We’ve discussed BABIP a lot on this blog. Mostly, I’ve used it for pitchers. Well, it does apply to hitters too. Let’s take a look at the Cards shortstop Rafael Furcal. First off, the Cardinals have been struggling mightily since Mid-May due to, in no small part, a lot of injuries they weren’t expecting to deal with, and the fill in guys just aren’t that good. This is causing the need for some players, like Furcal and David Freese, for playing more games without a rest which with spotty injury histories is going to drag them down a bit. With that said, back to Raffy.
Through April of 2012, Furcal had a BABIP of 364 (slash line of 315/384/427). In May, he had a BABIP drop down to 358, but his numbers stayed high because he started hitting for more power (349/397/486). Now, in 12 games this month he has a BABIP of 136, with a line of 140/170/200. Career wise, he has a BABIP of 313 and now for the year he has a BABIP of 315. At some point he was bound for a stretch like this to make things even out. He’s gotten on base once in his last 5 games. It’s a big reason for the Cards struggles. Raffy hasn’t had much in his tank this month. He could probably use a day off or two soon.
That’s all for now. More snarkiness to come soon. Or more analysis. Haven’t decided what’s more fun to post on here.
Showing posts sorted by relevance for query BABIP. Sort by date Show all posts
Showing posts sorted by relevance for query BABIP. Sort by date Show all posts
Thursday, June 14, 2012
Wednesday, April 25, 2012
Continuing the theme: Looking at the Blue Jays Rotation
Continuing the theme, I’d like to look at the Toronto Blue Jays rotation, and what it means to their team going forward this season. Much like the Orioles, Toronto has a very young rotation, lead by the two 27 year olds Ricky Romero and Brandon Morrow, the staff is very green, but of the 6 pitchers that have recorded starts for Toronto this year, there are only 2 total question marks there, both of whom are vying for the 5th starters job.
Looking at Ricky Romero’s stats, he looks very legitimate, His strikeout rate is down from the last two season, but his walk rate is right in line with the two previous seasons. He’s consistently lowered his hits per 9 each season since he came into the fold in 09, but I can’t expect that to last for too much longer. His Ground ball to fly ball rate has been consistent, but his BABIP is progressively getting lower, that’s unsustainable, but even if it normalizes he’s been able to keep the ball down, which has helped him to a lot of double plays, even with a very solid career WHIP sitting at 1.292 (over the past 2 years it has been 1.129). Romero has been very good, and at 27 he’s been a very dominant pitcher for the Blue Jays and with very little changing over the past few years I don’t see why that can’t continue.
Brandon Morrow has been effective as well, though holding onto a career ERA about .8 runs higher than Romeros. Morrow has only been a full time starter for the past two seasons, and may finally be looking to hit the 200 inning barrier. He has been more or less league average over his career, but that doesn’t mean he’s not an effective innings eater. I don’t see Morrow regressing significantly, though his strikeout rate is down and he’s already given up 7 home runs (1/3 of his total from last season). I can’t say I expect Morrow to keep up his current pace, his BABIP is an outstanding .192, and while his career BABIP is a bit higher than league average, this screams luck to me as much as anything else. He does appear to be inducing many more ground balls this season than he has in the past, and whether that’s by design or by small sample size it has been a huge boon to his overall stat line, though when the ball is put into the air, it’s been traveling.
Henderson Alvarez has only 10 major league starts under his belt prior to this season, but has been able to put together a pretty good stat line so far. His biggest points of concern are a much lower strikeout rate (3.7/9 this year vs 5.7 last) and giving up almost 2 hr/9 so far. These are correctable stats that will balance out over the season to give us a better idea of who Alvarez is. Did his stat line last year come more from the small sample size, or was that the Alvarez that the Jays will get over the course of this season? Only time will tell.
Kyle Drabek has a very appealing stat line so far. He’s walking about 5 per 9, which isn’t good news, but that number is significantly better than the 6.3 per 9 he had last season. He’s getting 7.5 strikeouts per 9 as well, which is significantly higher than last year’s 5.8. I expect these numbers to normalize somewhat, but aside from a ridiculous change in BABIP (.239 this season against .314 last year) he’s not doing much differently. Once his BABIP comes back up a little bit, he’ll start to look a bit less impressive, but likely better than last year’s 6.06 ERA. His FIP (5.52) and xFIP(5.13) indicated that he was somewhat victimized by bad luck last year, but still well below league average. His FIP(4.37) and xFIP(3.97) so far this season indicate the same thing as the drastic change in his BABIP, he’s got better luck this year than the folks that won the mega millions a few weeks ago. Drabek will likely come back down to earth over his next few starts, but he may well be a much improved version of last year’s pitcher.
Joel Carreno & Drew Hutchison have each gotten a start for Toronto so far, but neither has got enough of a history at the major league level to really speculate on.
Overall, while their offense may be underperforming, the rotation appears to be due for an overall slight regression, and with no clear cut 5th starter, the Blue Jays will more than likely be battling more with the Orioles than with the Rays, Yankees, or Red Sox.
Friday, May 11, 2012
Philadelphia Phillies: Aces Without a Lineup
Making our way into the NL East, we’ll start off with the defending NL East champion Phillies. For what it’s worth the Phils have recently made a good habit of fielding one of the best rotations in baseball. Looking at this rotation shouldn’t really reveal anything new to anyone but I’m determined to cover every team, and I might as well get a boring one out of the way now. The Phillies rotation is stacked about as well as one could ask for, and doesn’t look to be in bad shape though depth might not exactly be their ally.
Vance Worley is in his second season as a regular starter in the bigs, after a brief audition in 2010, and 21 starts last year, we’re still seeing the same kind of numbers across the board from Worley which bodes well for the young starter.The biggest changes Worley has seen are his home run numbers, giving up twice as many homers/9 so far this year than he has previously, but that’s not likely much more than his two rough starts skewing stats a bit. His BABIP is about 30 points higher than it was last year, and is 25 points above the league, so that might come down a bit, and he’d benefit from that a bit, but overall he has been able to limit the damage when opponents have gone yard, and has pitched 38 innings so far with a 2.84ERA. Worley has recorded 4 quality starts in 6 attempts so far, and has gone no less than 6 innings in an outing this year. If Worley can keep the ball in the park this is going to be a very good year for him, and will go a long way toward making the Phils look long and hard at giving him an extension.
Joe Blanton has been pretty widely considered an innings eater and not a ton more over the course of his career, and now at 31 looks to be putting together a pretty good early start to his walk year. Blanton has been a bit up and down so far but overall has pitched respectably even in his non-quality starts. He did give up 3 unearned runs against the Padres, which helps keep his ERA pretty this early in the season, but after missing most of last season, Blanton has come back looking more dominant than ever before, walking fewer batters and keeping the ball in the yard at a completely unsustainable rate. His BABIP is pretty close to his lifetime average, and not far off the league, so I wouldn’t be shocked to see that still close to the .292 it sits at now come the end of the year. I’d look for Blanton to continue looking good, but as the season wears on that home run number is going to have to come up, but even with that he could be putting up a better than league average year, and be well positioned for his next foray into free agency.
Cole Hamels has so far looked like... Cole Hamels. Aside from a rather stupid admission of guilt when drilling Bryce Harper, Hamels has looked sharp. He’s keeping his walk rate down, and strikeouts up while most of his other stats look right on board with the rest of his stat sheet from last year. I would be concerned about his Groundball to flyball ratio given the size of his home park, and the massive disparity from last year, but it’s actually more of a return to form (and a good bit of small sample size) after a very good year. He’s giving up a little over ½ as many ground balls per flyball compared to last year. Hamels will probably start to correct up a bit and give up a few less fly balls over the course of the season. His BABIP is higher than I’d expected, but it’s not really out of the question, and will probably come down a bit as he keeps the ball on the ground better.
Cliff Lee has missed 3 turns in the rotation so far, but has been a beast in 3 of the 4 other starts he’s made, and was merely good in the other. Lee isn’t lighting up the strikeout numbers like he did last year, but he’s still very close to his career numbers, and his walk rate is exceptional. Lee’s BABIP is an absolute joke, even if you look at only his very good/great years, he’s about 60 points below what he’s given up lifetime. I don’t think that’s going to continue. Lee is keeping the ball down at unprecedented rates as well, through 4 starts and 29 innings about 62% of balls in play are on the ground for Lee, who has never had a season at or over 50%, that’s going to change. Cliff Lee is a great pitcher, and will look good in just about every start he makes this year.
