing and has been detailed extensively elsewhere if you're interested in reading more.

Likewise, umpiring is as dynamic today as it was 100 years ago. Christy Mathewson recounts in his book Pitching in a Pinch that "[m]ost umpires declare they have off days just like players, when they know that they are making mistakes and cannot help it. If a pitcher of Mordecai Brown's kind, who depends largely on his control for effectiveness, happens to run up against an umpire with a bad day, he might just as well go back to the bench."

In any case, the point to take away is that catchers and umpires can affect a pitcher's performance, sometimes both at once. No huge shocker, of course, but a relevant thing to keep in mind when attempting to competently explain pitcher performance.

Rowdy fans and bench talk
Batters' decisions/gameplan - Duh.

ii). Can Control

Preparation

Preparation can take different forms, not always in the classic "pitcher-in-the-bowels-of-a-stadium-reviewing-tape" form.

For example, in Nolan Ryan's Pitcher's Bible, Ryan admits that

[u]nlike a lot of pitchers, I don't keep a written book on hitters; I work more on recollection. Is he a fastball hitter? Does he wait on the curve? Will he swing at the first pitch? All this information is filed away in my memory, ready and waiting to be put to the test of competition.

On the opposite side of the spectrum, pitchers like Brian Bannister have embraced statistical analysis and new technology like Pitchf/x to survive (for a limited time, at least) with a sub-90MPH fastball. More established pitchers rely on newer technology and understandings of the discipline, too:

Take Rays left-hander David Price, for example. He's young, sharp and attended Vanderbilt University on an academic scholarship. He has said several times that WHIP (walks plus hits per inning pitched) is his favorite pitching stat because it best reflects dominance. He even made a relatively sabermetrics-minded argument about how ERA doesn't truly represent a pitcher's performance because he doesn't fully control it.

Zack Greinke also uses more sabermetric-minded stats to evaluate his performance.

Regardless of how individual pitchers prepare for hitters, there are several common threads.

Ryan attributes his long and successful career to a positive attitude and ability to focus intensely on his objectives, pitch by pitch ("I can't let up -- even for a second."). He also believed that he had an edge over his peers because he had no fear about pitching inside.

Having a "pitch inside" mindset can be a useful example to show how preparation may or may not affect performance. The below chart shows that, as runs per game increased during the '90's and early 2000s, so too did hit batsmen.

via www.hardballtimes.com

But look at what happened from 2007 to 2012:

Year	HBP Per Team/Game
2007	.364
2008	.345
2009	.327
2010	.320
2011	.320
2012	.303

Do these numbers indicate that pitchers are preparing to attack (and actually attacking) hitters differently given the depressed scoring environment? It's impossible to say with certainty - warning: this will be a recurring theme - but to the extent the answer is yes, there may be support for the proposition that league-wide trends can affect a pitcher's preparation.

So, preparation may include a pitcher reviewing his own ability, the ability of his opponent, and possibly even league-wide trends.

Mere planning won't always do, however, and this requires that pitchers also...

Recognize when adjustments are needed

Similar to preparation, this means the willingness and creativity to pitch confidently even when your stuff isn't at its best.

Ryan believed that his offerings were "horrendous" while warming up before he threw his first no-hitter with the Angels, and he even struggled with control early (something Ryan admits he was also famous for). But he "persisted until I found my rhythm and got into a good groove. By the end of the night I was throwing as well as I ever had."

The same holds true in today's game - the light went on for CC Sabathia before the fourth inning of his third start this past year, thanks to help from his pitching coach.

So, it is critical for a pitch to recognize when he must adjust his strategy, whether for how the game is being called or for how he is pitching. Adjustments can be simple - evaluating warm up pitches to see how a slider is breaking, for example - to more difficult - like trying to find Tim Tschida's strike zone.

iii). Sort of Physically Control

Batted ball profile

A pitcher's batted ball profile includes ground balls, line drives, and fly balls. Voros McCracken -- the pioneer of Defense Independent Pitching Statistics (DIPS) -- believed in his seminal 2001 study of DIPS that "major-league pitchers don't appear to have the ability to prevent hits on balls in play."

