In 2009, the Atlanta Braves had one of the worst outfields in the major leagues. Their outfielders combined to hit for a .319 wOBA and combined for a -23.6 UZR. Overall, their outfield was 40 runs below the league average – the main weak spot on a team that won 86 games and could have been right in the thick of a playoff race. The first step to improving that outfield came in June of 2009, as the Braves acquired Nate McLouth. It wasn’t enough to make a playoff run, but McLouth was a definite improvement. His .342 wOBA was a far cry above the failed seasons of Garret Anderson (.304 wOBA), Jeff Francoeur (.277), Jordan Schafer (.273), and Gregor Blanco (.244).

McLouth’s production has plummeted this season. Entering Thursday’s game, McLouth’s wOBA was a paltry .303, reminiscent of those 2009 Atlanta Braves outfielders whom he was imported to replace. Some of the telltale signs of random variation are there. McLouth’s .259 BABIP and 8.8% HR/FB rate are both career lows. His 13.4% walk rate is actually a career high.

However, there is one serious red flag with McLouth’s performance this season. His strikeout rate has skyrocketed to 29.1% against a career rate of 19.8%. As a result, despite a BABIP drop of only 22 points, McLouth’s batting average has fallen from .256 to .204. As a result, McLouth’s on base percentage has dropped by 28 points and his slugging has fallen by an alarming 86 points from the 2009 season.

His plate discipline numbers don’t offer an immediate answer as to why we are seeing this dramatic increase. McLouth’s swing rates, both inside and outside of the strike zone, are both quite low – around 8% below the league average – and his contact rates are above average. His plate discipline profile is very similar to his 2006 and 2007 seasons with Pittsburgh. In those years, McLouth struck out in 21.9% and 23.4% of at-bats respectively.

McLouth’s swinging strike rate of 5.1% is actually below his career average. Unsurprisingly, that means his kS% – percentage of plate appearances ending in a swinging strikeout – has remained around the levels of previous years and has actually decreased slightly from last year. That means that his kL% – strikeouts looking – is completely responsible for this increase in overall strikeouts. Indeed, McLouth’s kL% has risen to 13.4% – about triple his 2009 mark of 4.4% and the league average rate of 4.5%.

It would seem, then, that much of McLouth’s struggles are a result of looking at too many good pitches with two strikes. Taking pitches has always been a big part of McLouth’s offensive philosophy, so it is unsurprising that over a small sample some of the borderline pitches that McLouth watches, even on two strike counts, have gone for strikes instead of balls this year. This could be explained by simple random variation – poor calls from umpires, extraordinarily good control from pitchers in McLouth’s PAs – or it could also be explained by a decline in McLouth’s ability to perceive the strike zone.

It’s too early to say for sure which is the actual cause. However, one thing is clear: in order for McLouth to right the ship, he’s simply going to have to start making contact with these third strikes. If he doesn’t, his early season struggles will continue, as he simply does not have the skills to be productive with the increased strikeout rates.

Just kidding, it actually is about Colby Lewis. Except not entirely about Colby Lewis. Except mostly about Colby Lewis.

Chicago (NL) at Texas | Friday, May 21 | 8:05 pm ET
Starting Pitchers
Cubs: Ted Lilly
31.0 IP, 4.94 K/9, 2.03 BB/9, .262 BABIP, 36.6% GB, 10.9% HR/FB, 4.70 xFIP
Projected FIP: 4.02 (FAN) 4.10 (CHONE) 4.06 (ZiPS)

Rangers: Colby Lewis
51.1 IP, 9.47 K/9, 3.68 BB/9, .261 BABIP, 36.6% GB, 8.3% HR/FB, 3.99 xFIP
Projected FIP: N/A (FAN) 3.99 (CHONE) 4.39 (ZiPS)

Watch For
• Colby Lewis’s slidepiece. (See below.)
• Starlin Castro. He’s just a tiny, tiny baby. The type of baby with only four strikeouts in his first 49 plate appearances.
• Geovany Soto. Specifcally, his place in the batting order. Soto’s started 32 games and has batted either seventh or eighth in 30 of those games. Also, guess what? He has a .452 OBP.
• Marlon Byrd. Somehow Byrd is third among all MLBers in WAR with a 2.2 mark.

