Now that all of the qualifying offers are in, we can look and see if teams are changing their strategies when it comes to giving players qualifying offers. I argued last year that teams were not aggressive enough in using this tool, as there were many more players that could have received a qualifying offer. The most obvious name that should have received a qualifying offer last year is Jhonny Peralta who received a 4 year/ $53 million dollar contract from the Cardinals. Even though the Tigers didn’t want him to be their shortstop in 2014, he clearly had significant value in the industry. Worst case for the Tigers, he accepts the qualifying offer, and you move him later in a deal.

Another no-brainer for me was the Pirates offering a qualifying offer to A.J. Burnett. He was a workhorse for the team in 2013 and the qualifying offer was actually lower than his 2013 salary (although the Pirates were paying significantly less). By giving a qualifying offer the Pirates ensure they either get a front-end starter for them on a one-year deal, get a draft pick, or by attaching a qualifying offer to him they depress his value in the market and they could work out a two year deal at a lower rate. Again there appeared to be no downside for them.

Setting aside the fact that no player has yet accepted a qualifying offer, I am of the belief that getting a player on a one-year deal even if it is a slight overpay is a better move than paying the going rate for a free agent on a multi-year deal to replace them. It is obviously tougher for a team like the Rays or Pirates to employ that strategy than teams like the Yankees or Tigers who have the flexibility to fit the $15 million contract in their payroll. If you know you are going to have to jump into free agency to replace the guy you are losing would you rather pay 4 years/48 million for a Ubaldo Jimenez/ Ricky Nolasco type or just pay the $15 million for one year and have infinitely less risk? If your guy has another good year you can extend another qualifying offer, and if they don’t you can cut bait without the commitment for another few years. All this presupposes the player accepts the qualifying offer, if not you get a free draft pick for nothing.

The other side of this is, should players be more willing to accept qualifying offers? After seeing what happened to Kyle Lohse, Stephen Drew, Kendrys Morales, and Ervin Santana, players might be more inclined to take the payday than head into free agency with the pick attached to them.

The qualifying offer this year that surprised a lot of people is Michael Cuddyer. I think this was a good, aggressive move by the Rockies. Cuddyer has produced when healthy, and has the versatility to play both outfield and first base for them next season. He is an older player you feel good about on a one-year deal. Before the qualifying offer most people thought would probably get a two-year offer from a team like the Mets, but by extending a qualifying offer it significantly reduces his market and your competition. Although the qualifying offer is about $5 million more than his previous high salary, it seems like a good deal for the team and obviously the player.

Another qualifying offer that surprised some people after failing to offer one to Burnett last year was Francisco Liriano. This is another case where the team is in good shape either way. Liriano was great in 2013, and although he regressed some in 2014 was still a solid starter. He should definitely be in line for a three- or four-year deal in the $12 million dollar range. The Pirates either get their #2 starter for 2015 or they get a draft pick. The player either gets a higher salary than he would otherwise get, or he can enter free agency and get more years at probably a lower average value.

It will be interesting to see how players react to their qualifying offers this year. Most people believe that Cuddyer will certainly accept, but will anyone else? If more players accept this year than it could change the strategy moving forward, but if it continues on the same path than again next year teams should throw out more qualifying offers and see what happens.

2014 looked to be a positive year for the Rangers. However, injuries took their toll on the Rangers and though they could keep up for a few months, they were too much to handle. Jurickson Profar was out for the whole season due to injury, this led for an opportunity for young prospects Rougned Odor and Luis Sardinas. Odor eventually outplayed Sardinas and won the starting job, as Sardinas was sent back to the minor leagues. As 2015 approaches the Rangers now have four middle infielders who could potentially play shortstop and second base.

Elvis Andrus has been the shortstop for the Rangers since 2009, and signed a huge eight-year contract in 2013 and seems to be the guy for shortstop in 2015, however since batting.286 in 2012 has failed to hit over .275 in the past two seasons, and hit just .263 in 2014. His OBP was just .314 in 2014 and OPS was only .647.

Jurickson Profar remains a big question mark. Labeled the number-one prospect in all of baseball before the 2013 season, he played in 85 games and hit just .234 for the Rangers. Named the everyday second baseman in spring training before hurting his shoulder, the Rangers were expecting big things from Profar.

Rougned Odor was called up from Double-A in May of 2014 and exceeded all expectations the Rangers had for him. He hit .259 with 9 home runs, and was the youngest player in the major leagues at 20 years old. His defense improved as the year progressed and was certainly a nice surprise in a season of dismay.

Luis Sardinas played in just 43 games for the Rangers, but sure did showcase a strong set of skills. Hitting .261 with six extra-base hits and 8 R.B.I. Sardinas played well in the role the Rangers gave him, and he will be competing for a spot in 2015.

