Archive for Francisco Liriano

Stock Up

Jordan Zimmerman, Nationals

A Tale of Two Rookies: Shairon Martis might have the shiny 5-0 record and a superficially better ERA (4.86), but Zimmermann (5.71 ERA) holds the FIP advantage, 4.24 to Martis’ 4.71. Zimmermann has a strong 3.25 strikeout-to-walk ratio (8.56 K/9 and 2.63 BB/9), but a fluky .343 BABIP has bogged down his numbers. The 22 year-old has a deep four-pitch mix and keeps the ball in the zone (54.8% of his pitches have crossed home plate, compared to the 48.9% MLB average). He’s also getting ahead of hitters 0-1 or inducing contact early in the at-bat, with a First-Pitch Strike percentage of 66.5 (57.7% MLB average).

Kevin Slowey, Twins

As an extreme flyball pitcher (his career GB% is 33.2), Slowey will give up some meatballs that end up in the stands (1.3 HR/9 in 2009, 1.47 HR/9 career). However, his control and command are absolutely disgusting. Slowey’s walk rate for the season sits at 0.65, less than half of last year’s already pinpoint 1.35 BB/9. The 25 year-old is basically in a category of his own in terms of painting the corners: Joel Pinerio ranks 2nd in BB/9 at 1.03. Slowey has a 9.75 K/BB ratio; Roy Halladay is second at 7.0. Slowey also leads all starters in placing his pitches within the zone, at 59.2 percent. His FIP is down to 3.94 for the season, and batters have a better chance of winning the lottery and subsequently being struck by lightning than drawing a walk against him.

Elvis Andrus, Rangers

Per Wins Above Replacement (WAR), Andrus has been the sixth-most productive shortstop in the majors in 2009, quite the accomplishment for a 20 year-old who spent last season in Double-A. Andrus has been a vacuum at short at 14.8 UZR/150, but he has surprisingly held his own at the dish as well. His wOBA sits at .355, with a .291/.333/.457 line. Andrus’ .165 ISO is leaps and bounds above anything he did at the minor league level. ZiPS suggests that we shouldn’t go hog-wild just yet: Andrus is projected to hit .250/.303/.337 from here on out, with a .291 wOBA. Still, the Rangers have to be highly encouraged.

Rich Hill, Orioles

Baby steps: Coming off a disastrous 2008 campaign in which he walked the yard and lost all semblance of fastball control, Hill has 12 punchouts in 11.1 frames. He’s still fighting himself, however, with 6 free passes. The 29 year-old’s signature low-70’s curve has shown plenty of bite (with 8.2 inches of “dropping” action, the hook is falling nearly twice as much as the average lefty curve, and more than Hill’s 7.1 career average when Pitch F/X is watching).

Hill continues to throw his curve and fastball from two different arm slots, though I won’t pretend to know whether or not the batter could pick up on such a nuance. The difference doesn’t appear to be extreme:

See that one red dot? Hill has dropped down sidearm to throw a slider once in each of his first two starts.

Mark Reynolds, Diamondbacks

The D-Backs rank just 24th in the majors in wOBA, but don’t blame Reynolds. He holds a .398 wOBA, with 12 home runs and a .284 ISO. He’s still coming up empty as often as any one (36.1 K%), but Reynolds is working the count well (12.4 BB%) while reducing his Outside Swing% for the third consecutive year (from 26.1% in 2007 to 20.6% this season).

Stock Down

Rich Harden, Cubs

The A’s received plenty of flak last summer for parting with Harden, whose transient brilliance can intoxicate GM’s and fantasy owners alike. The reason Oakland received only a middling package of prospects is the same reason why Harden will always be a second or third-tier fantasy starter: he’s never upright for more than a few months at a time. Whiffing nearly 11 batters per nine innings, Harden hits the DL with a back strain.