On Colby Lewis’s Slidepiece
A couple weeks ago, Dave Allen commanded his computer brain to think about Colby Lewis’s slider. Here’s what it found out:

Compared to his previous time in the MLB, he is getting tons more swings outside the zone and swinging strikes — not surprising given his huge strikeout rate. This increase seems due, at least partially, to increased slider use. In his pre-NPB days he threw it 7% of the time, but through five starts this year he is throwing it a hair below 30% (according to the BIS classifications as well as my classifications of the pitchf/x data). By linear weights of the BIS classifications it is his nastiest pitch, already worth 5 runs above average, and I see it getting swinging strikes 20% of the time. The average slider last year got a swinging strike 13% of the time. Overall, Lewis is getting just under 12% swinging strikes compared to a league average of 8%.

Another Thing About Colby Lewis
In case you haven’t seen Matthew Carruth’s series previews over at Lookout Landing, you should know that he provides these great tables. As Carruth writes:

Basically, it lays out each pitcher’s basic repertoire, frequency and average speed and then grades it on the familiar 20-80 scouting scale. The grades are determined by league percentiles in swinging strikes (K), strike rate (BB) and ground balls (GB) for each pitch. Hopefully this should give you an easy overview of each pitcher’s strengths and weaknesses. The last row is the overall ranks for the pitcher based on all his pitches thrown.

Here’s what Colby Lewis’s repertoire looks like by that method:

Pitch 	%	Sp 	K 	BB 	GB
FB 	56% 	90 	65 	45 	20
SL 	25% 	82 	65 	70 	75
CB 	12% 	79 	40 	50 	65
CH 	7% 	85 	40 	75 	50
Overall	--	--	70	55	25

What you notice there is that (a) yes, Lewis’s slider is good, and (b) probably another ground ball or two on the fastball wouldn’t hurt. For how high he works in the zone with it, though — the fastball, that is — such a thing might not be happening, stat.

What You, the Reader, Are Saying to Me
Hey, Carson: did you ever consider for even one second in your life that maybe Colby Lewis isn’t some kind of deity?

What I Am Saying Right Back to You
Yeah, I actually did think that for a second, and it was the darkest, loneliest second of my life, you jerk nut.

If I Had My Druthers
• Colby Lewis would found a fast-food chain.
• The featured item on menu of said chain would be sliders.
• Get it? Sliders!

Another eight solid innings for Doug Fister last night brings him up to 55 pitched in just eight starts in 2010. With his ERA still under 2, but his xFIP (4.23) essentially matching his xFIP from a year ago (4.50), I wanted to dig into his pitch numbers to see if there is anything substantially different in his process this season.

The reason for the low ERA is easy to souse out. Fister’s BABIP is just .231, his home run per fly ball stands at 1.8% and his LOB% is 79.1%. The first two are obviously unsustainable and the LOB% might be realistic if he struck out a batter per inning, but given that he’s at less than half that rate, I wouldn’t bank on it holding up. Granted, Fister has allowed fewer line drives this season so his lower BABIP is not entirely a result of great defense, but it’s far too early to call that a repeatable skill.

Doug Fister has almost an identical strikeout to walk ratio this year (2.5) as last year (2.4), but only because both strikeouts and walks have declined by a nearly equal percentage. The main change is an 11-point increase in his ground ball rate. That is a significant leap and worth finding out the cause for.

I created a table of all of Doug Fister’s pitches from each of 2009 and 2010 and compared how each pitch has generated swinging strikes (to predict strikeouts), balls (to predict walks) and ground balls (to predict home runs). The conclusion I can draw is that Fister is somehow getting far more ground balls from his primary fastball in 2010 (49%) than he did previously (26%). Doing so has allowed him to throw it much more often and he has thrown his fastball nearly 80% of the time in 2010 from 61% in 2009.

I can only find that as a clear difference. Fister is missing fewer bats, but that is to be expected when he throws fewer breaking pitches and more fastballs. Ditto for issuing fewer walks. Fister appears to have added some deception to his delivery that has increased his ability to get batters to take fastball for strikes and hit more of them on the ground when they do swing.