Roy Halladay has been an absolute monster for his whole career. He has managed to have an ERA over 4 all of twice in his career, and it just doesn’t look like that’s going to change this year. 6 of his 7 outings have been quality starts, and he’s only gone less than 7 innings once so far this season. Honestly looking over Halladay’s stats it’s a little jarring, aside from a dip in strikeouts and a slight rise in walk rate, there is nearly no other change in his stat line. His BABIP is probably a little low looking at his career numbers, and has been somewhat lucky on line drives so far. He’s getting ground balls (a shade over 50% of the time) right in line with the last 3 seasons all but exactly and isn’t giving up any more extra base hits than he has in recent years. I wouldn’t be surprised to see Halladay’s strikeout numbers come back up a bit, and will likely start to see his walk rate come down a bit too, and we’d see another great year out of Doc.
Vance Worley is in his second season as a regular starter in the bigs, after a brief audition in 2010, and 21 starts last year, we’re still seeing the same kind of numbers across the board from Worley which bodes well for the young starter.The biggest changes Worley has seen are his home run numbers, giving up twice as many homers/9 so far this year than he has previously, but that’s not likely much more than his two rough starts skewing stats a bit. His BABIP is about 30 points higher than it was last year, and is 25 points above the league, so that might come down a bit, and he’d benefit from that a bit, but overall he has been able to limit the damage when opponents have gone yard, and has pitched 38 innings so far with a 2.84ERA. Worley has recorded 4 quality starts in 6 attempts so far, and has gone no less than 6 innings in an outing this year. If Worley can keep the ball in the park this is going to be a very good year for him, and will go a long way toward making the Phils look long and hard at giving him an extension.
Joe Blanton has been pretty widely considered an innings eater and not a ton more over the course of his career, and now at 31 looks to be putting together a pretty good early start to his walk year. Blanton has been a bit up and down so far but overall has pitched respectably even in his non-quality starts. He did give up 3 unearned runs against the Padres, which helps keep his ERA pretty this early in the season, but after missing most of last season, Blanton has come back looking more dominant than ever before, walking fewer batters and keeping the ball in the yard at a completely unsustainable rate. His BABIP is pretty close to his lifetime average, and not far off the league, so I wouldn’t be shocked to see that still close to the .292 it sits at now come the end of the year. I’d look for Blanton to continue looking good, but as the season wears on that home run number is going to have to come up, but even with that he could be putting up a better than league average year, and be well positioned for his next foray into free agency.
Cole Hamels has so far looked like... Cole Hamels. Aside from a rather stupid admission of guilt when drilling Bryce Harper, Hamels has looked sharp. He’s keeping his walk rate down, and strikeouts up while most of his other stats look right on board with the rest of his stat sheet from last year. I would be concerned about his Groundball to flyball ratio given the size of his home park, and the massive disparity from last year, but it’s actually more of a return to form (and a good bit of small sample size) after a very good year. He’s giving up a little over ½ as many ground balls per flyball compared to last year. Hamels will probably start to correct up a bit and give up a few less fly balls over the course of the season. His BABIP is higher than I’d expected, but it’s not really out of the question, and will probably come down a bit as he keeps the ball on the ground better.
Cliff Lee has missed 3 turns in the rotation so far, but has been a beast in 3 of the 4 other starts he’s made, and was merely good in the other. Lee isn’t lighting up the strikeout numbers like he did last year, but he’s still very close to his career numbers, and his walk rate is exceptional. Lee’s BABIP is an absolute joke, even if you look at only his very good/great years, he’s about 60 points below what he’s given up lifetime. I don’t think that’s going to continue. Lee is keeping the ball down at unprecedented rates as well, through 4 starts and 29 innings about 62% of balls in play are on the ground for Lee, who has never had a season at or over 50%, that’s going to change. Cliff Lee is a great pitcher, and will look good in just about every start he makes this year.
Roy Halladay has been an absolute monster for his whole career. He has managed to have an ERA over 4 all of twice in his career, and it just doesn’t look like that’s going to change this year. 6 of his 7 outings have been quality starts, and he’s only gone less than 7 innings once so far this season. Honestly looking over Halladay’s stats it’s a little jarring, aside from a dip in strikeouts and a slight rise in walk rate, there is nearly no other change in his stat line. His BABIP is probably a little low looking at his career numbers, and has been somewhat lucky on line drives so far. He’s getting ground balls (a shade over 50% of the time) right in line with the last 3 seasons all but exactly and isn’t giving up any more extra base hits than he has in recent years. I wouldn’t be surprised to see Halladay’s strikeout numbers come back up a bit, and will likely start to see his walk rate come down a bit too, and we’d see another great year out of Doc.
So after having had nothing really bad to say about any of the 5 starters that the Phils are putting out there, it’s amazing to have to say that they’re the worst team in their division right now. Granted, it’s early yet, the team is not looking good with Jimmy Rollins looking more like the shortstop many expected Jeter to be at 37-38 than the guy the Phils thought they were resigning at 33. The team is not at all handling the loss of Ryan Howard and Chase Utley so far, and need to find a better way to replace their production than Ty Wigginton and Freddy Galvis, or they need to find a way to get their lineup to hold on while the two injured players get ready to come back. That aside, their bullpen has been somewhat less than impressive so far. If the Phils can’t start shaking quality innings out of the ‘pen, and can’t find a way to get their lineup to produce for one of, if not the best rotation in the majors, the Phillies are going to look awful silly by the end of the year.
Thursday, May 17, 2012
Atlanta Braves: Can Youth, Depth, and Promise Carry Them to the Postseason?
With the battle at the top of the NL East all but knotted it’s time to look at the Atlanta Braves rotation. Going into the season, the rotation looked to be a strength in Atlanta, and why not? The team went into the season with 5 starters all under 27 years old, and a good number of other options floating around the organization’s depth chart. This has been a strange truth. The rankings would lead you to believe that they have a terrible pitching staff, but how much of that really falls on their starters, and similarly how much of that falls on the current roster is a totally different matter.
Jair Jurrjens managed to lose his starting spot due to gross ineffectiveness over his first 4 starts. The Braves might be kicking themselves for not selling high on Jurrjens, as he has 1 year of arbitration eligibility left, and isn’t going to be providing much value at the major league level any time soon if his last minor league start is any indication.
Tim Hudson has been with Atlanta for a while now and is looking about as league average as they come so far this season. A lot of his peripheral stats are looking right in line with his career averages, so that’s a plus for the Braves. Hudson’s BABIP (.321) is a little under 40 points over his career mark, so that might come down some which would likely help make him look a bit better than average. Hudson’s keeping his infield busy which will go a long way for him, and as his BABIP comes down, his ERA will likely follow.
Randall Delgado has put together a solid if not overwhelming start to the season, He has however only made it through (let alone past) the 6th inning twice, and could start being an issue for management if that continues. Nobody likes to see a starter continually leaving more than ⅓ of the game to the bullpen, it’s a real strain on the team and can really hamper a winning streak or easily extend a losing streak if he happens to get the ball when the ‘pen has had a heavier than average workload. That all said Delgado is all of 22 years old, and while he hasn’t been much other than league average, he is showing a lot of promise at such a young age and could be an asset if he can start getting deeper into games. Delgado has done a good job of striking out batters, but has made an ugly habit of walking them as well, 4 walks per 9 innings, or just over 10% of batters faced. He’s getting batters to keep the ball on the infield grass incredibly well so far, so if he can limit those walks, he might start to really look impressive. There’s not a lot of data to go on, but Delgado doesn’t look quite like the pitcher he was in 7 starts a year ago, but aside from giving out more walks than one might like to see, he’s only really changed for the better.
Mike Minor has looked about as pretty as Gary Busey in a dress. Aside from a trio of outings ranging from good to impressive, Minor has looked awful giving up 6 or more earned runs in 5 of his starts so far, and having been confined to the first 5 innings in all three outings this month. So far in his young career Minor has continually had an unsettlingly high BABIP and WHIP and this year has allowed that to turn into more than a lot of baserunners, and into a lot of balls reaching the outfield seats having given up 8 home runs so far. I have not hidden my skepticism about the legitimacy of flyball pitching, and Minor is acting as an excellent case for why nearly every pitcher should at least learn to throw a splitter if not a pair of good downward moving breaking pitches. I don’t see Minor hanging on with the big club too much longer if he can’t start stringing together a few quality starts in a hurry.
