FanGraphs Audio: Dave Cameron on the Irrelevant & Universal

by
October 11, 2016

Episode 689
Dave Cameron is the managing editor of FanGraphs. During this edition of FanGraphs Audio, he discusses (specifically) Boston’s decision to use Clay Buchholz as their starter for Game 3 against Cleveland and (more universally) which sort of adjustments and changes ought to be regarded as permanent and which merely a fleeting tactical advantage. Cameron also examines baseball’s slide rule and briefly considers the 2016-17 free-agent class.

This episode of the program either is or isn’t sponsored by SeatGeek, which site removes both the work and also the hassle from the process of shopping for tickets.

Don’t hesitate to direct pod-related correspondence to @cistulli on Twitter.

You can subscribe to the podcast via iTunes or other feeder things.

Audio after the jump. (Approximately 39 min play time.)

Read the rest of this entry »

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: RSS


Contract Crowdsourcing 2016-17: Day 2 of 10

by
October 11, 2016

Free agency begins five days after the end of the World Series. As in other recent offseasons, FanGraphs is once again facilitating this offseason a contract-crowdsourcing project, the idea being to harness the wisdom of the crowds to the end of better understanding the giant and large 2016-17 free-agent market.

Below are links to ballots for five of this year’s free agents, including a collection of outfielders and then Rajai Davis.

Other Players: Mike Napoli / Wilson Ramos / Kurt Suzuki / Chase Utley / Matt Wieters.

***

Neil Walker (Profile)
Some relevant information regarding Walker:

  • Has averaged 544 PA and 3.3 WAR over last three seasons.
  • Has averaged 3.6 WAR per 600 PA* over last three seasons.
  • Recorded a 3.8 WAR in 458 PA in 2016.
  • Is projected to record 2.7 WAR per 600 PA**.
  • Is entering his age-31 season.
  • Made $10.6M in 2016, after avoiding arbitration in January.

*That is, a roughly average number of plate appearances for a starting player.
**Prorated version of final updated 2016 depth-chart projections available here.

Click here to estimate years and dollars for Walker.

Read the rest of this entry »


Trusting Blue Jays Closer Roberto Osuna

by
October 11, 2016

In this year’s postseason, relievers have received attention based on when (or if) they have entered the game. For the Toronto Blue Jays and closer Roberto Osuna, there were questions a week ago whether Osuna would be able to pitch at all in the postseason after being removed from the Wild Card victory over the Baltimore Orioles with a shoulder issue. Osuna pitched to four batters in that game, retiring them all and striking out two, but his availability for the recently completed Division Series against the Texas Rangers was in some doubt. Osuna has laid those doubts, as well as those that accompanied a less-than-stellar end-of-season run, to rest.

If you were to hazard a guess at which Blue Jays player was most important in this year’s playoffs — at least in terms of increasing the probability of winning games — you probably would not guess Roberto Osuna. You would also be right not to guess Osuna, as Josh Donaldson’s nine hits and a walk in 19 postseason plate appearances led to a team-leading .635 WPA over the Jays’ four postseason games. Osuna, however, is second on the team WPA leaderboard, despite pitching in only three of the four games and recording just five total innings.

Toronto WPA Leaders, 2016 Playoffs
Player WPA
Josh Donaldson .635
Roberto Osuna .462
Edwin Encarnacion .442
Ezequiel Carrera .242
Marco Estrada .216
Jason Grilli .178
Troy Tulowitzki .152
J.A. Happ .122

Osuna, despite his shoulder issue, has now appeared in three of the four Blue Jays playoffs games (having not been needed in the Game 1 rout of the Rangers). In this year of the non-traditional closer use in the postseason, Osuna has yet to come in at the start of the ninth in a save situation. Every single appearance has been incredibly important — and has often coincided with the most important moments of each game, by leverage index.

Roberto Osuna Playoff Appearances
Game Situation Runners/Outs IP First Batter LI Highest LI in Game
WC Game T9 (tied) 0/0 1.1 2.32 2.32
Game 2 ALDS B8 (up 5-3) 2/1 1.2 2.73 3.30*
Game 3 ALDS T9 (tied) 0/0 2.0 2.32 2.74
*The 3.30 LI occurred with Osuna on the mound in the ninth.

