Archive for Player Analysis

Ever since he was taken with the second pick in the 2013 draft, the spotlight has continually followed Kris Bryant. After mashing his way through the minors in less than two years, Bryant had a spectacular rookie season with a slash line of .275/.369/.488 with 26 homers and a 136 wRC+. Deservedly, he was rewarded with the NL Rookie of the Year award. Although he did strike out over 30 percent of the time, he showed great plate discipline along with immense power. His 6.5 WAR ranked 10th among major league hitters. However, this year he has taken his production a step further.

With his league-leading 25 home runs to go along with his slash line of .278/.370/.578, one major change sticks out. Although his average and on-base percentage remain around the same as his 2015 totals, his slugging percentage has taken a huge jump. Halfway through the season, he is one home run shy of last year’s total and around half of his hits have gone for extra bases (44 out of 87). He’s also cut down on his strikeouts while making even more hard contact than he did last year — shown by his 42% hard-hit rate which will allow him to continue to tap into his power.

One noticeable change sticks out in his batted-ball profile. Although his ground-ball, line-drive, and fly-ball rates remain relatively constant, Bryant has pulled the ball more in his second big-league season. This has caused more of his fly balls to leave the park. Taking a look at his 2016 home-run spray chart, you can see that all of his home runs have been pulled.

Source: FanGraphs
Next take a look at his 2015 home-run spray chart.

Source: FanGraphs
Most of his home runs have been in the same general area with the exception of a few opposite-field home runs to right. Since he has been pulling the ball with more authority in 2016, the balls that he pulls in this sweet spot to left will allow him to continue to leave the yard at a ridiculous rate. With his picturesque swing to go along with his strong hands and 6-foot-5, 230-pound frame, swings like this

…will continue to be common for Cubs fans to see from Kris Bryant.

However, it would be foolish to simply call Bryant a home-run hitter when in fact what makes him so special is his all-around hitting ability to go with this insane power. He walks, hits the ball hard, and his only flaw is his propensity to strike out — and even that he has improved upon this year. A two-time All Star already with 4.3 WAR this season, he ranks fourth among major-league hitters and first among NL hitters in WAR while also possessing a 149 wRC+. At this point, if the NL MVP is going to go to a player not named Clayton Kershaw, Kris Bryant deserves to be the one holding up the trophy. But the trophy most important to him is the one won at the end of October. With the Cubs holding a comfortable lead atop the NL Central, Bryant looks destined to lead them on a deep playoff run with the hope of finally shattering their 108-year-old curse.

You know his story: David Price is a $217-million man with a 4.74 earned run average, and the people of Boston aren’t happy. It’s another Crawford-Sandoval-Ramirez waste of money. Things are headed downhill for the 31-year old veteran. Or are they?

First, the bad news: the 2016 version of David Price has been worse than the 2015 David Price, and way worse than the top-caliber pitcher Boston signed him to be. And the ERA shows it.

The suspect is pitch selection, and the culprit is a sinker that doesn’t sink. Price has a two-seam fastball that over his seven-year career he has thrown some 30% of the time. In his prime, it clocked in at 94-95 mph, but since then he’s dropped almost two mph.

Usually, that level of velocity leak wouldn’t be a big deal, because if there’s enough movement and deception, batters will be fooled either way. But Price’s sinker is different.

Brooks Baseball reports that “His sinker has well above-average velocity, but has little sinking action compared to a true sinker and results in more fly balls compared to other pitchers.” Uh-oh. “Little sinking action?” There needs to be at least some element of vertical movement for a sinker to be fully effective, or, in Price’s case, a little extra velocity. But now he has neither.

The results show it. Last month, he surrendered 10 home runs, more than the previous two months combined. Also in June: 31% of his pitches were sinkers, nearly 10% more than the month before. Coincidence? I think not. He’s also allowing a .241 Isolated Power on sinkers, only three points less than Mike Trout this season. And maybe the most convincing statistic: hitters are pulling the ball 10% more than they did last year, which means they are making more solid contact and not having to stay back on his fastball. Price’s pitches are slower, and it’s making a difference.

Why is he losing velocity? There’s two possibilities and they point in completely opposite directions. The first is age. Price is 31 and he’s nearing the point where most starting pitchers start to fall on the aging curve and eke velocity. If this is the case, it’s going to be a long seven years for the Red Sox. But there is another possibility. Price has played in Tampa Bay for most of his career, where the temperatures are never 40 degrees like Boston in April. It’s entirely possible that the cold ‘froze’ him up this spring and as the season continues, he’ll regain his speed. Most likely, it’s a combination of both. But either way, it’s never a good sign when pitchers slow down.

Price has always gotten away with leaving sinkers up in the zone because they showed 94-95 mph on the radar gun. But now hitters are seeing 92mph fastballs fly straight down the middle of the plate and stay there.  Why doesn’t he just put the ball on a tee? Nine out of 10 major-league hitters will knock that pitch into the stands every time. Just look at the stats: He’s surrendered just two fewer home runs than he did last season even though he’s pitched 112 fewer innings (2015: 17, 2016: 15), and he’s allowed an average of 1.25 home runs per nine innings, which is 32 percent worse than his career average (0.84). Sinkers are sending the man to his grave.

They’re also killing his ERA. 38% of his earned runs are from home runs, and if you set his home runs to eight instead of 17, his ERA would be 4.01 instead of 4.74, a 0.73 difference. (8 is the number he had allowed last year at this point in the season.) In fact, his strikeout and walk totals are even better than last season, but the home runs negate all of it.

But we can’t blame everything on the sinker, either. Price has definitely been unlucky this season. His home run to fly ball ratio is 15.5%, an unsustainable mark, his .323 BABIP .035 more than his career average, and his LOB% 10 percent less than the 2016 league average. These will balance out in time. But his sinker is the real problem.

