More Javy Frustration

by
May 5, 2009

The offseason for the Atlanta Braves was highlighted by the 4-yr deal given to Derek Lowe and shadowed with controversy surrounding deals with Rafael Furcal and Ken Griffey Jr that never came to fruition. Hidden amongst the headlines, their second best move involved trading for Javier Vazquez of the Chicago White Sox.

Vazquez has been written about here on several occasions, primarily due to the fact that he has been the most frustrating pitcher in recent memory. He routinely posts incredible peripherals and marks of controllable skills yet often sees his ERA soar much higher than his FIP. A return to the more pitcher-friendly senior circuit, in theory, could be the cure for such frustration.

Entering Monday’s game against the Mets, Vazquez had toed the rubber on five different occasions, pitching 32 very effective innings. In his time on the mound, Vazquez had issued just eight free passes, fanned 42 hitters, and kept his ERA down to a very solid 3.38. Having allowed just one home run, coupled with the K/BB north of 5.0, Javy’s FIP stood at an incredible 1.70.

He is usually right around a 40% flyball rate/38% groundball rate but had surrendered a pretty penny of line drives right around the corner of 30%. Those line drives will be displaced by flyballs, some of which are going to leave the yard, normalizing both the LD- and HR/FB-rates in the process. Two of those balls left the yard last night against the Mets as Vazquez performed in his typical frustrating fashion.

Javy threw first pitch strikes to 18 of the first 21 hitters he faced and looked dominant. Speeds were mixed, pinpoint control decided to attend his arsenal, and command did not elude the righty. In the sixth inning, Javy sported a 3-0 lead. As dominant as he had looked, I figured this was a sure thing. A quick check of my e-mail and channel flip with the remote later, the Mets had taken a 4-3 lead on the heels of two-run homers from Carlos Beltran and David Wright.

Last night’s game sums up Vazquez’s career perfectly: he looks dominant 85% of the time, leading many to scratch, no, claw their heads as to why he is not a perennial award contender, and allows enough damage in that remaining 15% to inflate his overall numbers.





 

Eric is an accountant and statistical analyst from Philadelphia. He also covers the Phillies at Phillies Nation and can be found here on Twitter.

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Troy Patterson
14 years ago

I looked into this before and it is actually quite simple. He is a completely different pitcher with runners on base and pitching in the stretch.

Here is my work – http://fantasypros911.com/the-anomaly-of-javier-vazquez.html

The essence is he has a K/BB of 4.10 when the bases are empty in his career, but only a 2.07 with RISP. This leads to giving up large run totals in innings where he allows runners on base.

If he could ever find a solution to this he would be one of the best, but he has trouble still. This year his numbers are obviously a small sample size, but they have been better. K/BB – bases empty 7.00 RISP – 3.67

The addition of a pitcher to the lineup could help him raise the K/BB from the stretch enough to make his numbers passable with RISP that he meets his expectations.

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Eric Seidman
14 years ago
Reply to  Troy Patterson

Troy, that is one-half of the analysis and forgive me if you did the other half. But the other half is comparing Vazquez to the rest of the league in this situation.

We ALWAYS, ALWAYS have to use the appropriate context. Perhaps the spread across the league with runners on is a dropoff of about 1.5 on the K/BB, meaning that Vazquez’s 2.03 differential is somewhat significant but not insanely ridiculous. Perhaps the average differential is lower, at 0.5, making Javy’s 2.03 dropoff incredibly significant.

We need to know how it relates to everyone else not just to himself. It’s the same thing with Ryan Howard against lefties…. sure, Howard is MUCH better against righties, but his overall numbers against lefties are actually slightly above average when compared to how other lefty hitters fare against lefty pitchers.

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Troy Patterson
14 years ago
Reply to  Eric Seidman

You’re right Eric and I did not have that data for the league averages. I have been looking for it and if you have access to that I would be greatful. My guess by looking around is the average is between your two examples at about a 1.00 K/BB drop. This would make him twice the league average, but again this is only a guess.

I would guess most of the pitchers who are worse than the league average likely have a lower LOB%.

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twinsfan
14 years ago
Reply to  Eric Seidman

MLB K/BB in 2009 (AL and NL nearly identical)
2.13 – bases empty
1.52 – men on
1.31 – RISP

MLB K/BB in 2008
2.35 – bases empty
1.69 – men on
1.45 – RISP

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Troy Patterson
14 years ago
Reply to  Eric Seidman

Wow I was almost right on with the actual split of 0.9 between bases empty and RISP. He wasn’t double that in 2008 though as his split in 2008 was 1.51.

I think the point still stands though that he is worse in the stretch and that causes his numbers to always underperform numbers that are based on league average like FIP.

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