Archive for Daily Graphings

Brandon Guyer was hit by a pitch three times on Thursday, twice by David Price and once by Noe Ramirez. The Tampa Bay outfielder also had a pair of singles, reaching base a personal best five times as the Rays bested Boston 12-8.

The triple HBP feat tied a MLB record. It had happened 22 times previously, and Guyer was no stranger to the list. Last October, he hobbled to first base courtesy of three Mark Buehrle inside offerings. On the season, he was hit 24 times, the most of any American League player.

Following Thursday’s game, I asked the University of Virginia product about his proclivity to get plunked. Read the rest of this entry »

We’ve gotten to see many sides of Nolan Arenado over the past two years. The maker of ridiculous defensive plays. The hitter of a multitude of home runs. The effusive trotter of the base paths. With regard to his plate discipline, however, Arenado hasn’t changed much since he got to the majors. To call him a “free swinger” doesn’t really do him justice: between 2014 and -15, Arenado ranked 10th in overall swing percentage (53.5%) and eighth in swing percentage at pitches outside of the strike zone (38.7%). As a result, he hasn’t walked much since he was called up in 2014 — at just over half the league average the past two years — which, hey, is something you might do too if you had the talent and skill to hit 40-plus home runs in the major leagues. In 2015, he saw the 17th-fewest pitches per plate appearance out of qualified hitters. Arenado hasn’t really waited around, is the point. He’s been aggressive in and out of the zone, and the trade-off has been fewer free passes. The reward was ten first-pitch home runs last season.

Swinging as much as Arenado has in the past two years tends to require other skills to offset/complement that tendency, like above-average contact rates, great power, or speed on the base paths. An illustration: of the ten leaders in overall swing percentage from 2015, five had below-average contact rates:

• Marlon Byrd (100 wRC+)
• Adam Jones (109)
• Avisail Garcia (83)
• Starling Marte (117)
• Ryan Howard (92)

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It’s possible that more has been made of defensive positioning over the last five years than the prior hundred before it. Infield shifts are something we actually track now, and if the early season is any indication, the usage of those infield shifts is on the rise for a fifth consecutive season. Players and managers discuss them openly, television broadcasts take note — some going so far as to display the position of every fielder on the screen — and we see the benefits (and occasional drawbacks) of the shift on a daily basis.

But nearly all the attention we’ve paid to defensive positioning has gone to the infield. There’re more holes in the infield, less margin for error when the shift doesn’t work, and baseball is slow enough to adapt to any sort of change that it should come as no surprise we had to take this one step at a time. But now, slowly but surely, teams have begun shifting more in the outfield, and before long, the outfield shift, just like the infield shift, will become accepted as standard practice, rather than something that demands attention when it happens.

But shifts aren’t confined to lateral movement, the way we most often see. Players are free to move in and out, too, and thanks to new Statcast data, this is the kind of thing we’re starting to see measured and quantified.

Enter Dexter Fowler. Fowler was the center fielder behind Jake Arrieta for Arrieta’s no-hitter last night. Fowler’s been arguably the best player in baseball this year, owing to positive marks in the batter’s box, on the bases, and in the field. Fowler’s long been an above-average hitter, and he’s long been a plus base-runner, but the defensive marks haven’t been so kind. You could make the case the defensive marks are the thing that’s prevented Fowler’s reputation from exceeding “nice little player” to “borderline star.” An above-average hitter who runs the bases well with a reputation as a plus center fielder is a borderline star. But Fowler hasn’t had the reputation as a plus center fielder, because the tools we use to evaluate defense in this day and age have considered Fowler one of the worst defensive outfielders in baseball since he entered the league.

Since 2009, Fowler’s first full season, 28 players have registered at least 3,000 innings in center field — the kind of sample we prefer to have before working with defensive metrics. To contextualize Fowler’s place among his defensive peers, I took that pool of 28, weighted Defensive Runs Saved and Ultimate Zone Rating equally, and prorated the figures to roughly a year’s worth of playing time. The worst three regular center fielders over the last seven years, by the numbers, are as follows:

1. Matt Kemp, -11 runs saved per 1,000 innings
2. Dexter Fowler, -9
3. Angel Pagan, -4

Fowler stands 6-foot-5, 195, has good speed, and overall looks like an elite athlete, so his consistently league-worst defensive metrics have always been puzzling, the kind of guy the eye-test crowd uses as an example against the metrics by pointing at him and going, “Just look at him!” Which, I can’t blame them. Fowler looks like he should be fine defensively. It’s always puzzled me, too.

Which is why I was immediately captivated by this tweet from Mike Petriello last month:

Fun with #statcast data: There’s a 28 foot difference in raw avg positioning from deepest CF (Kiermaier) to shallowest (Jones/Fowler).