The only way to truly limit home runs is to limit fly balls, and for Price, the only way to limit fly balls is to stop throwing sinkers that don’t sink. The solution is (1) throw harder, or (2) find another pitch to replace his sinker. Option one is still TBD. Option two could be filled with either a change or slider — two pitches that he has used to complement his fastball but never to the level that he uses his sinker. The outlook is grim either way.

Price is still a very experienced pitcher, and once his HR/FB, LOB%, and BABIP rates come down to earth, things will even out. But if he wants to be successful for the Red Sox for the entirety of his stay, there’s a longer-term issue at stake, and if his velocity continues to leak, I’m not sure what type of David Price we’ll be looking at a year from now.

Clayton Kershaw is great. Really really great. Maybe hurt — but definitely great. But I’m not interested in examining Clayton Kershaw; I’m interested in examining Inverse Clayton Kershaw. I want to find the pitchers that have been most unlike Kershaw during the last calendar year. Kershaw has been the best — I want to find the worst.

So wow. Did I mention Kershaw is great? Anyway, time to find Inverse Kershaw. First, I want to point out that the players below are still incredible at baseball. They are some of the most elite in the world, way better than all of us. Caveat aside, I’ll now examine the pitchers over the past calendar year who are most unlike Kershaw in each of the stats above — i.e. if Kershaw’s ERA is 2.63 below league average, whose is 2.63 above league average. When in doubt, I’ll defer to the guy with the most IP. At the end, I will name the Inverse Kershaw!

ERA

So, whose ERA has been a whopping 2.63 runs above league average? Coming in with an ERA of 6.75 we have Carlos Contreras. Contreras pitched 18.2 innings within the last year for the Reds out of the bullpen. You probably expected some 2016 Reds relievers to qualify, but Contreras posted these numbers exclusively in 2015 and then did not make the 2016 Reds bullpen. Yikes.

FIP

Noe Ramirez has worked to a 6.65 FIP in 24 IP for the Red Sox over the last year. Prior to 2016, then lead prospect analyst Dan Farnsworth said of Ramirez, “his stuff likely isn’t good enough to be more than bullpen filler.” Maybe not even that good.

xFIP

Well I’ll be damned. With 18.2 IP with an xFIP of 6.05 out of the Reds bullpen we have…Carlos Contreras.

K%

With a K% of exactly 7.8%, we find the final 13 IP of Dodger right-hander Carlos Frias‘ 2015 season (he hasn’t pitched yet in 2016). As a Cistulli darling, I imagine this is just a speed bump in Frias’ journey to becoming a Cy Young winner.

BB%

In 39.2 IP, Elvis Araujo of the Phillies has walked 14.0% of batters faced. In related news, Araujo was optioned to Triple-A Lehigh Valley on June 26.

HR/9

Matching our criteria exactly with 1.86 HR/9 allowed in 67.2 IP is Toronto starter Drew Hutchison. This figure doesn’t factor in his excellent work in Triple-A (.77 HR/9 allowed), and according to the Toronto Sun, Hutchison figures to be called up soon. Hopefully he can get the gopheritis under control and contribute for the Jays down the stretch.

SwStr%

I made a judgement call here. The pitcher with the most IP within 0.2% of the required 3.9% SwStr% is Jon Moscot and his 4.1% SwStr%. Moscot has posted that rate across 21.1 IP in five starts for the…gulp…Reds this year. Poor Reds fans.

The Inverse Kershaw

It is all fine and good (bad) to post inverse Kershaw numbers in one category, but I wanted to know the single pitcher that was most unlike Clayton Kershaw. More accurately, I wanted to find the pitcher whose performance has been as far below average as Kershaw’s has been above average. To do this, I began with a sample of all pitchers appearing in MLB over the last calendar year. I then calculated the number of standard deviations each of their component statistics were from the Inverse Kershaw numbers in the table above. The pitcher with the lowest sum of standard deviations will be named the Inverse Kershaw. This is exactly the methodology used by Jeff Sullivan for his pitch comps.

And the winner (loser?) is….Matt Harrison, formerly of the Texas Rangers, currently of the Phillies Disabled List. You may remember Harrison as the salary dump portion of the Cole Hamels to the Rangers trade. You will hopefully now remember him as the past calendar year’s Inverse Kershaw. The final numbers are below.

So there you have it, the pitcher coming closest to being as far below average as Clayton Kershaw has been above average over the last year is Matt Harrison — the Inverse Kershaw. Just for fun, here is the same table as above, subbing out the 2016 Reds Bullpen for Matt Harrison.

Poor Reds fans.

Let me start off by pointing you to this excellent article recently penned by eyesguys1 in which he also analyzes 2016 Robbie Ray.  I write this now not to steal his thunder, but to report some pretty interesting Robbie Ray trends I’ve discovered (and because I was almost done with this when I saw his article).

Robbie Ray put together a pretty successful rookie campaign last year — he pitched 127.2 innings with a 3.52 ERA to go along with a 3.53 FIP and 2.1 WAR.  It’s not going to blow anyone away, especially considering last year’s rookie class, but it was a good season nonetheless.

He’s currently sporting a rough 4.69 ERA and 3.96 FIP, way up from last year’s totals.  He’s ramped up the velocity on all his pitches except the sinker, so you would think he’d be doing better than in 2015, or at least not a full run worse.

Likewise, his K-BB% (one of the best in-season performance predictors) has gone up.  While he has walked 9% of batters he faces, his 25.6% strikeout rate is good for 17^th among qualified pitchers.  What’s making the difference?  Home runs.

It’s fair to say he’s had a homer problem this season.  His HR/FB rate is a lofty 15.8%, up nine points from last season, and it’s worth noting that his xFIP has therefore improved.  His .358 BABIP appears to indicate that he’s been unlucky, but Andrew Perpetua’s xBABIP formula  says that his expected BABIP is still a bit high at .323.  What gives?

