Archive for ESPN Insider 2010

Recently, Tampa Bay Rays manager Joe Maddon has employed an unorthodox strategy against pitchers with great change-ups. Ever since Dallas Braden and his nasty change threw a perfect game against the Rays, Maddon has stacked his lineups with players who bat with the same hand as the starting pitcher in order to neutralize that pitch. The change-up is a pitch that is typically used to neutralize opposite-handed hitters, and so Maddon is attempting to take away this advantage from pitchers with great change-ups by reducing the number of opposite-handed hitters in the lineup. So far, the strategy has worked pretty well.

Most notably, on May 29, the Rays torched White Sox lefty John Danks for eight runs with a lineup that included four left-handed hitters. On Wednesday night, the Rays faced right handed change-up specialist Shaun Marcum of the Toronto Blue Jays, who had a 2.77 ERA entering the gme. The Rays lineup still included three left-handed hitters, as it’s essentially impossible for the Rays to remove Carl Crawford, Carlos Pena, and Reid Brignac from their line-up at this point. However, the Rays sent up switch-hitters Ben Zobrist and Dioner Navarro to bat right handed against Marcum, and even more telling was that they not only used right-handed catcher Kelly Shoppach as the DH, but they hit him clean-up.

Did it work? Marcum’s line — four innings, 10 hits and seven earned runs — certainly suggests it did. Shoppach, Navarro, and Zobrist were a combined 3-for-6 against Marcum, including a home run by Navarro.

A look at the Pitch F/X data suggests that Marcum still threw his change-up as often as he normally does, so he didn’t alter his game plan much. In his 12 previous starts, Marcum threw 21.1 percent change-ups, and 14 of his 67 pitches (20.9 percent) were change-ups on Wednesday night. It was still effective, as he threw 10 of the 14 (71.4 percent) for strikes and drew swinging strikes on three (21.4 percent) of them, both marks well above the league average. However, that swinging strike mark is five points below his average for the season, suggesting that hitters weren’t fooled quite as often by the pitch.

Despite the early success, Joe Maddon may not exactly be on solid ground with these decisions. In their careers, both Marcum and Danks aren’t significantly better against opposite-handed battters. Instead, they have performed at roughly the same level against these hitters, showing no real platoon split. The “Danks Theory,” as some are calling the strategy, has worked, but it may take switch hitters out of their comfort zones, and it’s possible that neutralizing the change-up may come at the cost of making a pitcher’s fastball or curveball more effective. It will be interesting to see whether the Rays continue to trot this odd strategy out there even if they get shut down a few times.

Stephen Strasburg’s first start Tuesday exceeded all expectations, especially in terms of dominance: He racked up 14 strikeouts without a walk, throwing just 94 pitches over seven innings. That electrifying stuff (displayed with 17 swinging strikes) combined with pinpoint command is what makes the 21-year-old so extraordinary. For Strasburg, everything builds off his high-90s fastball; he throws both a four-seamer and a two-seamer, which he blew past batters Tuesday for eight of his swinging strikes. And his secondary pitches are great as well. He has a high-80s circle change that he locates low in the zone, and a low-80s, knee-bending curve.

On Tuesday, he had everything working. Using the pitch f/x data, and focusing on the location, pitch type and results broken up by batter handedness, let’s take a closer look at just what kind of craziness the Pirates were trying to hit.

In the graphs below, the pitches are color-coded: Taken pitches are faded, and those that are swung at are in full color. Whiffed pitches (swinging strikes) are marked with an x, and hits are circled. This leaves foul balls or outs as full color with no markings. The images are from the catcher’s perspective.

Strasburg was beyond nasty against righties. A full 50 percent of the pitches they swung at were missed, well above the league average of less than 20 percent. The two hits were opposite-field singles to shallow right, as Andy LaRoche and Lastings Milledge desperately did all they could with a pair of outside high-90s fastballs. But mostly it is tons of whiffs, on fastballs up in the zone and on changeups and curves low in the zone. Also, notice how everything is near the zone –- when he misses, it’s not by much. That demonstrates Strasburg’s amazing command; the fact that he can pitch at those velocities and with that much movement and still be so tightly around the zone with his pitches is astounding.

