More On The Pirates’ Ground-Balling Pitching Staff

Tuesday on these very pages Mike Petriello wrote a piece about the Pirates’ pitching staff, discussing in part their ground ball tendencies and recent upgrades in their infield defense. I figured I’d approach similar subjective matter from a slightly different angle today, focusing on the (recent) historical significance of their ability to keep the ball on the ground, and the manner in which this aspect of the club fits into the Pirates’ overall plan to win with a small to mid-market payroll. To put it mildly, the starting rotation the Pirates have put together in 2013-14 is not getting all of these grounders by accident.

Winning with significant financial restrictions is not easy to do. All of my years working in the baseball industry have been spent with Milwaukee and Seattle, and never once did we have a blank check for payroll. You need to find your stars through the draft and player development, and then attempt to uncover undervalued resources or market inefficiencies to surround that core. It takes time for the whole thing to come together. The Pirates have done a fine job on both fronts, with Andrew McCutchen fronting their homegrown star nucleus, and this interesting little pitching staff of theirs – along with fine team defense – keying a strong run prevention effort that meshes perfectly with pitcher-friendly PNC Park.

How historically significant is the Pirates’ ability to keep the ball on the ground? I went back to 2002 and measured each pitching staff’s grounder rate to the league average, looking for the true outliers – the clubs whose grounder rate was over two standard deviations above average. I found exactly nine clubs meeting this criteria. They appear below, in descending order of STD above league average:

TEAM YR + STD
PIT 2013 2.68
PIT 2014 2.59
STL 2009 2.57
STL 2005 2.44
TOR 2007 2.37
CLE 2010 2.16
ATL 2011 2.11
LAD 2008 2.07
STL 2004 2.06

Well, don’t you know, there are the 2013 and 2014 Pirates, sitting in the first and second slots. A couple of notes about this select group. There is a solid correlation with winning – these teams averaged 90 wins among them, with all but the 2010 Indians finishing above .500. Only two clubs repeated such an overall team grounder tendency in back-to-back seasons – the current iteration of the Pirates, and the 2004-05 Cardinals, who won 105 and 100 games, respectively. Both the extent to which the Pirates induce grounders, and their ability to repeat such a performance over multiple seasons are significant developments.

Let’s look at a small snapshot of the six primary members of the Pirates 2014 rotation, examining their respective grounder frequency and relative production data compared to MLB average, both before and after adjustment for context:

NAME GB % PCT AVG SLG REL PRD ADJ PRD
Volquez 48.2% 90 0.181 0.204 57 87
Liriano 49.4% 91 0.197 0.212 66 77
Morton 53.2% 98 0.212 0.242 80 86
Cole 47.1% 77 0.232 0.244 89 102
Locke 48.6% 90 0.207 0.229 74 88
Worley 51.1% 94 0.246 0.251 98 99

The actual production allowed on each BIP type is indicated in the AVG and SLG columns, and is converted to run values and compared to MLB average in the REL PRD column. That figure is then adjusted for context, such as home park, team defense, luck, etc., in the ADJ PRD column.

It is very rare for every member of a club’s starting rotation to have such similar grounder inducing abilities. Five of the Pirates six starters have a grounder rate percentile rank of 90 or higher – Charlie Morton leads the way at 98, while Gerrit Cole brings up the rear at 77. Looking back at the Cards similarly grounder-centric rotations, extreme fly ball guy Woody Williams pitched major innings in 2004, while the 2005 group – Mark Mulder, Chris Carpenter, Jason Marquis, Matt Morris and Jeff Suppan – like the Pirates, lacked a fly ball guy.

Each member of the Pirates 2014 rotation has allowed lower than MLB average grounder production, ranging from a low REL PRD figure of 57 (Edinson Volquez) to 98 (Vance Worley). The Pirates infield defense has helped each and every member of this group by varying amounts, as all of their ADJ PRD figures (adjusted for context) are higher than their REL PRD figures. Only Cole, by a narrow margin, has allowed above average grounder authority (102 ADJ PRD), while Francisco Liriano (77 ADJ PRD) has allowed the weakest contact among them.

To sum it all up, the Pirates not only allow way more grounders than anyone else, they also allow weaker than average grounders, and their infield defense is much better than average at turning them into outs. This, my friends, is how run prevention works.

It’s also instructive to compare how the Pirates put this group together vis-à-vis the aforementioned 2004-05 Cardinal group. Those were mainly well-established, relatively highly compensated pitchers on those Cardinal staffs – they were known quantities. Not so with the current Pirates.

Cole is a former #1 overall draft pick. When you get those picks, you have to nail them. Cole had overwhelming stuff, but had some contact management issues as an amateur. Liriano and Volquez were reclamation projects. The former always had stellar K rates, but had control lapses and didn’t manage contact very well. The latter was coming off of a deceptively terrible 2013 season in San Diego, one in which he actually allowed the lowest average grounder velocity in the NL. Morton and Jeff Locke have eerily similar backstories. Both were high draft picks – Locke was a 2nd rounder, Morton a 3rd rounder – out of New England high schools by the Atlanta Braves who were both acquired in the same trade, for Nate McLouth. Go back and read that sentence again. And then there’s Vance Worley.

