Archive for 2008

For a few years running Phillies pitcher Brett Myers has entered the season with the “he could (insert positive breakout pitching feat)” analysis seemingly attached to his hip. Following stellar seasons in 2005 and 2006, he was moved into the closers role last year when Tom Gordon went down with an injury. As a closer he was essentially lights out, though he himself also missed time with an injury. The Brad Lidge acquisition pushed Myers back into his regular role as a starter and, suffice it to say, he has not lived up to expectations so far.

In looking at his numbers I found that he has some pretty significant splits. Below are his overall numbers on the season, followed by his splits against lefty and righty hitters:

Overall: 8 GS, 49.0 IP, 15 BB, 42 K, 5.33 ERA, 5.53 FIP, 1.47 WHIP

LHH: 87 PA, 10 BB, 21 K, .227/.314/.480
RHH: 132 PA, 5 BB, 21 K, .325/.359/.569

Righties have hit him harder and more often. Another area of significance is his Home/Away splits, where he has pitched an equal amount of times:

Home: 4 GS, 2-0, 3.00 ERA, 1.00 WHIP, 27 IP, 6 BB, 25 K
Away: 4 GS, 0-3, 8.18 ERA, 2.04 WHIP, 22 IP, 9 BB, 17 K

Here are his Home/Away splits against batters faced:

Home: 109 PA, 5 HR, .210/.266/.390
Away: 110 PA, 7 HR, .367/.417/.634

Myers is pitching very well at home yet struggling on the road, which defies conventional wisdom in the sense that his home park is arguably the most hitter-friendly in the entire National League. In looking at his starts on the road, though, he has pitched in Arizona, Colorado, and Cincinnati; three stadiums also known for their hitting prowess.

He has also struggled when a runner gets on first base, a problem that in part led to the minor league demotion of Dave Bush:

Nobody On: .269/.320/.538
On First: .367/.387/.767

Batters have performed better against him early in the game than later, as evidenced by the numbers against the first and second times through the batting order:

1st: .329/.373/.557
2nd: .266/.319/.469

Myers recently stated that he attributes his struggles to lost velocity on his fastball. A quick check of the wonderful data here at Fangraphs shows that, in 2005 and 2006, his fastball averaged between 91 and 93 miles per hour; it is currently averaging 89 mph. The decrease in velocity may or may not be a direct cause of his inconsistency this season, but his career splits are nowhere near as drastic in these areas as they are right now; in fact, the times through the order numbers are actually reversed in his career splits as the first time through generally struggles while the second and third time through tends to do better.

Regardless, something is going on that needs fixing, whether it be his selection or sequencing, because whatever he is currently doing has not worked. If this keeps up, he could enter next season as a disappointment rather than a potential breakout candidate.

After last night’s 2-1 win over the Yankees, Tampa Bay has now won six games in a row, stands at 23-16, and are in sole possession of first place on May 14th. It’s been a long, hard road for Rays fans, waiting for the organization to finally figure it out and put a competitive team on the field. They finally have, and it’s paying off, as the Rays continue to show that they’re the most improved team in baseball this year, nothing like the 66-96 team that finished last in the AL East in 2007.

There have been two significant improvements that account for almost the entirety of the Rays improve; the defense and the bullpen. Last year, the Rays were historically terrible defensively, letting balls fall in left and right, but they’re a bit above average so far this year. The defense has made a huge impact on the team’s run prevention, but it’s not the only place Tampa has taken a dramatic step forward. Take a look the bullpen’s performances from the last two years.

2007: 497 IP, 4.52 BB/9, 7.15 K/9, 1.39 HR/9, 6.16 ERA, -8.40 WPA, -106.32 BRAA
2008: 116 IP, 3.72 BB/9, 6.82 K/9, 0.54 HR/9, 3.19 ERA, 2.34 WPA, 23.26 BRAA

Thanks to a huge decrease in home run rate, the Achilles heel of the Rays team last year has been the group that carried this Tampa team to first place in 2008. Adding Troy Percival to the closer role and getting terrific performances from Dan Wheeler and J.P. Howell have given the Rays weapons at the end of games and allowed them to compete in games where the outcome isn’t decided until the 8th or 9th inning.