Brandon Beachy has been lights out so far, and, while it’s a bit hasty to declare it, he may well be the kind of young arm you build a rotation around. He’s limiting walks pretty well and has put together six quality starts in a row. He’s keeping men off the base paths pretty well and while he’s not a groundball pitcher, he is limiting line drives effectively (13% of balls in play), which is by no means a bad way to win games. He’s seeing an absolutely insane .220 BABIP so far, and while he’s not made a full year’s worth of starts before, I don’t know that I’m ready to believe that a stat like that won’t go through some adjusting. He is only 25 years old, and he hasn’t been avoiding contact at all this year (72% of plate appearances ending in the ball being put into play), but he’s keeping that to a huge bulk of singles with only 1 ball leaving the yard so far. Given how different he looks from last year, it’s hard to say Beachy’s going to keep up this ace caliber work , but it’ll be exciting for as long as it continues, and if his numbers last year suffered from a bit of unfamiliarity with opposing batters and his catcher, he could be the anchor that the Braves need.
Tommy Hanson is another 25 year old helping out this Braves rotation. He’s not looking as impressive as Beachy, but nobody in the league is so far. I’d be somewhat leery of what Hanson’s numbers are at the moment compared to what they might be come season’s end. He’s striking out just under a batter per inning, which is great, but he’s also walking nearly 4 per 9, and is giving up about a hit per inning too. While his career WHIP is a much more palatable 1.196 it’s sitting at 1.410 at the moment, while he gives up both more hits, and more walks this year. It appears that the greater number of hits is coming from an unreasonably high (.325) BABIP despite his 12% line drive rate and close groundball/flyball splits. There is however, no defense for the walk, and that’s not going to make Hanson’s life any easier. Due in large part to the hits and walks dilemma, Hanson’s also averaging fewer innings per outing than one might like to see averaging a little less than 5 and ⅔ innings per outing so far. Overall, I think a lot of things could happen for Hanson, and if things normalize he could be an effective member of their rotation for this year, and going forward.
The Braves have collectively pitched less well than one might hope, but with Livan Hernandez in the ‘pen and a few very solid pitching prospects in the minors the team has a very fair chance to right the ship before their rotation can cause them any real trouble in the standings. The team’s bats have been carrying them so far, and they have the ability and potential to carry a league average rotation deep into the season.
Jair Jurrjens managed to lose his starting spot due to gross ineffectiveness over his first 4 starts. The Braves might be kicking themselves for not selling high on Jurrjens, as he has 1 year of arbitration eligibility left, and isn’t going to be providing much value at the major league level any time soon if his last minor league start is any indication.
Tim Hudson has been with Atlanta for a while now and is looking about as league average as they come so far this season. A lot of his peripheral stats are looking right in line with his career averages, so that’s a plus for the Braves. Hudson’s BABIP (.321) is a little under 40 points over his career mark, so that might come down some which would likely help make him look a bit better than average. Hudson’s keeping his infield busy which will go a long way for him, and as his BABIP comes down, his ERA will likely follow.
Randall Delgado has put together a solid if not overwhelming start to the season, He has however only made it through (let alone past) the 6th inning twice, and could start being an issue for management if that continues. Nobody likes to see a starter continually leaving more than ⅓ of the game to the bullpen, it’s a real strain on the team and can really hamper a winning streak or easily extend a losing streak if he happens to get the ball when the ‘pen has had a heavier than average workload. That all said Delgado is all of 22 years old, and while he hasn’t been much other than league average, he is showing a lot of promise at such a young age and could be an asset if he can start getting deeper into games. Delgado has done a good job of striking out batters, but has made an ugly habit of walking them as well, 4 walks per 9 innings, or just over 10% of batters faced. He’s getting batters to keep the ball on the infield grass incredibly well so far, so if he can limit those walks, he might start to really look impressive. There’s not a lot of data to go on, but Delgado doesn’t look quite like the pitcher he was in 7 starts a year ago, but aside from giving out more walks than one might like to see, he’s only really changed for the better.
Mike Minor has looked about as pretty as Gary Busey in a dress. Aside from a trio of outings ranging from good to impressive, Minor has looked awful giving up 6 or more earned runs in 5 of his starts so far, and having been confined to the first 5 innings in all three outings this month. So far in his young career Minor has continually had an unsettlingly high BABIP and WHIP and this year has allowed that to turn into more than a lot of baserunners, and into a lot of balls reaching the outfield seats having given up 8 home runs so far. I have not hidden my skepticism about the legitimacy of flyball pitching, and Minor is acting as an excellent case for why nearly every pitcher should at least learn to throw a splitter if not a pair of good downward moving breaking pitches. I don’t see Minor hanging on with the big club too much longer if he can’t start stringing together a few quality starts in a hurry.
Brandon Beachy has been lights out so far, and, while it’s a bit hasty to declare it, he may well be the kind of young arm you build a rotation around. He’s limiting walks pretty well and has put together six quality starts in a row. He’s keeping men off the base paths pretty well and while he’s not a groundball pitcher, he is limiting line drives effectively (13% of balls in play), which is by no means a bad way to win games. He’s seeing an absolutely insane .220 BABIP so far, and while he’s not made a full year’s worth of starts before, I don’t know that I’m ready to believe that a stat like that won’t go through some adjusting. He is only 25 years old, and he hasn’t been avoiding contact at all this year (72% of plate appearances ending in the ball being put into play), but he’s keeping that to a huge bulk of singles with only 1 ball leaving the yard so far. Given how different he looks from last year, it’s hard to say Beachy’s going to keep up this ace caliber work , but it’ll be exciting for as long as it continues, and if his numbers last year suffered from a bit of unfamiliarity with opposing batters and his catcher, he could be the anchor that the Braves need.
Tommy Hanson is another 25 year old helping out this Braves rotation. He’s not looking as impressive as Beachy, but nobody in the league is so far. I’d be somewhat leery of what Hanson’s numbers are at the moment compared to what they might be come season’s end. He’s striking out just under a batter per inning, which is great, but he’s also walking nearly 4 per 9, and is giving up about a hit per inning too. While his career WHIP is a much more palatable 1.196 it’s sitting at 1.410 at the moment, while he gives up both more hits, and more walks this year. It appears that the greater number of hits is coming from an unreasonably high (.325) BABIP despite his 12% line drive rate and close groundball/flyball splits. There is however, no defense for the walk, and that’s not going to make Hanson’s life any easier. Due in large part to the hits and walks dilemma, Hanson’s also averaging fewer innings per outing than one might like to see averaging a little less than 5 and ⅔ innings per outing so far. Overall, I think a lot of things could happen for Hanson, and if things normalize he could be an effective member of their rotation for this year, and going forward.
The Braves have collectively pitched less well than one might hope, but with Livan Hernandez in the ‘pen and a few very solid pitching prospects in the minors the team has a very fair chance to right the ship before their rotation can cause them any real trouble in the standings. The team’s bats have been carrying them so far, and they have the ability and potential to carry a league average rotation deep into the season.
Monday, May 21, 2012
Chicago Cubs: Can Mediocrity Make a Difference?
The Chicago Cubs are not playoff contenders, they are not playoff hopefuls, they are barely a team of note in the National League right now. In all honesty the most noteworthy thing that may occur this season is the announcement that Kerry Wood has officially called it a career. Whether the Cubbies decide to go into an all out rebuilding phase and trade away everything that isn’t physically attached to Wrigley Field or they decide to sit on their roster and see what the offseason and the draft have in store for them, they’re bad, and not getting better immediately.
Randy Wells isn’t necessarily going to be starting much for the Cubbies this season after two unimpressive outings got him sent back to AAA for some work, but while he’s voiced his displeasure with being sent back down after 3 years with the big league club his walk rate was climbing slowly all the time, and (small sample size warning) was ridiculously bad before he was sent back down to try to work that one out. Wells’ past shows he has the ability to be a reasonably effective groundball pitcher, though he’s gotten away from that over the past year and change, and after only 2 starts while issuing more walks and hits than innings pitched, the decision was made. Wells will likely be better for the demotion, your position on a major league roster most certainly is earned whether you’re trying to break in with the best team in the league or you’re playing for a perennial cellar dweller.