His platoon splits give us a clue, because they’re rather striking.  Left-handed hitters have a .282 wOBA against him, while right-handers are crushing him to the tune of a .365 wOBAA.  He had somewhat of a platoon split last year, but it wasn’t anything like this.  He’s actually gotten better against lefties by almost the same degree as he’s gotten worse against righties.  Why?

Against lefties, he’s been nothing short of dominant.  He’s throwing mostly the same mix of pitches against them as he did last year (mainly the four-seamer and slider, with some sinkers thrown in) yet his wOBAA is down to .282 from .309 in 2015.  His numbers versus lefties may be nothing more than randomness associated with small sample sizes since he has faced only 93 of them this season (but still only 141 last season).  It’s not beyond belief that a left-handed pitcher is doing well against left-handed hitters, especially when you consider his strikeout and walk numbers.  He has struck out 28% of the left-handed hitters he’s faced and walked just 5.4%, so his K-BB% is 22.6% (up from 17% last year).  Plus, his home-run problem isn’t so bad for left-handers as he sports a close to league average 11% HR/FB rate.  Since Ray hasn’t faced many southpaws this year, it’s harder to know what exactly he’s doing, if anything, to improve against them.  What jumps out the most is that he’s getting significantly more whiffs on the slider and sinker, so that could explain the increase in strikeouts, as could the uptick in velocity.  Regardless, K-BB% is one of the best in season predictors available, so he’ll likely continue doing well against lefties going forward, even if he isn’t dominant.

Right-handers are where he’s struggling.  Though his K-BB% against them hasn’t been bad at all (14.8%), he’s given up a rather high 16.4% HR/FB rate versus righties (likewise, his xFIP is a bit lower).  This represents a bit of a homer problem, especially considering he only had a 7.1% HR/FB RHH split last year.  He’s been tinkering with his pitch mix against opposite-handers, so perhaps there’s a clue there.  Take a look at his home-run rates for balls in the air (both fly balls and line drives) for his four main pitches (excluding the curve) both this season and last from Brooks Baseball:

While he’s given up some home runs on the four-seamer, the main culprits are the sinker, slider, and changeup.  The most striking example is the changeup, which leaves the yard 20% (!) of the time when it’s hit in the air.  If you think about it, it makes sense that a changeup hit in the air might often leave the yard, but I couldn’t find many with a HR rate on it like to Ray’s.

Bluntly put, his changeup has been bad.  According to the pitch-type linear weight leaderboards, he’s had the league’s worst changeup by wCH at -7.3 and the fourth worst in wCH/C. (Something interesting: second-worst in wCH went to fellow D-Backs starter Patrick Corbin.)  He threw his changeup about 13% this April and increased that to 15% in May.  The results weren’t pretty; righties posted a .466 wOBAA in April and .330 wOBAA in May against his change.  For a pitch typically with reverse platoon splits this is not good, especially considering righties’ wOBAA (on a month-by-month basis) against it peaked at .312 last year.  He’s been locating it down and out of the zone, and that’s precisely where it’s gotten hit hard.  It’s been getting more whiffs and ground balls, but when it is hit in the air, it’s gotten blasted (like many of Ray’s pitches).

Thankfully, through his past four starts he’s ditched the change completely, instead leaning more heavily on the four-seamer and slider.  He did the same thing towards the end of last season, so maybe it’s gone for good this time.  He changed his change this year, but righties simply aren’t buying it.

But the changeup isn’t the only pitch he’s played with.  Last season saw a steady trend where Ray threw the four-seamer less and sinker more as the season went on.  That trend continued into early June of this season.  In fact, save one start against San Diego, he threw his sinker significantly more than his four-seamer against right-handers (he doesn’t throw it much to lefties) in four starts from mid-May to mid-June.  Before and after this period he threw primarily the four-seamer, so dividing up his season into three periods reveals some interesting trends.

He’s been getting progressively more ground balls as the season goes on, and more sinkers are being put into play.  Looking at his location, he spotted it further up and out of the zone away from right-handers.  In that first period, he gave up seven walks in 20 at-bats, while since then he’s given up just six walks in 59 at-bats, even though he’s been throwing it out of the zone more.  Right-handers are simply swinging at it more and putting it in play more and more often.  And despite throwing out of the zone more, he’s getting hurt in the zone more often.  Maybe the pitches he’s making in the zone are really hittable.  Maybe I’m grasping at straws and it’s all randomness.  wOBAA has been up and down (and is still really high), so it’s hard to tell if anything he’s doing is making a difference.  He is tinkering with the sinker and getting more ground balls, so it’s just a matter of limiting the damage on hits that aren’t ground balls.

Since he dialed back his sinker, he’s been relying more on his four-seamer.  This is promising because in terms of wOBAA it’s been his most effective pitch against right-handers next to the curveball (which I’ll get to soon).  He’s throwing his four-seamer the fastest he has in his career and it’s missing a lot more bats.  As long as he keeps it up, he will hopefully trend in the right direction.

But I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention Robbie’s most interesting pitch: his slider-thing.  Okay, it’s a slider, and it’s probably more conventional than I’ve convinced myself while writing this.  Take a look:

It has primarily 12-6 movement, and it’s only added more movement since last year:

He mostly throws it to lefties, but he’s thrown it 12% of the time to right-handers, so it’s worth examining.  He’s also been throwing it more since he ditched the changeup.  Righties have a 0.312 wOBA against it, which isn’t spectacular, but it’s a modest improvement from the .352 mark last year.  But the most striking thing about his slider is that right-handers are hitting it on the ground 58% of the time!  That’s an 18-point improvement from 2015.

