Archive for Player Analysis

When the Arizona Diamondbacks signed Yasmany Tomas to a $60-million deal, many thought the Cuban “third baseman” would be an instant star. Little is known about Cuban players when they come over; their skills are often exaggerated and their numbers in the Cuban National Series inflated. While some players, such as Yoenis Cespedes and Jose Abreu, do come over and become instant stars, others, such as Hector Olivera, simply don’t have what it takes to make it in the majors. For the better part of last year, Tomas seemed a lot closer to the bust category than major-league stardom. That assessment seems destined to change soon.

Too quick and binary is our collective assessment of players. They’re either good or bad and we know within the first weeks of April. We care little about their story, or struggles to adapt. It’s the Twitter era; context and nuance is dead.

That is the story of Yasmany Tomas. The Diamondbacks miscast Tomas as a third baseman and the metrics hated him there. They probably knew he was not a third baseman, but there he was. Unable to help the team defensively, and struggling a bit in his first offensive season at the major-league level, Tomas got a label. He was a bust, just another of the missteps in a reign of terror  for a Diamondbacks front office that doesn’t even know the rules.

But that label loses all context. Craig Edwards reminded us about context with regards to Byron Buxton’s struggles. To paraphrase Edwards: Buxton has been really bad, but he’s also young and has plenty of time to figure it out. With Tomas, the story is similar. Yes, Tomas was a -1.3 bWAR and -1.4 fWAR player in 2015, but reducing a player to a single number does him an injustice. He was actually a positive contributor on offense. As a starter (non-pinch-hitter) he had a 103 OPS+. That’s not bad. He was also just 24. Joc Pederson and Jorge Soler are just 24 this year and we think of them as young players. Why are we so unforgiving with Tomas?

Fast-forward to this year and Tomas is still not very well regarded in baseball circles. He’s at 0.2 bWAR, -1.1 wins above average, and 0.6 fWAR. He still grades out as a very average player, but is now around 10% better than league average offensively according to the advanced stats. He’s got 26 homers (24th in the league) and a .519 slugging (30th in the league), both better than Paul Goldschmidt, Carlos Beltran and Giancarlo Stanton.

Those raw numbers suggest that Tomas is already among the top-30 or so sluggers in the league.  He even gets on base at a non-Trumbonian clip. But my early season introduction to xSLGBB said that Tomas was due for some improvement in his slugging percentage based on his batted-ball profile. Andrew Perpetua’s set of stats based on batted-ball information (the Google doc at the bottom of the post, also available on xstats.org) appears to show that Tomas has leveled. Perpetua’s xSLG stat shows Tomas’ expected slugging percentage at .549. Such a mark would tie him with Josh Donaldson.

I appreciate Perpetua’s stats, but I made up my own (xSLGBB), just for these types of analysis. I ran the numbers and by my xSLGBB, based on the league-wide expected set of outcomes from when I ran this the first time in May, Tomas is expected to improve by a grand total of .005 points of slugging.

Still, even if he has already normalized to the stats that we would expect based on his batted-ball profile, a 25-year-old with 26 home runs and a top-30 slugging percentage is pretty darn good. Yes, he has deficiencies in his game, but Tomas still has room for improvement. He’s never going to be Kris Bryant, Nolan Arenado, or one of the other MVP-type of young stars in the game, but he’s quietly hitting himself out of the bad label that we too quickly stuck him with.

Perspective
How we rank players in our own minds can tell us a lot about what we value in a ballplayer. For decades the statistics that mattered to sportswriters and the public at large were those that were simple, easily understood, and still relevant to the game. Stats like batting average (AVG), runs batted in (RBI), and home runs (HR) were regularly quoted when writing articles or voting for MVP awards. Each of these numbers tells a piece of the story of what a ballplayer is. AVG shows a players ability to put a ball in play and reach base, RBI is a representation of run creation and hitting while men are on base in front of you, and HR show your power in hitting.

These numbers still hold great significance today. That said, they are not flawless expressions of player prowess with the bat. A player could have a high average and still struggle to get on base often due to strikeouts or weak contact. RBI is often a product of opportunity as much as hitting success. After all, you can still receive RBI when creating an out. HR meanwhile can be a very one-sided affair if your average is low, leading to an all-or-nothing scenario for a hitter.

I’m not trying to disparage anyone from using AVG, RBI, and HR in a debate of great players, but when you use them keep in mind that they make up only a fraction of what a ballplayer can be.

Modern statisticians have begun using much more advanced numbers like WAR or OPS+ to determine a players quality. These numbers take into account positional skill differences, park factors, and many other aspects of the game. Much like the traditional stats mentioned before, these stats have both positive and negative aspects to them. No one stat can give you a complete picture of a player’s skillset and value.

Whenever an article comes out discussing the quality of a player’s career or season we often get quotes like these:

“Since Trout debuted in 2011, he leads all players with 37.9 WAR. Further, that 37.9 WAR through Trout’s age-23 season are the most by a player in the modern era.” — ESPN Stats & Information

OR…

“Harper finally displayed his prodigious tools last season, as he led the National League in runs (118) and home runs (42) while leading MLB in OBP (.460) and slugging percentage (.649).” — ESPN Stats & Information

While all of the numbers in these quotes are valuable, and even more so impressive, they come with very little context with respect to the league as a whole. It’s great that Trout has 37.9 WAR since 2011, but who is second? And by how much is he second? So Harper led the league in OBP, but what was the league average? Or how many plate appearances did he have? Did he miss any time with injury?

