Monday, January 25, 2010
Does Robinson Cano’s Approach Change With Men on Base?
Despite a career MLB line of .306/.339/.480, and despite having some very good overall years, Robinson Cano can really frustrate Yankee fans. In addition to what seems likes maddening inconsistency in general, Cano has hit worse with runners on base in almost every season of his career so far, with 2007 being the lone exception.
Here’s how Cano’s splits in this category have looked so far in his career.
| Year | Split | G | PA | AB | H | 2B | 3B | HR | RBI | SB | CS | BB | SO | BA | OBP | SLG | BAbip | wOBA |
| 2005 | --- | 129 | 300 | 293 | 95 | 24 | 3 | 7 | 7 | 0 | 0 | 6 | 39 | .324 | .340 | .498 | .356 | .375 |
| 2005 | Men On | 118 | 251 | 229 | 60 | 10 | 1 | 7 | 55 | 1 | 3 | 10 | 29 | .262 | .295 | .406 | .270 | .306 |
| 2006 | --- | 113 | 241 | 231 | 86 | 25 | 0 | 8 | 8 | 0 | 0 | 9 | 23 | .372 | .398 | .584 | .390 | .424 |
| 2006 | Men On | 108 | 267 | 251 | 79 | 16 | 1 | 7 | 70 | 5 | 2 | 9 | 31 | .315 | .335 | .470 | .330 | .350 |
| 2007 | --- | 154 | 331 | 309 | 92 | 20 | 3 | 11 | 11 | 0 | 0 | 19 | 42 | .298 | .344 | .489 | .316 | .365 |
| 2007 | Men On | 144 | 338 | 308 | 97 | 21 | 4 | 8 | 86 | 4 | 5 | 20 | 43 | .315 | .362 | .487 | .341 | .371 |
| 2008 | --- | 151 | 347 | 327 | 95 | 20 | 1 | 12 | 12 | 0 | 0 | 16 | 32 | .291 | .331 | .468 | .293 | .351 |
| 2008 | Men On | 142 | 287 | 270 | 67 | 15 | 2 | 2 | 60 | 2 | 4 | 10 | 33 | .248 | .273 | .341 | .271 | .277 |
| 2009 | --- | 150 | 361 | 343 | 129 | 32 | 0 | 16 | 16 | 0 | 0 | 17 | 33 | .376 | .407 | .609 | .384 | .446 |
| 2009 | Men On | 142 | 313 | 294 | 75 | 16 | 2 | 9 | 69 | 0 | 0 | 13 | 30 | .255 | .288 | .415 | .255 | .307 |
| All | --- | 697 | 1580 | 1503 | 497 | 121 | 7 | 54 | 54 | 0 | 0 | 67 | 169 | .331 | .363 | .528 | .346 | .391 |
| All | Men On | 654 | 1456 | 1352 | 378 | 78 | 10 | 33 | 340 | 12 | 14 | 62 | 166 | .280 | .312 | .425 | .294 | .324 |
Babip: Batting average on balls in play
wOBA: Weighted on-base average
FWIW, the AL has typically hit better with men on base than without, at least looking over the last few seasons. The difference isn't huge, but it's generally been in the 5% range.
The difference in wOBA between Cano with the bases empty (---) vs. Cano with men on base is .068. Even if you were to completely ignore the fact that weights of wOBA are different with runners on base vs. the bases empty (in other words, positive offensive events are worth more when runners on base and less when the bases are empty), the difference between those two wOBAs over around 1500 PAs is close to 90 runs, roughly 40 runs over a 650 PA season.
When looking at Cano's actual value to the team, this is a real and persistent problem that has made him less valuable then what a context-neutral metric would have said. The question I want to look at here is if there is some reason to think there is more going on here than the vagaries of batted balls and sample size when breaking down a player's performance into subsets that fit into neat little buckets.
The sample size thing is important here. While it may feel like 1500 PAs in both splits is significant, it's still not quite enough to start thinking we're seeing definitive proof. We generally need at least 2000 PAs in a split, but even then we have to regress them somewhat, depending on the split and the player and factoring in the fact that by the time a player has accrued those 2000 PAs, he may be a different player than he was when he accrued the first n of them. So keep that in mind when looking at the numbers that follow.
Generally, we think of luck in the batter's box in terms of BABIP (batting average on balls in play). While it's more nuanced than that, we can see that Cano has a BABIP of .346 with the bases empty and a BABIP of .294 with men on base. However, if we use Pitch F/X data to try and break down his performance by batted ball type, it would look like this.
| Flyout | Groundout | Lineout | Popout | |
| --- | 409 | 755 | 115 | 134 |
| Men On | 347 | 632 | 110 | 92 |
Pitch F/X data is only from 2007 on, and isn't complete for those years, but it's pretty close. Unfortunately, Pitch F/X does not break out hits by batted ball type. However, we can try to extrapolate the total batted balls by dividing the outs for each type by the average percentage of outs when each type is hit, which are:
Fly balls are outs 79% of the time.
Ground balls are outs 72% of the time.
Line drives are outs 26% of the time.
Pop ups are outs 99% of the time unless Luis Castillo is under it.
Using those figures, we'd get a revised batted ball distribution like this.
| Split | FB | % | GB | % | LD | % | PU | % |
| --- | 518 | 24% | 1049 | 49% | 442 | 21% | 135 | 6% |
| Men On | 439 | 24% | 878 | 48% | 423 | 23% | 93 | 5% |
Extrapolating batted ball types in this way introduces some uncertainty into this, although I suppose you could say that there's also uncertainty in the classifications of batted ball types on the margins. Anyway, keep in mind the fact that although this data is presented empirically, there's some fuzziness in here.
You can probably already tell this by looking at the numbers, but that type of batted ball distribution is pretty similar in both cases, and does not support a BABIP difference of .052.
Delving a little further into Pitch F/X, we can look at what Cano does in the batter's box depending on whether there are men on base or not to see if his actual approach is changing.
Update: Charts below have been updated to include missing columns.
| Split | Pitch | # | max | min | avg | ball % | stkS% | foul% | stkC% | In play, out(s)% | In play, no out % | HBP % |
| --- | All Fastballs | 1710 | 99.8 | 79.2 | 91.3 | 36.1% | 3.6% | 21.1% | 17.3% | 13.5% | 7.5% | 0.1% |
| Men On | All Fastballs | 1382 | 99.4 | 78.7 | 91.6 | 34.2% | 3.8% | 24.2% | 16.4% | 14.3% | 3.5% | 0.3% |
| --- | Change-up | 334 | 91.2 | 72.7 | 82.5 | 30.2% | 7.2% | 17.1% | 10.5% | 22.2% | 10.5% | 0.3% |
| Men On | Change-up | 237 | 90.4 | 74.9 | 82.8 | 40.5% | 6.8% | 13.1% | 8.0% | 26.2% | 4.2% | 0.0% |
| --- | Curveball | 294 | 85.7 | 60.5 | 77.3 | 29.6% | 8.8% | 18.4% | 15.0% | 18.7% | 8.2% | 0.0% |
| Men On | Curveball | 241 | 88.6 | 66.8 | 77.0 | 31.5% | 14.1% | 18.7% | 13.7% | 17.8% | 2.1% | 0.4% |
| --- | Cut fastball | 64 | 93.3 | 74.2 | 86.5 | 28.1% | 7.8% | 25.0% | 17.2% | 18.8% | 3.1% | 0.0% |
| Men On | Cut fastball | 61 | 92.5 | 78.0 | 87.2 | 23.0% | 6.6% | 16.4% | 16.4% | 32.8% | 3.3% | 0.0% |
| --- | Knuckleball | 15 | 74.1 | 60.2 | 67.9 | 33.3% | 0.0% | 13.3% | 20.0% | 13.3% | 13.3% | 0.0% |
| Men On | Knuckleball | 24 | 73.1 | 58.6 | 66.7 | 41.7% | 4.2% | 0.0% | 25.0% | 20.8% | 4.2% | 0.0% |
| --- | Sinker | 36 | 97.8 | 81.8 | 90.0 | 38.9% | 2.8% | 8.3% | 19.4% | 22.2% | 8.3% | 0.0% |
| Men On | Sinker | 28 | 96.5 | 80.9 | 89.7 | 32.1% | 3.6% | 25.0% | 7.1% | 25.0% | 3.6% | 0.0% |
| --- | Slider | 322 | 90.4 | 72.0 | 83.0 | 29.8% | 9.9% | 22.0% | 9.6% | 19.6% | 6.5% | 0.9% |
| Men On | Slider | 310 | 90.7 | 68.3 | 83.1 | 38.7% | 10.6% | 21.0% | 8.4% | 18.1% | 3.2% | 0.6% |
| --- | Split-finger fastball | 10 | 89.2 | 82.1 | 85.1 | 30.0% | 10.0% | 40.0% | 0.0% | 20.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% |
| Men On | Split-finger fastball | 3 | 87.6 | 84.0 | 85.3 | 66.7% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 33.3% | 0.0% | 0.0% |
| --- | Total | 2785 | 99.8 | 60.2 | 83.9 | 33.8% | 5.4% | 20.4% | 15.3% | 16.0% | 7.8% | 0.2% |
| Men On | Total | 2286 | 99.4 | 58.6 | 83.9 | 35.0% | 6.2% | 21.6% | 14.1% | 17.1% | 3.4% | 0.3% |
#: number of times pitch was thrown as recorded in Pitch F/X
max: highest recorded starting velocity
min: lowest recorded starting velocity
avg: average recorded starting velocity
ball %: percentage of time pitch was taken for a ball
stkS%: percentage of time pitch was swung on and missed
foul%: percentage of time pitch was fouled off
stkC%: percentage of time pitch was taken for a called strike
Here's the pie chart version of the last two rows.
