Archive for Roy Oswalt

Roy Oswalt is getting closer to signing a contract, and while his reported preference is to pitch for one of the Rangers, Cardinals or Braves, the surprising first-place Orioles are quickly emerging as a dark horse candidate for his services. The Orioles may have lost a recent waiver claim to the Rangers based on their better record — which is still strange to type — but an aggressive pursuit of Oswalt, with a relatively lofty salary for three months, may pry him away from the Rangers, the current favorites in his sweepstakes.

The Orioles have been diligent in their pursuit to date, with Dan Duquette avoiding the topic or speaking in generalities when Oswalt is mentioned. Though he may not want to reveal his hand, the club has to have interest in Oswalt on some level.

Pitching is one of their biggest needs — despite relatively strong performance early on — and he is the perfect type of pitcher for the Orioles to pursue: he won’t cost a ton for half of a season, won’t require a commitment beyond this season, and is frankly better than some currently staffed rotation members.

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Perhaps the story of the Phillies in ye old National League Championship Series of 2010 is the story of missed opportunities at the plate. We know how poor of a statistic batting average is, but Ryan Howard was the only regular to top .261, so the bats weren’t hot. The entire team put up a .216/.311/.321 line, which is somewhere between “that’s disappointing” and “OMGz, trade that bum Chase Utley (.182/.333/.227) like yesterday” depending on your current state of mind. A team that hit .260/.332/.413 during the season didn’t come close to equaling that production in a six-game stretch. It happens, and it seems there’s no reason to slice and dice that sample any smaller.

Or maybe there is. Because we’ve talked about this team’s struggles against lefthanders at times. Looking at the series as a whole, though, the Phillies managed “only” 10 runs, 18 hits (7 extra base) and 9 walks in 21 innings against lefties. Perhaps we only remember the high-profile strikeouts – and the Giants’ LHPs did strike out 23 in those 21 innings. Even if we think the overall line overstates the case and want to consider the leverage index of all those Javier Lopez outings, in particular, he only averaged a 1.4 LI while compiling that 2.08 ERA and getting those 13 outs. Impressive? Yes. Higher-than-average pressure in those situations? Yes. The reason the Phillies lost the series? Hardly. The Phillies had chances and we obviously can’t blame their lack of offense all on their overall performance against lefties.

The word going in was that even if the Phillies offense was going to have a little trouble with this staff, their own pitching staff would easily neutralize the poor Giants offense. After all, the Giants were the only playoff team with a below-average wOBA and the Phillies had Roy Halladay, Roy Oswalt and Cole Hamels. That trio didn’t perform poorly – they pitched 33 innings and allowed 13 runs, striking out 34 against only six walks. Perhaps more was expected of Roy Halladay after his no-hitter in the first round, but he did strain that groin and you don’t point at three pitchers that pitched 65% of your innings to a 3.27 ERA and say, there, that’s your problem right there.

The bullpen? 13 innings, three runs. The defense? Four errors to the Giants’ three – and even if you want to say errors are a poor gauge of defense, you’d have to admit they played about even on the field in that regard. Timely hitting? Sure, but what can you really do about that, and how much of that is the short sample? Want to blame Ryan Howard just ’cause? Check Dave Cameron’s defense.

It was a tight series. Javier Lopez certainly helped the Giants, and the San Francisco staff deserves some credit for keeping a good offense down. Play this series a million times, though, and the Philadelphia squad probably wins close to half of ’em. The Phillies didn’t play terribly and don’t have an obvious scapegoat going into the offseason, so all they can do is find a way to replace Jayson Werth if he leaves (preferably with a right-handed bat), rework the bullpen as good teams do every offseason, and give it another shot next year.

Well, as improbable as it was, this game did not turn out exactly like Carson Cistulli drew it up. Roy Oswalt did not strike out fifteen batters and hold the Reds scoreless, and Scott Rolen did not hit a home run off of Jose Contreras. And instead of two homers, Chase Utley hit no homers.

The funny thing? The Phillies still won and Bronson Arroyo actually pitched as decently as was predicted. What if Sports had Arroyo going seven innings with a strikeout, a walk and three runs allowed on five hits, and he actually allowed two (unearned) runs in five and a third innings with two strikeouts, three walks and four hits allowed. I mean, that’s not bad for literally trying to predict the future down to the hit batsman. Despite the awesome leg kick, and kicking tunes, Arroyo’s stuff was not of the shut-down variety (two swinging strikes all game). He gamed through it, gritting and grission-ing his team to a lead.