As Elvis has played below expectations for the past two seasons, I do not see the Rangers trading him away. The only way the Rangers could get rid of him is to trade him, and with his big contract, if a team is willing to take it on the return for him will not be worth it. Though he had an incredibly poor year last year Andrus offers a veteran presence, and consistency defensively. With Andrus, the Rangers know they’ll get above-average defense, a bunch of stolen bases, and a decent batting average, with little power. Because of this he will be the shortstop for the Rangers in 2015.

Jurickson Profar puts the Rangers in an odd spot. Essentially he has missed a year and half of development with his injuries, and there is no telling what he will be in 2015, or if he will even be healthy. In 2013 the Rangers moved him all over the field and that played a part as to why he did not perform to his potential. He could not get comfortable in a position, and it hindered him. In 2015 if healthy, he should break spring as the second baseman, and play well at second base offensively and defensively.

Rougned Odor performed incredibly well for the Rangers in 2014. He improved defensively at second base and after a tough month of August where he hit just .221 turned it around in September hitting .296, and he had a much improved OBP at .345. Odor was the youngest player in the MLB last season, and should start 2015 in Triple-A where he can work on pitch selection, working the count, and improving at second base defensively.

Luis Sardinas has the slimmest of chances to win a job on the Major League club out of spring training. His best chance is as a utility man, however the Rangers would rather have him in the minor leagues getting to play everyday. Sardinas performed well in his time with the Rangers, but as he was the 3rd youngest player in the MLB will likely find himself as the everyday Triple-A shortstop for the Round Rock Express.

To sum it up, The Rangers middle infield is going to be Andrus at short and Profar at second, with Odor and Sardinas starting the season in Triple-A. With the youth of Profar, Odor, and Sardinas they can be traded, and used for a package deal potentially for a starting pitcher pitcher like Andrew Cashner or Ian Kennedy of the Padres. It will be an interesting off-season for the Rangers, as they try to put 2014 behind them.

Over the past week or so, there have been baseball playoffs. And, like you, I have heard so many different opinions about what it takes to win a World Series Championship. Usually you hear “pitching wins championships”. This year, it’s “destiny”, “shut down bullpens”, and being a member of the San Francisco Giants. But what about hitting? Why is everyone so down on hitting? Isn’t it weird that the part of baseball people marvel at is brushed aside when trying to explain success in the postseason? Why have we never heard this?

Since I mostly despise the people that exclaim “THEY JUST KNOW HOW TO PLAY IN THE POSTSEASON” without any regard to statistics, I went back and looked at the World Series winners since 2002. I only went to 2002 because some data isn’t available on FanGraphs for the stats that I wanted to use.

The stats I used for this article

Starting Pitching and Relief Pitching

I used Wins, Saves, and Beard Length GB%, K%-BB%, and WAR because these are generally the three most looked at stats in terms of success for starting pitchers. I also felt it would give me a broader picture of the staff instead of just looking at WAR and being done with it.

Hitting

I used Runs, RBI, Bunts wRC+ instead of WAR because I wanted to isolate what the player did at the plate. We’ll look at defense and base running later. I also used K%, BB%, BB/K, ISO, and O-Contact%. I used the percentage and ratio stats to see if good discipline or free swinging mattered most. ISO is a better indicator of power than SLG and home runs. Using O-Contact%, however was a niche of mine that I threw in because I’ve always been scared of guys that have a bigger strike zone than others. It was also inspired by this Ken Arneson series of tweets. In theory, guys with higher O-Contact% rates are also harder to strike out, are more prone to BABIP luck, and also “put more pressure on the defense.”

Baserunning

I used BsR to measure both the weight in stolen bases and base running performance.

Defense

Even though it is far from perfect, I used UZR to quantify defense. Inspired by the Kansas City Royals, I also included outfielder UZR for this exercise.

Methodology

I picked out every WS winner since 2002 and wrote down the number of each stat mentioned above, and the league rank that went along with it. Here is my Excel spreadsheet, if you’re interested. I picked out the importance of each statistic based on top-5 and top-10 rank, and, to mirror the successes, bottom-10 and bottom-5 rank.

Results

If you looked at the spreadsheet that I linked to, you’ll notice that the statistic with the most top-5 rankings, the fewest bottom-10 rankings, AND the highest average ranking is wRC+. In fact, four of the top five stats with the highest average rank were hitting statistics. The top-5 with average rank: wRC+ 7.58, BB/K 9.17, SP WAR 10.17, ISO 10.25, O-Contact% 10.42. I’m not trying to say nothing else matters, but the data seems to suggest that teams need a better offense more than they do starting pitching, if only slightly so.

On the flip side of things, the statistic with the most bottom-10 ranks, and lowest overall ranking (K% would be lowest, but remember, lower is better with K%) is GB% for starting pitchers. Only the ’04 and ’11 Cardinals had a top-5 GB% while also getting league average (Rank > or = to 15) WAR from their starting pitchers. Six out of the 12 teams listed here posted bottom-10 ranks in GB%, which is incredibly interesting, given the theories behind ground ball pitchers that are so commonly found on the web nowadays. Does this mean ground balls are not important? Well, no. But it does mean that they may not be as important as they once were thought to be.

