Archive for ESPN Insider 2010

It was a treat to watch a matchup Thursday night between two sophomore hurlers: the Atlanta Braves’ Tommy Hanson and Chicago Cubs’ Randy Wells. Hanson finished third in the NL Rookie of the Year voting last season, while Wells was sixth. Clearly, both pitchers have the potential to play large roles in their respective organizations’ futures. However, when they take to the mound, these two hurlers employ very different, yet effective, approaches.

Last season, Hanson’s fastball sat at 92 mph, while his slider came in at 83 mph, his curve at 75 mph and his seldom-used change-up at 83 mph, according to Pitch Type velocities at FanGraphs. In the first inning of last night’s game, the 23-year-old came out like a man possessed and was throwing his fastball 96-97 mph, his slider 89 mph and his curve 75 mph. The Cubs hitters were simply overmatched, and Hanson struck out the side (with a walk of Derrek Lee mixed in).

Hanson came out in subsequent innings and took a little off his pitches; the adrenaline had clearly drained a bit. Even so, he was still pumping his pitches in at a higher velocity than last season’s averages. When all was said and done, he had struck out seven batters in 5 1/3 innings, while issuing three walks and two solo homers. Along with the seven K’s, another seven of his outs came on fly balls and two were via the ground ball.

A former minor league catcher who couldn’t hit, Wells is already 27 years old. The late bloomer came into the first inning of last night’s game showing respectable velocity at 88-92 mph. His approach, though, was to induce contact with his heavy sinker. Wells’ ground-ball rate was just shy of 50 percent in 2009 (while Hanson just scraped 40 percent). The Cubs pitcher had his good sinker working Thursday, and he made the Braves hitters look like they should all take up new careers on the mound. And he did it without mid-to-high-90s heat.

Wells induced 13 ground ball outs; that’s important because it means none of those batted balls were a threat to go over the wall for a home run, or to split the outfield defense for a bases-clearing triple. Just two of his 18 outs came in the air. When Wells did get into trouble, he was able to defuse the situations with three double plays. Jason Heyward, Atlanta’s rookie phenom, was rendered impotent by Wells’ approach. The right-fielder could not get any lift on the ball. He rolled into a force play in the second inning and then, after breaking his bat, grounded weakly back to Wells in the fourth. All the Braves hitters shared his frustrations.

In 27 starts in ’09, Wells posted a WAR (Wins Above Replacement) of 3.0, while Hanson came in at 2.6 WAR in 21 starts. While the Braves right-hander is clearly a crowd favorite for his radar-busting velocities and eye-popping counting stats, Wells has shown that he can be an equally effective big league pitcher — albeit with a lower overall ceiling — by pounding the lower half of the strike zone with sinkers and pitching to contact.

On Monday, nestled in his comments on potential radical changes, Rob Neyer called for some simulation work, saying the following:

“When thinking about the impact of realignment, additional wild cards, or whatever, it would be shockingly simple to set up some simulations and figure out what it would mean for competitive balance, fairness, fan interest, TV ratings, attendance, etc.”

With the help of a season simulation that decides the outcome of each game using the log5 formula, we can address the impact different realignment options would have on the 2010 season. I will measure the impact by comparing playoff probabilities across the various alignments. The alignments simulated were the current divisional alignment, an alignment based on 2009 record and an alignment based on 2009 payroll. The divisions in the realignment options were created using a snake system based on each criterium, and the fallout is as follows.

MLB, Realigned By 2009 Record

MLB, Realigned By 2009 Payroll

I used CHONE projections (specifically the Starting Lineup Projected Standings) for the team’s strengths and simulated each season 10,000 times. The resulting playoff probabilities are as follows:

Projections Of Realigned MLB

A few observations:

The big takeaway is this: The Red Sox benefit from being in a non-Yankees division, becoming nearly as close to a playoff lock as the Yankees themselves. And New York even sees its playoff odds increase in both realignments. The bottom line is that splitting up these two teams just makes it more likely that both of them make the playoffs.