In general, it looks like he's a little more likely to swing at pitches with runners on. He takes pitches 48.9% of the time with no one on base, and 43.6% of the time when there are runners on, although that could be due to the fact that he's more likely to see a strike when there's a runner on base. But I don't know if a difference of 5% here is necessarily all that meaningful.(Note: After revising the data to include the missing outcomes, this is no longer true. Cano takes a pitch 49.1% of the time when there are either runners on or not)
Honestly, I expected to see more of a split here in the underlying data, but it's just not there. Cano's results to this point with runners on base are markedly worse than his results with the bases empty, but it's not because of any obvious change in his approach in the two scenarios, unless I'm missing something here or not considering something that I should be.
I guess this is encouraging, because it means we really shouldn't have any reason to think that Cano will continue to hit as poorly with men on base as he has so far.
Another update: As suggested by sam, here's a look at the pitch locations against Cano with men on vs. with the bases empty. I don't think it shows much if anything, maybe that he gets more pitches outside with runners on, but here it is anyway.
Friday, January 22, 2010
What Happened to Wang?
It’s looking more and more likely that Chien-Ming Wang’s time with the Yankees is over, with the St. Louis Cardinals currently rumored as the most likely landing place for the potentially former Yankee. Over at the Lohud Yankee blog last week, a guest post by Greg Mathews looked at Wang and laid out a theory that batters started to lay off Wang’s low sinker and that it was indicative of a trend that may mean his effectiveness will suffer unless he makes an adjustment. Trying to see if letting Wang go is a mistake and being on Pitch F/X kick lately I figured I’d look at the data to see if there was any truth to this theory.
Since Pitch F/X has only been around since 2007 and was not completely rolled out until 2008, we don’t have data from Wang’s best season of 2006, and 2007 data is incomplete, which kind of limits how much we can infer from the data we do have given his missed time in 2008 and his very abbreviated 2009, so keep that in mind when looking at the numbers that follow.
Wang's sinker causes classification issues in Pitch F/X, so I'm looking at any pitch classified as either a four-seam fastball, two-seam fastball or sinker for the years 2007-2009. I'm only looking at pitches I'd classify as low, which means they crossed the plate somewhere below the lower third of the strike zone as identified for the specific batter.And here are the numbers.
| Year | # | max | min | avg | ball % | stkS% | foul% | stkC% | In play, out(s)% | In play, no out % | HBP % | break_y | break_angle | break_length |
| 2007 | 180 | 96.6 | 82.9 | 92.6 | 55.0% | 3.3% | 12.2% | 8.9% | 15.0% | 0.6% | 0.6% | 24.4 | 30.7 | 6.0 |
| 2008 | 347 | 97.2 | 84.0 | 90.9 | 48.4% | 7.2% | 15.6% | 9.8% | 10.1% | 3.2% | 0.3% | 23.8 | 37.4 | 6.9 |
| 2009 | 191 | 95.4 | 87.9 | 91.7 | 51.3% | 11.0% | 14.1% | 8.4% | 4.7% | 1.6% | 0.0% | 23.8 | 33.3 | 6.2 |
#: number of times pitch was thrown as recorded in Pitch F/X
max: highest recorded starting velocity
min: lowest recorded starting velocity
avg: average recorded starting velocity
ball %: percentage of time pitch was taken for a ball
stkS%: percentage of time pitch was swung on and missed
foul%: percentage of time pitch was fouled off
stkC%: percentage of time pitch was taken for a called strike
In play, out(s)%: percentage of time pitch was hit into play for an out(s)
In play, no out%: percentage of time pitch was hit into play and not converted into an out
HBP%: percentage of time batter was hit by pitch
break_y: the y-distance from home plate where the maximum deviation occurs(definition taken from this site
break_angle: the direction of the deviation, with the convention that a pitch that breaks away from or toward a RHH has a negative or positive angle, respectively;
break_length: the largest deviation, in inches, of the actual from the straight-line trajectory.
The incompleteness of the data limits whatever conclusions we may want to draw from this, but it doesn't really look like hitters were laying off Wang's low fastballs with any greater frequency. If anything, they were swinging at more of them if you look at the skS%. The big thing I see is they just hit fewer of them into outs, which could just be a BABIP issue or could be indicative of Wang's pitches being more hittable, although the velocity and break data is generally similar across all three years.
I'm kind of bummed that Wang's likely gone, but at the same time I don't think I'd expect him to pitch any better than any of the current members of the Yankee rotation in 2010, including either Joba Chamberlain or Phil Hughes. I'd guess if the Yankees disagreed with me, he wouldn't be on his way to becoming a former Yankee. Either way, I wish him well, as long as he doesn't wind up on Boston or Tampa Bay. Or Anaheim. Or Seattle maybe.
Tuesday, January 19, 2010
TSBG Versus High and Low Fastballs
As suggested by Rich in the previous post, here's a look at how Brett Gardner's done against fastballs that I'm categorizing as high, middle or low.Here's what I did to determine whether a fastball was high or low.
Pitch FX defines the fields sz_top and sz_bot as the top and bottom of the strike zone for the specific batter. It's measured in feet, and for Gardner they were on average 3.19 and 1.4 respectively. So Gardner's strike zone is about 1.8 feet in Pitch FX. It also defines the fields px and pz as the location where the pitch crossed the front of the plate.
I don't really care about px here (inside or outside), so I'm focusing on pz. Any pitch defined as a fastball that had a pz higher than 2.7 feet is considered high. Any pitch that came in between 2.7 and 1.8 feet is defined as a middle of the zone fastball, and anything that came in lower than 1.8 feet is considered low. And here's how it split out.
| Type | # | max | min | avg | ball % | stkS% | foul% | stkC% | In play, out(s)% | In play, no out % | HBP % | wOBA |
| High Fastballs | 448 | 97.6 | 79.9 | 91.3 | 42.0% | 1.8% | 17.2% | 18.5% | 14.7% | 4.2% | 0.2% | .328 |
| Middle Fastballs | 485 | 96.9 | 78.7 | 90.8 | 13.2% | 1.9% | 15.9% | 46.0% | 13.8% | 5.6% | 0.0% | .320 |
| Low Fastballs | 185 | 96.9 | 79.5 | 91.0 | 66.5% | 2.2% | 2.7% | 16.8% | 8.1% | 2.7% | 0.0% | .341 |
| All Fastballs | 1118 | 97.6 | 78.7 | 91.1 | 33.5% | 1.9% | 14.2% | 30.1% | 13.2% | 4.6% | 0.1% | .327 |
#: number of times pitch was thrown as recorded in Pitch F/X
max: highest recorded starting velocity
min: lowest recorded starting velocity
avg: average recorded starting velocity
ball %: percentage of time pitch was taken for a ball
stkS%: percentage of time pitch was swung on and missed
foul%: percentage of time pitch was fouled off
stkC%: percentage of time pitch was taken for a called strike
In play, out(s)%: percentage of time pitch was hit into play for an out(s)
In play, no out%: percentage of time pitch was hit into play and not converted into an out
HBP%: percentage of time batter was hit by pitch
I don't see anything in this data that indicates Gardner has a problem with high fastballs versus any others.
