Outfield flies, Safeco Field, Jarrod Washburn
We’ve discussed the Washburn deal to death in the past few days, so, if you’re checking the blog for our thoughts on the signing, those threads are a good place to start.
However, since the deal is now official, I want to expound on a point that is basically the major sticking point between those who like the signing and those who don’t. Jarrod Washburn has some really severe home/road splits in two of the past three seasons. Supporters of the Washburn signing repeatedly point to his road ERA as a sign of his true talent level, and the argument goes that taking him away from Edison Field will significantly help his performance.
However, as Jeff Sullivan demonstrated over at Lookout Landing, the entirity of the difference between Washburn’s home/road performances has been in the ratio of home runs per fly ball that he’s allowed. At Edison Field, 11.3 percent of his flyballs have left the yard. On the road, just 8.9 percent of his flyballs have gone for home runs. The league average is 11 percent, so it would appear that the abberation here is the road HR/FB ratio. However, his home HR/FB ratio is actually a little higher than we’d expect as well, because as we’ll see in a second, Edison Field significantly neutralizes home runs.
Thanks to the great batted ball information the guys at the Hardball Times have, we can break down the differences between Safeco and Edison on a per-outfield-fly basis.
Per OF Fly Safeco Edison Difference Fair Outs 3.30% 1.30% 2.00% Foul Outs 13.80% -25.00% 38.80% Singles -21.00% 20.00% -41.00% Doubles -11.00% 1.70% -12.70% Triple -30.00% -17.00% -13.00% Home Run -11.00% -10.00% -1.00%
Here’s what the table says, essentially. A flyball is 3.3 percent more likely to be caught in fair territory than in an average ballpark. It is 1.3 percent more likely to be caught in Edison Field than average. So, Washburn was clearly not pitching in a park that was detrimental to flyball pitchers.
Below that, we have the break down for each hit type per flyball. You’ll see the huge positive number for singles and the large negative number for triples and home runs. Essentially, what this tells us is that flyballs in Anaheim are far more likely to end up as a single than in most parks, but far less likely to end up as a triple or home run. Essentially, Edison converts homers and triples into singles and outs. Which is why, as a whole, it’s pitcher friendly.
Safeco has a very similar home run to fly ball factor, but it destroys all other types of hits in a way that Edison can’t match. Essentially, the real effect of Safeco on run scoring isn’t as much in its home run prevention, where its above average but not earth shatteringly so, but in singles/doubles/triples prevention, where its a monster. Safeco also has the added bonus of generating flyballs (5.6 percent more than an average park), so not only does it turn flyballs into outs, but by creating more flyballs than normal, its compoundings its advantage.
Safeco is a great park for flyball pitchers. But Edison Field is a pretty good one for pitchers, too. And, when looking at the real reason Washburn struggled at home versus his road performance-HR to FB ratio-Safeco offers a minimal improvement.
Safeco should help Jarrod Washburn. But Edison should have helped Jarrod Washburn too.
Bronson Arroyo
Because those annoying Reed-for-Arroyo rumors won’t go away, I figured I’d do a quick explanation of why such a trade would be a terrible idea. One in a long series of terrible ideas, unfortunately.
Arroyo is actually a similar, though right-handed, pitcher to Jarrod Washburn, who we’ve discussed to death the past few days. Their overall profile is very similar.
Extreme flyball pitcher. 30 percent of the batters Washburn faced hit outfield flies, 9th most out of 216 MLB pitchers who faced at least 300 batters. He’s a more extreme flyball pitcher than every Mariner except Julio Mateo (the most extreme flyball pitcher in the majors).
Slightly above average walk rate. In fact, his percentage of batters faced that drew walks (7.75%) is almost identical to Roger Clemens (7.76%). Command isn’t a big problem for Arroyo. He throws strikes.
Pitch-to-contact starter. He struck out 11.38% of the batters he faced. Ryan Franklin’s mark was 11.16%, for comparison. Among those same 216 pitchers with at least 300 batters faced, Arroyo ranks 196th in strikeout rate.
Essentially, Arroyo has one skill; throw the ball over the plate. He doesn’t miss bats, and he doesn’t induce groundballs. He’s a use-your-defense guy who relies on his outielders to run down an awful lot of balls in the gaps and hopes that his flyballs don’t leave the yard too often.
It’s not a reliable package, as Franklin should have taught the organization. In cases where the team’s outfield defense is spectacular, and when matched with the right park, these guys can be superficially useful, as Franklin was in 2003 and Aaron Sele was in 2001. But their shelf life is short, and they’re surviving on the backs of their more talented teammates.
