SB Nation User Blog: houksyndrome

Iowa Basketball Hope for the future?

houksyndrome — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 09:08:03 -0000

Here is my take on the Iowa Men’s Basketball team right now, based on my personal observations and a bit of statistical research. I have watched all of the Bowling Green, Texas and Wichita State games and about half of the Virginia Tech game, so my opinions are based on a fairly limited sample size.

In the games that I have watched, we have shown some promise on offense. We tend to play good offense for significant periods of games, and by this I mean that we have good passing and good patience, which generally leads to good shots. I know many people complain about all of our 3 point attempts, but during the games that I have seen, many of our 3 attempts have been open shots. I think, in time, some of those 3s will fall. Gatens and Tucker were both excellent outside shooters last season and I don’t think it was just a mirage. We don’t have anybody who is a particularly good driver, but Gatens, Tucker, Payne and May have shown a few flashes of good driving ability. They obviously lack the athleticism to be great at finishing in traffic, but eventually I think they can be OK at getting into the lane and finishing. However, their strength will always be 3 point shooting and passing. Unfortunately, we tend to have about 5-10 minutes per game where we are just God-awful on offense, leading to a 10 or 15-0 run for the other team. During this time, we tend to take highly contested shots and turn the ball over.

I don’t know why we only play 30 minutes of good offense per game. Is it our lack of experience (which can be remedied) or lack of athleticism (which can’t be remedied) or lack of depth (which can be remedied next season)? I think it’s a combination of all three of these things. Due to our lack of athleticism, our guys must work harder than their defenders to get to the ball – otherwise, the defenders will win, due to superior athleticism. Our 10 minutes of crap offense seems to happen when our guys get a little bit lax, either due to fatigue or just not being used to playing at the high D1 level for 40 minutes. This lackadaisical play is manifested with guys not getting open and lazy passes on the perimeter, both of which lead to turnovers and transition dunks for the other team. I don’t think that we are THAT lazy, it’s just that given our lack of athleticism, any lack of intensity on our part makes us look like we are in slow motion. By next season, our improved experience and/or depth will hopefully allow us to play our best on offense for 40 minutes. If we do put together our best 40 minutes of offense, we will be a very good offensive team because of our shooting.

Lot's of info/statistics after the jump

To flesh this out a bit more, let’s look at some offense statistics:

My source for all of the statistics in this post is kenpom.com, which collects efficiency statistics for all D1 basketball teams. By “efficiency statistics” I mean the probability of something happening on a given possession, for example the probability of committing a turnover or getting an offensive rebound on a possession. This is much more relevant than the overall number of points scored or turnovers committed because it normalizes everything by the number of possessions.

According to kenpom, we score 0.996 points on average per possession. The national average is exactly 0.996 and we rank 183rd nationally. In other words, we have the 183rd best offense in the country. What is the cause of these struggles?

Well for starters we haven’t shot very well:

Our effective FG percentage is 47.8%. Effective FG percentage = (Total field goals made + 0.5*3 pointers made)/Field goals attempted. 47.8% isn’t very good, it ranks 195th nationally. The poor effective FG percentage is due entirely to our struggles from 3 point range (a problem which should go away as the sample size increases). So far, we are shooting 29.3% from 3 (278th nationally) and 51.6% from 2 (72nd nationally). If the 3 point shooting comes around, our effective FG percentage should improve.

We turn the ball over on 22.4% of our possessions (229th nationally, nat’l average = 21.2%). That is not acceptable. Lick’s Butler teams were among the best in the nation in this category they were usually at 14 – 17%. The difference between 22.4% and 17% amounts to about 3 turnovers per game at our current pace. My guess is that our aforementioned lapses are responsible for these extra turnovers.

We get offensive rebounds on 31.3% of our missed shots (224th nationally, nat’l average = 33.2%). We don’t have the size or athleticism to get a lot of offensive rebounds, this statistic might get even worse over the course of the season).

We also don’t shoot many free throws, which is a byproduct of our offensive system.