TSBG and Major League Pitches
A few days back, Chad Jennings had a post about TSBG (The Speedy Brett Gardner) which touched on how he was preparing for the upcoming season. One thing that stuck out was this quote."Hitting ninth, the very last thing they're going to do is walk me," Gardner said. "So they're going to throw me a lot of fastballs, which I saw a lot last year...It's one of those things that I've got to get over the hump. I've got to get more aggressive. I can't fall behind.":So I was thinking it might be interesting to look at the Pitch F/X data against Gardner and see how he performed against different types of pitching. I'll present the same type of data that I presented when looking at Javier Vazquez's pitch selection, instead in this instance it'll be what the pitchers threw to Gardner.
| Type | # | max | min | avg | ball % | stkS% | foul% | stkC% | In play, out(s)% | In play, no out % | HBP % |
| Fastball + Four-seam | 1118 | 97.6 | 78.7 | 91.1 | 33.5% | 1.9% | 14.2% | 30.1% | 13.2% | 4.6% | 0.1% |
| Sinker | 31 | 95.4 | 80.9 | 89.9 | 29.0% | 3.2% | 12.9% | 38.7% | 9.7% | 6.5% | 0.0% |
| Change-up | 157 | 88.9 | 72.0 | 82.5 | 44.6% | 8.3% | 12.1% | 17.2% | 11.5% | 1.9% | 0.0% |
| Slider | 170 | 91.8 | 73.9 | 82.8 | 37.1% | 9.4% | 11.8% | 21.2% | 12.4% | 2.4% | 0.6% |
| Curveball | 150 | 86.0 | 63.0 | 76.9 | 44.0% | 6.7% | 8.0% | 24.0% | 8.0% | 4.7% | 1.3% |
| Cut fastball | 31 | 91.8 | 77.1 | 87.7 | 32.3% | 3.2% | 16.1% | 29.0% | 16.1% | 3.2% | 0.0% |
| Split-finger fastball | 2 | 85.8 | 84.9 | 85.4 | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 50.0% | 0.0% |
| Knuckleball | 26 | 75.9 | 60.4 | 66.2 | 23.1% | 3.8% | 15.4% | 34.6% | 15.4% | 3.8% | 3.8% |
| Total | 1685 | 97.6 | 60.4 | 83.7 | 35.5% | 3.7% | 13.2% | 27.7% | 12.5% | 4.2% | 0.3% |
#: number of times pitch was thrown as recorded in Pitch F/X
max: highest recorded starting velocity
min: lowest recorded starting velocity
avg: average recorded starting velocity
ball %: percentage of time pitch was taken for a ball
stkS%: percentage of time pitch was swung on and missed
foul%: percentage of time pitch was fouled off
stkC%: percentage of time pitch was taken for a called strike
In play, out(s)%: percentage of time pitch was hit into play for an out(s)
In play, no out%: percentage of time pitch was hit into play and not converted into an out
HBP%: percentage of time batter was hit by pitch
He does seem to see a lot of fastball, somewhere in the area of 66% so far in his career.. Focusing on that fastball row, it looks like Gardner has taken those fastballs 63.6% of the time. When he's swung, he's almost always made contact, although I guess if he is being a little too passive that would be expected. I'm not sure how that compares to a typical hitter.
Here's what Gardner's done with the identified pitch types when they've been the decisive pitch of a plate appearance.
| Type | wOBA | AVG/SLG | +/- | BABIP |
| Fastball + Four-seam | .327 | .257/.340 | .004 | .328 |
| Sinker | .385 | .286/.464 | .061 | .400 |
| Change-up | .306 | .248/.358 | -.018 | .327 |
| Slider | .370 | .289/.456 | .047 | .375 |
| Curveball | .279 | .213/.272 | -.045 | .333 |
| Cut fastball | .226 | .077/.154 | -.097 | .091 |
| Split-finger fastball | .900 | 1.000/1.000 | .577 | 1.000 |
| Knuckleball | .198 | .182/.182 | -.126 | .211 |
| Total | .323 | .252/.345 | .329 |
wOBA: Weighted on-base average
AVG/SLG: Batting and slugging average
+/-: Difference between wOBA against this pitch vs. overall
BABIP: Batting average on balls in play
Obviously we are dealing with sample size issues here, but it looks like Gardner's performance against fastballs so far has been in line with the rest of his performance. He has a wOBA of .323 against non-fastballs, and a BABIP of .330 compared to his overall wOBA of .323 and BABIP of .329.
So then the question becomes, can swingng at a higher percentage of fastballs improve those numbers?
Thursday, January 14, 2010
Javier Vazquez’s Pitch Selection, 2007 - 2009
I was thinking about the likeilhood of Javier Vazquez's 2009 being indicative of a possible change in approach that may mean he's more likely to sustain the gains made, so I pulled his Pitch FX data from 2007 through 2009 to see if it showed anything interesting. Keep in mind that Pitch FX data is not complete from 2007-2009.First, here's a look at his pitch selection, broken down by season and type.
| Type | 2007 | % | 2008 | % | 2009 | % |
| Four-seam fastball | 1368 | 59.0% | 1727 | 54.8% | 1502 | 47.1% |
| Change-up | 350 | 15.1% | 387 | 12.3% | 474 | 14.9% |
| Slider | 365 | 15.8% | 637 | 20.2% | 739 | 23.2% |
| Curveball | 234 | 10.1% | 398 | 12.6% | 472 | 14.8% |
| Total | 2317 | 3149 | 3187 |
This breakdown screams for pie charts, so here they are.
In 2009 Vazquez threw fewer fastballs, while increasing his slider and curveball usage according to these numbers.
This next table just looks at the wOBA against each of the pitches. This only applies when a pitch is the decisive pitch of a plate apearance.
| Type | 2007 | +/- | 2008 | +/- | 2009 | +/- |
| Four-seam fastball | .298 | .013 | .330 | .007 | .298 | .011 |
| Change-up | .295 | .010 | .323 | .001 | .240 | -.047 |
| Slider | .276 | -.008 | .338 | .016 | .295 | .008 |
| Curveball | .221 | -.063 | .274 | -.048 | .276 | -.011 |
| Total | .284 | .322 | .000 | .287 |
The +/- column is just the difference between the wOBA for the specific pitch compared to the overall wOBA hea llowed in that season. So we see in 2009, for example, that he his changeup was his most effective pitch. as batters had a wOBA of .240 against it, compared to his overall wOBA against of .287. A difference of .010 in wOBA is worth about five runs over 650 PAs.
Lastly, here's a more detailed breakdown of his pitch selection.
