Archive for Angels

This is Rahul Setty’s first post at FanGraphs. His work can also be found at SB Nation blog Halos Heaven. He is present at Twitter dot com.

When Shohei Ohtani was finally posted in early December, baseball fans in the States were formally introduced to his exploits. Selected first in the NPB’s 2012 draft by the Nippon Ham Fighters when he was 18, Ohtani quickly became the first player to start on the mound and in the field. As a teenager and young adult in a league that, on average, featured players between five and 10 years his senior, Ohtani slashed .286/.358/.500 and struck out in excess of 10 batters per nine innings for a 2.52 ERA. He also possessed an outstanding arm, jaw-dropping raw power, and top-of-the-line speed. And, as if all that wasn’t enough, Ohtani set a velocity record for all Japanese high schoolers at the age of 17 (99 mph) and then did the same, one-upping himself, in NPB play four years later (102.5 mph).

He doesn’t feel human.

By now, you have likely heard the news that Shohei Ohtani is immensely talented. Inviting comps to Babe Ruth, he has taken a no-hitter into the seventh inning and homered off of a reigning Cy Young winner. He owns the 11th-highest exit velocity (and 10th-highest hard-hit percentage) among batters with 50 batted balls or more. Ohtani’s 151 wRC+ places him in the 95th percentile (min. 100 PA), which is as remarkable as it is baffling given the notable adjustment he made so quickly.

You have also likely heard that Ohtani came down with a second blister on his throwing hand approximately two weeks ago, received an MRI, and found out he has a grade-2 sprain of his throwing UCL. The two-way unicorn has opted for plasma-rich platelet and stem-cell treatment in an effort to repair the ligament and avoid Tommy John surgery.

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When you are the 726th player drafted in a draft, your odds of making it to the major leagues are incredibly slim. Only two players drafted in that spot (and signed) in the history of the draft have donned a major league uniform: Milt Hill and Dane De La Rosa.  It took De La Rosa five seasons of pitching, in any league, to throw his first pitch above A-ball. That time frame included stints in places such as Yuma, Helena, Long Beach, and Victoria with stops in between. It also included a stop in the real estate market in 2006 trying to close deals on houses.

The Rays gave him another chance in 2010, and he finally reached the major leagues on July 20th, 2011. He went on to pitch 11 more games in Tampa Bay before being traded to the Angels late in the 2013 Spring Training season. De La Rosa went to the Angels as a pitcher that struggled to command his fastball.  Yet another new location for De La Rosa, but with it came a new approach to his craft.

In looking at video of De La Rosa from the past two seasons, he has made some minor tweaks to his delivery. The first changes come in his setup for his delivery (click all images to enlarge).

The first image is from 8/27/12 when De La Rosa mopped up a 13-3 blowout against Boston while the second one came in his second save of his career against his former team. The 2013 image shows that De La Rosa has changed where he starts on the rubber while also starting his hands a bit higher, and closing off his front side more than he did in 2012.

At the max lift portion of his delivery, he now resembles the man he was called up to replace on the roster in 2013, Jered Weaver.

De La Rosa has more bend in his back leg, has brought his hands closer to his body, and has more twist in his upper body as he shows his back to the opposing hitter. These adjustments allowed him to stay closed easier in order for him to open his hips up to come to the plate in rhythm with his delivery.

One of the thing that stands out in reviewing De La Rosa from 2013 is his increased velocity.

The data from BrooksBaseball shows that shows that the average velocity on De La Rosa’s four-seam fastball rose nearly each month of the season in 2013, continuing the trend that started in 2012.

The data also shows that De La Rosa was throwing from a bit of a higher release point, which pitchers can use to add velocity while sacrificing horizontal movement. The increased velocity led to increased results. Opponents slugged just .277 against him last season, which was in the top tenth percentile of all relief pitchers that faced at least 200 batters in 2013. His Contact% as well as his opponents wOBA were both in the top-third of the same sample size. The improvements led to more success against right-handed batters as his swing and miss rate against those batters (35.5%) was higher than the likes of Koji Uehara (35.1%) and Craig Kimbrel (34.0%).

The Angels have had their issues in recent years harvesting pitching talent from their farm system, but they appear to have done quite well thus far here. They’ve turned an undrafted organizational middle reliever into an opportunity for a home town kid to go good. So far, so good.