Against lefties Strasburg expertly keeps the ball low and away, which is where lefties typically do the least damage. The home run allowed to Delwyn Young, a change low in the zone, was an exception, and a mistake he will certainly learn from. Still, even facing opposite-handed hitters, he got a ton of whiffs on fastballs up-and-away and on curves and changeups down-and-in.

Anyone who watched the performance knows that he put on a clinic. These images tell some of the story, but he really has to be seen to be believed. It isn’t always going to go this well for Strasburg, but in his major league debut he, impossibly, exceeded the hype. This kid is special.

For your surprising statistic of the day, check out who leads the National League in batting average. Recognize the name on top — Martin Prado? If you don’t, it’s not a big deal. Not even the prospect experts at Baseball America noticed Prado’s ascension until it was obvious to anyone paying attention. Only now, in the midst of his third straight quality season is the Braves second baseman starting to get his due.

Prado, 26, never made a Braves Top 10 Prospects list at Baseball America. When he broke camp with the team in 2008, after cups of coffee during the two previous seasons, he was supposed to be just a utility infielder, someone who could play in place of Chipper Jones at third, Yunel Escobar at short, and Kelly Johnson at second. Yet despite a sprained thumb that kept him out for 59 days, the Braves still managed to get Prado 254 plate appearances in which he hit .320/.377/.461. Those are impressive numbers for anyone, much less a reserve.

In 2009 Prado again broke camp as the primary utility man. But when Kelly Johnson started to struggle, Prado found his name on the starting lineup more frequently. By July he was the regular starter at second base. The Braves nearly doubled his playing time in 2009, giving him 503 plate appearances, and hit .307/.358/.464. That’s when people started to take notice.

The Braves took a gamble on Prado this winter. Johnson was up for salary arbitration, but rather than pay him an increased salary after a year during which he struggled, the Braves decided not to tender him a contract, implicitly handing the job to Prado full-time. Once again Prado has rewarded their confidence. In addition to leading the NL in hitting (.325), he ranks fourth among senior circuit second basemen in OPS (.819). (Of course the leader in that category is Kelly Johnson, so let’s not give Atlanta too much credit.)

After a slow start, the Braves are now in first place in the NL East, in no small part because of contributions from two players making around the league minimum, Prado and Jason Heyward. While Heyward gets the hype because of his age and prodigious power, Prado, because he plays a premium defensive position, has contributed equally to the Braves record. He has been worth 1.7 Wins Above Replacement, while Heyward is just a fraction better at 1.8.

Prado is still under-appreciated and he probably always will be. But Martin Prado has made the most of his opportunity and is a big part of why the Braves currently sit in first place, even if he’s overshadowed by his teammates. For years, Martin Prado was overlooked, but given how well he’s played in the big leagues, it’s time to give him his due — the man is one of the better second baseman in baseball.

On May 1, Javier Vazquez had an ERA of 9.78, and those who had asserted that he did not have the personality to succeed in New York were pointing to his first five starts as more proof that he just couldn’t cut it in the Bronx. A month later, however, and Vazquez is shutting up his critics, including a sterling performance yesterday against the Blue Jays, allowing two runs over seven innings while striking out nine. How has he turned his season around so quickly?

The big key has been keeping the ball in the park. In his first five starts, Vazquez faced 112 batters and allowed eight home runs, or one every 14 plate appearances. In his last five starts (and one very brief relief appearance), he’s faced 126 batters and allowed just three home runs, or one every 42 plate appearances. The drastic drop in balls flying over the wall has allowed Vazquez has to the big innings to a minimum, which have always been his Achilles heel.

The drop in home runs have come, in large part, due to two factors that are likely related –- a surge in strikeout rate and a run of games against teams that feature right-handed power hitters. Vazquez has been downright horrible against left-handed hitters this year — they are hitting .283/.383/.566 against him — but over the last month, he has been able to match-up against line-ups that don’t feature an abundance of lefty sluggers.

