Archive for August, 2012
Blue Jays Pitchers Injured at Record Pace?
by Eno Sarris
August 8, 2012
The news came down yesterday: The Blue Jays’ Drew Hutchison will undergo Tommy John surgery, and Dustin McGowan will have arthroscopic shoulder surgery. By itself, the news wasn’t very remarkable — McGowan has been injury-riddled his entire career, and elbow surgeries are relatively commonplace.
Except that Hutchison will be the third pitcher on the Jays to get Tommy John surgery this season. He’ll be the sixth pitcher to go under the knife, period. The devastation has been so complete in Toronto that they might be on their way to setting records.
Daily Notes: Greinke v. Straily, Plus Slider Usage
Table of Contents
Here’s a table of contents for today’s edition of Daily Notes.
1. On Sliders and the Usage of Said
2. Notable Games (Including MLB.TV Free Game)
3. Today’s Complete Schedule
On Sliders and the Usage of Said
Regarding Why I’m Writing About This
In an effort to embody the spirit Carson’s NERD scores but not actually recreate it (too arduous), I was wondering what the single most dominant pitch in MLB might be. Dominating pitches can make for drama in a baseball game — the sort of drama that Carson’s NERD Scores reflect, in part.
The more I thought about it, the more I came to appreciate the way a “NERD Score” based entirely on the usage of a single type of pitch could be a shot of clarity in a convoluted world. It’s a simpler Score, from a simpler man.
What the Most Dominant Pitch Is, Then
It’s sliders, duh! Didn’t you read the title of this section?!
According to the weighted PITCHf/x values in this FanGraphs leaderboard, sliders have been worth 0.47 runs above average per 100 thrown in 2012. Knuckleballs have been worth more per 100 thrown, but they’re used less than any other pitch as they constitute just 0.4% of all pitches thrown, and pretty much all of their 2012 value comes from one man.
How Often Sliders Have Been Used in 2012 and Recent Years
On average in 2012, relievers have used a slider more often (18.1%) than starters (12.7%), possibly due to the stress it puts on the the arm.
Starters seem to max out at 40%; indeed, the recently-traded Ryan Dempster is this year’s leader amongst qualified starters: he throws his slider 39.2% of the time. Just eight pitchers have thrown the slider as over 30% of their pitches.
Among qualified releivers, Luke Gregerson throws it almost two-thirds of the time (66.8%), with Sergio Romo (66.1%) right behind him. In further contrast to starting pitchers, 32 qualified relievers have thrown the slider for at least 30% of their pitches in 2012.
Effectively Wild Episode 16: Sonar
August 8, 2012
Ben and Sam discuss the significance of Mike Trout’s 21st birthday and Mets manager Terry Collin’s comments about injured reliever Tim Byrdak’s workload.
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Brewers Jean Segura Earns A Shot
During Jean Segura’s six year minor league baseball career, he has proven to be a very productive player when healthy. After missing a substantial amount of time in 2011, the young shortstop has rebounded with a .304/.358/.413 line in 2012 including a scorching .433/.500/.533 over his last ten games prior to being promoted. As the key piece in a deal sending Zack Greinke to Los Angeles, the Milwaukee Brewers are counting on Segura’s minor league numbers translating into major league production on the middle infield. Having seen Segura during his last two starts for Double-A Huntsville of the Southern League, I’m confident the Brewers have acquired a talented — but unrefined — player. Segura is likely to need additional seasoning at the minor league level before cementing himself as an everyday player.
Video below the jump
Yu Darvish’s Bad Command Comparables
Last night, Yu Darvish took the mound against the Red Sox, and not surprisingly, he racked up a lot of walks and strikeouts. This is a common trend for Darvish, who has ended 39.6% of opposing plate appearances with a walk, hit batter, or a strikeout. Darvish is the kind of pitcher who succeeds or fails on his own, relying less on his defense than just about any other pitcher in the sport.
It’s not unusual for guys with premium stuff — which Darvish definitely has — to struggle with command early in their careers. However, as Bill Petti showed back in May, normal aging curves for starting pitchers don’t show a drastic improvement in command. Is it any different with high walk, high strikeout guys who simply need to learn to harness their stuff? Or, to put it another way, have other Darvish-like starting figured out how to throw strikes and take advantage of their velocity and movement?
To look at this, I applied the new filters available on the leaderboard to restrict the list to guys who matched three variables – walk rate, strikeout rate, and fastball velocity. Since we’re relying on velocity as an input, that means we can only look back to 2002, so our sample is smaller but we’re more likely to get a better match in terms of stuff, so that’s a trade-off I’m willing to make. To come up with a list of guys who have had similar seasons to what Darvish is having now, I filtered using a minimum of 100 IP, 12% BB%, 20% K%, and FBv of 91.0 mph. While Darvish is well above the 20% strikeout mark, we do want to account for the fact that strikeout rate has been trending upwards, and so slightly lower K% in prior years were similar in terms of difference to league average. The list of names who match those inputs aren’t all that flattering.
Johnny Cueto’s Changeup Leads to Cy Young Caliber Season
The past 46 starts of Johnny Cueto’s career have been absolutely incredible. Between last year and this year, the Reds’ ace has posted a 2.41 ERA in 302.2 innings. Cueto was a big regression candidate after posting a 2.31 ERA, 3.45 FIP, and 3.93 SIERA last season, but he has followed that impressive season up with an even better year on the mound. While his ERA has jumped up a tick to 2.52, his FIP of 3.05 and SIERA of 3.70 are career lows, and despite pitching in an extremely hitter friendly ballpark, Cueto has allowed just 15 home runs over the past two years.
Jamey Carroll: The Game Shortstop Du Jour
Anyone who plays FanGraphs: The Game in the shortstop category can attest to this fact: It is hard to find good production at shortstop. Actually, given the budget constraints of The Game and the quickly-adapting pricing algorithm, it’s hard to find good production anywhere.
The technique I have been employing is to start stars (typically $8 or up) against terrible competition (i.e. bad pitchers or the Cubs lineup) and then start regression candidates (typically $3 to $5) when there is no obvious winner among the stars matchups. I am proud to report this method has produced one of the better outfielders and starting pitchers — at least among the FanGraphs super secret Writer’s League.
In his FanGraphs: The Game strategies piece for RotoGraphs, Zach Sanders suggests players avoid starting anybody on bad matchup days. My approach goes counter to that; I say regression possibilities always leave room for a good matchup (the notable exception being starting pitching — some days, there really is no good play to make).
So where does Twins infielder Jamey Carroll fit in all this? Well, he’s the unlikely regression candidate that I’m going to ride to the finish line.
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