More cool stuff on the leaderboards
Erik Bedard threw the highest percentage of curveballs of any pitcher with over 100 IP, a whopping 34.2% of his pitches.
9% of Curt Schilling’s pitches are “unidentified”.
Jeff Weaver threw over to first a lot. But then, he did have a lot of runners over there.
Are the M’s the division favorites now?
No.
Or, rather, not unless things are a lot worse than we know right now. And many things go right for the M’s, and only the M’s.
But look! A kitten!
“Playing with flowers” by Dr. Hemmert, cc-licensed from this flickr stream
The pitching rotation of the Angels, the most-frequently-cited advantage over the M’s,
John Lackey isn’t going to do anything baseball-related for three or four weeks with a strained triceps. If everything goes well he’ll return in late April. Probably more like May, though.
Kelvim Escobar has shoulder issues and he’s targeting May to return to playing.
Even if the Angels put a couple of torch artists out there in their place (Horacio Ramirez is available), that’s not enough to close the gap. Between the two of them, they’ll make twelve starts from Opening Day through the end of May if the Angels stuck to a strict five-person rotation. Two of those should fall against the M’s.
Normally, figure they’re entirely responsible for the team winning 60% of their starts, and they lose every one of those games now. The swing would be from 7-5 to 0-12, 8 games.
For the most pessimistic view, take the BP Pecota-based standings. If the Angels drop 8 games, two conveniently to the M’s, that would put the A’s in the thick of the division with the A’s at .500, and the M’s still only at 75 wins for the season.
Or to get to “competitive” you can take the Diamond Mind sims I did, using the “A’s lose Harden/Gaudin all year” set of assumptions, and the M’s get to 80 wins and then it’s a race.
But favorites? The Angels offense is likely to score a hundred more runs than the M’s this year based on the PECOTA projections, and even if their rotation replacements are total disasters, they only have to push them out there for about eighty innings.
Eighty innings isn’t that much time. Replace a 3 ERA in those innings with a 6 ERA (eraisnotagreatmeasureofpitchereffectivenessandisusedhereforconvenienceonly)… if you figure the starters are currently going the full seven innings and you need to replace all seven, then it’s 84 IP * ERA = 28 runs for the aces, and 56 runs for the absolutely horrible 6 ERA pitchers.
That’s only three games difference replacing a team’s 1-2 pitchers with guys who will be chased out of town with torches and pitchforks at the end of a month.
And the Angels don’t stop being competitive if you assume that they’re going to entirely drop seven more games that Lackey/Escobar started.
To get to the Angels-are-done and the M’s-are-favorites, you need to get into even more speculative territory: that the pitchers are going to be out a lot longer and the Angels won’t be able to find anything but flammable replacements, that the bullpen collapses in the overwork, and particularly that the Angels manage to keep themselves together against the A’s and Rangers while giving generously to the Mariner cause.
Pitch Type Leaderboards
If you didn’t already think fangraphs was awesome, they’ve now gone and really done it – they’ve added pitch type and velocity data from Baseball Info Solutions for every pitcher in the game. They even included a leaderboard.
Among pitchers who threw 100 innings last year, Felix Hernandez’s fastball clocked in #1 at 95.6 MPH. His slider also clocked in #1 at 88.3 MPH. His curveball? #1, 82.2 MPH. His change-up slacked off, coming in #3 (86.6 MPH), behind A.J. Burnett and Josh Beckett. Moral of the story? Felix throws really hard.
Also, being able to throw a hard change-up is a tremendous asset. Here’s the list of 100 IP guys that throw their change at 84.0 MPH or higher: Burnett, Beckett, Felix, McGowan, Cain, Edwin Jackson (USSM approved offseason acquisition), Millwood, Escobar, Sabathia, Gaudin, Ramon Ortiz (the hilarious outlier on this list), Penny, Sheets, Lincecum, Billingsley, Peavy, Cabrera, Sosa, Smoltz, Snell, Greinke, and Bannister. That’s one hell of a list.
The patron saint of mixing up his pitches – Jesse Litsch. 19% fastballs, 11% sliders, 40% cutters, 16% curveballs, and 13% change-ups. The only other guy I found that came close to throwing five different pitches at least 10% of the time – Shaun Marcum. Marcum and Litsch are teammates in Toronto. Raise your hands if you think that’s a coincidence.
