Do the Cardinals need to add another Bullpen arm?
by FlimtotheFlam on Mar 13, 2010 8:01 PM EST
78 comments
In 2009 the Cardinals Starters pitched 1003.2 IP and the Bullpen pitched 437 IP. The starting IP is the highest in baseball and the bullpen is the lowest in baseball. Assuming the 2010 starters will not be as good I have the bullpen pitching 463 innings. Which is still quite good. This is how it currently shapes up under a couple different scenarios with using CHONE projections. When CHONE projected the pitcher as a starter I shaved .5 ERA off their projected ERA.
With McCellan in the Bullpen
| Reliever | ERA | IP | LI | RAR |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ryan Franklin | 3.68 | 66 | 1.8 | 14 |
| Jason Motte | 3.69 | 65 | 1.4 | 11 |
| Trever Miller | 3.64 | 45 | 1.1 | 6 |
| Kyle McClellan | 3.71 | 67 | 1 | 8 |
| Dennys Reyes | 3.73 | 45 | 0.9 | 5 |
| Mitchell Boggs | 4.03 | 70 | 0.7 | 4 |
| Blake Hawksworth | 4.07 | 60 | 0.5 | 2 |
| Jaime Garcia | 3.95 | 45 | 0.5 | 2 |
| Total: | 3.82 | 463 | 1.01 | 51 |
Without McCellan in the Bullpen
| Reliever | ERA | IP | LI | RAR |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ryan Franklin | 3.68 | 66 | 1.8 | 14 |
| Jason Motte | 3.69 | 65 | 1.4 | 11 |
| Trever Miller | 3.64 | 45 | 1.1 | 6 |
| Mitchell Boggs | 4.03 | 67 | 1 | 5 |
| Dennys Reyes | 3.73 | 45 | 0.9 | 5 |
| Blake Hawksworth | 4.07 | 70 | 0.7 | 4 |
| Jaime Garcia | 3.95 | 60 | 0.5 | 3 |
| Pete Parise | 4.4 | 45 | 0.5 | 1 |
| Total: | 3.9 | 463 | 1.01 | 48 |
The best current reliever remaining is Russ Springer with a projected 3.91 ERA
With McCellan in the Bullpen AND Russ Springer
| Reliever | ERA | IP | LI | RAR |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ryan Franklin | 3.68 | 66 | 1.8 | 14 |
| Jason Motte | 3.69 | 65 | 1.4 | 11 |
| Trever Miller | 3.64 | 45 | 1.1 | 6 |
| Kyle McClellan | 3.71 | 67 | 1 | 8 |
| Dennys Reyes | 3.73 | 45 | 0.9 | 5 |
| Russ Springer | 3.91 | 60 | 0.7 | 4 |
| Mitchell Boggs | 4.03 | 70 | 0.5 | 3 |
| Blake Hawksworth | 4.07 | 45 | 0.5 | 2 |
| Total: | 3.81 | 463 | 1.01 | 52 |
Without McCellan in the Bullpen AND Russ Springer
| Reliever | ERA | IP | LI | RAR |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ryan Franklin | 3.68 | 66 | 1.8 | 14 |
| Jason Motte | 3.69 | 65 | 1.4 | 11 |
| Trever Miller | 3.64 | 45 | 1.1 | 6 |
| Russ Springer | 3.91 | 60 | 1 | 6 |
| Dennys Reyes | 3.73 | 45 | 0.9 | 5 |
| Mitchell Boggs | 4.03 | 70 | 0.7 | 4 |
| Blake Hawksworth | 4.07 | 65 | 0.5 | 2 |
| Jamie Garcia | 3.95 | 47 | 0.5 | 2 |
| Total: | 3.85 | 463 | 1 | 50 |
Without McCellan in the Bullpen AND Jamie Garcia staying in Memphis all year as a starter aka Worst Case Scenario
| Reliever | ERA | IP | LI | RAR |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ryan Franklin | 3.68 | 66 | 1.8 | 14 |
| Jason Motte | 3.69 | 65 | 1.4 | 11 |
| Trever Miller | 3.64 | 45 | 1.1 | 6 |
| Mitchell Boggs | 4.03 | 67 | 1.0 | 5 |
| Dennys Reyes | 3.73 | 45 | 0.9 | 5 |
| Blake Hawksworth | 4.07 | 70 | 0.7 | 4 |
| Pete Parise | 4.40 | 60 | 0.5 | 1 |
| Replacement Level | 4.75 | 45 | 0.5 | 0 |
| Total: | 3.99 | 463 | 1.01 | 46 |
Without McCellan and Garcia WITH Russ Springer
| Reliever | ERA | IP | LI | RAR |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ryan Franklin | 3.68 | 66 | 1.8 | 14 |
| Jason Motte | 3.69 | 65 | 1.4 | 11 |
| Trever Miller | 3.64 | 45 | 1.1 | 6 |
| Russ Springer | 3.91 | 60 | 1 | 6 |