| Type (2007) | # | max | min | avg | ball % | stkS% | foul% | stkC% | In play, out(s)% | In play, no out % | HBP % | break_y | break_angle | break_length |
| Fastball | 1296 | 98.2 | 86.0 | 92.5 | 32.7% | 8.6% | 22.8% | 18.6% | 10.7% | 3.8% | 0.2% | 24.1 | 35.4 | 5.2 |
| Four-seam fastball | 72 | 97.0 | 90.1 | 93.4 | 37.5% | 11.1% | 15.3% | 19.4% | 9.7% | 5.6% | 0.0% | 23.6 | 54.0 | 4.8 |
| Change-up | 350 | 89.5 | 59.2 | 82.8 | 35.7% | 16.0% | 12.6% | 11.7% | 14.9% | 3.7% | 0.3% | 24.1 | 22.6 | 7.7 |
| Slider | 365 | 92.4 | 75.5 | 84.8 | 32.6% | 13.7% | 15.9% | 17.3% | 11.2% | 6.0% | 0.3% | 24.2 | -6.9 | 7.6 |
| Curveball | 234 | 82.1 | 65.7 | 75.7 | 38.5% | 12.4% | 9.0% | 21.4% | 11.5% | 3.8% | 0.0% | 24.0 | -13.1 | 12.9 |
| Total | 2317 | 98.2 | 59.2 | 85.8 | 33.9% | 11.0% | 18.5% | 17.7% | 11.5% | 4.2% | 0.2% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% |
| Type (2008) | # | max | min | avg | ball % | stkS% | foul% | stkC% | In play, out(s)% | In play, no out % | HBP % | break_y | break_angle | break_length |
| Fastball | 1693 | 97.1 | 86.0 | 91.8 | 32.5% | 8.2% | 22.3% | 18.1% | 11.3% | 4.8% | 0.1% | 23.7 | 36.2 | 4.6 |
| Four-seam fastball | 34 | 95.4 | 89.0 | 92.6 | 35.3% | 11.8% | 17.6% | 8.8% | 23.5% | 2.9% | 0.0% | 23.6 | 53.1 | 5.0 |
| Change-up | 387 | 89.6 | 72.4 | 81.9 | 35.7% | 16.3% | 17.1% | 9.0% | 12.4% | 3.6% | 0.0% | 23.8 | 21.1 | 7.2 |
| Slider | 637 | 90.8 | 77.6 | 84.6 | 29.2% | 14.4% | 20.3% | 14.4% | 12.6% | 4.7% | 0.2% | 23.8 | -6.0 | 7.3 |
| Curveball | 398 | 84.6 | 63.5 | 74.0 | 33.7% | 9.3% | 15.3% | 22.4% | 10.6% | 2.8% | 0.5% | 23.8 | -13.4 | 13.1 |
| Total | 3149 | 97.1 | 63.5 | 85.0 | 32.4% | 10.6% | 20.3% | 16.7% | 11.7% | 4.4% | 0.2% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% |
| Type (2009) | # | max | min | avg | ball % | stkS% | foul% | stkC% | In play, out(s)% | In play, no out % | HBP % | break_y | break_angle | break_length |
| Four-seam fastball | 1502 | 94.8 | 85.3 | 91.2 | 29.2% | 8.4% | 20.9% | 21.6% | 12.5% | 4.9% | 0.1% | 23.8 | 31.9 | 4.7 |
| Change-up | 474 | 88.1 | 70.8 | 80.2 | 38.0% | 21.5% | 12.9% | 7.4% | 12.0% | 1.7% | 0.4% | 23.8 | 20.2 | 7.5 |
| Slider | 739 | 89.7 | 68.9 | 83.1 | 30.7% | 13.4% | 16.0% | 19.6% | 12.3% | 4.3% | 0.0% | 23.9 | -8.2 | 7.9 |
| Curveball | 472 | 82.2 | 64.0 | 72.5 | 29.7% | 17.8% | 10.6% | 21.6% | 12.1% | 3.6% | 0.0% | 23.8 | -12.6 | 13.8 |
| Total | 3187 | 94.8 | 64.0 | 81.8 | 30.9% | 12.9% | 17.0% | 19.0% | 12.3% | 4.1% | 0.1% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% |
#: number of times pitch was thrown as recorded in Pitch F/X
max: highest recorded starting velocity
min: lowest recorded starting velocity
avg: average recorded starting velocity
ball %: percentage of time pitch was taken for a ball
stkS%: percentage of time pitch was swung on and missed
foul%: percentage of time pitch was fouled off
stkC%: percentage of time pitch was taken for a called strike
In play, out(s)%: percentage of time pitch was hit into play for an out(s)
In play, no out%: percentage of time pitch was hit into play and not converted into an out
HBP%: percentage of time batter was hit by pitch
break_y: the y-distance from home plate where the maximum deviation occurs(definition taken from this site
break_angle: the direction of the deviation, with the convention that a pitch that breaks away from or toward a RHH has a negative or positive angle, respectively;
break_length: the largest deviation, in inches, of the actual from the straight-line trajectory.
Because of the league switch, I don't know how much I'd read into some of the peripheral improvements we see in his 2009 line.
Anyway, I'm not sure how much this tells us, but I figured it beats talking about signing Reed Johnson.
Thursday, December 3, 2009
2009 Yankees Season in Review: Mariano F’ing Rivera
Who better to close out the 2009 season reviews with than the guy who’s closed so many Yankee victories over the last 12 seasons?
Projection systems aren't designed to handle someone like Mariano Rivera, who consistently exceeds his projections. Here's how Mo projected heading into 2009.
| mariano rivera | IP | H | R | ER | HR | BB | SO | ERA | FIP | RSAA | RSAR | dERA | dFIP |
| 2009 chone projection | 66 | 59 | 23 | 21 | 4 | 12 | 63 | 2.86 | 2.64 | 12 | 20 | 161.9% | 89.8% |
| 2009 marcel projection | 66 | 58 | 24 | 23 | 5 | 15 | 58 | 3.09 | 3.08 | 10 | 19 | 175.1% | 104.7% |
| 2009 pecota projection | 66 | 57 | 20 | 18 | 4 | 12 | 64 | 2.42 | 2.54 | 15 | 24 | 137.3% | 86.3% |
| 2009 tht projection | 66 | 55 | 20 | 19 | 4 | 12 | 63 | 2.52 | 2.57 | 15 | 23 | 142.8% | 87.2% |
| 2009 zips projection | 66 | 55 | 18 | 17 | 3 | 9 | 64 | 2.28 | 2.24 | 16 | 25 | 129.4% | 76.3% |
| 2009 cairo projection | 66 | 53 | 19 | 18 | 4 | 11 | 61 | 2.38 | 2.61 | 16 | 24 | 134.8% | 88.7% |
| 2009 average projection | 66 | 56 | 21 | 19 | 4 | 12 | 62 | 2.59 | 2.61 | 14 | 22 | 146.9% | 88.8% |
| 2009 actual | 66 | 48 | 14 | 13 | 7 | 12 | 72 | 1.76 | 2.94 | 20 | 28 |
FIP: Fielding independent pitching
RSAA/R: Runs saved above average/replacement level
dERA: Projected ERA divided by actual ERA (> 100 means projection was worse than actual)
dFIP: Projected FIP divided by actual FIP (>100 means projection was worse than actual)
Rivera's projections were all pretty close to each other, with Marcel the major outlier. Rivera managed to better his projections in his K rate and his hit rate as well as his ERA, although he gave up more home runs than projected. It's probably worth noting that five of those seven HRs allowed came in his first 17 appearances. In those first 17 appearances, Rivera had an ERA of 3.06, and opponents hit .264/.274/.472 against him. Over his next six appearances he continued to struggle somewhat, with a 4.76 ERA and a .292/.320/.417 opponent's line. Around that time, Joe Girardi made comments that Rivera had not yet fully recovered his arm strength after last off-season's shoulder surgery, but let's see what Pitch F/X says.
| Type (through June 6) | # | max | min | avg | ball % | stkS% | foul% | stkC% | In play, out(s)% | In play, no out % | HBP % | break_y | break_angle | break_length |
| Cut fastball | 319 | 94.0 | 87.9 | 91.2 | 28.8% | 7.5% | 24.5% | 21.6% | 11.6% | 4.4% | 0.0% | 23.8 | -11.8 | 4.9 |
| Four-seam fastball | 56 | 93.4 | 89.4 | 91.3 | 46.4% | 5.4% | 12.5% | 16.1% | 7.1% | 8.9% | 0.0% | 23.8 | 4.9 | 5.8 |
| Total | 375 | 94.0 | 87.9 | 91.3 | 31.5% | 7.2% | 22.7% | 20.8% | 10.9% | 5.1% | 0.0% |
| Type (June 7 through end of season) | # | max | min | avg | ball % | stkS% | foul% | stkC% | In play, out(s)% | In play, no out % | HBP % | break_y | break_angle | break_length |
| Cut fastball | 731 | 94.2 | 86.4 | 91.2 | 31.3% | 8.5% | 21.6% | 20.5% | 13.8% | 2.7% | 0.1% | 23.8 | -14.3 | 5.1 |
| Four-seam fastball | 178 | 94.5 | 86.8 | 91.1 | 41.6% | 6.7% | 27.0% | 12.4% | 7.9% | 3.9% | 0.0% | 23.9 | -2.0 | 5.6 |
| Total | 909 | 94.5 | 86.4 | 91.1 | 33.3% | 8.1% | 22.7% | 18.9% | 12.7% | 3.0% | 0.1% |
#: number of times pitch was thrown as recorded in Pitch F/X
max: highest recorded starting velocity
min: lowest recorded starting velocity
avg: average recorded starting velocity
ball %: percentage of time pitch was taken for a ball
stkS%: percentage of time pitch was swung on and missed
foul%: percentage of time pitch was fouled off
stkC%: percentage of time pitch was taken for a called strike
In play, out(s)%: percentage of time pitch was hit into play for an out(s)
In play, no out%: percentage of time pitch was hit into play and not converted into an out
HBP%: percentage of time batter was hit by pitch
break_y: the y-distance from home plate where the maximum deviation occurs(definition taken from this site)
break_angle: the direction of the deviation, with the convention that a pitch that breaks away from or toward a RHH has a negative or positive angle, respectively;
break_length: the largest deviation, in inches, of the actual from the straight-line trajectory.