The Angels designated Brandon Wood for assignment earlier this week. He will latch on elsewhere given his former status as a top-tier prospect, but whether the 26-year old infielder can translate minor league raking into big league success remains to be seen.

Many expected the world from Wood given his gaudy minor league numbers and his ability to ably handle the shortstop position. In five Triple-A seasons — and 1,437 plate appearances — Wood has hit .283/.350/.536. Even at a fraction of that slash line he would theoretically become one of the top offensive shortstops in the majors. However, his minor league numbers can be viewed two different ways.

On one hand, a slash line like that at the highest level of minor league play merits a legitimate shot in the majors. Not a week here or a month there, spread over several seasons, but a full and uninterrupted season. On the other hand, his struggles in limited major league action — a .168/.197/.259 line in 494 plate appearances — should not have been surprising given the frequency at which he struck out.

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[Author’s Note, 5:46 p.m. EST : I meant to include Minnesota originally, but forgot… Now added.]

It is often said of fourth outfielders and utility infielders that “they could start for so many other teams!” I wrote something along those lines myself in yesterday’s post about the Rays. Are there players of whom this is true?

Take Angels utility infielder Maicer Izturis. Izturis has seen time at third, second, and short, and has done well in limited action, including a near three-win season in 2009. Averaging CHONE, ZiPS, and Fan projections, his 2010 offensive projection is for a .335 wOBA, about +4 runs above average for the season. Izturis is a good defender and his stats reflect the positional adjustments fairly well; let’s call him an average defensive shortstop, and a +5 defender at second and third, so a +7.5 per season infielder. Izturis’s playing time has been limited because of his utility role, so let’s conservatively assume he could handle starting 75 percent of the time. We should also take into account that he is projected to face more difficult AL pitching. In all it comes out to: 4 offensive runs + 7.5 fielding + 25 AL replacement level x 75 percent playing time = ~2.7 WAR.

Izturis can play third, second, and short, making it easier to find places he could start, so I don’t want to make this any simpler for Izturis or myself. I’m excluding horrible and/or rebuilding teams like Washington, Pittsburgh, Kansas City, San Diego, or Houston, for whom many players above replacement level could start. I’m also going to stick with fairly clear-cut cases. I won’t pretend to be exhaustive, I’m sure readers will find additional cases to be made (and cases with which to disagree!). One last important note: this does not take into account contracts, age, or player development. It’s just to see who Izturis projects to be clearly better than in 2010.

In the NL West, Izturis could clearly start at shortstop over Zombie Edgar Renteria, and I’d take him over Freddy Sanchez at second, too. In LA, I’d play Izturis over the Blake Dewitt/Ronnie Belliard/Jamey Carroll morass at second and Casey Blake at third. I like Arizona’s Kelly Johnson, but Izturis is better. Colorado 2B Clint Barmes has a great glove, but Izturis is no slouch in the field, either, and can actually hit.

Moving on to the NL Central, the “best fans in baseball” might love Skip Schumaker’s grittiness, but I think they’d prefer a good player. St. Louis could also start Izturis over the David Freese/Felipe Lopez/whatever group at third. Izturis is better than Cubs’ second baseman Mike Fontenot, Milwaukee third baseman Casey McGehee, and Reds shortstop Paul Janish.

In the NL East, I’m sure Marlins fans (let’s pretend they exist) would love to see Jorge Cantu’s glove banished from third forever in favor of Izturis. Ditto for Mets fans (whom I’m sure exist) and Luis Castillo at second.

Moving our way back across the continent, the AL East has only one obvious case (outside of Toronto) — Maicer could easily take his half-brother Cesar Izturis‘ job at shortstop in Baltimore.

In the AL Central, Izturis could start at any of three positions in Detroit: Adam Everett‘s and Brandon Inge’s excellent gloves aren’t enough to beat out a 2.7 WAR player, and Scott Sizemore isn’t likely on Izturis’ level yet. In Cleveland, Izturis would beat out Luis Valbuena at second and Jhonny Peralta at third. I like Mark Teahen, so it pains me to write that Izturis is far superior to the White Sox third baseman. Izturis is obviously far superior to Nick Punto and Brendan Harris at third base for Minnesota, and honestly, I think he’s probably better than Orlando Hudson at second, too, but I was going to leave out the close ones.

