Archive for Daily Graphings

This afternoon, Mike Petriello put up a really good post on Dallas Keuchel’s breakout season. Included in that post was a graph plotting every 2014 qualified starter based on two variables: their groundball rate, and their strikeout rate minus their walk rate. Basically, the point of the graph was to show not just how extreme Keuchel’s groundball tendencies have been, but how rare it is for a pitcher to get that many groundballs while also getting strikeouts and limiting walks.

I gave Mike the graph after seeing that he had beaten me to writing a post about Keuchel’s emergence, but that’s not the only interesting data point on the chart, so I’m giving that chart its own post, highlighting some of the more interesting pieces of information that we can gain from plotting pitchers based on those variables.

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On Monday night, I sat down to watch a presumed pitchers duel featuring successful AL West starters Garrett Richards and Dallas Keuchel, which I suppose says something about both the 2014 baseball season to this point and me as a person. Richards, who’d entered the game with a top-10 FIP in baseball, disappointed, needing 27 pitches to get through a three-run first inning. He managed to avoid a disaster and actually stuck around through seven innings, but allowed 12 base runners, five runs and a mere lone strikeout, if whiffing Chris Carter even counts. I’m sure there’s a good starter in there, but being as this was the first time I’d had the opportunity to really watch him this year, I haven’t seen it yet.

And Keuchel? Well, I’m fairly certain this is the first time we’ve ever written about Keuchel on the main page of FanGraphs. He shut down the Angels on two runs over 8.2 innings for what was very nearly his second career shutout, five days after shutting out the Rangers for his first career shutout. After entering the season with a 5.20 career ERA in 239 innings, he’s now got a 2.92 ERA over the first 61.2 innings of his 2014 — numbers emphatically backed up by a 2.81 FIP and 2.68 xFIP. That xFIP is No. 5 in baseball, tied with Zack Greinke, just ahead of Johnny Cueto and Jon Lester; his swinging-strike percentage is No. 13, right in between Madison Bumgarner and Corey Kluber.

You know what? I think we’re finally going to have to talk about Dallas Keuchel. Read the rest of this entry »

Roughly a quarter of the 2014 season is in the books, and the sample sizes are creeping toward a representative level. Over the next couple of weeks, let’s take a somewhat deeper look at some of this season’s more noteworthy players and performances to date. “Noteworthy” doesn’t always mean “best”, though it does in most cases. Today, we’ll take a look at the first quarter season of Jose Abreu’s US major league career. Though recently sidelined with left ankle tendinitis, Abreu has already made an indelible mark on the American League. He leads the majors in homers, and has been one of the game’s most productive hitters despite a poor K/BB ratio. Can he keep it up, or is he in over his head a bit, marking himself as a clear regression target? Read the rest of this entry »

The best player in baseball so far has been Troy Tulowitzki. He made it to 4 WAR before any other player made it to 3 WAR. Tulowitzki isn’t the entire reason why the Rockies have been a pleasant surprise, but he’s more responsible for their success than any other player is responsible for his own team’s success, and as long as Tulowitzki is able to stay on the field, he ought to resemble an MVP candidate. Healthy Tulowitzki is always an MVP candidate.

Let’s break that WAR down a little bit. As the best player in baseball, Tulowitzki has been the best hitter in baseball. It’s true that he spends half his time in a hitter’s paradise, but we have numbers that adjust for that, and the adjustment is built into the fact. The most conspicuous part of Tulowitzki’s hot streak has been his offensive productivity. You don’t just overlook a .764 slugging percentage. But another thing that’s true is that Tulowitzki has been among the best defenders in baseball. He’s on track for a career-best UZR. He’s already at a dozen Defensive Runs Saved, after finishing last year at +6. We’ve long known that Tulowitzki is a good defensive shortstop, but thus far he’s been out of his mind, just as he’s been at the plate. So one wonders: just what has he been doing?

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Fact: Phil Hughes has always been a tinkerer. All players are constantly making adjustments, so in that sense all players are tinkerers, but Hughes has been a tinkerer to the extreme. He’s gone back and forth on what pitches he’s wanted to throw, and Ben Lindbergh identified several different versions of Hughes, the pitcher. Adjustments are interesting to investigate, so Hughes hasn’t been dull, although this leads us to the next fact.

