Denver is where pitchers’ peripheral numbers go to die.

Humidors and huge outfields have mitigated the issue a bit, but that’s still the first thing that comes to mind for most stat heads when the words “Coors Field” are uttered: Oh, those poor, poor pitchers.

There’s evidence, though, that the ballpark messes with hitters, too. Rockies hitters have the biggest home/road splits in baseball over the past five years … even after you correct for park effect. By weighted runs created plus, they’re 17 percent worse on the road than at home, whereas the league average home and away split is 10 percentage points lower.

In other words, Coors Field seems to giveth at home and taketh away on the road. When I asked Rockies hitters about this and checked the numbers, a clearer picture emerged: The Rockies are pitched differently at home, and their response to that difference seems to lead to problems on the road. All along, we thought pitchers were the only ones negatively affected by playing half their games at Coors Field; turns out, hitters are affected, too.

Let’s get to the root of what’s happening. First, we’ll look at how things are different at home, then explain how it’s affecting the Rockies’ performance on the road (at least those not named Nolan Arenado, who actually has more home runs and a higher OPS on the road this season).

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We’ve seen it happen time and time again, and the numbers agree: when a player shows power, pitchers adjust. They try to defuse that power bat by throwing fewer pitches in the zone, and fewer fastballs.

What we’d like to do here is turn the tables on this process by analyzing various hitters’ power situations based on which batters this season are seeing fewer pitches in the zone and fewer fastballs, and vice-versa.

It seems we can, and to do so we’ll use a few cool stats. The newest is Heart%, a stat created by Bill Petti that measures how often a pitch crosses the plate in the heart of the strike zone. We’ll also look at O-Swing%, which measures how often a hitter reaches at pitches outside the zone. And we’ll judge power using Isolated Slugging Percentage — slugging percentage minus batting average, or basically an extra-base hit rate.

Examining these statistics can help us identify which hitters likely have sustainable power breakouts and are worth targeting or keeping — and which fading sluggers would be best to avoid or let go.

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Coming into the 2014 season, Pittsburgh outfielder Gregory Polanco was a top prospect with all the tools that make scouts drool — power, patience, contact, defense, and speed. He was Keith Law’s 13th-best prospect that offseason, and he played well enough in the spring to force himself onto the Pirates’ roster.

A good but not great debut, then just 22-year-old, showed hints of future glory, as his overall work compared decently to the debut from a young, toolsy outfielder named Carlos Gonzalez.

But Polanco has had difficulty capitalizing on that promise this season. And now, nearly 600 plate appearances into his major league career, the questions about his potential are getting louder, particularly his ability to hit for power and hit left-handed pitching. Using his appraisal of the situation and the statistics as a guide, maybe we can see if the shine has actually dulled on what was once star-level promise.
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The Cleveland Indians have plenty of talent in their rotation. They have Corey Kluber, last year’s AL Cy Young award winner, who has excellent command of a sweeping, knee-buckling breaking ball. They also have Carlos Carrasco and Danny Salazar, who have fastballs that average 95 mph and are good enough secondary pitches to join Kluber in the double-digit K/9 rate club. And they have Trevor Bauer, who has good velocity and something like 10 pitches in his arsenal.

It’s an excellent rotation — and yet Indians starters have the sixth-worst ERA in baseball (4.41).

As it turns out, this disconnect between stuff and results has actually reached a historic level. Only four rotations in history have ever had a bigger gap between their FIP — an expected ERA based on strikeouts, walks, and home runs — and their ERA.

Let’s see if we can figure out why the Indians’ rotation is less than the sum of its parts right now.

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On July 13, 2013, Chris Heston was designated for assignment by the San Francisco Giants to make room for the recently signed Jeff Francoeur. He was released by the team eight days later.

At that point, the pitcher was throwing in the mid-80s and posting mediocre strikeout numbers, not to mention the righty was suffering from elbow problems. It was undoubtedly the low point of his career.

Now less than two years later, Heston already has a no-hitter under his belt, firing an 11-strikeout no-no at Citi Field on Tuesday in just his 13th big league start. He was masterful, not only striking out Mets hitters, but also keeping the ball on the ground (87 percent of the balls in play were ground balls).

With the win, Heston placed his name next to some of the greats in Giants history while also improving his argument for remaining in the rotation when it’s back to full health. Two years after the low point of his career, he’s quite possibly at the high point right now.

So what changed? His body. At least that’s what the pitcher said earlier this season when I asked him about his newfound stuff.

