|
|
May 2009 - Posts
-
Road, sweet road. And it continues.
Everything is clicking at the moment – the Brewers can win the 1-0 games lately, the 8-6 games lately, the 8-4 games, and anything in between. Enjoy it now – stretches like this don’t happen frequently, and pretty soon either the pitching will need to bail out the bats, or the bats will need to bail out the pitching.
By the way, only the Dodgers have drawn more walks than the Brewers’ bats this season, and the Brewers’ OBP is climbing above .350. For those that are skeptical of the power of adding walks to an offense, look at the St. Louis series, particularly the make up game. Imagine the majority of the season, where teams are more than willing to put both Braun and Fielder on base at the same time, pitching to either Cameron, Hart, or Hall with more men on base in front of them (Cameron himself being no slouch in the patience department, and Hart is only 8 BB away from matching his entire 2008 total).
Even when Braun and Fielder don’t get a chance to hit, taking pitches instead of trying to make something happen with bad pitches will increase the hitting skills of the hitters behind them, because with multiple men on base, the pitcher will eventually need to throw a strike to get somebody out.
LAST 5 GS
Dave Bush (2-0, 3.74 runs average, 6.74 IP/GS; 4 quality starts) @ Mike Hampton (1-2, 7.39 runs average, 5.60 IP/GS; 1 quality start)
And so it continues; Bush is one of the Brewers’ top rotation options for 2009, and the righty is in the midst of a strong stretch of efficient, quality starts. After throwing 213 pitches in his final 12.7 IP of April, Bush worked 7 IP in each of his May starts, throwing fewer than 100 pitches in each of them. His most efficient start came against the Cubs at Miller Park, where he worked a 7 IP, 2 R appearance while throwing 81 pitches overall. One of Bush’s virtues is his strike zone attack, which will yield home runs from time to time (see his Arizona start), but will result in stretches of fine efficiency and other rewards for staying aggressive with batters (5 BB in his last 33.7 IP).
Hampton is a junkballer’s junkballer in 2009: the sneaky lefty is averaging between 87 and 88 MPH on his fastball, and throwing that pitch less than 38% of the time. That’s right. He is using a moving fastball – a cutter or sinker – that averages around 86 MPH for almost 28% of his pitches, and his change up goes for 25% of his pitches. Baseball’s most infamous pitching contract – maybe the worst contract of all time – is still looking to establish himself as a strong, bargain bin starter for the Astros in 2009, to get his career back on track.
Yovani Gallardo (3-0, 1.80 runs average, 7.00 IP/GS; 4 quality starts)@ Wandy Rodriguez (3-1, 2.18 runs average, 6.60 IP/GS; 4 quality starts)
Come on, let’s do it again…Gallardo was on the short end of the postponed game in St. Louis on Friday, getting his game together, only to work less than two innings before mother nature decided that she’d rather watch re-runs than live baseball. What more is there to say about this youngster? He is putting his entire game together, which features multiple sliders, curveballs, and change ups alongside his two fastballs, each a testament to his near-willingness to throw any pitch in any count.
He’s not quite Hampton, but also, Hampton is nowhere near Wandy. Namely, Rodriguez is putting together his fantastic season by throwing his fastball around 10% less frequently than in 2008, meaning that his curveball and change up get most of the work. Rather than holding them in equal standing, Rodriguez throws the curve approximately three times more frequently than the change; overall, his curve will see approximately 35% of his pitches (he throws it almost as frequently as Hampton throws a fastball). When he does throw his fastball, the velocity is stronger than in 2008 (by a hair).
Jeff Suppan (2-1, 3.48 runs average, 6.20 IP/GS; 2 quality starts)@ Roy Oswalt (1-0, 4.32 runs average, 5.00 IP/GS; 2 quality starts)
Who is this man? Enter the last few weeks into the evidence for the case: “Jeff Suppan is still a 4th starter in the MLB.” I am not sure that either he or Brewers GM Doug Melvin ever doubted that, but after two bad starts, fans were ready to write Suppan off and get rid of him. Now the attitude seems to be one of skeptical acceptance; and yet no one seems willing to give this guy the credit he deserves as holding down the low rotation. Frankly, what makes pitching staffs good is not simply having an ace, but rather, having low rotation pitchers that pitch better than your regular old poor 5 starter / swingman. Suppan’s ability to pitch like a #4 starter will influence this team almost as much as signing the main free agent ace in the offseason. Think about it, carefully.
