Listeners of the podcast should be well familiar with this format. Paul Sporer and I try to come up with a few salient points about each player to help you make your decisions. So This week I thought I’d help as many of you as I possibly could with one article. So let’s take three (okay six) hitters and three pitchers from the twitter mailbag and have us some fun.
Funny how we have not written much at FanGraphs about Robbie Ray this season. Eno Sarris lauded Ray’s velocity in brief in the spring; in July I expressed enthusiasm in Ray but didn’t give him the most glowing recommendation; all of which finally culminated with August Fagerstrom’s piece two-and-a-half weeks ago declaring Ray MLB’s newest strikeout madman. That actually seems like a lot of coverage, now that I mention it all, and it kind of is. But it’s all more recent and probably deserved to happen sooner, especially since Ray has posted a strikeout rate of 9.6 K/9 or better in every month this season.
Sarris noted that Ray is mostly a two-pitch guy, thereby dampening his value. Fagerstrom uncovered related weaknesses during Ray’s third trip through the order, likely correlating negatively with his lack of variety. Then again, Fagerstrom acknowledges how big a role sequencing plays in a pitcher’s success, and Ray has been woefully unlucky in this regard, forcing the split between his ERA and FIP (E-F) wide open.
Let’s play pretend. Let’s say Ray never develops a third pitch. Let’s say Ray rides the status quo through next season. Would that be so bad? Probably not, because Ray is doing his best Yu Darvish impression (sound familiar?):
Yesterday I wrote about Matt Shoemaker, highlighting how crucial it is for him to keep the ball down. One commenter on Twitter wondered if that wasn’t just the case with every pitcher, thus kind of an obvious point, but plenty of pitchers thrive up in the zone. Steven Wright throws a whopping 44% of his pitches in the upper third, far and away the highest among qualified starters this year. Others who live north of 30% include Steven Matz (37%), Justin Verlander (35%), Rick Porcello (33%), Jacob deGrom (33%), Aaron Sanchez (31%), Stephen Strasburg (31%), and Danny Duffy (30%).
Verlander, Porcello, Duffy, and deGrom are also among the top 20 in OPS (meaning they’re among the 20 lowest) in the upper third of the zone along with the likes of J.A. Happ (.375 OPS – leads the league), Jose Quintana (.414), Clayton Kershaw (.506), and Madison Bumgarner (.553) to name a few. In short, no, not every pitcher thrives by staying down in the zone.
He left a fat pitch to Robinson Cano in the first inning which he promptly took 419 feet the other way and I was wondering if this was going to be a long night for Shoemaker.
Yeaaahhh, can't leave it there pic.twitter.com/PlMtHrUmpk
— Paul Sporer (@sporer) August 19, 2016
This is what happens: https://t.co/1zmSHCHOmH
— Paul Sporer (@sporer) August 19, 2016
Pitch Velocity Effects on Groundballs, Exit Velocity, and Swinging Strikes
Last week, I examined Danny Duffy and several other writers have examined at him also. If you want to read up on various theories on my he is performing great and why that may change, go ahead. Instead, today I am going to concentrate on his fastball velocity changes and how the results change as the velocity changes.
Danny Duffy is starting to get some Cy Young consideration after spending part of the season in the bullpen. One cause for the turnaround is his fastball velocity increasing from 93.8 mph to 95 mph. The average velocity was even higher earlier in the season but it has been steadily dropping.
So what difference does it make if he is throwing 96 mph or 94 mph? Today, I am going to lay the groundwork for finding such an answer.
Simply, I looked at three different factors, exit (or batted ball) velocity (EV), groundball rate (GB%), and swinging-strike rate (SwStr%) and how each compared to a 1 mph velocity block. To help smooth out the results, I looked velocities between whole values like 90 mph to 91 mph and labeled them 90.5 mph. Also, I looked at values between 90.5 mph and 91.5 mph and put them in the 90 mph bin. I know there is overlap, but I hoped the higher number of samples would help smooth at the final results, especially with a limited number of samples at both ends of the data range.
To start off, here are Duffy’s average exit velocities for a given range of fastball velocities.
