The Hardball Times -- Josh Smolow

The Hardball Times -- Josh Smolow http://www.hardballtimes.com/main Baseball. Insight. Daily. en studes@hardballtimes.com Copyright 2013 2013-05-22T08:05:15+00:00 Fluke Watch - Dillon Gee http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/fantasy/article/fluke-watch-dillon-gee/ http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/fantasy/article/fluke-watch-dillon-gee/#When:08:50:15 Dillon Gee is not a pitcher on most people's radar. Considered at best a fifth starter throughout the minors and the last two years in the majors, he's one of the many pitchers who exist in real baseball but practically do not exist in fantasy unless someone is in a ridiculously large NL league. And if you just look at his ERA this year—well you'd think nothing has changed.

But if you look at xFIP—which should in theory be a leading indicator of a pitcher's future performance*—things look different. In fact, Gee is actually in the top 10 in the majors in xFIP at 3.16! Does this mean this so-called No. 5 starter is likely to break out any time soon? Could he be a buy-low candidate? Well let's find out.

*To an extent - it should indicate where a pitcher is getting lucky/unlucky and should regress, but it obviously can't predict whether a pitcher can keep up his peripherals in the first place. Of course that's what this type of article aims to figure out.

Gee's pitches

Gee has thrown six pitches over the last two years in the majors:
{exp:list_maker}A four-seam fastball that averages 90 mph with totally average movement.
A two-seam fastball with decent tail but and only decent sink (but the sink compared to the four-seamer is nice).
A change-up that has traditionally been Gee's best pitch and go-to out pitch, which averages 82 mph but has nice sink and drop compared to the fastball.
A curveball with a large amount of drop and horizontal movement (essentially an 11-5 curve).
A slider at around 80-82 mph with not special movement
A cutter at around 86-87 mph with nice sink. {/exp:list_maker}

Now, Gee dropped his slider in 2011 around June in favor of the cutter, but he appears to have switched back to the slider this year. (It's hard to tell at times if he is still throwing the cutter occasionally.) Otherwise, his pitches' movement and velocity have remained the same this year as compared to last year. His improved peripherals are not explained by suddenly found movement or velocity. Nor are they explained by pitch location: Gee's basically aiming each of his pitches in the same general areas as they were aimed at last year. No change here is responsible for his improvement.

Gee's pitch usage

Gee is a right-handed pitcher, so he faces an even mix of left and right handed batters. And his improvements seem to have come against both types of batters.

Against lefties, in 2011, Gee relied heavily on his change-up, throwing the pitch 28.8 percent of the time. Gee also threw an even mix of his fastballs (28 percent two-seamers, 25 percent four-seamers) to lefties. He did not use his two breaking pitches often (counting the cutter as a breaking pitch) often. The cutter was used only nine percent of the time, while the curve was used only 8.6 percent. Before Gee switched from the slider to his cutter in 2011, Gee never used his slider against lefties, throwing only three sliders to lefties in April-May.

In 2012, Gee's pitch distribution has changed slightly. Change-up usage is down around three percent, which could simply be a sample size fluke. In its place, Gee has relied more on his curve, throwing the pitch 13.8 percent of the time against these batters. The curve is still the fourth most used pitch in his arsenal against lefties, but it's more of a factor. In addition, despite Gee losing his cutter this year, Gee has been willing to throw his slider around 7.6 percent of the time against these batters.

These changes can also be seen on a count basis: In 2011, the change-up was clearly Gee's out pitch. He'd use it frequently in every count, but in two-strike counts the change-up usage would rocket upward. That made sense, as it was a good swing-and-whiff pitch. This year, the change-up usage has actually declined on two- strike counts compared to other counts. Instead, Gee is relying on his four-seam fastball more as an out-pitch and is also using both of his breaking balls in this role.

Against righties, in 2011 Gee again relied mainly on fastballs and change-ups. The fastballs, again pretty evenly split in usage, were used a combine 58 percent of the time, with a change-up coming around 21 percent of the time. The remaining 21 percent was split evenly between the curveball and the slider/cutter.

In 2012, Gee, again, Gee's pitch usage has changed. The biggest change has been the monster increase in slider usage—Gee went from using the slider/cutter 10 pdercent of the time in 2011, to 22 percent in 2012 (all the slider now). It's now Gee's primary off-speed pitch, having surpassed the change-up. Gee's fastball usage has dropped to being used less than 50 percent of the time, with most of that drop going to the slider. Gee's change-up usage has also decreased to 16 percent.

This can again be seen in how he uses his pitches in each count. Previously in 2011, Gee would use his fastball mainly, or his change-up as a second option, to get outs on two-strike counts. In 2012, the slider has really taken a place as a real out pitch.

Gee's results

Okay, so we now know a clear change has occurred in Gee's pitch usage. Do Gee's individual pitch results make sense given that change?

First, Gee's change-ups have gotten basically the same exact results as last year: 19 pdercent swinging strike rate, with a 53-57 percent groundball rate. Those are pretty darn good numbers. But remember, Gee's improvement has come as he's actually decreased his change-up usage.

Instead, Gee's improvement has come from basically every other pitch. His slider, now used at an increased rate and as an out-pitch against righties, has clearly received improved results. Last year, the cutter got swinging strikes nine percent of the time; this year it's 14.2 percent. Last year, the pitch got ground balls 42 percent of the time; this year the slider's at 58.3. Using the pitch on two-strike counts, particularly 0-2 and 1-2 counts, has resulted in batters being extremely confused.

Gee's curve is also receiving massively improved results from last year, when it was a negative pitch. The pitch now gets a swinging strike 12.5 percent of the time, up from 9.5, and gets 64.7 percent ground balls, up from 29.6 in 2011. That's a huge difference.

Gee's fastballs are also both improved slightly.

It's hard to say if these improved results are sustainable?, since they come from, if anywhere, the interaction between Gee's own pitches. This is essentially game theory, and it's incredibly hard to predict. Looking individually at pitches for example:

The curveball's groundball rate seems destined to regress as a fluke of small sample size (only 17 balls in play) as the pitch has remained exactly the same. On the other hand, the increase in ground balls could be explained by the fact that the slider's presence might make batters swing over the top of the curveball more. The slider's improvement could be from being used just on two-strike counts to surprise batters, but one might think this improvement therefore wouldn't last as batters get updated scouting reports.

