Felix Hernandez Is Trending
Felix Hernandez, last night, was absolutely outstanding, again. He didn’t quite get the official complete game, because the Angels are dicks, but he did dominate from the first pitch, because the Angels are stupid. Basically, Felix is one of the best pitchers in baseball, and he pitched like one of the best pitchers in baseball, which isn’t something that he’ll always do, but which is something he’ll do more often than most.
You’ll remember that, not long ago, Felix had a whole start where he didn’t strike out a single batter. Turns out Felix knows what he’s doing. Since then, in four games, he’s whiffed 30 while walking four, and because of that little tiny skid that overlapped with Felix also being sick, we’ve been able to appreciate these performances without taking them totally for granted. That’s the danger of steady near-perfection — you assume it, and you enjoy it less. Throw in the occasional clunker and you keep everything fresh, and we all got to enjoy seeing Felix mow down a talented division rival.
One of the storylines coming out of the game is that Felix threw some pitches in the mid-90s, which is old territory for him. When asked about the velocity, Felix said “I still got it” with a grin, and he’s clearly been feeling strong on the recent end of the flu. Now, it needs to be noted that Felix doesn’t still have his old velocity in his back pocket. His annual maximum velocity has been dropping, to go along with his average velocities. But because people have been talking about some of Felix’s trends, I thought I’d note a small handful of them. They’re not being woven into a narrative, but what they all have in common is that they have to do with Felix Hernandez, and Felix is the best.
Let’s begin with the velocity angle, using data from Brooks Baseball. What Felix doesn’t have are his old top velocities. But here’s a table of average speed by pitch. You might notice something. If you don’t, I’ll point it out to you in words, because I noticed something, hence this table being embedded.
| Year | Four-seam | Sinker | Change | Slider | Curve |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2008 | 95.7 | 94.8 | 87.9 | 87.3 | 82.3 |
| 2009 | 95.2 | 94.5 | 89.8 | 87.0 | 82.5 |
| 2010 | 95.0 | 94.4 | 90.4 | 86.6 | 82.9 |
| 2011 | 94.2 | 94.0 | 90.1 | 86.9 | 82.4 |
| 2012 | 93.1 | 92.5 | 89.3 | 85.7 | 82.1 |
| 2013 | 92.8 | 92.4 | 89.7 | 84.9 | 81.3 |
| 2014 | 93.7 | 93.3 | 90.4 | 85.5 | 81.6 |
The classifications aren’t perfect. Surely, some four-seamers and sinkers are in the wrong bins, and, surely, some changeups are in the wrong bins. But don’t worry about those little details, because what’s important is the bigger trend the data captures. Felix’s average velocity is actually up. He’s throwing harder four-seamers. He’s throwing harder sinkers. He’s throwing harder changeups and sliders and curveballs. We all got used to Felix slowing down, and he hardly suffered because of it, but now this is unexpected. Felix’s velocities have turned back the clock, and if you consider that he spent a lot of his velocity decline period learning how to pitch better, probably the last thing hitters want to see is a better-pitching version of Felix Hernandez who also throws a bit harder. I don’t know how much this boost helps, but it’s not at all something we would’ve been looking for.
Now let’s move on from there. Let’s spend a little time talking and thinking about pitch locations. First, here’s a table estimating Felix’s rates of grooved pitches. This is arbitrary, so I came up with two methods. Basically, this is a table showing Felix’s rates of pitches over the middle of the plate, with some elevation. The columns are different, with the numbers in the last column being bigger, but the same story gets told.
| Year | %Grooved, 1 | %Grooved, 2 |
|---|---|---|
| 2008 | 8.9% | 18% |
| 2009 | 9.1% | 18% |
| 2010 | 9.3% | 20% |
| 2011 | 8.0% | 18% |
| 2012 | 8.1% | 17% |
| 2013 | 8.8% | 18% |
| 2014 | 6.3% | 16% |
The lowest number in the first column: 2014’s. The lowest number in the second column: 2014’s. The differences aren’t huge, but Felix has been grooving fewer pitches than ever, to the tune of one or two pitches a game. That’s one or two fewer potential meatballs, and meatballs are the ones you feel most bad about. Consider this evidence that Felix has improved his command. And we can look at something else more significant.
Felix is a guy who always says he wants to be pitching down in the zone. How often has he actually been doing that? Let’s set a threshold, at two feet above the ground at the front of the plate. Following, a table, with Felix’s rates of pitches thrown below that bar.
| Year | Under 2 |
|---|---|
| 2008 | 29% |
| 2009 | 35% |
| 2010 | 34% |
| 2011 | 38% |
| 2012 | 36% |
| 2013 | 44% |
| 2014 | 51% |
Used to be, Felix threw about a third of his pitches down. That rate hiked up in 2013, and it’s hiked up again this year, to the point where half of his pitches are down. That rate ranks third-highest in baseball at the moment, Felix surrounded by a bunch of groundball pitchers, and this probably has a lot to do with Mike Zunino and Felix’s trust in Zunino to get him strikes. It also has to do with what Zunino calls, and it also has to do with Felix being better able to locate all of his pitches.
Why might this be important? During the PITCHf/x era, Felix has allowed a dinger every 128 strikes above two feet. Meanwhile, he’s allowed a dinger every 191 strikes below two feet. Felix this season has allowed three home runs, and zero since April 26. A lot of dinger prevention is noise, but some of it can be under a pitcher’s control, and by staying down so much, Felix might be able to sustain some of his dinger suppression. Or, in easier words: low strikes better than higher strikes. For Felix, anyhow.