His uptick in grounders on the slider could be due to a number of things.  As I noted, he’s throwing it faster.  About 2 MPH faster, and it sits in the 85 MPH range on average.  He likes to spot it low and inside just off the corner of the zone to righties, and he seems to be hitting that location a bit better now.  But what jumps out most to me is that while he’s throwing it for strikes less, righties are swinging at it at the same rate, so it stands to reason that they’re making worse contact.  Most of the damage appears to come when it’s in the zone and up.  When they do hit it in the air (fly balls and line drives), they hit it out 11% of the time.  On average, he threw the slider more in June than in April or May and he’s getting fewer fly balls on it than he did in May, so it appears to be trending in the right direction.  And if you remember the chart above, he has lowered the HR/(FB+LD) rate since last season.  So if he can keep it down, the slider should be a very effective weapon against righties.

One last thing I’ve been avoiding: the curveball.  Brooks Baseball says he’s throwing one, while here at FanGraphs it’s lumped in with the slider.  It could be just a misclassified wonky slider.  He’s only thrown it 61 times this year, so it’s hard to know what to make of it, but see for yourself.  Here it is catching Hunter Pence looking:

And here’s a slider for reference (on the very next pitch mind you):

The two have similar sliding action, it’s just that the top one looks more curve-y.  It’s a little hard to me to tell the difference by looking at them (though the movement profiles at Brooks are a little different).  It looks like he may have a higher release point on the second pitch, which would be consistent with a curve.  At Brooks his release point for the curveball is a little higher, albeit not by much.  It’s a trend worth keeping an eye on.

If he really has added a curveball to his repertoire for good, the results look promising.  So far, he’s gotten almost 50% whiffs per swing, a 58% ground ball rate, and hasn’t allowed a single right-hander to reach on it (and only one lefty).  That’s just 10 at-bats, but five of those resulted in strikeouts.  Again, it’s a small sample size, but if these results continue, he may have found his pitch to beat the platoon split.

Bottom line, Robbie Ray has been far worse against right-handed hitters this year because of his sinker and changeup.  He’s ditched his changeup, which is probably for the best.  His sinker has been a mixed bag, but he is getting more ground balls.  What’s more, he’s been throwing his four-seamer — his best pitch — a lot more often, and he’s been getting tons of ground balls.  If he sticks to the fastball and keeps the slider down, he shouldn’t get torched by righties like he has.  And he may even be developing an effective curveball to get them out.

Against lefties, it’s a little simpler.  He’s doing largely the same things, just missing more bats and striking out more guys.  It’s hard to say with such a small sample size, but it’s a reason for optimism.

In 2016, Robbie Ray has been better, but also worse.  However, recently he’s shown some good signs that could make him better, and also better.

Certain stats and tables courtesy of Brooks Baseball.  Gifs from Baseball Savant and Inside the ‘Zona.

Bryce Harper is in a slump. Not a daily, weekly, or monthly slump, but a slump that has been going on since the beginning of May — nearly two months. Coming off a breakout season in 2015, Harper seemed poised to be even better this year. In April he had a .714 slugging percentage, a 1.121 OPS, and a 181 wRC+ (creates 81% more runs than the average hitter). No pitcher wanted to pitch to him. On a day during the first week of May, Harper went 0-0, with six walks and one hit-by-pitch. Since then, it seems like walking is the only thing he’s done well. In May, he hit .200/.363/.785 with a 105 wRC+. In June, he’s hit .262/.369/.720 with a 95 wRC+(though he did post OBPs of .422 and .351 in May and June, respectively). In essence, Harper has produced like an average major-league hitter over the last two months. The only problem with that is that Harper is widely regarded as not an average MLB hitter, but one of the best (if not the best) hitters in all of baseball.

Sure, hitters go into slumps all the time. It’s no reason to get worked up about a bad spell here and there. Remember, baseball is a game where a hitter fails 70% of the time and is considered a Hall-of-Famer. There are going to be 0-4 days.

But two months seems like an awfully long time. And it’s my job here to find out why. So let’s take a look.

The first thing that stands out when examining Harper under the microscope of a computer is his batting average on balls in play (BABIP). He’s hitting .257 in said category — well below his career average of .323 and well below the 2016 MLB average of .300. BABIP does reflect the ability of the hitter, but it also depends significantly on defense and luck. A batter whose BABIP is well below his career and league average may just be getting unlucky — whether that is from hitting the ball directly at defenders or defenders making spectacular plays.

So, is Harper hitting the ball with the same authority he did last year (which would confirm the idea that he’s getting unlucky)? Not quite. In the following table you can see that the number of line drives he’s hit (LD%) is down 7% and number of balls he’s hit softly (Soft%) is up 12%. He’s hitting fewer line drives and more fly balls (FB%) — but those fly balls aren’t turning into home runs, as his HR/FB% is down from 27% to 17% (i.e. last year for every 100 fly balls that Harper hit, 27 of those were home runs. This year he’s hitting 17 home runs for every 100 fly balls).

So, Harper is hitting more soft fly balls that are getting caught by outfielders, and fewer line drive that find gaps. Could this be a result of his discipline at the plate — his ability to differentiate strikes from balls and to swing accordingly? There are two things I want you to look at: Z-Swing% and O-Contact%. They sound confusing but they’re simple to understand. Z-Swing% is the percentage of strikes the batter swings at. O-Contact% is the percentage of balls outside the strike zone that the batter makes contact with.

You can see the difference between last year and this year. Harper is swinging at fewer strikes (5% less) and making contact with more balls outside the strike zone (5% more). That would explain why he’s hit more balls softly this year — he’s making weak contact with pitches outsize the zone. It’s much harder for a batter to hit a ball well outside the zone because it’s farther away from him. You can see the truth in this statement from the following graph (all qualified hitters from 2012-2016).

The graph shows the relationship between isolated power (ability to hit for extra bases) and O-Contact%. It’s pretty clear that the more often a batter makes contact with a ball out of the zone, the less likely that ball with result in a double, triple, or home run. In 2016, Harper is somewhere right smack in the middle of all the dots (0.65 O-Contact%, .225 ISO).