In the playoffs this year, Blue Jays pitchers have faced 15 batters at a point in the game when the leverage index had reached 2.0 or greater. Osuna has recorded eight of those high-leverage plate appearances — more than J.A. Happ (who had four in his start), Francisco Liriano (one), or Joe Biagini (two, one of which was a run-scoring double by Mitch Moreland in Game 2).

Read the rest of this entry »


Contract Crowdsourcing 2016-17: Day 1 of 10

by
October 10, 2016

Free agency begins five days after the end of the World Series. As in other recent offseasons, FanGraphs is once again facilitating this offseason a contract-crowdsourcing project, the idea being to harness the wisdom of the crowds to the end of better understanding the 2016-17 free-agent market.

Below are links to ballots for five of this year’s free agents, including some catchers, a first baseman, and a second baseman.

***

Wilson Ramos (Profile)
Some relevant information regarding Ramos:

  • Has averaged 463 PA and 1.8 WAR over last three seasons.
  • Has averaged 1.8 WAR per 450 PA* over last three seasons.
  • Recorded a 3.5 WAR in 523 PA in 2016.
  • Is projected to record 2.3 WAR per 450 PA**.
  • Is entering his age-29 season.
  • Made $5.4M in 2016 after avoiding arbitration in January.

*That is, a roughly average number of plate appearances for a starting catcher.
**Prorated version of final updated 2016 depth-chart projections available here.

Click here to estimate years and dollars for Ramos.

Read the rest of this entry »


Yasiel Puig Got Screwed

by
October 10, 2016

I know that the game has moved on — as I write this right now, the Nationals are beating the Dodgers 4-3 in the sixth inning of Game 3. This game will turn on so many things, a handful of them yet to happen. But I still want to take you back quickly to the bottom of the first. The Dodgers jumped out to a 1-0 lead, and Yasiel Puig came up with one out and a runner on second. He took three balls, then the count ran full, then Gio Gonzalez attacked Puig inside with a heater.

Let’s slow that down, with a ball-tracker that I will choose to believe in this instance is reliable:

That’s a good general pitch location, and that’s also a good job of receiving by Jose Lobaton. I’ve seen far, far worse pitches thrown in full counts. But that pitch isn’t a strike. That pitch isn’t even a borderline strike. That pitch is a ball, full stop. Gameday provides its own evidence:

puigstrike2

From Baseball Savant, here are the 2016 full-count pitches called strikes against right-handed hitters. I’ve highlighted the pitch to Puig in blue.

puig-strike-zone

I’m not writing this because I have a rooting interest — I don’t. And I’m not writing this because I think it’ll cost the Dodgers the game. I’m writing this only because it was an important pitch in an important game, and this was a pretty extremely bad strike call. Not the worst of all time or anything, but bad nevertheless, and this was the whole difference between a walk and a strikeout. Puig didn’t do anything wrong. He did what he was supposed to do exactly right — he took a pitch even in a situation in which he might’ve been feeling aggressive. Puig should’ve been rewarded for his patience, but instead Gonzalez was rewarded for, I don’t know, throwing a ball with precision?

I don’t want to dwell. Again, the game has moved past this, and the first inning has long since been forgotten. But had this pitch been called properly, it would’ve made a win-expectancy difference for the Dodgers of about five percentage points. Another way of thinking about it: the run value of calling this a strike instead of a ball was 0.6. More than half of a run, which is substantial, as individual pitch-calls go. We don’t get a whole lot of opportunities to come to the defense of Yasiel Puig’s plate discipline. Yasiel Puig should’ve drawn a walk. I don’t know what the hell this must do to a player psychologically.


Danny Espinosa Got Hit By a Strike

by
October 10, 2016

Coming into the NLDS, Dusty Baker took a good number of questions about the shortstop position. Danny Espinosa finished the year in a hell of a slump, but as Baker said to the media, he didn’t really have any other options. Espinosa was and is the best shortstop on the roster, and you have to give him one thing: for all of his flaws, there might be no one better at getting hit by a pitch.