We’re not done, but we’re getting there. Let’s shift again, to stuff having to do with pitch mix. Here’s a table, showing the percentage of Felix’s strikeouts ending with a breaking ball:
| Year | BreakingK% |
|---|---|
| 2008 | 36% |
| 2009 | 40% |
| 2010 | 26% |
| 2011 | 25% |
| 2012 | 27% |
| 2013 | 18% |
| 2014 | 7.2% |
The slider? The curveball? Good pitches, both of them, but no longer really used as putaway pitches. Felix has gone to his fastballs more, and his changeup more, and as you’ve noticed, he’s remained fantastic, with a whole lot of strikeouts. You think of breaking balls as being swing-and-miss pitches, but maybe Felix knows hitters are thinking that, too. Yet he has perhaps the greatest changeup in the galaxy, and in countless senses it’s probably unfair. And his changeup is basically a fastball, and he also has other fastballs, and the long and short of it is hitters should probably try not to get into two-strike counts when Felix is on the mound because what hope do you have?
At last, a relatively minor thing. Felix hasn’t abandoned his curveball — he still uses it often against lefties. He just uses it more often to get himself set up. The curveball shows up earlier in counts, and here’s a table of his annual curveball strike rates:
| Year | CU Strike%, LHB |
|---|---|
| 2008 | 58% |
| 2009 | 56% |
| 2010 | 62% |
| 2011 | 59% |
| 2012 | 61% |
| 2013 | 58% |
| 2014 | 67% |
Never before until this year was it a reliable strike pitch. Maybe the differences seem small to you, but the difference between a 60% strike rate and a 67% strike rate is the difference between Fernando Rodney and Felix himself. Felix has had a better feel for his curve so far this year against lefties, keeping it in or around the zone. And Mike Zunino has done a good job of catching the curve down in the zone, allowing Felix to gain a strike on the given unfortunate batter. Pitching is complicated, but Felix is doing basically all of it well. It’s true on the macro level, and it’s true on the micro level.
That’s what I’ve got. It’s a lot to consume. The gist: Felix has been amazing for a while. But, underneath, he’s been changing and adjusting, in order to stay around elite level. And this year, he might be the best he’s been, given his approach, his intellect, and his command. It doesn’t hurt to also have a hell of a catcher. What you don’t see when you stare at a rock are all of its spinning electrons. But that rock, in a way, is in constant motion. The rock is a different rock every second, even if it looks like the same old rock. We’ve got us a pretty rock.
Game 52, Angels at Mariners
King Felix vs. CJ Wilson, 7:10pm
Ah, April 1st, 2014. The M’s were riding high off of Felix’s opening day masterpiece, and they faced CJ Wilson in game 2 of the season – a familiar divisional rival who’d been extremely tough on them in 2013. That success, of course, came against the OLD Mariners. You know – the hitless wonders who paraded a series of failing DHs, Oylerian glove-first, declining shortstops and prospects that failed to develop. These were the NEW Mariners – with dynamic lead-off man Abe Almonte, with elite SS Brad Miller, and with enviable pitching depth.
On that day, the M’s battered Wilson for six runs on eight hits over 5 2/3 innings. Brad Miller took Wilson, a lefty, deep, and then he hit another one out off of righty Michael Kohn. Almonte doubled to set the table for Cano and Smoak, and Dustin Ackley hadn’t looked this good since 2011. Meanwhile, Erasmo Ramirez was brilliant – giving up only two runs (on a mistake pitch that Raul hit out) over seven innings and striking out NINE without a walk. The M’s were firing on all cylinders while the Angels still appeared to have holes. Pujols wasn’t hitting. WIlson’s dominance of lefties seemed to be faltering, and the Halos bullpen was *clearly* crappy. We’d said at the start of the year that the M’s needed to hang around .500 until Iwakuma and Walker got healthy, and then their offense could carry them to contention. At least on April 1st, that looked like a foregone conclusion – they could take charge of the division BEFORE Walker threw a pitch.
Last night, I had a twitter conversation with Colin from Lookout Landing about the year so far. The M’s ARE hanging around .500, and have been all year, despite missing Iwakuma for a month and Walker entirely. So why don’t we feel good about the team? What is it about a loss like last night’s, or the losses to Price and Odorizzi in the Tampa series, that feels so deflating? If the M’s had the exact same record, but LOOKED like the team that played on April 1st, would we feel the same way?
I think the answer’s no, and it’s not just because bloggers are hypercritical, soul-sucking, joy-denying losers. The promise of the season rested on two assumptions. First, that the division was incredibly tight, with no great teams, and only one terrible outlier. Second, that the M’s offense was going to be significantly better, and that the second wave of prospects could cover both pitching injuries and the holes left by failures/stagnation of the first wave of prospects. Tons of parity and growth from future starts like Miller, plus contributions from solid players like Kyle Seager and Erasmo, meant that the M’s could hang around and peak during the final months. Neither assumption appears correct at this point. The Oakland A’s are good. Again. This is the third straight year they’ve looked so-so (or worse) on paper, but the third straight year they’re actually good on the field. Pujols’ health, Garrett Richards emergence and CJ Wilson’s refining of his junkball arsenal have helped the Angels take a step forward as well. They’re now forecast for 88 wins – 8 more than the M’s. Meanwhile, the M’s rank last in the AL in OBP, and second-to-last in wRC+. It’s all so familiar.
