I thought I was pretty smart. This past Friday, I noticed that Colby Lewis was making his triumphant return to the Majors. As many of you know, our very own Carson Cistulli has a Texas-sized Man Crush on Mr. Lewis. I suggested to Carson that we should both watch the game and post a duel article on Monday (today) commenting on Lewis’ start. I should have realized that my “bright ideas” always backfire.

Instead of getting to publicly laugh in Carson’s face, I have to eat crow: Lewis actually pitched well. Prior to his self-imposed banishment to Japan, Lewis had appeared in parts of five MLB seasons and posted a 5.79 FIP, 5.14 BB/9 and 6.34 K/9. Hardly exciting stuff.

But then something happened to Lewis in Japan… He apparently learned how to be a pitcher. This past Friday night, he held the Mariners lineup (albeit not a scary collection of hitters) to just one run in seven innings. He allowed five hits and four walks in the game, while also striking out three.

I am a little worried about Lewis going forward because he allowed a lot of fly ball outs (10) and Texas is known for being a pretty good place to hit for power. As well, his control was clearly better than his command – but both are significantly improved from what he previous MLB numbers would suggest. He’s also going to have to find a reliable third pitch (either his curve or change-up) because his fastball-slider combo is not going to be enough once a scouting report on Lewis starts to circulate.

I’m willing to admit that Lewis may not be quite as bad as I thought he was going to be this season, but I still predict a modest WAR this season in the 1.5 to 2.5 range. I think he’ll give Texas some much-needed innings, but he’s going to have some bad games when his fastball command is off and his pitches catch too much of the plate.

Not often can one player account for 60% of his team’s runs batted in and still have a night that invokes more sympathy than props. Will Venable’s Saturday night has to qualify.

Everything started off ordinarily enough. In the second inning against Rockies’ starter Jason Hammel, Venable took the first pitch for a ball and then grounded the next offering to the shortstop for the third out. -.012 WPA.

Venable would get his second at-bat in the fourth inning. The bases would be loaded with one out. Once again, Venable would take the first pitch for a ball. He would work the count to 3-2 before hitting a ball to center which resulted in not a single, nor a double, but a triple. Effectively clearing the bases and putting the Padres up 3-2. +.256 WPA.

Venable would come up with a runner on in the sixth and promptly grounded into a double play. -.064 WPA.

In the eighth inning of a tied game, up would came Venable, again with the bags full of runners and two outs. The tough Rafael Betancourt on the mound would prevail in the end, striking Venable out and stranding the runners. -.146 WPA.

Onto the tenth inning, Venable up, runners on the corners, and Randy Flores is brought in to face him. Flores would do his job, as Venable would ground the ball right back to him, again ending the threat. -.148 WPA.

He’s nowhere near finished. Two innings later, Venable would come up with … get this, the bases loaded in a tied game. He would get ahead in the count 1-0 and then hit a roper into left field that the speedy Carlos Gonzalez ran down. -.182 WPA.

To call this game a battle of the benches and bullpens is an understatement. Bud Black and Jim Tracy managed like this was taking place a week earlier, and that they could mutually agree to end the affair whenever they pleased. The Padres’ bullpen shines as the most impressive part of the latter innings. Heath Bell allowed more baserunners than the other Padres relievers had combined.

Oh, but our friend Will Venable was not done and after the Pads grabbed the lead (the eventual winning run), he would step to the dish with a runner on third … and fly out. -.039 WPA.

For those keeping count, that’s a total of -.334 WPA by Venable despite a three RBI triple that gave his team the lead. That’s a really impressive set of misfortunate at-bats by Venable the rest of the night to rack up more than -.500 WPA in one game.

I’ve seen some confusion out there about the Fielding Bible runs saved metrics on FanGraphs. The Fielding bible has two metrics, one in plays made above average and then another in runs above average.

We are only displaying the information in Runs Above Average.

For those of you who are looking for comparables to UZR it is DRS. rPM (plus minus runs saved), would be comparable to RngR + ErrR.