— Mike Petriello (@mike_petriello) March 23, 2016

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Ever since Voros McCracken revealed his DIPS theory, stating that pitchers had little control over the outcomes of batted balls, people have been looking for exceptions to the rules. The first ones identified were knuckleballers, who consistently and relisably post some of the lowest BABIPs of any pitchers during their careers. From there, it was found that flyball pitchers, especially ones who generate a lot of pop-ups, can also run relatively low BABIPs over long periods of time. And then there are guys like Bronson Arroyo, who don’t easily fit into a bucket of pitcher-types, but managed to suppress outs on balls in play for over a few thousand innings, showing that he had some ability to induce weak contact.

Often times, the guys who fit the mold of a FIP-beater are guys who wouldn’t be in the big leagues if they hadn’t figured out how to exploit this advantage. The list of guys that we have to write the “FIP is wrong about them” disclaimer currently includes the likes of Chris Young, Marco Estrada, Jered Weaver, Tyler Clippard, and Darren O’Day. You’ll notice that these guys all throw in the 80s, and in Weaver and Young’s case, the low-80s. The guys who don’t conform to the normal range of BABIP variance use their ability to generate weak contact to offset their lack of stuff. They can’t dominate the strike zone — O’Day is the exception to that point — so they get batters out by allowing the kinds of contact that their fielders can get to. I’m sure they’d rather just strike everyone out, but since they can’t do that, they’ve learned to succeed in another way.

But while Weaver and Estrada are still chugging along, soaking up innings and keeping their teams in the ballgame, there’s a new king of weak contact in Major League Baseball. And to make life unfair, he also happens to throw 95.

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I write a lot about player adjustments. I write so often about player adjustments I start to get a little self-conscious about it. I just do it because I love doing it, and because sometimes I forget what else there is to cover. I love it when a pitcher tries to add a new pitch. I love it when he adjusts an old pitch, or when he starts using the same pitches in different ways. It interests me when a hitter starts putting more or fewer balls in play on the ground. Or, there are the cases where hitters pull the ball more, or spray the ball more. There are so many types of adjustments. There’s one in particular we very seldom see. One we also dream about players making. Randal Grichuk, for his part, is giving it a go.

Grichuk has had a familiar hitting profile: big power, but limited by wavering control of the strike zone. He’s been the hitter equivalent of a talented pitcher with overwhelming stuff but inconsistent command. Those pitchers can still be valuable, but more often than not, they never figure out how to throw strike after strike. And, even more often than not, aggressive hitters tend to stay aggressive. It’s easy to observe when a guy is swinging too much, but it’s not an easy thing to improve.

In his last 10 games, Grichuk has drawn nine walks. He’s struck out six times. To put it another way, Grichuk has drawn a quarter of his career walks in the most recent 7% of plate appearances. Obviously, it’s too soon to say anything for certain, but it’s incredible we’re even here in the first place.

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Chris Archer isn’t where he wants to be. He’s made four starts this season — in two of them, he’s allowed three runs, and in the other two of them, he’s allowed six runs. One of the especially bad starts came Wednesday, and now Archer stands with baseball’s fifth-worst ERA, and baseball’s sixth-worst FIP. Archer so far has been mostly dismissive of his struggles, but given how he also ended last year on a pretty flat note, fans are paying close attention. By no means would concern be unwarranted.

One certainly shouldn’t be too concerned. This is something we can say without even going too deep. While Archer has some ugly numbers, he also has a top-20 xFIP, owing to his high rate of strikeouts. The stuff is still there, for the most part. And while there have been too many hits, Archer hasn’t shown any decline in contact rate. It’s still not easy to get the bat on the ball, and as long as Archer is getting whiffs, he stands a good chance of getting straightened out.

You just can’t say this has all been nothing. Archer himself would tell you he hasn’t executed. Not with sufficient consistency. He hasn’t located the ball like he’d like to, and that’s made him vulnerable. When the location goes, you can blame something physical, or you can blame something mechanical. I trust that Archer is healthy, so I’m thinking about mechanics. And I do have a guess at what’s been wrong. To repeat: this is a guess! I am not Chris Archer, and we’ve never even emailed. If we’ve ever been in the same room, I sure as shoot didn’t notice. What follows is just one thing I have noticed. Put however much stock in this as you want.

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Over the last few weeks in this space, we’ve conducted ball-in-play based analyses of position players’ and starting and relief pitchers’ 2015 performance. Last time, we considered AL relievers. Today we’ll present the last installment of this series, focusing on NL relief pitchers. It’s admittedly a little dicey to evaluate relief pitchers in this manner. The sample sizes are much smaller, and filled with more noise. Still, it’s a worthwhile exercise that can show us the different ways in which closers, set-up men, et al, get it done.