To make matters even worse, to acquire Arroyo and his flyball proclivities, the M’s would have to part with Jeremy Reed, who, at worst, is able to cover center field competently (I’m not sold on him being a great defensive CF yet, but he’s clearly not bad). In replacing Reed, the M’s would almost certainly have to settle for a defensive downgrade, whether it be Willie Bloomquist, Preston Wilson, or pretty much any other available center fielder. If you like the idea of replacing Reed on the open market, you may want to ask yourself why the Yankees, who are currently starting Bubba Crosby in CF, looked at these same options and said “no thanks”.
So, remove Reed from CF and replace him with Bloomquist, for instance. Now you have an outfield defense of Ibanez (average to poor), Bloomquist (poor), and Ichiro (great). Not exactly Winn-Cameron-Ichiro. In order to succeed, Arroyo requires fantastic defensive outfielders behind him. In order to acquire Arroyo, we have to remove a big part of what would be the team’s outfield defense. Not exactly the best way to make sure Arroyo’s strengths are maximized, is it?
If the M’s are determined to have a veteran pitch-to-contact innings sponge at the back of the rotation, Arroyo isn’t even superior to Jason Johnson. Johnson, a free agent, is basically a groundball version of Arroyo. Throws strikes, doesn’t miss bats, but induces groundballs instead of flyballs. Oh, and he doesn’t cost us Jeremy Reed.
Ideally, the M’s would just get over their hangup with marginal starters who depend on their defense for their value and actually acquire pitchers with some real talent, but that apparently is asking too much. So, in the vein of lowered expectations, I’m simply asking that if the M’s are going to pay several million for a replacement level contact pitcher, let’s make it the guy who doesn’t cost us Jeremy Reed, okay?
Please.
Meet-up Wrap-up
The book event with Baseball Prospectus’ Jonah Keri was last night, and was thoroughly enjoyable. It was good to see some folks again, and good to meet others for the first time.
— We heard about (and saw the table of contents for) the forthcoming BP book Baseball Between the Numbers, about which Jonah is enthused. If he’s excited about it, then so am I.
— Jonah brought photocopied handouts of the latest PECOTA projections for Jarrod Washburn. Unfortunately, he’s now facing federal charges for distribution of obscenity. [rimshot]
— I got a bunch of great post ideas from the attendees, including a summation of Bill Bavasi’s record so far and the role of “intangibles” in player evaluation.
— Guests Jon Paul Morosi of the P-I and Larry Stone of the Times listened in, no doubt preparing parallel features on myself and Jonah.
Due to the unexpected outburst of a Dixieland band, a brief softshoe did materialize. No karaoke, though. Many thanks to everyone who showed up.
The 3.20 ERA
Any article you read on the signing of Jarrod Washburn, and any comment defending it, is going to reference his 3.20 ERA last year. In fact, we’ve already seen numerous comments to the effect of “the guy had the fourth best ERA in the American League last year, and that’s more important than his strikeout rate”. The assumption, of course, is that the 3.20 ERA is somehow indicative of a skill Washburn will bring to Seattle. His fielding independant numbers don’t support that assertion. But the fact remains that he did have a 3.20 ERA last year. How’d he do it?
Well, let’s take a look inside Washburn’s season.
Washburn faced 740 batters over the course of the year. 243 of those, 32.7 percent, reached base. The AL average was 32.5 percent. So, we can conclude that Washburn was not significantly better than average at keeping hitters from reaching base.
How about how many bases they got initially? Of the 184 hits he allowed, 129 of them were singles, 31 were doubles, 5 were triples, and 19 were home runs. 70 percent of his hits allowed were singles, compared to just 67 percent of as the league average. That’s not huge, but it’s significant. While he allowed a league average number of baserunners, the fact that he kept more of them to singles than we’d expect helped keep runs off the board. So, there’s part of the lower-than-expected ERA, but certainly not all of it.
So, we know he put an average amount of guys on base, but he allowed a well below average number to score. So let’s take a look at his strand rate. Of the batters he put on base, how many did he leave there when the inning ended? Well, Washburn had the highest LOB% of any pitcher in the AL. He stranded a remarkable 81.8 percent of his batters. The league average is 70 percent. That’s just an enormous difference, and the driving force behind Washburn’s low ERA.
With nobody on base, batters hit .279/.337/.428 against Jarrod Washburn. With runners on, when the league hits about 13 percent better than in non-runners on situations, they hit .267/.315/.408. That’s about a 20 percent swing from his actual performance with runners on to the league average. With runners in scoring position, it got even more extreme. He allowed hitters to bat just .238/.310/.385 in the 122 at-bats he had with RISP, and only 31 runs scored. If you replace his RISP performance with his nobody on performance, he would have given up 12 more runs than he actually did.
Overall, Washburn allowed about 24 runs less than we’d expect based on his baserunner totals and opposing batters lines. Half of that is due to his performance with runners in scoring position. The other half is a combination of the above-average singles allowance and the above average performance with runners on base in non-scoring position situations.
