FanGraphs Baseball

At the end of last week, the present author examined the unusual career arc of former excellent right-handed pitcher Brandon Webb. Never regarded as a top prospect, Webb debuted at the beginning of 2003, led all rookies (including both pitchers and hitters) in WAR that season, and then proceeded to become one of the sport’s best pitchers over the next five years — despite a fastball that, whatever its other virtues, featured average velocity at best.

Certain readers expressed some interest in identifying who, among the league’s current pitchers, most resembles Webb — and, indeed, Dallas Keuchel (a name invoked by more than one commenter) appears to be the most obvious choice, insofar as he led all qualifiers in ground-ball rate by a wide margin while also producing an average fastball velocity of 89.7 mph (even as the league average among starters in 2014 was 91.4 mph). The strikeout and walk rates are both similar and, as for pedigree, Keuchel was a seventh-round selection out of college. Webb, meanwhile, was an eighth-round pick, also out of college. Keuchel, like Webb, never appeared among Baseball America’s top-100 prospects. So, really, except for handedness, the two feature decidedly similar profiles (except, one hopes, the injury profile).

For many similar reasons, Cleveland left-hander T.J. House, who posted a 60.5% ground-ball rate — distinguishing him as the only other pitcher with 50-plus innings as a starter to break the 60%-ground-ball threshold in 2014 — qualifies as a possible heir to Webb’s legacy. House, for his part, recorded almost identical strikeout and walk rates to Keuchel over his 10 starts this year and wasn’t selected until the 16th round of the 2008 draft.

So those are two active pitchers who possess more than a passing resemblance to Webb — and who, should they retain their health, ought to exceed by a considerable margin the production expected of players drafted in their respective rounds and throwing fastballs at their respective velocities and having been absent from top-propsect lists.

Of perhaps more interest for me, personally, is the idea of possibly identifying those Webb comparables who lack a body of work at the major-league level yet — or at least one as relatively substantial as either House or Keuchel.

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One of the things you’re supposed to learn about in a literature class is subtext. Subtext isn’t exactly a “hidden meaning,” but it’s the unspoken thematic uncurrent of a particular narrative or conversation. While the following will appear to be another post in a long line of posts about Jonathan Lucroy’s pitch framing (It is!), there’s a broader subtext driving the conversation as well that we’ll discuss at the conclusion.

The essence of pitch framing is well-established and relatively simple. Due to the imperfect nature of human eyes and the lack of a uniformly enforced strike zone, the way a catcher receives a pitch can influence whether that pitch is called a strike. Certain catchers have the ability to make balls look like strikes and to make sure that very few strikes look like balls. And certain catchers obviously lack this ability.

The way a catcher receives the ball influences the call, meaning good framers reduce the number of runs scored against their team and make their pitchers look great in the process. Jonathan Lucroy, catcher extraordinaire, is someone who seems to do this very well.

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Comment From Matt

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Like any multi-billion dollar organization, Major League Baseball faces its share of lawsuits in any given year. Even by its standards, though, 2014 was a particularly busy and eventful year for MLB on the legal front.

This week I’ll be reviewing and providing updates for the most significant events of the last year. In this installment, we’ll look back at the legal wrangling surrounding Alex Rodriguez’s season-long PED suspension and the on-going saga regarding the Oakland A’s proposed move to San Jose. Read the rest of this entry »

After having typically appeared in the very hallowed pages of Baseball Think Factory, Dan Szymborski’s ZiPS projections have been released at FanGraphs the past couple years. The exercise continues this offseason. Below are the projections for the St. Louis Cardinals. Szymborski can be found at ESPN and on Twitter at @DSzymborski.

Other Projections: Atlanta / Chicago AL / Colorado / Los Angeles AL / Miami / Milwaukee / Oakland / San Francisco / Tampa Bay / Washington.

Batters
Cardinal batters produced the best strikeout rate and second-best defensive-runs figure in the National League last year. The club’s ZiPS projections suggest that they might approximate those sorts of results in 2015. Neither Matt Adams nor Mark Reynolds will be much help in that regard, but the rest of the team’s starters are all above-average by one, if not both, of those measures.

Nor will Jason Heyward change the club’s dynamic at all in this regard. He’s projected to save 18 runs in right field (which equates to about 10-11 runs above average overall after the positional adjustment) while recording walk and strikeout rates both better than league average. Less publicized acquisitions by the club — like of Dean Anna (14.9% K and -1 run at shortstop) and Ty Kelly (16.2% K and -1 run at second base) — also offer strong contact rates and average to above-average defensive skills.

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There was once a statistical revolution that was supposedly about on-base percentage. Scott Hatteberg showed us the power of patience, right? In today’s league, though, it’s virtually impossible to make a living if the ability to walk is your only real skill.

The Twins just designated Chris Parmelee for assignment. He might not be a perfect comparable for Scott Hatteberg, but he’s close. Not a defensive asset anywhere but first, Parmelee also doesn’t have above-average power. So far so good.