First, some background on the process. I identified the 214 relief pitchers from both leagues who yielded the most batted balls in 2015, making sure that all team save leaders were included in the sample. From that group, I selected 28 pitchers from each league for further scrutiny. Pitchers are listed with their 2015 league mates; those who were traded during the season will appear in the league in which they compiled the most innings. Pitchers are listed in “tru” ERA order. For those who have not read my previous articles on the topic, “tru” ERA is the ERA pitchers “should” have compiled based on the actual BIP frequency and authority they allowed relative to the league. Here we go:

Relief Pitcher BIP Profiles

	AVG MPH	FB/LD MPH	GB MPH	POP%	FLY %	LD%	GB%	ADJ C	K%	BB%	ERA-	FIP-	TRU-
Jansen	88.07	91.64	86.56	7.4%	46.3%	11.1%	35.2%	85	40.0%	4.0%	64	56	43
Kimbrel	89.42	92.05	86.82	3.9%	30.5%	19.5%	46.1%	62	36.4%	9.2%	69	70	45
A.Chapman	83.53	86.39	79.65	8.1%	33.0%	21.8%	37.1%	83	41.7%	11.9%	41	49	51
Storen	87.16	90.47	84.11	5.1%	32.6%	23.9%	38.4%	75	29.4%	7.0%	87	73	58
AJ.Ramos	86.80	90.72	82.82	4.4%	35.9%	16.4%	43.4%	76	31.4%	9.4%	59	80	60
W.Smith	88.72	91.15	88.36	1.4%	37.5%	15.3%	45.8%	91	34.5%	9.1%	67	61	63
Romo	84.14	90.03	80.39	4.1%	27.6%	23.4%	44.8%	95	30.9%	4.4%	83	53	64
Strop	89.71	90.49	89.35	4.6%	24.3%	19.7%	51.3%	74	30.0%	10.7%	74	81	64
Kelley	88.13	92.83	85.75	4.9%	33.0%	19.4%	42.7%	88	30.7%	7.3%	66	67	66
Melancon	87.99	92.05	85.13	3.3%	19.3%	19.8%	57.5%	73	21.2%	4.8%	59	75	66
Benoit	83.22	90.00	77.46	4.3%	32.1%	17.3%	46.3%	69	24.8%	9.1%	63	98	66
Dyson	88.41	91.73	87.26	1.9%	12.5%	16.8%	68.8%	73	23.0%	6.8%	66	76	67
Familia	86.23	90.18	85.06	2.5%	19.1%	20.1%	58.3%	90	27.9%	6.2%	50	71	69
R.Delgado	84.95	89.42	82.25	5.7%	35.0%	18.0%	41.2%	67	23.7%	10.7%	80	97	69
H.Rondon	87.60	89.05	85.96	1.6%	25.6%	20.4%	52.4%	84	24.6%	5.3%	43	69	70
Maurer	84.09	88.76	78.90	4.7%	25.5%	22.1%	47.7%	68	18.9%	7.3%	81	86	70
Fr.Rodriguez	85.64	89.08	82.26	2.1%	27.9%	23.6%	46.4%	97	28.7%	5.1%	55	72	71
Grilli	87.98	91.56	82.00	5.9%	41.2%	25.9%	27.1%	104	32.1%	7.1%	76	57	73
Rosenthal	87.76	91.57	87.65	4.5%	30.5%	19.2%	45.8%	93	28.9%	8.7%	55	63	74
Ziegler	88.89	89.20	88.51	0.5%	13.1%	13.6%	72.8%	65	13.7%	6.5%	45	89	75
Papelbon	88.57	90.98	89.24	2.8%	32.2%	15.3%	49.7%	95	21.5%	4.6%	54	95	81
Giles	88.55	90.67	87.58	2.2%	31.1%	21.9%	44.8%	107	29.2%	8.4%	46	54	82
Casilla	86.68	92.23	81.26	2.6%	27.1%	23.9%	46.5%	102	25.4%	9.4%	77	100	89
Nicasio	85.93	89.70	82.34	2.5%	29.3%	24.8%	43.3%	94	25.0%	12.3%	103	74	90
Jeffress	86.72	89.96	84.98	0.0%	18.0%	23.8%	58.2%	109	23.5%	7.7%	65	80	95
Cishek	86.47	90.89	83.03	0.6%	31.5%	21.8%	46.1%	98	19.8%	11.1%	92	102	103
Axford	91.65	93.10	91.09	1.3%	25.8%	16.8%	56.1%	120	24.8%	12.8%	92	85	112

First, a little background. The larger group of 214 relievers had a cumulative strikeout rate of 22.2% and walk rate of 8.2%. Both rates are higher than the comparable marks for starters (19.8% and 7.0%, respectively). The larger group of relievers also conceded less authoritative contact than starters, allowing lesser overall (88.02 mph for relievers, 88.46 mph for starters), FLY/LD (91.24 vs. 91.78) and grounder (85.76 vs. 86.30) authority. With regard to BIP frequency, relievers outpaced starters in the key grounder-rate category by 45.6% to 45.2%, and matched them in pop-up rate (3.2%).

