Three Appearance Analysis with Tanner Houck: Part 2

What happened!? That’s the question we ask the morning after a stinker performance by a starting pitcher when we’re looking over our fantasy results from the night before. It’s not an easy question to answer, and even when you come to a conclusion, someone else may have a completely different perspective. This article series serves as the starting point for answering that question in the context of three individual outings. In the future, I hope to automate the process so that I may have an updated three-game analysis for all my rostered starters that I can use to make informed decisions about the next start. For now, I’m using a three-game set of Tanner Houck starts to test out the reporting process. This article focuses on his April 14th start, but you can read about the previous start, April 9th, here:

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 (Coming soon!)

Quick April 9th recap:

If you don’t want to go back and read Part 1, here’s a summary:

-Only threw two four-seamers in total
-Relied on soft contact and balls in play, but got away with a few sweepers/splitters in the zone
-Located sweepers down and away to righties, but not consistently
-Sinker performed well inside to righties

Gamelog

Yikes! Houck took on the Tampa Bay Rays in Tampa (Steinbrenner Field) on the Monday following his solid April 9th (Wednesday) performance. A gamescore (GSv2) of negative is bad. It’s so bad it’s not even on the definition table in the FanGraphs glossary. What happened? Let’s dive in and find out.

Performance Against All Hitters

The first thing that stands out is Houck’s increased four-seam usage. In his start prior (April 9th), Houck threw only two four-seamers, one to a lefty and one to a righty. Though it was used infrequently, the four-seamer did a decent job of getting swinging strikes and foul balls from hitters, likely catching them off guard. Furthermore, he increased his splitter usage by over 10%, dropping his usage of the sinker and the sweeper. Among pitchers who have thrown at least 100 splitters, the average swinging strike rate on the pitch is 15.5% with an average called-strike rate of 7.8%. Houck was right on average with swinging strikes and just over the average on called strikes.

At first look, it seems his splitter did a decent job of earning strikes. In his previous outing, Houck’s sinker did a great job of earning called strikes (21.6%), but on this date, it dropped significantly. We don’t need to dance around the analysis; this was a bad outing for Houck. We know from the game score above that he was hit, like a lot. He gave up two home runs and eight singles with his 10 total hits. Here’s the statcast visual for the ending result of each plate appearance:

Performance Against Left-Handed Hitters

All six of his four-seamers were thrown against lefties, and he did an excellent job of elevating, locating them in the top of the zone:

Clearly, the hits didn’t come against the four-seamer. In his last appearance, Houck utilized the sweeper and splitter against left-handed hitters inconsistently. Some were located well, others were left in the heart of the zone. Let’s take a look at how those pitches fared on this date:

The Rays game planned well against Houck and were prepared for those sweepers and splitters left in the zone. Of the two sweepers that were hit into play, one was a single and the other landed on the hitter’s side of the outfield fence. The splitter performed a little better, only giving up two singles on balls in play, but again, Houck left too many splitters in the zone. There’s a very nice bunch of splitters below the zone, an ideal location for inducing chased swings, and he earned a chase with one of them, but the inconsistency killed Houck’s ability to keep those swinging strikes coming. It seems he attempted to use his four-seamer a little more to set up the splitter, and at one point, the four-seamer touched 97.1 MPH. That was a good sign, but Houck didn’t work it into his attack plan enough, choosing to throw his sinker more often. Lefties were ready for that pitch as well, hitting two of three sinkers in the zone for singles. Houck had trouble locating it as well, missing outside, which resulted in two walked batters. That was the case in his last performance, too. He tended to miss arm-side with his sinker against lefties.

Performance Against Right-Handed Hitters

In his last appearance, Houck performed well with sinkers inside to righties. He limited damage with his sinker in that outing, but this time around, he gave up two singles and a home run. It has to make you think the Rays utilized a strategy with their right-handed hitters where they looked middle-in for his sinker. The sweeper’s location was either too much in the zone or too much out of it, but he still generated two swinging strikes and ended one plate appearance with a strikeout. Still, the pitch on the outside corner was hit for a single, making it so that even when he located it perfectly, it got hit. That’s the way it goes:

He threw two splitters to righties, and they were located well at the bottom of the zone. They earned Houck a called strike and a ball in play that resulted in an out.

Conclusion and Recommendations for Next Game

This appearance from Houck shows how the difference between hits and field outs can be a matter of centimeters. His locations were only slightly worse in this outing compared to the previous, but hitters took advantage. His game plan was roughly the same between starts, and it seems clear the Rays put together a solid game plan for their hitters.

Houck needs a pitch he can rely on more than his sweeper to lefties. In his last outing, he got away with limiting damage, and that was not the case this time around. What would happen if he substituted those sweepers to lefties for four-seamers up in the zone? Stuff+ does not like the pitch one bit. But, it may play nicer with his splitter, which he continues to generate soft contact with. The four-seamer has shown good velocity, and it may be a matter of keeping it elevated and using it selectively.

In his next outing, we should look for more usage of the four-seamer, especially to lefties, in hopes that he stops throwing sweepers to lefties. We’ll keep our hands over our eyes when he throws his splitter to lefties, hoping for the love of god he keeps it down and continues to have luck on his side when he doesn’t. Against righties, a better command of the sinker and sweeper will go a long way in limiting damage.