A.J. Burnett, Yankees

Burnett’s five-year pact with the Bombers was considered a significant risk from a health standpoint, but he was expected to perform quite well when available. So far, that hasn’t been the case: fresh off a 3.45 FIP with the Blue Jays, Burnett has posted a 5.27 FIP in 58 innings. Some of that is poor luck on flyballs- his HR/FB% is somewhat high at 14.3 percent. Still, his strikeout rate is down (7.76 K/9 in 2009, 9.39 in 2008), he’s walking too many batters (4.19 BB/9), and he’s surrendering far more flyballs this season. His 41.7 GB% is significantly lower than his 48.5% mark in 2008, which in turn was quite a bit lower than his 54.8% figure in 2007. Considering that seemingly innocuous flyballs are whizzing out of new Yankee Stadium at a dizzying pace (1.62 HR park factor), that’s not a positive trend.

Emmanuel Burriss, Giants

Granted, this Kent State product was never expected to knock balls into the gap with regularity, but this is getting a little ridiculous. Burriss has three extra-base knocks on the season, good for a .021 ISO. His wOBA sits at .284. Coupled with a so-so 11-for-15 in the SB department and a false start with the leather (-7.6 UZR/150), Burriss has been below replacement-level thus far. There are rumblings that Burriss may begin losing playing time to Kevin Frandsen.

Chris Davis, Rangers

Punching out regularly certainly doesn’t preclude a hitter from being highly productive, but Davis has resembled a Dave Kingman/Rob Deer love child in 2009. He has whiffed an astounding 43.5% of the time, lapping the competition: Carlos Pena ranks a distant second, at 36.3%. The 23 year-old is crushing what he can touch, with 10 homers and a .231 ISO. However, he’s swinging at most everything (35.2 Outside Swing%) while making the least amount of contact of any batter in the majors, at 58 percent. The result is an ugly .264 OBP and a .300 wOBA.

Francisco Liriano, Twins

Liriano had a highly promising return to the Twinkies last year (3.87 FIP, 7.93 K/9), but the 25 year-old southpaw has been torched for a 5.28 FIP in 2009. Placing a below-average 45.9% of his pitches within the strike zone, Liriano has issued 4.44 BB/9. Not surprisingly, his release point has been all over the place. For example, here’s his last start against the White Sox, on May 20th:

Hopefully sometime last week you were able to pull off a Jarrod Washburn for Justin Verlander trade. But even if you stood pat there are still plenty of trade targets and trade bait guys out there for you. So, here are five guys to pick up and five guys to move.

Acquire

Justin Upton – A terrible start to the season, where he opened 0-15, has kept Upton’s overall numbers low. But last week he had five hits, including two home runs. Upton likely won’t contribute much in SB but otherwise he should be a four-category star. Last year he was sidetracked by numerous injuries but when healthy in September he had a .919 OPS in 85 PA, having just turned 21 the previous month.

Francisco Liriano – The electric pitcher from 2006 may never come back. However, Liriano has pitched much better than his 7.06 ERA indicates. He has a 4.96 FIP and a lot of the discrepancy can be explained by his dismal 50.4 percent strand rate. His peripherals are slightly worse than both last year and the pre-season projections. You should not trade for him thinking he is a No. 1-type SP. But if his current owner is disgusted with his early-season poundings, he could be a nice No. 2/3-type SP the rest of the season.

A.J. Burnett – The second time through the order against the Red Sox this past Saturday, Burnett got lit up. But the highly-publicized meltdown is obscuring his three other outings this year, in which he had a 3.20 ERA with 17 strikeouts in 20.2 IP. Burnett gave up eight ER twice last year and his main value is not ERA anyway. He is a wins and strikeouts guy and should provide plenty of both for the remainder of the season.

Howie Kendrick – Okay, he is not going to walk and he is not going to appear on the HR leaderboards. But let’s focus on what he can do. Kendrick’s main asset is an AB-heavy high average. His overall AVG sits at just .258 but, much like Upton, he started off the year in a funk, going 10-51. In 1,011 career at-bats, Kendrick has a .303 average in the majors. His ISO sits at .167 which would be a career best. As always with Kendrick it comes down to health. But I like the breakout potential if he can somehow manage 150 games played.

Jon Lester – The 4.88 ERA is not pretty but the FIP is almost exactly what it was a year ago for Lester at 3.66 so far. He is striking out more batters and walking fewer but his HR rate has nearly doubled. Last year’s HR/9 of 0.60 was unsustainable so we should assume that this year’s 1.13 mark is here to stay. But the .384 BABIP should come down significantly, which should help his other numbers.