On May 12th, he faced the Detroit Tigers, whose two biggest bats belong to righties Magglio Ordonez and Miguel Cabrera. On May 17, he faced the Mets, who feature Jason Bay and David Wright as their best sources of power. On May 27, he ran into the lefty-heavy Twins and predictably struggled, but was able to rebound in his last two starts against the Orioles and Blue Jays, both of whom rely on right-handed hitters for most of their power.

If Vazquez is going to maintain his recent success going forward, he’s going to have to figure out how to get left-handed hitters out again. While he’s always been better against right-handed hitters (.662 OPS against in 2010), the difference this year is remarkable, and his problems against lefties have been the source of most of his struggles. While Yankee fans should be encouraged by his recent outings, they may want to wait until he blows away a team with some good left-handed bats before they get too excited.

As Tim Kurkjian writes in his column today, Chipper Jones is a unique player. Not only has he starred for the team that drafted him No. 1 overall, but he has stayed with that team for his entire career. And isn’t that what you’re looking for with the first pick, a player to build your franchise around? So this got us wondering, is Jones the “truest” franchise player? In other words, of all the No. 1 overall picks of all time, has he delivered the most value to the team that drafted him? Let’s find out.

To figure this out, we are going to add up the total number of wins above replacement (WAR) that each No. 1 pick produced for the team that drafted him. Adrian Gonzalez, for example, has been a very valuable player, but he has produced almost all of his value for the Padres, not the Marlins, the team that drafted him. With that in mind, here are the five players who have produced the most WAR for the club that drafted them.

5. Harold Baines, 30.3 WAR, Chicago White Sox, No. 1 pick in 1977
Baines was a consistently above-average hitter, as his wOBA never dipped below .333 during either of his first two stints with the White Sox. For a time, he was a decent defensive right fielder, but never great, and he spent the last 10 years of his career primarily as a DH. As such, he only topped 5.0 WAR in a season once, in 1984, when he hit 29 HRs with a .304/.361/.541 line. He was a lock for between 2.0 and 4.0 WAR for 10 years. As a consistently above-average player, Baines was quite valuable to the White Sox, but his age and lack of defensive value hurt him later in his career, when he split time between Chicago as well as Texas, Oakland and Baltimore.

3. (tie) Darryl Strawberry, 36.7 WAR, New York Mets, No. 1 pick in 1983
Strawberry had a fantastic run with the Mets from 1983 to 1990. He won the Rookie of the Year in 1983 with a 26 home run, .371 wOBA, 3.0 WAR season and never looked back. All eight of his seasons with the Mets were worth at least 3.0 WAR, as he combined great power — isolated power above .240 every year from ’85 to ’90 — with great discipline — he walked more than 10 percent of the time in every year with New York. He even mixed in some great defense, producing a plus-35 TotalZone between 1989 and 1990. Various problems derailed Strawberry’s career after he left the Mets to sign with the Los Angeles Dodgers in free agency. Strawberry would only put up 6.5 WAR over the rest of his career.

No. 3 (tie) Alex Rodriguez, 36.7 WAR, Seattle Mariners, No. 1 pick in 1993
This era of Rodriguez’s career saw him as among the better defensive shortstops in the majors (plus-22 TotalZone from 1996 to 2000) and the fantastic hitter we still know today. He would win four Silver Sluggers with Seattle, putting up wOBAs of .444, .379, .399, .397, and .433. These are fantastic numbers for any position but are eye-popping for a solid defensive shortstop. As such, it only took Rodriguez five full seasons to equal the performance of Strawberry over nine.

No. 2 Ken Griffey Jr., 72.4 WAR, Seattle Mariners, No. 1 pick in 1987
Back in the day, Griffey was in a class all his own. He was among the best defensive center fielders in the game, including a staggering plus-32 TotalZone in 1996. He had more seasons with a wOBA above .400 then below .400. Griffey was simply a dominant force in baseball for 11 years after his call-up in 1989, excelling at every facet of the game. His performance through age 30 compared extremely favorably with those of Hank Aaron, Barry Bonds and Willie Mays, three of the best outfielders to ever play the game. Unfortunately, injuries derailed the rest of his career and his return to Seattle was simply not productive at all. Still, a team can’t ask for more out of a first overall pick than what Ken Griffey Jr. gave Seattle from 1989 through 1999.

