Archive for Player Analysis

Hearing Carlos Correa’s name can lead to polarizing reactions. If you’re one of the lucky few who managed to snatch him up in fantasy, then you celebrate every time he is mentioned. If you’re an Astros fan, I’d imagine you’d do the same, although being from New Jersey, I can’t say I actually know any Astros fans. However, if you’re not a part of one of those two groups, you’re probably asking “He can’t actually be this good, can he?”

Fortunately for me, I’m part of the group that owns him in fantasy. Because of this, I just want to enjoy the ride and not worry about whether it will end or not. With the fantasy trade deadline coming up though, it is something that I decided to look into. On a pace of 98 runs, 43 home runs, 115 RBIs, 17 steals, and a .297/.344/.573 slash line over a 162-game season, it’s hard to believe that he can keep that up.

First let’s take a look at the average. In 2014, at A+, Correa hit .325 with a .373 BABIP. You don’t expect a BABIP that high, but someone of his quality can certainly carry one over .320, so it’s at least not worrisome. This year, at AA, he actually improved on his average from a year ago, hitting .385 with a this time unsustainable .447 BABIP. He’s good, but not that good. This was evident upon his promotion to AAA, where he hit .276 with a .286 BABIP over 24 games. For someone only 20 years old and moving through the minors so fast, struggling (at least for his standard) was to be expected. In the majors though, he’s hitting a cool .297 with .312 BABIP, both seemingly in line with his career minor league numbers and looking like they will stay where they are.

Then there’s the OBP. Correa is reaching base at a .344 clip, which is actually lower than what he’s had at every level in the minors except for his 17-year-old debut season. His walk rate has decreased at each level, from 12.3% to 11.3% to 10.6% to the 6.7% it’s at right now. That’s concerning, but to be expected for such a young hitter moving up the ranks so quickly. His strikeout rate has also gone up to 19.1%, leaving his BB/K at an ugly .35. Without taking walks, it’ll be hard for Correa to continue getting on base at his current rate, but with the way he hits the ball and the lineup protection he has behind him, it’s hard to see his OBP dropping much below .340. Furthermore, if he keeps that high OBP and continues to bat in a top-4 spot (it’s hard to tell where he’ll bat in the lineup once George Springer returns from injury), his counting stats should have no problem continuing at their torrid pace as well.

It’s hard to believe anyone would have a question whether he could keep up his stolen-base production. He stole 18 bases earlier this year in the minors over 53 games while only being caught once. The year before that, he stole 20 bases in 62 games being caught 4 times. If anything, you’d expect Correa to actually have more stolen bases, but it’s hard to complain if he reaches the 15-steal mark.

The one thing that is probably the most in question is the power. His 24.5 HR/FB% would rank him 8th among qualified hitters, right below Mark Teixeira and above hitters like J.D. Martinez, Jose Abreu, Paul Goldschmidt, and Albert Pujols. Fortunately for Correa and his average, he sprays the ball around the field better than any of those players (even Martinez!), but that may not actually be helpful for his power as pulling the ball will generally produce more power. He also makes less hard contact than those above him on the HR/FB% leaderboard, which makes us question the number in the limited sample size we’ve seen.

In order to get a more accurate picture, I looked into the PITCHf/x data from baseball savant. Only 11 of Correa’s home runs were tracked this way, but that’ll have to do. According to the data, Correa actually had a higher average angle off the bat on his home runs, as well as a higher exit velocity (30.7 compared to 27.6 and 102.8 compared to 102.7). His batted ball distance, though, was shorter, calculating to 389 feet as opposed to the league average on home runs of 397.9 feet. While 10 feet is certainly meaningful, when combined with his better-than-average angle off the bat and exit velocity, it’s hard to credit too many of his home runs to luck. Even giving him 11 instead of 13 for the season, he’d still be on a 37 home run pace.

Getting away from the fancy numbers, the good news about all this is that Correa actually has an ISO that would be 6th best in the majors, due in large part to the 14 doubles he has collected alongside his 13 home runs. Correa’s power seems to be legit, and it wouldn’t be surprising to see him challenge for 30 home runs by the time the season is done.

After looking at the numbers, everything from Correa seems to check out, and it’s clear that he’s not just benefiting from luck. If he could achieve numbers even close to his pace, he already deserves to be called the best shortstop in the game. Over the past 10 years, the best offensive season by WAR for a shortstop came from Hanley Ramirez in 2008 when he had 125 runs, 33 home runs, 63 RBIs, 35 SBs, and a slash line of .301/.400/.540. Based on his prorated numbers, Correa could easily have that season next year, maybe with a few less stolen bases, a slightly lower OBP, and double the RBIs. Oh yeah, and he’s 20. Take that, Bryce Harper.

With the trade deadline approaching (ed. note: so long!), we have players donning their current affiliation’s uniforms for a final game.  Aside from a few tears shed by baseball’s infantile devotees (ages 3 and up), these will be business-like transactions; it’s the buying and selling of goods.

For this article, we’ll be looking at pitcher performances in their final game before being traded.   The last game a pitcher pitches for a team is a relatively inconsequential event.  What I mean is that teams searching for that piece to propel their momentum in the efforts of a playoff push know what Cole Hamels is worth.  His value did not take a significant ding after two abysmal starts when he totaled 6.1 IP, 20 H, 14 ER, and 5 K (July 10th and 19th), and neither did it skyrocket after his performance on Saturday.  You know what happened, but let me recap: In his last outing for the Philadelphia Phillies, Hamels threw a no-hitter against the Cubs – the very team who he could have ended up with.  That’s probably already a better idea for an article – pitchers that were traded to the team they just faced – but I’ve started the research for the article I’m currently writing, an article that, much like my night, is, for lack of a better word, aimless.  My one year old son is asleep, my wife went to a birthday dinner, I’m in my underwear watching X-Men 2: X-Men United (for the umpteenth time), drinking Diet Hansen’s Tangerine Lime, and thinking about Hamels’ almost 100-point game score in what was his last game as a Phillie.