Each of these questions would further add to our understanding of the value and quality of the players mentioned, but that information is never going to be answered in this context. Additionally, this practice of “cherry picking” the best stats to fit our argument negates the whole and presents the players out of context. For example, these numbers neglect the fact that Harper struck out about 25% of the time that season. Even by today’s standards that is a lot of strikeouts. I understand of course that a lawyer is never going to give out unnecessary information about a client’s failings, but in the context of ranking players it is paramount that we take into account as much of the information as we can. Ultimately, we find ourselves back where we started.

If all stats are flawed, then how are we to determine an adequate ranking for players? I propose that we use more stats. That’s right. More stats, not less.

When you fixate a ranking on a single stat, then that stat accounts for 100% of your result every time. It doesn’t matter if the stat is meant to incorporate a host of stats together. Your results are the result of a singular point of reference. If you use three stats, then each is equivalent to one-third of your conclusion.

What would happen if we used 20 different stats to determine a ranking? While each individual stat is devalued, the whole average together will give us a better understanding of the whole spectrum of a player’s ability in the game. Be warned…results may incite head-scratching.

There is a great axiom in the world of baseball stats that goes something like this: “Just because a stat has Babe Ruth at the top and Mario Mendoza at the bottom does not mean it is a good stat.” Like all statistical analysis, take this one with a grain of salt.

Methodology
My process here is rather simple. Take a group of player data, a single year or all-time, across 20 stats. Rank each player individually against the others in the set from 1 to the total number of players across all the data. Finally, average each player’s rankings across the 20 stats. Our result…rAVG (Rank Average).

For ease in data gathering and processing, I’ve decided to use the 19 dashboard stats from FanGraphs plus hits to make 20 total stats. For all-time stats, the pool of players has been limited to players with a minimum of 5,000 plate appearances.

Notes:
• Each position has t50/b50: how many times a player ranks in the
  top 50 or bottom 50 across all categories.
• * denotes active player.

All-Time • Position Players (895 total)

Name - Pos

rAVG

t50

b50

1

Willie Mays - OF

93.2

17

0

2

Barry Bonds - OF

95.3

16

0

3

Tris Speaker - OF

105.3

15

0

4

Rogers Hornsby - 2B

110.7

16

0

5

Stan Musial - 1B/OF

113.6

17

0

6

Ty Cobb - OF

118.2

16

0

7

Alex Rodriguez* - SS/3B

118.9

15

1

8

Honus Wagner - SS

133.1

14

0

9

Mel Ott - OF

136.2

15

0

10

Eddie Collins - 2B

136.6

16

0

11

Babe Ruth - OF

137.2

16

1

12

Hank Aaron - OF

143.6

14

0

13

Mickey Mantle - OF

147.7

15

1

14

Ted Williams - OF

150.2

16

2

15

Lou Gehrig - 1B

156.1

15

1

16

Charlie Gehringer - 2B

158.5

13

0

17

Larry Walker - OF

159.7

13

0

18

Chipper Jones - 3B

162.4

15

0

19

Frank Robinson - OF

163.2

14

1

20

Jimmie Foxx - 1B

167.8

16

1

102

Mike Piazza - C

272.7

9

2

Thoughts

1. Larry Walker. At first glance this list appears to contain all the requisite names for a best-of-all-time list… that is until you reach #17 Larry Walker. I can assure you that I have not fudged the data in anyway. I, like you, are equally as shocked to find Mr. Walker parading alongside greats like Ruth, Mays, and Gehrig. Maybe we all should re-evaluate our opinions on Larry Walker.
2. Mike Piazza. I have included him at the bottom of the chart, because he is the highest-ranking catcher of the 73 that met the 5,000 plate appearance requirement. While ranking #102 would appear to be a slight to him, when viewed in the context of the total list of 895 players…Piazza ranks in the top 12% of all players in history.
3. Babe Ruth. Many of you, me included, probably feel that there is no way that the Great Bambino could rank outside of the top 10 all-time. I will remind you that this list is a ranking of statistics. It cannot evaluate impact on the game, cultural relevance, or popularity. It simply counts each stat as 5% of the whole and spits out a result. A closer look at Babe’s numbers and you will find that he was a terrible baserunner (SB & BsR) and his defense left much to be desired as well. Out of 421 outfielders he ranks 229 in SB, 411 in BsR, and 110 in Def. All this serves to remind me that no player, however great they might be, is without deficiencies.

Conclusion
As part of my research into this topic I ran numbers for each of the nine positions all-time and the cumulative all-time list seen above. In order to keep this article from becoming a novel, I’ve chosen to only include the top 20 of all-time here. The rest of this information will be available for viewing some time in the near future either on here or on my website.

While I may not agree entirely with the outcomes of this exercise in rankings, I do feel that it has caused me to better consider the totality of a player’s stat line rather than a few simple metrics. No one stat can give you a well-rounded, complete view of a player’s value and skill.

I await your fevered comments below.

As I write this post the KC outfield defense is ranked No. 1 in Defensive Runs Saved (DRS) with 43, and is No. 2 in UZR at 28.6 (first is the Cubs with 29.0).  KC sports one of the best, if not the best defensive outfield in the majors this season.

Detroit on the other hand has a fairly poor one.  They rank last in DRS, with -44, and last in UZR at -31.8.  Though Baltimore gives them a good run for their money, Detroit is probably the worst defensive outfield in the majors so far this season.

So I wondered if we could do an analysis to show what would happen if we substituted them entirely for one another?  How would that work?  Well, one simple approach would be to just use the DRS metrics for each team and basically say that DET would go from -44 to +43, so that’s a swing of +77 runs. Using the 10 runs per win thumb-rule, that’d be a pretty big swing, nearly eight games. Detroit is a whole lot better.  But I’m not sure this method is really the best we can do.  After all, we have all this Statcast data now.  Could we use that?