Before I end, I just want to make it clear that Harper isn’t by any means a bad player. He’s a superstar, an All-Star, and probably the face of MLB — oh, and he’s 23. But, for lack of a better term, he’s performed like an average player the majority of this season, so I set out to find why. I think it’s mostly due to being unlucky with his deflated BABIP, but I’d also be cognizant of plate discipline if I were him. Pitchers do try to pitch around hm — just being a little more patient and swinging at more strikes and fewer balls wouldn’t hurt.

Read any article on the Cubs and you’ll find praises on pretty much everything they’ve been doing this season. Rightfully so. Their MLB leading 49-26 record deserves some praise. The national spotlight has been focused on their young talent for the first couple months of the season, and even more so recently with the call up of top catching prospect Willson Contreras, who hit a home run on the first pitch he saw in the majors. That sums up how the season has been going so far for the Loveable (No Longer) Losers. But what about the vets? Not many people outside of Chicago have noticed just how good the second-oldest Cub, John Lackey, has really been this season. The 37-year-old has complemented the 1-2 punch of Jake Arrieta and Jon Lester very well this year and is quietly having one of the best seasons of his career: (courtesy of fangraphs.com and brooksbaseball.net):

His strikeout rate and swinging-strike rate are up (a lot), his opponents batting average against is down (a lot), and his walk rate has virtually remained the same. Plus there’s the fact that his slider has been pretty devastating this year. According to the wSL (weighted Slider) metric on FanGraphs, which uses run expectancy to evaluate the effectiveness of a pitch, he’s had the third-best slider in the league to date. Surprisingly, Lackey’s slider has been more effective than some of the most well-known sliders in the game, including Jose Fernandez, Justin Verlander, and Madison Bumgarner. It’s pretty incredible considering his slider has been nowhere near this good in the past. In case you were wondering what it looks like, here’s a clip courtesy of baseballsavant.com:

That’s some nasty break coming in at around 87 MPH, according to MLBAM. Some nasty vertical break, to be specific. Taking a look at seasonal data from brooksbaseball.com, Lackey’s had an increase in average vertical movement this year.

(FanGraphs primer for those who aren’t familiar with Pitch F/X: Pitch F/X movements are based around a hypothetical pitch that has absolutely no spin, so when a pitch breaks “up”, it means that it does not fall as much on the way to the plate as a spin-neutral pitch would.)

For the first time in his career, he is averaging negative vertical movement, without changing the horizontal movement or velocity on the pitch. That’s a borderline curveball. Typically, most breaking pitches with negative vertical movements are curveballs, but Lackey’s slider teeters right on the edge. Surprisingly, It’s not something he hasn’t done before. His minimum and maximum values for vertical movement have been pretty similar the last few years according to Brooks Baseball. And it’s not like he’s throwing in a different spot to righty hitters. His heat maps for his slider for his career and in 2016 look virtually identical:

He loves throwing it low and away. It does look like he’s been getting his pitch more in the dirt this year though. That’s a byproduct of how he’s been maxing out his vertical break this year, and without sacrificing anything else. How’s that, you might ask? That’s a difficult question.

Here’s one interesting theory. There’s only one other pitcher on that leaderboard that averages negative vertical movement. I’ll save you the suspense: it’s teammate Jason Hammel, who has a pretty effective slider himself. And according to the Pitch F/X data from brooksbaseball.com, their sliders are eerily similar:

Hammel has had one of the best sliders in the past few years. Maybe he’s helped guide Lackey into using his slider more effectively. Purely speculation, but an interesting thought nonetheless. Regardless of his new(ish) changes and whether or not they’re here to stay, hitters better start adjusting to Lackey’s slider.

What are you to do with a former fantasy superstar who hasn’t lived up to expectations? For some, the answer’s easy; Carlos Gomez has already been dropped in over 25% of leagues on both ESPN and Yahoo.

Now that I’ve driven half my audience away with my use of a semicolon, let’s start the real analysis. Gomez certainly disappointed his owners through the first month and change of the season, sporting a minuscule .486 OPS through May 15 before being placed on the DL. For reference, out of 324 batters with at least 100 plate appearances, just two (2) have a lower OPS as of June 24. Both are on the Braves (one hit fifth in the lineup as recently as June 21, while the other has batted second 13 times this season).

So yes, one could see why owners would have lost patience with Gomez. But this was also a player who hit 66 home runs and stole 111 bases while hitting .277 between 2012 and 2014. If anyone deserved patience, it was him.

So when he hit two home runs in his first six games back from the DL, it was hard to be too surprised. Since then, he’s put together five multi-hit performances, and has brought his season line back up to at least non-Atlanta-ish numbers.

While it’s obviously a small sample size, Gomez’s 76 plate appearances in 19 games since his return have shown immense improvement over his horrendous start to the season. To demonstrate this, take a look at each of the different areas in which he’s bounced back:

I could bring up more player comparisons and show you just how bad the Atlanta Braves are this year, but that’s not the point of this article. Instead, let’s just focus on Gomez’s numbers and how they compare to earlier in the year and during his prime years. He’s nearly doubled his walk rate while striking out more than 10% less often than before, leading to a BB/K that is no longer painful to look at. He’s missing less frequently on pitches he swings at, both in and out of the zone, and has fewer swings-and-misses as a result. The one worrisome spot here is his swing rates, where the trend is the opposite of what we’d generally expect when we see favorable results. However, his O-Swing% is still lower than it was between 2012 and 2014, and it seems as though swinging less at pitches in the zone is leading to more walks and less bad contact, so it’s not truly a terrible result.