For the purpose of this article, but mainly to eventually get some sleep tonight, we’re going to limit the research to this current decade (2010 being the starting point), and for pitchers that went to teams that made the playoffs only.  Cole Hamels’ no-hitter scored a 98 on Bill James’ game score calculation, with the only two blemishes keeping it from being a nice even 100, being the two walks he issued over the 9 IP.  There have been two pitchers traded already, Scott Kazmir and Johnny Cueto, and they each posted game scores north of 70 (73 and 78 respectively).  The starting pitcher talent level that could swap hands this year is pretty special.  It’s hard to remember the last time there was a talent pool this deep or when there were this many teams in viable contention to make playoff pushes, so it’s no surprise that we’ve seen a couple of really, really well-pitched games.  But in terms of single-game performances, how good is a game score of even Kazmir’s 73 in the final game before a player gets swapped?  You’d have to go back to 2010 to find a game score as high as 70, which was what Cliff Lee scored for the Mariners after dominating the Tigers over 8 IP.  (Zack Greinke had a 72 before he was traded to the Angels in 2012, but they didn’t make the playoffs.)

Below you’ll find a table with players that were traded close to the deadline to teams that made the playoffs from 2010 – 2014.  Next to their name you’ll find the game score of their last game pitched with the team that traded them (organized by game score) compared to the average game scores they posted with the team that traded them and the team they were traded to.  It’s highly likely that, with so much going on tonight – X-Men just ended – I missed one or two or three starting pitchers.  ((Also spoiler alert (Not about X-Men which I’ve seen close to 100 times now): There are no correlations between that one game score and their value for the rest of the season because a pitcher is the pitcher they’ve been for the body of their work)).

(Game Score Equation courtesy of Bill James: 50 + (outs recorded) + (2*IP after 4th inning) + (1*K) – (2*H) – (4*ER) – (2*Unearned Runs) – (1*BB) = Game Score)

**GmScA = Game Score Average

I know that 18 games is a small sample size, but 47.2 is a pretty sizable drop from averages of 54.6 and 54.5.  Perhaps it’s the uncertainty that these players are facing with the looming trade deadline that causes a dip in performance, or perhaps this is a silly, SILLY thing to look into and it means absolutely nothing!!!

But back to this year’s impressive pool of starting pitchers that were rumored to be available.  Let’s say all the top pitchers that are thought to be moving have thrown their last game for their respective teams.  Here’s a look at a table just like the one above but for the pitchers thought to be moving this year.  (This is assuming the caveats that all the players have pitched their final game for their respective teams and that they will all be traded to or have been traded to teams that will make the playoffs).

That’s a lot of 70s.  There are also three pitchers in this group with average game scores of over 60, which is one more than the number of pitchers that went to playoff bound teams from 2010 – 2014.  After all this, I wish there was a way to make this post more interesting, or show some correlation between any of these numbers, but there’s simply not!  It was a thought and I ran with it.  One game does not make a player, but I think in some TINY way, it is another example of what we know to be true:  there is some serious talent that’s about to switch hands – get excited.

Last night, I was lying in bed with my arms crossed behind my head, staring at my ceiling, and thinking of what a fantastic season Paul Goldschmidt is having.  “He’s so locked in; I wonder how pitchers have pitched him differently over the course of this season; I bet he’s super cool; I bet we’d hit it off; I wonder what kind of dogs he likes”.   The sheets rustled and my wife turned over and asked, sleepily, “Who are you talking about?”  I looked for her face in the dark.  I was surprised that I had been saying that out loud, but I just whispered to her, “I wasn’t saying anything, you were dreaming”.  She turned over and I said quietly to myself – “Of course it’s Golden Retrievers”.

Goldy is 3 stolen bases away from a 20/20 season which is a rare feat for a first baseman.  Todd Frazier technically did do it last year, but he only started 43 games at 1B, so I would only count him as achieving it as a 3B.  For the remainder of this exercise I’m going to only use players who reached particular milestones while playing the primary position they’re listed for instead of what positions they were eligible for – I’ll apologize to Ben Zobrist in advance.

Let’s go around the diamond and find some completely arbitrary statistical rarities that may be reached this season!  Yay!  Pointless fun!!!

Catchers: A Catcher’s Triple Crown

Buster Posey is so good.  He currently ranks, among catchers, 2^nd in HR (14), 1^st in RBI (67), and 1^st in AVG (.325).  As a side note, he’s also thrown out 48.4% of attempted runners this year and leads all catchers in WAR by a wide margin (4.3 compared to Vogt’s second place 3.0).  But those offensive numbers I listed are clearly the triple-crown categories, aren’t they?  That’s rhetorical.  He’s second in HR right now, trailing Brian McCann and Salvador Perez each by one HR.  Posey has finished second in HR among catchers in 2014 and 2012, and comes up 3^rd overall during that span with 75, trailing only Carlos Santana (76) and Brian McCann (78).

We have to travel back in time to the turn of the century to find a catcher who actually posted numbers worthy of a triple-crown among catchers and you’ve probably already guessed that it was the fabulous, Mike Piazza.  He led all catchers in HR (38), RBI (113), and AVG (.324) in the year 2000; absolutely gaudy numbers for any position nowadays.  Think about it, when Miguel Cabrera won the triple-crown in 2012, amassing 44 bombs and 139 RBIs while hitting .330, Piazza’s performance in the NL would’ve put him 2^nd overall in HR, 2^nd overall in RBI, and 3^rd overall in average.  In the year 2000, his numbers ranked 10^th, 13^th, and 10^th, respectively – this point of dramatic difference in his rankings falls into the “different eras” conversation.  Of course this is only about offense, and Piazza is arguably the greatest offensive catcher of all time, but I have to throw in (no pun intended) that Piazza only succeeded in apprehending 22.5% of would be base stealers that year.  Ooph!

