Archive for 2008

Last year, Fausto Carmona was a sensation, coming from out of nowhere to become a frontline starter and help propel the Indians into contention. This year, Carmona has been more of an enigma, posting an excellent 2.60 ERA but with a horrendous 26 walks and 13 strikeouts in 34 innings pitched. His command has deserted him, and while his famous “turbo sinker” is still getting ground balls, he’s putting a lot of men on base and is lucky to have been able to leave so many stranded.

When looking over Carmona’s pitch selection data here on fangraphs, one thing jumped out to me – he’s throwing the fastball 81% of the time, which puts him behind only Daniel Cabrera and Aaron Cook among guys who just huck fastball after fastball at the plate. While Cook has impeccable command, most pitchers don’t really want to be compared to Daniel Cabrera pretty much ever, and it’s possible that Carmona is simply trying to hard too put his fastball over the plate.

He’s always thrown a lot of fastballs (last year, he was at 75% versus a league average of 59%), but he’s throwing fewer of his off speed pitches this year in order to make room for the uptick in hard stuff, and despite the shiny ERA, it’s not working very well. With Carmona’s fastball command deserting him, he’d be best served not relying on it almost exclusively, because right now, hitters are far too willing to let him give them the free pass.

With Cleveland’s offense struggling, they’re going to rely on their pitching to get them through, and Carmona is a huge part of that rotation. They have to get him going, and they don’t have a whole lot more time to get him straightened out.

Entering 2008 the Cincinnati Reds were supposed to feature two exciting rookies. No, not Joey Votto and Johnny Cueto. All the hoopla surrounding the Reds’ future involved top prospects Jay Bruce and Homer Bailey. But a funny thing happened along the way during spring training: It was decided Bruce and Bailey needed some more seasoning. And the emergence of Cueto, as well as the late March addition of free agent Corey Patterson, afforded the Reds that luxury.

Votto has enjoyed a solid season in Cincinnati, so far. He is hitting .294/.348/.506 and has four home runs in 85 at-bats. The 24-year-old Canadian has done the unthinkable: He’s taken playing time away from a veteran (Scott Hatteberg) under manager Dusty Baker’s watch.

Cueto was blowing everyone away early in the season – fans, writers and batters, alike. He’s likely hit the inevitable wall, after allowing 12 runs in his last two starts (including a stinker where he allowed seven runs in 1.2 innings against the surprising St. Louis Cardinals). In truth, his first major league appearance probably did him more harm than good after he caught everyone’s attention by allowing one run on one hit over seven innings, while striking out 10. The bar was raised a little too high after that, and he’s only been ‘pretty good’ since then, as his 5.40 season ERA shows.

Meanwhile, down on the farm in Triple-A, Bruce and Bailey are quietly going about their business showing that they are ready whenever the Reds organization decides it needs them.

Bruce, who turned 21 a month ago, is hitting .284/.308/.505 with five homers in 109 at-bats. He still has some rough spots, as witnessed by the fact he’s racked up 27 strikeouts and only six walks. But he’s stolen seven bases in as many attempts and the left-handed batter is hitting .303 against southpaws with an .801 OPS (but no walks in 33 at-bats). He’s been slumping lately and has hit only .152 in his last 10 games with 11 strikeouts in 32 at-bats.

Bailey has had only one bad outing in six appearances for the Triple-A Louisville Bats. On April 25 against Indianapolis he allowed four runs in six innings on six hits (Oh, the horror). Other than that, he’s been great. Overall, he has a 2.29 ERA and has allowed 30 hits in 39.1 innings of work. He’s improved his control and walked just nine batters, while striking out 32. He’s still obviously working up in the zone a lot and has a GO/AO (ground out to air out) rate of 0.76. The right-handed pitcher is holding left-handed batters to a .189 average.

Given the struggles of Bronson Arroyo (8.63 ERA) and Josh Fogg (9.27 ERA), Bailey could be up before Votto celebrates Victoria Day (May 19). Bruce could potentially help ignite the offence with outfielders Ken Griffey (.228/.310/.377), Patterson (.200/.263/.433), and Adam Dunn (.221/.375/.389) struggling.