The young core that get most of the attention in Tampa are an impressive group, but don’t overlook the bullpen – the real reason the Rays are contenders this year.

In order to quell the somewhat heated Tony La Russa and Scott Rolen situation in St. Louis, the Cardinals shipped the disgruntled third baseman to the Blue Jays in exchange for Troy Glaus. The move catalyzed a frenzy of “this should benefit both teams” reactions, primarily due to both players experiencing recent downward trends in success. Rolen has been very injury prone in recent years while some speculate Glaus’s struggles are a direct result of no longer “allegedly” taking steroids. Approximately one-fourth of the way through the season, how is this exchange looking?

Glaus Facts
.230/.357/.357 Slash Line
1 HR, 21 RBI
16.6 BB%, 22.2 K%
.289 BABIP, .284 Career BABIP
18.0/36.0/46.0 LD/GB/FB, 19.2/35.6/45.2 Career LD/GB/FB
-3.21 BRAA, -0.32 REW
-0.50 WPA, 5.12 Games Advanced

Glaus’s SLG has struggled in the early going primarily due to hitting just one home run. His BABIP and BIP rates are all very similar to his career rates. Despite this, he clearly is not producing at his standard level. His struggles have cost the Cardinals about 1/3 of a game via Run Expectancy and 1/2 of a game via Win Probability. Games Advanced can be found by +WPA minus -WPA, and shows how many games a players efforts have effected; whether positive or negative, Glaus has had an effect on five of the Cardinals games.

His swing data shows an increase above his career rates in swings both inside and outside of the strike zone. His contact rate in the zone is four percent higher than his career averages while his contact rate outside of the zone is about five percent less. Overall, though, he is making more contact in the early going… he just must not be doing much with that contact.

Rolen Facts
In just 65 PA through 16 GP
.316/.385/.561 Slash Line
9.5 BB%, 12.3 K%
.333 BABIP, .314 Career BABIP
27.5/29.4/43.1 LD/GB/FB, 21.8/33.7/44.6 Career LD/GB/FB
1.45 BRAA, 0.14 REW
0.17 WPA, 2.81 Games Advanced

The first area that jumps out is his high line drive rate. Rolen may end up in future conversations about very high LD% but it is more likely he will regress closer to the 21-23% range. He seems to be swinging less at pitches in the zone while making more contact with those pitches, relative to his career totals. He has also maintained his career swing rate at pitches out of the zone while increasing his contact by seven percent.

Overall
It’s too early to discuss anything significant with regards to Rolen’s numbers but Glaus simply has not done too well in the first quarter of the season. Rolen, as Dave mentioned earlier tonight, has been one of just two players with positive BRAAs on the anemic Blue Jays offense, and he has only played in 16 games. If the season were to end today, for whatever reason, this trade would appear to be in the Blue Jays favor. In another month, who knows?

If Rolen continues to get hurt, and Glaus doesn’t improve, this won’t be a trade that benefits both teams but rather one that provides equal and mediocre production to the Cardinals and Blue Jays.

The Toronto Blue Jays aren’t a very good offensive team. As a group, they’re a combined -50.02 BRAA and -5.93 WPA, worst in the majors in both categories. Worse than even Kansas City and San Francisco, and it’s hard to imagine a team being less effective scoring runs than the 2008 Giants. However, the Jays have managed to pull it off so far, raising offensive futility to an art form.

They have a grand total of three hitters who have produced positive Batting Runs Above Average numbers – Scott Rolen, Frank Thomas, and Aaron Hill. Thomas, of course, was released and is no longer with the team. Rolen has 57 at-bats and has missed most of the year with injuries. So, on any given day, nearly the entire offense is composed of below average hitters. That’s hard to do.

