Archive for Blue Jays

Raise your hand if you have heard of Vernon Wells. You know, the Blue Jays centerfielder who served as an ESPN analyst in the offseason? The guy who hits about 27-30 home runs each season, has an OPS close to .900, and plays stellar defense. Right, we all know him… but do we really know him? After finding out that he has been one of the more productive players over the last thirty days I perused his career numbers, as well as this season, and was a bit shocked. See, I just assumed he put up seasonal lines like the one mentioned at the beginning of this paragraph. I, like many others, probably saw him in an all-star game, saw one really great season of his, and constructed the rest based on reputation.

In actuality, Wells’ current .831 OPS would be one of the highest of his career should the season end today. He has only played 98 games, so the counting stats are lower, but his offensive rates are right in line, or better than, those in 2001, 2002, 2004, 2005, and 2007. This leaves just 2003 and 2006 as being standout and tremendous seasons offensively. Here, I figured that 2006 was the norm, when he had an .899 OPS, blasted 32 home runs, stole 17 bases, and finished fourth amongst centerfielders with a +14 in the field.

In the field, he has steadily declined since 2006, going from +14, to +7, to this year’s -14, meaning that he has made fourteen plays less than an average centerfielder this season. Last year, he had a very low .265 BABIP which contributed to his low .706 OPS, but this year it has risen to .300; however, his ISO is at .190, down from the .200-.233 range in other seasons. Essentially, Wells has been able to get hits at a decent pace but they do not account for as much power as most in Toronto would like. Add in his declining defense and he is quickly heading past disappointment-ville.

Maybe he can have a tremendous September and increase the rates. We’ve seen Ryan Howard make significant leaps in short times before. Over the last thirty days, Wells is hitting .321/.369/.571, a .940 OPS, with a .250 ISO. This is the Vernon Wells that many fans think of or that fans in Toronto hope for, but at this stage it just seems more like a teasing hot streak than sustainable production. Perhaps the defense this year is an outlier and perhaps the injuries have prevented him from reaching his full potential, but he definitely seems to be a case where the reputation inflates his actual production and causes ignorance to those who don’t astutely pay attention.

For those who read the title and thought this post had something to do with food, I apologize, it does not. Instead, the spread I speak of refers to the pitch distribution in the Toronto Blue Jays starting rotation. Last month, when writing about Shaun Marcum’s hot start, some loyal readers commented that he was one of very few pitchers that threw five different pitches at least 10% of the time. Trying to verify this assertion I discovered that were only two other pitchers that fit this bill: Adam Eaton and Andy Sonnanstine.

It was recently revealed to me that Jesse Litsch joined the 5/~10% club. Catchy title, eh? I named it myself.

Now, not many starting pitchers throw even four different pitches at least 9-10% of the time and the Blue Jays have three of them: Dustin McGowan (4), Jesse Litsch (5), and Shaun Marcum (5). Group the three of them with the steady three-pitch mix of Roy Halladay and the fastball-curveball combo of A.J. Burnett and you have one extremely solid rotation.

Here are their pitch distributions, with velocity/frequency:

Roy Halladay: FA 92.7/45.9, CT 90.5/25.0, CB 78.2/23.6
A.J. Burnett: FA 94.1/66.2, CB 80.5/26.4
Dustin McGowan: FA 95.1/59.2, SL 87.6/19.3, CB 81.4/11.3, CH 86.7/10.1
Jesse Litsch: FA 88.8/17.7, SL 82.2/22.9, CT 85.0/37.5, CB 76.8/12.9, CH 80.0/9.0
Shaun Marcum: FA 86.8/39.0, SL 81.4/15.5, CT 84.5/14.0, CB 74.8/10.0, CH 80.9/21.5

Not only does this rotation mix their pitches effectively but their speeds as well; McGowan’s changeup is the same speed as Marcum’s fastball. Lastly, take a look at their stats:

Roy Halladay: 3.01 ERA, 1.01 WHIP, 5 CG, 12 BB, 72 K, 1.51 WPA
A.J. Burnett: 4.14 ERA, 1.37 WHIP, 33 BB, 71 K, 0.17 WPA
Dustin McGowan: 3.95 ERA, 1.42 WHIP, 28 BB, 55 K, 0.72 WPA
Jesse Litsch: 3.05 ERA, 1.13 WHIP, 9 BB, 33 K, 0.80 WPA
Shaun Marcum: 2.63 ERA, 0.94 WHIP, 22 BB, 67 K, 1.89 WPA

Their “worst” ERA is 4.14 and just one WHIP is over 1.40. Overall, the rotation has contributed 5.09 wins while being a steady and major factor in the success of the team. Perhaps their pitching coach has preached different spreads in order to, as a rotation, keep teams off kilter; whatever it is, though, it definitely seems to be working.