The problem clearly isn’t their record, which is fine. It’s not that there’s been nothing to cheer about; Roenis Elias is a great story, and if he’s not been as untouchable as he was in Yankee Stadium, he’s still done far more than I’d have ever believed. Chris Young’s been solid. The back of the rotation has simply not been the problem we all thought it was, and thus, the M’s pitching’s been solid. The problem that it still seems like the aging curve for position players just doesn’t work in Seattle. Dustin Ackley was great when he came up, then struggled. Jesus Montero was great for the Yankees, then OK, but encouraging in Seattle, and then simply atrocious. On April 1st, I would’ve picked Brad Miller as an all-star, and a candidate for a big extension in the off-season. To his credit, Ackley’s actually improved, but that says more about how bad he was in 2013 than anything. A left-fielder with a just-below-league average bat is a platoon player, and that’s what Ackley’s become. Smoak’s Smoak. Nick Franklin has plenty of promise, but after his first month in the big leagues, he was hitting .302/.368/.500. I haven’t looked, but I think his line since then is a bit worse.
These are, theoretically, independent events. Montero has no bearing on Zunino, and Ackley’s arc isn’t predictive of Franklin’s. But a team with such a poor track record of player development needed to show that it had figured something out, whether that “something” was internal processes/coaching, or player selection. The M’s have shown a freakish ability to develop minor league infielders. I have no earthly idea why that doesn’t translate into MLB production. Not superstar production, just production. The M’s are right around .500 – basically right where I hoped they’d be. But their problems seem more systemic than they did in March, and that’s a problem.
They could erase a lot of these doubts with a big winning streak, of course. So let’s do that, M’s. I miss April 1st because that first week was one of the very few since I’ve been doing this that I didn’t feel dispassionate and clinical. I felt like a fan. I’m still a fan, and I always will be, but I recognize I’m a very different kind of fan. I don’t mind that, and of course there’s no right or wrong way to BE a fan, but April 1st felt pretty good. Hopefully someday soon we can feel like that again, whatever the M’s record is.
1: Jones, CF
2: Romero, RF
3: Cano, 2B
4: Smoak, 1B
5: Seager, 3B
6: Buck, “DH”
7: Ackley, LF
8: Zunino, C
9: Franklin, SS
SP: KING FELIX
The M’s have injury problems, and a manager has to choose from among the players available, but John Buck is a questionable DH pick. I get it – the other options are Bloomquist and Cole Gillespie (CJ Wilson has large platoon splits over his career, so you really want a righty at DH). But if you’re not going to use Gillespie, go get someone you’re OK playing. My guess is that this has to do with Buck’s “career success” against Wilson – he’s 3 for 5 against him, with a double and a homer (which came in 2007 and 2008, respectively). I know, I know: this team had Brendan Ryan at DH last year. Twice. Endy Chavez DH’d three times. There’s a precedent for necessity to invent some of the worst line-ups imaginable. I just wish we were past this point a bit. In my mind, I’ll just transpose Buck and Zunino’s positions.
Ok, so that preview was a bit glum. You want good news? Taijuan Walker makes his 2014 debut today for Tacoma. Go watch it at Cheney tonight. He’ll throw around 75 pitches or so, and then Erasmo Ramirez may get some work in (April 1st feels like yeaaarrrrs ago).
Victor Sanchez starts for Jackson; the Nimitz-class righty’s struggled following his DL trip. Here’s hoping he snaps out of it against Mobile. Tyler Pike blah blah blah K:BB ratio, blah blah disappointing. I don’t want to pick on either of these two, both of whom came into the year far, far, far more highly regarded than Roenis Elias. I just want to see some signs of improvement.
Game 51, Angels at Mariners
Roenis Elias vs. Jered Weaver, 7:10pm
I mentioned it in the opening day game thread, but Jered Weaver’s had to make some adjustments in recent years. He’s not throwing 90 anymore – he’s at 85-88. Perhaps due to elbow problems that have put a dent in his workload, he’s using his slider less and a slow curve more. All of these changes can be placed in the “aging” bucket, of course: he’s older, so the aches and pains start to add up, the body takes longer to recover, and he can’t throw as hard as he did at 24-25. What’s interesting is just how well Weaver’s adapted. He’s giving the Angels fewer innings, but he’s yielding fewer runs when he’s out there.
Go by FIP, and you see the skeletal hand of aging at work. From 2010-2014, Weaver’s FIP has inched upwards: 3.06, 3.20, 3.75, 3.82, 4.06. A large part of this is due to his K% falling back down after spiking in 2010 – it’s gone from nearly 26% to around 19% in recent years. Lower velo, fewer strikeouts, a walk rate that’s fairly stable but higher than it was in 2010, etc. – it all shows a pitcher in decline. But look at his RA! From 2011-2014, over 645 innings, Weaver’s giving up 2.90 runs (earned and unearned) per 9. For that same time period, Justin Verlander’s RA is 3.31…and he won two Cy Young awards in those years. Let’s be clear about this: I’m not advocating ditching FIP for ERA, or that Weaver is waaaay better than Verlander.* I’m saying that Weaver’s been sneaky good if all you look at is FIP. On a *rate* basis, though, Weaver’s been excellent despite the drop in apparent skill. So is he just the luckiest guy in the American League?
Let’s step back a bit. When he broke into the Angels’ rotation in 2006, he posted great results and a poor FIP and saber-friendly fans/blogs ID’d him as a regression candidate. For the next several years, Weaver essentially proved them right. When his strand rate wasn’t off-the-charts great, he was a good-but-not-great pitcher. From 2007-09, his RA was over 4, pretty much dead on his FIP. As a FB/SL guy, the problem centered on platoon splits. As a guy with a whippy, 3/4 delivery, his fastball (which righties describe as deceptive) was easier to pick up. Beginning in 2009, Weaver began using a sinker to lefties, and by 2010, it was his primary pitch to them.** To righties, his delivery and odd movement meant he could throw fastballs in the center of the zone and up in the zone and not pay for it. To lefties, he learned to keep the ball away and use his other pitches to keep lefties from pulling the ball in the air. He’s stopped chasing strikeouts, and instead offers hitters the opportunity to hit the ball to center field. And it’s worked.
