I’ve been attempting recently to better understand changeups through the prism of spin. A relationship might exist, but it’s difficult to identify. I’m working on it — and, if I find anything, I’ll share it here. In the meantime, though, there still remain some dependable pitch-level metrics which can reveal the quality of a changeup — namely, drop, fade, and velocity difference. While it’s true that there are a multiple pathways to success for the changeup, those which are notable by these criteria also tend to be notable for their effectiveness. Movement, for example, is what allows Zack Greinke’s hard change to work. The velocity gap between the change and the fastball, meanwhile, becomes more important for those changeups which feature less of Greinke’s signature movement.

Over the course of this past season, a few changeups improved in these regards. We should take notice because, even in today’s era of spin, a nasty changepiece can really pull an arsenal together.

Read the rest of this entry »

Shortly before Thanksgiving, I wrote an article about how Chris Sale had been hurt last season by lousy receivers. That was an interesting observation from the data, but it wasn’t the only interesting observation from the data. According to Baseball Prospectus, Sale lost the second-most runs from his pitch-framers. Brandon Finnegan, however, pitched to the worst strike zone, his framers costing him an estimated 7.8 runs. Meanwhile, from the same source, Madison Bumgarner pitched to the best strike zone, his framers helping him by an estimated 11.0 runs. That’s a 19-run difference from catchers alone.

Maybe you don’t believe the spread was really that big. It’s easy to believe there was some spread — Bumgarner pitched almost exclusively to Buster Posey, while Finnegan pitched to Tucker Barnhart and Ramon Cabrera. One should also be wary of putting everything on the catchers. Pitchers with better command are easier to receive than pitchers with worse command, and Bumgarner throws with greater accuracy than Finnegan does. So, in part, the zones were the pitchers’ fault. But one thing we know for sure is that, in the end, Bumgarner’s strike zone was more generous. Arguably the most generous. So here is how the Bumgarner and Finnegan called strike zones compare:

Pretty interesting! Here is an alternate view of the same information. Note this is also from the catcher’s perspective. This shows called-strike rates out of all called pitches:

Both pitchers are southpaws. Bumgarner got the far better zone high. He got the far better zone arm-side. He got the far better zone low. Glove-side, it’s about equal, if not in favor of Finnegan. That’s of some note — Finnegan wasn’t losing strikes everywhere. It seems like he frequently tried to target that glove-side edge, but he’d often miss, and his catchers were probably worse at receiving missed locations. So it goes. It’s another example of a point to be debated. Bumgarner got the way more generous strike zone than Finnegan did. Some of this is because Bumgarner hit his spots better than Finnegan did. That reflects well on Bumgarner’s talent! But with an automated strike zone, the gap in performance between the pitchers would’ve been narrowed. Bumgarner’s zone would’ve been worse, and Finnegan’s zone would’ve been better. You either like the way things are, or you don’t. They’ve been this way forever, even if we’ve only recently taken to measuring it.

An estimated gap of 18.8 runs. This compares the two extremes, but there was about the same difference in WAR last year between Max Scherzer and Carlos Martinez. Individual ball and strike calls seldom make a big difference in the moment, but, holy hell, can the differences ever add up.

Some time ago, in another InstaGraphs post, I mentioned something that could potentially become true about the 2016 Reds. We spend a lot of time writing about things that could potentially become true, and inevitably, a lot of those paces fall off. There are reasons for that, and that would be a subject for another post. But the 2016 numbers are official now, dammit. There’s no more “on pace for;” there only is. Here is something that is:

That’s bad! Boy, it gets worse. Here are the worst team pitching staffs since 1900, by our version of WAR:

To be absolutely clear about what we have here: By our numbers, the Reds just became the first pitching staff in modern history to finish with a negative WAR. It’s only slight, sure, and the difference between them and those 1915 Athletics is less than one win, but that negative symbol is conspicuous. It pushes the digits over to the right, so they can stand out. The Reds, as a collective, featured a major-league pitching staff that was a worse-than-replacement-level pitching staff. That’s almost unfathomable, is what that is.

Did the Reds really have the worst pitching staff ever? I mean, hell, I don’t know. Their pitching staff had one of the biggest home-run problems ever. By actual runs allowed, they were a little bit better than replacement-level, but you know where we stand on all that. There’s no way to actually compare across seasons or eras, not with the desired level of precision. We just don’t understand pitching that well yet, and we understand it even less the further back we go into history. We can say this: If you wanted to talk about the worst staffs of all time, you might use FanGraphs WAR as a starting point. It couldn’t make the Reds look any worse.

Reds pitchers, month by month:

• April: -1.3 WAR, 30th place
• May: -1.1, 30th
• June: -0.6, 30th
• July: +1.9, 20th
• August: +1.0, 26th
• Sep/Oct: +0.2, 30th

The first half is what did the Reds in. In the second half, they accumulated 3.2 WAR, good enough to edge out the Twins, Braves, and Diamondbacks. In each of the last three months, the Reds’ staff finished in the black. Yet it’s appropriate that, in the final stretch, they were dead last again. All they needed were one or two more good games, to avoid finishing in the…red. But a league-worst September and October locked the Reds into place. They had a chance to run away from history, but instead they suffer its embrace.