First Basemen: 20/20 Campaign

This was the catalyst for this article and I talked about it earlier.  Goldy should be able to get to 20/20 this year and it’s been over a decade since a 1B primary player achieved this elite mark.  A few players have come close, but the man who did it was Derrek Lee.  The year was 2003 and the big, Marlins’ first baseman smacked 31 HR and stole 21 bases.  I didn’t peg Goldschmidt for a 20/20 season this year and I still think that his speed will erode over the next couple seasons, but looking back at Lee, who is not technically a good comparison for Paul Goldschmidt, except that he too was 27 years old in 2003 and had the ability to swipe a bag, he averaged 13 SB over the next 2 years.  Goldy, you may have a few years left of some good wheels, you god…I mean dog.

*Anthony Rizzo may very well get to 20/20 this season, too.

Second Basemen: 150 wRC+

Did you know that Robinson Cano never achieved a wRC+ of 150 in his prime?  That was a kind of shocking revelation for me when I picked this number to single out.  He posted a 149 in 2012 and averaged 142 from 2010 – 2013, which is a shiny number, but it’s not what we’re looking for.  New member of the Kansas City Royals, Ben Zobrist achieved a wRC+ of 152 in 2009 for the Rays, but kind of like Frazier’s 20/20 season last year, Zobrist is ineligible to be considered here because he only accrued a 124 wRC+ as a second baseman in 2009, where he played just over half of his games.  So let’s keep looking.  The last true second baseman to achieve a 150wRC+ was Chase Utley in 2007.  Yeah, Utley was fantastic, and the conversations I have with myself about Goldschmidt are reminiscent of Mac’s conversations with himself about Chase Utley (Always Sunny In Philadelphia).  So who is hitting the mark this year?  It’s not Altuve if that’s what you were thinking.  In fact, this hitter was well below average in 2014, posting a wRC+ of 86.  But he’s increased his BB rate, cut down on Ks, matched his HR output in 32 less games, and has 10 more XBH this year compared to last.  He’s known for his 2^nd half slumps, as he has a career 130 wRC+ before the break and a 96 after it, but if he can continue his torrid pace, Jason Kipnis would be the next second baseman to reach 150 wRC+ over a full season.

Third Basemen: Ranking 1^st in OFF and DEF (per FanGraphs)

Josh Donaldson currently ranks 1^st among 3^rd Basemen with a 23.4 Off number and 2^nd with a 9.3 Def number.  These numbers are rarely mentioned, but they’re still worth using as measurements since Off is batting and base running combined above average, and Def is Fielding and Positional Adjustment combined above average (again, per fangraphs).  In Defense, he only trails leather-wizard, Nolan Arenado’s 10.9 mark.  It’s not impossible for him to make up that ground this year and if he does, he’d be in some elite company.  Starting from the year 2000, Donaldson would join Troy Glaus (2000), Adrian Beltre (2004), and Evan Longoria (2011) as the only players in this century to lead 3^rd basemen in both categories.

Shortstops: Playing in at least 160 G and accruing less than 1.0 WAR

This isn’t a list you want to find your name on, but there’s Marcus Semien, sitting at 0.4 WAR while having played in all but 1 of the Athletics’ games this season (100 out of 101).  Steamer has him projected to play 52 more games and accrue 0.6 more WAR which would give him 152 G and a WAR of 1.0, therefore making him ineligible for this list but let’s extrapolate that pace and say he does play in 160 games.  Semien started the season like a man on fire, swatting 6 HR and heisting 7 bags through the end of May to go along with a nice .283 AVG and a .770 OPS.  Of course his glove has been a cast iron skillet, absorbing some of that heat that he started with, and his offense has taken a nose dive as well.  Since the beginning of June, he’s hit 2 HR and stolen 2 bases (all of these stats came in July – so 0 HR and SB in June) and he’s hit a paltry .206 to go with a .550 OPS.

There are a few other cases of every day shortstops being as valuable (or as lacking in value) as Semien has been this year.  Most recently, in 2013 over 161 G, Starlin Castro was actually worth negative value, and logged a -0.1 WAR.  Orlando Cabrera’s name appears twice since the year 2000, posting a WAR of 0.7 in 2009 over 161 G, and a symmetric looking 0.0 WAR over 161 G in 2004.   The one other name on this list is Neifi Perez, who in 2000 was worth a whopping 0.3 WAR and played every single game for the Rockies.  While the Rockies have had more productive shortstops since then, they have had a tough time keeping one on the field for that many games (unless you span 3 seasons or so) – that was a really mean sentence.

Outfielders: 5 players 25 years or younger with 30 HR

The talent pool of young players in 2015 is well documented.  Mike Trout is Mike Trout and he already has eclipsed 30 HR.  Bryce Harper and Manny Machado are stepping up their games to join baseball’s elite.  Giancarlo Stanton is injured now, but should be a lock for 30 if he comes back this year.  And Joc Pederson has arrived in the bigs swinging some thunderous lumber.  Each of these players (using Steamer’s ROS projections) are on pace to hit 30 HR or more.

Going back to my arbitrary year cutoff, 2000, I can only find 2 other accounts of this phenomenon.

2012: (2 of the same players are on the 2015 list!!!)

And the year 2000

Again, the year 2000 was a completely different era.

Starting Pitchers: K-BB% above 30%

This one is a little less likely, but the player in the hunt is Clayton Kershaw, so, yeah.  Kershaw led all of baseball last year with a 27.8 K-BB%.  He’s at it again this year, pushing the needle to 28.9%.  His SwStr% is trending up yet again and it’s up to 16.1%.  It’s gone up every year since 2012 when it was 11.1%.  You know I love tables, so here’s one for Kershaw

*Whatever percentage points are missing from his pitch usage in that chart are allocated to change-ups.  **I think the table is self explanatory and therefore, won’t waste any time explaining it.