Fact: Phil Hughes has seldom been good enough. The former top prospect has a career 12.2 WAR, and for the most part he’s been missing consistency. Because of the inconsistency, there’s been the tinkering, and perhaps because of the tinkering, there’s been additional inconsistency. There’s always been the question of Hughes’ potential. There’s never been a question of whether or not Hughes was a disappointment. Because of his reputation, people were surprised when the Twins handed Hughes a guaranteed three-year contract.

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“It’s the second-best pitch in baseball after the fastball” said Braves catcher Gerald Laird, when talking about the change-up. The arm action is the same as a fastball, the seams come out looking the same, there’s not many release point clues that it’s coming, and then “the ball is just not there.”?

For the first extended period of time, Ervin Santana and Gavin Floyd both feel comfortable with their change-ups. Both starters — acquired by the Braves over the winter — had unconventional offseasons in which they made mechanical adjustments on their own, and both have similar mechanics that may have made it harder for them to develop the pitch before now. But both are trying something new this year.

First, let’s take a look at their new change-ups. Jeff Sullivan wrote about Santana’s in-game strategy with the pitch, so we’ll build from there.

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Each weekday during the minor-league season, FanGraphs is providing a status update on multiple rookie-eligible players. This particular Prospect Watch feature will focus on prospect notes from around the minors — focusing on both top prospects and sleepers.

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In baseball, as in life, perspective is crucial. In terms of the terribly struggling Atlanta Braves offense, Jason Heyward’s 79 wRC+ is merely one issue among many, because this is a team that’s also rolling out Ryan Doumit (34 wRC+), Dan Uggla (40), B.J. Upton (68) and Chris Johnson (also 79) on a semi-regular or more basis. When the entire offense is so wretched that as a team, their .302 OBP — and yes, I have filtered out the pitchers, so this is only the guys actually paid to hit — is No. 28 in baseball, it’s hard to single out the guy who’s been more “meh” than “flaming poisonous tire fire” when there’s more than one of the latter around.

In terms merely of Jason Heyward, who debuted at 20 with hype commensurate to Bryce Harper, homered in his first plate appearance, and is the owner of seasons of 4.6 and 6.4 WAR, this can only be seen as a huge disappointment. That 79 wRC+ is equal or essentially so to Curtis Granderson and Carlos Santana, each hitting under .200; to Allen Craig, who has looked like he’s playing a different sport; to Eric Young, who is inexplicably getting playing time over Juan Lagares; to Chris Colabello, all but assured of a minor league stint in his future.

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Here on FanGraphs, we don’t do a lot of writing about other writers. It’s actually a site policy, and when someone joins FanGraphs, we make a point of telling them that our goal is to talk about baseball, not talk about the people who cover baseball. I have little to no interest in media criticism, or in advancing any kind of notion that the “traditional” and “new” media outlets need to be at war with either. But yesterday, Bob Ryan published a piece in the Boston Globe that I think is worth responding to.

In some ways, the piece isn’t that different from what hundreds of other sports writers have written over the last few years. However, I think this one is worth a response, or put more accurately, I think Bob Ryan is worth responding to. He’s one of the most respected sports writers in America, generally, and his body of work suggests that this article was born out of a genuine belief system, not just an attempt to stir the pot and generate discussion. My experience in reading and listening to him has always led me to perceive him as a reasonable man, and so I’d like to offer a reasoned response to his column.

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A feature that gets a lot of attention here, probably, is our playoff odds page. That page uses updated player projections and manually updated team depth charts to determine playoff probability and expected record. I look at the page probably two or three times a day, and though the numbers mean only so much, there’s no better way to get an idea of where a team truly stands. Current standings tell you about the now; projected standings tell you about the significance of the now.

A feature that gets a lot less attention here, probably, is our playoff odds page based on season-to-date performance. It uses the same depth-chart information, but instead of using player projections, it uses what players have already done. For example, in the former case, the Rockies are projected with a half-decent Charlie Blackmon. In the latter case, the Rockies are projected with a terrific Charlie Blackmon. It’s evident why the former page is preferred, but the latter page can serve a purpose, especially if you’re wondering about potential under- and over-achievers.

I thought it could be interesting to compare the two pages. We’ll leave the playoff odds alone — those get complicated, and they’re not what this is about. Both pages have projected rest-of-season winning percentages. With which teams do we see the greatest differences? Is this as predictable as it seems like it would be?

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