Conclusion

Overall, it's really hard to know whether Gee's xFIP and peripherals are a good indicator of a good fantasy option in the future. There are no obvious improvements in his stuff that would cause his improved performance, but his change in pitch usage may explain the improved performance. This is a gray area in this method of PITCHf/x analysis—we can tell there's a change, but we can't nail down the effects of that change.

As a result, I'd probably recommend staying away from Gee for now (which you're probably already doing). There's no clear sign pointing toward him keeping up these improved peripherals and he is on a team with poor power, the Mets, that won't net you many wins.

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But this year, Hammel has seemingly broken out. He's currently running an ERA/FIP/xFIP line of 1.97/2.82/2.95—a line that you'd expect to see from an ace, not Jason Hammel. His strikeout rate is up to a level that would be a career high and his walk rate has dropped back in line with his 2009-2010 levels. And then there's the groundball rate, which has risen from 43 percent—below average—to an amazing rate of over 60 percent. Where did this come from? Is it a real improvement?

Hammel's pitches

Before this year, Hammel used a standard arsenal of four pitches: a four-seam fastball, a change-up, a slider, and a curveball. He relied heavily on his fastball (57 percent of pitches against right-handed hitters, 63 percent against lefties), with the slider being used as a clear secondary pitch against right-handers and the change-up/curveball being used as the secondary pitches against lefties.

None of these pitches were partticularly impressive. Hammel's fastball had good velocity (averaging 92.9 mph last year), but unspectacular movement. Hammel's slider also had decent velocity (you may be noticing a theme here) at around 84.3 mph, but is nothing special in terms of movement.

This year, Hammels has added a new pitch: a two-seam fastball. The pitch is sometimes labeled as a "sinker"—in fact Harry Pavlidis briefly mentioned it on Tuesday for THT HERE. Yet this label is sort of misleading: The pitch doesn't have very much sinking action at all. The pitch IS clearly different than the four-seamer that had previously been Hammel''s mainstay—it tails in on right-handed batters around eight inches on average as compared to the five inches of tail on the four-seamer. But while the pitch is nice, there's no reason—movement-wise, at least—that the pitch should make Hammels dominant or that it should be a heavy groundball pitch.

Now Hammel's pitches have increased in velocity overall by about half a mile per hour, which should not be understated. But there nothing about the pitches them selves that should explain his results.

Hammel's results

Hammel's two-seam fastball has a groundball rate of 77 percent against right-handed hitters. Once again, this is a pitch without much natural sinking action, relying mainly on velocity and location to get ground balls. Except he's not using the two-seamer to frequently hit good groundball locations—he's not getting low and away locations to these batters.

Hammel has gotten ground balls against lefties with his four-seam fastball (seven of 10 balls in play on the ground) and both of his breaking pitches (five of five balls in play on the ground). But there's no reason for this to have occurred. Hammels hasn't changed how he pitches much in terms of location or usage in such a way that would cause this. He hasn't gotten ground balls with his two-seam fastball or change-up, a fact which isn't surprising as two-seamers have a clear platoon effect on ground balls and his doesn't have huge sinking action.

All in all, Hammel's ground ball rate reads quite strongly as a fluke, with regression seemingly on the way. Hammel's increased velocity (if he can keep it up) and the addition of the two-seamer should result in him getting more ground balls this year than last, but not a huge amount more. Optimistically, he should get around 50 percent ground balls if his improvements are real—still a solid rate, but not elite.

Of course, there's another reason why Hammels has such good peripherals this year: His strikeout rate is at a career high. Is this also a fluke? Well, perhaps not completely. Hammel has changed his approach to pitching slightly. In addition to the two-seamer, Hammel has increased his slider usage on two-strike counts, which makes sense as it's his best strikeout pitch.

Similarly, the two-seam fastball—while not a good strikeout pitch against righties—has so far been a good pitch at getting whiffs against left-handed batters. And if you look at how Hammel has used the pitch to left-handers, you can sort of believe this to be real: Hammel uses the pitch against lefties to near exclusively pound the outside part of the plate. (More than 80 percent of his two-seamers have been on the outside part of the plate to lefties, with most of the other 20 percent being in the middle of the plate). This is an area of the plate that should in theory get whiffs from lefties.

But there are some warning signs about his whiff rate, too. Much of his increased ability to get strikeouts has come from his four-seam fastball, which has above a 10 percent swinging strike rates against both lefties and righties. A typical fastball has a swinging strike rate of around five percent, so this is pretty insane. And yet, Hammel isn't using his four-seamer much differently from last year and certainly not in a way that would explain such a super swinging strike rate.

So where do I see Hammel's swinging strike rate going by the end of the year? Probably around his career rate of 6.34 percent, or maybe around seven. This would be an improvement over Hammel's 2011 performance, but that performance seems more of a fluke than anything else in his career.

One last note: It's very possible that some of Hammel's non-two-seam improvements are caused simply by the availability of the two-seamer. In other words, the fact that a batter now has to worry about the two-seamer could—probably does—make his other pitches better to an extent, at least in the short run before batters adapt. But the improvements to Hammel's other pitches' results are just too large for me to accept that it can be from this effect.

Conclusion

Hammel's addition of a two-seam fastball has improved his pitch repertoire, and will help him be a better pitcher this year. But his performance so far seems unsustainable.

His two-seamer doesn't seem to be good enough in movement/speed/location to improve his results—particularly his groundball results—as much as they've looked so far. I wouldn't call his improvement a "mirage"—he has changed something—but it is likely flukey and regresssion is very likely. If you have Hammels and someone is looking for pitching, he seems like a very good candidate to sell high.

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What can we expect from Santana? Is he an ace still? Can he be trusted to keep up his early dominance? Or was his start in Atlanta, his first time facing a team with an updated scouting report against him (Atlanta had faced him in his 2012 debut), a sign of things to come?

Santana's pitches

To answer that, let's compare Santana's pitches now with those same pitches in 2010, his last season in the majors.

