Josh Hamilton or Madison Bumgarner?
Madison Bumgarner starts for the Giants today, in Atlanta. That’s good for them, for two reasons. One, it means the Giants get to have Bumgarner pitch. Two, it means the Giants get to have Bumgarner hit. Bumgarner regularly dazzles in batting practice, and that isn’t where his ability is confined — in his most recent start in an NL ballpark, he went deep. Bumgarner was outspoken in his disagreement with Max Scherzer earlier in the year, when Scherzer lobbied for the NL to adopt the designated hitter. Bumgarner, see, takes pride in his slugging, and he wouldn’t want to lose that advantage.
Not that Bumgarner was always much at the plate. As recently as 2013, he was a mess, like pretty much every other pitcher. But then he devoted more attention to the offensive side of things, and his successes have been numerous and remarkable. In honor of Bumgarner’s hitting, then, I’ve put together this poll-post, comparing Bumgarner and Josh Hamilton. Hamilton has obviously been a disappointment since signing his nine-figure contract, but he remains a threat, batting fifth or sixth in a Rangers lineup with a lot of name value. Below, there will be six polls, for six statistics. I’ll show you the high value, and ask you to pick which guy is responsible. Answers are revealed at the end. Good luck!
Batting Average
Isolated Power
Weighted Runs Created Plus
Hard-Hit Rate
Swing Rate
Contact Rate
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Answer Key
Batting Average — Hamilton has batted .258 since the start of last year. Bumgarner, meanwhile, has batted .257.
Isolated Power — Bumgarner has put up an ISO of .211 since the start of last year. Hamilton, meanwhile, is at .160.
Weighted Runs Created Plus — Bumgarner’s posted a 116 wRC+ since the start of last year. Hamilton, meanwhile, is at 108.
Hard-Hit Rate — Hamilton’s managed a 31.5% hard-hit rate since the start of last year. Bumgarner, meanwhile, is at 28.8%.
Swing Rate — Hamilton has swung at 53.2% of pitches since the start of last year. Bumgarner, meanwhile, has swung at 52.9% of pitches.
Contact Rate — tie! Both Hamilton and Bumgarner have made contact with 64.8% of their swings since the start of last year. If you voted, either all of you were right, or none of you were right. I haven’t decided.
——
The point isn’t that Madison Bumgarner is as good a hitter as Josh Hamilton is. He isn’t, and you can see that in the strikeouts and the walks. You can also understand that with common sense. The point is that Madison Bumgarner has been as good a hitter as Josh Hamilton, since the start of last season. Or at least as productive, if you want to play semantics. There are similarities in their approaches, too. Of course the samples are different. Hamilton’s batted more than 500 times. Bumgarner’s around a quarter of that. That’s not very much, but it has been enough for Bumgarner to distinguish himself.
Reputation goes around quickly, and it didn’t take long for opposing pitchers to start treating Bumgarner like a real hitter. Since the start of last year, setting a minimum of 50 plate appearances, no pitcher has seen a lower rate of fastballs than Bumgarner. No pitcher has had a slower pace than Bumgarner, implying that opponents are taking longer to figure out how to get him out. And then there’s that wRC+. I’ll tell you right now that, the last year and a half, Bumgarner leads all pitchers in wRC+. But that doesn’t convey the right message. This conveys the right message:
It’s a landslide. Like, seriously, it resembles a landslide, all the other pitchers tumbling from the sheer Bumgarner cliff face. Bumgarner’s wRC+ is equal to the No. 2 wRC+ added to the No. 3 wRC+, and then also adding the No. 10 wRC+. And remember, with hitters, you’re comparing them to an average wRC+ of 100. Pitchers, since the start of last year, have come in at -17. And that’s why Bumgarner shows up with 2 non-pitching WAR. It wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say that, lately, when Bumgarner has pitched, the Giants have rolled with an AL lineup. That makes for an imbalance against NL opponents, but there’s nothing unfair. Bumgarner’s just been the Mike Trout of pitchers hitting, with seven home runs against Mike Leake and Travis Wood’s three.
Yeah, you’re absolutely right, Bumgarner isn’t this good. But he’s good enough to have been this good for the better part of two years, meaning his true talent could be only so low. Madison Bumgarner is the pitcher who’s been offensively indistinguishable from Josh Hamilton. He’s homered against both Zack Greinke and Clayton Kershaw. According to the hashtag, there are pitchers who rake. More accurately, I think there’s pitcher.
Jeff made Lookout Landing a thing, but he does not still write there about the Mariners. He does write here, sometimes about the Mariners, but usually not.
Interesting how many elite pitchers show up in that graph.
