Jaime Garcia: The Groundball Machine
What do you think is higher: seasons played by or DL stints for Jaime Garcia? That’s probably an easy one. What about Garcia’s innings v. DL stints? I’ll tell you that he has thrown 660 innings, but that probably still doesn’t help much. Garcia broke in during the 2008 season with 16 innings of work, but then missed all of the 2009 season with Tommy John Surgery. He has run the gamut of devastating pitcher injuries with the TJ, a torn labrum, and then last year’s Thoracic Outlet Syndrome.
Any one of those on their own can derail a pitcher’s career, but together they form the second worst trio imaginable outside of the Kardashian clowns. And yet like Caitlyn Jenner, Garcia has emerged from the trio’s wrath better than ever. Garcia has had success before. He returned from TJ in 2010 and enjoyed a strong rookie season with a 2.70 ERA in 163.3 innings. Coming into 2015, he’d amassed a 3.50 ERA in 594.7 innings, good for a 108 ERA+.
He’s only had an ERA north of 4.00 once, last year’s 4.12 in 43.7 IP, and that was more due to the small sample because his 22% K rate and 4% BB rate were both career-bests. He allowed homers in four of his seven starts which left the ERA inflated, especially compared to his 2.94 xFIP. Garcia hasn’t been able to carry those skills over, instead falling back to his 19% and 7% career levels, but that hasn’t stopped him from being awesome through 10 starts this season.
Garcia hasn’t been injury-free in 2015 – he started on the DL recovering from last year’s surgery and suffered a groin injury in early-July for his seventh and eighth DL stints, respectively – which is why he’s been limited to just 10 starts, but he has excelled when on the field. He has a 1.77 ERA and 0.91 WHIP in 66 innings. The small sample is again playing a role, but this time in his favor. Sure, he’s not a true talent 1.77 ERA, but his ERA indicators are still quite favorable: 3.26 FIP, 3.19 xFIP, and 3.15 SIERA. It isn’t just blind luck fueling Garcia, a few key changes have spurred this run and point to continued success if he can actually stay healthy.
I always look at velocity first when studying a pitcher. It is often a key driver behind changes – both good and bad – for a pitcher. Garcia’s fastballs (four-seamer and sinker) are both up about 2 MPH to 91 MPH on average from the last two years. He’s been there before, averaging 91 MPH when you round up from 2008-11, but then spent 2012-13 around 89-90 MPH. His changeup is only up about a half MPH so his split between the two has increased and sits around 8 MPH.
The increased velocity plus an approach change – he’s working it on the inner half to hitters far more often at 52%, up from 44% prior to 2015 – have helped him generate a 66% groundball rate with the fastball. The changeup has more drop this year which has also spiked the groundball rate, going from 50% prior to 2015 to a sparkling 68% so far this year. He has always been a groundball guy, but this year has been extreme with a 67% rate (career 57%) on all pitches.
His .218 BABIP and 85% LOB rate are outliers on the high end and both will almost certainly regress, but he is actively contributing to both so while we can recognize that they are unlikely to maintain, it doesn’t mean he has just lucked his way into them. Holding an 85% LOB rate is made easier when you’re not putting many runners on base (0.91 WHIP) and that groundball rate can be helpful for getting out of jams when there is someone on base.
His 12 double plays are more than he had in his 16 starts from 2013-14 combined. He induced 25 GIDPs back in his 32-start season of 2011. At his current rate of logging double plays, he would notch 41 with the same 2011 workload. Among the 51 pitchers with at least 12 GIDPs, only reliever Jake Petricka has a better groundball rate per PA than Garcia’s 5% with an incredible 7% mark. It’s tougher to envision the BABIP holding at this level regardless of how he pitches the rest of the way.
Groundball pitchers are a rule usually have higher BABIPs than their flyball counterparts as grounders go for hits far more regularly than flies, even if it was a perfect pitch and the batter did exactly what the pitcher wanted. There are 18 pitchers who have pitched at least 50 innings with a 55% or better groundball rate and no one is anywhere near Garcia’s .218 BABIP. Second-best is Aaron Sanchez at .245 followed by Jeurys Familia at .250 all in relief. The group as a whole averages .291 with guys like Gio Gonzalez (.342), Carlos Frias (.336), and Tyson Ross (.333) taking the brunt of it and likely being impacted by both bad luck and bad defense.
As the BABIP rises, it will put that LOB to the test, but that’s where the double plays come back into play. Garcia’s career marks in these categories are about as average as it gets at .300 and 72% (starters are at .296 and 72% this year) so it’s hard to disagree with the projection systems that put him right back at that average level the rest of the way. But if he maintains the improved velocity and groundball rate, he can mitigate the damage inflicted by the BABIP and LOB drifting back toward his career averages.
