Breaking Down Chris Tillman's First Career Shutout

This post was written by Zach Mariner. Follow him on Twitter.

Chris Tillman threw his first career shutout Friday night, limiting the Kansas City Royals to five hits and one walk while striking out three in a 4-0 Orioles victory. It was a much-needed outing from Tillman, who was 1-1 with a 6.75 ERA in his last four starts after starting the season 2-1 with a 1.71 ERA in his first four starts. However, the 26-year-old right-hander wasn’t necessarily dominant. He threw 77 of his 117 pitches for strikes, but induced just four whiffs the entire night, three of which accounted for his only strikeouts of the game.

Tillman’s career whiff percentage is 7.3%, the exact same number he posted through his first eight starts in 2014, which ranked him 86th out of 107 qualifying pitchers coming into Friday night’s game. That being said, the fact that he only got four swinging strikes in a 117-pitch outing shouldn’t come as a huge surprise, especially considering the fact that Kansas City’s 6.9% total whiff percentage is the best mark in the majors.

So what exactly did Tillman do so well that enabled him to go a full nine innings for the first time in his career? For starters, he limited his pitch count in the early going by being aggressive in the strike zone. He threw just 44 pitches through the first four innings, and threw a first-pitch strike to 10 of the 14 batters he faced during that time span. Opposing hitters have a .275/.389/.438 line against Tillman in 2014 when they get ahead 1-0. But when Tillman throws a first-pitch strike, those numbers drop to .208/.248/.313. Also notable, the 44 pitches through four innings was a season best (he threw 52 against Detroit on April 6). Through his first eight starts, he needed an average of exactly 75 pitches to get through four innings.

One of the biggest reasons he hasn't been able to go deep into games thus far in 2014 -- just three of his nine starts have gone more than six innings -- is his trouble with high pitch counts, which has been a problem since he was brought up to the big leagues in 2009. Tillman has only allowed more than three earned runs in one of his nine starts, but the high pitch counts have limited his production and innings thus far.

His fastball velocity averaged out at 91.2 MPH. If you read Jon’s post on Friday, you know that he came to the soft conclusion that Tillman tends to challenge hitters when he’s hitting 92.5 MPH consistently, something he did only once on Friday. That being said, his aggressiveness in the strike zone despite having overpowering velocity most likely means that Tillman believed his stuff was still good enough to overpower a Kansas City team that ranks 25th in the majors in wOBA (.299) and dead last in home runs (18).

His pitch distribution against the Royals really wasn’t all that different than it has been thus far in 2014, with one exception -- according to data from BrooksBaseball.net, Tillman used a slider on Friday night that he had never thrown before in his career, at least not according to their data. The slider averaged 86.5 MPH, topping out at 87.9 MPH -- Tillman used it 10 times, according to BrooksBaseball.net and MLB.com Gameday. On paper, it appears slightly similar to his cutter (which he uses sparingly -- less than 10% of the time over the course of his career). As you can see, it’s about 3.6 MPH slower than his cutter, with a lot less V-break -- but the H-break number is about the same.

The table above is solely representative of Tillman’s outing on Friday night. Below, you’ll find a graph of his pitch usage throughout his career (excluding the Friday night start, which had not yet been included in the statistics used for the table below).

Interestingly enough, there is no slider to be found.

I went back and watched the game film to see if Jim Hunter and Jim Palmer had anything to say about the particular pitch Tillman was throwing. The first time he threw it (on the Salvador Perez lineout to second in the first inning), Palmer referred to it as “the little cut fastball. It’s like a slider, a cutter.” The second time he threw it, he got a called strike against Billy Butler in the top of the second inning. Hunter immediately sounded surprised when he said, “Breaking ball for a strike.” Jim Palmer replied, “Yeah, a little slider.”

Then, on his 116th pitch of the night, Tillman got Butler to swing through the slider for his fourth and final swinging strike of the night. Palmer once again commented, saying “Right there, a little slider he’s used tonight…more than he has in his last couple of games.”

I’m not a pitch tracking expert, and don’t know enough to definitively say whether or not what Tillman was throwing was a slider, cutter, or something in between. But that might be something to keep an eye on going forward. As for whether or not we can expect to see more of this from Tillman in the weeks and months to come, I think that’s still a mystery. As Jon pointed out in that post from Friday, Tillman's ever-decreasing velocity is a concern -- one that should and will be monitored closely. Logic says that Tillman is an average pitcher when he doesn’t have his best stuff, but he seems to have proved otherwise against Kansas City. Then again, he was pitching against Kansas City.

