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Dude is unreal with those throws.
2016 MLB thread. THE CUBS HAVE BROKEN THE CURSE! Chicago Cubs are your 2016 World Series champions
- Thread in 'Sports & Training' Thread starter Started by proshares,
- Start date
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- 57,808
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Dude is unreal with those throws.
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As a center field assist-maker growing up... love it.
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As a center field assist-maker growing up... love it.
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He BEEN doin that........im not surprised at all. � glad to see him starting somewhere, if he could bat .300, im sure he`d still be in stl.
still sad that he can throw strikes from the outfield but couldnt throw strikes on the mound
still sad that he can throw strikes from the outfield but couldnt throw strikes on the mound
- 10,205
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He BEEN doin that........im not surprised at all. � glad to see him starting somewhere, if he could bat .300, im sure he`d still be in stl.
still sad that he can throw strikes from the outfield but couldnt throw strikes on the mound
still sad that he can throw strikes from the outfield but couldnt throw strikes on the mound
- 7,774
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Tom Verducci with great article on the failure of MLB pitching philosophy
http://sportsillustrated....f=sihp&sct=hp_t11_a0
Cliffs:
- New age nutrition and training and medical care have not made a dent for stopping injuries
- On average fifty percent of all MLB starting pitchers go on the DL every year
- Modern bullpen doesn't work
- Sixty-six percent of 2011 Opening Day closers (20 of 30) are no longer closing for the same team 12 months later, with seven of them hurt.
- Since 2007 season, 53 closers have saved 25 games. Thirty-three of them, or 62 percent, no longer are closing
http://sportsillustrated....f=sihp&sct=hp_t11_a0
Cliffs:
- New age nutrition and training and medical care have not made a dent for stopping injuries
- On average fifty percent of all MLB starting pitchers go on the DL every year
- Modern bullpen doesn't work
- Sixty-six percent of 2011 Opening Day closers (20 of 30) are no longer closing for the same team 12 months later, with seven of them hurt.
- Since 2007 season, 53 closers have saved 25 games. Thirty-three of them, or 62 percent, no longer are closing
- 7,774
- 4,685
- Joined
- Jul 14, 2003
Tom Verducci with great article on the failure of MLB pitching philosophy
http://sportsillustrated....f=sihp&sct=hp_t11_a0
Cliffs:
- New age nutrition and training and medical care have not made a dent for stopping injuries
- On average fifty percent of all MLB starting pitchers go on the DL every year
- Modern bullpen doesn't work
- Sixty-six percent of 2011 Opening Day closers (20 of 30) are no longer closing for the same team 12 months later, with seven of them hurt.
- Since 2007 season, 53 closers have saved 25 games. Thirty-three of them, or 62 percent, no longer are closing
http://sportsillustrated....f=sihp&sct=hp_t11_a0
Cliffs:
- New age nutrition and training and medical care have not made a dent for stopping injuries
- On average fifty percent of all MLB starting pitchers go on the DL every year
- Modern bullpen doesn't work
- Sixty-six percent of 2011 Opening Day closers (20 of 30) are no longer closing for the same team 12 months later, with seven of them hurt.
- Since 2007 season, 53 closers have saved 25 games. Thirty-three of them, or 62 percent, no longer are closing
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- May 14, 2009
Pitching cap? Shouldnt it fall to the teams to police and protect their investements? +*@+ if a team wants to run one of their guys into the ground and pay them whatever they owe him, thats on them.
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Pitching cap? Shouldnt it fall to the teams to police and protect their investements? +*@+ if a team wants to run one of their guys into the ground and pay them whatever they owe him, thats on them.
Not like a monetary cap but a roster cap on how many you can have/throw out there. Think about it, how many of these games would be shortened by it. Plus one thing that is killing arms is the constant getting up to warm up and not even being used. There was a stat last year that Kimbrel got up to warm up in about 100 games and Venters was higher than that number. Back end relievers have a very short life when used that way. That destroys young arms. You need to have balance between your long and short term relievers. That would be a start. I read an article on it somewhere a few months back, see if I can dig it up.
Not like a monetary cap but a roster cap on how many you can have/throw out there. Think about it, how many of these games would be shortened by it. Plus one thing that is killing arms is the constant getting up to warm up and not even being used. There was a stat last year that Kimbrel got up to warm up in about 100 games and Venters was higher than that number. Back end relievers have a very short life when used that way. That destroys young arms. You need to have balance between your long and short term relievers. That would be a start. I read an article on it somewhere a few months back, see if I can dig it up.
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Personally I dont know what the answer is for treating pitchers anymore but I think at some point when these old guard GMs and managers phase out we are eventually going to look back and laugh at how we used to handle pitchers.
HALF of all starting pitchers on average will hit the DL at least once each year?
Closers are a rotating door?
Injuries are up despite pitch counts are down and training and medical are better?
The system stays the same every year despite this?
It doesnt make much sense. But it's not going to get real change any time soon because once one guy goes down another comes right up and we look away and shrug and repeat over and over. In all sports.
HALF of all starting pitchers on average will hit the DL at least once each year?
Closers are a rotating door?
Injuries are up despite pitch counts are down and training and medical are better?
The system stays the same every year despite this?
It doesnt make much sense. But it's not going to get real change any time soon because once one guy goes down another comes right up and we look away and shrug and repeat over and over. In all sports.
- 7,774
- 4,685
- Joined
- Jul 14, 2003
Personally I dont know what the answer is for treating pitchers anymore but I think at some point when these old guard GMs and managers phase out we are eventually going to look back and laugh at how we used to handle pitchers.
HALF of all starting pitchers on average will hit the DL at least once each year?
Closers are a rotating door?
Injuries are up despite pitch counts are down and training and medical are better?
The system stays the same every year despite this?
It doesnt make much sense. But it's not going to get real change any time soon because once one guy goes down another comes right up and we look away and shrug and repeat over and over. In all sports.
HALF of all starting pitchers on average will hit the DL at least once each year?
Closers are a rotating door?
Injuries are up despite pitch counts are down and training and medical are better?
The system stays the same every year despite this?
It doesnt make much sense. But it's not going to get real change any time soon because once one guy goes down another comes right up and we look away and shrug and repeat over and over. In all sports.
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- Joined
- May 14, 2009
- 8,764
- 13
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- May 14, 2009
Ry, a lot of blame for so many pitchers hitting the DL falls on their college coaches and minor league coaches.
You get these kids coming to college and having a ton of changes done to their delivery. Stanford in particular is notorious for that. It's why so many of their pitchers fail. They force their kids to throw so many more pitches instead of focusing on 3 or 4 and force pitch counts up. Not even mentioning changing their mechanics. Then you have teams like the Rockies that change some deliveries MULTIPLE times. It needs a fix from the bottom up. Trouble is, that will never happen.
You get these kids coming to college and having a ton of changes done to their delivery. Stanford in particular is notorious for that. It's why so many of their pitchers fail. They force their kids to throw so many more pitches instead of focusing on 3 or 4 and force pitch counts up. Not even mentioning changing their mechanics. Then you have teams like the Rockies that change some deliveries MULTIPLE times. It needs a fix from the bottom up. Trouble is, that will never happen.
Ry, a lot of blame for so many pitchers hitting the DL falls on their college coaches and minor league coaches.
You get these kids coming to college and having a ton of changes done to their delivery. Stanford in particular is notorious for that. It's why so many of their pitchers fail. They force their kids to throw so many more pitches instead of focusing on 3 or 4 and force pitch counts up. Not even mentioning changing their mechanics. Then you have teams like the Rockies that change some deliveries MULTIPLE times. It needs a fix from the bottom up. Trouble is, that will never happen.
You get these kids coming to college and having a ton of changes done to their delivery. Stanford in particular is notorious for that. It's why so many of their pitchers fail. They force their kids to throw so many more pitches instead of focusing on 3 or 4 and force pitch counts up. Not even mentioning changing their mechanics. Then you have teams like the Rockies that change some deliveries MULTIPLE times. It needs a fix from the bottom up. Trouble is, that will never happen.
Hey Red Sox: Work Faster.
The No Walks, No Strikeouts Clubs.
Estimating a Buster Posey Contract Extension.
