Through all the tirades and tantrums that marred his eventual exit from Chicago, it can be easy to forget Carlos Zambrano is just 30 years old. This season, Zambrano is showing the world that he just might have something left in the tank. Through 41 innings, Zambrano is the proud owner of a 1.98 ERA. Despite his effectiveness, he wasn’t rewarded with his first victory of the season until Monday night, when he twirled his best start of the season, a complete game, nine-strikeout shutout of the Astros in Houston. In many ways, Zambrano is looking like the pitcher who shined with the Cubs throughout the last decade.

Read the rest of this entry »

It took 21 team games and 72 plate appearances, but Giancarlo Stanton finally hit his first home run of the the season this past weekend. He drove an 0-2 fastball from left-hander Mike Zagurski out to dead center field, a 425-foot three-run shot. It raised Stanton’s season line to .246/.288/.348 and was just his fifth extra-base hit, well below both projections and expectations. There are a number of reasons for the 22-year-old’s power outage in the early going, but the most obvious one is staring us right in the face: his new ballpark.

With some help from Hit Tracker Online, here’s a look at the new Marlins Park with an overlay of the Sun Life Stadium outfield dimensions…

Read the rest of this entry »

Heath Bell was just one strike away from getting the second out in the ninth Thursday in New York. Bell was in just another jam, the fourth time in seven outings this season at least three baserunners reached against him. But with Justin Turner at the plate — a lifetime .248/.325/.336 hitter — Bell jumped out to an 0-2 count. There was his way out.

And then Turner fouled off a couple pitches. And then a couple more. And the next thing we knew, it was a full count. And then he fouled off four more pitches. Finally, on the 13th pitch of the at-bat, Turner took ball four on a pitch down and out of the zone. The Mets had the game tied and would eventually win it on Kirk Niewenhuis’s long single to right field as the rain poured on Citi Field.

It’s been about as rough a season as anybody could imagine for the 34-year-old closer. In just 5.2 innings, Bell has allowed eight runs (six earned), walked seven batters, and allowed nine hits. Pretty much every rate imaginable to measure his pitching is unfortunate at this point, but the most distressing? Perhaps a 4.9% swinging strike rate, a big part of the reason Bell couldn’t get out of the ninth Thursday at Citi Field. It used to be Bell could take a hitter like Justin Turner and blow him away. Not so throughout 2012 thus far.

Read the rest of this entry »

Ivan Rodriguez is reportedly slated to announce his retirement from baseball today. There will be much written about his impressive career, and much of it will focus on whether or not he will get into the Hall of Fame, even though his numbers pretty obviously warrant it. Personally, I think that sidesteps the issue of how such a great player had not one but two lame nicknames: “Pudge,” which would not be so bad if it had not already been used; and “I-Rod,” which involved the incredibly annoying “first initial-first syllable” lazy nicknaming thing. It makes it hard to give this post a decent title.

Rather than looking at a career overview, let’s focus on a few particular moments: Rodriguez’ three biggest in-game hits according to Win Probability Added (WPA).

Read the rest of this entry »

I have been toying around with an idea for pitcher-hitter match-ups based not on prior head-to-head performance or platoon splits, but rather pitch type linear weights.

For those that are unfamiliar, pitch type linear weights basically takes a batter or pitcher’s performance on each type of pitch they throw or face during the year (e.g. four-seam fastball, slider, etc.) and converts that performance into runs created or runs saved relative to average. At FanGraphs, we show both the total runs created or saved for each pitch (e.g. wFB) and a normalized version for the value per 100 pitches thrown (e.g. wFB/C).

I thought it would be interesting to compare the starting pitcher’s pitch type linear weight performance against the lineup he is facing. To do this, I calculated the difference in run value between each pitch type for each starting pitcher and the hitters they might face. The difference is shown in the tables below. Green coding denotes an advantage to the pitcher, while red indicates an advantage for the hitter. I used the normalized version of each pitch type (i.e. run value per 100 pitches thrown/faced) to control for playing time, pitches seen, etc.