Kershaw’s 27.8 K-BB% was the highest mark since Curt Schilling’s 27.9% in 2002.  If Kershaw can push it above 29% he’d leap over 2002 and he’d be the first pitcher since Randy Johnson in 2001 to be at 29% or higher.  Kershaw’s “rebounded” from his early season “struggles” with the long ball and has been as sharp as ever dating back to June 6^th.  From the beginning of the season through his start on June 1^st, his K-BB% sat at 24.8%.  Starting on June 6^th and including his start on July 23^rd, his K-BB% has been an absurd 33.9%.  If he can keep that up over his next 6 or 7 starts, depending on how many he has left, he could push that number to 30% and be the first pitcher since Pedro Freaking Martinez in 2000 to do so.  The insane thing about Pedro is that, in 2000, the league average K-BB% for starters was 6.7%; his was 30.8%, or 4.6 times the league average.  This particular category saw the leader’s rate drop every season until Cliff Lee led the category in 2010 with a 19.8 K-BB%.  Meanwhile the league’s starting pitcher average rate has gone up and is 12.2% this year.  Clayton currently sits at 2.4 times the league average, which is still phenomenal for a starting pitcher, but if you think about how inhuman he’s seemed over the course of the last couple of years, that just makes Pedro even more amazing, superlative, superlative, and superlative.

Relief Pitchers: AVG Velocity at 100 mph.

We’ll keep this one brief.  Pitch f/x data goes back to 2007 on FanGraphs, so that’s as far back as I can go, too.  Before 2011, Aroldis Chapman’s first full season in the pros, no one had averaged a 98 mph fastball before.  He did in 2011, and it sat at 98.1.  That number actually increased and kept increasing until it reached 100.2 mph in 2014.  That was his average fastball.  This year it’s a measly 99.5, but if anyone can do it, it would be the only man to do it.

Baseball is selfless in its ability to give us never-ending fun facts that the initiated will appreciate (I feel like there was some redundancy in that sentence).  This selflessness also serves as the primary reason why I’m sleep deprived and why my personal relationships are stunted.  So the next time your wife or husband or whoever, wakes up from their slumber to ask who you’re talking about, think of me, and if they’re statistically inclined, too, just say something like, “Oh hey, sorry to wake you, sweetie, it’s just that Paul Goldschmidt’s BB/K rate has been over 1 the last two months”, and then maybe, you two can lie awake and wonder about the wonders of Paul Goldschmidt’s approach at the plate this year.

Projecting baseball players has been a hobby of mine for the past 2 seasons. I would like to openly thank FanGraphs for the ease of accessing data to build a system for projections, as well as inspiration start this project from Tom Tango, Dan Syzmborski, Jared Cross (and team at Steamer) and all of the great researchers here at FanGraphs for pushing me to learn and try new things in creating a projection system.

The ODIEs (Oden Decision & Information Enhancement system) of projecting players is not all that dissimilar from Steamer and ZiPS found here at FanGraphs. My methodology for creating hitter and pitcher projections are as follows:

1. Weighted average of the last 3 years of player data depending on service time. Minor League Equivalencies are done for players with less than 3 years of service time.

2. Regressed stats based on league, park, and position type (C, 1B/3B, 2B/SS, OF, and SP/RP)

3. Adjusting for Age

4. Adjustments for Pitcher Velocity and Hitter Contact (Soft, Medium, & Hard)

5. Rest of Season Projections are weighted by Pre-Season and Actual stats for the 2015 season. I also readjust Rest of Season projections based on the criteria in point #4.

The major difference (that I can tell) in the ODIEs system to other successful systems is the incorporation of how stats are regressed and the adjustments for Velocity and Hitter Contact.

The files below will take you to the projections for both Hitters and Pitchers – here are some details to note:

1. There are three tabs for Pre-Season Projections, Rest of Season Projections (updated as of 7/23 games), and Total Projections using Real Data and Rest of Season Projections.

2. Each tab has a Criteria Search function that you can manipulate data in, the “Classification” column will change based on the results of your entries.

3. Fantasy Points, Points per game, PAR, and PAPAR values are all based on Ottoneu points scoring

I hope these projections are of use to anyone in Fantasy leagues, interested in player analysis, or anyone looking to push me to create the best projection system I can.

Link to Hitter Projections: https://www.dropbox.com/s/kyfr4i19nsn6hc4/ODIES_Shared_Hitters.xlsx?dl=0
Link to Pitcher Projections: https://www.dropbox.com/s/8t4ovkouir8f2sf/ODIES_Shared_Pitchers.xlsx?dl=0

Thanks, and I welcome and feedback or questions on this project.

Devon Travis has been a pleasant surprise for the Jays this season, as he’s hit better than anyone could have expected out of the gate.  Despite a horrible month of May when he tried to play through a shoulder injury, he’s hit to a 129 wRC+ so far with solid defense at 2^nd.  Additionally, he may be helping the Jays in other ways, as it seems as though he may be involved in stealing signs.

I was watching the Jays game against Oakland July 22^nd, and after Devon Travis hit a double in the top of the 9^th inning off of A’s closer Tyler Clippard, I began to notice Travis making some obvious movements at 2^nd base.  Sometimes, I would see him clap his hands together enthusiastically; other times, I would see him hop up and down a few times. I then paid attention to the pitches that were subsequently thrown, and noticed a pattern: Whenever Travis would clap his hands, Clippard would throw a fastball, and whenever Travis would hop, Clippard would throw an offspeed pitch.  I decided to go back to the MLB.tv game archive to confirm what I thought I had seen live, and here is what I found:

Batter – Jose Reyes

Travis did not make any motions during the first five pitches to Reyes (likely, he was learning the signs). On the sixth pitch, he clapped, but Clippard stepped off and they ran through the signs again.