I already referenced Gomez’s OPS above, but it’s still almost unbelievable to see that his post-injury slugging percentage is nearly as high as his OPS once was. Besides that, there’s improvement across the board. His average is up over 100 points, as his OBP, SLG, ISO, OPS, and wOBA. He’s gone from being 70% worse than the average hitter to 30% better. What’s good to see her is that he’s not outpacing any of his career stats by a noticeable amount — an indication that his current run is very much sustainable. Okay, maybe not the .385 BABIP, but as you’ll see next, keeping it over .300 shouldn’t be an issue.

Let’s take this one at a time. First, Gomez has seen a drastic increase in his line-drive percentage, unfortunately at the expense of hitting fewer fly balls. While it’d be better to see him hit fewer ground balls and get some more balls in the air, he’s certainly making this approach work for him right now. He won’t hit 30 home runs with this approach, but with the increased line drives, he should have no problem continuing to hit for extra bases.

Then comes the confusing part. He’s increased both the percentages of balls he hits to the pull side and opposite of the field, now hitting just 13.3% of his balls to center. He was definitely spraying the ball better beforehand, although the bloated Pull% will undoubtedly help him to put up some better power numbers. If the numbers stay in this region, I’d definitely expect his BABIP to regress, but it’s more likely that they regress closer to his career norms. A lot of those pulled balls will end up going to center field.

Finally, there’s the stuff that’s easy to analyze. Hit the ball harder, get better results. Gomez apparently believes in that approach as well, now hitting the ball hard over a third of the time and showing over a 50% increase from his previous rate. He needs to work on hitting the ball soft less often, which should happen if he continues to be selective and wait for his pitch.

Ah, Statcast. What would we do without your infinite wealth of knowledge? The data here was obtained through Baseball Savant, and confirms that Gomez is indeed hitting the ball harder than he was before his injury. His overall average exit velocity remains low, but his velocity on line drives and fly balls is actually higher than it was last year. He can hit all the slow ground balls he wants and still be successful, provided he can keep up this increased velocity on balls in the air. Of course, he’s not going to continue hitting his fly balls over 350 feet — that’s reserved for people like Byung Ho Park (and apparently Tyler Naquin?). But he’s at 323 feet for the season now, and which should easily suffice for him to begin putting up some rejuvenated power numbers.

If you’re looking for a tl;dr, here it is: Carlos Gomez is performing much better than he was earlier in the season. He’s taking more walks, striking out less, making more contact, and hitting the ball harder and farther (further?). It’s obviously a small sample size, and he may not put up another 20/40 season, but he’s more than capable of hitting 10 home runs and stealing 15 bases the rest of the way. While it’s not elite production, it’d be better than he did last year, which would be quite an achievement after his start to the season.

At this moment, the Arizona Diamondbacks, those same Diamondbacks who went into “win now mode” this offseason, currently sit in fourth place in the NL West division. A few weeks ago, Dave Cameron wrote an excellent article about what direction the D-Backs can go from here. The D-Backs’ pitching has specifically underwhelmed this year. However, one starter on their roster stands out to me, one who was not much more than an afterthought on their staff at the beginning of this year. That man is Robbie Ray.  He has a 10.4 K/9! That’s good enough for ninth in the majors among qualified starting pitchers — ahead of Madison Bumgarner, David Price, and Jake Arrieta (to name a few). He struck out eight guys in five innings his last time out. But, his ERA sits at an unimpressive 4.59. What’s up with Robbie Ray? Let’s take a look.

Let’s start with his four-seam fastball. Its velocity has risen each season since he first came up in 2014. He’s topped out at 97.6 this year — great for a lefty. He averages 93.6 on the heater, which is harder than all other qualified lefties this season. Its swinging-strike rate has gone from 7.1% last year to 8.3% this year — a very high SwStr% for a fastball. The pitch even has a bit of arm-side run and added backspin, giving it a “rising” appearance. He throws his fastball 59.6% of the time (third-highest in the majors), and for good reason.

His slider is solid. Hitters are managing a meager .570 OPS against it. It has an 18.4% SwStr%, up 0.3% from last year. Here is a wonderful gif of Ray striking Andrew McCutchen with the slider. And him striking out McCutchen again. Not to mention, the pitch is generating a whopping 68% groundball rate this season.

So both the fastball and slider are solid pitches. But here is where Ray runs into some trouble: his two-seamer is mediocre and his changeup is awful.

He throws the two-seamer hard, and consequentially, it has less movement than average. It has slightly more movement than his four-seamer, but otherwise, it’s just a slower version of the four-seamer with much less “rise”. Last year, it did generate a solid 54% GB%, but this year, that number has dropped to 45%. Hitters are mashing it to the tune of a .962 OPS this season, though last year they only managed a .729 OPS in a similar sample size. That being said, the SwStr% of the pitch has jumped from 6.1% last year to 7.1% this year, probably because his improved fastball and slider help to set it up better.

The changeup is awful: hitters currently have a 1.437 OPS against it this year. But, last year, hitters only had a .662 OPS in a similar sample size. He has trouble commanding this pitch, especially: he throws it for a strike only 53% of the time. However, there is some good news: the SwStr% has almost doubled, going from 4.6% to 8.5%.

Having examined Ray’s repertoire, I have a couple of predictive theories. Firstly, his HR/FB ratio is an exceedingly high 16.7%. This is well above the league average and his career rate of 10.9%. According to park factors on ESPN and FanGraphs, Chase Field is at least in the top five in terms of worst parks for pitchers, so that could explain some of this. He also over-performed with a 7.3% HR/FB rate last year, and maybe this is just regression coming in. Either way, I think that this rate should certainly improve through the rest of the season, settling in closer to his career average rather than 16.7%. Unsurprisingly, the changeup is the main culprit here; it has a 100% (!) HR/FB rate. This should almost certainly regress, which would bring his “OPS against” on the changeup back down.