The main problems appear to be a complete lack of power, mainly thanks to subpar performances from Alex Rios and Vernon Wells, as well as a line-up that is just too right-handed. The only lefties getting regular playing time are Lyle Overbay, Matt Stairs, and Gregg Zaun, with Brad Wilkerson potentially getting worked into the mix. With a line-up that leans heavily to the right hand side of the plate, the Jays are an easy matchup for right-handed starters, and even those who don’t have a real weapon against left handed batters can get through Toronto’s line-up by just pitching around the occasional lefty.

The Jays have tried shuffling things up, but they just don’t have the personnel in the organization to put together an offense that can score a lot of runs. This is a team that absolutely has to get production from Wells and Rios, and they just aren’t. With those two struggling, we see things like the last four days, where the Jays scored one run in 36 innings before busting out for a big three spot in the 10th inning of last night’s second game against Cleveland.

Roy Halladay, Dustin McGowan, A.J. Burnett, and Shaun Marcum give Toronto one of the best starting rotations in baseball, but even they can’t overcome the struggling Jays offense. If Toronto really wants to win this year, they’re going to have to find some new hitters, because this group just isn’t getting it done.

In light of Justin Verlander’s struggles I am going to skip my normal opening paragraph designed to introduce the topic at hand and just plain pose the question – What is going on with the Tigers ace?

Last year, he went 18-6 with a 3.99 FIP, a WHIP of 1.23, and 183 strikeouts in 201.2 innings. This year, his WHIP currently sits at 1.46; his FIP has jumped to 5.37; and he has already matched his total losses from last year at six. Here are his stats in a form easier to compare:

2007: 18-6, 201.2 IP, 181 H, 82 ER, 67 BB, 183 K
2008: 1-6, 49.0 IP, 51 H, 35 ER, 21 BB, 30 K

2007: 3.66 ERA, 3.99 FIP, 1.23 WHIP
2008: 6.43 ERA, 5.37 FIP, 1.46 WHIP

In eight starts Verlander has allowed less than 4 earned runs just once! His BABIP against has not changed much, going from .294 last year to .289 to date. Does this match what we would expect?

2007: 19.1 LD%, .311 xBABIP, .294 BABIP
2008: 13.4 LD%, .254 xBABIP, .289 BABIP

Okay, well there’s a possible explanation. He is allowing just about six percent less line drives, splitting the difference between grounders and flyballs, so he has been unlucky, but is his performance really only driven by a lack of luck?

Looking at his percentage of runners left on base, it has plummeted from 74.9% last year to 56.4 right now. He is stranding over 18% less runners in the early going than he did last year.

The jump in his WHIP can be attributed to a decrease in his K/9, increase in his BB/9, and decrease in his K/BB:

2007: 8.17 K/9, 2.99 BB/9, 2.73 K/BB
2008: 5.51 K/9, 3.86 BB/9, 1.46 K/BB

He isn’t striking out nearly as many batters and is walking more; this is not a formula for success. Why isn’t he striking as many batters out?

Looking at his pitch selection and velocity, he is throwing essentially the same percentage of fastballs, curveballs, and changeups.

2007: 62.3% FA, 18.9% CB, 18.8% CH
2008: 62.5% FA, 19.6% CB, 17.9% CH

Looking at velocity we can see a discrepancy. While his curveball and changeup have maintained their velocity from a year ago, his fastball has significantly decreased.

2007: Fastball, 62.3%, 94.8 mph
2008: Fastball, 62.5%, 93.0 mph

He currently has the ninth lowest WPA amongst starting pitchers, at -0.72, but his WPA/LI comes in lower at -0.38. This tells me that his results regardless of the situation are better than what his results due to the situation suggest. He is the one putting himself in these situations, though, with his increase in baserunners allowed.

From first glance it appears that, if his decrease in velocity is truly the reason for the lack of strikeouts, than that would be a big, big problem. When he experienced success in 2006 and 2007 he threw 94+ mph, limited his baserunners, stranded a high percentage of those that reached base, and struck out a good amount relative to his walks surrendered.