What change that is and whether it actually exists rather than a statistical sample issue is the purview of scouts. I cannot tell if Doug Fister is a different pitcher this season, but his numbers so far do exhibit some suggestive trends.

Entering Thursday’s start against the Cleveland Indians, Luke Hochevar’s season could accurately be described as “roller coaster.” It doesn’t matter if we refer to his results or his stuff – Hochevar has been all over the place this season

First, his WPA to date:

And his velocity to date:

Hochevar’s season took another turn on Wednesday, as he turned in his best start since throwing 7.2 shutout innings including 15 ground balls in his opening day start against the Detroit Tigers. Hochevar went the distance, striking out seven, walking two, and allowing one home run. Hochevar also drew 10 ground balls against 10 balls in the air, right in line with his 49.6% ground ball rate.

The most encouraging sign for Hochevar in today’s start was a 15.9% swinging strike rate. That’s over double both his career rate of 7.9% and his season-to-date rate of 7.7%. Hochevar was drawing swinging strikes on nearly every one of the seven pitches the Pitch F/X data recorded today. Particularly effective were his cut fastball and slider – Hochevar threw the two pitches a combined 33 times, drawing 24 strikes (72.7%) and 5 swinging strikes (15.2%).

His fastball was around the zone all day. Only 11 of the 40 fastballs that he threw missed the rulebook strike zone, and he also drew 2 swinging strikes on it. Overall 29 of his fastballs were strikes, for a 70.7% rate. With the fastball averaging 93.6 MPH and topping out at 95.5, it should be a huge weapon for Hochevar, especially if he locates his secondary pitches as he was today. According to pitch type linear weights, the fastball was Hochevar’s most effective pitch, at -1.97 runs in only 40 pitches – a rate of -4.95 runs per 100 pitches thrown, an incredible rate for a fastball.

The Royals won’t be contending this year, as they’re already 8 games behind the Twins for the division and 9 games behind the Yankees for the Wild Card. With Zack Greinke already in place, the team sorely needs a second pitcher to step into that rotation. The Royals hope that Hochevar can be that guy, and today was an indication of just what he can do.

Tommy Hanson has been tremendous this year. He was not tremendous today, giving up eight runs in the second inning, as the Reds chased him from the game. After Laynce Nix doubled in Jay Bruce and Ramon Hernandez, the Braves odds of winning stood at just 2.3 percent.

The Braves would mount a little bit of offense, eventually cutting the lead to 9-3 and seeing their win expectancy peak at 7.3 percent in the 5th inning. But, after a few more dead end rallies and a six run deficit heading into the 9th inning, the Braves odds of winning stood at 0.2 percent. In other words, not good.

Then, this happened.

Troy Glaus singles.
Eric Hinske singles.
Yunel Escobar singles.
Nate McLouth singles.
David Ross walks.
Martin Prado reaches on fielders choice/error

That brought Jason Heyward, hero of the Braves season, to the plate representing the winning run. The major league leader in WPA was given yet another chance to send Atlanta into delirium.

He struck out.

With their odds of winning back down to 18.5 percent, Brooks Conrad, he of the career .289 wOBA, launched a launched a walk off grand slam off Francisco Cordero.

Baseball – it’s amazing.

By now, we’ve all seen The Jog, Monday’s clip of Hanley Ramirez lollygagging after a ball he’d kicked into left field as two runs scored. Joe Posnanski called it “devastating” and “nauseating.” “That’s not the way the game’s supposed to be played,” said his teammate, Wes Helms. Hanley was pulled out of the game at the end of the inning and rode the pine on Tuesday; “We all support what skipper did,” said Dan Uggla. Really, just about everyone, from Uggla to Posnanski to our own Jack Moore approved of manager Fredi Gonzalez’s austere treatment of his moody star. Hanley finally apologized and played in yesterday’s game.

