Think if you will, for a moment, about Jose Fernandez. What’s impressed you most about the healthy Jose Fernandez? Probably, it’s all the strikeouts, many of them coming on his breaking ball. This year, Clayton Kershaw has Jose Fernandez’s strikeout rate. Now veer off and think instead about Koji Uehara. The most amazing thing, probably, about Uehara is his impeccable command. This year, Kershaw has Koji Uehara’s walk rate. Finally, think about Tim Hudson. Hudson is among the league’s premier groundball specialists. He’s always been armed with a devastating hard sinker. This year, Kershaw has Tim Hudson’s groundball rate. This year’s Kershaw basically had the first three picks in the pitcher ability fantasy draft, and that explains how he’s allowed just 18 runs in ten starts, with seven of them coming in one.

None of them came in yesterday’s. Technically, Clayton Kershaw finished with a no-hitter, and not a perfect game. Realistically, he threw 1.037 perfect games, going above and beyond in the way that Armando Galarraga previously went above and beyond. And unlike with Galarraga, this wasn’t a start that came out of nowhere — with Kershaw, there was a sense of inevitability. You analyze his Wednesday start and you realize he didn’t do anything differently. He pitched like Clayton Kershaw, and this version of Clayton Kershaw was going to end up with at least one start of this kind. It was more a matter of when and where.

Read the rest of this entry »

Which pitcher in baseball has the best fastball? Aroldis Chapman. This isn’t one of those everyone’s-opinion-is-valid situations. The answer is Aroldis Chapman. While I’ll grant that the real, absolute answer is unknowable, based on the things we know, Chapman has the best heat, and that’s basically why he’s long been one of the best relievers. He’s thrown a slider, too, to keep people honest, but he’s thrown it just often enough for honesty, and he’s thrived with the heater. He’s the owner of the fastest pitch thrown in the PITCHf/x era.

So you can imagine what it’s like to face Chapman in the box. I’m kidding, it’s unimaginable, and you should be thankful for that, because you don’t want to experience what those players experience. Imagine preparing for that kind of fastball. Imagine not knowing where it’s going to be. Imagine having the sense that maybe, just maybe, he’s going to throw a wrinkle. But you basically have to sit fastball. There would be two worst nightmares: a fastball high and tight, and a changeup.

Uh oh.

Read the rest of this entry »

To whatever extent that Max Scherzer cares about these things, the good news is that Tigers fans are already preoccupied with worry over Justin Verlander, who was dismantled again on Monday. So Scherzer’s struggles can stay a little more hidden. But the bad news is that, with the Tigers stuck in such a slump, people will be inclined to worry more in general, and so there’s anxiety beyond just Verlander anxiety. There’s anxiety wherever anxiety’s possible, because the Tigers keep losing and the Royals keep winning. The Royals, right now — right now — right now — actually own sole possession of first place in the AL Central. The math keeps saying it won’t keep up, but math has never tucked someone in and read a nice bedtime story. Math doesn’t go to the store to get medicine and a Gatorade when you’re sick.

Tuesday night, the Royals were playing for first place, and they’d have to go through either Scherzer or the Tigers bullpen. They opted for the hard way and made it look like the easy way, sticking Scherzer with a full ten runs. When the second inning began, the teams were deadlocked at zero. About 30 minutes and 30 seconds later, Scherzer looked to the skies and left the mound, with the Royals suddenly up by a touchdown. Though the Tigers immediately countered with a safety, the margin would never get closer than that. A possible pitchers’ duel turned into a one-sided ambush, and in the process, the Royals forced Scherzer to set some new marks.

Read the rest of this entry »

There are a couple of ways to go about doing research, and one of them is preferred over the other. In the preferred course, you identify something of interest, and then you go into the numbers. The other way is the other way, where you go into the numbers and hunt around for something of interest. The former is a lot more targeted, but one could say the latter is a lot more open-minded. For this post, I started with the numbers and went from there.

I recently wrote about trusting catchers with runners on third base. In the course of doing that research, I noticed Jaime Garcia had a much higher rate of low off-speed pitches with a runner 90 feet away, as compared to with the bases empty. I didn’t really go any further in that piece, but I was interested in a follow-up that was built around guys who pitch differently by situation. It stands to reason every pitcher is different and every catcher is different, so not every battery will take the same approaches. This is a starting point: This is a post about fastball rates, and runners being on base or the bases being empty.

Read the rest of this entry »

Read the rest of this entry »

Player projections, because of what they are, are always going to be pretty accurate at the group level, or else they’d be really lousy player projections in dire need of improvement. So when thinking about the future, a projection should always be the starting point. One truth is that there will be few exceptions to the rule that players follow their projections. Another truth is that there will always be exceptions. A third truth is that baseball fans will over-identify presumed exceptions, because we’re not very good at weighing recent events. As such, if this counts as a debate, it’s going to be a long-running, unwinnable debate, with new possible exceptions submitted every year. There’s always going to be some reason to believe in a given player who hasn’t performed like his projection over a couple weeks or months.

Dave wrote about some pretty important research last Friday, finding that in-season projections work well and there’s not much sense in isolating season-to-date statistics. Monday I put up ten polls and then another ten polls, focusing on position players and pitchers who haven’t met their projections so far. On each player, I wanted to gauge audience opinion, to see who people think might be exceptions, and who people think are just players on a streak or a slump. There’s not a ton we’ll be able to do with the results, when it comes to furthering our understanding of the game, but I thought it could be fun to quickly review some stuff we can already see. While more voting has taken place since the writing of this post, the numbers shouldn’t have changed very much.