This year, none of that is happening relative to the last two seasons. Sure he is a bit unlucky in his BABIP, especially since he is allowing a very low rate of 13% line drives, but if I am on the Tigers staff I am going to be more concerned with Verlander regaining the controllable skills that made him a dominant AL pitcher than chalking everything up as some bad luck.

A couple of weeks ago, I authored a post where I explained why Cliff Lee couldn’t continue pitching as well as he had in his first three starts of the season, when he’d allowed two runs and ran a 2/20 BB/K ratio. I was right; in the four starts since, he hasn’t pitched as well – he’s pitched better, walking two men and striking out 24 guys over his last 30 innings of brilliant work.

He didn’t get the win last night, but he tossed another nine inning shutout, and has now thrown 53 2/3 innings and given up five runs. He’s blanked the opponents in four of his seven starts. He’s only allowed 36 baserunners, and he’s left 31 men on base. We could go on and on, because the numbers don’t get any less ridiculous.

Here’s a comparison that might put this into perspective.

Cliff Lee, first seven starts of 2008: 53 2/3 IP, 32 H, 4 BB, 44 K
Orel Hershiser, last six starts of 1988: 55 IP, 30 H, 9 BB, 34 K

You may have heard about that particular stretch of pitching, as Hershiser set the major league record for consecutive scoreless innings during that run. Cliff Lee is pitching at that level right now.

It’s not going to last – that much is obvious, because no one is this good. But while it does, let’s tip our caps to the guy who has put together one of the great pitching stretches in the history of baseball.

While most of the attention directed towards second basemen is deservedly paid to Chase Utley, another NL East player of the same position, who also happens to have a five-lettered last name beginning with “U” has been posting some pretty solid numbers of his own. Clearly, the title of this post indicates I am speaking about Dan Uggla, who has helped the Marlins to a 23-14 record; believe it or not… that is the highest winning percentage in baseball. Yes, folks, the Marlins, as of right now, are “the best team in baseball.”

Uggla has posted some pretty drastic splits in his numbers this year but let’s first examine everything on the whole:

2006: .282/.339/.480, 112 OPS+, 27 HR, 33 2B-3B, 154 GP
2007: .245/.326/.479, 108 OPS+, 31 HR, 52 2B-3B, 159 GP
2008: .279/.359/.618, 155 OPS+, 11 HR, 12 2B-3B, 36 GP

Taking batting average out of the equation, Uggla essentially performed the same last year as in his rookie season. Many thought he fell into the sophomore slump due to his .245 BA and big jump in strikeouts (123 to 167), but his OBP, SLG, OPS, OPS+, HR and RBI all remained relatively similar. Additionally, his BABIP was a tad lucky in 2006 whereas it was right on par last year. This year, however, everything has jumped and were he to keep pace, he would finish the season with close to 50 home runs. This is not very likely to happen, though, so instead of focusing on what he could do this year, let’s look at what is contributing to these numbers, starting with his splits vs. pitchers:

vs. RHP: .307/.383/.733, 11 HR, 24 RBI (115 PA)
vs. LHP: .200/.293/.286, 0 HR, 3 RBI (41 PA)

Here are his home/road splits:

Home: .213/.306/.533, .839 OPS, 6 HR, 12 RBI (85 PA)
Away: .361/.423/.721, 1.142 OPS, 5 HR, 15 RBI (71 PA)

And here are splits between April and May:

April: 26 GP, .255/.330/.471, .801 OPS, .306 BABIP, 4 HR, 12 RBI
May: 10 GP, .353/.439/1.059, 1.498 OPS, .313 BABIP, 7 HR, 15 RBI

He has homered in seven of his ten games this month and has an absolutely ridiculous SLG and OPS. Additionally, looking at his career splits, May has always been his best month. In May, over the last three years, he has an OPS of 1.026; next closest is June’s .903.

