Archive for Daily Graphings

A little under an hour east of here, rising behind one of the world’s largest free-standing natural monoliths, there lies a peak known as Hamilton Mountain. The trail up passes by a breathtaking waterfall and breathstopping cliffs, and the summit affords magnificent views of the Columbia River Gorge and the Cascade peaks towering beyond. As you head out from the trailhead, there’s only one way to go, passing through shrubs and underneath power lines before entering a forest. Soon, though, one arrives at a junction. There are two paths and a sign with arrows, reading “Difficult” and “More Difficult.” The choice is up to the hiker, but no matter which way you pick, you’re going to get to the top.

Mariano Rivera is retiring, which is going to allow us to re-visit the question of who is the game’s best closer. Not that we couldn’t address the question before, but Rivera was the default response, and sometimes people got emotional if you went another way. Now Rivera has removed himself from the pool, and there’s a small host of current candidates to take his place. Among them are Atlanta’s Craig Kimbrel and Los Angeles’ Kenley Jansen, and statistically it can be hard to tell the two apart. Remarkably, they occupy very similar planes. Remarkably, they get there along two very different paths.

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It is time to look at the third team on the field for the National League division round, the umpires. Each umpire is given a quick look to see if they have any unique strike calling patterns. Also, I posted their 2013 K/9 and BB/9 rates which I scaled them to the league average strikeout and walk rates. A 100 value is league average and a 110 value would be a value 10% higher than the average. Additionally, I added images of their called strike zones verses right and left handed hitters (from catchers perspective) compared to the league average. The scale is the percentage difference where -0.1 means 10% points less than the league average

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We don’t know each other, but we’re part of the same circle, in that we spend a lot of our time thinking about baseball analysis. And because we’re in the same circle, we share a bunch of inside jokes. They might not feel like inside jokes, but that’s precisely what they are. Jokes about Jose Molina framing pitches. Jokes about Yuniesky Betancourt playing defense. Jokes about Delmon Young playing defense. Jokes about Delmon Young playing offense. Jokes about Delmon Young acquisitions. We’ve all been programmed to make fun of Delmon Young, and so we’re also programmed to make fun of the teams that like to use him. At least, this was the case, and then Young wound up back on the Rays.

We’re all biased. When Young went to the Phillies, people ripped them to bits, even though Young technically wasn’t even guaranteed a job at first. When Young eventually wound up with the Rays, though, we all paused. We wanted to make fun, but because it was the Rays, we also wanted to give them the benefit of the doubt. That’s something the Rays have earned, and now we figure when they do something weird, they must be up to something. Our assumption is generally that the Rays are right, even when we don’t know why, and the Rays made a particularly curious move on Wednesday against the Indians. It wasn’t the in-game equivalent of signing Delmon Young — who, incidentally, homered, off Danny Salazar — but there was something very much anti-traditional.

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Prior to Tuesday’s game, the story was Pittsburgh’s team. Following Tuesday’s game, the story was Pittsburgh’s crowd. The team, too, of course, did well, but the crowd at PNC was something a lot of the players said they had never experienced. The moment we’ll all remember for years was Johnny Cueto dropping the baseball and subsequently allowing a home run while the entire crowd chanted his name, but the crowd wasn’t on for one pitch — it was on for just shy of nine innings, and it was a crowd very much unlike the sort of crowd you expect at a baseball contest.

It’s not a leap to suggest it made for an intimidating environment. Of course, it’s been suggested that the Pirates were given a massive home-field advantage. You wouldn’t even need to look further than the drop and immediate dinger. Those gathered were very loud and very partisan, and the field itself isn’t sound-proofed. What’s happening above, they hear below, and the dozens of thousands had a certain rooting interest. You want to believe that it mattered. The only problem is evidence.

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First and foremost, the atmosphere was electric. The Pirates hadn’t hosted a post-season game in 21 years, and their fans were in a mood to party. They chanted, they cheered, they hoisted cans of Iron City. Most were adorned in black, but they didn’t come for a funeral. In the end, it was Cincinnati’s season that died. Pittsburgh won 6-2 and will go on to face St. Louis in the NLCS.

What happened on the field was almost overshadowed by what happened in the stands. PNC Park was packed, and it was loud. In the opinion of more than a few scribes, it was as loud as any game they’ve covered, in any sport. Read the rest of this entry »

Yesterday, the nation got to watch Francisco Liriano go up against Johnny Cueto. Come Thursday, Adam Wainwright and Clayton Kershaw are going to pitch, albeit not opposite each other. This is the playoffs, meaning the teams left are good, which means the players left are good, which means the pitchers left are good. There are going to be some incredible potential pitchers’ duels, and some of those are going to work out as actual pitchers’ duels. But Wednesday brings us a special one, even if the majority of baseball fans don’t know a thing about the guys taking the hill. As the Rays and Indians fight in the American League wild-card playoff, they’ll be throwing two of the league’s better and more unknown starters.

The Indians are turning to Danny Salazar, who’s far from a household name. Those who know him, at least, understand his sex appeal. The Rays, meanwhile, are turning to Alex Cobb, and there are people in Cobb’s own home who might not recognize him. Cobb certainly doesn’t have Salazar’s eye-popping stuff, but what the two do have in common are eye-popping numbers — numbers that put them in elite company. Numbers that make this a showdown to anticipate.

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One of the oldest cliches in baseball is that pitchers have to establish their fastball. The average Major League pitcher throws their fastball about 60% of the time, and any deviation from that can get you labeled a junkballer.

Francisco Liriano, with the Pirates season on the line, told that cliche to go pound sand.

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Maybe you can’t get enough baseball. Maybe you want to mourn the Giants’ season. Maybe you’re a West Coast yinzer! Maybe you just love Joey Votto. Or maybe you want to drink good beer and talk beer or baseball with the FanGraphs and BeerGraphs crew. We might even have an unlisted guest or two show up.

Public House, San Francisco, 4-9pm PT (Time subject to change due to schedule.)

Eno Sarris (FanGraphs/BeerGraphs)
Matt Hunter (FanGraphs/BeerGraphs)
Wendy Thurm (FanGraphs)
Carmen Kiew (Bay Area Sports Guy)
King Kaufman (Bleacher Report)
Erik Malinowski (Buzzfeed Sports)
Eric Freeman (The Classical)
Noah Jackson (First Base Foundation, former scout)
Daniel Zarchy (Giants Pod)
Patrick Newman (NPBTracker)
Jeff McClure (Drake’s Brewing)
Owen Poindexter (BeerGraphs)
Jen Rizzo (BeerGraphs)

This evening, the Reds and Pirates will square off in the NL Wild Card game, with the winner advancing to play the Cardinals starting on Thursday. Last week, I wrote up my suggestions for how Clint Hurdle should handle his pitching staff, utilizing an army of relievers to keep the Reds left-handed bats at bay. However, the Pirates are not the only team that can and should go match-up crazy today, as Pittsburgh’s line-up essentially invites Dusty Baker to play the same kind of game.

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With the season now on the threshold of the playoffs, there’s no more logical a thing to consider briefly than — and the public is certainly demanding to know more about — the question of raw power versus usable power and what it looks like at the major-league level.

The concept is important, and perhaps underestimated in its importance, but can also be illustrated rather expediently in the persons of Pittsburgh third baseman Pedro Alvarez and Toronto first-base/DH-type Edwin Encarnacion. Of Messrs. Alvarez and Encarnacion, one can make three true statements, as follows — namely that (a) both players hit 36 home runs this season, (b) both recorded something not unlike 600 plate appearances, and (c) both hit home runs in just under 6% of their respective plate appearances.

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