Overall, I think that over the course of this season our 3 point FG% will improve which will cause our effective FG% to reach respectable levels. If we can avoid these 10 minute lapses then I think our TO% will go way down too (that might not happen until next season though, when we will hopefully have some depth). If that can happen, then I think our offense will be OK.

On to the defense:

On defense, we just flat out suck. According to kenpom, we give up 1.07 points per possession, which ranks 260th in D1. Not very good. Statistically, this is due to two things:

1. Teams shoot really well against us - 52.8% effective FG% (which gives 3 pointers a 50% higher value). The national average for effective FG% is 48.8%. Our 52.8% ranks 266th.

2. We don’t force any turnovers. 19% of our opponents possessions result in turnovers. The national average is 21.2% (we rank 257th).

These might not seem like much but they are very significant. We are actually in the top 40 nationally in terms of not giving up offensive rebounds and not fouling (which are the other two factors that determine the quality of a defense).

From watching us play, I’m very surprised that we aren’t dead last in every defensive category. We give up a LOT of easy shots both around the basket and from 3 point range. Why is this so? Certainly, this is largely due to our lack of size and athleticism. We don’t have anyone with above average athleticism (by major D1 standards). Our guards aren’t that quick, so we give up lots of dribble penetration and don’t close out quickly on shooters. We lack interior shot blocking, so when we give up dribble penetration or post feeds, we can’t block/alter the resultant short range shots – so the other team makes a bunch of them. After watching us play, it certainly is easy to lose hope that we will ever be any good defensively at all. But should there be hope?

To answer this question, I have looked at Lick’s Butler teams between 2005 and 2007.

Here is how they played defense during those years:

Year: Points allowed per possession (National rank)

2005: 1.06 (238th)

2006: 1.00 (147th)

2007: 0.93 (48th)

They steadily improved their defense over time as their team gained experience. Between 2005 and 2006, they got better at forcing turnovers. Between 2006 and 2007, the effective FG% allowed went from 50.7% to 45.9%. That is a huge improvement in one year. 45.9% effective FG% allowed is very good, it was 32nd nationally that year. It wasn’t due to them playing against a bunch of lousy offenses either. Their opponents in 2007 averaged 49.5%, so they held them to 4% less than their normal effective FG%. This improvement was due to good defense of 2 point shots. Their opposition went from 52% on 2 point shots in 2006 to 44% on 2 point shots in 2007. This appears to be due to improvement of existing players. The 2007 team was made up of juniors and seniors, most of whom were on the 2006 team. The tallest guy in the rotation in 2007 was 6’7. What does this mean? It means their defense got way better without a dramatic influx of shot-blocking talent or athleticism in general. It’s not like they brought in Bill Russell or something between 2006 and 2007. The same guys went from a mediocre defensive team to a good one. Obviously this is encouraging. Hopefully, during the next couple of years we can make the same improvements on defense that Butler did between 2005 and 2007.

In summary, my research gave me hope about the future of our team. This year is certainly gonna be rough, but I have hope for 2010 and 2011. I think the shooting percentage will be there, we just need to cut down on the turnovers on offense and play better defense. There is a decent chance that both of those things will happen as our guys gain experience. Of course, if our best players continue to transfer then we will never improve. Hopefully, that shit is in the rearview mirror now and we can actually move forward.

Sorry for the rambling. It’s just that I did a lot of research and I wanted to share everything that I learned. Hopefully, you are at least a little bit more optimistic about our future, I definitely am. I think our goal as a program should be about where Wisconsin is currently at. Consistently in the top 40. I think we can get there.

Pirate Pitching in 2010: A few average arms could really help us, seriously!

houksyndrome — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 07:12:10 -0000

I noticed that our ERA at the end of the year was 14th in the national league. This was surprising because Duke and Ohlendorf both pitched pretty well this year, while Maholm and Morton were both OK (Morton was pretty good, sub-4 ERA when you omit that disastrous 10ER performance at Wrigley). If 4 of our starters were OK, why is our team ERA still ranked 14th in the NL? I looked at our team pitching statistics after 159 games (so the last couple games are missing).

