The Legend of Chris Sale Grows

I wrote last week about Max Scherzer, who, in 2015, reached new heights. It was, is, painfully cliché, but it’s true. The same could be said for Chris Sale, who also (1) reached new heights and (2) suffered the misfortune of languishing in the rotation of a ballclub that ultimately would not contend.

Except Sale didn’t throw two no-hitters, nor did he almost throw three no-hitters, nor did he almost throw back-to-back no-hitters. Because those are all things Scherzer did. What Sale did do, yes, is give up 13 runs in fewer than nine innings across two starts in late April and early May.

People kind of freaked, and understandably so — the sabermetrically inclined readership at FanGraphs is not necessarily representative of the greater population of baseball fans. And the greater population of baseball fans saw a 5.93 ERA through 27.1 innings — the epitome of a small sample size, but nonetheless a sample to which a fan is entitled to react.

If you stayed tuned, you know the narrative: in the 26 starts after his two-game disaster, Sale struck out more than a third of the batters he faced. More than a third. In four of those games, he struck out more than half of them. That’s insane. Even in an era of baseball when we yawn at a strikeout rate lower than 8.0 per nine innings, that’s still insane.

Thus, Sale’s ascent continued, validating the White Sox’ decision to move him from the bullpen to the rotation full-time…

Chris Sale, 2012-15
Season K/9 BB/9 xFIP WAR
2012 9.00 2.39 3.24 4.7
2013 9.49 1.93 2.95 4.9
2014 10.76 2.02 2.83 5.2
2015 11.82 1.81 2.60 6.2

… thus arises the question of what went differently. I’ll attempt to detail those changes, and lack thereof, here.

He missed more bats in the zone than ever before.

And that’s great. If hitters can’t hit what you’re throwing in the zone, there’s no saying what they’ll do with the junk outside it. Actually, well, wait. There is saying what they’ll do — or, better, what they won’t do: Sale also missed more bats outside the zone than ever before as well.

The only problem is Sale’s 79.3% zone contact rate (Z-Contact%) ranks 4th-lowest among 766 individual player-seasons by qualified pitchers dating back to 2007. That’s in the wee tail of the distribution — a decent indicator of the unlikelihood of this occurrence. When the median Z-Contact% is 88.6%, something certainly seems awry.

The only problem with the only problem is the lack of context here is misleading. Sale has been doing this extraordinary zone stuff since he moved to the rotation, so what occurred in 2015 isn’t much of a change. In fact, he has posted the second-lowest aggregate Z-Contact% among all pitchers who have thrown at least as many innings as him in the same time frame. The only pitcher who has posted a better rate? Max Scherzer, of course.

With context, one man’s problem is another man’s no problem at all. Accordingly, Sale’s unusual zone contact rate checks out — although I should note that it probably will regress to something closer to his norm. That is, a dip in what became the 10th-best K/9 rate since 1960 should be expected.

If Sale was lucky on swings in the zone, say, 2.5% of the time (essentially the difference between his 2014 and 2015 rates), that’s equivalent to roughly 25 extra strikes. And if all those extra strikes happened to take place in two-strike counts, that’s 25 extra K’s. That his swings and misses occurred in this manner is highly unlikely, but it’s still probable — hence, those 25-plus swings and misses could be a big deal.

He added 1 mph to his change-up and, depending on who you ask, 0.7 to 0.8 mph to his fastball.

However, added velocity did not necessary correspond with added effectiveness; in fact, both pitches produced less value per 100 pitches than they did in 2014. So did his slider. Every pitch fared worse in 2015 than 2014. What gives?

Again, I’ve deceived you a bit. Or, rather, the numbers deceived you this time. Sale’s two-seam fastball benefited from some good luck on fly balls in 2014 and suffered some bad luck in 2015, skewing each value accordingly. But Sale actually struck out more than 20% more hitters (up from 24.2% to 29.4%) while maintaining a similar batted ball profile. In fact, hitter contact on his two-seamer plummeted both in and out of the zone.

The added velocity on said pitch as well as his change could be playing up its effectiveness. Sequencing and control may play a part as well: he posted a career-high first-strike rate (F-Strike%) and a career-low zone rate (Zone%), which, if interpreted as a proxy for sequencing, indicates Sale set himself up to throw junk in pitcher’s counts that hitters struggled to hit.

His pitch usage didn’t change much.

Sale’s lack of reliance on his slider in the early goings of the season alarmed some analysts. Indeed, he threw the pitch only half as often those first five games as he did the rest of the season. However, among those five games, the two in which he threw the most sliders were the two duds that freaked everyone out. It wasn’t until the end of May that Sale regularly threw his slider more than 20% of the time.

Aside from the early-season anomaly, the rest of his pitch usages look the same as they did in 2014.

Verdict

I think a little extra velocity helped Sale play up his pitches, but I also think he benefited from abnormally good fortune in on swings and misses in the zone. It’s hard to say how much of the gains in his zone contact rate are legitimate. Hitters have consistently made less contact in the zone against Sale every year, so there’s a clear trend there, but it really can’t get better than it got in 2015.

Mike Podhorzer’s expected strikeout rate (xK%) formula pegged Sale for 29.0% expected 2015 K% versus 32.1% actual. But his 2014 xK% was 27.2% (versus 30.4% actual), and his 2013 xK% was 23.6% (versus 26.1% actual). So Sale has outperformed what’s expected of him by about 2.5 to 3 percentage points each season. In Sale’s case, xK% is not an adequate measuring stick.

Ultimately, the shift to throwing fewer sliders in 2014 (and again in 2015) coincided with a nice bump in swinging strikes, the most effective kind of strike if Sale felt like striking someone out. He probably feels that way often. So, really, Sale’s most important adjustment may have taken place in 2014 — his change-up generates the most value among his pitches anyway — and its positive effects carried over into 2015.

The short of it is Sale’s 2015 seems pretty legit no matter which way you slice it. He’s due for some regression, but he’s also somewhat of a historical anomaly in terms of how he befuddles hitters on pitches in the zone. His manipulation of the zone seems to leave hitters baffled. It’s a helpful skill that really shows no signs of betraying him anytime soon. As Sale continues to hone his craft, his manipulation of the zone — through deception, sequencing, what have you — and, thus, his strikeout rate could improve likewise, as long as youth is on his side. If you’re wondering what one man thinks how Sale will perform in 2016, I would direct you to Steamer’s projection — I think it’s pretty solid.





Two-time FSWA award winner, including 2018 Baseball Writer of the Year, and 8-time award finalist. Featured in Lindy's magazine (2018, 2019), Rotowire magazine (2021), and Baseball Prospectus (2022, 2023). Biased toward a nicely rolled baseball pant.

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Skoodog
8 years ago

To add:

1) Scherzer’s two no-hitters came against the bad version of the Mets and a struggling Pirates team;
2) Sale has to pitch in the division with the best pure-hitting team in the AL (Royals);
3) White Sox rank as 25th defensively where Washington is more middle of the road on defense.