Daniel Bard in the Rotation: So Far, So Good.
Spoiler [+]
This morning, I did a quick story for the Wall Street Journal on pace between pitches. So far, the Cleveland Indians look like the stars of working quickly, as all five of their starters have taken less than 20 seconds between pitches. Derek Lowe and Justin Masterson actually rank second and third in baseball in pace so far this year, behind only Roy Halladay and his Two Hours Of Doom approach.
You know who the slowest working pitching staff in baseball is to this point of 2012? The Boston Red Sox, who have taken an average of 24.6 seconds between pitches this year. You know who was the slowest working pitching staff in 2011? The Red Sox. 2010? The Red Sox. 2009? The Red Sox. 2008? The Red Sox.
The last time that Boston didn’t have the slowest working pitching staff in baseball was 2007. That year, they had the second slowest staff, getting edged out by the Yankees by 0.3 seconds per pitch.
You know who the slowest working starting pitchers in baseball have been since 2007? Josh Beckett (25.6 seconds between pitches), Daisuke Matsuzaka (25.4), and Clay Buchholz (25.2). They are the only three starters in the sport to take more than 25 seconds between pitches, and they all pitch for the Red Sox.
Even shifting to relievers, where there’s more annual turnover and where we can see a broader selection of pitchers, we find the Red Sox as the most deliberate group in baseball, and it’s not even close. Since 2007, their relievers have taken an average of 25.7 seconds between pitches (relievers work slower in general, so the numbers are higher here), a full 1.6 seconds slower than the next slowest bullpen. The slowest working reliever in baseball over that span? Jonathan Papelbon (tied with Rafael Betancourt) at 31.0 seconds between pitches.
The Red Sox have had 51 pitchers throw at least 10 innings for them over the last 5+ years, and exactly two of those 51 have averaged fewer than 20 seconds between pitches. These heroes are Tim Wakefield (18.8 seconds) and Scott Atchison (19.9 seconds). The other 49 guys who have taken the mound have all been no faster than average in time between pitches, and they’ve ranged all the way down to the absolute slowest workers in the sport.
This isn’t a small sample size. With nearly 50 pitchers over 5+ years, and consistent finishes as the slowest working team in baseball, this sure has all the earmarks of an organizational philosophy. And it’s an annoying one.
Red Sox games already take a long time because their hitters take a lot of pitches and score a lot of runs. At least that philosophy can be directly related to offensive success, and is an area where you can see the positive results of taking a deliberate approach. But, it’s not like the Red Sox pitchers have been world beaters, or that there’s some obvious advantage they’re gaining by having their pitchers spend a bunch of time walking around the mound and scratching themselves between pitches.
Major League Baseball has made a lot of efforts over the last 10 to 15 years to reduce some of the delays in action in the sport. Perhaps they’ve missed the most obvious step – contract the Red Sox. That would fix an awful lot of problems, and rid us of Bobby Valentine‘s media circus at the same time. Win-win!
Editor’s Note: I’m kidding. Sort of.
You know who the slowest working pitching staff in baseball is to this point of 2012? The Boston Red Sox, who have taken an average of 24.6 seconds between pitches this year. You know who was the slowest working pitching staff in 2011? The Red Sox. 2010? The Red Sox. 2009? The Red Sox. 2008? The Red Sox.
The last time that Boston didn’t have the slowest working pitching staff in baseball was 2007. That year, they had the second slowest staff, getting edged out by the Yankees by 0.3 seconds per pitch.
You know who the slowest working starting pitchers in baseball have been since 2007? Josh Beckett (25.6 seconds between pitches), Daisuke Matsuzaka (25.4), and Clay Buchholz (25.2). They are the only three starters in the sport to take more than 25 seconds between pitches, and they all pitch for the Red Sox.
Even shifting to relievers, where there’s more annual turnover and where we can see a broader selection of pitchers, we find the Red Sox as the most deliberate group in baseball, and it’s not even close. Since 2007, their relievers have taken an average of 25.7 seconds between pitches (relievers work slower in general, so the numbers are higher here), a full 1.6 seconds slower than the next slowest bullpen. The slowest working reliever in baseball over that span? Jonathan Papelbon (tied with Rafael Betancourt) at 31.0 seconds between pitches.
The Red Sox have had 51 pitchers throw at least 10 innings for them over the last 5+ years, and exactly two of those 51 have averaged fewer than 20 seconds between pitches. These heroes are Tim Wakefield (18.8 seconds) and Scott Atchison (19.9 seconds). The other 49 guys who have taken the mound have all been no faster than average in time between pitches, and they’ve ranged all the way down to the absolute slowest workers in the sport.
This isn’t a small sample size. With nearly 50 pitchers over 5+ years, and consistent finishes as the slowest working team in baseball, this sure has all the earmarks of an organizational philosophy. And it’s an annoying one.
Red Sox games already take a long time because their hitters take a lot of pitches and score a lot of runs. At least that philosophy can be directly related to offensive success, and is an area where you can see the positive results of taking a deliberate approach. But, it’s not like the Red Sox pitchers have been world beaters, or that there’s some obvious advantage they’re gaining by having their pitchers spend a bunch of time walking around the mound and scratching themselves between pitches.
Major League Baseball has made a lot of efforts over the last 10 to 15 years to reduce some of the delays in action in the sport. Perhaps they’ve missed the most obvious step – contract the Red Sox. That would fix an awful lot of problems, and rid us of Bobby Valentine‘s media circus at the same time. Win-win!
Editor’s Note: I’m kidding. Sort of.
The No Walks, No Strikeouts Clubs.
Spoiler [+]
Most teams have played ten games by now, and while we still are unable to draw anything meaningful out of players’ performances, we can still have a little fun with them. I’ve always been a fan of high-contact guys, especially players with better than average walk and strikeout rates. Guys who walk more than they whiff over a full season are my personal favorites.
With that in mind, let’s look at some players who haven’t done either yet this season, draw a walk or strikeout. We’ll begin with the five players with the most plate appearances who have yet to see a ball four in 2012…
[table][tr][th=""][/th][th=""]PA[/th][th=""]wOBA[/th][th=""]Three-Ball Counts[/th][/tr][tr][td]Chris Johnson[/td][td]43[/td][td]0.325[/td][td]4[/td][/tr][tr][td]Josh Hamilton[/td][td]42[/td][td]0.477[/td][td]6[/td][/tr][tr][td]Michael Young[/td][td]41[/td][td]0.370[/td][td]4[/td][/tr][tr][td]Brennan Boesch[/td][td]41[/td][td]0.232[/td][td]3[/td][/tr][tr][td]Josh Reddick[/td][td]39[/td][td]0.278[/td][td]6[/td][/tr][/table]
Jesus Montero and Gaby Sanchez are tied for sixth with 37 walk-less plate appearances each. It’s all worth noting that A.J. Pierzynski has just one walk in his 29 plate appearances this year, but it was intentional.
The presence of Johnson and Reddick shouldn’t be a surprise. Both guys are notorious hackers, both throughout their short big league careers and all throughout the minors. It’s pretty interesting that two of the three non-walkers are Texas Rangers, but the lack of walks hasn’t exactly hurt Hamilton’s or Young’s production in the early going. Texas has the second lowest walk rate (4.9 BB%) in the American League at the moment, just ahead of the Mariners (4.6 BB%).
Seeing Boesch on the list is somewhat interesting even though he’s never been much of a walker in the past — 7.3 BB% in 1,025 MLB PA and 6.0 BB% in 1,957 MiLB PA. Boesch has batted second ahead of Miguel Cabrera and Prince Fielder in all but one of Detroit’s ten games this season, and although we know the impact of lineup protection is overstated, I do think it exists in the case of elite players. Cabrera and Fielder certainly qualify. Pitchers could be attacking Boesch just a little more than usual given the guys behind him, and when you throw strikes to a guy who likes to swing, it leads to a lot of balls in play.