Weaver’s made a number of changes, but one thing’s been constant: he’s an extreme fly-ball pitcher. His fastball movement’s the key to his reliably extreme GB rates – his four-seamer now has essentially zero horizontal movement and much more vertical “rise” than most. As a result, the pitch is hit in the air (for a fly ball or pop-up) over half the time batters make contact. Righties in particular basically can’t hit ground balls even if they wanted to. Since the introduction of his sinker, the story with lefties is a bit more complicated. They still hit plenty of fly balls, but he’s clearly not as extreme. The blizzard of fly balls and the existence of Mike Trout (and Peter Bourjos before him) help keep his BABIP very low, which in turn has boosted his strand rate. In the past several seasons, his average strand rate’s about 80%. Essentially, Jered Weaver has become Chris Young. Neither one LOOKS like an ace, and both post lackluster fielding independent stats, but both routinely post much better ERAs thanks in part to low BABIPs and high strand rates. And they do it despite fly-ball velocities that wouldn’t look out of place in a good high school league.
All of that said, he’s struggled in Safeco. His magical BABIP-suppression works wonders at home (career ave. of .264), less so in Safeco (.314). He’s not bad by any stretch, but think of how poorly the M’s have hit in Safeco during Weaver’s career. The fact that they’re hitting .283 against anyone is kind of miraculous. That it’s against Weaver is kind of shocking.
1: Jones, CF
2: Saunders, RF
3: Cano, DH
4: Smoak, 1B
5: Seager, 3B
6: Ackley, LF
7: Franklin, 2B
8: Zunino, C
9: Miller, SS
SP: Elias
Jordan Pries starts for Tacoma today against ex-Rainier Jarrett Grube of Salt Lake tonight at Cheney.
Speaking of Cheney, it looks like Taijuan Walker’s on track for a rehab start with Tacoma tomorrow at 7. May it go better than Paxton’s.
* Weaver pitched 645 innings (so far) from 2011-2014. Verlander’s at 779. ‘
** “OK, but aren’t you the guy that’s always saying pitchers should use four-seamers to OPPOSITE handed hitters and target same-handed bats with sinkers?” Guilty, but again, nothing about Weaver makes a lot of sense from a traditional saber POV. He throws slow FBs at the top of the zone and gives up a ton of fly ball contact, but he thrives. The fact that his pitch usage is out of step with pitch type run values is perhaps the least surprising thing about him.
Podcast: Memorial Day of Mariners
Monday morning podcast(s) continues/begins.
It was kind of a Mariner week, you know? .500, splitting both series versus Texas teams. Nick Franklin is up, but not really hitting. Stuff happened but it kind of feels like it’s the same as it always has been. It’s Memorial Day.
Podcast with Jeff and Matthew: Direct link! || iTunes link! || RSS/XML link!
Thanks again to those that helped support the show and/or StatCorner work in general last week, and in the past, and hopefully in the future. It’s truly appreciated.
Game 50, Angels at Mariners
Chris Young vs. Tyler Skaggs, 1:10pm
Happy Memorial Day, and thanks to all who’ve served.
The M’s got outplayed yesterday, and lost to Dallas Keuchel, who’s on fire right now. M’s manager Lloyd McClendon provided some bulletin board material by implying that the M’s had more to do with scoring just one unearned run than Mr. Keuchel did. Members of the Astros organization seem perturbed, as they would and probably should. I understand, at some level, McClendon’s frustration: Keuchel throws 90mph and came into the year with a career ERA over 5. He’s pitched like an ace for a month-plus, but McClendon’s probably not tracking breakout seasons from opponents – he’s properly more concerned about some implosions on his own roster. Still, part of going with an old-school baseball lifer at skipper is that they’re so attuned to the unwritten rules of baseball that they can keep their own club out of trouble and fire their team up about breaches of protocol. This is an unintentional slight, but a completely unnecessary one.
Today’s game features Tyler Skaggs, the ex-Angel prospect turned D-Backs prospect turned back into an Angels prospect. He went to Arizona in the Dan Haren deal, and while he pitched effectively in the D-Backs system, his velocity dropped noticeably over time. He wasn’t hurt, but apparently a mechanical tweak the D-Backs made sapped some velocity. When he debuted with Arizona, he was throwing 90mph and getting hit fairly hard. I saw him for Reno and saw a decent but by no means eye-popping prospect – more of a command lefty; a potential #4. Others saw a lot more, to be fair, but I still wonder how much of that was the residue of his initial season or two in the Angels system. In any event, he moved back to Anaheim when the Halos shipped Mark Trumbo to the NL, and the Angels pretty much instantly (and very publicly) talked about essentially un-doing the mechanical tweak the D-Backs had made. And, pretty much instantly, that “missing” velocity was back. Last season, Skaggs averaged a touch over 90mph on his FB. This year, he’s scraping 93, and his FIP’s down by over a full run.