I set out to try to do just that.  So my first step was to hypothesize that the likelihood of a ball hit to the outfield actually dropping for a base hit could be correlated to the launch angle provided by Statcast and then that this likelihood would change depending on the team.  So to test this theory out I went to Baseball Savant and grabbed all the Statcast data for balls hit to the outfield for KC and for Detroit.

The KC data consisted of 1722 balls hit to the OF (when removing the few points that had NULL data for launch angle).  I took these 1722 points and bucketed them by launch angle in buckets that were 2 degrees each.  I then calculated the percentage of hits to total (hits + outs) for each bucket.  This percentage was the likelihood that a ball hit to the outfield at a certain launch angle would end up being a base hit.  This led me to my first realization, which was that anything that was basically < 8 degrees on launch angle (so including all negative angles), and made it to the OF, was a guaranteed hit.

The results of this analysis for the 1722 KC points made a lot of sense intuitively.  As the launch angle increased, so did the likelihood that it was an out, so my hit percentage trend went down.  Using a simple linear regression projecting the likelihood of a hit by angle had a 92.5% R^2.  This equation was going to work nicely.

It’s no secret that Jason Heyward is having an epic, epic bad season. Heyward is not just last in wRC+ for right fielders, but last by a wide margin. He has the seventh-worst ISO in all the land, worse than Billy Hamilton. Worse than Cesar Hernandez. Worse than Alexei Ramirez. Alexei Ramirez, for God’s sake. Finally acknowledging the soul-crushing reality, Cubs manager Joe Maddon benched Heyward last Friday.

This is historically bad power from a right fielder. In the wild-card era, Heyward’s ISO constitutes the 11th-worst power season for a right fielder. Of the ten other seasons, Ichiro! owns five of them, and Nick Markakis two more. So only four actual guys have managed a worse ISO in right than Heyward since 1994.

Heyward’s power has declined against all pitches, but not evenly. (I’m actually using ISO x 1000 to eliminate those pesky decimal points):

Pitch               2016 ISO                Career ISO                  Diff

4-seamer             143                           154                           -11

2-seamer             087                           177                          -90

changeup            029                          160                         -131

slider                   083                           157                           -74

curve                    000                          122                         -122

In battling the 4-seamer, 2016 Heyward looks pretty much like the factory model. Against the other pitches, 2016 Heyward looks like Enzo Hernandez. Back in May, Jeff Sullivan wondered why Heyward was swinging disproportionately often at high pitches when historically he had been a better low-ball hitter. The above chart may provide an answer. Four-seamers tend to live upstairs, while the other pitches like to drink Milwaukee’s Best down in the basement den. Heyward may have made a rational adjustment, swinging more often at the pitch he can hit (or rather, pitches that look like the pitch he can hit) and less often at the others.

Even if accurate, this simply answers one riddle with another. What could have made a historically good low-ball hitter suddenly lose the lower half of the strike zone? And the power disappearance was indeed sudden. In 2015, Heyward actually hit with more power in the second half, though his ISO did drop off in September.

Heyward may have begun hearing the spine-tingling incidental music back in 2014. That year his power against lefties, seldom menacing, completely winked out.

Year                   ISO vs. L

Career                   .119

2013                      .191

2014                      .056

2015                      .093

2016                      .096

This may have been foreshadowing, or not. There is no clear pitch-type pattern evident in Heyward’s disappearing power against lefties. He collapsed against all offerings, doing somewhat less badly only against the slider. Indeed, one of the main criticisms of his eight-year contract was that Heyward had become a platoon player.

In 2016 the platoon split has disappeared, but not in a good way. Heyward has actually hit lefties with more power than righties this year (.096 vs. .083). But let’s face it, for hitters, almost any number that begins with “.0” is a wrong number.

The most likely explanation is some form of injury. Heyward had wrist problems earlier this year, and wrist injuries notoriously sap power. But .088 is whole lotta sappage. When Derrek Lee hurt his wrist in 2006 his ISO plummeted to … .189. Certainly one can imagine any number of nagging injuries that slow bat speed or reduce plate coverage. But it seems peculiar that Heyward would struggle least against the pitch that is usually the most overpowering. Perhaps Heyward is selling out to get to the 4-seamer because the injury has slowed his bat enough that he simply has to get started early.

Another possibility, perhaps, is a vision problem, as very briefly suggested in the comments to Sullivan’s post in May. Perhaps Heyward is able to pick out the 4-seamer, but unable to differentiate reliably among the other pitches, thus approaching them all with punchless caution. A vision problem could also be causing Heyward to sell out as discussed above. In either case, selling out would seem to cut against Heyward’s grain as a (sometimes maddeningly) patient hitter.

There is nevertheless some evidence Heyward is trying to start the bat earlier, not because of ocular or muscular problems, but because of a complex, misaligned swing. There have been a number of stories concerning Heyward’s poor mechanics, but most of them were written this season, when the poor results became manifest. Outright criticism of his swing, at least in public, was relatively uncommon before this year.

But there were signs, perhaps (as signs are wont to be) obvious only in retrospect. In 2014, David Lee wrote an excellent piece scouting Heyward’s rapidly evolving stances — the pictures alone are worth a look. Two years earlier, Terence Moore wrote about Heyward’s swing coach praising Heyward for having Plans A, B, and C at the plate. Both of these pieces are hopeful, treating Heyward’s willingness to tinker as a sign of dedication — a player relentlessly seeking continuous improvement.