In the NL, there are only a few instances where playoff probabilities change drastically. One is the Phillies becoming the top projected team in their division under the 2009 record alignment. The other is because of the relative weakness of Division 2 in the 2009 payroll alignment, allowing some weaker-projected teams to make the playoffs more often.

In the AL, most of the large swings in playoff probabilities result from moving into or out of divisions that have either the Yankees or Red Sox.

The Rays, one of the teams most often seen as the biggest victim of the current alignment, pass the Twins and Rangers to become the third-most-likely team to make the playoffs in either realignment.

When the Giants signed Barry Zito to a seven-year, $126 million contract after the 2006 season, few thought he would live up to it. He was four years removed from his stellar Cy Young season at the time, and in the ensuing years had shown signs of decline. His strikeout rate declined, his home run rate increased, and his batting average on balls in play (BABIP) returned to league average after years of falling far below it.

In 2009, however, Zito experienced a turnaround of sorts. His strikeout rate rose to 7.22 per nine innings, his highest rate since 2001. His walks also dropped back to around his career rate (3.8 per nine), as did his home runs allowed (0.8). Along with this went his ERA, 4.03, much closer to his career average than his previous two seasons. And after shutting out the Astros for six innings last night, it appears Zito has been reborn. What changed for him?

Part of it was the return of his curveball, a weapon that failed him during his first two seasons in San Francisco. Another large part of his transformation came from an increased use of his slider. Zito started employing a slider in 2005 after performing poorly in 2004. He didn’t throw it too often, never using it more than 8.5 percent of the time in 2005 or 2006. In 2009, however, he used it more than his curveball, throwing it 18.6 percent of the time against 18.2 percent with his curveball. During his 2010 debut on Tuesday night, Zito continued using his slider effectively.

Of the 90 pitches he threw, 11 were sliders, or 12.2 percent. He went to the changeup and curveball more often, though neither was as effective as the slider. Only one of the 11 sliders ended up outside the zone, and Zito generated three swings and misses off the slider, more than the changeup and curveball combined. Additionally, he threw eight of those 11 sliders in a two-strike count, signaling that it could be employed as his primary out pitch this season. In his six innings of work, the southpaw fanned six, walked one, and allowed just three hits in the Giants’ 3-0 win.

It seems that Zito learned something during his poor 2008 season, when he had a career-high 5.15 ERA. That was when he started increasing his slider usage, and it proved his most effective pitch. In 2007, he threw his slider 4.3 percent of the time. In 2008, 9.8 percent and last year 18.6 percent. In his 2010 debut he employed his curveball and changeup more frequently, but picked his spots with the slider. It worked out for him. The slider is what turned Barry Zito back into an effective pitcher.

I join many others in welcoming Bill Simmons to the statistical revolution in baseball. While statistics have always been an integral part of baseball, we have learned to tinker with them to more accurately reflect what happens on the field, and more importantly, what will happen. One of the more difficult puzzles to crack has been evaluating pitchers due to how entangled their performance is with that of their defenders. Accepting the move from ERA to Fielding Independent Pitching is probably the single biggest step one can take on the right path of separating the two, and Simmons has made that leap.

The Sports Guy made the case for FIP in his piece by referencing White Sox closer Bobby Jenks, who posted a decent 3.71 ERA last year, but whose secondary stats added up to a more mediocre 4.47 FIP. Given that Jenks’ ERA was significantly lower than his FIP, he concluded that Jenks wasn’t as good as his traditional numbers made him appear. While this is usually true, and the process he used to make his conclusion works most of the time, there is one more important number to check.

Home Runs allowed, an important input to the FIP formula, are not as skill-based as had been thought throughout history. Research has shown that pitchers have little control over how often a fly ball actually leaves the yard. In fact, if you want to predict how many home runs a pitcher will give up in 2010 you are better off looking at his 2009 ground ball ratio rather than his 2009 home run totals, the latter of which can occasionally include some good or bad luck due to wind, park, or random variation.

