Archive for Jeff Francis

It’s probably the Canadian in me talking, but I have always been a Jeff Francis fan. The University of British Columbia product was selected 9th overall by the Colorado Rockies in the famed Moneyball draft, and rewarded the team with 11.8 WAR in his first five big league seasons before succumbing to the injury bug. Now, the 31 year old finds himself without a job a month before spring training despite posting 4.6 WAR over the last two seasons.

Why is he unemployed? Well, the 85 MPH fastball has something to do with it, but so does the fact that he’s traditionally been a guy whose results haven’t matched his peripherals. Other than his 36.2 inning cup of coffee in 2004, only once in his career has his ERA been lower than his FIP. For his career, his FIP is a respectful 4.40, but his ERA is 4.78, a 38 point gap that helps shed light on the perception of Francis as a guy you only want on the hill if you have no other options. The last two seasons have been especially brutal, with an ERA almost a full run higher than his FIP – the main culprit being, as usual, a .317 BABIP. His inflated hit rate has been fueled in part by a significant drop in his infield fly rate, which has hovered at close to 6% over the last two years after being over 10% early in his career.

There is nothing overly unusual about a pitcher posting back-to-back seasons with BABIP’s of .320 and .316, or having a career mark of .310. These numbers are well within the expected random variation of our sample of major league pitchers. However, Francis has changed quite a bit since his early days in Colorado when he was throwing 89-92 MPH. He is now down in the 85 MPH range, and is now a full-blown pitch to contact guy. Last season, only 16.20% of Francis’ plate appearances ended in a walk or strikeout, ranking him 93rd out of 94 qualified pitchers. I decided to do some digging to see if just maybe these two factors might be related.

Read the rest of this entry »

A couple of years ago, Sky Andrecheck used the power of hindsight to see if an MLB team could have built a 2009 playoff contender using only players who were available on the free-agent market that previous off-season. The only caveat was that this team had to have a league-average budget. Using actual WAR and salaries, Andrecheck pieced together the perfect 25-man roster — actually 18, since he left his bullpen to fend for itself with replacement-level players — and on Aug. 24, his hypothetical team was on pace to win 96 games. And it all happened for the bargain price of $78.6 million.

While this is an interesting exercise, and one I replicated for the 2008 season, I don’t need to tell you that a pretty strong team could have been built on the backs of 2011 free-agent steals such as Bartolo Colon, Brandon McCarthy, Jhonny Peralta and Ryan Vogelsong. Instead, Mr. Dave Cameron, in his infinite generosity, has given me a budget of $80 million FanGraphs Pesos to piece together a free-agent team for next season, without the benefit of hindsight. In case you’re wondering, the ratio of FanGraphs Pesos to Schrute Bucks is 3:1.

Read the rest of this entry »

There has not been too much written about the Rockies across the non-team specific blogosphere. Troy Tulowitzki is injured for a while, the back end of their rotation is a combined -36.58 BRAA, and the only section of the team with a positive WPA is the bullpen. Entering the season everyone envisioned Jeff Francis as the ace of the staff; after all, his post-season was quite impressive. Suffice it to say, Francis has had a rocky start…get it? It’s a pun because he plays for the… nevermind.

Entering tonight’s action Francis is 0-4 with a 6.27 ERA, 5.39 FIP, and 1.63 WHIP. His K/BB has plummeted an entire point, from 2.62 a year ago to 1.63 today. This has all resulted in a -0.50 WPA.

Fortunately, for Rockies fans, Aaron Cook has been performing above and beyond expectations. Through eight starts, Cook is posting the following numbers:

6-1, 2.26 ERA, 55.2 IP, 17 BB, 23 K, 1.13 WHIP

Here are some of his more advanced stats:

3.89 FIP, 1.35 K/BB, 3.72 K/9, 78.2 LOB%, 1.42 WPA, 11.84 BRAA

Based on his home runs and walks allowed, as well as strikeouts, his ERA should be closer to 3.89 than the Maddux-like 2.26 it currently rests at. He has a very low K/9; his 3.72 ranks as the 6th lowest in baseball. His WPA of 1.42 ranks as the seventh best among starting pitchers. Additionally, his 11.84 BRAA comes in at fourth best in the National League.

Cook currently has a BABIP against of .243, which is right on par with his 13.6 LD%. The problem, however, exists in that very low rate of line drives. It simply is uncharacteristic of the Aaron Cook we have come to know and love. His career balls-in-play rates, which do not suffer/benefit from fluctuations, come in at 18.5 LD/61.4 GB/25.0 FB; as of right now it is 13.6 LD/58.3 GB/23.1 FB. It really is not very likely that he will maintain this rate.

Overall, though, Cook has gone 6+ innings in all eight of his starts, allowing a maximum of four earned runs just once; that game was his first of the season.

In his last five games he has an average Game Score of 61 and is holding opponents to a .231/.286/.346 slash line. He may not keep this up all season but Cook has definitely made up for the shortcomings of Francis thus far.