Base running didn’t end up being as big of a factor as I thought it would be, the Cardinals apparently care not for good defense, but look at O-Contact%! It was the fifth most important stat by average rank, and finished with only one team (’04 Red Sox) in the bottom ten, as opposed to six top ten placements. Furthermore, the rate at which teams struck out mattered more than how often they walked, but BB/K is the peripheral that seems to be the most telling.

We’ll probably never hear about how an offense won a team a World Series. In fact, we’ll probably instead hear it spun as a pitcher blowing the game. But at least now we have statistical evidence (even if it is only the past 12 years) that offense IS a major player in deciding who wins the World Series. We also have evidence to suggest that maybe hitters who expand the strike zone to their advantage are more valuable than has been discussed recently. Admittedly, this would take another article to deduce. Any takers?

On September 30, Royals 2014 1^st Round Draft Pick Brandon Finnegan was brought into the AL Wild Card Game against the Oakland A’s just under 4 months after being drafted out of Texas Christian University. Manager Ned Yost had little choice but to take a leap of faith with the rookie Finnegan, having used pitchers like Kelvin Herrera, Wade Davis, and Greg Holland already. Finnegan pitched very well, allowing 2 baserunners in 2.1 innings and striking out 3 Oakland batters. He was removed with a runner on base and was charged a run when the runner scored, but otherwise had a great outing.

I found it ironic and puzzling that the only team to utilize this approach of drafting a college pitcher, rushing him up the farm system, and giving him a shot at the postseason was the team that already had the likes of Herrera, Davis and Holland. After all, it seems like every playoff team could use some help out of the bullpen. When compared to other positions, predicting a relief pitcher’s success in the big leagues really doesn’t seem too hard either.

In 2014, 12 relievers pitched more than 60 innings with an FIP under 2.50. Aside from the sinker-oriented Steve Cishek and Pat Neshek, all of them averaged at least 92.5 mph on their fastballs. Everyone except Cishek generated swinging strikes at least 11% of the time, almost 2% more than the 9.4% league average. Simply put, pitchers with high velocity are safe bets when it comes to building a bullpen.

I can understand why a team might be stingy with its first-round draft pick. The first rounder is supposed to be the future of the franchise, the one who fans envision 25 years older, making his Hall of Fame induction speech. But looking at the 93 2^nd round draft picks from 2006-2008 (an arbitrary time period which I felt gave players sufficient time to reach the big leagues), it is clear that players selected this late in the draft are no sure thing.

48 picks have yet to make their major league debut, and another 21 have career WAR’s equal to or less than 0*. There are exceptions like Giancarlo Stanton, Jordan Zimmermann and Freddie Freeman, but the data looks even worse after the 15^th pick of the second round. Of the 48 picks in the 16-32 slots, only 8 players have career WAR’s greater than 0*. 29 have yet to make their MLB debut.

Since 2011, 10 relievers have posted FIP’s under 2.50 with at least 100 innings pitched. Of those drafted in the American amateur draft, only Sean Doolittle was picked before the 3^rd round. He was drafted in the first round as a first baseman. While overpaying for an elite reliever can be appealing for teams like the Angels or Tigers, both teams in win-now mode, a possible fall back option is taking a chance on the best reliever available in the draft with the second-round pick. Chances are, that pitcher will still be on the board.

Of course, there are major-league relievers who can throw hard but still do not succeed at the big-league level. Also, stats like average fastball velocity and swinging strike rates might not be available for college players. The prior is virtually impossible without Pitch F/X. If this is the case, GMs can consider reverting to the eye test to determine how hard a pitcher throws and what his command and movement look like. Generally accepted measures of command such as K-BB% can be derived from box scores.

For traditional fans who still value the human element of baseball, there are ways to gauge an NCAA pitcher’s ability to pitch in the spotlight. Stats like opposing batting average with runners on base and inherited runners stranded can be determined by simply looking at play-by-play recaps. Both measure a pitcher’s ability to perform under pressure, even if only in a limited sample size. I do not know what kinds of information are given to baseball operations teams, but I would be surprised if a college pitcher’s WPA in high-leverage situations was available.

If I was Tigers GM Dave Dombrowski or Angels GM Jerry Dipoto circa July, I would make the trade for Joakim Soria or Huston Street without hesitation. Both teams, one could argue, were a bullpen arm away from being World Series favorites. But for teams who don’t have the resources Detroit and Los Angeles have or don’t want to give up too many prospects, the best mid season bullpen pickup might not have even thrown his first professional pitch yet.

*I had to use rWAR, not fWAR in the interest of time. Baseball Reference has the draft results with career WAR readily available. Of course, data not from FanGraphs was taken from baseball-reference.com.

The Stolen Base

Some consider the stolen base a “lost art.” Gone are the days of Vince Coleman’s back-to-back-to-back 100+ stolen base seasons of Whitey-ball folklore. Teams are stealing at the lowest rates (per game) since the 1950’s.

