Order Now The Hardball Times Baseball Annual 2010 features articles by THT's staff as well as Bill James, Tom Tango and Craig Wright. Please support THT and use this link to purchase the Annual.  Derek Ambrosino
John Burnson Derek Carty Marco Fujimoto Eriq Gardner Matt Hagen Jonathan Halket Rob McQuown Troy Patterson Mike Silver Paul Singman Michael Street And here's the full roster. Got a question for our fantasy baseball experts? Email us:
Heater MagazineAdd 10 MPH to your fantasy team — see for yourself
HEATER MAGAZINE Winner, 2008 CBS Sportsline Fantasy League of Experts  Plus our Statistical Definitions Most Recent Comments
The stats we target (4)
Clone Wars: Clay Buchholz and Felix Hernandez (2) This isn’t fantasy baseball, Joe (5) Top 10 prospects for 2010: Los Angeles Dodgers and San Francisco Giants (12) Waiver Wire Offseason: AL (10) Monthly Archives
February, 2010
January, 2010 December, 2009 November, 2009 October, 2009 September, 2009 August, 2009 July, 2009 June, 2009 May, 2009 April, 2009 March, 2009 February, 2009 January, 2009 December, 2008 November, 2008 October, 2008 September, 2008 August, 2008 July, 2008 June, 2008 May, 2008 April, 2008 March, 2008 February, 2008 January, 2008 December, 2007 November, 2007 October, 2007 September, 2007 August, 2007 July, 2007 June, 2007 May, 2007 Gear up for baseball season with Chicago White Sox tickets and New York Yankees tickets. LA Angels tickets, Houston Astros tickets, and Atlanta Braves tickets are hot sellers! You can get Boston Red Sox tickets, San Diego Padres tickets or Chicago Cubs tickets for your favorite baseball fan. Coast to Coast Tickets has the best MLB tickets like Minnesota Twins tickets, LA Dodgers tickets, Milwaukee Brewers tickets, New York Met tickets and St. Louis Cardinals tickets. Find premium Chicago Cubs tickets and other Chicago tickets at JustGreatTickets.com. Chicago Cubs Tickets Chicago Tickets  All content on this site (including text, graphs, and any other original works), unless otherwise noted, is licensed under a Creative Commons License. |
Most Recent Posts
Monday, June 01, 2009The best pitcher of 2009 is…Posted by Derek Carty at 12:32amIf someone asked you who the best pitcher has been this season, what would your answer be? Zack Greinke and his 0.84 ERA? Johan Santana and his rejuvenated strikeout rate? Tim Lincecum and his continued dominance? According to LIPS ERA, you'd be wrong with all three guesses. Instead, LIPS ERA would herald the name Javier Vazquez: 2009 LIPS ERA leaders through 5/30/09 +----------+--------+----+------+------+----------+-------+------+-------+ | LAST | FIRST | GS | IP | ERA | LIPS ERA | K/9 | BB/9 | xGB% | +----------+--------+----+------+------+----------+-------+------+-------+ | Vazquez | Javier | 11 | 70.3 | 3.58 | 2.71 | 11.00 | 2.05 | 45.30 | | Santana | Johan | 10 | 66.0 | 1.77 | 2.72 | 11.73 | 2.73 | 31.29 | | Lincecum | Tim | 10 | 65.3 | 3.03 | 2.89 | 11.57 | 2.62 | 47.24 | | Greinke | Zack Z | 10 | 75.0 | 0.84 | 2.90 | 9.72 | 1.44 | 43.96 | +----------+--------+----+------+------+----------+-------+------+-------+ Vazquez doesn't beat Santana out by much, but the fact that he is on this list (and at the top, no less) says something. While some fantasy owners would view Vazquez as the answer to a "one of these things is not like the other" question, I (and faithful readers of THT Fantasy) would vehemently disagree. Checking inIf you recall, back in January, I introduced a new method for evaluating pitchers called CAPS (Context Adjusted Pitching Statistics). CAPS focuses on strikeouts, walks, and ground balls—fundamental pieces to any analysis of a pitcher—and goes a step further by adjusting for the context under which they were produced. CAPS adjusts for the following:
CAPS showed that Vazquez would be entering a favorable new environment and had been unlucky, not only in terms of the usual BABIP, HR/FB, and LOB%, but also in terms of his peripherals (i.e. strikeouts, walks, and ground balls). Here's what I said about Vazquez then: No matter how much bad luck he faces in terms of HR/FB (which will greatly improve moving away from Chicago), BABIP, or LOB%, I can't see Vazquez's ERA being held above 4.00 as it has four out of the last five years. In fact, his QERA hasn't been higher than 3.35 over the past three years, and there's a good chance his actual ERA ends up there in 2009. Plus, with the strikeout adjustments, he could strike out over 230 batters if he reaches his usual innings total. Huge fantasy value to be had here. Vazquez's CAPS K/9 for 2006-2008 were 9.4, 10.1, and 9.7, respectively. While 2009 is still young, here we are on June 1 and his K/9 currently sits at 11.0. This puts him on pace for 250 strikeouts, above even my seemingly high prediction (to compare, ZiPS was the most optimistic of the major projection systems at 202). He obviously won't strike out that many batters, but he is undoubtedly the real deal. If you weren't a reader of THT Fantasy at the time or didn't have the opportunity to draft Vazquez, then my reason for writing today is strictly for you. Buy Javier Vazquez now! Looking forwardNow I'd like to throw out my own "one of these things is not like the other" challenge. While Vazquez surely belongs on the above list, what makes him different from the rest? Take a look at that ERA: 3.58. That is a high ERA for a guy as talented as he is. While he might never live up to his LIPS ERA—he always seems to struggle with at least one of his luck indicators—his ERA should decrease. He's currently experiencing a bit of bad luck with all three of the luck indicators, and once it evens out a bit, Vazquez could easily post an ERA in the low-to-mid 3.00s. (And as a side-note, his DIPS WHIP is 1.02 to go with his massive strikeout numbers). This means that Vazquez is one of the best pitchers in baseball but won't demand the same price tag as a guy like Greinke. This is especially true since so many owners have been burned by him before and since he's seemed to pitch inconsistently this year. Right now, he should be at the top of anyone's trade target list who doesn't already own him. The only pitchers I prefer to Vazquez at this point are Santana and Lincecum and maybe Jake Peavy. One could make a case for Greinke and maybe Dan Haren, but I'd probably take Vazquez if push came to shove. Own C.C. Sabathia? Roy Halladay? Cliff Lee? Josh Johnson? If you do, I wouldn't hesitate to make a one-for-one trade for Vazquez. You'll likely be able to get him for less than that, but if it comes right down to it I'd make the deal and expect an upgrade. Derek Carty is a 22-year old fantasy baseball analyst residing in New Jersey. In addition to writing for THTF, his work has appeared at Rotoworld (NBC), Sports Illustrated, FOX Sports, and Heater Magazine. In his two years competing in expert leagues, he has won 2 titles with 4 top three finishes, including a LABR NL title in 2009, making him the youngest person to ever win a major expert league title. Derek is a proud graduate of the MLB Scouting Bureau's Scout Development Program and is a firm believer in the importance of combining stats and scouting. He welcomes questions via e-mail. Comments
Mark said...