Not a whole lot of difference in terms of velocity here, although it looks like Mo started getting better break on the cutter.
From June 7 through the end of the season, Rivera had a 0.84 ERA, holding opposing batters to a line of .149/.208/.216.
Mo showed that even if he's lost a tick or two off the cutter, he can continue to be one of the best closers in the game. After another stellar postseason where Rivera pitched 16 innings and allowed just one earned run, he said he wants to pitch for five more years, which would take him through age 44. Dennis Eckersely and Doug Jones were both able to pitch through age 43, and neither was as good as Rivera was at age 39, so I wouldn't bet against him.
Wednesday, November 25, 2009
2009 Yankees Season in Review: Melky Cabrera and Joba Chamberlain
While the big free agent signings and high-salaried players on the team are generally the main focus, the Yankees did get some help from players they developed through their farm system. Two examples of that are Melky Cabrera and Joba Chamberlain. Let’s see how Melky and Joba did compared to their projections.
After a nice first full season where Melky put up a pretty good .360 OBP at age 21, came two subsequent seasons where he declined. It's generally not a good thing to get worse at an age when you should be getting better, so 2009 was a big season for Melky. Brett Gardner won the spring training competition for CF, which meant Melky would start the year as Gardner's platoon partner as well as being as a backup for Johnny Damon, Nick Swisher and Xavier Nady.
Nady was lost for the season after six games, and Melky slowly started to wrest some of Gardner's playing time, eventually taking back the starting CF job.
Here are his projections entering 2009 and then his actual performance.
| melky cabrera | PA | AB | H | 2B | 3B | HR | SB | CS | BB | SO | AVG | OBP | SLG | BR/650 | wOBA | -2 Std | -1 Std | +1 Std | +2 Std | % |
| 2009 chone projection | 540 | 491 | 137 | 24 | 4 | 10 | 12 | 5 | 46 | 67 | .280 | .345 | .402 | 80 | .322 | .279 | .301 | .344 | .365 | 101.6% |
| 2009 marcel projection | 540 | 482 | 131 | 21 | 3 | 9 | 11 | 3 | 44 | 68 | .271 | .330 | .383 | 74 | .307 | .264 | .286 | .328 | .349 | 96.7% |
| 2009 pecota projection | 540 | 487 | 130 | 21 | 3 | 9 | 11 | 5 | 41 | 68 | .267 | .324 | .376 | 71 | .302 | .259 | .280 | .323 | .344 | 95.0% |
| 2009 tht projection | 540 | 495 | 134 | 22 | 3 | 8 | 11 | 3 | 41 | 69 | .270 | .331 | .376 | 73 | .308 | .265 | .287 | .329 | .350 | 97.1% |
| 2009 zips projection | 540 | 497 | 132 | 20 | 5 | 10 | 12 | 4 | 39 | 67 | .265 | .324 | .383 | 72 | .305 | .263 | .284 | .326 | .347 | 96.1% |
| 2009 cairo projection | 540 | 485 | 130 | 21 | 4 | 9 | 10 | 4 | 42 | 68 | .268 | .325 | .382 | 72 | .303 | .261 | .282 | .324 | .346 | 95.6% |
| 2009 average projection | 540 | 489 | 132 | 21 | 4 | 9 | 11 | 4 | 42 | 68 | .270 | .330 | .384 | 73 | .308 | .265 | .287 | .329 | .350 | 97.0% |
| 2009 actuals | 540 | 485 | 133 | 28 | 1 | 13 | 10 | 2 | 43 | 59 | .274 | .333 | .416 | 81 | .317 | .274 | .296 | .339 | .360 |
| Projection | PA | AB | H | 2B | 3B | HR | SB | CS | BB | SO | AVG | OBP | SLG | BR/650 |
| 2009 chone projection | 566 | 515 | 144 | 25 | 4 | 10 | 13 | 5 | 48 | 70 | .280 | .345 | .402 | 80 |
| 2009 marcel projection | 488 | 436 | 118 | 19 | 3 | 8 | 10 | 3 | 40 | 61 | .271 | .330 | .383 | 74 |
| 2009 pecota projection | 484 | 436 | 116 | 19 | 3 | 8 | 10 | 4 | 37 | 61 | .267 | .324 | .376 | 71 |
| 2009 tht projection | 525 | 481 | 130 | 21 | 3 | 8 | 11 | 3 | 40 | 67 | .270 | .331 | .376 | 73 |
| 2009 zips projection | 553 | 509 | 135 | 20 | 5 | 10 | 12 | 4 | 40 | 69 | .265 | .324 | .383 | 72 |
| 2009 cairo projection | 523 | 469 | 126 | 20 | 4 | 9 | 9 | 4 | 41 | 66 | .268 | .325 | .382 | 72 |
| 2009 average projection | 523 | 474 | 128 | 21 | 4 | 9 | 11 | 4 | 41 | 66 | .270 | .330 | .384 | 73 |
| 2009 actuals | 540 | 485 | 133 | 28 | 1 | 13 | 10 | 2 | 43 | 59 | .274 | .336 | .416 | 81 |
BR/650: Linear weights batting runs pro-rated to 650 PAs
wOBA: Weighted on-base average, a rate version of linear weights scaled to OBP
n Std: Standard deviation of wOBA using the formula SQRT(wOBA*(1.1-wOBA)/PA)
%: Percentage of projected wOBA compared to actual (less than 100 means the projection was worse than actual, greater than 100 means the projection was better than actual)
Melky was about one win better than projected on offense, solely due to an increase in power (seven more 2Bs and four more HRs than projected). Like most of his teammates, Melky took advantage of DNYS, but only in the HR department. He hit .271/.336/.424 at home and .278/.336/.409 on the road. His average and OBP were essentially right where they were projected to be. CHONE was the closest system on Melky, although it overprojected his OBP and underprojected his SLG. He was still a little below average and the only regular in the starting lineup to be so, but after two straight disappointing seasons it was nice to see him improve.
Melky's defense, while not as good as Gardner's, was also an asset, as he saved four runs above average according to zone rating and one run above average according to UZR.
Unlike Melky, Joba Chamberlain did not exceed his projections.