Trade

Aramis Ramirez – The five projection systems all agreed on Aramis Ramirez, seeing him before the season basically as a .287 hitter with 28 HR. Right now Ramirez has a robust .358 AVG thanks to a .372 BABIP. All of the projection systems showed Ramirez with a BABIP between .289 and .299 for the year. He is not off to a great HR start. Ramirez could still easily meet his HR projection, but it would be nice for his chances to once again top 30 HR if his hot start included more than three homers.

Kosuke Fukudome – Congratulations if you had Fukudome in your lineup so far! Now do yourself a favor and sell. He simply is not going to have a .273 ISO or a .348 AVG or 15+ RBI months going forward. Last April he had a .327/.436/.480 line in April and those numbers declined each month.

Chris Volstad – In the last three seasons, the highest K/9 in Volstad’s career was the 6.64 he posted in 126 innings in the Hi-A Florida State League. He currently has an 8.49 K/9 without a significant increase in velocity or the addition of a new pitch. Additionally his ERA is a nifty 2.70 but his FIP stands at 4.66 so far. If the strikeouts disappear at the same time the hits start falling in, this could get ugly quick.

Brandon Phillips – Many touted Phillips as a top-3 second baseman heading into the season. So you would think a .172 average at the end of April would qualify him for the “Acquire” part of this list. But Phillips was overrated coming into the year based on his 2007 season. Plus this is getting into Robinson Cano territory from last year where the first month was so bad that the rest of the season could not compensate. Obviously, the .189 BABIP and the .078 ISO will go up significantly in the weeks and months ahead. But now is the time to cut your losses if anyone offers good talent in return.

Matt Cain – The past two seasons have been pretty similar for Cain. In 2007 he had a 3.65 ERA and a 3.78 FIP and last year he had a 3.76 ERA and a 3.91 FIP. This year his FIP checks in at 3.97 yet his ERA stands at 2.08. He is succeeding thanks to an 89.7 percent strand rate, which is likely to come down quite a bit. Also, his velocity is down nearly a full point, from 92.4 to 91.5 and his K/9 has dropped from 7.69 to 6.23.

Occasionally, a pitcher comes along who is so good, so utterly dominant, that people stop what they’re doing to watch his starts. The day that the pitcher takes the hill becomes must-see TV for every baseball fan, an event. Twins lefty Francisco Liriano was one of those guys a few years back. Pilfered from the San Francisco Giants organization in 2003 (along with Joe Nathan and Boof Bonser) in exchange for A.J. Pierzynski, Liriano annihilated the American League in 2006. He punched out 10.71 batters per nine innings, while also displaying command beyond his 22 years (2.38 BB/9). In 121 innings, Liriano posted a sparkling 2.55 Fielding Independent ERA and a 2.59 WPA/LI (WPA/LI is a cumulative stat, but he still managed to rank 12th among all starters in that category).

Liriano was cartoonishly difficult to hit in ’06. While he possessed a high-octane 94.7 MPH fastball, Liriano threw the pitch just 43.6% of the time. Instead, he relied heavily upon a sinister 87.7 MPH slider (37.6%) while also showcasing a promising 83.5 MPH changeup (18.7%). Opposing batters made contact with the Dominican Republic native just 65.4% of the time, by far the lowest rate among pitchers tossing at least 120 innings. Cole Hamels, at 72.3%, was a very distant second, and Liriano’s then-teammate Johan Santana trailed him by nearly 10 percent (74.8%).

But, just as quickly as Liriano burst on to the scene, he was gone. He felt some discomfort in an August 7th start versus Detroit, and was subsequently placed on the DL with a sore left elbow and forearm. Liriano would return in September, but he lasted just two innings against Oakland before he “heard something pop” while pumping a fastball to Bobby Kielty. The 6-2, 225 pounder soon went under the knife for Tommy John surgery, missing the entire 2007 season.

