Archive for May, 2011

Saber-Friendly Tip #1: The Linguistics of BABIP

Through some conversations with colleagues, I’ve recently had a bunch of thoughts floating around in my head about how to best present sabermetric stats to an audience. I posted some of these thoughts recently in an article, and I’m planning to continue listing tips every now and then. And of course, a bit thanks to Sky Kalkman’s old series at Beyond the Boxscore for the title inspiration.

Batting Average on Balls In Play (BABIP) is one of the mainstays of sabermetric analysis. In fact, I’d suggest it’s one of the most commonly used saber-stats; it’s important whether you’re talking about batters or pitchers, and it’s useful in explaining why players aren’t performing as you’d otherwise expect. If you’re trying to analyze a player and talk about how they will perform going forward, how can you not talk about BABIP?

But despite being such an important statistic, many people are initially skeptical of BABIP. What do you mean to tell me that batters don’t have control over where they hit the ball? Why should I believe that there isn’t a large amount of skill involved in BABIP? To say that there’s a large amount of variation and luck involved in BABIP (and therefore, batting average) seems counterintuitive to people. After all, many baseball fans grew up with the idea that hitting for a high average is very much a skill, not the product of skill and some luck.

So recently, I’ve started trying something a little bit different: presenting BABIP as a percentage. And so far, I think it’s helping.

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Positive Signs in the D-Backs Rotation

From 2006 to 2009, the Arizona Diamondbacks pitching staff was one of the best in the Majors. Last season, however, the staff was in shambles, with Dan Haren’s trade the cherry on the sundae of what was a truly terrible season for Arizona hurlers. As Jack Moore touched on earlier today, the bullpen has pitched much better thus far, and while the rotation has overall been poor and it would be fantastic if Haren in the fold, there are positive signs from the starting rotation.

As of today, three sets of teammates reside in the top 15 in pitching WAR: Roy Halladay (1), Cole Hamels (5) and Cliff Lee (11); Haren (2) and Jered Weaver (4); and Daniel Hudson (10) and Ian Kennedy (13). Hudson in particular has been fantastic, though you wouldn’t know it from his ERA. Despite wearing a .335 BABIP — good for seventh worst among qualified pitchers — Hudson is sporting a 2.52 FIP and 65 FIP-, marks that are both in the top 11 in the Majors. He has done so by improving in a few ways. First, he has upped his ground ball count. He hasn’t suddenly morphed into Derek Lowe, but he has pulled his GB/FB ration to even. Second, he has had some extra life on his fastball, as Mike Podhorzer noted here. His K/9 is also up over last year, and the combination of more strikeouts and more ground balls has led to fewer home runs allowed. His walks have ticked up a bit as well, as has his WHIP, but if his BABIP stabilizes, his WHIP should drop along with it.

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Arizona’s Amazing New Bullpen And Dan Haren

The Arizona Diamondbacks entered 2010 as one of the most intriguing teams in the majors. Showcasing a rotation led by Dan Haren and Edwin Jackson (and with Brandon Webb potentially waiting in the wings) and a fantastically talented young offense including Justin Upton, Chris Young, and Mark Reynolds, there was reason to believe the Diamondbacks could compete with the beasts of the West. Instead, the bullpen failed them, as such names as Juan Gutierrez, Chad Qualls, and Esmerling Vasquez combined to post a 5.47 ERA along with a historically bad -10 WPA (Win Probability Added) and sink any dreams Arizona had of respectability, much less competition.

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Another Way of Evaluating AL/NL (Dis)Parity

It’s time for interleague play, again. Even moreso than the interminable disputes about which “style of play” is aesthetically superior, complaining about fairness of the presence/lack of the DH in away games, perhaps the most contentious debate among many fans (contentious despite the overwhelming evidence on one side) is that interleague play proves that the American League has been significantly stronger than the National League for at least a decade, no matter what this fine representative of the Best Fans in Baseball believes:

Joe Buck's Hero

The American League’s domination of interleague for an extended period of time is good evidence for its superiority, whatever the causes of that superiority might be. However, some will point to individual players as being independent demonstrations. For example, Matt Holliday was a great hitter with the Rockies through 2008. He started the 2009 season in Oakland and “struggled” relative to what he’d done before. Some people attributed that simply to him being a product of Coors Field (sigh), but when he was traded to St. Louis, he started raking at almost the same level. It must be the league, right?

Or how about Pat Burrell, who came off a number of successful seasons in Philadelphia, signed with Tampa Bay, then bombed so badly for a season-and-a-half the Rays let him go for nothing in 2010. He then signed with San Francisco and tore the cover off the ball to help the Giants on their way to a World Series Championship.

Naturally, it is silly to argue from individual cases to a league-wide issue. However, I wondered if taking all the cases like Holliday’s and Burrell’s and putting them together might show us something about the relative strength of leagues, both now and in the past.