When Worley first broke out with the Phillies in 2011, he was not a ground ball pitcher. He induced more grounders in 2012, but his overall performance went backward, and he then underwent elbow surgery to clean out bone chips late in the season. A quick, full recovery was expected and the always pitching-hungry Twins stepped up and traded Ben Revere to the Phillies for Worley and fellow righty Trevor May at the 2012 Winter Meetings. To put it mildly, Worley’s stay in Minnesota didn’t go well. He was slow to recover from the surgery, posting a 7.21 ERA and allowing two baserunners per inning in abbreviated 2013 duty. The Pirates must have liked what they physically saw – and what they inferred from his Pitch and Hit f(x) numbers – as they purchased him for cash near the end of 2014 spring training.

Let’s take a look at Worley’s 2014 plate appearance outcome frequency and production by BIP type data for some insight into the type of pitcher he has become. First, the frequency information:

Worley % REL PCT
K 17.4% 86 18
BB 5.1% 67 18
POP 6.7% 87 45
FLY 23.9% 85 12
LD 18.3% 88 4
GB 51.1% 117 94

His low K and BB rates, both 18 percentile ranks, suggest that he’s your typical pitch-to-contact guy – the kind of guy the Twins love. His grounder percentile rank of 94 is by far a career high – his previous best was 53 in 2012. His liner percentile rank is extremely low at 4 – this in large part may be due to random chance, as such rates fluctuate more than for other BIP types, and Worley’s previous low was 65 in 2011. With all of the other things going on in Worley’s case, however, I’d pause before writing it all off to random variation.

Let’s now take a look at the production by BIP type allowed by Worley, both before and after adjustment for context, this time on all batted balls, not just grounders:

PROD – 2014
Worley AVG OBP SLG REL PRD ADJ PRD ACT ERA CALC ERA TRU ERA
FLY 0.244 0.654 78 77
LD 0.650 0.850 96 102
GB 0.246 0.251 98 99
ALL BIP 0.309 0.445 85 87
ALL PA 0.252 0.290 0.363 86 88 2.93 3.23 3.28

In the three right-most columns, his actual ERA, calculated component ERA based on actual production allowed, and “tru” ERA, which is adjusted for context, are all presented. For the purposes of this exercise, SH and SF are included as outs and HBP are excluded from the OBP calculation.

Not only do we now have a pitcher with a newly found extreme grounder tendency, we also have one who is allowing significantly less than average authority on the relatively few fly balls he does allow. He is allowing just a .244 AVG-.654 SLG on fly balls, good for a 78 REL PRD, but his underlying batted ball data states that he’s doing it on merit – 77 ADJ PRD – not simply because he pitches in a spacious home park or has a strong outfield defense playing behind him.

HIs 87 ADJ PRD on all BIP is quite good, and his low BB rate successfully offsets his low K rate, allowing his overall ADJ PRD to creep up only fractionally to 88 when they are added back in, good for a “tru” ERA of 3.28, higher than his ERA, but lower than his 3.53 FIP.

How is he doing it? Well, he has thrown dramatically more two-seam fastballs since joining the Pirates. Fully 40.7% of his pitches in 2014 have been two-seamers – his previous high two-seam percentage was 16.2% in 2012. He is throwing his four-seamer and cutter much less, and the new arrangement has made him a new man. An extremely significant portion of his ground balls have been induced by the two-seamer.

It would seem that at the very least, the new and improved Vance Worley has a home in the mid-to-lower range of a strong Pirate rotation going forward. The Pirates again identified an undervalued asset, utilizing scouting and analytical information to do so, and have transformed him into a piece that it would cost $10M per year to purchase on the free agent market. Instead, they have paid a grand total of $16.5M to their six 2014 starters combined. That number might seem poised to rise as Cole enters his arb years and guys like Volquez and Liriano prepare to collect paychecks commensurate with their newfound production levels, but the Pirates very well might simply plug in another rookie, like a Tyler Glasnow, and unearth one or two more buy-low candidates while waving goodbye to one or more of their soon-to-be unaffordable incumbents. It’s the plight of the small market club, one which the Pirates have learned to embrace.





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Jim S.
9 years ago

Don’t forget to mention pitching coach Ray Searage.

Pirates Hurdles
9 years ago
Reply to  Jim S.

The miracle worker, after signing Volquez I was in disbelief. The turnaround there is astounding, really only Jonathan Sanchez and to a lesser extent Eric Bedard (good at 1st then faded) have struggled in the buy low program.

gorillakilla34
9 years ago

Also don’t forget James McDonald. Some guys just can’t be saved, no matter how much magic you have.