Ball In Play Leaders And Laggards: NL Pitchers

Earlier this week, we took a look at AL pitcher ball-in-play leaders and laggards. Today it’s time for the AL pitchers as we complete our offseason look at 2014 hitter and pitcher BIP data.

Below are the top and bottom 10 National Leaguers in popup, fly ball, line drive and ground ball percentage, for pitchers who allowed a minimum of 215 balls in play last season:

	POP %			FLY %			LD %			GB %
Estrada	13.35%		Estrada	37.00%		Cumpton	29.20%		Maness	55.79%
Teheran	12.22%		Petit	34.78%		E.Jackson	26.46%		T.Hudson	54.42%
Roark	11.94%		Villanueva	34.20%		Stammen	25.70%		Hale	54.24%
Zimmermann	11.43%		Nuno	33.92%		C.Lee	25.30%		T.Ross	54.10%
Matsuzaka	11.16%		Teheran	33.60%		Belisle	25.12%		H.Alvarez	53.17%
S.Miller	11.11%		Latos	33.01%		Zimmermann	25.05%		Morton	53.15%
Wacha	10.26%		Colon	32.28%		Cahill	24.84%		Familia	52.55%
Collmenter	10.15%		Koehler	32.23%		Greinke	24.81%		Wheeler	52.28%
Villanueva	9.96%		T.Wood	32.11%		McCarthy	24.71%		Leake	51.96%
T.Wood	9.86%		Hammel	32.08%		Wainwright	24.65%		Maholm	51.50%
————–	———–		————–	———–		————–	———–		————–	———–
Leake	4.08%		Wheeler	22.41%		Cueto	18.41%		Collmenter	37.45%
Morton	4.05%		H.Alvarez	22.33%		Despaigne	18.40%		Colon	37.32%
J.Turner	3.94%		C.Martinez	22.18%		J.De la Rosa	18.37%		Nuno	37.03%
Burnett	3.63%		Arroyo	22.10%		Hale	18.31%		E.Jackson	37.00%
C.Lee	3.61%		Maness	21.90%		Maness	18.18%		Villanueva	35.93%
Miley	3.49%		Kershaw	21.71%		Worley	18.10%		Petit	35.51%
Maholm	3.43%		T.Ross	21.48%		Gee	18.02%		Latos	35.29%
H.Alvarez	3.33%		Morton	21.40%		Familia	17.86%		T.Wood	34.43%
Lincecum	3.18%		T.Hudson	20.80%		Fister	17.65%		Teheran	34.24%
T.Hudson	2.95%		McCarthy	20.56%		C.Torres	17.46%		Estrada	30.68%
————–	———–		————–	———–		————–	———–		————–	———–
AVG	6.75%			27.11%			21.29%			44.85%

From a pitcher’s perspective, a popup is a very good thing, as major league hitters batted .015 AVG-.019 SLG on them last year. Inducing popups is a skill, as pitchers’ popup rates correlate very highly from one season to the next. The average popup rate for NL pitching qualifiers (6.75%) was actually quite lower than the AL’s average of 8.21%. This is due both to the extreme popup-friendliness of O.Co Coliseum, and the presence of by far 2014’s three most prolific popup inducers, Chris Young, Scott Baker and Danny Duffy, in the junior circuit.

Marco Estrada’s 13.35% popup rate was the highest in the NL last season. While his 2014 performance was sullied by a bunch of homers allowed, Estrada still brings a great deal to the table. His K/BB rates are always strong, and the popups are a constant. He will help his new team, the Blue Jays, this season. Two of the NL best hurlers, Julio Teheran and Jordan Zimmermann, are also among the popup leaders. Given their strong K rates, and in Zimmermann’s case, an exceptional BB rate, their respective popup tendencies give them extremely high floors to go with their considerable ceilings.

Popup laggards can still excel; many are ground ball generators who don’t allow the ball to be elevated often. You really don’t like to see fairly neutral ground ball generators on the laggard list, however; guys like Cliff Lee and Tim Lincecum struggled on balls in play in 2014 in part due to their inability to generate popups.

As with the hitters, you see a lot of the same names on the fly ball leaders/ground ball laggards, and vice versa. As with the hitters, there are not many pitchers who yield more fly balls than grounders. This is especially true in the NL, where the pitchers bat, and as a group have a very tough time hitting the ball in the air. NL qualifiers allowed an average 27.11% fly ball and 44.85% ground ball rate, compared to the AL averages of 28.51% and 42.44%. There were 11 AL qualifying pitchers who yielded more fly balls than grounders in 2014; only one pitcher, Estrada, by a comfortable margin, did so in the NL.