Hits on balls in play come from three main sources: line drives, ground balls, and fly balls. Each of these three result in hits at different rates - a line drive is most likely to result in a hit, while a fly ball is least likely to do the same.

Aside: although fly balls are less likely to result in hits, they are more likely to result in runs.

Below are the figures for Batting Average on Balls in Play (BABIP, which shows how often a batted ball results in a hit) for 2012:

Type of Hit	BABIP
Line Drives	.682
Ground Balls	.234
Fly Balls	.123

Tom Tippett put McCracken's assertion to the test, concluding in part that:

1. Pitchers have more influence over in-play hit rates than McCracken suggested. In fact, some pitchers (like Charlie Hough and Jamie Moyer) owe much of their careers to the ability to excel in this respect.

2. Their influence over in-play hit rates is weaker than their influence over walk and strikeout rates. The most successful pitchers in history have saved only a few hits per season on balls in play, when compared with the league or team average. That seems less impressive than it really is, because the league average is such a high standard. Compared to a replacement-level pitcher, the savings are much greater.

Although DIPS remains alive and well, there is some consensus that pitchers may also control - to a small extent - DIPS inputs, such as home runs.

DIPS and batted ball profiles are probably more out of a pitcher's control than they are within his control, and it's important to look at a pitcher's past performance when determining if his batted ball profile for a game or month was wacky. From this point, we could evaluate whether the hurler was doing something physically that led to the unusual numbers.

Velocity

A pitcher's velocity is going to be limited by many strictly physical factors, although no pitcher can throw faster than their body will allow. Unless, of course, you happen to pitch at Kauffman Stadium. Regardless, keep in mind that radar guns at various stadiums will measure velocity differently. This will be detailed further during the Pitchf/x series.

iv). Conclusions

The above non-physical factors can affect a pitcher's performance in some fashion over the course of a single at-bat, an entire career, or at different points in between. Despite some things being obvious, it helps to highlight the shortcomings of certain stats, like wins, losses, and ERA, or point out that relying only on a few correlating pieces of information may not reveal a comprehensive picture.

One constant throughout this series and my evaluations will be dealing with these limitations and the uncertainty associated with using them to predict future performance. However, I think that by marshaling different methods of evaluation, we can both truthfully evaluate what happened and mitigate the dangers (as well as is possible) when anticipating the future.

What other non-physical factors do you think impact pitching performance?

What's Next?

Part II of the series resumes with a second non-physical characteristic: game theory and its impact on the pitcher/batter matchup.

Better Understanding Pitching against the Nationals: An Introduction

Garrett Hooe — Wed, 09 Jan 2013 02:46:15 -0000

Hello, Federal Baseball! My name is Garrett Hooe (think Santa's chant for proper pronunciation) and I am privileged to write about pitching and pitching evaluation for Patrick and this community throughout the year. Hopefully, I can live up to the reputation of Patrick, Doghouse, and the many FanPost authors that make Federal Baseball great.

By way of introduction, I attended my first Nationals game on April 16, 2005 -- their second contest at RFK. Lovely place. Anyway, John Patterson faced off against Russ Ortiz, and after 9 innings, the Nationals had their second victory in a row, outscoring the Diamondbacks 9-3. Vinny Castillia was hitting the walls harder than Jeff Gordon turning right. Patterson was dealing. And the District was rocking at a baseball game for the first time in about 34 years.

I've been attending games, watching on television, listening on the radio, attempting to do both on my smartphone only to curse my mobile provider, and following Gameday ever since.

Since joining Federal Baseball in late April last year as Big Oil (a relic of fantasy leagues' past), I've enjoyed following the team even more thanks to the insightful comments and observations from the commentariat. So, it's time to (try to) pay it back.

----------------------------------------------------------------------

The legendary Christy Mathewson once stated, "anybody's best pitch is the one the batters ain't hitting that day." Of course, if you can't hit, you can't score -- and you can't win. Therefore, understanding the strengths and weaknesses of a pitcher has been critical since "outs" were referred to as "aces," an interesting parallel to the modern practice of labeling as aces pitchers who consistently rack up outs and prevent runs.

During the regular season, I'll offer my analysis of the starter opposing the Nationals. Using news reports, interviews, statistical analysis, and other sources, I think we can better understand the pitcher the Nats face each night. More importantly, I hope it will make the viewing/listening experience more enjoyable.