Aside from the 2011 outlier, stolen base rates have trended downward at a serious pace, but stolen bases still have their place in the game, especially in increasingly shrinking run environments, but at what point is the value added from a stolen base worth the risk of an out?

Run Expectancy

Tom Tango’s handy-dandy run expectancy chart can give us this answer. In his run expectancy matrix, we can see how run expectancy can change from one state to another from a series of events. The basic guide that saberists abide by is that you should be able to steal bases twice as much as you get caught trying to steal to break even in expected runs, but every situation is different. With runners on first and third and two outs, you would actually have to steal bases at an almost 6:1 ratio to break even.

This is because of three factors: you are not adding any value to the runner that is already on third, making an out takes the bat out of someone’s hands, and making an out with someone already in scoring position is the most detrimental kind of out. Also, in any given situation, you are facing a battery with different characteristics. Stealing a base off of Kyle Lohse and Yadier Molina was nearly impossible back in 2011. On the other hand, stealing a base off of John Lackey and Jarrod Saltalamacchia would have been a lot easier. Accounting for the risk of your own baserunner, the defense, league rates, and base-out situation will lead to the most informed decision.

In the tool below, begin by picking your situation (the strings go: out, first base, second base, third base where “x” means no runner and a number means a runner occupies that base e.g. 0x2x means no outs and runner on second base). Then evaluate your baserunner’s steal rate against an average opponent (Steamer’s updated projection gives Kolten Wong a 21/24 chance of stealing a base). After that, evaluate your opponent’s steal rate against (lefty or righty pitcher, strong armed catcher). Then plug in the league average steal rate, and you should have an expected stolen base percentage for your given situation and the given change in run expectancy (RE24).

LINK

Last week I explored the strategic effect of seeing more pitchers per plate appearance. I love the ten-pitch walk as much as the next guy, but what I love even more is seeing a guy be able to change that approach to beat a scouting report. Let’s take a look at June 5, 2014, when the A’s went to see Masahiro Tanaka for the first time. The first batter is Coco Crisp:

So Crisp doesn’t get the best of Tanaka, but he makes Tanaka labor a bit through six pitches. If you’re going to make an out to start the game, it might as well be a long one. For the next batter, John Jaso, Tanaka decides to go right after him:

I may be looking too deeply into the narrative here, but I love to imagine Tanaka getting a bit frustrated here. Perhaps the scouting report said that both Coco is aggressive early, while Jaso’s running 15% walk rates in 2012 and 2013 suggest that he’s more patient.  Tanaka has to throw six pitches in order to get Crisp out, but after deciding to go right after Jaso, he gets taken deep.

So I wondered if there are players who are able to fulfill both ends of this spectrum. Are there any players that are capable of prolonging their time at the plate until they see the pitch they want, but are also aggressive and willing enough to hit the gas on the first pitch? I used FanGraphs for the pitches/plate appearance data, but used baseball-reference’s play index to look up all instances of first-pitch hits this season. Originally I was going to use first-pitch swings, but I decided to just stick to times when the pitcher gets punished for trying to get ahead early. After all, if your decision is to get ahead early in the count, and the guy swings but all he does is foul it off or hit into an out, then that doesn’t change your approach as a pitcher. I wanted to see guys whom the book isn’t written on yet.  Advance Warning: These stats will be about a week old by the time you see them, as I am a slow, slow man.

(For Reference: FPH% = First Pitch Hit Percentage, or how often a batter gets a hit on the first pitch they see.  P/PA = Pitches per Plate Appearance. FPHR = First Pitch Hit Ranking, or how they rank in this category compared to the rest of the league.  PPAR = Pitches per Plate Appearance Ranking.  FPHR + PPAR = The addition of these two numbers.)

I like this table!  I have wondered at times what has caused Scott Van Slyke‘s resurgence this year. Perhaps this table gives us a bit of a clue.  Van Slyke is the only person in the MLB to rank in the top 50 in both FPHR and PPAR.  That’s pretty neat.  Daniel Murphy is also quite balanced, but he’s been much more consistent over the last few years.  He’s particularly interesting in that he doesn’t have a particularly high walk rate or strikeout rate.  I guess he’s just selective at times.  Jesus Guzman’s presence on this list goes to show that a good approach doesn’t necessarily mean success; it just means that he may not head back to the bench in any predictable fashion.  I stretched out the table one spot to include Mark Reynolds, because his name on this table makes me feel better about drafting him in Fantasy Baseball for past five years.

I also wanted to look at the flip-side.  Who are the guys who don’t tend to take a lot of pitches, but also don’t tend to make any decent contact on first pitches?

Here we have a much less impressive list.  Joaquin Arias has been one of the worst hitter in the majors this year, and his dominance atop this leaderboard makes a bit of sense.  However, Conor Gillaspie is having an excellent season for the Pale Hose, despite the fact that he doesn’t seem to excel in either of the areas this article is interested in.  One pecuilar note is that this group is pretty poor at hitting for power in general; these 5 guys have 13 home runs between them on the year, and six of those are Gillaspie’s.

