We’ve listened to your suggestions and have improved our Win Probability section by adding box scores, inning markers, and WPA season totals!
Click here for the new Win Probability Charts & Box Scores….
Click here for the new WPA Season Totals….
You may have noticed (or not) that I haven’t been writing much recently. That’s because I’ve been working away at putting together a Win Probability section which can be found under the “teams” tab. We’re going to try and plot each and every game during the season and include the Win Probability Added for each player on each team. You can read all about Win Probability here:
The Hardball Times: The One About Win Probability (Dave Studeman)
Major League Baseball Graphs (Dave Studeman)
Since we’re automating these graphs, our calculations might vary slightly from other WPA charts you’ve seen, but they should be “good enough” until I can tweak them to death. All credit/blame for each play is assigned to the pitcher or batter. We do not take good/bad fielding into account. Hopefully there aren’t any bugs, but if you find any, please let us know.
Jeremy Bonderman – It pains me to give Bonderman best of the day (mostly because he’s a favorite of my fantasy baseball nemesis), but giving up just 3 hits and striking out 8 in 6 plus innings of work was too good to ignore. He induced 13 ground balls and only 2 fly balls, one of which was an infield-fly. Playing against the Royals certainly didn’t hurt.
Runners up: Bronson Arroyo, Josh Beckett
Ivan Rodriguez – Even though he had arguably the worst plate discipline of any player last season, he managed to get the bat on the ball last night all 11 times he swung. Three of those times he connected for doubles, one time for a home run, and the other time for a single making him a perfect 5-5 on the night. He also drove in 5 runs in the 14-3 drubbing of the Royals.
Runners Up: Tori Hunter, Jay Gibbons
Seth McClung – Sure McClung’s fastball might top out at over 100 mph, but when you walk 7, maybe it’s time to ease off the gas a bit. He also gave up 5 hits and 7 runs in just 3 innings of work.
Runners Up: Odalis Perez, Steve Stemle
David Ortiz – The Red Sox pitching managed to fend off the Rangers tonight and it’s a good thing too. The usually great Ortiz struck out once, hit into not one, but two double plays and didn’t get on-base once. A very poor night for the runner-up MVP.
Runners Up: Bernie Williams, Matt Holliday
Prince Fielder – The contact watch is over! For the first time this season (all of 3 games), Fielder didn’t strike out once and drove in the winning run in the bottom of the 8th inning. He still only made contact with the ball 50% of the time, but it’s the results that matter. Right?
Orlando Hernandez – In his first start for the Diamondbacks, he was impressive striking out 8 and surrendering only 1 run in 5 innings of work. Anyone taking bets on another 7-1 start from El Duque? If he can stay healthy, he should do just fine.
Derrek Turnbow – He’s notched a save in all three of the Brewers’ games, but has walked 2 and given up 4 hits making things a little dicey at times. It’s way too early to make any assumptions, but it’d be nice to see him make things easier on himself instead of having to gut out 1 run games with runners on 2nd and 3rd.
Danny Haren – Walking none and striking out 8 players in one of the most feared lineups in baseball was definitely impressive. Besides giving up a solo home-run to Matsui in the 2nd, most of the damage was done on a 3 run-homer by Sheffield in the 3rd. He’s never had too many problems giving up home runs in the past, so I wouldn’t expect it to be much of an issue this year. It will be interesting to see if he can continue to strike batters out at anywhere near his current pace.
Jonathan Papelbon – Given the nod to close out the game last night, Papelbon was excellent, striking out two in a perfect ninth. In his short stint in the majors last year, he showed all the skills necessary to be a top closer. If he’s not needed in the rotation, I wouldn’t be shocked to see him hang on to the closers job all year long.
After having the worst season of his career in 2005, it looked like a healthy Curt Schilling took the mound in the Red Sox season opener, going 7 strong inning and giving up only 2 runs. This off season, there was much talk about whether he would return to his 2004 form and while it’s still very early in the season, this first start was a much needed positive sign for Red Sox fans. Let’s take a look at why he was successful in his first start and if it’s something he’ll be able to duplicate.
Despite his 5.69 ERA in 2005, he continued to strike batters out without too much of a problem. Batters chased his pitches outside the strike zone 29% of the time which was 3rd best among starting pitchers. Additionally, batters fouled off pitches they made contact with 51% of the time which also ranked him in the top 10. Basically, he didn’t lose his “stuff” even though he had a poor season.