Now let’s flip the coin and look at the players with the most plate appearances without a strikeout…
[table][tr][th=""][/th][th=""]PA[/th][th=""]wOBA[/th][th=""]Two-Strike Counts[/th][/tr][tr][td]Marco Scutaro[/td][td]38[/td][td]0.277[/td][td]15[/td][/tr][tr][td]Logan Morrison[/td][td]30[/td][td]0.303[/td][td]12[/td][/tr][tr][td]Chris Denorfia[/td][td]23[/td][td]0.431[/td][td]8[/td][/tr][tr][td]Nate Schierholtz[/td][td]23[/td][td]0.361[/td][td]12[/td][/tr][tr][td]Erik Komatsu[/td][td]11[/td][td]0.365[/td][td]4[/td][/tr][/table]
Ben Revere also has eleven strikeout-less plate appearances this season, but I left him out of the table since he was recently shipped to Triple-A. There’s a pretty substantial drop-off after Schierholtz, with a whole bunch of guys in that 5-10 PA range. There are a few pitchers in there as well, namely Barry Zito and Kyle Lohse with six each.
Scutaro shouldn’t be a surprise, he’s always been a contact freak. His career strikeout rate is 11.3 K%, but last year with the Red Sox it was just 8.1% in 445 PA. The guy excels at putting the ball in play, even when staring at a two-strike count. The other three guys — leaving out Komatsu and his measly 11 PA — are a bit more surprising.
LoMo has always worked the count extremely well, but he owns 17.8 K% in 842 MLB PA to go with his 15.2 K% in the minors. Denorfia (15.9 K% in MLB and 15.3 K% in MiLB) and Schierholtz (16.1 K% in MLBand 16.7 K% in MiLB) are in the same boat, though they don’t share Morrison’s reputation for plate discipline, especially Schierholtz. That said, all three guys strike out at a rate lower than the ~18% league average, so they have shown above average contact skills in their relatively short big league careers.
It’s been 25 years since a player last started a season with 100 strikeout-free plate appearances. Mickey Hatcher did it for the 1988 Dodgers, going 116 plate appearances before finally seeing his first strike three. It was part of a strike ‘em out, throw ‘em out double play. Because he was a part-time player that year, Hatcher’s first strikeout didn’t come until August 16th, the team’s 119th game of the season. Carlos Baerga came close to that 100 PA threshold, not striking out until his 96th plate appearances with the 1995 Indians. Given how the game has shifted towards pitching — particularly power pitching — in recent years, I don’t think we’re going to see another guy do what Hatcher did in ’88 for quite some time.
With that in mind, let’s look at some players who haven’t done either yet this season, draw a walk or strikeout. We’ll begin with the five players with the most plate appearances who have yet to see a ball four in 2012…
[table][tr][th=""][/th][th=""]PA[/th][th=""]wOBA[/th][th=""]Three-Ball Counts[/th][/tr][tr][td]Chris Johnson[/td][td]43[/td][td]0.325[/td][td]4[/td][/tr][tr][td]Josh Hamilton[/td][td]42[/td][td]0.477[/td][td]6[/td][/tr][tr][td]Michael Young[/td][td]41[/td][td]0.370[/td][td]4[/td][/tr][tr][td]Brennan Boesch[/td][td]41[/td][td]0.232[/td][td]3[/td][/tr][tr][td]Josh Reddick[/td][td]39[/td][td]0.278[/td][td]6[/td][/tr][/table]
Jesus Montero and Gaby Sanchez are tied for sixth with 37 walk-less plate appearances each. It’s all worth noting that A.J. Pierzynski has just one walk in his 29 plate appearances this year, but it was intentional.
The presence of Johnson and Reddick shouldn’t be a surprise. Both guys are notorious hackers, both throughout their short big league careers and all throughout the minors. It’s pretty interesting that two of the three non-walkers are Texas Rangers, but the lack of walks hasn’t exactly hurt Hamilton’s or Young’s production in the early going. Texas has the second lowest walk rate (4.9 BB%) in the American League at the moment, just ahead of the Mariners (4.6 BB%).
Seeing Boesch on the list is somewhat interesting even though he’s never been much of a walker in the past — 7.3 BB% in 1,025 MLB PA and 6.0 BB% in 1,957 MiLB PA. Boesch has batted second ahead of Miguel Cabrera and Prince Fielder in all but one of Detroit’s ten games this season, and although we know the impact of lineup protection is overstated, I do think it exists in the case of elite players. Cabrera and Fielder certainly qualify. Pitchers could be attacking Boesch just a little more than usual given the guys behind him, and when you throw strikes to a guy who likes to swing, it leads to a lot of balls in play.
Now let’s flip the coin and look at the players with the most plate appearances without a strikeout…
[table][tr][th=""][/th][th=""]PA[/th][th=""]wOBA[/th][th=""]Two-Strike Counts[/th][/tr][tr][td]Marco Scutaro[/td][td]38[/td][td]0.277[/td][td]15[/td][/tr][tr][td]Logan Morrison[/td][td]30[/td][td]0.303[/td][td]12[/td][/tr][tr][td]Chris Denorfia[/td][td]23[/td][td]0.431[/td][td]8[/td][/tr][tr][td]Nate Schierholtz[/td][td]23[/td][td]0.361[/td][td]12[/td][/tr][tr][td]Erik Komatsu[/td][td]11[/td][td]0.365[/td][td]4[/td][/tr][/table]
Ben Revere also has eleven strikeout-less plate appearances this season, but I left him out of the table since he was recently shipped to Triple-A. There’s a pretty substantial drop-off after Schierholtz, with a whole bunch of guys in that 5-10 PA range. There are a few pitchers in there as well, namely Barry Zito and Kyle Lohse with six each.
Scutaro shouldn’t be a surprise, he’s always been a contact freak. His career strikeout rate is 11.3 K%, but last year with the Red Sox it was just 8.1% in 445 PA. The guy excels at putting the ball in play, even when staring at a two-strike count. The other three guys — leaving out Komatsu and his measly 11 PA — are a bit more surprising.
LoMo has always worked the count extremely well, but he owns 17.8 K% in 842 MLB PA to go with his 15.2 K% in the minors. Denorfia (15.9 K% in MLB and 15.3 K% in MiLB) and Schierholtz (16.1 K% in MLBand 16.7 K% in MiLB) are in the same boat, though they don’t share Morrison’s reputation for plate discipline, especially Schierholtz. That said, all three guys strike out at a rate lower than the ~18% league average, so they have shown above average contact skills in their relatively short big league careers.
It’s been 25 years since a player last started a season with 100 strikeout-free plate appearances. Mickey Hatcher did it for the 1988 Dodgers, going 116 plate appearances before finally seeing his first strike three. It was part of a strike ‘em out, throw ‘em out double play. Because he was a part-time player that year, Hatcher’s first strikeout didn’t come until August 16th, the team’s 119th game of the season. Carlos Baerga came close to that 100 PA threshold, not striking out until his 96th plate appearances with the 1995 Indians. Given how the game has shifted towards pitching — particularly power pitching — in recent years, I don’t think we’re going to see another guy do what Hatcher did in ’88 for quite some time.
Estimating a Buster Posey Contract Extension.
Spoiler [+]
The San Francisco Giants want to lock up their young stars. After signing both Matt Cain and Madison Bumgarner to long-term contracts, the Giants have now reached out to Buster Posey‘s agent about an extension. In his short time in the majors, Posey has emerged as one of one of the best catchers in the game. And while some young catchers recently received significant extensions, Posey’s combination of skill and age make it tough to find a great comparison.
Just this season, we’ve seen Salvador Perez, Jonathan Lucroy and Carlos Santana get long-term contracts. Coincidentally, all of those players signed their deals with zero to two years of major-league service time. Since Posey has a little more than a year of major-league time, those contracts are a good starting point to find comparisons.
[table][tr][th=""]Player[/th][th=""]Age[/th][th=""]Years[/th][th=""]Amount[/th][th=""]Options[/th][th=""]Service Time[/th][th=""]WAR[/th][/tr][tr][td]Buster Posey[/td][td]25[/td][td]?[/td][td]?[/td][td]?[/td][td]1.161[/td][td]5.5[/td][/tr][tr][td]Carlos Santana[/td][td]26[/td][td]5[/td][td]$21 million[/td][td]1[/td][td]1.115[/td][td]5.2[/td][/tr][tr][td]Salvador Perez[/td][td]21[/td][td]5[/td][td]$7 million[/td][td]3[/td][td]0.05[/td][td]1.4[/td][/tr][tr][td]Jonathan Lucroy[/td][td]25[/td][td]4[/td][td]$11 million[/td][td]1[/td][td]1.136[/td][td]2.7[/td][/tr][/table]
From this list, only Carlos Santana’s contract can be used as a fair comparison. Perez was signed far too early in his career to use as a comparison, and Posey has been much better than Lucroy. Santana and Posey, though, are very similar. Both have identical service time and produced nearly the same WAR. Both players also have suffered serious injuries.