So now let’s look at the weird ones.  I would think that it stands that if there are certain players who tend to take a lot of pitches and who also never seem to square up the first pitch, then we know our game plan.  Get ahead early on these batters.  We can try to view that by simply looking at each players FPH Ranking minus their PPA ranking.  This is the same at looking at the absolute value of their PPAR minus their FPAR.  Here are the top five in that respect:

Golly; I’ve figured out Mike Trout!  Mike Trout ranks very highly on our list of PPAR but is unfortunately relatively average when it comes to the first-pitch punish.  All of these guys actually fit this mold.  We have three relatively poor hitters accompanied by the best player in baseball and an above average infielder on a winning team.  So we can tell that being patient isn’t necessarily a good or bad thing; it’s just that hitter’s style.  Now let’s take a look at the reverse:

It’s always satisfying when the data shows what you expect it to.  I imagined Jose Altuve as being among the more aggressive hitters, and this shows that at least.  Altuve ranks 5th in the league in FPH% and is rather mediocre in the PPA category.  Interesting to see that this top five is also sorted by wOBA; Altuve is the best hitter on the list, and Pierzynski is the worst.  So there’s nothing necessarily wrong with an aggressive approach, but it does give us a clue as to a possible plan of attack.

So all this is to say, like my last article, that no particular approach is best.  One can look to swing at the first pitch, or one can be patient and wait for their pitch to come.  That said, everybody does have an approach, and that means they’ve got something they’re not looking for.  Stats like FPH and PPAR may just give us more clues as fans as to what teams put together with scouting reports.

So to conclude by going back to our first example, perhaps Tanaka should have read this data before his start against the A’s.  Coco ranks 266th in the league in FPHR, but a respectable 76th in PPAR.  Conversely, Jaso ranks 80th in the league in FPHR, but just 225th in PPAR.  Tanaka might have been better served by going after the aging Crisp and saving his energy for the somewhat aggressive Jaso.

In 2013, Baseball Prospectus chronicled the Rays’ “changeup revolution,” explaining how the Rays’ pitching development has succeeded in part because they teach pretty much everyone to offer a plus changeup in unusual situations. But while successful small market teams have thrived off using analytics to find market dislocations on players, the Rays’ changeup prowess has actually allowed them to create them.

Recently, the Rays were ridiculed for giving up David Price for a package whose most proven player was Tigers’ 5^th starter Drew Smyly. At the time of the trade, Smyly had a 3.93 ERA and 4.08 FIP. In other words, he was an average starter. But looking closely, one can see that he pitches to a drastic LHH/RHH split, with opposing wOBA’s of .196/.355, respectively. The reason behind his inability to get righties out could very well be the lack of a good secondary pitch to use on them. For his career, his most effective pitch has been his slider, with hitters putting up a meager .226 wOBA against it. His worst pitch was none other than his changeup, which has been crushed to the tune of a .488 wOBA.

Knowing that his organization specializes in teaching the changeup, I don’t believe for a second that Rays GM Andrew Friedman gave up their ace without thinking that Smyly was essentially a good changeup away from being a potent starter. A free agent in 2019 at the earliest, Smyly should easily provide more long-term value than Price will over the next 1.5 seasons. (Obviously, the Tigers will try to extend Price, but the Rays did not have that option.)

The key takeaway here is that to most teams, Drew Smyly was probably viewed as a league-average pitcher without a secondary pitch that could put righties away. But to a team like the Rays, who have proven to be adept at implementing a changeup, Smyly’s ceiling can appear to be much more feasible. So far with Tampa (small sample size warning), Smyly has thrown 36 innings in 5 starts with an ERA/FIP/WHIP of 1.50/2.82/0.69. He will certainly come back down to earth, but a valuable lesson can be derived from this trade that appeared to be a blatant ripoff. By having an organization’s pitching development specialize so much, the Rays actually manufacture their own list of “buy low” pitchers, many of whom may have plateaued in the minds of other teams.

When they traded Matt Garza, they got current front-end starter Chris Archer in return. From Prospect Instinct’s 2011 scouting report:

The Rays got a haul for Matt Garza from the Cubs and Archer was considered the Cubs top pitching prospect. He has a plus fastball and above average slider, but he still has a lot of work to do before he becomes MLB ready. His changeup is lacking and his command has been erratic. But with enough time he does have #3+ upside.

With a Tampa Bay Rays changeup in his arsenal (.198 wOBA against it in 2014), Archer has done very well for a 3 starter, with a 3.15 ERA and 3.49 FIP over 286 innings since 2013.