But relentlessness doesn’t solve every problem, and improvement is very rarely continuous. Hitters can be comically addicted to routine, fearing that the slightest change will plunge their careers into Oylerian Darkness. But there is some virtue to having a baseline from which to work. In music, it’s literally a bass line. In oral presentations, it’s a theme. In cooking, it’s a recipe. In none of these cases does the baseline translate directly into real results, but it provides critical direction so that the (or at least an) end result actually results.

It’s possible that Heyward has lost his anchor. He wouldn’t be the first player to do so. Roy Halladay famously had to reconstruct his pitching motion in the purgatory of Dunedin. But Halladay had become an arsonist, spraying the field with a 10.64 ERA. Until this year, Heyward hadn’t ever truly pancaked. It’s possible that Heyward is tinkering his career into oblivion. I’m not sure I buy this, but at this point there is even less evidence for the competing theories. A serious bone, muscle, or vision problem probably would have landed him on the DL.

Heyward may be treating his swing like jazz, but baseball is the blues. At least he plays in the right city to learn that lesson.

The Rockies tend to have hitters with eye-popping stats as a byproduct of playing in Coors Field. This year alone, they have four players with an ISO of .219 or higher (five if you include recent call-up David Dahl). But, on the other side of the offensive equation, there’s only one Rockies player this year who has an OBP over .400. That man is their starting second baseman, DJ LeMahieu.

I noticed that LeMahieu had an above-average .358 OBP last year, but I was ready to dismiss him because he ran an insane .362 BABIP and his walk rate was merely average at 8.1%. Was he really hitting the ball well enough to sustain such a figure? To find out, I looked over a data set of the 253 hitters with at least 200 batted ball events in 2015. LeMahieu had an average exit velocity of 90.6 MPH that year. The average of the group was about 88.9. To put that number in context, LeMahieu had the 60th-hardest exit velocity of the 253. Yes, that number is well above average, but the second-hardest hitter on the list (David Ortiz) only ran a BABIP of .280. To control for the Coors effect, consider this: LeMahieu’s teammate, Nolan Arenado, had an average exit velocity of 91.7, but only ran a .287 BABIP last year. So, LeMahieu’s numbers didn’t appear to be so special, and if his BABIP fell off, there wouldn’t be much left: as I mentioned, his plate discipline was ordinary. In addition, he certainly did not hit for power. He only had a .087 ISO last year, well below the league average of .150. Things didn’t look good for his power behind the scenes either, as his average launch angle was a mere 4.1 degrees; the average for my sample was 10.8. That figure was bad enough for the 244th-highest launch angle out of the 253 hitters in the sample.

So, I wrote off LeMahieu. Boy, was I wrong to do so. This year, his ISO is hovering around league average at .154. His BABIP is an even more insane .383. He’s improved his walk rate to 10.8%, well above league average. He’s also lowered his strikeout rate from 17.3% to 12.9%. This is a huge step for a non-prospect in his age-28 season. What the heck happened?!

For starters, his exit velocity and his launch angle have both improved tremendously. I took a new data set for this year, expanded to include all hitters with at least 150 batted ball events (since the year isn’t quite over yet). There were 255 hitters in the sample. This year, LeMahieu has an improved average exit velocity, at 93.1, which is good enough for 16th out of the 255 hitters in the sample. The average is around 89.4. The average for this group is up 0.5 MPH from my other group, but LeMahieu went up 2.5!

In regards to launch angles, LeMahieu is now at a much improved 5.7 degrees. The new average for this group is around 11.7. So, the group average is 0.9 higher than the other group, but LeMahieu is 1.6 higher! It’s also worth mentioning that in his excellent article published earlier, Andrew Perpetua listed LeMahieu as having the second-lowest percentage (for hitters with at least 300 PAs) of poorly-hit balls. He also had LeMahieu’s xOBA at .388, which is right near his actual wOBA of .391. Lastly, his soft/medium/hard-contact percentages last year (if you prefer this data to exit velocity) were 12.1/61.3/26.6. This year, the soft rate has remained relatively the same, but the medium rate has lost some to the hard. Here’s his contact-quality triple slash: 12.5/51.9/35.6. So, this year LeMahieu’s performance is really not looking fluky. However, one question remains unanswered: what changes did he undergo in order to make this transformation happen?

I think the answer lies in his improving plate discipline. Take a look at the changes across the board from last year to this year:

His O-Swing percentage has improved tremendously the last two years, and is down another 0.9% this year. His Z-Swing% has dropped as well, and though that isn’t a good thing per se, it does illustrate that LeMahieu is implementing a more selective approach at the plate, maybe not swinging at borderline strikes as much. He’s also making a lot more contact – probably because he’s swinging at better pitches, swinging at fewer borderline strikes and fewer balls. The improved contact rate and improved eye has led to a career-best 12.9% strikeout rate and 10.8% walk rate.

In conclusion, I would like to congratulate our friend DJ on proving me wrong. He has earned a lofty BABIP (though his true talent is probably not quite .383, because almost no one’s is). He has made tremendous strides with his batting eye, and that has helped lead to much-improved contact quality and in turn, more power and base hits.

Data is from Baseball Savant and FanGraphs.

Thanks for reading!

After a recent 5-3 loss to the Boston Red Sox, the Baltimore Orioles see themselves in a tie for second place with Boston, one game behind the Toronto Blue Jays.

Since the All-Star break, the Orioles are 16-17, and since the trade deadline, the Birds are .500.

The trade for Wade Miley is eerily similar to those for Bud Norris and Scott Feldman in past seasons, and Miley has pitched like Wade Miley so far with the Orioles, which is an upgrade from the likes of Ubaldo Jimenez, Tyler Wilson and Mike Wright.

