The Red Sox and Bronson Arroyo have agreed to a 3 three 12 million dollar contract. After Arroyo started off the year great going 4-1 with a 3.18 ERA in 9 starts, everything seemed to fall apart. Over his next 23 starts he was 10-9 with an ERA over 5. Let's see if we can figure out what happened to Arroyo and if there's a chance he'll rebound in 2006.

Starting off with his strikeouts per 9 innings (K/9), it looked like he was finding his groove around mid-May, but took a serious nose dive shortly after. In 2004 he displayed a very solid K/9 of 7.1, but in 2005 he could only manage a poor K/9 of 4.3. What exactly happened here?

If you break his 2005 season down by pitch type, you'll see that he started off the season throwing his changeup pretty much never, to throwing it nearly as much as his curveball and slider. Funny thing is, his changeups started to ramp up right around the same time his K/9 fell off a cliff. Coincidence? Probably not.

Furthermore, his changeup, with the exception of his fastball (which he throws a lot), was his most hittable pitch. When he started throwing more changeups, he also ended up throwing less sliders and curveballs, his two least hittable pitches.

It seems as though a lot of Arroyo's problem could be a pitch selection issue. His walks per 9 innings (BB/9) look pretty good too, so if he can manage to work on his changeup and get his strikeouts back to where they were in 2004 there's not a bad chance he'll be a pretty decent pitcher.

There were nearly 700,000 pitches thrown during the 2005 season and Baseball Info Solutions tracked pretty much every single one of them. Whether it be location, speed, pitch type, or the result of the pitch, there's data on all of them. The real question is, what the heck is anyone to do with all this data? There's probably thousands of ways you could try and tackle this “pitch data”, but I was particularly interested in trying to see if I could visually display a batter's coverage of the strike zone.

What I decided to do was put a grid over the strike zone and see the percentage of pitches thrown to each section that became hits. I'm calling these charts PitchZone charts. For starters, let's take a look at the major league average for left-handed and right-handed batters. The box in the very center is the strike zone and the color code represents the percent of balls thrown to each area that become hits.

The results are not really surprising at all. As pitches get closer to the center of the strike zone, they become more hittable. I'm sure you already knew this (or at least suspected this), but now you can see it. The next step was to take an individual batter's pitch data and make it into a PitchZone chart. Let's see how good Albert Pujols is at covering the plate. Please note the scale change; instead of 20% being red, 50% is now red.

Pujols covers the strike zone extremely well. The only area that it looks like he's not able to cover is down and inside (the pink area in the bottom right corner of the strike zone). Throw the ball right over the center of the plate and there's a near 50% chance Pujols is going to get a hit. For comparison sake, let's see what a not so great batter looks like. Here's Corey Patterson (my current whipping boy):

Doesn't look nearly as good, does it? Patterson appears to have a lot of gaps in his swing. Additionally, you can compare each player's PitchZone to the league average to get charts that show you which areas a batter excels. Here's Pujols against the major league average for right-handed batters. Please note the scale change again as this is now percent over or under league average.

To no one's surprise, Pujols is league average or better in just about every area. Patterson on the other hand (compared to other left-handed batters) is worse than league average in a lot of spots and only better in a few select areas. It looks like he might be ok at handling pitches on the outer edge of the strike zone.

How many times have you heard an anecdotal account of a batter not being able to handle an inside pitch, or a batter chasing pitches down and away? Hopefully charts like these (and future versions) will give a more concrete understanding of why batters perform like they do. What your eyes tell you and what's actually true may not always be the same. Obviously there's still a lot of work to be done here and in the coming months I'll be writing a number of articles on pitch data for batters and pitchers alike.

ESPN Deportes is reporting that Sammy Sosa may be headed to Washington D.C. and even goes further by saying that some media sources in the Dominican Republic are saying the deal is “all but done.” Troubled by various injuries (foot, toe, infection), Sosa was truly awful last season batting a meager .221 with 14 home runs. He experienced a particularly horrible slump where he batted .106/.213/.112 from mid-June to mid-July. Let's see if there's any chance he'll rebound in 2006.

The question on everyone's mind has to be is if a lack of performance enhancing drugs were the cause of his dismal 2005. We may never know for sure, but a chart of his isolated power (ISO) will surely make you wonder. While it looked like he was certainly starting to decline well before last season, he went from having an ISO well within the top 20% of all batters in 2004 to just being merely average in 2005. That's quite a nosedive.

If he can't hit home runs anymore, a .221 batting average isn't going to fly (even with the home runs). Since hitting .328 in 2001, his batting average has been on a four year decline. He's never had the best plate discipline either, especially if you discount the intentional walks, so it seems unlikely his batting average will ever approach .300 again.