Many have noted that Yankees’ starting pitcher Masahiro Tanaka has experienced so much success because he is one of the few pitchers who regularly throws a splitter in the MLB. Perhaps an organization can do what the Rays have done with the changeup and make the splitter a cornerstone of their pitching development. Obviously, such a plan comes with inherent risk. Making the splitter a more commonly offered pitch could take away some of its unfamiliarity-related effectiveness. Also, the splitter is believed to be very taxing on the elbow, a definite red flag given the recent wave of Tommy John surgeries. However, doing what the Rays did with the splitter could make it so that pitchers who are one additional plus pitch away from reaching their ceilings are safer to bet on.

The ability to quantify the value of catcher framing has been one of the biggest sabermetric breakthroughs of the last decade. By parsing through PITCHf/x data, analysts like Mike Fast, Max Marchi, Dan Brooks, and Harry Pavlidis have managed to shed light on which catchers are adept at turning balls into strikes, uncovering hidden value in otherwise unremarkable players, including Rene Rivera, Chris Stewart, and of course, Jose Molina.

MLB front offices have taken notice. Several teams, including the Yankees, Rays, Red Sox, Pirates, Padres, and Brewers have begun hoarding good-framing catchers over the past few years. But one team that’s missing from this list are the Oakland Athletics, who have historically been among the first adapters of sabermetric principles. One would think that the A’s would be all over the Jose Molina‘s and Chris Stewart’s of the world, yet Billy Beane and co. seem to have missed the memo on acquiring good framers. In fact, they’ve made a habit of employing poor ones. According to Baseball Prospectus‘ model, A’s catchers rank fourth from last in framing runs saved this season. This isn’t a one year anomaly, either. Here’s a look at all of the catchers the A’s have used since 2010, along with their career framing numbers.

That right there is a pretty sorry group of framers. There’s not a single catcher in the group who’s even above average. So what gives? Why has Billy Beane — who’s nearly synonymous with the term “market inefficiency” — been so reluctant to exploit the latest market inefficiency?

As far as I can tell, there are two possible explanations, and the real answer is probably some combination of the two:

1) The A’s have chosen to employ catchers who excel in areas other than pitch-framing.

2) The A’s aren’t completely buying into all of this pitch-framing stuff.

Let’s start with the first explanation. Since 2010, A’s catchers have accumulated 12.1 fWAR (which doesn’t account for framing), putting them 15th out of 30 MLB organizations. But since 2012, the year after Mike Fast’s research first brought the value of pitch framing to the public’s eye, the A’s rank 10th. The average wRC+ from a catcher is 93, but the A’s have done much better than that of late by employing guys like John Jaso (136 wRC+) and Derek Norris (110 wRC+). Even if you were to dock the Oakland’s catchers for their poor framing skills, they’d still fall somewhere in the middle of the pack in terms of total value. Basically, the A’s have managed to find good, cheap catchers, who generate value in ways other than framing pitches. Plus, for all we know, the A’s might have reason to believe these guys excel in other overlooked areas. They could be superb game callers, for example.

But that can’t be all that’s going on. Sure, the A’s have done a decent enough job of finding catching talent without prioritizing framing, but it’s not like they’ve had Mike Piazza or Johnny Bench behind the plate. Jaso and Norris are fine players, but aren’t exactly superstars. Plus, it should tell us something that they haven’t even brought in any bottom-of-the-barrel framing specialists. Eric Kratz or Chris Stewart were both traded for warm bodies last winter, but the A’s instead chose to roll with Vogt as their primary catching depth.

Perhaps the A’s have reason to believe that publicly available framing models overstate the value-add of a framed pitch? As Dave Cameron recently pointed out, its not entirely clear if the full value of a framed pitch should be attributed to the catcher, with none of the credit going to the pitcher. Current models don’t account for how a pitcher might change his approach based on the framing abilities of his catcher, and research shows that pitchers do in fact change their approach based on who’s catching, throwing a few more pitches outside of the strike zone:

Oakland’s brain trust is about as progressive as they come, and have a proven penchant for unearthing value from unlikely places. When a team like that zigs while others zag, it probably makes sense to ask why. This isn’t to say that the publicly-available framing data is useless, as having a good framer undeniably adds some value, even if it’s only a few runs. But the fact that the A’s have yet to employ a single plus framer should lead us to wonder if there’s a piece of the puzzle we might be missing.

Statistics courtesy of FanGraphs and Baseball Prospectus.

I think I might be the biggest fan of the world of the Ten-Pitch Walk.  I don’t know why, but I get overly excited when I see a player really battle for a long time, against everything the pitcher has, only to win the battle through patience.  Perhaps it’s because it’s so contrary to the spirit of what’s actually exciting about baseball; seeing players run around and field a batted ball.  It’s wholly a battle of attrition.  It’s the baseball equivalent of watching somebody run a marathon; you may not think the act itself is exciting, but it’s certainly an impressive feat in a vacuum.

