On Tuesday, I published KATOH’s 2017 top-100 list. Naturally, a lot of good players missed the cut. But one omission seemed particularly egregious, relative to the industry consensus. KATOH’s disdain for this player has elicited a few comments in recent months.
From this week’s top-100:
From our Rockies list in November:
The Reds had the worst bullpen in baseball last year, right? They finished last in WAR, coming in at an unfathomable -3.6. And they finished last in RA9-WAR, coming in at a similarly unfathomable -3.1. By those measurements, last year’s Reds bullpen was historically awful. And yet! And yet, according to WPA, the Reds bullpen was only second-worst. I know that WPA is not the best evaluative tool, but in terms of what actually happened, given all the context and everything, the Reds bullpen had a WPA of -4.2. The Rockies bullpen had a WPA of -5.8.
Last year’s Rockies bullpen was one of the components that sunk the team. It hardly gave the Rockies a chance to contend, and it’s no coincidence the front office went out and signed Greg Holland. Holland, if he’s healthy, should make the situation an awful lot better. But he won’t be tasked with trying to do it alone. Adam Ottavino is also a part of the group, and while he missed most of 2015 and half of 2016 due to Tommy John surgery, he’s pitched some, and he’s probably been overlooked.
Because of his recent numbers, I can’t wait to see what Carter Capps does this year, post-surgery. Ottavino belongs in a similar boat. He’s already pitched a little bit post-surgery, but I doubt many were paying attention. You think this year’s Rockies will be more competitive. Ottavino could be a big part of that. Look what happens when you combine his 2015 and 2016 samples, and then compare that to his previous record.
| Years | IP | K-BB% | GB% | ERA- | FIP- | xFIP- | Z – O-Swing% | Sinker% |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2012 – 2014 | 222.3 | 16% | 47% | 81 | 83 | 88 | 28% | 5% |
| 2015 – 2016 | 37.3 | 28% | 62% | 39 | 59 | 58 | 21% | 26% |
Very clearly, we’re not dealing with much. In 2015, Ottavino pitched in 10 games before he had surgery. Last year he came back and made 34 appearances after the calendar flipped to July. Combined, it’s a sample of just 142 plate appearances. But relative to what Ottavino used to be, this newer version has been far better in terms of strikeouts and grounders. He’s ranked in the top 3% of all pitchers in adjusted ERA, FIP, and xFIP, and it probably has something to do with a two-seamer he’s more aggressively folded in.
Since every such post needs a visual:
Ottavino’s putaway pitch remains his slider. It’s still a good slider! But more recently, he’s used two fastballs instead of one, and he’s worked different sides of the plate. Although he’s spent less time within the strike zone, he’s also generated fewer swings within the strike zone, which is a good outcome. Ottavino has been more difficult to read and predict, and the small-sample results have been outstanding.
We could still probably stand to see more, and strong lefty bats remain a vulnerability. Because of the way that he throws, Ottavino is forever likely to run a substantial platoon split. Yet when he’s been able to pitch of late, he’s done almost everything right. Strikeouts and grounders while limiting walks. As with any team, the Rockies could be in for some bad luck. With some good luck, however, their bullpen could present a dominant top two. From there, who’s to say what they could achieve?
Charlie Blackmon and Chris Denorfia share a similar philosophy when it comes to swing paths and launch angles. Each eschews chopping wood and champions the value of hitting the ball in the air, not on the ground. But while the Colorado Rockies’ outfielders are kindred spirits when it comes to process, their approaches to the science aren’t alike. One is more studious in his pursuit. The other is satisfied to simply be aware of the concept.
Blackmon and Denorfia shared their thoughts on the subject earlier this week.
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Charlie Blackmon: “I try not to get super technical. I do understand that I want to match the angle of my bat with the angle that the pitch is coming in. I think that’s the best way to transfer the most energy into the ball. In saying that, I can feel what’s good and what’s bad. I can feel when I’m hitting the ball hard and when I’m just spinning the ball — I’m swinging at too much of a downward angle and just clipping it — as opposed to squaring it up and getting a lot of my energy transferred to the ball, with a better bat path.
“I haven’t seen a lot of the data, to be honest. I’d be interested in seeing it. But I think that no matter what the data says, I don’t think you can know what the launch angle is, and then backwards engineer a good swing. I think that would be hard.
Eno took some time on Wednesday to talk about last season’s unluckiest changeup. Today, we’re going to talk about a changeup that wasn’t unlucky so much as it was woefully misplaced. It was a first-pitch changeup that was as middle-middle as one can be.
That’s where the title comes in. Let’s roll the film.
You may remember this dinger from a recent article here about Giancarlo Stanton. Statcast says it was the longest blast of the year, at a staggering 504.35 feet. It’s pretty easy to understand how this happened.
Three variables are at work:
I don’t need explain the first point very much. You know all about Giancarlo Stanton and what he’s capable of doing. You’ve seen him lay waste to baseballs. His muscles are made of steel rebar. He’s been doing this for years, and if we’re lucky, he’ll do it for a while longer.
I also don’t need to explain point No. 2 very much. Coors is in Denver, and the 20th row of seats in the upper deck at Coors is exactly a mile above sea level. That means the air is thin, which means the ball flies further. This is good for guys like Stanton and bad for anybody who stands on the pitcher’s mound. Unfortunately, that includes Bettis.
Last spring, for the first time in a decade, maybe more, no pre-arbitration pitchers signed a contract extension taking away multiple free-agent seasons. There were a few decent candidates in Jacob deGrom, Sonny Gray, and Carlos Martinez, the last of whom just signed a contract extension of his own earlier this winter. None of those players signed last spring, however, and it’s a possible indicator of a chilling effect on these types of extensions. The lack of deals isn’t due to a lack of candidates, though. In fact, a few of the best pitchers in baseball might be prime for long-term extensions.