Before the season kicks off, I'll look at both the mental and physical aspects of pitching evaluation over a series of articles. These will form the foundation for in-season reports. Want to know about Game Theory's application to pitching, FIP, rate stats, or Pitchf/x? Be sure to check back. I'll cover these items and others the community may have interest in. And if there is a particular concept you'd like to see, just ask.

I look forward to writing for the community.

Pitching is awesome (courtesy the San Francisco Chronicle via Notgraphs, click to enlarge):

NLDS Game 5: What to look for from Adam Wainwright

Garrett Hooe — Fri, 12 Oct 2012 13:03:40 -0000

Wainwright is a talented pitcher who, when on, has some of the best ability in the National League. However, he is also coming off Tommy John surgery that caused him to miss last season. And other outlets have noticed that in September, he went through a bit of a rocky phase. So what’s up?

Initial Impressions

Going 14-13 this year, Wainwright saw his 2012 K and BB rate largely mirror his recent career rates in both figures: 8.34 K/9 and 2.36 BB/9, very close to his 2009 and 2010 numbers.

What is different, however, is his tendency to give up the gopher ball. In 2009, 8.3% of flyballs hit against him left the yard. In 2010, where he accumulated a career high 6.1 WAR (or, if you’re more into ERA and W’s, he pitched to 2.42 and 20, respectively), only 7.9% of flyballs went JUMANJI!. However, nearly 10% of his flyballs are going for home runs this year – a pretty appreciable difference.

If we normalize his HR rate, he looks less like the ~4ish ERA pitcher and more like a 3.2 ERA pitcher. Also not helping his ERA? He’s allowed 32% of runners on base to score, whereas in ’09 and ’10 he only allowed ~20% of baserunners to cross the plate. The average big league pitcher allowed 27.5% of baserunners to score in 2012.

So, something has been going on from the stretch this year, and he’s allowed more rounder-trippers than usual. Random variation? This is possible. Let’s see if any numbers or other pitch information stand out.

Batted Ball Profile

BABIP is a fairly "new age" statistic that is gaining some traction, and for good reason: is a ball hit hard, but right at a fielder? (Nats fans nod knowingly). Does a pitcher generate a ton of infield fly balls consistently? Is it Livo? All of these questions affect how we should view BABIP as either luck or something close to how a pitcher profiles.

BABIP is lowest for infield fly balls – it is here where Atlanta fans cringe – and more normal fly balls. Grounders go for hits more often than fly balls, but less than line drives. ESPN provides some useful information here to show these averages (2011 data):

Ground balls (45.6 percent of all balls in play last season): .233 BABIP
Fly balls (35.9 percent): .152 BABIP
Line drives (18.5 percent): .707 BABIP

Wainwright’s BABIP is .315 for the year, versus .297 for his career (MLB average BABIP was .293 in 2012). "HE’S SO UNLUCKY" say our friends at Viva El Birdos (ASIDE: I actually find this a well-written article, and many at Federal Baseball will find the conclusion in the post...amusing? frustrating?: "More likely, however, Pete Kozma has just been lucky as hell this year at the plate." Well then.).

It is certainly possible that he's been unlucky, but it is also plausible that the big W has traded in some flyballs from ’09 and ’10 for line drives – the BABIP inflator. Check it:

2009: LD – 19.1%/ FB – 30.2%
2010: 17.6%%/30.7%
2012: 23%(!)/26.3%

Yea, this could explain the increase. What is curious is that although he is giving up less flyballs, more of those are going for home runs on a percentage basis. However, his HR per 9 average has remained consistent this year, so the increased HR/FB percentage appears to be due to him getting less fly balls on the whole. He's not really more prone to the HR after all.

Pitch F/X

What’s the dude throw, how often, and how fast?

Sinker/Split – 36.2% usage, 90.1 MPH
Cutter – 27.5%, 86.6
Uncle Charlie – 24.6%, 73.6
Change-up – 6.2%, 83.7
Fastball – 5.3%, 89

What is his best pitch?