The trade for Steve Pearce has not worked out as planned so far. With the Orioles this season, Pearce has battled an elbow injury and has only played in five games, logging 16 plate appearances and two hits.

The Orioles let Pearce go to the Tampa Bay Rays on a one-year, $4.75 million contract last offseason after the then-32-year-old was virtually a replacement player in 92 games. In 2015, Pearce posted a .218/.288/.422 slash line, with a 91 wRC+ and a 0.3 WAR.

But that Steve Pearce isn’t the real Steve Pearce. The real Steve Pearce is the guy Dan Duquette just traded for, and closer the same player Pearce was in 2014.

Let’s take a look at truly how good Pearce was in 2014.

Albeit a small sample size—102 games and 383 plate appearances—Pearce was one of the best players in all of baseball. Pearce posted a 4.9 WAR, which is great even without considering he only played in about two-thirds of the games and that he was DFA’d in April by the Orioles before shortly resigning with the team.

Only two position players in baseball were more valuable in the time they played than Pearce: Troy Tulowitzki (aided by Coors Field) and Mike Trout (aided by being a stud). With all hitters with more than 300 plate appearances, Pearce was sixth in wRC+, fifth in wOBA and seventh in ISO, while posting a not-that-lucky .322 BABIP.

Defensively, Pearce posted career marks in nearly every metric, and it seems to be an anomaly.

He was tied for second in all of baseball in defensive runs saved at first base with nine in only 415 innings, whereas Yonder Alonso had the same total in about 200 more innings, and Adrian Gonzalez had 11 in three times the innings. In the outfield, Pearce saved nine runs in only 271 innings, which is a rate better than any other outfielder that season.

The 2016 Pearce looks much more like the 2014 Pearce than the 2015 Pearce.

With Tampa Bay this season, Pearce owned a .309/.388/.520 slash line, a 148 wRC+, a .386 wOBA and a 1.9 WAR in only 60 games and 232 plate appearances. The offensive numbers are similar to those in 2014, and he still kills left-handed pitching, something the Orioles need, prompting the trade for the versatile player.

Pearce has not played outfield for Tampa Bay, spending most of his time at second base and first base, posting a zero and negative two runs saved at those positions, respectively. He will rarely play second or first base, if at all, for the Orioles this season.

While his defense is not at the level it was in 2014 — and likely will never be again — it should be more influential to this team as it was to the Orioles in 2014.

In 2014, Pearce posted a very impressive nine DRS in only 271 innings in the outfield. Those runs saved, though, were not as important to that Orioles team.

The majority of the innings in left field were logged that season by David Lough and Nelson Cruz, and they totaled for nine runs saved. While Pearce’s glove certainly helped the Orioles, he was only a slight upgrade from the other left field options defensively.

It was Pearce’s bat in 2014 that the Orioles needed, mostly replacing the offense lost from slugger Chris Davis, who struggled for most of the season and was then suspended for the last 24 games of 2014 for PED use.

This Orioles team needs to improve its outfield defense, badly.

Mark Trumbo, Nolan Reimold, Hyun Soo Kim and Joey Rickard have played almost all of the innings in left and right field this season for the Orioles. Combined, they have lost Orioles pitchers 24 runs.

Pearce is unlikely to be the defensive outfielder he was in 2014, but if he can just be an average defender in left and right field, that is just as important to this Orioles team as being an elite defender on almost any other team.

It is unknown how much Steve Pearce will play moving forward. His offensive numbers are impressive against all pitchers, but even more so against left-handed pitchers. In a small sample size of 63 plate appearances against southpaws in 2016, Pearce is slashing .377/.476/.736. In his career against lefties, he owns a .273/.356/.504 slash line in 657 plate appearances.

Pigeonholing Pearce to only playing against lefties should not be in the Orioles’ plan, considering its dire need for competent defensive outfielders. Trumbo isn’t coming out of the lineup despite his bad defense, and neither is Kim. Pedro Alvarez’s hot streak will come to an end, and when it does, Pearce should be in the outfield almost every day, leaving the other corner outfield spot and DH duties to Kim and Trumbo, with the occasional Alvarez DH nod.

Coming off a season in which he pitched to a 4.50 ERA mostly out of the starting rotation with only 6.19 strikeouts per nine innings, the Marlins decided it was time for a change for David Phelps. They moved Phelps to the bullpen full-time to begin this year, and he was on his way to becoming a relief ace before the Marlins sent him back to the rotation. In 50 relief appearances before joining the rotation, Phelps averaged a whopping 11.43 whiffs per nine (69 strikeouts in 54.1 innings!). Since joining the rotation, Phelps has nine whiffs in 9.1 innings. It will be interesting to see if he can keep this up in the rotation (a la Danny Duffy), because the main culprit for this increase in strikeouts is a surge in fastball velocity:

It’s a classic case of a pitcher’s stuff playing up in a move to the bullpen. Before this year, Phelps never even averaged 92 on the heater. Now, he’s close to 95. I’m hopeful that he’ll maintain this velocity surge because of what Danny Duffy has done this year. Last year, Duffy averaged around 94.5 on his heater and a mere 6.72 K/9. This year, he’s up to around 96 and 10 in those two categories, respectively, despite being shuttled to and from the bullpen his entire career (just like Phelps). There were plenty of concerns that Duffy’s stuff wouldn’t last in a move from the bullpen this year, but I think his 16-strikeout performance on August 1st quelled the last of those concerns.

