Cabrera Strikes Again

Daniel Cabrera has been able to pitch well on a rather consistent basis using a fastball. This sort of thing is possible in Little League, but it should not be in the Majors. Particularly, he throws it in the low 90s. He benefits from a BABIP of .226 while his career BABIP is .300. His FIP is 4.75, while he ERA is 3.54. He is posting his worst K/BB rate for his career (1.43) and has upped his career left on base percentage by ten points to 78.9%. All of this marks for a downturn. The only thing that explains it to me is that his Line Drive percentage is at 11.8%, which is about 6% less than he normally posts. As you all know, a rough hand estimate for batting average is taking your line drive percentage and adding 12% to it. So, with an 11.8%, you'd explain a batting average of roughly .238 and that is essentially what we have. His groundball percentage is also 6% higher, so it seems he has essentially traded some line drives into groundballs. The weird thing here is that his fastball looks like a four seemer as opposed to a sinker. How is this possible when you only throw fastballs (85% of his pitches are fastballs) and they average at 92.9 mph? I don't know, but that graph below is pretty (note: he has little command of his slider).


Cabrera's Fastball and Slider Pitch Location for May 8, 2008 against the Royals.

Adam Jones Spotlight

Adam Jones has had a rough year so far. He has hit 231/272/359. This was expected. He is a contact-based hitter (meaning he does not and most likely will not walk much), so until he understands how to hit off speed pitches . . . he will be taken advantage of. There are some good things to like. Defensively, Jones has been quite good in the field. He has saved about 1.5 runs (+2 plays and 1 assist). He also has made 19 plays out of his zone, which is tied for the AL lead with BJ Upton and Torii Hunter. I imagine over the course of the season he will wind up being about +4 or +5 runs in the field, which is good for about a half win above median.

Offensively, well, we'll take the good with the bad here. Let's go into some Pitch f/x data.

Pitch Types

Fastball

Many folks want to place Jones in the two spot in front of Markakis. This would enable him to see more fastballs than when he bats in front of Luis Hernandez or some other below average hitters. At least, this is the hypothesis people use. Jones has seen 222 fastballs, which comprise 60% of the pitches he sees (this compares to 67% Mora sees in the 2-spot and league average is 58%). It doesn't seem like he is being thrown an abnormal number of off speed pitches. I also wonder to what extent Mora's 67% is a product of his declining bat speed because last year he was in a similar lineup position and saw the league average of fastballs. Anyway, lefties and righties throw him about the same number of fastballs. Two-thirds of his at bats end on a fastball. As you can see on his fastball graph . . . he goes after the inside pitches, but lays off the outside ones. Two guesses on this one: 1) he is trying to push the count and try to walk or 2) he is not an outside fastball hitter and is waiting for a pitch in his zone at which to swing. You may also note that when he does swing at pitches on the outside he makes contact. Every time. He has no swinging strikes out there, but when he chooses to swing he has four singles and a lot of fouls and in play outs. I guess the bottom line to take from this is that it appears he has a plan, which is good . . .usually.

Curveball

Jones has seen 25 curves or about 6% of the pitches he has seen. Lefties and righties throw it equally and the percent is a third less than the league average. Only 3% if his at bats end on a curveball. As the graph shows . . . he swung for 12 of them, making contact with seven. Six of those balls were not in the strike zone. He also chose not to swing at five that were strikes. In terms of pure pitch recognition . . . he "saw" 14 of 25 as their correct calls (56%) assuming he did not choose not to swing at a pitch he knew to be a strike. Torii Hunter has a 50% recognition on curves this year.



Slider

So far, righties like to toss sliders at Jones. He has seen 65 (18%), which is 20% more than league average (this may be the result of us facing more right handed pitchers, but I am not sure about that being true). Almost 22% of his at bats end on this pitch. He displayed a 78% accuracy rate in reading these pitches with 6 called strikes. Torii identifies 62% correctly with 5 called strikes. Again this "accuracy" rate assumes the players are not choosing to ignore strikes. Jones seems more adept here.




