SB Nation User Blog: clack

Wesley Wright goes to AAA...makes room for Hampton

clack — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 14:20:07 -0000

Wesley Wright goes to AAA...makes room for Hampton

This isn't a surprising move. But let's give a tribute to Wright. He has pitched only briefly since returning from his previous stint at Round Rock, and he has been lights out. Since returning, he has faced 17 batters, struck out 9, walked 2, and allowed 1 hit. He can't do much more than allow zero runs and post a 4.5 K/BB ratio in June. However, if Fulchino and Arias are considered the other choices to be sent down, I can't criticize this decision. All three pitchers have been great this month. Arias has allowed zero runs with a 8.9 K/9 rate and Fulchino posted a 0.79 ERA for the month. Good luck, Wesley, and we hope to see you back in the big leagues soon.

Fangraphs looks at Bazardo

clack — Sat, 27 Jun 2009 04:42:32 -0000

Fangraphs looks at Bazardo

Yorman Bazardo's success at Round Rock gets some attention from Fangraphs. Matthew Carruth wonders why Bazardo seemingly can't keep a job in several organizations, despite the fact that he is young and has pitching success in the minors. Carruth thinks that Bazardo's stats suggest he could be a No. 5 starter in the major leagues. Carruth mentions something I hadn't heard: rumors that Bazardo may be older than 24 years old and speculation about attitude issues in the past. He mentions that these are simply rumors which have dogged him in the past and are not necessarily true.

Brandon Backe DFA'd

clack — Sat, 27 Jun 2009 04:14:32 -0000

More photos » by Pat Sullivan - AP

Houston Astros relief pitcher Brandon Backe (41) points to home plate in a dispute over a checked swing .. (AP Photo/Pat Sullivan)

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Brandon Backe was designated for assignment in order to clear room for Felipe Paulino to return from the DL. This is somewhat of a surprise, because Cecil Cooper had stated earlier in the week that he wanted to keep Backe in reserve in case Paulino can't pitch deep enough in Saturday's game. Backe was interviewed after the game and said he would like to be picked up by another team so that he can play in the majors. However, if Backe isn't picked up, it is very possible that he will end up pitching for Round Rock. With a 10.38 ERA in 12 innings so far this year, it's hard to criticize the decision to DFA Backe. For Astros' fans, this is a mixed bag: on the one hand, moving Backe off the roster is probably the best action from a a baseball perspective; however, most Astros' fans hold a spot in their heart for Galveston's Backe because of his crucial big game pitchiing to get the Astros to the playoffs in 2004, as well as pitching superbly in the NLCS in 2004 and the World Series in 2005.

This leaves an interesting question? What happens if Paulino runs out of gas in the 5th inning Saturday? Several key pitchers in the bullpen have been worked hard in recent games and may be unavailable.

Berkman Moving Back to His Normal Offensive Numbers?

clack — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 22:01:39 -0000

More photos » by Pat Sullivan - AP

Houston Astros' Carlos Lee (45) congratulates Lance Berkman (17) after his two-run home run on Thursday. (AP Photo/Pat Sullivan)

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My answer to that question is, "yes, that appears to be the case." Lance Berkman started off the season with a disappointing couple of months. However, Berkman's offense was nearly normal in May and has been great in June. Berkman's OPS by month in 2009:

March/April .718

May .918

June 1.014

Lance Berkman's current OPS is .885. It seems like many fans, remembering the bad March and April, are stuck with the idea that Berkman is having a terrible season. An .885 OPS is not terrible. While it is lower than we expect from a player of Berkman's caliber, Berkman's current OPS is quite good for most players. His OPS currently is higher than a number of fine hitters who are reputedly having good or at least normal years, such as Ryan Howard, Casey Blake, Ryan Zimmerman, Carlos Lee, Derek Lee, and Matt Kemp. Moreover, Berkman's offensive performance is within his normal range for two of the three monthly intervals, and is showing a definite pattern of improvement.

On another board, a fan raised the idea that Berkman's offensive problems rest with his performance against LHPs this season. The proposition was offered that Berkman is showing a deteriorating ability to hit LHPs which is some type of symptom of age-related decline. So, let's look at the platoon split issue.

As an initial point, we know that Lance Berkman, over the course of his career, has always had a significant platoon split in favor of hitting RHPs. On a career basis, Berkman's OPS off LHPs is approximately 200 points less than when he faces RHPs. Berkman's has the OPS of an average hitter against LHPs and a superstar OPS against RHPs. And it's true that Berkman's offense against LHPs this season is particularly poor, with an OPS disadvantage against LHPs of more than 300 points.