Paul Maholm opened the season by attempting to make the Cubs look stupid for signing him giving up 3 homers and 12 runs over his first 2 starts totalling 8 innings. Since then Maholm has been making up for those two starts and over his last 5 starts has given up 7 runs over 31 & ⅓ innings to provide his team with a 2.01 ERA over that period. Maholm is a groundball pitcher who in the early going has taken it to the extreme, and in limiting line drives to an impossibly low 9%, Maholm is looking great (especially after those first 2 starts are omitted). Maholm *will not* keep his line drive percentage that low, and with that his BABIP will probably come back up closer to the .290 he saw last year from the .233 he’s seeing now. His infield flyball ratio will probably come back down to earth too, but if he can continue keeping batters on top of pitches his ERA will come down and his WHIP may stay manageable, though likely not at the current 1.169 he’s enjoying now.
Chris Volstad is all of the return that Chicago got for their former ace/resident headcase Carlos Zambrano and eating most of his contract. Volstad has so far looked like absolute garbage, He so far has managed 1 quality start. That quality start wasn’t even truly earned, courtesy of an error or so he only gave up 3 earned runs. Volstad is of course a very tall pitcher, which makes his mechanics that much harder to handle on both ends. Volstad is a near even groundball/flyball pitcher so his BABIP at .331 (over his career mark of .303) is a bit high, and if he can start to more effectively keep batters on top of pitches could come down in a hurry, but overall he’s living on contact, which you can’t do if you’re also putting men on base for free. Volstad has walked 15 so far over his 41 innings, but has only struck out 24. I wouldn’t exactly say this inspires much confidence in his control or his overall repertoire. Overall Volstad is looking like a steep price to have paid to move Zambrano.
Ryan Dempster is looking to rebound after a miserable year last year posting an ERA+ of 80 with a 4.80 ERA, he’s come out of the gate strong with a 2.28 ERA and a career low walk rate (2.7 per 9) while maintaining the strikeout momentum (perhaps the only positive) from last season. Dempster is putting together a bit less of a show over his past 2 starts, giving up a combined 8 runs over 12 innings, but plenty of pitchers hit little slumps here and there so I wouldn’t let that kill an otherwise stellar start to this year. I’d be concerned that Dempster’s BABIP is so very far below his lifetime numbers (.264 vs a career .307) especially coupled with a 24% line drive rate. He’s literally giving up 1 streak shot for every 4 at bats that end in a ball in play. These will balance out to being more shots into gaps and into the seats as the year goes on. Something has to give when there are disparities like that, you can’t give up liners directly at fielders all year, and if you’re giving them up with that kind of frequency, they’ll start to burn you. Dempster will all but have to regress some or make some serious adjustments to continue to build on a strong start.
Jeff Samardzija is giving the Cubs a lot of reason to believe in the reliever turned starter concept. So far Samardzija has provided the cubbies with 51 innings this season where his stats are actually better than last year’s 88 relief innings. So far as a starter he has managed to keep opposing batters on the ground about ½ of the time and when the ball is lifted, it’s not really being driven with only a 14% line drive rate so far. Couple that with his 25.5% strikeout rate and less than 8% walk rate, the Shark is looking pretty good as a member of a rotation in desperate need of building blocks for the future. I would be somewhat surprised to see his numbers looking this good at the end of the year, but that doesn’t mean that it can’t happen, it just seems like he’s due for a little regression, but by no means do I expect him to suddenly become a bad pitcher, he has been able to do all the right things so far it’s just a matter of how the league adjusts, and how he adjusts back.
Matt Garza is perhaps the most valuable player the Cubs have at the moment. He is in the midst of his 6th consecutive season at or above league average Garza’s BABIP is probably a big part of his success this season sitting at .248 while his career mark is a .290 (still better than the league) He’s letting opposing batters put the ball in the air a little more than ½ of the time, but has been able to keep line drives in check (17% of all balls in play so far) and with his 8+ strikeouts per 9 he looks to continue his above average pitching through the season, even as his BABIP adjusts. I would be surprised to see Garza keep up this pace, but I wouldn’t be surprised at all to see him continuing to be a dominant pitcher for the Cubs and a potential trade candidate to help bolster the starting 5 for a contender for a season and ½.
The Cubs are registering as slightly more than a sad joke this season, having a better record (15-26) than the Minnesota Twins (14-27 as of this writing) and are overall just an underwhelming club despite Garza and Samardzija’s strong and potentially consistent contributions. This is the type of team that could legitimately make a better run at post season by starting fresh a la Major League.
Thursday, April 26, 2012
New York Yankees - Looking at the Rotation
Alright, time to wrap up the AL East. It’s time to look at the Yankees rotation. Truth be told, I was dragging my feet about this one, hoping against hope that the rotation would go through one stellar turn before I wrote this, and in the end... didn’t happen. So here we are: a staff that was expected to be anchored by CC Sabathia and Hiroki Kuroda has been the exception to the rule that good pitching wins ball games. The defending AL East champs have gotten almost no value out of their starting rotation so far and if it weren’t for a stellar bullpen it’d be easy to see the Yanks doing no better than the dumpster fire that has been the Boston Red Sox so far.
Sabathia has been ugly over his first 4 starts, though his WHIP, walk rate, and strikeout rates have all been solid, he’s giving up home runs at about twice his normal pace. Despite being 31 years old Sabathia is in his 12th big league season. With all of his peripherals looking pretty good, his ERA will likely start to follow. As is the case for all of the Yankees pitchers, his BABIP is exceedingly high, and if last season is any indication, it could well stay that way.
Kuroda is going to experience some rough starts as he adjusts to a much more potent division and away from the very pitcher friendly parks of the NL West. Kuroda has been up and down in his 4 starts, pitching very well against the Angels, and pitching well enough to get a win almost any other day of the week against the Rangers and their new phenom Yu Darvish. He has however also had two very rough starts. As Kuroda settles in he should make adjustments to the AL. Expecting his numbers from last season would be unrealistic, but expecting to see some balance of the two pitchers he’s been so far is very plausable.
Phil Hughes has not looked good so far, going less than 3 innings in his most recent start, and compiling an ugly (7.88) ERA so far. Hughes’ fastball has been moving well, but his changeup isn’t very far along, and he’s been leaving his curveball up and very hittable so far. Unfortunately for Hughes as noted at River Ave Blues, a starting pitcher can not survive on one pitch. His BABIP is very high, more so than the team average by a fair bit but Hughes seems to give up hits to the outfield in droves. He needs to work on getting the ball down in the zone if he expects to still be in the rotation at mid-season.
Ivan Nova has been the most consistent Yankee starter so far, and that is due in large part to what appears to be absolutely pinpoint control so far. He’s walking less than 1 batter per game, and striking out more than 1 per inning. He’s giving up a lot of hits, but his BABIP is sitting at a very robust .389, and that likely will fall if he is willing to relinquish some of the flashy stats for more ground balls.Nova’s giving up more fly balls and more line drives than last year, which are likely coming from a more strikeout friendly pitching approach. Nova hasn’t been unhittable, but he’s been very good so far, so it’s hard to say he needs to start looking to induce more ground balls, though it appears he can certainly turn that on if he has to.
Freddy Garcia has been worse than Hughes so far, and a lot of that looks to be his command failing him. Garcia isn’t a fireballer, he lives on the corners of the plate with nothing but smoke and mirrors. If Garcia can find his control there’s no reason he can’t perform as well as he did last year. Garcia’s BABIP is extraordinarily high sitting at .419 which spells disaster for a contact pitcher. Asking for him to return to last season’s 3.62 ERA might be a bit hopeful, but he can certainly pitch better than he has so far, and for his own sake he’ll have to with Andy Pettite likely to make his big league return in about two weeks. Garcia’s control is the X factor here, if he can start locating pitches he’ll start seeing much better results but at the moment his command is terrifyingly inconsistent.
As a bonus: Andy Pettite has been pitching pretty well in his minor league appearances trying to ramp up to 100 pitches. He has been locating balls very well keeping near a 3:1 strike to ball ratio so far. Pettite is not going to inject any youth into the rotation, but there is very little to say about decline over his 16 major league seasons, there may be some rust but Pettite’s return might be just what the Yankees need to start reversing their rotation woes.
