Looking R.A. Dickey Up on FanGraphs
R.A. Dickey leads the Majors in strikeouts. He has more than Stephen Strasburg, more than Justin Verlander, more than Gio Gonzalez. Nobody in baseball has generated as many strike threes as R.A. Dickey. Since he has never done anything like this before — his next strikeout will actually match his 2010 total — people are asking him what he’s doing differently. After his second straight one hitter last night, Dickey was asked this again. His response:
“The strikeouts, you can look at FanGraphs or PITCHF/x or whatever you do to figure it out.”
Who are we to turn R.A. Dickey away? So, by order of the guy actually doing it on the field, let’s do just what he asked.
Let’s start off the with obvious – Dickey is seeing a huge uptick in his strikeout rate because he’s getting a lot more swinging strikes. This isn’t a Vance Worley or Bartolo Colon situation. Dickey is throwing pitches, batters are swinging, and they’re not making contact.
Swinging Strike Rate, by season as a full time knuckleballer:
2008: 6.3%
2009: 6.5%
2010: 8.4%
2011: 7.8%
2012: 12.7%
That 12.7% swinging strike rate is the highest in baseball among starting pitchers. In fact, if he’s able to keep this up all year, it would be the highest swinging strike rate any qualified starter has put up over a full season since CC Sabathia in 2008. Dickey’s ability to generate swinging strikes has gone from about league average to best in the league, and the results have followed.
But, that doesn’t really answer the question of why he’s getting so many more swinging strikes. So, let’s break it down a little further. Here are Dickey’s PITCHF/x plate discipline stats, again since 2008.
| Season | O-Swing% | Z-Swing% | Swing% | O-Contact% | Z-Contact% | Contact% | Zone% |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2008 | 21% | 61% | 43% | 75% | 89% | 86% | 54% |
| 2009 | 23% | 58% | 42% | 76% | 88% | 85% | 54% |
| 2010 | 28% | 63% | 48% | 73% | 85% | 82% | 55% |
| 2011 | 28% | 63% | 48% | 74% | 87% | 84% | 56% |
| 2012 | 35% | 63% | 50% | 67% | 78% | 74% | 55% |
The first column in represents the amount of pitches out of the strike zone that hitters are swinging at. League average is about 28%, so Dickey had been right around average up until this year. Now, though, hitters are chasing 35% of his pitches out of the strike zone, and for a pitcher, the more pitches you can get a batter to chase, the better off you’ll be. Interestingly, hitters aren’t swinging at more strikes than usual, so the uptick in swing rate against Dickey is entirely due to opposing hitters chasing pitches out of the zone.
However, that doesn’t mean he’s only been more effective in getting batters to chase. Look at the Z-Contact%, which is rate of contact on pitches in the strike zone — 78% is astonishingly low, 10 percentage points below the league average. In fact, of the 542 qualified starting pitcher seasons since 2007, only Johan Santana’s 2007 season generated a lower contact rate on pitches in the strike zone. Dickey’s getting more batters to swing at pitches out of the zone, but even when they recognize a strike and swing at it, they can’t hit it. That’s a pretty fantastic combination, as you might imagine.
Dickey’s also benefiting from the exponential effects of throwing strikes. While his rate of pitches in the strike zone isn’t much different, the fact that he’s getting batters to chase pitches out of the zone and swing through pitches in the zone means that he’s now pitching far more often in favorable counts. Last year, 26% of the batters he faced ended up in an 0-2 count before the at-bat ended, but this year, that’s all the way up to 32%, nine percentage points higher than the league average. The only NL pitcher getting into 0-2 counts more often is Cliff Lee. Major League hitters this year are batting .167/.195/.251 after they get into an 0-2 count. Nearly one-third of the batters Dickey has faced have ended up in that situation.
Breaking down the effectiveness of the movement of a knuckleball is challenging, even with PITCHF/x data, since the success of the pitch is predicated on its unpredictability. What we can say for certain about his knuckleball this year is that he’s throwing it for strikes and fooling hitters into thinking that pitches out of the zone are worth swinging at. And, through that deception, Dickey is pitching like the best pitcher in baseball.
For most pitchers, velocity is a key factor in their success. For Dickey, it’s all about movement and location, and this year, he’s showing what a pitcher can do with dominating movement and consistently great location.
Dave is the Managing Editor of FanGraphs.
That zone contact % is insane, so is the swstrk %. I literally just decided to look up his page today. Of course all of the rates are above career levels (babip, strand, contact etc.) But he has been unreal this year. #sellhigh
Hashtags don’t do anything in fangraphs comments, do they?
Having no UCL ligament – new market inefficiency
Just ask Brandon Beachy about his.