Unless Sammy Sosa finds a way to transform himself, there's no way he'd be a good fit with the Nationals. I can't figure out why he'd want to come to D.C. anyway if he wants top 660 home runs. I've said it before and I'll say it again: R.F.K. Stadium is just about the hardest place in the league to hit home runs, with a home runs per fly ball (HR/FB) of 7% for right-handed batters. I think his batting average will probably rebound a bit, but I'd be surprised if he hit 10 home runs at home if he signs. With everyone in D.C. talking about the new stadium deal pretty much non stop, this would give Washingtonians a good chance to take a step back and rip into Jim Bowden if a deal actually happens. Can the Nationals get an owner already, please?

I've updated the player search so it should work like people actually think it works. You can now type in full names, partial names, last names, and somewhat misspelled names and it should bring back proper results. Hopefully the search functionality will no longer deter people from the site!

I've added a feature that allows you to compare up to three players by Age. Age is determined by the season minus the year they were born. All you need to do is go the “compare” section of each player and you'll notice that there's an additional graph right below current season comparison graphs. Just for kicks, I pulled one pitcher age comparison graph and one batter age comparison graph.

Starting with the pitchers, I compared strikeouts per 9 innings (K/9) for Pedro Martinez, Roger Clemens, and Randy Johnson. Looks like Pedro has started to decline much earlier in his career than the other two. I'll pass on drawing any conclusions from this graph, but you get the idea.

For the batters I chose to compare isolated power (ISO) for Derrek Lee, Barry Bonds, and Albert Pujols. Pujols has way more power than Bonds had at the same age while Lee looks like he's finding his power a little later than Bonds did, but he's not far behind.

Anyway, I think you can see how these comparisons will be useful, maybe even more so than the season comparisons. Enjoy and feel free to send comments and suggestions by posting in the forum or you can fill out a feedback form.

Since the Dodgers and Jeff Weaver were unable to reach a contract agreement, Weaver will now seek to join a different team. After a uncharacteristically horrible season with the Yankees in 2003, he managed to get his career back on track with the Dodgers the past two seasons. Last season he was arguably at his best going 14-11 with a 4.22 ERA and a 1.17 WHIP. Let's take a closer look.

As far as strikeouts go he's been remarkably consistent with perhaps a slight (very slight) upward trend. In 2005 he had a career high strikeouts per 9 innings (K/9) of 6.31. While it's nothing to rave about, it will certainly get the job done considering how few people he walked last year.

To go along with his career high in strikeouts, he managed to push his walks per 9 innings (BB/9) to a career low 1.73. Now, that is something to rave about as it was the 12th best in baseball among starting pitchers. That brought his strikeout to walk ratio (K/BB) to a very good 3.65. So if his strikeouts and walks were at their best in 2005, how come he saw an increase in ERA?

Quite simply, he gave up 35 home runs which tied him for the 2nd most in baseball. He gave up at least one home run in all but 11 of his 35 starts. He's been historically excellent at keeping the ball in the park with his highest home run per fly ball rate (HR/FB) in his previous three seasons being 8.3%. I find it particularly odd that his walks suddenly dropped while his home runs suddenly spiked. While this may be pure coincidence, it's definitely something to be aware of.

If everything were to click for Jeff Weaver (almost last year) he could have a really great season, but that's the problem with Weaver isn't it? Things haven't clicked yet. That's not to say next season won't be the year he finally puts everything together, but I can't help but feel there's something fishy going on with his walks and home runs. It doesn't appear he has a whole lot of downside as he'll be three years removed from the Yankee debacle. Teams can expect another solid season from him, but they probably shouldn't count on anything special either.

I'm pleased to announce that Righty/Lefty and Home/Away split graphs are now available for the 2002-2005 seasons. I've pulled two graphs that I thought illustrated their usefulness. The first graph here is Dontrelle Willis' strikeouts per 9 innings (K/9). Just look at how freakishly dominant he is against left-handed batters!

Then I pulled up Jeromy Burnitz's isolated power (ISO) home/away splits to take a look at how much better he was playing at Coors Field. Notice how his cumulative ISO with the Cubs was quite similar to his 2004 road stats.

These were two of the more obvious examples, but I hope you'll find these graphs are much easier to take a quick glance at than traditional split data. The other advantage of these graphs is you can see multiple season split data side-by-side. Enjoy and if you have any suggestions or notice any bugs you can discuss it in the forum or send a feedback form!

