Volstad Death Grip
The Marlins have made a lot of surprise playoff runs over the years, and it seems like all of them involve a rookie pitcher coming up from the minors and providing a great performance. Josh Beckett started the trend, Anibal Sanchez continued it, and now Christopher Volstad is trying to be the new wunderkind.
Since being recalled on July 6th from Double-A Carolina, Volstad has made five starts and showed why his sinker was considered one of the best in the game. His GB-FB rates during those five starts are 15-6, 13-2, 9-5, 10-5, and 9-5. His GB% stands at 56.3%, an outstanding total, and a big part of why he’s been successful so far.
His 2.67 ERA is supported by a 3.36 FIP, so even though his batting average on balls in play is a bit low (and thus driving down the ERA), he’s still pitching well. But the key for Volstad has been the home run prevention – he’s allowed just one long ball in the majors after not giving up a single round tripper in Double-A. When you keep the ball in the park, teams will have a tough time piling up runs, and Volstad has been as good as anyone at limiting the damage.
His 3.7% HR/FB rate isn’t sustainable, of course. That will go up, and Volstad isn’t as good as his results would indicate so far. But that just means that he’s not the best pitcher in baseball, which we already knew – he’s a very good prospect with a dynamite sinker and a solid curve that gives him two good major league pitches. His command isn’t great, but he misses down in the zone, so the problems will result from walks, not long balls.
The Marlins are going to have to have a great final two months to make another playoff run, and if they pull it off, it’s likely that Volstad will be a big part of that.
Dave is the Managing Editor of FanGraphs.
This is only loosely related — in the sense that it also deals with outlier HR/FB rates — but what the heck is the deal with Brett Myers?
Over the past five years, according to THT, he’s posted GB% of 45% or higher, yet has never averaged fewer than 1.2 HR/G over that span. The reason? His HR/FB rate has fluctuated between an “unsustainable” 14.2% and a ridiculously unsustainable 18.6%. I know that the 10% average HR/FB rate assumes that the pitcher has major-league-quality stuff, but this is a guy who had K/G rates above 8.8 for three years in a row (or rather 2 1/3 seasons, to be technical about it). How can a pitcher be so good at getting strikeouts and keeping the ball on the ground and yet so bad at allowing the kinds of fly balls that turn into home runs? Is this entirely a factor of Citizen Bank Park’s HR-friendly park factors?