Archive for Daily Graphings

I have a favorite pitch in the majors. As someone who hopes to illuminate interesting aspects of the game of baseball, I wish I could say my favorite pitch was an obscure off-the-board pick that you had never previously considered – a pitch by an obscure reliever or an up-and-coming rookie, perhaps — but in reality, my favorite is classic and unoriginal. The pitch that makes me go weak at the knees like no other is Adam Wainwright’s curveball.

As a baseball fan of a certain age, I’ve recently found myself facing the mortality of the seminal baseball figures of my formative years. From The Kid’s enshrinement in Cooperstown to the imminent retirement of Alex Rodriguez to the 3,000th hit of a player from Japan who I swear won the Rookie of the Year award just a few years ago, my baseball life has been inundated recently with baseball reflections and farewells. When a 34-year-old Adam Wainwright posted a 7.16 ERA through his first five starts of the season, part of me wondered if I would also be saying goodbye to my favorite pitch sooner than later. However, since the start of May, things have turned around significantly for Wainwright.

As the season has progressed, Wainwright’s results have steadily improved to the extent that he now has a 2.74 ERA and 24.1% strikeout rate over his past 11 starts. However, one thing that hasn’t kept pace with his improved results is the performance of his signature curveball. By our pitch-type linear weights, the run value of his curve per 100 thrown is at the lowest mark since 2007 — his first year as a starter. Opponents have posted a 64 wRC+ against the pitch this season, which sounds reasonably good until you note that opponents have registered a minuscule 26 wRC+ against the pitch over his career. Is this a fluke, or has Wainwright’s recent resurgence happened in spite of the fact that his curveball is in decline?

To evaluate the performance of the pitch, I first looked at two key indicators: whiffs per swing and grounders per balls in play. If these peripheral stats remained stable, it would indicate to me that batters were performing as expected against the pitch and the declining results-based performance of the pitch was a fluke.

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Earlier this season, Bartolo Colon (now at 228) passed Pedro Martinez (219) on the all-time wins list. Among Dominican-born pitchers, only Juan Marichal has more (243).

Ervin Santana is also climbing the ranks. At 131 wins, the Twins right-hander is just four behind Ramon Martinez, who ranks third among natives of the Dominican Republic. Since the start of the season, Santana has leapfrogged countrymen Joaquin Andujar (127) and Pedro Astacio (129).

“To be in that category is special,” Santana told me recently. “Growing up, I looked up to Pedro, to Bartolo, to Jose Rijo (116 wins). I know many of them now, (although) I haven’t had a chance to talk to Marichal. He was obviously one of the great pitchers.”

Santana has learned from his heroes. He’s discussed sliders with Rijo, and two-seamers that run back over the plate with Colon. Some of the best tutorials have come from Pedro Martinez. Read the rest of this entry »

I’ll be in California for the next few days at the Area Codes and some Cal League stuff, but below are some thoughts on three Phillies prospects I’ve seen recently, including Jake Thompson, who debuts today.

Jake Thompson, RHP, Philadelphia Phillies

I saw Thompson a few weeks ago and he struggled with command. I don’t think strike-throwing is a long-term issue here — at least not so much that it will prevent him from starting — but I do think it impacts the effectiveness of his slider and that the most important part of his development at the major-league level will be locating that pitch where he wants when he wants. It’s often plus and should be so consistently at maturity. Thompson had issues locating it for me for the first half of his start until a mid-game at-bat during which C Andrew Knapp called for six straight sliders. It was a great opportunity for Thompson to find his slider, and it worked: Thompson located it for the rest of his start. It’s his best option for swings and misses to both right- and left-handed hitters. It was anywhere from 83-86 during this particular start though I’ve seen it up to 87 in the past.

Thompson’s fastball sits 90-93 and tops out around 94. His low-80s changeup has average projection, as does his curveball, which is slower and more vertically oriented than his slider. It’s a league-average starter’s profile for me.

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Perhaps lost a bit in the trade-deadline shuffle, Kansas City left-hander Danny Duffy pitched one of the very best games of the year this past Monday. On the road against Tampa Bay, he had a no-hitter going until the eighth inning. By the time that inning had ended, Duffy had recorded 16 strikeouts against just one hit and one walk. After a fairly mediocre 2015 season spent mostly in the rotation, Duffy looked to be the next in line to become a very good reliever on a Royals team that has had its fair share. For the first month of the season Duffy pitched quite well out of the pen, but since the middle of May, he’s been a part of the rotation. Jeff Sullivan chronicled Duffy’s rise in the middle of June, noting in particular the lefty’s ability to throw for strikes, and hitters’ general inability to hit those strikes.

The numbers Sullivan cited in his post six weeks ago have remained good since then. Danny Duffy is generally a strike-thrower, keeping the ball in the zone 53% of the time this season, a figure which ranks sixth out of 95 qualified pitchers. Nor is he necessarily pitching to contact, however: his 78% Z-Contact rate is third in baseball behind only knuckleballer Steven Wright and Max Scherzer. Hitters haven’t fared too much better outside of the zone: his 56.6% O-Contact rate is 13th among qualifiers. His overall contact percentage (72%) and swinging-strike percentage (14.3%) sit behind only the figures produced by Jose Fernandez, Clayton Kershaw, Michael Pineda, Max Scherzer, and Noah Syndergaard. His 62% first-strike rate is good, but closer to the middle of the pack.

In Duffy’s brilliant game against he Rays, his first-strike percentage was actually a tad lower than normal at 53.9%, and his zone percentage was just a bit under 50%. Where Duffy excelled was getting the Rays to chase the ball outside the strike zone. Of the pitches outside of the strike zone, Rays batters swung at 44% of them and made contact on just 20% of swings.