However, something people seem to forget when looking at batting splits over a partial season is that sample size is always an issue for the LHP side of the split. Berkman has only had 75 plate appearances against LHPs this season. You really can't draw any conclusions about OPS or batting average for that size of sample. So, I can't buy into the idea that Berkman's offense is declining this season because he has a drop off in his fundamental ability to hit LHPs. I also wouldn't be surprised if the results of Berkman's offensive improvement take longer to materialize against LHPs due to the sporadic number of plate appearances against LHPs.

Is Berkman's poor platoon split this year evidence of a deteriorating trend in hitting LHPs? No, I don't think so. Berkman's OPS versus LHPs in 2008 (.803) was higher than his career OPS against LHPs and produced an OPS gap of less than 200 points between the left and right side.

One noteworthy aspect of Berkman's platoon split so far this season is that he has been drawing few walks against LHPs, which weakened his OPS results for that side. On the other hand, Berkman is hitting HRs equally well against both LHP and RHP this season. The following rates are shown per plate appearance:

Walks/PA

2009 vs. RHP 21%

2009 vs. LHP 5%

Career vs. RHP 15.8%

Career vs. LHP 13.6%

HR/PA

2009 vs. RHP 5.5%

2009 vs. LHP 5.5%

Career vs. RHP 5.7%

Career vs. LHP 2.6%

The K rate versus LHP and RHP this season isn't too different from his career ratios. Berkman is hitting HRs at a higher rate versus LHP, and about the same rate versus RHP, which counters the idea that he is suffering a major decline this year. But Berkman is taking significantly fewer walks against LHPs this season. That could be due to: (1) problems seeing the ball batting right handed; (2) a change in pitchers' tactics when he bats right handed; (3) impatience by Berkman when he faces LHPs this season; or (4) just a fluke of sample size. My money would be on No. 4, sample size. But it's worth keeping an eye on this season.

Some quick hits...and walks

clack — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 16:39:55 -0000

Some quick hits...and walks

Not to take away from DQ's morning round up,but here are a few unusual stories of interest this morning.

First, as linked in the headline, the Astros' opponent this weekend, the Tigers, have 14 bases loaded walks this year, and are on pace to walk in 31 runs. Does Jim Leyland hate for his pitchers to give in? In any event, Tigers' fans must have the rolaids handy for their games.

Second, Willy Taveras heads the list of biggest free agent busts this year.

Third, under the "you gotta be kidding me" department. Braves' reliever Jeff Bennett had a bad inning and punched a hole in the wall of the clubhouse. A bone in his non-pitching hand was broken all the way through, and Bennett attempted to set the bone himself. He didn't tell anybody and went out to pitch the 7th inning, giving up a HR to Nick Swisher. He didn't tell trainers until 20 minutes later. Talking about his DL-ed player, Braves' manager Bobby Cox said, "it's good that he cares; it's not good to break something."

Hey, it's just a baseball game. An upsetting video of a Marlins' and Yankees' fan fighting at the...

clack — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 16:27:20 -0000

Hey, it's just a baseball game. An upsetting video of a Marlins' and Yankees' fan fighting at the game. I saw this on BBTF, and it made me think that parents should "think of the kids" before they worry about players' effect on their kids.

Astros Type A Free Agents for 2010

clack — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 16:44:05 -0000

Astros Type A Free Agents for 2010

Mlbtraderumors.com has a listing of players who are on pace to be Type A free agents. Currently, the Astros have three players (Tejada, Brocail, and Valverde) who would be Type A free agents, if the calculation were made now. In addition, LaTroy Hawkins is borderline and could be a Type A FA too. Four Type A free agents would be a lot, unless you are the Yankees who sometimes have that many Type A FAs.

A Type A free agent can produce an extra first round pick for a team if the team offers arbitration and the FA signs with another team. Of course, it depends on whether the team is willing to offer arbitration. After the 2006 season, the Astros did not offer arbitration to three Type A FAs (Clemens, Pettitte, and Springer), and gave up a ton of extra draft picks, which they needed, since the team also signed two other team's Type A FAs (Carlos Lee and Woody Williams) which cost the Astros high draft choices.

Which Astros' pitchers are throwing the most effective pitches?

clack — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 00:16:39 -0000

More photos » by Nam Y Huh - AP

Houston Astros pitcher Chris Sampson. (AP Photo/Nam Y. Huh)

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Fangraphs.com has an interesting statistic called run value by pitch type, which is explained here and here. This raises the fascinating question, which Astros' pitchers are the most effective at throwing various types of pitches? This exercise probably is best saved for the end of the season, because of the sample size issues. But, heck, this is just for fun. Let's see what kind of results we can get right now.

