Pitching – Giantspod

Matt Cain’s Death by Pitch Count

Daniel Zarchy — Sat, 30 Apr 2016 14:00:13 +0000

This week on the podcast, Thomas and I talked about the curious case of Matt Cain’s 2016 season. My theory was that after not pitching much for the last year and a half, and missing time in Spring Training with his cyst issue, he entered the season without the stamina that a starting pitcher would need. That’s why it seems like he’s perfectly fine for the first four innings, before he falls off a cliff.Â Then I saw these charts from his most recent start:

In other words, everything is fine, fine, fine… sitting 91-92, and then BAM, he becomes Barry Zito. Suspicions confirmed! Let’s just look back to his other awful starts to make sure that’s what happened then too. Doesn’t really seem necessary because it fits my narrative so well, but just in case let’s take a look and…

ah dang. There goes that theory. Just for comparison’s sake, let’s look at all fiveÂ of his starts, side by side:

So we see a general trend of velocity issues, but no massive cliff like what I had theorized. Let’s take another look at a nifty feature BrooksBaseball has called “Grooved Pitches.” What you’re going to see here is a breakdown of Cain’s pitches by pitch type, and the percentage of each that Pitch f/x considers “grooved.”

Year	Fourseam	Sinker	Change	Slider	Curve
2007	5.75	7.14	3.49	4.76	3.45
2008	6.35	3.13	3.61	4.55	5.76
2009	7.21	5.92	4.04	6.76	5.69
2010	6.06	4.55	2.41	4.83	6.33
2011	6.66	1.20	2.18	5.53	3.74
2012	7.82	2.75	1.82	7.24	6.97
2013	8.25	4.83	1.52	4.98	6.19
2014	7.13	7.89	1.62	5.43	2.76
2015	6.02	5.06	3.25	5.43	3.81
2016	6.97	16.67	0.00	5.71	8.33

In other words, he’s always grooved some pitches. Every pitcher makes mistakes. But this year he’s grooving almost everything a little more, and his Sinker (which he’s only thrown 18 times) a whole lot more. But the real question is WHY he’s grooving more pitches. Maybe BrooksBaseball doesn’t have the answers I need. Time to turn to my second favorite website, BaseballSavant.com.

Matt Cain has generated 26 swinging strikes (“whiffs”) this season. Let’s take a look.

Meanwhile, he’s given up 27 hits. Let’s look at where those came from, and…

Let’s just focus on fastballs for a second. Cain’s main fastball is a four-seamer, and he also throws a two-seamer, which I’m pretty sure is the same pitch that Pitch f/x considers a sinker. So just talking four-seamers for now, let’s focus on Cain’s ability to generate swinging strikes versus propensity to give up hits.

Here’s every swinging strike Cain has generated with his four-seamer this season:

Aside from the very first one, a pitch to Chase Utley, every one of the whiffs came on a pitch over 90 mph, with the vast majority over 91 mph. The fastest was a 92.8 mph country hardball to wunderkind Trevor Story, while probably the most impressive one was a 91.5 mph, full-count pitch that Paul Goldschmidt probably should’ve taken for ball four:

http://mediadownloads.mlb.com/mlbam/mp4/2016/04/20/602814283/1461122124240/asset_1200K.mp4

Hot damn, Matty.

Now let’s look at the hits off four-seamers:

See that second pitch up there, an 89.1 mph fastball to Corey Seager? Yeah, that didn’t go well.

http://mediadownloads.mlb.com/mlbam/mp4/2016/04/09/579750383/1460173660897/asset_1200K.mp4

So, weÂ have your anecdotal evidence that Cain seems to fade when he gets to 80+ pitches. But you don’t have a sharp numerical decline like I was expecting to see.Â And even though BrooksBaseball lets us see average velocity per inning…

Inning	Fourseam	Sinker	Change	Slider	Curve
1	90.45	90.96	84.54	84.86	75.53
2	91.29	89.88	85.31	86.18	76.96
3	90.98	89.73	84.73	85.39	77.53
4	91.19	90.82	84.99	85.63	78.71
5	91.11	90.57	85.21	86.12	77.30
6	90.42	0.00	86.02	85.77	76.86

…and it’s trending downward, it’s not trending downward that much, and I would wager that most starting pitchers not named Noah Syndergaard see a drop in decline as pitch counts rise. So what exactly changes that makes Cain lose it? Just one more graph, I promise. Â Percentage of “Groove Pitches” by the inning:

Inning	Fourseam	Sinker	Slider	Curve
1	3.13	0.00	0.00	0.00
2	4.88	0.00	4.76	0.00
3	7.69	25.00	4.00	16.67
4	4.17	20.00	4.17	0.00
5	11.29	25.00	6.98	20.00
6	0.00	0.00	33.33	0.00

It’s not like it comes as a big surprise to anyone who has watched him pitch, but he’s just grooving everything as the game goes on. A bit of it is velocity, but mostly it’s just location, location, location.

What does this all mean? Well, Cain has a tendency to throw meatballsÂ as the game wears on, and to make matters worse, his velocity declines a small, but real, amount. Â You can take this evidence as a sign that he’s a shell of his former self, and we’re all going to die cold and alone. I choose to find this encouraging. Â Heâ€s still capable of pitching at a high level, and the inevitable collapse can be traced directly to pitch count, as opposed to the general undefined ineffectivenessÂ thatÂ is Jake Peavy’s season, as Peavy is pitching like Cain but without the initial grace period of competence.

If Cain can somehow improve his stamina during the course of the season, and he canÂ hold off traveling to Groove City longer and longer, everything else is in a position to fall into place. If not, the cavalry ain’t coming to save him.

Ryan Vogelsong injury: Timetable for return is coming together

Thomas Todd — Fri, 19 Jul 2013 23:22:54 +0000

UPDATE: BRUCE BOCHY SAYS VOGELSONG COULD START HIS REHAB AS EARLY AS NEXT WEEK WITH SAN JOSE, ACCORDING TO ALEX PAVLOVIC OF THE SAN JOSE MERCURY NEWS.