In his first start of the 2006 season, everything fell pretty much inline with his 2005 stats except for two things. First of all, batters had even more trouble putting the ball in play as they fouled off his pitches an extremely high 59% of the time compared to the 51% last season. Second of all, he located pitches differently. Take a look at the pitch location charts (data provided by Baseball Info Solutions) for his quality and non-quality starts from August and September of 2005.
Schilling mainly pitched to right-handed batters outside, but notice how he also threw right-handed batters inside much more often in his quality starts and almost never in his non-quality starts. Furthermore, in his quality starts, he did a good job locating his pitches outside against left-handed batters while in his non-quality starts, he was all over the place. Now take a look at his first start of the 2006 season:
Looks exactly like a Schilling quality start from 2005, doesn’t it? Schilling’s peripherals were excellent last year and remained strong in his first start this year. As long as he continues to pitch inside to right-handed batters and locate his pitches against left-handed batters, I don’t see any reason why he can’t still be a very dominant pitcher.
Brad Penny – Blanking the Braves for 5 innings while striking out 8 and walking none was enough to give Penny top honors for the day. Between injuries in 2005, he actually had a few scattered performances just like tonight’s. His strikeouts per 9 innings (K/9) made a nice climb out of the gutter towards “good” territory last season, but his walks per 9 innings (BB/9) headed in the wrong direction. This was definitely a good start.
Runners Up: Sergio Mitre, Vincente Padilla
Aaron Boone – Today, Boone was a triple shy of the cycle, which has happened 1,141 other times the past 4 years. He’s actually accomplished this not so rare feat 3 other times, but his 4 hits (previous best 3 hits) made this by far his best “triple shy of the cycle” performance. He’s also batting .556 on the year and is playing well enough to keep his job, for now.
Runners Up: Brad Wilkerson, Richie Sexson
Andy Pettitte – Joining one of the many quality pitchers that had rough starts in their first outing, Pettitte was pretty horrible giving up 13 hits and 7 runs in 4 plus innings of work. He’s giving up 7 or more runs 17 times in his career, but he’s never given up more hits per inning. This start is definitely in contention for the worst of his 12 year career.
Runners Up: Tim Wakefield, Freddy Garcia
Jason Bay – With everyone expecting Bay to have a huge season, he is hitless in his first two games. He did walk 3 times in the opener, but he managed to go 0-4 today and do absolutely nothing when he was the tying run in the 8th inning. He grounded into a double player earlier in the game too. Those worrying that he will not be thrown many strikes this year, fear not. He wasn’t thrown that many strikes last year either and did just fine. I don’t expect to see him in this spot again.
Runners Up: Laynce Nix, Jeff Francoeur
Prince Fielder: Contact Watch! – Fielder is now 0-9 with 7 strikeouts.
MLB.com’s Customer Service – I have now been on hold by MLB.com for 77 minutes and 6 seconds. I think I have listened to an entire Mascagni opera which makes me want to dig up my copy of “Raging Bull”. Maybe if I pop it in now, I’ll finish it just in time to actually talk with a representative.
Johan Santana – Looks like he’s off to his typical slow start as he gave up 10 hits and 4 runs in 5.2 innings against the Blue Jays. He struck-out just 3 batters and walked 1. Over the past two seasons he’s had a 4.05 ERA the first half, compared to a 1.62 ERA in the second half. The biggest difference being his struggles with the long ball early in the season.
Jim Thome – Two games into the season and the man who hit over 40 home runs for 4 consecutive seasons, already has 2 home runs this year. He’s batting .500 on the season, with no strikeouts. His isolated power (ISO) is way off the chart! Aren’t small sample sizes fun?
Brandon Webb – Pitching at Coors Field yesterday, Webb took his ground ball tendencies to the utter extreme by inducing 21 ground balls and a single fly ball. The only pitcher to have a higher GB:FB ratio in a single game the past 5 seasons is Zach Day. Back on June 6th, 2003, Webb induced a personal high 25 ground balls.
Josh Willingham – Joining Albert Pujols and Chris Shelton in the 2006 multi-homer game club, Willingham is showing why he was touted by many as a “fantasy sleeper”. Going 3-7 in his first two games with just one strikeout isn’t too shabby. In the opener he made contact with every single pitch he swung at. So far, so good.