50 plate appearances minimum probably has something to do with that.
Partially, but i’m also guessing elite pitchers have complementary freak skills that translate like vision/hand eye coordination.
Also, generally, elite pitchers are elite athletes. And/or relentless workers.
Yes, but elite pitchers don’t spend much time working on their swings.
Thanks. That’s very kind of you.
No fat Bart. Graph must be fake.
He’s 0-15 with 1 walk in the postseason. For a wRC+ of -85. Obviously worthless against good pitchers.
So is the opponent’s lineup when he’s on the mound.
Unless that opponent is the Nationals. Then he’s the only pitcher they can hit in the postseason. Baseball is weird.
Assumption 1: That only “good” pitchers pitch in the playoffs.
Assumption 2: That “good” means something.
Assumption 3: That 16 PA spanning five years matters more than over 100 PA in the two most recent seasons.
Wait. Good doesn’t mean something? I’m almost positive that the word good means something.
And i think that it’s a fair assumption that better pitchers pitch in the postseason than in the regular season.
It’s extremely rare for the 25th man mopup guy to get into a postseason game.
And of course playoffs teams are self selected as the teams with the best players so definitely the likelihood of facing a bad pitcher is lower in the playoffs.
Also they were joking and your tone was pretty condescending for someone who doesn’t make much sense.
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Aoki-san has said, He is me without contract or speed.
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Aoki-san has just said, please excuse him for now as he wishes to return to his game preparation. No, that was not Aoki-san pretending to waddle like a duck on a farm of ducks that Colon-san may or may not have eaten at one sitting; that is a maneuvre Aoki-san is practicing out of his hopes to avoid being struck in the face by a pitched baseball.
Me likey the flied lice.
This post was supposed to drip sarcasm. Surprised anybody took it seriously. Then again, this is the type of thinking the NFL office is using as they railroad Brady and the Patriots.
Yet in his 5 starts in AL parks over this two year stretch, he’s never been allowed by Bochy to hit for himself. They’ve DH’d Morse, Sandoval (twice), McGehee and Pagan in his place.
~Those 5 as DH during Bumgarner starts: .316/.350/.316, 5% BB, 40% K, .302 wOBA
~Bumgarner the last two seasons: .257/.287/.468, 3.2% BB, 37.1% K, .328 wOBA
I understand using Morse or Sandoval, but depriving us of Bumgarner hitting in Arlington just to throw an injured Pagan at us instead? That’s just cruel.
I thought you had to use the DH in an AL park…is there really the option to let your pitcher hit?
Had to look into this, but Rule 6.10(b) states “It is not mandatory that a club designate a hitter for a pitcher, but failure to do so prior to the game precludes the use of a DH for that club for that game.”
You can use your pitcher if you’d like.
Take for example just last Sunday. The Mariners had to replace their DH with a pitcher when they pinch ran for Cano(DHing that day) with Morrison. When Morrison replaced Trumbo as the 1B, the DH spot then had to be replaced with the pitcher’s spot, and they had to play like an NL team the rest of the game.
Not only can teams let their pitchers hit, but there is a scenario where if you start with the DH but do something (can’t remember what needs to happen, though, hopefully someone can elaborate; has something to do with specific substitution), then the team will have to bat the pitcher in that circumstance. Compton appears to have one example of the above.
Basically, if you send your DH out into the field, the pitcher needs to hit thereafter.
I distinctly recall that Bochy was asked about this when the Giants played in KC (in the regular season) last year. Bochy said he wanted Sandoval to DH because he was a little dinged up and could use the time off the field, but that otherwise he would have considered letting Bumgarner hit. I think Bochy can’t resist the temptation to let regular position players have a day off from fielding, especially Posey.
Normally I’d agree, but Posey will always catch Bumgarner.
oh that’s true, I wasn’t thinking that through all the way.
You have to consider that if they sacrificed the DH for Bumgarner to hit, they wouldn’t have it for when relievers are in the game. As much of a benefit the Giants could get with Bumgarner hitting, relievers coming to the plate would put them at a pretty large disadvantage as they would have to consider double switches or pinch hitters to avoid that situation.
You mean like every other NL game?
Over the last calendar year, Bumgarner’s #205 in the majors for offensive WAR, just ahead of Justin Morneau. He also has a higher offensive WAR than Austin Jackson, Brett Laurie, Joe Mauer, Aramis Ramirez, or Torii Hunter.
