Three Lefty Playoff Rotation
The Phillies acquired Cliff Lee yesterday with the eye on the playoffs, they are six games up in NL East and by at least these estimates have over an 81% chance of reaching the post season. So I thought I would look to a potential Philly playoff berth. With Lee, their potential playoff rotation looks like:
Cole Hamels, LHP
Cliff Lee, LHP
Joe Blanton, RHP
J.A. Happ or Jamie Moyer, both LHPs
This is three-lefties-one-righty rotation is all the more interesting in light of the potential righty-heavy lineups they could face. Dave noted that the Cardinals have a very righty-heavy lineup, and the Giants only have one lefty in their regular lineup now that Ryan Garko replaced Travis Ishikawa. On the face of it this could present Philly with a real problem, but let’s look at these lefties’ career platoon splits.
Career OPS against +--------+----------+----------+ | | OPS vRHB | OPS vLHB | +--------+----------+----------+ | Hamels | 0.698 | 0.716 | | Lee | 0.737 | 0.710 | | Happ | 0.711 | 0.651 | | Moyer | 0.741 | 0.764 | +--------+----------+----------+
Hamels has a devastating changeup, a pitch that generally does not show a platoon split, as a result Hamels has a reverse platoon split.
Cliff Lee, with a good changeup and curveball another pitch with no platoon split, has shown only a modest platoon split over his career.
Happ, on the other hand, has a quite large platoon split, which he had in the minors too (0.678 vRHB and 0.622 vLHB). It is backed up by his pitch usage which is very fastball heavy, with almost no curves and few changeups.
Moyer is an interesting case, over his career he has had a reverse platoon split on the strength of his good changeup and curveball. This year, though, he has a very drastic split in the other direction (0.885 OPS against RHB and 0.700 against LHB). Normally I would write this off as noise, but as I noted in this post Moyer is throwing many fewer changeups and curves this year and many more two-seam fastballs, which have a large platoon split. If he keeps this pitch breakdown going forward I would assume his split will stay like it has been this year.
All told I don’t think it should be much of a concern. Lee and Hamels are both great pitchers who do better or just marginally worse against RHBs, so I don’t think the Phillies should worry about facing righty-heavy lineups in the playoffs.
Dave Allen's other baseball work can be found at Baseball Analysts.
Something I’ve been thinking about when looking at these type of splits is when you have a righty who kills lefties vs a lefty who does equally well against righties as lefties, who has the advantage? It sort of seems like the unstoppable object hitting the unmovable object. Do we assume that the pitcher is fine because he has shown the ability to get righties out, or do we assume the hitter is adept at hitting lefties and is at the advantage?
Of course numerous people posting here have mentioned the RH dominated lineup of the Cardinals actually is better against RHP rather than LHP, so the Phillies might have even less reason to be worried.
i’m not trying to be a dick, but i’m legitimately curious. i’ve seen on this site, several times, that change-ups do not have platoon splits. i always thought that they did – reverse platoon splits. it’s always been my understanding, that change-up pitchers struggle more against their own side than against the traditional split. IE santana, hamels, moyer
I am not sure about other writers here, but when I say that changups don’t have a platoon split I am going off this work that I did here:
http://baseballanalysts.com/archives/2009/03/deconstructing_1.php
John Walsh found the result, which he published in the 2008 Hardball Time Annual.
Those analyzes were done on a per-pitch basis, not on a pitcher basis. That means if you look at all changeups over all pitchers they do not show a platoon split. I am not sure why then pitchers that throw lots of changeups tend to show a reserve split as you note.
how about we get a post on clayton kershaw and his last 10 starts and how he has a ERA Under 0.60. Zack Greinke does this and the whole world is in love with him. Give my man Clayton some love.
You neglected to mention that Kershaw, along with the rest of the Dodgers, gets his powers by sacrificing puppies to Satan.
agreed, he’s definitely falling in under the radar in the baseball world.
his numbers over his last ten starts are roughly the same as his year totals, with one notable exception. he’s allowed 67 flyballs in those 10 starts (45% of BIP) and not one has gone over the fence. you might attribute that to some amount of major skill, but i’d say it’s more likely to be a stretch of fabulous luck combined with good pitching. his K/BB ratio over the ten starts isn’t impressive either at 57/30 in 59.1 IP.
in other words, he’s been good, but not 0.60 ERA good.
Zack Greinke pitches in the AL. You may have heard that they don’t let the pitcher swing the bat in that league. Grienke also has a 2.08 ERA for the season.
What article do want posted? Clayton Kershaw is pitching really well lately. He still walks a lot of batters and his HR/FB rate is super low. He has allowed 72 fly balls since his last HR given up and only has given up one HR in his last 104 fly balls. Yeah, he is really good, but he seems to be getting a bit lucky.