The New York Daily News recaps Kerry Wood’s incredible 20 strikeout performance all the way back on May 6th, 1998. The SportsCenter highlights are a must watch: (hat tip: Baseball Think Factory)

With the hot starts of Chase Utley, Derrek Lee, and even Nate McLouth, Dodgers shortstop Rafael Furcal has posted tremendous numbers seemingly under the radar. Entering last night, Furcal had the 8th best OPS, 4th best OBP, and ranked behind just Utley and Chipper Jones in Runs Created. Even though we have only played one month, Furcal currently sports a slash line of .369/.453/.585, and has been a major force behind the Dodgers current surge.

What initially strikes me as odd is how he has virtually posted the same LD/GB/FB percentages as last year. In 2007 it was 18.7/49.7/31.6; this year it is currently 18.5/50.9/30.6. Based on his frequency of line drives his xBABIP is around the .300-.310 mark. While it met expectations at .298 last year, it is almost one-hundred points higher so far at .396.

Though his strikeout rate has stayed the same he is walking over four percent more often. In turn, he is seeing 3.95 pitches per plate appearance, more than the 3.69 in 2007 and 3.84 in 2006.

Luckily for Fangraphs fans, David recently added the swing data, which adds new avenues of exploration. Furcal is swinging at three percent less pitches outside of the zone, relative to last season, but is making contact three percent more often. His selectivity can be seen on an overall level, too, as he is swinging about five percent less at pitches inside the strike zone while maintaining his contact rate from a year ago; pitchers have also been throwing more in the zone to him.

Has something clicked? Will Furcal establish a new level of production? The signs tend to suggest he will not be this productive all season but, if he can remain selective and wait for “his pitch,” he may be able to sustain these contact rates.

While his likely regression will prevent him from an OPS over 1.000 come September it does not mean his season cannot continue to be stellar. He has been an integral part of a Dodgers team that has caught fire and it will be very interesting to see what happens to the success of the team if and when his flame begins to flicker.

For years, the Angels have had a couple of all-stars at the front of their rotation, anchoring their team and leading them to playoff contention. With John Lackey and Kelvim Escobar starting the year on the disabled list, however, it looked like 2008 would be the year where the Angels had to win by scoring runs and getting consistent pitching every five days, rather than being carried by a couple of Cy Young candidates.

Well, apparently, traditions are harder to break than expected, because once again, the Angels have a couple of guys pitching like aces at the front of their rotation. Joe Saunders and Ervin Santana are reasons 1A and 1B for why Los Angeles is 21-13 to start the year, ranking 2nd and 4th respectively in the American League in WPA among starting pitchers. Santana was brilliant again last night, throwing a complete game shutout against the Royals to lower his ERA to 2.02.

While these two have provided a big April lift for the Angels, the question of whether they’ve actually reached a new level of performance is unanswered. For that, let’s take a look at their relevant peripherals.

Santana: 6.98 K/9, 1.65 BB/9, 34.5% GB%
Saunders: 3.91 K/9, 1.86 BB/9, 46.5% GB%

Both of them are pounding the strike zone like never before, significantly reducing their walk rates from their major league career averages. That command improvement could certainly be legitimate. However, neither of them are striking out more batters than usual, and Saunders has actually seen his strikeout rate nosedive so far this year. Additionally, neither of them are getting any more groundballs than usual, so they’re not trading strikeouts for weak grounders. Those peripherals simply don’t match what you’d look for in a guy getting ready to contend for a Cy Young award. In fact, if we look at the numbers that affect run prevention and have very little predictive value, we see that both Saunders and Santana are leaning heavily on factors that are mostly beyond their control.

Santana: .236 BABIP, 4.7% HR/FB, 80.4% LOB%
Saunders: .253 BABIP, 6.3% HR/FB, 82.3% LOB%

All of those numbers are jumping and down, volunteering to regress to the mean. Those performances aren’t indicative of a true change in skill for either of these guys, and as those numbers shift back towards their career averages, both Santana and Saunders are going to give back a lot of the gains they’ve appeared to make early on.