The tables below show the match-ups for tonight’s game between the Marlins and Phillies (7:05pm EST) for both Josh Johnson and Roy Halladay:

Read the rest of this entry »

Opening Day 1.5 featured a one-game series with the defending world champs, the St. Louis Cardinals, and the league’s latest makeover recipient, the Miami Marlins. Righty Kyle Lohse earned the Opening Day honors for the Cardinals on the merit of being not recently or presently injured, and much to the surprise of many, Lohse took a perfect game no hitter into the 7th inning.

His line from the game:

7.1 IP, 1 ER, 3 K, 0 BB, 8 GB, 10 FB, 2 LD

All told, that comes to a 1.23 ERA, 1.49 FIP, 2.94 xFIP, and… a 4.22 SIERA…

Everything but that SIERA number suggests Lohse had a great start. Let’s find out why.
Read the rest of this entry »

Read the methodology behind the ratings here. Remember that the grading scale is 20-80, with 50 representing league average.

2012 Organizational Rankings

#30 – Baltimore
#29 – Houston
#28 – Oakland
#27 – Pittsburgh
#26 – San Diego
#25 – Minnesota
#24 – Chicago AL
#23 – Seattle
#22 – Kansas City
#21 – Cleveland
#20 – New York Mets
#19 – Los Angeles Dodgers
#18 – Colorado

Miami’s 2011 Ranking: 17th

2012 Outlook: 53 (14th)

The biggest strength for the Marlins this year will likely be their lineup. While the team finished slightly behind the middle of the pack in wOBA at .311 (9th in the NL) last year, the progressions of Logan Morrison and Giancarlo Stanton, along with the expected bounce back from Hanley Ramirez and the acquisition of Jose Reyes should make this one of the better lineups in the league.

Read the rest of this entry »

I’m currently in Jupiter, Florida, as a guest both of (a) my 91-year-old grandfather and (a) the Miami Marlins of Florida. Today was Day 1 of 3 of my time here. I’ll be spending time on the backfields, watching some minor-league games and providing mediocre analysis on same.

Today, I watched mostly the High-A game between the Marlins and Cardinals — or, alternately, the Jupiter Hammerheads and Palm Beach Cardinals, of the Sally and Florida State League, respectively.

Regarding Grant Dayton
Left-hander Grant Dayton, 24, pitched for Miami and was generally excellent — although, perhaps, less excellent in consideration of his age. He threw what appeared to be four or five pitches, depending on how all the breaking balls are split up: a fastball at 88-91 mph, a cutter at ca. 85 mph, a slider at around 80 mph, and a change at 82-83 mph. There were a couple of breaking balls in the high 70s, too, so it’s possible that he was throwing a curve. In any case, the shape of the pitch was pretty similar to the slider.

Read the rest of this entry »

It is an exciting time for Miami Marlins fans. They have a brand new ballpark, a new star shortstop in Jose Reyes, and two new solid pitchers in Heath Bell and Mark Buehrle. They also have a new name in right field, Giancarlo Stanton, formerly Mike. At the tender age of 22, Stanton was ranked as the 3rd best right fielder in baseball by our own Jack Moore, trailing only Justin Upton and Jose Bautista. Reports are conflicting, but it sounds as if the Marlins are prepared to make a long-term offer to lock up their star slugger. Such a deal would follow in the footsteps of other young outfielders to sign extensions: Andrew McCutchen, Carlos Gonzalez, Jay Bruce, and the aforementioned Upton. Thus far, these deals have had extremely favourable returns for the franchises, and a Stanton extension would likely be no different.

Thus far in his career, Stanton has been worth 7.3 WAR in only 997 plate appearances, mainly on the strength of a .525 slugging percentage. Numerous scouts rank his power tool as an 80, and at his age, there is still room for improvement. The projection systems recognize this, as his projected wOBA’s for next season range from .372 to .395, with an increase in ISO in all systems except Marcel. Read the rest of this entry »

With disabled list information available going back 10 years, I have decided to examine some league wide and team trends.

League Trends

To begin with, here are the league values for trips, days and average days lost to the DL over the past 10 years.

Read the rest of this entry »