| Dennys Reyes | 3.73 | 45 | 0.9 | 5 |
| Mitchell Boggs | 4.03 | 70 | 0.7 | 4 |
| Blake Hawksworth | 4.07 | 65 | 0.5 | 2 |
| Pete Parise | 4.4 | 47 | 0.5 | 1 |
| Total: | 3.89 | 463 | 1 | 48 |
So even under the best scenario the most Russ Springer will add is only 2 runs. Which works out to $880K. Is it worth adding Russ Springer who would take IP away from someone younger and more upside? Or would his veteran leadership be worth it? You decide
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I would lean towards trying to sort out who we have with the younger guys
and letting things develop, and then making a midseason trade for the bullpen
"If you don't have outstanding relief pitching, you might as well piss on the fire and call the dogs." -WH
by Cards Fan in Chitown on Mar 13, 2010 8:26 PM EST reply actions
Regardless of what happens
I would say yes, the Cards need another arm. I hope that Boggsy or KMac is that arm, but if things don’t work out I hope the team signs Springer.
Best moment I've ever seen at a Cards game in person
SIGN JOHN SMOLTZ!
SMOLTZ
Putting Smoltz in at closer, Franklin to set-up and taking Mac out of the picture helps the Cardinals by 11 RAR, or a win. I’m just going by Smoltz’s ZiPS and shaving off 0.8 ERA.
Of course, Smoltz in the rotation would be even better. Hey, I have a crazy idea. Maybe the team should sign John Smoltz.
godfather of futureredbirds.net
ZiPS likes Smoltz more than anyone else
They have him at 3.95 while CHONE and Marcel have him at 4.46. And ZiPS is higher than the rest of CHONE’s projections for the rest of the team. I was doing .5 ERA also to be a little more conservative.
by FlimtotheFlam on Mar 14, 2010 1:10 AM EST up reply actions
Or Penny in the Pen, for that matter.
They say that it's never too late, but you don't get any younger...
I co-sign on this statement
You know what they call a quarter pounder with cheese in France?
by jd is legend on Mar 16, 2010 12:18 AM EDT up reply actions
i've thought for months...
… that if K-Mac wins the #5 SP spot that Springer gets signed at about the league minimum. If Hill wins the spot then K-Mac goes back in the pen and performs basically the same as Springer would for basically the same money. i really don’t think Garcia has a shot at the rotation unless Hill and K-Mac both tank, and he doesn’t make sense as a 3rd lefty in the pen, so he goes back to Memphis.
Which is fine with me. I’d rather have Smoltz of course, but he doesn’t seem to be in a hurry to sign and the team doesn’t have a ton of cash to throw at him.
i'd say that's reasonable
i hope we have some tacit agreement with smoltzie, though. for mid-season (or sooner if necessary…knock on wood)
"Some days I feel like the hypotenuse in a love triangle; others as if my lucky number is pi."
The beauty of the situation with Smoltz and Springer
is that they are both sitting on the couch so we don’t have to decide right now. I’d rather see the Cards give a shot to someone like Salas if a spot is open in the bullpen early in the season. See how things play out and then we could add Smoltz or Springer as the season progresses if need be. I actually think these elder baseball statesmen are better served by skipping preseason and a few months of the regular season to conserve what they have left in the tank.
that's true
they’ll essentially be fresh arms, an advantage not every team will have
Lick that shoulder—you're in the doghouse now.