Something else of note is that the changeup and two-seam fastball are weapons primarily deployed against batters of the opposite handedness, as they would move away from the batter. Since these are Ray’s two poorest pitches, it makes sense that he struggles to get right-handed batters out. They have a .875 OPS against him, compared to the meager .590 OPS that lefties manage. The changeup and/or two-seamer need to improve for Ray to start getting right-handers out. These two pitches have been hit hard, and have thus helped to make Ray’s BABIP climb up to .350. The BABIP against his changeup is .476, and against his two-seamer it’s .421.

One last thing that should not be discarded is that Ray’s walk rate has risen this year. Poor command of his pitches has resulted in him leaving a few meatballs over the plate. The fact that he only throws his changeup for a strike 53% of the time is specifically a major detriment to his control; the rest of his pitches are at least at 60% or higher.

So, Ray’s HR/FB rate should at least regress a bit, and I think that he can get his ERA under 4 for this reason alone. Roll with the Steamer projections for the rest of his season over ZiPS, but keep in mind neither projection system knows everything of Ray’s velocity increase and improved SwStr%, so it’s entirely possible that he can do even better, maybe even sustaining a 10 K/9, especially if he can improve his command and work on his changeup and two-seam. To sum it all up, the SwStr% has improved on all of Ray’s pitches, and there’s room for improvement yet; he’s only 24 years old.

After signing a massive seven-year, 217-million-dollar contract with the Red Sox this past offseason, David Price got off to a slow start. After his May 7th start against the Yankees in which he gave up six earned runs in just 4.2 innings, Price’s ERA stood at a whopping 6.75 yet his peripherals remained strong. He had a 2.98 FIP and 11.5 K/9. However, he was giving up hard contact over 41 percent of the time. The immediate fix was a mechanical issue noticed by Dustin Pedroia that was limiting Price’s leg lift and diminishing his velocity. Frustrated with his failures, Price vowed to be better.

And better he has been. After throwing a gem in Sunday’s win over the Mariners where he went eight innings allowing his only run on a solo shot by Franklin Gutierrez, Price lowered his season ERA to a still high 4.24 and had his eighth straight quality start. Over those eight starts, Price has been much better, allowing 16 runs over 58.1 innings for an ERA of 2.47. During this stretch, he has a 3.88 FIP and 8.6 K/9 and has only allowed hard contact around 27 percent of the time. Although his strikeouts have gone down and his FIP went up due to his decrease in strikeouts to go with an increase in home runs allowed, Price has limited the amount of hard contact he has given up. This can be seen in the BABIP over the two stretches. In his first seven starts, his BABIP against was around .370, while in this current eight-start stretch it is hovering around .230.

This in turn, has allowed him to be very successful while pitching to contact. His biggest issue remains his ability to keep the ball in the park. Over his last eight starts, Price has allowed at least one home run in seven of them. So while he has limited hard contact against him, the few mistakes that he makes each game are punished. Despite this increase in home runs allowed, he continues to pitch well and go deep into games, allowing the Red Sox bullpen a chance to recover after the consistently shaky starts from their 4th and 5th starters.

There are a few main reasons to this improvement. The first was his ability to regain his velocity. Looking at his velocity each month thanks to data from Brooks Baseball, there is a small but steady increase in his average four-seam and sinker velocity. Before May 8th, his velocity was low by his standards. Typically a pitcher averaging 94 to 95 MPH with his fastball, he had been sitting 93 MPH.

Although just a small dip in velocity, it made him much more hittable.

Since May 8th, his velocity has been back on the rise.

After the mechanical change, his four-seam has been averaging around 94 MPH and his sinker has been averaging around 93 MPH, but still slightly up from what it was before. Although it is a small increase, this added velocity has helped Price dominate hitters, gain confidence, and re-establish himself as an ace.

Another key factor in this improvement has been his pitch usage. Using pitch data from Brooks Baseball, I was able to look at Price’s pitch usage. In his first seven starts, Price relied on mixing different types of fastballs with his main offspeed pitch being a change-up while also displaying the occasional curve.

His four-seam was used around 28 percent of the time yet it lacked the movement displayed by his cutter and sinker. The high four-seam usage to go with decreased velocity spelled trouble for Price.

However, since May 8th, Price has made an adjustment displayed by the fact that he is now using his sinker as his primary pitch while also using his four-seam far less frequently.

His sinker is now used around 36 percent of the time compared to his four-seam being used around nine percent of the time. With this added movement and velocity, Price has been able to be more effective while keeping the use of his curve, cutter, and changeup around the same. This simple switch from a four-seam to a sinker has allowed him to go on a tear.

Looking forward, the Red Sox need Price to continue to be the pitcher that he has been over his last eight starts. They are paying him ace money and he is expected to pitch like one down the stretch as Boston hopes to continue their great turnaround year. If Price continues to have outings like these, the Sox should like their chances come October with him taking the mound with their season on the line.

The MLB draft has passed but its impact will last. Some selections will go down as busts (e.g. Matt Anderson by the Tigers in 1997). Others will be real bargains such as Carlos Beltran with the 49^th pick in 1995. I decided to look at the numbers in an attempt to answer the following questions I read over the last few weeks:

1. How many Round 1 picks do end up in the big leagues? What’s the average impact of a Round 1 pick? How does that compare to Round 2? Are there differences between pitcher and batters?
2. What has been the best draft class for the 1993-2008 period? (per three first rounds)
3. What teams have done a better job?
4. What is the best round (top 10 overall picks)?

As I usually do, let’s define the data sources and assumptions. First, my data source is Baseball-Reference. There are many assumptions and disclaimers in this process, but the most important ones are:

1. I am using data from 1993 to 2008 to give ample time for players to reach MLB. As I am using career WAR, I don’t want to over-penalize players that have been selected in the recent years and therefore have not accumulated MLB service time.
2. Organizations change and so do their ways of conducting business, which evidently includes draft strategy. We are looking at teams rather than specific front offices or general managers.
3. WAR refers to Baseball-Reference WAR (i.e. bWAR).
4. Teams may have more than one pick per round due to compensation and supplemental picks.
5. This methodology does not take into account the overall quality of the draft pool i.e. total WAR per draft year is not constant.
6. All WAR is allocated to the team that drafts the player. Understandably, that is not true but let’s toy with the idea through this post.