The subset of relievers listed above generally represents the cream of the relief crop. Most of the column headers are self-explanatory, including average BIP speed (overall and by BIP type), BIP type frequency, K and BB rates, and traditional ERA-, FIP-, and “tru” ERA-. Each pitcher’s Adjusted Contact Score (ADJ C) is also listed. Again, for those of you who have not read my articles on the topic, Unadjusted Contact Score is derived by removing Ks and BBs from opposing hitters’ batting lines, assigning run values to all other events, and comparing them to a league average of 100. Adjusted Contact Score applies league-average production to each pitchers’ individual actual BIP type and velocity mix, and compares it to league average of 100.

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There’s a lot of info out there on a lot of prospects these days. Lead prospect analyst Dan Farnsworth has published detailed organizational lists for all 30 teams that typically run more than 30 deep. Similarly, Baseball America’s 2016 Prospect Handbook profiles the top 30 prospects in each organization.

However, each organization has far more than 30 or 40 players in its minor-league ranks. Using my KATOH projection system, I attempted to find the best of the rest. I’ve identified the players with the most promising statistical profiles who were omitted both from Dan’s organizational list and Baseball America’s organizational top-30 list. These are the players about whom no one is talking.

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Possible headline from 2013: Tyler White Is Mashing

Possible headline from 2014: Tyler White Is Mashing

Possible headline from 2015: Tyler White Is Mashing

Possible headline from right now: Tyler White Is Mashing

The best rookie hitter in baseball this year has not been Trevor Story. The best rookie hitter in baseball this year has been Tyler White, by nearly 60 points of wRC+ over Story. Maybe you haven’t heard about him as much because his last name doesn’t make for a convenient headline, but it’s happened. Tyler White is mashing, just like he has at every single level at which he’s played.

Despite that, less than a month ago, right before the start of the regular season, I wrote a post tossing some cold water on the White hype train after he’d won the Astros’ first-base job out of Spring Training. It’s not that I didn’t want to believe White could continue his mashing ways. I naively want to believe every player can succeed. It’s just that I’d found some historical precedent that compelled me to believe White’s skill set wouldn’t do a great job translating.

A brief recap of the aforementioned post: White is a first baseman, one who has typically relied moreso on controlling the strike zone for his minor-league success rather than hitting for great power. To determine the implications of that sort of profile, I looked at the historical precedent of first baseman who entered the league with plus walk and strikeout rates but below-average power, and found that those types of guys typically have had trouble translating. It’s a skillset that’s fine for a player who offers defensive and base-running value, but without more pop, these types of guys have had trouble sticking at first base at the major-league level. The article concluded as such:

From this one method of evaluating things, he looks like a good major-league hitter, just maybe not for a first baseman, and one whose approach works better in the minors without additional power. Then again, the next time he fails to exceed expectations with the bat will be the first.

Well. He’s exceeding expectations again. And it’s because he’s hitting for power. In 15 career major-league games, White’s already hit five homers, after having never hit more than eight at any one minor-league level, or more than 15 in any one minor-league season. His .380 isolated slugging percentage is top-five in baseball.

Now, of course, it’s been two weeks. You’ve already had that thought at least three times while reading this article. The projections already view White a bit differently, but, because it’s only been two weeks, not too differently. ZiPS has bumped his estimated true-talent ISO from .130 to .151. Steamer went from .149 to .156. The rest-of-season projections haven’t changed drastically, but the rest-of-season projections are never going to change too drastically after just two weeks. What has changed drastically is the updated projections.

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Marco Estrada is notable in several respects. The 32-year-old Blue Jays right-hander has elite spin rate and perceived rise on his four-seam fastball. He also has a bugs-bunny changeup; last year, the speed differential between his heater and his change was the most extreme among qualified pitchers. His BABIP is routinely well below average.

He’s also coming off a career-best season. Estrada made 28 starts for Toronto in 2015 and logged a 3.13 ERA. If the W-L column interests you, he finished 13-8.

The erstwhile National and Brewer has made a pair of starts so far this season, both against the Red Sox. He discussed his signature offerings, and his keep-it-simple approach, following the second of the two outings.

———

Estrada on emerging as a front-line starter: “I added a pitch — I added a cutter — and I think that’s helped me out a lot. My mindset has completely changed. But… I get that all the time. People act like I’ve never done this before. If you look back to 2011, 2012, 2013, those were good seasons. Everybody seems to remember 2014, which was my worst season. Then I followed that up with my best season.”

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