Alas, a hard fastball isn’t enough to make a great pitcher, as the Yankees realized when they included David Phelps as a throw-in for Nathan Eovaldi. Now, they’re actually of a similar level of skill. Phelps’ four-seamer has decent arm-side movement, but Eovaldi’s has more. Both of their four-seamers generate close to a 20% pop-up rate, which is really good (average for a pitcher’s full arsenal is around 9.6%). Phelps’ four-seamer’s whiff rate has gone up: it was never higher than 9% (a mere 5.6% last year), but this year it’s nearly 13% (Eovaldi’s is at around 7.8% this year).

Here’s what Phelps has that Eovaldi doesn’t have: decent secondary stuff. Phelps’ second-most-frequent offering is his sinker, which has the eighth-best horizontal movement for sinkers of pitchers with at least 60 innings this year (according to FanGraphs). The whiff rate is up to its highest point ever (although only near 6%). He throws it hard, as it’s averaging over 94 this season. The GB% has never actually been good, but it’s up over 50% this year for the first time. The kicker is this: his sinker has allowed an incredibly low ISO this year (0.036). Who knows if the newfound power-suppressing/added groundball-getting ability will continue for the pitch, but even if it doesn’t, sinkers and four-seamers usually work really well together. This is part of how Phelps distances himself from Eovaldi — Eovaldi has no sinker!

Phelps also has a solid curve, which is generating its best whiff rate since his rookie year, at 11.3% this year. This year, it also has the most vertical drop and cutting action away from righties of his career. Of the 191 pitchers who have thrown at least 100 curveballs this year (sample from Baseball Savant), Phelps’ deuce has the 28th-highest spin rate (2616 revolutions per minute), well above that group’s average of about 2243. And boy, does that thing get grounders. Its average launch angle this year is -7.0! That’s good enough for the third-lowest among my curveballer sample. Brooks Baseball has its GB% at nearly 77% this year, and it has only dipped below 60% one season in his career.

His other pitch of note is a cutter/slider thing (he also has a change, but he’s only thrown it 14 times this year). It has good rise. It doesn’t get too many whiffs, but it’s at its highest whiff rate since his rookie year (close to 9%). The ISO against it has only gone above .100 one year, and is solid this year at .090. It gives him a bit of a new velocity band, as it has usually come in around 91 this year. It also gives him a different kind of movement from his other fastballs (FF=four-seamer, FT=sinker, FC/SL=cutter/slider thing, KC=curve, CH=changeup):

The bottom line is this: Phelps has always had decent secondary stuff, but before this year, his fastball kind of sucked. Everything plays off of the fastball well, so as his fastball has improved, his secondary stuff has improved too. If Phelps can maintain this added velocity, I see a bright future for him.

Data from FanGraphs, Brooks Baseball, Baseball Savant, and Texas Leaguers. If you have a moment, read the awesome article that I linked from The Hardball Times: http://www.hardballtimes.com/pitch-sequencing/

Thanks for reading!

The Philadelphia Phillies are fortunate enough to possess the only two Double-A hitters with more than 30 home runs so far in the 2016 season. Besides Rhys (pronounced “Reese”) Hoskins and Dylan Cozens (pronounced “Cousins”), no other hitter in the Eastern League has more than 20 home runs. No other hitter in all of Double-A has more than 24.

But minor-league hitters with immense power are not a new phenomenon, and a vast majority of them never amount to much, if anything, in the major leagues. But these two, in my opinion, are a different story.

Cozens and Hoskins, rated the No. 18 and 19 prospects in the Phillies system, respectively, at the beginning of the year, have both made strides in 2016 that should have them both quickly ascending. While they both boast similar slash lines in Double-A Reading this year (Cozens: .283/.367/.611 with 32 HR and a .328 ISO; Hoskins: .284/.362/.591 with 33 HR and a .307 ISO), I believe that one of the two is much more likely to be an above-average major-league player and perhaps even an All-Star.

Approach:

Cozens, who has the less orthodox approach of the two, stands far away from the plate. He dares the pitcher to come inside, knowing that he has the arm length to cover any pitch that could potentially cross the outside of the plate. Essentially, any pitch thrown on the inner half to Cozens is akin to throwing a pitch down the middle to any other hitter.

Even less orthodox than his physical placement is the placement of his hands. Cozens, who stands very upright in the box, keeps his hands low and towards his back hip. This creates problems for him when he chases fastballs up in the zone, which he struggles to get his hands above. Since Cozens can’t to lay off of those pitches, this becomes especially problematic for the slugger. Additionally, his high leg kick leaves him frequently off balance and on his front foot, especially against offspeed pitches. With his freakish power, however, he can still drive the ball out of the park even when he’s fooled by and out in front of a pitch.

Cozens struggles to identify breaking pitches, leaving him even more susceptible to fastballs up and in. The upper, inner quadrant is easily the most glaring hole in his swing. That, coupled with his propensity to get out on his front foot and wave through offspeed pitches, has led to Cozens’ 29.3 K% in AA this year. Cozens does have a BB% of 11.8, which is encouraging, especially since it hadn’t topped 7.2 since Low-A in 2013. A lot of those walks, however, have been a result of Double-A pitchers not wanting to challenge the slugger. Needless to say, his approach will need to improve if he wants to compete against major league pitching.

Hoskins has a much better approach. His stance is more conventional, and his leg lift and stride are much shorter and controlled. With his back foot pointed slightly towards the pitcher, Hoskins lifts his front foot a few inches off the ground as the pitcher winds up and holds it there until he identifies the speed and location of the pitch, which he does well. When pitchers try to surprise him with changeups and breaking pitches in hitters’ counts, Hoskins is often ready to ambush. He stays balanced and doesn’t chase many unhittable pitches.

While most of Hoskins’ home runs are to the pull field, he doesn’t get too pull-happy, especially with pitches up in the zone. When he gets a fastball up and away, he’s not afraid to drive it to right field for a single. This explains Hoskins’ slightly lower ISO (.307 to Cozens’ .337). He is, however, susceptible to the fastball low and away, which he will try to pull.