He throws four pitches: a four-seam fastball (his primary fastball), a two-seam fastball, a change-up, and a slider. In 2010, these pitches had the following characteristics:

Pitch type	Avg. velocity	Avg. horizontal spin deflection	Avg. vertical spin deflection
Four-seam	89.5 mph	+4.90	+9.77
Two-seam	89.16 mph	+7.98	+8.34
Change-up	79.3 mph	+6.75	+6.81
Slider	81.9 mph	+0.93	+2.74

Note that telling the fastballs apart is extremely difficult, so my numbers above differ from the classifications at Brooks Baseball (by Harry Pavlidis). But they're good enough for a comparison. Now let's look at Santana's pitches over his last three starts (his fourth start's data was not yet available as I was writing thisy):

Pitch type	Avg. velocity	Avg.horizontal spin deflection	Avg. vertical spin deflection
Four-seam	88.3 mph	+3.95	+10.06
Two-seam	87.6 mph	+8.06	+9.22
Change-up	78.1 mph	+6.60	+8.89
Slider	80.9 mph	-0.22/td>	+2.61

So how do Santana's pitches now compare to his pitches in 2010? Basically, they're the same. Each pitch is roughly a mile per hour slower than it was in 2010 and the changes to movement are all within the margin of error of PITCHf/x.

Conclusion

What does this mean? Well it means that we should expect more or less the same thing as we saw in 2010, maybe a slight bit worse due to the loss of a mile per hour. And in 2010, Santana wasn't really showing the most dominating peripherals —he kept his ERA low, but he certainly wasn't a strikeout master. He's definitely worth a pickup, but I wouldn't consider him an ace for fantasy purposes.

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Of course, such a strategy relies upon Sanchez being able to keep up his improved peripherals, which involve striking out more than two extra batters per nine while also walking nearly a batter less per nine innings. We're talking about career best in both of these and a strikeout rate increase that seems out of the blue. (His walk rate did improve last year from 2009, so this would seem more logical on the surface.) Could this improvement be real?

Sanchez's pitches

Sanchez throws five pitches:
A four-seam fastball that has a good deal of cutting action but doesn't sink like many other cutters.
A Two-seam fastball that has a decent amount of tail (but a good amount compared to the four-seamer) but basically without any sink at all.
A slider with good velocity and okay movement.
A change-up with okay velocity and good sink relative to the fastball.
A curveball with an 11-5 movement that doesn't drop or tail an exceptional amount.

Most of his pitches haven't changed over the last three years, but there have been a few tweaks.

Sanchez's slider has increased from 83.3 MPH in 2009 to 84.5 MPH in 2010 to now 85.4 MPH in 2011. His two-seamer has increased by 1.0 MPH per year also during this span, while his four-seam fastball has increased by around 0.5 MPH per year each of the last two years. The change-up's movement has also become more like the two-seamer, but the pitch is hard to distinguish from the slider at times, and this could just be an illusion.

Other changes and the results

Sanchez has a set strategy of throwing mostly fastballs against both types of batters, with the change-up being the primary offspeed pitch against lefties and the slider as the primary off-speed pitch against righties. However, three of every five fastballs he threw previously were four-seam fastballs. In 2011, he's dropped his two-seamer use dramatically (now his fastball use is essentially 80 percent four-seamers).

The result is that Sanchez has increased his usage of a pitch that gets more swinging strikes—and thus more Ks—which is the reason why his swinging strike rate is up. That's a pretty good explanation for why Sanchez's whiff rate has increased.

Sanchez's improved walk rate, on the other hand, is not easy to explain. He's hitting the zone less often than previously, yet he's getting called for slightly fewer balls than last year. The only pitch that's improved in accuracy has been the four-seamer, but that alone isn not enough to explain the better results. In other words, while the walk rate improvement last year was easily trackable to an improvement in accuracy, that's not the case this year.

Conclusion

So our conclusion on Sanchez is a mixed bag. His great improved in swinging strikes seems real—the result of going more frequently to his cutting four-seam fastball instead of his two-seamer. Thus, we should expect his strikeout rate to remain high. But his improved walk rate isn't explained by anything really.

So what to expect? Anticipate Sanchez's K rate to stay high around nine, but expect his BB rate to drop closer to last year's than this year's walk rate. He's not a fluke, but he's not completely for real, either.

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And then this year happened: Kennedy now is 13-3 with a nice looking 3.17 ERA and a 3.54 FIP and 3.5 xFIP. How's he done it?

Well he's kept his K rate basically the same while dropping his walk rate by basically 25 percent, and dropped his home run rate a little too (though his groundball rate has practically stayed the same; he's still a fly ball pitcher quite clearly). But is this improvement real? Lets look at his pitches to find out.

Kennedy's pitches

Kennedy seems to throw four pitches: a fastball (he may throw more than one, it's hard to tell, but the breakdown of fastballs has remained the same over the years), a change-up, a cutter/slider, and a curveball. The fastball has barely changed over Kennedy's last three seasons (2008, 2010-2011), coming in at around 89-90 mph, with not much tailing action (but no cutting action) and a normal amount of rise for a four-seam fastball. It's not a pitch that strikes one as likely to get really impressive results unless Kennedy shows amazing control.

The change-up comes in at 10 mph slower and has similar not-impressive horizontal movement. The pitch does have three less inches of rise than the fastball, giving it a minor sinking action, meaning that batters expecting the fastball who get the change-up not only will be swinging early, but probably a little over the top of the ball. Kennedy throws this pitch the same amount to lefties and righties, around 15 percent of the time.

Kennedy then has two breaking balls, a cutter/slider and a curveball. In 2008, neither of these pitches had good velocity and neither had super impressive movement (though the curve did have an impressive amount of sink.) Since coming back up to the majors in Arizona, Kennedy has found velocity on both of these pitches: the curveball's is up to 77 mph on average from 73 in 2008, while the cutter/slider's velocity has been at 85.6 this year, up from 83.3 last year and 81.8 the year before. The cutter/slider's movement doesn't stand out for a slider, but at 85.6 mph as a cutter, the pitch would seem pretty solid.