When attempting to characterize the recent history of such deals, it’s difficult to say what’s a trend and what’s a random event because only two to five players sign extensions of this sort every year. The recent drought might be a product of players and agents beginning to recognize how much clubs were benefiting from signing extensions with younger players. It’s possible, on the other hand, that teams were less likely to dole out guarantees when the outcome of the CBA was in doubt. When Madison Bumgarner signed his extension right as the 2012 season was starting, he was one of five young pitchers to do so. When Chris Sale signed his ahead of the 2013 season, he was the only one. Sale and Bumgarner’s contracts have proved to be two of the bigger bargains in the majors.
When the White Sox traded Chris Sale to the Red Sox for Yoan Moncada, Michael Kopech, Luis Alexander Basabe, and Victor Diaz, they weren’t just trading Chris Sale. The White Sox were also trading Chris Sale’s contract, which included a $12 million salary for 2017 and options for 2018 and 2019 totaling $26 million. If Sale hadn’t signed that contract, he would have been a free agent this winter and received $200 million. San Francisco has no interest in trading Madison Bumgarner — who would have also been a free agent this winter — while they’re contending, so his value to the Giants is greater as a player on the field than in a trade. His contract is similar to Sale’s and so favorable that it had some discussing whether the team should negotiate a contract extension out of fairness, which does have some precedent.
Over at the fantasy blog, they’ll be publishing their annual bold predictions soon. Those posts, as usual, will cater to the roto side of things. They’re fun to write. And, even though I’m no longer editing RotoGraphs anymore, I’d like to continue the tradition. So I’ve decided to do a version that’s aimed more at the real game.
Let’s stretch our imagination and make some predictions that are a little bit sane (they should be rooted in reality to some extent), but also a little bit insane (since the insane happens in baseball every year anyway). Back when I did this for fantasy, I hit 3-for-10 most years. Doubt I do it again, for some reason.
What follows are my 10 bold predictions for 2017.
1. Dylan Bundy will be the ace he was always supposed to be.
Once picked fourth overall and pegged as the future ace of the Orioles, Bundy had a terrible time in the minor leagues. Over five years, he managed only 111 innings between injuries. There was Tommy John, of course, but lat strains, shoulder-calcification issues and between-start bouts of elbow soreness have dogged him throughout, as well. At least he was good while he was in, with an ERA in the low twos and great rates to support those results.
Pitchers and catchers are in the house, we unfortunately have our first major spring training injury, and our offseason series of contact management/quality articles rolls toward its conclusion. Earlier this week, we examined American League pitching non-qualifiers; today, our eyes turn to the senior circuit.
Two weeks have elapsed since I last wrote about the Rockies, so I hope enough time has passed to allow me to return to the subject matter.
As we know, Colorado has experimented with a number of approaches to pitching at Coors Field, from sinker-heavy staffs to expensive free agents to four-man rotations. Nothing, it seems, has worked. Back in January, I wrote about how the Rockies ought to be a center of pitching innovation when I advocated for the club to break away from the traditional five-man rotation.
While battling fatigue is one significant issue tied to pitching at altitude, another is, of course, the movement of pitches in the thin air. One kind FanGraphs reader directed my attention to a Dan Rozenson study on pitch effectiveness at Coors Field.
Wrote Rozenson:
There is strong evidence that the slider performs in absolute and comparative terms better than the curveball in Coors Field. Part of this can probably be attributed to the fact that sliders deviate from the “gyroball” trajectory of a pitch thrown in a vacuum the least of the major pitch types. Sinking fastballs also have a sharp drop-off in performance at Coors, and there is some evidence that using a cut fastball would be a good alternative.
Rockies management would be wise to learn from failed pitching experiments past. Their system ought to emphasize pitchers developing an arsenal of pitches that could be used effectively at home. This most obviously means encouraging their pitchers to throw sliders instead of curveballs as their main breaking ball, although further study might be able to illuminate what other pitches offer a comparative advantage in Denver.
Monday afternoon, I put up an InstaGraphs post titled “The Least Intimidating Hitter in Baseball.” The idea was to use a formula including fastball rate and zone rate, because, the way I figure, the more aggressively a hitter gets pitched, the less the pitchers are afraid of. I combined a couple z-scores to get a number I’ll refer to today as the Aggressiveness Index, and many of the players in the linked post are unsurprising. Turns out pitchers go after Ben Revere aggressively. Ditto Nori Aoki and Billy Burns. There’s nothing weird there.
But a certain name showed up in eighth place. Last year, pitchers didn’t show any significant fear of facing DJ LeMahieu. That makes sense if you weren’t paying attention, but LeMahieu played every day, and finished with a 128 wRC+. LeMahieu, ever so quietly, had himself a breakout, four-win season, yet it looks like pitchers just didn’t care.
Yesterday, the Colorado Rockies traded right-hander Eddie Butler to the Chicago Cubs in exchange for a modestly promising relief prospect (James Farris) and the 28th international bonus slot.
Even as recently as last year, the notion of such a move would have seemed improbable. Butler appeared twice — as recently as 2015 — on Baseball America’s top-100 prospects list. The Rockies’ rotation, meanwhile, has been quite poor, producing the second-lowest collective WAR in the majors over the last five years. They haven’t been a club, in other words, that had the luxury of giving up on a promising young pitcher.
But Colorado’s rotation has improved rapidly, while Butler’s stock has declined just as quickly. In the end, general manager Jeff Bridich concluded there wasn’t space on the roster for Eddie Butler. He made a deal.
But this isn’t just a late-January transaction that ought to be forgotten. Because Butler has shown promise. Let’s instead follow his story up to this point. He deserves it after toiling in Coors for so long, and it might provide us a glimpse of his future.