SB Nation User Blog: danmerqury

Pitch Type Linear Weights: Our Bullpen

danmerqury — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 04:09:09 -0000

It's time for another look into the awesome tool that is Pitch Type Linear Weights. If you missed the first part, where I introduce the stat and talk about the rotation, you can go here.

I wanted to take some time to talk about one thing that Devo noticed in a comment in my previous post. The sample size is teeny. Far too small to be all that useful. At the time of writing my last post, most of the starters I looked at had around 40 IP. Most of the relievers on the roster have pitched around half of that, which leads to an even smaller sample size. Because of this, I'll include 2008's numbers to give a larger body of work to analyze. On to the numbers!

Brad Ziegler - I'll start with our AN fan favorite (Brad, if you're reading this, hi!). PitchFX shows a fastball, that awesome frisbee slider, and a changeup.

2008

wFB/C: 1.63

wSL/C: 3.46

wCH/C: 1.26

2009

wFB/C: -0.60

wSL/C: 5.30

wCH/C: 1.00

That slider truly is a great pitch, baffling hitters everywhere. His fastball was very nice last year as well, considering he threw it over 85% of the time. His changeup confuses hitters pretty well too. This year, he seems to be getting less performance out of his fastball, and a lot more with his slider. He's compensating by throwing his fastball a hair over 8% less in 2009 over 2008. I'll attribute this loss of performance on the league adjusting and realizing what a talent he is.

Andrew Bailey - Might as well continue with the good, as Bailey has shown himself to be a true gem in the bullpen. It's worth noting that he's thrown more innings than anyone else in our bullpen, as well as Dana Eveland. 34 innings in 24 games! PitchFX reports a fastball, cutter, and curveball. It also sees a slider and changeup, but those are thrown less than one percent of the time. Judging by the speed of these pitches, I'll assume they're misclassified cutters. I'll leave them out.

2009

wFB/C: 1.97

wCT/C: 0.79

wCB/C: 2.58

Thirty four career innings isn't exactly the best sample to really look at, but we can still see what Bailey's succeeded with so far. Bailey's done some pretty awesome things in his time in the big leagues, and it shows. He doesn't have a bad pitch. He throws his plus fastball sixty percent of the time, and it's working. The occasional cutter and curveball serve as a nice change of pace, and he's succeeding with those too. Hopefully he'll be a rock in our pen for a long time.

Michael Wuertz - Another candidate in the overused department, though not nearly to the extent that Bailey has been. PitchFX shows a fastball and slider, as well as the occasional changeup. I'll throw out the extremely rare curveball classification.

2008

wFB/C: -3.19

wSL/C: 0.76

wCH/C: 4.23

2009

wFB/C: -1.02

wSL/C: 2.74

wCH/C: 8.41

He's never been one to dominate with his fastball, but he has a great slider he can use to get hitters out. Throwing a changeup every once in a while really catches hitters off guard. It's kind of interesting to note that he threw his fastball over half of the time in his first year, with his slider making up a quarter of his pitches. Over the years, he slowly decreased the use of his fastball and began relying more on his slider. His fastball and slider are now more like 30% and 60%, respectively.

Santiago Casilla - Casilla is kind of an odd case, as he seems to go through stretches of amazing dominance, followed by stretches of bizarre hittability. PitchFX shows a fastball, slider, and changeup. In his first three seasons, PitchFX reported about a quarter of his sliders as curveballs, which may indicate a change in the movement of his slider.

2007

wFB/C: 0.25

wSL/C: 1.81

wCH/C: 0.48

2008

wFB/C: -0.14

wSL/C: -1.18

wCH/C: -1.61

2009

wFB/C: -1.83

wSL/C: 1.68

wCH/C: 3.30

If you go to Fangraphs, you can see the stats from all of his years, which I only bring up (and recommend) here, because Casilla is definitely an odd case. He's inconsistent. His slider and changeup numbers flip-flopped from positive to negative in 2008, only to bounce back this year. Granted, his first three years were his Jairo years, with extremely few innings pitched, but he's been inconsistent after that as well. The drop in production from 2007 to 2008 is particularly alarming. He looks like he's on the rebound from these numbers this year, but his FIP is up by two entire runs in 2009 from the low-4 FIPs he posted in 2007 and 2008. Not quite what we want to see from our once-possible future closer.

