Trying to Understand Bronson Arroyo
For five years now, Bronson Arroyo has been better than his peripherals. Since 2009, only three pitchers have a bigger gap between their fielding independent numbers and their ERA, and those three didn’t come close to pitching as many innings. It’s tempting to say the free agent 36-year-old has figured something out… but what has he figured out, exactly? How has he become more than the sum of his parts? It has to be more than a whimsical leg kick.
Let’s use some basic peripherals to find comparable pitchers. His fastball struggles to break 90 mph, he doesn’t strike many out, and he doesn’t have great worm-burning stuff — but the control has been elite. Here are a few other pitchers that fit that sort of mold.
| Name | K% | BB% | GB% | vFA (pfx) | IP | ERA | FIP | HR/9 | BABIP | LOB% |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bronson Arroyo | 14.1% | 5.5% | 42.6% | 87.6 | 1039 | 4.05 | 4.73 | 1.42 | 0.267 | 76.0% |
| Josh Tomlin | 13.6% | 4.5% | 37.1% | 88.8 | 329.2 | 4.72 | 4.54 | 1.37 | 0.273 | 68.6% |
| Jason Vargas | 15.3% | 6.7% | 38.1% | 87.4 | 837 | 4.10 | 4.33 | 1.14 | 0.280 | 73.3% |
| Dallas Braden | 14.5% | 6.2% | 38.9% | 87.6 | 347.1 | 3.63 | 3.77 | 0.73 | 0.283 | 71.5% |
| Bruce Chen | 15.8% | 7.2% | 32.5% | 87.6 | 613 | 4.42 | 4.60 | 1.28 | 0.284 | 72.8% |
| Kyle Lohse | 15.0% | 5.5% | 41.5% | 89.9 | 806.2 | 3.80 | 3.94 | 0.96 | 0.284 | 71.7% |
| Jamie Moyer | 13.2% | 5.8% | 42.1% | 80.5 | 308.2 | 5.22 | 5.27 | 1.66 | 0.284 | 69.1% |
| Randy Wolf | 15.9% | 7.7% | 39.6% | 88.7 | 791.2 | 4.07 | 4.46 | 1.13 | 0.285 | 74.5% |
| Jeff Karstens | 13.8% | 5.2% | 42.8% | 89.0 | 411.2 | 4.15 | 4.33 | 1.18 | 0.288 | 72.1% |
| Eric Stults | 14.8% | 6.2% | 39.6% | 87.6 | 345.1 | 3.81 | 3.73 | 0.73 | 0.291 | 71.0% |
| Freddy Garcia | 15.2% | 6.7% | 39.8% | 87.4 | 515.1 | 4.54 | 4.58 | 1.31 | 0.292 | 72.6% |
| Rodrigo Lopez | 13.1% | 6.4% | 38.2% | 88.1 | 315.1 | 4.74 | 5.17 | 1.63 | 0.297 | 70.2% |
| Kevin Millwood | 15.3% | 7.7% | 41.3% | 89.9 | 604.2 | 4.30 | 4.54 | 1.16 | 0.297 | 72.6% |
| Livan Hernandez | 12.8% | 7.2% | 40.7% | 84.7 | 570.2 | 4.48 | 4.11 | 0.80 | 0.307 | 69.1% |
| Average | 14.5% | 6.3% | 39.6% | 87.5 | 559 | 4.29 | 4.44 | 1.18 | 0.287 | 71.8% |
There, even among his peers in terms of walks, strikeouts, velocity and grounders, Arroyo stands out. He has the biggest gap between his ERA and his FIP, based perhaps on the largest strand rate of the group, and the lowest batting average on balls in play.
Maybe a look at Arroyo’s history would give us a clue. He used to strike guys out and show batting averages on balls in play above .300 even. Has he altered his pitching mix since 2009? Thanks to BrooksBaseball, we can check:
| Pitch Type | Before 09 | After 09 |
|---|---|---|
| 4 Seamer | 29% | 17% |
| Sinker | 17% | 28% |
| Changeup | 16% | 20% |
| Curve | 36% | 32% |
| Cutter | 2% | 3% |
It looks like Arroyo has ditched the four-seamer some, for more sinkers and changeups. That can be the way of older pitchers — fastball percentage and age are negatively correlated, albeit weakly (.102 r^2) — and at first blush, it could be the full reason for the lower BABIPs. Changeups do have lower BABIPS than other pitches (since 2009):
| Pitch Type | BABIP |
|---|---|
| FT | 0.314 |
| SI | 0.310 |
| FA | 0.307 |
| FF | 0.304 |
| FC | 0.296 |
| CU | 0.295 |
| SL | 0.294 |
| FS | 0.292 |
| KC | 0.289 |
| CH | 0.287 |
| KN | 0.284 |
Unfortunately, you’ll notice sinkers aren’t known for their batting average on balls in play, so any added sinker usage probably offsets his added changeups. And though his ground-ball rate has been better since the change, it hardly seems enough to explain this phenomenon. He went from allowing .95 ground balls per fly ball to upping that to 1.1. And the extra ground balls haven’t helped him suppress home runs — his homer rate has only gotten worse as he’s aged.