Hoskins is able to differentiate between fastballs and offspeed pitches much better than Cozens. Hoskins will often check his swing on breaking pitches out of the zone, and he will stay back on changeups, even in hitters’ counts, and drive them. He doesn’t chase nearly as much as Cozens; his walk rate hasn’t been below 9.0% since Low-A (7.7%). Even more encouraging for Hoskins are his split stats. Most right-handed power hitters struggle against right-handed pitchers, but Hoskins’ split in 316 PA against RHP in 2016 is a robust .288/.365/.570 with 25 of his 33 home runs. Conversely, Cozens, a left-handed hitter, struggles mightily against LHP (.204/.286/.387 with 5 of his 31 HR).

Advantage: Hoskins.

Power:

While both hitters possess plus power, Cozens’ is elite and able to offset his below-average hit tool at times. The best metaphor for Cozens’ power is a flashy, new titanium driver: It is forgiving and doesn’t require perfect contact for a desirable result. Cozens doesn’t have to barrel up a ball to knock it out of the park, nor does he need to be balanced. He can be fooled by a breaking pitch and have a majority of his weight on his front foot and still easily clear the fence in right-center.

Hoskins, meanwhile, is a high-quality, old-fashioned persimmon three wood. He possesses above-average power, but needs to square up the ball in order to tap fully into it. But Hoskins’ power is more consistent and reliable, mostly due to his superior approach and hit tool.

Advantage: Cozens.

Athleticism:

Both Cozens and Hoskins are large men. Hoskins, listed at 6’4” and 225, is relegated to a corner infield position, most likely 1B, where he is adequate albeit unspectacular. Cozens is listed at 6’6” and 235 and offers more both in the field and on the basepaths. Cozens is an average defender in RF, although he has appeared in CF seven times in his minor-league career. He’s deceptively fast for his size, as his 23 stolen bases in 2014 and 18 this year attest to.

Advantage: Cozens.

Overall:

While both players possess above-average power and are thriving in Double-A at relatively young ages (Hoskins is 23 and Cozens is 22), Hoskins has the superior hit tool and approach. Cozens offers more as a defender and a baserunner, but not enough to offset his high strikeout totals, and his power is only marginally superior to that of Hoskins. Hoskins’ power is more translatable to the big leagues, where he has the opportunity to eventually thrive. This may seem strangely optimistic, but I would not bet against him reaching his ceiling as an All-Star first baseman with 30+ home run power and a .260/.340/.500 slash line.

Advantage: Hoskins

The Indians have an awesome starting rotation. They’re fifth in the MLB (first in the superior-hitting American League) with a 3.95 SIERA, seventh in ERA with a 3.96. They obviously have a solid top three in Carlos Carrasco, Corey Kluber, and Danny Salazar. Beyond them, the emergence of Trevor Bauer has grabbed headlines. But what about that last spot in the rotation? It is being held down, and held down steadily, by one Josh Tomlin. And he isn’t dragging down the staff’s ERA like most number 4s and 5s. In fact, he’s actually improved the ERA of the staff with a solid 3.81 ERA. However, he’s only averaged 6.39 K’s per nine innings, far below the league average for starting pitchers this year (7.72). He certainly doesn’t have overwhelming stuff. How has he been able to succeed?

Tomlin has impeccable command. He’s walking 1.15 guys per nine innings, in line with his career (1.45). He’s third in the MLB in K/BB ratio (first in AL). He’s 13th in first-pitch-strike percentage. He dots the corner with his main secondary offerings, a curve and a cutter, throwing them down and away to righties and down and in to lefties. He’s done this throughout his career:

And he’s continued to do so this year:

He owns that low and outside corner! Spotting his pitches on the corners has likely helped Tomlin to induce a solid Z-Swing percentage of 62.7% (according to FanGraphs plate-discipline data), which is 10th-lowest in the MLB this year. This means that Tomlin has been good at getting called strikes. He pairs this skill nicely with a 33.6% O-Swing percentage, which is the 11th-highest in the MLB this year. This means that Tomlin has been good at getting hitters to swing at pitches outside of the zone (pitches they usually can’t drive). This has been a skill for Tomlin throughout his career (33.2% O-Swing during his career).

In addition, he has a career BABIP of .274 (league average is around .295 every year). He has improved on that mark this year, allowing a .268 BABIP. This isn’t entirely surprising, given the high O-Swing percentage: If you swing at pitches outside of the strike zone, it’s much harder to make solid contact. Also of note is the fact that Tomlin’s Z-Swing percentage has really improved for him this year (66.3% career versus 62.7% this year).

What’s the driving force behind the improvement in these two plate-discipline stats? Tomlin’s cutter and curve offer a good explanation. According to PITCHf/x data on FanGraphs, Tomlin’s cutter has the 15th-best “rise” among qualified pitchers this year. It also has the eighth-most horizontal movement, darting away from righties and in to lefties. What’s more, the cutter has induced a 42.7% O-Swing percentage across his entire career. That number has held strong this year at a 44.5% clip. He’s decided to uptick the usage on the pitch this year to a career high, while throwing his four-seamer at a career-low rate.

The curve is the driving force behind the low Z-Swing percentage: This year, the pitch has a crazy low percentage of 44.7%. While that is lower than his career percentage on the pitch,  the curve is generating excellent vertical drop this year (15th-best in the MLB), and I wouldn’t be surprised to see him maintain a low percentage.