Back home in the AL West, I’m sure Oakland would love to have Izturis starting at shortstop rather than Cliff Pennington or Adam Rosales. Even a defensively oriented team like Seattle should realize that Jack Wilson’s bat makes him an inferior performer at shortstop to Izturis, and that Izturis would be better than Jose Lopez at second or third (wherever former teammate Chone Figgins isn’t playing).

That’s a long list of teams, but Izturis is a good player. If he was on the market, he wouldn’t be out of work for long. Oh, one more: Izturis could start at third over Brandon Wood for the Angels.

In the course of a discussion at The Book Blog about the Angels’ (of late) recent outperformance of (some) projections, I was reminded of a related yet quite different issue I’d thought about looking into a while back (and then promptly forgot about). The Angels are one of the teams in baseball that are praised for “playing the right way” and “doing the little things.” Whatever people mean by that, one thing we can say is that recently, the Angels have consistently outperformed their Pythagorean Win Expectation. Looking (somewhat arbitrarily) at the last three seasons in which the Angels have won the American League West and comparing their actual record with what we’d expect given their run differential based on PythagenPat.

2007: Actual 94-68, Expected 90-72, difference +4
2008: Actual 100-62, Expected 88-74, difference +12
2009: Actual 97-65, Expected 93-69, difference +4

I should say right now that this post is not saying that I am not claiming either a) that the Angels “just got lucky” and weren’t as good as their record, or b) that they have some “intangible” ability (perhaps from their manager) that has enabled them to outperform their run differential the last three seasons. Both of those are copouts, at least at this point. For now, I’m only going to look at this issue with reference to their offense.

One might say that they’ve been “good in the clutch.” And that is, in fact, true. FanGraphs’ clutch score, which measures whether players outperform not only their peers, but themselves in high leverage situations, has the following win values for the Angels’ hitter from 2007-2009:

2007: 5.19
2008: 7.34
2009: 3.22

These numbers are impressive, but they sort of beg the question. Unlike relievers, hitters don’t “earn” their high leverage playing time — unless you think most of those scores were put up by Angels pinch-hitters picked for their “clutchness.” This seems to say what we already knew — the Angels won more game than their runs scored indicate that they “should have”. Undoubtedly, there are “clutch hits,” but this doesn’t tell us how they did it — just that they did.

One thing that “right way” teams are praised for is situational hitting. FanGraphs has a stat for that: RE24. While FanGraphs’ primary “runs created above average” stat, wRAA, uses the average change in run expectancy given an event irrespective of the base/out situation, RE24 does incorporate base/out state. For wRAA, a home run is a home run whether the bases are empty with none out or loaded with 2 out, while RE24 takes into account the different base/out run expectation. As I discuss here, if we subtract the average linear weight runs (wRAA) from the RE24, we can see how much better the Angels performed in terms of “situational hitting.”

2007: wRAA +7, RE24 30.5, situational +23.5
2008: wRAA -18, RE24 18.7, situational +36.7
2009: wRAA 88, RE24 92.8, situational +4.8

Impressive. However, it actually doesn’t tell us what we want to know. This tells us that we would expect the Angels to have scored more runs than traditional linear weights (wRAA) would suggest, but the Pythagorean expectation is already using their actual runs scored. We want to know why they outperformed their run differential (for now, from the offensive perspective) — not why they scored more than their linear weights suggest, but why they won more than their actual runs suggest.

Enter WPA/LI. While RE24 takes base/out context into account, WPA/LI goes one step further, by taking base/out/inning into account. You can follow the link to read up, but basically, it’s “unleveraged” Win Probability. It sounds like Clutch, but it’s actually WPA without the Clutch/Leverage element. To use an example to differentiate WPA/LI: with two outs in the bottom of the ninth with the bases loaded, for WPA/LI a walk and a home run have the same linear weight, whereas those events would be different for both wRAA and RE24, since they don’t take game state into account. So, if any stat could take into account a player or team adjusting their play to a situtation, this would be it. As I did in my earlier Little Things post for individuals, we can do for teams: convert wRAA to wins (I crudely divide by 10), then subtract that from WPA/LI to get the situational wins above average linear weights.