Now Kennedy's usage of his pitches has changed a little bit from last year: Kennedy still relies a ton on his fastball, throwing it 60 percent of the time against both lefties and righties and he still throws the change-up a similar amount against both types of batters. Where he's changed is in his usage of his breaking ball: Last year, Kennedy relied on his curveball as his primary breaking ball against both types of batters, with the slider/cutter barely being used. This year, Kennedy uses his curveball as his primary breaking ball against left-handed batters, while the slider is his primary pitch against Righties.

The results

Kennedy's best pitch is his change-up, which gets swing-and-misses an amazing 20 percent of the time. And his slider and curve have improved this year into useful pitches (last year, they were not good pitches at all).

But the real improvement has come in Kennedy's fastball. That fastball is being called for a ball only 29.2 percent of the time, down from 33.5 percent last year and 37.3 percent in 2008. And this change is very easily explainable: Kennedy is simply hitting the strike zone more often. Check out the numbers:
2008 Fastball strike zone% - 46.65.
2010 Fastball strike zone% - 51.21.
2011 Fastball strike zone% - 55.90.

Kennedy's not aiming the pitch differently— he throws it away away away to both lefties and righties—but he's been more able to get the pitch within the strike zone. And thus instead of batters taking these pitches for balls, they're being forced to swing, and batters have been able only to foul off these extra pitches within the zone. Trading called balls for foul balls is a win for a pitcher in any scenario.

Conclusion

A few times in this column we've seen a walk rate improvement that's pretty inexplicable, The pitchers were hitting the strike zone in the same frequency as before and getting called pitches for balls just as often, but just weren't giving up the walks. Those pitchers' walk rates we expect to regress.

But Kennedy isn't one of those guys: His walk rate improvement is easily explainable, and if he can keep up this accuracy—which seems quite probable—then he can sustain it. You should not feel like Ian Kennedy is a heavy danger to regress too much.

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But is this improvement sustainable, or is it just a fluke? Well, first lets identify where Niese's improvement has come from: Entirely against left-handed batters. Last year Niese had reverse splits—he was worse against same-handed batters than opposite-handed batters.

Niese survived this because the vast majority of batters faced by lefty pitchers are right-handed batters: 76.9 percent of batters last year faced by lefty starters were right-handed batters. Niese's numbers were even more extreme—81 percent of batters faced last year were right-handed batters—though his numbers have become more normal (75 percent righties) this year. As a result, this weakness didn't harm him much, but it certainly didn't help him.

This year, this has changed: Niese has a 2.03 FIP and 2.60 xFIP against left-handed batters, down from 5.48 and 4.27, respectively, last year. His numbers against right-handed batters remain the same, but this drastic improvement has resulted in his overall numbers improving. But is this improvement real?

What Niese throws

Jon Niese throws five pitches: a four-seam fastball, a two-seam fastball, a cutter, a change-up, and a curveball.

Niese has really been known for the curveball, which has a lot of movement (nine inches more sink than what one would expect due to gravity) and comes in at 74 MPH as he came up through the majors. His four-seam fastball is not particularly special in terms of movement or velocity (averaging roughly 89-90 MPH), but has always served as his primary pitch.

Niese's two-seamer has decent sink and tail, while his cutter has good cutting action and the more sink than his two-seamers. Niese's final pitch is a change-up he only throws on occasion against right-handed batters, which averages 81-84 MPH and has more or less the same movement as his two-seam fastball.

Niese's pitches have remained mostly the same in 2011 in terms of movement and velocity. The only changes are that the cutter and change-up both seem to have an additional two MPH of velocity, and that the cutter has lost a bit of its sink. However, Niese's usage of his pitches >b>has changed, especially against left-handed batters.

In 2010, Niese really relied upon his four-seam fastball for setup, with the cutter being his out pitch. The curveball was used early in counts, but really wasn't used as heavily as many would expect of a guy who was known for it in the minors. This was especially the case against left-handed batters: 55.2 percent of his pitches against such batters were four-seam fastballs, while 27.5 percent were cutters, with only 8.7 percent being curveballs and 8.5 percent being two-seam fastballs.

But in 2011, this has changed dramatically. First his four-seam usage against left-handed batters has dropped to only 37.5 percent of the time (down from 55.2 percent). His cutter usage has also dropped a tiny bit (from 27.5 percent to 23.2 percent), but the real change has been that Niese is now throwing his curveball 23 percent of the time against these batters, a drastic increase from last year (8.7 percent).

Niese's two-seamer usage has also increased to 15.3 percent, but the real change has been in his curveball usage replacing his large four-seamer usage.

Given that his four-seamer has never had any impressive features in terms of movement or velocity, one would suspect these would be positive changes.

Niese's pitch results

And you'd be right. Niese's four-seam results have never been poor—not-awful groundball rates with decently average swinging strike rates, but they've never been particularly impressive either, and the pitch does miss a bunch of the time.

But the curveball's numbers as a substitute for the fastball are far more impressive, at least this year. Last year, the curve wasn't very impressive against left-handed batters, with weak swinging strike rates and ground balls.

However, this year Niese has been able to improve his locations with the curveball. Whereas last year he located the pitch low but in the middle of the zone, this year he's hitting the outside corner. And as mentioned, the results are impressive: The pitch is getting a swinging strike rate 17 percent of the time (compared to the fastball's 6.6 percent), ground balls 64 percent of the time (16/25 balls put into play have been GBs), and actually has been taken for a ball only 34.8 percent of the time (down from 41 percent last year).

For comparison's sake, his four-seam fastball gets called for a ball more often—34.9 percent of the time.

And really, that's been the story for Niese this year against left-handed batters. The two-seam fastball, now also used more against left-handed batters, has been in the zone more often than before, which has also gotten Niese good results. And the cutter, while not getting as many whiffs, is now getting a greater amount of GBs than it did last year.

But all in all, the key for Niese has been ditching the use of the four-seamer so frequently in favor of his curveball. And it's allowed him to dominate left-handed batters.

Conclusion

Niese's improvement against left-handed batters sure seems to be sustainable, as it's clearly traceable to a change in his pitch distribution. However, there are several points of warning that need to be made before anyone picks up Niese.

First, Niese's pitch usage all season has been really really inconsistent—moreso than the usual pitcher. So it's possible he could go back to not using the curve as often. And, in fact, that's occurred in his last two starts. Why he'd do this, I don't know.