Batter – Josh Donaldson

Like with Reyes, Travis did not make any motions right away, as he looked at four pitches to get the signs down. The fun starts with pitch five:

Travis Motion – Clap

Clippard then steps off, followed by:

Travis Motion – Clap

Pitch – Fastball (92 mph)

Pitch six:

Travis Motion – Hop

Pitch – Offspeed (83 mph)

Pitch seven:

Travis Motion – Hop

Pitch – Offspeed (76 mph)

Batter – Jose Bautista

Pitch one:

Travis Motion – Clap

Pitch – Fastball (91 mph)

Pitch two:

Travis Motion – Clap

Pitch – Fastball (90 mph)

Sadly, after the second pitch to Bautista, the catcher visited the mound, and for the remaining three pitches in the at bat (which Bautista walked, moving Travis to third base) Travis did not make any motions (again, he probably figured they changed the signs).

So what we’re left with is five pitches (three fastballs, two offspeed) where the pattern holds up, and logical times when Travis does not clap or hop (i.e. after first reaching second base and after the mound visit when the signs could change). To me, given all the evidence, I don’t think the actions by Travis are coincidental, and I’m pretty certain he was stealing signs.

I was curious if this was a one-time thing, or something that Travis has done in the past, so I had a look at some other games in July in which Travis reached second base and was there for a few batters (i.e. long enough for him to pick up the signs).  Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to spot any patterns that would indicate he was stealing signs in those games that I checked.

As a Jays fan, Devon Travis is already one of my favourite players, as he’s having a fantastic rookie season at a position that has long been a black hole for the Jays.  Now, he’s given me further reason to appreciate him, and a definite incentive to watch his at-bats and times on base a little more closely from now on.

I’m not going to tell you anything you can’t find out for yourself.  This is just a little research on Mr. Chen.  Alternative title would’ve been Chen Music, but I couldn’t find proof of an increase in high and inside fastballs.  Anyways:

Wei-Yin Chen’s surface level numbers have been great this year:

18 GS,   2.86 ERA,   1.12 WHIP,   93 K/116.1 IP

The thing is, he’s been just as good dating back to Jul 1^st of 2014:

33 GS,   2.88 ERA,   1.14 WHIP,   164 K/209.2 IP

His peripherals over that time have declared him lucky and say that this success in unsustainable.  His FIP, xFIP, and SIERA for each half have been quite different from the ERAs he’s put up.

Look, I get it, he doesn’t strike out even 20% of the batters he faces and he can struggle with the long ball.  But the Orioles’ defense is ranked 3^rd in the league by UZR, and 3^rd by UZR/150.  Ahead of the Orioles are the Rays and the Royals.  Each of these teams are outperforming their ERA indicators by a decent amount.

This does not mean that every pitcher on each of these teams is outperforming their peripherals but it’s obvious (and not because of that table) that defense helps pitchers’ numbers.  I also understand that Camden Yards is a little bit more of a hitters’ park than Kauffman and Tropicana, but that shows up in Chen’s numbers as he has surrendered HR at the rate of 1.29/9 IP at home and 0.89/9 IP on the road (July 3rd 2014 – present).  To be fair, I don’t know if 112 IP and 97.2 IP (home and away, respectively) are large enough sample sizes compared to his full body of work to be worth anything, but let’s say they are, and let’s see what Chen has done differently over his last 209.2 IP compared to his first 422 big league innings.

(209.2 denotes the last 209.2. IP by Chen, spanning from July 3rd, 2014 to his last start against the Yankees, and the 422 is the 422 IP prior to July 3rd of last season, which encompasses the rest of his career)

Even though his ground ball rate doesn’t lead to much confidence in terms of sustainability in that soft contact management, he still is inducing pop-ups at an above-average rate.  So whether it’s a change in sequencing or it’s just as easy as working ahead in more counts, there has been some variation in his pitch usage…another table.

Obviously he’s traded some curveballs and change-ups for sliders.  His fastball has become increasingly more valuable in 2015 at 8.9 runs above average, compared to 3.3 runs above average from 2014 which was his previous high.

The last thing he’s done better is pound the zone early in counts which has led to a slight decrease in batters’ plate discipline against him.

(Almost) Everywhere you want to see improvement there is improvement even if you have to look through a magnifying glass.  Granted, this could be Chen adjusting to the league and now the league will adjust to him.  It would be perfect for him to just cleanly split from the success he’s been having after the all star break and after this piece.

In conclusion, it’s hard to know what to make of Chen as a fantasy option in the long term because he is experiencing a deflated BABIP and a higher LOB% than he has in the past.  Is it all about the luck??  I’m not too bullish on him; the tweaks he has made, while they have led to some slightly positive results, do not warrant picking him up in a dynasty league, but if you’re behind in starts or innings Chen seems to be a solid option for QS/ERA/WHIP this season if he can thwart off the regression monster.  After all that, I did not recommend him in his start against the Yankees and their .325 wOBA (results on that game were meh – it was a QS, but he gave up 10 H in 6.1 IP, 3 ER, and struck out 3) but he’s at Tampa (94 wRC+) after that.  Projecting ahead, he’d face the Tigers (113 wRC+ which is best in the majors, but they could be selling some pieces and they will still be without Miguel Cabrera), and the Athletics (99 wRC+)who are also sellers.  After that it’s likely the Mariners and their 92 wRC+; I’d take that 4 start stretch.  Something to scratch your Chen about.

When preparing for the baseball season we will practice by playing intersquads to ensure we get as many live at-bats and innings as possible. Since it would not be affordable to hire umpires for our daily practices our assistant coaches will rotate umpiring behind the pitching mound. We have a big squad, I am talking 31 pitchers alone on the team, so in the interest of not playing until the sun rises the strike zone will expand quite a bit. It is easy for me to look great when our coaches will call strikes the hitters normally take. Offense can be limited during these practices as pitchers tend to dominate and hitters often are walking away frustrated.