2007: wWAA +0.7, WPA/LI -1.32, -2.02 Little Things
2008: wWAA -1.8, WPA/LI -1.21, +0.59 Little Things
2009: wWAA +8.8, WPA/LI +6.37, -2.43 Little Things

Now that is just bizarre. With RE24, we saw that the Angels the last three seasons have been very good at maximizing their situational hitting in certain base/out states. But “Little Things” shows the exact opposite in 2007 and 2009. They’re about “even” in 2008, although far short of what RE24 shows, and they’re 2 wins below their traditional linear weights in 2007 and 2009. It’s not just that the Angels’ hittesr aren’t living up to their reputation (according to this measure) of “doing the little things,” it’s the contrast between RE24 and WPA/LI based “little things” that is striking. It’s as if the Angels do a great job of hitting with runners in scoring position when they’re playing in blowouts, but make terrible situational plays (relative to the average run expectancy) in close games. And then if you look at their hitter’s “Clutch” scores from those years… It’s really hard to know what the big picture is.

This post has no conclusion other than to note that the title is ironic. It would be foolhardy to dismiss this all as luck. The Angels have been a very good team no matter how you slice it. And just because we don’t understand “how they do it” at the moment doesn’t mean we can never know. But at the moment, I’m simply struck by the oddity.

Thanks in large part to a very entertaining season so far, choosing which game to highlight each week proves to be quite difficult. Once again, the slate of games on the docket this past week was comprised of some absolute gems, some thrillers, and another position player finding his way onto the mound. Though a few others could give our winner a run for its money, the top game last week saw the Angels and Royals square off on Saturday in the best pitching duel this season.

The Angels bested the Royals, 1-0, behind a strong Joe Saunders outing, beating up on Zack Greinke in the process. Seriously… his ERA entered at 0.40 and left at an uglier 0.51.

While complete games are rare these days, both Saunders and Greinke went the distance in this instant classic. Greinke has now completed four of his seven starts, not necessarily reminiscent of Warren Spahn or Robin Roberts, but still pretty incredible in the present context. Greinke has also been the deserving recipient of an ample supply of attention this season for his absolutely dominant efforts. After “losing” on Saturday, Greinke’s statline looks like this: 7 GS (4 CG/2 SHO), 53.0 IP, 34 H, 0 HR, 8 BB, 59 K, 0.51 ERA, 1.46 FIP.

His counterpart on Saturday has also been doing well albeit with much less attention. Last season, Saunders broke out with a solid campaign; however, he also became the consensus pick for the pitcher with a good 2008 season that will regress pretty significantly the next year. After all, sub-5.0 strikeout rates are generally not that appealing unless the pitcher induces groundballs with the greatest of ease and posts Maddux-esque walk rates. Saunders issued around 2.4 walks per nine last season but he did record grounders on 47% of his balls in play. His +2.8 wins pegged him as a good, but not-as-great-as-a-3.41-ERA-in-31-starts-suggests pitcher.

Following his shutout on Saturday, Saunders has a 2.66 ERA and 4.23 FIP in 47.1 innings of work. His strikeout rate remains unworthy of boasting, but the BB/9 has dropped a bit. At right around +1 win this season, Saunders is once again looking good. Despite a large disconnect in his ERA and FIP, perhaps portending that teams are going to figure him out sooner of later, the Royals looked hopeless on Saturday, much like other teams look when facing Greinke.

The lone run of the game occurred in the bottom of the third on some small ball courtesy of the Scioscia-bunch. Gary Matthews Jr led the inning off with a double. Erick Aybar sacrificed him over to third. Chone Figgins hit a sac fly to rightfield. No other runs would cross the plate though not for a lack of trying as several of the runners who did manage to reach base in this game found themselves in scoring position.

In the top of the fifth, Saunders walked Billy Butler and allowed a single to Alberto Callaspo to start the frame. Runners on first and second, nobody out, and Saunders escaped unharmed thanks to three straight outs at the expenses of Willie Bloomquist, Miguel Olivo and Mike Aviles.

In the bottom of the sixth, Aybar doubled and moved to third two batters later when Maicer Izturis grounded out. The power-sapped Bobby Abreu couldn’t drive him home, though, ending the inning with the 1-0 score in tact.

