Microtrends: Kevin Gausman's Weak Contact

Since he moved into the Orioles' rotation again, Kevin Gausman has pitched to mixed results. He's put up an uninspiring 4.26 ERA in his ten starts, albeit with a 3.78 FIP. His strikeout rate has jumped from years past, to a solid 21.0%, and he's issued free passes at a meager 4.7% clip; however, poor sequencing (as evidenced by a 67.5% strand rate) has done him in. Taking into account his past performance, though, I found one element of his 2015 starts especially interesting.

Gausman only started five games in 2013, all of which went pretty disastrously — he allowed 21 runs in 24.2 innings, chiefly because of a .351 BABIP. Becoming a starter full-time in 2014, he improved considerably in terms of preventing runs, with a 3.57 ERA across 20 outings. That came despite a subpar .304 BABIP, indicating that hitters still hit the ball hard against him. Over his first 25 career starts, Gausman gave up a hit on 31.3% of the balls put in play against him, a rate that didn't bode well for the future.

The future, as they say, is now. Gausman's 2015 starts have seen him limit the opposition to a .264 BABIP — tremendously lower than we'd expect based on his history. Unlike strikeouts and walks, balls in play take a long time to stabilize, so this could dissipate over a larger sample. The descriptive measures here, though, would suggest that Gausman's weak contact will remain.

By the various batted-ball statistics FanGraphs provides, Gausman has upped his game in virtually every regard:

Starter	LD%	GB%	FB%	PU%	Soft%	Med%	Hard%
2013-2014	24.2%	40.5%	32.4%	2.9%	14.6%	54.3%	31.2%
2015	18.8%	41.9%	33.3%	5.9%	26.3%	46.8%	26.9%

Fewer line drives and hard-hit balls, along with more popups and soft-hit balls, will generally lead to a depreciated BABIP. That's held true for Gausman, whose process has changed to create these results.

In his 2013 and 2014 starts, Gausman relied primarily on three pitches: a four-seam fastball, a slider, and a splitter. The former occupied 68.3% of his overall pitches, while the usage rates for the latter two came in at 8.0% and 18.0%, respectively. He's thrown the fastball just as often during his 2015 starts — a 68.2% clip doesn't differ much at all from the mark he established prior. His shiny new curveball has slid in nicely, replacing the slider with a clean 8.0% usage rate. And the splitter has remained a solid secondary offering, at 16.2%. Which of these three pitches has helped him the most?

The four-seamer, and it's not very close. Hitters battered the slider for a .392 BABIP, and their current .375 figure against the curveball conforms to that. The splitter's .298 BABIP before 2015 has also remained stable, at .290. By contrast, 31.1% of Gausman's four-seam fastballs in play used to go for hits, whereas 24.8% of them have done so thus far. That massive drop accounts for almost all of the variation in Gausman's BABIP, meaning that fastballs have made the difference.

Earlier this year, Jeff Sullivan observed that Gausman had started to throw more high fastballs. That trend from Gausman's bullpen time has carried over to his tenure in the rotation:

First image includes all 2013-2014 appearances.

The higher fastballs have consistently gone for fewer hits when put in play, so increasing their quantity means Gausman's been able to suppress the BABIP against him. Even at the major-league level, most hitters really can't make solid contact on a high heater in the upper 90s; Gausman appears to have realized that, at long last.

Gausman will take the hill tonight against the Rangers, hoping to sustain Baltimore's faint postseason dreams. He may allow some hits on balls in play — over the long term, very few (if any) starting pitchers can maintain a BABIP in the .260s. But this profile shows that he can continue to turn balls in play into outs; if he starts to strand runners as well, he could become Baltimore's next overperformer.

Microtrends: Adam Jones's Defense

I've recently covered some noteworthy facets of Baltimore's 2015 season — focusing on Brian Matusz, among others. These posts have looked at the more minute fluctuations that occur within a season; they don't carry the sample size necessary for an ironclad case, but I've argued that they'll probably stick.

The thing about sample size, though, is the standards for a reliable one differ by statistic. For, say, a pitcher's strikeout and walk rates, we only need a few hundred batters faced, which typically takes a month or two. On the flipside, defensive metrics require much more time to stabilize — about 3,000 innings in the field, generally acquired over three-plus seasons. For someone like Adam Jones, whose play with the glove has spiked going back to last year, this means that we can't fully believe in what he's done yet; nevertheless, there's a lot here to suggest that he'll keep it up.