To sum everything up, this year Uggla likes facing righties and hitting on the road, and in his career, REALLY likes this month.

Oliver Perez has always been something of an enigma. A power throwing southpaw who got to the majors with San Diego at a young age and had some early success, he was sent to Pittsburgh along with Jason Bay in the ill fated Brian Giles deal and turned in an amazing 2004 season, striking out 239 batters in 198 innings on his way to posting a 2.98 ERA at age 22. At that point, he looked like one of the best young hurlers in baseball.

The wheels came off the bus quickly, though, as he lost his command of the strike zone and dealt with mechanical issues. In just a year and a half, he went from Pittsburgh ace to New York reclamation project, as the Mets picked him up and hoped to get his career back on track. It worked, too, as he threw 177 quality innings last year and helped add some firepower to the Mets rotation. However, while he has become an asset on the mound, you never really know what you’re going to get from Perez on any given day. Here are his starts from 2007 and 2008, broken down into groupings of Game Scores (where 50 represents an average start, 40 or less is lousy, and 60 or more is quite good).

20-29: 3
30-39: 7
40-49: 4
50-59: 8
60-69: 10
70:79: 5

While Perez’s personal average game score in 2007 and 2008 is 52.8, he’s been disastrously bad in 10 those 37 starts. In three of his first four starts this year, he didn’t give up a single run. In the other start, he gave up six runs in 4 1/3 innings. Perez is both occasionally great and occasionally awful. The end result is a pretty decent pitcher, but certainly not one you want to bet on.

Last week I talked about the Cincinnati Reds’ depth at third base. The San Diego Padres found themselves in a similar situation with current third baseman Kevin Kouzmanoff, as well as prospects Matt Antonelli and Chase Headley. Unlike the Reds organization, which has had to move prospects to third base because of defensive deficiencies elsewhere, the Padres have been able to move prospects off third base to other positions: Antonelli to second base and Headley to left field. Those moves alleviate some of the stagnation issues that come with too much depth at any one position.

Kouzmanoff is by no means a top five third baseman in the National League. But to be fair, judging offensive contributions from offensive players on the Padres is never easy given the park that they play half of their games in. Overall, he is hitting .278/.310/.383 with three homers in 162 at-bats. Let’s take a look at his home and away splits:

Home: 80 AB .250/.265/.363 2 HR
Away: 82 AB .305/.352/.402 1 HR

Obviously, Kouzmanoff has a much nicer average at home but the power numbers are not that dissimilar. He is displaying below average power for a third baseman both on the road and at home. Kouzmanoff is also not a great defensive third baseman by any means. Should either Antonelli or Headley prove unable to handle their new positions in the long run, Kouzmanoff may not be showing enough to make himself irreplaceable.

Antonelli came close to winning the second base job this spring but was assigned to Triple-A for more seasoning, which probably turned out to be a good thing for the 2006 first round pick. He has taken OK to second base defensively, but his bat has struggled this season and he is hitting only .185/.329/.336 in 119 at-bats. Last season, Antonelli’s offence was probably a little overrated after he hit .314/.409/.499 in 347 High-A at-bats and .294/.395/.476 in 187 Double-A at-bats. Both of those parks – Lake Elsinore and San Antonio – are good hitter’s parks in good hitter’s leagues. Given that Antonelli came into 2008 with less than 200 at-bats above A-ball, it shouldn’t be that big of a surprise that he has struggled. With Tadahito Iguchi doing a respectable job of bridging the gap from present to future, the Padres can afford Antonelli the time to develop a little further.

Headley is having a better offensive time at Triple-A than Antonelli, although he did struggle early on in April. In his last 10 games, Headley has hit .429 (18-for-42) and has his line up to .294/.368/.441. Last season, the 2005 second round pick really put himself on the prospect map with a .330/.437/.580 performance at Double-A San Antonio. His power is down noticeably this season but he’s holding his own. With the Padres last in the National League in a number of key offensive categories (runs, average, on-base percentage and slugging) it may not be long before the club decides to shake things up. With less-than-inspired offensive performances from the likes of Justin Huber, Scott Hairston, Paul McAnulty and Jody Gerut, it may not be long before we see Headley patrolling left field for the Padres.