On Miguel Gonzalez, Baltimore's Best Healthy Starter

This post was written by Zach Mariner. Follow him on Twitter here.

Last Tuesday night against the Angels, Miguel Gonzalez looked like the ace that he was down the stretch in 2012, limiting Los Angeles to one run on four hits and one walk in eight innings, striking out five. He worked efficiently, throwing just 96 pitches and inducing 12 groundball outs. He only recorded three “three-up-three-down” innings, but utilized three double plays en route to his best outing of the season.

Gonzalez was able to keep the Halos off balance all night, mixing in a never-before-seen mid-80s changeup, which induced five groundball outs. However, it’s possible that the “changeup” identified by the folks at Brooksbaseball.net was actually a splitter, as the velocity and movement were similar. The “changeup” also helped to set up his fastball — which was his strikeout pitch on all five of his K’s — on two of his strikeouts. Despite the high groundball numbers, he actually used his sinker less than usual.

Gonzalez's pitch usage per start, going back to May 2012.

Despite inducing just 10 whiffs on the night, Gonzalez did show good control, throwing 68.75% of his pitches for strikes. He didn’t throw more than 15 pitches in any inning, which enabled him to go eight full innings for just the second time in his career.

Brooks Baseball did note once again during Sunday’s 6-3 win against Boston that the pitch Gonzalez was throwing was indeed a changeup, though two of the four groundballs he induced with the pitch went for base hits. He still picked up the W, going 6.1 scoreless innings before giving up a three-run homer to Will Middlebrooks, the last batter he faced on the day. He struck out two, walked two, and gave up five hits.

Gonzalez, who’s been solid in six starts since his return from the disabled list on May 21 (39 innings, 7.38 K/9, 2.3 BB/9, 3.00 ERA), came out of nowhere last season to help anchor the starting rotation.

In 27 career starts — all made in the past 12 months with the Orioles — Gonzalez is 14-6 with a 3.55 ERA. He hasn't been dominant by any means, with just a 6.90 career K/9. That number isn’t atrocious, but it is below average (the current MLB average K/9 is 7.57).

Not to take anything away from what Gonzalez has been able to do: He is seeing slightly better movement on some of his pitches in 2013, which no doubt has something to do with his continued success. However, his movement still isn’t anything special.

Looking at his body of work, Gonzalez comes across as one of those pitchers who doesn’t do any one thing tremendously, but is effective by doing a lot of little things well. Of 99 ERA title qualifiers in baseball right now, here’s where Gonzalez ranks in several key areas:

The numbers that jump out at you immediately are the high swing percentages and average contact rate, which have led to Gonzalez’s above-average whiff percentage. This could be a result of a number of things, though several of which we know not to be true: We know Gonzalez doesn’t have an overpowering fastball, and we know that his secondary pitches aren’t particularly devastating. What this may mean is that Gonzalez is oftentimes fooling hitters by mixing up his pitch usage and not giving his opponents any sort of pattern to follow.

In addition, one of the most important facets of Gonzalez’s game is the way he’s able to pound the outer third of the plate. As shown in the chart below, this season Gonzalez has thrown 35.47% of his pitches against right-handed batters either on the outer third of the zone, or just outside it.

His numbers against left-handers are similar, having thrown 37.44% of his pitches in that same location. Gonzalez has induced contact on 55 pitches in those spots (21 vs. righties, 34 vs. lefties). Of those 55 balls in play, 52.7% having been groundballs, and only 18.2% have been line drives. He’s has also been relying less on his four-seam fastball and more on his secondary pitches since his MLB debut last summer.

So even though Gonzalez only throws a low-90s fastball and doesn’t have tremendous movement on any of his pitches, he’s still able to put solid starts together by mixing in all of his pitches to prevent hitters from getting comfortable against him. That, along with his ability to locate the ball away from hitters, is helping to solidify him as Baltimore’s ace.

Gonzalez’s split stats also warrant a second look. This season, his wOBA against left-handed hitters is .237 — that number jumps to .373 against righties. All 10 home runs he’s given up have come from right-handed batters, and his ERA against righties (5.67) is also significantly higher than it is against lefties (1.84). He’s also run into a little bit of bad luck; a lot of the runs he’s given up against righties have come off of home runs, and those home runs have come off the bats of the some of the game’s best in Evan Longoria, Miguel Cabrera, Edwin Encarnacion, Mark Trumbo and Mike Trout, (twice). In 2012, Gonzalez’s splits were a lot more similar (L/R: .308/.299 wOBA, 3.02/3.48 ERA).