Second, as stated before, the impact of this improvement has been magnified by the fact Niese has faced more lefties this year than last. Now, last year was probably a great outlier, as Niese's total number of lefties that year was abnormally low. Still, his total of lefties faced this year is slightly high (slightly), and this is a situation that is uncontrollable by Niese; it's just a matter of happenstance.

If you have Niese and see the opposing lineup he's facing in a start has lots of lefties (or vice versa), adjust accordingly. Niese isn't bad against righties by any means, but you'll be most effective starting him if you keep track of who he's facing.

Overall, the improvement seems real, and Niese's numbers should improve—well, all but wins thanks to him playing on the Mets, but there's nothing you can do there.

Click here to learn about THT's download subscriptions.]]> Josh Smolow 2011-07-25T09:09:15+00:00 Fluke Watch: Tim Stauffer http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/fantasy/article/fluke-watch-tim-stauffer/ http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/fantasy/article/fluke-watch-tim-stauffer/#When:09:12:15
Stauffer didn't strike many batters out, walked too many batters, and didn't get many ground balls. There was nothing about him in 2009 that made anyone think he'd be anything more than a reliever or a fifth starter, at best.

Two years later, Stauffer's numbers have totally changed. The strikeouts remain the same, but his walks have fallen in half and suddenly he's a strong GB pitcher. Where did this come from, and is it for real? He's kept it up for two half-seasons now, but can he be trusted? Short answer: Yes.

Stauffer's pitches

Tim Stauffer's thrown five pitches since 2008: A four-seam fastball, a two-seam/sinking fastball, a change-up, a slider/cutter (it's a pitch that's in between, and I don't know what he calls it) and a curveball. The two major pitches he's thrown are his fastballs (a combined 47-53 percent of the time against lefties and righties, respectively) and his slider, which is used 25-30 percent of the time against both types of batters.

Now, Stauffer's fastballs are not easy to tell apart in Pitch-f/x data. However, they are clearly different pitches, with the two-seamer having more sink and tail than the four-seam pitch. And it's very clear: In 2009, his main fastball was his four-seam fastball. But in 2010-2011, Stauffer switched fastballs and now almost exclusively uses a two-seam fastball.

This fastball change has had a large impact on Stauffer's results and is almost certainly the cause for his improvement over the last two years. His fastballs in 2009, comprising mainly of four-seamers, were only average at getting whiffs, while being a clear flyball pitch (with a GB rate under 40 percent against both lefties and righties).

In 2010-2011 however, Stauffer's fastball has been a groundball machine, getting ground balls around 60 percent of the time against right-handed batters and just under 50 percent against left-handed batters (this type of GB split is normal for two-seam fastballs.)

Stauffer also has managed to hit the strike zone more often with his fastball since the switch, which explains his reduced walk rate. It's not a huge increase in zone accuracy, but it's enough to force batters to have to deal with his pitches with their bats as batters are no longer quite able to let the pitches go past for ball four.

Conclusion

Indeed, Stauffer looks like the real deal. One caveat is that I'm not sure his improvement in walk rate this year from last year is real. There doesn't seem to be an increase in accuracy (if anything, there's a tiny decrease) that would explain the walk rate decrease, and the difference is certainly small enough simply to be explained by randomness.

So if I had to make a prediction for him going forward, it would be for him to produce results equal to his average performance over the last two years.

But the walk decrease from 2009 is real. As is his emergence as a serious groundball machine. Stauffer may not be bringing you a ton of Ks—his swinging strike rate has actually dropped from his old 2009 days due to the two-seamer being a worse pitch for getting swings and misses.

But he'll give you a pretty good ERA and as many wins as you'll probably be able to get from a weak-hitting team like the Padres, and unlike some other pitchers San Diego has had, since his success is not dependent upon the home run-suppressing features of PETCO park, as his ground balls will play well in any park.

Click here to learn about THT's download subscriptions.]]> Josh Smolow 2011-07-18T09:12:15+00:00 Fluke Watch (or really, Breakout Watch): Madison Bumgarner http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/fantasy/article/fluke-watch-madison-bumgarner/ http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/fantasy/article/fluke-watch-madison-bumgarner/#When:09:10:15 The following article was written before Sunday's great performance by Bumgarner. All numbers are from before that start.

Madison Bumgarner's numbers this year are kind of....weird, in a way. On one hand, you have an ERA (4.06 prior to Sunday's start) that is almost certainly the result of some bad luck (a high strand rate and probably high BABIP). Certainly his FIP (2.89 before Sunday) and xFIP (3.47 before Sunday) would indicate that he is due to have that number improve by the end of the year.

On the other hand, Bumgarner's FIP and xFIP are misleading. Taken at face value, they'd indicate that Bumgarner has improved from last year by a decent bit, to the point where he's a really good pitcher.

Of course, you might also notice something fishy about those numbers: While Bumgarner's strikeout rate was a tiny bit better than last year's rate, his walk rate was definitely worse (by a greater amount than his K rate), and Bumgarner's groundball rate is also essentially identical to last year's.

So why does he have improved FIP and xFIP numbers? Well, for one, he's not giving up home runs at all, which is probably the result of luck or random vvariance. (No, it's not due to home/road issues, as most of his innings have come on the road, rather than in his pitcher-friendly home park.). That explains his lower FIP. However, what about his xFIP? Shouldn't that account for this?

Well, his xFIP is also misleading as a result of odd batted ball classifications. See, Bumgarner's GB rate hasn't increased at all, which would explain a drop in xFIP, as it would expect fewer homers.

But what has dropped is the number of balls being called "fly balls." What's happened is that the loss in fly balls has been entirely taken up by an increase in "line drives." Thus, xFIP thinks, "Hey he's reduced his fly balls, so he'll give up fewer HR!" But really, this is unsustainable, and probably just a result of a combination of random variance/luck and the uneven way that batted balls are classified.

But despite the fact that Bumgarner's FIP and xFIP improvements are misleading, I think he's a strong candidate to improve his numbers, including his peripherals, and someone you might think of picking up for your fantasy team.