But there are a few factors that could make Posey the higher-paid player. Posey is a year younger, and he reached the majors slightly earlier than Santana. As a 23-year-old, Posey played in 108 games for the Giants and won the rookie-of-the-year award. Santana didn’t make his major-league debut until he was 24. And while both players produced the same amount of value in their first two seasons, Posey produced a higher WAR in 200 fewer plate appearances.
Thanks to our new age filters at FanGraphs, we can find players like Posey who experienced similar success at the same point in their careers. By looking at catchers between the ages of 23 and 24 — with at least 500 plate appearances — we get a much better idea of how Posey will perform in the long-term.
It turns out that Posey is in pretty elite company. Only Joe Mauer, Russell Martin and Brian McCann produced more value than Posey at this stage in their careers. And again, Posey produced his WAR in fewer plate appearances. Alex Avila was just about as valuable as Posey, but they are the same age, so we can’t use him to predict how well Posey will perform in the future.
Using the Santana deal as a barometer, let’s say Posey wants a five-year extension. If he signs it this season, the deal would last through his age-30 season. Since Martin — the oldest player in this exercise — is just 29-years-old, we can look at how these catchers performed through their age-28 seasons. McCann just began his age-28 season, so his numbers might skew a little low.
[table][tr][th=""]Name[/th][th=""]G[/th][th=""]PA[/th][th=""]BB%[/th][th=""]K%[/th][th=""]ISO[/th][th=""]AVG[/th][th=""]OBP[/th][th=""]SLG[/th][th=""]wOBA[/th][th=""]wRC+[/th][th=""]Fld[/th][th=""]WAR[/th][/tr][tr][td]Joe Mauer[/td][td]503[/td][td]2156[/td][td]11.90%[/td][td]9.50%[/td][td]0.149[/td][td]0.332[/td][td]0.411[/td][td]0.481[/td][td]0.384[/td][td]138[/td][td]-3.6[/td][td]21.1[/td][/tr][tr][td]Brian McCann[/td][td]417[/td][td]1677[/td][td]10.90%[/td][td]16.30%[/td][td]0.196[/td][td]0.274[/td][td]0.358[/td][td]0.469[/td][td]0.357[/td][td]122[/td][td]14.2[/td][td]14.2[/td][/tr][tr][td]Russell Martin[/td][td]520[/td][td]2101[/td][td]12.20%[/td][td]14.50%[/td][td]0.112[/td][td]0.256[/td][td]0.355[/td][td]0.368[/td][td]0.325[/td][td]98[/td][td]5.5[/td][td]11.9[/td][/tr][/table]
All three players have remained incredibly effective for the first couple of seasons. Mauer was other-worldly until injuries took hold during his age-28 season. Martin fell off a bit during his age-27 season, due to overwork, but he rebounded nicely last year. McCann has been pretty consistent through his age-27 year, and he posted a WAR above 4 in each season. So how does all of this apply to Posey?
We know that Posey is young, exceptionally good for his age and he should continue to play at a high level for a least the next three seasons. While Santana’s deal is a good starting point, Posey has more encouraging comps when you sort by age. Some of the same players appear on Santana’s comp list, but he’s more similar in value to Kurt Suzuki and Yadier Molina than to Mauer, Martin or McCann.
Mauer had already put in six years of service time before signing his monster deal, so there’s no chance Posey will get that type of contract. Martin has never signed an extension, so we can’t use a contract as a comp for Posey. McCann makes for an interesting comparison, though.
During his age-23 season, McCann signed a six-year, $26.8 million extension with the Atlanta Braves. That contract also carries a 2013 club option. While McCann and Posey are a good comp from a statistical standpoint, McCann also signed his deal with about nearly the same amount of service time.
Since Posey is slightly older than McCann, he might not get a six-year deal. But based on his numbers — and comparable players at his age — Posey should ask for McCann-like money. Since the market has changed a bit since 2007, when McCann signed his deal, it wouldn’t be a surprise to see Posey get five-years, $30 million.
Just this season, we’ve seen Salvador Perez, Jonathan Lucroy and Carlos Santana get long-term contracts. Coincidentally, all of those players signed their deals with zero to two years of major-league service time. Since Posey has a little more than a year of major-league time, those contracts are a good starting point to find comparisons.
[table][tr][th=""]Player[/th][th=""]Age[/th][th=""]Years[/th][th=""]Amount[/th][th=""]Options[/th][th=""]Service Time[/th][th=""]WAR[/th][/tr][tr][td]Buster Posey[/td][td]25[/td][td]?[/td][td]?[/td][td]?[/td][td]1.161[/td][td]5.5[/td][/tr][tr][td]Carlos Santana[/td][td]26[/td][td]5[/td][td]$21 million[/td][td]1[/td][td]1.115[/td][td]5.2[/td][/tr][tr][td]Salvador Perez[/td][td]21[/td][td]5[/td][td]$7 million[/td][td]3[/td][td]0.05[/td][td]1.4[/td][/tr][tr][td]Jonathan Lucroy[/td][td]25[/td][td]4[/td][td]$11 million[/td][td]1[/td][td]1.136[/td][td]2.7[/td][/tr][/table]
From this list, only Carlos Santana’s contract can be used as a fair comparison. Perez was signed far too early in his career to use as a comparison, and Posey has been much better than Lucroy. Santana and Posey, though, are very similar. Both have identical service time and produced nearly the same WAR. Both players also have suffered serious injuries.
But there are a few factors that could make Posey the higher-paid player. Posey is a year younger, and he reached the majors slightly earlier than Santana. As a 23-year-old, Posey played in 108 games for the Giants and won the rookie-of-the-year award. Santana didn’t make his major-league debut until he was 24. And while both players produced the same amount of value in their first two seasons, Posey produced a higher WAR in 200 fewer plate appearances.
Thanks to our new age filters at FanGraphs, we can find players like Posey who experienced similar success at the same point in their careers. By looking at catchers between the ages of 23 and 24 — with at least 500 plate appearances — we get a much better idea of how Posey will perform in the long-term.
It turns out that Posey is in pretty elite company. Only Joe Mauer, Russell Martin and Brian McCann produced more value than Posey at this stage in their careers. And again, Posey produced his WAR in fewer plate appearances. Alex Avila was just about as valuable as Posey, but they are the same age, so we can’t use him to predict how well Posey will perform in the future.
Using the Santana deal as a barometer, let’s say Posey wants a five-year extension. If he signs it this season, the deal would last through his age-30 season. Since Martin — the oldest player in this exercise — is just 29-years-old, we can look at how these catchers performed through their age-28 seasons. McCann just began his age-28 season, so his numbers might skew a little low.
[table][tr][th=""]Name[/th][th=""]G[/th][th=""]PA[/th][th=""]BB%[/th][th=""]K%[/th][th=""]ISO[/th][th=""]AVG[/th][th=""]OBP[/th][th=""]SLG[/th][th=""]wOBA[/th][th=""]wRC+[/th][th=""]Fld[/th][th=""]WAR[/th][/tr][tr][td]Joe Mauer[/td][td]503[/td][td]2156[/td][td]11.90%[/td][td]9.50%[/td][td]0.149[/td][td]0.332[/td][td]0.411[/td][td]0.481[/td][td]0.384[/td][td]138[/td][td]-3.6[/td][td]21.1[/td][/tr][tr][td]Brian McCann[/td][td]417[/td][td]1677[/td][td]10.90%[/td][td]16.30%[/td][td]0.196[/td][td]0.274[/td][td]0.358[/td][td]0.469[/td][td]0.357[/td][td]122[/td][td]14.2[/td][td]14.2[/td][/tr][tr][td]Russell Martin[/td][td]520[/td][td]2101[/td][td]12.20%[/td][td]14.50%[/td][td]0.112[/td][td]0.256[/td][td]0.355[/td][td]0.368[/td][td]0.325[/td][td]98[/td][td]5.5[/td][td]11.9[/td][/tr][/table]
All three players have remained incredibly effective for the first couple of seasons. Mauer was other-worldly until injuries took hold during his age-28 season. Martin fell off a bit during his age-27 season, due to overwork, but he rebounded nicely last year. McCann has been pretty consistent through his age-27 year, and he posted a WAR above 4 in each season. So how does all of this apply to Posey?