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There’s only one Clayton Kershaw. Comparing a pitcher at any level — amateur, minors, majors — to Clayton Kershaw is a terrible, awful, no good, very bad idea. Presumably there will be another generational pitching talent at some point in the future and, when that future ace posts Kershavian stats over the course of multiple seasons, maybe we can start having that discussion. Maybe. Until then, do not make Kershaw comps. In fact, let’s call that The First Rule of Kershaw: no comps.

Alright, with all that out of the way, let’s have some fun comparing a pitcher to Clayton Kershaw… Look, I stand by The First Rule of Kershaw fully, but I’m also partial to this crazy theory that baseball is fun. We’re all smart enough here to recognize that players who aren’t comparable on a macro level can still have similarities at the micro level. So I’m going to ask you to turn off that beautifully analytical portion of your brain for just a moment, sit back, and watch two pitchers.

I know it’s been much too long, but here’s a reminder of what Clayton Kershaw looks like when he throws a baseball:

Full disclosure bordering on sacrilege: there’s a part of me that doesn’t love watching Kershaw pitch. I feel like a monster even admitting such a thing but, well, look at that delivery. It’s herky, jerky and doesn’t live up to my ideal of what an elite pitching motion should look like. But that’s my problem, not Kershaw’s. He’s a generational talent and that’s what this generational talent looks like when he pitches.

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Marcus Stroman ended June with a bloated 5.33 ERA that was mostly deserved, so he went back to the drawing board. He’s since had an ERA two runs lower, once again deserved, since he changed things in early July.

After a good start in early July, he made general reference to some adjustments after the game, and Shi Davidi went and asked pitching coach Pete Walker for some specifics. So we know some of what Stroman did to recover. He cleaned up the delivery, he moved his hands, he changed his release point, and he altered his pitching mix. It’s the kind of stuff pitchers do to bust a slump.

The most interesting thing might be where he learned these things, though. Who knows when he picked them up from the Red Sox lefty, but these adjustments have made Stroman a bit more like David Price these days. Even if Price is struggling a bit, you have to count that as a good thing compared to where Stroman was earlier this season.

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It’s still sort of hard to fathom how quickly the league-wide strikeout spike snuck up on us. And after a one-year plateau between 2014 and 2015, they’re back on the rise again. On the one hand, a statement like, “Present-day Robbie Ray would’ve been baseball’s strikeout leader as recently as 2010” speaks volumes toward the current state of baseball and how much has changed just in the last five years. It also speaks volumes toward Robbie Ray, because era be damned, what he’s doing is impressive, and it seems like it’s flying under the radar. Funny how quickly we’ve come to take strikeouts for granted.

Robbie Ray has struck out 28% of all the batters he’s faced this season. That’s more than Jake Arrieta last year, higher than Danny Salazar’s current total. It’s higher than almost anyone, in fact, even in our strikeout-laden era. What follows is a complete list of pitchers who, this season, have (a) as many or more innings thrown, and (b) a higher strikeout rate than Ray:

• Jose Fernandez
• Clayton Kershaw
• Max Scherzer
• Stephen Strasburg
• Noah Syndergaard

That completes the list. Just five pitchers in baseball have ran a higher strikeout rate over as many innings as Robbie Ray, and they might just be the five best. Over his last eight starts, the strikeout rate’s up to 33%. It seems time to start paying some real attention to Robbie Ray, who suddenly looks like the second-hand man to Zack Greinke in Arizona.

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Don’t feel bad if you somehow missed Joe Musgrove getting called up to the Astros this past Monday. After all, only like a billion other transactions took place that day, many of which involved established big leaguers and/or prospects more highly touted than Musgrove. But now that the deadline-related madness has come and gone, I’d like to direct your attention to Mr. Musgrove. He’ll be joining the Astros’ rotation this Sunday in place of the injured Lance McCullers, and there’s reason to think he’ll be a very good pitcher.

Two years ago, Musgrove wasn’t on anyone’s prospect radar. Though he was drafted way back in 2011, it took him until 2014 to make it out of Rookie ball — and until 2015 to make it into the full-season levels. But when finally given the opportunity to last year, he broke out in a big way. He shot from Low-A to Double-A, putting up a dazzling 1.88 ERA in just over 100 innings. Perhaps even more impressive were his strikeout and walk numbers: he struck out 99, while walking only eight, giving him rates of 25% and 2%, respectively.

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Pitcher wins are a silly statistic, for all the reasons you know, and additional reasons you don’t. So we pretty much never talk about them — there was a time, once, when the analysts would rail against wins, but that battle is over. The analysts won. Wins carry less value than they ever have, and there’s a part of me that wonders why I’m even bothering to write this post in the first place.

But I just can’t not do it. For one thing, it’s Friday. Leave me alone. It’s August, and the trade deadline just passed, so, again, leave me alone. And even though we don’t talk about them, wins do still exist. Somebody hands them out, and they remain a part of the official records. So I want to take a few minutes of your time to discuss really dumb wins. Sergio Romo just got one Thursday. It was one of the very dumbest.

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Today, our analysis of granular team ball-in-play data continues. Last time, we examined AL West clubs. Today, we take a macro-type view of the plate appearance frequency and BIP exit speed/angle detail for NL West clubs.

About 90 games’ worth of balls in play is a fairly substantial sample size, one that enables us to make fairly educated guesses about the true talent level of each team. Let’s use this information to project true-talent team won-lost records and compare them to their actual marks at the break, examining the reasons for material variation along the way. Read the rest of this entry »