Can I just say something about Oswalt? Doesn’t it seem like every season for the last couple of years, he’s had a tough start, maybe an injury scare here and there, and it seems plausible to say, “here’s where his frame finally gets the best of him due to his pitching style.” And then by the end of the season, there is the mid-3.00 ERA and 200+ IP…
-
This is a cutesy little index I've been toying with for a couple of
years, and I've taken a bit more favor to it recently, so I'll probably
throw it in posts on the back end of pitching lines. Here's the
simple rationale behind it: although the quality start is a rather
contrived stat, which is about as arbitrary as a save (in both cases,
we'd probably come up with different measures of a "quality start" and
a worthwhile "save" if we tackled the problem analytically), it does
reflect two rather simple facts about contemporary baseball: (1)
Complete games are not the norm, and therefore pitching W-L records are
not valuable because a W-L system is not designed to handle era where
3-4 relievers normally pitch in one game; when the W-L system was
instituted, it was completely logical to judge a pitcher on W-L because
(a) a pitcher pitched a much larger % of his team's games, and (b) a
pitcher completed most of his games. Now, "support" and "context"
arguments still work against a W-L system even in those circumstances
-- a pitcher can still receive bad run support even if he is pitching
more of his team's games and completing most of his starts -- but those
arguments do not work as well as they do in contemporary baseball. In
a game where complete games are not the norm, W-L record becomes more
subjected to circumstances of the game, and therefore the starting
pitcher has much less control over his "W" or "L" than pitchers of a
previous era. Therefore, other measures are necessary. In this case, a
quality start remains somewhat of a dorky nuissance ("let me adjust my
abacus and see whether or not the start was quality -- hmm, the IP line
hits 6, and the R line hits 2, there we have it! A quality start!"
(This reminds me of the joke about "math rock," which started as a
derogatory term to judge bands that played around with insane time
structures. "Let me pull out my calculator and see if it thinks that
song was good.")). But, over the course of the season, I'd wager that
judging a pitcher by how many quality starts he pitched provides a
pretty decent measure of how likely he was to help his team win on a
start-to-start basis. (2) We're still in a hitter's era, which
coupled with the five man rotation, creates more difficult
circumstances for quality pitching lines. I'm not even sure why this
rotation is the prevalent pitching staff design -- think of the
artificial pitching shortage that (a) a five man rotation and (b) the
demand for 2-3 left-handed specialists creates for a GM. There are very
odd circumstances for roster building in our era of baseball, if you
really think about it. The quality demands for pitching will decrease
when you subject yourself to handing crucial innings to lesser pitchers
simply because of their handedness, and also, design a rotation around
the need for 4-days rest. Even given contemporary arguments against
high pitch workloads, I'd argue that a 5-man rotation is not the logical solution to the problem. (Some
day soon, some gutsy GM will hire 4 veteran, quality starters, pitch
them on moderate workloads -- say, 100 pitches per game at most
-- and pitch them once every 4 days, with a random swingman thrown into
the equation occasionally, and that GM's pitching staff will take the
league by storm. Similarly, some gutsy GM will hire one veteran,
quality starter, and call up a bunch of young arms, and pitch a rotating
4-man rotation, in an effort to limit the innings of young pitchers as
they train for a long career as a starting pitcher. If this GM's young
arms are good enough, his pitching staff will take the league by storm.
