Game 132, Angels at Mariners
Weaver vs Washburn, 7:05 pm.
For various reasons, I’d really, really like to see the M’s put a beatdown on Jered Weaver. He’s going to have a 2 IP, 8 H, 7 R performance sooner or later, and I’d love for it to be sooner.
M’s run out the ultimate 2006 Mariner line-up:
1. Ichiro, CF
2. Snelling, RF
3. Beltre, 3B
4. Ibanez, LF
5. Sexson, 1B
6. Broussard, DH
7. Johjima, C
8. Lopez, 2B
9. Betancourt, SS
For the first time in, well, this year, the team isn’t running out an automatic out somewhere in the line-up. 1 through 9, everyone can hit, at least a little bit.
Evaluating Pitcher Talent
The discussion of what statistics are useful in evaluating a pitcher came up in the game thread, again, last night. This issue comes up quite a bit around here, since I use a lot of non-conventional numbers, and new readers often don’t know what they mean, where to find them, or why they should bother. So, last night, I decided to write something of a primer on why I like to use the statistics that I use, what their usefulness is, and why I don’t really care about things like ERA, WHIP, or batting average against.
All the stats referenced, by the way, can be found at the Hardball Times, and detailed game logs using these numbers can be found at Fangraphs, which are two of the most awesome sites out there right now.
The mainstream tools for evaluating a pitcher’s success and abilities are won-loss record and earned run average, with fantasy baseball players often add WHIP (walks+hits per inning pitched) to the discussion, since it’s one of their categories. These statistics attempt to sum up pitcher effectiveness in total, giving an overview of the totality of his performance with just a few numbers.
I, personally, think they fail in that regard. ERA and WHIP group together a large string of individual events made by multiple players, making it extremely tough to separate out the credit for the pitcher, hitter, or defense. WHIP and ERA tell you there is no difference in an inning where three batters drive the ball to the fence and end up with three long flyouts or an inning where a pitcher strikes out the side. Clearly, they’re drastically different, but WHIP and ERA fail to account for the actual contributions of the pitcher. So, if the goal is to actually find out how well a pitcher threw, why not look at a micro level, instead of a macro level? That’s what I prefer to do.
For instance, what are the possible events in an at-bat that can occur?
A pitch can be thrown for a ball.
A pitch can be thrown for a strike.
A pitch can be swung at and missed.
The ball can be hit on the ground.
The ball can be hit on a line.
The ball can be hit in the air.
On any given pitch, those are the options. There are a few sub-categories under those options (outfield fly or infield fly, bunt grounder or normal grounder, etc…), but we can sum up every possible outcome of each pitch with those six options. Those outcomes might lead to wildly different events, but we’ll get to that later.
Which of these six outcomes are positive for the pitcher? Called strike, swinging strike, and groundball.
Which of these six outcomes are positive for the hitter? Called ball, line drive, and flyball.
If we can effectively determine which pitchers maximize their value in the “good outcomes†and minimize their harm in the “bad outcomesâ€, we can get a pretty firm grasp on who has pitching talent and who does not. Thankfully, Dave Studeman wrote a fantastic article called “Whats A Batted Ball Worth” in the 2006 Hardball Times Annual, and it includes the following run value chart. This chart will give a context to those good and bad outcome categories:
Line Drive: .356 – in other words, an average line drive is worth 35% of one run.
HBP: .342
Non-Intentional Walk: .315
Intentional Walk: .176
Outfield Fly: .035
Groundball: -.101
Bunts: -.103
Infield Fly: -.243
Strikeout: -.287
These run values were taken from real life play-by-play data, so this is an actual representation of events, not some theoretic formula. As you can see, a hit-by-pitch is a better event for the offense than a walk, even though they both simply put the batter on first base. Why? Because a hit-by-pitch is pretty much random, and can occur both at times when it is a critical situation and times when it isn’t. A walk, conversely, is far more likely to put a runner on first base in a run scoring situation, lowering it’s run value compared to the HBP.
As you can see, the difference between an outfield fly and a groundball isn’t huge, but its real, and it adds up over the course of the season. This is why, all things equal, a groundball pitcher is better than a flyball pitcher. All things are almost never equal, and flyball pitchers tend to have higher strikeout rates than groundball pitchers, but the theoretical best pitcher alive would be a groundball pitcher, not a flyball pitcher.
