SB Nation User Blog: Pronk33

Betancourt Pitch f/x Analysis

Pronk33 — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 04:36:07 -0000

Betancourt Pitch f/x Analysis

I wanted to see if Betancourt's struggles this season were because of any changes in his mechanics, so I pulled up his info from Josh Kalk's website to find out. I also looked for any changes in his pitch selection, velocity, and K/BB rates.

I think the fact that Betancourt's using his fastball less and trying to use more secondary pitches is kind of screwing him up. His slider has lost a lot of it's bite from last season, yet he's using it more often. His fastball velocity has held steady, but there isn't as much vertical movement on it. I was surprised to see his arm slot is pretty much the same though.

I think he may also be working around some back issues (hadn't heard that until recently) which have caused him to change his delivery some. It's almost as if he's fighting against a learning curve in making these adjustments, hence the poor outings this season.

I was curious what you guys thought of the Pitch f/x part. This is the first time I've used any of it in depth, so if you notice any errors of poor interpretations, I'd certainly be open to feedback there.

Anaheim Outdoes Tribe's Offensive Futility

Pronk33 — Sun, 29 Jun 2008 05:07:29 -0000

Anaheim Outdoes Tribe's Offensive Futility

Anaheim's Jered Weaver and Jose Arredondo threw eight innings of no-hit ball, but still lost 1-0. Apparently the only run was scored on a couple errors and a sac fly. I can't believe Cleveland hasn't accomplished this a couple times already, so props to Anaheim for making even our offense look good tonight.

Brief Article on Vizquel's Record/Career

Pronk33 — Sun, 01 Jun 2008 17:10:24 -0000

Brief Article on Vizquel's Record/Career

I found a Jim Caple article recognizing Vizquel for breaking the games played at SS record. Nothing too deep, but the interview quotes from Omar are a good read.

Scouting Fukudome

Pronk33 — Thu, 15 Nov 2007 00:18:52 -0000

Japanese outfielder Kosuke Fukudome filed for free agency this week and since left field has been a hot topic around here lately, I thought it would be worth a look. Fukudome is the best Japanese FA this off-season and has drawn some interest from teams already. I basically did a big compilation of Fukudome's stats, style, and a few of the rumors floating around.

Here's the link to the post: http://ontariostreet.blogspot.com/2007/11/scouting-fukudome_14.html

(As far as I could tell from the ground rules, posting a diary via a blog link is kosher, but let me know if it isn't.)

Do you guys think Fukudome would be worth the effort or the potential investment? Would you prefer Jason Bay, Fukudome, or the players we have now?

Thoughts on C.C. and Wedge

Pronk33 — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 19:54:47 -0000

I don't blame C.C. Sabathia for Game 5.

Sabathia made vast improvements since Game 1 of the ALCS where he walked 5 and gave up 8 runs in 4.1 innings. There's really no comparison between the two starts, which is good news for Cleveland.

In Game 5, C.C. gave up 4 ER, 10 H, and a HR over 6 IP. The most important stat of the night was the fact he only surrendered 2 walks, while throwing 62.5% of his pitches for strikes. Again, this is a near complete turnaround from 5 walks and 51.7% pitches for strikes in his last start. Throw in 6 strikeouts and you have a solid bounce-back start for the Tribe's ace. Not great, but certainly winnable.

As encouraging as Sabathia's Game 5 seems on the surface, the numbers lie a little bit. Sabathia's more aggressive approach (more strikes, less nibbling) resulted in less walks, but his stuff was far from dominant. Instead, he gave up 10 hits and allowed at least one baserunner in every inning except the 6th. C.C. walked a thin line all night, owing a saved run to Gutz in the 1st, narrowly avoiding an additional run from Ramirez's "single" in the 3rd, and escaping from a bases loaded jam in the 5th.

Like a Joe Borowski save, the bottom line is what matters most. C.C. got the job done tonight by giving his team a chance to win.