That is why xFIP exists, to correct those home run rates. It is simply the FIP formula with an expected home run rate based on fly ball totals, rather than actual home run rate. Substituting for the average amount of fly balls that turn into home runs leads to more accurate future projections than just looking at FIP by itself. Sticking with Simmons’ example of Bobby Jenks, he certainly did look like garbage at times last season, in large part because 17 percent of his fly balls went for home runs. That’s nearly double his career rate and well above the league average, which is around 11 percent. While Jenks’ ERA of 3.71 didn’t match up well with his 4.47 FIP, his xFIP of 3.63 shows that Jenks had some bad luck on fly balls clearing the wall.

Bobby Jenks rediscovered his strikeout touch in 2009 (8.3 K/9) and kept his walks low (2.7 BB/9). If his home runs hadn’t ballooned, he would have been seen as one of baseball’s best closers. While Bill was right to look at FIP to see whether Jenks’ ERA reflected how he really pitched, making that last small step to using xFIP to project his future performance will give him, and you, an even greater advantage.

The Indians and the Blue Jays had something in common on Opening Day. While both staffs feature a number of promising arms, each of their Opening Day starters hadn’t thrown a pitch in the majors since 2008. Jake Westbrook, understandably, struggled during his start four Cleveland. In four innings of work he threw 82 pitches and just 47 for strikes. That led to four walks. Combined with five hits, including a two-run home run by White Sox first baseman Paul Konerko, and Westbrook surrendered five runs in his return. For Shawn Marcum, however, it was a different story.

Marcum has never been an overpowering pitcher. His fastball tops out at 88 mph, and over his career he has relied on his secondary pitches to keep hitters off-balance. He features a full arsenal, including a cutter, changeup, slider, and curveball, which allows him to throw his fastball only 40 percent of the time. While his cut fastball grades well, Marcum’s favored secondary pitch is his changeup. It averages around 81 mph, giving it only five to six mph separation from his fastball, but it is his most effective weapon.

The changeup played a large part in Marcum’s Opening Day no-hit bid. He deployed it liberally, throwing it 29 times out of 92 pitches, according to Pitch F/X. While Marcum has favored the changeup in the past, he hasn’t typically thrown it this frequently, usually using it about 20 percent of the time. Then again, it was incredibly effective during this start. Only eight times did the umpire call his changeup a ball. The Rangers swung and missed at it 11 times, including four to end at-bats, accounting for two-thirds of Marcum’s strikeout total for the day.

To measure the break of a pitch, the Pitch F/X system compares it with a pitch that has no spin. If a pitch had no spin, gravity would act on it to a greater degree than it would a pitch with backspin, so a pitch with no spin would drop faster. Because of this, many pitches have a positive vertical break. This doesn’t mean that the pitch broke upward, but rather that it didn’t drop as quickly as a pitch with no spin. A fastball with 10 inches of vertical break, for instance, stayed 10 inches higher than the same pitch if it had no spin.

The effectiveness of Marcum’s change comes not from its separation from his fastball, but from its movement. His four-seam fastball has a vertical break of around 10 to 11 inches. His changeup has a vertical break of around 5 inches, so while a pitch with no spin would drop more, the changeup drops considerably more than the fastball. The movement keeps hitters off-balance, as they oftentimes think they see fastball, only to have the ball drop under their swings.

For the past seven seasons Blue Jays fans got to see Roy Halladay, perhaps the best pitcher in baseball over that span, start on Opening Day. Seeing Marcum, over a year removed from meaningful baseball, might have been a disappointment at first, but he certainly gave them something to cheer for. It was a disappointment to see Vladimir Guerrero single with one out in the seventh inning to break up the no-hit bid, and then to see Nelson Cruz hit a home run to tie a game the Jays would eventually lose. But Marcum certainly gave Jays fans something to look forward to. He, and his changeup, could lead the Jays to a few unexpected wins in the 2010 season.

It didn’t take long for criticism to rain down on the new Yankee Stadium last season. From fans pining for the mystique and aura of the old stadium, which was still standing across the street, to the pundits who claimed it more a mall than a ballpark, everyone had an opinion about what was wrong with the park. But a few games into the 2009 season, another issue emerged: Baseballs were leaving the park at an alarming rate. The effect seemed so pronounced, in fact, that commentators came up with a new name for the Stadium: Coors Field East.