Speaking of Jesse Litsch, he’s the only guy who threw more cutters than Miguel Batista last year. If you’re wondering why Batista’s groundball rate fell in 2007 from his previous career norms, the cut fastball is why. He threw it 28% of the time in 2005, 26% of the time in 2006, and 39% of the time last year. Also, if you look at Batista’s velocity readings over the last three years, he’s clearly losing a tick off each of his pitches. We’re watching the evolution of a guy learning to pitch differently as his stuff deteriorates.
Mariano Rivera: 26.7% fastballs, 73.3% cutters. The average velocity on the fastball is 93.2, and the average velocity on the cutter is 93.6. 99.9% of the time, Mariano Rivera is going to throw a low to mid 90s fastball with movement, and hitters still can’t do anything with it. It’s really incredible.
And, finally, if you don’t think the M’s have an organizational mental image of what a reliever looks like, I present this page. Among the top 24 relievers in percentage of fastball thrown, we find Brandon Morrow, Jason Davis, Matt Thornton, J.J. Putz, and Rafael Soriano all in pretty close vicinity to each other. All five also throw a power slider, while Putz and Morrow mix in some splitters. Putz, Thornton, and Davis all have the same body type to boot. If you’re 6’5, throw hard, and have a slider, the M’s are probably interested in sticking you in the 8th inning of ballgames.
Jeff Sullivan has some more fun Mariner tidbits from this stuff over at LL. I heart fangraphs.
A game! On TV and everything!
FSN, 1:05! Against the Brewers! Thrill to spring training action!
Saturday’s game thoughts
Betancourt got caught stealing, part of McLaren’s cunning plan to have all his players who can run run all time. Whatever, managers always say they want to run more and work on the fundamentals like situational hitting in spring training. As long as he’s not Hargroving it and having Ibanez thrown out at third by 88 feet stretching doubles, it’s not important.
Zito got shelled. I remember the days when getting Zito was critical, the key piece of the M’s future success. Yeah.
Bedard got shelled, too. Three home runs — woooowww. That’s a lot. I don’t think there’s any call to get hysterical any more than, say, Ichiro’s 0-whatever start, and yet… how about a concerned wince? (Dave says nope – it doesn’t matter at all)
Morrow’s out for a couple days with dead-arm, which sucks. If they’re dead set on stalling his possible career as a starter because the temptation to use him to shore up the bullpen is so irresistible, it’d be nice if he could contribute there. I shudder to think what dregs they might reach for if they think they need “a right-handed set-up man”.
The Giants lineup is astoundingly crappy. That is just an awful offense without Bonds in it. When you’re batting Randy Winn 3rd and a Molina, any Molina, 4th, something’s gone horribly wrong with your offseason. Sure, Dave Roberts was in the other split-squad game, but ugh.
I wonder where Reed’s going to end up if (when) he gets cut.
Mariners produce annual crop of short brainwashing propoganda films
Designed to make you so excited for the coming season you vomit with excitement.
Eight of them. They’re only available if you have Windows Media Player v7 or “better”, presumably because the Mariners are paying off MLBAM though it’s still pretty rude to everyone out there who can’t watch because they’re not available in a more reasonable format.
A brief summary of the new commercials:
Yuniesky Betancourt, after being deemed a magician by Dave Niehaus, performs a series of tricks worthy of a ten-year old who went on a spending spree at the joke shop with the $5 he saved up from donating plasma on the black market.
Jose Vidro is not actually one hitter: the Mariners are violating major league roster rules by using two Vidros, one named Pepe, and disturbingly, the man in charge of the team’s rosters was not aware that he’d acquired both halves of the platoon, that both were in uniform (and had been for a year), even though he’d traded for Jose only a year ago*.
The Mariners pay so little for equipment that they risk one of the team’s best players in batting practice in order to protect an easily-replaceable coach.
After attempting to lure Felix into a mustache-growing contest to demonstrate their manliness and show up the younger, spotlight-stealing player, Jarrod Washburn and Willie Bloomquist find themselves again emasculated by Felix’s talent.
Raul Ibanez hints darkly at the future sexual humiliation new players are forced to undergo at the fluffy, warm paws of the Moose.
Ichiro! is sometimes spelled P-I-M-P
JJ Putz discovers that the fungo bat has been coated in strongly hallucinogenic pine tar.
I look forward to a long thread reminiscing about commercials past. Oh, those were the days. And we haven’t had a comment thread veer off into discussion of the good old commercials in oh, a few hours or so.
* Bavasi does crack me up in this, though.
Matthew Carruth Writes Several Tons Of Great Stuff
You probably know by now that we’re big fans of Lookout Landing. Jeff Sullivan does yeoman’s work over there, and if you read USSM, you really should be reading LL too.