Arroyo may not have been as good as the typical game story may suggest, but the task at hand is to think about this from the Phillies’ angle. And really, was Oswalt’s night deserving of so much better? I mean, yes he had better ‘stuff’ and more swinging strikes (nine of them!) and was right around the zone all night (only one walk, and no pitches that were a foot-plus out of the zone like Arroyo had), but he also grooved a few many straight down Broadway. Those home runs to Brandon Phillips and Jay Bruce happened, we can’t xFIP them away despite Oswalt having a decent groundball-to-flyball ratio (6-to-7).

Though Jimmy Rollins was oh-for-the-series, and ‘failed’ once again in a key position (one down, tying runs on base in the 7th inning, the third-highest leverage index moment of the game), his soft flyball to Jay Bruce (a +18.9 Right Fielder this year according to UZR) was muffed about a billion times, and suddenly Rollins looks like a hero to Oswalt’s zero. Seriously, Bruce missed a play he should have had 95+ times out of a 100 (or, rather, 256 in 259 times), then screwed up the throw, the relay was punted, and Rollins stands on second with the crowd roaring. Rollins gets a .352 WPA for the play, Oswalt a -.152 for his five innings, three run effort. Sometimes WPA doesn’t tell the whole story.

The Reds, the better fielding team going in, fell apart and made a division-series-record four errors in a game they should or could have won. Or: The Phillies put the ball in play against a Reds’ staff that only struck out four in nine innings – putting pressure on the defense, which lead to five unearned runs and a win. Two ways to tell the story once again, but as happy as the Phils may be, they have to know that a good amount of luck helped them along their way on Friday night.

In another universe, in another iteration of this game, Oswalt pitched a second-straight no-hitter and the Phillies beat up on Arroyo. Same result, I guess. Phillies up 2-0 and a step away from the NLCS.

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.

Amidst all of the excitement surrounding the Paulino-Jaramillo deal, the Waechter/Farnsworth/Horacio signings, and the impending fate of Ramon Vazquez, many of us missed the interesting scenario presented by one Roy Oswalt. The 31-year old ace of the Drayton Gang has expressed interest in restructuring his contract. Roy wants to win and feels that his salary may hinder GM Ed Wade from signing someone like Ben Sheets.

Oswalt is due to earn $14 mil in 2009, $15 mil in 2010, and $16 mil in 2011. All three of those seasons are guaranteed under the 5-yr/$73 mil contract extension he signed during the 2006 season. The deal also includes a club option for 2012 worth $16 mil, that Oswalt can opt out of for a buyout lower than the $2 mil designated by the team. The exact details of his proposal are not known, but Richard Justice is speculating that it may involve Oswalt decreasing his 2009 salary to something like $6 mil in exchange for a couple more years added to the current deal.

Restructuring contracts is very tricky, because the Players Union is not very likely to allow a player to receive less than he signed for. However, this sort of restructuring is not entirely taboo. In fact, one instance of such a move occurred in 2006 with Tom Glavine and the New York Mets. Glavine had signed a 4-yr/$42.5 mil deal to pitch in New York from 2003-2006. He was set to earn $10.5 mil in 2006, but restructured the deal to pay him $7.5 mil. Added onto the contract were options, both club and player, for the 2007 season.

Initially, Glavine’s $10.5 mil included half of the money deferred at 6% interest. Upon restructuring the deal to $7.5 mil, the deferred total fell to $2.5 mil, meaning that, no matter what, he would earn $5.25 mil and then the rest of that year’s salary deferred at 6% interest. The player option for 2007 would earn him $5.5 mil with an increase of $1 mil each for logging 180, 190, and 200 innings. The club option was worth $12 mil. In either case, if his salary fell below $14 mil, he could earn that amount through bonuses and incentives.

In essence, Glavine restructured his deal to pay him a lower fee in 2006, yet guarantee himself security for the 2007 season.

Oswalt is likely looking to do something similar, in terms of trading current money for a bit of extra security in the future. Perhaps he will not look to reduce his 2009 salary by $8-9 mil, but I can definitely see him renegotiating to earn something like $8 mil in 2009 in exchange for the 2012 season becoming guaranteed and the option shifting to 2013.