Entering the season the Blue Jays felt that, with even a little run support, their starting pitching could do wonders to help propel them to victory. Roy Halladay has been a top-tier pitcher for a while now, even garnering compliments from President Bush; AJ Burnett is a flamethrower who has steadily produced over the last few years; and young Dustin McGowan looks poised to build on the success he experienced last year.

While most teams would kill to have three #1 or #2 starters at the front of their rotation, the Blue Jays actually have a fourth guy that, early into this season, has arguably contributed more to his team than all but two starting pitchers in the entire sport.

Shaun Marcum ranks third in WPA amongst all starting pitchers at 1.86, and has allowed just 30 hits in 56.2 innings of work.

Since becoming a starter in early May of last year, Marcum has posted the following numbers:

2007: 25 GS, 11-4, 142.2 IP, 43 BB, 100 K, 3.91 ERA, 1.23 WHIP
2008: 8 GS, 4-2, 56.2 IP, 16 BB, 49 K, 2.22 ERA, 0.81 WHIP

When put together it looks like a very solid, Cy Young Award contending full season:

33 GS, 15-6, 199.1 IP, 59 BB, 149 K, 3.43 ERA, 1.11 WHIP

Marcum is holding opponents to a .151/.217/.281 slash line and has left 80% of runners on base. His BABIP of .184 has been better than his .266 xBABIP, so this slash line is not very likely to keep up but he has definitely made his mark as a top-of-the-line #4 starter; especially considering there are some teams on which he would be a #2 starter.

An interesting note about Marcum’s success is his lack of fastball usage. Of non-Tim Wakefield starters, only four pitchers use their fastball less often; he throws it just 38% of the time. In fact, rotation-mates Jesse Litsch and Halladay come in at #2 and #9 in that same category.

Perhaps this vast repertoire of pitch selection and frequency helps provide the Blue Jays with one of the top rotations in the game. Either way, Marcum should not be overlooked as an up and coming and effective starter, regardless of how well his rotation-mates perform.

In order to quell the somewhat heated Tony La Russa and Scott Rolen situation in St. Louis, the Cardinals shipped the disgruntled third baseman to the Blue Jays in exchange for Troy Glaus. The move catalyzed a frenzy of “this should benefit both teams” reactions, primarily due to both players experiencing recent downward trends in success. Rolen has been very injury prone in recent years while some speculate Glaus’s struggles are a direct result of no longer “allegedly” taking steroids. Approximately one-fourth of the way through the season, how is this exchange looking?

Glaus Facts
.230/.357/.357 Slash Line
1 HR, 21 RBI
16.6 BB%, 22.2 K%
.289 BABIP, .284 Career BABIP
18.0/36.0/46.0 LD/GB/FB, 19.2/35.6/45.2 Career LD/GB/FB
-3.21 BRAA, -0.32 REW
-0.50 WPA, 5.12 Games Advanced

Glaus’s SLG has struggled in the early going primarily due to hitting just one home run. His BABIP and BIP rates are all very similar to his career rates. Despite this, he clearly is not producing at his standard level. His struggles have cost the Cardinals about 1/3 of a game via Run Expectancy and 1/2 of a game via Win Probability. Games Advanced can be found by +WPA minus -WPA, and shows how many games a players efforts have effected; whether positive or negative, Glaus has had an effect on five of the Cardinals games.

His swing data shows an increase above his career rates in swings both inside and outside of the strike zone. His contact rate in the zone is four percent higher than his career averages while his contact rate outside of the zone is about five percent less. Overall, though, he is making more contact in the early going… he just must not be doing much with that contact.