Now, that’s not to say Skaggs is an ace or anything. In his initial call-ups with Arizona, he had home run trouble and platoon split issues – or rather, his platoon split problems manifested in lots of HRs to righties. He’s given up 16 HRs to righties in his career against 2 to southpaws. As a lefty, he faces overwhelmingly right-handed line-ups, so on a rate basis, it’s not quite so stark. But HRs were an issue in Arizona, and simply moving to Anaheim may have helped him control his gopheritis. That said, 2.5 extra MPH on his fastball can’t hurt either. It may be the combination of velocity and the mechanical tweak, but his four-seamer is now much more over-the-top, with tons of vertical rise and very little arm-side run. His sinker’s very distinct, with lots of run and much less rise. Like so many pitchers, though, the way he uses them seems backwards to me. Against lefties, he’s a four-seam/curve ball pitcher. Righties see far more sinkers, the curve, and some change-ups. To his credit, Skaggs used to throw four-seamers to righties and they creamed it, so it’s not like he never even attempted to pitch in alignment with pitch type platoon splits.
Skaggs’ K rate is down markedly, which is odd considering the velo gain, but by getting ground balls and avoiding walks and HRs, he’s been more effective overall. He still lacks an outpitch to righties, which may be contributing to his poor strand rate (it’s why his ERA is higher than his FIP). But thanks to Corey Hart’s injury, the M’s aren’t really set up to take advantage of Skaggs’ weaknesses. It’s not a bad match-up, as the M’s don’t show huge platoon splits as a club, but ideally, the team would have a tougher righty to put at DH than Stefen Romero. Save us, Mike Zunino!
1: Jones, CF
2: Saunders, RF
3: Cano, 2B
4: Smoak, 1B
5: Zunino, C
6: Seager, 3B
7: Romero, DH
8: Ackley, LF
9: Franklin, SS
SP: Young
James Paxton’s bullpen session was cancelled today as he’s still dealing with forearm tightness after his rehab start. Awesome.
Speaking of which, the Mets have placed top prospect Noah Syndergaard on the minor league DL with elbow soreness of a particular type strongly correlated with ligament damage. I’m not a Mets fan, but I got to watch Syndergaard pitch, and I sincerely hope that’s not what’s going on.
Edwin Diaz is on the mound for Clinton today. Tacoma’s Memorial Day game versus El Paso gets underway at 1:35; they face one of the Padres top prospects in LHP Matt Wisler. He’ll be opposed by Andrew Carraway. Read Mike Curto’s story on the Rainiers wild 14-12 loss last night; Jabari Blash hit two HRs for the Rainiers.
Game 49, Astros at Mariners
Hisashi Iwakuma vs. Dallas Keuchel, 1:10pm
First off, sorry for the lack of a game thread yesterday. I took Jeff’s advice and did non-baseball activities all day with the family. Hope you’re all enjoying the holiday weekend as well. If so, yesterday’s game was one to miss, as Brandon Maurer had a forgettable start – and one that could be his last for a while. Following along on twitter was sort of interesting, as everyone was impressed with Maurer between the 2nd and 4th innings, and then everyone was convinced he needed to be sent down.
Today’s game’s a bit more interesting, as we’ve got a fascinating pitcher’s match-up. I’ve spent too much time mocking Keuchel’s name and not enough about his startling rise to prominence this year. Check out a list of the top FIPs in MLB, and Keuchel’s solidly in the top 20, ahead of some big names like Cueto, Samardzija, and Scherzer. His actual RA’s right in line with that FIP too, which is pretty stunning for a pitcher who’s had an ERA over 5 in each of the past two years.
Full credit to Eno Sarris at Fangraphs who ID’d Keuchel as a potential break out last year when he ditched an ineffective curveball for a slider that racked up solid whiff rates. I remember thinking at the time that his breaking ball was missing the point – Keuchel wasn’t great against lefties, he had huge problems against right-handed hitters. For a guy with platoon split problems, adding a slider seemed odd; like a batter who’s having trouble catching up to good velocity switching to a heavier bat. As it turned out, though, the pitch was a key part of a broader transformation.
When Keuchel came up with Houston, he threw two fastballs around 88, a change-up and a curve (and an occasional cutter). He threw the four- and two-seamers in equal proportion, and the four-seamer got pounded. The change-up got grounders, but righties hit it well if he hung one. Part of the issue may have been its velo – his change averaged 75 mph, or about the same as a slow curve ball. After watching Felix for years, I’m not doctrinaire about an 8mph gap between FB and CH velocities, but that gap seemed sub-optimal. Last season, he gained velocity on each pitch – his FB now averages a touch over 90. He still had a large gap between FB and CH, and the pitch was again hit fairly hard. Still, the big problem was his four-seamer. Pitch type slash lines can be tough to interpret, as Keuchel’s never going to throw an 0-2 or 1-2 four-seamer, but in 2013, batters slugged *.810* against the four-seamer. Caveat that all you want, that’s a problem.
This season, his slider’s incredibly effective against lefties, and he’s adopted a very different approach to his four-seam, which he throws more often to righties. Instead of trying to throw it low and away (or just off the plate away), he’s trying to tie up righties by putting it just under their hands. Meanwhile, the change-up’s now up at 80mph+, making the gap between the FB and CH a bit more normal. Keuchel’s getting both more whiffs AND more grounders with it, and perhaps more importantly, he’s actually running reverse platoon splits this year. That’s probably not going to continue, but he’s not getting annihilated by RHBs anymore. Finally, he’s refined the sinker/two-seamer to the point where it’s a historic ground-ball generating machine. To date this season, about 84% of sinkers put in play are on the ground, which has led to Keuchel’s impossible 67.7% ground ball rate. Keuchel was always a ground baller, but he’s become an off-the-charts worm burner despite the fact that his new slider’s not a real GB pitch. Instead, the change-up and sinker combine to make it almost impossible for righties to elevate the ball.
