Marc on Colby Lewis
I thought I was pretty smart. This past Friday, I noticed that Colby Lewis was making his triumphant return to the Majors. As many of you know, our very own Carson Cistulli has a Texas-sized Man Crush on Mr. Lewis. I suggested to Carson that we should both watch the game and post a duel article on Monday (today) commenting on Lewis’ start. I should have realized that my “bright ideas” always backfire.
Instead of getting to publicly laugh in Carson’s face, I have to eat crow: Lewis actually pitched well. Prior to his self-imposed banishment to Japan, Lewis had appeared in parts of five MLB seasons and posted a 5.79 FIP, 5.14 BB/9 and 6.34 K/9. Hardly exciting stuff.
But then something happened to Lewis in Japan… He apparently learned how to be a pitcher. This past Friday night, he held the Mariners lineup (albeit not a scary collection of hitters) to just one run in seven innings. He allowed five hits and four walks in the game, while also striking out three.
I am a little worried about Lewis going forward because he allowed a lot of fly ball outs (10) and Texas is known for being a pretty good place to hit for power. As well, his control was clearly better than his command – but both are significantly improved from what he previous MLB numbers would suggest. He’s also going to have to find a reliable third pitch (either his curve or change-up) because his fastball-slider combo is not going to be enough once a scouting report on Lewis starts to circulate.
I’m willing to admit that Lewis may not be quite as bad as I thought he was going to be this season, but I still predict a modest WAR this season in the 1.5 to 2.5 range. I think he’ll give Texas some much-needed innings, but he’s going to have some bad games when his fastball command is off and his pitches catch too much of the plate.
Marc Hulet has been writing at FanGraphs since 2008. His work focuses on prospects and fantasy. Follow him on Twitter @marchulet.
four walks and only three strikeouts is better than you thought? His xFIP was 5.89.
I don’t know how you can say he did well when his numbers are worse than his career numbers.
Crow is particularly good if you brine it first and serve it with a fruity wine. I know, having had to eat enough in my time.
I want to believe in Colby Lewis and am generally encouraged by this outing, but I am surprised by a higher-than-expected (at least higher than I hoped for) BB rate. His Japanese baseball numbers suggest that he did one thing very well in Japan — he kept runners off base — but he did it in two different ways — he struck them out AND he avoided giving them free passes.
I did not see the game, so I am curious about the umpire’s ball/strike calling and wondered if you could provide a little more detail about Lewis’ command of the strike zone.
Also, could you suggest some more information on how the Japanese game differs from the American game? Are the baseballs any different in size or mass relative to the ones used in MLB? Thanks!
Aha. It seems that Mr. Cistulli has just provided some more pitch-specific information. I shall turn my attention to his post.
On the higher BB rate, I think Lewis was a bit keyed up for his first start back. He gave up a walk and a wild pitch in the first inning, and two of those walks were to Figgins, who led the AL last year in that category. If he gives up 4 walks consistently I’ll worry, but not yet.
Good points, T-Ball. Much appreciated.
I read recently (maybe it was here at Fangraphs, or maybe some other font of wisdom) that umpires in MLB miss the low-strike call quite often. As such, I got to wondering how the umps in Friday’s game were making the calls.
With as many fly balls as Lewis gave up, though, it sounds like he was working up in the zone, not down. I need to take a gander at some pitch f/x data and learn that system, I guess.
Marc, is this going to be a recurring thing you two do for every Lewis start? Could be an interesting read, though it might get old after awhile.
I’m sure we’ll update our dispute throughout the season, but not after every start…
That would be great, to have you two revisit this after a couple months.
This is pretty much wrong. The only difference between Japan and pre-Japan (when he was an elite prospect) is health. He always knew how to be a pitcher and all that jazz, he was just never healthy enough to do it.
To add another aspect to what PWH said, it isnt even the two years in Japan where this Lewis showed up.
His 2006 and 2007 numbers from AAA match the numbers posted in Japan extremely well, and were provided over more then 240 innings as nothing more then a starter. Now he did see a very small amount of ML innings over those years (40.1 to be exact) but almost all came out of the pen. Before yesterday he had all of 1 ML start since 2004, but all of his minor league and Japan starts over those 4 seasons have indicated a FIP in the range of 3.0-3.5. (with some leniency on the K totals of 2006, the first year after major reconstructive surgery).
Thats why I have never understood so many people pointing to the ML numbers of Lewis as an indication of what we would see. We havent even seen him since 2007, we havent seen him as a starter after his surgery way back in 2004, and still people have apparently ignored 4 straight years of extremely impressive numbers as a starter between AAA and Japan. Its almost as if people were deciding what he can do and then trying to back up the predetermined assumption while ignoring some pretty important aspects.
Let’s wait and see how he does against a Major League lineup, rather than the pitiful Mariners.
Colby Lewis was an “Elite Prospect”? I never knew that. Thought he was just anoher fringe guy, not the next Chapman. Weak ESPN.
its a little difficult to see how highly regarded he was as 03-04 was pretty extreme for prospects. But you can get a really good idea from the players directly surrounding him on the BA prospect rankings – Rich Harden, Cliff Lee, Adrian Gonzalez, Josh Hamilton and James Loney.
And although being ranked 32nd might not seem extremely special, again, the years were pretty outrageous. That is, 2003 saw Tex, J.Reyes, Mauer, B.Phillips, H.Matsui, G.Floyd, K-Rod, Kaz, Miguel Cabrera, Kotchman, Morneau, V.Martinez, Cuddyer, Wainwright, Hanley Ramirez, Bonderman and BJ Upton listed above him – as you can tell, thats an overwhelming list and why really highly regarded pitchers like Harden, Lee and Lewis were ranked as low as 29-32 when they likely would have been top-20 prospects most years.