"But listen, and understand: more Molinas are out there..." - THT
by Yadi2Second on Mar 14, 2010 12:13 PM EDT up reply actions
I'm in the sign Smoltz now club.
The bull pen really looks like the Achilles heel right now, particularly if Mac is in the rotation. Franklin’s getting hit in spring training like he did in September. Remember how lights out he was last year in the spring? It’s not looking like we’ll get five great months out of him this year and it’s never a good thing to be scrambling for your closer and experimenting with everybody else’s roles once the season starts. A whole lot of games can be lost in that process while Smoltz or Springer are being wooed and trying to get in shape.
I’d choose Smoltz over Springer because he’d fit better in the closer role. I think Franklin can man the set up role and the rest of the pen should be able to slide into their roles quite well.
I also love the idea of Garcia sticking as a reliever. He’ll get experience without over taxing his arm and maybe be able to go into the rotation late in the season if necessary.
Some splits for Ryan Franklin for the 2009 season
Fastball Velocity by month:
April May June July August September
90.4 91.0 91.1 91.3 91.5 91.4
BABIP by month:
April May June July August September
.154 .207 .241 .281 .171 .536
Now he might of gotten tired in Sept. But his fastball was the same speed and he just had monster bad luck with BABIP also.
by FlimtotheFlam on Mar 14, 2010 12:46 PM EDT up reply actions
Here are some scenarios from the back and forth over in the BtB comments:
All of these assume starting with the ERA projections by FlimtotheFlam (CHONE? ZiPS? Combo? I forget.) and his initial IP projections which totaled 438, btw.
If you add a true bullpen ace (2.75 ERA), he’ll add about 1.75 wins (let’s all agree that this much precision isn’t meaningful and there are large error bars). If you add another reliever equal in ability to the top guys already on the team (3.70ish ERA), that adds about another .5 wins.
Losing Franklin (or whichever pitcher with a similar ERA that you think will be the closer) is worth about .75 runs.
Short, no numbers version: Adding a bullpen ace would be significant, and worth $6M+. Adding another arm similar to what’s already on the team is trivial. Losing the team’s current closer would not be crippling at all.
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so we should trade franklin for heath bell?
"Some days I feel like the hypotenuse in a love triangle; others as if my lucky number is pi."
heh heh heh
let’s throw somebody into the mix.
"Some days I feel like the hypotenuse in a love triangle; others as if my lucky number is pi."
it's worth it, sign Smolltzy & Russ already MO
Hope is the worst of all evils, for it prolongs the torment of man
NOOOOO
break out the faberge eggs!
"If you don't have outstanding relief pitching, you might as well piss on the fire and call the dogs." -WH
by Cards Fan in Chitown on Mar 15, 2010 1:35 AM EDT up reply actions
i don't the think eggs are all they are cracked up to be
give them another season or two before letting them out of the hen house. i think if you break them out now, they, and the team will be scrambled.
Hope is the worst of all evils, for it prolongs the torment of man
Boggs, Motte could be ready to rock
leave McClellan in the bullpen, and there’s not really room for any more right? well, Villone was just released… J/K! haha
"If you don't have outstanding relief pitching, you might as well piss on the fire and call the dogs." -WH
by Cards Fan in Chitown on Mar 15, 2010 3:46 PM EDT up reply actions
i'm on board with all 3 in the pen yes, i thought you were talking about salas & the other guy
i can never remember his name.
but that still leaves a rotation spot open for Smoltzy till Jamie gets here in July. and it never hurts to have Russ as a back up plan in case KMacs & Mitch’s control problems continue
Hope is the worst of all evils, for it prolongs the torment of man
samuel, the other guy i'm thinking about is samuel
i don’t know why i can never remember his name
Hope is the worst of all evils, for it prolongs the torment of man
ah
I think somehow Hill is going to get the 5th spot, if not then yeah, I’d like Smoltz to hold the spot til Jaime gets ready (or, maybe he should just start the season there)
"If you don't have outstanding relief pitching, you might as well piss on the fire and call the dogs." -WH
by Cards Fan in Chitown on Mar 16, 2010 1:56 AM EDT up reply actions
Boggs and Motte could also be ready to get rocked
Boggs’ control needs to improve significantly.