Allowing lots of fly balls is not necessarily a bad thing, but it helps to have a big home park and a strong outfield defense; pitchers like Yusmeiro Petit and Teheran had excellent years despite being among the fly ball percentage leaders. As we shall see later, managing fly ball authority is also a key trait.

In a league full of ground ball generators, six guys who carried a full season starter’s load — Tim Hudson, Tyson Ross, Henderson Alvarez, Charlie Morton, Zack Wheeler and Mike Leake — led the way. While authority allowed is also a key factor here, these pitchers elevate their respective floors with their significant grounder tendencies. A grounder can’t leave the yard.

Liner rates fluctuate much more than those of other BIP types, so one doesn’t want to get too worked up about the leaders and laggards in that category. Still, we’ve now seen Cliff Lee on the popup laggards and liner leaders; not a desirable combo. Also, Zack Greinke and Adam Wainwright sure had solid 2014 seasons, didn’t they? Imagine how much better they could have been if they hadn’t yielded such sizeable liner rates. We’ll talk more about both pitchers later.

Next, let’s look at the production by BIP type data. For each major BIP type, each leader and laggard’s AVG and SLG allowed is listed, as well as their production allowed relative to the league average for that BIP type, scaled to 100:

	FLY AVG	FLY SLG	REL FLY			LD AVG	LD SLG	REL LD
Nicasio	0.375	1.188	235		Cahill	0.766	1.000	128
Beckett	0.363	1.055	197		Matsuzaka	0.721	1.070	127
McCarthy	0.355	1.024	187		J.Williams	0.763	0.974	124
J.Nelson	0.400	0.940	185		Lincecum	0.710	1.028	121
E.Jackson	0.383	0.945	180		C.Lee	0.730	0.984	120
Cain	0.358	0.985	179		G.Cole	0.734	0.975	119
W.Peralta	0.350	0.912	160		Hale	0.741	0.926	115
Greinke	0.370	0.874	160		Nuno	0.707	0.978	115
Haren	0.327	0.933	157		Maness	0.773	0.864	114
Lincecum	0.316	0.923	151		Wheeler	0.729	0.927	113
————–	———–	———–	———–		————–	———–	———–	———–
Lynn	0.227	0.528	59		A.Wood	0.621	0.770	80
Koehler	0.216	0.540	58		Greinke	0.609	0.782	80
Garza	0.211	0.500	52		W.Peralta	0.613	0.773	80
Despaigne	0.205	0.507	52		Wacha	0.594	0.783	78
Harang	0.212	0.451	46		Cain	0.577	0.808	77
Wainwright	0.206	0.451	45		Despaigne	0.604	0.755	77
Latos	0.168	0.465	40		Niese	0.573	0.790	75
Arrieta	0.200	0.411	40		Wainwright	0.594	0.744	74
Cashner	0.175	0.433	38		Stammen	0.582	0.745	73
Cumpton	0.185	0.370	33		R.Hernandez	0.570	0.719	69
————–	———–	———–	———–		————–	———–	———–	———–
AVG	0.274	0.703	100			0.665	0.877	100

	GB AVG	GB SLG	REL GB			BIP AVG	BIP SLG	REL BIP
T.Wood	0.331	0.376	177		E.Jackson	0.379	0.624	137
J.Turner	0.309	0.348	153		J.Turner	0.372	0.552	120
C.Torres	0.299	0.350	148		Nicasio	0.333	0.613	119
C.Anderson	0.298	0.351	147		Villanueva	0.366	0.557	119
Stammen	0.304	0.326	143		Minor	0.355	0.570	118
Petit	0.296	0.337	141		C.Lee	0.375	0.536	118
Villanueva	0.301	0.325	141		F.Morales	0.349	0.577	117
Matzek	0.289	0.343	140		C.Anderson	0.346	0.580	117
Harang	0.302	0.310	136		Cahill	0.363	0.546	116
C.Lee	0.298	0.316	136		J.Nelson	0.361	0.546	115
————–	———–	———–	———–		————–	———–	———–	———–
Hammel	0.195	0.201	57		Cashner	0.292	0.426	73
Vogelsong	0.189	0.209	56		Garza	0.286	0.429	72
Collmenter	0.192	0.202	56		Roark	0.287	0.424	71
Familia	0.194	0.194	55		Volquez	0.280	0.427	70
Wainwright	0.185	0.207	55		Cueto	0.270	0.431	68
Volquez	0.185	0.207	55		Arrieta	0.283	0.386	64
A.Simon	0.190	0.197	54		Despaigne	0.280	0.390	64
Haren	0.181	0.204	52		Wainwright	0.278	0.389	64
Lincecum	0.178	0.188	48		K.Hendricks	0.283	0.378	63
Beckett	0.168	0.185	44		Familia	0.274	0.386	62
————–	———–	———–	———–		————–	———–	———–	———–
	0.238	0.260	100			0.317	0.487	100