Let’s get to it.

Question 1 – How many Round 1 picks do end up in the big league? What’s the average impact of a Round 1 compare to a Round 2 pick? Are there differences between pitcher and batters?

The table below outlines how many players have been/were called up to the majors and how many actually have had a positive career WAR i.e. over 0.0. I have also added the average career WAR per player and I have broken down the data by round and by position (pitcher and batter) to grasp the differences easily. Just take a moment with this table:

Three things come to my mind:

First, this provides some empirical validation of what we intuitively thought: First-round picks produce greater WAR values than the others. While I only have data for the first three rounds, it’s worth noting that the gap between Round 1 to Round 2 (10%) is smaller than from Round 2 to Round 3 (41%).

Second, I actually found surprising that 67% of first-rounders reached MLB at some point. That is two players out of three and it’s a testament to how important raw skills are when it comes to moving up through the minors.

Lastly, the answer to the question of whether t draft pitchers or batters looks like an easy one. Batters not only reached MLB at a higher pace but delivered better results as a group and as individuals. While these results are not statistically significant, they provide a pragmatic answer to the question and suggest a sound strategy might be to draft batters and trade for pitchers later down the road.

Question 2 – What has been the best draft class for the 1993-2008 period?

This table should provide guidance on how to answer this question but does not fully explain it. If we think of it as the number of players that got to MLB, then 2008 is the best year. That year highlights Eric Hosmer, Buster Posey, Brett Lawrie, Craig Kimbrel and Gerrit Cole as the most prominent stars, but offers a very low career total WAR as most of its players are still playing – they’re the youngest generation of my sample. In this class, 27 out of the top 30 picks have reached MLB, though a few for a very short stint e.g. Kyle Skipworth or Ethan Martin.

If we think of the highest total career WAR, then the winner is 2002. This class is led by two of the best picks on the sample (Zack Greinke and Joey Votto) but also features Prince Fielder, Jon Lester and Curtis Granderson. If we think of highest concentration of skills, then the 1995 class has to be the first one with an average of 11.8 WAR per MLB player. On the other hand, only 41 players got the MLB call, the lowest among the sample. While Carlos Beltran and Roy Halladay are the most notable names in that draft, player such as Darin Erstad, Kerry Wood, Randy Winn and Bronson Arroyo enjoyed nice peaks.

Question 3 – What teams have done a better job?

Evidently, not every team has selected in the same combination of draft slots e.g. some teams have had the opportunity to choose top picks (Rays, for example), while other have frequently picked from mid-bottom draft slots (Yankees).  It would not be fair to compare total career WAR for players the Yankees has selected against those that the Rays has because the latter had more options and access to a different pool of players than that the Yankees had. How to fix that? I am comparing what each team did on the overall pick they were slotted. If we use 2016 as an example, I would be comparing how good Philadelphia was in choosing Mickey Moniak as pick 1 against the average of all other first picks in the timeframe (1993-2008). Once I know the WAR gap between a particular team and the average WAR per pick, I need to standardize that number by the standard deviation i.e. calculating Z scores. In simple terms, this is understanding how good or bad a pick was in relation to the entire distribution of a particular draft slot. The Z-score number allows us to compare how good a 14th pick was in relation to a third pick, for example. Finally, to identify which teams have fared better, I am calculating the average of Z-scores for all picks.

Again, there are many caveats here, but this should give us a ballpark estimate on how well teams have drafted from 1993-2008. Keep in mind, this methodology does not produce a linear WAR per draft slot. That would mean, for example, that overall pick 4 will produce greater WAR than pick 5. On average, the 4^th pick has produced 6.2 WAR on average, while the 5^th one has produced 14.3. While this might be counter-intuitive (it is at least for me), the empirical evidence of this sample size shows that.

Perhaps surprisingly, the Phillies come at the top of the list. The Phillies advantage came in three picks: First, Chase Utley was drafted in 2000 with the high 15th pick and has had a great career that is up to 63.4 WAR. Second, in 1993, the Phillies chose Scott Rolen (70 career WAR) with the 46th overall pick – which seems like a bargain now. Finally, Randy Wolf in 1997 was selected in the 54^th position and went on to have a 23.1 career WAR. The Nationals have had very much success on their first few years as a franchise with both Jordan Zimmermann and Ryan Zimmerman. The sample size does not include Bryce Harper or Stephen Strasburg, which may push the Nats to the top of the list in the near future.

Astros, Expos, Yankees, Cubs and Indians are the bottom five teams. Coincidentally or not, these teams have long droughts (Yankees exempted). Interesting to see if there is a relationship between draft performance and wins but I guess that’s is another post.

We could go and dig deeper for each team into what they’ve done well and not so much but that would not make sense. Teams make mistakes and it looks like the draft selection is pretty damn hard with an extremely high WAR standard deviation (11.6 WAR through the first 30 picks).

Question 4 – What is the best round (top 10 overall picks)?

This question is about finding the best selection on each of the first 10 picks. I’ve used the Z-score which pick was really ahead of the curve.

Well, this is quite a nice group of players. A-Rod is the WAR leader of our sample. Even as a first pick, which on average has yielded the highest WAR, he manages to be three standards deviations above the mean. Five other players are active and two of them (Greinke and Kershaw) still are among the best starting pitchers in the game. They will continue to cement their position as great draft picks for the Royals and Dodgers. Interestingly enough, Barry Zito and Eric Chavez were part of the A’s Moneyball team that frequently over-performed a few years ago — a reminder of how important it is to build a strong core of players.

As a bonus question – these are the top 10 picks, according to this methodology:

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