NLCS Game One/Series Preview: Philadelphia Phillies
Two quotes rattled around in my brain as I prepared to write this preview:
“Every pitcher is Roy Halladay to the Giants. You know what kind of pitchers do well against the Giants? The ones with noses.” – Grant, from the McCovey Chronicles in his post called “Sizing up the Phillies’ starting rotation“
“I’ve been calling for a long time to see metrics about how hitters and pitchers fare against different types and/or quality of opponents. In the postseason, this is really all that matters.” – Commenter B N, on the review of Game Three of the NLDS
If this were the mainstream media, it would be so easy to say something semi-resolute and catchy about this matchup. Tim Lincecum has a 3.17 ERA and a 0.99 WHIP in seven career games against the Phillies. Roy Halladay has a 7.23 ERA and 1.61 WHIP in three games. OMGz! Don’t count the Giants out! They have Halladay’s number!
Hardly. Of course. Those numbers are career splits, and what do starts against other iterations of these lineups even mean? Diddly. And then, if we try to boil it down to splits in this season, we get one poor game for Halladay against the Giants (seven innings, ten hits, five runs, five strikeouts and no walks) and one excellent game for Lincecum (eight and a third innings, three hits, two runs, 11 strikeouts and one walk).
But somehow we want to find something we can say with some amount of certainty this year. And since head-to-head matchups won’t give us a sample worth discussing, we’ll have to see how these teams do against certain types of pitchers in our (probably fruitless) aim to say something about this one, single game on Saturday.
Maybe we can say something like: in 2010, the Giants had an X OPS against pitchers like Halladay. Dangit, who’s like Halladay? Or rather, what kind of a pitcher is he? He throws 93, doesn’t walk anyone (1.08 BB/9), and gets groundballs (51.2% this year). Is he a groundballer? A finesse pitcher? A power pitcher? Lincecum throws only 91 this year, but gets more strikeouts (9.79 this year) and fewer groundballs (48.9%). Can we call him a power pitcher? A guy who walks 3.22 per nine doesn’t seem to be a finesse pitcher.
The inspiration for this line of reasoning is the team splits pages on Baseball-Reference.com. Thankfully, they have a definition there:
Power pitchers are in the top third of the league in strikeouts plus walks. Finesse are in the bottom third of the league in strikeouts plus walks.
Ah-hah. So Tim Lincecum = ‘power’ pitcher, Roy Halladay = ? Let’s just not bother with how the Giants do against finesse pitchers – we already ‘know’ that every pitcher looks like Roy Halladay to them from the quote at the top. However, Lincecum seems to fit the definition for a power pitcher, so how do the Phils do against power pitchers? Answer: not as well as they do against finesse pitchers. Their 99 sOPS+ against power pitchers is well below their 110 sOPS+ against finesse pitchers.
Otherwise, the Phillies lead the Giants in batting RAR (27.9 to -14.6) and starters’ RAR (144.5 to 141.4; and more once Roy Oswalt is considered). The Giants lead in bullpen RAR (59.1 to 25.8) and defense (8.5 to 0.8 UZR/150). If there wasn’t the hint that the Phillies’ offense might not be as good against power pitchers, it would be tempting to take the team with the better lineup and starter in game one and in the series.
Here’s one thing we can actually say with certainty: It will be interesting to see Lincecum face off against Halladay. Phew. How’s that for resolute?
With a phone full of pictures of pitchers' fingers, strange beers, and his two toddler sons, Eno Sarris can be found at the ballpark or a brewery most days. Read him here, writing about the A's or Giants at The Athletic, or about beer at October. Follow him on Twitter @enosarris if you can handle the sandwiches and inanity.
“Their 99 sOPS+ against power pitchers is well below their 110 sOPS+ against finesse pitchers.”
How much merit should we give to this? Considering the Giants top 3 of Lincecum/Sanchez/Cain – clearly all power pitchers – this has to be considered a boon for SF; however, I can’t help but take it with a grain of salt.