Following the Nationals and Dodgers matchup on Sunday, Bryce Harper expressed his displeasure with umpire Bill Miller’s strike zone. In a recent ESPN article Harper explained “when you’re getting 6 inches off the plate, its tough to face” (Zack Greinke). Was Harper just trying to downplay the performance that Greinke put on or is there merit to the comments Harper said?

During the July 19^th game between the Dodgers and Nationals, Zack Greinke had 10 pitches called for strikes outside the strike zone.

Here is Greinke’s pitching plot courtesy of Brooks Baseball:

So Harper is not incorrect by saying that Greinke was the beneficiary of some balls being called strikes. This year, Greinke has thrown 1905 pitches according to Baseballsavant.com and of those 142 pitches (7.45%) have been called strikes outside the strike zone. Currently, Greinke has the 5^th most called strikes outside the strike zone only behind Dallas Keuchel, Jon Lester, Yovani Gallardo and Mike Leake.

Looking at the man behind the plate, Bill Miller, he has the highest percentage of called strikes outside the strike zone at 17.5%. Since 2010 Bill Miller has ranked in the top two for umpires in called strikes outside the strike zone four times with an average of 16.9%.

Well if that wasn’t enough to convince you that Bryce Harper was on to something, let’s look at Yasmani Grandal. Grandal, according to StatCorner.com, and taking catchers who have caught over 2000 pitches, has the 3^rd highest percentage of strikes called outside.

Possibly Greinke and catcher Yasmani Grandal game-planned knowing Miller was behind the plate so they exploited his tendency. It could possibly be that on that day Greinke was a beneficiary of his normal game plan. This year of the 1905 pitches 1262 of them have been outside the strike zone. An umpire with a large zone, a fantastic pitch-framer behind the dish and a pitcher who lives outside the zone sounds like a recipe for strikes being called outside the zone.

In the end, sorry Bryce, that is just how baseball works — the zones are never the same.

A.J. Pollock is, at the moment, one of the best fantasy outfielders in major league baseball.  He’s 4th according to the ESPN player rater but since most of you and I don’t REALLY know what that means, let’s say it a different way.  He is one of only four players with at least a .290 AVG, 10 HR, and 15 SB.  Still, whenever I talk with anyone about Pollock’s performance, the consensus opinion on him is more of a resonating question: “Is A.J. Pollock really this good?”  Let’s attempt to answer that.  Dating back to the beginning of 2014,  Pollock has played in 161 games.  We could round that up to 162 games, especially since players rarely play every single game of a season, and call it a full season, but I’m going to go the extra mile here and pull the last game from his 2013 campaign to have a constant 162 games for this exercise.  The stat line he has produced is impressive.

Let’s lower the bar a little bit so that we can find more players in THIS search: how many other players over their last 162 games have hit at the very minimum: .290, 90 R, 15 HR, 60 RBI, 25 SB?  The answer is 1, and that man is Starling Marte.

I’m not sure if that makes Marte a fair comparison.  We can compare them, but Marte delivers more line drives and raw power than Pollock does.  Marte, despite having a paltry 19.3% FB rate, has averaged 312 feet on his fly balls this year, 4th best in the majors, allowing him him to post an absurd 29.5% HR/FB rate – and we’re not even ready to get into park factors yet.  Pollock is just a bit more refined than Marte, posting a better BB rate and K rate than Marte has, by, obviously, swinging at better pitches to hit.

Pollock, too, has a fine average fly ball distance.  It’s 295 (a number he’s increased each year), which is good for 39th overall, smack dab in between Adam LaRoche to the north and Nolan Arenado to the south.  But Pollock has also been incrementally improving his BB/K ratio over the last three years, bringing it from 0.40 to 0.47 this year.  It could be as simple as that – a good player that has made strides in his approach at the plate, but I can’t just leave it at that.  Despite these improvements, albeit, very small ones, his batted ball profile looks right around league average.

Pollock is fast, so hitting a lot of ground balls works in his favor.  He’s been able to have higher than average IFH and BUH percentages in each of the last three years because of his speed.  However, despite being a below average line drive hitter this year, and throughout his career, he is less susceptible to BABIP fluctuations than other high frequency GB hitters like Alcides Escobar, Elvis Andrus, Jean Segura, because Pollock produces a hard hit rate higher than the league average – he is an authoritative hitter.  Curious though, that with his below average LD rate, this is the case.  So his hard hit% is driven by either hard contact on fly balls or ground balls relative to league average.  Since he has an IFFB% above league average I’m going to predict that he’s a high authority GB hitter.  There’s logic in that, right?

He’s right at about league average for hard hit fly balls, but he does seem to have a hard hit ground ball percentage markedly higher than league average.  In fact, his 23.1% hard hit GB rate is 18th best in the league.  The 17 players in front of him have combined for an average line of:

The list also includes names like Tulo, Miguel Cabrera, Posey, Pederson, Upton, Donaldson, Trout, Jose Abreu, and Yoenis Cespedes.  It’s guys that we generally perceive to be hard contact hitters, or I guess, more specifically, power hitters.  But he’s 18th on the list and produced a quality hard hit ground ball rate last year, too.

But, he still has a league average hard hit fly ball rate and a below average line drive rate.  These are reflected in his numbers compared to the league.

Lastly, he plays in Chase Field, which, throughout its history, has been a hitters park.  From 2008-2014 it had an adjusted park factor of +111.  For right handed hitters (and left handed hitters) like A.J. Pollock, it has had only positive affects, but this table is solely for righties:

Put Pollock in a neutral park and his numbers for the last 162 games would theoretically look like this:

I was kind of hoping to see more signs that Pollock is experiencing more luck.  Not because I don’t like Pollock, I love him as a baseball player and I’m sure he’s a fine person, but because of the questions regarding the sustainability of his play in the first half of the 2015 season by many of my peers.  The answer to, “is he really this good”, is that he is pretty darn close and I can see him performing to any of the projection systems’ expectations the rest of the way (ZiPS, Steamer, or Depth Charts).  He should experience some fluctuation in BABIP because of his GB rate, but so far he really hasn’t – and again that’s partially due to the authority with which he hits them.