Vazquez has a reputation as a “1 bad inning” guy. Now, I have yet to find anyone who has actually studied his game lines to see if he’s prone to clumping his hits and walks together (producing more runs than expected for that numbers of hits/walks), but it’s at least logically possible, and given his reputation, it’s worth investigating. Suppose that we found out that Vazquez does in fact consistently group hits and walks together more than the average pitcher. It would require re-evaluating his skill set (assuming that we believed the ability to spread out hits and walks, or conversely the “ability” to clump them together, was a repeateable skill and not just luck) and adjusting his projections. Given that there are some pitchers who have acquired a reputation as “1 bad inning” pitchers, it’s worth investigating whether or not this ability actually exists. It may be a key to identifying pitchers who tend to underperform or overperform their projections. Posted 06/01 at 11:55 AM
David Gassko said...
Hey Mark, Sean Smith tackled this question here: http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/article/randy-johnson-isnt-dead-yet/ We include a player’s ability with runners on-base as part of the THT projections, by the way. Posted 06/01 at 01:52 PM
Derek Carty said...
Thanks for the comments guys. Mark, I have heard that argument before, but I haven’t seen anyone look into it for Vazquez specifically. That’ll be the plan for Wednesday’s article if I have enough time to run the study before then. Posted 06/01 at 02:54 PM
Mark said...
Thanks David for the link—there’s so much in the THT archives, but some it can be hard to find just by searching. Looking forward to the follow-up Derek. Posted 06/01 at 03:11 PM
Andrew said...
Good stuff, Derek. If possible, I’d really appreciate a longer list of the leaders in LIPS ERA thus far. I can’t seem to find that stat on any other sites. I know DIPS ERA is similar, but you seem to prefer LIPS ERA. Posted 06/01 at 04:14 PM
James said...
Wouldn’t ERA with RISP and Runners On suffice? I understand that ERA isn’t always the best indicator, but I am not sure if LIPs ERA in this microcosm is available. For example, Vazquez, for his career, has an ERA of 2.11 when the bases are empty and an ERA of 7.38 and 10.07 in Runners On and RISP respectively. Wouldn’t that sufficiently explain that Vazquez is prone to these situations, and we shouldn’t expect him to materialize into an ace this year? Posted 06/01 at 09:43 PM
James said...
Edit: prone to these one inning situations Posted 06/01 at 09:44 PM
Derek Carty said...
Andrew, I’ll put up a longer list tomorrow. James, you could look at that, although it is a little simplistic and actually doesn’t match up with my preliminary findings so far. Mark and whoever else is interested: Running some preliminary numbers, it’s not looking like this argument holds much weight for Vazquez. Look for more on Wednesday. Posted 06/02 at 02:01 AM
James said...
Interesting - I am looking forward to your update. Posted 06/02 at 10:22 AM
bpasinko said...
As am I. Leaderboards with CAPS or LIPS would really be interesting. Posted 06/02 at 12:51 PM
Derek Carty said...
bpasinko, Posted 06/02 at 01:29 PM
Derek Carty said...
Joel S, 1) As good as his peripherals were, they should have been *better* due to bad luck with the peripherals themselves (and not the usual BABIP bad luck or such) The combination of the two is what made Vazquez look so appealing this year. It wasn’t just pouring bad luck for 4 straight years (though there was more bad luck for Vazquez than for most pitchers. Still, using the simple statistical principle of the standard deviation, this was bound to happen to *someone*. It just happened to be Vazquez). Posted 06/02 at 02:06 PM |
As a White Sox fan, it’s a little hard for me to swallow the idea that Vazquez has been unlucky. He’s almost always had great peripherals, and he’s almost always been very inconsistent. Can I believe that, over the course of a season, a pitcher can be unlucky if his great peripherals result in a not-so-great ERA and/or win-loss record? Sure. But over the course of multiple years, or an entire career? If you look at Vazquez over the past few years, it seems like he’s an ace 1/4th to 1/3rd of the time, and a league average pitcher the rest of the time.