Giants starting pitcher Ryan Vogelsong is expected to begin a rehab assignment as early as July 30th, according to Henry Schulman of the San Francisco Chronicle. The right-hander is attempting to return to the rotation from a broken pinky on his pitching hand that has kept him out since May 20th.

From the information gathered by Schulman, Vogelsong will join Double-A affiliate Richmond for a six-game homestand July 30th-August 4th. The Giants will be on the same coast at the same time, playing road games against Philadelphia and Tampa. The proximity should facilitate scouting Vogey’s return and have him check in with team doctors in person. If one or both potential starts go well, the 35-year-old could rejoin the rotation by the second week of August.

Before being hit by the pitch that put him under the knife, Vogelsong was in the middle of a back-to-Earth season that saw his ERA more than double his 2012 production. His only truly great start was against the Nationals, where he cruised through five innings before – you guessed Â it – breaking his pinky in the batter’s box.

When his recovery is complete, I fully expect Vogelsong to be better than what his numbers have shown this season. We have two full seasons of “New Vogey”, a pitcher that can throw four pitches at any time around the edges of the strike zone. Whether or not that skill has eroded with age, I can’t tell you. But there is an asterisk next to every Giants pitcher not named Bumgarner, so getting any production out of the last two months of Ryan Vogelsong’s steal of a contract would be gravy.

Oh, what asterisks you say?

Matt Cain: Bone chips floating in his elbow, 5.06 ERA

Tim Lincecum: Might be traded, better in releif

Chad Gaudin: What happens in Vegas sometimes gets reported to police

Barry Zito: Has given up home runs to Anthony Recker and Ed Lucas this season. And no, those guys aren’t umpires. They’re players. I checked.

Sabean on Lincecum: “I see Timmy staying in a Giants uniform”, plus some wild rotation speculation

Thomas Todd — Fri, 19 Jul 2013 01:04:12 +0000

The Giants come off the All-Star break with seven games in six days, three of those games against division-leading Arizona and four against Cincinnati. How those games fall will start to determine what the Giants and general manager Brian Sabean do at the deadline. Get swept out and the team could sell off assets to contending teams; come out roaring and San Fran could be buyers at the July 31st non-waiver trade deadline. But either way, says Sabean, Lincecum shouldn’t expect to be moved.

In an interview on KNBR Thursday Sabean pooh-poohed the idea of moving Lincecum, saying, “I find it hard to believe that we’ll see Timmy in another uniform this year.” This is encouraging for fans of the diminutive pitcher, who had a career day last week in San Diego when he threw the seventh no-hitter in the San Francisco era.

Despite the no-no, Lincecum has failed to live up to his peak years for the second straight season, posting a 4.26 Â ERA in 19 starts in 2013. In the last year of a two-year deal, it has been speculated that Timmy could be flipped for prospects to a team looking for a back-end starter or some help in the bullpen. Lincecum showed what value he could bring in the ‘pen when he allowed just one earned run in 13.1 innings of relief work in the 2012 postseason. Ironically, the Tigers are one of the teams who have been linked to Timmy, a team he helped beat in last year’s World Series.

The Giants caught a break after the 2011 season when Lincecum turned down a nine-figure contract, instead choosing to sign a 2-year, $40 million deal to play out his arbitration years. The gamble cost the right-hander, whose value has plummeted with each walked batter and subsequent meltdown. The Giants instead chose to lock up Matt Cain and Madison Bumgarner, who got long-term deals to remain the core of the starting rotation. Bumgarner has shined since signing his deal last offseason, but Cain has failed to be the consistent ace he has been most of his career.

With or without Lincecum, the Giants have some re-tooling to do in the rotation. All but Cain and Bumgarner are free agents this season, meaning Ryan Vogelsong, Barry Zito and Lincecum could be wearing different laundry next season. Even if they do re-sign, there are age and effectiveness questions with all three. The Giants lost out on Ricky Nolasco — who was traded to the Dodgers on July 6th — and don’t appear to be in the running for Chicago’s Matt Garza. The name Bud Norris has been kicked around, but it remains to be seen if the Giants have the right prospects to get a deal done.

The farm system is rife with young pitching, with Kyle Crick, Clayton Blackburn and Chris Stratton arms to watch in the coming years. Crick especially has been great, but at 20, he probably isn’t going to make an impact until 2015 or 2016 at the earliest. Lefty Mike Kickham has shown flashes of good stuff in a couple of spot-starts in the majors, but hasn’t put it all together at the big-league level.

The Giants have won two World Series in three years on the strength of their pitching staff, but their potential success in the next few years may not be tied to their current staff. If the Giants want to be a perennial contender, they must re-load the rotation or add more thump to the lineup. Unfortunately for those Lincecum lovers out there, he doesn’t provide relief in either area. Sorry kids, nothing to see here.

UPDATE: Ryan Vogelsong injury: Broken right hand for Vogey

Thomas Todd — Tue, 21 May 2013 04:10:22 +0000

SUPER DUPER UPDATE: Nicole Vogelsong, Ryan’s wife, tweeted that her husband’s pinky finger is broken in two places. Once above the joint and once below. He will have surgery tomorrow and be out six weeks. She is also replacing Dave Groeschner as the Giants trainer on their next road trip.

UPDATE: The Giants announced that Vogelsong’s right hand is fractured. This puts the Giants in a pretty rough situation. They will have to decide between organization guys like Yusmeiro Petit, Chris Heston, Boof Bonser or Mike Kickham. On the 25-man roster is Chad Gaudin, who has started 75 games in his 11 years in the big leagues. His lone full season as a starter came in 2007 when he started 34 games with Oakland, totaling a 4.42 ERA.Â

In what had been his best start of the 2013 season, Ryan Vogelsong was injured during an at-bat in Monday’s game against the Nationals. On a poorly timed swing, a pitch from Craig Stammen appeared to deflect off of Vogey’s right hand. Bochy and trainer Dave Groeschner came out to take a look at the hand before immediately escorting the right-hander into the dugout. They have to Katzman & Sugden Attorneys at Law that will be very helpful for claiming the compensation for injuries and ensuring speedy recovery for the players.

