Cole Hamels and Panic
Cole Hamels has been among the finest starting pitchers going on six seasons now. In fantasy baseball terms, during that time span, Hamels has been a beast in most formats. He’s 7th overall in wins with 82, second in WHIP with a stingy 1.13, and 6th in strikeouts with well over 1100. And in the last two seasons, he’s seemingly taken his game to a new level, compiling 9 wins over replacement between 2011-2012. But so far this year, his results haven’t been what owners have been looking for. A 4.40 ERA, 1.26 WHIP, and a 7.49 K/9 rate are all well behind his career averages.
Is he hurt? Is he on the path to mediocrity? Did he fake his birth certificate?
I can’t speak to his health, but owners need not panic. And if you’re not an owner, try to be one. My money is on good times for Hamels from here on out, and it’s probably so obvious that it hardly even needs to be pointed out. But despite that, here goes.
| O-Swing% | Z-Swing% | Swing% | O-Contact% | Z-Contact% | Contact% | Zone% | F-Strike% | SwStr% | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2013 | 33.7% | 68.9% | 48.9% | 59.9% | 85.0% | 75.1% | 43.2% | 59.9% | 11.7% |
| Career | 30.5% | 68.1% | 49.4% | 58.4% | 82.0% | 74.7% | 50.2% | 60.5% | 12.2% |
So far, Hamels looks like a mirror image of his career figures relative to plate discipline with the exception of one key area, that being the number of pitches in the strike zone. Now, before you go running into the streets, pitchfork and torch in hand, realize that Hamels has been successful with such a zone% as recent as last season where it was just 43.8%. One concern, however, is the research by Jeff Zimmerman which points to a greater risk of injury for pitchers under a 47% zone rate — but if you look at his game log thus far, it’s really just the one stinker vs. Kansas City that pulls his zone% down. And heck, it’s been cold out.
Go to his hit trajectory, and there’s still a lack of red flags:
| LD% | GB% | FB% | IFFB% | HR/FB | IFH% | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2013 | 19.90% | 43.80% | 36.30% | 13.20% | 13.20% | 4.70% |
| Career | 19.20% | 43.30% | 37.50% | 11.10% | 11.60% | 5.80% |
So he’s giving up more home runs than he has in his career. Otherwise, it’s the same old Cole. If you had to bet your life savings on it (if you had life savings, dear readers), do you think that 13.2% will go up or down by the end of the year?
What about his velocity?!
| vFA | vFC | vCU | vCH | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2011 | 91.2 | 88.5 | 76.2 | 83.4 |
| 2012 | 90.9 | 88.1 | 75.7 | 83.9 |
| 2013 | 91.3 | 87.9 | 75.4 | 83.3 |
| Career | 90.9 | 88.3 | 75.7 | 81.8 |
Look kids, Big Ben, Parliament.
Overall, it’s really just an issue with walks so far this season. His career BB% is 6.3% and in 2013, it’s 10.1%. If you think that’s likely to continue, then maybe you should be concerned about your ace. But I just don’t see an inexplicable disappearance of his control from here on out. He’s had two games where he really struggled to spot the ball, but other than that he’s been pretty much as advertised. An in fact, if you look at his last six starts, he’s held opposing batters to a .186/.274/.331 slash line and posted a 2.41 ERA and a 22% strikeout rate.
It might just be my intuition, but my experience tells me that people panic more with starting pitchers because here we are in mid-May with a fifth of the season over. But it’s just eight starts for a starter, and the sample still is far too small to draw anything in the way of conclusions. You don’t have to dig very deep to realize that Cole Hamels will probably be just fine as long as he starts to cut down on the walks. There’s really little evidence to suggest otherwise.
Michael was born in Massachusetts and grew up in the Seattle area but had nothing to do with the Heathcliff Slocumb trade although Boston fans are welcome to thank him. You can find him on twitter at @michaelcbarr.
Wow!!! Thank u for calming my panic button as hamels is on my staff n I was getting worry! Now I can relax
Starter you CAN panic about (since he doesn’t have nearly the track record): Jon Niese. He’s more a roto 5th starter anyway in 12 team mixed and his walk rate way up, K rate down, 1st pitch strike way down. Velo only down slightly but he didn’t have much to spare.
It may simply be a matter of getting strike 1 out of the way and everything else flows from there.
OK, sorry for the random aside. I wouldn’t worry if I had Hamels.
Yeah, he’s been a big disappointment. Agreed.
If you put yourself in a position to panic about Niese, that was the problem in the first place. He’s never been that good outside of last year. But there is this:
http://www.baseballanalytics.org/baseball-analytics-blog/2013/5/10/which-pitchers-are-getting-calls-getting-squeezed.html
Acquired him two weeks ago on the cheap for this very reason. Very happy with the deal.
sickening. Nice work.
I traded him away a couple weeks ago for Scherzer, who was cheaper and I really like, and Adam LaRoche, who I needed because I forgot to get a healthy 1B in the auction. I’m still very happy about that.
I’ve watched all of his games so far this season. With regards to the walks, he’s missing badly more often than I’m used to seeing with him. I think it could be cause for alarm. He’s a guy who normally has stellar control.
