Travis Sawchick of the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review is one of the more analytically oriented mainstream baseball writers you’ll find, so perhaps it shouldn’t come as a huge surprise that he penned a terrific piece looking at the Pirates upcoming decision on Russell Martin. Included in that piece is this quote from GM Neil Huntington:

“We’re in an interesting era for age curves because of the skew of performance-enhancing drugs,” Huntington said. “We are trying to re-evaluate aging curves because they were taken way out of whack because of the influence of performance-enhancing drugs.”

Jeff Zimmerman noted a similar change in aging curves last year, showing that, since the 2006 season, offensive production has followed a continuous negative slope, rather than the traditional improve-peak-decline curve of the past. Given that the effects of PEDs on energy, stamina, and fitness are more clearly proven than the effects on hitting a curveball or recognizing a pitch out of the hand, perhaps we shouldn’t be too surprised that veteran players may have gotten a disproportionate advantage from the use of PEDs.

As Huntington notes, if the traditional aging curve models that were developed during the PED era no longer apply, this has some pretty significant ramifications for teams chasing free agents, especially at a position as physically demanding as the catcher spot. Last winter, I noted that the idea that catchers fall off a cliff in their early-30s was mostly a myth, but that data was based on a 30 year sample that included the heart of the “Steroid Era”, and it’s possible that using the substances that allowed catchers to play well into their mid-30s have been diminished in MLB.

As a sidebar in the piece, Sawchick included this graph:

Certainly, it seems clear that productive older catchers were far more prevalent in in the 1990-2004 period than they were before or since, but it is interesting to note how much flatter the curve is in both the supposed non-PED time periods are. In both samples, the curve actually slopes up from 32 to 33, in fact, though this is likely just an artifact of having a small number of players in the samples. Still, the relative production from 32-35 is pretty stable, and as others have shown, framing skills seem mostly immune to aging. So, while the downturn in aging curves might be bad news for a 32 year old catcher, Martin’s own skillset might be one that ages better than others.

Martin’s going to be one of the most fascinating free agents of the winter. How teams handle their own internal aging curve forecasts might very well determine where he signs.

One of the most visible and discussed aspects of modern analytics is PITCHf/x data, whether it relates to pitcher tendencies, an umpire’s strike zone, or the hole in a batter’s swing. We carry plenty of PITCHf/x data on FanGraphs, but there are other sites that provide invaluable resources for analyzing the game through this lens.

To wit, we’ve updated our Library entry on PITCHf/x resources to include a couple of sites that weren’t around a few years ago when that page debuted. You’ll find links to Brooks Baseball, Texas Leaguers, Baseball Heatmaps, and Baseball Savant, in addition to a couple of nice primers from Mike Fast and Alan Nathan.

If you want to talk about PITCHf/x or ask related questions, drop a line in the comments, grab me on Twitter @NeilWeinberg44, or stop by our weekly Q&A chats Wednesdays at 3pm. Also, if you know of any resources we’re missing, please let us know.

As he did last week, the author has published below a statistical report for the Arizona Fall League — less because such reports are of great utility to prospect analysis, and more because, for those of us currently not residing in the Greater Phoenix area, one of the few ways to participate in that very compelling league is by dwelling for too long on very small statistical samples.

What follows is an example of such a statistical report for this year’s iteration for the AFL about three weeks into the season.

Read the rest of this entry »

Take a look at Ryan Vogelsong’s career fastball velocity from Brooks Baseball:

So, yeah, he always gets a velocity boost when October rolls around. When I asked him about it, he mentioned making some “adjustments mechanically” that helped him this time around. But he admitted: “At the same time, there’s adrenaline, no question… It’s going to make you throw harder and do some things that you prodably don’t do on a normal afternoon in Milwaukee or Colorado. No offense to those cities, they just came to mind.”

That adrenaline affects most starting pitchers in the postseason, as they can see the finish line and rest is for the offseason. But Vogelsong is getting the biggest velocity boost of anyone on these World Series rosters:

Vogelsong does his best not to let this turn into a situation where he’s overthrowing — Doug Fister found himself in a similar situation this postseason and had to adjust. The pitcher cited experience in helping him know when to use the velocity best. “Knowing how to curb it and make it work to your advantage” is something that comes “from being their before,” the pitcher said Friday before Game Three.

