SB Nation User Blog: Gopherballs

Jon Garland, Free Agent Landmine

Gopherballs — Mon, 25 Aug 2008 05:12:15 -0000

As the season winds down, it seems like every other post turns into a discussion of which players the Royals should target. This not one of those posts. This post is the opposite -- a well-known player who the Royals should avoid, namely, Jon Garland.

This is not to say Jon Garland sucks. He does not. He would be fine rounding out many clubs’ rotations, and if he was still in his early club control years, he would have some decent value. The problem is that Garland is a back of the rotation starter in terms of talent, but he is regarded as mid-rotation starter who is about to get paid like a frontline starter. He is likely this year’s Carlos Silva or Jeff Suppan.

The line for the average AL pitcher this year is (per THT):

FIP: 4.25

ERA: 4.25

K/G: 6.5

BB/G: 3.3

HR/G: 0.97

HR/FB: 11%

GB%: 44%

LD%: 19%

Garland (2008/2007/2006):

FIP: 4.88, 4.46, 4.41

ERA: 4.49, 4.23, 4.51

K/G: 3.9, 4.3, 4.8

BB/G: 2.7, 2.5, 1.8

HR/G: 1.09, 0.83, 1.11

HR/FB: 14.5%, 7.4%, 9.4%

GB%: 48.3%, 39.4%, 42.1%

LD%: 23.5%, 22.8%, 20.3%

Except for walk rate and groundballs (this year only), Garland has been below average almost across the board. Garland is a typical “command and control” pitcher: he misses few bats but limits his walks and relies on his defense to make outs. The problem with that approach is that in this case, the good defenses that Garland has pitched in front of will not come with him. His FIP has him as a below average AL starter, but his FIP does not tell the whole story. Garland is also well below average in line drive percentage – few pitchers post LD% above 23% because at the rate, they usually find themselves back in AAA. Line drive percentage is important because on average roughly 75% of line drives go for hits. Garland is leaving too many pitches in places where hitters can hit them hard. Thus, Garland is an example of a guy who is pitching worse than his FIP and ERA.

Garland is also trending the wrong the way over the last three years. His FIP, walk rate, and LD% have all trended upward while his strikeout rate has dropped almost a full K/G. His HR rates have shot up too this year, even though he has moved from a strong hitter’s park to a neutral park.

While teams are generally getting smarter about how to evaluate pitchers, there are still enough clubs who overvalue W-L record and ERA that Garland is likely to land a three or four year deal at $10 to $12 million (or more) per season. That team will end up very disappointed.

Waiver Wire Explained

Gopherballs — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 19:07:19 -0000

Waiver Wire Explained

In anticipation of the many "how does the waiver wire work?" and "how do waiver trades work?" questions that will be asked this month, here is a nice article from Fangraphs.com summarizing the process. The basics are:

1. If a player clears waivers, the Royals can trade him to any team.

2. If a player is claimed on waivers, the Royals can either (a) work out a trade with the claiming team, (b) let the claiming team have the player for free (other than assuming that player's salary and contract), or (c) keep the player (which is called revoking the waivers). If more than one team claims the player, priority goes to the team with the worst record in the same league (AL), then to the team with the worst record in the other league (NL).

3. Only players on the 40-man roster have to go through waivers to be traded. Thus, if the Royals made a trade with another team, the Royals could only receive (a) minor leaguers not on the other team's 40-man roster or (b) players on the 40-man roster who have cleared waivers.

I like the note in the comments that the waiver process is now done by an email listing the players put on waivers that day -- as a kid, I imagined someone in each team's office sitting by a ticker tape machine reading off the player's names one-by-one.

New Study Finds Fastball Velocity Peaks at 29, Drops like a Rock at 30 and Beyond

Gopherballs — Tue, 27 May 2008 15:34:18 -0000

Over at the excellent Hardball Times site, Josh Kalk (the guy who released all of the pitch f/x pitcher cards last fall) has a new article on the Preliminary Aging Curve for Fastball Speed. Comparing the pitch f/x data from 2007 and 2008, Kalk has charted the change in pitchers' fastball speed from ages 24 to 34. His preliminary results are that pitchers' fastball speed tends to peak at age 29 and then drop precipitously after that. Specifically, he found that pitchers tend to gain 1.5 MPH on their fastballs between ages 24 and 29, but the speed tends to drop almost 1 MPH at age 30 and a total of 4 MPH by age 34. Kalk addresses some potential issues with the data, but none seem too significant.

Fastball velocity is not everything, and aging curves for pitchers overall tend to show a more gradual decline after age 29. But for certain pitchers, such as those who already throw fastballs at below average speeds or those who overly rely on their fastball velocity rather than their command or secondary pitches, the loss of velocity could be very problematic.