1. Chipper Jones, 83.6 WAR, Atlanta Braves, No. 1 pick in 1990
Jones has been the best of both worlds for the Braves, spending his entire career in Atlanta and producing over that span. Jones has never put up any of the eye-popping seasons like Griffey’s 10.2 WAR 1996, but he’s been consistently excellent. Since 1995, Jones hasn’t put up a season with fewer than 2.9 WAR, and he’s eclipsed 7.0 WAR four times (including his 1999 MVP season) and 6 WAR eight times. Jones is the prototypical combination of power and discipline, putting up isolated power scores above .200 and walk rates above 11 percent every year of his illustrious career. As it turns out, the numbers also tell us that Jones is the “truest” franchise player.

For a broader view, here’s a look at every No. 1 overall pick who has made an All-Star team, and how they fared for the team that drafted them relative to everyone else. This only includes position players.

Armando Galarraga of the Detroit Tigers came within one poor umpire’s call of the 21st perfect game in major league history Wednesday night. It’s hard to imagine that anyone — including the offending umpire, Jim Joyce — feels good about it. Moreover, it’s hard to believe that nothing — be it an overruling from the commissioner’s office or expansion of the league’s use of replay — will come from this unfortunate incident.

But Galarraga’s performance represents another, slightly less obvious accomplishment.

In an alternate baseball world, where pure evil does not momentarily possess Jim Joyce and force him to thwart all our hopes and dreams, Galarraga pitches a perfect game in a mere 83 pitches.

Though we don’t have pitch counts for the earliest three perfectionists — Lee Richmond (1880), John Montgomery Ward (also 1880), and Cy Young (1904) — the 17 most recent performances are accounted for via Baseball Reference (via Retrosheet). Of those, only Addie Joss‘ effort of 100-plus years ago was completed in fewer pitches (74) than Galarraga’s would-be perfecto Wednesday night.

Here’s the list of perfect games, from fewest to most pitches thrown:

In the majors this season, the average plate appearance lasts 3.85 pitches. Of 148 qualified pitchers, Anaheim Angels pitcher Jered Weaver throws the most per plate appearance (4.27); Minnesota Twins pitcher Nick Blackburn, the least (3.30).

The average plate appearance in Galarraga’s pseudo-perfecto? A mere 3.07.

Of course, much of Galarraga’s efficiency is attributable to his lack of strikeouts. Besides Joss’ performance — which, it needs to be said, occurred when the leaguewide strikeout rate was 3.7 K/9 (as opposed to 7.1 K/9 this year) — Galarraga’s three strikeouts is the lowest mark in perfect-game history.

It goes without saying that a perfect game requires a great deal of luck. The “average” perfect game still sees the pitcher allow about 18 balls in play. Considering that a ball in play generally has about a 30 percent chance of falling for a hit, the chances of 18 consecutive balls in play being fielded cleanly comes to 0.7^18, or 0.16 percent.

And that’s just for a pitcher striking out a full third of the batters he faces. For Galarraga and his three strikeouts, the odds were even lower: 0.7^24, or 0.02 percent. That’s 1 in 5000. And that figure still doesn’t account for the absence of walks, hit by pitches, errors, etc.

As for the odds that such an improbably efficient and lucky perfect-game bid would be ruined on the very last play of the game by a bad call?

Unfortunately for Armando Galarraga, they were 100 percent Wednesday night.

Perhaps the tortoise had something on the hare –- he knew how to walk. A select group of players this year are taking the tortoise’s path to success by increasing their walk rates significantly. In particular, improved plate selectivity is working well for Josh Willingham, Justin Morneau and Franklin Gutierrez, and is the reason why their fast starts should be believed.

Morneau’s big season is similar to another player who recently rode an increase in walks into a huge season. Between 2008 and 2009, Adrian Gonzalez saw his walk rate increase 6.9 percent, which compares favorably with Morneau’s 6.7 percent increase in the same category this year. Gonzalez’s corresponding career-best OPS was not all driven by the walks alone -– Gonzalez also put up a career-best slugging percentage last year, just as Morneau is doing this season.