It should be noted that SH and SF are counted as outs for the purposes of this presentation, and homers allowed are included in all of the data, so the figures above do not line up with actual 2014 BABIP.

For each BIP type, I have assigned each player an authority score, based on the relative authority of contact allowed. The scale ranges from 92 to 106 for fly balls, from 94 to 104 for liners and from 93 to 107 for grounders. In most cases, the players on the leader lists had high authority scores, and the laggards had low ones. Not all of them, though.

Three of the 10 pitchers who allowed the most fly ball damage, Jimmy Nelson, Wily Peralta and Greinke, actually allowed weaker than average fly ball authority. The two Brewers were just below average at 99; Miller Park is a stealth hitters’ park, with homers easily attainable to all fields. Greinke, however, is a very interesting case. His fly ball authority score is a meager 95, which actually would have tied for lowest among the fly ball production laggards. While Dodger Stadium did play like a hitters’ park in 2014, Greinke was both unlucky and plagued by subpar outfield defense. There are many reasons to expect a big year from Greinke in 2015, but the departure of Matt Kemp from the Dodger outfield is one that can easily be overlooked.

Two who allowed little fly ball damage actually allowed harder than average fly ball authority. Andrew Cashner (101 authority score) had the benefit of pitcher-friendly Petco Park, and Aaron Harang (102) had both a friendly home park and an exceptional outfield defense behind him. Expect Harang to allow substantially more damage in the air in his new Philadelphia surroundings.

There really isn’t much to see in the liner production leaders and laggards, as in almost all cases, the leaders allowed average or harder, and the laggards allowed lower than average liner authority. One exception is Jon Niese, who was fairly lucky on liners, as he allowed relatively little production despite a 102 liner authority score.

The 10 pitchers who allowed the most production on grounders all allowed average or harder grounder authority, and three of them, Tyler Matzek (107), Jacob Turner (106) and Travis Wood (105), had grounder authority scores among the very highest in the NL. High authority scores are as much or more attributable to an inability to generate weak contact as they are to a tendency to allow hard contact. These three pitchers were unable to generate, weak, roll-over pull grounder contact with any regularity last season.

Five of the pitchers who allowed relatively little production on grounders — Jason Hammel (106), Ryan Vogelsong (103), Alfredo Simon (102), Lincecum (102) and Josh Collmenter (101) — actually allowed harder than average grounder contact. Hammel, Vogelsong and Simon, in particular, were very lucky to experience the success they did in 2014; they just as easily could have ranked among the 10 pitchers allowing the most damage on grounders, which would have led to very different overall results.

The bottom right table puts it all together. These are the pitchers who allowed the most, and least damage on all BIP types combined. Edwin Jackson, if anything, is consistent. He allowed harder than average contact (authority scores of 102, 102 and 104) on all three major BIP types, and to top it off, was unlucky as well. If Cliff Lee is going to continue to allow relatively hard contact moving forward, he is going to need to remain a K/BB god just to remain a good, let alone great pitcher. I’m pretty bullish on Jimmy Nelson. Solid K/BB in his first NL tour, and his authority scores (99, 101, 96 across the board) were solid. Bad luck on fly balls undermined his season.

Among those who suppressed batted-ball damage last season, three veteran starters deserve special mention. Matt Garza allowed weaker than average contact on all BIP types, and his 93 grounder authority score was one of the best in the NL. Johnny Cueto’s authority scores were 97, 96, 93 across the board; he suffocated contact of all types, was exceptionally durable and ran a stellar K/BB to boot. Wainwright just might be the contact manager of the year in the NL, however. He needed to be, as his K and BB rates are finally showing signs of breakdown. He ranked among the bottom 10 in terms of production allowed in all three major BIP types, and while luck and defense played some role, his authority scores were strong overall, 95 on fly balls, 97 on liners and 96 on grounders.