Here’s correlation between the two for players who played at least 500 innings in a season from 2003 to 2009:

Here’s another more indepth look: A Quick Comparison of UZR and Plus/Minus

For the most part they will agree, but there are definitely some players where they don’t. You can read more about the differences between UZR and Defensive Runs Saved here:

MGL on the differences between UZR and +/-

There have been a few changes to the fielding sections of the site.

The biggest change is that John Dewan’s Fielding Bible +/- runs saved is now available on all the player pages and leaderboards going back to 2003. The stats that are associated with +/- runs saved are:

All in Runs Above Average:
rSB – Stolen Base Runs Saved (Catchers/Pitchers)
rBU – Bunt Runs Saved (1B/3B)
rGDP – Double Play Runs Saved (2B/SS)
rARM – Outfield Arms Runs Saved
rHR – HR Saving Catch Runs Saved
rPM – Plus Minus Runs Saved
DRS – Total Defensive Runs Saved

We’ve also added Revised Zone Ratings, which The Hardball Times used to carry. I’ll quote from THT:

Revised Zone Rating is the proportion of balls hit into a fielder’s zone that he successfully converted into an out. Zone Rating was invented by John Dewan when he was CEO of Stats Inc. John is now the owner of Baseball Info Solutions, where he has revised the original Zone Rating calculation so that it now lists balls handled out of the zone (OOZ) separately (and doesn’t include them in the ZR calculation) and doesn’t give players extra credit for double plays (Stats had already made that change). We believe both changes improve Zone Ratings substantially. To get a full picture of a player’s range, you should evaluate both his Revised Zone Rating and his plays made out of zone (OOZ). You can read more about the Revised Zone Ratings in this article.

BIZ – Balls in Zone
Plays Made – Total Plays Made
OOZ – Plays Made out of Zone

Then there’s some other fielding stats that were added such as:

FE – Fielding Errors
TE – Throwing Errors
DPS – Double Plays Started
DPT – Double Plays Turned
DPF – Double Plays Finished
Scp – First Baseman Scoops

Everything is available in the player pages and leaderboards and will be updated nightly.

This season’s UZR updates will be coming soon and we’ll have more on that later.

It’s come to my attention that the 2010 Contact% and Swinging Strike % numbers looked a bit off. The 4 stats impacted (Z-Contact%, O-Contact%, Contact%, and SwStr%), will be corrected in tonight’s data load are now fixed.

The last two posts have covered the best and worst fastballs when it comes to generating ground balls upon contact. The worst fastballs doubled as the worst pitches overall. Enough foreplay with the fastballs though, it’s time to reveal the best overall pitches. Who had the biggest, manliest, most groundballsiest pitches of 2009? Unsurprisingly, of the top five, four are curves with the misfit being a changeup.

Starting at the bottom of the list, we first encounter Erik Bedard and his curveball. Said pitch racked up an impressive 71% ground ball rate when put in play. Ahead of him is that aforementioned changeup, thrown by the master of the ground ball and the walk, Fausto Carmona. 74% of the time that Carmona’s changeup made contact with a bat, it fell toward the earth in rapid fashion.

We go back to curveballs for good now with our third place finisher, Chris Jakubauskas who, like Bedard, was with the Mariners. Now a Pirate after being claimed off waivers last November, Jakubauskas’ curveball registered a ground ball 75% of the time which is about all he has going for him. Coming out of the desolate wastelands of the Independent Leagues, it’s impressive enough that Jakubauskas has such a good pitch at his disposal.

Tying that mark was another AL West hurler, Gio Gonzalez. Gonzalez is a weird specimen, racking up huge strikeout rates but possessing no ability to consistently find the strike zone. His curve is about his only good pitch at this point, but if he ever manages to cut down his walk rate, he could make a big leap forward.

Finally, atop the leader board is Yovani Gallardo and his curve, which eeked past Gonzalez and Jakubauskas to the 76% mark for ground balls. There’s not much that needs to be said about Gallardo. We all know he’s good, he just needs to stay healthy.

Episode Seventeen
In which the panel is largely Canadian.

Headlines
Catcher, First, and Third: Informations!
Closer Sell-By Dates
Unrelenting Kindness
… and other hasty conclusions!