If you’re an Angels fan, you have to be thrilled with what those guys have given you in the first month of the season, but you also shouldn’t expect it to continue for much longer. They’re both capable major league starters, but neither one is an all-star, and their early performances are built on a house of cards.

All win probability stats, game graphs, and play-by-play are now available for the years 1974 through 1980.

The most productive batter in terms of WPA over those 7 years was Rod Carew with 28.9 wins, closely followed by Mike Schmidt with 28.6 wins. Jim Palmer led all pitchers with 23.2 wins, with closer Goose Gossage not far behind with 22.1 wins.

I’m hoping to have 1981 – 2001 available soon.

On a side note: FIP is now correclty adjusted by year and FIP career totals are also weighted appropriately.

After five innings of shutout work against the Dodgers on April 13th, Greg Maddux had won 349 games in his illustrious career. Since then, winning his 350th has proved to be quite difficult, as his last four starts have resulted in three losses and a no-decision. Even though one was a tough loss and his no-decision consisted of seven shutout innings, Maddux still sits on 349 wins. Seeing my idol fail to secure this milestone brought to mind what other pitchers struggled in recording wins milestones of their own.

The last pitcher to 350 was Roger Clemens, who did so with his third win last season. Prior to that 8 IP-2 H performance against the Twins, Clemens had failed in three consecutive starts to get to 350.

Nolan Ryan won 324 games in his career but #320 did not come easily. He won his 319th game in July of 1992 but then failed in TEN consecutive starts closing out the season (6 losses, 4 no-decision) to get his milestone. As fate would have it, he would get #320 in his first start of the 1993 season.

In an odd turn of events, Don Sutton lost his next start after winning his 319th game, but picked up #320 after going 4.1 IP in relief soonafter.

Phil Niekro won his 299th game in 1985 but missed out on #300 in four subsequent starts. He would win his 300th in the final start of that 1985 season.

It took Early Wynn six tries to get his 300th win and, unfortunately for him, these attempts spanned two years. After missing out in his final three 1962 starts, he could not win in his first three 1963 starts. I guess you could say his 300th win came…early…in the 1963 season. (Note – I apologize to pun-haters). He finally won his 300th in his fourth start in 1963, however it came with the ugly-in-1963 line of 5 IP, 6 H, 3 ER.

Maddux has struggled to win his 350th but, have no fear, he will reach this milestone even if it takes him a Nolan Ryan-esque ten attempts.

One of the main reasons I got involved with sabermetrics was to show fans intimidated by statistical analysis that not all effective evaluative methods consist of complex mathematical formulas. My favorite statistics are ones like FIP, wOBA, and EqA: better indicators of skill and performance but scaled to look similar to the more commonly accepted barometers. In using similar scales more of a chance exists for widespread acceptance.

Through surveys I found that a major reason fans shy away from better evaluative methods is that they are unfamiliar with the baselines. They don’t necessarily know what a good VORP is, or a good WPA; however, they definitely know what constitutes a good or bad ERA or batting average.

One of these stats not mentioned too much is called “Fan Save Value,” and it was created by analyst Ari Kaplan while working for the Orioles in 1990. Essentially, as described in the book Baseball Hacks by Joseph Adler, FSV measures the difficulty level of each save by taking into account the lead with which the closer enters as well as the number of outs he must record to secure a win for his team. When all of the results are added together we are left with a number similar to the saves total but more indicative of how hard a closer had to work.

The formula for FSV is (X/Y)/2, where X=the amount of outs to record and Y=the lead of his team. For instance, recording a one-inning save with a two-run lead would result in an FSV of 0.75; 3 outs divided by 2 runs ahead, then divided by 2. Using this statistic I decided to look at the current saves leaders and determine how hard each has had to work:

Francisco Rodriguez, LAA: 12 saves, 11.3 FSV
George Sherrill, Bal: 11 saves, 7.6 FSV
Joe Nathan, Min: 10 saves, 10.8 FSV
Jonathan Papelbon, Bos: 8 saves, 10.3 FSV
Mariano Rivera, NYY: 8 saves, 9.8 FSV
Huston Street, Oak: 8 saves, 8.3 FSV