Sanchez clearly is. I think Lincecum almost defies categorization. Cain doesn’t qualify as a power pitcher by that metric, he’s 26th of 45 qualifiers in K rate and 33rd in BB rate, so he’s probably around the edge of the bottom third combined K+BB.
Does the sOPS+ include the Phillies’ lineups with Dobbs, Valdez, etc?
No reason for this article to be written. Nothing was said.
Seems a bit more honest than saying that the numbers point to a clear conclusion. The Giants pitching turns other teams into their lineup, so it’s hard to predict where either team’s runs are going to come from.
But the Phils have had a tendency to turn expectations on their head (i.e., George Sherrill = key weapon) during their recent run, so they win my pre-LCS coin flip.
It’s odd that walks factor into whether one is a “power pitcher”. You could add more walks, or more K’s, to become more “powerful” by that metric. Horrid control? FEEL THE POWER!!!
It makes me beam with pride to know that if a team let me pitch enough innings, I’d be classified as a power pitcher due to my lack of accuracy.
Here’s something the sabermetric community could say about Giants-Phillies. The betting line wildly overestimates the favorite — $100 wins you $210 if you’re betting on the Giants, while you have to bet $250 on the Phillies to win $100. The true probabilities are much closer.
Completely agree. I think with those odds the Gianst are the smart money play here.
I’d think pretty much any team would do worse against power pitchers, as you define them, because what that metric really measures for the most part is strikeouts. (Yeah, it has walks in it too, but pitchers on average strike out way more hitters than they walk, so it’s basically a measure that correlates very well to strikeout rate.) So, the Phillies are worse against pitchers that get more strikeouts. That’s like saying, “the Phillies should have a tougher time hitting Lincecum than they would Dave Bush.” Oh? It doesn’t show that they struggle against Lincecum or pitchers like him any more than the fact that Lincecum’s being a really good pitcher would suggest.
sOPS+ is actually their split relative to the league average split in the same situation. The 2010 NL average was a .660 OPS vs. power pitchers and the .758 OPS vs finesse. The Phillies were .669 OPS vs. power and .797 vs. finesse, so while everyone hit finesse pitchers better their split relative to the rest of the teams was larger.
Maybe more interesting they had as a team a 145/235 BB/SO vs. power pitchers but only a .268 BABIP.
What does it mean? I don’t know.
So we’re (I’m a Phillies fan) a little better than the league average against power pitchers and a lot better than the league average against finesse pitchers. That doesn’t exactly show that the Phillies, relatively speaking, have problems hitting power pitchers, though you could say that we should hit them a little better given the quality of our offense.
I enjoyed the article, but it is filled with more than just a tad of circular reasoning, and by that I do not mean the circle change-up!
The Phillies’ awesome record against “finesse” starters might have something to do with the fact that they face the Nats 18 times a year.
Firstly, it’s good to be heard! 🙂
Secondly, while not very conclusive I still found it interesting to hear the analysis. While I’m not sold on the particular approach to categorizing pitchers (it seems a bit arbitrary), it does produce an interesting assertion at least.
As for looking at pitcher similarity, that is a quite complicated issue I admit. Ultimately, I think one would want to build pitcher similarity along with a complementary concept of batter similarity. Because ultimately what we care about are splits in performance.
So, in the same way we look at Lefty/Righty or FlyHitter(or Pitcher)/GroundballHitter(or Pitcher) there might be complementary concepts that capture additional aspects of a player’s style. Is the “Power Pitcher” class one of them that’s important? Maybe/maybe not. It would probably be worthwhile to consider what might be see what the data says, I’d think. If “Power Pitchers” do have some important splits, what are the complementary factors on the other side that make it so? (ex. Lefty Pitcher is to Lefty Hitter as Power Pitcher is to …???)
Otherwise, does come out seeming an awful lot like guesswork if we can’t defend the predictive value of the classes we’re using.
