Archive for Felipe Paulino

Though it’s quite brief, I have to believe that Jeff Sullivan’s post on the correlation between pitcher contact rates and strikeouts from this past August has got to be one of the most exciting of the year. It makes so much sense — miss bats, get strikeouts — and yet Mr. Sullivan appears to be the only one on the interweb (besides our own Matthew Carruth) asking substantive questions about it*.

*If there are others, please don’t hesitate to mention them below.

You can see the correlation between the two in this image I’ve stolen directly, unforgivably from Lookout Landing:

That’s pretty striking. And it begs a question: If the correlation between Contact% and pitcher strikeouts is so strong, then couldn’t Contact% help us understand which pitchers might be poised to top the strikeout charts next year?

Yes. With some caveats.

In that same post to which I’ve linked above, Sullivan also notes that, beyond Contact% (league average 80.5%), pitchers also control their strikeout rates by other means, such as First-Pitch Strike% (league average 58.2%), Zone% (league average 49.3%), Called Strike%, etc. While none of these factors correlate as strongly as Contact% to pitcher strikeout rates, it does appear as though they’re not entirely negligible, either. To that end, I’ve included the first two of those below for comparison’s sake.

What happens when we run the 2009 numbers for Expected K%s (xK%)? That’s the question I asked myself — and which I answered, I think, by means of the kinda dumpy looking table you see below. Here are the Top 10 starting pitchers (50+ IP) by Contact% with expected and actual strikeout rates, plus K/9:

So, what do we see here? Some likely suspects, for sure: Harden, Lincecum, Vazquez, de la Rosa. But also some surprises: Felipe Paulino (second!), Gio Gonzalez (third!), and Bud Norris. The first two of those guys I wrote about last week as tRA* surprises. Bud Norris I didn’t mention, but he actually finished 66th in tRA* out of the 183 pitchers with 150+ xOuts.

What conclusions can we draw from this? Well, we should probably be careful about that, as more research needs to be done in this area. Still, it’s probably reasonable — given his xK% and overall profile — to expect at least a small improvement in strikeouts from Felipe Paulino. Moreover, there’s reason to think — given his excellent Zone% — to think that Bud Norris will probably turn some of his walks into strikeouts.

How well do you think Norris will perform in 2010? Enter your Fan Projection here.

It may or may not interest the reader to know that I’m writing these words from Aix-en-Provence. Yes, in France. No, I’m not joking. Yes, c’est totally vrai.

As to why I’m here, I can’t say exactly, on account of how unimaginably low down on the Down Low it is, but I can tell you this: My wife lives here. Is she a spy, sent here by the US government to learn more about stinky cheese and arrogance? Obviously, I’m not at liberty to answer that sort of question.

But one more thing I can tell you is this: While milady speaks the native language fluently, my own French — to put it lightly, and probably also wrongly — is pas bien. As a result, I don’t do a lot of the old “talking” here. Mostly I spend my time indoors, imbibing all manner of fermented beverage, and pruning my awesome fantasy basketball team so’s to make it even awesomer. (Actually, I should add: I also try to read L’equipe, a real-live sporting daily that, despite being a little light on quantitative analysis, appears to be a legitimately awesome paper.)

So, like I say, I don’t parle the Francais real great. Still, one thing I know for sure how to say — perhaps the first phrase I ever learned — is Je deteste voyager en hiver. For those of you following along at home, that means (en anglais), “I hate to travel in winter.” I don’t know why or how I learned such a thing, but I’m glad I did, on account of I actually do hate traveling in winter. And not just that, but there are like thirty other things I hate to do in winter — things like going outdoors and paying the gas bill and also just being awake. Cold = my worst nightmare.

As much as that might be the case, I’m quite sure the reader didn’t come here to get bummed the frig out by Carson Cistulli. Which, that’s why I’m proud to announce that there are also a number of winter activities I enjoy — activities like drinking hot toddies and drinking mulled wine and drinking hot cider.

Oh, and also sorting statistical leaderboards like a mother.

One such leaderboard to which I’m particularly looking forward is the wRC+ one. When FanGraphs Overlord David Appelman adds it to these electronic pages, I can tell you right now that I’m gonna sort the crap out of it.

But that’s not what I’m here to talk about. What I’m here to talk about is how today I was sorting through the tRA* leaderboard — that is, regressed tRA — over at our own Matthew Carruth’s StatCorner.

If you sort tRA* for the starting pitchers who recorded at least 150 xOuts — that is, expected outs based on the tRA outcomes — you get a lot of the usual suspects. For example, here are the top 10 finishers in tRA*, compiled in an embarrassingly sophisticated table (with tRA, so you can see the difference):

Read the rest of this entry »

Prospect ranking season is just around the corner. In anticipation of that, we present an intro series looking at some of the players who deserve mentioning but probably will not be appearing on their teams’ Top 10 lists. The popular series is back for a second year.