Vogelsong was pitching his best game of the season, cruising through five innings without allowing a run. He walked just one batter on top of three hits, stranding two runners each in the third and fifth innings. The Giants No. 5 starter entered the game with an ERA of 8.06, but lowered that almost a full run with his five shutout innings.

Vogelsong received a standing ovation from a sympathetic and intelligent crowd. No word yet on how the Peas reacted.

Danny and I will be around for Bochy’s press conference after the game, where the injury (resembled as serious as the one being hurt in a truck accident in Wyoming) will be the number one question for the skipper. Follow us on Twitter @GiantsPod and @HammerheadT for live updates.

What is Sergio Romo?

Daniel Zarchy — Mon, 19 Mar 2012 14:30:42 +0000

In 2011, Giants fans saw Sergio Romo put up one of the most impressive relief efforts in recent memory. In 2011, the 28th round draft pick pitched in 65 games, allowing just eight earned runs and 34 baserunners in 48 innings. He finished the year with 1.50 ERA and 0.708 WHIP, and even pitched a reliever’s perfect game: between July 6 and August 6, Romo pitched ten perfect innings in a row. Along with his excellent strikeout rate, he almost never surrendered a walk, and his K/BB Â was literally off the charts.

But you all know how good he is. Still, not all was well in the land of the sliders. Early in the year it became clear that Bruce Bochy was using him selectively, sometimes for just one or two batters, instead leaning on other relievers in situations that could normally have used some Romification. As the season wore on, what started out seeming like Bochy mishandling began to seem more like selective use because of an injury; these suspicions were confirmed when Romo hit the DL in August, and reports of his elbow issues and his trick knee entered the public consciousness.

Looking at Romo’s numbers, it’s easy to forget how fragile he is, and it’s not a huge stretch to say that his effectiveness could wane if he were pushed to pitch more often. Romo was one of four Giants relievers to pitch in more than 60 games last year; Romo’s 48 IP was miles behind Ramon Ramirez’s 68.2 IP and Jeremy Affeldt’s 61.2 IP, and even behind so-called “specialist” Javier Lopez, who pitched 53 IP. Romo averaged just 10 pitches and 2.2 outsÂ per appearance, and he pitched for more than three outs just four times, lowest among those relievers.

Now, with news coming out of Scottsdale that Romo’s elbow is a “little cranky,” according to John Shea of the San Francisco Chronicle, it seems like we could see a familiar story in 2012, and we could see his role change a bit. There’s plenty of hard-to-understand science talk about the terrible things that pitching breaking balls can do to one’s arm, and Romo seems like he’s not immune.

Since 2008, Romo has been one of the game’s top relievers. Among non-closer relievers, Romo led the league in K/BB with 5.63, and was fourth in ERA with 2.33. Still, he’s never been a workhorse. Since 2009, Romo’s first full year in the majors, he has pitched just 144 innings. Among pitchers who pitched in more than 120 games since 2009, with an ERA below 3.00 and and fewer than 20 saves, Romo was 17th out of 23 in innings pitched. If you include closers in the mix, Romo is 29th of 37. He pitched 62 innings in 68 games in 2010, but that’s looking more and more like an outlier. Romo is, simply put, not built for stamina.

This year I’m prepared for Romo to pitch very well, but I wouldn’t be surprised to see him used carefully as something of a one- or two-out specialist. Romo pitched extremely well in limited time last year, and can be counted on against righties and lefties when needed. He still fills an extremely useful role on a team, and should be a crucial reliever in the late innings.

However, I’m not sure that the 8th inning is his anymore. Given Brian Wilson’s own stamina issues and Wilson’sÂ own predictions that he’ll be limited this year (thanks to Mark Purdy), I doubt that Bochy will want Wilson pushed into situations that necessitate a 4-out save. Affeldt, who has shown multi-inning stamina in the past, could end up as the 8th-inning guy, with Romo pushed to the 7th. That way, if Romo has to leave in the middle of an inning, Affeldt could come in to clean up, and then stay on in the 8th and save Wilson for the 9th.

We’d all like to believe that the best relievers should pitch in the most crucial situations, but we should be prepared for Romo to fight his health issues all year. Luckily, with this pitching staff, I think we’ll be okay.

The Giants Don’t Need Brian Wilson

Thomas Todd — Mon, 13 Feb 2012 16:30:29 +0000

People who throw things for a living (quarterbacks, pitchers, RussellÂ Crowe) don’t check under their beds for the boogeyman- they look forÂ Dr. James Andrews, whose very mention conjures images of torn ligaments and career-ending injuries. Giants closer Brian Wilson has crossed paths withÂ The Good Doctor twice- once for Tommy John surgery at LSU and onceÂ last August for elbow inflammation. Though the prognosis wasn’tÂ serious and no surgery was required, The Bearded One faced just fiveÂ batters in the remaining six weeks of the season. The ChronicleÂ reportedÂ last month that Wilson’s rehab will have him ready for most of springÂ training, but questions remain about how effective and healthy theÂ three-time All-Star will be. The answer to these questions, in myÂ mind, is one of dismissal: the Giants don’t need Brian Wilson.

With all the offseason nonsense of Carlos Beltran this, Ryan TheriotÂ that, and Buster Fever in full effect, it is easy to forget thatÂ Wilson struggled with both injury and control in 2011. By everyÂ metric, Wilson failed to deliver the type of performance that GiantsÂ fans became accustomed to in 2009 and 2010. Let’s break down threeÂ stats. The first number will be his combined 2009/2010 numbers and theÂ second will be from the 2011 season. Strikeouts per nine innings: 10.8Â to 8.8. Walks per nine innings: 3.2 to 5.1. And finally, hits per nineÂ innings: 7.5 to 8.2. The 2011 numbers collate to a 1.473 WHIP,Â Wilson’s worst mark since his rookie season. The uptick in hits isÂ just as disturbing, as Wilson relies on missing bats more than anyÂ Giants player other than Sergio Romo, who might as well be throwingÂ pebbles at batters holding wet noodles. Call it regression, call itÂ elbow tenderness, call it Taco Bell-itis, call it whatever puts you toÂ sleep at night. My sinking feeling is that Brian Wilson will never beÂ the same again. But here are three reasons I’m not all that worried.