As I said in the opening, the Yankees are the exception that proves the rule, for about 5 innings per game, they’ve received the worst pitching in the league, but have been able to overcome that and currently hold a 10 - 8 record. Jeter’s strong start has helped mask an otherwise unspectacular start for most of the lineup, and without major contributions from the bullpen, the Yanks would not be in a position to compete right now. I’d look for the rotation to turn it around, or for Cashman and Girardi to start shaking things up.
Sabathia has been ugly over his first 4 starts, though his WHIP, walk rate, and strikeout rates have all been solid, he’s giving up home runs at about twice his normal pace. Despite being 31 years old Sabathia is in his 12th big league season. With all of his peripherals looking pretty good, his ERA will likely start to follow. As is the case for all of the Yankees pitchers, his BABIP is exceedingly high, and if last season is any indication, it could well stay that way.
Kuroda is going to experience some rough starts as he adjusts to a much more potent division and away from the very pitcher friendly parks of the NL West. Kuroda has been up and down in his 4 starts, pitching very well against the Angels, and pitching well enough to get a win almost any other day of the week against the Rangers and their new phenom Yu Darvish. He has however also had two very rough starts. As Kuroda settles in he should make adjustments to the AL. Expecting his numbers from last season would be unrealistic, but expecting to see some balance of the two pitchers he’s been so far is very plausable.
Phil Hughes has not looked good so far, going less than 3 innings in his most recent start, and compiling an ugly (7.88) ERA so far. Hughes’ fastball has been moving well, but his changeup isn’t very far along, and he’s been leaving his curveball up and very hittable so far. Unfortunately for Hughes as noted at River Ave Blues, a starting pitcher can not survive on one pitch. His BABIP is very high, more so than the team average by a fair bit but Hughes seems to give up hits to the outfield in droves. He needs to work on getting the ball down in the zone if he expects to still be in the rotation at mid-season.
Ivan Nova has been the most consistent Yankee starter so far, and that is due in large part to what appears to be absolutely pinpoint control so far. He’s walking less than 1 batter per game, and striking out more than 1 per inning. He’s giving up a lot of hits, but his BABIP is sitting at a very robust .389, and that likely will fall if he is willing to relinquish some of the flashy stats for more ground balls.Nova’s giving up more fly balls and more line drives than last year, which are likely coming from a more strikeout friendly pitching approach. Nova hasn’t been unhittable, but he’s been very good so far, so it’s hard to say he needs to start looking to induce more ground balls, though it appears he can certainly turn that on if he has to.
Freddy Garcia has been worse than Hughes so far, and a lot of that looks to be his command failing him. Garcia isn’t a fireballer, he lives on the corners of the plate with nothing but smoke and mirrors. If Garcia can find his control there’s no reason he can’t perform as well as he did last year. Garcia’s BABIP is extraordinarily high sitting at .419 which spells disaster for a contact pitcher. Asking for him to return to last season’s 3.62 ERA might be a bit hopeful, but he can certainly pitch better than he has so far, and for his own sake he’ll have to with Andy Pettite likely to make his big league return in about two weeks. Garcia’s control is the X factor here, if he can start locating pitches he’ll start seeing much better results but at the moment his command is terrifyingly inconsistent.
As a bonus: Andy Pettite has been pitching pretty well in his minor league appearances trying to ramp up to 100 pitches. He has been locating balls very well keeping near a 3:1 strike to ball ratio so far. Pettite is not going to inject any youth into the rotation, but there is very little to say about decline over his 16 major league seasons, there may be some rust but Pettite’s return might be just what the Yankees need to start reversing their rotation woes.
As I said in the opening, the Yankees are the exception that proves the rule, for about 5 innings per game, they’ve received the worst pitching in the league, but have been able to overcome that and currently hold a 10 - 8 record. Jeter’s strong start has helped mask an otherwise unspectacular start for most of the lineup, and without major contributions from the bullpen, the Yanks would not be in a position to compete right now. I’d look for the rotation to turn it around, or for Cashman and Girardi to start shaking things up.
Tuesday, May 15, 2012
Miami Marlins: Big Spenders, Big Surprises, Big Time Rotation
The suddenly big money Marlins got off to a rough start, and are currently sitting one game above .500. The team spent big on free agency this offseason in the wake of opening their new stadium, but have so far looked less than stellar overall despite good showings from their rotation as a whole. Florida Miami has typically been a youth heavy team, and have made it their M.O. to trade away talent in droves for a large haul in prospects, but seem to have abandoned that formula this season, though as I suspected (nearly) none of their big name players have no trade clauses, as reaffirmed by Cot’s Baseball Contracts. ***Big Z does have a no trade clause, but that was worked out by the Cubbies, not the Marlins.
Carlos Zambrano has gotten off to a torrid start, throwing 48 innings of 1.88ERA ball. At the moment Big Z looks about as dominant as he ever has, and aside from a 4 run 6 inning effort in his first start, Zambrano has thrown 6 consecutive quality starts. He has as well since the beginning of May kept the ball down very well, and has given up all of 1 run this month, over 23 innings. So far, it appears that Zambrano might be due to regress, but he is certainly getting along well with his new manager Ozzie Guillen. Zambrano has never gotten batters to keep the ball on the ground like he has so far this season but it’s hard to make sense of anything with Zambrano, while he’s always been roughly the same pitcher, walking about 3 batters per game, striking out quite a few, and holding onto a sub 4.00 ERA, but after threatening to retire last season, Big Z may have spent some time refining himself as a pitcher before coming into this season, and he has so far looked excellent. I’d be surprised if he can keep up this type of pace all year, but he’s off to a torrid start, and even if he has a few bad starts here and there he’s poised to make Theo Epstein and Co. look foolish for trading him, even more so for eating over $15 million in his contract.
Mark Buehrle was the Marlin’s “consolation prize” in the C.J. Wilson sweepstakes, and has looked every bit as good so far. Buehrle isn’t a strikeout pitcher, he lives and dies on contact, and so far has lived on it just fine this season. Buehrle has looked good so far, and it’s not exactly surprising to see. His BABIP is a bit lower (.270) than his career numbers (.293) would suggest, so maybe he’s been lucky, or maybe he’s benefiting from a stronger defensive alignment behind him, it’s not unreasonable to assume either, but even as this sort of thing fluctuates over the course of the year, he’s still likely to be good regardless of what happens. There’s not much to say about Buehrle, he’s pretty much looked like himself so far, and has been the benefactor of facing generally weaker NL lineups this season.
Josh Johnson has looked... not good so far. He’s been a rollercoaster ride for his team, either putting up a pretty respectable/very good start (4 quality starts) or getting himself absolutely demolished (2 starts where he’s gone less than 4 innings, and given up 6 runs). This would be less surprising, but he’s put up some good starts against fairly good teams, and was most recently beaten into submission in the 3rd inning by the San Diego Padres. a team with a total 13 home runs (last in the NL), and a .304 OBP (13th in the NL). The thing that’s killing Johnson at the moment isn’t walks (roughly at his career mark) he’s not giving up homers either (only 1 so far), but good lord he’s giving up 28% (10% more than last year) of balls in play as line drives. He’s not a ground ball pitcher either, he’s pretty even split in that regard, 50/50 grounders and fly balls. In looking at these line drive numbers, that’s alarming, but his .410 BABIP is just impossibly high. That is exactly 103 points higher than his career average. I’d look for Johnson to figure out how to correct the line drive issue, and as he makes that adjustment, a lot of these hits should start to vanish, and with that, we’ll get to start seeing the kid that went to back to back all star games and was in the running for the Cy Young 2 years ago.
Anibal Sanchez has been pretty darn good over the last 2 & ½ years with Florida Miami and has gotten off to an excellent start as well this year. Sanchez has posted 7 consecutive quality starts to open the season. Now Sanchez’ BABIP (.276) is 24 points lower than his career mark, but it’s not an absolutely extreme disparity either, especially with how few line drives he’s giving up this year (13% of balls in play). He’s getting hitters to swing on top of pitches more this year (a little under 50% of balls in play), which bodes well for him. I don’t know exactly what to expect out of Sanchez, he’s putting up better numbers than ever before, and appears to have changed his style a little bit to facilitate that, but whether or not the changes stick I can’t say. Certainly the line drive rate will probably come up a bit as the season wears on, but Sanchez looks effective so far, and will probably continue at least that much.