Not afraid to nitpick
Good analysis here
I’d also like to see some analysis with MLE’s for Sanchez, Parise, and Jukich, as I think they’ll get shots long before Garcia ends up in the bullpen full time.
I don’t think that signing a “bullpen arm” is really worth the money. Signing another starter, or having Garcia end up the 5th starter, actually might be the most beneficial to the ballclub. I think that Boggs has to be looked at as a bullpen arm from this point forward — he’s clearly more suited for that role, imo.
Our bullpen could go one of three ways really:
- The kids get their control problems figured out, Sanchez comes up midseason and is lights out, and we’re ok.
- We struggle to close games with a declining Franklin and nobody takes the reins from him out of the Motte/Boggs/Sanchez group, forcing Mo to make a trade.
- The entire thing blows up in our faces and we have 2007 all over again. Yuck.
I’d put the odds of those things happening at about 40%, 55%, 5% respectively. I think there are ample enough arms to get us through the season, although a trade for a closer might happen if Franklin can’t handle the job.
Can Colby round out our new MV3?
I'm sorry Flim Flam
BABIP is my least favorite stat for a lot of reasons most of which revolve around the idea that it’s all about luck. If a pitcher has a BABIP of .536 for an entire month it isn’t luck. He is pitching terrible. It doesn’t matter if we can’t pin down exactly what he’s doing wrong. He is pitching terrible. In Franklin’s case I suspect that it means that he was getting by on a slender thread of stuff and command and that he either lost a little something or, more likely, the hitters caught on to him. It seems like it is continuing this spring and I suspect it will continue if we continue to count on him as a closer.
Nonsense:
Good pitchers and terrible pitchers all regress toward league average BABIP. Braden Looper and Joel Pineiro had the exact same BABIP in 2009, yet one of them was one of the worst starters in the league, and the other was one of the best.
"What's your favorite Chuck Palahniuk book?"
"I like the one about the alienated character who finds the socially unacceptable way of coping with modernity."
I'm sorry
I understand that each pitcher and hitter’s BABIP will likely regress to their individual means. I don’t believe that all hitters and pitchers have a community BABIP that they will regress to that has little to do with how they are actually pitching or hitting. That could be extrapolated to some ridiculous conclusions. One is that you or I could be installed as a closer for some poor team and that, if my BABIP was somewhere around a thousand (which it surely would in my case because I am a terrible pitcher) I could be counted on to have an outstanding BABIP in the future in order to regress to the league average. That would not happen. It would also mean that Ryan Franklin’s BABIP was predestined to flounder at some point in order to regress to the leaque mean. I disagree. I believe that it was destined to flounder because he is not a great pitcher and that there were reasons why he was terrible in September. I understand that it is a small sample but it strikes me that it was predictable, not because of the gravitational forces of the league average BABIP, but because of the substantial limitations of Franklin’s repertoire.
Whatever these reasons were I suspect they will continue this season, particularly if he continues in the closer role.
I have a feeling he made some adjust to start the season last year that were working really well for him
but several factors, including the league making adjustments to hit him better, him getting tired, and him having good luck most of the year turning into bad luck equaled a shitty sept. for frankie
"If you don't have outstanding relief pitching, you might as well piss on the fire and call the dogs." -WH
by Cards Fan in Chitown on Mar 18, 2010 1:22 AM EDT up reply actions
The key
is finding which population’s mean to regress to. As you stated you don’t belong to the “Major League Pitchers” population so we wouldn’t regress your mean to the mean of that population. We’d regress you to the mean of “Guys Chucking and Ducking on a Major League Mound” or whatever. Similarly you don’ t have to regress Franklin to the MLB mean. You can regress him to a population based on his pitch f/x tendencies for example (i.e. low fb velo, high-ish command, etc.), but just regressing to himself may not be best either.
by stevesommer05 on Mar 18, 2010 1:00 PM EDT up reply actions
...