Featuring
Marc Hulet, Prospect Maven
Zach Sanders, Fellow Left Coaster

Finally, you can subscribe to the podcast via iTunes or other feeder things.

Audio on the flip-flop.

Read the rest of this entry »

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After the 2006 season the Blue Jays found themselves in a difficult position. They had finished the season at 87-75, only the second time in the previous six years that they had finished with a winning record. They also finished second in the AL East, the first time they’d finished above third since their back-to-back World Series wins in 1992 and 93. At least for the moment things looked optimistic.

Yet J.P. Ricciardi knew what lay in the team’s future. The Red Sox would surely reload for the 2007 season, making it difficult for the Jays to contend. Still, they had a roster full of promise. On the offensive side, perhaps no player was of more value to the team than Vernon Wells. He led the 2006 Blue Jays in wOBA while playing center field, no small feat for a team that scored five runs per game. Yet he might not have been a Blue Jay for much longer.

With over five years’ service time under his belt after the 06 season, Wells was eligible for free agency after the 2007 season. Even though he remained under contract for one more season, rumors already began to swirl that the Rangers would pursue him aggressively. It was further thought that Wells, an Arlington native, would jump on the opportunity to play in front of his hometown crowd. That would have been a disaster for the Blue Jays franchise.

Knowing what was at stake, Ricciardi signed Wells to a seven-year, $126 million contract extension. Since Wells was under contract for the 2007 season, the deal was set to run through 2014. At the time it was the sixth largest contract in baseball history, topping the seven-year, $119 million contract Carlos Beltran signed with the Mets in 2005. The deal was certainly a risk; since becoming a full-time player in 2002, Wells topped a .335 wOBA just three times, and produced at a level that would justify the contract’s $18 million AAV just once.

Wells’s fall from grace is well documented, and I’ll spare the torturous details. He has gotten off to a hot start this season, though, going 6 for 13, including four home runs, with two walks and a HBP. Coincidentally, that production came at Rangers Ballpark in Arlington, where Wells would have played his home games had he signed there as a free agent after the 2007 season. (And, considering the Rangers’ failed pursuit of Torii Hunter that off-season, it stands to reason that they would have indeed been in, perhaps aggressively, on Wells.) It might have made you wonder what might have been had he ended up signing there.

Strangely, though, Wells has not hit well at Rangers Ballpark during his career. Because of the unbalanced schedule he has played a maximum of six games there per season, and oftentimes it’s only three. Even with his performance over the past three games he still sports a .327 wOBA. Heading into that series the number was, understandably, a bit more pathetic, just .282. That’s what happens when, in a small sample, you hit more home runs during one series than you do in your entire history at a ballpark. To that end, Wells’s four homers in the series best the three he hit there in 167 PA from 2001 through 2009.

With such small samples, it’s difficult to pick out anything significant in baseball’s first few weeks. Performances turn around pretty quickly, and we’ll see the number of players with .500+ wOBAs come down over the next few weeks — the next few days, even. No player better exemplifies this than Wells. We know that he won’t keep up this pace, but by hitting this well in the season’s first series, which included a couple of game-changing hits, he’s given Blue Jays fans a reason for optimism. And maybe made Rangers fans wonder what might have been, had Wells reached free agency after the 2007 season.

In his first start with the Angels last night, Joel Pineiro showed that the sinker he learned from Dave Duncan traveled with him to Anaheim, getting 15 groundballs in 6 innings of work. While he gave up three runs, he’ll pitch well for the Angels as long as that two-seam fastball is still diving, and there’s no indication that he lost it in the transition back to the AL.

However, this post isn’t really about Joel Pineiro. It’s about GB/FB ratio. Pineiro’s 15.00 GB/FB ratio tied with Felix Hernandez for the best of any pitcher to throw so far. However, if you sort by GB%, rather than GB/FB, you will notice that Ryan Dempster actually posted a higher groundball rate than Pineiro. Dempster ran a 75 percent GB% in his first start, compared to 71 percent for Pineiro, though his GB/FB ratio is a more pedestrian 4.50.