We know that Posey is young, exceptionally good for his age and he should continue to play at a high level for a least the next three seasons. While Santana’s deal is a good starting point, Posey has more encouraging comps when you sort by age. Some of the same players appear on Santana’s comp list, but he’s more similar in value to Kurt Suzuki and Yadier Molina than to Mauer, Martin or McCann.
Mauer had already put in six years of service time before signing his monster deal, so there’s no chance Posey will get that type of contract. Martin has never signed an extension, so we can’t use a contract as a comp for Posey. McCann makes for an interesting comparison, though.
During his age-23 season, McCann signed a six-year, $26.8 million extension with the Atlanta Braves. That contract also carries a 2013 club option. While McCann and Posey are a good comp from a statistical standpoint, McCann also signed his deal with about nearly the same amount of service time.
Since Posey is slightly older than McCann, he might not get a six-year deal. But based on his numbers — and comparable players at his age — Posey should ask for McCann-like money. Since the market has changed a bit since 2007, when McCann signed his deal, it wouldn’t be a surprise to see Posey get five-years, $30 million.
Daniel Bard in the Rotation: So Far, So Good.
Spoiler [+]
The Red Sox moving Daniel Bard to the rotation has been a hotly debated move in Red Sox Nation this spring. But after two starts, it’s clear that Boston at least had the right idea in letting Bard move from the bullpen back to the starting rotation, where he threw in college and at the outset of his pro career. Bard has had a bit of an issue with issuing free passes, but has otherwise had positive showings in his first two times through the rotation.
One of the most important questions for any pitcher is can he throw strikes? If you can’t throw strikes, you’re going to make things really difficult for yourself, no matter how much talent you have. So naturally, people are going to question that ability when you walk seven batters in a single game, as Bard did today against the Tampa Bay Rays. In each start, Bard showed a good ability to keep the ball in the zone in the early part of each game, before faltering in the middle innings.
Today against the Rays, Bard had four walks through six innings — which is not great, mind you — before walking three of the last four batters he faced in the seventh. It was clear that Bard was laboring, but Red Sox manager Bobby Valentine left him in to face Evan Longoria with the bases loaded in a tie game nonetheless (Valentine admitted this was a mistake after the game). And while Bard only walked one batter in his first start against Toronto, a quick look at his strike percentage by inning shows that he has had more trouble finding the zone as the game has moved along. In innings one through three, Bard’s strike percentage is 65.3 percent. From the fourth inning on, it is just 58.7 percent.
Now, this is two starts, and a grand total of 207 pitches, and when we break it down by innings, you come up with an even smaller sample. But so far, it looks like Bard’s control issues may be attributable to the fact that he is still building up the stamina to be a starter. After walking 4.01 batters per nine innings in 2009, Bard lowered his mark over the past two years — his BB/9 dropped to 3.62 in 2010, and was 2.96 last year — so it’s not as if he has been wild all that much recently. If we reach June or July and Bard is still having problems throwing strikes after the first few innings, then that might be more of a cause for concern, but at the moment, it is an acceptable issue.
The reason it is acceptable is because of the ridiculous stuff Bard has displayed. In the past, Bard has been a three-pitch guy — four-seam fastball, slider and changeup — and that appears to still be the case (the guys at Brooks Baseball reclassified some of the four-seamers and changeups from his first start to sinkers, so that will bear watching, but for now we’ll work off of the raw Pitch f/x logs found here and here). The slider is the most impressive of the bunch. While noting that continuous use of a slider may not be the best thing for a pitcher’s arm, Bard’s slider has been so impressive that it would be a crime for him not to throw it with the frequency he has in the first two outings.
It’s no secret that Bard has a good slider, of course. Among the 197 pitchers who tossed at least 70 innings last year, Bard’s 1.72 wSL/C mark (Pitch f/x numbers) ranked 28th overall. It’s hard to know how a pitcher’s stuff will translate when he changes roles though, so his success thus far is encouraging. This season, he has thrown 75 sliders — which accounts for 36.2 percent of his workload — and has generated swings and misses a ridiculous 20 percent of the time. For context, the league average swinging strike percentage the past three seasons has either been 8.5 or 8.6 percent, and thus far in 2012 it has been nine percent (those are Baseball Info Solutions numbers, and Bard’s data is Pitch f/x, but the differences shouldn’t be that drastic). In his first two starts, Bard’s slider literally generated more than double the swings and misses over the league average. Again, it’s early, and hitters are going to adjust, but his slider so far has been impressive.
Bard has also generated above-average swings and misses on his fastball and changeup, but his fastball today was less effective. In each outing, coincidentally, he threw 49 fastballs as classified by Pitch f/x. In his first outing, 39 of them went for strikes, with eight being swinging strikes. In today’s outing, only 28 of them went for strikes, with just four swinging strikes. Bard was well aware of this after the game, calling his fastball command “terrible.
One of the most important questions for any pitcher is can he throw strikes? If you can’t throw strikes, you’re going to make things really difficult for yourself, no matter how much talent you have. So naturally, people are going to question that ability when you walk seven batters in a single game, as Bard did today against the Tampa Bay Rays. In each start, Bard showed a good ability to keep the ball in the zone in the early part of each game, before faltering in the middle innings.
Today against the Rays, Bard had four walks through six innings — which is not great, mind you — before walking three of the last four batters he faced in the seventh. It was clear that Bard was laboring, but Red Sox manager Bobby Valentine left him in to face Evan Longoria with the bases loaded in a tie game nonetheless (Valentine admitted this was a mistake after the game). And while Bard only walked one batter in his first start against Toronto, a quick look at his strike percentage by inning shows that he has had more trouble finding the zone as the game has moved along. In innings one through three, Bard’s strike percentage is 65.3 percent. From the fourth inning on, it is just 58.7 percent.
Now, this is two starts, and a grand total of 207 pitches, and when we break it down by innings, you come up with an even smaller sample. But so far, it looks like Bard’s control issues may be attributable to the fact that he is still building up the stamina to be a starter. After walking 4.01 batters per nine innings in 2009, Bard lowered his mark over the past two years — his BB/9 dropped to 3.62 in 2010, and was 2.96 last year — so it’s not as if he has been wild all that much recently. If we reach June or July and Bard is still having problems throwing strikes after the first few innings, then that might be more of a cause for concern, but at the moment, it is an acceptable issue.
The reason it is acceptable is because of the ridiculous stuff Bard has displayed. In the past, Bard has been a three-pitch guy — four-seam fastball, slider and changeup — and that appears to still be the case (the guys at Brooks Baseball reclassified some of the four-seamers and changeups from his first start to sinkers, so that will bear watching, but for now we’ll work off of the raw Pitch f/x logs found here and here). The slider is the most impressive of the bunch. While noting that continuous use of a slider may not be the best thing for a pitcher’s arm, Bard’s slider has been so impressive that it would be a crime for him not to throw it with the frequency he has in the first two outings.
It’s no secret that Bard has a good slider, of course. Among the 197 pitchers who tossed at least 70 innings last year, Bard’s 1.72 wSL/C mark (Pitch f/x numbers) ranked 28th overall. It’s hard to know how a pitcher’s stuff will translate when he changes roles though, so his success thus far is encouraging. This season, he has thrown 75 sliders — which accounts for 36.2 percent of his workload — and has generated swings and misses a ridiculous 20 percent of the time. For context, the league average swinging strike percentage the past three seasons has either been 8.5 or 8.6 percent, and thus far in 2012 it has been nine percent (those are Baseball Info Solutions numbers, and Bard’s data is Pitch f/x, but the differences shouldn’t be that drastic). In his first two starts, Bard’s slider literally generated more than double the swings and misses over the league average. Again, it’s early, and hitters are going to adjust, but his slider so far has been impressive.