Mike Petriello notes that a part of the reason Keuchel’s generating so many grounders is that he’s getting hitters to expand the zone by targeting the area just below the zone. Both pitch fx and BIS show that his zone% dropped from 2013 to 2014, despite the fact that his walk rate has dropped for the second year in a row – plummeting to 5% in 2014. Still, if you look at any one pitch, nothing looks transformative. It’s not like he used to throw his change-up or sinker down the middle and now puts them all 4″ below the bottom of the zone. It’s a reminder of how a small change, or a series of small changes, can make a huge difference to a pitcher’s overall results.
1: Jones, CF
2: Romero, DH
3: Cano, 2B
4: Smoak, 1B
5: Seager, 3B
6: Zunino, C
7: Saunders, RF
8: Gillespie, LF
9: Miller, SS
SP: Iwakuma
He doesn’t have the name recognition, but Keuchel’s now a very tough opponent. It’s nice to acknowledge that and still have some confidence that the M’s guy’s better. Never leave us, Hisashi Iwakuma.
James Paxton had an up and down rehab start in Game 1 of the Rainiers double-header yesterday. On the plus side, he pitched in a professional game. On the down side, he gave up three runs in 3 IP with 5 Ks and 2 BBs. Worse, he told Lloyd McClendon he had some forearm tightness, which he characterized as “normal” but which probably isn’t reassuring to anyone.
Today’s MiLB starters include Lars Huijer in Clinton, Cam Hobson for Jackson, and James Gilheeney for Tacoma.
Speaking of the minors, the big story in the PCL today is that the Iowa Cubs have signed Manny Ramirez as a player/coach. Mike Curto helpfully points out that the I-Cubs visit Tacoma for the last home games of the year, from August 24th-27th. It’s possible that struggling superprospect Javier Baez may still be with them then too. In fact, having Ramirez work with Baez seems to be one of the reasons the Cubs made this move. Could be fascinating.
Game 47, Astros at Mariners
King Felix vs. Rudy Owens, 7:10pm
So we’ve got a pitcher making his major league debut tonight, a hurler who came up through the Pittsburgh system, studiously avoiding the Cactus League and the Arizona Fall league, ensuring that there’s absolutely no pitch fx data to look at. That’s too bad, because scouts were somewhat divided on Owens’ velocity and stuff – it’d be great to have some data to settle that debate.
Owens, a lefty, was a late-round draft pick in 2006 who moved steadily up the chain in the Pittsburgh system thanks to extremely low walk rates. Looking back at his line, it’s tough to know how to see him – great control, but occasional bouts of ineffectiveness. Like he was able to keep the ball in the zone, but unable to prevent hitters from punishing him for keeping the ball in the zone. Moving over to Houston in the Wandy Rodriguez deal, he got knocked around in his first taste of the PCL. He started back in Oklahoma City again last year, but had a foot injury that required season-ending surgery after just 17 innings. This year was his third go-round in OKC, and familiarity hasn’t improved the raw results. PCL hitters are hitting over .300 against him, leading to an ERA over 6 despite the still sterling walk rate and an extremely low HR rate. He’s not overpowering, and he’s been a bit of a fly ball pitcher over the course of his career. Thanks to a solid change-up, he’s run reverse platoon splits in the minors, though this is purely the result of HRs. You’ve got to assume he’d run fairly average splits in the majors, but the minor league record’s a sign that his change is probably his best pitch. If he had a good slider/curve, you’d assume he’d have a better K rate against same-handed hitters, but I’m just guessing at this point.
1: James Jones, CF
2: Stefen Romero, DH
3: Cano, 2B
4: Smoak, 1B
5: Seager, 3B
6: Gillespie, RF
7: Ackley, LF
8: Zunino, C
9: Bloomquist, SS
SP: King Felix
Taijuan Walker threw a simulated game today at Safeco, and Ryan Divish has some video of it here, and he quotes Walker as saying he’s ready to head out on a rehab start.
Speaking of rehab starts, James Paxton will start for Tacoma tomorrow at Cheney in the Rainiers double-header against El Paso.
Today’s MiLB starters include Erasmo Ramirez, Tyler Pike, Carlos Misell and Victor Sanchez. Pike and Sanchez were consensus top-10 Mariner prospects heading into 2014, but their stock has fallen a bit thus far. Sanchez missed time due to injury, and he’s been homer prone. After yielding four HRs over 113 innings last year for Clinton, he’s given up five just since coming back from the DL – over the course of just 13 2/3 innings. He’s just 19 and in AA, so he’s still a good prospect, but it’s a less-than-ideal line. Pike, as I’ve talked about frequently, has suffered from control lapses in the California League, as his K:BB ratio is currently 32:31. That said, he’s avoided a lot of damage – he’s had 9 starts on the year, and he’s given up 2 or fewer runs in 6 of them. Sure, the ERA isn’t pretty, as he’s given up plenty of runs in two disaster starts, but it’s High Desert. Still, a dead even K:BB ratio isn’t what we wanted to see.
Mike Zunino Facts Of Uncertain Fun-ness
Hello! This won’t be much of a post, because I only have a moment, but there’s something I wanted to put out there before disappearing for the holiday weekend. You should also go disappear for the holiday weekend. But not before reading this? You’re already reading this. Get to the end of this, then do whatever.
