Archive for Chris Sale

There are a multitude of ways that we can judge pitchers. Most people look at earned run average to gauge whether a pitcher has been successful, while many old school announcers will still cite a pitcher’s win-loss record. ERA is a nice, easy way of looking at how a pitcher has performed at limiting runs, but it doesn’t come close to telling the whole story. In the early 2000s, Voros McCracken created the idea of Defense Independent Pitching Stats or DIPS, which credited the pitcher only with what he could actually control. Fielding Independent Pitching was born from this theory and only took into account a pitcher’s strikeouts, walks and home runs allowed. It turns out that a pitcher’s home run rate is not terribly consistent, thus xFIP was created by Dave Studeman to normalize the home run aspect of the FIP equation by using the league home run per fly ball rate and the pitcher’s fly ball rate.

In 2015, a new metric was developed by Jonathan Judge, Harry Pavlidis and Dan Turkenkopf called Deserved Run Average or DRA. This new stat attempts to take into account every aspect that the pitcher has control over and control for everything that he does not, thus crediting the pitcher only for the runs that he actually deserves. DRA, however, is still dependent on the result of each batted ball. If the batter hits a ball deep in the gap and it rolls to the wall, the pitcher is charged with a double, but if the center fielder lays out and makes a remarkable catch, the pitcher is credited with an out. When evaluating pitchers, why should it matter whether they have a Gold Glove caliber defender behind them or not? It shouldn’t, and that’s where Expected Run Average comes in.

Expected Run Average or XRA gives pitchers credit for what they actually can control. FIP attempts to do this as well but assumes that pitchers have no control over batted balls. While the pitcher does not control how the fielders interact with the live ball, he does have an impact on the type of contact that he allows. XRA is based on a modified DIPS theory that the pitcher controls three things: whether he strikes the batter out, whether he walks the batter and the exit velocity, launch angle combination off the bat. After the ball leaves the batter’s bat, the play is out of the pitcher’s hands and should no longer have any effect on his statistics. The goal is to figure out a way to measure, independently of the defense and park, how each pitcher performs on balls in play. Since 2015, StatCast has tracked the exit velocity and launch angle of every batted ball in the majors. Each batted ball has a hit probability based on the velocity off of the bat and its trajectory. The probability for extra bases can also be determined. These batted ball probabilities have been linearly weighted for each event including strikeouts and walks to give each player’s xwOBA, which can be found on Baseball Savant. This is the perfect way to look specifically at how well a pitcher has performed on a per plate appearance basis.

Once xwOBA is found, then XRA can be calculated. The first objective is to find the pitcher’s weighted runs below average. To do this, I used the weighted runs above average formula from FanGraphs except I made it negative since fewer runs are better for pitchers.

wRBA = – ((xwOBA – League wOBA) / wOBA Scale) * TBF

For example, Max Scherzer has had a .228 xwOBA so far this season and has faced 487 batters. After finding the league wOBA and wOBA scale numbers at FanGraphs I can plug these numbers into the formula.

– ((.228 – .321) / 1.185) * 487 = 38.22

Max Scherzer has been 38.22 runs better than average so far this season, but now I need to figure out what the average pitcher would do while facing the same number of batters. To find this I need the league runs per plate appearance rate and multiply that number by the number of batters that Scherzer has faced.

League R/PA * TBF = Average Pitcher Runs
.122 * 487 = 59.41

So a league average pitcher would have been expected to surrender 59.41 runs facing the number of batters that Scherzer has so far this season. Now that we know how the average pitcher should have performed we can find the expected number of runs that Scherzer should have surrendered so far this season by subtracting his wRBA of 38.22 from the average pitcher’s runs.

Average Pitcher Runs – Weighted Runs Below Average = Expected Runs
59.41 – 38.22 = 21.19

Based on Scherzer’s xwOBA, he should have only given up 21.19 to this point in the season. If this sounds incredible it’s because this is the lowest mark of any starting pitcher though the first half of the season. Finally, XRA is found by using the RA/9 formula by multiplying the expected number of runs allowed by 9 and then dividing by innings pitched.

(9 * Expected Runs) / Innings Pitched = XRA
(9 * 21.19) / 128.33 = 1.49

Max Scherzer’s XRA of 1.49 is easily the lowest of any starter through the first half. The second best starter has been Chris Sale who has a 2.15 XRA. Of course these names are not surprising as they each started the All Star Game and are both currently the front runners for their leagues’ respective cy young award.

Here is a list of the top ten qualified pitchers:

And the bottom ten:

Full First Half XRA List

It is interesting to see that three members of the Giants rotation rank in the bottom seven in all of baseball. In fact, AT&T Park is such a pitcher-friendly park that once you park adjust these numbers, Moore, Cain and Cueto become the three worst pitchers in baseball. It’s not surprising then why the Giants are having such a disappointing season.

One measure of a good stat is whether or not it matches your perception. Therefore, while it is interesting to see Dan Straily as one of the best pitchers in baseball and Johnny Cueto as one of the worst, it is much more assuring to see Max Scherzer, Chris Sale and Clayton Kershaw as some of the very best in the sport. The numbers for relievers also reveal how dominant Kenley Jansen and Craig Kimbrel have been. This is all good evidence that XRA is doing what it is supposed to do, accurately displaying how good pitchers have actually been, independent of all other factors.