The first thing that jumped out at me is the number of innings pitched by guys who stink. When I sort our pitchers according to ERA and break them down into guys with ERAs above 5 and ERAs lower than 5. I find that guys with high ERAs pitched 421 innings for us this year; 30% of our innings were pitched by guys who stink. I compared these numbers with teams that have league average pitching staffs (like Colorado) and found that decent pitching staffs tend to have way less than 421 innings pitched by guys who stink - they tend to be around 200.

IP ER ERA

Innings by pitchers with ERA over 5: 421 282 6.06017192

Innings by pitchers with ERA under 5: 977 428 3.942681679

Totals: 1398 710 4.578019774

The biggest offenders were:

Karstens 105.2 IP, 5.37 ERA

Snell 80.2 IP, 5.36 ERA

Capps 54.1 IP, 5.8 ERA *These were especially costly, Capps cost us several games this season*

Hart 53.1 IP, 6.9 ERA

Vasquez 43.2 IP, 5.98 ERA

The unholy tetrad of Karstens, Snell, Hart and Vasques pitched 280 innings for us last year!

Let's look at the bright side, this means that we will probably be better next year. For example, I expect Dan McCutchen and Brad Lincoln to collectively eat up most of those 280 innings. Suppose McCutchen and Lincoln take up all 280 of those innings and have a 4.5 ERA (nothing spectacular, mind you, a very reasonable expectation). Suppose also, that Capps can get it together and put up a 3.8 ERA (again something he has done before). If all these highly plausible things happen then our collective staff ERA would be 4.24. This is also assuming that the collective production for the other members of the staff remains constant. A 4.24 ERA would be middle of the pack in the NL. A few other points are worth mentioning: 1. Morton could very well have a sub-4 ERA next season (if you omit that nightmare at Wrigley, then he had a sub-4 ERA this season). 2. Lincoln and McCutchen could do better than a 4.5 ERA. 3. Our defense was dramatically worse after the trades and if we don't do something to improve defensively at 2B then Maholm and Duke may give up a lot more runs next year, due to their tendencies to pitch to contact. I think our pitching staff can take a big step forward next year but we need to ensure that they have a competent defense working behind them and we may need to sign a reliever or two. One thing is clear, our collective ERA will improve dramatically if we cut out some of this deadwood (Karstens, Vasquez and Hart) and replace it with guys who are serviceable. The replacements don't have to be great, just serviceable. I think McCutchen and Lincoln can be serviceable next year. What are your thoughts?

THE END IS NIGH!

houksyndrome — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 05:54:10 -0000

THE END IS NIGH!

Given my Rorschach avatar, I couldn't help but post a link to the PBC blog morning updates when it is titled "The end is nigh".

Pedro Alvarez promoted!

houksyndrome — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 02:22:09 -0000

Pedro Alvarez has been promoted to Altoona, according to John Perotto. I don't see any coverage of it yet on the post gazette website, but I am assuming that Perotto has a reputable source. I must say I am VERY surprised about this promotion. Pedro has been striking out in 30% of his ABs all season. His power has improved steadily but a 30% K rate is a major red flag, just look at Jamie Romak's performance this season in AA. From what I have heard/read, Alvarez has had trouble with breaking stuff in the dirt (my own opinion is that it is probably in 2 strike situations when he is trying to protect the plate and be over-aggressive). He has also hit straight stuff a long way from what I have read. He has had a few monster, multi-HR games in the last week but his overall stats for June (or the last week for that matter) aren't that great. He tends to follow up his monster games with 0-4, 3K performances in which he also commits an error in the field. Hopefully he will be able to hack it at AA, but I can see this being a total disaster where he hits 0.180 the rest of the way a la Romak. I just don't think he is ready for AA pitching yet. I guess we are gonna find out.