-The Giants starting pitchers are innings eaters. Lincecum, Cain, andÂ Bumgarner all threw over 200 innings and Vogelsong would have sniffedÂ 200 had he started the season in the rotation. The fifth spot isÂ dicier with a likely Zito/Surkamp carousel, but fifth starters areÂ expected to eat innings like supermodels eat cheesecake- sparingly. As a result,Â the bullpen was fresh for all of 2011, even with Rip Van Romo sleepingÂ through half of it.

-The bullpen is deep. Let’s just start with the right-handers. TheÂ LEAST reliable arms are Guillermo Mota and Clay Hensley, who are moreÂ than capable of putting up league average numbers. Santiago Casilla,Â who closed when Wilson went down, had a 206 ERA+. TheÂ lefties are where things get interesting. The Giants picked up JeremyÂ Affeldt’s $5 million option and Javier Lopez signed a 2/$8.5 deal. TheÂ blogosphere nearly rioted with OMGGGGGIANTS andÂ NOBELTRANTHEVIEWFROMTHISLEDGEISQUITENICE. Even Grantland’s Jonah Keri evenÂ came on the show andÂ condemned the move.Â But I’mÂ starting to see that maintaining bullpen depth was essentially theÂ Giants buying Brian Wilson insurance. Brought to you by Geico orÂ something.

-Heath Hembree. He’s still a thousand long bus rides away from aÂ closing gig in the majors, but with Wilson becoming a free agent inÂ 2014 look for Hembree to give the Giants a reason to let Wilson walk.Â But Hembree walks too ma—-LOOK AT THOSE K RATES!!! And PodcastÂ Survivor Kevin Goldstein says he has closer makeup. And that oneÂ should believe in such things. So there.

Now that I have all of you really angry at me, let me say I love BrianÂ Wilson. I root for Brian Wilson. I even like his antics. The Beard.Â The Bell. The Finger Pointy thing. He just plays a very volatileÂ position and canÂ derail at any moment.

I’m just glad we don’t need him as much as we think we do.

Limiting Ryan Vogelsong

James Meyer — Sun, 19 Jun 2011 04:37:55 +0000

With Ryan Vogelsong continuing to excel as a starting pitcher for the Giants, questions about his continuation on the starting rotation are beginning to arise. Â Most revolve around the return of Barry Zito, but another factor that is often being overlooked is that of workload.

Vogelsong has never been a workhorse, the likes of Roy Halladay or even Matt Cain for that matter. Â In fact he spent his last few years pitching in Japan as a reliever. Â Just for a reference, he pitched 65.1 innings in ’08, 41.2 innings in ’09, and 95.1 innings in ’10 back in the states with the Triple-A teams of both the Angels and the Phillies. Â Even as a full-time starter with the Pirates in ’04, he only managed 133.0 IP, his career high.

With this in mind, Vogelsong has already made 12 starts this year (2 with Fresno and 10 with the Giants) and has pitched a total of 77 innings. Â With an average of 33 starts per pitcher per year, and with 14 of those already in the books, that leaves 19 starts still to be accounted for. Â With Vogelsong averaging a solid 6.5 IP per start, that’s 123.5 IP for the rest of the season, with a season total of just over 200 innings.

Even when his inevitable regression leads to Vogelsong not pitching as deep into games, were he to continue to start for the rest of the season he would still be around the 190 innings mark.Â While this seems like a reasonable amount for a starting pitcher, keep in mind that he has never eclipsed 140 IP in a single year, and that is just less than his three years in Japan combined. Â (106.2 in ’07,Â 65.1 IP in ’08, and 41.2 IP in ’09). Â This may be asking a lot from a pitcher who has never attempted that level of work in his 10+ years of professional ball and is on the wrong side of thirty.

Though innings pitched is often the measurement for the workload of a pitcher, it is actually the pitches thrown that take a toll on the player, and in this case, Ryan Vogelsong.Â It takes the average pitcher around 100 pitches to get through six innings.Â Ryan Vogelsong has been right around that number with an average of 96 pitches per six innings so far this season.Â Vogelsong had been staying right under 100 pitches for the first 8 starts of the season and just recently in his last two starts has he been allowed to stretch his pitch count, eclipsing 110 pitches in his last two starts (presumably a sign of the confidence Bochy has gained in his ability).Â Unfortunately it is very unlikely that Vogelsong would be able to continue pitching late in to games and be able to finish out the season as a starter.Â One option to prolong Vogelsong’s tenure as a Giant’s starter in 2011 would be to limit his pitch count to something around 100 or lower.Â This would not always allow him to eclipse the 6 inning plateau every game, but luckily the Giants have a solid bullpen that could shut the door (if Bochy ever figures out how to use it).

Though not the only deciding factor, workload is likely something the Giants will look in to when deciding what to do with the 5th starting position when Zito returns, and unfortunately it is not something that benefits Ryan Vogelsong. It would be a shame to not be able to utilize Vogelsong’s success this year, and so a system of limiting his pitch count would allow the Giants to utilize Vogelsong’s new-found success while not overusing him too early in the season.

In an effort to remain optimistic, I will leave you with this.Â Throughout the history baseball many things have happened, including relievers with low workloads making a seamless transition into a starting role.Â Pitchers as recent as Adam Wainwright with the Cardinals have accomplished this feat, who was their closer during their 2007 World Series Championship, and then began starting the next year and look how well that turned out for him (try to ignore the Tommy John surgery this year). Â Other notable pitchers include David Wells and Derek Lowe, and with any luck, we can add Ryan Vogelsong to that list in the near future.

Like a Record Baby, Right Round Round Round (Get it? A Rotation Joke!)

Daniel Zarchy — Mon, 14 Mar 2011 23:34:11 +0000

In addition to Brandon Belt flashing some leather on defense, Sandoval slugging dingerz like the Panda of old, and reports of Mark DeRosa’s death appearing to be greatly exaggerated, one tidbit of “news” has actually appeared, when Bruce Bochy announced an order for the stellar Giants pitching rotation.