Well, recently, Matthew Carruth (who also edits and writes for the Hardball Times) has posted a string of informative entries over there that everyone should read. It’s just really good stuff.
GPA: A better OPS: I don’t totally agree with him here and find GPA to be not particularly useful, but it’s still worth reading.
The BaseRuns Model: BaseRuns is awesome but kinda nerdy. If you don’t mind being somewhat nerdy, click away.
Mariners OF defense: 2003-2007: Inspired by Derek’s post on the same subject. Must read.
Trying to Track True Team Talent: Another fundamental article that sets the groundwork for real analysis.
Seeing the World Pitch By Pitch: Again, absolutely essential reading for a better understanding of how pitching works.
We think we put out a pretty regular stream of good content here, but by no means do we have the market cornered. Matthew’s work is simply outstanding and deserves a larger audience.
MLB Embraces Replacement Level
Over the last decade, there has been a significant shift within baseball front offices to evaluate players differently. While OPS was making its way into the general lexicon, teams have been accepting more analytical approaches to things and taking consultation from the statistical community. The concept of probability has become more well received, and major league teams have adjusted accordingly.
However, one of the main beliefs of the sabermetric crowd had simply not been adopted, and that was the concept of replacement level. Along with many others (notably among them Keith Woolner, one of the founders of the replacement level theory, now working for the Cleveland Indians), we’ve talked quite a bit about the idea that there is a vast talent pool of players who are capable of giving you performances that are only about two wins per season worse than a league average player, and can be acquired at essentially no cost.
These guys are just hanging around, signing minor league deals every winter and waiting for their chance. Guys like Jamie Burke and Cha Seung Baek epitomize replacement level – every organization has guys just like them, and if given the chance, they can play pretty well at times, though you’re obviously not going to win anything if you depend on them as the core of your club. But as end of roster role players who don’t cost anything and allow you to allocate all of your resources to the top spots on your roster, they have some value.
Major League teams have generally ignored this principle, however. There are some exceptions, but even most of those embrace replacement level players out of need more than out of belief that it’s the best way to build a roster. The A’s obviously make good use out of replacement level players, but an argument could be made that they’ve had to, thanks to their payroll and injury situations. When other organizations had the choice between ponying up a few million for a proven veteran or going with the low cost Triple-A guy, they’ve always given the money to the veteran.
Until this winter. For whatever reason (I subscribe to the “teams getting smarter” theory myself), major league baseball as a whole has finally embraced the concept of replacement level in deciding who gets money and for how long. Seriously.
Kyle Lohse, who made about $4 million in each of the last two years and has thrown 1,100 not horrible innings since 2001, went into the winter thinking he’d get something like a 4 year, $40 million contract. He’s not that different from Jeff Suppan, and that’s what Suppan got from the Brewers last winter. Jarrod Washburn got $37.5 million for being that same type of pitcher the year before. The market for healthy, back-end starters with some recent success but little upside was pretty clearly established.
On March 13th, a few weeks from opening day, Kyle Lohse still has no job. When he signs, it will be for one year and probably half of the annual salary he was expecting.
It’s not just Lohse, though. Corey Patterson, at 27 years old, hit free agency coming off a disappointing season, but still had some value as a premium defensive player with some left-handed power. He made just over $4 million last year, and he’d been an above average player in three of the last five years. Patterson, heading into his physical prime, signed a non-guaranteed minor league contract with the Cincinnati Reds.
Patterson wasn’t alone in having to play his way into a major league contract. He joined Bartolo Colon, Shannon Stewart, Mike Sweeney, Odalis Perez, Trot Nixon, Kevin Mench, Jorge Julio, Marcus Giles, Morgan Ensberg, Kris Benson, and Bobby Kielty in taking contracts that offered them nothing more than a chance to fight for a job. But at least those guys are getting that chance – Kenny Lofton, Mike Piazza, Reggie Sanders, David Wells, and Jeff Weaver are sitting at home wondering if they’ll play in 2008.
These aren’t career minor leaguers with spotty track records. These guys have all been productive major league players in the very recent past, and the lucky ones are in spring training trying to convince their organization that they’re worth a spot on the 40 man roster.
In 2006, every player ranked by Keith Law in his Top 40 free agent rankings signed a major league contract, with the average of those 40 players receiving a 3 year, $31.3 million dollar deal. 12 of the 40 had to settle for one year contracts, but the lowest paid of that group was Joe Borowski at $4.25 million. Shea Hillenbrand got $6.5 million for having some name value. Jeff Weaver got $8 million to try to revive his career. Kenny Lofton got $6 million to continue to defy aging.