While this is a high-end level of performance for Garcia that is unlikely to stick, it’s in the range outcomes that his skills could produce over a small sample. The real question isn’t where will he regress to, but will he stay on the field long enough to experience that regression? Unfortunately that is a question I can’t even begin to try and answer, but I’m comfortable running Garcia out there as long as he is healthy and expecting something like a 3.30 ERA and 1.20 WHIP which is useful in any format, even without a premium strikeout rate to go with it.
A better version of Jon Niese, albeit not as durable.
Brett Anderson but with more K’s and a lower BABIP: http://www.fangraphs.com/leaders.aspx?pos=all&stats=pit&lg=all&qual=0&type=2&season=2015&month=0&season1=2015&ind=0&team=0&rost=0&age=0&filter=&players=8223,8137
I did this with Niese, but now I’m gonna say Roger Clemens except not right-handed, more grounders, fewer Ks, and less ‘roid rage.
“….if he maintains the improved velocity and groundball rate, he can mitigate the damage inflicted by the BABIP and LOB drifting back toward his career averages.”
Except that groundball pitchers on the whole typically have lower strand rates than flyball pitchers. Maybe that doesn’t always apply to individual pitchers, so maybe Garcia himself can buck the trend, but you would not expect him to maintain a better than normal LOB rate based on his groundball profile. If he is able to keep his strand rate up this season, it’s more likely because he’s continuing to allow few baserunners altogether, which is the biggest factor in strand rate.
I feel like I made the exact point re: flyballs v. groundballs. And then mentioned that the GB has been key in GIDPs which is how it could still aid the LOB%. With due respect, I don’t believe you’ve said anything new here.
Well, maybe I’m missing something. I’ll quote you again: “if he maintains the improved velocity AND groundball rate, he can mitigate the damage inflicted by the BABIP and LOB drifting back toward his career averages.
I can see how the improved velocity could mitigate a rise in his BABIP, as increased velocity seems to correlate with a lower BABIP, which would aid a pitcher in stranding runners. But a higher groundball/flyball ratio would tend to lead to higher BABIP’s, as well as a lower strand rate. But you seem to be trying to make the point that both the higher velocity AND higher groundball rate would help him in regards to strand rate and BABIP. The improved velocity should probably help, yes, but the higher groundball rate should hurt his efforts to maintain a high strand rate.
I guess you might be assuming his GIDP rate will continue to be as high as it is, and if that’s true, he could definitely help him keep runners on base from scoring. I’m not sure that’s an reasonable expectation, however. Maybe he’s got a special skill for that (or maybe his infielders are really good), but as you mentioned, his rate so far has been well above his previous levels. They also appear to be well above league average rates as well, even acounting for the high number of groundballs he’s allowed. If his GIDP rates fall back to a normally expected level, his groundball/flyball rate probably won’t be helping him keep his strand rate high. Maybe he can keep that GIDP rate really high, we can only guess at that, and if that’s the case, you could expect that his high groundball/flyball ration would help him strand runners.
I guess I just don’t understand what point you’re trying to make. I recognize that GBers have higher BABIPs than FBers, which I mentioned. I understand the .218 BABIP is going up, no one carries that level.
It’s a semantics issue. The quoted statement already assumes the increase in BABIP, but it’s implying that when that happens Garcia’s groundball profile will help with his strand rate more than if he were a flyball pitcher. While the high GIDP% helps in that regard, it’s still overall a net loss compared to flyball pitchers.
Although, another thing in Garcia’s favor is that he does indeed have very good infielders behind him.
He doesn’t have a point other than to be a pedant. He just wants to make sure everyone is aware that he knows that GB pitchers have higher BABIPs and lower strand rates, which may be different than what a reader may have inferred in the article, depending on interpretation of that paragraph. It added nothing and was mostly an irrelevancy, because the smart reader understood the point in the article.
Thanks, Paul C. and Lanidrac. Well said.
Oh, boy. Look, you said something in your article that was seemingly a contradiction. Lanidrac tried to explain it to you, in a way that’s probably better than I can do. I guess mostly, if you publish an article on a Fangraphs blog that includes a contradictory statement, you should probably expect that someone is going to say “hey, wait minute”.
I dunno man, it seems everyone understood but you. I said if he keeps the velo increase & elite GB rate, he can mitigate some of the damage of the LOB% & BABIP rising. Not stop it or hold the current rates. He will be continuing to induce more weak contact than hard contact thus the damage is unlikely to be as severe as someone without an elite GB rate who would likely be allowing more hard contact in that regression phase.
I have no problem with discussion or dissent on my opinions, but the know-it-all, “I gotcha” attitude is lame. Especially as you continue to dig in as if this is a right/wrong situation where you’re unquestionably correct.