Read the rest of this entry »

Last Friday, Dave wrote about MGL writing about the significance of in-season projections. While we often find ourselves trying to find the value in current-season statistics, what MGL demonstrated is that, overall, projections worked better than putting too much weight on recent events. What MGL demonstrated is that, overall, the projections were outstanding, even when dealing with potential outliers. A short, hypothetical example: if you had a guy projected to hit .300, and for a little while he hit .400, and the projection was increased to .305, then that .305 would be the smartest bet the rest of the way. Players, simply, don’t often dramatically change their levels of true talent.

But of course, every rule has exceptions. Every projection system has players who disobey it and come out of nowhere to excel or suck a lot. This is where we spend a lot of our time — trying to identify players who are in the process of meaningfully changing. Players who, say, add pitches, or players who change their swing patterns. We’re always looking for guys for whom the projections might miss the mark. We know those guys exist — we just have to find them.

So in this post, you’re going to see 20 players and 20 polls. That’s a lot of polls, but I promise they’ll go by fast. There are five hitters out-performing their updated projections*, five hitters under-performing their updated projections, five pitchers out-performing their updated projections, and five pitchers under-performing their updated projections. For every player, one could make the argument that something has changed, and the projections just haven’t caught up yet. I want to get a feel for who you think has actually changed, and who might just be riding a streak. And while the poll answers are kind of subjective, they should do well enough — use your best judgment. From this exercise, what we’ll eventually learn is almost nothing. But it’ll be kind of fun and kind of informative, to look at tomorrow and to look at in October. Let’s just get this over with so you can do what you’re actually supposed to be doing.

(* – ZiPS and Steamer, blended, per usual around here)

Read the rest of this entry »

Watch a Seattle Mariners game when Mike Zunino’s behind the plate and, eventually, there’ll probably be a runner on third. At that point, a wild pitch or a passed ball brings in a run, but you might still see something breaking, thrown in the dirt. Then you’ll hear about how much trust the pitcher must have in the catcher, to keep the ball in front of him. After all, with a shaky receiver, a pitcher might think twice about burying something offspeed. I could continue with this pseudo-example, or I could copy and paste an actual example. From Phil Miller, a month ago:

Both Kyle Gibson and Glen Perkins had plenty of praise after the game for Kurt Suzuki, who has clearly earned the trust of the pitching staff for his ability to block pitches in the dirt. “I think I threw four sliders tonight with a guy on third base,” Perkins said of his typically diving-in-the-dirt pitch. “I threw [Corey] Hart two and I threw Justin Smoak two, and yeah, he’s going to block them.” Manager Ron Gardenhire said that trust in Suzuki allows Twins pitchers to throw their best pitches in any situation — something that they would be more hesitant to do with a catcher who lets too many balls get past.

It all makes sense. With a good blocker, a pitcher won’t be afraid to throw anything. With a worse blocker, a pitcher might be reluctant to throw certain pitches. And then the pitcher’s limited, and perhaps that renders him less successful. But why not look at the numbers? It’s not like it’s really that difficult to look at the numbers. Here come some numbers, with research conducted using Baseball Savant, of course.

Read the rest of this entry »

Certain guys, people just assume are going to get injured. For as little as we actually understand about pitching mechanics and injury risk, there are certain players who look like ticking time bombs. Chris Sale is considered one of those guys, and this is why:

Basically that simple. Sale is (1) a pitcher who (2) looks like that when he’s pitching. And Sale, sure enough, has had his injury scares. Earlier this very season, he was on the disabled list. But, a few years ago, Sale threw 192 innings. Last year he reached 214, and he still hasn’t had the disaster scenario. Sale’s kept himself healthy enough, and he’s recently made a change to try to keep it that way.

Thursday, Sale pitched against the Tigers, picking up a loss despite a winning effort. Three times, Sale had to go through Miguel Cabrera. Previously, when Sale and Cabrera matched up, Sale threw sliders a quarter of the time. But in the first inning, he threw Cabrera six fastballs and a changeup. In the fourth, he threw four fastballs and two changeups. In the sixth, he threw five fastballs. So, out of 18 pitches to maybe the best hitter in baseball, Sale didn’t throw a single slider, as he had often in the past. And to go beyond Cabrera, Sale struck out the side in the third on 13 pitches, and all three strikeouts came on changeups. It’s not a coincidence.

Read the rest of this entry »

Take a look at this. That’s a breakdown of projected WAR, by position, for every team in baseball between now and the end of the year. Click some of the column headers to learn things that you didn’t need to learn. The Angels project to be best in center field! The Rockies project to be best at shortstop! The Mets project to be a bad team! It’s a neat page, and it’s a page that is constantly updating, based on a variety of inputs.

It’s also a page that existed before the season, the data being the same data that showed up in our 2014 Positional Power Rankings. At one point, we had projected full-season WAR by position for everybody, based on the projections and the depth charts. Now that it’s the middle of June those preseason projections mean only so much, but I thought it could be informative to compare actual positional WAR to projected positional WAR, over the fraction of the season that’s in the books. At 18 different positions, we can already observe teams who are off from their preseason projection by at least two wins. At two positions, there’s a difference of at least three wins. Let’s take a quick look at all of these over- and underachievers.

Read the rest of this entry »