I have been asked a few times to list the hitters who where shifted the most in 2014 along with their results. Well, here they are along with a few thoughts.
Hitters who hit into a shift 100 or more times during the 2014 season.
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Nelson Cruz got a one year deal with the Orioles last year and had a career season. He had career highs in Home Runs, RBIs and Runs. Most people considered him an after thought on draft or auction day. He ended up as one of the great buys of the 2014 season and he paid his owners handsomely. Well, he is a free agent again and he is probably looking at worse (or a lot worse) home run numbers depending on where he signs.
His 40 league leading home runs where completely unexpected. Or were they? I am just going to look at his home run totals using Inside Edge batted ball data.
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Last week, I examined rookie pitchers Daniel Norris and Rafael Montero for my weekly Quick Looks piece. With both pitchers, they had several pitches which just got away from them. There was no way a hitter was going even think about swinging at them. These pitches put the pitcher constantly behind in the count. While I could use Zone% to determine the amount pitches in or out of the strike zone, I wanted to look a little further out of the zone to find pitches not even close to the strike zone and I ended up with, Way Out of the Zone Percentage (WOOZ%).
I have wanted to look into this subject for while after hearing Brian Bannister mention something in a Baseball Prospectus podcast. He said some pitchers can have problems with their grips as they transition from the higher seamed minor league baseball to the lower seamed MLB baseball. Specifically, he noted it hurt pitchers who throw four-seam fastballs and curve balls. Since starting Quick Looks, which concentrates on young, new pitchers, I have seen a ton of pitches not near the zone which may be caused by not having a good grip. I needed to find and solution and for now it is WOOZ%.
While gathering opinions on Twitter about Alex Rodriguez, I ran into an interesting issue – ethical reasons to not roster a player. In the past, it has never really occurred to me to not roster or cut a player based on his off-the-field actions. Certainly, I will adjust my valuations. We’ve seen divorce eat into player contributions, and ill-timed comments can lead to a change in role or a trade. But not until the Adrian Peterson fiasco has it ever occurred to me to boycott a player for ethical reasons. Perhaps I’m behind the curve, but I want to explore the topic in more detail.
The Royals recently promoted 2014 draftee Brandon Finnegan to the majors to be a lefty out of the bullpen. So far the 21-year-old has thrown just a couple of relief innings. What I wanted to do is push the limits to discover what type of pitcher Mr. Finnegan may be in the future given this small sample of information. Today, I am concentrating just on his fastball.
Eno has been doing quite a bit of pitch benchmarks and I helped him out with some values. After using these values for a few months, I noticed heavy flyball pitchers like Chris Young and Danny Duffy had vertical movements, as defined be Pitchf/x, near or above 10. On the other end of the spectrum, ground ball pitchers, like Justin Masterson, had a vertical component near or below zero. By knowing the amount of downward break on fastball, I hope to get a range on their ground ball rate (GB%).
Additionally, a fastball is thrown fast with the hope to induce some swing-and-miss. So, additionally I looked to find the average swinging strike rate (SwStr%) just by knowing a pitcher’s velocity. Since velocity stabilizes quickly, just a few pitches will give us an idea of the pitcher speed and hopefully the average amount of swing-and-miss from their fastball.
Yesterday, Jeff Zimmerman decided to have a little bit of fun by sharing with all of us his value calculations based on RoS Steamer/ZiPS projections. These were meant to be the earliest look at potential 2015 preseason value, though it is important to note that no adjustment for position was made so catchers in two catcher leagues would be worth significantly more than the spreadsheet indicates. With playing time a huge question mark for many players given that this season still has over a month to go, the rub was that every player’s stats were extrapolated over 600 plate appearances. So this was more like a fantasy skills like valuation, which is still plenty useful. It could assist in identifying guys who could be very valuable if they fell into additional playing time. It also provides a super early glimpse of what next year’s cheat sheets may look like. So who are some of the surprises in the top 30?
It’s been a while, so it’s time to take another gander at starting pitcher xK% marks using my updated formula and compare those to actual strikeout rates. While strikeout rates do stabilize relatively quickly, there is still luck tied to sequencing that the formula attempts to strip away. These are the more interesting names that xK% suggests could enjoy a strikeout rate improvement the rest of the way.
Yesterday, I discussed some of the starting pitchers who have underperformed their xBABIP marks the most. Today, we’ll check in on the other side of the coin — those starters who are significantly outperforming their xBABIP marks. Whether it’s great defensive support, some mystical ability to consistently induce weak contact or at ’em balls or good old lady luck, xBABIP thinks these levels are unsustainable.
Yesterday, I shared the names of four speedsters who are available in the vast majority of leagues played on CBS. Naturally today, I shift my focus onto the power guys. Unlike the speed demons, it’s more difficult to find strong sources of power available for free. But they might be there if you dig deep enough. Here are three names for your consideration.
With about two months left in the season, we all know what our team’s strengths and weaknesses are and where we could gain and lose points in each of the standings categories. I’ve said this in the past and will say it again — your place in the various categories is much more important when deciding on your weekly active roster then what a player’s overall value is in a vacuum. It’s rather obvious, but it bears repeating. If you’re first in homers and RBIs by a substantial margin, benching the likes of Brandon Moss or Chris Carter are easily justifiable. If you need speed, these four guys are available in the majority of leagues, and more than 50% of those on CBS.