And of course, the reason these GMs will have winning teams that are
better equipped for situational baseball is simple: they will have one
less pitcher in their bullpen, and therefore will be able to carry one
more position player on their bench, which will give his field manager
a decided advantage in many situations with which other field managers
will not be able to compete). So, long story short, pitchers are
(a) pitching fewer innings, and (b) pitching lower ERAs, because the
game is largely owned by hitters and managers obsessed with situational
relievers. Meaning, the quality start, over time, becomes a somewhat salient measure of pitching value. So so, if you're sick of VORP or Runs Prevented or anything like that, I have a simple and fun exercise. (1) Take a pitcher's IP/G (say, 6 IP/G) (2) Take a pitcher's runs average (which is (R*9)/(IP)) (say, 4.50 runs average) (3) Divide: (6 IP/G) / (4.50 runs average) Your
answer is 1.33, which is really quite meaningless. There is no other
analytical value to that number. It is IP/GS divided by runs average. But, 1.33 is your basic quality start. Now,
you can compare a starter that works 6.33 IP/G with a 4.20 runs
average, against a starter that works 5.75 IP/G with a 3.20 runs
average. One pitcher might be a Rich Harden prototype -- excellent
stuff, can't work deep into games because he throws too many pitches;
the other might be a Dave Bush prototype. Pitcher #1 (6.33 / 4.20) = 1.51 Pitcher #2 (5.75 / 3.20) = 1.80 Both
pitchers produce better than a basic quality start, and by this
measure, both ptichers are actually quite good. But we can answer some
problems: a pitcher that pitches approximately 2 fewer outs per start
than another pitcher, but allows one less run per 9 IP, is very likely
to be a better pitcher, even though he pitches fewer IP. Now,
other factors will come into play -- bullpen ability and offensive run
support. But, given any two pitchers' runs average and IP/G, we have a
simple little tool to compare their performances. *** An exercise: 2009 NL starters: 4.79 runs average, 5.76 IP/G (1.20 QS Index) 2009 Brewers SP: 4.39 runs average, 5.92 IP/G (1.35 QS Index) Bush: 4.21 runs average, 5.88 IP/G (1.40 QS Index) Gallardo: 3.08 runs average, 6.67 IP/G (2.17 QS Index) Suppan: 5.04 runs average, 5.59 IP/G (1.11 QS Index) Looper: 4.93 runs average, 5.47 IP/G (1.11 QS Index) Parra: 5.31 runs average, 5.33 IP/G (1.00 QS Index)
I
believe this index is rather intuitive: (a) pitchers that pitch more
innings and allow fewer runs are better than pitchers that pitch fewer
innings and allow more runs. That is at core of this index. (b) Where
pitchers do not allow an average number of runs per 9 IP, those that
pitch deeper into games will generally be better than other below
average pitchers that do not pitch as deep into games. And of course, it's easy to calculate. A nice little at-a-glance stat. Nothing more, nothing less.
-
Road sweet road.
Ever thought you’d say that, regarding your beloved Brew Crew?
After a successful homestand against the Cubs and Marlins, the Brewers hit the road once again to face the Cardinals, Astros, and everyone’s favorite AL squad, the Twins. The secret to the Brewers’ current success (9-4 in May) is in the bats; in 13 May games, the Brewers’ offense scored 78 runs, a flat rate of 6 RS / G. And in case you’re concerned that that total is simply inflated by their two blowout victories, subtracting those games the Brewers scored 51 runs in 11 games, a runs scored total that is still above average, and still more than enough to support the pitching staff (54 R in May, 4.15 RA / G).
These types of stretches are really important, because they don’t happen often. The point is for the Brewers to win as many games as possible while firing on all cylinders, before the pitching needs to eventually pick up the bats again, or the bats need to pick up the pitching.
Right now, everything is in harmony.
Last 5 GS
Yovani Gallardo (3-0, 5 GS, 1.80 runs average, 7.00 IP/GS; 4 quality starts) @ Kyle Lohse (1-2, 5 GS, 6.50 runs average, 5.26 IP/GS; 1 quality start)
Even his non-quality starts are going well right now. Gallardo pitched one of his toughest outings of the year against the Cubs, working with a tough strike zone, lack of command, and maybe missing his best stuff. The young righty is pitching very well with his slider this year, according to The Hardball Times, which is surprising because his curveball and fastball are known as his bread and butter. But along with those two plus pitches, Gallardo is pitching most effective with his slider, and his change up turns out to be pretty solid, too.
More of the same for Lohse. The junkballer is throwing his standard repertoire for solid production thus far, although he is weathering a tough spot at the moment. As with most Cardinals pitchers, expect more of the same from Lohse. He’ll work his upper-80s fastball, slider, and change up to batters as his main pitches, and he also features a curveball.
