2016 Hitter Contact-Quality Report: AL Catchers

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February 7, 2017

A classic Super Bowl is behind us, large trucks are headed to Florida and Arizona, and spring is in the air — at least in some places a distance from my Wisconsin residence. We’re entering the home stretch of our position-by-position look at hitter contact quality, utilizing granular exit-speed and launch-angle data. Last time, it was National League right fielders. Now, it’s the catchers’ turn. We begin with a look at the 2016 AL regulars at that position.

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Sergio Romo Opts for Dodger Blue

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February 7, 2017

As Ken Rosenthal reported Monday, Sergio Romo has found a home in Los Angeles, signing a one-year deal with the Dodgers and switching sides in one of the game’s most spirited rivalries. Romo will always be associated with the Giants, part of three World Series-winning teams, but he’ll pitch for the Dodgers in 2017 and it’s going to take some getting used to for everyone.

The incomparable Grant Brisbee offered a fascinating detail as he came to grips with the transaction:

(Romo) was recognizable. He was on commercials. He was reliable. He occasionally made opposing hitters look silly, as if they just picked up the sport of baseball. And he was around for nine seasons. Here’s a list of San Francisco Giants who have thrown nine seasons or more since the team moved west:

Juan Marichal
Greg Minton
Matt Cain
Gary Lavelle
Kirk Rueter
Scott Garrelts
Randy Moffitt
Jim Barr
Gaylord Perry
Sergio Romo
Tim Lincecum

How many relievers spend nine seasons with a club nowadays? It’s a rare tenure. But by relocating south to join the division favorites, he will now be part of the group setting up for closer Kenley Jansen, unless manager Dave Roberts blows our minds and begins using Jansen in non-save situations.

Everything from Romo’s demonstrative actions to his pitch mix remains interesting. He’s succeeded with below-average velocity thanks to his slider, a fascinating pitch that proves in the bullpen you can really make a career with one pitch – if it’s outstanding.

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What Else You’ll Need Besides Spin Rate

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February 7, 2017

Soon, we’ll get games on television again. I know it’s hard to believe, because it seems like it’s been so long, but it’s true. It’ll only be spring training, but it’ll be baseball and it’ll be great.

Along with these televised games, we’ll hear commentators discussing key statistics. It’s very possible that, due to the rising popularity and availability of Statcast, we’ll hear about increases in spin rate when it’s relevant. That’s great! But there will be some context we won’t hear, and that context will be important.

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Effectively Wild Episode 1016: Season Preview Series: Dodgers and Padres

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February 6, 2017

EWFI

Ben Lindbergh and Jeff Sullivan introduce the fifth annual Effectively Wild season-preview series and banter about the short life expectancy of front-office secrets. Then they preview the Dodgers’ 2017 season with Andy McCullough of the Los Angeles Times, and the Padres’ 2017 season with Dennis Lin of the San Diego Union-Tribune.

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Where Chris Archer and Max Scherzer Were Opposites

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February 6, 2017

Late last week, I published an article about Kevin Kiermaier, calling him further underrated because he’s faced an abnormally tough schedule of opposing pitchers. On the other side of things, Jorge Soler is coming off a year in which he faced one of the easiest opposing slates in recent history. This doesn’t lead to anything conclusively — worse pitchers can throw great pitches, and great pitchers can make mistakes. But what’s suggested is that Kiermaier’s true talent is higher than his numbers, while Soler probably had his 2016 stats inflated. This is an adjustment we so infrequently discuss.

If I’m going to point to hitters and their strengths of schedule, it only makes sense to look at pitchers, too. So I did that for a number of pitchers in 2016, guided by this Baseball Prospectus list. I didn’t calculate numbers for every pitcher, but I examined many pitchers at either end of the BP list. All I did was calculate the average 2016 wRC+ posted by the pitchers’ opponents. The higher the number, the tougher the average opponent. The league-average wRC+ last season, with pitchers included, was 97.

Pitchers with easier schedules

For the most part, I just wanted to look at pitchers who threw at least 100 innings. But for some smaller-sample fun, J.P. Howell’s average opponent managed just an 84 wRC+, while Matt Harvey wound up at 85. That makes Harvey’s season look only worse, although he had a pretty good reason for that.

Pitchers with tougher schedules

The gaps might not seem that big to you, I don’t really know. But for whatever it’s worth, Todd Frazier just had a 102 wRC+, and Adonis Garcia finished at 90. Steamer projects Mike Napoli for a 103 wRC+, with Kevin Pillar at 90. Imagine the difference between a full season facing lineups of Napolis and lineups of Pillars. Mathematically, it would work out to double-digit runs, so just remember this the next time you’re, say, recalling some pitching numbers from the 2016 American League East. Not every schedule is created the same, and you better believe certain pitchers can feel it.


