Mr. Frustration -- Jake Arrieta in Norfolk

One of the more frustrating Orioles' pitchers over the past three seasons has been Jake Arrieta. Promoted to the Orioles' starting rotation in 2010 after a superficially impressive first half at Norfolk (1.85 ERA in 73 innings, 11 starts), he showed promise in 2010. In 2011 and 2012, he failed to deliver on that promise; his 2012 was especially disappointing. He was the Orioles' opening-day starter, but was demoted to Norfolk in July after going  3-9, 6.20 2012.

When I work a game in Norfolk, I dread it when Arrieta is the starting pitcher; his games seem to take forever because he throws many pitches. At least that's my impression; the rest of this article will look at Arrieta's Norfolk starts I've worked to see if my impression matches reality. I have worked six of Arrieta's AAA starts from 2009; three from 2010; and two from 2012. I will look at those games, hoping to answer three questions — Am I justified in thinking Arrieta works a lot of deep counts; Is there a connection between Arrieta's deep counts and his effectiveness; Has Arrieta changed over the past four seasons?

I consider any at-bat to which a pitcher makes six or more pitches to be a deep count. There can't be a full count unless a pitcher makes at least six pitches, and in 2012 the Orioles averaged just about 3.94 pitches per batter. So, a pitcher making six or more pitches to a batter is making at least 50% more pitches than the average.

Now, let's look at Arrieta's starts for which I have scoresheets:

Date	IP	H	R	ER	BB	SO	BFP	Deep Counts	PCT
6/26/09	6	7	1	1	3	2	26	6	23.1
7/12/09	5.2	5	6	6	3	6	25	6	25.0
7/29/09	6	10	5	5	1	6	28	6	21.4
8/03/09	5	8	4	4	2	4	24	7	29.2
8/29/09	4.2	9	4	3	1	2	25	6	24.0
9/04/09	4.1	4	3	1	6	2	23	9	39.1
4/09/10	5	3	0	0	4	2	20	5	25.0
4/19/10	6	6	2	1	3	5	26	5	19.2
5/20/10	7	4	0	0	2	10	28	7	25.0
8/02/12	5.2	5	2	2	4	5	26	8	30.8
9/03/12	5	3	1	1	1	9	20	4	20.0

Am I justified in thinking Arrieta works a lot of deep counts?
Of course, I don't really know what "a lot" is because I don't have a standard of comparison. However, approximately one out of four batters Arrieta faces is able to work a deep count, and that seems like a lot.

Is there a connection between Arrieta's deep counts and his effectiveness?
Again, we're dealing with a small number of instances, and it's hard to draw hard-and-fast conclusions. There are three starts in which he had significantly more deep counts than normal, and in only one of them could he be considered effective (the start of last August 2).There were two starts in which he had significantly fewer deep counts than normal, and in one he was effective. The evidence is inconclusive, which at least means that there's no obvious connection.

Has Arrieta changed over the past four seasons?
Not based on the games I've seen. Last season, he had one good, almost dominant start and one mediocre start. In his good start, he didn't have many deep counts; in his bad start, he did. There's no evidence to believe that he has learned to become more efficient over time.

Conclusion
There was a lot of hope when Jake Arrieta was moving through the Orioles' system. Since he's reached the major leagues, he's teased us with occasional outstanding games but has generally disappointed. In 2012, he was the Orioles' opening-day starter but was sent down to Norfolk in August. He's listed among the Orioles' rotation options for 2013. Based on what I've seen in Norfolk, both now and in the past, there's no reason to expect anything different from Jake Arrieta in 2013.

The Year After Having Good Luck: Orioles 2013

The Orioles won 93 games, 11 more than the value of their Pythagorean Win Expectation, which was originally introduced by Bill James in his 1980 Baseball Abstract.  This formula calculates winning percentage based on the number of runs a team scores and the number of runs a team allows.

Winning Percentage = (Runs Scored^2) / (Runs Scored^2 + Runs Against^2)

In the past ten years, six teams have won ten or more games than expected based on runs scored and runs against:

	Year	Wins	Δ PWE
Baltimore	2012	93	11
Seattle	2009	85	10
LAAA	2008	100	12
Arizona	2007	90	11
Arizona	2005	77	11
NYY	2004	101	12

To put this in context, this event happened in 2% of seasons in the past ten years.  Additionally, only one team ever duplicated this event.  The Arizona Diamondbacks managed to do this twice with a year in between.  Roughly speaking, it appears that this level of production is typically not a repeatable skill.  To explore this more fully, I looked at teams that finished seven games above their Pythagorean Win Expectation in any given year between 2002 and 2011.  The teams in this grouping include:

	Year	Wins	Δ PWE
Houston	2010	76	8
Seattle	2009	85	10
San Diego	2009	75	8
NYY	2009	103	8
LAAA	2008	100	12
Houston	2008	86	9
Arizona	2007	90	11
Seattle	2007	88	9
St. Louis	2007	78	7
Oakland	2006	93	8
Arizona	2005	77	11
Chicago-AL	2005	99	8
NYY	2004	101	12
Cincinatti	2004	76	9
SF	2003	100	7
Minnesota	2002	94	8
Oakland	2002	103	7

I then compared that performance to what the team accomplished the season before and after the season in question. 