So this has also lead to a fascination with pitches seen per plate appearance.  I’ve long wondered if certain teams place an emphasis on teaching their players to see more pitches per plate appearance.  It seems fairly self-evident that seeing more pitches is, in a microcosm, better than seeing fewer pitches.  You tire the pitcher out quicker, you see more data for your next at-bat to work with, and you give your team a chance to see what the pitcher has, and how he’ll react in different situations.  I hypothesized, purely based on colloquial wisdom, that the A’s would be good at this and the Blue Jays would be bad at this.  That’s not to say that one approach is better than the other, but just that some teams seem more patient than others.

Fortunately, FanGraphs has data available per hitter as to how many pitches they see.  I pulled that data out and found out each player’s average pitch per at bat since the year 2003 (the earliest we have this data, from what I can tell) and restricted the findings to active players only.  Then I ran some regressions to see if there was any correlation between pitches per at bat and useful batting stats.  Here’s what I found:

We see a slightly positive correlation between P/PA and wOBA.  It’s not really anything to write home about, but it’s more than negative.  It doesn’t seem immediately that seeing more pitches relates heavily to overall performance at the plate.  What about on base percentage?

Slightly better here, but still not great.  Seeing more pitches does have a little more correlation to getting on base, but there are plenty of aggressive swingers that don’t follow that model, so it means the correlation is loose at best.  What if we talk just about taking walks?

Here we have a real correlation.  .59 is a fairly strong correlation, and that makes sense.  The more pitches you see, the more likely you are to take a walk.  If you can successfully foul off anything in the strike zone, you will eventually walk (or the pitcher will die of exhaustion, either way, you win).  This is reasonably useful.  If you’re trying to find a way to make your team walk more, maybe you can invest in some players that see more pitches per plate appearance than normal.  This strong of a correlation makes me think about strikeout percentage too, though, because every pitch you foul off makes you closer (or just one whiff away) from striking out.

There is a positive correlation here, but not nearly as strong as between BB% and P/PA.  It’s stronger than the other useful stats like wOBA, but it’s interesting to know that seeing more pitches relates much more strongly to taking a walk than it is to striking out, at least on a grand scale.  There is some research to be done here to see what the odds are of a plate appearance as the pitch count increases, but I’ll leave that for another day.  My next thought was to see if there are, in fact, any teams that are better at this than other teams.  Here’s what we’ve got on a team level:

Well, my original hypotheses were not great ones.  The A’s and the Blue Jays, at 11 and 13, are both decidedly middle of the road teams.  I find it most fun in times like this to look at the extremes; in this case, the Red Sox and the Brewers.  The difference in pitches seen per plate appearance between these two teams is 0.38.  That may seem small, but it adds up.  If we assume the average pitcher faces 4 batters per inning, that’s an additional 1.5 pitches per inning, and 9 pitches by the end of the sixth, just purely by the nature of the hitters.  In a tightly contested contest, that may mean the difference between getting to the bullpen in the 7th rather than the 8th, or even the 7th rather than the 6th.

It should be noted that I limited this data set to 2014 (in contrast to the earlier data which was 2003 onwards) just so we could get a realistic look at roster construction, and to see if any teams are, right now, putting any particular emphasis in this area. The BoSox are carried by the very patient eye of Mike Napoli (4.51 P/PA), but hurt by the rather hacky eye of AJ Pierzynski (3.42 P/PA). Even on one team, that’s more than a pitch per plate appearance, which is pretty startling. The Brewers don’t have nearly the same difference; their best is Mark Reynolds with 4.04 P/PA and their worst is Jean Segura with 3.42 P/PA. As an aside, Chone Figgins is by far the best in this with a whopping 4.99 P/PA, though it was in just 76 PA. Kevin Frandsen brings up the rear with 3.16 P/PA in 189 PA. A lineup of all Mike Napoli’s would see 24.3 more pitches than a lineup of Kevin Frandsens before the leadoff Napoli even comes up a third time. I would feel bad for that pitcher.

The talk about teams possibly emphasizing this data made me wonder if I could make a huge difference if I compiled a team solely to do this; just make sure the pitchers throw a ton of pitches.  With that, I present to you the 2014 All-Stars and Not-So-All-Stars in this area, with a PA minimum thrown in to eliminate Figgins-like outliers:

Despite the fact that there isn’t a strong correlation between wOBA and P/PA directly, it’s worth noting that the P/PA All-Stars are significantly better than the Not-So-All-Stars. Their difference in wOBA is .328 as compared to .314. The Not-So-All-Stars certainly present a fine lineup though; the All-Stars just have the benefit of having Mike Trout in their lineup. It’s nice to know that this is one other area that Mike Trout simply is amazing at, confirming the obvious. The All-Stars have a collective P/PA of 4.26, while their counterparts sit down at 3.43. That’s .83 pitches per plate appearance, which over the course of two turns through the lineup is 14.94 pitches; that’s definitely something notable.

So, it appears this is a demonstrable skill with some value, though not a ton. We can see that some teams are better at this than others, and we see some positive benefit from this, most notably in walk rate. While we see plenty of players on both sides of the scale who are excellent ballplayers, the data does seem to suggest that seeing more pitches is better than not doing so, though only marginally on a league wide scale. When we isolate leaders in this area vs. those more aggressive, we can see some startling differences though, suggesting that perhaps there is an advantage to be gained here.