You can regress him to a population based on his pitch f/x tendencies for example (i.e. low fb velo, high-ish command, etc.), but just regressing to himself may not be best either.
Make sure to check out my THT article next week;)
by vivaelpujols on Mar 18, 2010 1:21 PM EDT up reply actions
I kinda figured
You’d be working on something like that.
by stevesommer05 on Mar 18, 2010 1:25 PM EDT up reply actions
It makes a lot of sense
to regress Franklin to his pitch f/x tendencies. There are few pitchers with his kind of repertoire that can maintain performance similar to his first five months last year. I’m not saying that September is more representative of his potential than the other months but the main point is that I don’t think it was a matter of good luck turning bad. In that case it would be hard to make any kind of prediction going forward. I suspect that September had something to do with hitters catching on to what he has to offer. It doesn’t bode well for him to close this year. Sign Smoltz.
The problem is
No matter how crappy Franklin’s repertoire is, no major league pitcher is ever going to have much higher than a .320 BABIP, so there is only so much you can attribute BABIP to his pitching skill rather than luck.
Besides, in a one month sample, stats literally mean nothing. I’m talking about all stats, including K rate and BB rate. Stats are pitcher skill + batter skill + fielder skill + umpire skill + pitcher variation around skill + batter variation around skill + fielder variation around skill + umpire variation around skill. Basically, if you are using a month’s worth of stats to try to isolate the first of that long list of influences on a pitcher’s stats, you are not going to get anywhere.
Besides, Franklin has a career .280 BABIP and an above average ERA in a huge sample size. Over the past 3 seasons as a reliever, his numbers are far better than that. He’s clearly a major league quality pitcher, no matter what you think of his stuff.
by vivaelpujols on Mar 20, 2010 1:41 AM EDT up reply actions
Your pitcher's BABIP would be much better than you think.
You’d have major league quality fielders behind you. It doesn’t matter how hard the batter hits the ball if a fielder can get to it. There is no skill involved in getting a batter to hit a ball towards one of the fielders. I agree that Franklin is not nearly as good as his stats showed last year, but he (and everyone else on the planet for that matter) is much better than a .536 BABIP against.
I'm not very confident in Franklestein either
"If you don't have outstanding relief pitching, you might as well piss on the fire and call the dogs." -WH
by Cards Fan in Chitown on Mar 16, 2010 1:57 AM EDT up reply actions
I agree with you to some extent
A pitcher’s BABIP is not ALL luck, like some people say, but it does have a lot of luck in it. IOW, when Franklin allows a .529 BABIP for a stretch, he probably pitched like crap and got very unlucky – neither is very sustainable though, so we see that most pitchers fall into the same general range for BABIP.
by vivaelpujols on Mar 16, 2010 3:13 AM EDT up reply actions
I have to disagree with you here.
There was an experiment on Fangraphs where we calculated FIP for hitters (DIO). To sum up, if you were an awful, awful pitcher and everyone you faced hit your horrible stuff like Albert Pujols from 2009, your FIP would be around 9.10 (which is super effing terrible), but your BABIP against would be .299. Yes, BABIP is not all luck, but a .536 BABIP against is clearly an outlier and shouldn’t be worried about. It’s mostly just his luck evening out.
luck is a weird thing
"If you don't have outstanding relief pitching, you might as well piss on the fire and call the boggs." -WH
by Cards Fan in Chitown on Mar 21, 2010 8:35 PM EDT up reply actions
I'm not really sure what DIO proves
It’s been shown that pitcher BABIP is a legitimate skill, and one that is evident when looking at a long career (in the case of Franklin, his career BABIP is .280 in over 10 seasons).