Rolen Facts
In just 65 PA through 16 GP
.316/.385/.561 Slash Line
9.5 BB%, 12.3 K%
.333 BABIP, .314 Career BABIP
27.5/29.4/43.1 LD/GB/FB, 21.8/33.7/44.6 Career LD/GB/FB
1.45 BRAA, 0.14 REW
0.17 WPA, 2.81 Games Advanced

The first area that jumps out is his high line drive rate. Rolen may end up in future conversations about very high LD% but it is more likely he will regress closer to the 21-23% range. He seems to be swinging less at pitches in the zone while making more contact with those pitches, relative to his career totals. He has also maintained his career swing rate at pitches out of the zone while increasing his contact by seven percent.

Overall
It’s too early to discuss anything significant with regards to Rolen’s numbers but Glaus simply has not done too well in the first quarter of the season. Rolen, as Dave mentioned earlier tonight, has been one of just two players with positive BRAAs on the anemic Blue Jays offense, and he has only played in 16 games. If the season were to end today, for whatever reason, this trade would appear to be in the Blue Jays favor. In another month, who knows?

If Rolen continues to get hurt, and Glaus doesn’t improve, this won’t be a trade that benefits both teams but rather one that provides equal and mediocre production to the Cardinals and Blue Jays.

Following an Alex Rios lineout and an Aaron Hill strikeout, Mark Buehrle induced a grounder to third off the bat of Scott Rolen that should have ended the inning. A throwing error, ground-rule double, and single up the middle later, Buehrle found himself the victim of two unearned runs. He struck out Lyle Overbay to end the inning but the Blue Jays ultimately had all the run support they would need.

Despite posting a complete game line of 8 IP, 5 H, 0 ER, 0 BB, 7 K, Buehrle suffered the loss; the committee of Shaun Marcum, Jeremy Accardo, Jesse Carlson, Shawn Camp, and Scott Downs collaborated on a two-hit shutout.

Buehrle threw exactly 100 pitches and 74 of them were strikes. Ironically, ten of those 26 balls came on the first pitch to batters. Here is his pitch breakdown:

• Fastball: 45, 87.8 mph
• Curve: 7, 72.4 mph
• Slider: 27, 83.5 mph
• Changeup: 21, 79.4 mph

Nobody swung and missed at his fastball though his slider proved difficult to make solid contact with; the White Sox fouled off nine of them and flat out missed six. Here are location charts showing where he threw his slider to righties and lefties:

While he tried to stay inside with the slider when facing lefties, he challenged righties in the zone more often with this offspeed pitch.

Facing a total of 29 batters, Buehrle threw a first pitch strike 16 times; ten of the first pitches were balls and another three were put in play. Unlike Matt Cain, who essentially throws a fastball to start every hitter, Buehrle started the White Sox offense with 18 fastballs and 11 breaking balls. With an 0-1 count Buehrle threw just two fastballs out of his 16 total pitches; with a 1-2 count he primarily threw changeups; on a 3-2 count he did not rely on his fastball, throwing two sliders and a changeup out of five pitches. Normally I would show this data in graphical or chart form but, when dealing with just one start, it would suggest patterns and tendencies that just cannot be determined with such a small sample.

Buehrle did not have an easily identifiable “out-pitch” last night as, with two strikes, he threw 13 fastballs, 2 curves, 7 sliders, and 8 changeups.

The aspect of pitch data that fascinates me most right now is sequencing: What does a pitcher throw after a certain pitch? Buehrle threw very few pitches to lefties but, against righties it becomes clear that he successfully mixed up his pitches.

When throwing his changeup to righties he definitely relied on additional offspeed pitches to accompany it rather than mixing speeds by throwing a fastball. In fact, there were six different plate appearances in which Buehrle threw three consecutive offspeed pitches. Never one to waste time on the mound, his quick work and mix of pitches and speeds successfully kept the Blue Jays off balance. Though his overall numbers suffer from an atrocious opening day start, Buehrle will have to pitch like this much more often for the White Sox to avoid the label of “pretender” and be in the race all year.

Blue Jays righty Roy Halladay has earned his reputation as being a top-tier pitcher, one of the best this decade. Predominantly utilizing a combo of fastballs, cutters, and curveballs, Halladay keeps the ball on the ground, generating grounders just about 60% of the time. Though he has suffered some injuries in the last few years, when healthy, going late into games is not an issue; he has pitched 220+ innings in four of the last six years. This durability has led to 32 complete games since 2002, seven more than closest competitor Livan Hernandez. The entire AL had 64 complete games last year and Halladay accounted for seven of them.