If you believe Washburn’s 3.20 ERA is indicative of any kind of repeatable skill, you are arguing that Jarrod Wasburn has three abilities:
1. The ability to give up singles instead of doubles and triples.
2. The ability to pitch better with runners on base.
3. The ability to be dominant with runners in scoring position.
That’s what you’re hanging your hat on, folks. And guess what? There is no evidence that any of those are repeatable skills.
Washburn’s career singles to hit ratio is 63 percent, below the 67 percent league average, and well below the 70 percent mark he posted in 2005. Even if you don’t believe in the DIPS theory, which has consistently shown over and over to be accurate, Jarrod Washburn has never shown the ability to be an exception and limit the hits he allows to singles. 2005 jumps off the page as an anomoly.
How about pitching better when men are on base?
2005:
None on: .279/.337/.428
Runners on: .267/.315/.408
Scoring Position: .238/.310/.385
2004:
None on: .250/.289/.411
Runners on: .300/.358/.496
Scoring Position: .303/.372/.492
2003:
None on: .250/.295/.333
Runners on: .266/.328/.464
Scoring Position: .250/.316/.427
2002:
None on: .226/.271/.379
Runners on: .250/.313/.368
Scoring Position: .232/.313/.299
Not a skill, folks. Washburn has never shown an ability to pitch better with runners on base. This isn’t a problem unique to him, either. Nobody pitches consistently better with runners on for long periods of time.
Jarrod Washburn did post a 3.20 ERA last year. No one denies that. The question we’ve been posing is how consistent are the skills that he showed that led to that 3.20 ERA? The answer: not at all. Washburn posted a low ERA thanks to putting men on first base and leaving them there. That’s not a recipe for success, and its not one he can repeat.
The Goatee Conspiracy
Eric Blankenship wrote in with this explanation for recent Mariner moves, which I present for your consideration and amusement:
—
As you know, Bill Bavasi’s slender mug is home to one of the finest and most meticulously groomed goatees on earth. Most of us have been guilty, at one time or another, of losing ourselves for seconds on end within his goatee’s perfect matrimony of shape and linearity. Obviously, Bavasi is a man who takes great pride in his goatee and the goatees of others. Some people even say Bavasi is obsessed with the goatee, but only because they lack the necessary faciluties required to fully comprehend the sheer divine magnitude harbored by the goatee. Read more
Times reports Washburn deal is done pending physical
I am refusing to post the link, because I refuse to believe that this is happening. If I refuse to acknowledge what Derek just called “the worst offseason [he] can remember any team having in recent memory,” it is not real. We can have a fun gathering tomorrow night, and we will all be just soggy with effervescence and good cheer.
I am happy in my happy place.
Laughing at ourselves
Tis a dark night, indeed. At some point in the next 48 hours, the M’s will announce the signing of Jarrod Washburn to the Eric Milton Disaster Contract. This award was previously known as the Greg Hibbard Memorial Contract, but Milton was awful enough to own the title outright going forward.
With the fanbase on the verge of jumping off a collective bridge, I feel like the situation needs a little levity. Serious analysis will come after the signing. For now, let’s all laugh ourselves to sleep.
Going shopping for Kevin Millwood and coming home with Jarrod Washburn is like fill in the blank. A few that hit me:
Ordering a pupu platter, yet being served a poo-poo platter.
Attempting to buy tickets to a DePaul basketball game, but accidentally ending up with tickets to a RuPaul show.
Drafting Baby Jordan, and then realizing that you came away with Harold Miner.
Going to see Cirque de Soleil in Vegas, but accidentally wandering into the Celine Dion concert.
Hearing Sean Connery is starring in a new film, and then seeing the League of Extraordinary Gentleman.
Being setup on a blind date by a friend with a model, and then finding out she was the before picture for a laser hair removal ad.
Like seeing 14 comments in response to a thread I posted on esoteric run values, and then realizing that 9 of them are by Corco.
A much better summary of the Everett child saga
Containing herein my best understanding of what happened, the courts, the distinction between family courts and why this is important, formed in consultation with a bunch of people who I really, really wish had been around when I first posted on this, before I went into trying to write this up long ago.
And with this, I close the book and hope this never arises again.
Read more
Villone to Yankees
So much for his rumored return to your Seattle Mariners; Villone dealt from Florida to New York for 26-yo lefty Ben Julianel.
Mariners close to bloated Washburn deal?
CBS is reporting that the Mariners are closing in on a four-year deal with Jarrod Washburn worth between $36 and $38 million.
I am near-apoplectic. This is utterly terrible news that, if true, could have awful consequences on the franchise for years to come. Dave already ably explained why Washburn is notably bad. Let me just add that this contract would keep him a Mariner until he turns 36 years old. He’s older than Kevin Millwood and markedly worse.
Sometimes, taking the cheaper alternative is preferable. Not this time. Even if it takes five years and $50 million to get Millwood, that would be preferable to paying this type of scratch for Washburn.