Timmy remains the Ace, followed by Jonny, Matty, Barry and Maddy. Compared to last year’s rotation, Lincecum stayed as the ace, Zito got a major demotion, Cain stayed steady, Sanchez got a good promotion, and Bumgarner took the 5th starter spot from Todd Wellemeyer’s cold, dead fingers.Â If this is, indeed, the rotation that Bochy plans to take into the regular season, it raises a few questions.

First of all, Matt “The Sheriff” Cain. In 2010, Cain had an amazing year, and by some accounts a better (more consistent, at least) year than Lincecum. Cain has the makings of an Ace, and would be on most other ballclubs, which makes it curious that he would remain in the third role. Present elbow issues aside, he’s Mr. Reliable. He devours innings like some bad 2010 Pablo Sandoval joke – in his 5 full seasons, his 1049.1 IP are the 8th-most in the MLB during that time. In 2010 he lasted fewer than 6 innings only five times; he lasted fewer than 5 innings only twice. He is the picture of stability, working for a 3.00 ERA in August 2010, while the pitching staff as a whole (including Cain)Â had a 4.55 ERA.Â He threw over 100 pitches in 21 of his 33 regular-season starts, and he didn’t give up an earned run in the post-season. Plus he has a great head of hair.

So, why isn’t he the #2 pitcher?

First of all:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zJv5qLsLYoo

Now that we’ve gotten that out of the way, Andrew Baggarly had some ideas, and a few of them speak to Cain’s strengths, rather than his weaknesses. While the typical Lincecum or Cain start required 3 or fewer innings of relief from the bullpen, Sanchez and Zito are hardly as reliable. Without a doubt, Sanchez’s 2010 season was a dramatic improvement, even though it’s debatable whether the bulk of his spike in numbers came from luck or skill. Still, of his 33 starts, Sanchez went fewer than 6 innings 16 times, and fewer than 5 innings 5 times. As anyone who watched Sanchez last season could tell you, it was just a matter of which Sanchez came out of the dugout: the hard-throwing, bat-avoiding lefty hotshot, or the lost child who couldn’t find the strike zone if his life depended on it.

Zito had similar numbers, leaning more toward theÂ colossal, early implosion (13 times <6 innings; 8 times <5 innings in 33 starts), particularly in the end of the year, when he failed to make it out of the fifth inning in 6 of his final 9 starts.

It makes sense, then, to space out the super-reliable starters among the coin-flip starters, to avoid two days in a row that require the bullpen to chew up major innings.

The other conventional wisdom speaks to the handedness of the pitchers, as a rotation with Lincecum and Cain as 1-2 would give us a righty-righty-lefty-lefty-lefty rotation, which would be… a problem? In general, a righty-righty or lefty-lefty matchup favors the pitcher, while having opposite handedness favors the hitter. Still, a good pitcher is a good pitcher, and people can get a little carried away trying to set up the exact match up that they want. I’ve never really understood why it’s important to break up same-handed starters as much as it is to play the match-up game using your relievers, mid-game, calling on Javier Lopez or Sergio Romo, or one of a handful of excellent clutch relievers. I guess the worry is that we could run into a 3-game series against a team with a bunch of big, righty powerhouses, and we’d throw Sanchez-Zito-MadBum at them, and get destroyed, but I’m just not convinced that it’s a big enough problem.

So let’s take a look at just how strong the splits really are for our starters. These are numbers showing the offense that hitters have managed against our pitchers. I’m going to use career numbers here, thanks to Baseball-Reference.com.

First of all, Mr. T. L. Lincecum, Esquire.

I	Split	PA	AB	R	H	2B	3B	HR	BB	SO	SO/BB	BA	OBP	SLG	OPS	BAbip	tOPS+
	vs RHB as RHP	1598	1421	138	315	57	6	19	127	425	3.35	.222	.291	.310	.602	.300	93
	vs LHB as RHP	1750	1558	126	351	68	14	32	166	482	2.90	.225	.299	.349	.648	.302	107

Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Original Table
Generated 3/11/2011.

It’s not hard to see why batters fear him so much. Hitters have a measly .222 and .225 AVG against him, and that OPS-against is minuscule. Still, we do see that lefties (LHB) have slightly better numbers (.225/.299/.349) against him, which makes sense. He does have slightly more ownage against righties, as you’d expect, but it’s a pretty minimal difference.

Next, Mr. Cainer:

I	Split	PA	AB	R	H	2B	3B	HR	BB	SO	SO/BB	BA	OBP	SLG	OPS	BAbip	tOPS+
	vs RHB as RHP	2278	2028	184	453	101	14	52	188	488	2.60	.223	.293	.364	.657	.267	95
	vs LHB as RHP	2267	2006	217	472	101	22	47	222	418	1.88	.235	.311	.378	.689	.273	105

Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Original Table
Generated 3/11/2011.

He’s got the same thing going on. Lefties have a slightly better slash line (.235/.311/.378) against Cain compared to righties, but they probably still wish they’d stayed at home, rather than face Cain. I mean, 32 points in your OPS isn’t nothing, but it’s far from an exploitable weakness, especially when Cain still makes the average hitter he faces produce on the level of Neifi Perez and his lifetime .672 OPS. Instead of saying that lefties hit better against Cain, we should say that they do slightly less bad than righties.

Next, our presumptive #2, Jonathan “Mr. Clean” Sanchez:

I	Split	PA	AB	R	H	2B	3B	HR	BB	SO	SO/BB	BA	OBP	SLG	OPS	BAbip	tOPS+
	vs RHB as LHP	2035	1737	220	414	107	4	48	256	471	1.84	.238	.339	.387	.726	.298	104
	vs LHB as LHP	605	527	54	113	21	3	16	54	163	3.02	.214	.307	.357	.663	.277	87

Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Original Table
Generated 3/11/2011.