Let's go back to Jones in the minors. Drafted by Seattle in 2003, he came up as a shortstop, only switching to the outfield in 2006. He adjusted pretty well to the position, or so scouts observed; the 2008 BP Annual called him "one of the best defensive outfielders in the minors". His first season on the East Coast saw him live up to that reputation, as he gained 6 DRS and 5.9 UZR for the Orioles, ranking a respective fourth and sixth in the majors. Only 22 at the time, Jones looked like an elite defender for years to come.

That didn't exactly come to pass, it seemed. Over the next five years, Jones cost the Orioles an unacceptable number of runs in the field — 28 by DRS (second-worst in baseball), and 33 by UZR (third-worst in baseball). The takeaway from that*: Jones didn't make his keep on the field. Such a sizable sample as that didn't leave much room for doubt, nor did it endorse Jones's abilities going forward.

*Aside from noting that, good Lord, Matt Kemp cannot play defense.

After that, 2014 came, then 2015. (That whole passage-of-time thing — it's crazy how that works.) In these years, Jones has turned over a new leaf; he's earned 13.5 runs by UZR, which places him fifth in baseball, and 9 runs by DRS, which places him sixth in baseball. After a long period in the relative cellar, he has, possibly, come back to reclaim his throne.

As discussed above, defensive metrics take some time to stabilize. These results should therefore inspire some skepticism, and further scrutiny. Let's look at his Inside Edge fielding numbers — they only go back to 2012, but his output from 2012 to 2013 (-18 DRS, -13.4 UZR) effectively represents his play over the aforementioned five-year span.

Inside Edge breaks down fielding into six types of plays: 0% (the impossible plays), 1-10% (the remote plays), 10-40% (the unlikely plays), 40-60% (the even plays), 60-90% (the likely plays), and 90-100% (the routine plays). Each percentage range signifies the theoretical chance that a defender can successfully field the ball. Because scouts gauge these manually, they're subjective, but they tend to properly evaluate most defenders. And for Jones, they show a clear change:

Years	1-10%	Rank	10-40%	Rank	40-60%	Rank	60-90%	Rank	90-100%	Rank
2012-2013	0.0%	11th	45.5%	4th	28.6%	16th	76.0%	12th	99.4%	11th
2014-2015	4.8%	9th	16.7%	13th	20.0%	18th	100.0%	1st	99.7%	8th

While the tougher plays haven't shifted much for Jones, their easier counterparts have. This syncs up with the narrative surrounding him as well: Quite notoriously, Jones used to botch more than his fair share of simple plays in a season. For me, this error against the Yankees sticks out, on account of its most prominent feature:

Yes, Jones blew the controversial bubble on this routine (per IE) play, and paid a heavy price for it. In his darker times, Jones would treat Oriole fans to a few of these a year, the gum only compounding the subsequent frustration. Since then, however, he's managed to avoid this ignominy, even making a superb play while blowing a bubble.

This kind of defensive improvement is likely the most sustainable. Had Jones simply reeled in a few highlight catches, they may have pumped up his metrics, but they wouldn't testify to any true change in his performance — despite the low probability of converting one, every player lucks into a few sooner or later. By contrast, the capacity to convert easy balls (the most common variety) into outs will build up a player's numbers gradually, in a hopefully non-fluky manner. Plus, fielders who derive their value from easy plays will presumably age better; as their athleticism and speed deteriorates, they can still rely on solid fundamentals to give them a lift.

Perhaps this step forward will vanish in the final months of the season, a statistical mirage among the desert of subpar defense. Jones's track record certainly contradicts what he's accomplished over the last year-and-a-half, and in this area, the past often predicts the future. But this improvement has some legitimacy to it — the scouts, always more trusted with these cases, back up the numbers. If Jones does sustain his better play in the field, he might live up to the high standards he set for himself way back in the minors. While fielding metrics are fickle, here they appear to have stumbled onto an actual trend.

Microtrends: Brian Matusz's Success

During April, I looked at a few patterns for Brad Brach and Caleb Joseph, both of whom have sustained those early numbers (to differing extents). Within a 162-game season, these types of microtrends will present themselves, although the games that surround them can obscure their significance. I'll look at some of these trends in the weeks to come, starting with Baltimore's favorite quasi-LOOGY.

To begin the season, Brian Matusz sucked. Like, more-walks-than-strikeouts sucked. More precisely: From his 2015 debut on April 8th, to his May 19th outing, Matusz compiled 13.1 innings, in which he struck out 12.3% of the batters he faced, walked 15.8%, and gave up a 53.8% fly ball rate. A .184 BABIP kept his ERA at a low 2.70, but the 6.47 xFIP (!) he posted foreshadowed bad times to come.

