Ben and Sam banter about Matt Albers’ double and a Stompers success, then discuss the privacy/performance implications of new tracking technology employed by big league teams.
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Sometimes, you write about something and the commenters unlock something that started in your piece and ends up somewhere more definitive. We were looking for the problem with Michael Pineda earlier today, and it looked like his release points were a bit off and his stuff a bit flat, but not in any crazy way.
But then people pointed out that he’s throwing his fastball lower in the zone, and that it has less sink. And also that he’s been way worse with men on base.
Well, if you take that second part, it really looks like he’s struggling from the stretch.
@DrewDinkmeyer @enosarris suspect some correlation here to struggling from the stretch also. Opp avg up 50, ops up 100 w/ men on for Pineda
— James Van Horn (@Jvh927) June 2, 2016
So I did a simple query for his movement and location with runners on and with the bases empty, and there differences are fairly stark.
First, with nobody on.
| Pitch | Velocity | Horizontal | Vertical | Crosses Plate Vertically | Release Point |
| FC | 93.2 | 1.2 | 7.1 | 2.68 | 6.65 |
| FF | 93.1 | -2.4 | 8.5 | 2.33 | 6.73 |
| CH | 87.7 | -7.5 | 6.3 | 1.81 | 6.86 |
| SL | 85.4 | 1.1 | 1.0 | 1.27 | 6.60 |
Now, with runners on.
| Pitch | Velocity | Horizontal | Vertical | Crosses Plate Vertically | Release Point |
| FC | 93.7 | 1.0 | 7.7 | 2.68 | 6.49 |
| FF | 93.5 | -2.6 | 8.7 | 2.36 | 6.66 |
| CH | 87.9 | -8.2 | 6.8 | 1.82 | 6.76 |
| SL | 85.8 | 1.1 | 1.2 | 1.85 | 6.57 |
On average, the throws harder and from a lower release point when there are runners on. Understandable, perhaps, he’s trying to get out of the inning. At first, though, a different of an inch on the release point seems like it’s just another small thing that could be meaningful or not.
But look at where the slider cross the plate with men on base. It’s a full seven inches higher! When the bases empty, his average slider crosses the plate nearly three inches off the bottom of the plate. With runners on base, it crosses the plate four inches above the bottom of the strike zone on average. That’s a big difference!
And yet… it’s once again not something that’s necessarily mechanical. This could be the effect of confidence in the numbers.
I once talked to Ryan Vogelsong about why he was better with runners on base than he ‘should be,’ and he said “the biggest thing is… not giving up hits with runners on base.” He didn’t tell me at the time, but it looks like he, like many Giants, was willing to give up a walk with runners on instead of giving up a hit.
Maybe Michael Pineda could take that philosophy to the mound today, especially with his slider.
The Mariners started James Paxton on Wednesday because they had to put Felix Hernandez on the disabled list with a hurt leg. That’s bad! Paxton proceeded to get lit up, by literally the San Diego Padres. That’s worse! Here, watch Paxton give up an opposite-field dinger to Wil Myers:
Familiar enough. Here’s last year’s Paxton giving up a dinger to Eduardo Escobar:
There’s nothing good about giving up eight runs in less than four innings. It’s even worse when that happens in a pitcher-friendly environment, against a pitcher-friendly opponent. Paxton was so ineffective the Mariners won’t commit to giving him another go, even though Felix is down a few weeks. By results, Wednesday was a nightmare.
By process? By process, it was less nightmarish. There were actually positive signs. Based on everything but the results, Paxton showed promising skills, and the Mariners should want for him to get another opportunity.
Another page has been ripped off of the calendar, and sample sizes are finally getting to a point where they actually matter. This, then, represents a good occasion to take a first look at starting-pitcher contact-management trends. Today, it’s the National League.
When you think of Clayton Kershaw, you probably think of some of the best pitchers in baseball history. He’s certainly earned the right to be talked about among guys like Randy Johnson, Pedro Martinez, and Sandy Koufax, even if he still has a long way to go before he matches them in career value. At the very least, you probably think of the game’s other aces, like Jake Arrieta, Noah Syndergaard, Chris Sale, and David Price. You should also think of Kyle Hendricks.