Russ Springer - Another of our somewhat unexpected free agent bullpen acquisitions. Springer's had less success this year than Wuertz, but hey, he taught Braden his cutter. Give the man his due. PitchFX shows a fastball, slider, cutter and curveball. It also reports a changeup, but I'll consider those as misclassified sliders or cutters.

His pitch type breakdown is actually quite interesting. In 2007, it looks like he cut down his slider and curveball and increased the frequency of his cutter dramatically. It seems to be that 2007 was the year he upgraded his cutter from an experiment to a pitch he used with regularity. 2008 brought the same amount of cutters, with more curveballs at the expense of his slider. This year, he's cut down on his curveballs again, increasing the frequency of his cutter yet again to 30%.

2007

wFB/C: 1.44

wSL/C: 3.36

wCT/C: 3.14

wCB/C: -1.10

2008

wFB/C: 1.75

wSL/C: 1.38

wCT/C: 0.79

wCB/C: -1.73

2009

wFB/C: -1.54

wSL/C: 4.64

wCT/C: -1.60

wCB/C: -5.63

This pitch breakdown gives us an interesting look at his linear weights. In 2007, his first year with his cutter in wide use, he dominated with it. His slider also got hitters out excellently. As he decreased the amount of sliders he threw, his cutter became less and less effective, and with that, his other pitches suffered. It would be interesting to see what would happen if he reverted to his 2007 pitch proportions.

This Fanpost is getting long enough already. In Part 3, I'll take a look at some other pitchers we have in the system. Thanks for reading, guys.

Pitch Type Linear Weights: Our Rotation

danmerqury — Fri, 22 May 2009 04:04:17 -0000

Fangraphs just unveiled a new tool from the the amazing minds at www.baseballanalysts.com: Pitch Type Linear Weights. Fangraphs has an excellent introduction to how it’s calculated here if you’re interested, but all you really need to know is that it allows us to look at pitcher’s pitch types and determine which type of pitches get hit around the most, as well as each pitcher's true "out" pitch. Of course, the first thing I did was look at our green and gold.

But first, I needed some sort of frame of reference. The numbers are weighted so that zero is a perfectly average pitch, negative numbers signify below average pitches, and positive numbers are better than average. They also give two numbers per pitch. Using a fastball as an example, wFB is just a counting stat. It's how many runs above average that fastball was over the whole season. Unfortunately, it depends on how many times that pitch was thrown, and for how many innings. What's better for comparison's sake is wFB/C, which extrapolates the performance over 100 pitches. That's the stat I'll be using from here on out. To put things in perspective, Johan Santana's changeup got a 3.01 wCH/C in his 2006 Cy Young-winning season. In other words, for every 100 times Santana threw that changeup, he averaged a hair more than three runs below average saved. That's a very good pitch.

For this analysis, all the stat names are based on a two-letter code for each pitch:

FB = Fastball
SL = Slider
CT = Cutter
CB = Curveball
CH = Changeup
SF = Split-Fingered Fastball
KN = Knuckleball

To avoid making this Fanpost too long, I'll look at the rotation first.