But no matter what, he’ll be throwing closer to 93 than 91, and that changes how you appraise him as a pitcher — every mile per hour of velocity is worth about .28 runs allowed per nine innings.

When Andrew Friedman was hired to take over as the Dodgers President of Baseball Operations, speculation immediately began that he might try and bring Joe Maddon with him to take over as manager. Both sides immediately tried to squash those rumors with strong public denials, a selection of which appear below.

Andrew Friedman:

“I have a tremendous personal relationship with Joe. He’s a very good friend of mine and have a really good professional relationship as well,” Friedman said after his introductory news conference in Los Angeles. “That being said, Joe is now working with Matt Silverman and the baseball operation people (with the Rays), and I’m excited about working with Donnie.

“I’m going into it with the mind-set we’re going to work together for a long time. I had one manager in the 10 years I’ve been doing this and am looking forward to working with Donnie for a long time.”

Joe Maddon:

“I’m a Ray, I’ve said it all along, I want to continue to be one,” Maddon said. “‘I still believe … it’s the best place in all of baseball to work…

Andrew Friedman, when asked whether Don Mattingly will manage the Dodgers in 2015:

“Definitely.”

And then today, we get this:

Sources: Manager Joe Maddon has exercised an opt-out clause in his contract and is leaving the Tampa Bay Rays immediately.

— Buster Olney (@Buster_ESPN) October 24, 2014

Things happen. I have no problem believing that everyone was being honest a week ago, and fully expected Maddon to sign an extension to stay with the Rays. Clearly, though, something changed, and now Maddon is a free agent. And if he’s not managing the Dodgers on Opening Day, it will be a pretty big upset.

For much the same reason that he published a statistical report yesterday for the Arizona Fall League, the author is publishing here a combined statistical report for the various Caribbean winter leagues that have started play — again, not necessarily because such reports are of great utility for evaluating players, but because they provide a means by which to participate in those leagues which doesn’t also require a substantial investment in transportation and lodging.

In this case, what the author has done is to identify the regressed hitting and pitching leaders in the Dominican Winter, Mexican Pacific, and Venezuelan Leagues separately*. What he’s then done is to combine the hitting and pitching leaders of those leagues into a pair of top-10 lists, which one can find below. Note: all ages are as of July 1, 2014.

*The fourth major Caribbean league, the Puerto Rican League, doesn’t commence until October 30th.

Read the rest of this entry »

Madison Bumgarner throws a pretty good something. Aside from his fastball, I mean. Some people call it a slider, and some people call it a cutter. From here, a month ago:

“I call it a cutter but I feel like it’s in between the two — I think people call it different things because I change speeds with it,” he said. “But I throw it the same.”

From Tuesday’s Game 1, we have Eric Hosmer talking to Mike Moustakas.

An attempted transcript:

Hosmer: Cutter’s slow, huh?
Moustakas: Yeah, it comes all the way across, too.
Hosmer: It’s a slider for sure.
Moustakas: Yeah I looked up at it, I was like, 86? Geez.
Hosmer: Yeah.
Moustakas: I wasn’t even close to it the first time.

We can infer a couple things. One, the Royals were tipped off about a cutter. Maybe a previous hitter talked about it. Two, Hosmer and Moustakas consider sliders and cutters different pitches — sliders would be slower, with more movement.

The first such pitch Moustakas saw was 86.5 miles per hour, and he held up a swing attempt:

Shortly thereafter, Bumgarner bumped it up to 88.7 miles per hour, and Moustakas whiffed in a 3-and-1 count:

It sounds like maybe Moustakas didn’t pick up on the speed difference, or maybe he was just so flabbergasted by the first offering. That same inning, with the bases loaded, Hosmer came up and put a first-pitch cutter or slider in play.

Hosmer was clearly ahead of it, thinking fastball or perhaps faster cutter. The pitch was 86.9 miles per hour, and it broke down more than the sliders to Moustakas, and a little more away. The three such pitches to Moustakas were around 0 in terms of horizontal movement; Hosmer’s pitch came in at -2.4 inches.