Liriano got off to a rocky start upon returning in 2008 (13 runs allowed and a 7/13 K/BB ratio in his first three outings) and was subsequently shipped to the minors, but everything from that point on was a step in the right direction. The 25 year-old was often dominant at AAA Rochester, with 8.62 K/9 and 2.36 BB/9 in 118 innings pitched. Whether due to service-time issues, reservations about sticking Liriano into a playoff race and piling up innings in his first post-surgical season, or just plain masochism, the Twins kept punching bag Livan Hernandez in the rotation until early August while Liriano mowed down International League hitters. Liriano finally re-joined the Twins on August 3rd, and while his numbers weren’t in the same stratosphere as his work in 2006, he was still pretty darned good.

In 76 frames with Minnesota, Liriano struck out 7.93 batters per nine innings, while showing some wildness typically seen from TJ patients in their first season back (3.79 BB/9). Using Expected Fielding Independent ERA (XFIP) from The Hardball Times, which calculates ERA based on strikeouts, walks and a normalized HR/FB rate, we find that Liriano posted a 4.40 XFIP. That’s not dominant, but keep in mind that we’re dealing with a pretty small sample, one somewhat skewed by Liriano’s shaky three-start beginning. From his recall in August to the end of the season, the southpaw posted a 60/19 K/BB ratio in 65.2 IP. While once again cautioning that 76 innings is a small amount of data to be working with, it is worth noting that pre-Tommy John Liriano was a groundball-centric pitcher (55.3 GB% in ’06), while post-TJ Liriano put the ball in the air quite a bit at Rochester (42 GB%) and with the Twins (41.6 GB%).

In terms of stuff, Liriano did not feature the mid-90’s gas that we had become accustomed to. His average fastball velocity was 90.9 MPH, down nearly 4 MPH from 2006. His slider was also thrown softer, coming in at 83.7 MPH (down 4 MPH). Liriano’s changeup decreased in speed, from 83.5 MPH to 82 MPH, a good thing considering it helped him retain a speed differential between the fastball and the change. Liriano’s pitch selection was also changed, as he relied more on his fastball (53.6%) at the expense of his slider (26.4%). His usage of the changeup increased slightly, to 20%. Opponents still found Liriano to be plenty hard to hit, as his 75.5 Contact% ranked 21st in the majors among those tossing at least 70 innings.

Unfortunately, there is no pitch F/X data for Liriano’s 2006 season, as the technology was not implemented until 2007. However, we can use Josh Kalk’s pitch F/X blog to get a feel for how much life Liriano had on his pitches this past season:

(X is horizontal movement. A negative X number means that the pitch is moving in toward a right-handed hitter, while a positive X means that the pitch is moving away from a righty hitter (in to a lefty). Z is vertical movement- the lower the Z number, the more the pitch “drops” in the strike zone.)

Fastball: 6.53 X, 9.88 Z
Slider: -1.51 X, 1.34 Z
Changeup: 9.08 X, 6.4 Z
2-Seam FB: 9.84 X, 7.1 Z

(I know what the data classifies the last group of pitches as splitters, but given the 90+ MPH velocity and the extra tailing action, they would appear to be 2-seam fastballs).

Liriano might not have possessed his vintage velocity in his first season back from reconstructive surgery, but his offerings still had plenty of hop. His 4-seam fastball showcased a good deal of vertical movement (9.88 Z, above the 9.78 average) while also displaying over six and a half inches of tailing action in on lefthanders. His two-seamer showed a ton of running action in on the hands of lefties as well. Liriano’s trademark slider was breaking away from southpaws (-1.7 X), and his changeup looks like it could be an excellent pitch, with plenty of fading and dropping action away from right-handed batters. It’s also important to keep in mind that Liriano’s stuff still could rebound a little bit further with an offseason of rest and training; what we saw at the end of the 2008 season is not necessarily representative of what Liriano will throw in the years to come.

The pitcher who burst onto the scene in 2006 might never return, but the current version of Francisco Liriano is extremely talented in his own right. If his control takes a step forward, as is the case with many TJ pitchers in their second year back, look out. Sill just 25 and possessing a full arsenal of pitches, Liriano should re-establish himself as one of the better starting pitchers in the AL in 2009.