In 2007, five of Keith Law’s top 40 players have yet to sign. Six others signed minor league contracts. 20 of the 40 signed one year deals. Only eight of the 40 signed contracts for two or three years, compared to 13 from a year earlier. In all, only 17 of Keith Law’s top 40 free agents received multi-year contracts, compared to 28 from a year earlier.
If you want, you can argue that this was a bad year for free agents, or that Keith Law didn’t know what he was doing when he put together his list, or that those crazy statheads with their make believe replacement level just don’t understand the value of experience and leadership. But, the thing is, major league baseball is coming around. Not every team, but enough. There are less and less jobs that are being handed to players for what they used to be, as teams are now showing more willingness to go with the more talented, less proven guy for a fraction of the price.
It’s the right move, and as MLB makes this adjustment, everyone’s going to have to adjust. Kyle Lohse has to realize that he’s not getting a four year deal. Kenny Lofton has to realize that he’s not getting a starting job and millions of dollars. And the organizations that don’t accept the concept of replacement level – there’s one that we write about occasionally, for instance – are going to have to realize that they’re literally throwing money away until they adjust their pattern of thought.
Even if you love Carlos Silva, would anyone on earth really prefer to have him locked up for $48 million over four years than to take a one year flyer on Kyle Lohse for $6 million? Or would you want to have Jose Vidro making $6 million when Shannon Stewart, his offensive twin, is taking a minor league deal?
The days of saying that replacement level is some vague, undefined theory that is only for poor teams is over. Major League Baseball has defined replacement level this winter, and the game is better for it. Hooray for finally having to earn your way on the roster by having enough talent to help your team win, and not through some arbitrary right of experience and name value.
Horacio Ramirez, a not at all fond retrospective of his time in a Mariner uniform
“The bad deal” December 6th
The Mariners have traded a good 27-year-old pitcher for a mediocre 27-year-old pitcher.
Forget everything else you’re going to hear for a minute. Forget the starter vs reliever designations, years of service, groundball rates, all of it. The M’s traded a pitcher who will be 27 in two weeks for a pitcher who turned 27 two weeks ago in a straight up, one for one deal. It’s a challenge trade, essentially. The M’s chose left-handedness and a designation as a starting pitcher over talent and performance. They swapped a good pitcher for a mediocre one, and none of the issues about rotation vs bullpen can wipe that away.
This is a bad deal. We’re obviously against this in every way, shape, and form. Horacio Ramirez is not the kind of guy you trade arms like Rafael Soriano’s for. Horacio Ramirez is the kind of arm you pick up as a throw-in to a deal or that you sign for a cheap, one year contract as a free agent. Like they were going to do with John Thomson. He’s John Thomson’s left-handed twin.
March 2nd, this gem in the PI Notebook:
Ramirez wasn’t crazy about his control, but only one pitch really bothered him, a 3-2 curve that former Mariner Mike Cameron hit for a single with one out and a man on base. Even so, Ramirez said he called for that pitch himself, shaking Johjima off several times.
“I’d rather throw the wrong pitch, but a pitch I throw with conviction,†Ramirez said. “That makes it right.â€
Dave, in the 4/27 game thread:
Jorge De la Rosa was famously once described by Dan Duquette as “the Mexican John Rockerâ€. He’s been pretty horrible in the majors up until this year, but at age 25, he’s finally showing why his arm used to get scouts pretty excited. He tossed 8 scoreless innings in his last start while throwing strikes and missing bats. He looks like he may be in the beginning stages of a true breakout season.
The Royals acquired him last July in a one for one trade for Tony Graffanino.
Meanwhile, Horacio Ramirez was once described by me as “a pretty crappy pitcherâ€. Scouts have never liked his arm. He tossed 4 horrible innings in his last start, not throwing any strikes and missing no bats at all. He looks like a AAAA starter who is in the beginning stages of pitching himself into a middle relief role.
The Mariners acquired him last December in a one for one trade for Rafael Soriano.
May 15th, at the 20% mark:
Horacio Ramirez, #4 Starter – Grade: F
He’s been a disaster. He’s struck out zero or one guy in four of his six starts, and like Batista, his success is basically tied to how well the other team does at getting the balls in play to fall in. Consistency is impossible with this kind of pitcher. Much is made about Ramirez’s Home/Road splits, but no one mentions the competition he’s faced in those appearanecs. He got whacked around by the Angels, Red Sox, and Tigers on the road, and shut down the Rangers, Royals, and Yankees at home. The huge splits between Safeco and non-Safeco games will shrink dramatically as the year goes on.