Dallas Braden - Braden's an interesting case, as this year marks his first year with real consistent success. PitchFX shows him with a fastball, slider, changeup, and new for this year, a cutter. It also shows a curveball, but last year he threw it 0.3% of the time. I'm going to assume these were misclassified sliders.

wFB/C: -1.49

wSL/C: 1.44

wCT/C: 1.35

wCH/C: 2.66

Immediately, his changeup stands out. That 2.66 wCH/C is pretty great. Additionally, that mark has improved from last year's 1.96, which also isn't exactly bad, by any means. Dallas's fastball isn't doing him any favors, and he throws it 50-60% of the time. Thankfully, his excellent variety of offspeed junk helps him succeed. His improvement in his slider's performance from 2008's 0.35 to this year's 1.44 is worth noting. It also looks like his cutter is a success. Good to see.

Brett Anderson - I'll start with the rookie with more success so far. PitchFX shows a fastball, slider, curveball, and changeup.

wFB/C: -1.58

wSL/C: 0.01

wCB/C: 0.78

wCH/C: 0.66

Already, it doesn't look as good as Braden. His only above-average pitches so far are his curveball and changeup. His slider is very much average, and his fastball is a hair worse than Braden's. Obviously, as a rookie, it's understandable to not have any dynamite pitches, but on the whole, Anderson's not doing bad at all.

Trevor Cahill - Now we get into the ugly. Cahill throws a fastball, slider, curveball, and changeup, with 0.1% of pitches registering as what PitchFX calls a split-fingered fastball. I'll throw it out.

wFB/C: -0.96

wSL/C: -10.53

wCB/C: -5.33

wCH/C: 1.07

Yikes. His only above-average pitch is his changeup, and his other three pitches range from bad to atrocious. Take his slider and curveball stats with a grain of salt: he's thrown them 4.1% and 5.0% of the time, respectively, leading to a small sample size, you know the rest. No way his slider will stay ten runs below average. Still, though, it obviously hasn't been the greatest start for Trevor.

Josh Outman - Na na na na na na na na, na na na na na na na na, Out Man! Josh has a fastball, slider, curveball, and changeup.

wFB/C: -1.19

wSL/C: 5.35

wCB/C: -3.41

wCH/C: 1.84

Look at that slider! That number is probably too high to be sustainable, but still, it's a great pitch. And he's thrown it almost 20% of the time, so this isn't some absurdly small sample size fluke. I don't know what Outman did, but his slider was a full run below average last year. In fact, Josh's best pitch last year, his fastball, was still a half a run below average. That low curveball score isn't as bad as it looks: he's only thrown it 4.2% of the time this year. Additionally, this seems to confirm fears that his speedy fastball is just too straight, without much movement. He's not having very much success with it at all.

Dana Eveland - Not quite the greatest year for Dana. PitchFX shows a fastball, slider, curveball, and changeup.

wFB/C: -1.12

wSL/C: -4.83

wCB/C: -0.61

wCH/C: 1.30

This is really kind of surprising. The slider, which he throws a quarter of the time, is atrocious. And it was his best pitch last year, at 1.76 wSL/C. Pretty much the only bright spot here is his changeup, which improved over last year by almost two runs per 100 games.

Sean Gallagher - I'm not going to show this year's stats after two games started. You don't want to see them, trust me. Gallagher throws a fastball, slider, curveball, and changeup.

2008

wFB/C: -0.67

wSL/C: -0.72

wCB/C: 0.43

wCH/C: 0.62

Oh fine.

2009

wFB/C: -0.47

wSL/C: 0.83

wCB/C: -6.78

wCH/C: -8.50

I'm still going to focus on last year's stats, because of Sean's mechanical issues that he's had this year. Keep in mind that these numbers were the result of 12 games with the Cubs and 11 games with the A's. Gallagher was pretty thoroughly average last year. His fastball and slider were both a tick below average, and his curveball and changeup were a bit above. With Sean's terrible 2009, we can only hope he regains last year's form and adds to it eventually.