In Defense of the Old-Fashioned Intentional Walk

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February 6, 2017

Commissioner Rob Manfred has clearly made a priority of improving baseball’s “pace of play.” The theory goes that, since today’s youngsters supposedly have shorter attention spans than ever and aren’t all that inclined to watch players stand around between bursts of actions, the game should move at a brisker pace and the bursts of action should feature less time between them. This theory has already led to some practice, including the introduction of a between-innings clock and a rule requiring hitters to keep their feet in the batter’s box. Baseball is an old game with an old audience, and Manfred would like to see a younger audience consuming his product.

ESPN’s Jayson Stark reports that the league has submitted two new proposals to the league: one which would raise the bottom of the strike zone and another that would eliminate the need to throw four lob pitches to intentionally walk a batter. The strike-zone proposal aims to create more balls in play, while the intentional-walk proposal would simply speed up the game. These things make sense in a vacuum. Of course, baseball isn’t played in a vacuum, but in real time and with human beings, and that makes the game a very interesting collection of circumstance, accidents, and general madness.

We won’t touch on the strike-zone proposal now, although it certainly merits discussion. Stark says in his report that it’s less likely to get a green light for the coming season than the intentional-walk proposal. So, about the intentional walk, then.

It’s a trivial part of the game, really. Barry Bonds has come to the plate, and you, in your wisdom, do not wish to pitch to Barry Bonds with a man on and two outs. You present Bonds with first base instead of a potential home-run ball, and then you work to get the next batter out. All you have to do is play catch with your catcher for a few moments. If Baseball with a capital B wants to speed up the game, why not eliminate the game of catch? It’s dead weight.

Because, once again, baseball is played by human beings. The man on the mound isn’t a robot, but a pitcher. Intentional walks almost always go off without a hitch. When they don’t, it’s impactful to the game.

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(Still) The Most Volatile Hitter in Baseball History

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February 6, 2017

Last week, on Twitter, Mike Petriello reminded me that, in January of 2016, I wrote a post entitled The Most Volatile Hitter in Baseball History. The headline was sexy and interesting, because I didn’t know any other way to convince you to read a post about Ryan Raburn. The gist: I looked at all four-year season stretches dating back to 1900, with at least 200 plate appearances in each season. Raburn, over his four-year span beginning in 2012, had seen his wRC+ bounce around the most. He went from being one of the worst hitters to being one of the best hitters to being one of the worst hitters to being one of the best hitters. I don’t know what it meant. It just instantly became the most interesting thing about Ryan Raburn.

Okay! So, since 1900, there have been more than 8,300 cases where a player was a “qualified” hitter in consecutive years. Who had the biggest year-to-year drop in wRC+? You might be able to guess this one — it’s Bryce Harper, who just saw his wRC+ drop by 85 points. Though he wasn’t bad by any means in the most recent year, he wasn’t the destroyer of worlds he’d been the summer before. Rumors continue to swirl that Harper was playing through significant pain.

Bryce Harper’s wRC+ just lost 85 points. A massive, historic drop. If you look at the last two years and reduce the playing-time minimum, the guy with the second-biggest drop, at 81 points, is Ryan Raburn.

The pattern, therefore, continues.

The first time around, I looked at four-year stretches, with a minimum of 200 plate appearances in each. Raburn has batted at least that many times every year since 2009, but since he’s often been close to 200, I opted to lower the minimum to 150 plate appearances. Now to look at five-year stretches. I had a pool of 12,044 five-year stretches to consider. Here are the stretches with the biggest wRC+ standard deviations:

Hitter Volatility, wRC+
Player First Year Last Year Y1 Y2 Y3 Y4 Y5 Standard Deviation
Ryan Raburn 2012 2016 28 149 50 154 73 57.7
Ryan Raburn 2011 2015 94 28 149 50 154 56.8
Ryan Raburn 2010 2014 120 94 28 149 50 49.6
Dusty Rhodes 1953 1957 89 181 125 83 55 48.5
Danny Valencia 2012 2016 26 140 85 136 118 47.2
Ryan Raburn 2009 2013 129 120 94 28 149 46.9
Danny Valencia 2011 2015 83 26 140 85 136 46.7
Travis Hafner 2004 2008 158 166 176 121 64 45.8
Travis Hafner 2005 2009 166 176 121 64 115 44.9
Bernard Gilkey 1996 2000 152 102 74 117 34 44.6

It’s Ryan Raburn! In second place, overlapping Ryan Raburn. In third place, overlapping Ryan Raburn. And then a somewhat distant Dusty Rhodes. But one thing about standard deviations is that they don’t really consider sequencing. Going 100 – 100 – 50 would look the same as going 100 – 50 – 100. The second example looks more volatile, so to capture that, I’ve looked at the total wRC+ change. I took the absolute values of the changes between each year and then added them together. The leaders:

