Should Teams Be Worried About C.J. Wilson’s Post-Season?
“He just can’t win the big one.” Whether you believe in that narrative or choose to ignore it, someone is going to write those words about C.J. Wilson this off-season. Widely considered the best pitcher on the free-agent market, Wilson’s post-season numbers may be a cause for concern for his potential suitors. With many of those suitors watching, you have to wonder whether the 31-year-old Wilson has already cost himself millions with his poor post-season performances.
There’s no denying Wilson has really struggled this post-season. In five starts, an abundance of walks and home runs have plagued Wilson. His 2.98 walk rate in the regular season — which was a career low — has ballooned to 6.41 this post-season. Due to his lack of control, one might deduce that Wilson’s nerves may be getting to him.
That would be a foolish assumption, however, as Wilson was able to keep his walk rate under control during the 2010 post-season. While he didn’t pitch particularly well last post-season — his FIP was 5.17 — it’s clear that Wilson is a talented pitcher.
Since 2010 — when Wilson made the conversion to starting pitcher — he’s been one of the best pitchers in baseball. Over that period, Wilson ranks 9th in WAR among starting pitchers — better than Tim Lincecum, David Price and Jon Lester.
The more we actually analyze Wilson’s stats, the more apparent is becomes that we shouldn’t draw too much from his post-season performances. Since 2010, Wilson has posted the second lowest HR/9 rate among all qualified starting pitchers. In the post-season, Wilson has allowed home runs in bunches. Which stat do you think is more indicative of Wilson’s true talent, the one compiled in 67 starts, or the one compiled in nine?
While we know that we shouldn’t let a small sample affect the way we think about a player, the media often looks for a convenient narrative/someone to blame when things go wrong. If the Texas Rangers fail to win the World Series, it’s likely Wilson will be one of the biggest goats of the post-season. While that might be somewhat warranted given his performance, it should not affect the way teams view Wilson heading into free agency. General managers like Brian Cashman — whose team is widely believed to be in the running for Wilson once free agency begins — are smart enough not to be swayed by tiny samples. Hell, the media said similar things about A-Rod shortly after he joined the New York Yankees. Look how well that narrative held up.
While there are some legitimate reasons to be concerned about Wilson going forward — mainly his short track record as a starter and high number of innings pitched this season — his poor post-season performances shouldn’t be one of them. Over the past two seasons, Wilson has established himself as one of the best pitchers in baseball. It would be foolish to change our opinions of him based on just nine starts, especially when those starts are coming against some of the best teams in baseball.
Chris is a blogger for CBSSports.com. He has also contributed to Sports on Earth, the 2013 Hard Ball Times Baseball Annual, ESPN, FanGraphs and RotoGraphs. He tries to be funny on twitter @Chris_Cwik.
Teams may not be worried about Wilson going forward this offseason, but teams will use it against him as bargaining power when negotiating a deal.
I heard Curt Schilling on sports talk radio in Boston this morning say that Wilson’s post – season will cost him ‘an enormous amount amount’ of money. It may well do so, although Schilling speculated that it would mean $15m rather than $18 or $19m. Either way, that doesn’t qualify as ‘worried,’ only as ‘bargaining chip’ for bidders.
Frankly, 67 starts is a small sample size as well, in the context of Wilson looking for a 4, 5 or 6 year deal (based on what the market will accept this year). We can agree that Wilson is a different pitcher in the postseason: the K% is way down and the BB% is way up. The GB/FB is way down, the LD% is way up, and the HR/FB is way up. I’m not sure what that is, but I want to be careful about attributing it all to small sample size.
You’re trying to say that two years of starts is too small to trust, but the much smaller sample of postseason starts show that “Wilson is a different pitcher in the postseason.” That doesn’t make sense.
I think we should be careful automatically attributing postseason results to SSS, especially when we’re discussing pitchers. At the end of the postseason pitchers are fatigued and approaching the end of the their effective innings capacity, and it may be that some pitchers do not have the endurance to pitch effectively in the postseason.
Whether that is the case for Wilson, I don’t think anyone knows, but it’s something that should at least be in the conversation–especially for a recently converted reliever.
Especially with all of his xFIP component stats worse in the postseason. How fast do K%, BB% stabilize again?
Ummm, except for 2009, A-Rod *has* been terrible in the post-season 😉
check his career post season stats buddy. he was pretty good for the mariners in october
John wins, you and Chris lose. A-Rod’s been terrible in the post-season for the Yankees, so that narrative has held up. Never mind how illogical its basis may be.