Another interesting tidbit regarding Gonzalez’s short career in the majors is the fact that Buck Showalter likes to occasionally give him an extra day’s rest — probably because Gonzalez has never thrown more than 130.2 total innings in a season and Showalter doesn’t want to wear him down. Of his 27 career starts, 10 have come on more than a starter’s regular, five-day rest (not including his first start of 2013). His numbers in those 10 games: 6.1 innings per start with a 2.28 ERA.

Gonzalez’s success rate when he gets an extra day or two off speaks for itself. I would imagine Showalter will continue to sit Gonzalez as much as he can afford to if it means the 29-year-old sophomore will be as sharp this fall as he was in 2012.

Better Plate Discipline Fueling Machado's Offensive Improvement

This post was written by Zach Mariner. Follow him on Twitter here.

Manny Machado’s name has been brought up more and more in recent weeks by the media regarding baseball’s young superstar debate — one that’s been dominated by Bryce Harper and Mike Trout for over a year now.

On May 11, MASN’s Steve Melewski suggested that Machado was better than his fellow phenoms, at least through 84 games of their respective careers. Just last week, the folks at Baseball Prospectus took a staff poll regarding the order in which they would draft the three of them — a lengthy and interesting read. On Tuesday, ESPN’s baseball staff partook in their annual franchise player draft, in which writers and analysts select which player they would want on their team going forward — Machado went third to Aaron Boone. Trout and Harper went No. 1 and 2, respectively. ESPN.com’s Bill Baer doesn’t think Machado is there just yet, and Bob Nightengale of USA Today Sports just wants to stop the comparisons altogether.

It would appear on paper that Machado does indeed deserve to be in the conversation with Harper and Trout as one of the game’s best young players. The recent national buzz surrounding him is certainly warranted, seeing as the year he’s having would be impressive for a major league ballplayer of any age. 

Coming into Tuesday night’s game against Houston, Machado’s .327 average was good for sixth in the American League. His 81 hits ranked second in all of baseball, only to Miguel Cabrera, and his 3.1 WAR was good for fourth in the majors.

However, his wOBA stands at .375 — 15th in the AL — which is somewhat low for someone who has more hits than almost everyone in the league. The primary reason for that number is Machado’s 5.3 BB%, which ranks 143rd out of 168 qualifying major league hitters. Despite the low walk percentage, the 20-year-old has still matured as a hitter from his first two months in the big leagues at the end of 2012. His swing percentages are significantly lower than last year, leading to a much lower K% (18.8% in 2012, 13.7% in 2013) and slightly higher BB% (4.5% in 2012).

Machado swung at 48.5% of pitches thrown to him in 2012, including 33.2% of pitches outside the strikezone. This season, those numbers have fallen to 43.0% and 25.1%, respectively. The folks at baseballanalytics.org recently took a closer look at exactly where Machado’s been swinging, compared to 2012.

There are two big differences that jump out in the heat maps shown above. The first is Machado’s decreasing amount of swings on pitches low and away, which were around 50% in 2012 and have fallen to closer to 25% this season. This is oftentimes a spot where you’ll see a right-handed pitcher try to fool a right-handed batter with a breaking ball or slider — the ball looks like it’s coming over the heart of the plate, and drops off at the last second. Machado’s decreasing swing numbers in that spot indicate that he’s recognizing those pitches and laying off them.

The second major difference is the increase in the number of swings on the inner half of the plate and pitches that are sometimes even a little bit inside. Machado’s been having a lot of success turning on pitches — all of his home runs have been to left field, and 17 of his 26 doubles have been pull hits, as well. As noted last week by Bloomberg Sports, Machado is seeing a lot more inside fastballs thrown his way after he slugged just .289 against them in 2012. In 2013, that number has risen to .651.

Machado’s low walk rates are a bit of a concern, but his decreasing swing numbers are a sign that he’s getting a better feel for the strikezone, and that should continue to develop as he spends more time at this level.