In terms of finding a player closest in comparison to Pollock, Marte might be a pretty decent choice.  If I can just brainstorm using the cloud technique, I would probably have, with A.J. Pollock’s name in the middle: Starling Marte, Jason Heyward, Christian Yelich, Charlie Blackmon, Brett Gardner, and Lorenzo Cain as smaller clouds extending off the big, middle cloud.  Here are stats based on the last 162 games played.

This group kind of works as a spectrum.  I see the players on the extreme north and south columns least like Pollock and the players in the middle most like Pollock.  There is no one player to compare A.J. Pollock with that is playing currently, although Mitch Webster would be a pretty good historical comparison using his ages 26 – 28 seasons.

Mitch Webster ages 26-28 162 G AVG:

Probably too high of a walk rate, but that looks pretty good.

The average season of the group above would look like this:

A little too high of a K rate, but that also looks pretty good.

And finally A.J. Pollock ages 25-27 162 G AVG

In conclusion, A.J. Pollock is very close to this good if he’s not actually THIS GOOD and I think these players are pretty good comparisons.  And hopefully Pollock has more long lasting success than Mitch Webster.  In a time when speed/power combo players are in decline, what Pollock is doing is clearly elite in that sense.  What I really would like to see would be the history of authoritative ground ball hitters with good speed who have played in parks that have buoyed their power numbers.  Unfortunately, I don’t have access to batted ball profiles for hitters throughout history – how many Pollocks does it take to gather that information?

It’s been a disappointing year thus far for the Cleveland Indians. They are currently 42-46 heading into the All-Star Game, and are in 4^th place in the competitive American League Central division. They are underperforming their BaseRuns projection by 4 wins, meaning the computers view this team as much more of a playoff threat than they actually have been thus far. Although they have the third-highest remaining projected winning percentage in the AL at .532, their rough first half has them only finishing with about 81 wins. As wide open as the wild card race is, a .500 finish would clearly not be enough. What has happened to everyone’s preseason sleeper team? Besides Sports Illustrated jinxing them of course.

Well as expected, they have had stellar starting pitching from the likes of Corey Kluber, Carlos Carrasco, Trevor Bauer, and Danny Salazar, and even have gotten good outings recently from under the radar prospect Cody Anderson. Everyone knew they had a bad defense, but many thought that the Indians’ offense could support the great starting pitching enough to propel them into the postseason. Thus far, however, that has not been the case. They are at league average or below in almost all offensive categories. They are not a power hitting team by any means, and have the 10^th lowest FB% in the MLB, which makes sense seeing as to hit for power you need to get the ball in the air. However, they still run the 7^th lowest BABIP in baseball, which insinuates that they have a lot of hitters who tend to roll over a lot. Lo and behold, they are 3^rd in Pull %, and have a lefty heavy—heavy being an understatement—lineup.

Essentially, the Indians have amassed a lineup with a bunch of pull-happy hitters who don’t hit for much power, which doesn’t work in a league that nowadays uses the shift religiously. I think all Cleveland fans know where I’m going with this, because the phrase has been overused by Tribe fans for almost a decade now. Yes, Cleveland is lacking an impact right-handed bat. Brewer’s prized prospect Matt LaPorta was supposed to be that guy when the Indians traded C.C. Sabathia for him and others—including player to be named later Michael Brantley. However, his MLB career was as successful as Kim Kardashian’s first marriage. Ironically or not, Milwaukee has another player that I believe can push the Tribe over the hump; his name is Carlos Gomez.

The 29 year old native of the Dominican Republic, known for his fiery personality, has been extremely productive for the Brew Crew since 2011, racking up 18.4 WAR in that 4 year span. With Milwaukee sitting at the halfway point with the second worst record in all of baseball, they will most definitely be sellers at the trade deadline. I recently tweeted FanGraphs’ Jeff Sullivan asking him if Gomez would be dealt, to which he responded, “Gomez is probably moving. Lucroy not.” That doesn’t mean it is set in stone, but that shows that there is a decent chance he gets traded. Let’s just assume for arguments sake that the Indians and Brewers have mutual interest in being trade partners. Why should the Indians’ make the move?

One plus is that Gomez wouldn’t be a rental. He is under contract through 2016, and is only set to make 9 million dollars next year. If you consider 1 WAR to be worth roughly 7 million dollars, Gomez’s average of 6.6 WAR per year the last two seasons would be a huge bargain for the Tribe. With the contracts of David Murphy and Ryan Raburn likely to be coming off the books next year, an extra 9 million dollars on the payroll will be inconsequential for the notoriously conservative Dolan family. Gomez also would provide a major upgrade from primary Tribe center fielder, Michael Bourn. I have included a chart that compares their averages from the last two seasons. Why two seasons? Because that’s when Bourn signed with Cleveland, where he has not been the same player he once was.

It is easy to see who has been the more valuable player. The reason I included ISO and SLG was to demonstrate Gomez’s excellent power, not necessarily to compare it to Bourn’s (because that is not the type of hitter he is). Gomez would provide a major upgrade defensively – where the Indians struggle – and at the plate, where he is a key catalyst in manufacturing runs. Gomez has created almost 40 more runs per season than Bourn the last two years. If you take into account how every 10 runs scored or given up equates to a win or a loss, those extra 40 runs would essentially add on about 4 more wins to the Indians win total (assuming those averages hold up throughout the 2015 season). So that would take the roughly 81 win Indians and make them an 85 win team; better yes, but still not a playoff contender.

Although Bourn and Gomez have been equally as good with RISP, this season has been a different story; Bourn is hitting .216 in 68 PA and Gomez is hitting .381 in 65 PA with RISP. The Indians have the 7^th worst average with RISP this season at .230, with the MLB average being .255. For a team that struggles to score runs, this would be a huge difference. Slotting Gomez in the lineup everyday behind a guy like Michael Brantley would also take a ton of pressure off of him to carry the team day in and day out.