But that wasn’t the end of the story. It turns out that, before Hanley’s apology, Andre Dawson took him in a room (with fellow Hall of Famer standing post) and chewed him out:

Look, I’m going to level with you. You either hear me or you don’t. For one, you’re not bigger than the game. You don’t show a manager up. The way you’re going about this is literally the wrong way. It’s an immature act … and this could come back to bite you in the rear end in the worst way…

You really have stepped across the line. You owe that manager a sincere apology. And if you think your teammates have your back with this, you’ve got another thing coming because the mind-set, and this is from me to you, the mind-set is these guys are laughing at you.

We know all of this because Dawson told the Palm Beach Post. Apparently, “This is from me to you” didn’t preclude Dawson sharing the conversation with the press. Perhaps Dawson calculated that making it public was best for Hanley’s development, that he deserved to be called out in the most public way possible — though, because the story paints Dawson in the most favorable possible light, it’s also easy to believe that Dawson was motivated by the desire to look good. But even in a world with mic’ed up managers, a full forty years after Jim Bouton’s Ball Four, what happens in the clubhouse usually stays in the clubhouse. In this case, it didn’t.

Of course, this isn’t the first time that Hanley has had problems in the clubhouse. Last fall, he and Uggla got into a major spat when he came out of a game with cramps and Uggla thought he should have stayed in the game. Jayson Stark quotes an anonymous ex-Marlin saying,

Hanley frustrates the guys on that team, because everyone knows how much talent he has. Everyone has seen how great he can be out there. But then they also see the times where he just kind of gets nonchalant. It seems like he can turn the switch on any time he wants to. But he doesn’t always turn it on.

Hanley isn’t going anywhere. He’s signed through 2014, and he’s not just the best and most expensive player on the team, he’s the greatest player in the history of the franchise. (Sorry, Jeff Conine.) So the Marlins just have to live with his foibles, in public and in private.

But Dawson’s move may be counterproductive. Stark’s source says of Ramirez, “When something goes bad, then [Hanley] thinks everyone’s against him.” In other words, says Posnanski: Hanley Ramirez “has a persecution complex.” It’s hard to imagine that he’ll feel any better after reading his man-to-man with Dawson in the newspaper. It’s clear that Hanley isn’t completely comfortable in his own skin yet. So, was Dawson right, that going public with tough love is the only way that Ramirez will ever learn? Or did Dawson cross a line of his own?

When it comes to forecasting players, do fans know more about their own team than other teams?

Randy Winn showed the biggest gap in terms of forecasted playing time. The Yankee fans had him down for 96 games, while the non-Yanks fan had him down for 110. (In my processing, where I added additional filters, it was 89 and 119.) And if we look at the Yankee fans at my site, they had him for 89 games. So far, he’s played in 26 out of 40 games, a rate of 105 games per season. He’s pretty much in the middle of the two at this point, though a shade close to the non-Fans.

The next biggest gap was Mike Fontenot of the Cubs, with a Cub forecast of 100 games and non-Cub of 125 games (or 105, 129 using my numbers). He’s played 32 games out of 41, or a rate of 126 games. Non-Cub fans nailed this one. The Cub fans at my site had him at 115 games.

Then there’s Coco Crisp, who has yet to play a game. Let’s forget him.

Jayson Nix of the White Sox: 81 v 98. Actual 13 of 39. Both are bad, but the Sox-fans are closer.

On the flip side are those team fans more enthused about players. Nate Schierholtz was 131 for Giants fans and 116 for non-Giants fans. Actual: 37 of 39. Giants fans nailed it.

At this point, it’s hard to say what’s the best estimate. Are the team fans closer to their teams, or are they too close (eye of the storm) to see well? Or, do we simply do the time-tested tradition of splitting the difference between the two? We’ll check back at the end of the year.

It is has not been a pretty year for last year’s NL Rookie of the Year Chris Coghlan. In 2009 he had a 130 wRC+ and was worth nearly three wins in just 128 games. But 152 PAs into 2010, his wRC+ sits at a horrid 56, and he has been below replacement level. That’s pretty much the definition of sophomore slump.