Matt Shoemaker’s strikeouts have essentially gone through three phases this season. Through his first six starts, he had just 17 strikeouts in 24.7 IP with a 14% strikeout rate. The fastball was getting pummeled and certainly not generating a necessary number of strikeouts. It yielded a 1.175 OPS and just 5% strikeout rate in 74 PA over those first six. The splitter (.566, 35%) offered hope. He decided to lean on it and it remained dominant over his next 12 starts, while also lessening the burden on his fastball.
Both pitches excelled in the two-month span from May 16th through July 16th. He had a 29% strikeout rate thanks in large part to the fastball’s improved output. The splitter it definitely the carrying pitch and gets its due credit for his resurgence, but the impact it had on the fastball allowed him to reach these heights.
As you may recall, I jumped onto the Danny Duffy bandwagon rather early on, diving into his ability to sustain his relief velocity as a starter through his fifth start of the season. Since those first five starts, he has continued to pitch spectacularly, posting a 2.43 ERA (3.43 SIERA) and 21.5% K-BB%. But the good times eventually come to an end. And I think Duffy’s value has peaked and is in danger of experiencing a sharp decline.
Quick Looks: Julio Urias
Last Saturday, I was watching the Cards-Cubs game until Alex Reyes was done pitching. I moved over to the Dodgers hoping to see what Brett Anderson looked like. I missed his one inning start. After a brief appearance of Josh Fields, the Dodgers brought in Julio Urias and I got some bonus prospect coverage.
I was not impressed at all with his current production level. He seems to be a thrower in the Tim Lincecum mold and doesn’t really know where the ball is going at times. This wildness can be seen in his 4.1 BB/9.
This won’t take too long. Before the current season, and at various points during the early part of the season, we posited that there is such a thing as a five-inning pitcher. By this, we meant a starting pitcher who can pitch well through five innings, but then usually fouls the nest in the sixth. We further hypothesized that, with the success of the impermeable Kansas City and Pittsburgh bullpens, and the burgeoning population of pitchers who can throw 97 MPH for 20 pitches at a time every couple of days, more and more teams would be constructing bullpens that can take over in the sixth inning and remain nonporous through the ninth. And finally, we surmised that an enlightened and stat-wise new breed of managers would start removing the five-inning pitchers after strong performances through the fifth inning, notwithstanding the pitchers’ desire to stay in the game. This, we concluded, would lend unexpected (by everyone but us and our fortunate readers) value to the aforesaid five-inning pitchers, who would now be unable to sabotage their own victories, and their own ERAs and WHIPs, via sixth inning self-immolation. We found for ourselves, and identified for those same fortunate readers, a bunch of such pitchers whose 2015 (and sometimes early 2016) stats suggested they belonged in this category. And in many instances we acquired these pitchers in our various drafts, auctions, waiver claims, and FAABs. Read the rest of this entry »
In the past, while looking for pitchers with multiple plus secondary pitches, I’ve run into a type of pitcher that can struggle despite having good offspeed weapons: the bad fastball guy. Chase Whitley, John Lamb, David Hale, and Nick Tropeano could all be put into this bucket, even if their stories are not yet done being written.
If your primary weapon isn’t great, you really have to go full Matt Shoemaker and start throwing you secondary pitches more often than your fastball, and even then you’re not guaranteed success. Look at Nathan Eovaldi, who did go the Shoemaker route once he found that splitter that he likes, and yet… he’s just about the same as he’s ever been, more or less.
What the heck? He’s got a really big fastball. But it’s lesser, for a few reasons. Let’s try to get at one of the ways it’s less than it should be today — perceived velocity.
Quick Looks: Kyle Hendricks, Luke Weaver, and Alex Reyes
Saturday’s Cardinals-Cubs game made for some good pitcher watching with three young pitchers taking the mound. Let me start with Hendricks.
A couple of years back, I did a Quick Look at Hendricks and here were my thoughts:
I just have not seen enough of him to convince me he can keep up the results. I would not be surprised one bit if his ERA from now to season’s end was near 4.00 (which is where his ERA estimators are hanging out).