Also, bunting = bad.
So, now that we have some understanding of the possible outcomes and their relative value, instead of using statistics like ERA or WHIP that leave out critical information, our best bet is to try to quantify the six potential outcomes, and the events that result from those outcomes as best as we can.
BB% (Walks per Total Batters Faced) does a nice job evaluating how often a pitcher throws the ball in the strike zone. The average walkrate is 8% for a major league pitcher, though the DH makes the AL a higher walk league than the NL. Anything under 5% is tremendous, and anything over 11% is a problem. The Hardball Times publishes BB% and K% in a slightly different manner, calling it BB/G or K/G to make it scale more like the per nine innings numbers people are used to seeing. BB/G (and BB%, its derivitive) is more effective than BB/9 because it accounts for the actual amount of batters faced rather than using a proxy like innings pitched. It’s just more accurate.
K% (Strikeouts per Total Batters Faced) does a decent job evaluating how often a pitcher induces swings and misses or called strikes. 16% is league average, with 20% being terrific and 12% being a problem.
GB% (Groundballs per Balls In Play) does a very good job of telling us how often a pitcher induces a groundball. 42% is league average, and anything over 50% is terrific, with the best sinkerball pitchers posting rates in the 60-65% range, while anything below 35% can be a problem if its not offset with a high strikeout rate.
LD% (Line Drives per Balls In Play) does a very good job of telling us how often a pitcher gives up line drives. 20% is league average, 17% is good, and 23% is a serious problem. Because of the way line drives have been scored by Baseball Info Solutions the past couple of years, this number is hard to use for year to year analysis, and right now, it’s not a very effective tool. We don’t use it very often.
FB% (Flyballs per Balls In Play) does a very good job of telling us how often a pitcher gives up flyballs that leave the infield, and is basically the corollary to GB%. 36% is league average, while 32% is good and 40% could be a problem.
So we have five statistics that cover each of the six possible outcomes pretty effectively. Not perfect, but they do a credible job. They aren’t park adjusted (and yes, parks have an effect on things you might not expect, such as walk rates, strikeout rates, and groundball rates), but they’re pretty close for the majority of cases.
Thanks to the work of guys like Voros McCracken, Tom Tippett, Keith Woolner, and Dave Studeman, we also now know that the result of a particular ball in play is also not very consistent, and is due more to the actions of the hitter than the pitcher. So, when evaluating pitcher’s talent, we need to adjust for outlier type performances on converting outs on balls in play. If a pitcher has a lot of flyballs that are being caught on the warning track, or groundballs that are going right to infielders, that’s not likely to continue, and we shouldn’t assume that it will.
Not all balls in play are created equal, however, and so when we’re adjusting for outs on balls in play, we need to make sure we’re adjusting back to the type of ball in play the pitcher is giving up, since we’ve noted that they certainly do have control over their groundball or flyball tendencies.
An outfield fly becomes an out 77.7% of the time. A groundball becomes an out 74.8% of the time. A line drive becomes an out only 26.4% of the time, which is why it’s the worst possible outcome for a pitcher. An infield fly becomes an out 98.8% of the time. Because of this, flyball pitchers will post more outs on balls in play than groundball pitchers, and it won’t be a fluke. However, the non-outs that flyball pitchers give up are more harmful, and thus, the quality of the hits against flyball pitchers outweighs the relative lack of quantity. This is shown in the run value chart above, where an average groundball is a positive event for the pitcher and the outfield flyball is not.
Infield flies are automatic outs, essentially, so it’s best to separate them from outfield flies for analysis like this. Since evidence has shown that pitchers don’t have a strong year to year control over their infield fly percentage, however, when evaluating true talent levels, it’s best to assume something like a normal infield fly percentage for a pitcher, rather than the one he’s posting at the moment.
Two other big factors that we’ve identified that can have a great effect on run scoring are home run rates and stranding runners. In general, flyball pitchers give up more home runs than groundball pitchers, which is why a groundball is a positive event for the pitcher and a flyball is not.
We’ve seen very little evidence that major league pitchers have significant control over how often their flyballs go over the wall, so occassionally you’ll see a wild swing in performance that is not indicative of a players true talent level, simply because a pitcher is having more or less flyballs go over the wall than should be expected. Felix Hernandez in April and May of this year was a great example of a guy who allowed a lot of home runs per flyball, and that rate has steadily dropped as the season wore on. The average major league pitcher gives up home runs in about 11-12% of his outfield flies – significant variation from that is probably not an indicator of talent for a major league quality pitcher.