Remember, these are career numbers, so they don’t quite show the dominance that Sanchez pulled out of his leather jacket pocket in 2010 (Sanchez’s career OPS-against ranges 63 points between lefties and righties, that difference was just 1 point in 2010). Still, we see that Sanchez does fare better against lefties, not surprisingly. He had a pretty substantial BAbip difference between righties and lefties, though, which could show that he’s been getting a bit lucky against lefties. Remember, BABip does not indisputably show a person’s luck, but when a player has such a dramatically lower BABip than normal, especially in a certain time period or against a certain group (lefties), it can show that his success may have something do to with some serendipity on his side.

Mr. Zeetoh:

I	Split	PA	AB	R	H	2B	3B	HR	BB	SO	SO/BB	BA	OBP	SLG	OPS	BAbip	tOPS+
	vs RHB as LHP	7288	6419	724	1532	290	22	186	699	1265	1.81	.239	.316	.378	.694	.268	99
	vs LHB as LHP	2044	1761	222	427	75	15	43	211	386	1.83	.242	.333	.375	.709	.285	103

Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Original Table
Generated 3/11/2011.

Barry Zito is about as even-handed as you can get, with lefties and righties doing almost exactly the same against him. As much as we can, and will, go on about his contract, he’s pretty damn consistent with what he’s throwing out there. While he, like Sanchez, has faced far fewer lefties than righties, it’s hard to see any handedness affecting hitters at all against him. Even his walk rate is almost exactly the same, and the OPS difference is just 15 points. He’s also the oldest and most veterany of the starters, so I think his numbers are more reliable than anyone else due to the large sample size.

Lastly, Bumgarner:

I	Split	PA	AB	R	H	2B	3B	HR	BB	SO	SO/BB	BA	OBP	SLG	OPS	BAbip	tOPS+
	vs RHB as LHP	373	345	30	98	19	3	10	22	62	2.82	.284	.327	.443	.771	.318	110
	vs LHB as LHP	139	127	10	29	6	0	3	7	34	4.86	.228	.283	.346	.629	.286	73

Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Original Table
Generated 3/11/2011.

While the country boy does have some pretty startling splits, with righties eating him up while lefties cower in fear at his mighty footsteps, I chalk this up more to his lack of playing time and small sample size than anything else.

So what does that tell us? First of all, there is no massive difference. Lincecum and Cain had minor differences in performance. Even across their careers it barely shows, so across a season, I doubt we’d notice a difference. Sanchez has had a good deal more luck in his career against lefties than righties, but that difference evaporated in 2010. Zito is steadily Zito, for better or for worse, and Bumgarner is, well… new.

I can see the bullpen preservation argument in terms of this rotation, and I can even see Sanchez’s promotion as a way to bolster his confidence as a potentially good move, especially when the difference in starts between the #2 and #3 spots is minimal, if existent at all. Still, I don’t buy the handedness thing. If anything, it makes sense just to split up our good pitchers so that we don’t accidentally have a series in which our 3-4-5 gets clobbered by their 1-2-3, but I don’t see that happening too much either.

I trust Bruce Bochy to do what’s best for our club, so I’m not particularly worried. It’s too bad to see such a fan-favorite champ like Cain go another year without the national recognition that he might get higher in the rotation, but that’s exactly the kind of thing that I’m sure Cain wouldn’t give a damn about, because he’s just so damned classy.

So what do you think? Should we have a Lincecum-Cain rotation? Or, gasp, Cain-Lincecum? Is Bochy on the right track? Should Zito be fifth and Bumgarner fourth, Verducci-be-damned?

P.S. I wrote the lede to this piece about a week and a half ago, before I got sick and busy, and I didn’t have time to finish the post until just now. I know that there is more to talk about, Spring-wise, but that’s not the point of this piece, so I just got lazy and decided not to update it. Plus, if you made it all the way down here, you must have thrown the inverted pyramid thing out of the window anyway, huh?

Sabermetrics For Beginners Part III: The Plus Sign

Daniel Zarchy — Tue, 22 Feb 2011 21:55:33 +0000

95, 129, and 136, baby.

For our newest installment of SFB, I’d like to introduce you to two of the most deceptively simple and useful statistics, Adjusted On-Base Plus Slugging (OPS+) and Adjusted Earned Run Average (ERA+).

These two stats are used to show a player’s performance, either in hitting or pitching, as compared to the league average in each stat and compensating for that player’s ballpark.

The following assumes a basic knowledge of statistical understanding, so if you don’t remember what OBP and SLG are, check outÂ SFB Part 1, or here is Wikipedia’s dissertation onÂ ERA.

Adjusted OPS (OPS+) is a tool for examining a player’s offensive production, adjusted for the ballpark he played in and the average statistics from the rest of the league.

Here is the formula for OPS+:

OPS+ = [OBP/(league OBP) + SLG/(league SLG) -1] * 100

This is actually not as complicated as it looks. The league-On-Base-Percentage and league-Slugging are exactly what they sound like, and are then both adjusted to the batter’s ballpark. This means that if a batter is playing in a stadium that is better for hitters, it slightly discounts their batting performance, and vice versa. Take AT&T Park, for example, which favors pitchers over hitters (a little bit) because of its big outfields and damp climate, a fact that Triples Alley (among others) has examined in detail. Given that it helps pitchers, a ballpark adjustment would help a batter’s stats, but hurt a pitcher’s.

So essentially you’re taking the two components that make up OPS and comparing them to the league average. Because there are two components, you subtract 1 after that to get it back to the original scale. Then you multiply by 100 to get rid of the decimals.

If you’ve followed this so far, we end up with a number in and around 100, which is the league average. Above 100 is good, and below 100 is bad, as compared to the league averages. Here are the OPS+ values from the 2010 Giants:

Rk		OBP	SLG	OPS	OPS+ â–¾
1	Aubrey Huff*	.385	.506	.891	138
2	Pat Burrell	.364	.509	.872	132
3	Buster Posey	.357	.505	.862	129
4	Andres Torres#	.343	.479	.823	119
5	Juan Uribe	.310	.440	.749	99
6	Freddy Sanchez	.342	.397	.739	98
7	Pablo Sandoval#	.323	.409	.732	95
8	Aaron Rowand	.281	.378	.659	75
	Team Totals	.321	.408	.729	95
	Rank in 16 NL teams	9	6	8

Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Original Table
Generated 2/22/2011. (* denotes lefty, # denotes switch)

This is not particularly surprising, as we remember who was good and who wasn’t (and yes, Pat the Bat did have better OBP and SLG than Posey). It’s interesting to see that, after everything, Uribe and Freddy were basically league average hitters, and Panda was just a smidge below average.