Another important characteristic of a good stat is how well it correlates from year to year. While ERA is the most simple and popular way to look at pitchers, it is not very consistent. XRA is much more consistent than ERA and FIP and also compares favorably with xFIP. However, it is not as consistent as DRA. DRA controls for so many aspects of the game that it should be expected to be the most consistent. However, being the most predictive or most consistent stat is not necessarily the goal of XRA. The real goal is to show how well the pitcher actually did, and XRA seems to do this remarkably. While not being as consistent as a stat like DRA, the level of consistency is extremely encouraging and puts it right in line with the other run estimators.

XRA is a stat that takes luck, defense, and ballpark dimensions out of the equation. When evaluating a pitcher, he shouldn’t be penalized for giving up a 350-foot pop fly for a home run in Cincinnati while being rewarded for that same pop fly being caught for an easy out in Miami. With XRA, no longer will people have to quibble about BABIP, since it is results-independent and removes all luck from consideration. A ground ball with eyes will now be treated the same whether it squirts through for a single or is tracked down for an out. Pitching ability will no longer need to be measured with an eye on the level of the defense. It takes a good offense, a good pitching staff and a good defense to make a great team, and with XRA we can finally separate all of these important factions.

In baseball analysis, we often use comparable players or “comps” to discuss what we think the player is likely to do in the future. Prospects are the most comped players because the general baseball public does not know much about minor leaguers. Comparing these young players to major leaguers allows fans to imagine what these prospects could someday become. Comps are also often used in projection systems. Data analysis has found that similar players often perform similarly throughout their careers. Thus, using former players who compare well with current players aids projection systems in forecasting what a particular player is likely to do in the coming years. Comparable players are also used in contract negotiations and arbitration battles. Players at similar ages with similar careers can expect to get roughly the same contract. In fact, the arbitration process is almost solely interested in comparing similar players and their wages.

Sometimes, players aren’t viewed as being similar when in reality they are actually quite alike. Recently, I found that Julio Teheran and Jose Quintana top each other’s similarity score lists on Baseball Reference. I had usually thought of Quintana as one of the game’s best pitchers and a true ace, while Teheran was at least a rung below that and probably more of a number 2 or 3 starter, so I did some research and found that these two pitchers are more alike than many probably realize.

Both pitchers are from Colombia and they were actually born only miles apart. Colombian-born baseball players are actually quite rare as there have only been 19 such players in MLB history, and this includes at least one set of brothers and a set of cousins. In fact, just this past season Teheran and Quintana became the first Colombian-born pitchers to ever start against each other in the same game. The two are apparently also quite good friends off the field and even work out together in the offseason. They each have also decided that they will pitch for Colombia in the upcoming World Baseball Classic. That will make for a formidable 1-2 punch for the Colombian pitching staff and will be hard for any other team in the tournament to match up against.

These two pitchers also match up quite well statistically, as their numbers look quite similar in a multitude of categories.

You might be able to find two pitchers with more similar numbers, but it wouldn’t be easy. They were both virtually 5-win pitchers according to Baseball-Reference, and the difference there likely comes from Quintana throwing a few more innings than Teheran. Their ERA, FIP, and xFIP are all almost identical and they both achieved their numbers in similar ways, too. Neither pitcher allows many baserunners, and they both strike out about eight batters per nine innings. In 2016, they both also had nearly identical ground-ball rates, and they suppressed homers to the same degree. Both pitchers had incredible seasons in 2016 and were both deserving All Stars, and while Jose Quintana did have a slightly better year and has been the better pitcher for the past several years, Julio Teheran has considerably closed the gap on his fellow statesman.

After seeing how closely the two pitchers’ 2016 stats aligned, I wanted to see how closely their styles of pitching matched up as well. While the approaches are not quite as similar as the statistics, you can see by the pitching styles how the stats could end up so similar. Using PITCHf/x data from Brooksbaseball.com I found that the biggest similarity in their repertoires is their four-seam fastballs. They both rely heavily on this pitch while throwing them about as hard and with similar amounts of movement.

These fastballs are not particularly special for two pitchers with such pedigree. They are each thrown with just average velocity and with roughly an average amount of downward and horizontal movement. They produce roughly the same amount of ground balls as the average pitcher and miss about as many bats as the average fastball. The most unique aspect of either of these pitchers’ fastballs is that Jose Quintana induces an exorbitant amount of pop-ups, which are basically as good as a strikeout. This allows his otherwise average fastball to play up better than the average starter.

After the four-seamer, their repertoires begin to deviate quite a bit. Quintana relies heavily on his sinker and his curveball as secondaries and mixes in a changeup occasionally. He throws his sinker just as hard as his four-seamer, but he gets more movement from the sinker. Julio Teheran uses his slider as his main secondary, throwing it over 26 percent of the time, while he mixes in a sinker, a changeup, and a curveball as his tertiary offerings. His slider is a plus pitch and he uses it to miss bats, while the other pitches are basically used as change-of-pace offerings to keep hitters off of his fastball and slider combination. Both of these guys get by with just average or better stuff, but command of their arsenal coupled with their mastery of the art of pitching have made them two of the upper-echelon pitching talents in the game.