Take a turn around Twitter or any major baseball news source and you’ll hear a familiar echo about the former best team in baseball; the offense hasn’t been the same since the deadline.  When the A’s traded away Yoenis Cespedes for Jon Lester, the impact to the lineup was noticeable.  They wagered they could get the same level of production out of some combination of Jonny Gomes, Stephen Vogt, and Sam Fuld.  In the first half of the season, the A’s were a top-six team in wOBA, OBP,and wRC+ all while being second to last in BABIP.  It’s safe to say they were rolling. Now they aren’t.  Since the deadline, the A’s have become a bottom-third team in all the aforementioned stats.  It’s easy to look at these stats and say that Cespedes was clearly the catalyst of something in the offense.

While much has been written about the rumors of Oakland emphasizing clubhouse chemistry the last couple years, Cespedes has never really been written as one of the chief leaders in that category.  We typically hear names like Coco Crisp, Scott Sizemore, the aforementioned Jonny Gomes, and Sean Doolittle mentioned there.  Cespedes by all accounts was just a crazy athletic guy who didn’t really cause any trouble, but wasn’t exactly a team leader.  Yet the fact remains: the A’s have refused to hit since the deadline. Sure, 17 games isn’t a gigantic sample size, but it’s pretty reasonable when evaluating team performance.  Baseball Prospectus just three years ago theorized that a reasonable prediction could be made of a team’s overall season after fifteen games,  so we’ve got something substantial to work with.  Is there another pattern, though?  Let’s take a look at the team’s month by month performance.

We see a steady decline here in the A’s performance, not a sudden jump.  The A’s started off really hot, leading the league in most offensive categories in April.  A notable decline can even be seen in May, as the A’s began their meteoric rise to the top, though they held steady in the top three in most categories.  In June, the team dipped even further, down to a mark that was only slightly above average.  They looked to be leveling off there to a rather league-average team in July, which wasn’t encouraging, but maybe suggested a possible rise back up to looking like a playoff team. In August, though, the wheels have come off.  The A’s have dipped below league average in most categories, and their win totals have suffered as well.  Can we blame all of this on Cespedes?  Let’s take a look at some wOBA numbers for chief contributors to the Oakland offense:

It’s a bit cluttered, but the dark blue line in the middle labeled wOBA is the team as a whole; see the steady decline as we’ve noted.  In April, we see all of these guys hovering between a .300 wOBA and somewhere above .420.  Nearly all of them are now either .300 or far below it; the one exception being Josh Donaldson, who has picked it up again since a dismal June.  Even Cespedes, having been traded to the Red Sox, is having an unremarkable August since performing poorly in July.  Let’s take a look at a wRC+ graph, with some of the members removed for clarity:

Here we see six players who routinely batted in the top five in the batting order having horrible Augusts.  Stephen Vogt and Brandon Moss, two lefty platoon bats being pressed into full-time duty in the outfield lately, lead this group with a 91 wRC+, which is below the average line.  John Jaso, Coco Crisp, and Derek Norris have been downright horrible, with wRC+’s in the barely digestible territory. So yes, the A’s have been bad since Cespedes has left the team.  It’s clearly not just the loss of his bat; the vast majority of the team, outside of Josh Donaldson and the surprisingly resurgent Eric Sogard and Josh Reddick, have been really, really bad.

So if the whole team is flailing, perhaps Cespedes was more of a sparkplug than we previously had attributed?  More importantly, did Billy Beane fail to see a trend here?  The A’s were trending downwards in hitting as demonstrated, so why the need for pitching?  Well, the A’s were unfortunately not exactly trending very well in pitching either.  They were third in pitcher WAR through April, but then plummeted to 19th in May, and further dipped to 21st in June before rising a bit to 17th in July. The A’s were a decidedly middle of the road team when it came to pitcher WAR, and FIP seems to agree, ranking them about the same spot everywhere.

So why make the trade?  If anything, this trade has only served to confuse fans.  What do we make of a team with three above-average catchers who all tank right after a trade for a top-flight starting pitcher?  While all the fans are clamoring for Jimmy Rollins to come and help the middle infield, we’ve got Eric Sogard being one of the few bright spots in the offense, and nobody seems to care. All we know is that the A’s are in trouble.  Whether it’s because Cespedes was the glue or because the A’s are peaking at the wrong time, they’re all of a sudden facing down the dire straits of a one-game coin flip at the end of the season, despite being the most aggressive pursuer at the trade deadline. The A’s can cling to a few bastions of hope; maybe their BABIP dropping all the way to .260 in August shows that they’re just a bit unlucky.  It’s either that or face the fact that sometimes the best-laid plans of mice and men fail, and pray that Jason Hammel doesn’t have to start the Wild Card game.