Erick Aybar made an errant throw on a Bloomquist-grounder to start the top of the eighth, allowing Willie to reach base. Miguel Olivo then singled, moving Bloomquist up to second. Aviles sacrificed both runners into scoring position, leaving Saunders with one out and runners at second and third. Coco Crisp then grounded into a fielder’s choice, with Olivo being retired at third base and Bloomquist moving up to take over that same spot. Now with runners on the corners and two outs, a 4.38 Leverage Index, Saunders got David DeJesus to groundout to third.

The remaining two half-innings went by quickly, with each pitcher retiring the three batters they faced. Four of those struck out and Billy Butler flied out to center to end the game. Two complete games, nine total hits, one total walk, and nine strikeouts. Best duel of the season so far and last week’s top game.

Earlier today our focus centered around an Angels stalwart on his way out of town, making it only fitting that tonight’s topic involves an Angels outfielder returning to the team. Juan Rivera, the 30-yr old corner outfielder who has missed most of the last two seasons, will be an Angel for the next few years after signing a 3-yr/$12.75 mil deal today. The Angels bought out Garrett Anderson earlier this off-season and have been linked to Manny Ramirez as well, yet seemingly opted to go the safe route with Rivera.

Juan played in just 89 games last season, hitting .246/.282/.438, with 12 home runs. All told, his .306 wOBA in about half of a season made him worth -5.3 runs offensively. The year before, Rivera only appeared in 14 games, and hit .279/.295/.442. In both of these seasons, his O-Swing% looked very atypical of his previous performance. In 2006, Rivera had a career year, putting together a .310/.362/.525 line with 23 home runs, a .373 wOBA, and +17.5 offensive runs.

Defensively, he has not necessarily hurt teams, but he will not light the world on fire with his glove, either. Since corner outfield positions carry the same adjustment, a combination of his UZR totals in leftfield and rightfield peg Rivera as somewhere between a -3 and -5 run fielder. With aging, he looks like a -5 fielder moving forward. Offensively, Marcel projects Juan to hit .272/.323/.450, a .332 wOBA which happens to be the definition of league average. Should this come to fruition, Rivera would be worth 0 runs offensively and cost his team 5 runs defensively. Prorating the adjustments for 130 games and 430 PA docks him 6 runs for playing a corner outfield position and simultaneously adds 12 runs to account for his value above replacement level.

Under this scenario, Rivera would be +1 runs above replacement next year, or +0.1 WAR. At $5 mil/win, his fair market value would be $500,000. Unfortunately, his projections may be a bit skewed as they include two injury-plagued seasons. It is more than likely that the Angels see Rivera as capable of returning to his 2006 form in one way or another. If he can produce a .345 wOBA in 130 games and 500 PA, Rivera would be worth +6 runs on offense and -5 on defense prior to the adjustments. This results in +9 runs, or +0.9 WAR. At fair market value, that is a 1-yr deal worth $4.5 mil. Factoring in a 10% discount rate for signing a longer deal, a 3-yr deal would be valued at $12.15 mil.

Rivera actually signed for $12.75 mil, not too far off-base. Overall, a good deal for the Angels, as long as Rivera can stay healthy. An average annual value of $4.25 mil is well below the asking price of players like Bobby Abreu and Pat Burrell, whose defensive shortcomings almost completely counteract their offensive contributions. Rivera is not a defensive wizard, but if he can combine slightly above average offense with slightly below average defense, this will result in a fine deal for the Angels.

When the Braves traded Mark Teixeira to the Angels for, among other assets, Casey Kotchman, the analytic world of the baseball media went into a frenzy. Some analysts wondered how the Braves could get “so little” for one of the best bats and gloves in the game. Others argued that the very attractive contract of Casey Kotchman as well as his glove and potential evened the transaction out. And, I’m sure Steve Phillips dug out five at-bats of Teixeira’s playoff performance in college to say that he wouldn’t help the Angels due to poor post-season play.

Regardless, since joining the Angels, he-with-the-hard-name-to-spell has been on a tear. In 23 games out in LaLa of Anaheim-land, Mark has gone 32-83 with 7 home runs, 15 walks, and just 10 strikeouts. Put together, this results in a gaudy slash line of .386/.485/.675, an OPS of 1.160. His stretch has been so good that his seasonal OPS has actually risen from .902 to .941 in just 23 games.

