Archive for Ubaldo Jimenez

Since we’re past the point in the season where most pitchers have faced enough batters of each handedness for us to give some weight to their strikeout and walk rates, my plan was to take a look at pitchers who struggled against hitters of the opposite handedness last year to see if any had made any improvements so far this year. But in that pursuit I got completely sidetracked when I found a couple of guys who surprisingly had a reverse split in K-BB%. Read the rest of this entry »

With most teams only through their opening series, we’re not in any position to be making wide-sweeping arguments about the 2014 season. And just like fans across the country overvalue the first week of the season, many fantasy owners place too much stock in their early-season performance. Sure, it counts, but it’s tough to stay patient when your team is stuck in the cellar after the first few games, especially if you’re a Cliff Lee owner and saw him implode on Opening Day or if you bought into the Khris Davis hype and have yet t0 see him get on base in 2014.

But while we’re unable to say much about the season as a whole, I have three observations about the first handful of games that hopefully provide a kernel of insight.

(1) Do not fret about early-season offensive woes. You’re not alone.

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It had been a relatively quiet offseason for the Baltimore Orioles, but they’ve recently turned up the heat by signing Ubaldo Jimenez, Nelson Cruz and right-hander Suk-min Yoon over the past week. It’s been a flurry of moves that has personnel ramifications throughout the roster. However, perhaps the most significant addition comes in the starting rotation with former All-Star hurler Jimenez.

The rotation has proven to be an  a problem for the Orioles in recent years. No team has trotted out a worse collection of starting pitchers than the O’s over the last half-decade. Their 4.87 ERA and 4.82 FIP are the highest in Major League Baseball over that time frame. They’ve accumulated the highest home-run rate, the lowest ground-ball rate (which makes sense, considering the home-run rate) and the second-lowest strikeout rate. In short, it hasn’t been pretty and Orioles fans deserve a medal of some sort for coping with such dreadful pitching.

The organization is hoping to turn it around in 2014, though. The addition of Ubaldo Jimenez, the improvement of Chris Tillman, and the maturation of Kevin Gausman are all supposed to help right the ship. Miguel Gonzalez, Wei-Yin Chen and Bud Norris all simply need to not take on water, and the rotation has a decent chance at being league-average. Considering the potent lineup that now adds Nelson Cruz to the mix, the Orioles only need their starters to be average to compete for a postseason berth.

Of course, that’s not something on which I’m comfortable betting as draft day rolls around this spring.

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Predicting the future performance of baseball players is a wildly frustrating endeavor. When projecting a hitter’s stat line, it’s impossible to account for the player having a BABIP that’s nowhere close to their career average. When projecting a pitcher, it’s hard to know when their HR/FB rate is going to swing drastically away from their career average. The shifts in “luck” make projecting seem like a fool’s errand at times.

But it may be even more frustrating when something within the player’s control changes completely. When predicting the future, you largely have to rely on the assumption that what the player puts into the equation will remain relatively the same. But of course that’s not the case. Hitters will lose plate discipline out of nowhere. Pitchers will lose the ability to induce swings and misses. It just happens. But it’s often very hard to know when those changes are going to happen.

Another example of the input changing is a shift in the mix of pitches a pitcher will use. Read the rest of this entry »

John Lackey | Boston Red Sox | @ Tampa Bay on Tuesday

Adding John Lackey is somewhat like having a huge bowl of ice cream 30 minutes before bed. You hate yourself and know it’s not really good for you. But you can’t help yourself can you? It’s hard to turn down a few scoops of your favorite flavor, and it’s hard to turn down a name you recognize that is currently attached to a 2.82 ERA and 3.23 xFIP.

Lackey has those numbers thanks to a 24.7% K% and 7.2% BB%. He can probably maintain a walk rate like that, but the K rate will likely regress. His swinging strike rate isn’t terrible at 8.1%, but he’s not going to strike out more than a batter per inning at that rate. And his velocity isn’t quite what it used to be. Expect him to settle in the 18%-19% range.

The matchup with Tampa actually isn’t great. They started slow, but they’re currently 4th in the league in wRC+ and lead the league in that category so far in May. But even if you decide to pass on Lackey on Tuesday, he’s worth picking up as a flier. Read the rest of this entry »

There are many ways to express how bad Cleveland’s rotation was in 2012. Their staff was 3rd worst in ERA, WAR, xFIP and SIERA. They were 29th in K% and 28th in BB%, which left them tied with the Twins for the worst K%-BB%. Their “best” pitcher was Zach McAllister who gave them 125.1 innings of 4.24 ERA ball. Ubaldo Jimenez continued to see his velocity decline, and his ERA was over 5.00 as a result. The man who is likely to pitch in their 2013 season opener, Justin Masterson, posted the worst ERA of his career (4.93). They had three other pitchers who threw more than 80 innings, Derek Lowe, Josh Tomlin and Jeanmar Gomez, and none of them had an ERA below 5.50.

Thankfully, it would be almost impossible for their staff to be much worse.

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If you want to follow the action when Cleveland’s starters are on the bump in 2012, keep your eyes glued on the infield. The Indians exercised Fausto Carmona’s $7 million option for next season and then swung a trade with Atlanta for sinkerballer Derek Lowe. With Lowe joining Carmona, Justin Masterson and Ubaldo Jimenez, Cleveland’s starting rotation will wage one serious ground war. Lowe, Masterson and Carmona ranked in the top 10 among qualified starters in ground ball percentage, and all four have a career ground ball rate north of 50 percent:

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Thanks to his outstanding start Monday night against Minnesota, here are some thoughts on Chicago White Sox pitcher Zach Stewart:

– While Stewart performed well enough to throw a one-hitter Monday night, his pitch mix was very interesting. He threw one change-piece against the Twins, opting to use just his fastball and slider. Scouts and prospect analysts have argued over whether Stewart is going to be a back or middle of the rotation starter, or delegated to bullpen duty in the long run. Unless he puts some work on developing and using a changeup, he’s going to be forced to the pen sooner or later.

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With the trade deadline fast approaching, owners playing in league-specific formats are going to be in for a hard time. When players change leagues, some owners are going to get hosed and some owners are going to get lucky. With all of that in mind, here’s some advice on how to handle a handful of starters who could get dealt.

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Madison Bumgarner | Giants
Despite some poor looking fantasy numbers, Bumgarner has been damn good lately in both fantasy and reality. His roto numbers over the past thirty days are skewed by his disastrous outing against the Twins in which he faced ten batters and gave up nine hits (his one out was via the strikeout). But even in that outing, Bumgarner threw twenty-two of his twenty-five pitches for strikes and refused to yield a homer. Bumgarner also had a poor fantasy outing against the Padres before the All-Star break, but once again, he did not allow a dinger.

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