Bumgarner’s WAR since this time last year is also greater than that of Kendrys Morales, Adam LaRoche, and Melky Cabrera combined.
http://www.fangraphs.com/leaders.aspx?pos=all&stats=bat&lg=all&qual=0&type=8&season=2015&month=10&season1=2015&ind=0&team=&rost=&age=0&filter=&players=&page=7_30
This is misleading – not “offensive” WAR, total non-pitching WAR as Jeff states. The vast majority of this value you cite has actually come from his DEF.
Wow! He’s an elite fielder, too?
But DEF is just the positional adjustment which is huge because pitchers can’t hit. He is still hitting far better than other pitchers which is exactly what WAR is about. His non-pitching WAR is all about his offense. DEF just calibrates it to that of a pitcher.
That’s not really true (and I’m not sure why everything tz says just automatically gets lots of downvotes). For example, if you look at baseball reference, which breaks down oWAR and dWAR for pitchers, it says he has 1.9 oWAR and 0.0 dWAR. cass explains this too. Odd that the correct point gets downvoted and the incorrect point gets upvoted???
Wouldn’t it be great if Bochy let him DH in AL parks
That’s not going to happen, Bochy uses DH to rest regulars a bit, particularly Posey.
What I would like to see is Bumgarner getting regular PH duties, especially since the Giants are using a short bench with only 4 position players on the bench, and one of them is the backup C so he can’be be used as much, just in case the starting C is suddenly injured.
Meh, it’s all BABIP fueled for Bumgarner.
Except for all the home runs
Is it just me or is it pitchers like Bumgarner (and Greinke and Leake, to a lesser extent) that make me long for batting stats to count for pitchers in fantasy baseball?
I always wanted to have a league where you only got credit for pitchers hitting and position players pitching. It would be fun even finishing last!
Being more serious, though, back when I did play fantasy, I always thought you should get credit for everything the player did when he was on the field and therefore should get credit for pitchers’ batting.
Yeah, but I fully understand why they don’t include the hitting since the AL pitchers would be at a very distinct disadvantage there.
Only for counting stats, not for batting average. It’d be a new wrinkle for value, at least.
Madison Bumgarner Rules!! We need more old school players like him.
Jeff, if he wasn’t an ace, but instead a so-so pitcher, would he get flack about spending too much time on hitting and not enough on pitching?
I don’t think so. About a dozen years or more ago, Livan Hernandez, the epitome of a so-so pitcher, challenged the rest of the Giants pitching rotation to a batting contest, it was reported in the local newspapers.
In addition, I believe part of the impetus that got Bumgarner thinking about becoming a better hitter is that the Giants hitting coach, Bam-Bam Meulens, instituted a hitting contest, assigning points for each type of offensive event, had three team leaders draft three sub-teams competing with each other, and which included the starting pitchers. So if anyone did decide to give him any flack regarding this, they would be indirectly blaming the hitting coach.
And as I’ll explain below, improving SP hitter can be worth a lot to any team.
Is he an ace though? ERA, RS, and FIP regularly have him as one of the top 20 pitchers but I don’t know if I would call him an ace. He’s definitely good though.
I don’t know. Let’s ask the Kansas City Royals.
Lmao, somebody didn’t watch the playoffs last year
Not sure if serious.
An “ace” is the best SP of a team’s rotation. So yes, Bumgarner is for sure an ace because he’s the Giants’ best SP.
Next, we should have a poll titled “Mario Mendoza or Jon Lester?”
Nice article, very interesting the comparisons between Hamilton and Bumgarner. Of course, this is the Hamilton on the downside, not the Josh of the Reds/Rangers, but still a shocking juxtaposition.
I’ve wondered for a long time why teams don’t get their pitchers to hit better. I know Babe Ruth was an outlier, but imagine the potential if a team can get even a quarter of the way there? And examples like Rick Ankiel show that it is possible to develop a pitcher to be at the level of a starting position player. Brandon Belt is a good example too, he was drafted as a pitcher out of HS, got injured and was forced to be a position player, and didn’t hit all that well in college (though well enough), then figured things out as a pro. And many pitchers were the among the best athletes on their amateur teams, and they hit well there, but it seems like they become a pro and all that development is wasted.
I had wondered if a starting pitcher could hit at around the replacement level for a hitter, what would happen, and I think he would add a win to the team. A few years back, I took the average OBP and SLG for each batting position 1-9 and inputted it into the lineup calculator to generate an estimated RS average. Assuming RA to be equal, you got a .500 team using Pythagorean. I then replaced the #9 spot with a poor hitting player at that time (Vizquel in one of his final seasons) and that changed a team’s results in 32 starts of a SP from 16-16 to 17-15. Over ten seasons, that moves the record from 160-160 to 170-150.