Jeff Suppan (2-1, 5 GS, 4.20 runs average, 6.00 IP/GS; 2 quality starts) @ Adam Wainwright (2-1, 5 GS, 6.10 runs average, 6.20 IP/GS; 2 quality starts)
This is better than you thought, isn’t it? Suppan is really hammering home the quality starts this month. The veteran sinkerballer is pitching relatively well, and is missing some forms of support at times. For instance, during his last start against the Cubs, he failed to receive strong defensive support at crucial moments – resulting in an unearned run, and the bats similarly fell silent. Nevertheless, Suppan is righting ship rather quickly, and looks to be in the midst of one of those strong stretches that keep him in an MLB rotation.
Without the same control he exhibited last year, Wainwright is having some trouble with his results in 2009. The developing ace is probably the Cardinals’ strongest pitcher, although without his results, they will need to find contributions from some of their veterans that have less stuff than Wainwright, but more experience. Of course, the standard fare is there for Wainwright – besides his fastball, he features that brutal 12-to-6 hook, along with a slider that brags a pretty good disappearing act. He will throw the curveball and slider almost equally (around 20%-21% each), and only throws his fastball 51% of the time.
Manny Parra (2-2, 5 GS, 4.67 runs average, 5.40 IP/GS; 3 quality starts) @ Todd Wellemeyer (2-2, 5 GS, 6.68 runs average, 5.66 IP/GS; 2 quality starts)
Suddenly, Parra is coming around, pitching quality starts, and more importantly, adjusting from rough stretches early in games to complete his start in a quality manner. Specifically, the lefty put together a stretch of 3 consecutive quality starts, including his last start against Florida, during which he started weakly but finished strong, keeping the Brewers in the game and giving them a chance to win. At the moment, Parra is throwing his fastball more frequently than 2008, according to FanGraphs, and his splitter less than in 2008. The real coup in his arsenal was staged by his change up, which Parra is throwing nearly 19% of the time.
Wellemeyer closes the series for the Cardinals, working as perhaps their hardest throwing starter. The righty is looking to kickstart his season, after he pitched the best season of his career in 2008. Much like Wainwright, the walks seem to be Wellemeyer’s issue at the moment; more specifically, and perhaps more troublesome, Wellemeyer’s strike out totals are dipping, meaning that the righty is allowing more balls into play than in 2008. Even with a good defense behind him, handing more plays to the defense will test their efficiency, and change the complexion of the pitcher’s approach when those balls in play result in hits (compare 56 H in 40.3 IP for 2009 with 178 H in 191.7 IP for 2008).
-
The 2008 bench was actually better than the 2009 bench is projecting -- your whining about the bench is probably not out of shape or place. Here's the 2008 bench, which after Runs Created corrections was probably worth approximately 17.6% of the 2008 Crew's overall runs production:
| Counsell |
|
30 |
| Kapler |
|
39 |
| Branyan |
|
28 |
| Durham |
|
19 |
| Dillon |
|
9 |
| Rivera |
|
10 |
| Gross |
|
6 |
| Gwynn |
|
3 |
That's 144 RC individually, which corrects to approximately 132 R in the team context. 132 R of 750 R from the bench is pretty decent, considering that this main bench core accumulated roughly 17% of the team's PA. Flash forward to 2009:
| Counsell |
12 |
| Duffy |
1 |
| Nelson |
0 |
| McGehee |
1 |
| Corporan |
1 |
| Rivera |
1 |
Yeah, I know. And that's with 149 PA, which is approximately 12% of the team's PA. So, Macha is using the bench less frequently than Yost, but the bench is also much less productive: even with a liberal correction, the bench produced approximately 14-15 runs to this point, which is worth approximately 9% of the team's total 164 R. That's ugly. But, the Crew does have a nice bench star in Counsell, who has already matched close to half of his 2008 production in only about 1/5 of the PA. He's our Gabe Kapler of 2008 -- average / slightly below average veteran with great baseball smarts who puts it all together when the team needs it in limited duty. The Crew does not yet have a mid-season acquisition like Durham -- it's not yet mid-season -- but it is clear that otherwise, the bench is not featuring "mid-range" players thus far. The production is pretty extremely low. This all might change, and probably will. But for now, the bench is not really pulling its roster spots.