Bard has also generated above-average swings and misses on his fastball and changeup, but his fastball today was less effective. In each outing, coincidentally, he threw 49 fastballs as classified by Pitch f/x. In his first outing, 39 of them went for strikes, with eight being swinging strikes. In today’s outing, only 28 of them went for strikes, with just four swinging strikes. Bard was well aware of this after the game, calling his fastball command “terrible.
Hey Red Sox: Work Faster.
The No Walks, No Strikeouts Clubs.
Estimating a Buster Posey Contract Extension.
Daniel Bard in the Rotation: So Far, So Good.
Spoiler [+]
This morning, I did a quick story for the Wall Street Journal on pace between pitches. So far, the Cleveland Indians look like the stars of working quickly, as all five of their starters have taken less than 20 seconds between pitches. Derek Lowe and Justin Masterson actually rank second and third in baseball in pace so far this year, behind only Roy Halladay and his Two Hours Of Doom approach.
You know who the slowest working pitching staff in baseball is to this point of 2012? The Boston Red Sox, who have taken an average of 24.6 seconds between pitches this year. You know who was the slowest working pitching staff in 2011? The Red Sox. 2010? The Red Sox. 2009? The Red Sox. 2008? The Red Sox.
The last time that Boston didn’t have the slowest working pitching staff in baseball was 2007. That year, they had the second slowest staff, getting edged out by the Yankees by 0.3 seconds per pitch.
You know who the slowest working starting pitchers in baseball have been since 2007? Josh Beckett (25.6 seconds between pitches), Daisuke Matsuzaka (25.4), and Clay Buchholz (25.2). They are the only three starters in the sport to take more than 25 seconds between pitches, and they all pitch for the Red Sox.
Even shifting to relievers, where there’s more annual turnover and where we can see a broader selection of pitchers, we find the Red Sox as the most deliberate group in baseball, and it’s not even close. Since 2007, their relievers have taken an average of 25.7 seconds between pitches (relievers work slower in general, so the numbers are higher here), a full 1.6 seconds slower than the next slowest bullpen. The slowest working reliever in baseball over that span? Jonathan Papelbon (tied with Rafael Betancourt) at 31.0 seconds between pitches.
The Red Sox have had 51 pitchers throw at least 10 innings for them over the last 5+ years, and exactly two of those 51 have averaged fewer than 20 seconds between pitches. These heroes are Tim Wakefield (18.8 seconds) and Scott Atchison (19.9 seconds). The other 49 guys who have taken the mound have all been no faster than average in time between pitches, and they’ve ranged all the way down to the absolute slowest workers in the sport.
This isn’t a small sample size. With nearly 50 pitchers over 5+ years, and consistent finishes as the slowest working team in baseball, this sure has all the earmarks of an organizational philosophy. And it’s an annoying one.
Red Sox games already take a long time because their hitters take a lot of pitches and score a lot of runs. At least that philosophy can be directly related to offensive success, and is an area where you can see the positive results of taking a deliberate approach. But, it’s not like the Red Sox pitchers have been world beaters, or that there’s some obvious advantage they’re gaining by having their pitchers spend a bunch of time walking around the mound and scratching themselves between pitches.
Major League Baseball has made a lot of efforts over the last 10 to 15 years to reduce some of the delays in action in the sport. Perhaps they’ve missed the most obvious step – contract the Red Sox. That would fix an awful lot of problems, and rid us of Bobby Valentine‘s media circus at the same time. Win-win!
Editor’s Note: I’m kidding. Sort of.
You know who the slowest working pitching staff in baseball is to this point of 2012? The Boston Red Sox, who have taken an average of 24.6 seconds between pitches this year. You know who was the slowest working pitching staff in 2011? The Red Sox. 2010? The Red Sox. 2009? The Red Sox. 2008? The Red Sox.
The last time that Boston didn’t have the slowest working pitching staff in baseball was 2007. That year, they had the second slowest staff, getting edged out by the Yankees by 0.3 seconds per pitch.
You know who the slowest working starting pitchers in baseball have been since 2007? Josh Beckett (25.6 seconds between pitches), Daisuke Matsuzaka (25.4), and Clay Buchholz (25.2). They are the only three starters in the sport to take more than 25 seconds between pitches, and they all pitch for the Red Sox.
Even shifting to relievers, where there’s more annual turnover and where we can see a broader selection of pitchers, we find the Red Sox as the most deliberate group in baseball, and it’s not even close. Since 2007, their relievers have taken an average of 25.7 seconds between pitches (relievers work slower in general, so the numbers are higher here), a full 1.6 seconds slower than the next slowest bullpen. The slowest working reliever in baseball over that span? Jonathan Papelbon (tied with Rafael Betancourt) at 31.0 seconds between pitches.
The Red Sox have had 51 pitchers throw at least 10 innings for them over the last 5+ years, and exactly two of those 51 have averaged fewer than 20 seconds between pitches. These heroes are Tim Wakefield (18.8 seconds) and Scott Atchison (19.9 seconds). The other 49 guys who have taken the mound have all been no faster than average in time between pitches, and they’ve ranged all the way down to the absolute slowest workers in the sport.
This isn’t a small sample size. With nearly 50 pitchers over 5+ years, and consistent finishes as the slowest working team in baseball, this sure has all the earmarks of an organizational philosophy. And it’s an annoying one.
Red Sox games already take a long time because their hitters take a lot of pitches and score a lot of runs. At least that philosophy can be directly related to offensive success, and is an area where you can see the positive results of taking a deliberate approach. But, it’s not like the Red Sox pitchers have been world beaters, or that there’s some obvious advantage they’re gaining by having their pitchers spend a bunch of time walking around the mound and scratching themselves between pitches.
Major League Baseball has made a lot of efforts over the last 10 to 15 years to reduce some of the delays in action in the sport. Perhaps they’ve missed the most obvious step – contract the Red Sox. That would fix an awful lot of problems, and rid us of Bobby Valentine‘s media circus at the same time. Win-win!
Editor’s Note: I’m kidding. Sort of.
The No Walks, No Strikeouts Clubs.
Spoiler [+]
Most teams have played ten games by now, and while we still are unable to draw anything meaningful out of players’ performances, we can still have a little fun with them. I’ve always been a fan of high-contact guys, especially players with better than average walk and strikeout rates. Guys who walk more than they whiff over a full season are my personal favorites.
With that in mind, let’s look at some players who haven’t done either yet this season, draw a walk or strikeout. We’ll begin with the five players with the most plate appearances who have yet to see a ball four in 2012…
[table][tr][th=""][/th][th=""]PA[/th][th=""]wOBA[/th][th=""]Three-Ball Counts[/th][/tr][tr][td]Chris Johnson[/td][td]43[/td][td]0.325[/td][td]4[/td][/tr][tr][td]Josh Hamilton[/td][td]42[/td][td]0.477[/td][td]6[/td][/tr][tr][td]Michael Young[/td][td]41[/td][td]0.370[/td][td]4[/td][/tr][tr][td]Brennan Boesch[/td][td]41[/td][td]0.232[/td][td]3[/td][/tr][tr][td]Josh Reddick[/td][td]39[/td][td]0.278[/td][td]6[/td][/tr][/table]
Jesus Montero and Gaby Sanchez are tied for sixth with 37 walk-less plate appearances each. It’s all worth noting that A.J. Pierzynski has just one walk in his 29 plate appearances this year, but it was intentional.
The presence of Johnson and Reddick shouldn’t be a surprise. Both guys are notorious hackers, both throughout their short big league careers and all throughout the minors. It’s pretty interesting that two of the three non-walkers are Texas Rangers, but the lack of walks hasn’t exactly hurt Hamilton’s or Young’s production in the early going. Texas has the second lowest walk rate (4.9 BB%) in the American League at the moment, just ahead of the Mariners (4.6 BB%).