Well, those bad times haven't come yet, and based on what Matusz has done since then, I'd say they won't come back this season. From May 21st until now, he's pitched about the same amount of innings as he did before, but to much better results: a 37.1% K%, 11.3% BB%, and 44.8% FB%, giving him a 3.07 xFIP for that span. Maintaining that depreciated BABIP, he's also allowed far fewer earned runs — 1.88 of them per nine innings.

Interestingly, Matusz underwent something of a similar transformation last year, when his 5.05 xFIP through the first three months of the year gave way to a 2.75 xFIP across the final three. Writing during that September, I observed the two impetuses of this: Matusz faced more lefties, and gained velocity. Those factors have helped to cause his 2015 reversal as well, but there's something else at play here.

As a starter, as a reliever, as a swingman, in a box, with a fox, Matusz has severely struggled against right-handed batters. They've abused him for a .365 wOBA this year, and for a .372 wOBA in his career. Lefties, on the other hand (get it?), have given him little trouble — he's held them to a 2015 wOBA of .214, and an all-time wOBA of .268. Thus, it makes sense that he'd do better when able to see more of the latter:

Period	TBF	Lefties	Lefty%
4/8-5/19	57	22	38.6%
5/21-7/7	62	34	54.8%

The Orioles, it seems, have deployed Matusz more intelligently, and have reaped the rewards of that decision. Of course, him throwing harder hasn't hurt — on every pitch in his arsenal, Matusz's velocity has spiked:

Period	Fourseam	Sinker	Change	Slider	Curve
4/8-5/19	90.6	89.9	82.0	84.9	76.4
5/21-7/7	91.9	91.5	84.0	85.3	79.8

But handedness and power alone can't account for all of Matusz's improvement. Possibly the biggest change he's made comes from one pitch, which many people once deemed his best: his changeup. As a scrub, Matusz relied on it heavily; as a star, not so much:

Period	Fourseam	Sinker	Change	Slider	Curve
4/8-5/19	37.7%	7.6%	25.9%	24.1%	4.7%
5/21-7/7	47.8%	9.3%	9.3%	31.0%	2.6%

The slider and four-seam fastball have all but phased out the changeup.

Why has Matusz relegated this formerly-deadly pitch to part-time duty? It certainly doesn't lack bite, as it took on more velocity than any other pitch in his repertoire, save the curveball. And while he toiled through April and most of May, it led all of his pitches in whiff rate (14.6%).

In terms of true talent, though, Matusz's slider and four-seamer most likely dwarf the changeup. The former two put up swinging strike rates of 16.5% and 11.0%, respectively, over Matusz's first two full years in relief (2013-2014), compared to 10.0% for the latter in that time. And indeed, since he turned the corner this year, the slider has induced 20.5% whiffs, the four-seamer 17.2%, and the changeup 8.0%. Recognizing this, and adjusting his usage accordingly, has driven Matusz to excellence.

Matusz's streak of progress is but one of the intriguing facets of this season for the O's, and we'll look at some more in the future. The halfway point of the 2015 season has just passed, so we still have a lot more baseball to go. Hopefully, Matusz will remain effective for all of that time; perhaps his teammates will follow his example, and make leaps of their own.

Microtrends: Caleb Joseph's Plate Discipline

Continuing my series from last week (would we call this a microtrend?), I've decided to look into another interesting facet of Baltimore's season. Although the year is still quite young, the changes we note may last for its duration — and that may occur with Caleb Joseph's offensive performance.

Joseph posted an altogether successful rookie campaign in 2014, mainly because of his strong defense: He threw out 23 of 57 attempted base stealers, and acquired 84 extra strikes via framing. Sadly, hardships at the plate accompanied his excellence behind it, as he posted an offensive line 28% worse than the major-league average. A low average on balls in play had a hand in his struggles, but plate discipline bears most of the blame for them; he struck out in 25.1% of his plate appearances, while only walking in 6.2%.

While the ability to hit the ball can come and go, the ability to see it generally doesn't change. In other words, players will see some BABIP and ISO fluctuation from year to year, but their BB% and K% will remain pretty stable. Thus, we should probably look at Caleb Joseph's 14.9% walk rate and 19.1% strikeout rate for 2015 with a bit of skepticism. Nevertheless, they may not decline to the degree that we'd expect, if we can believe his peripherals.

One thing we can say about Joseph, with some amount of certainty: He swings less now. Swing rate stabilizes at 50 plate appearances, and Joseph's 47 trips to the dish comes pretty close to fulfilling that requirement. In that span, he's offered at 38.9% of the pitches he's seen, much lower than last year's 46.8% mark. That patience hasn't come equally — his O-Swing% has plummeted from 21.2% to 30.6%, while his Z-Swing% hasn't dropped much at all (62.6% to 60.5%). The early nature of the season notwithstanding, Joseph, appears to have adopted a more disciplined approach.