I'm still on the fence as to whether Wedge should have brought Sabathia back out for the 7th inning. Wedge had to have known he was playing with fire by having Sabathia face the top of Boston's lineup again. The 7th would have been C.C.'s fourth time facing Pedroia, Youkilis, and Ortiz. Based on the lead-off double and triple from said batters, Sabathia wasn't fooling anyone. At 106 stress-filled pitches, Sabathia probably didn't have much left in the tank and may have been struggling with his focus.

I understand why Wedge stuck with C.C., but it was still a very risky decision. Wedge said in a post-game interview if he had pulled C.C. after six, Betancourt would have had to pitch two innings and the remaining reliever matchups would have been difficult to deal with; these were things Wedge did not think benefited the team in the long run. Wedge also cited Sabathia was having his best start of the playoffs and didn't want to hamper his rhythm or confidence. He felt Sabathia could handle the large pitch count, citing past starts where he threw 120 pitches.

I emphasized Wedge's long term mentality to the situation because I feel it's important in understanding his decision. The team has been riding Betancourt the entire postseason. Betancourt leads the regular relievers with 6.1 innings pitched and has appeared in four of the five ALCS games. Jensen Lewis is not far behind with 5.1 IP. This may not seem like much, but you have to rest these guys at some point. Many people will point to the two off-days dividing the series as enough rest, but Wedge knows how his pitchers feel better than we do. I think some of the bullpen guys are feeling a little drained, otherwise Wedge would not have expressed concern when citing his reasons for sticking with Sabathia.

Wedge did not concede the game in the 7th inning; he took a calculated risk that backfired. Further proof of this is Betancourt having to pitch anyway in an attempt to preserve the 3-1 deficit Sabathia left behind.

I was a little hesitant to post this diary, but I was curious what you guys thought. I'm not trying to place the blame just on Wedge, as the offense and Beckett himself obviously played significant roles, too. Did Wedge make the right move or did he overplay concerns about the bullpen, given the situation? What did you want to see happen with the pitching in Game 5?

Lee to the bullpen

Pronk33 — Sun, 02 Sep 2007 14:06:09 -0000

The Plain Dealer reports that Cliff Lee will be rejoining Cleveland in a relief role.

Link: http://www.cleveland.com/tribe/plaindealer/index.ssf?/base/sports/1188721986114250.xml&coll=2&am p;thispage=1

The article includes some fluff quotes from Wedge and Lee on how they "still think of Lee as a starter" and how Lee feels like he needs to prove himself.

I can't say I like Lee pitching out of the bullpen, except in blowout situations. You know he can't be too happy about going to the pen either. On the other hand, it may allow some of our relievers some extra rest down the stretch, but that depends on how he's used.

So is this a good move to bolster the pen or a disaster waiting to happen?

Just How Bad Were They?

Pronk33 — Thu, 02 Aug 2007 15:35:13 -0000

This has been one ugly month for the Tribe, but what went wrong exactly? I wrote this up to compile some of the main team stats, put some perspective on why the Tribe stumbled so badly this month, and try and highlight some of the positives.

On Pitching

Several quality pitching performances were wasted in July, but the trio of Lee, Westbrook, and Sabathia (yes, Sabathia) did little to help their record this month. Below are the July splits for the aforementioned pitchers:

Pitcher     GS     W     L     IP     K     ERA     WHIP     BAA
Sabathia     5     1     4     31.2     29     5.12     1.42     .308
Lee     5     1     4     28     20     8.68     1.71     .305
Westbrook 5     0     3     31     12     5.52     1.68     .305

The biggest blemish on the pitching this month was Sabathia having his worst string of starts in the last 6 months, going back to last season. It's pretty obvious Sabathia will pitch better in August and already posted a gem against the Twins (7.2 IP, 1 ER, 11 K) to finish out July. Westbrook also looked sharp against Minnesota last week (7 IP, 2 ER, 3 K); his best start since June 29.

Cliff Lee is no longer an issue after losing his job to AAA stud Aaron Laffey, who is almost guaranteed to be better than Lee given his groundball-pitcher mentality and dominance in the minors so far. Watching Lee pack his bags should be a sign to fans that the team is committed to winning no matter what. Signing a starting pitcher to a multi-million dollar contract extension only to demote him (and his 8.68 July ERA) the next season for poor performance is a bold, but necessary move for a team in a tight race like Cleveland.