Parmelee hasn’t shown great patience in the big leagues yet, but that’s complicated. He did have a 12.3% walk rate in the minors, and there have been grumbles in Minnesota that he was too passive as a hitter. Perhaps he’s been trying to be less patient in response to that pressure.

Parmelee himself admitted to me in May this year that he’s spent the last few years searching: “I was trying to find who I was as a hitter.” In the newest variant on his game, he’s been more aggressive. This year, he swung more than ever. He reached more than ever, too. “It might not be that perfect pitch that you were looking for, but it’s still a ball that you can put the barrel on and drive somewhere,” he said.

No matter. To date, Parmelee’s best skill to date has been his walk rate. He’s been just about league-average with the bat, but he’s been above-average with the patience. He *could* be a modern-day Hatteberg for the right team.

Except that it looks like, today, teams aren’t really interested in players that can walk but are having trouble adding value in any other way.

Read the rest on Just A Bit Outside.

Ben and Sam talk to Zachary Levine about whether baseball could benefit from a coaching shakeup akin to the New Jersey Devils’ experiment with a three-headed head coach.

Becoming a full-time reliever has paid dividends for Brian Duensing. The 31-year-old southpaw had mixed success as a swing-man for the Twins from 2009-2012. The best of those campaigns came in 2010 when he pitched primarily out of the bullpen. The worst was 2011 when he worked almost exclusively as a starter.

The writing was on the wall, and it unfolded into a success story. Duensing has done well as a reliever the past two seasons. Given his pitching style and demeanor, it’s not the role many might have envisioned.

“As a starter, you have time to prepare,” said Duensing. “You can look ahead to who you’ll be facing and how you’ll go about it. As a reliever, it’s ‘OK, this is everything I have’ for an inning. Compared to starting, you’re all out.

For Duensing, that doesn’t mean reaching back and pumping gas. The thoughtful former Nebraska Cornhusker is anything but all out. His fastball was a pedestrian 91.2 mph this year. In many ways, he pitches like a starter out of the bullpen. Read the rest of this entry »

By means that remain unclear at the moment, the present author found himself browsing within the baseball-related pages of reddit.com over the holiday. For reasons that are also obscure, I followed a link from that site (courtesy user jedisloth) to a piece from The Arizona Republic’s sports section dated April 2009. There, I was reminded — on Christmas, a day intended to be full of sweetness and light — I was reminded of former Diamondbacks right-hander Brandon Webb and the stupid and dreadful injury that would ultimately end his career.

What one learns from the experience is not to go around clicking links haphazardly on a day supposedly reserved for joy. What else one learns — or what I, specifically, learned — is a lesson about Brandon Webb and scouting and context.

Webb’s was a career that, if it ended suddenly, also began with a sort of remarkable suddenness, too — at least in terms of Webb’s success relative to the expectations that preceded him. Having been selected in just the eighth round of the 2000 draft and remaining absent from all of Baseball America’s top-100 prospect lists throughout his minor-league career, Webb debuted with Arizona in 2003, throwing 180.2 innings that season and producing a 4.4 WAR. He surpassed the 180-inning threshold in every subsequent campaign through 2008 — which season was of sufficient quality to earn him a second place finish in Cy Young voting only to Tim Lincecum.

After that, for all intents and purposes, Webb’s career was over.

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Let’s bring you up to speed, in case this has somehow eluded you: the Padres recently acquired Justin Upton, Matt Kemp, and Wil Myers. They also did more than that, too, but, as things stand, those guys project to be the Padres’ three starting outfielders, Kemp’s hip arthritis and all. (Matt Kemp reportedly has hip arthritis.) Because someone has to play center, it looks like Myers will play center. He’ll do so acceptably — Shin-Soo Choo played center for a team that won 90 games — but Myers looks like he’ll be a liability. The Padres are sacrificing outfield defense for outfield offense.

But that’s not the only defensive sacrifice they’re lined up to make. Now, before we proceed: who knows, right? Who knows what the Padres’ roster will look like in three months? Consider how the Padres’ roster looked just last month. A.J. Preller is a busy man. Answer the phone. It’s A.J. Preller. He’s calling you right now. You missed him. Preller still has moves to make, so we’ll just have to see how things look in the end, but given where things are now, the Padres are also going to be weaker behind the plate.

Coming into the offseason, the Padres had both Rene Rivera and Yasmani Grandal. At one point, they were briefly in possession of Ryan Hanigan. They were also a rumored landing spot for David Ross. All those guys have gone elsewhere. The Padres’ depth chart reads Derek Norris, supported by Tim Federowicz. Top prospect Austin Hedges remains in the system, but he’s not yet ready for the show, nor should he be for a while. The Padres right now would go into the season with Norris and Federowicz receiving.

Read the rest on Just A Bit Outside.