It's worth noting that Joseph hasn't done more with the cuts he's taken. At 78.6%, his contact rate hasn't shifted much from 2014's 79.5% figure. With that said, his newfound composure means he's decreased his swinging strikes; whereas last year, he whiffed at 9.6% of the pitches he saw, this year pitchers have fooled him 8.3% of the time. Additionally, he's seen fewer pitches in the strike zone, which doubly compounds his aforementioned composure: He takes fewer looking strikes, and more balls. So far in 2015, 17.8% of the pitches he's taken have (theoretically*) been looking strikes, down from 18.9% last year; additionally, 43.3% of them haven't (theoretically*) been strikes, a notable decline from 34.4% prior.

*If we had robot umps already, we wouldn't have to deal with theory.

To go down on strikes, a batter must have at least one of the looking or swinging variety, and Joseph has made it so that he doesn't do those as often. To take a free pass, a batter must take four pitches out of the strike zone, and Joseph has made it so that he does those much more often. Put it together, and you get an all-around better approach at the plate, and one that might bring Joseph sustained playing time at the major-league level.

For Joseph, a lot of this year's offensive improvements will probably dissipate when the sample size grows. (If he owns a .414 BABIP by season's end, I'll quit baseball writing forever.) As his average goes down, pitchers will pound the zone more against him; he'll begin to press, and in doing so will sacrifice some of the gains he's made so far. But expecting him to regress to 2014's level, when he's done all of this so far, may prove foolish if he keeps it up.

Microtrends: Brad Brach's Splitter

With a mere eight games of Baltimore baseball in the books, we can't make too many concrete observations about the 2015 team. But we can certainly try, and looking at some of the smaller fluctuations — even those among relief pitchers — can give us ideas as to how the season might go. For Brad Brach, the early going might portend better results as the season progresses.

On the surface, Brach has struggled thus far, allowing five earned runs in his 4.2 innings of work. A .563 BABIP will distort any pitcher's results, though, and the peripherals tell a wholly different story: Brach owns a sparkling 2.18 xFIP, mainly because he's punched out six of the 23 batters he's faced. Compared to last year, in which he put up a strikeout rate of 21.2%, that represents a significant improvement, and it's come from one pitch in particular.

A couple months ago, my colleague Matt Kremnitzer noted some changes Brach made in his first Baltimore campaign:

Before this season, Brach had thrown his four-seamer the most, about two-thirds of the time, followed by his slider and splitter. But he threw his sinker 15% of the time last season, which took a chunk out of his four-seam offerings.

After relying heavily on a four-seam fastball for the first three years of his major-league tenure, Brach began to phase it out upon coming to the Orioles. So far in 2015, he's perpetuated that trend:

But he hasn't replaced those heaters with sinkers — his rate of the latter hasn't budged from last year. Rather, he's increased his usage of his splitter:

This has been something of a career-long trend for Brach: As he becomes more and more experienced, he leans more and more on his splitter. With a career SwStr% of 23.6% — well above the 15.5% baseline for the pitch — the pitch has always helped him rack up strikeouts, so throwing it more would certainly help with that.

It's fairly easy to see why Brach's splitter so befuddles batters. Its velocity has only increased:

League-average splitter velocity usually sits at 84 MPH, so 86 makes a sizable difference — one that has undoubtedly assisted Brach in fanning so many hitters.

In addition, Brach's splitter moves differently from most of its contemporaries. In 2014, the average splitter broke 4.5 inches to the right (from the catcher's perspective), and rose 2.5 inches. By contrast, Brach's splitter, since debuting in 2011, has shifted 9.3 inches horizontally, and 0.8 inches vertically. Together with the aforementioned velocity, this unconventional movement makes the splitter a legitimate force, and Brach appears to have finally realized it.

Of course, Brach probably won't stay this good for the whole season. Based on the fact that he walked 11.8% of the batters he faced prior to 2015, I'd say the 4.4% BB% he's posted thus far will regress a bit. Nevertheless, if he continues to utilize his splendid splitter as much as he has, he may progress further as a reliever. After the departure of Ryan Webb and the (early) struggles of Kevin Gausman, the Orioles could use that.

Has the 2015 season just begun? Yes. Will any earnest observations made now look preemptive come October? Probably. But that won't stop us from scrutinizing the inner workings of baseball, and doing what we can to separate the signal from the noise. And in the case of Brad Brach, the former appears to have a hand in what has occurred, and what will occur.