A negative WAR. It’s not that there weren’t some success stories. Anthony DeSclafani was pretty good. Dan Straily was all right. Raisel Iglesias adjusted well to the bullpen. Brandon Finnegan got stronger in the second half. But let me tell you: 32 Reds pitchers pitched. Twenty of them finished below 0.0 WAR. Alfredo Simon allowed more runs in 58.2 innings than Jon Lester allowed in over 200. J.J. Hoover allowed more runs in 18.2 innings than Zach Britton’s allowed the last two years combined. For the Reds, 2016 was never going to be about winning. Yet it also definitely wasn’t supposed to be about this.

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the Rangers’ success in one-run games. They actually lost by one run yesterday, but if you’ve been paying attention, that was the first time that’s happened all season, probably, and one game doesn’t upset the whole pattern. The regular season is just about done, and the Rangers have put together an incredible stat. That’s — well, it’s incredible. I don’t need to provide any other words.

It’s tricky to write about these things, and I wasn’t looking to cover this in the familiar way. We’ve all read a number of articles about what the Rangers have done. We’ve all read articles before about similar teams doing similar things. It’s boring to say “luck,” and it’s tired to say “luck,” and with the playoffs around the corner pointing toward luck is additionally irrelevant. The Rangers have done what they’ve done, and their fans have been able to enjoy it. There’s no taking any of that enjoyment back for math-y purposes.

I’ve just been amazed by how the Rangers have stood out. They’ve won 77% of their one-run games. The Yankees are in second at 69%. Then you have the Tigers at 62%. Thinking about the Rangers got me wondering: Is this the most extraordinary team statistic of the year? I’ll tell you right now: It’s not! Follow along below.

Read the rest of this entry »

Hi! You read FanGraphs, so you probably like Joey Votto. As such, you’re probably aware that, two seasons in a row, now, Votto has gone crazy in the second half. Last year, he boosted his game by increasing his hits, his power, and his walks. He ran a second-half wRC+ in the neighborhood of 200. This year, Votto is again running a second-half wRC+ in the neighborhood of 200. Once again, he’s increased his power. Once again, he’s increased his hits. Yet this time, the walks have stayed where they were. Votto isn’t earning free pass after free pass. Rather, somewhere around the middle of this season, Joey Votto just decided that he didn’t like striking out anymore.

So he stopped. Votto, earlier, was more strikeout-prone than ever in his life. More recently, Votto has been less strikeout-prone than ever in his life. That graph seems like it should be impossible — where first-half Votto struck out a quarter of the time, second-half Votto has struck out a tenth of the time. To put it another way, while second-half Votto again has one of the highest walk rates in the league, he’s also managed a lower strikeout rate than Jose Altuve. You just can’t get the ball by Joey Votto anymore. He doesn’t allow pitchers to do it.

Perhaps just as amazing — second-half Votto hasn’t done any better in terms of avoiding two-strike counts. In the first half, Votto saw 29% of his pitches while in a two-strike count. In the second half, that’s risen, ever so slightly, to 30%. Votto is still disciplined, and, clearly, Votto is still letting counts run deep. And even when swinging in two-strike counts, Votto hasn’t necessarily gotten more aggressive or better at hitting the ball fair. His swing rate has risen just a couple points, and the same could be said of his in-play rate. That’s not where you can find an explanation for the whole drop-off.

The answer involves foul balls. When Votto swung with two strikes in the first half, he hit 38% fouls. That ranked him in the 39th percentile. When Votto has swung with two strikes in the second half, he’s hit 49% fouls. That ranks him in the 98th percentile, or, put differently, it puts him in second place. Votto has replaced two-strike whiffs with two-strike fouls, and there’s no penalty for a two-strike foul for a hitter. If you foul off a tough pitch, you earn the opportunity to see another pitch. Votto has fought pitches off and earned himself additional looks, and that’s how he’s maintained his sky-high walk rate while also keeping the defense on its collective toes. He’s refused to strike out, and he’s remained really good at everything else.

I don’t know why it would just click like this, and I don’t know why Votto wouldn’t have done this before, given how well it’s worked. I’m sure there’s a little bit of a hot-streak factor involved. But it’s not like there’s ever been any question that Votto is outstanding, and while there’s limited evidence that hitters overall are able to fight pitches off consistently when they need to, it makes sense that Votto could be an exception, given his almost unparalleled bat-to-ball skills and knowledge of the strike zone. At some point this year, Joey Votto didn’t want to strike out so much anymore. So he quit striking out so much. Everything else, he’s mostly maintained. You can’t say it’s mattered very much for the Reds, in the bigger picture, but at least Votto’s been able to have himself some fun.

Last September, a starting pitcher emerged who would go on to be one of the more popular under-the-radar “breakout” picks of the winter. Acquired from Miami in the Mat Latos trade, Anthony DeSclafani was a 24-year-old with middling results across his 31 starts last year, including a 4.05 ERA and a 12.2-point strikeout- and walk-rate differential (K-BB%). The results on their own were more than serviceable for an innings-eater type pitcher, but they weren’t exactly exciting. Until you looked at September, that is.