There’s something you might’ve missed in April, and that’s that Mike Zunino had the highest swing rate of any regular or semi-regular hitter in baseball. Zunino swung at 62% of all pitches, and that’s a higher rate than, say, the most undisciplined version of Josh Hamilton. Zunino also ran a low contact rate, and the next-closest Mariner had a swing rate of 51%. Yet, for as much as Zunino was swinging, he was also producing, with power compensating for a lack of walks.
It’s not April anymore, and Mike Zunino isn’t April Zunino anymore. In May, Zunino’s swing rate has been 47%. He hasn’t really seen fewer strikes, and he also hasn’t really lifted his contact rate, and it’s odd to see such a fluctuation in swing rate over a decent sample because swing rate is one of those things that just comes naturally to a hitter. Hitters are as aggressive as they are, and that’s a pretty stable trait.
Around the league, 200 different players have batted at least 50 times in April and May. Zunino’s drop in swing rate is the biggest, by more than a full percentage point. Only six players have had drops in the double digits. The biggest overall swing is about 16 percentage points, a swing-rate increase by Pablo Sandoval, but the primary point is that Zunino’s numbers are extreme and uncommon.
That’s what I thought would be a whole post. Then something else and presumably related caught my attention. According to FanGraphs, in April, Zunino saw 65% fastballs. According to FanGraphs, in May, Zunino has seen 45% fastballs. That is a big big drop in fastballs.
Let’s look at that same pool of 200 players. Here are the biggest changes in fastball rate, in percentage points:
- Mike Zunino, -20.4%
- Mike Aviles, -18.4%
- Jarrod Saltalamacchia, -16.5%
- Denard Span, -14.5%
- Mark Reynolds, -14.2%
(At the other end, Billy Hamilton leads the way at +13.8%.)
Between April and May, Mike Zunino has swung way less often, and he’s gotten fastballs way less often. These are not independent points. Other Mariners have mostly seen the same pitches, so it’s not really obviously about opponent scheduling. This is about adjustments to Mike Zunino, as the changes in his numbers are too large to just be dismissed as coincidental noise.
So? On the one hand, Zunino has dropped from a 110 April wRC+ to an 80 May wRC+. He definitely hasn’t been nearly as productive. But then, while his strikeouts are up, his walks are up, and his ISO hasn’t changed. It’s mostly about singles dropping in, and we need more than a few weeks to be able to say anything about that. Maybe Zunino can handle this. Maybe he can’t. There are positive signs and less positive signs.
Brooks Baseball offers some simplistic classifications. There’s hard, breaking, and offspeed. Some Zunino data, from there:
2013: 68% hard pitches seen
4/14: 68%
5/14: 51%
So, Zunino saw as many fastballs in April as he did during his cup of coffee last summer. But the big difference is that, this April, Zunino hit, where, last summer, he really didn’t. So my suspicion is that, once Zunino demonstrated that he can hit a fastball-heavy approach, opponents decided to not give him that anymore. They fed him fastballs until he started adjusting, and now he’s going to have to make another adjustment, to counter the league adjustment. Fun fact: the adjustments never stop. Even Pedro Martinez kept tweaking things over the course of his career, and Mike Zunino isn’t the Pedro Martinez of hitting.
When Zunino was struggling in triple-A, word was he was struggling with offspeed stuff. Now he’s seeing a lot of offspeed stuff, finally, and there’s good news and bad news about that. I don’t know if these are fun facts or not, but they are facts, so, now you know them. Mike Zunino probably also knows them. Now it’s a matter of what he can do about it. He sure is strong. He sure does miss a bunch. Thank God he can catch a damned baseball.
Names for the First-Round, 2014 Edition
Edit: I had intended to let this one sit, but this morning’s mock draft from BA indicated that we were hot on two more prospects, which I have now added to the list. One of them I am rather keen on! The other I am not.
One of the positives I can take of last season’s poor record, as I am in the lemonade business, is that the Mariners ended up with a high, protected pick in a draft that most people seem to like. And it being that time of year of wildly casting energies about at all manner of likely and unlikely possibilities, I’m now here to write about some of them in that foolish way that hopefully obviates the need of my frantically writing the evening of the draft. It worked so well in the Hultzen draft.
This year is a pitcher-heavy year for the draft. Look through the top 100 prospects by BA and you’ll only see seven hitters in the top twenty, and a little over sixty pure pitchers on the list, not counting those two-way guys who could slide into the role. With the weirdness that we’ve already seen with regard to pitchers, it’s easy to imagine a lot of teams wanting to take advantage here. Whether they do or are scared out of it remains to be seen, but it’s not as if baseball can do without pitching. It’s good that they seem to be taking the initiative to try to figure out what’s going on. Imagine a sport that, I don’t know, risked traumatic brain injury on a routine basis, and imagine that sport just ignoring those injury risks and shrugging them off. Why, people would be up in arms! Not that the arms aren’t up now, in stiff casts and largely useless… You know, let’s just move on.
I don’t have any more special insight to what the M’s might bring to this draft than I usually do. That is, aside from that the 2nd round to date has been all position players, the 4th round entirely college players, and the third round skews towards prep players. Often in the last few days, we’ll get attached pretty solidly to a name this high and that will be that. As for who is most likely, Dave noted last June that since McNamara has been at the helm, four of the five top picks have been “safe” college players who were emphasized as sure major league contributors with sound fundamentals and high floors. “Contributors” seems key here because some of these fellows are still looking to have complete seasons. Shifting gears to the exception, and a considerable reach at the time, Taijuan Walker has had at least had the look of being the highest ceiling player of the bunch, going from live-armed curiosity moving off shortstop to one of the best prospects in the game, prior to the epidemic rise of injury and surgery.