So, actually, nevermind, there is still a Brandon Guyer floating around out there. But Espinosa is a hit-by-pitch machine, and he’s already been struck three times in the series, which is incredible. Even more incredible is the most recent HBP, because, see, Espinosa was granted first base, even though he got hit by a strike.

A strike!

Danny Espinosa got hit by a strike.

espinosa-hbp

A strike, is what Danny Espinosa got hit by.

espinosa-strike

A borderline strike — sure, I’ll grant that. Espinosa didn’t get hit by a pitch that was literally down the middle, because that would be a physical impossibility. But what we’re dealing with here is insane. I went to Baseball Savant and pulled all the 2016 hit-by-pitches. You can basically see the bodies of righties and lefties in the plot below, and the overwhelming majority of these pitches make total sense. With a few, you see the profiles of elbows. The pitch to Espinosa is the only one that would’ve otherwise counted as a strike for the pitcher.

espinosahbpzone

There’s a rule about this.

(6.08) The batter becomes a runner and is entitled to first base without liability to be put out (provided he advances to and touches first base) when:
[…]
He is touched by a pitched ball which he is not attempting to hit unless (A) The ball is in the strike zone when it touches the batter, or (B) The batter makes no attempt to avoid being touched by the ball;

If the ball is in the strike zone when it touches the batter, it shall be called a strike, whether or not the batter tries to avoid the ball. If the ball is outside the strike zone when it touches the batter, it shall be called a ball if he makes no attempt to avoid being touched.

Usually, when people complain about HBPs, they complain that umpires don’t enforce the make-an-effort part of this rule. That whole thing about making an attempt to avoid being touched by the ball — umpires almost literally never use that. So, the precedent has essentially been established. The rule is a non-rule. But here people can complain twice over. Espinosa made no attempt to move, and the pitch was a strike. So that’s two reasons why he shouldn’t have been granted first base, two reasons right there in the rule book. Dave Roberts, though, came out to make his case, and Espinosa still remained at first. He was never called back, and he was never going to be. The rules take care to detail what ought to count as a hit-by-pitch, but it seems that that part of the book was never assigned in umpiring school.


The October of the Dinger-First Offense

by
October 10, 2016

As I was preparing this little post, the Dodgers scored a first-inning run against the Nationals. Interestingly, while the run was driven in by an extra-base hit, it was not driven in by a homer. So far in the playoffs, that’s been slightly unusual!

I think it was Joe Sheehan who came up with the “Guillen Number.” You take all the runs scored directly off homers, and then you divide by the total number of runs. I’ve taken care to calculate playoff Guillen Numbers during the wild-card era, stretching back to 1995. Here you are:

guillen-numbers

Now, this is coming into today, so this doesn’t include the Dodgers’ one run so far. And, yes, I know, it’s early, so very early, and the numbers still have time to sort themselves out. But in the playoffs to this point, more than half of all the runs have been driven in by dingers. We’re at 32 of 59, to be exact, even though the average before this year was 39%. Over the preceding decade, 37%. It’s easy to tell that this year stands out, and if you’ve been following the playoffs yourself, you’ve presumably noticed. It feels like the winners have been determined by who hits the long ball, or the biggest long ball, and that feeling is supported.

It’s not like home runs are necessarily out of control. Hitters in the playoffs are slugging just .378, which isn’t unusual. We aren’t really seeing an offensive resurgence. Rather, sort of the opposite?

postseason-obp

Home runs are more responsible for offense right now because it’s less easy than it’s been to generate other kinds of offense. Batters have reached less than 27% of the time, and though that makes it more difficult to hit a multi-run homer, that also means there have been fewer opportunities to drive a run home with a single or a double. One interesting indicator: we’ve so far seen just two sac bunts. The sac-bunt rate is way down, and maybe that’s a coincidence, or maybe managers aren’t trying to play smallball because outs are already coming in such droves.