| joba chamberlain | IP | H | R | ER | HR | BB | SO | ERA | FIP | RSAA | RSAR | dERA | dFIP |
| 2009 chone projection | 157 | 137 | 64 | 59 | 14 | 61 | 174 | 3.39 | 3.30 | 19 | 39 | 71.3% | 70.3% |
| 2009 marcel projection | 157 | 139 | 59 | 54 | 11 | 57 | 163 | 3.07 | 3.14 | 25 | 45 | 64.7% | 66.9% |
| 2009 pecota projection | 157 | 135 | 59 | 54 | 10 | 60 | 169 | 3.09 | 3.05 | 25 | 44 | 65.1% | 64.9% |
| 2009 tht projection | 157 | 129 | 60 | 56 | 13 | 61 | 175 | 3.20 | 3.19 | 23 | 42 | 67.4% | 68.0% |
| 2009 zips projection | 157 | 152 | 71 | 66 | 14 | 62 | 155 | 3.77 | 3.61 | 13 | 32 | 79.4% | 76.9% |
| 2009 cairo projection | 157 | 149 | 65 | 60 | 14 | 54 | 161 | 3.45 | 3.36 | 18 | 38 | 72.6% | 71.5% |
| 2009 average projection | 157 | 140 | 63 | 58 | 13 | 59 | 166 | 3.33 | 3.27 | 20 | 40 | 70.1% | 69.8% |
| 2009 actual | 157 | 167 | 94 | 83 | 21 | 76 | 133 | 4.75 | 4.69 | -4 | 15 |
| joba chamberlain | IP | H | R | ER | HR | BB | SO | ERA | FIP | RSAA | RSAR | dERA | dFIP |
| 2009 chone projection | 101 | 88 | 41 | 38 | 9 | 39 | 112 | 3.39 | 3.30 | 13 | 25 | 71.3% | 70.3% |
| 2009 marcel projection | 85 | 75 | 32 | 29 | 6 | 31 | 88 | 3.07 | 3.14 | 14 | 24 | 64.7% | 66.9% |
| 2009 pecota projection | 124 | 107 | 47 | 43 | 8 | 47 | 133 | 3.09 | 3.05 | 19 | 35 | 65.1% | 64.9% |
| 2009 tht projection | 100 | 82 | 38 | 36 | 8 | 39 | 111 | 3.20 | 3.19 | 14 | 27 | 67.4% | 68.0% |
| 2009 zips projection | 131 | 127 | 59 | 55 | 12 | 52 | 129 | 3.77 | 3.61 | 11 | 27 | 79.4% | 76.9% |
| 2009 cairo projection | 117 | 111 | 49 | 45 | 11 | 40 | 120 | 3.45 | 3.36 | 14 | 28 | 72.6% | 71.5% |
| 2009 average projection | 110 | 98 | 44 | 41 | 9 | 41 | 116 | 3.33 | 3.27 | 14 | 28 | 70.1% | 69.8% |
| 2009 actual | 157 | 167 | 94 | 83 | 21 | 76 | 133 | 4.75 | 4.69 | -4 | 15 |
FIP: Fielding independent pitching
RSAA/R: Runs saved above average/replacement level
dERA: Projected ERA divided by actual ERA (> 100 means projection was worse than actual)
dFIP: Projected FIP divided by actual FIP (>100 means projection was worse than actual)
Where to start? HR rate way up. BB rate way up. K rate way down. Hit rate way up. ERA and FIP way up.
Aside from that, Joba had a great year.
I realize that's a little snarky, because there were some positive developments in 2009. The most important thing was he was able to make 31 starts and pitch 157.1 innings, which should mean he would be able to handle a full workload as a starter next year.
Joba's velocity was down in 2009, even when we remove his pitches in relief. Here's a Pitch F/X comparison of Joba as a starter in 2008 compared to Joba as a starter in 2009.
| Type (as a starter in 2008) | # | max | min | avg | ball % | stkS% | foul% | stkC% | In play, out(s)% | In play, no out % | HBP % |
| Fastball | 715 | 100.2 | 89.8 | 95.1 | 36.9% | 6.0% | 20.1% | 20.3% | 10.6% | 4.2% | 0.1% |
| Slider | 248 | 89.2 | 80.5 | 85.3 | 27.0% | 26.2% | 12.1% | 14.5% | 9.3% | 4.0% | 0.4% |
| Curveball | 126 | 86.0 | 72.8 | 78.2 | 38.1% | 5.6% | 7.1% | 34.9% | 6.3% | 3.2% | 0.0% |
| Change-up | 28 | 89.3 | 80.9 | 83.5 | 35.7% | 14.3% | 21.4% | 7.1% | 10.7% | 10.7% | 0.0% |
| Total | 1117 | 100.2 | 72.8 | 85.5 | 34.8% | 10.7% | 16.9% | 20.3% | 9.8% | 4.2% | 0.2% |
| Type (as a starter in 2009) | # | max | min | avg | ball % | stkS% | foul% | stkC% | In play, out(s)% | In play, no out % | HBP % |
| Four-seam fastball | 1711 | 97.6 | 87.0 | 92.5 | 40.9% | 3.3% | 15.7% | 20.2% | 12.1% | 4.3% | 0.4% |
| Slider | 514 | 92.2 | 75.0 | 84.6 | 27.4% | 18.1% | 12.3% | 18.7% | 11.3% | 4.5% | 0.4% |
| Curveball | 329 | 92.0 | 73.0 | 79.3 | 39.5% | 14.9% | 8.5% | 21.3% | 7.0% | 1.8% | 0.6% |
| Change-up | 129 | 87.6 | 77.4 | 82.3 | 39.5% | 12.4% | 13.2% | 14.0% | 10.1% | 7.0% | 0.0% |
| Total | 2683 | 97.6 | 73.0 | 84.7 | 38.1% | 8.0% | 14.0% | 19.7% | 11.2% | 4.1% | 0.4% |
Joba's fastball was down about 2.6 mph on average from 2008. He also had worse command of it, and got fewer swinging strikes with it. His slider velocity and command look similar between 2008 and 2009, but he got fewer swings and misses with it. That could be related to lower fastball velocity/command making it easier to sit slider and adjust to the fastball, or it could be related to a myriad of other things.
We don't know if Joba will get his velocity back. It's possible that whatever he suffered in Texas has taken some of it away for good. Then again, it may just be a conditioning issue or a mechanical issue that could be fixed.
Justin Verlander lost some juice on his fastball in 2008 but recoverd it in 2009 (2007 avg FB: 94.8, 2008 avg FB: 93.6, 2009 avg FB: 95.6), so I think that's encouraging in the case of Joba.
A lot of people have criticized the Yankees for their handling of Chamberlain, but that's just symptomatic of impatience and the need to complain just to complain. The Yankees are handling him in a manner that they feel will be in the best interests of him and the team in the long-term. If that's the goal, why would you judge it on the results in the near-term? In a few years, we'll know whether or not they were right.
Even though the Yankees bought the World Series, they can point to Melky and Joba as contributors they drafted/signed and developed.
Monday, November 16, 2009
2009 Yankees Season in Review: Phil Hughes
After breaking camp in 2008 as a member of the starting rotation, ineffectiveness then injury led to a disastrous season for Phil Hughes.
With the memories of 2008 still in the not-so-distant past, Hughes started 2009 in AAA, making three strong starts before being called up on April 28 to pitch against Detroit when Chien-Ming Wang was put on the DL. Hughes threw six scoreless innings in that game, fanning six. Hughes made seven starts, and aside from one awful start against Baltimore where he gave up eight runs in 1.2 innings, he pitched pretty well as a starter, with an ERA of 3.54 (FIP of 4.47) if you exclude the Baltimore start.
Wang returned from the DL and then the bullpen, and it looked like Hughes would be sent back to the minors. However, the Yankees heeded Hughes’s request to stay in the majors and pitch out of the bullpen. Hughes took to the pen like a fish to water. In fact, he was arguably the best relief pitcher in the American League from the day he made his relief debut through the end of the season. Here’s how Hughes’ projections compared to what he ended up doing.
| phil hughes | IP | H | R | ER | HR | BB | SO | ERA | FIP | RSAA | RSAR | dERA | dFIP |
| 2009 chone projection | 86 | 88 | 44 | 41 | 9 | 33 | 71 | 4.28 | 4.10 | 2 | 13 | 141.0% | 130.1% |
| 2009 marcel projection | 86 | 85 | 47 | 44 | 9 | 33 | 67 | 4.61 | 4.19 | -1 | 10 | 151.8% | 132.8% |
| 2009 pecota projection | 86 | 89 | 49 | 45 | 10 | 34 | 68 | 4.74 | 4.27 | -2 | 8 | 156.1% | 135.5% |
| 2009 tht projection | 86 | 84 | 44 | 41 | 10 | 33 | 66 | 4.28 | 4.27 | 2 | 13 | 141.0% | 135.6% |
| 2009 zips projection | 86 | 89 | 44 | 41 | 6 | 34 | 61 | 4.27 | 3.83 | 2 | 13 | 140.7% | 121.4% |
| 2009 cairo projection | 86 | 89 | 46 | 43 | 8 | 29 | 65 | 4.53 | 3.94 | 0 | 10 | 149.4% | 125.0% |
| 2009 average projection | 86 | 87 | 46 | 43 | 9 | 32 | 66 | 4.45 | 4.10 | 0 | 11 | 146.7% | 130.0% |
| 2009 actual | 86 | 68 | 31 | 29 | 8 | 28 | 96 | 3.03 | 3.15 | 14 | 25 |
FIP: Fielding independent pitching
RSAA/R: Runs saved above average/replacement level
dERA: Projected ERA divided by actual ERA
dFIP: Projected FIP divided by actual FIP
One big caveat here is that Hughes was projected as a starter, so here's a look at the same projections converted to a relief equivalency.