Change Up

Lefties love to toss the change to right handed Jones. Again, this is probably due to it being harder to hit a pitch breaking away from the batter than a pitch breaking into the batter as evidenced by personal experience, watching, and from several physics papers. A southpaw is three times as likely to throw a changeup to Jones than a righties. His overall rate is 10%, which is a sixth less than league average (probably due to my unresearched belief that we have faced more righties than the average hitter). Only 4% of these pitches end his at bat. He shows 68% recognition with five called strikes. He seems to be able to recognize these pitches as strikes, but misses them. This seems like it should be a pitch people could rely on to get him out as it appears he thinks a lot of these are fastballs. Torii recognizes 21% of these and hits them well. With a similar number of pitches, Jones is three times more likely to swing and miss a change up. This seems like an area he will need to improve upon if he wishes to hit better against lefthanded batters.

Pitch Counts
It should be noted that getting behind in a counter from the hitter's perspective is the opposite of that with the pitcher. So, if you want to compare this chart to the pitching version, flip them. Anyway, what we see here is that Jones, as most batters, gets behind in the count often. He is not as successfully aggressive as Jones is and is not as patient as Markakis is. Pitch counts for batters is not as effective as a measure as it is for pitchers because the data will skew much more due to individual batting approaches. What it does show is that, along with the Pitch f/x data, Jones needs to do more with his batted balls.

Conclusion
Jones is struggling like you would expect a young contact-based hitter to struggle. He is learning to identify much better off speed pitches than he faced in AAA and that takes time. Torii Hunter's career is a good comparison. He struggled early and as he learned to identify pitches . . . he has gotten a lot better. Adam Jones' approach may be similar to his, but I think Jones has more power potential and not as much defensive potential. That said, enjoy these moments as we watch a very good talent adjust his game.

Garrett Olson's 2nd Game and Pitch f/x

So, yeah, I wrote that Garrett Olson was a prime candidate to get shelled in his next game when his unsustainable LD% becomes sustainable. I mentioned how his pitch counts were also going to hurt him. So what does he do? He 4 hits (w/ no extra base hits) the wild card leader and marks 7 K's and a single walk (to his last batter). Now, the caveats to this performance are: 1) the A's have no power and rank 13th in slugging in the AL, 2) Oakland Coliseum is a pitcher's park, 3) Frank Thomas would have had a homerun in almost any other park, and 4) Garrett is somewhat lucky. Now, that said . . . he did a great job with his pitching counts and seemed to be quite aggressive toward the batter. This is what he needed to do and he did it. I don't think he is an ace type of pitcher, but I think he can deliver a 100 ERA+ or a little below. So I'll go through some of the data from the Pitch f/x system:

Pitch Type

More curveballs peeked into the Pitch f/x data. I still don't know what I happening. I thought Olson threw a fastball, change, and curveball. It may be that the equipment here are recording lower speeds than those at Camden Yards and the logarithm that predicts pitch type is seeing the lower speed and calling more of them curveballs.

Fastballs appear to be thrown at the same frequency between the two starts with 57%. Changeups have increased from 10% to 18.75%, which is most likely due to the lack of left-handed batters. Garrett does not throw his change up to lefties. The curve/slider has decreased from 38% to about 24%. This is again most likely due to the heavily right-handed lineup Oakland uses.

All in all, 55 fastballs were thrown (69% strike or hit in play), 18 changeups (60%), and 23 slider/curves (70%). In terms of purely missing the ball, the harder curveball appears to be his major out pitch. He seems to have less control of the pitch as it decreases in speed (likewise, increasing in drop). The graph to the right displays strikes, ball, and hits in play.


Location


Lefties
Here are his location and pitch types (green=fastball, orange=slider, brown?=curve) for lefties. The first thing you probably noticed is that Oakland has far fewer lefthanders in their lineup (only 1). The next thing you probably notice is that Olson hit his spots against Oakland. He really is hugging the outside part of the plate. When you see this sort of difference between starts . . . you get led to release point and pitch breaks. The pitch breaks look the same, but the release point reveals a major difference between the two starts. On the April 29th game, his fastball release point varied horizontally by almost a foot. This looked a lot like Cabrera's typical release point. Against the Athletics, Olson actually narrowed his release point to a range of about 6 inches. I think him being able to position the ball is linked to that metric. That metric suggests that his delivery was more repeatable than it was in his 2008 debut. Oh, right, this is about left handed hitters. Not much can be said as he faced so few in his second start. He still isn't throwing his changeup to them. Three of his walks came against lefties in the debut and his only walk came against a lefties in this most current game. An issue? I don't think we have enough data on that yet. Last year, he walked lefties and righties at the same rate.