Fausto Carmona has managed to carry the pitching staff on his back all month and is a key reason Cleveland hasn't been overtaken in the wild card standings yet. Carmona has been absolutely brilliant, going 5-1 with a 1.74 ERA, 1.09 WHIP, 34 K and .216 BAA for the month of July. That's just sick.

Even though the team didn't acquire an extra arm to take some of the work load off of the Raffys, Aaron Fultz is scheduled to come off the disabled list very soon. Remember him? Fultz should be able to fill in as the player Shapiro tried to get before the deadline.

Fultz was very effective before a rib injury (right intercostal strain) put him on the DL June 24. Fultz had a 1.71 ERA, 1.00 WHIP, and an immaculate .153 BAA in 21 IP before his injury. He also had a BB rate of .43 per 9 IP. The scope of his contributions will obviously be contingent on Wedge using him as more than just the designated lefty out of the bullpen, but I think Fultz at least deserves a shot at an increased 7th or 8th inning role (if only to rest Betancourt and Perez on occasion).

For comparison, Octavio Dotel (one of Shap's primary trade targets) currently has a 3.91 ERA, 1.52 WHIP, and .264 BAA in 23 IP in 2007. Dotel has only converted 72% of his save opportunities this year, not that he would have been closing for Cleveland anyway.

On the Offense

The Tribe's been going strong all season, although June saw a dropoff in games won compared to May and April. The most obvious reason for the dropoff was the production from the offense, scoring just 136 runs in June (.536 WP) compared to 180 in May (.633 WP). July was the team's first month with a losing record for the 2007 season and again, the offense appears to be the major culprit. While the pitching staff posted its best team ERA since April at 4.44, the team batted a season low .255 with a .745 OPS.

Is it really fair to put that much blame on the offense though? Here are some rough stats I pulled from the 26 games in July:

*The offense scored 5 runs or more in 12 games, going 9-3 in those games.

*They scored 3 runs or less in 10 games, going 3-7 in those games.

*On the flip side, the pitching staff surrendered 5 runs or more in 11 games, going 2-9 in those games.

In a nutshell, the offense just never got in sync with the pitching staff, resulting in many low scoring games and blowouts (which didn't necessarily result in a win) This skews the total runs scored somewhat, since the team seems to have failed to score enough nearly as many times as they failed to keep their opponent off the board.

The core of the offense, Sizemore, Martinez, and Hafner, all had their worst months simultaneously.

Player     BA     OBP     SLG     OPS
Sizemore .245     .333     .453     .786
Martinez .253     .358     .448     .806
Hafner     .250     .321     .400     .721

Does anyone else seriously expect Sizemore and Martinez to continue to struggle like this much longer? Yeah, me either. Granted Hafner has had his struggles most of the season, but a 25 point drop in OBP is unusual for a player with the second most walks in the American League. This team always seems to go hot and cold at the same time, so hopefully the next hot streak starts soon.

On the Standings

The Tribe was red-hot after coming out of a mediocre interleague showing, winning two four game series against Oakland and Tampa, followed by the dropoff discussed above. Sixteen of their 26 games were against sub-.500 teams where they finished 9-7. Cleveland did poorly against teams with a winning record though, going just 3-7.

Oddly enough, Detroit has not been able to separate itself from Cleveland this month, despite going 15-12 to the Tribe's 12-14. It may seem like Cleveland has been chasing Detroit in the standings for an eternity, but they have never trailed the Tigers by more than 2 games. The last time Cleveland was ever behind 2 games was July 23; right in the middle of their worst stretch of baseball. Detroit has been fairly consistent all season with a .575 win percentage on the season; July was their "worst" month as well with a .556 win percentage.

Therefore, it's not entirely reasonable to say Cleveland missed out on a prime opportunity to move up in the standings, since Detroit has not significantly faltered this month in the first place (it just seems like it given how close Cleveland has stayed in the standings). Detroit is at fault just as much as Cleveland for not capitalizing on the shortcomings of their competition.