Stranding runners is also a big key, and a bit of a different animal. Naturally, good pitchers will strand more runners than bad pitchers. Since they’re good pitchers, they’re more likely to create an out in any situation, including with men on base, than if they weren’t a good pitcher. While the league average Left on Base Percentage is 70%, the bad pitchers often live in the low-to-mid-60% range, and the good pitchers live in the mid-to-high-70% range.
However, it’s not uncommon for bad pitchers to have flukily high strand rates that significantly lower than ERAs, and vice versa. Jarrod Washburn’s 2005 ERA was almost completely due to his high strand rate, as he posted the highest LOB% in the American League. That hasn’t held true in 2006, and we’ve seen his ERA rise a full run because of it. So, when you find a pitcher who is stranding runners at an unexpected rate when compared to his talent derived by BB%, K%, and GB%, it is prudent to expect that rate to regress back towards a more normal rate in the future.
So, looking at this breakdown, we see value in BB%, K%, GB%, HR/FB%, and LOB%. Those five statistics will tell you almost everything you need to know about what goes into why a pitcher is performing like he is, and all these statistics are easily available at The Hardball Times. There’s nothing that ERA or WHIP will tell you that those component statistics do not, but ERA and WHIP certainly leave a lot of the underlying information out.
However, it is understandable that people want one number that sums up pitcher performance. If you really prefer to not look through the prism of BB/K/GB/HR-FB/LOB percentages, you can always use FIP, or Fielding Indpendent Pitching (which I often call Fielding Independent ERA, since its scaled to look like ERA), which gives you an expected ERA for a pitcher based on his walk, strikeout, and home run rates. FIP isn’t perfect, either – it assumes that HR/FB is indeed a skill, and it assumes that all pitchers are equal at stranding runners, neither of which are true, but it’s better than ERA for summing up a pitcher’s total contributions to run prevention.
If you want to get really crazy, you can even use Expected FIP, or xFIP, which substitutes the league average home run per fly ball rate for the pitcher’s actual home run rate, giving a more accurate picture of how we’ll expect a pitcher to perform going forward as his HR/FB rate regresses towards the mean.
As I said, both FIP and xFIP have flaws, especially when it comes to evaluating relief pitchers, but if you’re insistent on using one number to sum up a pitcher’s contribution to run prevention, those would be your best bet.
In this age of wonderful information, there’s just no reason to use ERA and WHIP for serious analysis of a pitcher’s ability. We have better tools at our disposal. We’re doing ourselves an injustice if we continue to lean on inferior information.
It’s over
Last win against an AL West team: August 28th vs. Angels to open a three-game series.
But still…
1-15 versus Oakland
2-8 versus Texas
8-9 versus Anaheim LA.
Game 131, Angels at Mariners
Julio Mateo is out for the season with a broken left-hand. The Mariners have purchased the contract of Jon Huber from Tacoma, adding him to both the 25 man and 40 man rosters. He has had a very good year for the Rainiers, but has marginal, Mateo like stuff. He’s not part of the future here, but the M’s are just swapping out one replacement level reliever for another.
Escobar vs Hernandez, 7:05 pm. Feliz Dia de Felix!
I’m surprised no one has mentioned this in the local media, but the Mariners have lost 20 consecutive games to AL West opponents. If the M’s are going to break that streak, they’re going to have to do so against a quality pitcher and a line-up that is significantly better than it was earlier in the year. With the addition of Howie Kendrick and the realization that Juan Rivera is an everyday player, the Angels offense has improved tremendously since the last time the Angels rolled into town. They’re no longer Vlad and the eight dwarves.
Escobar, meanwhile, is a lot like Current Felix – inconsistent command leads to bouts of wildness, but high strikeout rate keeps runners from scoring and he’s generally effective. Either one has the ability to toss a shutout tonight, though with the M’s running out a line-up including Doyle hitting second, the M’s aren’t nearly as likely to go down helplessly as they were before his arrival.
This could be a fun game. The M’s just got to put an end to Boston’s season over the weekend, and now they have a chance to do that to the Angels as well.