Oswalt had a “down year” in 2008, but Marcel projects him at a 3.70 FIP in 185 IP. Translated to runs and wins, as well as a slight bonus for pitching that amount of innings, Oswalt’s true talent level calls him a +3.7 win pitcher next season. Were he to sign a 1-yr deal at fair market value, the deal would be close to $18 mil. He is already signed to a deal that “underpays” him, and now he is looking to earn even less than that so the team has a better shot at competing next season.

Who knows if anything will come of this, as Ed Wade has not publicly discussed the situation, but it sure would be interesting if the team could afford Ben Sheets due to Oswalt restructuring. He could not accept a paycut, as the union prohibits such practices. His decreased salary in 2009 would have to be made up for in the form of more money and/or years down the road.

Drayton does not want to go over $100 mil on his payroll, and his supposed unwillingness to be flexible bugs me. The team was not that good in 2008, vastly outperformed their talent level, and realistically has little chance at contending in 2009. Signing someone like Sheets will not guarantee them the division or wild card, but at the very least shows someone like Oswalt that the team is serious about winning. Regardless, I find it quite odd that McLane wouldn’t be willing to up the payroll by whatever it takes to sign Sheets, or someone along those lines.

Last night, we took a look at the four games from 2000 or later in which a pitcher accrued a WPA of -1.0 or worse, thereby costing his team one or more wins in a single game. Prior to that, our discussion centered around the brilliant games of Cody Ross and Kurt Suzuki, who, in the span of three weeks managed to become the only two offensive players to post a WPA equal to, or greater than, +1.0 in a single game. Unfortunately, no pitcher in 2008 had a performance good enough to be worth one or more wins, but there were still some fantastic outings. Today, we will examine the ten best pitching performances of 2008, sorted by the WPA earned.

#10: Bronson Arroyo, 8/26 @ Houston
Arroyo might not be an all star but, over the last four years, has been average at worst (-0.12 WPA this year), while logging 200+ innings each season. His BABIP, LOB, BB/9, and WHIP have trended in the downward direction, but even pitchers in the decline phase can toss out a gem here and there. On August 26, in Houston’s bandbox stadium, Arroyo went the distance, earning a complete game, surrendering just five hits and one run, walking two and striking out three. While it may not seem all that amazing, he earned a WPA of 0.660 for his efforts, the tenth most individual game WPA for pitchers this season.

#9: Roy Oswalt, 9/6 @ Colorado
If you thought Arroyo may have had a tough time pitching a gem in Houston, how could Oswalt pull off an even better game in Coors Field? Roy had an interesting season, getting off to an extremely un-Oswalt-like start, before finishing extremely strong, racking up some pretty impressive numbers. His ERA and FIP may have been higher in years past, but his xFIP, which normalizes the home run rate, is actually right in line with these seasons. On September 6, Roy was in the midst of a brilliant streak of games; none, however, were as brilliant as his performance against the Rockies. On the day, he pitched a 9-inning complete game shutout, giving up just one hit, walking two, and striking out six. All told, his individual game WPA of 0.676 takes the ninth spot on our list.

#8: James Shields, 5/9 vs. Los Angeles Anaheim Angels of California
In 2008, James Shields continued to stake claim as the Rays #1 starter with a season very similar to his breakout 2007 campaign. He pitched 215 innings in both years, posted FIP marks between 3.82 and 3.86, ranged from 1.51-1.67 in BB/9, and produced identical .292 BABIPs. On May 9th, home against the Angels—ironically, this is the first home game on our list so far—Shields was so dominant that dominant doesn’t even describe his performance. He tossed a complete game shutout, allowing just one hit. Excellent with control, Shields walked nobody and struck out eight Halos hitters. His WPA? 0.685, good enough for the eighth best pitched game of the season. How could it get better than that you might be thinking, but hold on, we’re moving on up.

#7: Jeff Karstens, 8/6 @ Arizona
I remember a few years back, while working minor league baseball telecasts for CN8, getting to see Jeff Karstens pitch on a regular basis. He always seemed to have the poise and “stuff” that should translate into major league success. Suffice it to say, things have not panned out the way that I, or other Yankees fans, imagined, and Jeff found himself a member of the Pirates in 2008. He did post a 4.03 ERA in his nine starts, but he K/9 was ridiculously low and his 4.77 FIP does a better job of explaining his performance level. Still, in his first two starts, he looked fantastic. On August 1st, he held the Cubs scoreless over six innings, surrendering only five hits. In his next start, against the Diamondbacks, he pitched a two-hit, complete game shutout, with two walks and four strikeouts. Though this game does not feel better than Oswalt’s or Shields’, Karstens earned a WPA of 0.695. Couple that with his 0.360 in the Cubs game, and Jeff was worth over one whole win after his first two starts of the season. A shame it all went downhill from there…