Through the season’s first two months the park lived up to the moniker. The Yankees came to bat 921 times during that span and hit 45 home runs, or one every 20.5 plate appearances (PA). Opponents didn’t have quite as much success, hitting 42 home runs in 983 PA, one every 23.4 PA. That was still far ahead of the AL pace for those two months, a home run every 35.2 PA. The Yankees claimed that the new stadium’s dimenions were identical to the old (though a few sources disputed that notion). But something appeared to be a bit different at the new park.

Two months represents a small sample, especially regarding park data. Park factors are most accurate when using a three-year sample, so a two-month sample might mean nothing. To that end, the stadium experienced a statistical correction in June. While the Yankees hit home runs at a slightly less rapid pace, one every 22.3 PA, their opponents saw a precipitous drop, hitting a home run once every 41.8 PA. Opponents never got close to their early-season marks, hitting a home run every 37.7 PA from June through season’s end. The Yankees hit a home run every 24.8 PA from June through September, a bit lower than their April and May pace.

Yankees	PA	HR	PA/HR	Opp.PA	Opp.HR	Opp. PA/HR
April	298	15	19.87	311	13	23.92
May	623	30	20.77	672	29	23.17
June	490	22	22.27	502	12	41.83
July	604	24	25.17	603	16	37.69
August	539	26	20.73	517	15	34.47
Sept	623	19	32.79	603	16	37.69
Total	3177	136	23.36	3208	101	31.76

There is no doubt that the Yankees benefitted from their new park, though that appears to be by design. The lineup featured not only three lefties, but also four switch hitters. Each of those four switch hitters has displayed more power from the left side over his career, and each also exceeded his career power numbers from the left side in 2009. After losing two lefties this off-season, the Yankees added three to their starting lineup, so perhaps we will see a similar effect this season.

But despite all those home runs, Yankee Stadium actually leaned towards being a pitchers’ park, according to ESPN’s Park Factors. While it ranked first in HR factor, it ranked second to last in doubles, with only Petco Park — considered the most cavernous park in the league — more heavily suppressing doubles. But, again, all of this uses just one year’s worth of data. In order to get a better read on how the park plays we need to study it over multiple seasons. As we saw in April and May, a few months of aberrant production can skew a season’s worth of numbers.

This will be Jake Peavy’s first full season with the Chicago White Sox, and it’s well documented that his new home ballpark, U.S. Cellular, inflates home run totals while his former park, Petco Park, suppresses them quite a bit. So we should expect Peavy to give up more home runs — but how many more?

One way to answer the question is to look at the home run per fly ball rates, or HR/FB, of each park relative to Peavy’s fly-ball numbers. We know fly-ball rates normalize more quickly than simple home run rates, and pitchers generally allow homers on about 11 percent of their fly balls. So this approach allows us to take a pretty nuanced look at the problem.

A study by Dan Turkenkopf of The Hardball Times shows us that “The Cell” and Petco have HR/FB indices of 118 and 75, respectively. What that means is that if you multiply those numbers by .11 (percentage of all fly balls that become homers), you discover that about 13 percent of fly balls become homers in Chicago, versus only about 8.25 percent in San Diego.

Before we see how that affects Peavy, let’s look at his record with the Padres.

Peavy away from Petco Park
Season	HR	FB	HR/FB
2004	9	81	11.1%
2005	6	82	7.3%
2006	11	110	10.0%
2007	8	102	7.8%
2008	13	75	17.3%
2009	3	27	7.9%
Total	50	477	10.5%

Peavy at Petco Park
Season	HR	FB	HR/FB
2004	4	81	4.9%
2005	12	105	11.4%
2006	12	130	9.2%
2007	5	121	4.1%
2008	4	100	4.0%
2009	4	53	8.1%
Total	41	590	6.9%

We see a couple of things here. First, Peavy benefited from Petco’s home-run suppression, as seen by his lower HR/FB rate. Also, he gave up a greater number of fly balls at Petco. The latter is due to a significant imbalance in his innings-pitched home/away splits between 2004 and 2009: 591 innings at Petco versus only 458 innings away.