Great line-up 1-8:
#9: Bloomquist, SS
Seriously, Felix is pitching, Mr. Ground Ball, and you give Betancourt a night off? Just insane.
So Long, Pocket Lint (super exciting dual post!)
An era is offically over in Seattle – Bob Finnigan has written his last story for the Seattle Times. After 20 years covering the team as the beat writer, today is day one of his retirement. As a farewell gift, lets bring the USSM-critique-of-Pocket-Lint column out of retirement.
Game 130, Red Sox at Mariners
Baek vs Snyder, 1:05 pm.
Edit: The M’s optioned T.J. Bohn back to Tacoma before the game, recalling Mike Morse to take his place.
M’s go for the sweep. If the team wins, there will be a post game ceremony where J.J. Putz and Adrian Beltre will carry an oversized commemorative fork and stick it into the backs of the Red Sox roster.
Kyle Snyder’s an RHP, so, let’s try this again: Huzzah for Doyle!
1. Ichiro, CF
2. Snelling, RF
3. Beltre, 3B
4. Ibanez, LF
5. Sexson, 1B
6. Broussard, DH
7. Betancourt, SS
8. Rivera, C
9. Hole, 2B
Game 129, Red Sox at Mariners
David Wells vs Gil Meche, 7:05.
David Wells famously claims to pitch while drunk. Gil Meche just pitches like he’s drunk, but we’re pretty sure he’s not.
David Wells is a strike throwing machine. Gil Meche wouldn’t even know how to turn on said machine.
David Wells has had a pretty nice career, winning a lot of games despite average stuff. Gil Meche has spent the last few years stealing the Mariners money by chronically underachieving.
Advantage: Wells
However, we have Doyle, and they don’t, so I predict the M’s win 34-6. Doyle, by the way: .400/.500/.650 in 24 plate appearances as a Mariner. He’s drawn 4 walks and has 4 extra base hits in what amounts to a weeks worth of playing time. 4 walks and 4 extra base hits was a good month for Carl Everett. Huzzah for Doyle!
Game 128, Red Sox at Mariners
Schilling vs Woods. This could get ugly in a hurry.
Reasons to watch: Doyle, Ichiro in center, and, umm, Doyle!
Looking Ahead: Jeff Clement
Today, we continue the irregularly scheduled Looking Ahead series, where I do a slightly more in depth post on a player from the M’s farm system. The Bryan LaHair feature generated a lot of positive response, so I’m going to try to do at least a couple more of these before the end of the year. This time around, we’re going to take a look at the Mariners Catcher Of The Future (TM), Jeff Clement.
Jeff Clement has been a big name prospect for a long time. He played in the Little League World Series in 1996, and he is still the nationwide high school home run champion, launching 75 bombs in his four years of prep baseball. The record was previously held by Drew Henson, and Clement got significant accolades in both his junior and senior years. A firm commitment to USC scared teams off, however, and the Twins finally selected him in the 12th round of the 2002 draft. He turned down their offer to attend college, and went on to have a very nice career for the Trojans.
The Mariners used the third overall selection in the 2005 draft to select Clement, going for a power left-handed bat at a position where they had no long term solution. Reports on him coming out of college were very good on his power, but not so good on other aspects of his game. His defense was considered a work in progress, and scouts were split on whether he would remain behind the plate or eventually move to first base. The Mariners insisted that they projected him as a catcher, and they worked with him extensively on his footwork and release to help improve his skills as a receiver.
Clement’s professional debut went very well, as he beat the tar out of the ball in the Midwest League. While low-A ball isn’t a huge challenge for a star college hitter, Wisconsin is still not an easy place to hit, and Clement posted a .319/.386/.522. He showed both patience and power, and while his contact rates (19.7% K, 9.7% BB) weren’t as good as they were in college, scouts were very impressed with his adjustment to using wood bats. He entered the 2006 season neck-and-neck with Adam Jones for the title of best prospect in the system.
He began the 2006 season with an assignment to Double-A San Antonio and continued hitting right out of the gate. His .288/.386/.525 line during the first 15 games of the season continued to show the skills he was known for – a good approach at the plate, knowledge of the strike zone, and serious power (11.1% K, 10.0% BB). However, just two weeks into the season, he required knee surgery to repair a torn miniscus in his left knee and remove bone chips from his left elbow. This sidelined him until June, and upon his return, the Mariners gave him a promotion to Triple-A Tacoma.