Kyle Hendricks?! I can hear you say through the internet’s system of tubes. Why would we think of Kyle Hendricks when we think of Clayton Kershaw? Well, they have something in common other than being major-league starting pitchers in the 2010s. Kershaw is having an amazing run due in large part to his otherworldly strikeout and walk numbers. Hendricks can’t compete with those marks, but he’s doing something else extremely Kershawian lately. He’s mixing a low fly-ball rate with a very high infield-fly rate.
Yesterday, MLB announced that Marlon Byrd has been suspended 162 games for failing a second PED test, which will effectively end his big league career. As a guy who turns 39 in a few months, he was already nearing the end of his days as a productive player anyway, and with a chunk of the suspension carrying over to next season, it’s unlikely any team will offer him a contract this winter. So this is probably it for Marlon Byrd.
But having his career end like this isn’t much solace for the pitchers that Byrd faced, or the teams that lost games in which the Indians gained an advantage from having him on the field. For instance, here’s Dan Haren’s comments in the wake of the news coming out yesterday.
@Ken_Rosenthal can I get back all the home runs he hit off me please? Thanks
— dan haren (@ithrow88) June 1, 2016
Also last year magically returned from a broken wrist in 16 days, at age 38. Proceeded to homer off me that day. https://t.co/7ubQOpskCk
— dan haren (@ithrow88) June 1, 2016
This is one of the issues the current system can’t really address. Sure, Byrd’s career is likely over, but maybe it would have been over four years ago had he not started looking for chemical assistance, and so what did he really lose by taking the banned substances? For players in his position, on the bubble of the major leagues, the incentive to use will always be larger than the costs of getting caught as long as one doesn’t care too terribly much about their reputation.
So every time a player fails a test and gets suspended, there’s a push for a different set of punishments, ones that would try to reduce the financial incentive to take PEDs, or at least increase the cost of getting caught. The most common suggestion is to allow teams to void the contracts of players who fail drug tests, so that players can’t use the money to secure a large financial commitment, then benefit from that commitment even after the suspension ends. Unfortunately, this suggestion is highly problematic.
| 1:43 |
: Days from turning 37 and I’m not yet a but I will chat with you
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| 12:00 |
: Hello, friend!
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| 12:00 |
: Hello, Bork!
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| 12:00 |
: Danny Valencia: what’s true talent here?
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| 12:01 |
: .280/24?
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| 12:01 |
: Hyun Soo Kim: Legit? ROS Projections?
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Just as much as we’ve trained ourselves not to take Spring Training stats at face value, we should also by now have trained ourselves not to take player and manager Spring Training quotes at face value. Words are words, and until those words become actions, they’re not super fun to consume or analyze. Like, here’s a few examples pulled from a preseason story by the excellent Clark Spencer, with expectations for the upcoming season inferred from comments by star pitcher Jose Fernandez and manager Don Mattingly.
Devised originally in response to a challenge issued by sabermetric nobleman Rob Neyer, and expanded at the request of nobody, NERD scores represent an attempt to summarize in one number (and on a scale of 0-10) the likely aesthetic appeal or watchability, for the learned fan, of a player or team or game. Read more about the components of and formulae for NERD scores here.
Most Highly Rated Game
Los Angeles NL at Chicago NL | 14:20 ET
Urias (2.2 IP, 192 xFIP-) vs. Hendricks (55.1 IP, 84 xFIP-)
The left-handed Urias’s major-league debut was a success by no measure, really. He didn’t prevent runs particularly well, nor do the fielding-indepedent numbers suggest he really ought to have prevented runs particularly well. On the other hand, one finds that Urias’s start also represents the best one recorded by a pitcher under 20 over the last decade. That it’s also the only such start might constitute a “fly in the ointment” so far as that particular distinction is concerned. But that’s what happens with ointments. Flies are always attempting to enter and remain inside them. One must be vigilant regarding his or her ointment. Protect it from flies. This, if nothing else, is what we’ve learned from Julio Urias.
Readers’ Preferred Television Broadcast: Chicago NL.
Episode 657
Dave Cameron is the managing editor of FanGraphs. During this edition of FanGraphs Audio he chronicles the stateside career of the recently DFA’d Alex Guerrero, explores the differences (or lack thereof) between the 2015 and -16 Boston Red Sox, and — as part of the Practical Analytics series — identifies the five tools for assessing one’s neighbors.
This episode of the program is 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 44 min play time.)
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