| phil hughes | IP | H | R | ER | HR | BB | SO | ERA | FIP | RSAA | RSAR | dERA | dFIP |
| 2009 chone projection | 86 | 77 | 35 | 32 | 9 | 34 | 83 | 3.40 | 3.84 | 11 | 21 | 112.0% | 121.8% |
| 2009 marcel projection | 86 | 74 | 37 | 35 | 9 | 35 | 77 | 3.66 | 3.95 | 8 | 19 | 120.6% | 125.1% |
| 2009 pecota projection | 86 | 77 | 39 | 36 | 9 | 36 | 79 | 3.76 | 4.03 | 7 | 18 | 124.0% | 127.6% |
| 2009 tht projection | 86 | 73 | 35 | 32 | 9 | 35 | 76 | 3.40 | 4.03 | 11 | 21 | 112.0% | 127.9% |
| 2009 zips projection | 86 | 77 | 35 | 32 | 6 | 35 | 71 | 3.39 | 3.63 | 11 | 21 | 111.8% | 115.1% |
| 2009 cairo projection | 86 | 77 | 37 | 34 | 8 | 30 | 76 | 3.60 | 3.70 | 9 | 19 | 118.6% | 117.4% |
| 2009 average projection | 86 | 76 | 36 | 34 | 8 | 34 | 77 | 3.54 | 3.86 | 9 | 20 | 116.5% | 122.5% |
| 2009 actual | 86 | 68 | 31 | 29 | 8 | 28 | 96 | 3.03 | 3.15 | 14 | 25 |
Obviously, even adjusted for relief, Hughes blew away his projections, with a better BB rate and K rate, and a much better hit rate.
Hughes also flashed the high-end velocity he was touted for in the minors far more frequently in the bullpen, which made sense, since moving to the pen generally leads to an uptick in velocity.
2009 has to be considered a success for Hughes. It was great to see him dominating MLB hitters, albeit in an easier role. We obviously can't expect him to be nearly as good as a starter, but it'll be interesting to see how he transitions back to the rotation and deals with a bit lower velocity and an increased need to rely on pitches other than his fastball.
Since it's an interesting topic and it came up in the Joba thread a few days ago, here are Hughes's start/relief Pitch FX splits for 2009.
| Type (As Starter) | # | max | min | avg | ball % | stkS% | foul% | stkC% | In play, out(s)% | In play, no out % | HBP % |
| Four-seam fastball | 348 | 94.7 | 87.9 | 92.2 | 36.2% | 7.2% | 24.1% | 15.5% | 9.5% | 4.3% | 1.1% |
| Curveball | 133 | 79.0 | 73.2 | 76.4 | 32.3% | 10.5% | 10.5% | 18.0% | 12.8% | 3.8% | 0.0% |
| Cut fastball | 97 | 93.3 | 84.8 | 88.1 | 29.9% | 5.2% | 23.7% | 17.5% | 12.4% | 5.2% | 1.0% |
| Slider | 32 | 89.2 | 84.0 | 87.2 | 43.8% | 6.3% | 21.9% | 18.8% | 6.3% | 3.1% | 0.0% |
| Change-up | 9 | 85.9 | 81.5 | 83.3 | 77.8% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 22.2% | 0.0% | 0.0% |
| Total | 619 | 94.7 | 73.2 | 85.4 | 35.4% | 7.4% | 20.7% | 16.3% | 10.7% | 4.2% | 0.8% |
| Type (As Reliever) | # | max | min | avg | ball % | stkS% | foul% | stkC% | In play, out(s)% | In play, no out % | HBP % |
| Four-seam fastball | 642 | 97.3 | 89.9 | 94.6 | 31.0% | 12.5% | 25.9% | 18.7% | 7.5% | 3.3% | 0.0% |
| Curveball | 196 | 80.4 | 74.6 | 77.5 | 39.8% | 9.7% | 11.7% | 18.4% | 12.8% | 4.6% | 0.0% |
| Cut fastball | 85 | 94.0 | 86.4 | 89.6 | 25.9% | 17.6% | 22.4% | 11.8% | 16.5% | 3.5% | 0.0% |
| Slider | 45 | 91.3 | 86.1 | 88.7 | 31.1% | 13.3% | 22.2% | 17.8% | 11.1% | 4.4% | 0.0% |
| Change-up | 1 | 84.7 | 84.7 | 84.7 | 100.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% |
| Total | 969 | 97.3 | 74.6 | 87.0 | 32.4% | 12.4% | 22.5% | 18.0% | 9.5% | 3.6% | 0.0% |
#: number of times pitch was thrown as recorded in Pitch F/X
max: highest recorded starting velocity
min: lowest recorded starting velocity
avg: average recorded starting velocity
ball %: percentage of time pitch was taken for a ball
stkS%: percentage of time pitch was swung on and missed
foul%: percentage of time pitch was fouled off
stkC%: percentage of time pitch was taken for a called strike
In play, out(s)%: percentage of time pitch was hit into play for an out(s)
In play, no out%: percentage of time pitch was hit into play and not converted into an out
HBP%: percentage of time batter was hit by pitch
Nothing too suprising here. Hughes's average FB was 94.6 mph coming out of the pen compared to 92.2 as a starter. He threw it for strikes more frequently out of the pen as well, both called and swinging. As a starter, he threw his four-seamer about 56.2% of the time, compared to 66.3% of the time out of the pen. I was surprised he supposedly threw his curve 196 times out of the pen, I could have sworn he threw it like twice.
Anyway, Hughes as a starter is probably going to need to use more sliders and changeups to offset the likely decline in the value of his fastball, but I'm confident he'll be able to do that.
Sunday, November 15, 2009
Pitcher A vs. Pitcher B
| Type | # | max | min | avg | ball % | stkS% | foul% | stkC% | In play, out(s)% | In play, no out % | HBP % |
| Four-seam fastball | 1717 | 97.6 | 87.0 | 92.5 | 40.9% | 3.3% | 15.7% | 20.1% | 12.2% | 4.3% | 0.4% |
| Slider | 515 | 92.2 | 75.0 | 84.6 | 27.4% | 18.3% | 12.2% | 18.6% | 11.3% | 4.5% | 0.4% |
| Curveball | 329 | 92.0 | 73.0 | 79.3 | 39.5% | 14.9% | 8.5% | 21.3% | 7.0% | 1.8% | 0.6% |
| Change-up | 129 | 87.6 | 77.4 | 82.3 | 39.5% | 12.4% | 13.2% | 14.0% | 10.1% | 7.0% | 0.0% |
| Total | 2690 | 97.6 | 73.0 | 84.7 | 38.1% | 8.0% | 14.0% | 19.7% | 11.3% | 4.1% | 0.4% |
| Type | # | max | min | avg | ball % | stkS% | foul% | stkC% | In play, out(s)% | In play, no out % | HBP % |
| Four-seam fastball | 70 | 98.6 | 91.0 | 95.3 | 37.1% | 8.6% | 17.1% | 15.7% | 12.9% | 4.3% | 0.0% |
| Slider | 39 | 91.3 | 86.5 | 88.6 | 35.9% | 17.9% | 20.5% | 12.8% | 2.6% | 10.3% | 0.0% |
| Curveball | 4 | 82.4 | 79.2 | 81.2 | 50.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 25.0% | 0.0% | 25.0% | 0.0% |
| Change-up | 3 | 88.9 | 85.4 | 87.7 | 33.3% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 33.3% | 33.3% | 0.0% | 0.0% |
| Total | 116 | 98.6 | 79.2 | 88.2 | 37.1% | 11.2% | 17.2% | 15.5% | 9.5% | 6.9% | 0.0% |
#: number of times pitch was thrown as recorded in Pitch F/X
max: highest recorded starting velocity
min: lowest recorded starting velocity
avg: average recorded starting velocity
ball %: percentage of time pitch was taken for a ball
stkS%: percentage of time pitch was swung on and missed
foul%: percentage of time pitch was fouled off
stkC%: percentage of time pitch was taken for a called strike
In play, out(s)%: percentage of time pitch was hit into play for an out(s)
In play, no out%: percentage of time pitch was hit into play and not converted into an out
HBP%: percentage of time batter was hit by pitch
Friday, October 2, 2009
Baseball Analysts: Mariano Rivera: Another Appreciation
Rivera, famously, throw a cutter almost exclusively. He mixes in a four-seam fastball about 15% of the time to RHBs, but only 1% to lefties. So against RHBs it is about 85% cutters and against LHBs almost all cutters. As I have mentioned before his cutter has an incredible bimodal horizontal location distribution, which I have seen in no other pitch. Here it is to lefties, about 58% of the pitches inside to LHBs (Rivera’s glove-side):
It never gets old reading about how great Mo is.