Ricky Nolasco got smacked around in his last outing, giving up 6 runs over 4 and ⅔ but has otherwise looked pretty solid. He’s got 4 quality starts and has missed on 2 other occasions by an inning or less. Nolasco hasn’t been striking out batters at his usual pace, and has been walking batters a bit more than usual, but if that’s what it takes to put together a year with a sub 4.00 ERA for him, I think management will be on board. His BABIP (.280) is the lowest it’s been outside of his very good 2008 season (.273). Nolasco looks a lot like Sanchez in terms of percentages, he’s only giving up 13% of balls in play as line drives, and an increased groundball rate from previous years. Maybe Randy St.Claire has gone the Dave Duncan route and is pushing his pitchers to start really getting ground balls.
Overall, looking at the Marlin’s staff, I’m surprised they’re not doing better. Despite a less than stellar year from Johnson, they’re getting ace caliber work out of 3 of their pitchers, and are getting better than expected results out of Nolasco. Their lineup, despite having its stars has been one of the least productive in the National League so far They’re ranked 10th or worse in Strikeouts, Hits, OBP, SLG, Batting Average, and Runs. They are doing some heavy lifting with the bats with 32 team home runs so far, and have been wreaking havoc on the base paths with 39 stolen bases, but are otherwise not an offensive force by any stretch. Their bullpen, Heath Bell aside has been more than survivable if not bulletproof. I’d look for the team to start to pick it up as the season wears on. They’re pitching too well, and have too much talent as a team to be looking up in the standings at so many other teams. They may miss the postseason, but it shouldn’t be by much.
Carlos Zambrano has gotten off to a torrid start, throwing 48 innings of 1.88ERA ball. At the moment Big Z looks about as dominant as he ever has, and aside from a 4 run 6 inning effort in his first start, Zambrano has thrown 6 consecutive quality starts. He has as well since the beginning of May kept the ball down very well, and has given up all of 1 run this month, over 23 innings. So far, it appears that Zambrano might be due to regress, but he is certainly getting along well with his new manager Ozzie Guillen. Zambrano has never gotten batters to keep the ball on the ground like he has so far this season but it’s hard to make sense of anything with Zambrano, while he’s always been roughly the same pitcher, walking about 3 batters per game, striking out quite a few, and holding onto a sub 4.00 ERA, but after threatening to retire last season, Big Z may have spent some time refining himself as a pitcher before coming into this season, and he has so far looked excellent. I’d be surprised if he can keep up this type of pace all year, but he’s off to a torrid start, and even if he has a few bad starts here and there he’s poised to make Theo Epstein and Co. look foolish for trading him, even more so for eating over $15 million in his contract.
Mark Buehrle was the Marlin’s “consolation prize” in the C.J. Wilson sweepstakes, and has looked every bit as good so far. Buehrle isn’t a strikeout pitcher, he lives and dies on contact, and so far has lived on it just fine this season. Buehrle has looked good so far, and it’s not exactly surprising to see. His BABIP is a bit lower (.270) than his career numbers (.293) would suggest, so maybe he’s been lucky, or maybe he’s benefiting from a stronger defensive alignment behind him, it’s not unreasonable to assume either, but even as this sort of thing fluctuates over the course of the year, he’s still likely to be good regardless of what happens. There’s not much to say about Buehrle, he’s pretty much looked like himself so far, and has been the benefactor of facing generally weaker NL lineups this season.
Josh Johnson has looked... not good so far. He’s been a rollercoaster ride for his team, either putting up a pretty respectable/very good start (4 quality starts) or getting himself absolutely demolished (2 starts where he’s gone less than 4 innings, and given up 6 runs). This would be less surprising, but he’s put up some good starts against fairly good teams, and was most recently beaten into submission in the 3rd inning by the San Diego Padres. a team with a total 13 home runs (last in the NL), and a .304 OBP (13th in the NL). The thing that’s killing Johnson at the moment isn’t walks (roughly at his career mark) he’s not giving up homers either (only 1 so far), but good lord he’s giving up 28% (10% more than last year) of balls in play as line drives. He’s not a ground ball pitcher either, he’s pretty even split in that regard, 50/50 grounders and fly balls. In looking at these line drive numbers, that’s alarming, but his .410 BABIP is just impossibly high. That is exactly 103 points higher than his career average. I’d look for Johnson to figure out how to correct the line drive issue, and as he makes that adjustment, a lot of these hits should start to vanish, and with that, we’ll get to start seeing the kid that went to back to back all star games and was in the running for the Cy Young 2 years ago.
Anibal Sanchez has been pretty darn good over the last 2 & ½ years with Florida Miami and has gotten off to an excellent start as well this year. Sanchez has posted 7 consecutive quality starts to open the season. Now Sanchez’ BABIP (.276) is 24 points lower than his career mark, but it’s not an absolutely extreme disparity either, especially with how few line drives he’s giving up this year (13% of balls in play). He’s getting hitters to swing on top of pitches more this year (a little under 50% of balls in play), which bodes well for him. I don’t know exactly what to expect out of Sanchez, he’s putting up better numbers than ever before, and appears to have changed his style a little bit to facilitate that, but whether or not the changes stick I can’t say. Certainly the line drive rate will probably come up a bit as the season wears on, but Sanchez looks effective so far, and will probably continue at least that much.
Ricky Nolasco got smacked around in his last outing, giving up 6 runs over 4 and ⅔ but has otherwise looked pretty solid. He’s got 4 quality starts and has missed on 2 other occasions by an inning or less. Nolasco hasn’t been striking out batters at his usual pace, and has been walking batters a bit more than usual, but if that’s what it takes to put together a year with a sub 4.00 ERA for him, I think management will be on board. His BABIP (.280) is the lowest it’s been outside of his very good 2008 season (.273). Nolasco looks a lot like Sanchez in terms of percentages, he’s only giving up 13% of balls in play as line drives, and an increased groundball rate from previous years. Maybe Randy St.Claire has gone the Dave Duncan route and is pushing his pitchers to start really getting ground balls.
Overall, looking at the Marlin’s staff, I’m surprised they’re not doing better. Despite a less than stellar year from Johnson, they’re getting ace caliber work out of 3 of their pitchers, and are getting better than expected results out of Nolasco. Their lineup, despite having its stars has been one of the least productive in the National League so far They’re ranked 10th or worse in Strikeouts, Hits, OBP, SLG, Batting Average, and Runs. They are doing some heavy lifting with the bats with 32 team home runs so far, and have been wreaking havoc on the base paths with 39 stolen bases, but are otherwise not an offensive force by any stretch. Their bullpen, Heath Bell aside has been more than survivable if not bulletproof. I’d look for the team to start to pick it up as the season wears on. They’re pitching too well, and have too much talent as a team to be looking up in the standings at so many other teams. They may miss the postseason, but it shouldn’t be by much.
Thursday, May 17, 2012
New York Mets: Amazing Rotation, or Amazing Mess?
In yet another edition of my starting rotation analysis we’re going to take a look at the New York Mets. Now, go ahead and think back to the offseason, if I had told you then that the Mets would not only be above .500 after 36 games, but that they would have the same record as the Yankees, and a better record than the Phillies, the Red Sox, The Angels, and the Tigers, would you have laughed at me? I would have, and you should have. However, and I’m borrowing from John Sterling here, “You can’t predict baseball”. Here we are, and the Mets are sitting at 20-17 as of this writing. The team’s rotation is a lock to do all of one thing: scare Mets fans.
Dillon Gee has managed to eek out three quality starts so far, and has in the other 4 starts, only once made it out of the 6th inning. To his credit, he’s made it into the 6th in every start, which for a lot of young starters is something to hang their hat on. Now, to be fair to Gee, his BABIP is sitting at .351 which is high despite his 21% line drive rate. He is forcing batters to put the ball on the ground pretty well (over 50% of the time) and he’s only giving up 25% of hits for extra bases. Gee will probably come around some, and his BABIP will come down to earth and he might well look respectable by the end of the year.
