Archive for Cliff Lee

Is it just me or has there been a recent dearth of articles focused on Cliff Lee lately? It seems like all the major sources used up their Cliff Quota earlier in the year when he looked more like a fluke than now when he seems to be much more for real. Regardless, it’s time to check back in with our AL Cy Young Award-favorite and see how his season looks and what it might look like when September ends… and wake me up when that happens… ten points to whomever catches that reference.

In 23 starts, Lee has gone 161.2 innings, giving up 152 hits—just 7 of which are home runs—and 22 walks while fanning 128 batters. His HR/9 of 0.39 leads all of baseball, as do his 1.22 BB/9 and 5.82 K/BB. He has a 2.45 ERA which happens to be lower than any other starter and his FIP, which could show whether or not he has been lucky or unlucky, comes in a mere three-hundredths of a point higher at 2.48… which also happens to be the best in the bigs.

Another indicator of luck is BABIP, where we would expect someone not “for real” to have a very, very low mark; Lee’s is right around the average .300 at .307. His strand rate is 78.1% which, while very impressive, is not ridiculously unsustainable, especially for someone pitching on as elite of a level as Lee. All of these numbers have translated into a league best 4.97 WPA, a league best 3.90 WPA/LI, and a league best 4.07 REW.*

*There have been a lot of questions regarding REW. To clarify, it is Wins based on shifts in Run Expectancy, not Win Expectancy. It is essentially BRAA (Batting Runs Above Average) quantified in terms of Wins.

Seems like I’ve been writing the words ‘league’ and ‘best’ an awful lot so far. I’d stop, but the Indians lefty happens to lead baseball in many important categories. A really interesting note is his shift in GB/FB ratio. Prior to this year his ratio had never topped 0.84, whereas right now he has a 1.29, meaning he has been inducing many more groundballs. Not only does it seem that Lee’s numbers are the results of skills rather than luck, he seems to have become a different type of pitcher.

His in-season projection calls for 61 IP, 58 H, 6 HR, 15 BB, and 42 K over his remaining nine starts which would result in the following seasonal line: 32 GS, 222 IP, 210 H, 13 HR, 37 BB, 170 K, 1.11 WHIP, 2.78 ERA, 2.79 FIP.

Tom Tango discussed a really interesting way of turning the +WPA and -WPA found here into a W-L metric, so what happens when we plug Lee into that equation? His 16-2 becomes a 13-3, so his W-L has done a pretty good job of letting the public know how good he has been. With that in mind, has this guy already wrapped up a Cy Campaign? Is there any way he doesn’t win the award? I mean, his remaining nine starts are calling for a bit of a regression and even if he regresses more than that his numbers should still end up better than any other AL starter. If not, who would step in and take it away?

Indians lefty Cliff Lee recently put the finishing touches on an absolutely incredible April. Ironically, the 6 IP, 3 ER, 3K performance on Wednesday night—one many pitchers would love to have—was far and away his worst of the month. He will likely garner AL Pitcher of the Month honors, in unanimous fashion, and rightly so: Anyone who posts a legitimate W-L of 5-0, a 0.96 ERA, 16.0 K/BB, and has surrendered just one home run in 37.2 innings truly deserves any and all recognition.

Oh, and Lee also pitched 28 consecutive scoreless innings.

It began in the fifth inning of his April 13th start and lasted all the way until the seventh inning of Wednesday’s start. Despite this, he did not even get halfway towards Orel Hershiser’s oft-underrated and mind-boggling 59 consecutive scoreless innings record. Seeing as Lee’s effort has come to an end I decided to break everything down and analyze what happened in these innings. Hmm… a summary of Cliff’s streak… wait for it… Cliffsnotes:

Overall Streak Line: 28 IP, 10 H, 0 R, 1 BB, 24 K

Of those 28 innings, 18 were perfect (no baserunners) and 4 more saw Lee face the minimum; in each, singles were erased by double plays.

He allowed 11 runners to reach base and only two found themselves at third base. In the fifth inning on April 24th, Jose Guillen doubled and advanced to third on a wild pitch. With two outs, Lee struck Miguel Olivo out to end the threat. In the fifth inning Wednesday night, Wladimir Balantien reached third before Ichiro Suzuki flied out.

The situation with the highest Leverage Index (1.95) occurred when John Buck led off the ninth inning on April 24th; Buck flied out.

He found himself in eight situations with a Leverage Index of 1.60+ and produced the following results: 4 flyouts, 2 groundouts (1 GIDP), and 2 strikeouts.

His WPA over the course of these four games (31 IP) accounted for 1.72 wins; his WPA during this streak (28 IP) accounted for 1.67 wins.

Using TangoTiger’s Marcel projections I classified those with expected slugging percentages of .445+ as power hitters and under that mark as contact. Against Lee, power hitters went: 5-25, 2B, 4 GIDP, 5 K. Contact hitters went: 5-69, BB, 19 K.

The blog Defensive-Indifference does not think Lee will be able to sustain his current pace and I happen to agree. One of the reasons he is unlikely to continue dominating is that his current BABIP of .195 exceeds expectations based on a line drive frequency of 13.7%; with that frequency it should be closer to .257. Additionally, despite posting a 0.96 ERA, his FIP implies it is closer to the 2.01 mark; still great, but not superhuman. Regardless of what happens from May until September, though, Lee had an absolutely phenomenal opening month.

The Cleveland Indians entered the season with a a rotation that they felt could be the strength of their ball club. With a dominating lefty and emerging sinkerball right hander, they felt they had found the elusive 1-2 punch that so many teams were looking for. The back of the rotation was less stable as no one really knew what to expect from the guys who didn’t have the same power stuff as the frontline guys.

Well, through the first several weeks, the Indians find themselves being carried by a dominating lefty and an emerging sinkerball right hander, trying to pick up the slack for the rest of the rotation. Interestingly, however, the script has flipped – Cliff Lee and Jake Westbrook are ones that are pitching like Cy Young candidates while C.C. Sabathia and Fausto Carmona struggle to find their groove.

Lee, in particular, is having a pretty remarkable beginning to the season. A southpaw with a fastball that sits around 89 and a decent curveball, he’s always been able to get an average amount of swings and misses, but has struggled with inconsistent command. As a flyball pitcher, he’s been prone to giving up the longball as well, and the combination of allowing walks and home runs isn’t really one that leads to consistent success.

So, after a disastrous 2007 season where he lost his rotation spot and found himself in Triple-A, Lee has apparently decided to just stop walking people.

Through 23 innings of work, he’s issued just two free passes. In looking at his Baseball Reference pitch summary data, his strike percentages are essentially unchanged from last year, however. From the raw data, it’s hard to see that Lee is doing anything differently, even though the results are vastly superior. If this early season performance represented a sustainable leap forward, we’d be able to see it in the types of pitches he was throwing. Right now, it looks like Lee’s pretty much throwing like he’s always thrown, but just getting better results from it.

While the Indians have to be happy with how he’s performed, they’d also be wise to not count on the belief that Lee has taken a real step forward, and instead expect his results to begin to more closely match up with his skillset.