Righties
Olson's first game consisted of pitching insides as often as possible. It looks like he had more spray to his location. In Oakland, he did not focus inside much, but was incredibly sharp at keeping the ball in the lower 2/3rds of the strike zone. This may be the result of better command or a more uniform approach to each hitter. I'm not sure there is much else to discuss on how he pitched to righties. Feel free to comment if you see something.

Speed
Speeds were about 3-4 mph less than his debut. This may just be a difference in equipment between stadiums or he could have toned it down a bit. I'd bet on the former. Also, more of an appearance of the curves and sliders.



Pitch Counts
One of the problems I saw with Garrett last start was his inability to get ahead in his pitch counts. He was actually worse against the Rays than he was during his forgettable 2007 run. It was one of the major reasons why I thought he would get shelled. If you combine a lot of guys walked on base and an average line drive percentage (more on that in a moment) . . . you are going to get hit. Hard. Anyway, he turned it around rather dramatically. His behind counts went from 27% to 10%. His even counts went from 31% to 24%. His ahead counts went from 42% to 67%. Typically, when you are ahead in the count 67% of the time . . . you are going to do well. I wonder if the A's approach of only swinging at their pitches allows pitchers to get into favorable counts. I'm not sure. Anyway, he did a great job reversing these numbers from last time. League averages are 12% for behind counts, 29% for even counts, and 59% for ahead counts. His numbers are potentially sustainable. It also sheds light to how poor his numbers were before.

Hit Quality
The second part of my hypothesis about Olson getting shelled was that a 7% LD rate is unsustainable. I swear this line drive percentage is not sustainable. I'm not aware of another pitcher who is capable of putting up such a line. This is just crazy. So, yeah, 7% again. His groundball rate dropped to a more realistic, in my opinion, 42%. His left on base percent remains in the high 70s. So . . . either his stuff is nasty and no one can see that . . . or he benefited from a weak hitting Oakland lineup who somehow couldn't figure out how to earn a walk against him (A's are 3rd in runs scored).

Conclusion
That line drive rate will go up. It won't hurt him much if he can continue to not walk anyone. I'm still calling for him being a 3 (95 ERA+) or 4 (85 ERA+) this year. I guess we will see.

Have we passed the high water mark for 2008?

This week is less rosier than last week. PECOTA downgrades our playoff chances from 100:1 to 176:1. ELO, though more optimistic, agrees that this past week did not bode well for the plucky Orioles. They dropped them from 8:1 to 16:1. After going 2-4 since our last playoff odds update . . . the O's are sitting at 16-16. Next week I will update the ZiPS/Morong derived prediction. Oh . . . here is the chart:



NOTE: I am going to try to quickly write up a Garrett Olson piece tonight. Just skimming the data on Pitch f/x . . . looks like a much better pitcher. I also think his counts were in better shape. Anyway, I love it when I project some negative criticism toward an Oriole and get proven wrong.

Shortstops and 2009

As mentioned last week, Luis Hernandez has been awful. He was brought in to play defense and anything resembling offense would be appreciated. Well, according to RZR . . . he is the worst defensive SS in the AL. His offense 241/303/259 would inspire a Woody Guthrie tune about the collapse of production. It is not good and he cannot remain our shortstop. There is really no scrap of evidence that has been presented that shows he deserves to be above AAA, in my opinion. At AAA, he would be a league average hitter with decent defense. At the MLB level, he is one of the worst offensive players ever and a poor defensive shortstop this year. This entry will try to determine if there are any better in house options or players potentially available this offseason. If anyone wishes me to add anyone, let me know.

Method
Using Cyril Morong's run expectancy formulas, I compared each player as potential 7, 8, or 9 lineup position hitters. The algibraic mean of their expected run performance was used and related to Luis Hernandez'. Defense was based on RZR. If defensive statistics existed for SS, an approximation of expected RZR was used. If not, below average defense was determined to be 7% worse than the average. Performance data for players with less than a season of information was taken from their accumulated experience. Players with more than a year of experience used ZiPS projections for offensive performance and an average of their last three years of defensive performance at SS. Due to the ages of most of the players, the predicted defensive performance is most likely a liberal estimate as SS play deteriorates rapidly with age (more so than with any other position, including catching). As we had done before, these are converted into saved and given runs. It was assumed that SS face 400 chances over 162 games. These numbers are converted to wins/162 games based on dividing runs produced and runs saved by 10.

