There aren’t many mainstream writers out there who are willing to tackle sabermetric concepts with players, so I have to give Marc Topkin from the the Tampa Bay Times a tip of the hat for mentioning BABIP to Jeremy Hellickson. Not only did he mention a sabermetric statistic to a player, but he brought one up that makes Hellickson look bad:

“Yea, I just got lucky on the mound,” Jeremy Hellickson says dryly. “A lot of lucky outs.” […]

“I hear it; it’s funny,” Hellickson said, not quite sure of the acronym. “I thought that’s what we’re supposed to do, let them put it in play and get outs. So I don’t really understand that. When you have a great defense, why not let them do their job? I’m not really a strikeout pitcher; I just get weak contact and let our defense play.”

First of all, I have to agree with Craig Calcaterra on this one: I couldn’t give a rats patootie if Hellickson knows about or understands BABIP. Sabermetrics is a field most helpful to front office personnel and managers, and while some players find it useful, players don’t need be saberists in order to be good players. And anyway, it’s never going to be the successful players that stumble upon sabermetrics; it’s always going to be the borderline players, the ones looking for any sort of possible advantage to help them get ahead. So should I be annoyed that Hellickson is poo-pooing BABIP? No, not in the least. Good on him.

Instead, this article caught my eye for a different reason: it refers to BABIP primarily as a measure of luck. Hellickson had a low BABIP, which therefore meant he was lucky on balls in play last year. Any pitcher with a low BABIP is therefore “lucky”, and any pitcher with a high BABIP is “unlucky”.

This is a common perception about BABIP, and one that used to be in favor among sabermetric circles. Heck, I subscribed to this philosophy three or four years ago, and I used “luck” as a quick way of describing BABIP to the uninitiated. But these days, that’s an outdated mindset and, quite frankly, misleading.

BABIP is one of the most important sabermetric concepts, but it’s also one of the most misunderstood. What does BABIP tell us? What doesn’t it tell us? Let’s explore.

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 »

The Tampa Bay Rays organization has separated itself well from the mentality that once saw the organization make some interesting choices during the original expansion draft of 1997 and then make a big slash in the free agent pool with the likes of Fred McGriff, Wade Boggs, and Roberto Hernandez (and later Jose Canseco). That approach – an immediate win-now mentality – crashed and burned very quickly with no organizational depth to fill in the big league gaps. The club has spent the last few years developing in-house – and high-ceiling – talent with the likes of David Price, Jeremy Hellickson, and Evan Longoria. This is the recipe for success for a club that cannot afford to battle the New York Yankees and Boston Red Sox for the highest payroll in the American League East division. The organization enjoyed a plethora of picks before the third round of the 2011 draft and, while they picked some very intriguing prospects, I would still describe the haul as more quantity over quality. A number of over-drafts were made within the selections to keep the budget reasonable for the small-market-minded team.

1. Matt Moore, LHP
BORN: June 18, 1989
EXPERIENCE: 5 seasons
ACQUIRED: 2007 8th round, New Mexico HS
2010-11 TOP 10 RANKING: 2nd

Moore enters the 2012 season with perhaps as much hype as any other rookie hurler in the last five to 10 years, save for a fella named Stephen Strasburg of Washington. The lefty has a chance to be as good or better as fellow-home-grown-southpaw David Price, although he was acquired out of the college ranks and selected first overall in 2007. Moore, an eighth rounder from that very same draft, is a much better story in terms of the organization’s player development. He has a chance to be as good or better than some of the other prep arms nabbed in the first round of that draft including: Jarrod Parker (Arizona, now with Oakland), Madison Bumgarner (San Francisco), Phillippe Aumont (Seattle, now with Philly), Blake Beavan (Texas, now with Seattle), Chris Withrow (Los Angeles NL), Tim Alderson (San Francisco, now with Pittsburgh), Michael Main (Texas, now with San Francisco), and Rick Porcello (Detroit). Signed for $115,000, Moore is head and shoulders above anyone else taken in the eighth round; the next best prospect selected in that round would be a toss up between Trevor Reckling (Los Angeles AL) or Jay Voss (Florida, now Detroit). Moore’s repertoire features three potentially plus pitches in a 91-97 mph fastball, nasty curveball and solid changeup. He has all the makings of a No. 1 starter who should eat up tons of innings with a solid frame and worry-free mechanics. The Rays club could feature a killer starting rotation in ’12 with the likes of David Price, James Shields, Moore, Jeremy Hellickson, and either Wade Davis or Jeff Niemann.

Read the rest of this entry »

The Tampa Bay Rays are notorious about being extra slow and cautious with their pitching prospects, but once those pitching prospects reach the majors, watch out! Contrary to how many teams operate, the Rays rarely put their young starters on a strict innings limit in the majors, and according to GM Andrew Friedman, they’re not about to start with Matt Moore:

Friedman said rookie LHP Matt Moore’s innings will be watched but don’t have to be limited because he’s been “built up in a pretty systematic way” in the minors. (Marc Topkin, Tampa Bay Times)

Moore was ranked the #2 prospect in baseball this morning by Baseball America, which got me thinking: how have top-ranked pitchers fared in the past during their rookie season? If given a full work-load, how do these pitchers typically perform?