Wishful thinking about Brooks Pounders

houksyndrome — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 07:48:31 -0000

When I first read Brooks Pounders profile, what I saw was a tall, somewhat overweight kid who has 4 decent pitches but doesn't really have the velocity that you would expect from someone with that frame. Something rang familiar about that description and then I realized that it sounds a bit like descriptions of Stephen Strasburg when he was coming out of high school. Here is one such description that I found on the internet:

So who is this guy and if he is so good why wasn’t he drafted out of high school? Currently Strasburg is listed at 6′4″ and 220 lbs. In high school, he was slightly shorter and about 50-60 lbs. heavier. His fastball barely touched 90 mph. San Diego pitching coach Rusty Filter saw something in him and insisted on having him in camp. In his freshman season, Filter but Strasburg on a conditioning regimen that included hot yoga and as a result, Strasburg shed 30 lbs. Not only that, his velocity began to creep up. By the time he was a sophomore, his fastball was consistently clocked at 97-99 mph with occasional touches of 100 and 101. Strasburg also possesses a plus-plus-plus slider at 81-84mph. He has a plus change that he uses infrequently and a plus curve in the 70s.

That description above is from mopupduty.com and they are describing Strasburg. A high school 6'4'' 270lb pitcher whose fastball is only 90mph sounds an awful lot like Brooks Pounders too doesn't it? Lets have Pounders do some "hot yoga", whatever that is. Maybe he'll be hitting 100mph in a couple of years.

Pirates draft 34 pitchers!

houksyndrome — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 19:38:00 -0000

Pirates draft 34 pitchers!

The draft is in the books. We drafted 34 pitchers! Just 17 position players. Will be very interesting to see which of these pitchers they can sign and where those guys go. Say we sign the best of our draftees, I wonder where our system now ranks in terms of pitching depth.

Different angle on McLouth deal

houksyndrome — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 19:46:07 -0000

There is much debate about (1) whether this deal was a salary dump and part of the 18 year pattern of trading our only good players etc. and (2) whether the guys we got back were good enough to justify trading Nate, what kind of players do they project into etc. One thing that hasn't been discussed so much is what is the future of our OF? Morgan has been a very pleasant surprise but despite his decent/good OBP and good defense, he has no power at all. Because of this, as well as Nate's lack of ideal speed for CF, I had always envisioned Nate sliding over to left field when Cutch came up, with Cutch in center. Given the dimensions of PNC park, this would be a great defensive alignment, since a tweener CF/corner hybrid is exactly what we need in left at PNC. Nate would have been a great defensive LF for us, and his bat would have been above average in LF too (though not as good as his bat plays in CF). This trade leaves our organization with no real power above A+ (w/ exception of the constantly injured Doumit and the oscillatory Adam LaRoche). Where are we gonna get the power from? We seem to be stockpiling AAA pitchers with these trades as though we want to be decent again in 2010 or 2011 - we also now have a very good defensive team and a lot of guys who can get on base (Andy LaRoche, McCutchen) but where will the power come from? Or is the plan to use our speed at the top of the lineup to "manufacture" runs? If so, that strategy sounds familiar doesn't it?

Matt Wieters facts - ala Chuck Norris

houksyndrome — Fri, 29 May 2009 19:51:42 -0000

Matt Wieters facts - ala Chuck Norris

Check this out, it's really funny.

Mechanics websites?

houksyndrome — Thu, 21 May 2009 07:40:16 -0000

Hey guys, I'm a slow pitch softball player who played little league baseball. Obviously, I've never had much coaching and it hurts my game. In particular, my throwing arm is poor for someone with my size (6'7, 220lbs). I am looking for suggestions for websites where I can learn more about throwing mechanics and also hitting mechanics (more interested in throwing though). Any advice on instructional websites would be much appreciated. Thanks very much!

Levi Jones

houksyndrome — Fri, 08 May 2009 06:32:59 -0000

Do we have the cap room to make a competitive offer for him? He is only 29 years old. I know he missed several games last year due to injury. How serious was the injury? Will it affect him long term? Assuming he is healthy, he could give our line a major boost. We could insert him at RT or LT (and move Starks back to the right side). Either of those moves would improve our OL immensely. I have no confidence in Willie Colon whatsoever.