Ask Craig Biggio too
I just came to Fangraphs for the sole purpose of looking up RA Dickey, and then I see this post.
We’re getting seriously meta here, boys.
But…but…
How DOES a knuckleballer control placement of pitches or the ability to fool hitters with stuff outside the zone?
I’m pretty sure that wielding Orcrist, the Goblin-Cleaver, doesn’t hurt.
http://gothamist.com/2011/05/08/is_this_the_greatest_ny_times_corre.php
If the Mets weren’t in contention (at least by the standings), Dickey would be a perfect guy for them to move. He’s dirt cheap and under team control next year. The Mets are unlikely to make the playoffs either year and they would get a king’s ransom for him right now.
Personally, I think he’s a case of having more value to the team he’s pitching for than on the trade market considering age (37) and lack of any consistency.
While I think he’s a pleasant surprise and awesome to watch, no GM is going to unload the farm for a guy who may only have another couple of years left in him, is a knuckler and could decline pretty rapidly.
Knucklers decline rapidly? Conventional pitchers decline rapidly. Knucklers can keep knucking into their mid-40’s. As a Met fan who has watched every start of Dickey’s these past 3 seasons, he has been getting better and better with his knuckler. He actually can command his knuckler, and his latest invention is the nasty high knuckler he uses with two strikes, he wasn’t able to command it before but now he can. It’s a huge swing and miss pitch.
Isn’t that counter-intuitive? I don’t have any numbers in front of me but from memory I seem to recall knuckleball pitchers lasting LONGER than traditional pitchers. Mid to late 30s could very well be consider the prime of his career.
Lack of any consistency? Age?
I think you need to look R.A. Dickey up on FanGraphs.
@Danny & Ryan S: I didn’t mean to infer that because he’s a knuckler he’ll decline quickly. I was just noting that he’s getting up there in age, and that knucklers are such a rare creature in MLB, we don’t know how long he can keep up this production. In no way am I discounting his performance, it’s been amazing. I just think it’s silly to suggest the Mets would receive a “king’s ransom” in trading a 37 year old pitcher.
And @steex: I should have said “track record” instead of “consistency”, but even then, I’m not trying to argue semantics. My point is just that if a team were to make a blockbuster move at the deadline, I think they’d pay more for a younger guy like Greinke or Hamels than they would for Dickey. Unless he keeps throwing 10K+ 1-hitters, than I’ll be completely wrong.
Well, the fact that the Brewers or Phils could also score a load for their pitchers doesn’t answer the question.
Right now, Zips projects Dickey as a 3.52 ERA pitcher ROS. If you carry that to 2013 (and I think this projection is crazy-modest compared to what at least one GM of a real contender would think), you’re talking about 300ish innings of 3.52 ERA pitching for about 8 million dollars. That is a lot of surplus value. If he does pitch well, he’d be worth a qualifying offer, too.
The fact that Philly and Milwaukee could score a lot for their pitchers is the crux of my argument. Teams will deal for those guys first, not Dickey.
Add in the fact that Dickey might try and climb Everest or something this offseason, and again, he’s the kind of guy who’s worth more to his team than he is on the market.
And offering a qualifying offer to a 39 year old means you’d be paying him what? $13M+. Don’t know many teams that would do that.
Austen,
It sounds like you just haven’t followed Dickey much over the last few years. Since coming to the Mets, he’s been very good. In 2010/2011 he had about a 3.00 era in about 400 innings. Sure, he wasn’t as good as he’s been in 2012, but it’s not like he came out of nowhere this year. He was a very effective, underrated pitcher for the last couple years. And given how little money he makes this year, and how cheap his option is for next year, he’d have a ton of trade value. Hamels has a much better fastball, but I would think that teams would take 1 1/2 years of Dickey over 1/2 year of Hamels.
I have followed Dickey and I know how good he is. I’m not disputing any of this. I know he’s being paid way less than he’s worth. I understand all of these things.
However, look past your fandom and understand that, in my opinion, in real world MLB his trade value doesn’t compare to other elite pitchers. And I do agree he would probably net a decent prospect in return, but there’s no way he will get the Mets a “king’s ransom.” When has a team ever given up a grade A prospect + others for a 37 year old ballplayer? It just doesn’t make sense for a contending team to make a deal like that when there are several younger options out there.
Hell, 38 year old Randy Johnson, who’d just come off the 2nd best season of his freaking career didn’t even get the D-Backs a Top 100 prospect in return!
Again, I have followed Dickey, I’m not stupid, I know he’s a very good pitcher.