Tuesday, April 14, 2009
Is Wang Broken?
While two bad starts are not enough evidence that there's definitively something wrong with Chien-Ming Wang, I thought it might be useful to look at his Pitch F/X data for this season compared to last year. I'm using this nifty tool available at BrooksBaseball.net for this.To control for the fact that Wang's early season arm strength may not line up with where he will be mid-season, I'm only going to look at his first three starts in 2008, a stretch of games where Wang pitched very effectively (22 IP, 12 H, 3 R, 1 HR, 4 BB, 11 K).
Chien-Ming Wang - 4/1/2008 - 4/11/2008
| Pitch Type | Average Speed | Max Speed | Average H-Break | Average V-Break | Number Thrown | Strikes | Balls | Strike % | % Thrown |
| FF (FourSeam Fastball) | 92.1 | 95.4 | -11.7 | 5.9 | 182 | 124 | 58 | 68.1% | 73.1% |
| SI (Sinker) | 90.1 | 92.4 | -10.8 | 5.0 | 14 | 10 | 4 | 71.4% | 5.6% |
| CH (Changeup) | 84.9 | 89.7 | -5.6 | 2.1 | 35 | 13 | 22 | 37.1% | 14.1% |
| SL (Slider) | 85.1 | 92.9 | -5.1 | 1.4 | 18 | 7 | 11 | 38.9% | 7.2% |
| Total | 249 | 154 | 95 | 61.8% |
Compare that to Wang's numbers for his first two starts this season.
Chien-Ming Wang -4/8/2009, 4/13/2009
| Pitch Type | Average Speed | Max Speed | Average H-Break | Average V-Break | Number Thrown | Strikes | Balls | Strike % | % Thrown |
| FF (FourSeam Fastball) | 90.6 | 92.7 | -7.7 | 6.6 | 66 | 38 | 28 | 57.6% | 50.4% |
| SI (Sinker) | 90.2 | 92.2 | -9.4 | 5.5 | 44 | 25 | 19 | 56.8% | 33.6% |
| CH (Changeup) | 80.3 | 84.2 | -9.1 | 3.6 | 12 | 5 | 7 | 41.7% | 9.2% |
| SL (Slider) | 82.4 | 84.2 | 0.9 | 0.8 | 9 | 6 | 3 | 66.7% | 6.9% |
| Total | 131 | 74 | 57 | 56.5% |
And here are the differences we should be looking at.
Difference
| Pitch Type | Average Speed | Max Speed | Average H-Break | Average V-Break | Number Thrown | Strikes | Balls | Strike % | % Thrown |
| FF (FourSeam Fastball) | 1.5 | 2.7 | -4.0 | -0.8 | 10.6% | 22.7% | |||
| SI (Sinker) | -0.2 | 0.2 | -1.4 | -0.5 | 14.6% | -28.0% | |||
| CH (Changeup) | 4.6 | 5.5 | 3.5 | -1.6 | -4.5% | 4.9% | |||
| SL (Slider) | 2.7 | 8.7 | -5.9 | 0.6 | -27.8% | 0.4% |
Pitch F/X's pitch classifications are still a work in progress, and the numbers are still not completely consistent across all parks, so there may be some questions about how accurate the data above is. I think Wang's fastball and sinker confuse the system because I'm pretty sure Wang threw his sinker more than 5.6% of the time in his first three starts last year.
Still, we can see that Wang's fastball is averaging about 1.5 miles less so far in 2009, with less horizontal movement. Wang's sinker appears to have the same velocity as last year, but with less horizontal movement. Assuming his fastball and sinker are essentially combined, he's thrown fewer changeups and sliders to this point on a percentage basis. He's also throwing fewer strikes.
I don't know if this tells us anything, but I'd be lying if I said I wasn't a little bit concerned about what I've seen out of Wang so far. Hopefully he gets better soon.
Tuesday, January 15, 2008
Pitch F/X and Joba Chamberlain
In 2007, MLB decided to enhance their Gameday application. As a numbers junkie (aka statdork), the best thing that's come out of that in my opinion is the rolling out of detailed pitch by pitch data. Data for 2007 is incomplete as it's been rolled out slowly across MLB, but it now appears to be available in most of the stadiums and should be everywhere for 2008.Pitch F/X is the name of the system that MLBAM is using to track the detailed pitch information. They record things like starting velocity, ending velocity, release point, break, and all other kinds of stuff. Having the data available is great, but figuring out how to get it and make use of it looked like a royal pain in the ass.
Thankfully, someone else did all the work for me as far as figuring that out. Over at the blog Fast Balls, Mike Fast detailed how to build a pitch by pitch database. I used Fast's instructions and have been downloading and loading the data for the past week or so. This is great stuff and I thank Fast for making his database building instructions open source.
There's a ton of data in here that I don't fully understand yet, and as I mentioned before it's pretty incomplete because the system has taken a while to roll out across MLB, but I think some data is better than none.
I am hoping to make use of this data in some of my posts in 2008, especially when it comes to Joba Chamberlain, Phil Hughes, and Ian Kennedy. Today I'd like to look at Joba specifically.
We all saw how Joba burst onto the scene with his high 90s fastball and nasty slider, throwing 24 innings of 1192 ERA+. He does have a curve and changeup, but neither was used very much as a reliever. For Joba, Pitch F/X had detailed pitch information for 225 of his 334 pitches.
The first and easiest thing to look at would be the breakdown of his pitches thrown.
Fastballs: 139
Sliders: 79
Changeups: 7
Next, here are the high, low and average velocities for those three pitches.
Fastball
High: 101
Min: 92.9
Avg: 97.3
Slider
High: 90.4
Min: 82.5
Avg: 86.6
Changeup/Curve (I can't tell which is which from the data)
High: 84.5
Min: 79.4
Avg: 77.2
Lastly, here's a look at what the end result has been for the pitches we have data for.
| Pitch Type | Result | # |
| Fastball | Ball | 45 |
| Ball In Dirt | 1 | |
| Called Strike | 30 | |
| Foul | 26 | |
| Foul (Runner Going) | 0 | |
| In play, no out | 6 | |
| In play, out(s) | 19 | |
| In play, run(s) | 2 | |
| Swinging Strike | 10 | |
| Swinging Strike (Blocked) | 0 | |
| Pitch Type | Result | # |
| Slider | Ball | 27 |
| Ball In Dirt | 2 | |
| Called Strike | 9 | |
| Foul | 7 | |
| Foul (Runner Going) | 1 | |
| In play, no out | 0 | |
| In play, out(s) | 5 | |
| In play, run(s) | 0 | |
| Swinging Strike | 24 | |
| Swinging Strike (Blocked) | 4 | |
| Pitch Type | Result | # |
| Changeup/Curve | Ball | 4 |
| Ball In Dirt | 0 | |
| Called Strike | 2 | |
| Foul | 0 | |
| Foul (Runner Going) | 0 | |
| In play, no out | 0 | |
| In play, out(s) | 1 | |
| In play, run(s) | 0 | |
| Swinging Strike | 0 | |
| Swinging Strike (Blocked) | 0 |
I'm not sure how accurate this data is yet, or how consistent it is from park to park. I'd imagine that this year's data will be fine-tuned a bit based on last year. I love the potential for new information that this technology will give us though.
Thanks again to Mike Fast for his open-source instructions on parsing this data, it was a huge help.
Update: Thanks to mmiller for pointing out this link to Josh Kalk's work. Thanks to Kalk for his work and data as well.
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