Tomlin isn’t flashy. He doesn’t pile up strikeouts. He doesn’t throw very hard. But, he spots the ball tremendously well and appears to have good contact management skills. Two pieces to the puzzle are his low Z-Swing percentage (fueled by the curve) and high O-Swing percentage (fueled by the cutter and its uptick in usage).

Data courtesy of FanGraphs and Brooks Baseball. Thanks for reading!

You probably know that Zach Britton is good at baseball, and that he’s having a great year. He was good enough last year that an article was written titled “How Zach Britton Blew His Saves”, and he’s been even more effective this year. Britton set a record last Wednesday night for consecutive saves by a left-handed relief pitcher to start a season, and has a number of other impressive stats:

• he hasn’t allowed a hit since July 15 (a span of 8 appearances), a run since June 21 (18 appearances), or an earned run since April 30 (36 appearances)
• he has allowed hits in just 18 of 47 appearances, and allowed multiple baserunners (via hit or walk) in just 10 of appearances

The ESPN Cy Young Predictor (CYP) shows Britton to be leading the current AL Cy Young race. He could be the first reliever to earn first-place Cy Young votes since Craig Kimbrel and Fernando Rodney received (single) first place votes in 2012. But is it really plausible to think that he could win?

Relievers and Recent Cy Young Voting

Let’s compare Britton’s stats with the four other relievers to receive first-place Cy Young votes since Eric Gagne’s 2003 victory, the last reliever season to actually win the Cy Young:

A lot of dominant seasons. A few notes:

• Rivera’s 2005 season benefited from a transition time where many writers still prized W-L and voted for Bartolo Colon; Colon’s selection over Johan Santana looks silly in hindsight
• Rodney’s 2012 and Britton’s 2016 season look really similar, except that Britton has been perfect in save situations (more on this soon)

Why Gagne Won

Gagne’s narrative of dominance that year, including his famous entrance and nickname “game over”, was corroborated by a combination of save records (55 saves and 0 blown saves, in the midst of a still-standing record 84-save-conversion streak), minuscule WHIP (.692), and an eye-popping 137 Ks (15.0 per 9 innings). Britton has the perfect save conversion rate and low WHIP that Gagne had, but faces additional obstacles in winning and constructing the name narrative.

The first is that Britton’s K rate, while great, is much lower. The second is that reliever seasons have become discounted recently, a sort of narrative goalpost shift in the sabermetric era. The perfect save conversion was repeated by Jose Valverde and Brad Lidge in 2011 and 2008, respectively, and I think no longer carries the same impression on voters. Gagne won convincingly even though there was no shortage of excellent starters that year (Mark Prior and Mike Schmidt both had WAR figures much higher than Gagne’s), because he was the story in NL pitching that year. Relievers tend to do worse on metrics like WAR compared to starters, and this makes constructing the same justification for voters to cast high votes to relievers much harder today. WAR was in its infancy in 2003, and I think if the 2003 vote were recast today, the result would be quite different.

This leads us to some sabermetric numbers:

A lot can be said here, but a few things I wanted to mention:

• I think Gagne’s high WPA is based on his outstanding performance in high-leverage situations (a look at his splits shows that he gave up two extra-base hits against 63 strikeouts in 154 high-leverage plate appearances in 2003)
• bWAR loves Rivera; he had three other seasons of 4 or more WAR, including his workhorse 1996 season with 107.2 IP and 5 WAR
• Gagne and Kimbrel’s FIP are actually lower than their ERA, I think because of their K rates
• Rivera, Rodney, and Britton had their ERA (and ERA+) figures benefit from allowing multiple unearned runs

 Lastly, let’s look at stranding runners:

All five stranded baserunners at an excellent rate, especially Kimbrel’s astounding 92.8% LOB. They were also extremely effective at preventing inherited runners from scoring, with a combined 55 of 60 inherited runners stranded. This takes us to:

Britton’s Luck

Britton has enjoyed both good and bad luck this year, and I’ll just mention two factors: defense and bequeathed runners. The good luck is in having a good infield defense behind him, which is obviously important for a sinkerball pitcher. Davis, Schoop, Hardy, and Machado are enjoying FanGraphs Fielding ratings of 1.1, 0.4, 1.9, and 4.1, respectively, and for what it’s worth, the Orioles are second in the AL in fielding percentage as well.

The (slight) bad luck is in his two bequeathed runners, both of whom scored. The first was on April 30, where Britton left with a runner on 1st and 2 out and Vance Worley allowed the runner to score, tagging Britton with one of his three ER this year. The other was on June 21, where Britton left with a runner at 2nd and 2 out, and Ordrisamer Despaigne allowed the runner to score. Britton was charged with 3 unearned runs but 0 earned runs, as Flaherty was playing 3rd instead of Machado that day and made an error early in the inning; this is one of only two errors committed behind Britton this year.

The Search for Perfection

If Britton ends up something like 55/55 in save situations (or blows one save) with his current rate stats, I think he’ll get at least a few first-place votes. But I think it is nearly impossible to be a reliever with a typical closer load and actually win the award in the WAR era, and perhaps tools like the Cy Young Predictor might be adjusted to reflect this.

This discussion also raises the question in my mind of whether we will ever see a reliever put up a perfect season of at least 60 innings with 0 runs allowed. It is really hard to throw that many shutout innings. Hershiser and Drysdale had streaks of nearly 60 scoreless innings, but all of the pitchers on the top 10 list of scoreless streaks were primarily starters. Reliever Brad Ziegler began his career with 29 scoreless appearances, but that’s only halfway to 60. Maybe it is like the chance of another .400 hitter.

We will see how Britton’s season turns out, and how the voters evaluate it. In the meantime, we will probably be seeing a lot more of this: