The Change: Collin McHugh and Bad Fastballs

Where have Collin McHugh’s strikeouts gone? Only Shane Greene, Jesse Hahn, Alex Wood, and Phil Hughes have seen a sharper decrease in strikeout rate since last year without a change in role. We’ve covered most of those guys in one way or another over the last few weeks at The Change. Now it’s time to focus on McHugh, to see what we can learn.

McHugh is still top 30 in swinging strike rate. He’s 65th in strikeout rate. Something is amiss here.

Swinging strikes are very important to strikeout rate, obviously. Gotta make em whiff to get the K, to some extent.

Here’s a crude way of summarizing McHugh’s issues getting strike three despite the fact that he can still get the whiffs. Subtract swinging strike rate from strikeout rate, and then sort the list for the smallest resulting number, and you get the pitchers that have the smallest strikeout rate compared to their swinging strike rate. There’s McHugh again, in the top 20. We’ve limited this list to righties for reasons that will be clear shortly.

Name K% BB% K-BB% BABIP SwStr% K-swSTR fbv FB%
Jered Weaver 11.8% 3.7% 8.1% 0.273 8.3% 3.5% 83.9 49%
Tim Hudson 11.9% 5.8% 6.1% 0.298 8.0% 3.9% 88.1 55%
Jeremy Guthrie 10.1% 6.9% 3.1% 0.304 6.2% 3.9% 91.6 53%
Jerome Williams 12.9% 5.3% 7.5% 0.340 8.6% 4.3% 90.0 52%
Josh Collmenter 11.3% 3.4% 7.9% 0.306 6.7% 4.6% 84.4 66%
Kyle Kendrick 11.5% 7.2% 4.3% 0.273 5.9% 5.6% 89.1 44%
R.A. Dickey 14.5% 8.2% 6.3% 0.260 8.8% 5.7% 80.7 11%
Roberto Hernandez 12.2% 6.8% 5.4% 0.301 6.4% 5.8% 88.8 57%
Kyle Gibson 14.4% 7.4% 7.1% 0.264 8.5% 5.9% 91.8 60%
Mike Pelfrey 11.4% 7.4% 4.0% 0.303 5.3% 6.1% 92.8 69%
Nick Martinez 14.2% 7.7% 6.5% 0.285 7.8% 6.4% 89.7 60%
Jeremy Hellickson 16.7% 7.8% 8.8% 0.300 9.4% 7.3% 90.1 59%
Adam Warren 15.1% 8.8% 6.3% 0.257 7.7% 7.4% 92.0 50%
Anthony DeSclafani 16.2% 9.2% 7.0% 0.279 8.8% 7.4% 92.2 66%
Tim Lincecum 19.0% 10.9% 8.1% 0.275 11.3% 7.7% 87.4 47%
Collin McHugh 18.2% 4.7% 13.5% 0.321 10.4% 7.8% 90.4 32%
Shane Greene 15.1% 6.5% 8.6% 0.313 7.3% 7.8% 91.8 52%
Aaron Sanchez 15.0% 13.2% 1.8% 0.260 7.0% 8.0% 94.4 76%
Mike Leake 13.9% 6.7% 7.3% 0.262 5.9% 8.0% 90.8 44%
Jesse Hahn 15.1% 5.4% 9.7% 0.285 7.0% 8.1% 92.1 67%

To some extent, this is just a list of starters with iffy stuff. Jeremy Guthrie, Jerome Williams, Kyle Kendrick… you could just say that waiver wire find Collin McHugh is being found out by the league. This is where he belongs.

Except that McHugh still has the second-best swinging strike rate on this list, and there are pitchers with more interesting stuff on this list. Jered Weaver‘s curve and change still rate as above-average by whiffs. Jeremy Hellickson’s change does as well. Tim Lincecum still gets whiffs from the slider and the split. Not all of the pitchers on this list can be laughed off as having subpar stuff.

Except maybe when it comes to the fastball. This group represents the bottom fifth of the league when it comes to K%-swSTR%, and if you look at those final two columns, you’ll see that the fastball might be the culprit. These 20 pitchers average 89.6 on their fastball, and use it 53% of the time. The league’s right-handers average 91.6 on their fastball and use it 58% of the time. Sure, their 7.8% swinging strike rate is below league average, but the fastball should still be the source of some of that swinging strike rate deficit.