A quick glance at the table above shows that improving your walk alone is not the magic key to success. For every Morneau on this list, there is a struggling Jason Kubel to serve as anecdotal evidence in that regard, although even he has shown signs of coming around lately.

On the other hand, it’s hard not to notice the success stories. As measured by ISO (isolated power, or slugging percentage minus batting average), Colby Rasmus, Willingham, Morneau, Aaron Hill and Kevin Youkilis are all enjoying years more powerful than their career rates. In fact, the average 2010 ISOs of the 10 men on this list are 6.2 percent better than their career ISOs.

The theory is pretty simple: By being more patient, these guys are getting into good hitters’ counts and getting better pitches to swing at. When they don’t get the pitch they’re looking for, they simply wander on down to first base, helping their team by avoiding outs. Increasing walk rate isn’t the only way to improve, but as we’re seeing from these notable spikes in patience, it is certainly one way to make yourself a better player.

Over the past eight seasons, few pitchers have been as consistent from season to season as Jamie Moyer. However, if you merely peruse his ERAs over those years, you probably wouldn’t come to that conclusion, as he has had ERAs ranging from a very good 3.27 in 2003 to a 5.21 mark the following season that had many assuming his career was just about over. But when we strip away some of the luck factors and look more at his peripheral statistics, we can see that the 47-year-old has been about as consistent as anyone in baseball during that time.

A good way to strip away the luck factors and still focus on a single statistic is by using Expected Fielding Independent Pitching (xFIP). Over the past eight years, Moyer’s xFIPs have ranged between 4.53 and 4.86, which clearly is a much tighter range than his ERAs. How does this compare to other pitchers, though? To answer that question, I looked at the standard deviation of xFIPs from 2003-10 for each pitcher with five or more seasons in that time frame. The following table summarizes the results:

A Mark Of Consistency
These are the top pitchers in standard deviation of xFIPs from 2003-2010. (Min. 5 seasons)

Rank	Name	     xFIP SD	Seasons
1	Cole Hamels	0.06	5
2	Mike Hampton	0.08	5
3	Jamie Moyer	0.10	8
4	Gary Majewski	0.11	5
5	Jason Johnson	0.13	5
6	Chien-Ming Wang	0.14	5
7	Kyle Davies	0.15	6
8	Chris Capuano	0.15	5
9	Brett Tomko	0.16	7
10	Victor Santos	0.19	5

Moyer has been more consistent than most of his peers when you remove defense and luck, and his steady run is longer than that of anyone who is ahead of him on the list. There were 433 pitchers who fit the above criteria, and the group had an average standard deviation of 0.72. Moyer’s peripherals have been stable enough to put him in the first percentile of consistency (on a season-to-season basis) when measured with xFIP.

How does he do it? Well, Moyer has had the right mix of strikeouts and walks to keep his xFIP stable over the eight-year sample. Looking at his pitch-type information from FanGraphs shows that the results are not completely surprising, as Moyer hasn’t really changed his repertoire during the time frame in question. He has deployed the same 81 mph fastball, 79 mph cutter, 68 mph curveball and 75 mph changeup each and every season. And since he has never relied on velocity, he hasn’t had to worry about it fading over time like most pitchers do.

Additionally, Moyer’s batted-ball profile, while not traditionally considered a peripheral stat, has looked pretty similar from year to year. Opponents have had around a 20 percent line-drive rate, and ground ball and fly ball rates right around 40 percent each. It appears that having similar stuff each year has led to similar results on balls in play, and it explains why Moyer has been able to continue to succeed into his late 40s.

Two months into the season, the reigning American League Cy Young winner has just one victory. Zack Greinke, who managed 16 victories last season despite playing for a terrible Kansas City club, has been abandoned by his offense this year, as they are scoring just 2.97 runs per game when Greinke takes the hill. In fact, the Royals are just 2-9 when Greinke pitches, a testament to just how bad his teammates are.