Jonathon Niese has never before tasted anything greater than mediocrity. He has been a league average or worse pitcher on some league average or worse Mets teams since making his debut in ‘08. Niese has managed to look almost like a different pitcher this year, going 6+ innings in all of his first 4 starts (all of them quality) before the wheels fell right off in Houston giving up 5 earned runs in 3 innings, which was followed up by a lack luster (but not awful) start in Philly before he was able to right the ship and threw 6 shutout innings against the Marlins. I would be worried that Niese is more the pitcher he has been over his career than he’s the pitcher that his solid 3.40 ERA and 1.235 WHIP make him out to be. His BABIP is at .261, which is 70 points lower than his career average, and none of his peripherals imply that that will continue. He’s giving up almost the same line drive percentage as last year, and is only forcing ground balls marginally better than last season, He is also walking more batters than ever before. If the increase in groundball rate can be sustained he might be able to get away with a few extra walks here and there, but I think Niese is going to regress as the season wears on.
R.A. Dickey has started this season off pretty well, if not quite as good as he’s been over the past 2 seasons in New York. Dickey is of course a knuckleball pitcher, and with that can come huge fluctuations from game to game in performance. That’s not to say that no other pitchers have off days, just that when a knuckleball doesn’t break, it moves like a BP fastball and often gets hit just as hard. Atlanta took advantage of just such an outing belting 3 home runs off Dickey in 4 and ⅓ innings of work to give them a nice healthy 8 runs back on April 18th. Dickey is walking, and striking out about 2% more batters than last year, and is giving up homers about twice as often, having given up 7 dingers in 7 starts. Fact is that it’s hard to say what a knuckleball pitcher will do from year to year, let alone from start to start. I don’t think Dickey will be bad this year at all, but to say that he’ll put together a 2010 like season again would be equally unlikely. Somewhere in the area of slightly below and slightly above league average seem like the safest bets you can make with an established knuckleballer, and that’s what I’d expect from Dickey.
Dillon Gee has managed to eek out three quality starts so far, and has in the other 4 starts, only once made it out of the 6th inning. To his credit, he’s made it into the 6th in every start, which for a lot of young starters is something to hang their hat on. Now, to be fair to Gee, his BABIP is sitting at .351 which is high despite his 21% line drive rate. He is forcing batters to put the ball on the ground pretty well (over 50% of the time) and he’s only giving up 25% of hits for extra bases. Gee will probably come around some, and his BABIP will come down to earth and he might well look respectable by the end of the year.
Jonathon Niese has never before tasted anything greater than mediocrity. He has been a league average or worse pitcher on some league average or worse Mets teams since making his debut in ‘08. Niese has managed to look almost like a different pitcher this year, going 6+ innings in all of his first 4 starts (all of them quality) before the wheels fell right off in Houston giving up 5 earned runs in 3 innings, which was followed up by a lack luster (but not awful) start in Philly before he was able to right the ship and threw 6 shutout innings against the Marlins. I would be worried that Niese is more the pitcher he has been over his career than he’s the pitcher that his solid 3.40 ERA and 1.235 WHIP make him out to be. His BABIP is at .261, which is 70 points lower than his career average, and none of his peripherals imply that that will continue. He’s giving up almost the same line drive percentage as last year, and is only forcing ground balls marginally better than last season, He is also walking more batters than ever before. If the increase in groundball rate can be sustained he might be able to get away with a few extra walks here and there, but I think Niese is going to regress as the season wears on.
R.A. Dickey has started this season off pretty well, if not quite as good as he’s been over the past 2 seasons in New York. Dickey is of course a knuckleball pitcher, and with that can come huge fluctuations from game to game in performance. That’s not to say that no other pitchers have off days, just that when a knuckleball doesn’t break, it moves like a BP fastball and often gets hit just as hard. Atlanta took advantage of just such an outing belting 3 home runs off Dickey in 4 and ⅓ innings of work to give them a nice healthy 8 runs back on April 18th. Dickey is walking, and striking out about 2% more batters than last year, and is giving up homers about twice as often, having given up 7 dingers in 7 starts. Fact is that it’s hard to say what a knuckleball pitcher will do from year to year, let alone from start to start. I don’t think Dickey will be bad this year at all, but to say that he’ll put together a 2010 like season again would be equally unlikely. Somewhere in the area of slightly below and slightly above league average seem like the safest bets you can make with an established knuckleballer, and that’s what I’d expect from Dickey.
Mike Pelfrey got off to an excellent start, and will be out now until the early part of next season for Tommy John surgery. So, what was looking like a promising start for Pelfrey, and could have been enough to have the Mets seriously considering extension talks will instead be a year of rehabbing his elbow and hoping that he can pick up next season where he left off.
Johan Santana is back, and is ready to make good on the last few years of his Mets contract. So far Santana has been excellent, after being limited to 5 innings in his first 2 outings, Johan imploded in Atlanta, going 1 and ⅓ innings giving up 6 runs (4 earned) on 55 pitches. Since then he has provided the Mets with 5 consecutive quality starts. Santana is back to his Cy Young years in strikeout rate (more than a strikeout per inning pitched), and though he’ll likely be limited in his innings total, he could look to put together a very good year, and be the one truly stable part of the Mets rotation. Santana’s giving up more fly balls than he has in 9 years, but I’d be hard pressed to start telling people to panic there. He’s recently come back from surgery, he’s looking dominant, and the rest will probably straighten itself out over the course of the year. I’d expect a rough start here or there as he makes adjustments, but I have trouble seeing anything but quality out of Santana by the end of the season.
Miguel Batista appears to be the heir apparent to take over Pelfrey’s spot in the rotation and has so far been the definition of okay this season. He’s pitching to a 4.26 ERA between starting and relieving, but managed a 7 inning 4 hit shutout in his last outing. The 41 year old Journeyman might just have a few tricks left up his sleeve. His BABIP (.329) is higher than his career average (.298), but he’s given his age and that he’ll be starting rather than relieving, that might not be too far out of line. It doesn’t look like he’s making any real changes from what he did last year, and if that means that he’ll be a roughly league average to slightly below average starter, the Mets will probably live with it, especially if they start to fall out of contention as the year wears on. The biggest question at this point may be whether or not he’s going to be able to hold down the back of the rotation all year, and that’s a fair concern, he’s 41 years old, and hasn’t started more than 5 games in a season since 2008. On the whole, there’s not a ton you can expect from Batista, and given his contract, if the Mets start looking to upgrade their rotation, he’s likely to be the odd man out by mid season.
The Mets are currently in place for the last wildcard spot in the NL, and while it’s far, far too early to say that they will be making a playoff appearance this season if they can keep winning despite a middling/weak rotation, and a questionable bullpen they might be a team to watch at the trade deadline. I don’t know that their lineup can continue to carry their pitching staff, and I wouldn’t be surprised if they started to come back down to earth in a hurry, but for the time being it’s got to be a nice feeling as a Mets fan to see your team doing something worth watching.
Friday, May 18, 2012
Washington Nationals: Is Their Rotation the Class of the National League?
The Washington Nationals have been a serious work in progress since new ownership took over in 2006, and the have been a very interesting team to say the least. The Nationals have been able to benefit this year from having had little to no success since about 1994 (Thanks for the help Omar). A lot of credit is due to ownership and management across the board for their ability to draft successfully, their recent trades, and a willingness to simultaneously sign (or at the very least pursue) big name free agents, and excellent high risk, high reward talent. The team appears to finally come full circle and has been at or near the top of the NL East since the beginning of the season. Now that all that’s out of the way, lets take a look at the rotation, shall we?
Ross Detwiler is off to a more than respectable start, after having made appearances over the last 3 seasons including a very effective 10 starts and 15 appearances last season, Detwiler looks to be poised to build on his success early on this season. It appears that the team is limiting Detwiler’s pitch count actively, having not pitched over 92 pitches so far, though he has been able to make it through the 6th inning in 4 of his 7 starts so far despite this limitation. It is possible that Detwiler is putting a premium on his ability to pitch relatively deep into games, he has so far been limiting opponents to a nearly unfathomable 9% line drive rate and is getting ground balls over 50% of the time for the first time in his career. I don’t know exactly how sustainable this will be or if it’s more a matter of small sample size, but it appears he has revamped his approach and is reaping the benefits of it so far. If he can keep this up, Detwiler might well be able to take a page out of injured teammate Chien-Ming Wang whose approach is not at all dissimilar from what we’ve seen so far.