#6: Matt Cain, 7/24 vs. Washington
For those who have followed my writings over the last year and a half or so, you will know that I have some crazy manlove for Matt Cain. I don’t know if it’s due to the criminally low run support he receives, or how dominant he looks most of the time, but I tend to watch all of his starts, which is something I only did (watch starts for non-Phillies players) for Greg Maddux, and Sabathia’s crazy stretch this season. Overall, Cain once more logged 200+ innings of performance under 4.00 in the ERA and FIP department, with a K/BB above 2.0. Unfortunately, he rarely is credited with a win because his team refuses to support him. On July 24, he actually did record a win, pitching a complete game shutout against the Nationals. Cain surrendered just four hits, walked nary a hitter, and fanned four, earning a 0.707 WPA.

Tonight we will continue by examining the five best pitching performances of 2008.

Roy Oswalt has been one of the best and most consistent pitchers in baseball this decade. He never got enough credit, likely due to pitching with Roger Clemens for the last few years, and does not have an intimidating frame out on the mound, but any team would be better with him on their staff. This year, though, many analysts have questioned what is wrong with Astros righty. Baseball is a game of reputations, and it is very possible for a player to have an entire season generalized on great or poor performance either very early or very late into a season.

This seems to be the case for Oswalt, who pitched poorly early on, but has been great recently, arguably the best starting pitcher in baseball over the last thirty days. Don’t believe me? Heck, based on his performance early on and the lack of national publicity directed towards the Astros, I wouldn’t believe that either, but his 1.47 WPA/LI in this span outranks everyone else.

His recent performance has lowered his seasonal ERA and FIP both to 3.91 which, while good, are definitely worse than we have come to expect from Oswalt. His FIPs since 2004 have been 3.17, 3.16, 3.30 and 3.59, leading to this year’s 3.91; it appears his controllable skills are steadily declining. Are they? His K/9 is the highest it has been since 2004, while his BB/9 is almost a half-batter lower than last year. His HR/9, however, which has ranged from 0.59 to 0.73 recently, is currently 1.09, which explains quite a bit.

How has the home run rate increased? The culprit is a HR/FB rate that has gone from 6.7-8.7% over the last four years to 13.8% this year. The league average in this category is generally 11-11.5%, so Oswalt had outdone it by a good margin for a few years. This year, though, his rate has been worse, despite decreasing quite a bit over the past month.

This leads into the title of the post. Yesterday, Pizza Cutter, my colleague at Statistically Speaking, wrote an article about Kelly Johnson in which he discussed how performance is equal to talent and luck; last year, Johnson’s performance was more luck-driven, whereas this year his performance is worse, but comprised of more talent. How does this apply to Oswalt? Well, since his HR/FB was so much lower than the average for those years, his FIP might not be the most accurate indicator of controllable skills. Look what happens when we introduce xFIP, which normalizes the home run factor of FIP:

Year   FIP     xFIP
2004   3.17    3.73
2005   3.16    3.56
2006   3.30    3.75
2007   3.59    4.08
2008   3.91    3.74

According to these numbers, Oswalt’s FIP is expected to be right around where it should have been from 2004-2006. The difference between FIP and xFIP is at its smallest point this year, meaning that Oswalt’s current performance is more talent driven than the result of “luck,” which I use very loosely because there may or may not have been something in his repertoire that limited home runs. His flyball rates have stayed stagnant, however, eliminating the possibility that perhaps he just had very low percentages of flyballs in those years.

We might not know how much talent or luck Oswalt has or benefits from, but he isn’t as bad as some people made him out to be earlier in the season. His xFIP has been in the same general range for the last five years. If there is something wrong with him, it would be that this is the first year in that span in which his FIP has not surpassed what was expected of him.

We’re about two months into the season, and it’s not a bad time to look which pitchers are allowing too many home runs. Fortunately, there’s a useful metric on FanGraphs to do just that. It’s called HR/FB and while I’m sure many of you are familiar with it, here’s a brief summary of how it works.