He’s been with one team, and they’ve had similar personnel around the infield? There could be something to this. The Reds have allowed the lowest batting average on balls in play in the National League since 2009. Brandon Phillips has good glove, the team has usually focused on defense at shortstop, and among Joey Votto’s many strengths is being above-average in the field. And that batting average on balls in play has probably helped Arroyo strand a few extra runners over the course of the last five years.
Bronson Arroyo has separated himself from pitchers with similar skill sets by stranding more runners and allowing fewer hits on balls in play. He’s altered his pitching mix some, and that might be a small part of the picture. More importantly, perhaps, he’s been with the same team for five years. If he doesn’t return to Cincinnati, his new team will be betting that his stuff will play up in front of a new infield, and that the magic continues.
Thanks to wiki commons user Bubba Fan for the header image and Jack Moore for running the correlation between fastball percentage and velocity.
With a phone full of pictures of pitchers' fingers, strange beers, and his two toddler sons, Eno Sarris can be found at the ballpark or a brewery most days. Read him here, writing about the A's or Giants at The Athletic, or about beer at October. Follow him on Twitter @enosarris if you can handle the sandwiches and inanity.
I would think that his willingness to pitch from multiple delivery angles along with an ability to adjust ball speed can somewhat explain the low BABIP and high HR rate; when the batter doesn’t properly account for that it’s going to result in a not very well hit ball, but when he does it’s going to be crushed. His LD% (one of the lowest in baseball since 2009) may support this, and combined with his low BB% rate and excellent defense behind him could also explain the low LOB%.
And in regards to that defense, I think it’s also important to point out that 3B has been manned primarily by Rolen and Frazier; not much needs to be said about Rolen, but last year Frazier graded out quite well (*SSS) with both the metrics and visually.
Yes, as a team the Reds ranked 4th in baseball defensively on this site, and would have been first with a 0 graded (as opposed to Choo’s -14.6) center-fielder. Every other spot was excellent except maybe LF when Ludwick or Paul were playing.
Maybe there are some amateur scouts on this site that can confirm what you said gator about speeds and arm angles=poor contact, but since we don’t have public Hit f/x data, there’s no good way to quantify and confirm. (current batted ball data leaves much to be desired) Ultimately, without the proprietary information that is available to MLB teams, Arroyo looks like he could collapse at any moment.
The real question I have is if “willingness to pitch from multiple delivery angles along with an ability to adjust ball speed can somewhat explain the low BABIP and high HR rate” – why aren’t other pitchers using this too?
here is some basic info from an article earlier this year. i would assume others do not adopt the same philosophy as it’s probably not the easiest thing to do.
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/article/magazine/MAG1208226/index.htm
The issue with other pitchers pitching from different arm angles is repeatability and command. It’s also a “trick” move, and it doesn’t work when it doesn’t behave much differently or if you do it for certain pitches in certain counts.
RA Dickey’s sidearm knuckleball that he developed late last year, for instance, might be a different story because while it may have been more effective because nobody had ever seen one before, it was still a knuckleball, which most guys can’t hit even when they know it’s coming.
Re: your real question…
Because they do not have the skill to repeat the delivery from various angles. Arroyo”s delivery is so easy and flows from any angle… which makes it easy for Him to repeat. I am certain many pitchers would if they could.
I was going to post that this was maybe why he hasn’t been linked to anyone, even in rumors yet, and then I remembered the market for pitchers has just been in a complete Tanaka for now.
…and he never ices his arm.
Okay – but every year there have been four other Reds starters with the same defense behind them. Is the argument here that Arroyo has adjusted his game to the defense? If so, it’s a very strong argument for his continued value: a pitcher who never misses a start, compensates for declining velocity, and adapts to his team’s defense seems like a pretty good bet, even at 37.
The Reds staff, collectively, had an era 43 points lower than their FIP. Arroyo has undeniably benefitted from the Reds defense. Even if one thinks he can craft his way through any circumstance, let’s not act like this was something unique to him among Reds pitchers.