	N-1	N	N+1
Wins	80.3	89.6	81.7
StDev	14.3	10.4	13.3

The N-1 and N+1 years were measured as being significantly less than the year where the team out performed their expectation.  Something similar can be seen when looking how teams perform against their expectations.

	Average
	Δ PWE	StDev
N-1	0	4	*
N	8.9	1.7
N+1	0.4	3.8	*

What the above table shows is that the population of teams on average outperformed their Pythagorean Winning Expectation by 8.9 +/- 1.7 wins.  That performance was significantly more than how the team performed according to this metric the year prior or afterward.  In other words, outperforming the Pythagorean Win Expectation is quite unlikely to be an actual skill.  If it was a skill then one would expect a team would continually outperform the expectation.

What does this all mean?  That whatever the reasons are behind the Orioles winning 11 more games than expected that it is highly unlikely that they can repeat that effort in 2013.  In a relatively generic way, it underscores the team's need to improve the roster this off season.

The Cost and Value of Joe Saunders

by Stuart Wallace
How Do I Baseball | @tclippardsspecs

If there is a phrase that can sum up the 2012 offseason, it could be The Offseason of the Three Year Deal. From so-so relievers, middle of the pack starters, and what seems to be every free agent target of the Boston Red Sox, unless your name is Adam LaRoche, and there’s a signing, it is of the three year variety.

While the signing of Joe Saunders remains a high priority for the Orioles as they prepare for pitchers and catchers reporting to Sarasota on February 12th, there is some reluctance on the Orioles part to sign Saunders to one of the these en vogue three year deals. In spite of an inspired stretch of pitching wearing the orange and black, offering Saunders the three year deal he desires remains a risky proposition for the Orioles, not only in terms of the money involved for what amounts to a back end of the rotation starter, but also regarding his production during the end of his potential deal, which would come in his age 34 season.

While signings of the multiyear variety are inherently risky, are the risks involved with locking up Saunders to the deal he is looking for palatable for the Orioles? Are there other options should a multiyear deal for Saunders not be the right fit for Baltimore?

To answer those questions, let’s compare Saunders to a couple of pitchers who were also mentioned in the linked article who have been on the receiving end of some generous contracts this offseason, Jeremy Guthrie and Edwin Jackson. As you may recall, Guthrie is the proud owner of a 3 year (see?), $25 million deal from the Kansas City Royals, while EJax just had the ink dry on his 4 year, $52 million contract with the Chicago Cubs. Let’s start with the career numbers, courtesy of Fangraphs:

                                                                       

	Yrs	W	L	GS	IP	H/9	K/9	BB/9	HR/9	WHIP	BABIP	HR/FB	ERA	FIP	xFIP	WAR
Saunders	8	78	65	189	1161.1	9.58	5.13	2.74	1.12	1.37	0.292	10.6 %	4.15	4.56	4.48	12
Guthrie	9	55	77	183	1202	9.13	5.44	2.65	1.26	1.31	0.276	10.6 %	4.28	4.74	4.63	12
Jackson	10	70	71	204	1268.2	9.41	6.87	3.53	1.01	1.44	0.306	10.0 %	4.4	4.26	4.29	16.9

In general, all three players have had similar careers in terms of stats and overall production, with the only glaring difference between the three being career winning percentage, with Saunders being the only player with a winning record for their career.

OK, so we are barking up the right tree comparing these three with one another, let’s go a little further and see how their 2012 seasons fared, since this is what will make or break a player’s leverage for signing the contract of his liking. I also included Saunders’ Baltimore split season stats for perusal, since this is what the Oriole front office is more than likely using as their ground truth, with respect to projecting stats in accordance to making a decision on how many years to offer Saunders. Guthrie himself had a 2012 split season, between Colorado and KC, but those splits will be left out of the argument, for the sake of clarity and brevity.