-
 It is prime time to steal some more wins. Not because the Marlins are bad or anything – because they’re not – but because the Brewers are at one of those points in the season, it seems, where offense and pitching are cosmically aligned. The stars are in order to keep the runs allowed low, and let the runs scored run high, giving the Brewers excellent chances of winning series, and sustaining a high level of play.
This won’t last forever, there will be pitching slumps, but the point is to win as many games as possible now, before the offense needs to bail out the pitching staff, before we have to bide our time until the next strong stretch of great offense and great pitching.
Last 5 GS (where possible)
John Koronka (0-0, 0 GS) @ Manny Parra (1-3, 4.67 runs average, 5.40 IP/GS; 3 quality starts)
Koronka makes his first start of the season for the Marlins, replacing Anibal Sanchez in the rotation. The lefty has bounced around a bit as a replacement player, although he did make more than 20 starts with the Rangers in 2006. He has not appeared in the majors since 2007, but presumably he still comes with the upper-80s fastball / change up combination, throwing from the south side of the pitching plate.
Parra is slowly recovering from his start of the season, and now will follow his consecutive quality start efforts, which resulted in 12 IP, 3 R over the course of his last two starts. The lefty still struggles with control, walking 8 in those 12 IP, and he provided batters 20 free passes in just over 31 IP thus far. It sounds easier to say than it is to execute, but it seems as though Parra needs to be given the encouragement to spend a handful of starts as a two-pitch pitcher, not messing around with three or four of his off-speed pitches, but picking one, learning to use it along with an aggressive fastball. When you think of young lefties that throw in the 90s, you probably think of someone who throws his fastball more than 57% of the time, and someone who does not throw three other pitches more than 6% of the time (and two more than 14% of the time).
It would be fantastic to see what Parra could do while focusing on two pitches, and commanding them. Maybe he couldn’t pull it off; maybe he’d be more hittable. But, we’ve seen “junkball” Manny, perhaps the hardest throwing pitcher this side of Dan Haren to focus on throwing lots of different secondary pitches; all I’m saying is, it might be a neat experiment for the Brewers to take with a young pitcher that is very talented, but just provides the perception that he hasn’t reached his potential yet.
Ricky Nolasco (1-2, 7.00 runs average, 5.40 IP/GS; 1 quality start) @ Braden Looper (2-2, 5.00 runs average, 5.46 IP/GS; 2 quality starts)
If Ricky Nolasco hasn’t fallen off the face of the planet yet, he might be in danger of doing so. The righty junkballer is not following his 2008 campaign in the expected manner; for an entire season it really looked like he would put it together as a quality, top rotation pitcher. This season Nolasco is throwing his fastball even less than before – he throws it less than 50% of the time – choosing instead to rely on his array of sliders and curveballs and splitters. Oh my!
Looper isn’t falling off the face of the planet, but he’s coming back to earth a bit, after his strong start for the Brewers. That came in the form of one 7 IP outing, and one outing that was less than 4 IP (his latest). Looper will be a valuable pitcher for the Brewers when his worst outings are of the 7 IP, 4 R type. Or even 6 IP, 4 R. But, it will be wise for the veteran sinker/splitter/slider righty to stay away from those outings that clock in under 4 IP.
Josh Johnson (1-0, 3.15 runs average, 6.86 IP/GS; 4 quality starts) @ Dave Bush (1-0, 3.85 runs average, 6.54 IP/GS; 4 quality starts)
If you were concerned about injury, don’t be. This kid is still throwing hard. The righty comes at batters with a hard fastball in the mid-90s, and features a slider as his main secondary pitch. It always seemed to be the case that Johnson had the most talent of any of these younger Marlins pitchers, but the righty hasn’t been able to make a full go of it in the majors since 2006. Maybe 2009 is the season in which he changes that – and his arm allows him to change that.
Looking for advice? Don’t get in his way! Although many people still bemoan the loss of Sheets and Sabathia, Bush is proving to be a man of action, stepping in behind Gallardo – the young ace-in-training – to serve as the veteran anchor of the Brewers’ rotation. Pitching quality starts, pitching deep into games, limiting the damage, giving the Brewers a good chance of winning by keeping the game close. And he still throws that fantastic change up off of his sinker, as well as the bloop curveball. Thus far, Bush is doing all the right things to help the Brewers win; now it will be interesting to see if he keeps it going.
More Posts « Previous page - Next page »
|
|