Keep in mind, the OPS+ number again does not mean anything by itself, but is rather a descriptive number that you can compare with others. Let’s pretend that the league average (ballpark-adjusted) OBP is 300, and the league average SLG is 400. Then let’s pretend that Johnny McBaseball bats 15% better than average in each statistic.

OPS+ = [.345/.300 + .460/.400 – 1]*100

OPS+ = [1.15 + 1.15 – 1]*100

OPS+ = 1.3*100

OPS+ = 130

An OPS+ of 130 is not 30% better than league average, given that it comes from two statistics, but is rather 15% better than league average in each category. The top-3 single-season OPS+ scores are all held by Barry Bonds (268, 263, 259), which were all MVP years for the big man. Babe Ruth holds the career OPS+ record with 206, with Bonds at third with 181 and Albert Pujols tied with Mickey Mantle for sixth with 172 (kind of puts Pujols’ contract negotiations in context, eh?). It’s a useful tool, particularly because of the built-in historical context, as you can see just how good somebody was for his time. Again, not the be-all-end-all of offensive statistics, but just another useful metric.

Adjusted Earned Run Average (ERA+) works along the same lines, comparing a pitcher’s ERA to the park-adjusted league average ERA from the same year. Here is the formula:

ERA+ = [(league ERA)/ERA]*100

Again, we end up with a number roughly around 100, with above being good and below being bad. Note that this is the opposite of ERA, where you obviously value low numbers. Given that the formula is constructed this way, higher is better. Here are the Giants pitchers from 2010:

Rk	Pos		ERA	ERA+ â–¾
1	CL	Brian Wilson	1.81	226
2	RP	Santiago Casilla	1.95	210
3	RP	Sergio Romo	2.18	188
4	SP	Madison Bumgarner*	3.00	136
5	SP	Jonathan Sanchez*	3.07	133
6	SP	Matt Cain	3.14	130
7	SP	Tim Lincecum	3.43	119
8	RP	Jeremy Affeldt*	4.14	99
9	SP	Barry Zito*	4.15	98
10	RP	Guillermo Mota	4.33	94
11	SP	Todd Wellemeyer	5.68	72
		Team Totals	3.36	121
		Rank in 16 NL teams	1

Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Original Table
Generated 2/22/2011.

Again, not particularly surprising. We know that Brian Wilson was good, and Todd Wellemeyer was not so good. Interesting to note again that, despite everything, Barry Zito was essentially a league-average pitcher, at least ERA-wise. Also, note that ERA+ (and OPS+) do not take into account anything involving playing time, so take all averages with a grain of salt, as with relief pitchers you’re dealing with a much smaller sample size than starters. Even though Santiago Casilla kicked some major ERA+ butt, other metrics (like WAR) would show that given his limited playing time, he may not have been as valuable as somebody like Matt Cain, who had a worse ERA+ but played a lot more.

Mariano Rivera, the Yankees’ future-Hall of Fame closer, has the best career ERA+ with 205, which means that he has had an ERA somewhere around half of the league average for his entire careerÂ (the next highest career ERA+, Pedro Martinez, is 154, which just shows you how amazing Rivera really is). The highest single-season ERA+ is from 1880, but Martinez again has the highest in the modern era, with a 291 ERA+ in the year 2000. He had an ERA of 1.74, won his third Cy Young in four years, and made a lot of Red Sox fans really happy.

I hope that these help explain a bit of which we’re talking about. I’ll keep writing things like this, so please let me know if there is something specific you’d like me to help explain.

So now, comment starter: what’s your favorite, most descriptive statistic? How do you feel ballparks really affect hitters? Who the hell is Tim Keefe?

Go Giants!

Can Barry Zito Find Redemption in 2011?

Daniel Zarchy — Fri, 28 Jan 2011 08:09:35 +0000

"Sorry, all purchases are final."

In the offseason after the 2006 season, the Giants were reeling. Only 3 years after a wire-to-wire season ending in playoff humiliation, they finished just 76-85, good enough for 3rd place, and just half a game above the 4th and 5th place teams. Their ace pitcher Jason Schmidt was leaving for the hated LA Dodgers, leaving the team without a strong pitcher to lead their staff. Noah Lowry, the Giants’ rookie phenom, had spent the year fighting injuries, and his future looked uncertain. Matt Cain and Jonathan Sanchez were years away from hitting their stride as starting pitchers, and Brian Wilson was an unknown quantity, playing 7th-fiddle to a bullpen led by closer Armando Benitez, who needs no introduction to fans who remember those dark years.

Meanwhile, the front office was facing the unwelcome but inevitable retirement of Barry Bonds, the greatest baseball player of the modern era, who had yet to get himself a World Series ring. Bonds had just come off his first full season without being in the top of MVP voting in 16 seasons (he sat out injured most of 2005), and his mortality was starting to show itself.

The Giants brass was in a position to try to win it, quickly, while also finding themselves a new face for the franchise after Bonds left. The average age of the top 8 position players on the 2006 team was an astonishing 34.4 years old, so in-house options looked dim.

Meanwhile, Barry Zito was coming off an All-Star season. He went 16-10 with a 3.83 ERA, and pitched worthy of a 2.1 WAR season (according to FanGraphs, not Baseball-Reference). He earned $7.9 million from the A’s, which was exactly what he was worth to them, according to FanGraphs estimations. He had started 34-35 games and 210+ IP every year since 2001 and, though we was never able to recreate his 2002 Cy Young season, he was a workhorse and avoided injury. Plus, he was handsome, already a Bay Area favorite from his time in Oakland, and had a first name that Giants fans could remember easily. They even made T-shirts for the occasion.