In September, his ERA clocked in at an unappealing 4.93, but the underlying peripherals were fantastic. He struck out 24.8% of batters while walking just 3.4% and maintained a solid 47.1% ground-ball rate — all of which left him with a 2.27 FIP for the month. A bit of bad luck in batted balls and sequencing made it possible for numbers-friendly fans to uncover what really happened with DeSclafani that month and feel like you were unearthing a great secret, because not only was DeSclafani putting on a hidden great performance, it was accompanied by the always enticing logical explanation.

Take a look at DeSclafani’s pitch-usage chart from 2015 and you’ll find that, at the end of the season, he largely scrapped his changeup and dramatically increased his curveball usage. Additionally, he decreased his reliance on the four-seamer. Great run-prevention numbers may not have initially accompanied the adjustment, but the peripherals indicated that DeSclafani had taken a step forward and could be in store for a strong 2016 campaign. And, as it turns out, that’s exactly what’s happened.

Read the rest of this entry »

“This is a great time to be a baseball player and have all this info,” Reds starting pitcher Dan Straily told me last month when his team came to town. Minutes later, I was talking with a member of his front office who lauded the pitcher as “maybe the most dependable” of his squad. These things are related. It’s taken all that info for the pitcher to mold himself into the useful arm that he is today.

That info has helped Straily refine not only his approach, but also the movement on his pitches and the mechanics that created them. And it helped him when things were dire. His velocity dipped into the low 80s at one point, and he was released by two teams in a one-season span. “When I lost my velo, I had to learn how to pitch,” the righty remembered. “Now that I got my velo back, I’m still pitching the same way, but with better stuff.”

Read the rest of this entry »

In June, I talked to Jesse Winker following a 2-for-3 game that included a double and a walk. At the time, a big-league call-up seemed almost imminent. The top outfield prospect in the Cincinnati system was performing well for Triple-A Louisville, and with the Reds in rebuild mode, Great American Ballpark loomed right around the corner.

I wrote up the interview, then decided to hold it until the call-up came. Days later, Winker hurt his wrist and missed the next three-and-a-half weeks. Upon his return, he went 20-for-50 — albeit with limited power — while, 100 miles north, the big-league club continued to swim against the tide.

August came and went, and Winker went nowhere. As Reds fans scratched their heads, he remained in Louisville where he celebrated his 23rd birthday and finished the season with a .303/.397/.394 slash line. Winker went deep just three times in 448 plate appearances — he had 13 long balls last year in Double-A — and walked and struck out an equal number of times (59).

As of today, Winker is still awaiting his first big-league call-up. Three months after it was conducted, the interview won’t wait any longer. Here is what Winker had to say following the June game.

———

Winker on his game against the Syracuse Chiefs: “I didn’t know too much about their starter [Paolo Espino]. We did have a scouting report, and I was talking to Hernan Iribarren about how he likes to attack left-handed hitters, but the game kind of dictates itself. With a certain amount of outs and a certain number of guys on base, pitchers are going to attack you a certain way.

Read the rest of this entry »

A friend was asking a question about matchups in the coming month, and was talking about lefties and how Houston has done against lefties and maybe he should start A.J. Griffin against them and so on. I was playing along, pointing out that maybe it wasn’t a great matchup because Houston has a good lineup and they’re in a park that’s good for offense and all that. I didn’t even blink.

Of course, Griffin is a righty. No idea why we both thought he was a lefty, but we’re not alone. A quick Twitter poll — results below! — revealed Griffin as a top contender for “righty we most think is a lefty.”

Unfortunately, none of us know why we mentally mistake hands on some players. Or at least, we don’t have a quick answer to that question, other than vague references to arsenal (“crafty”), temperament (“different personalities”), or television time (“I don’t see them much”). Most responses to the poll included an “I don’t know why” of some sort.

Still, it’s something we do. And it’s sort of fascinating, because lefty starters do actually do things a little differently than righty starters — things we can actually define objectively. Which means we can apply the statistical definition of a lefty starter to the righty-starter population. And we can answer this question with stats!

So… which righty really acts the most like a lefty? Which righty is the most lefty-like? Turns out, it’s not Griffin, but the wisdom of the crowd was not far off, really.

Read the rest of this entry »

Excuse me there. May I have just a minute of your time? Maybe five. I know there’s a playoff race going on. I know Gary Sanchez is hitting all of the home runs and Rich Hill is back. I know the Royals are surging and the Giants are freefalling, and that’s all well and good, but would you mind if I spent some time this afternoon talking about a game played by a last-place team three weeks ago? I’m bringing it up now because I’m afraid we all missed it when it happened, and I can’t let that go on any longer. You see, since the start of June, Joey Votto’s been safe more than he’s been out, and in the midst of this ridiculous run, he had what may be the most Joey Votto game of all the Joey Votto games, and that seems like the sort of thing of which we should all take note. I’m glad I have your attention. Let’s begin.

Read the rest of this entry »