This news is going to haunt me in my sleep.
Clayton kershaw does not allow any home runs Because you can not square up his fastball… i have not seem one solidily hit ball off his fastball for the last 10 starts.. all of them are bloops or soft liners. all these stats mean nothing if you dont watch him pitch. Hes even only allowed one ball to get to the warning track and that was off his slider thats hes just starting to use. so shut up if u know nothi nabout him
Wow, that’s some top notch analysis there.
yeah it is top notch cause your a idiot
Leave Clayton Alone!!!
Great rational analysis, Matthew. You convinced me.
Not me. It was poorly worded and spelled.
Kershaw allows fewer hits per 9 innings than anyone in baseball. That means the walks are marginalized. Sort of like Nolan Ryan. Remember him?
Matthew – Kershaw doesn’t throw a slider. He throws 2 curveballs, one harder than the other. Similar to Francisco Rodriguez.
Nolan Ryan – the most exciting .500 pitcher in baseball. You mean him? I’m not sure that’s what you’re going for.
Right now Kershaw is benefiting from a very low HR/FB rate and a rather low BABIP. He strikes a lot of guys out but walks too many. Can he keep it up? We’ll see.
do you not see how many pop ups kershaw gets.. his fastball has soo much movement and such a high sppeeed nobody can touch him. you analysts are dumb.. maybe you should just watch him pitch for once
I’m not an analyst – this is just conjecture. I’m just guessing that his ERA from here to the end of the season is closer to 4 than 2.5. It’s the kind of bet I’d wager a six pack on… if this weren’t the internet and that weren’t likely a misdemeanor.
and dont tell me he doesnt throw a slider.. hes been working on that pitch. ive seen it a lot
As a phillies fan, and a disgruntled one for not acquiring Halladay I am concerned for the following reasons. Lee and Hamels are both 6’3 have the build are a essentially 4 seamer/change-up guys although Lee has a knuckling curve and according to your graphs a two-seamer. Your graphs says Hamels throws a two seamer and a curve but if you see him pitch alot, you may conclude as many of this seasons batters he’s faced seemed to have, that the curve is nothing to be scared of. Also his two seamer has movement values similar to his change-up, so other than the 6mph difference from his change , 4 mph from his 4 seamer I don’t know how whether or not its enough to keep batters off balance. At any rate having seen Lee pitch for the first time, I was a little concerned how much he and Hamels really look like carbon copies of one another from their delivery to their pitches and whether in tandem during a play-off series who ever pitched second could suffer at the hands of batters who don’t have to adjust to a new pitcher since they are seeing similar stuff coming from the same height and similar angle of attack. With Hamels, and his smaller arsenal following Lee, a batter might be seeing a less skilled version of what he faced just the other night. Maybe there are ways to measure this but I am new to sabrmetics and don’t know.
what about happ… he throws the same shit and is also a lefty
I guess i left out happ since, if the Phillies make the post season, I believe Manuel, loyal to his guys will go with Moyer who, other than having senoirity, isn’t really what people deem bull pen material. Happ who has demonstrated the composure and mental toughness of a mlb arm, understands how he has to pitch, locates well but has secondary stuff without the level of polish that I see from young arms from clubs with more pitching acumen than the Phillies: Dodgers, A’s, Twins, Jays, Cardinals, Marlins (where the hell do the Fish get these 6’5 + up, 97+ arms?). Also, since NL has been smoking too much of the prospectus pipe, I’d say other than the benefiting from his first time thru the league, he throwing to clubs that should be allowed to use aluminium bats. Eventhough his secondary stuff is still in the rough, that he has more than two pitches, has the mindset and comes from our farm system is a rareity. (Hamels, a miracle) and thusly overated for that reason ….likewise Drabek who has the pedigree but lacks the 8 inches, 3mph and a third pitch for lefties to be Josh Johnson is overvalued for the same reason. I also didn’t bother with Happ because if the Phillies make it to the dance and see the Yankees, Happ who pitched well against them was one inning away from being crushed by his 3rd time thru the Yanks line-up, and the Red Sox, well as I think Francona uses pitch fx data were not fooled one bit. So it didn’t seem necessary to even look and even then as I am just learning how to read the graphs I couldn’t say for sure.. The Lee and Hamels thing I thought mere coincidence but after last night’s game against the Giants it’d be hard not to worry beyond the typical concern of a 3 lefty rotation which for my dad’s generation would be all but a mortal sin. Too bad no Halladay. No Red Ryder BB Gun this X-Mas
that’s “Lee and Hamels are both 6’3, have the same build and weight (190 lbs) and are essentially…..”