Bumgarner's pitches

Bumgarner has five pitches:
A four-seam fastball which seems to be sort of straight in terms of horizontal break with okay rise, but decent velocity for a lefty;
A two-seam fastball with decent but not a lot of tail, and really not much sinking action, either;
A cutter or slider (Bumgarner calls it a cutter, but the pitch is in-between) with cutter-like velocity but movement that is really good for a cutter and more similar to a slider (good cut, lot of sink relative to the fastball);
A change-up with similar movement to the two-seam fastball, but more sink and around 83-84 MPH;
A curveball with average velocity and not much drop or great horizontal action (a slurvy pitch except in speed).

Bumgarner, a lefty, throws all of these pitches from seemingly the first base-side of the rubber on seemingly the very edge of the rubber, using a delivery that isn't really sidearm, but is slightly low and more horizontal than most pitcher's release.

The end result is that his four-seam fastball (and two-seamer and change-up), despite not having a lot of horizontal break, crosses the plate on a very sharp angle. In other words, to the batter the pitch appears to be far from straight, which should add to the pitch's effectiveness. (Oddly enough, this effect causes his slider/cutter to be the pitch that approaches the plate the most head-on/straight of any of his pitches, which is the reverse of what normally happens with a cutter.)

Now, Bumgarner's pitches have changed over the last year: Each of Bumgarner's pitches has gotten 1-2 MPH FASTER over the last year. The movement on said pitches has basically remained unchanged, but the velocity change would appear to be real. (It's not simply an effect of a hot gun at AT&T park, as the increase remains on the road).

As a lefty, Bumgarner faces righties roughly 75 percent of the time, so getting these batters out is most crucial for him. And in reality, only two pitches are used significantly by Bumgarner to do so, his four-seamer and his slider/cutter (from here on in, I'm just going to refer to this pitch as a "slider"). The other pitches are there, for sure, but those two pitches make up the bulk of his work, and contain the reason why a breakout may be coming for Bumgarner.

The usage of Bumgarner's pitches

In 2010, Bumgarner relied heavily upon his four-seamer to do his work,with the other three off-speed/breaking pitches being used near equally the rest of the time. But when the count grew worse for him, Bumgarner would really begin to rely upon the fastball.

In 2011, Bumgarner's usage of pitches has changed. Now, Bumgarner's slider has taken a much greater importance, clearly being his second option after his four-seamer. In addition, Bumgarner is relying upon his slider even in worse counts; in fact, on 2-1 counts, Bumgarner uses the slider MORE OFTEN than the fastball! The pitch is used over 20 percent of the time on every count except for 3-0.

This increased usage of the slider has come at a decrease in Bumgarner's usage of the change-up mostly, but also at the expense of his fastball.

Really, this is an odd development if we consider the pitch as a slider. Sliders are generally used as weapons against same-handed batters, with the change-up being the pitch used against opposite-handed batters. But Bumgarner's change-up usage to righties (opposite-handed batters) has decreased in favor of the slider, which is quite odd from that perspective.

This is not the only respect in which Bumgarner's usage of his slider has become more cutter-like. In 2010, the pitch was located like a breaking pitch—mostly at the inside and low corner to right-handed batters—and more often than not, the pitch was located out of the strike zone entirely.

In 2011, Bumgarner is hitting the strike zone over 10 percent more often (52.2 percent compared to 41.4 percent) and is locating his pitches more in the middle-low part of the strike zone, though still with an inside bias. This is more like what we'd expect from a cutter, which is used by many pitches similarly to a fastball.

Bumgarner's results

Bumgarner's results this year on his slider/cutter have, oddly enough, actually seemed to get less impressive. His swinging strike rate is down from 12 percent to 10.5 percent, while his GB rate on the pitch is also down four percent.

However, these numbers obscure one key improvement in Bumgarner's slider: the pitch is being called for a ball much less often, down from 33.0 percent last year to 27.1 percent this year. The end result is a more effective pitch overall.

By contrast, the opposite result has occurred in Bumgarner's fastball this year: The pitch is being called for a ball roughly three percent more often (a significant amount given the pitch is used over half of the time) and has had a worse GB rate, but has had the pitch's swinging strike rate essentially DOUBLE.

By expected run values, this is, in fact, resulting in the pitch being less effective than last year, though not as much as the slider's run value has improved.

Bumgarner's overall usage of this pitch has really not changed—he's locating the pitch in the same area of the zone as in 2010, hitting the strike zone equally as often, but has gotten this change in results. I suspect the cause of these results has been the increased velocity on the pitch and part of the impact of Bumgarner's increased slider usage.

These results are what give me great hope for Bumgarner. The increased usage of his slider and change-up in its location has resulted in Bumgarner overall having his swinging strike rate increase from 7.8 percent in 2010 to 8.9 percent in 2011, while Bumgarner's rate of hitting the strike zone has essentially stayed the same (actually, it's increased slightly).

This is a significant change, and it's one we'd expect to result in Bumgarner having a greatly improved K rate alongside a similar BB rate to 2010. Thus, an improvement in his peripherals would seem a likely possibility for Bumgarner.

Conclusion

The last two "Fluke Watch" posts have involved the idea that sometimes pitcher improvements in their peripherals are unlikely to continue because the pitcher's pitches have remained the same. With Bumgarner, the opposite is true: His pitches seem to have improved, as has his usage of them, and so we might expect to see his peripherals rise throughout the year. As a result, he's certainly a good candidate for a breakout.

*Note: This article was written before Bumgarner dominated the Cleveland Indians with 11 strikeouts to one walk. I wouldn't necessarily expect that result every time out, but it's a good example of what I'm talking about regarding the future of Bumgarner.

Click here to learn about THT's download subscriptions.]]> Josh Smolow 2011-06-27T09:10:15+00:00 Fluke watch: Deciphering pitching illusions http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/fantasy/article/fluke-watch-deciphering-pitching-illusions/ http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/fantasy/article/fluke-watch-deciphering-pitching-illusions/#When:09:11:15

The Problem

Suppose you have pitcher X, who has the following statistics in 2009 and 2010:

2009: 6.0 K/9, 4.0 BB/9, 1 HR/9, and an ERA of 4.42, with a BABIP of .300.
2010: 6.0 K/9, 4.0 BB/9, 1 HR/9, and an ERA of 3.10, with a BABIP of .215.