He has more movement in 2013 on his fastball, cutter, sinker, and change than he’s had over his career. My bet is he’s just yet to fully adjust to that. Or perhaps it’s something that happens early on — his career BB% is higher in March/April than any other month.
I know it’s too small of sample size, but when can we look at the impact of inter league games on players? 8 earned runs against KC really ballooned his ERA.
What’s the difference between Plate Discipline and Pitchf/x Plate Discipline?
I believe Pitchf/x is rule book, and normal Plate Disciple accounts for a normalized “actual game” strikezone.
The pitch fx strike zone is set from the work of Mike Fast (now with the Astros). The exact zone is found using the equations found here:
http://www.baseballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=14572
The BIS zone is something they set, but it has changed over the years in unknown ways.
Pitch FX zone is used here when possible because it is consistent.
It’s simply different data sources. Plate Discipline is from Baseball Info Solutions, the other is the PitchF/X system.
you should have used his zone% from the pitch/fx plate discipline as Zimmerman did in his research.
I traded him and I don’t care what anyone says. He is on themdownside of his career. Watch him pitch? Long innings. MstruGgles to,finish batters when ahead in the count. Got a closer for him and glad Imdid.
Hmm
How did “MstruGgles” happen?
I think it’s in the PitchF/X data.
I wish I didn’t own Hamels.
That would mean I could trade for him.
I’ve looked at my roster several times and thought, that Cole Hamels would be a good trade target. I think he’ll be just fine. Even with Stanton, Bruce, and Hamels struggling, I’ve stayed afloat thus far with my middle and late round selections of Napoli, Marte, Gomez, Zimmermann, Moore, Buccholz, and Iwakuma.
Cool update on your team bro
How does that Zone% number not raise an issue? If he is walking significantly more batters this year because he isn’t hitting the zone as much, that certainly drops him from my top 10. So don’t panic, but adjust.
Well as he said, the Zone% is almost in line with last year’s number, so there’s no real reason to think it suddenly should correspond with a higher walk rate than last year’s.
43.2 and 50.2 aren’t close enough to be called “almost in line.” Am I really the only one that thinks it’s a big deal?
The one pitcher I have that I really worry about isn’t Cole Hamels, but Yovanni Gallardo. He’s been mostly awful so far, and his trade value diminishes with every 5-walk performance.
I was just in the process of mulling over a trade proposal: Hamels and Sal Perez for Fister and Carlos Santana. Thoughts?
I’m a little worried. Thinking of offering Hamels and Willingham for Shields and Markakis. What do yall think?
Just traded Hamels, Victorino and Freese for A-Ram, Willimgham and J. Garcia. And I couldn’t be happier. Hamels ain’t done but his walk rate can’t be dismissed after a fifth of a season. And Philly offense is old and poised to break.
Very helpful. I was just offered Hamels for Matt Moore straight up. I am inclined to take it, thoughts?
No. You don’t want to trade Matt Moore for Cole hamels.
Cole Hamels just made the Cleveland Indian’s hitters look like Murderer’s Row…how many more garbage starts does he get before you can hit the panic button?
The Indians have the best team OPS in MLB… just saying
I am a huge numbers guy… and have had lots of fantasy success as a result. HOWEVA, I think there is an intagible at play here that can’t be measured… ATTITUDE. The Phillies are truly terrible, their hitters are undisciplined and there seems to be a feeling in Philly this year that the players simply don’t care. Not sure how effective Manuel is as a manager right now.
Hamels is wasting TONS of pitches… today his pitch count after the second inning was 51!! He is leaving balls up in the zone that get hit a long way, his control doesn’t allow him to be efficient. It’s almost like he isn’t concentrating. His BABIP is 0.250, which means he is actually getting lucky! I traded M. Reynolds-Iwakuma for Hamels-Ortiz in mid April after his first 2 blow up starts. I’m starting to doubt how good that trade was.
I was just offered Hamels/McCann for Anibal/Ruiz. Good points in the article, but I don’t think I want to do it. Wouldn’t mind input from whomever, however. My other C is Lucroy, FWIW.
Hey Gary,
I know many here are frustrated with Hamels and unsure what is going on. Add me to that list. I still like your trade offer of Hamels/McCann for Sanchez/Chooch. I think a large correction is on the horizon for Sanchez; his stats are still living off the 17K game but I see other things which are going to normalize, first of all his 2.6% HR/FB rate. He is also giving up 26% line drives and his current WHIP is way below his career average. His fastball velocity is up, but when the weather gets warmer I think balls are going to start flying. Ruiz had a career year last year but I don’t see him repeating that. McCann has always been a top hitting catcher but you can only count on 110 games from him. I say pull the trigger and hope for the best with Hamels.
i just traded machado for hamels straight up. I have wright, votto, kungfu panda and goldschimdt along with arnenado so i had way too many 3b but i wasnt going to just drop him. so i got hamels to go along with a staff of kershaw, gallardo and milone along with agando, ryu and cingrani….did i make a good deal?
Traded Matt Holliday for Hamels. Oh ya!