Seeing Boesch on the list is somewhat interesting even though he’s never been much of a walker in the past — 7.3 BB% in 1,025 MLB PA and 6.0 BB% in 1,957 MiLB PA. Boesch has batted second ahead of Miguel Cabrera and Prince Fielder in all but one of Detroit’s ten games this season, and although we know the impact of lineup protection is overstated, I do think it exists in the case of elite players. Cabrera and Fielder certainly qualify. Pitchers could be attacking Boesch just a little more than usual given the guys behind him, and when you throw strikes to a guy who likes to swing, it leads to a lot of balls in play.
Now let’s flip the coin and look at the players with the most plate appearances without a strikeout…
[table][tr][th=""][/th][th=""]PA[/th][th=""]wOBA[/th][th=""]Two-Strike Counts[/th][/tr][tr][td]Marco Scutaro[/td][td]38[/td][td]0.277[/td][td]15[/td][/tr][tr][td]Logan Morrison[/td][td]30[/td][td]0.303[/td][td]12[/td][/tr][tr][td]Chris Denorfia[/td][td]23[/td][td]0.431[/td][td]8[/td][/tr][tr][td]Nate Schierholtz[/td][td]23[/td][td]0.361[/td][td]12[/td][/tr][tr][td]Erik Komatsu[/td][td]11[/td][td]0.365[/td][td]4[/td][/tr][/table]
Ben Revere also has eleven strikeout-less plate appearances this season, but I left him out of the table since he was recently shipped to Triple-A. There’s a pretty substantial drop-off after Schierholtz, with a whole bunch of guys in that 5-10 PA range. There are a few pitchers in there as well, namely Barry Zito and Kyle Lohse with six each.
Scutaro shouldn’t be a surprise, he’s always been a contact freak. His career strikeout rate is 11.3 K%, but last year with the Red Sox it was just 8.1% in 445 PA. The guy excels at putting the ball in play, even when staring at a two-strike count. The other three guys — leaving out Komatsu and his measly 11 PA — are a bit more surprising.
LoMo has always worked the count extremely well, but he owns 17.8 K% in 842 MLB PA to go with his 15.2 K% in the minors. Denorfia (15.9 K% in MLB and 15.3 K% in MiLB) and Schierholtz (16.1 K% in MLBand 16.7 K% in MiLB) are in the same boat, though they don’t share Morrison’s reputation for plate discipline, especially Schierholtz. That said, all three guys strike out at a rate lower than the ~18% league average, so they have shown above average contact skills in their relatively short big league careers.
It’s been 25 years since a player last started a season with 100 strikeout-free plate appearances. Mickey Hatcher did it for the 1988 Dodgers, going 116 plate appearances before finally seeing his first strike three. It was part of a strike ‘em out, throw ‘em out double play. Because he was a part-time player that year, Hatcher’s first strikeout didn’t come until August 16th, the team’s 119th game of the season. Carlos Baerga came close to that 100 PA threshold, not striking out until his 96th plate appearances with the 1995 Indians. Given how the game has shifted towards pitching — particularly power pitching — in recent years, I don’t think we’re going to see another guy do what Hatcher did in ’88 for quite some time.
With that in mind, let’s look at some players who haven’t done either yet this season, draw a walk or strikeout. We’ll begin with the five players with the most plate appearances who have yet to see a ball four in 2012…
[table][tr][th=""][/th][th=""]PA[/th][th=""]wOBA[/th][th=""]Three-Ball Counts[/th][/tr][tr][td]Chris Johnson[/td][td]43[/td][td]0.325[/td][td]4[/td][/tr][tr][td]Josh Hamilton[/td][td]42[/td][td]0.477[/td][td]6[/td][/tr][tr][td]Michael Young[/td][td]41[/td][td]0.370[/td][td]4[/td][/tr][tr][td]Brennan Boesch[/td][td]41[/td][td]0.232[/td][td]3[/td][/tr][tr][td]Josh Reddick[/td][td]39[/td][td]0.278[/td][td]6[/td][/tr][/table]
Jesus Montero and Gaby Sanchez are tied for sixth with 37 walk-less plate appearances each. It’s all worth noting that A.J. Pierzynski has just one walk in his 29 plate appearances this year, but it was intentional.
The presence of Johnson and Reddick shouldn’t be a surprise. Both guys are notorious hackers, both throughout their short big league careers and all throughout the minors. It’s pretty interesting that two of the three non-walkers are Texas Rangers, but the lack of walks hasn’t exactly hurt Hamilton’s or Young’s production in the early going. Texas has the second lowest walk rate (4.9 BB%) in the American League at the moment, just ahead of the Mariners (4.6 BB%).
Seeing Boesch on the list is somewhat interesting even though he’s never been much of a walker in the past — 7.3 BB% in 1,025 MLB PA and 6.0 BB% in 1,957 MiLB PA. Boesch has batted second ahead of Miguel Cabrera and Prince Fielder in all but one of Detroit’s ten games this season, and although we know the impact of lineup protection is overstated, I do think it exists in the case of elite players. Cabrera and Fielder certainly qualify. Pitchers could be attacking Boesch just a little more than usual given the guys behind him, and when you throw strikes to a guy who likes to swing, it leads to a lot of balls in play.
Now let’s flip the coin and look at the players with the most plate appearances without a strikeout…
[table][tr][th=""][/th][th=""]PA[/th][th=""]wOBA[/th][th=""]Two-Strike Counts[/th][/tr][tr][td]Marco Scutaro[/td][td]38[/td][td]0.277[/td][td]15[/td][/tr][tr][td]Logan Morrison[/td][td]30[/td][td]0.303[/td][td]12[/td][/tr][tr][td]Chris Denorfia[/td][td]23[/td][td]0.431[/td][td]8[/td][/tr][tr][td]Nate Schierholtz[/td][td]23[/td][td]0.361[/td][td]12[/td][/tr][tr][td]Erik Komatsu[/td][td]11[/td][td]0.365[/td][td]4[/td][/tr][/table]
Ben Revere also has eleven strikeout-less plate appearances this season, but I left him out of the table since he was recently shipped to Triple-A. There’s a pretty substantial drop-off after Schierholtz, with a whole bunch of guys in that 5-10 PA range. There are a few pitchers in there as well, namely Barry Zito and Kyle Lohse with six each.
Scutaro shouldn’t be a surprise, he’s always been a contact freak. His career strikeout rate is 11.3 K%, but last year with the Red Sox it was just 8.1% in 445 PA. The guy excels at putting the ball in play, even when staring at a two-strike count. The other three guys — leaving out Komatsu and his measly 11 PA — are a bit more surprising.
LoMo has always worked the count extremely well, but he owns 17.8 K% in 842 MLB PA to go with his 15.2 K% in the minors. Denorfia (15.9 K% in MLB and 15.3 K% in MiLB) and Schierholtz (16.1 K% in MLBand 16.7 K% in MiLB) are in the same boat, though they don’t share Morrison’s reputation for plate discipline, especially Schierholtz. That said, all three guys strike out at a rate lower than the ~18% league average, so they have shown above average contact skills in their relatively short big league careers.
It’s been 25 years since a player last started a season with 100 strikeout-free plate appearances. Mickey Hatcher did it for the 1988 Dodgers, going 116 plate appearances before finally seeing his first strike three. It was part of a strike ‘em out, throw ‘em out double play. Because he was a part-time player that year, Hatcher’s first strikeout didn’t come until August 16th, the team’s 119th game of the season. Carlos Baerga came close to that 100 PA threshold, not striking out until his 96th plate appearances with the 1995 Indians. Given how the game has shifted towards pitching — particularly power pitching — in recent years, I don’t think we’re going to see another guy do what Hatcher did in ’88 for quite some time.
Estimating a Buster Posey Contract Extension.
Spoiler [+]
The San Francisco Giants want to lock up their young stars. After signing both Matt Cain and Madison Bumgarner to long-term contracts, the Giants have now reached out to Buster Posey‘s agent about an extension. In his short time in the majors, Posey has emerged as one of one of the best catchers in the game. And while some young catchers recently received significant extensions, Posey’s combination of skill and age make it tough to find a great comparison.
Just this season, we’ve seen Salvador Perez, Jonathan Lucroy and Carlos Santana get long-term contracts. Coincidentally, all of those players signed their deals with zero to two years of major-league service time. Since Posey has a little more than a year of major-league time, those contracts are a good starting point to find comparisons.