Results

Luis Hernandez and the Average SS
Luis Hernandez, based on his career, is a bottom of the latrine hitter and a good fielder. The average SS in 2007 had a batting line with a .330 OBP and .407 SLG. The average SS also had a .807 RZR. Luis' career .301 OBP and .315 SLG results in 21 less expected runs, which is divided by 10 to give -2.1 wins (compared to the average offensive production for a SS. His defense has been measured to be 0.842 RZR (we'll assume his career RZR is more accurate to his true production at SS than his 2008 .765 RZR). His defense is worth 0.8 runs above average or +0.8 runs. This reduces his cost to -1.2 wins (after rounding). This means that having Luis as our shortstop will cost us 1.2 wins in comparison to having an average SS in place. If he truly had the .930 RZR he showed in limited play last year, he would actually have been worth 0.9 wins . . . that is a difference of 2.1 wins. Using the same reason, this year's .765 RZR would mean his worth would be -3.1 wins. It should be noted that for the purpose of this study, we are using the "average" SS. Typically, replacement level performance is used. A player worth 2 wins below average is about what a replacement level player would be worth. Replacement level as I define it is your average AAA SS.

In-House Options
The in-house options are Eider Torres (.282 OBP/.314 SLG, 0.800 RZR; -2.1 bw, -0.2 fw), Alex Cintron (.291/.350, .765; -1.9, -1.0), Brandon Fahey (.316/.330, .800; -1.4, -0.2), Freddie Bynum (.307/.379, .750; -1.0, -1.4), and the improbable Scott Moore (.311/.409, .750; -0.5, -1.4). Of these five in-house options, none are better than what we project for Luis Hernandez. He seems to be our best SS option. We have no potential SS who are better than -1.2 wins.

2009 SS Options
Potential Free Agent Possibilities are as follows:
David Eckstein (336/344, .840; -0.7, 0.8)
Adam Everett (285/330, .860; -2.3, 1.3)
Orlando Cabrera (332/372, .800; -0.4, -0.2)
Rafael Furcal (347/387, .830; 0.2, 0.6)
Christian Guzman (302/342, .800; -1.7, -0.2)
Felipe Lopez (345/383, .780; 0.1, -0.6)
Cesar Izturis (296/318, .850; -2.2, 1.0)
Juan Uribe (304/427, .800; -0.5, -0.2)
Of these options, only Cristian Guzman comes off worse than Luis Hernandez and he does it by half a win (5 runs). Now, you may be shocked here, but we are using ZiPS as the measure of true performance. Guzman's recent play may be legit . . . if so, he will be worth 0.1 wins instead of -1.9 wins. The only free agent shortstops that are projected to be better than the average MLB SS are David Eckstein and Rafael Furcal. Eckstein is better by 0.1 wins and Furcal by 0.8 wins.

Discussion
How much does a win cost?

A rough figure of 4.5 MM has been mentioned as how much a win costs on the open market. This typically ignores the reality that improving by a win is more important for a 90 win team than it is a 100 or 80 win team. What I mean is that wins are worth more to teams near the Wild Card or pennant than those who are further from that dividing line. For instance, a 90 win team signing a player who improves them by 2 wins for 12MM makes more sense than a 70 win team signing the same player for the same price. Why? Because 2 more wins will not get a 70 win team into the playoffs. Some fans demand a team win as many games as possible, but it can be easily seen that sometimes . . . that money can be better spent for production at a later date (i.e. prospects, saving up for a difference making free agent). So where does this leave the Orioles? They are a 70 win team this year for all intents and purposes. They could go as high as 80 and as low as 60. Next year, they will probably be a 75 win team. To be a playoff team we have to improve this roster by 15 wins. Furcal (+2), Teixeira (+5 guess over Millar), Sabathia (+7 guess over Trachsel), and our own player improvement (i.e., Markakis, Jones). The is about 50-65MM in annual salaries . . . maybe 400 MM in total contract money.

The difference Furcal makes in improving the Orioles offense, really doesn't mean much unless we go out and throw money around this offseason. So remember that the next time you curse Hernandez. Unless we acquire Teixeira and Sabathia . . . it probably doesn't matter.