As an addendum to Dave’s post, while the first round favors college, we’ve seen them mix both raw and experienced players in the top five rounds overall. On the side of rawness, Nick Franklin, Tyler Marlette, Edwin Diaz, and Patrick Kivlehan have all been boons; Joe DeCarlo, Marcus Littlewood, and Steve Baron, less so. Nor has experience been a sure-fire winner as, first-round aside, the additions of your Kyle Seagers and your 2013 Brad Millers and your Chris Taylors have been weighed against the faults of a Rich Poythress, or a John Hicks, or a Tyler Blandford. There have also been trends that suggest a love for shortstops and college pitching, so these are also probably givens in the early rounds of what is now a three-day oh godda-
Let’s just look at some names then. This will ease past some of the obvious ones, because in the unlikely event that Aiken, Rodon, or Kolek manage to drop somehow, you would have to give them strong consideration.
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Game 45, Astros at Mariners
Roenis Elias vs. Jarred Cosart, 7:10pm
I’ve written plenty about Cosart before; depending on what you think of these write-ups, the unbalanced schedule is either a blessing or a curse. So far, we’ve talked about the fact that he throws a very hard cutter (95mph) and that he generates tons of grounders. He doesn’t have much in the way of platoon splits, but he also doesn’t have much in the way of command. It’s one of the reasons everyone pegged him as a big regression candidate this year, and indeed, his ERA’s moved from 1.95 in his brief 2013 to 4.41 so far this year. That’s not exactly a great feat of prognosticating skill, of course – basically no one has a true-talent 1.95 ERA, and guys who give up more walks than Ks DEFINITELY don’t.
So his strand rate and HR/FB have both settled back around league average, and thus his runs allowed have followed. But there’s still something interesting going on here – something beyond the whole “95mph cutter.” One of the reasons he seemed like such a lucky pitcher was that his BABIP in 2013 was just .246. This year, with everything that had been exceptional looking more like league-average, his BABIP is still just .267. Remember, Cosart’s a heavy GB pitcher – he was at 54.5% last year and he’s regressed alllll the way down to 54.4% this season. How can a right-handed pitcher getting tons of ground balls (which have a higher BABIP than fly balls) post a really low BABIP?
The first possibility is that it’s luck and/or team/park effects. Marwin Gonzalez is not going to win any gold glove awards, so I’m not buying the team thing. It *could* be luck, as he didn’t post particularly amazing BABIP numbers in the minors. If you’re willing to speculate, though, there could be a few other things at play. We know, for example, that hitters post lower BABIPs against higher pitch velocities. Pace what the color commentator is saying, the pitcher doesn’t “supply all of the power” – it’s easier to hit the ball hard against someone throwing 85 than 95, which isn’t really groundbreaking when you put it in those terms. Moreover, pitchers have some ability to control how hard the ball is hit. Yes, this is counter to standard DIPS theory, which is still more right than wrong on the population as a whole. But then you’ve got your exceptions – the Moyers, the Wakefields, maybe the Washburns – who post lower-than-expected BABIPs time after time. As Mariano Rivera had the lowest expected BABIP of any one in this brief study of hit fx data from 2008, it’d be interesting to know if batters have trouble hitting cutters hard, just due to their movement (or the delta between how a cutter moves and a four- or two-seamer moves). Cosart better hope that they do, and that his BABIP “skill” is real, because it’s looking like one of the few statistical indicators of lasting success on his fangraphs page. Sure, I know: 95mph cutters. That’s worth something too, but right now, he’s not striking many out, he’s walking far too many, and the HR rate’s normal-ish. That cutter has to DO something for him, and maybe it is.
Line-up:
1: Jones, CF
2: Saunders, RF
3: Cano, 2B
4: Seager, 3B
5: Smoak, 1B
6: Ackley, LF
7: Romero, DH
8: Franklin, SS
9: Zunino, C
SP: Elias
Nick Franklin at SS tonight; interesting move, as Franklin had played OF in recent (minor league) games. To be fair, McClendon said he’d get some time at SS and just about everywhere else when they re-called him, so there’s nothing too surprising about it…especially when the incumbent and primary back-up have been god awful at the plate.
The M’s split the two-game mini-series in Texas and look like they’re capable of sticking right with the Rangers for a while. Today, that goal got a bit easier, as Prince Fielder opted to have surgery on a herniated disk, putting him out for the season. Look, there’ve been some deals that the sabermetric community has slammed that have turned out great – most of them involve Raul Ibanez, strangely. But here’s one that the statheads pretty much nailed. No one saw a serious back injury as the problem, but the numbers were slipping and the contract looked ominous. The Rangers have plenty of depth at most positions, but the drop-off between Fielder (on paper) and Mitch Moreland (on paper) is severe. The Rangers still have a lot more talent waiting to come back from injury, but even THAT depth took a hit today as Jurickson Profar re-injured his shoulder. That set-back will cost him plenty more time, as the Rangers are going to be cautious with such a valuable young player. Schadenfreude is natural and all, and it’s amazing to think that the M’s are essentially neck and neck, and pulling ahead, from the team that’s won so many games recently, and the team that employs Beltre and Darvish, but holy crap it’s been a bad year in Texas. I always said the M’s had a huge gap in true talent to close with Texas, as the team wasn’t just good in 2011-12, they had another wave of talent ready to step up. For a number of reasons, that ship crashed on attrition shoals, and while they can be really good, they’re at a crossroads now.
The intriguing Jordan Pries starts tonight against ex-Astro Lucas Harrell at Cheney Stadium.