I liked this July 17th note:
Horacio Ramirez threw the Jarrod Washburn Special, putting the ball over the plate against a lousy team in Safeco Field and watching them get themselves out. He did exactly what he should have done – realized he was facing a line-up of talentless hacks and gave them the opportunity to put the bat on the ball, knowing they aren’t good enough to do anything with it. Against this kind of team, it’s the right gameplan. But, as I’m sure regular readers know by now, this is also not any kind of recipe for continued success. If he pitches the same way in Toronto next Sunday, he’s going to get torched. I’m encouraged that we won a game where we started one of the worst pitchers in baseball – I’m not at all encouraged that this was any kind of indicator of Horacio Ramirez’s future performance level.
He didn’t pitch again until the 23rd, in Texas, where he got torched.
September 17th, when he was yanked from the rotation, we offered a retrospective
But for all the things that have gone wrong (and right) this year, it’s clear that the team’s inexplicable faith that Ramirez would be a solid rotation member, their continued belief that he would at any moment become the pitcher they thought they were acquiring, and their failure to have a decent backup plan to go to was one of the greatest reasons the team couldn’t turn a surprisingly successful season into a playoff berth.
And a historical perspective on how amazingly awful Horacio had been.
There’s been no good reason to believe that Horacio Ramirez was, was becoming, or could be a major league starter, and the team’s inability to recognize that he didn’t belong in a major league rotation was so huge as to produce historic, embarrassing results.
And then, later, Dave offered this fact you may not have known:
Did you know that the Mariners have seven pitchers on the roster with an ERA of 10.00 or higher in September? Jeff Weaver, Horacio Ramirez, Eric O’Flaherty, Brandon Morrow, Sean Green, Ryan Rowland-Smith, and John Parrish have formed their own arson squad.
We commented when the M’s decided to get rid of Broussard and retain Horacio:
On the other hand, the M’s decided to keep Horacio Ramirez, apparently believing their own lies that he was just confused and poorly coached last year. You have to wonder what it will take for this organization to realize how to evaluate pitching talent correctly – Horacio Ramirez is a Triple-A arm, and that should be pretty obvious to anyone who watches baseball with even a casual eye. This was obvious last year when the M’s traded for him, and his horrendous year in Seattle didn’t make him any more valuable. That they’re willing to give a replacement level pitcher millions of dollars to try to resurrect some potential he’s never had is just a continuing sign that the Mariners don’t have any better of an idea of what makes a good pitcher now than they did twelve months ago.
And on January 18th, when they signed him to the contract they just voided…
Pick your reason why it’s a bad deal:
– Taking a historically bad pitcher to arbitration after seeing him suck all year.
– The deal itself
– The fact that they’re in this situation at all after bringing HoRam in believing he was potentially a top-of-the-rotation guy despite there being no reason to think that was true
Drayer reports on the game plan for Felix
(ht to msb for the link)
Drayer gets some nice, in-depth comments on how Felix wants to pitch this year.
I talked to Johjima about this and he told me that the game plan is solidly in place for this year relaying this through interpreter Antony Suzuki:
“I think there are two game plans with Felix. If his sinker is working, great we can use the sinker early in the game and get the strikeouts with his breaking ball because the sinker will make the breaking ball very effective. But if the sinker is not working we will have to use the breaking ball more often and get that sinker as the strikeout pitch. So there are two ways in his game plan, since he has got a great breaking ball and great command he can come up with any kind of sequence as well.”
Good, good. Like the “any kind of sequence”.
I talked to Felix about this after his last start and here is what he had to say.
“That’s true. You know if I have my two seamer working then I am going to throw it a lot. You saw me a couple years ago throw a lot of two seamers, a lot of fastball and I got a lot of success. When my two seamer works I am going to get a lot of groundballs and a lot of quick outs and that’s what I want. If it doesn’t work I will figure out something else, throw the breaking ball, choke the fastball and throw the breaking ball, that’s all. But if I have the fastball in command it’s going to be easier for my breaking ball to work better.”
I love, love, love hearing Felix talk about getting quick ground outs, even more than Kenji discussing a reasonable approach to strikeouts. Felix concentrating on groundballs will still get his strikeouts, and then he’s ridiculously effective.
And I love this kind of wonk-tastic coverage, too. Thanks, Drayer!