There have been 16 complete games this year and Halladay currently has four of them. Additionally, his other two starts have seen him go for seven and eight innings respectively. Oddly enough, despite pitching a complete in each of his last four starts, his W-L in that span is 1-3. His three consecutive complete game losses ties a Blue Jays record set in 1980 by Jim Clancy. The last pitcher to lose consecutive complete games is another Roy: Roy Oswalt, who did so in 2006.

The last major league pitcher to throw four consecutive complete games? Well, that would be Halladay back in 2003. The all time record for consecutive complete games belongs to Jack Lynch, with 198; his record was compiled between 1881 and 1887. Halladay would need an average of 33 starts in each of his next seasons just to make 198 starts, let alone go the distance.

Very interesting about his complete games is that he is not overextending himself by throwing a ton of pitches. Through 49.2 innings he has thrown 648 pitches, which amounts to an average of 13 per inning. His complete games have consisted of the following pitch counts: 110, 117, 107, 112. The Blue Jays have scored 115 runs this year, just 17 of which have come in Halladay’s six starts. The team has provided an average of 4.67 runs/gm in non-Halladay games and just 2.83 runs/gm for their ace. Hopefully the team can start scoring runs or else this former Cy Young Award winner may find himself qualifying for next month’s edition of unluckiest pitchers.

Earlier today I wrote about Tom Gorzelanny’s interesting and less-than-accurate game last night, when at one point he had a line of 4.1 IP, 0 H, 0 R, 7 BB, 4 K. What I did not realize is that Blue Jays righty Dustin McGowan had a very similar game against the Rays. While discussing some of our favorite young pitchers, Fangraphs reader and Tampa Bay Rays blogger Tommy Rancel said, “…if you thought the Gorzelanny game was weird, you should have seen McGowan against the Rays. He struck the first two batters out on six pitches and ended up walking 7 in just four innings.”

Facing 22 batters in 4+ innings, McGowan gave up 4 hits and 4 runs, striking out 6 and walking 7; this topsy-turvy performance in part led to quite the streaky game graph:

He threw 88 pitches with a perfect split of 44 strikes and 44 balls. As Tommy mentioned, his first inning was strong: He struck out Akinori Iwamura and Carl Crawford on six pitches and induced a groundout from BJ Upton with another three pitches, ending the frame with eight strikes out of nine pitches. In the second inning, McGowan’s accuracy took a hit, throwing just nine strikes out of 17 pitches. Despite this, he still managed to strike out Carlos Pena, Evan Longoria, and newcomer Gabe Gross; a walk to Eric Hinske was his only blemish.

The Blue Jays scored two runs off of Andy Sonnanstine in the top of the third, but McGowan could not shut the Rays down in the bottom half of the inning. After walking Dioner Navarro and surrendering a single to Jason Bartlett, Iwamura sacrificed the runners to second and third. Crawford knocked in Navarro on a groundout, to get one of the runs back, before Upton went down swinging. Again, McGowan’s accuracy was subpar, throwing just 11 strikes out of 20 pitches. Through three innings, he had a 2-1 lead and had compiled the following line: 3 IP, 1 H, 1 R, 2 BB, 6 K. Of his 46 pitches 28 were strikes.

He fell apart in the fourth inning but managed to limit the damage. With one out, Evan Longoria tripled and promptly scored on an Eric Hinske single. After Hinske unsuccessfully attempted a steal of second base, McGowan proceeded to walk Gross, Navarro, and Bartlett to load the bases. Luckily, Iwamura flew out to leftfield to end the threat. The inning saw him throw 32 pitches, just 11 of which were strikes. The game was tied 2-2, but McGowan’s line now stood at: 4 IP, 3 H, 2 R, 5 BB, 6 K.

The Blue Jays jumped back on top, 3-2, in the fifth but McGowan again went walk-crazy in the bottom of the inning. After Carl Crawford singled and stole second, he walked Upton and Pena to load the bases. John Gibbons had seen enough and brought in Brian Tallet to potentially record a “Houdini.” Things did not go well for Tallet as all three inherited runners scored; the Rays went onto win 5-3.

From 2000-2007, there have been 200 games in which a pitcher walked 7+ batters; this averages out to 25 games per season. With 30 teams and 162 games per team there are 4860 games in a year (give or take). On average, a miniscule .005 percent of the games this decade, or 0.83 games per team, have seen pitchers walk this many batters. Last night there were two games going on at the same time that accomplished this statistical rarity.