Edwin Jackson has already put together a complete game this season, but has had a few less than stellar outings to go along with his 9 inning outing as well. Jackson has balanced out to a pretty league average pitcher so far, having gone only 5 innings in 3 starts, and has 3 quality starts to his name so far. Jackson is limiting walks very well, actually better than he has at any other point in his career, having only walked 9 batters over 43 & ⅔ innings while striking out 38 in the same time frame. Jackson’s WHIP is remarkably low at the moment sitting at 1.008 which he’s aiding himself by limiting walks, but his defense might be helping him more than not, as his BABIP is sitting at .242 despite a .312 career rate. Jackson is doing a very good job of keeping opposing batters from really driving the ball, while he’s more or less a flyball pitcher he’s also only giving up 13% of balls in play as line drives, well below his 21% career average, and the ugly 25% from last season. Jackson is a hard pitcher to figure, he has been no worse than league average since 2008, but hasn’t been able to stay with a team for a whole season since ‘09. I can see E-Jax helping the Nats quite a bit, though I am concerned that a large amount of his stat line is out of sync with his career, and generally a pitcher’s WHIP increasing, will eventually result in giving up more runs, though that hasn’t entirely been the case for Jackson.
Gio Gonzalez has certainly been passed around enough, but this offseason was the pitcher worth the king’s ransom, rather than being part of it, and he has appeared to be worth every bit of it so far. Gonzalez’s stat line has got to be somewhat imposing for opposing hitters, in 48 & ⅔ innings, he’s given up 1 home run and struck out 60 batters. He has so far rattled off 6 quality starts in 8 appearances. He has not gone a game so far where he hasn’t struck out at least 1 batter for each inning he’s pitched and that sort of excuses his higher than desirable walk rate. I don’t exactly know what to make of this but his BABIP is similar to his teammates sitting at a much lower than career mark of .248, so maybe it’s not just some luck early on, but a surprisingly good defense backing up these pitchers helping to keep runners off the basepaths. Gonzalez aside from giving up only the 1 home run has very similar line drive, and fly ball rates to his career norm, so that much should be sustainable, though I don’t know that he’ll be able to continue seeing over ¼ of fly balls stay in the infield all year. Overall, Even as things normalize for Gonzalez he’s looking great now, and will likely continue to look impressive (if not quite this impressive) throughout the season.
Jordan Zimmermann is 26 years old, and after putting together 26 strong starts last year looks to be doing nothing if not building off of that success so far. Zimmermann has pitched 52 & ⅓ innings across 8 starts, all but yesterday’s game have been quality starts. Zimmerman is looking a bit like Detwiler at the moment, for the first time in his career he’s inducing more ground balls than fly balls, though he hasn’t been quite as lucky with line drives. He’s got fairly modest strikeout numbers (38 so far) but has done a great job of limiting walks (9). He’s given up 5 home runs so far, which will have him on pace to give up a few more this year than last but he’s keeping most opposing batters in the dugout, so that doesn’t seem like it will sting him as bad as it might others. I don’t know exactly what to expect out of a pitcher who appears to have changed their approach so drastically from being an obvious flyball pitcher to the more groundball happy approach, but Zimmermann certainly has the talent to pull it off.
Ross Detwiler is off to a more than respectable start, after having made appearances over the last 3 seasons including a very effective 10 starts and 15 appearances last season, Detwiler looks to be poised to build on his success early on this season. It appears that the team is limiting Detwiler’s pitch count actively, having not pitched over 92 pitches so far, though he has been able to make it through the 6th inning in 4 of his 7 starts so far despite this limitation. It is possible that Detwiler is putting a premium on his ability to pitch relatively deep into games, he has so far been limiting opponents to a nearly unfathomable 9% line drive rate and is getting ground balls over 50% of the time for the first time in his career. I don’t know exactly how sustainable this will be or if it’s more a matter of small sample size, but it appears he has revamped his approach and is reaping the benefits of it so far. If he can keep this up, Detwiler might well be able to take a page out of injured teammate Chien-Ming Wang whose approach is not at all dissimilar from what we’ve seen so far.
Edwin Jackson has already put together a complete game this season, but has had a few less than stellar outings to go along with his 9 inning outing as well. Jackson has balanced out to a pretty league average pitcher so far, having gone only 5 innings in 3 starts, and has 3 quality starts to his name so far. Jackson is limiting walks very well, actually better than he has at any other point in his career, having only walked 9 batters over 43 & ⅔ innings while striking out 38 in the same time frame. Jackson’s WHIP is remarkably low at the moment sitting at 1.008 which he’s aiding himself by limiting walks, but his defense might be helping him more than not, as his BABIP is sitting at .242 despite a .312 career rate. Jackson is doing a very good job of keeping opposing batters from really driving the ball, while he’s more or less a flyball pitcher he’s also only giving up 13% of balls in play as line drives, well below his 21% career average, and the ugly 25% from last season. Jackson is a hard pitcher to figure, he has been no worse than league average since 2008, but hasn’t been able to stay with a team for a whole season since ‘09. I can see E-Jax helping the Nats quite a bit, though I am concerned that a large amount of his stat line is out of sync with his career, and generally a pitcher’s WHIP increasing, will eventually result in giving up more runs, though that hasn’t entirely been the case for Jackson.
Gio Gonzalez has certainly been passed around enough, but this offseason was the pitcher worth the king’s ransom, rather than being part of it, and he has appeared to be worth every bit of it so far. Gonzalez’s stat line has got to be somewhat imposing for opposing hitters, in 48 & ⅔ innings, he’s given up 1 home run and struck out 60 batters. He has so far rattled off 6 quality starts in 8 appearances. He has not gone a game so far where he hasn’t struck out at least 1 batter for each inning he’s pitched and that sort of excuses his higher than desirable walk rate. I don’t exactly know what to make of this but his BABIP is similar to his teammates sitting at a much lower than career mark of .248, so maybe it’s not just some luck early on, but a surprisingly good defense backing up these pitchers helping to keep runners off the basepaths. Gonzalez aside from giving up only the 1 home run has very similar line drive, and fly ball rates to his career norm, so that much should be sustainable, though I don’t know that he’ll be able to continue seeing over ¼ of fly balls stay in the infield all year. Overall, Even as things normalize for Gonzalez he’s looking great now, and will likely continue to look impressive (if not quite this impressive) throughout the season.
Jordan Zimmermann is 26 years old, and after putting together 26 strong starts last year looks to be doing nothing if not building off of that success so far. Zimmermann has pitched 52 & ⅓ innings across 8 starts, all but yesterday’s game have been quality starts. Zimmerman is looking a bit like Detwiler at the moment, for the first time in his career he’s inducing more ground balls than fly balls, though he hasn’t been quite as lucky with line drives. He’s got fairly modest strikeout numbers (38 so far) but has done a great job of limiting walks (9). He’s given up 5 home runs so far, which will have him on pace to give up a few more this year than last but he’s keeping most opposing batters in the dugout, so that doesn’t seem like it will sting him as bad as it might others. I don’t know exactly what to expect out of a pitcher who appears to have changed their approach so drastically from being an obvious flyball pitcher to the more groundball happy approach, but Zimmermann certainly has the talent to pull it off.
Stephen Strasburg has managed to put together 7 quality starts in his 8 starts so far, Strasburg has proved to be one of the most hyped pitchers in recent memory, and is most certainly showing us why. He’s struck out 8 more batters (56) than innings pitched (48) so far and has only walked 12. Strasburg may actually be the only starter in the Washington rotation with a BABIP close to their career numbers, and if he can keep it there, that should serve him fine, he doesn’t walk a ton of batters and he isn’t giving up enough contact for a .298 BABIP to kill him. His line drive and groundball rates are pretty spot on for the small sample size he’s put together so far and with the ability to strike out batters seemingly at will Strasburg should finally get to show us what he can do for a (nearly) full season.
Currently the Nats have the best pitching staff in the national league overall, with more punch outs and a lower ERA than any of the other 15 teams in the NL. Their bullpen isn’t quite as bulletproof as their rotation, but they’re not dragging the team down or costing them many wins. It’s really remarkable that the Nats offense is statistically so bad, they have plenty of talent, but it appears that things haven’t quite come together for them offensively but their pitching prowess has managed to make that very forgivable while they wait for the offense to really start clicking. One of the nicest things that the Nationals have going for them is depth, with Tom Gorzelanny and Wang (currently on the DL but could be ready to return as early as... now) on the team, there’s plenty of insurance for their rotation if things start to get rough as the season wears on.
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