John Lackey – Being the Lackey fan that I am, I was disappointed to see him have such a poor outing in his season debut. He struggled to keep runners off base in every inning, but despite his 5 earned runs and 9 hits, he still struck out 4 and walked only 1 in 4 innings. He’s been a pretty slow starter the past two years (6.18 ERA in April), so there should be much better days ahead of him.
Roy Oswalt – It looks like Oswalt is well on his way to his third straight 20 win season as he blanked the young Marlins for 8 innings while striking out 8 and walking one. Now that he’s out of Roger Clemens‘ shadow in Houston, maybe he’ll get a little more attention and maybe even a Cy Young award? Third time’s a charm.
Runners up: Jake Peavy, Jason Jennings
Hideki Matsui – In the 2005 season opener he went 3-5 with 1 HR and 3 RBI’s and this year started off pretty similar. In his 4-4, 1HR, 4 RBI effort he got hits off four of the five different A’s pitchers. Did you know that this was his 2,061 consecutive game if you include the 1,573 games he played in Japan? That’s getting up there and would (but doesn’t) give him the 3rd longest streak.
Runners Up: Albert Pujols, Alex Rodriguez
Barry Zito – This is really a no-brainer. In his shortest outing ever, he managed to give up 7 runs including a grand slam to Alex Rodriguez. I’m not the biggest Zito fan, but let’s chalk this one up to opening day jitters and a total lack of control. On the bright side, there’s no place for his ERA of 47 to go but down.
Runners Up: Jon Leiber, Derek Lowe
Prince Fielder – On his first opening day, Fielder did nothing to help his Rookie of the Year campaign. He went 0-4 striking out in all four of his at-bats. While the odds of him striking out in 100% of his at-bats for the season are slim, it might be a while before he improves on last year’s 28% strikeout rate. The power’s there, but the contact is lacking.
Runners Up: Garrett Anderson, Mark Grudzielanek
Jason Jennings – In an odd opening day pitcher’s duel at Coors Field, Jennings held his own against Brandon Webb by going 7 strong innings while striking out 6 and giving up only 1 run. He’s coming back from a broken finger that kept him out most of last season and while it’s a nice story to see him do well, there’s not much in his past to suggest he can continue his opening day success.
Matt Murton – I wrote a glowing Matt Murton Daily Graphing back in February and between batting .400 in spring training and his 3-5 opening day performance, he’s done nothing to shy me away. It was especially nice to see him hit a home run since power’s been the knock on him.
Chris Shelton – I wasn’t so high on Shelton this off-season because of the way he finished out 2005 (and his fairly average plate discipline), but a few more 2 home run games will make me change my mind in a hurry.
Chris Reitsma – How long do you think it will take Bobby Cox to remove Reitsma from the closers role (again). Given a three run lead, he nearly allowed the Dodgers to complete what would have been, a rather mind blowing comeback. Actually, he barely has borderline closer stuff, striking out just over 5 per 9 innings, with only his extremely low walk rate of 1.7 to save him. Only problem is, the Braves don’t exactly have a deep bullpen and cutting Joey Devine didn’t help.
Fernando Rodney – With Todd Jones on the disabled list, Rodney is more than capable of handling closer duties as he proved by pitching a perfect ninth against the Royals (maybe not the best example). He struck out a quality 8.6 per 9 innings last season, but converted only 9 of 14 save chances after taking over the closers role when Kyle Farnsworth was traded to the Braves. He’ll be the guy at least until Jones comes back.
Much to my surprise, FanGraphs actually works with 2006 stats which are now up and available for viewing. There will be some additional site enhancements later this week.
While I’m waiting for the first night of stats to come in, I decided to launch a pet project of mine. You may notice a new section on the site called “News” and then under each player there is now a new tab “Blog News” and potentially two links below the player information.
What this is (should be) are links to blog posts that have information about that particular player. Matching player names with articles is hardly an exact science but I think it does a pretty good job of locating relevant articles about each player. We currently look at 89 blogs and are certainly open to adding frequently updated baseball blogs to the list.
Hopefully this will add a new dynamic to FanGraphs which will be beneficial to everyone. If you have any comments, suggestions, or concerns please feel free to contact me.