It would only make sense that two players this similar would have similar contracts, but these contracts go way past similar — they are borderline identical. They are each under team control for the next four years. Teheran will make $37,300,000 and Quintana will make just a few hundred thousand more at $37,850,000, assuming that their respective option years are picked up, which is a pretty safe bet. Their yearly salaries are basically identical as well:

Neither player’s salary ever deviates more than just a few hundred thousand dollars in any year under these current contracts. It only makes sense that two players with so many similarities would be compensated so similarly, but should they actually be valued the same?

Probably not; while they did have virtually the same season statistically this year, Quintana’s track record for this level of success is longer. Teheran does also have a successful track record, but he did struggle in 2015, and Quintana just seems to be the surer bet at this point. Steamer projects Quintana to be worth over a win more than Teheran in 2017. However, I do believe that their values should be a great deal closer than public perception. Teheran is two years younger than Quintana and could just be hitting his prime, he is signed to the same contract as Quintana, and his stuff may actually be better. Quintana is currently being aggressively shopped and the asking price is said to be roughly the same as the Chris Sale package. Julio Teheran is not worth that kind of package, but it might be closer than you think.

Chris Sale is unusually skilled at throwing a baseball left-handed. This process is not generally viewed as aesthetically pleasing, but it is generally effective. It is particularly so against left-handed hitters. This effectiveness is why anything else is noteworthy, and thus why you are reading an article about Sale giving up his first home run to a left-handed hitter since 2012, and then his second such home run three innings later. Oh, right: Eric Hosmer hit two home runs off of Chris Sale Friday night, which is two more homers from the left side than Sale has given up over more than three seasons.

Chris Sale has been phenomenal against left-handed batters well beyond the fun fact of “no home runs allowed since 2012.” In his career he had allowed three total homers by lefties prior to Friday, with a triple slash of .202/.261/.263, all while playing half his games in the bandbox that is US Cellular. This dominance has not gone unnoticed by the rest of the league, and he has become justifiably feared by left-handed hitters and all-handed managers. During his 104 start, 712 inning homer-less streak, he has only faced left-handed hitters 18% of the time, despite batters hitting from the left batter’s box account over 40% of all plate appearances. Only the best face Sale. For perspective, Clayton Kershaw has had 609 plate appearances against left-handed batters since 2013 and has allowed eight home runs. For more perspective, it only took Bartolo Colon 246 plate appearances to hit his first home run.

For his part, Eric Hosmer was not a particularly likely player to end Sale’s streak, let alone to do so in this fashion. He has not yet had a 20-home-run season, and he has now matched his career-high season home-run total against left-handed pitching with five. He went into Friday with three career multi-home run games. If you care about this sort of thing, Hosmer’s numbers against Sale before then were relatively impressive in a small sample: .333/.351/.361 over 37 plate appearances. He is now tied with teammate Alex Gordon for most hits against Sale by a left-handed batter.

Now that we have established why Hosmer’s two home runs off Sale were unlikely to happen, we should look into the homers themselves. But before we get into the actual at bats, here is a plot of Sale’s pitches vs. Hosmer. I do not believe it hard to guess which cluster contains the two big mistakes.

The first at-bat came in the first inning, with two out and nobody on. Sale started with a fastball off the plate away, then a slider more off the plate away. Down 2-0, this happened:

https://gfycat.com/DecisiveInsecureAfricanparadiseflycatcher

With a low and away target, Sale left a fastball high and over the heart of the plate. Hosmer crushed it the other way.

Hosmer’s second at-bat led off the fourth inning. Sale started Hosmer with another fastball, equally over the middle of the plate and about four inches higher than the one that went out to left three innings earlier. The target was again low and away. The second pitch was a slider off the plate away, taken for a ball. Third, a slider inside and at the knees that went foul. Fourth, a fastball off the plate inside that Hosmer deflected just enough to hit into his own leg. With the count 1-2, this:

https://gfycat.com/LavishWelloffCapeghostfrog

With a low and away target, Sale left a slider high and over the heart of the plate. Hosmer crushed it the other way. Sound familiar?

Hosmer did have a third at-bat against Sale in the fifth inning, and it progressed much as Sale’s interactions with lefties usually do. Called strike one on a low-ish slider, swing through a low slider, then weak contact on a changeup low and in off the plate. Three pitches, all strikes, and a routine groundout.

Contrary to the past three years of evidence, Chris Sale is not immune to left-handed slugging. Specifically, he cannot groove a fastball in a hitter’s count nor hang a slider in any count without expecting that bad results might occur. Eric Hosmer is good enough to punish those sorts of mistakes, and he proved it. He should get credit for that. But the last place a pitcher wants to miss is high and over the plate, and Chris Sale did that twice to the same hitter in the same game. These are certainly not the only such mistakes Sale has made against a left-handed hitter since 2012, but they are certainly the first two to be punished fully. It could be a while before we see the next two.