Therefore, we need to figure out how many fly balls Peavy allows on average. Since 2004, he’s allowed 477 flies in 458 away innings (1.04 FB/IP) and 590 flies in 591 home innings (1.00 FB/IP). Basically, he allows almost exactly one fly ball per inning.

If we project Peavy to throw 200 innings, split equally between The Cell and opposing parks, we get something like this:

Home: 100 IP = 100 FB at 13% HR/FB = 13 HR (1.17 HR/9)
Away: 100 IP = 100 FB at 11% HR/FB = 11 HR (0.99 HR/9)
Total: 200 IP = 200 FB = 24 HR (1.08 HR/9)

Of course, this isn’t a stone-cold lock. There are other variables to consider, such as the fact that he is moving to a league with a designated hitter, but 24 is a legitimate estimate.

How does that compare to his usual numbers? Well, since 2004, when Petco opened, Peavy has posted a 0.77 HR/9 rate, meaning that, in any given 200 innings, he’d allow about 17 home runs.

So over 200 innings, Peavy should give up around seven more homers than he did with the Padres. That’s enough to give his ERA a bit of a bump but not enough to prevent him from remaining an elite pitcher.

As expected, the White Sox will continue to use Bobby Jenks as their closer this year, despite having a superior bullpen arm in Matt Thornton. For the past two seasons, Thornton has been a buried treasure, posting better numbers than the Southside’s closer. For that matter, his FIP (a defense-independent measure of ability) has been better than many other team’s closers.

The White Sox aren’t the only team that does not have their best relief pitcher throwing in the ninth. Kevin Jepsen of the Angels is a better pitcher than Brian Fuentes, and the Mariners’ Brandon League could very well be better than David Aardsma. In one extreme case, the 2007 Indians continued to use Joe Borowski as their closer despite his bloated 5.07 ERA, while they reserved Rafael Betancourt for the eighth inning. Betancourt posted a minuscule 1.47 ERA and 2.22 FIP that year.

For fans that follow these teams, it’s frustrating to see the manager continue to go to the well with these “proven closers” while neglecting to give these elite arms their fair shot at saving games. Well, the aggravation of fans aimed towards the manager in most cases is unnecessary. No, they aren’t using their assets in the best possible way, but the impact isn’t a big as you might think.

With the help of Tom Tango, FanGraphs provides a stat that measures the magnitude of every game situation called Leverage Index, or LI for short. Here’s the gist, and this takes us back to what Sky shared about the Twins loss of Joe Nathan earlier in the month:

-The average situation (think of the starting pitcher’s role) has an LI of 1.
-Closers appear in situations with an average LI of about 1.8, meaning runs allowed by closers are a little less than twice as damaging as the average run.
-Set-up men will see LIs in the 1.3 to 1.6 range.

So while closers on average pitch in more crucial situations, the set-up man pitches in some pretty important situations as well, and often more frequently.

For a practical example we’ll use Jenks and Thornton of 2009 White Sox. What happens if we go back into 2009, only with Jenks and Thornton swapping roles? Jenks posted a FIP of 4.47 over 53 1/3 innings, with an average LI of 1.9. This made him good for 4 runs above replacement level, or about half a win. Thorton threw 72 1/3 innings, with a 2.47 FIP, with an average LI of 1.5. That made Thornton good for 26 runs above replacement level. If you give Thornton’s innings and leverage to Jenks, and vice versa, the difference in runs above replacement comes out to be about a single run. That’s all.

Part of the extra value that a set-up man has is he isn’t restricted to just the ninth inning with a lead. Many non-save situations are crucial to a team’s chances of winning, and in fact, a lot of high leverage situations happen when a team is trailing by just one run — a situation where a manager will almost never use his closer, even though keeping the score close gives his team a chance for a come from behind victory.