There’s been a number of studies done on HR/FB and for the most part, they conclude that pitchers do not have control over how many home runs they allow on outfield fly balls. Your typical starting pitcher should be expected to have a HR/FB of around 10% every year. Anything that deviates from 10% could be contributed to the park he pitches in, or to “luck”. So let’s look at who has been allowing an inordinate number of home runs this season:

Roy Oswalt (23.4%) – Oswalt leads baseball with a rather ridiculous HR/FB rate. Basically one in four of his fly balls have become home runs. I don’t care where he’s pitching, this is just Oswalt having some terrible luck. He’s never had a HR/FB above 12.9% to end the season. A couple weeks ago, Eric Seidman asked if you should trade Oswalt in your league; the answer is still no and now is another prime opportunity to go acquire him.

Brett Myers (21.4%) – Sure he plays half his games in Citizen’s Bank Park and he does have a career HR/FB of just over 15%, but 21% even for him seems quite high. He probably isn’t due for such a drastic adjustment as Oswalt, but I’d imagine it should start to trend towards his career average. He hasn’t allowed a home run in his last two starts either, so perhaps he’s well on his way to normalcy.

Carlos Villanueva (16.9%) – Currently, Villanueva leads baseball with a 2.09 home runs per 9 innings. He’s about as much as a fly ball pitcher as he is a groundball pitcher so he really shouldn’t be tied for 5th with most home runs. While Miller Park isn’t all that favorable to fly balls, he should be able to do considerably better in the home run department and decrease is ERA by more than a little come season’s end.

Johnny Cueto (16.4%) – It looks like the phenom has himself a bit of a home run problem. Since he hasn’t been around for very long, it’s a little tough to say if this is just a luck thing, or of it’s a real problem. I’d venture to say it has more to do with luck then anything else, even if he does play in a park that is prone to home runs. Unfortunately, Cueto is an extreme fly ball pitcher and isn’t expected to be particularly stingy with home runs in general.

Mike Mussina (16.4%) – We all know about Mussina’s decline in fastball velocity. John Walsh’s research suggests that mis-located fastballs of the slower variety could certainly cause an increase in home runs and it’s possible that could be happening to Mussina. I still think his HR/FB should drop as the season continues, but it’s hard for me to be enthusiastic about.

Johan Santana (15.9%) – Santana developed a home run problem last year and it seems to have continued into this year. Shea stadium is slightly worse for home runs than the Metrodome, but it really doesn’t explain such a high HR/FB. It’s hard to imagine it won’t decrease as the season goes on, but unless it drops back down to around 10% or lower, it will be difficult for him to return to sub-3 ERA levels.

I get quite a bit of e-mail from those asking for fantasy baseball advice. People want to know who to drop, who to pickup, and whether or not a certain proposed trade bodes well for them. Though I do not consider myself to be an expert, by any means, there are certain tips I usually give out, many of which are derived from this site.

One recent e-mail included the following question: “Should I trade Roy Oswalt? He’s got a 5.33 ERA and is giving up a ton of home runs.”

Though I initially scoffed at the idea of getting rid of arguably the most consistently good pitcher of the decade, it soon dawned on me that fantasy baseball still uses more conventional statistics. In an online world where BA, W-L, and ERA still run rampant his “dilemma” is more of, well, a dilemma. Still, though…

Oswalt has not posted an ERA+ under 125 since 2004 and has been a lock for 30+ starts, 210+ innings, and 150+ strikeouts. This year, though, he has an ERA+ of just 78, a WHIP of 1.49, and has already surrendered 11 home runs. In the four-year span prior to this season he averaged just 17 home runs.

The problem here can be solved by looking at his splits. Oswalt got off to a very rocky start but has definitely picked his game up of late. In his first three starts:

0-3, 9.00 ERA, 16 IP, 30 H, 16 ER, 2 BB, 12 K; Average Game Score = 29; Opponents hitting .400/.410/.720.

In his five starts following that:

3-0, 3.55 ERA, 33 IP, 28 H, 13 ER, 13 BB, 30 K; Average Game Score = 56; Opponents hitting .228/.307/.447.

He has definitely been more Roy-like lately but the home runs surrendered are a tad alarming. Also alarming is how his walks have increased and strikeouts have decreased from 2005 to 2007. To answer, no, unless you can get an absolutely tremendous offensive player to fill a desperately needed void, do not trade Roy Oswalt.

On the other hand, though, you might want to start convincing others in your league that he’s lost a step and you’ll “take him off of their hands.” Even if he is not exactly the same pitcher he was from 2002-2006 he is still a consistent and durable ace that any team, fantasy or professional, should be happy to have.