Apparently the Orioles were close to acquiring Corey Patterson from the Cubs for a minor leaguer but now it appears that several teams are in the running. In 2004 Corey Patterson returned from a torn ACL to hit an impressive 24 home runs while stealing 32 bases. Last year he hardly lived up to his 2004 numbers as he only hit 13 home runs with 15 stolen bases. He was even sent down to AAA in mid-July to work on shortening his swing to help him make better (any) contact. He returned to the majors a month later and showed no improvement, finishing off the season with a .175 batting average. Talk about ending the season on a low note. Let's see if there's any hope of a rebound in 2006.

It really did look like he was learning to take a walk in the first half of the 2004 season but he reverted to his old ways in the second half and was even worse in 2005. Unfortunately, he strikes out a good deal too making his walk to strikeout ratio (BB/K) one of the worst in baseball.

Furthermore his isolated power (ISO) was down significantly last year. His home runs per fly ball was down from 13.5% to 11.6% which isn't that much of a decrease, but his doubles and triples took much larger hits. Most of this was the result of poor line drive percentage of only 17%.

It seems highly unlikely that Corey Patterson will magically develop plate discipline next season and become a reliable batter. Apparently the Cubs had been trying to shorten his swing for quite some time and he was unwilling to make the necessary changes. Typically batters that exhibit such poor plate discipline do not show significant improvement later in their career, but it's probably too early to write him off at only 26 years of age. It's really too bad because if he were to just become a little more patient he'd have 30 HR/30 SB potential.

The Phillies have signed Ryan Franklin to a one year, 2.6 million dollar deal. Ryan Franklin has been around a little while now (5 seasons) and he's been less than good. He also holds the dubious distinction of being one of the players suspended for steroid use. Last season he was at his worst, going 8-15 with an ERA over 5. Let's see if there's any hope he'll do better next year.

For starters his strikeouts per 9 innings (K/9) are sitting at a pretty bad 4.4. He's only once had his K/9 above 5 and that was in his rookie season when he pitched just under 80 innings. He's gone through various peaks and valleys with his K/9 (never really topping 6 at his best) over the past four years, but I'd say there's nothing here to suggest that he's capable of doing a whole lot better. The only pitchers that can get away with a K/9 this low are the ones that issue very few walks such as Carlos Silva, Jon Garland, and Paul Byrd.

Ryan Franklin does not fall into this category. In fact his walks per 9 innings (BB/9) have been heading in the wrong direction the past couple of years. Even if he does manage to reverse the trend, it seems unlikely it will decrease enough for him to be an effective pitcher.

Had enough bad news yet? Here's a little more: He's a fly ball pitcher. Seattle's Safeco Field is one of the better parks at limiting home runs. Only 9% of the fly balls are home runs compared to Citizen's Bank Park's 13%. He's never been great at keeping the ball in the park anyway and he won't be any better playing half his games in Philly.

I have some additional concerns about his batting average on balls in play (BABIP), but he's historically been below the league average so I'll hold my tongue. Let me just say it would be really scary if he were to ever have an “unlucky” season. If you haven't already guessed, I think you can expect more of the same from Ryan Franklin next season.

It seems like over the past couple season the name C.C. Sabathia and burnout candidate have gone hand in hand and with good reason. Since entering the league in 2001 at only 20 years of age he's thrown nearly 16,000 pitches which definitely gives him one of the heavier workloads in the past 5 years. He's handled it quite well and has actually never been on the disabled list having only suffered a few minor elbow and shoulder injuries. Last year he had one of his best seasons to date going 15-10 with an ERA just over 4. That may not sound that great, but after July he was 9-1 with a 2.24 ERA. How likely is it that C.C. Sabathia will pick up where he left off in 2006?

For starters the decrease in his ERA was fueled by an excellent strikeout per 9 innings (K/9) of 8.7 during the final two months of the season. He's shown late season surges like this before in 2003 and to some extent 2004, but never quite like this one. If we break down his K/9 a little further by right-handed and left-handed batters it becomes quite obvious what happened.

It looks like he figured out how to strikeout left-handed batters while there wasn't so much improvement against right-handers. The increase is rather severe, but the sample size is also a little small as only 16% of the batters he faced were left-handed. However the consistency of the increase throughout the year makes me want to say that it wasn't entirely a fluke. The other area he showed improvement in was his walks per 9 innings (BB/9) which he managed to get down to a career low 2.8.

Everything seems to be headed in the right direction for C.C. Sabathia. His strikeouts are up, his walks are down, and it looks like he really did show some good second half growth in 2005. It's also worth mentioning he took his groundball tendencies to new levels (mostly against left-handed batters, 3.0 GB:FB). While I certainly wouldn't expect him to continue pitching at the level he did in August and September, there's no reason he can't improve upon his 2005 season. He's already a solid pitcher and has showed that at times he's definitely capable of being an excellent pitcher. He'll only be 26 years old next season and maybe a little consistency is on its way.