And there is a difference between “luck” and predictability. Contrary to popular believe, BABIP is not primarily based on defense, but on the pitcher’s LD%. LD%, however, is not predictive at all. When a pitcher put’s up a .536 BABIP in a month, he allowed a lot of hard hit balls (most likely), just like when a pitcher strikes out 12 per 9 in a month, he made a lot of good pitches. The difference is that the pitchers ability to induce easily fieldable balls in play isn’t nearly as predictive.
by vivaelpujols on Mar 21, 2010 8:56 PM EDT up reply actions
he's the man on the silver mountain
"If you don't have outstanding relief pitching, you might as well piss on the fire and call the boggs." -WH
by Cards Fan in Chitown on Mar 21, 2010 10:42 PM EDT up reply actions
DIO proves nothing
xBABIP tells us more. I totally agree that higher LD% leads to higher BABIP, hence my usage of xBABIP. Years ago at Fangraphs, there was a post about xBABIP for pitchers. Unfortunately they didn’t flesh out the idea any more than that and thus xBABIP allowed is not a stat we can just look up, but from their data I calculated that if BABIP for pitchers is all skill, between 60.4% and 63.4% of all balls in play off of Ryan Franklin last September must have been line drives. Compare this to the league average LD% over the past five years of 19% (source). I believe that (despite SSS) a line drive rate of over 60% in major league baseball for any period of time is hilariously large. Even if poor defensive luck played no part in Franklin’s struggles last September and he really did give up that many liners, I feel like there has to be some luck on the part of the hitters. The league leader in LD% last year was Jason Bartlett of the Rays at 26.0%. That doesn’t prove anything, but think of how horribly straight and motionless Franklin’s pitches would have to be to more than double the LD% of the best in the biz at hitting liners. I would love to take a peek at some pitch f/x for Franklin in September. Maybe something was off. But I don’t think we would see that his fastball suddenly was the size of a beach ball and hopped up on a tee for all to beat the tar out of. I agree that Franklin most likely gave up more hard hit balls. I also think he was exceptionally unlucky. He wouldn’t have had such a high BABIP against without the baseball gods conspiring against him. Do we really need more proof of Franklin’s unluckiness than nutshot Holliday?
The answer is “yes”, but the uncomfortable laughing was worth the lack of science.
For the record
Franklin’s LD% in Sept/Oct was 29.6%. His BABIP over the same period was .479 and his xBABIP was .368. These aren’t the numbers for just September, but it covers the time in question and you can see the HUGE (.111!) value of BABIP – xBABIP. While Franklin was clearly not very good, there was a lot of luck involved.
I'm not saying that all of the .479 BABIP was skill
In fact, I said it wasn’t very predictive at all. However, a .479 BABIP implies that Franklin pitched worse, not that his defense just played poorly or he allowed a lot of bloops. And in fact, his xBAIP was .368 – far higher than his career numbers.
by vivaelpujols on Mar 22, 2010 12:42 PM EDT up reply actions
Explain this then
My career baseball batting average (probably around 1,000 AB’s or so): .330
My career slow pitch softball average (probably around 2,000 AB’s or so): .650
The slow pitch game has an extra outfielder, so there are nine players in position to field the ball instead of just 8. Now, I’m going to make the assumption that major league hitters are going to smoke my 65 mph fastball and knuckleball that doesn’t knuckle at about the same rate that I smoke slow pitch softballs. If so, why is my BABIP nearly twice as high in one even with an extra fielder on the field?
I think your example is ignoring the reality of just how bad a historically bad pitcher actually is.
Can Colby round out our new MV3?
is that .330 your BA or BABIP?
BA and BABIP would likely be the same for softball, assuming you don’t strike out. and even with the extra defender, the softball defense isn’t going to be anywhere near as good as major leagues, or even high school.
"Some days I feel like the hypotenuse in a love triangle; others as if my lucky number is pi."
.330 is my BA.
I don’t have BABIP for baseball and softball — we don’t take things THAT seriously, lol, but it has to be higher or my batting average would suffer.
In every season but one since my freshman year of high school, I walked more than I struck out as a baseball player, so I’m not sure that’s going to make a big difference in the grand scheme of things. Adding in my strikeout rate to my softball BA I get .580.
Also, the softball league I used to play in was extremely competitive, it was not beer league softball with a bunch of overweight home run hitters in the outfield, because you could only hit 2 homers per game. Most of the guys out there could run and they’re covering half as much territory as a baseball player would have to cover as well as having an extra man. If BABIP is completely independent for pitchers, then, over time, I shouldn’t be able to hit 250 points better in softball than in baseball, I should hit about the same.