If I asked you whether Pitcher X's 2012 ERA was going to be closer to his 2009 or 2010 ERA, you'd pretty quickly say 2009. This is because you can see that Pitcher X's peripherals have remained the same from one year to the other, with the ERA improvement clearly coming as a result of a greatly reduced BABIP, which is almost certain to regress.

Now Suppose instead we have the following Pitcher Y, who has pitched a full season in 2010 and one month in 2011 with the following statistics:

2010: 6.0 K/9, 4.0 BB/9, 1 HR/9, and an ERA of 4.42, with a BABIP of .300.
2011: 8.0 K/9, 4.0 BB/9, 0.8 HR/9, and an ERA of 3.46, with a BABIP of .300.

Now, what performance would you expect to see out of Pitcher Y for the rest of 2011? Unlike Pitcher X, whose performance "improvement" was pretty clearly the result of just random variance (luck), Pitcher Y's improvement seems to stem from an improvement in his peripherals. Thus, we're more inclined to believe that this improvement is real and Pitcher Y can continue to do well the rest of the year.

But this belief relies upon a key point, one which is definitely not so clear, that Pitcher Y can keep up his improved peripherals for the rest of the year. How can we be certain of this? After all, random variance in a small sample size (one month) can certainly account for improved peripherals. His improvement STILL could be an illusion, after all.

The Pitch-f/x solution

It's here that Pitch-f/x can be of some use. Improvements in a pitcher's peripherals (or, really, any improvements, including BABIP), can stem from three things: A change in how the pitcher is pitching, external factors, or luck.

External factors are the easiest of the three to explain. Perhaps a pitcher has issues pitching at home (let's say in Colorado) and has thrown two-thirds of his starts or more at home. Perhaps he's faced a whole bunch of weak-hitting teams, or teams who have a lot of lefties or righties. We can easily adjust for such factors to make our future projections.

Then there's luck, or really, random variation: Sometimes a change in results is simply luck or random variation. A pitcher could be throwing the same exact pitches to the same exact locations to the same exact batters 100 times* and the results will NOT be the same each time.

*Presume for this example that the batters don't gain any experience from each of these at-bats.

What will be the same in general, over the long run, is that if a pitcher pitches the same exact way and there are no special external factors, the pitcher's overall peripherals will remain the same. This shouldn't be surprising to anyone.

But a lot of the time, improvement in pitcher results is due to a change in how the pitcher makes his pitches. This can happen in many different ways:
{exp:list_maker}The pitcher could add a new pitch
The pitcher could eliminate a pitch
The pitcher could adjust his distribution of pitches
The pitcher could adjust where he aims the pitches {/exp:list_maker}
These things, and others, are completely within the purview of Pitch-f/x. If you look at the Pitch-f/x data, or just take a rough look at the graphical displays provided by Texas Leaguers, FanGraphs, or Joe Lefkowitz's site, you can spot such changes in how a pitcher pitches, and in many cases this is pretty easy to do. Some changes of course are subtle and can only be seen by looking at the data itself, which is what this column aims to do.

Obviously, not every change in a pitcher's pitches will explain the change in a pitcher's results. But when there is a change in results, particularly in the peripherals, we would expect there to be one of these visible-with-Pitch-f/x changes. And, indeed, we do see such shifts (a change in pitch usage, such as a switch from a four-seamer to a two-seam fastball, is a common explanation for a real change in results).

Of course, not all aspects of pitching are captured by Pitch-f/x. For example, a pitcher could learn to deliver his pitches in a more deceptive way, and Pitch-f/x would not be able to detect it (Pitch-f/x can detect roughly the pitch's release point—sort of—but not the pitcher's actual method of delivery). Similarly, a pitcher's tipping of his pitches through his actions prior to his delivery will not be seen in Pitch-f/x data.

There are, of course, other things Pitch-f/x doesn't pick up that I'm not listing here, but the system captures a bunch of things that could change in a pitcher's motion so as to cause a real noticable change in his results.

So when a pitcher seems to improve or get worse but hasn't changed his pitching at all according to Pitch-f/x, the logical conclusion is that the cause of such improvement (or the cause of the worse results) is the result of luck or random variation. Thus, the logical conclusion is that the pitcher's results will regress to his career numbers (or to the numbers from previous years if career numbers aren't usable for some reason).

Which year is the outlier?

"If there is no change in a pitcher's pitches this year, why couldn't last year be the outlier and this year's numbers be the real thing?"

This is a frequent comment on Fluke Watch posts. The answer is simple: sample size. If you have two sample sizes that are the result of the same exact pitches but have different results, generally the larger sample is more likely to be indicative of the true numbers. In other words, if a pitcher hasn't changed anything, it's more likely his numbers will regress to what he did over a whole season last year than for him to continue what he's been doing for 1-2 months of the season.

Really, when a pitcher doesn't change anything and has better or worse results, we should expect, long-term, for the pitcher's results to regress to the total average results of his pitches.

So for Jhoulys Chacin, as talked about last article, we should expect his groundball rate to regress to his average groundball rate over the last year and two months (essentially his career rate) rather than simply his groundball rate from last year. Due to the sample sizes involved, of course, this means that he'll be expected to regress to much closer to his previous year's rate than his rate for this season.

I hope this answers the standard comments and questions that we see in Fluke Watch Posts. If there are any other questions, please comment. Next time, we'll be back looking at pitchers.

Click here to learn about THT's download subscriptions.]]> Josh Smolow 2011-06-13T09:11:15+00:00 Fluke watch: Jhoulys Chacin http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/fantasy/article/fluke-watch-jhoulys-chacin/ http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/fantasy/article/fluke-watch-jhoulys-chacin/#When:07:54:15 Jhoulys Chacin pitched 137.1 pretty good innings to a line of a 3.28/3.54/3.62 ERA/FIP/xFIP. Those are all pretty solid numbers, though his pitching at Coors Field might give a fantasy player a little worry that he is unlikely to perform to his peripherals in the future—or, as in the case of 2010, to put up a better ERA than should be expected.