I don’t think A-Rod’s a great example here. His regular season OPS is 953, and his postseason OPS is 884 (in 299 PA). He’s still a dangerous hitter, but his performance tails off in the postseason for whatever reason.
If you take out 2009, the ‘year of the a-rod’ (an admittedly transcendent postseason)…you’re left with a horrible postseason player. with the yankees, in the playoffs minus ’09, a-rod has an OPS of .706 with 15 rbis. that is garbage production and represents a fairly accurate narrative. one great postseason out of 8 chances? look at swisher. dude can’t hit in the playoffs either. we just need to accept that some players can’t handle the pressure/raised stakes and/or better pitching in october.
If you take out the best numbers of any player over a certain period of time, the remaining stats will be low. That’s how averages work. If you find yourself making an argument that starts with adjusting the numbers to fit your argument, then don’t continue with the argument. “Tim Lincecum had poor numbers in 2009….if you only look at the stats from the games he lost.”
Wouldn’t it make more sense to trust what he’s done in 76 career starts? Why privilege one subset of his overall results against another, especially when the second subset (though smaller) is against a higher caliber of competition?
Came here to post the same thing. Obviously you weigh the 67 starts more heavily, but why would you ignore 9 starts especially when they are on average more recent than the other 67 starts.
Id probably give him a bit of a pass for being worse against playoff teams rather than punish him for it though given that the lineups hes been facing are going to be better than average.
I think its reasonable to take a million/year off of what you were planning to offer him before the playoffs purely based on perceived talent level without taking into account whatever decreased leverage other people are talking about in the comments.
I think it’s a red flag. Are runs supressed during the postseason? Hence don’t pitchers usually perform better?
There are plenty of pitchers out there (specifically relievers) that just look scared shtless in the postseason.
That runs are suppressed in the postseason does not entail that pitchers perform better, especially starting pitchers. The adjustment in bullpen use and the tendency of managers to play conservative ball usually drives down the run-environment. Of course, it seems not to have happened this year.
Also, the extra day of rest which eliminates the need for a crappy #5 pitcher, and sometimes a crappy #4.
The empirical test for this would be, do quality starters who spit the bit in the postseason perform worse the following year than they’d otherwise figure to? My anecdotal impression is ‘nah’, but if your aim is to take a good look at it, that’s where you’d start.
Isn’t BABIP suppressed in the postseason too?
I dare you to find a pitcher with an inflated postseason BABIP and tell me that you’d trust him in a big spot. Betcha can’t find one.
Wilson’s career postseason BABIP is actually .035 lower than his career regular-season BABIP (.252 vs. .287). As for a trustworthy pitcher with an inflated postseason BABIP, browsing the top of the 2011 fWAR standings gives you Sabathia (.336 vs. .291) and Verlander (.330 vs. .285).
Does anyone think that a pitcher like Wilson, who has been converted from starter to reliever back to starter, (thus logging less innings in the process) has a longer shelf life than a pitcher of a similar age who has been a starter the whole time and throwing a lot more innings?
I wonder if CJ is just worse in cooler weather. He has trouble finding his feel for pitches when the ball and his fingers are not in 90 + degree weather. That would explain everything very well. Someone should do a study of this as it would not be that small a sample to find all the starts of his career in 70 or less degree weather.
Also many pitchers pitch worse at night than in the day time. According to ESPN splits this season he has been worse at night, but not the previous 3 seasons, so this may be sample size, but maybe not.
Or how about the real answer… we don’t actually know. We can come up with educated approximations, but there’s no definitive answer.
Look. All I know is what I see. When the lights shine brightest CJ Wilson looks like a #3 starter–which is pretty close to what he really was on a staff that once featured Cliff Lee as a #1 a year ago. Whenever Wilson takes the mound in a tight game my gut feeling is that he’ll crack before the other team’s ace does. Frankly, he reminds me a lot of Barry Zito–and I’m not talking about the Zito who was once really good in back his Oakland days. I’m talking about the guitar-strumming, happy go lucky, past-his-prime version that San Francisco paid dearly for to their lasting detriment (considering their limited payroll…)
I’m just sayin’….
Clifford
Santa Monica
If we take away Arod’s numbers from the 05-07 postseason’s (roughly the same ABs as 09) his numbers are awesome! Point is you can’t pick and choose what numbers you want look at. Arod’s been a decent postseason player as a whole through out his career.