What it comes down to is squaring up the ball and hitting the ball where you want to. If you can square up the ball and hit hard line drives, your BABIP is going to be higher than average. Similarly, if you can adjust you swing to deposit the ball where the defense isn’t playing, your BABIP is going to be higher than average. It’s not all luck. If Franklin has a .536 BABIP over a two week period, it isn’t a BABIP outlier, he’s pitching horribly.
Can Colby round out our new MV3?
Also, that's kind of my point....
In softball, my BABIP is .650. In baseball it’s about .290. If it’s all luck, why is my BABIP higher in the sport with the smaller field and more fielders?
Can Colby round out our new MV3?
A perfect illustration of how BABIP is not all luck
But when there’s huge fluctuations from month to month at the highest level of competition in the world, you have to assume that something random and uncontrollable is affecting the outcome. If your BABIP in softball suddenly dropped to .250 for a month, would you say that your skill level has changed, or would you say that you were just really unlucky for a while?
If my BABIP dropped to .250 in softball
it would depend on what kind of balls I put in play before I would determine it luck. If I’m striping line drives right at people for a solid week, then I’m probably getting a big unlucky, but I’m also probably hitting into the teeth of the defense and I need to adjust my approach. If I’m hitting tons of ground balls to the right side and weak pop ups, I’ve got a problem with my swing, I’m not getting unlucky, I’m taking bad swings and I’m not squaring up the ball. If, all of the sudden, I’m only getting four AB’s a game and hitting two homers per game, my BABIP is going to drop even though I’m actually hitting the ball better in terms of wOBA.
This is why your FIP is ridiculous in your example and your BABIP is league average. Add the numbers of homers hit to your BABIP in that example and I’m guessing it’s going to go up quite a bit from .299 (if you subtract the home runs from the FIP, I would bet it’s closer to league average). Comparing FIP to BABIP isn’t going to yield and accurate comparison because they aren’t measuring the same things. It’s a shock value comparison on your part, and kudos for that, but it doesn’t tell the whole story.
I think this is why you need to look at BABIP in terms of the types of balls put in play. Sure, xBABIP is better, but xBABIP with batted ball data is even better yet. If Hit F/X can help pare down what constitutes each type of ball in play using vectors for each specific player, we’ll have a lot better idea of what constitutes luck for pitchers and hitters alike.
Can Colby round out our new MV3?
that's awfully conclusory. why do you say it's impossible to have a bad luck babip of .536 for a month?
an ordinary reliever pitches sixty innnings per season. divide sixty by six months (apr, may, june, july, aug, sept) and that’s 10 innings/month.
say a pitcher averages 3 balls in play per inning. you’re talking about 9 hits being a .300 BABIP (9/30) and 18 hits being a .530 BABIP (18/30). why couldn’t the result of nine balls in play out of 30 not be governed in large part by chance? i think that research would tend to disprove this.
to provide an example, dennys reyes had a .507 BABIP in May 2009 against 35 batters. the next month his BABIP was .253. in july it was .522. in august it was .241. did he suddenly recall how to pitch, then forget again, then remember? i guess it’s possible, but i think it’s more likely that dumb luck was the difference.
in the small samples that relievers pitch in a month, it’s not hard for me to believe luck plays a big role.
"We were men - flesh and blood - and we played baseball in the sunshine. We hit doubles off the wall, slid hard into second base. We had fights, and we made love. We sang songs and prayed on Sundays. . . . We felt pain. And we felt joy. There was a lot wrong with the world. But we weren't sad, man. We had the times of our lives." Buck O'Neil, from "The Soul of Baseball: A Road Trip Through Buck O'Neil's America."
it might be interesting to see the quality of hitting relievers are facing at the time
and if the teams are streaking at those times. maybe the teams are going on a winning streak when those babips spike
"If you don't have outstanding relief pitching, you might as well piss on the fire and call the dogs." -WH
by Cards Fan in Chitown on Mar 17, 2010 2:14 AM EDT up reply actions
Actually
BABIP is mainly a function of the quality of balls in play a pitcher gives up, NOT the defense (contrary to popular belief). Basically, BABIP depends on how many line drives you give up; however, line drive percentage is not predictable at all for pitchers.