With Corey Koskie suffering from post-concussion syndrome, and the platoon of Craig Counsell/Tony Graffanino not producing, the Brewers brought up Ryan Braun last May hoping he could quell any or all of their hot corner problems. The prospect with the nickname “The Hebrew Hammer”—odd, that’s Gabe Kapler’s nickname as well—did not disappoint, posting incredibly gaudy numbers in just 113 games. He would win the Rookie of the Year award and, by all accounts, had one of the best offensive rookie seasons in the history of the game.

In it, he posted a slash line of .324/.370/.634, with an 153 OPS+, 26 doubles, 6 triples, and 34 home runs. Remember, too, that his season did not begin until May 24th.

He has gotten off to a slow start this year, hitting .275/.306/.463, with an OPS+ of just 99, 13 doubles, and 5 home runs. Coming into the season the projection systems did not have much to work with, as he only played most of one season, but all saw him finishing the season with an OPS of at least .829; it is currently .769. Those with OPS counts in a similar range: Jeff Keppinger (.770), Ian Kinsler (.773).

***Actually, and I only leave this in because it helps prove a small sample size point, but this article was written seemingly before Braun’s stats from yesterday updated; with his game yesterday, some of the numbers change. Due to his two home run performance, his OPS jumped from .769 to .814. And, for anyone wondering, Kinsler went up to .793 while Keppinger skyrocketed to .800.***

MGL recently posted a study that takes a look at what hot or cold April’s tell us about hitters. He finds that those who started off slow essentially finished the year with their projected OPS; while this does not necessarily relate to Braun in the sense that those used in the study had OPS counts under .500, I think the above mention of his OPS jump illustrates how hot or cold starts can be very deceiving and not necessarily indicative at all of what to expect. His numbers still aren’t where they were last year but that does not mean they will not be by the end of the year.

Using the stats we have for this season, let’s try to deduce what Braun is doing differently this year, if anything, or if this is all just the work of evil small sample sizes.

Looking at his swing data, he is making contact much more than he did last year. Despite swinging at about five percent less pitches in the strike zone he is making contact over six percent more often. Additionally, he is swinging at over four percent more pitches outside of the strike zone but making contact three percent more often. As we would intuitively expect following such a tremendous season, he is seeing less pitches in the strike zone. While I will need to do a full Pitch F/X study on him to see what he’s doing with these pitches outside of the zone, one possibility is that he simply isn’t connecting as well to them.

Another area to explore involves his BABIP and rates of balls in play. He is hitting more line drives this year, going from 16% to 18%; his grounders have gone from 38.8% to 32.8%; and his flyballs have jumped from 44.9% to 49.2%. Last year, his xBABIP would have been somewhere in the .280-.286 range; it ended up at .367. This year, though, they are within reason; his current BABIP of .313 comes pretty darn close to his expected .306 clip.

Another interesting aspect of the Hebrew Hammer (Braun, not Kapler) is his walks deficiency. He walked just 6% of the time last year, resulting in a BB/K of 0.26; that 0.26 would have been the seventh worst had he garnered enough plate appearances to truly qualify. This year he is walking just 4.4% of the time and, despite reducing his K-rate by about four percent, his BB/K of 0.23 currently ranks as the eighth worst.

This is essentially just a recap of what he has been doing this year as compared to last, and it seems that a few of the aforementioned factors are contributing to his “slow” start. Then again, as MGL and Braun’s performance yesterday showed, things can quickly change. For the sake of Braun and Brewers fans everywhere, I hope in August, when Braun smacks dingers #42-43 we can revisit this article and go “Jeez, what the heck was Seidman talking about!?”