Non-closer relievers can be extremely valuable in these middle innings, high leverage situations, so it’s not the end of the world if your team’s manager chooses to employ an inferior pitcher to close out games. Thornton, Jepsen, and League will provide plenty of value, even if they don’t rack up many saves.

Maybe you heard that some guy named Jason Heyward made the Atlanta Braves’ Opening Day roster. It could have something to do with the sound of the ball coming off his bat, which was a daily discussion at Champion Field in Orlando, Fla. Or maybe it was all those cars that Heyward dented with his devastating drives over the right-field wall.

But more likely, it had to do with how Heyward — despite being all of 20 years old — has dominated every minor league station and seems ready for the majors. While toying with minor league pitchers, he constantly showed his trademark patience — he had 105 walks to 138 career strikeouts, an elite strikeout-to-walk ratio for a young prospect. He also showed more power as he advanced, an excellent sign for his future.

There have been some recent prospects who came to the majors with similar pedigrees at this young age. But a quick scan of their debut seasons might be reason for pessimism regarding Heyward’s upcoming season.

Player	        AB	BA	OBP	SLG	HR	R	RBI	SB
Miguel Cabrera	314	.268	.325	.468	12	39	62	0
B.J. Upton	159	.258	.324	.409	4	19	12	4
Justin Upton	140	.221	.283	.364	2	17	11	2
Delmon Young	126	.317	.336	.476	3	16	10	2

Not quite the list that an Atlanta Braves fan would want to see. But this is why age factors so prominently in the appraisal of prospects — the fact that Miguel Cabrera could come up at age 20 and even put up a slightly above-average season at the plate meant that his future was bright. But if he put the same season up four years later, there would not have been much reason for excitement. So the fact that Heyward will create an entry for himself on this list is almost as important as his results.

But there are also reasons to expect better from Heyward. His minor league walk-to-strikeout ratio (0.76) is miles better than Miguel Cabrera’s decent 0.5 minor league number. His .190 career minor league ISO (slugging percentage minus batting aveage) is barely bested by Justin Upton’s .193 and Delmon Young’s .200. So to put Heyward’s skills in focus, relative to other recent young debuts, he’s got plate discipline better than Miguel Cabrera along with power comparable to Justin Upton.

Red Sox catcher Jason Varitek was an integral part of Boston’s championship teams of 2004 and 2007, but he’s pretty clearly in the decline phase of his career. The Red Sox are aware of this, given their trade for catcher Victor Martinez in 2009. But believe it or not, Varitek isn’t entirely useless, and this isn’t because of any “intangibles,” the “C” on his uniform, or the time he took a swing at A-Rod while keeping his catcher’s facemask on. Strictly by the numbers, Jason Varitek still has something to offer as a player.

In 2009, Varitek hit .209/.313/.390. And over the last three seasons he hit .229/.322/.390. Those are pretty dreadful lines. However, slugging catchers like Joe Mauer and Brian McCann are far from the norm. Last year, the average catcher hit .254/.321/.396. That means that Varitek’s hitting line is pretty much average for a backstop.

Wins Above Replacement (WAR) is useful for cases just like this. Since average major league players have substantial value, WAR uses a different baseline, combining offense, defense, and a positional adjustment to see how many wins over a freely available Triple-A talent (a “replacement player”) each player contributes given his playing time. Over a full season, 2 WAR is about average. According to FanGraphs, Varitek was worth 1.2 WAR in 2008 and 1.3 in 2009. What is a replacement level catcher? In similar playing time, Rays catcher Dioner Navarro was worth a -0.2 WAR in 2009. He “hit” .218/.261/.322 and ended up just barely below replacement level.

Varitek, who turned 38 years old is April, is best suited as a part-timer at this point, but he has a role to play for the Red Sox. Martinez hasn’t caught more than 100 games since 2007. It’s extremely rare for any team, even the Red Sox, to have an above-average player on the bench. And though Varitek is probably just a tick below average, that’s still very good for a back-up catcher. Boston looks to be in another tight race this season, and on the days when Martinez isn’t catching, they could do much worse than Varitek, who is still a perfectly useful big league backstop.