But when assigning blame for Greinke’s problems, we can’t forget Greinke himself.

He has been significantly worse than he was a year ago. Most notably, Greinke’s strikeout rate has taken a tumble, falling from 9.50 K/9 last year to just 7.04 K/9 this season, ranking 21st in the American League in that category after finishing third in 2009. Fewer strikeouts increase the need for the Royals defense to make plays behind him, and their below-average gloves are rarely up to the task.

What’s caused Greinke suddenly to morph back into a strike-throwing, pitch-to-contact guy, rather than the blow-you-away ace we saw last year? His breaking ball.

A year ago, hitters swung and missed at 9 percent of Greinke’s curveballs, and a whopping 25 percent of his sliders. This year, hitters are whiffing on just 4 percent of curveballs and 11 percent of sliders.

The slider is clearly his out pitch — he throws it most often in two-strike counts. But he has not been able to get hitters to swing through the breaking balls nearly as often. To try to understand why this is happening, I asked our resident graphing guru, Dave Allen, to look at his off-speed stuff. Here’s what he found:

The first graph shows the vertical height of the curves and sliders that are being swung at, both this year and last. Hitters have adjusted to Greinke’s breaking balls: After chasing a lot of them down in the zone, they’ve now primarily been going after the ones he hangs up in the zone. The second graph shows why this has translated to fewer whiffs: Hitters have been laying off those low breaking balls that they couldn’t touch in 2009.

It appears opposing scouting reports on Greinke suggest hitters should take the two-strike breaking ball, which was Grienke’s bread-and-butter knockout pitch a year ago. And because hitters aren’t chasing breaking balls down out of the zone, Greinke will have to alter his two-strike approach if he wants to get back to Cy Young form.

Raise your hand if you know who Matt Wieters is. I hope a lot of you out there have your virtual hand up. Now raise your hand if you know who John Jaso is. Ryan Hanigan? Carlos Ruiz? Now, there is probably a lot fewer of you with hands up.

Minor League hype is a fickle beast. For every Jason Heyward, there are five Brandon Woods. Many regarded Wieters as the savior of the Baltimore Orioles on his way through the minors. His numbers certainly supported that belief, but they have yet to show up where it counts. This isn’t writing Matt Wieters off as a future Major League star. He just turned 24 so he has plenty of time to adjust to the bigs and begin posting the numbers people dreamed out of him. While we wait to see if that will occur, some catchers that got nowhere near the hype of Wieters have nonetheless turned in some valuable seasons for their big league clubs.

Ryan Hanigan isn’t a sexy prospect but he does one thing particularly well and that’s draw walks. His 31 walks in just 293 plate appearances helped him to a .361 OBP with the Reds. Hanigan, whom the Reds signed as an undrafted free agent back in 2002, has had an even bigger success story this year with a .338/.449/.486 triple slash line while splitting time with Ramon Hernandez. It is a small sample, but Hanigan’s .409 wOBA has made him the seventh most valuable hitting catcher in the majors, despite being a part-time player. Hanigan is almost certainly not going to maintain numbers that lofty, but ZiPS projects him to post a .334 wOBA going forward, which almost exactly matches ZiPS’ .336 wOBA projection for Wieters. Maybe someone should start a Ryan Hanigan Facts website.

John Jaso also flew under the hype radar when he failed to show much power in the minors. What he did show though was good plate discipline and low strikeout rates, which helped to maintain a high average and impressive OBP. Getting an extended look in Tampa due to an injury to Dioner Navarro, Jaso has made his case for keeping the starting job with a .324/.449/.493 line.Jaso’s 8.5 percent strikeout rate is just behind Hanigan’s 8.1 percent and, among catchers with at least 50 trips to plate this year, they rank second and third respectively, with only A.J. Pierzynski bettering the unheralded pair.

Hype of minor league players is generally well founded. It comes from quality scouting reports and/or fabulous numbers. Hype doesn’t always equate to Major League results though, and certainly does not guarantee instant success. Sometimes it takes awhile and sometimes, solid Major League catchers appear out of seemingly nowhere.