There are many games left to play. Importantly, so far we’ve mostly just seen the best starting pitchers. The numbers will change, to some degree. But if you’ve felt like offenses have leaned on homers — yeah. Yeah, that’s basically what’s been happening.


Clay Buchholz Should Have a Very Short Leash

by
October 10, 2016

In a few hours, the Red Sox play their first win-or-go-home game of the season. And with their season on the line, they’re handing the ball to Clay Buchholz.

Yes, the same Clay Buchholz who posted a 4.78 ERA, 5.06 FIP, and 5.32 xFIP this season while getting bounced from the rotation. Buchholz is getting the ball in large part because of how he finished the season, as he ran a 2.86 ERA over his final 10 appearances. But despite some talk of changes in his approach, the Red Sox should not fall victim to overweighting recent performance; most of the evidence suggests that Buchholz is still not a very good pitcher, and shouldn’t be allowed to dig the team any kind of hole this afternoon.

Even if we accept the arbitrary endpoints that allow a focus on just his 10 most recent appearances, Buchholz actually wasn’t even that good down the stretch. Here’s his line from those 10 outings, compared to his 27 appearances prior to that stretch.

Buchholz, Arbitrary End Points
Date BB% K% GB% HR/9 BABIP LOB% ERA FIP xFIP
Last 10 Games 8% 19% 42% 0.82 0.262 83% 2.86 3.94 4.88
4/6 to 8/13 10% 15% 41% 1.73 0.264 62% 5.66 5.58 5.52

The walks are down a little bit, the strikeouts are up a little bit, and overall, Buchholz did pitch better in the last 10 games than he did at the start of the year. But really, there’s one column there driving almost all of the difference: his home run rate got cut in half, which led to him stranding a bunch of runners. John Farrell even states this, without using numbers, in his assessment of Buchholz’s improvement.

“Where he was burnt earlier in the season by the big inning, he’s avoided the big inning by virtue of not allowing multiple runners inside of a given inning then a big blow, a three-run homer or something like that, has followed.

The argument for Buchholz as a pitcher worthy of starting an elimination game relies on buying into six weeks of home-run suppression; outside of the 7% HR/FB ratio he put up in those last 10 outings, he still didn’t really pitch all that well. And it’s not like Buchholz has a long history of running very low HR/FB rates; his career mark is 10%, just a tick below the league average over those years. His career FIP and xFIP are almost identical, so there just isn’t any real reason to think that Buchholz is now a guy who give up long fly-ball outs without giving up home runs.

Read the rest of this entry »


The Rangers Are Facing a Difficult Winter

by
October 10, 2016

There’s no such thing as a good way to lose in the playoffs, but the worst way might be getting swept in the first round. It also might not, I don’t know, but it can feel so unfairly abrupt. The Rangers spent six months working on building the best record in the entire American League. It all came to an end in three games. That quickly, the mental calendar flips, and after another year spent entertaining dreams of the World Series, it’s time now for the Rangers to think about the season to come.

And this promises to be a difficult offseason for them. In fairness, it’s always some kind of difficult offseason for everyone, every time. But the Rangers need to identify exactly where they stand. And there are going to be several holes for them to fill, with limited financial flexibility. Nothing about next year’s Rangers is guaranteed, and there’s work to be done if they want to even contend.

Read the rest of this entry »


The Adjustment Clay Buchholz Made

by
October 10, 2016

Ever since (and including) a three-inning relief appearance against the Angels on July 31, Boston right-hander Clay Buchholz has recorded some promising numbers. In terms of run prevention, he’s been great: a 2.85 ERA in the American League is about 36% better than league average. By underlying factors, meanwhile, he’s been solid. His strikeout- and walk-rate differential (K-BB%) has actually been below average. By avoiding the home run, though, his fielding-independent numbers have been better than league average. Maybe he’s made a real change!

Poke around in his pitching mix, look through his pitches, and you might return to those luck factors, though. For one, a big part of what’s been different has been a return to the four-seamer. His worst pitch.

Read the rest of this entry »


« Previous Page — « Previous entries
Next entries » — Next Page »