To anyone that saw him strike out Beltran in the playoffs several years ago, this will come as no surprise: the curve ball is an absolute hammer, worth 11.8 runs above average.* In other words, where we would expect teams to have scored this many runs over the course of the regular season based on the base/out state and associated run expectancy, this pitch has taken those opportunities off the table. He’s in good company: it's the second-best curve ball in the league, behind Clayton Kershaw and tied with Justin Verlander.

His fastball hasn’t been shabby either, at 4 runs above average. Looks like he uses it sparingly, but effectively. His change isn’t all that great, at -5 runs below average. Likely just a show-me pitch. The sinker is relatively neutral, almost a run above average. It’s the staple strike offering. The cutter is below average.

When does he throw his pitches?

Brooks Baseball is clutch.

		Fourseam	Sinker	Cutter	Slider	Curve	Change
LHH
	All Counts	5%	46%	10%	0%	26%	14%
	First Pitch	6%	57%	7%	0%	20%	9%
	Batter Ahead	5%	61%	9%	0%	10%	16%
	Even	6%	47%	9%	0%	25%	13%
	Pitcher Ahead	4%	27%	12%	0%	45%	11%
	Two Strikes	3%	31%	11%	0%	49%	6%
RHH
	All Counts	1%	50%	26%	0%	23%	1%
	First Pitch	1%	59%	26%	0%	14%	0%
	Batter Ahead	0%	64%	26%	0%	8%	2%
	Even	1%	53%	27%	0%	18%	1%
	Pitcher Ahead	0%	35%	23%	0%	41%	1%
	Two Strikes	1%	35%	24%	0%	40%	1%

BASELINE All Counts
HIGH USE 10% Above Baseline
LOW USE 10% Below Baseline

Lefties get the sinker early, curve late. Righties are largely the same. But this shows us exactly how much confidence he has in the curve - if he's ahead, the Nats can reasonably expect something bendy.

Heat Maps, and other colorful things

Wainwright locates his curveball against right handed batters middle, middle-low, and mostly low-away with consistency. Lefties get it, from their perspective, middle-away and low-away. See for yourself (yellowish areas represent greater frequency of pitches in that area):

Versus Righties (view from catcher):

Versus Lefties (view from catcher):

(images courtesy of FanGraphs)

Here is how his pitches look from above:

Righties

Lefties

If we’re set up for a curveball, it would be wise for our fellas to look away, likely low and away, and avoid temptation to chase (you can see how he buries it to RHB low, away, and way out of the zone with some frequency).

He leaves his sinker mostly over the plate, albeit occasionally low and sometimes inside, against RHB. Lefties are worked away, away, away with the staple. Harper, Espi and LaRoche can have success if they get this offering away and keep their weight back.

The cutter works on the corner to righties, up and down the zone, and inside to LHB, although not terribly much. Honestly, I’m more optimistic about our LHB turning on one of these boys given their location than I am about their pounding the sinker. Also, it’s a below-average pitch.

Prognosis, Mercifully

It’s going to be about patience ~~tomorrow~~ today, which is fitting considering Werth’s dogged effort and heroics last evening. Wainwright is going to go to the curve when he gets in "out-counts" – 1-2, 2-2, 3-1, 3-2 (heck, pretty much any time probably) and it will be up to the boys to identify ones they can hit and avoid giving up strikes (or outs based on weak contact for that matter).

LaRoche, Desmond, the Shark, Harper, and Werth all have positive run values against the curve this year. Espinosa, unfortunately, has not been that good, costing the team 3.5 runs in a normal base/out state environment. Also keep in mind that ALR, Morse, Harper, Desi, and Zim have murdered fastballs over the course of the year.

If Wainwright likes to go fastball early and offspeed put away, and the Nats can ID hittable pitches early in the count, their track record against hard stuff makes me think we may see early swings (and hopefully success). If Wainwright wants to pitch off the curve, then a more prudent approach is best, and in any case for the first inning or two this should be the case.

I believe Wainwright did not pitch as well as Lohse this year. If he pitches like his season numbers (and who really knows), we should have some success provided we don’t beat ourselves fishing for curveballs low and away.

NEVER SURRENDER

*If you're interested in reading more about run expectancy and different base out states (just how many runs DID Nady cost us when he had runners on?), see this link.