But again, enjoyed the article and hope for more. Plus, regardless of any stats and predictive measures- there’s no substitute for just plain watching the game.
That is about the stupidest definition of a power pitcher i’ve ever seen. Yes, on average a power pitcher will probably get more K’s, but not necessarily. I would define a power pitcher as someone who throws mostly fastballs with enough velocity that he does not have to be too precise about location.
Those guys can be either strikeout pitchers or contact pitchers. They can be either flyball pitchers(4 seamers) or groundball pitchers(2 seamers or sinkers). On average, power pitchers probably tend to be more flyball and strikeout inducers than groundball pitchers. They can also have great secondary pitches, but generally don’t rely on them as much as a finesse pitcher might.
Finesse pitchers, on the other hand, are guys whose fastball is generally under 90 MPH who have to keep it on the edges of the strike zone to survive. In general, to survive as a finesse pitcher, you have to be able to command your pitch to exactly where you want it better than a power pitcher. I would also say that in general finesse pitchers tend to be more ground ball inducing and more likely to depend on secondary pitches.
Here’s how I would categorize the SP’s in the upcoming NLCS:
Halladay- Power pitcher with finesse(that’s why he’s so great).
Tim Lincecum- I agree that he is difficult to categorize but he’s basically a power pitcher with great secondary stuff(why he is also great).
Matt Cain- classic power pitcher!!
Roy Oswalt- classic power pitcher!
Cole Hamels- finesse pitcher with good velocity(why he is so good).
Jonathan Sanchez- Power pitcher with a finesse mentality(why he is so good, but also why he tends to nibble too much and run up high pitch counts rather than trusting his stuff, which he should).
I think those are pretty good qualifications of those pitchers.
PitchFx can be used to properly segment this population. Avg fastball, mixed with fastball frequency might be two good measures to start with. It seems power should be measured more by the pitchers approach rather than how outs are made. True there will be more stirkeouts but in the case of Cain, I agree he has a power approach despite a lower K rate than what you might expect.
Ahh but the real question is the G’s splits vs power and finesse. If the Phils are 99OPS+ and the G’s are 89 OPS+ vs power pitchers then the phils win majority of games 1-0 or 2-1 right?
Single-season UZR seems to be overstating the Giants’ defensive edge as compared to the Phillies.
I find it hard to believe that 3-year samples wouldn’t favor the Phillies, and you couldn’t find a scout walking the Earth who would take the Giants’ defense over the Phillies.
Both are good defenses, but implying that the Giants are a better defensive team based on single-season UZR is an incorrect assertion to make, IMO.
Someone please correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t single season UZR for a team fairly accurate since it’s essentially around 7-9 times the info that a single season for 1 player would be?
I imagine the Phillies 2010 UZR is a bit lower because of the loss of Utley and Rollins for a large part of the season. No shot to Wilson Valdez who was an excellent replacement, but Utley and Rollins, who he replaced at separate times for a total of 85 games, are both better defenders. He also started a few games at third. Then there was Juan Castro starting some games. Ryan Howard had an epically bad UZR this year, which is probably a little bit of noise on top of a below average defender.
All this adds up to a reason why the team UZR of the Phils doesn’t reflect the defense put on the field in the playoffs. I don’t watch the Giants too frequently so I can’t comment who’s the better defense or whether they’ve suffered the same from injuries.
How is team UZR calculated? Is there additional weight added to more important positions or does UZR not work that way.
“You couldn’t find a scout walking the Earth who would take the Giants’ defense over the Phillies” — could be true if all the scouts in the world were playing one giant game of musical chairs and the music stopped and the guy who lost took a seat on the floor.