Read the rest of this entry »

I have gone through all of the 2011 MLB transactions and compiled the disabled list (DL) data for the 2011 season. I have put all the information in a Google Doc for people to use

Read the rest of this entry »

Our braintrust is hard at work identifying the game’s best pitches for all of your February needs. Now it’s time to uncover some of the worst pitches in the game — with as little snark as possible. Because even the worst pitch in the big leagues is way, way better than most of us can manage. And if a pitcher owns a pitch on this list, they must be doing something else right in order to remain in the big leagues. Either that, or they’re not long for the bigs.

At least identifying poor pitches can be a useful and enjoyable exercise. And you’re supposed to do thirty minutes of that every day, so that’s an extra benefit for us.

Read the rest of this entry »

On Tuesday, Joel Sherman reported that some teams are wary of signing Johnny Damon because of how close he is to 3,000 hits. Three executives told Sherman that they were concerned Damon’s quest for the milestone has made him less patient at the plate, trading walks for chances to get a hit — an idea that was first observed by JC Mitchell at DRaysBay back in July. Sherman even cited FanGraphs data to show that in 2011 Damon swung at more pitches out of the zone than any other year for which we have the data. His walk rate took a hit, dropping to 7.9% — his lowest since 2005 and second-lowest since 1996.

The Pitchf/x data show an increase in out-of-zone swings, but not quite as drastic as the BIS data. Although, if I use the left-handed batter-specific zone reported by John Walsh, I see a jump from 26% O-swing from 2007-2010 to 29% O-swing in 2011. I think the best thing to do is look at exactly where the extra swings are coming from. Here are swing-rate contours for Damon comparing 2007-2010 to 2011. Inside the 50% contour he was more likely than not to swing at a pitch, outside of it less likely than not. Pitches inside the 60% contour he swung at over 60% of the time.

Read the rest of this entry »

Prospects have never been trendier amongst baseball fans than they are right now. The MLB Draft is now televised, most baseball blogs and online publications now publish at least a Top 10 Prospects list for each organization, and struggling fan bases such as that of the Kansas City Royals have begun to see their attendance rise as their prized minor leaguers begin to reach the majors.

The same can be said for their popularity within major league organizations, too.

Teams have begun pouring so much money into the draft that the new CBA contains specific limitations to curb the spending spree. Teams now often value control years more than overall talent and have become extremely cautious in parting with top prospects to acquire proven talent. This generalization goes for both big-market and small-market franchises, too, which is something that was not often said in previous years.

Which teams have benefited most from homegrown talent in recent years? Which teams have drafted amateur players and developed them into major league talent the best?

Read the rest of this entry »

Earlier this week on Twitter, I was part of a discussion comparing Troy Tulowitzki and Evan Longoria, two of the best players in the game. I personally give Longoria a slight edge, but obviously Tulowitzki is great, too. If someone prefers him to Longoria, that is fine, and I could probably be talked in to it. What really spurs this particular post is the discussion we had about comparing their offense. Keeping in mind that this was a casual discussion rather than a deep evaluation of “true talent” involving all of the necessary regression and adjustments, someone noted that over the last three seasons (2009-2011) the two players have had virtually identical offensive value per plate appearance: Tulowitzki has a 137 wRC+, and Longoria has a 136 wRC+. I argued that Longoria’s performance was more impressive given that the American League has superior pitching relative to the National League.

However, Dave Cameron made an interesting point: the Rockies play in the National League West, where hitters seemingly face s larger proportion of stud pitchers — Dave mentioned Tim Lincecum, Matt Cain, Madison Bumgarner, Clayton Kershaw, and Mat Latos in this connection. He also pointed out that Longoria did not have to face the Rays’ own excellent pitching staff. So I decided to look at it more closely. The point is not to settle the Longoria versus Tulowitzki dispute. Rather, I am interested in whether individual hitters face (or do not face) particular pitchers enough that they require a “divisional” adjustment of some sort.

Read the rest of this entry »

Alternate post title: Wade Davis, The Reliever

I’ll admit it: when Andrew Friedman said at the beginning of the off-season that the Rays didn’t need to trade a starter, I called bull. It’s no secret that the Rays have a glut of major-league-ready starting pitching, with seven starters who could theoretically be in the opening day rotation*, so I wrote off Friedman’s comments as positioning. You don’t want to announce to the world that you desperately need to trade a starter, thereby jettisoning your leverage. Friedman was playing his hand, but there’s no chance the Rays would actually enter the 2012 season without dealing a starter…right?

*In case you’re having a brain fart: David Price, James Shields, Jeremy Hellickson, Matt Moore, Jeff Niemann, Wade Davis, and Alex Cobb.

As it turns out, wrong. The market ended up being flooded with starters, and there was never a surplus of demand that would have pushed up offers for either Jeff Niemann or Wade Davis. Who saw Gio Gonzalez and Jeremy Guthrie being traded? Or Roy Oswalt staying on the market this late? It was a poor off-season to be stuck trying to deal a mediocre starter, so now the Rays are faced with the task of making all their pitchers fit their roster without decreasing anyone’s trade value.

But the solution to this glut of pitching is simpler than it seems: keep Alex Cobb in Triple-A, and move Wade Davis to the bullpen. That may not seem ideal, but based on his pitch repertoire and success, Davis may be destined to move to the bullpen anyway.

Read the rest of this entry »