Hitter Volatility, wRC+
Player First Year Last Year Y1 Y2 Y3 Y4 Y5 Total Change
Ryan Raburn 2012 2016 28 149 50 154 73 405
Ryan Raburn 2011 2015 94 28 149 50 154 390
Ryan Raburn 2010 2014 120 94 28 149 50 312
Danny Valencia 2011 2015 83 26 140 85 136 277
Danny Valencia 2010 2014 117 83 26 140 85 260
Clyde Barnhart 1923 1927 151 91 114 31 116 251
Joel Youngblood 1980 1984 102 164 75 138 101 251
Roy Campanella 1952 1956 120 154 75 150 89 249
Rafael Furcal 2007 2011 82 171 93 126 83 243
Lou Piniella 1972 1976 136 76 114 38 106 242

It’s not even close. Over the last five years, Raburn’s wRC+ has changed by an average of about 101 points a season. The nearest non-Raburn name is 2011 – 2015 Danny Valencia, at an average of about 69 points a season. Raburn established a historic pattern, and then continued it. I wasn’t expecting that, even though, you know.

Basic pattern recognition would suggest Raburn is now due for another offensive breakout. He happens to be a free agent, and the last time he was linked on MLB Trade Rumors was last March 29. Every team in baseball would tell you, no, that conclusion is stupid, that’s not how this works. But I think we can all agree that baseball probably doesn’t quite understand how Ryan Raburn works. How could it?


The Pirates’ Outfield Shuffle

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February 6, 2017

On Super Bowl Sunday, the Pirates announced they were moving their Face of the Franchise, Andrew McCutchen, to right field.

Since his major-league debut in 2009, the Pirates’ most valuable and exciting player since Barry Bonds has played 10,317.1 innings in the field. All have come in center field. But due to McCutchen’s decline in the field, and the Gold Glove-caliber skill of of Starling Marte, the Pirates are re-arranging their outfield. Gregory Polanco will play left field.

One could argue the move should have happened much earlier.

McCutchen’s uncharacteristically poor age-29 season was largely fueled by a defensive decline, though McCutchen also posted career-low speed measures across the board. McCutchen, who was very much available in this offseason’s trade market, posted a mark of -28 Defensive Runs Saved last season, the worst in baseball. Flanking him in the outfield was Marte, who won his second straight Gold Glove and produced +19 DRS. While the Pirates’ shallower outfield alignment strategy did not help McCutchen, that positioning combined with poor execution off the mound, McCutchen is still in he midst of a multi-year decline defensively.

McCutchen was worth +5 DRS in 2013, -13 in 2014, -8 in 2015 and -28 last season.

Here’s McCutchen’s defensive work in 2016 via data visualization from BaseballSavant.com:



Pirates general manager Neal Huntington and manager Clint Hurdle acknowledged they were considering moving McCutchen at the end of the season. Huntington noted that McCutchen’s DRS number “grabs your attention.” On Sunday they made it official.

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The Market Was Stacked Against Jason Hammel

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February 6, 2017

Jason Hammel isn’t yet officially a member of the Royals. He still has to pass a physical, and we’ve been burned before when we’ve jumped the gun. Yet the odds are that Hammel will soon officially join the Royals, and he’ll do so on a two-year guarantee worth $16 million. I’ve personally never signed a two-year guarantee worth $16 million, and I can’t imagine I’m going to, unless FanGraphs gets incredibly popular. Hammel is coming out of this with a nice chunk of change.

On the other hand, we’re a week into February, meaning spring training is right around the corner. Hammel got two years where he really wanted three, and this offer might not have even existed were it not for a horrible accident claiming the life of Yordano Ventura. The Royals were more or less forced into this position, and the offseason for Hammel wasn’t what he thought it would be. Looking back, I suppose there’s not much mystery. Hammel’s representatives were fighting something of an uphill battle.

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Who Needs a New Pitch the Most?

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February 6, 2017

I love it when research underlines conventional wisdom. Like when Mitchel Lichtman found that, the more pitches a pitcher had in his arsenal, the better his chances the third time through the order. Even if it was only on the order of a few points of weighted on base average, it was a real finding that functions as a virtual nod towards all those scouts and pitching coaches who’ve wondered about a pitchers’ third and fourth options. You might not need a changeup specifically, but you need other pitches if just to put more doubt in the hitter’s mind.

Given that finding, I thought it might be fun to try and use it in reverse. Who were the worst pitchers in baseball last season when it came to the third time through the order? Who saw their talent drop off the most upon seeing a batter the third time?

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