The run value statistic examines the outcome of each type of pitch and the count in which it occurred. The run expectancy varies depending on the count; for example, the liklihood of a good offensive outcome is much different for 3-0 than it is for 0-2. A positive number indicates "runs saved above average" for the pitch. I will use the rate version of the stat which reflects runs saved above average per 100 pitches.

I excluded Valverde from this comparison, because he hasn't pitched enough to show anything meaningful. After some debate, I decided to show the results for relief pitchers and starting pitchers separately for some of the pitch types. Clearly the two types of pitchers produce different ranges, and I'll discuss that shortly. Since I'm only concerned with the best pitches, and not the worst ones, I leave out any consideration of pitches with negative runs.

BEST FASTBALL

(R) Fulchino +2.47 Arias +1.5

(S) Wandy +.57 Ortiz +.51

BEST SLIDER

(R) Arias +9.56 Sampson +3.46

(S) Ortiz +.68 Oswalt +.19

BEST CURVE

Wright+ 4.18 Wandy +1.47

BEST CHANGE UP

(R) Sampson +7.64 Fulchino +5.07

(S) Hampton +2.25

Another characteristic of interest is the percentage of swings outside the strike zone induced by the pitcher. This might tell us something about pitchers with nasty stuff.

HIGHEST PERCENT SWINGS AT BALLS OUTSIDE THE ZONE

Arias 30.1%

Wright 27.4%

Wandy, Hampton (tied) 25.8%

Two young guys who have surprisingly impressive pitches: Fulchino and Arias. Chris Sampson usually had the reputation as a guy with fringe type stuff. But Sampson has great success with some of his off-speed pitches. Something I didn't show above is that Sampson has had excellent success with his cutter, even though he doesn't throw it very often.

And the guys mentioned above are all relief pitchers. Clearly relief pitchers seem to be capable of putting up higher "runs saved" numbers on pitches, compared to starting pitchers. I think this partially reflects sample size, both in terms of innings pitched and the tendency to throw the "out" pitch a small percentage of the time. Relief pitchers usually don't face the hitters more than once, which gives them an advantage over starters (and one of the reasons that relief pitchers have lower ERAs on average than starters). Also, relief pitchers may "surprise" hitters more when they throw a specific pitch sparingly. For example, when a reliever saves a pitch only for the most critical count (say, 3-2) the runs value will be better than a starter who throws his best pitch in a variety of different counts. While Wesley Wright's curveball looks pretty good, I doubt that it is better than Wandy's, as the numbers above might suggest. An important point is that Wandy throws the curveball a bunch more than Wright. Wandy throws his curveball 33% of the time; when you think about how often he throws it, the 1.47 runs saved above average rate is remarkably good.

You also have to resist the temptation to use these stats to argue that a particular pitcher should throw a high value pitch more often. The value of the pitch may depend on when and how the pitcher uses it. For example, the sequence in which fastballs and sliders or curves or mixed into the count probably is important to the result.

I wonder how these numbers will change over the course of the season.

Kaz Matsui's splits this season are odd

clack — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 16:02:29 -0000

Kaz Matsui's splits this season are odd

Kaz Matsui is headed toward rehab starts with Corpus Christi, and apparently will be back at 2d base for the Astros soon. Matsui's splits at the ML level are very odd this season. Kaz , who is a switch hitter, has been putrid against RHP, but great against LHP. His stats (BA, OBP, OPS): vs. RHP, .193, ..260, .497; vs. LHP, .323, .400, .916. Matsui's splits are fairly even on a career basis; and he was better vs. RHP (approximately 40 point OPS difference) last year. This could be (and probably is) an aberration from small sample sizes this early in the season. But it also raises the question (in my mind, anyway) whether some type of injury affected Kaz's LH batting, but not his RH batting, this year.

In case you are thinking about a platoon with Maysonet...he doesn't appear to be a strong platoon candidate. Maysonet, who is RH batting, has fairly strong opposite platoon hitting in his minor league career (i.e., he hits RH pitching better). Managers aren't prone to set up platoons in which the batter hits from the same side as the pitcher throws.

"A Lidge Over Troubled Waters"

clack — Sun, 07 Jun 2009 14:56:08 -0000

This article is a Dodgers' blog about the Phillies-Dodgers series. I admit that I wrote this fanpost mostly because of the headline of the article. The article says that the Phillies and Dodgers are evenly matched and the only difference in the series is Brad Lidge's failure. The Dodgers' Broxton has been excellent at closing in the series. But Lidge can't do anything but blow saves. As Lidge has struggled this season, Phillies' manager Charlie Manuel continues to try and take the high road and keep Lidge as his closer. But if the Phillies lose enough games that way, at some point they have to think about moving Lidge out of the closer role. From my perspective, I think the Phillies would be better off doing what Garner had to do in 06 and 07: put Lidge in the middle relief role until he works himself out of his funk.