And the bad fastball explanation does help explain the high swinging strike rate guys on this list. Tim Lincecum, Jeremy Hellickson, R.A. Dickey, Jerome Williams: these are pitchers with decent secondary stuff, but bad fastballs.

We might want to pin more of the blame on McHughs’ velocity loss on the four-seamer, then. He’s lost a tick on the fastball, and that tick took him from average fastball velocity to below-average for a righty.

The peripherals on the fastball, though, aren’t as stark as that. He got above-average whiffs on the pitch last year (7.3%) despite only average velocity, and this year, he’s still above-average with whiffs on the fastball (6.4%). Still, all appraisal of pitches should either implicitly or explicitly be weighted by volume, and part of McHugh’s success with the fastball comes from the fact that he doesn’t throw it very often.

But he’s giving up more homers on the four-seamer this year, and getting fewer whiffs, and he’s throwing it less often, and he’s getting fewer strikeouts. This has to all be related.

When you travel into McHugh’s splits, you may find the missing link here. Righties are teeing off on him this year, relatively. Look at the difference in his splits against lefties and righties in 2014 and 2015.

Season Handedness K/9 BB/9 K/BB HR/9 K% BB% K-BB% BABIP LOB%
2014 vs L 7.9 2.6 3.1 0.7 21.7% 7.1% 14.7% 0.265 78.1%
2014 vs R 10.8 2.1 5.1 0.8 30.7% 6.0% 24.7% 0.248 72.8%
2015 vs L 7.0 1.7 4.1 1.0 18.8% 4.6% 14.3% 0.288 66.8%
2015 vs R 7.0 1.9 3.7 1.7 17.7% 4.8% 12.9% 0.349 73.5%

McHugh’s homer rate per slider went up in 2015 — 30% — but his homer rate per fastball exploded. He’s given up three times more homers per fastball against righties this year than last year. He’s using the fastball a little differently against righties this year, too. Per BaseballSavant, we can see that he’s throwing the four-seamer more on the outside part of the plate to righties than the inside in 2015 (right). The main location of his fastball in 2014 (left) was further inside, and his outside pitches were further outside.

And yet… he’s hitting the edge more in 2015, says Bill Petti’s Heart% (24% last year, 20% this year). So it’s not a broadstreet groove thing. Here are the homers he’s given up to righties:

All high in the zone. Some inside, some outside, but all high in the zone. And McHugh’s average fastball location is up about an inch this year.

Collin McHugh is throwing his fastball less often. It’s slower this year. He’s throwing it higher in the zone, and, so far, right-handers have tatooed it, despite the pitcher owning the platoon advantage there. His movement on the fastball is about the same as ever, so that’s not to blame. He has enough command to put up plus walk rates, but maybe some of his command has failed him this year, and produced gopherballs.

For how often he throws his breaking balls, McHugh is still getting excellent whiffs on those pitches. But don’t let that blind you to the fact that his fastball is not very good. With every tick he loses on the pitch, the more likely he is to give up home runs on it. He’s been hiding the pitch since he got in the league, but there’s not really any place to hide the fastball further when you’re throwing it less than anybody else in baseball not named R.A. Dickey.

It makes sense to assume two things. McHugh’s strikeout rate will go up, because he gets many whiffs. McHugh will continue to give up more than his fair share of homers, due to a bad fastball. He’s not going to be a top 50 pitcher, and may struggle to stay in the top 75, if these things both come true.





With a phone full of pictures of pitchers' fingers, strange beers, and his two toddler sons, Eno Sarris can be found at the ballpark or a brewery most days. Read him here, writing about the A's or Giants at The Athletic, or about beer at October. Follow him on Twitter @enosarris if you can handle the sandwiches and inanity.

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deezy333
8 years ago

So is McHugh ownable in a 10 team league? Someone just dropped him this morning.

senpaisanto
8 years ago
Reply to  deezy333

i just dropped him in a 12 team mixer for charlie morton…