Did Arroyo adjust his game to throw more sinkers and rely on great defense? Maybe. Hell, probably. But that doesn’t mean he can do the opposite and go to a team without great defense and go back to getting outs with a now-85 mph 4-seamer.
And for curiosity’s sake, let’s compare Bronsons numbers to the other pitcher on the Reds rotation with a similar profile (excellent control, fairly low velocity, etc.)
Mike Leake:
FIP 4.04 ERA 3.37 LOB% 77.7% 5.71 .285 BABIP
Bronson Arroyo:
FIP 4.49 ERA 3.79 LOB% 77.9% .267 BABIP (.286 in 2012)
No walks and good defense is a potent combo. Arroyo has lived and died with the long ball because he doesn’t otherwise beat himself. It’s always been an effective set of skills. Just ask Glavine, Palmer or later years Maddux.
Amen
It seems like you started looking at the right thing (pitch distribution), and then just gave up when you noticed that the change in that should still lead to about the same BABIP using league average BABIP/pitchtype.
The obvious next step would be to look at BABIP by pitch, and see if one of them is significantly different from the league averages.
One possible explanation is that while FA and SI type pitches have similar BABIPs league wide, Arroyo’s SI may be a significantly better quality pitch than average, while his FA is worse than average.
Well done. I found something of what you were saying in my followup, but still hard to tease away from team effects:
http://www.fangraphs.com/fantasy/bronson-arroyo-tandem-post/
With that leg kick, he always has a second career as a cabaret dancer available to him
I’ve always wondered…. wouldn’t it be more efficient, rather than being a pure groundball pitcher, to get players without much power to hit the ball in the air and those with power to ground out? Ground balls are great at reducing power, but do allow a much higher BABIP than flyballs… wouldn’t this allow versatile pitchers a way of gaming the BABIP system to their advantage?
From the pitching FAQ:
Groundball pitchers have a lower BABIP on groundballs than other pitchers. In other words, if a pitcher has an extreme groundball rate, they also tend to be extra good at making sure those grounders are hit weakly and turn into out.
So, probably not.
Since 2006, Arroyo has the most wins and Ks in the entire NL.
Tim Lincecum (1510), Cole Hamels (1509), Matt Cain (1406), Clayton Kershaw (1206), Adam Wainwright (1127) all have more strikeouts in the NL since 2006.
But in his defense, he does lead in losses and home runs given up. Wait.
Unless you count the Ks of Tim Lincecum and several other pitchers.
The right-handed Buehrle. BTW, why isn’t Buehrle a comp?
I thinkg the right-handed Jamie Moyer is a better comp. Moyer was entirely about constantly changing his velocity just a little while painting the black on both corners, with his change his best pitch. Moyer gave up HRs too; I mean he was throwing 85 in the strikezone to get ahead, it’s gonna happen. But Moyer was also very adept at getting the groundball with men on base, a huge part of his ability to compete. Moyer had to throw a lot of pitches with that approach, he was a 6-inning pitcher at best; Arroyo seems a bit better there. But then, Arroyo has always been a bit better than Moyer. Although with regard to the Buehrle comp, Buehrle and Arroyo seem closer in K% then either is to Moyer.
I’ve always liked Bronson Arroyo. He knows hot to pitch, and how to use what he has to compete. There’s no statistic for that, so we only see the residue in other, measurable outcomes. From the point of view of watching a sportsman compete, he’s been a pleasure to watch and root for. I hope he lands with a team who knows who he is and how to use him.
ryan hanigan!
I’m not sure how one can accurately characterize his pitches and determine if a pitch is a curveball or sinker, etc. The way he adjusts his delivery angle and takes speed off of his pitches must drive hitters crazy, I’m just not sure how you put most of his pitches into a specific category.
I’ve liked Arroyo due to his unconvential ways of pitching, as he lacks much of a fastball, and I think he shows a player who is defense dependant in a good amount of ways…but it doesn’t mean he’s useless, either. Sign him up if your team has good D and you get a nice pitcher. Framing also helps.
If I recall correctly, the Pirates had a real nice D last year and they have Martin…and I’m sure they could use a cheap pitcher. Ding ding ding?
Arroyo has deception in his delivery, as do many of the guys on this list. Whether its a high leg kick, moving the glove around or tornado delivery, delivery deception can play a huge role in the results. Most of the guys on that this have a pretty good change up which helps keep hitter honest given the lack of fastball velocity. Pitchers with quality change up, can hit corners with a average velocity fastball and control the run game will always out perform their rate stats. Biggest surprise of the list is the omission of mark buehrle, but he has had some uncharacteristic seasons as of late.