Justin Duchscherer - Just for reference I'll look at Justin's amazing 2008 season. To, you know, make everyone else in our rotation look terrible. Or to make us all depressed. One of the two. PitchFX shows Justin with a fastball, slider, cutter, curveball, and changeup.

wFB/C: 0.74

wSL/C: 4.99

wCT/C: 2.45

wCB/C: 1.45

wCH/C: 5.82

Pretty amazing stuff, all across the board. His worst pitch, his 86-mph fastball, was still three-quarters of a run better than average! And that slider and change...wow. There's simply nothing to say except that we need Duke back.

I'll take a look at the bullpen next post. Thanks for reading, guys.

What's up with Daric?

danmerqury — Mon, 01 Sep 2008 03:25:11 -0000

Oh, Staplehead. After his exceptional start to his career last season, I figured we were in for a treat this year. No, I didn't expect him to continue his amazing pace (.347/.429/.639, for a beautiful 1.067 OPS, albeit in 18 games), but I hoped he'd show promise in his rookie season of a long, bright future at 1B.

Sigh. His line currently stands, at the end of August, as .217/.309/.320. He flirted with a batting average under the Mendoza line, and an OPS below .600 as recently as a week and a half ago, opening the Mariners series at .203/.299/.296. That's a lot of 2's, folks. Almost, dare I say it, Neifian. I decided to make my first FanPost on Daric Barton, to see if I could uncover what was going on. A word of warning: I'm no expert, by any means, but I thought I could at least try to cobble together some kind of statistical analysis.

The first very noticeable difference between last year and this season, small sample size notwithstanding, is his line drive percentage. At the end of last season, it was sitting at a comfortable 20.8%. For the vast majority of this year, his LD% has hovered at about 15%, currently sitting at 14.8%. His groundball and fly percentages have remained very comparable to 2007.

So what's changed? He's striking out more. A lot more. In 2007, his K% sat a little higher than 20%, coming to rest at the end of the season at 15.3%. Now? His strikeout percentage has sat at 25% almost the entire year. Interestingly enough, his amazing 2007 start in the big leagues had a very similar strikeout percentage to his career in Sacramento in 2006-07.

As for this season, his production has actually been dropping as the season went on. Aside from a small power surge in early June, as well as last week's Herculean by comparison performance, his OPS has essentially been falling the entire year. This graph shows his production throughout the year, tracked by game. Believe me, it's not pretty. (Click to see a bigger, actually readable version.)

One interesting thing to notice from the graph is that although his BB/K ratio has remained relatively constant throughout the year, his strikeout percentage and walk percentage has dropped fairly steadily since the beginning of July. His strikeout and walk percentages now stand at 23.5% and 11.4%, respectively. Good on dropping the strikeouts, bad on the walks, Daric.

I suppose the most disappointing thing about doing this analysis is that I hoped to find a glimmer of hope in this season, such as seeing a rise in line drive percentage or something of the sort. I haven't found any such thing. I'd love to get my hands on some pitches/plate appearance stats per game, but I haven't found a way to get the numbers, other than individually counting the pitches in MLB Gameday.

It has to be noted, however, that he just turned 23. He still has plenty of time to figure the big leagues out. I'm still optimistic that he'll start to put it together next year (in Sacramento, possibly?), but barring another magic September, I'm afraid we may have to wait a little longer than we had originally thought for the return of 2007 Daric.

Well, the 50th annual Gold Gloves are out...

danmerqury — Wed, 07 Nov 2007 18:02:44 -0000

And Chavez, as expected, didn't get it.

http://mlb.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?...

AL:
C I. Rodriguez
1B K. Youkilis
2B P. Polanco
SS O. Cabrera
3B A. Beltre
OF I. Suzuki
OF T. Hunter
OF G. Sizemore
P J. Santana

NL:
C R. Martin
1B D. Lee
2B O. Hudson
SS J. Rollins
3B D. Wright
OF C. Beltran
OF A. Jones
OF J. Francoeur
OF A. Rowand
P G. Maddux

Hopefully these offseason surgeries will bring an actually healthy Chavez in '08.

*crosses fingers*

*again*