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Waiting for the Wheels to Fall Off Wade Davis

Until last night, Wade Davis hadn’t recorded an out in the eighth inning this season. In a few games he’s gone seven strong and probably could have come out for the eighth, but he’s always been at or over 100 pitches and the Rays don’t seem keen to extend him any further; he’s never thrown more than 115 pitches in a start. Last night he threw only 99, which might make it seem as though he performed his job well. But his line — 7.2 IP, 7 H, 3 R, 4 BB, 3 K, 2 HR — paints a drearier picture, one filled with overachievement and, if we’re to believe the peripherals, a thunderous crash to come.

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Gordon Beckham Is Broken

When the Chicago White Sox selected Gordon Beckham with the eighth-overall pick in the 2008 draft, the club thought it had nabbed a premium prospect whose polished game was nearly ready for the big leagues. The Georgia product tied for the Division I lead in home runs during his junior season, setting a new school record for career round-trippers while leading the Bulldogs to a runner-up finish in the ’08 College World Series. Beckham then blistered minor-league pitching to the tune of a .322/.375/.519 line, rising from Low-A ball to the South Side by June of 2009 after a little more than 250 plate appearances in the minors.

Beckham gave every indication that he was ready for prime time. He hit the ground running with the White Sox in ’09, putting up a .351 Weighted On-Base Average (wOBA) in 430 PA while earning the Sporting News’ AL Rookie of the Year Award. Just 22 years old at the time, Beckham looked like a franchise cornerstone and a needed first-round success story for an organization that had recently been criticized for taking low-upside players like Lance Broadway and Kyle McCulloch.

Since then, however, Beckham has been sliding backwards. His wOBA dipped to .305 in 2010, and he’s the owner of a sordid .262 wOBA so far this season for a Chicago team whose park-and-league adjusted offense is 12 percent below average. In late April, White Sox hitting coach Greg Walker told the Chicago Sun-Times, “[Beckham]’s swinging at a lot of pitches out of the zone. He’s frustrated. He’s getting himself out a lot.”

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One Night Only: Previews for Weekend of May 20th


Scholarship!

This edition of One Night Only contains:

1. White-hot previews for six games, including examinations of the Ohio Cup, the Bay Bridge Series, and the (recently neologismed) Puke Cup.

2. Pitcher and Team NERD scores for every one of this weekend’s games.

3. Big-time gravitas.

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What’s Wrong With Neftali Feliz?

Last night, Neftali Feliz blew his second save of the season, giving up a run to the Royals in the ninth inning of a game that the Rangers would eventually go on to lose in extra innings. Because the run he allowed was charged to Derek Holland, his ERA actually fell to 1.26, so on the surface, it would seem like there’s not much to worry about.

Once you put ERA aside, however, it’s clear that not all is right with the Ranger’s closer. His BB/9 has jumped from 2.34 last year to 7.53 this year, and perhaps more worryingly, his K/9 has plummeted – he’s struck out just eight of the 62 batters he’s faced this year. Feliz is a power pitcher who succeeds by throwing the ball past hitters, and right now, he’s just not doing that.

However, diagnosing the cause of Feliz’s problems is somewhat complicated, because, well, just look at this:

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Q&A: Justin Masterson and Chris Perez

Justin Masterson and Chris Perez are having success against American League hitters — Masterson is 5-2, 2.52; Perez has 10 saves — but what would happen if they went up against a lineup of Indians legends? How would they pitch to the likes of Napoleon Lajoie and Rocky Colavito? The Cleveland right-handers tackled that question head on, often with tongues firmly in cheek, prior to a recent game.

——

David Laurila: Shoeless Joe Jackson is playing left field and leading off. How do you go after him?

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The Morning After: Game Recaps for May 19th


Is this mean? It feels a little mean. But it’s also a little funny.

Mariners 2, Angels 1

Moving the Needle: Carlos Peguero singles home the winning run, +.389 WPA. OK, so calling it a single was a bit generous. It was nothing but a routine fly ball, just a few steps away from Torii Hunter. But he lost it in the sun and fell to the ground.  

Notables

Doug Fister: 8 IP, 6 H, 1 R, 2 BB, 2 K, 1 HR, 10 GB. You might look at this line and think that even with the ground balls Fister is lucking his way into results. But despite his low K rate, he has a FIP and xFIP that aren’t too far off the mark.

Dan Haren: 8 IP, 3 H, 1 R, 4 BB, 5 K. He’s gone at least into the seventh in each of his last five starts, and he’s allowed 10 runs over that span. The Angels have won just two.

Also in this issue: Yankees 13, Orioles 2 | Diamondbacks 2, Braves 1 | Red Sox 4, Tigers 3 | Pirates 5, Reds 3 | White Sox 8, Indians 2 | Cubs 5, Marlins 1 | Royals 2, Rangers 1 | Giants 3, Dodgers 1 | Twins 11, A’s 1 | Mets 1, Nationals 0 | Rockies 7, Phillies 1 | Blue Jays 3, Rays 2 | Cardinals 4, Astros 2 | Padres 1, Brewers 0

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