‘For most pitchers, velocity is a key factor in their success. For Dickey, it’s all about movement and location, and this year, he’s showing what a pitcher can do with dominating movement and consistently great location. ”
Scratch off “For Most Pitchers” — velocity is a big factor in Dickey’s success too. Just not fastball velocity.
Yeah, velocity for him is huge. As I pointed out in my Beyond the Boxscore post yesterday, Dickey’s knuckler is 10 mph faster now than it was when he started throwing it. That’s just mind-boggling. It’s a totally different pitch than what he started out throwing. Almost like a forkball in some ways.
In a 2004 New Yorker feature on knuckleballers:
http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2004/05/17/040517fa_fact1#ixzz1yGUGAFDr (last page)
I saw in the highlight reel that one of his knucklers came in at 81mph and another at 66mph. The total unpredictability of his velocity adds yet another dimension to hitters’ inability to get a read on the pitch.
For most pitchers, velocity is a key factor in their success.
This is true for Dickey as well. He is throwing the knuckleball faster than others typically throw it.
And he is changing speeds with it so effectively, it almost seems confusing to say he throws “just” one pitch. There is a fast knuckleball (~80mph), a slow knuckleball (~70mph), and the super slow knuckleball, or the Dickeyphus (~60mph). If such a thing is possible, Dickey is pitching as though he’s a conventional pitcher while throwing a nasty knuckleball. The results are, so far, crazy.
If means aren’t particularly useful for knuckleball analyses, why not use standard deviations or mean square successive differences? It seems the variance from pitch to pitch would be easy to quantify using either of these methods and is probably most predictive of “pitch quality” for a knuckleballer.
Or some measure of “departure from expectation” based on initial movement. A curve might depart 6-8 inches from expectation as compared to a fastball, but once you identify it as a curve, that value probably shrinks to within a couple of inches. The knuckler, though, can move one way, then move back the other way. It reminds me of throwing a frisbee into the wind, how it sometimes just jumps up four inches, or drops four inches…
This R.A. Dickey story is amazing.
R.A Dickey: Guest Columnist at Fangraphs. Make it happen Dave.
The Star Wars and Lord of the Rings references would multiply exponentially.
Less fortunately, Bradley Woodrum would have reason to feel insecure about his facial follicles.
This.
If possible, it would be great if David Laurilia could score one of his great interviews with him.
As a Computer Science Professional I wish you would stop publishing your WAR Power Rankings on SI. Your inaccuracy is putting CS back decades.
What is a Computer Science Professional?
Means he’s a hooker in Silicon Valley.
Fortunately, however, your internet message board comments are right in line with a majority of them. Unfortunately, you placed them on the wrong site. Better luck next time!
1. He doesn’t have more strikeouts than Verlander!
2. The current league leader in strikeouts is not Dickey, or Verlander either! It is actually Adam Dunn.
You’re wrong on the first count. Dickey has 103 strikeouts as a pitcher + 3 as a batter, while Verlander has 103 as a pitcher + 0 as a batter. You’re right on the second count. Dunn leads Dickey, 107-106.
Lost in all the hoopla over Dickey’s pitching is that his contact rates are up on both sides of the ball. He struck out over 1 time per 7 PA’s the last two years, but this year he strikes out fewer than 1 per 11.
Hi Mr. Dickey! Very nice year so far. As a Yankee fan though, I hope we do OK against you on your next start. Just 2 or 3 runs should do it OK? Thanks.
This is neither here nor there as far as the stats are concerned, but I think it’s cool that the 3rd or 4th sentence of the introduction to R.A. Dickey’s book says “I will never lead the league in strikeouts.” Even Dickey himself couldn’t foresee this. Never say never I guess. Keep dealing, R.A.
He is changing speeds so effectively and “controlling” the knuckleball so well that the hitters walk away looking confused. You gotta be rooting for this guy. Keep it up R.A.
It’s amazing what he’s doing. He’s making hitters look absolutely foolish with that knuckleball. That Contact% is crazy.
I would be unsurprised if Dickey has managed to ‘solve’ the knuckleball, that being that he can throw it while knowing what type of movement it is likely to have based on slightly altering a grip or arm action; i dont know.
Or perhaps a 80mph knuckleball thrown right down the middle travels too fast for it to end up well out of the intended area, making it far easier to throw a strike.
Either way it’s quite hilarious to watch.
Dickey’s rep for throwing strikes also seems to be getting him a lot of calls from the home-plate umps. I’ve seen him get the benefit of the doubt on a lot of pitches that seemed pretty borderline (and this comes from a die-hard Mets fan).
Either that, or his knuckler is so ridiculous that it’s fooling the umpires too. Maybe a little of both.