Brian Wilson, SF: 10 saves, 10.5 FSV
Eric Gagne, Mil: 9 saves, 8.0 FSV
Jason Isringhausen, StL: 9 saves, 6.5 FSV
Brandon Lyon, Ari: 9 saves, 9.5 FSV
Brad Lidge, Phi: 7 saves, 7.5 FSV
Jon Rauch, Was: 7 saves, 6.1 FSV

The saves leader in each league remains on top when using FSV but the rest of the leaderboard shifts. The biggest dropoffs come from Isringhausen and Sherrill: Both of these pitchers have entered save situations in which their teams led by large margins and/or recorded a couple of 0.2 IP saves.

Papelbon, on the other hand, has pitched more than one inning in a few of his saves. Since the overall result looks similar to the saves total, and saves are commonly used as an end-all when evaluating closers, the FSV is an easy to use and better evaluative tool because it adds context to a normally context-free statistic.

I’d imagine that most of you have probably heard of the term “AAAA player”, the characterization given to guys who achieve success in Triple-A but haven’t shown that they can sustain success in the major leagues. These guys put up gaudy numbers in the Pacific Coast and International Leagues, but for various reasons, they get exploited by major leaguers.

Perhaps the best of these Quad-A guys currently is Nelson Cruz, a power hitting outfield in the Rangers organization. Cruz has been destroying Triple-A arms for years, starting with Nashville in 2005, when he hit .269/.382/.490 as a 25-year-old. That wasn’t enough to get him a job in Milwaukee, so he went back to Nashville for 2006 and hit .302/.376/.528 before being traded to Texas in the Carlos Lee deal. The Rangers gave him 138 plate appearances after the trade, but he didn’t impress, putting up a .223/.261/.385 mark that got him sent back to Triple-A for the 2007 season. In response, he went bananas on the PCL, hitting .352/.430/.698 before Texas decided to give him another shot. He failed again, however, posting a .235/.286/.384 mark that was similar to his ’06 time with the Rangers. Between 2006 and 2007, Cruz accumulated 570 underwhelming plate appearances, showing an overly aggressive approach at the plate and an inability to hit breaking balls. These flaws saw him head to Oklahoma again to begin the 2008 season.

They apparently don’t throw breaking balls there, because if you thought he was good down there last year, you haven’t seen anything yet. Through the first 129 trips to the plate this year, Cruz is terrorizing the PCL to the tune of .375/.520/.781. In addition to his prodigious power (he’s leading the PCL in home runs with 11), Cruz has adopted a more selective approach at the plate. His walk rate has nearly doubled and he’s cut his strikeouts down as well, leading to an impressive 27/18 walk to strikeout ratio. By letting pitchers put him on base and waiting for his pitch to drive, he’s gone from a cleanup hitter to a monster. No one in Triple-A is good enough to get him out, and they’re doing well if he doesn’t just end up rounding the bases on his own.

At some point, some organization is going to have to decide that perhaps Nelson Cruz has earned another shot to shake the “AAAA player” label. He’s 27, entering his physical peak, and his power is being wasted on the Pacific Coast League. Clearly, there’s a major league job somewhere for this guy, isn’t there?

Most teams have played about 30 games so far, so through the first baseball month of the season, let’s take a look at the guys who have performed the best at the plate. We’ll do it all-star team style, with one player representing each position. I’m using WPA/LI as the determinant for offensive production.

Catcher: Geovany Soto – 0.64
First Base: Conor Jackson – 1.49
Second Base: Chase Utley – 1.78
Shortstop: Rafael Furcal – 1.33
Third Base: Chipper Jones – 1.49
Left Field: Pat Burrell – 1.77
Center Field: Nate McLouth – 0.91
Right Field: Ryan Church – 0.75
Designated Hitter Hideki Matsui – 0.73

The thing that jumps out to me is that all eight position players represent the National League. Lots of NL hitters going nuts in April, but none more so than Chase Utley, who was clearly the best player on the planet for the first month of the season. Furcal, Chipper, and Burrell had special months as well, especially if you give Burrell credit for the fact that he leads the league in clutch hitting.