After winning the starting center fielding job from Endy Chavez last season in spring training, Ryan Church did a credible job, hitting .287 with 9 home runs in just over 250 at-bats in between various injuries. Unfortunately for Church, his sophomore year and batting .200 this spring apparently wasn’t enough for him to keep the job and was sent back down to the minors in favor of Brandon Watson.
Watson on the other hand was quite horrible in his major league debut, batting .175 with 1 home run in 40 at-bats, which oddly enough, was nearly identical to Church’s rookie season who hit .175 with 1 home run in 63 at-bats. Watson seems to have turned things around this spring by batting .306 with 7 stolen bases in 62 at-bats. Let’s take a closer look at the two and see if the Nationals make the right choice.
In Church, you have a player with not the best plate discipline. He struck out in 26% of his at-bats in 2005 and as you can see, he really just got worse as the season went on which could very well have been injury related. Additionally, he chases pitches out of the strikes 25% of the time which is about 5% above the league average. He did show some decent power even while playing in R.F.K. Stadium, arguably the worst hitters’ park in baseball. Then again he was better at home than on the road, which does seem a bit odd, but it wouldn’t be much of a stretch to see him hitting 20 home runs one of these days.
Watson‘s plate discipline in the majors has actually been a little better than Church’s as he struck out in 20% of his at-bats and chased pitches outside the strike zone only 17% of the time. Watson is obviously much more of a contact hitter and his strikeouts are actually quite high considering he makes contact when he swings the bat 86% of the time. I wouldn’t be surprised to see his strikeout percentage drop a good 5 points if he can adjust to major league pitching.
Baseball America named Watson the “Fastest Baserunner” in the Nationals farm system and if spring training is any indication, it looks like they’re going to let Watson run. He stole 31 bases last season in AAA, and it would seem extremely silly to trade in Church for Watson if you’re not going to utilize his speed. It’s also worth noting that in his short stint in the majors, Watson really beat the ball into the ground with a 53% ground ball percentage. That puts him in Ichiro’s territory, so he’ll really need to run like the wind to beat out those plays at first.
It seems like the Nationals essentially made a tradeoff of power for speed and are assuming that Watson will be able to get on base as much as Church did. This seems unlikely to me and while it will be fun to watch him steal, it seems like an overall poor decision to dismiss Church despite his poor spring. I find this move extremely short sighted and it’s right inline with just about everything that’s happened with the Nationals this off-season.
Between a strained oblique muscle and a season ending strained lat muscle, Rich Harden was excellent in 2005 going 10-5 with a 2.53 ERA in 128 innings. In the off-season he elected to have shoulder surgery on his non throwing arm in order to alleviate many of the minor injuries which were believed to be caused by overcompensation due to his injured left shoulder. So far, the shoulder surgery has been a success since this spring, Harden has pitched 14 innings with a 1.29 ERA while striking out a whopping 19 batters! Let’s take a closer look and see if he’s ready to be a perennial Cy Young contender.
Looking at his strikeouts per 9 innings (K/9), you’ll see that he just falls within the top 20% of all pitchers and actually had the 12th highest K/9 of any starting pitcher for the 2005 season. He has an easy delivery, resulting in a deceptively speedy fastball which topped out at 102 mph last season. His fastball is accompanied by a splitter and slider which batters will chase out of the strike zone a combined 40% of the time. Throw in the fact that batters only make contact with his pitches 75% of the time and when they actually do make contact only put the ball in play 50% of the time and you’ve got yourself one of the most un-hittable pitchers in baseball.
When Harden first entered the league he struggled with his control, but he’s managed to get his walks per 9 innings (BB/9) down to acceptable levels the past two years. There’s still a bit of room for improvement here, but if can continue to strike out batters the way he’s been doing it this spring (K/9 over 12), he’ll do just fine with his current BB/9.
To add to the good news, he’s also a groundball pitcher which is a little rare to find in a pitcher that makes batters struggle to make clean contact with the ball. Obviously this (and playing in McAfee Coliseum) really helps keep his home runs per 9 innings (HR/9) well below the league average.
There’s really nothing not to like about Harden. I may as well be doing a Daily Graphing on Johan Santana (his would be even more glowing). The only thing that could possibly hold him back at this point is injury and hopefully the off-season surgery has helped minimize the chances that his 2005 injuries will re-occur. If all goes well, I’d be surprised not to see him in contention for the A.L. Cy Young award.