For a team who can get their pitching staff to do that, it moves an 81-81 team to a 86-76 team, just from improving their pitcher’s hitting from lousy to replacement level (or roughly). That’s not far from being a playoff competitive team at 90 wins. Just from developing your pitchers’ hitting.
Regarding Bumgarner taking a few years to figure out hitting, doesn’t that makes sense? One, minor league SP don’t start hitting regularly until the upper minors. So they don’t get to work on it for at least a couple of years in the minors, if not more. Two, it is the majors and he didn’t get a lot of practice in the minors, plus he still don’t get a lot of practice in the minors. Three, he probably focused more on pitching well in the majors first, then he could focus on smoothing the edges by working on pickoffs and on hitting better. And there’s the rubric about hitting prospects taking 2,000 PAs to fully develop, and there’s no way a SP get that much game experience in his career, but what it means for pitchers is that he’s not likely to figure out hitting early in his career, if ever.
micah owings finished with a career ops+ of 106. problem was he wasn’t a very good pitcher to begin with.
David Peralta is also a pitcher-turned fielder/batter. He’s essentially learning how to hit lefties at the MLB level. I don’t think it’s out of the question at all to wonder why teams don’t have pitchers focus more on batting- even if it’s just bunting. I know the Giants pitchers spend a lot of time, reportedly, working on bunting and a lot of those guys actually take great pride in being able to sacrifice reliably. Bunting, of course, is different than a full swing, but it’s not unreasonable to think more time spent allowing the pitchers to swing away would be beneficial to some teams.
Interesting. Did that simulation take into account using pinch hitters late in the game, after teams are into the bullpen? I’d think that reduces the benefit 40% to 50%, but 2 or 3 wins per year is still a nice pickup.
In theory this makes a lot of sense, but given the few times pitchers bat in the minors, I think it makes it difficult for them to maintain their batting skills. How much extra practice would it take for a major league pitcher to improve their batting significantly, and is that time better spent working on pitching?
Dave Fleming just plugged this article on the KNBR Giants radio broadcast. =)
I’d like to submit a request for a HR derby featuring Madison Bumgarner, Carlos Zambrano, Mike Hampton, and Brooks Kieschnick
I’d like to add Bartolo Colon.
Sorry guys, I hurt myself again and will be out for the next 3 years. Can I have my check?
‘Sup?
There seems to be a pretty widespread belief in the industry that the NL will be forced to use the DH in a few years. American League teams simply don’t want their $25 million-per-year starting pitchers going to bat and risking injury in interleague games. It is the executives running AL clubs behind this push.
I agree with this wholeheartedly and I’ve defended the Greinke contract based a lot on his hitting to other fans. I just don’t see the point in pitchers when even the very best, Bumgarner, is still not much better than a #6 hitter. Then add onto that how often pitchers get hurt.
Lol, I can’t imagine the argument on the anti-Greinke side being too terribly compelling.
One of the fun things about cricket is when you get a bowler who can also bat – the all-rounders are treasured players.
I’ve never seen the point of the DH rule – why are pitchers the only people who only have to display one skill? Batters almost all have to play defence, and no-one’s demanding the designated fielder rule to protect their star batters from injuring themselves chasing a flyball.
Ultra-specialisation seems boring, to me. Bumgarner’s fun to watch because he’s trained a new skill and forces teams to play him differently. That’s way more fun than “oh, here’s the guy who’s too fat or injured to play the field come to bat”.
Yes, I’ve read of a similar sense that the NL will eventually have the DH. The MLBPA also would like the DH for both leagues, because of a view that it creates demand for highly-paid aging veterans who can still hit.
I do wonder if similar thinking is a reason that more teams don’t emphasize coaching pitchers to hit better, though. Specifically, meaning a mindset of feeling ambivalent about having pitchers run the bases a lot with the accompanying risk of injury. I don’t think that view is logical. As we know, however, not every thought process in baseball is logical.
That caution could apply to coaching the pitchers as well. If a really good pitcher gets a fluke injury while he’s taking batting practice, how’d you like to be the manager or hitting coach who insisted that all the starting pitchers work on their hitting?
I don’t want to read the same arguments pro/con DH for the 1000th time. We’ve all seen them, no one is going to budge.
You have to think the player’s union wants this too. An NL DH could add as many as 15 more high priced players to league.
“American League teams simply don’t want their $25 million-per-year starting pitchers going to bat and risking injury in interleague games. ”
Here is the list of AL pitchers who make $25M this year:
Justin Verlander $28M
So, I guess you meant, American League *team* 🙂
Stop it, Madison Bumgarner! You may be entertaining to watch hitting, but nobody else is. You’re screwing up the case for a DH.
This is getting ridiculous. wRC+ up to 126. His ISO is now .271