One facet of Machado’s game that doesn’t seem to have developed yet is his power (just 12 home runs in 465 career plate appearances). While his secondary power has been there — he’s on pace to set the major league record for doubles in a single season — he’s yet to show any consistent pop (most scouts project Machado as a 20-25 homer guy in his prime). That would be more of a concern if Machado were a true third baseman, and not somebody that figures to end up at shortstop within the next few years. Also, Machado’s still providing more value as a third baseman — both offensively and defensively — than everyone other than Cabrera.

Defensively, Machado has been arguably the best third baseman in the majors since being recalled in August of last season. Using UZR, Machado is the most valuable player by position in the major leagues in 2013, having saved 10.9 runs. If you watch the Orioles regularly, it’s not difficult to understand why, as it seems like Machado makes difficult plays look routine on a nightly basis; the fact that he’s doing so at a position he’d never played until last August is what’s more impressive.

Whenever he does finally move to shortstop — which figures to be whenever J.J. Hardy leaves Baltimore — Machado’s value will finally peak, as he’ll be playing the most difficult defensive position in baseball other than catcher. Also, if Machado continues to improve his plate discipline and develops the power most scouts expect will come, by the time he is the shortstop in Baltimore, he could very well be more valuable than any other player in baseball. 

Dickerson Making the Most Out of Opportunity With Baltimore

This post was written by Zach Mariner. Follow him on Twitter here.

When he was cut by the Yankees in January, Chris Dickerson was a 31-year-old utility outfielder who had never seen 300 plate appearances in a season, and had only seen at least 100 three different times.

Selected by the Reds in the 16th round of the 2003 first-year player draft, Dickerson spent five years fighting through injuries while toiling in the minors before making his major-league debut with Cincinnati on August 12, 2008. But, after just 31 games, a stress fracture in his heel forced him to miss the rest of the season, setting the tone for what has been a disappointing career.

Dickerson’s best season came the following year in 2009 (thanks to great defensive numbers), when he started 51 games through the first four months of the season before hitting the disabled list on two separate occasions late that summer. He finished the year with a .275/.370/.373 line.

During spring training in 2010, Dickerson voiced his frustration to reporters after Drew Stubbs was assumed the Reds’ starting center fielder, saying “I guess I’ll just have to go out and hit .450 this spring.” He only managed .288, and was traded to the Brewers for Jim Edmonds in August. In 25 games with Milwaukee, he drove in five runs with a line of .208/.271/.264. A week before Opening Day in 2011, he was traded to New York for Sergio Mitre.

It was during that same spring training in 2010 that Reds manager Dusty Baker summed up Dickerson’s career in a nutshell: "Dickerson has as much ability as anybody, it's just a matter of him staying healthy, the same thing I said (in 2009). People want to know why he didn't play every day, and that's because I wanted to keep him healthy with his history of injuries."

Since the start of 2010, Dickerson’s played in just 146 major-league games and 145 minor-league games. The Yankees cut him due to an abundance of left-handed outfielders.

Aside from struggling with injuries and running into a little bit of bad luck, the primary reason for his up-and-down career isn’t tough to figure out: he gets on base (.342 wOBA), but has trouble making contact (26.0 K%).

All of that made him a perfect fit for the Baltimore Orioles and general manager Dan Duquette, who’s picked up several outfielders in similar situations over the past two years.

Each of these guys has had a troubled career, but they all also have the potential to help the Orioles in some way or another (even if that mostly means providing depth). Dickerson was the second of these six players to get the call this season, after Steve Pearce made the 25-man roster coming out of spring training.

Dickerson spent his first six weeks with the Orioles — who are 7-3 when he’s been in the starting lineup — serving in that same utility outfielder role, starting roughly once a week and playing sparingly as a late-game defensive replacement. However, he’s started six out of the past seven games since Nolan Reimold hit the DL with a hamstring tear. Seeing as it may take a few weeks for Reimold to make his way back into the lineup, Dickerson will have an opportunity to continue to showcase his value to this organization.

In 43 at-bats this season, the lefty is hitting .326 with three home runs. The sample size is small, and the numbers are somewhat inflated after his 3-for-4, two-homer night on Tuesday against the Yankees. But, he does have a .352 career OBP, higher than Reimold (.329), Pearce (.311) and even Nate McLouth (.332) — although his spot in the lineup against righties is pretty secure. Beyond that, Dickerson’s wOBA comes in higher than that all three of his mentioned teammates, for both their careers and 2013.