Although the problems start with his plate discipline numbers — a big jump in O-Swing% has lead to fewer walks and more strikeouts — I am going to look at what goes wrong when he puts the ball in play. His ground-ball rate has risen from 47% last year to 57% so far this year. As a result, he has just four extra-base hits and an ISO of 0.058. But additionally problematic is that his BABIP on grounders has fallen from 0.280 to 0.183. So not only is he hitting tons of grounders, but very few of them are getting through for hits. This was the part that interested me most: Has he been unlucky with those grounders, hitting them right at fielders? Or are they not hit as sharply? The data we have can not answer the question completely, but can provide a first step.

Here I display Coghlan’s grounders in the way Sal Paradise suggested I do for Jeter back in January. I broke the field into nine slices and show what percentage of Coghlan’s grounders were in each slice (as shown by the size of the slice) and then his BABIP on grounders to each slice (as shown by the color of the slice, with darker having a higher BABIP).

To my eye the profile of where the grounders are going has not changed greatly. If anything he looks to have slightly more grounders up the middle, where you would expect some to get by the pitcher for hits, and slightly fewer straight to the second baseman. The big difference is that almost every 2010 slice has a lower BABIP than the corresponding 2009 slice (lighter in color). So grounders hit at about the same angle in play are going for hits less often in 2010 than 2009. Whether this is luck (good luck on those hits in 2010 and bad in 2009) or because he is not hitting those grounders as sharply, I am not sure. Maybe people who have watched a number of Marlins games this year can weigh in on what it looks like to them.

The main component of the Padres’ surprise first-place standing has been its pitching. The team has seen excellent performances from Mat Latos, Wade LeBlanc, Clayton Richard, and especially Jon Garland. It was only a few years ago that Garland was a revered innings eater. During the past few winters, though, he hasn’t seen many attractive offers. His $5.3 million salary represents his lowest since 2005, when he was a second-year arbitration player.

Last night the Dodgers knocked around Garland, putting 11 runners on base in five innings and bringing four of them around to score. This tends to happen while on the road, where he has allowed 31 percent of baserunners to score. He has kept up decent peripherals, though — a 7.39 K/9 and 3.54 BB/9, which have helped suppress run scoring a bit. His 3.54 road ERA comes somewhat close to this 4.13 FIP and 4.05 xFIP. It’s at home that Garland becomes a completely different beast.

Garland has allowed plenty of runners to reach base while pitching at Petco, 35 of 104, almost half of which have come via the walk. Yet few of these runners have come around to score, six to be exact, meaning Garland has stranded 82.4 percent of them. Combined with a .224 BABIP and zero home runs allowed, it adds up to a pretty lucky pitcher. He might not be the luckiest man alive, but he’s close.

What strikes me as peculiar is the juxtaposition of Garland’s home BABIP and home strikeout rate. He has struck out just eight of 104 batters faced, which amounts to a 2.88 per nine rate. Garland has never been a strikeout pitcher, just 4.74 per nine in his career, but his 2010 home rate appears a bit extreme. His home walk rate is also ridiculous, 5.76 per nine, which is nearly three per nine more than his career rate of 2.96. That does mean fewer hitters putting the ball in play, but it also means tons of baserunners. But, again, Garland has done an excellent job of preventing them from scoring.

Part of this can be credited to his own approach. Of the 79 hitters who have put the ball in play against Garland at Petco this year, 41 of them have hit it on the ground. Not all of those will turn into outs, but few, if any, will go for extra bases. The groundballs and walks mean that most of the baserunners he allows are moving station to station. Eventually a number of those grounders will turn into outs, some of them double plays, which certainly goes a long way in Garland’s high strand rate. It’s luck in a way, but if he keeps the ball on the ground at this rate he can probably keep his strand rate pretty high.

When taken as a whole, Garland’s 2010 season in some ways resembles his career year in 2005. His overall strand rate, 75.6 percent, is the highest since that season, and his BABIP is the lowest since. Of course, his other peripherals are all out of line. His overall strikeout rate, 5.26 per nine, is about 0.50 above his 2005 mark, while his walk rate, 4.58 per nine, is multiples larger than his 1.91 mark from 2005, and his home run rate is about half. Since all of his numbers are a bit out of line with what we’ve come to expect from Garland in his career, it’s tough to get a real read on what he’s doing this year.