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Let’s face it, New York Yankees catcher Brian McCann is known more for his offense than his D. He has hit 18 or more homers in nine consecutive seasons and has an .807 career OPS. He has won five Silver Slugger awards — and no Gold Gloves — and has been named an All-Star seven times, more on the strength of his offense than his glove work.

But guess what — he’s pretty good at defense, too. In fact, when you examine McCann’s performance in peripheral catcher-defense stats such as framing, blocking balls in the dirt and calling a game, just one catcher has been better over the past three years: Yadier Molina (of course it’s Yady — who else would it be?). But while the only currently active Molina brother is widely acclaimed for his defense, McCann doesn’t seem to get his due respect.

I examined what makes McCann a good catcher and spoke with the Yankees backstop, as well as his manager, about the importance of McCann’s defensive skills, and what the catcher has learned over the years about his work behind the plate.

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There wasn’t much hype about Shane Greene as he slowly made his way through the minor league ranks, and seemingly for good reason. He was a 15th-round pick, not a big-bonus guy. He didn’t make any national prospect lists before or after the draft. His stuff didn’t seem that great, including a changeup that was clearly a work in progress. And his minor league numbers were mediocre at best; in 562 career minor league innings, he had a 29-43 record, 4.39 ERA and 1.48 WHIP. That doesn’t exactly scream “can’t-miss prospect!”

But just look at him now.

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Sometimes, framing can seem like an invisible skill, a game of centimeters that we can barely see, a practice that affects the game around the edges. Something you might shrug your shoulders at. You wouldn’t feel that way if you were Andrew Cashner, though. Not since the Padres’ pitcher has had to change his approach this year because of the framing he’s getting behind the plate.

Last year, Cashner had the second-best framer in the game behind the plate most days in Rene Rivera. Rivera stole 170 extra strikes last year by Baseball Prospectus’ excellent catcher framing stats, second only to Buster Posey. “It’s a difference maker, for sure,” said Cashner of that skill behind the plate. Look how wide Rivera’s called strike zone was last year with the Padres.

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As recently as March 2014, Los Angeles Angels right-hander Garrett Richards was considered a league-average starting pitcher/middle reliever with decent velocity and a good slider. Now just 14 months later, he’s considered one of the top pitchers in the American League. What were the keys to his 2014 breakout performance, and will it continue?

Richards has always had good stuff — in his first three years in the league (2011-13), Richards got whiffs on 9.5 percent of the pitches he threw, which would be top 40 this year among qualified pitchers — but he really didn’t post good strikeout totals until 2014. He posted a mediocre (or worse) 6.3 K/9 rate in 2013, which at that point was the highest mark of his career. But he jumped that rate to 8.8 K’s per 9 last season, ranking 19th in the majors among qualified pitchers in that metric, and he has a respectable 8.2 K/9 rate this season.

So I took a closer look at Richards’ repertoire and metrics in an attempt to find out what’s behind the breakout, then asked the pitcher himself for his thoughts.

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If Matt Carpenter is known for anything in the major leagues, it’s for what hedoesn’t do: swing the bat. That may seem counterintuitive for a player generally considered to be one of the best hitters on one of baseball’s best teams, but it’s an accurate depiction of Carpenter’s approach at the plate. Last year, no qualified hitter offered at fewer pitches than Carpenter, who had only a 32.8 percent swing rate. Over the course of his three full seasons, his 36.1 percent swing rate is easily the lowest. In other words, approximately two times out of three, Carpenter watches the pitch go by.

To put it another way, some hitters swing at pitches outside the strike zone more often than Carpenter swings at pitches overall. It’s simply who he is, and it’s a large part of how he has managed to find success in the big leagues; over the past two seasons, he’s 15th in walk rate and ninth in on-base percentage. His patience has made him a star — he was one of only 15 hitters worth at least 10 WAR combined in 2013-14 — and it also has made him rich, as the Cardinals guaranteed him $52 million over six years through 2019.

With that kind of recent track record, it’s easy to think that Carpenter should just keep on doing exactly what he’s doing and continued success would follow. But despite the excellent on-base skills and overall value, a quiet truth of Carpenter’s 2014 was that his slugging percentage dropped more than 100 points from the year prior, and Carpenter turned from an elite bat into merely a good one. With an aging Cardinals offense relying more than ever on Carpenter this year, the numbers demand that Carpenter change his approach. Simply put, he has to swing more. He has to be, in some ways, the anti-Matt Carpenter. And he can start in Sunday night’s season opener (8 ET, ESPN2) against the Cubs. Read the rest of this entry »