On the flipside, Kotchman has not been performing too well on the offensive, going just 11-70 in his first 20 games. His .157/.259/.214 slash line as a Brave, coupled with the ridiculous numbers Teix has been putting up will cause some to look solely at the win-now aspect of this trade. This isn’t necessarily “wrong” as the ultimate goal in the eyes of many is to win a world series. If Teixeira can help the Angels win the world series then it will be quite hard to convince a fan of theirs that the trade didn’t work out, even if they are unable to resign him.

If we know anything about hot or cold streaks, we know that they have very little predictive ability. For all we know, these numbers could switch in the month of September, Kotchman will become a national celebrity, and Frank Wren will have a Schuerholz moment. Overall, though, this seems to be an example of the Angels understanding this could be their year, putting some eggs in the Teix basket, and praying it pays dividends.

They didn’t need Teixeira to make the playoffs, and with a 17-game lead in the division, they could probably rest him all of September to keep his legs fresh for the… oh, right, this is baseball, nevermind. But, we all know how this trade will really be judged. Since they didn’t need him to make the playoffs, it means they got him to aid them in the playoffs… which in turn means he better perform well in the playoffs or people will have fits.

Though the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim sport a pythagorean record nine games worse than their actual mark, they have outdone this run-based estimator each year since 2004. Credit Mike Scioscia as a tremendous manager, or the makeup of the team, but the fact remains they currently own the best record in baseball. On top of that they hold an 11.5 game lead over the second place Rangers; quite honestly, barring some drastic, unforeseen event, this division is all but locked up.

One of the reasons the Halos have been so effective to date is their starting rotation. With that in mind, let’s take a look at its members and see if we can get to know these pitchers a little better.

John Lackey
9-2, 3.10 ERA, 3.98 FIP, 1.10 WHIP, .266 BABIP, 80.1% LOB, 3.40 K/BB
HR/FB between 5.7% and 9.0% from 2004-07; currently 12.4%

Ervin Santana
12-5, 3.38 ERA, 3.24 FIP, 1.13 WHIP, .294 BABIP, 74.5% LOB, 3.67 K/BB
2007: 150.0 IP, 174 H, 96 ER, 26 HR, 58 BB, 126 K
2008: 149.1 IP, 130 H, 59 ER, 14 HR, 39 BB, 143 K

Joe Saunders
14-5, 3.09 ERA, 4.52 FIP, 1.15 WHIP, .244 BABIP, 77.4% LOB, 1.74 K/BB
6th lowest K/9 at 4.38, 4th lowest BABIP, 1st lowest LD rate at 13.5%

Jered Weaver
9-9, 4.37 ERA, 4.20 FIP, 1.10 WHIP, .266 BABIP, 71.7% LOB, 2.59 K/BB
Most numbers better than 2007 but less flyballs with an increase in HR/FB

Jon Garland
10-6, 4.30 ERA, 4.76 FIP, 1.45 WHIP, .299 BABIP, 72.4% LOB, 1.40 K/BB
5th lowest K/9 at 4.11, FIP 4.24-4.36 from 2005-07
47.9% GB (from 39.4% in 07), 28.4% FB (from 37.7% in 07), but 11.9% HR/FB (from 7.1% in 07)

Of these five pitchers, based on their BABIPs and strand rates, it appears that Santana and Garland are the most “for real.” Weaver’s strand rate is right around league average but his BABIP has been well below average. Lackey’s strand rate is likely unsustainable, regardless of how talented he may be, and given his BABIPs in the .300+ range over the last few years, a .266 mark is quite low.

Saunders and Santana seem to be on opposite ends of the luck/skills spectrum. Lefty Joe has built his seasonal line upon an unsustainably low BABIP, a high 77.4% strand rate, one of the lowest strikeout rates in baseball, and one of the lowest rates of line drives in the last twenty years. Could he defy the odds and prove to be regression-proof? Sure, it happens time to time. I just wouldn’t bet on him being as effective from here on out. Santana, on the other hand, has more earthbound numbers and, as surprising as it may be that he is the same guy that looked lucky to have a job last year, he has not benefited from too much luck this year.

When Saunders, Lackey, and Weaver experience their likely regressions it won’t hurt the Angels chances of making the playoffs but it does call into question who may start in that division series against the Rays/Red Sox/Yankees. Lackey is going to be the #1, and based on performance to date, Santana should be #2, but who would you start in that series? Do you trust Saunders enough to sustain these ridiculous rates? Or would you throw him in regardless given the fact that he is a lefty?