The Graduate: Felipe Paulino, RHP
Paulino is a perfect example that velocity is not everything. Despite having a heater that averaged out at 95.4 mph in ’09, the right-hander’s fastball value was just -2.36 wFB/C. His curveball and changeup (both of which were used infrequently) were also ineffective. His slider was a quality pitch, but it was easy for MLB hitters to lay off of it because nothing else was working for him. As a result, Paulino was hit hard: 1.84 HR/9 rate and 126 hits allowed in 97.2 innings. He’ll need to improve his repertoire if he’s going to have success in ’10.

The Riser: T.J. Steele, OF
An excellent athlete, there were serious questions about Steele’s hitting ability when he sign out of the University of Arizona in ’08. Lancaster can do wonderful things for an offensive prospect. In 194 high-A at-bats, the outfielder hit .345/.385/.562 in 194 at-bats before injuries wiped out his season. Impressively, Steele trimmed his strikeout rate from 32.1 to 20.6%. Despite getting caught six times in 14 attempts, he has plus speed, and the .216 ISO makes for a dangerous combination (unless that was strictly a result of playing in high-A Lancaster).

The Tumbler: Brad James, RHP
James is one of the more perplexing players in the system. The right-hander has a solid sinker/slider combo, but his sinker has lost effectiveness over the past two seasons. In ’09, James struggled mightily although he still posted a ground-ball rate of 54% and limited line-drives to just 13%. He had trouble finding the plate in ’09 with a walk rate of 5.18%. His strikeout rate of 4.60 K/9 did inspire much hope either.

The ’10 Sleeper: Leandro Cespedes, RHP
On first blush, the 22-year-old right-hander’s numbers do not look overly special. But Cespedes was pitching in Lancaster, which usually destroys young hurlers. His ERA of 5.06 is not terrible for the league but, more importantly, his FIP was just 3.95. He posted a reasonable 3.55 BB/9, but the 28 wild pitches are worrisome. His strikeout rate dropped from 9.48 in ’08 to 7.93 K/9 in ’09. Cespedes survived Lancaster despite a 38.7% ground-ball rate. He has a fastball that touches the low-90s, as well as a splitter and slider.

Bonus: Koby Clemens, C
Clemens was highlighted in the ’08 series as the Astros’ sleeper prospect for ’09 and he made us look smart (playing in Lancaster did not hurt). His ISO jumped from .155 in ’08 to .291 in ’09 and he posted a 1.055 OPS. Clemens also led the minor leagues with 121 RBI. The former third baseman still remains raw behind the plate and he also saw time in left field at Lancaster. Clemens allowed 18 passed balls and threw out just 20% of base stealers. If he keeps hitting like he did in ’09 (which is unlikely), it won’t matter where he ends up in the field.

The outlook is bleak for the Houston Astros this season, but as with any potential non-contender in any given season, it is safe to expect some extremely impressive spurts of performance from both position players and pitchers. Cecil Cooper’s gang currently sits at 4-8, but entering Monday’s action their starting pitchers had thrown 21.2 straight scoreless innings. While this feat does not necessarily battle the dominance on display thus far from Zack Greinke, how can we not be impressed that a foursome consisting of Russ Ortiz, Felipe Paulino and Wandy Rodriguez have pieced together a streak like this?

It all started last Thursday, when Ortiz toed the rubber against Jeff Karstens and the Pirates. Ortiz surrendered three earned runs in the first two innings and left after just 4.2 frames due to throwing 99 pitches. He settled down a bit after the second inning and held the Pirates scoreless in the third and fourth as well as his action in the fifth. After clocking out of work, Ortiz had the rather pedestrian line of 4.2 IP-5 H-3 ER-2 BB-2 K and had accrued a WPA of just -0.062. The Astros went onto win, however, and the streak for the starting rotation began.

On Friday, ace Roy Oswalt got the call and delivered a solid performance, holding the Reds scoreless over six innings of work. He did issue three free passes in his outing, uncharacteristic of Oswalt, and the relief corps failed the stalwart righty as the Reds won 2-1. Despite the loss the scoreless innings streak for their starters had increased to 8.2 innings.

The very next day, Wandy Rodriguez bested Oswalt with a very dominant performance. Rodriguez scattered two hits and two walks over seven scoreless innings, fanning 10 batters in the process. His 0.369 WPA helped the Astros beat Aaron Harang and the Reds 7-0, increasing the streak to 15.2 scoreless innings.

When rookie Felipe Paulino extended the streak on Sunday, the Astros lost once again, which speaks volumes for something, be it the early effectiveness of the rotation or early ineffectiveness of the relievers. Paulino was opposed by Edinson Volquez, and added six scoreless frames to the streak, striking out six batters and walking two. Unfortunately, the Astros hitters could not capitalize on the wildness of Volquez and the triumvirate of Tim Byrdak, Chris Sampson, and Geoff Geary allowed four runs after Paulino’s departure.

Mike Hampton started tonight, and after retiring two batters to increase the streak to 22.1 scoreless innings, he surrendered a two-run single to Edwin Encarnacion in the top of the first inning. The streak is now over but their rotation sure stringed together some impressive performances over the last few days.