If Cleveland can play up to any semblance of their true potential (see May and April) they have an excellent shot at regaining the division lead permanently.

The real issue is the wildcard standings. Unlike Detroit, New York has been tearing it up, going 19-9 in June. To put how scary that is into perspective, New York was 9 games out of the wild card on July 7th. They are currently 3 games back and show no signs of receding again. The AL wild card is shaping up as a three team race between Cleveland, Detroit, and New York, as I don't see Seattle hanging on long enough to be a factor. New York plays in a weaker division than Cleveland and with the intra-division behemoth that is August, that isn't going to do the Tribe any favors. I still think the wild card will come out of the Central, but the odds are getting longer as Detroit and Cleveland continue to flounder.

The Tribe's best hope is to try and win the season finale against New York and beat the living hell out of Detroit when they play each other. If I were Cleveland, I would act as if the wild card berth doesn't even exist, because it might as well based on the way they've been playing lately. Whether the team has become complacent atop the wild card standings or they are pressing to hang on, Wedge needs to right this ship immediately and get the Tribe going on all cylinders again. It's a long season, but not anymore.

Outfield Platoons

Pronk33 — Thu, 14 Jun 2007 05:09:59 -0000

I know I'm not alone in my disappointment with the corner outfielders this year. Nixon started off the year on fire, but has since settled into a bad stretch. Dellucci has been next to useless in key at-bats and his defense has been nothing to write home about. I find myself cringing whenever these two guys come up to bat now, it's really been that ugly at times (as I type this, Dellucci hits a 3 run homer....awesome, but he still isn't off the hook). I really can't complain about Michaels, but he seems to get a lot fewer at bats compared to Dellucci. The table below shows the splits for all three platoon outfielders for the 2007 season, up to June 13.

Pitcher Bats Player AB BA OBP SLG OPS BA w/ RISP
Lefty Left Dellucci 23 .174 .208 .261 .469 .163
Righty 140 .250 .308 .407 .715
Lefty Left Nixon 45 .222 .275 .289 .563 .226
Righty 131 .260 .355 .366 .722
Lefty Right Michaels 59 .288 .377 .492 .868 .346
Righty 52 .250 .264 .385 .649

As a platoon, each player's at-bats obviously correlate with the type of pitcher they've historically had the most success against. Dellucci and Nixon have seen about the same number of at-bats and neither has been much better than the other offensively. The only standout stat is Nixon's .226 BA with runners in scoring position compared toDellucci's miserable .163.

Meanwhile, Michaels is sitting with a .868 OPS and a .346 BA with RISP. J-Mike also sports better range in left field, making several game altering catches this season.

It's unfortunate that both left-handed platoon bats have failed to make a significant impact so far, since there is no easy alternative for Wedge other than to give them playing time. First, Wedge is notoriously stubborn and will likely stick with the pure platoon all season, even though the two lefties lack of production arguably cancels out any benefits of matching up a righty bat in the lineup against a lefty pitcher. Second, benching Dellucci/Nixon for an extended period of time would likely create some dissent in the clubhouse. Taking scheduled at-bats from the team's veteran leadership is not the message Wedge wants to send to the rest of the team.

To add another layer to the issue, Casey Blake has been playing some of the best baseball of his career with solid defense in right and third (a 22 game hit streak doesn't hurt either). At the beginning of the year Michaels had to split time with three other players, but now that Blake has moved to third base full time and Dellucci and Nixon are struggling, you would think Michaels would see more time right? Nope, still a benchwarmer more often than not.

Given how upset Michaels gets with himself for so much as striking out, his confidence is probably suffering as he watches Dellucci misread flyballs in left and flail away at the plate. Dellucci has done nothing to deserve 32% more at-bats than Michaels this season. Dellucci (.208 OBP) batting second in the lineup instead of J-Mike (.377 OBP) only exacerbates the issue. The biggest strength of a platoon is its flexibility, whether that means matching up against a pitcher or playing the hot hand to maximize production.

What do you all think of how the outfield has been managed so far this season?