Then the next time Hosmer came up, he saw four pitches like this. They varied between 88-89 miles per hour. All had less horizontal movement than the first such pitch to Hosmer in the third inning. Hosmer was ahead of the last one again, although he managed to hit the ball decently up the middle:

Royals hitters saw cutters/sliders between 85.9 – 89.0 miles per hour. Hosmer and Moustakas agreed early on that the pitch is more of a slider than a cutter. I don’t know what difference it actually makes, but this speaks to Bumgarner’s ability to keep the pitch disguised and varied. He mixes it up such that labels might be more trouble than they’re worth. Does Madison Bumgarner throw a slider, or a cutter? The answer is yes.

It’s mostly forgotten now, on account of the drubbing, but after the Giants scored early against James Shields, the Royals tried real hard to also score early against Madison Bumgarner. By that I mean the Royals made two outs and then had a batter get hit by a pitch, but with two down and Lorenzo Cain on first, Eric Hosmer clobbered a centered fastball toward the left side of Gregor Blanco. Off the bat it was a screaming line drive, and it looked like a ball that might get the Royals back into the game, but Blanco managed to make some kind of sensational play and the inning was over.

As Hosmer batted, the Royals’ win expectancy was about 22%. When the catch was made, that dropped to about 20%. Had the ball found ground for a run-scoring double, the win expectancy would’ve jumped to about 32%. So the catch was worth about 12 percentage points, between made and not made.

What I ask of you, the audience: how difficult of a play do you think it was? Pretend you’re an Inside Edge scout. Categorize the play! I understand this isn’t something you do, so maybe as an audience you’ll suck at this, but I’m interested in seeing how the opinions come in. I guess I should show you the play and give you some additional information.

The catch, from one angle:

The catch, from another angle:

Here’s where Blanco started, and roughly where he wound up:

Here’s a different way of considering that, that doesn’t indicate much about depth but does feature a standing ghost(!):

Off the bat, the ball was in the air for about 3.87 seconds. It was hit something like 390-400 feet. Buster Posey celebrated, understatedly.

So then, what do you think? Difficult play for an average center fielder? Ordinary play for an average center fielder? Extremely amazing play for an average center fielder? Mets fans might end up skewing this, but to balance that out perhaps they’ve mostly stopped paying attention to baseball for the time being.

Last year during October and November, the author published a series of statistical reports on the Arizona Fall League — less because such reports are of great utility to prospect analysis, and more because, for those of us currently not residing in the Greater Phoenix area, one of the few ways to participate in that very compelling league is by dwelling for too long on very small statistical samples.

What follows is an example of such a statistical report for this year’s iteration of the AFL, currently about 12 or 13 games into its season.

Read the rest of this entry »

Before this pitch, you might have heard a lot about James Shields‘ changeup being the best righty change in the business.

But early in the game, both Gregor Blanco and Brandon Belt managed to touch the pitch for singles. They aren’t alone this year.

In terms of whiff rate, James Shields‘ changeup ranked 55th of 105 pitchers that threw 200 changeups this year. Even if you limit the sample to righty starting pitchers, his changeup ranked 31st in that department. Even if you open the sample to the last three years, Shields’ change isn’t top of the line — his changeup has had a 19% whiff rate, which is above average but not elite. Over the same time period, Stephen Strasburg’s right-handed changeup has had a 26% whiff rate, for example.

In terms of shape and movement, maybe it’s not such a surprise that the change is only okay. Harry Pavlidis did work that suggested that, for whiffs at least, the ten mile per hour velocity gap between the fastball and change was important. Shields has a 7.6 mph difference this year. Tilt and fade are also important. Shields’ changeup fades less than his sinker and drops just short of three inches more than his sinker. Sounds good but not great.

Here’s a comparison of Shields’ movement and velocity on the changeup to league average right-handed changeups:

Less vertical movement, more horizontal, and a little bit faster. But that faster quality can cut both ways. Here’s a table that shows the relative difference between the movement and velocity on Shields’ changeup and sinker versus the league average:

The velocity gap between Shield’s changeup and sinker is less than league average. So is the difference in his horizontal movement. That might be surprising to some.

If you look at his pitches this year, his knuckle curve was the most impressive. Among the 114 pitchers that threw 200 curveballs, his was 27th in whiff rate. He had the 14th-best whiff rate among right-handed starting pitchers. Of course, Shields has thrown eight knuckle curves so far, with five balls, one swinging strike, one called strike and a Pablo Sandoval double.

Sometimes it’s just not your night.