The difference, of course, is line drives. Dempster only gave up one, while Pineiro gave up five, and those don’t go in the GB/FB calculation. If the Twins had hit Pineiro less effectively, and those line drives had been converted into fly balls, his GB/FB ratio would have gone down, even though he would have pitched better and likely allowed fewer runs.

In other words, in this case, a higher GB/FB ratio is actually a bad thing.

Now, over a full season, this mostly evens out, and the correlation between GB% and GB/FB is pretty darn high. However, given that we have GB%, FB%, and LD%, I’d like to see GB/FB go by the wayside. It doesn’t serve any purpose, really. Why evaluate a pitcher on just two of the three batted ball types, rewarding him for giving up more of the most harmful kind?

GB% gives you all of the good information of GB/FB without any of the bad assumptions about line drive rates being equal. When describing a pitcher’s batted ball tendencies, you’re better off with GB% than GB/FB.

C.J. Wilson’s debut as a starting pitcher against Toronto yesterday could not have gone much better. Wilson threw 7 shutout innings, only allowing 5 hits, while striking out a remarkable 9 batters and only walking 2. Wilson hadn’t started a game in the major leagues since 2005 and had never thrown more than 6 innings in the majors.

Wilson performed very well in a relief role last season, putting up a crazy 10.26 K/9 and a 2.81 FIP/3.25 xFIP, worth 2.0 wins above replacement in a mere 73.2 innings. That kind of performance suggests that Wilson could be a serviceable starter, if not a good one, based on the idea that relievers typically perform about one run worse per nine innings in a starting pitcher’s role. That’s because when relievers are only throwing in one or two inning bursts, they’re able to turn up the heat more often, but more importantly, they only go through the lineup one time. The other question with relievers shifting to a starting role is often their platoon splits, and Wilson’s career platoon splits are heavy, as his career FIP and xFIP against right handed batters are 1.2 runs and 0.9 runs higher respectively.

So, let’s take a look at three things from Wilson’s first start. First of all – Wilson’s stuff. His velocity was down from an average fastball of 93.1 to 89.9. The velocity of most of his secondary stuff fell by a similar rate, except for his curveball, which fell from 81 MPH last season to 74 MPH on Thursday. His curveball also had a much sharper horizontal break, up to -4.3 inches from -2.8 career and -2.1 last season. It didn’t draw any swinging strikes, but 3 of the 4 he threw were strikes. All of his other stuff was generating swinging strikes, as his fastballs (four- and two-seamers combined) generated 8 swinging strikes in 62 pitches (12.9%), and his changeup and slider combined to draw 7 swinging strikes in 30 pitches (23.3%). Overall, this led to an excellent 15.3% swinging strike rate, slightly better than Rich Harden’s league leading 15.1% rate last season. Despite the drop in velocity, Wilson’s stuff was very effective.

Secondly, did his results change based on which time the Jays were going through their order? The first time through the order, the Jays only had two runners reach base – a single by leadoff hitter Mike McCoy and a walk issued to Edwin Encarnacion. The first 9 batters faced by Wilson went 1-8 with two strikeouts and the walk. The final 18 performed slightly better, but not greatly so. They went 4/17 (.222) with a walk, a double, and seven more strikeouts. Overall, Wilson just looked great throughout the whole start.

The final question – how did the left-hander fare against the Jays’ righties? The right-handed batters he faced – McCoy, Jose Bautista, Vernon Wells, Encarnacion, Alex Gonzalez, and Jose Molina – were 4-16, with two walks, five strikeouts, a double, and one double play. The lefties – Lind, Overbay, and Snider – were 1/9 with four strikeouts and a double. Wilson was very effective against hitters of each hand, and although right handers were more effective than lefties, he still managed to shut them down. That will be key as the season continues, as he will likely face lineups loaded with right handed batters, based on his career splits.

Overall, it was a very encouraging start for both Wilson and the Rangers. It wasn’t against one of the better offenses in the league, but it still looks like Wilson will be here to stay as a starter in the major leagues. He will be a key to a Rangers team hoping to break the Angels’ dominance in the AL West.