Now, this year, Chacin's numbers have changed in some very interesting ways. His ERA is near identical to last year (3.33), but his xFIP has dropped from a fairly solid 3.62 to a really good 3.17 (his FIP has risen thanks to some bad home run luck). More interesting is how this change has occurred: Chacin's strikeout rate has declined, but the decline has been compensated for by a decrease in his walk rate and a large increase in his ground ball rate. Whereas previously Chacin relied on his strikeout ability (along with an average ground ball rate) to get outs, he has increasingly been able to rely upon the ground ball this year to get outs.

And for a pitcher in Colorado, that's a pretty good thing to be able to rely on.

But the question is: Is this sudden groundball ability REAL? Or is it just a mirage, a fluke of a small sample size? Lets look at his pitches in search of an answer.

Chacin's pitches:

Chacin appears to have five pitches: a four-seam fastball that has a lot of cut, a sinking fastball (two-seam probably) without much tailing action, a change-up, a curveball, and a slider. The movement and velocity of these two pitches each of the last two years can be seen below*:

Pitch Type	Year	Pitch Velocity (MPH)	Horizontal Movement	Vertical Movement
4-Seam	2010	91.4	-0.64	+6.20
4-Seam	2011	91.0	-0.07	+7.20
Sinker	2010	90.2	-4.54	+3.79
Sinker	2011	89.6	-4.25	+5.19
Slider	2010	81.2	+6.16	-1.62
Slider	2011	81.3	+6.62	-0.36
Curve	2010	78.3	+7.27	-5.81
Curve	2011	78.3	+6.66	-5.16
Change-Up	2010	83.1	-3.18	+3.07
Change-Up	2011	83.1	-2.75	+4.70

*The two fastballs are not super-clearly distinguishable via PITCHf/x and the two breaking balls (the curve and the slider) aren't either. However, I'm pretty sure that my classifications are for the most part correct.

As you can see, there have been barely any change in the movement or velocity of any of Chacin's five pitches. Really, all of the changes in velocity/movement you see in the chart above are within the PITCHf/x system's margin of error.

This suggests, of course, that the change in Chacin's results is probably not caused by a change in the movement of his pitches.

The mysterious increase in ground balls

So the question is: Where has the increase in ground balls been coming from? The ground balls appear to be coming from Chacin's two fastballs, especially against left-handed batters. Check out the GB rates on Chacin's fastballs each of the last two years:
Against lefties:
Four-seamer in 2010: 43.6%
Four-seamer in 2011: 71.9%
Sinker in 2010: 44.4%
Sinker in 2011: 67.5%
Against righties:
Four-seamer in 2010: 40.7%
Four-seamer in 2011: 61.8%
Sinker in 2010: 57.14%
Sinker in 2011: 52.38%

As you can see, the groundball rates have gone up pretty dramatically on these pitches to lefties, and they've gone up on the four-seamer to right-handed batters as well. Now the fact that Chacin, a right-handed pitcher, might get a decent GB rate against left-handed batters (and a better rate than against right-handed batter), is not surprising. Chacin uses a fastball with a lot of cut, which tends to result in reverse groundball splits—the pitcher gets good GBs against opposite-handed batters (lefties in this case). In addition, Chacin's pitches to left-handed batters (more than 50 percent of the batters he faces), are near always aimed on the outside part of the plate, the best part of the plate to get ground balls. So a decent GB rate on these pitches against left handers (even on the "sinker," which doesn't have the same cut) shouldn't be totally surprising.

But at the same time there's nothing in the way these pitches have been thrown against left-handed batters to explain why the GB rate should have increased so much this year. The pitches are being located in the same part of the strike zone, have basically the same movement, and the distribution of these pitches has basically remained unchanged. While perhaps last year's GB numbers were lower than we might have expected, the increase we see this year is a bit much for us to simply explain it as regression from bad luck last year.

In fact, it appears that the groundball rate increase this year against left-handed batters is simply caused by good luck. Last year on the four-seamers, Chacin would give up non-ground-balls on pitches in the middle to inside part of the plate. This year, despite mostlyseeing his pitches in the same area, batters have not put these middle-of-the-plate to inside pitches into play at all. I would suspect this trend not to continue.

Now there are several possible explanations for the GB increase. First, Chacin is locating more of his pitches within the strike zone this year. Perhaps this is resulting in an overall increase in GB rates? I'm not sure why it would, and the GB rate change appears to be universal, on pitches both in and out of the strike zone. Second, Chacin has slightly changed his pitch usage from last year by throwing more curves and fewer change-ups. Perhaps this is affecting batters' swinging habits so that they hit the fastballs more into the ground? Once again, I'm not sure why that would have this effect either.

Finally, the four-seamers do seem to have about a half inch more cut on them than they did last year. However, as noted above, this change is basically within the PITCHf/x system's margin for error, and I hesitate to claim it as real and the cause for any change in results.

Against right-handed batters, it appears that there is one additional change: The four-seam fastballs are being aimed a little bit more outside than last year, which would make us expect a few more ground balls (we don't see this change in the sinkers, whose gbroundball rates have remained basically constant this year from last year). So perhaps the GB rate increase is sustainable against these batters.

Improved control

There is one change to Chacin's pitching that is briefly mentioned above: He is throwing more pitches in the strike zone than last year against both right and left-handed batters. This is an easy explanation for how Chacin has managed to reduce his walk rate this year. So this improvement by Chacin should be sustainable (as long as he can keep up the greater "accuracy.")

Conclusion

Chacin has been very impressive this year. However, at least some of his improvements this year are bound to regress, particularly the improvement of his GB rate against left-handed batters. It wouldn't be surprising for him to end up with a groundball rate higher than last year's against such batters, but it should be closer to last year's rate than this year's really great rate. Against right-handed batters, his GB rate may also regress.

Chacin's improved walk rate should remain the same, but signs also point to his decreased strikeout rate continuing as well (presumably because, with fewer pitches being out of the strike zone, batters are less likely to miss when they swing).

The result is that Chacin's peripherals should get worse as the year goes on, and I doubt he'll continue to put up better peripherals and overall numbers than last year for the rest of the season.

Click here to learn about THT's download subscriptions.]]> Josh Smolow 2011-06-02T07:54:15+00:00