                                                                       

	Team	W	L	GS	IP	H/9	K/9	BB/9	HR/9	WHIP	BABIP	HR/FB	ERA	FIP	xFIP	WAR
Jackson	WSH	10	11	31	189.2	8.21	7.97	2.75	1.09	1.22	0.278	11.7 %	4.03	3.85	3.79	2.7
Saunders	- - -	9	13	28	174.2	10.05	5.77	2.01	1.08	1.34	0.305	10.2 %	4.07	4.08	4.25	2.5
Guthrie	- - -	8	12	29	181.2	10.21	5	2.48	1.49	1.41	0.294	13.5 %	4.76	5.1	4.75	1
Saunders	BAL	3	3	7	44.2	9.87	4.63	1.61	0.81	1.28	0.302	7.1 %	3.63	3.77	4.44	0.8

So here is what the O’s powers that be are looking at with Saunders - a 44+ inning sampling as an Oriole to figure whether the ghosts of small sample size will haunt their dreams if they were to give him a multiyear deal, in the hopes that he mimics the numbers he had for the team in 2012, or whether they pat themselves on the backs for a job well done in the evaluation of Saunders’ chances of being a capable backend starter for the foreseeable future.  From the table, we see that Saunders did a good job preventing the big inning as an Oriole, with the help of the solid O’s defense. His Baltimore numbers more or less look similar to his career numbers, in that he doesn’t strike many people out, or walk many in the process; he is your standard pitch to contact lefty. We also see that he did a better job than his career average in preventing walks and the big fly in those Baltimore innings.

So, what is a pitch to contact, keep it in the ballpark type of pitcher worth to Baltimore? Is there value in this type of player in the rotation? In the right situation, you can do a lot worse than Saunders as your #4 or #5 guy for the next three years. If a team is going to give him the three years he so desires, they do so knowing that his success lies in outpitching his peripheral stats, which can be a precarious proposition. However, with the likes of J.J. Hardy and Adam Jones behind him to scoop and snag most of the mistakes he leaves over the plate to hitters, it isn’t a completely unbearable proposition to give Saunders three years, especially if he is agreeable to an average annual value closer to what Guthrie makes in his new deal (~$8 million) than Jackson’s ($13 million). Even at $8 million, Saunders would be seeing a reasonable raise from his last contract with the Arizona Diamondbacks, and its $5.75 million AAV.

As encouraging as the stats might be, there is the reality that the courting of Saunders could have both parties walk away unfulfilled, in the form of Saunders walking away from an Oriole offer that’s less than three years, and the team searching for other options to take Saunders’ slot in the rotation.

Enter Chris Capuano.

For better or worse, the LA Dodger lefty is a spitting image of Saunders in terms of productivity, as his 2012 numbers...

	W	L	GS	IP	H/9	K/9	BB/9	HR/9	WHIP	BABIP	HR/FB	ERA	FIP	xFIP	WAR
Capuano	12	12	33	198.1	8.53	7.35	2.45	1.13	1.22	0.284	11.1%	3.72	3.95	3.97	2.1
Saunders	9	13	28	174.2	10.05	5.77	2.01	1.08	1.34	0.305	10.2 %	4.07	4.08	4.25	2.5

...and career stats...   

                                                           

	W	L	GS	IP	H/9	K/9	BB/9	HR/9	WHIP	BABIP	HR/FB	ERA	FIP	xFIP	WAR
Saunders	78	65	189	1161.1	9.58	5.13	2.74	1.12	1.37	0.292	0.11	4.15	4.56	4.48	12
Capuano	67	72	184	1129	9.19	7.54	2.85	1.27	1.34	0.298	0.12	4.26	4.31	4.11	11.8

...can attest.

With Capuano, we again have a lefty that hits his spots, and makes the most of the defense behind him to get outs. One thing Capuano has an advantage over Saunders is his higher K/9; however, this is offset by a slightly higher HR/9 and BB/9 compared to Saunders, so in some respects, the added ability to get the strikeout is a wash. Beyond performance, another perk that Capuano has over Saunders, which is probably more attractive to the Orioles front office, is his contract status. The deal he signed with the Dodgers has under team control for 2013, with an option year for 2014; compared to giving Saunders a three year deal, it’s a bargain. If the Orioles were to look to trade for Capuano, whom the Dodgers are looking to move, they would be on the hook for $6 million in 2013, with a 2014 option paid to the tune of $8 million, or a $1 million buyout. Overall, Capuano’s contract is fairly team friendly, if Baltimore were to look for other pitching options in light of lukewarm negotiations with Saunders.

How would a possible deal look from the LA side? Their need for a right handed outfielder and backup first baseman still has Los Angeles as active buyers this offseason, and an attractive potential trade partner for Baltimore, considering the glut of talent the O’s have at the corner outfield positions, as well as at first base and designated hitter. Players like WilsonBetemit, or the newly acquired Trayvon Robinson, along with an additional piece, could be an alluring offer to take Capuano off of the Dodgers hands, should Saunders’ time as an Oriole be over before it had really begun.

So far, the 2012 offseason has been highlighted by small, measured moves for the Orioles, which flies in the face of what many other teams have done with their offseason moves. However, for the first time in many years, the successes of last season didn’t require much tinkering or overhauling of the roster to keep the team in hot in pursuit of an AL East title and World Series run in 2013. Thus far for Baltimore, it was definitely has not been the Offseason of the Three Year Deal.

Much to the chagrin of Joe Saunders.