Things haven’t gone as well since his return. He’s struggling for the first time in his life as PCL pitchers have proven more of a challenge. He’s hitting just .252/.320/.354 in 206 at-bats, and his base skills that we know he has haven’t demonstrated themselves. He has just 14 walks in 206 at-bats and is failing to make consistent contact, striking out 47 times (20.1% K, 6.9% BB). He’s also not making consistent hard contact – just 13 of his 52 hits have gone for extra bases. This slump isn’t a case of him hitting the ball right at people. He’s just not making solid contact. He’s posting a ridiculous 27.9% IF/F rate. Essentially, when he hits it in the air, it’s not leaving the infield.
Clement just turned 23 this week, so there’s no real reason to be concerned about his struggles. The promotion to Tacoma was extremely aggressive to begin with, and when combined with the fact that he had missed six weeks due to an injury, it’s not a big surprise that he’s experiencing an adjustment period. The skillset of power and patience is still there, but he just needs to adjust to better pitchers and start making better contact more frequently.
Clement’s struggles in Tacoma have made it easy to have him begin the 2007 season back in the PCL and ignore the talks about what to do with him and Kenji Johjima when Clement is major league ready. The team is wisely taking a “we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it” approach, realizing that many things can happen over the course of time, and making a decision now based on Clement’s projected arrival time isn’t in the best interests of the franchise.
I’m firmly against the suggestions of moving Clement to another position to get his bat to the majors sooner. With the additions of Ben Broussard and Chris Snelling to the line-up on a regular basis, the Mariners have added two major league quality left-handed bats that they didn’t have a month ago. Despite all the cries for “left handed sock” that we have heard the past year, the current line-up is actually fairly well balanced, with Ichiro, Ibanez, Broussard, and Snelling all swinging quality bats from the left side.
The M’s would be wise to let Jeff Clement force his way into the major leagues, rather than rearranging the deck chairs to try to push up his timetable. With Johjima around, the Mariners don’t have a hole to fill at the catcher position, and the team has enough other options at 1B/DH that moving him from behind the dish shouldn’t be an option. His receiving skills have developed nicely, and his defensive reputation is significantly better now than it was a year ago.
With Jeff Clement and Adam Jones, the Mariners have two strong up-the-middle building blocks for their future sitting just half an hour south of Safeco Field. While they gave in to the temptation of bringing Jones up to fill a need, the team would do well to ignore any similar unctions they get with Jeff Clement. Give him another year in Tacoma, and he’ll let you know when he’s ready for the show.
Game 127, Yankees at Mariners
Johnson vs Washburn.
The 1990s Mariners are often associated with Ken Griffey Jr, Jay Buhner, Edgar Martinez, Lou Piniella, and even occassionally Alex Rodriguez. But for me, a lot of the memories that I love have to do with the Big Unit. I remember his no-hitter. I was at a couple of his 19K performances. I skipped school to watch him beat the Angels in the one game playoff. No one can forget the roar of the crowd when he began to warm up in game 5 of the ALDS against the Yankees. Randy Johnson was the most fun pitcher to watch of my youth. He was so dominant, so intimidating, and so tall.
When I was about 10 or 11, I went to Dave Valle’s baseball camp, where we learned not much of use but got to hang out with major league players. I remember asking Brian Holman how he felt when Ken Phelps went yard to end the perfect game and what he’d do if brother Brad ever blew a save for him. I remember asking Valle about Edgar’s toe tap timing mechanism. But more than anything else, I remember the last day, there was several lines for autographs. Valle’s line was the longest, naturally, and the Julio Cruz and Brian Holman lines were pretty long too. But the shortest line led to the table where the tall ugly guy sat. We didn’t really know who he was or why he was here, but I decided to get in that line, and ended up having a 10 minute conversation with Randy Johnson, and he couldn’t have been any nicer to me. He won me over that day, and then spent the next 10 years reinforcing what I already knew – this guy was awesome, and I’d never see anything like him again.
I never got on the Randy sold out bandwagon. I pulled for the Diamondbacks to win the World Series because I wanted to see him get a ring. I didn’t care when he went to the hated Yankees. He’s still Randy Johnson.
Call me whatever you want, but tonight, I’m rooting for Randy Johnson again. I hope he throws another no-hitter. Thanks for all the memories, RJ.