While many of his numbers suggest a steep statistical correction, there are some mitigating factors. The Padres, for their part, play excellent defense (Kyle Blanks in left and Jerry Hairston Jr. at short are their only below-average defenders with more than 100 defensive innings), which helps Garland’s contact tendencies, especially at home. Both FIP and xFIP, 4.25 and 4.75, suggest that he’s been incredibly lucky on balls in play, but part of that is his groundball rate. He also benefits from Petco’s homer-suppressing nature.

There is little chance that Garland ends the year with a 2.38 ERA. A few more balls will find their ways into the seats, and while he’s likely to cut down on the walks, the increase in homers will likely hurt him to a greater degree. The number of groundballs he induces might help his strand rate and BABIP, but it’s still unlikely that they remain at their current levels. Few pitchers, after all, finish the year with a strand rate north of 80 percent and a BABIP at nearly Garland’s level. Even so, he’s setting himself up for a quality season. The Padres are certainly getting their $5.3 million worth.

It was a fairly minor note in the MLB transaction wire yesterday, but it irked me.

Toronto Blue Jays released 1B Randy Ruiz

Ruiz has left the Blue Jays to explore an opportunity to play overseas in Japan. And frankly, I don’t blame him. The 32-year-old first baseman – with just 198 career at-bats entering the 2010 season – made the Toronto Blue Jays’ opening day 25-man roster but he accumulated a total of 40 at-bats in the Jays’ first 41 games. Much like Toronto’s other bench players – John McDonald, Mike McCoy, and Jose Molina – Ruiz barely received playing time, even in late-game situations as a defensive replacement or as a pinch hitter. He hit just .150/.150/.275, but you can hardly fault his lack of offense given the number of appearances and at-bats. It was clear every time that he came to the plate that he was pressing and trying to jack the ball out of the park.

Realistically, Ruiz was never going to be anything more than a bench player… or possibly a part of a platoon situation. He posted some solid minor league numbers (winning the Pacific Coast League MVP last season) and hit very well for Toronto in a small opportunity in ’09 (.313/.385/.635 in 130 at-bats). The issue with Ruiz is a symptom of a bigger problem with the club.

In a very small sample size (17 at-bats), Ruiz – despite his struggles with the bat – out-hit regular first baseman Lyle Overbay against southpaws (.414 vs .351 OPS). In other words, giving Ruiz a shot at the platoon would not have been the worse idea in the world. This is supposed to be a rebuilding time in Toronto… as in a time when you give players a shot to see what they have to offer.

And this is not a new trend for the incumbent first baseman, who is in the last year of a multi-year contract. Overbay’s career OPS versus left-handers is .696 and against right-handers it’s .842. During his resurgent 2009 season, the club all but platooned Overbay and his OPS split was .534 vs LHPs, .905 vs RHPs. To be frank, he’s killed his fair share of rallies this season by hitting out of the five hole. At the very least, he should be hitting eighth or ninth in the lineup when manager Cito Gaston insists on having him face left-handers (which is all but inevitable at this point).

Ruiz, though, may have been the smart one. He might actually get a chance to play in Japan.

I worry that the Jays’ regulars will be gassed by the second half of the season with little to no rest. When we look at the other bench players, McDonald has just 40 at-bats himself, and that’s taking into consideration the time that fellow infielders Aaron Hill and Edwin Encarnacion missed while on the disabled list. McDonald has made just three appearances in May, which is inexcusable and a poor use of the roster. McCoy, who can play both the infield and outfield, has 42 at-bats on the year, but he’s made a whopping six appearances in May (five at-bats). He, like McDonald, has value as a defensive replacement, as well as a pinch runner. Molina has had 41 at-bats and could certainly take a little pressure off of No. 1 catcher John Buck, who has appeared in 34 games and has caught the ninth most innings in the Majors. All four players have been on the roster all season long and healthy.

I realize that the Jays have a number of hot hitters, like Vernon Wells, Alex Gonzalez, and Jose Bautista, but the situation is bordering on ridiculous. Cito’s commitment to his regulars is going to come back to bite the club in the butt.

Apparently the manager, who is due to retire at the end of 2010, doesn’t realize that he’s supposed to stop managing on Oct. 3.

He’s clearly gotten an early start on his retirement.