So what does this all mean? Could Carlos Gomez really propel the Tribe into October baseball this season? Probably not. Here are their season splits against teams above and below .500.

They struggle against good teams, and beat bad ones. That is not the mark of a playoff team. In the last 74 games of the season, the average winning percentage for teams they play is .515. While I fully believe the team could make a strong second half push – I actually believe they will make the playoffs – it is not likely. Still, a trade for Carlos Gomez would not only aid them in the second half of this season, but for next season as well. Clevelanders are sick of hearing “we’re building for the future.” The Indians have an extremely strong core, one that is young and locked into team-friendly contracts. It is time to win now, because they would hate to look back years from now like a reminiscent ex-lover and say, “That was the team that got away.”

Earlier this year, Alex Chamberlain of FanGraphs took a look at the top NL outfield prospects for the 2015 season. On this list of five outfielders, three of them have had significant time in the big leagues: Joc Pederson, Jorge Soler, and Randal Grichuk. They were ranked 1, 2, and 5 respectively prior to the season (Andrew Lambo and Eury Perez were ranked 3 and 4 but due to both playing less than 25 games, I did not include them in my analysis). The purpose of my writing today is to analyze these three outfielders and see if the preseason rankings has translated to the regular season. To understand if the rankings hold true, I will compare how each player has hit to this point in the season as well as their ability to help their team on defense.

Offensive Analysis

Using simply batting average as a definitive metric for determining which player is succeeding is especially tough considering the snapshot is only the first half of the 2015 season. That being said I think it is important to look at simple batting average to see if there is any outliers when comparing it to BABIP. In terms of batting average, Randal Grichuk is leading the way with a .277 average, followed by Soler and Pederson at .260 and .230 respectively. While this is a good baseline, comparing it to BABIP and % of hard hit balls identify if these averages are sustainable or unsustainable over the course of a season.

Pederson has a BABIP below the league average at .282, while Soler and Grichuk have BABIP almost 80 points higher than the league average. One of the factors that could be contributing to Pederson’s significantly lower average is simply being unlucky. In terms of Hard Hit%, Pederson is tops of the three with 41.5% of the balls he makes contact with being classified as hard hit. Soler and Grichuk have a 38.6% and 39.2% Hard Hit%. Another factor to consider is K%, but this is somewhat of a moot point considering that each outfielder has a K% within one point of 30%, nearly 12% above league average. This is to be expected of young players who are adjusting to big-league pitching and have a large amount of raw power. These percentages indicate that Pederson’s average should not be nearly as low as compared to the other two and would be considered an outlier and his .230 average is not indicative of how he is hitting overall. But it stands to reason that both Soler and Grichuk could see a regression in average if their BABIP falls towards league average.

Another factor that is important to look at when ranking these three budding All-Stars is their raw power. Hitting for average is important but in today’s game it is much harder to string together multiple hits, so being able to drive the ball in gaps or over the walls is a premium quality in a young player. Isolated Power is a great metric to look at when evaluating the raw power a player is displaying because it takes out the batting average variable out of Slugging %. Grichuk and Pederson have the exact same ISO at .257 while Soler’s is much lower at .128, just below the league average of .135. What this metric means is that Soler’s actual slugging% is somewhat inflated by his average. If his average falls, which would be due to a decline BABIP, his slugging% will suffer. It seems that even if Grichuk’s BABIP slumps he will continue to make an impact at the plate in terms of slugging% since his ISO is over 120 points higher than Soler.

To wrap up the offensive portion of my analysis, I would rank the three rookie outfielders 1) Pederson. This is based on the fact he has made a huge impact on the Dodger’s lineup (20 HR, 40 RBIs) although he has been hampered by an unlucky BABIP.  2) Grichuk. Due to the higher ISO than Soler against major league pitching. Grichuk has not only produced more this year than Soler but he projects to continue to have an impact on his team through his higher ISO even if his batting average drops. 3) Soler, is ranked third because the high BABIP and lower ISO make him less appealing throughout the course of the long MLB season.

Defensive Analysis

Defensive metrics also help determine which outfielder is helping save runs for their team which in turn improves the chance of winning a ball game. Revised Zone Rating or RZR is a good indicator of how well a player has been able to make plays in their fielding zone. In terms of RZR, Grichuk is the low man on the totem pole with .902 RZR. Pederson is tops in the group with .926 and Soler in the middle with .916. While RZR is a helpful stat it does not tell the full story of which outfielder is saving the most runs for his team.

DRS or the total defensive run saved helps give an idea of how many runs a fielder has saved above the average player. In terms of DRS, Grichuk has saved 6 runs above average even though he had the lowest RZR. Whereas Pederson has saved 1 run and Soler has saved 0 runs even though both have more outfield assist with than Grichuk (4 each vs. 1). Soler’s low DRS can be attributed to the fact on balls where Soler has between a 60-90% chance of making a play, he has only made the play 66.7% of the time compared to Grichuk and Pederson who have made those same plays 100% of the time.

In terms of defense, I would rank Grichuk number one due to his high DRS. Since saving runs is vital to a team’s success. Pederson would rank second and Soler would be third.

Conclusion

To wrap up my analysis, I think it is important to look at total WAR when evaluating players. Especially when breaking down these three young outfielders. I think it is clear that to this point in their 2015 seasons, Jorge Soler would be ranked third of the three due to the fact that his WAR is only .4 and he lags Grichuk and Pederson in almost every metric I have discussed. Grichuk’s WAR of 1.9 places him second. Even though he saves more runs than Pederson with his glove, the offensive impact Pederson has made even with his .230 batting average is extremely impressive. With 20 home runs at the All-Star break and a WAR of 3.3 Pederson would have to be ranked as still the top NL rookie outfielder that was ranked in the preseason.

All stats for this article were taken from FanGraphs.com