That’s why BABIP correlate so poorly year to year – not because the outcome of the batted ball is out of his control once it’s put in play, but because what type of batted ball he allows is largely out of his control.
by vivaelpujols on Mar 17, 2010 2:34 PM EDT up reply actions
sources?
I can readily believe what you said, but do you have any sources to suggest a greater correlation with batted ball data than (say) year-on-year variations in team UZR?
RELEASE THE CENTIQUID!!!!
by Felonius_Monk on Mar 19, 2010 11:11 AM EDT up reply actions
True
But you have to admit that there’s a lot of chance involved on the hitter’s part as well. Hitting a ball moving at 90 miles per hour with less than half a second to react is quite difficult and involves a lot of guesswork. Dumb luck can often be the difference between hitting the ball right on the nose and grounding out weakly to the shortstop. BABIP fluctuates a lot for even the most steady of hitters. A confluence of bad defensive luck and good hitters luck is a very plausible explanation for a high pitcher’s BABIP in a small sample size.
we've decided to kill his career
Lighten up, Francis - Sergeant Hulka
* sarcasm might be involved in this comment
by mattyfrommo on Mar 17, 2010 11:03 PM EDT up reply actions 6 recs
rec
"Some days I feel like the hypotenuse in a love triangle; others as if my lucky number is pi."
and i think we need a list
i nominate stav.
"Some days I feel like the hypotenuse in a love triangle; others as if my lucky number is pi."
he done
"If you don't have outstanding relief pitching, you might as well piss on the fire and call the dogs." -WH
by Cards Fan in Chitown on Mar 18, 2010 1:23 AM EDT up reply actions
I wish I would have noticed this was green
I would have went out of VEB on a high note
Lighten up, Francis - Sergeant Hulka
* sarcasm might be involved in this comment
What about Izzy? The Big Dunc Mission Impossible fans have been piano about restoring those thrilling dayz of yesteryear. . . .
An optimist is a man who upon discovering that a rose smells better than a cabbage concludes it will make better soup.
HL Mencken
I'm pretty happy with what they have
Starting to look like Garcia might be the fifth starter. McClellan can move back to the pen. Motte is looking strong enough for the 8th inning. We’ll be fine.
I too think we'll be fine.
But our bullpen still sucks. You can make an argument that, on paper, it’s the worst in the major leagues. I’m pretty certain that it’s in the bottom 5 or 6, at least.
RELEASE THE CENTIQUID!!!!
by Felonius_Monk on Mar 19, 2010 11:12 AM EDT up reply actions
Good thing the bullpen is the least important part of a team
Which is why we should be fine. I’ve never been a fan of overpaying relievers.
oh, definitely
I, for one, didn’t want any part of any of the closer candidates on the FA market this year (although, conversely, I do strongly believe that FIP-based WAR of the FanGraphs flavour under-values relievers, or, at the very least, is not an accurate measure of their value in one direction or other).
RELEASE THE CENTIQUID!!!!
by Felonius_Monk on Mar 22, 2010 10:17 AM EDT up reply actions
what about this guy the jays just released
averaged 10k and 2bb per nine in AAA last year, i believe? mid-twenties.
"Some days I feel like the hypotenuse in a love triangle; others as if my lucky number is pi."
I think this will be the Cardinals Achilles Heel
The bullpen that is. Franklin is going to revert badly, and no one else is any good (okay, you have two good LOOGYs). Basically a bunch of guys that might project to be better than replacement level, but probably really aren’t.
we shall see discojer, we shall see
"If you don't have outstanding relief pitching, you might as well piss on the fire and call the boggs." -WH
by Cards Fan in Chitown on Mar 20, 2010 3:10 PM EDT up reply actions
not necessarily true
some of us might die first.
RELEASE THE CENTIQUID!!!!
by Felonius_Monk on Mar 22, 2010 10:18 AM EDT up reply actions
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