Barry Bonds is the one on the right.

What fans didn’t expect, or quite understand, was the massive contract. The Giants front office signed Zito to a 7-year, $126 million contract through 2013, an average of $19 million per year. It was at the time the largest contract ever given to a pitcher (that honor now belongs to CC Sabathia’s 7-year/$171 million contract, but that’s with the Yankees, so it hardly counts), and seemed to set up the Giants for the present and the future, with a tried-and-true ace to finally get Bonds his ring, and help carry the Giants into the future after losing their great star.

Except, not quite. In 2007 Zito went 11-13 with a 4.53 ERA and under 200 innings. He accumulated a WAR of just 1.7, a value of $6.9 million, while being paid $10 million. The Giants went 71-91, with Zito the overpaid poster child of the supposed “turnaround,” which never took place. The 2008 season was Zito’s worst year of his career, when he saw his ERA jump to 5.15, his walk rate spike to 5.10 BB/9, and his WAR at just 1.4, while his salary increased to $14.5 million.

The 2009 and 2010 seasons were better, going a combined 19-27, but with a respectable 4.09 ERA and a combined WAR of 4.3. While he was hardly the ace he was being paid to be, he actually seemed to get a handle on a few of his pitches, and contributed to the team. He was certainly not the second starter that he was chosen to be in 2010, but he was solidly pretty good.

First of all, I don’t begrudge the man his contract. The Giants did not offer him the contract because they wanted to be charitable; they offered him the contract because they thought they would make money on the deal, that he’d be a solid investment for them. Turns out they were wrong, but it’s not Zito’s fault he’s not worth the money. If somebody offered me to horrendously overpay me for a job I was average at, I would jump at the opportunity, while doing everything I could to get better and not alienate my employers and co-workers. Everything I’ve seen says that Zito is a class act, if a bit eccentric, and has taken everything, including his playoff demotion, in stride while pledging to support his team in any way he can.

So just how well does Barry Zito have to do to be worth the money? I’m certainly not up to the level of math that the wizards at FanGraphs and Triples Alley are, but I’ll give it a shot. Based on FanGraphs numbers for Zito, and their Replacement Value estimates, let’s see just how much value the Giants lost with Zito over the years. FanGraphs hasn’t published values for 2009 and 2010, but I can see that the amount that a team is willing to pay for a win has been increasing, I’m just going to assume that they’ll continue increasing at the same rate. I’m going to use $4.9m/win and $5.3m/win for 2009 and 2010, respectively.

Between 2007 and 2010, Zito accumulated 7.4 WAR, and was paid $61.5 million. Based on each year’s $/win, we get:

1.7*(4.1) + 1.4*(4.5) + 2.2*(4.9) + 2.1*(5.3) = $35.18 million

Which means, as I understand, that we had a net loss of $26.32 million during that time. While he certainly wasn’t worth what he was being paid, he was worth over $35 million, which means that he wasn’t a total bust.

Zito will again be paid $18.5 million in 2011. If we assume that the $/win rate will continue to rise at the same rate, let’s put it at $5.7m/win, which means that we expect him to get:

18.5/5.7 = 3.2 WAR

So in reality, we’re only paying Zito to give us a 3.2 WAR performance next year. But wait, how does a 3.2 WAR translate into the more conventional pitching stats? Well, that’s not all that easy to answer, but let’s look at three starting pitchers who had 3.2 WAR in 2010: Gio Gonzalez (Oakland), Jaime Garcia (St. Louis), and Carl Pavano (Minnesota).

The three had pretty different seasons. Garcia was a legitimate Rookie of the Year candidate in the National League, and had the best numbers (2.70 ERA, 1.32 WHIP, 7.27 K/9), but was lacking in innings (163.1). As we’ve already covered that WAR gives you credit for playing time, it makes sense that even with good numbers, if you don’t play the whole year, your WAR will take a hit.

Pavano pitched a lot more (221 IP), and had a pretty good ERA (3.75) while keeping up an impressive K/BB ratio (3.16) and a lights-out WHIP (1.19).

Gonzalez was right in between the two, with 200.2 IP, a 3.23 ERA, 1.86 K/BB, and 1.31 WHIP.

Looking forward, if these are the kinds of numbers that Zito will need to earn his money (just the current year, mind you), that doesn’t seem too far out of reach. Zito is more than capable of throwing 200+ innings, and has decent BB/9 and K/9 rates. He’s shown that he can and may improve as the years go on and, if the stars align, he may see his ERA dip into the high 3s.

I’m also not throwing out the possibility that I’ve calculated the values wrong, which is a definite maybe. The most important point is that player contracts in baseball are going up. They’ve always gone up, and they always will go up, which means that we’re facing a good ol’ fashioned economic force: inflation. They amount of production that $19 million would buy you in 2007 is very different from what it will be in 2011, and that will continue to go down, so as Zito’s contract continues to exist, the amount to which he is “overpaid” will decrease. I’m not saying that Zito’s contract will ever be viewed as anything but “wrong place, wrong time, wrong guy, wrong amount,” but it’s important to see that, as inflation decreases the “real” value of his contract, he becomes less and less of a bad deal.

Once you get past the ridiculous contract, Zito is and will continue to be a worthwhile player. I cannot begin to imagine the pressure that someone in his position feels to succeed and excel in that job. My only hope is that, now that the Giants have won the World Series and have one of the two-best starting rotations in the league, he can rise to the role of 5th starter, which is where he should remain. It wouldn’t surprise me to see him have a good season in his new role, rather than being the goat keeping the Giants from signing any good players. The fact that Zito is 110-6 in his career when he gets 4+ runs of support show that a lot of his pitching has to do with confidence, and I have to believe that the contract has been messing with his head since day one.

I believe in Barry, and I’m looking forward to seeing him continue to develop, even if he is the old man.

So tell me, Giants fans: am I crazy? Are we going to want to drop Zito for Jeff Suppan by mid-May, or is he just going to rot in the fifth starter role?

Comment your thoughts, and go Giants!