With Utley and Rollins in the lineup, the Phils are definitely more solid than their UZR this year would indicate. But I certainly don’t think they’re dramatically better defensively. I think I’d give the outfield edge to the Giants — Burrell and Ibanez cancel out, Werth is slightly better than Ross, and I think Torres is a fair sight better than an admittedly good Victorino. Infield defense — probably goes to the Phils, though at least from what I’ve seen this year, Aubrey Huff is a surprisingly excellent defender at first. I don’t honestly know enough about Ruiz to break down the catchers, but I can say that Posey is quite good. All this adds up to two teams that are fairly evenly-matched defensively, with one additional point to be made on the Giants’ behalf: AT&T can be a real bear for visiting teams, as it is a little quirky and there is usually at least one play per series where the Giants benefit from their superior knowledge of their environment.
Seems to me that when two dominating pitchers are on the mound, one of the deciding factors is going to be defense. Making a pitcher get extra outs is a way of reducing the gap in talent.
It doesn’t seem clear as to which team has the combined lineup + defense advantage.
Another factor is going to be the called strike zone. Both pitchers are great finishers, so whichever one consistently gets ahead in the count, especially with marginal strikes is going to have the advantage. Both guys will likely not have trouble getting swinging K’s when the batter has 2 strikes.
“Otherwise, the Phillies lead the Giants in batting RAR (27.9 to -14.6) and starters’ RAR (144.5 to 141.4; and more once Roy Oswalt is considered). The Giants lead in bullpen RAR (59.1 to 25.8) and defense (8.5 to 0.8 UZR/150).”
This is a very strange way to compare the teams.
Number 1: Neither team’s probably starting lineups is really much like their 2010 “average” starting lineup. The Phils had lots of injuries and the Giants turned over 6 of 8 positions compared to opening day.
Number 2: Starters RAR is really a terrible way to do this – although at least you mention Oswalt – because it implicitly includes defense. Also, you should underweight 4th+ starters because they will start no more than once in a 7 game series (1-3 will start 1-2 times). To compare the starters I would use FIP (see more below) weighted for probably starters
Number 3: You have to use current bullpen and projected IP, not season long numbers. Giants also have 3 setup/long releivers that were picked up late in the season.
Number 4: Why do you use UZR/150 (a rate stat) when compared to a bunch of counting stats (RAR)? You have the right stats here, just use them correctly. I would use FIP for pitchers and UZR/150 for each starter * projected innings (divided by 9 in case of FIP). While neither FIP nor UZR are perfect when used together they cancel out each other’s flaw. I think one of the reasons the Giants UZR is so good this year is because their pitching was giving up easy chances. Since in a playoff preview we don’t really care about individual (defender vs. pitcher) contributions, we can just consider them together.
I did actually write a game preview and tack on a couple sentences to compare the teams on a team level, you’re right that it doesn’t all work together perfectly, but I was mostly talking about how the Philly offense would do against Big Time Timmy Jim.
Oh man, I just can’t wait to tune in to this game! One thing that’s interesting is Timmy has lost velocity but is still getting whiffs by the bunch, whereas I have all my velocity but am not striking out nearly as many. What’s up with that? Oh shit I’m pitching in an hour, gotta run guys.
In retrospect I should’ve prepared harder for this start. Ugh.
Using FIP and a defensive metric as seperate entities does not make sense to me. Why not just use runs allowed as your run prevention metric?
Theoretical performance seems less important than actual performance given the topic we’re talking about.
How a pitcher pitched independent of defense, and how a defense could or should perform seems secondary to how a specific pitcher and his defense performed together.
Also, we’re talking about the 2 best offenses, so FIP againt the entire league seems like a stat that could be misleading.
Yes to the first, but as to what we can rule out of their season-long stats, we’re obviously still searching. I don’t suggest that that definition on B-R is necessarily the way, but it might be an interesting start.
At the very least it seems we should combine FIP versus league with FIP versus specific team with appropriate weighting to get a measure of how a pitcher could be expected to perform against a specific team or group of similar teams.
Games against weaker teams are going to skew the numbers for what we’re looking at. Stats against the Yankees are likely to be very different than stats accumulated against all teams.
when did luke scott wear cody ross’s jersey?