Now, don’t expect what you’ve seen from him so far to continue, because he probably isn’t going to hit .300 this season — or hit a home run every 14 at-bats — but his ability to draw walks (10.6 career BB%) and occasionally steal bases (28 in 35 career attempts) makes him valuable at the bottom of the lineup, at least against right-handed pitching (.294 career wOBA against lefties).

More than anything else, what Dickerson brings to the table defensively has the potential to make him a permanent fixture in this lineup. His career utility zone rating outranks almost every Baltimore outfielder in nearly every outfield spot.

His prowess and versatility in the outfield, along with his speed and ability to get on base, make him a pretty solid fit to continue to hit out of the No. 8 spot and play wherever he’s needed in the outfield against righties (assuming either McLouth, Jones, or Markakis is serving as the DH that night). With Reimold hurt for the time being, Dickerson will probably split time with McLouth, Pearce, and Danny Valencia in the DH/OF role against lefties. His high strikeout numbers (22.7 K% in 2013) are a liability, and rank higher than every other player mentioned, except for Reimold so far this season — but again, that could change once the sample size grows. However, as long as he continues to get on base (at least at an average rate) he’s still an upgrade. Dickerson is by no means an all-star, but he is the best available option going forward.

Dickerson won’t ever replace Jones or Markakis in the lineup, no matter how much of an upgrade he is defensively. But he’s been making the most of his chances in the outfield as Jones fills the DH spot while dealing with soreness in his groin. If Dickerson continues to impress Buck Showalter, he could see more and more meaningful playing time, especially if Reimold can’t get it going at the plate once he comes off the DL.

Hammel Struggling to Get on Track

This post was written by Zach Mariner. Follow him on Twitter here.

Friday night was, in a word, disastrous for Jason Hammel, Baltimore’s ace from 2012. Despite a 5-2 record on the young season, Hammel has struggled mightily, and his rough outing against Tampa Bay (seven earned runs on 10 hits in 4.2 innings) was the worst of his nine starts.

Hammel was 6-1 through nine starts in 2012, and his ERA was down at 2.78, compared to 5.72 so far this season. He only has three quality starts, as opposed to six through nine starts last year. His innings pitched are also down, having thrown just 50.1, compared to 55 at this point in 2012. If not for the ridiculous amount of run support from his teammates (over seven runs per start), his record would probably not look nearly as nice as it does.

Which brings us to the question, why? Well, he’s still throwing 60.9 percent of his pitches for strikes, barely down from last year’s 62.1 mark. However, his strikeouts are down from 8.67 per nine innings in 2012 to 6.47 per nine in 2013, closer to his career mark of 6.57. The culprits behind Hammel’s decreasing strikeout numbers are the decline of his velocity and vertical pitch movement across the board, which may support the argument that his impressive 2012 might have been a fluke, as he’s regressed more toward the 2011 version of himself. It doesn’t look like much, but it’s making all the difference in the world.

Another area where you’re really seeing a big difference is Hammel’s fly ball/ground ball ratio. Right now, it stands at 1.12, where as last year it was down at 0.76. If that weren’t enough, he’s given up twice as many home runs (seven, as opposed to just three in 2012) as he did through nine starts last season.

It also doesn’t help that Hammel is oftentimes missing his spots, leaving the ball up and out over the plate and giving hitters a chance to drive the baseball. We’ve heard Buck Showalter talk about Hammel having trouble “repeating his delivery” which is just a fancy way of saying he’s been inconsistent, and it’s certainly showed in his numbers. Hammel was quoted after the game on Friday as saying, “I’ve been here before. I’ve figured it out before. I’m not going to continue to beat myself up.” And followed up by saying he’s been “trying to do too much.”

And that makes sense to a certain extent, as the expectations for him are higher, since last season he was on pace to have easily the best season of his seven-year career -- if not for it being shortened by injuries. A lot of people described last year as somewhat of a fluke season for him, as he went 8-6 with a 3.43 ERA -- from 2006-2011, he had a 34-45 record with a 4.99 ERA, struggling in stints with the Rays and Rockies.

It is important to note that while Hammel isn’t pitching quite as well as he did a year ago, he’s still doing his part to stay healthy and put the Orioles in position to win ball games, for the most part. He trails only Chris Tillman in both innings pitched and strikeouts. So even though he hasn’t looked like the anchor of this starting rotation, he’s still doing enough to get by, assuming he can turn things around within the next few weeks.