[table][tr][th=""]Player[/th][th=""]Age[/th][th=""]Years[/th][th=""]Amount[/th][th=""]Options[/th][th=""]Service Time[/th][th=""]WAR[/th][/tr][tr][td]Buster Posey[/td][td]25[/td][td]?[/td][td]?[/td][td]?[/td][td]1.161[/td][td]5.5[/td][/tr][tr][td]Carlos Santana[/td][td]26[/td][td]5[/td][td]$21 million[/td][td]1[/td][td]1.115[/td][td]5.2[/td][/tr][tr][td]Salvador Perez[/td][td]21[/td][td]5[/td][td]$7 million[/td][td]3[/td][td]0.05[/td][td]1.4[/td][/tr][tr][td]Jonathan Lucroy[/td][td]25[/td][td]4[/td][td]$11 million[/td][td]1[/td][td]1.136[/td][td]2.7[/td][/tr][/table]
From this list, only Carlos Santana’s contract can be used as a fair comparison. Perez was signed far too early in his career to use as a comparison, and Posey has been much better than Lucroy. Santana and Posey, though, are very similar. Both have identical service time and produced nearly the same WAR. Both players also have suffered serious injuries.
But there are a few factors that could make Posey the higher-paid player. Posey is a year younger, and he reached the majors slightly earlier than Santana. As a 23-year-old, Posey played in 108 games for the Giants and won the rookie-of-the-year award. Santana didn’t make his major-league debut until he was 24. And while both players produced the same amount of value in their first two seasons, Posey produced a higher WAR in 200 fewer plate appearances.
Thanks to our new age filters at FanGraphs, we can find players like Posey who experienced similar success at the same point in their careers. By looking at catchers between the ages of 23 and 24 — with at least 500 plate appearances — we get a much better idea of how Posey will perform in the long-term.
It turns out that Posey is in pretty elite company. Only Joe Mauer, Russell Martin and Brian McCann produced more value than Posey at this stage in their careers. And again, Posey produced his WAR in fewer plate appearances. Alex Avila was just about as valuable as Posey, but they are the same age, so we can’t use him to predict how well Posey will perform in the future.
Using the Santana deal as a barometer, let’s say Posey wants a five-year extension. If he signs it this season, the deal would last through his age-30 season. Since Martin — the oldest player in this exercise — is just 29-years-old, we can look at how these catchers performed through their age-28 seasons. McCann just began his age-28 season, so his numbers might skew a little low.
[table][tr][th=""]Name[/th][th=""]G[/th][th=""]PA[/th][th=""]BB%[/th][th=""]K%[/th][th=""]ISO[/th][th=""]AVG[/th][th=""]OBP[/th][th=""]SLG[/th][th=""]wOBA[/th][th=""]wRC+[/th][th=""]Fld[/th][th=""]WAR[/th][/tr][tr][td]Joe Mauer[/td][td]503[/td][td]2156[/td][td]11.90%[/td][td]9.50%[/td][td]0.149[/td][td]0.332[/td][td]0.411[/td][td]0.481[/td][td]0.384[/td][td]138[/td][td]-3.6[/td][td]21.1[/td][/tr][tr][td]Brian McCann[/td][td]417[/td][td]1677[/td][td]10.90%[/td][td]16.30%[/td][td]0.196[/td][td]0.274[/td][td]0.358[/td][td]0.469[/td][td]0.357[/td][td]122[/td][td]14.2[/td][td]14.2[/td][/tr][tr][td]Russell Martin[/td][td]520[/td][td]2101[/td][td]12.20%[/td][td]14.50%[/td][td]0.112[/td][td]0.256[/td][td]0.355[/td][td]0.368[/td][td]0.325[/td][td]98[/td][td]5.5[/td][td]11.9[/td][/tr][/table]
All three players have remained incredibly effective for the first couple of seasons. Mauer was other-worldly until injuries took hold during his age-28 season. Martin fell off a bit during his age-27 season, due to overwork, but he rebounded nicely last year. McCann has been pretty consistent through his age-27 year, and he posted a WAR above 4 in each season. So how does all of this apply to Posey?
We know that Posey is young, exceptionally good for his age and he should continue to play at a high level for a least the next three seasons. While Santana’s deal is a good starting point, Posey has more encouraging comps when you sort by age. Some of the same players appear on Santana’s comp list, but he’s more similar in value to Kurt Suzuki and Yadier Molina than to Mauer, Martin or McCann.
Mauer had already put in six years of service time before signing his monster deal, so there’s no chance Posey will get that type of contract. Martin has never signed an extension, so we can’t use a contract as a comp for Posey. McCann makes for an interesting comparison, though.
During his age-23 season, McCann signed a six-year, $26.8 million extension with the Atlanta Braves. That contract also carries a 2013 club option. While McCann and Posey are a good comp from a statistical standpoint, McCann also signed his deal with about nearly the same amount of service time.
Since Posey is slightly older than McCann, he might not get a six-year deal. But based on his numbers — and comparable players at his age — Posey should ask for McCann-like money. Since the market has changed a bit since 2007, when McCann signed his deal, it wouldn’t be a surprise to see Posey get five-years, $30 million.
Just this season, we’ve seen Salvador Perez, Jonathan Lucroy and Carlos Santana get long-term contracts. Coincidentally, all of those players signed their deals with zero to two years of major-league service time. Since Posey has a little more than a year of major-league time, those contracts are a good starting point to find comparisons.
[table][tr][th=""]Player[/th][th=""]Age[/th][th=""]Years[/th][th=""]Amount[/th][th=""]Options[/th][th=""]Service Time[/th][th=""]WAR[/th][/tr][tr][td]Buster Posey[/td][td]25[/td][td]?[/td][td]?[/td][td]?[/td][td]1.161[/td][td]5.5[/td][/tr][tr][td]Carlos Santana[/td][td]26[/td][td]5[/td][td]$21 million[/td][td]1[/td][td]1.115[/td][td]5.2[/td][/tr][tr][td]Salvador Perez[/td][td]21[/td][td]5[/td][td]$7 million[/td][td]3[/td][td]0.05[/td][td]1.4[/td][/tr][tr][td]Jonathan Lucroy[/td][td]25[/td][td]4[/td][td]$11 million[/td][td]1[/td][td]1.136[/td][td]2.7[/td][/tr][/table]
From this list, only Carlos Santana’s contract can be used as a fair comparison. Perez was signed far too early in his career to use as a comparison, and Posey has been much better than Lucroy. Santana and Posey, though, are very similar. Both have identical service time and produced nearly the same WAR. Both players also have suffered serious injuries.
But there are a few factors that could make Posey the higher-paid player. Posey is a year younger, and he reached the majors slightly earlier than Santana. As a 23-year-old, Posey played in 108 games for the Giants and won the rookie-of-the-year award. Santana didn’t make his major-league debut until he was 24. And while both players produced the same amount of value in their first two seasons, Posey produced a higher WAR in 200 fewer plate appearances.
Thanks to our new age filters at FanGraphs, we can find players like Posey who experienced similar success at the same point in their careers. By looking at catchers between the ages of 23 and 24 — with at least 500 plate appearances — we get a much better idea of how Posey will perform in the long-term.
It turns out that Posey is in pretty elite company. Only Joe Mauer, Russell Martin and Brian McCann produced more value than Posey at this stage in their careers. And again, Posey produced his WAR in fewer plate appearances. Alex Avila was just about as valuable as Posey, but they are the same age, so we can’t use him to predict how well Posey will perform in the future.
Using the Santana deal as a barometer, let’s say Posey wants a five-year extension. If he signs it this season, the deal would last through his age-30 season. Since Martin — the oldest player in this exercise — is just 29-years-old, we can look at how these catchers performed through their age-28 seasons. McCann just began his age-28 season, so his numbers might skew a little low.
[table][tr][th=""]Name[/th][th=""]G[/th][th=""]PA[/th][th=""]BB%[/th][th=""]K%[/th][th=""]ISO[/th][th=""]AVG[/th][th=""]OBP[/th][th=""]SLG[/th][th=""]wOBA[/th][th=""]wRC+[/th][th=""]Fld[/th][th=""]WAR[/th][/tr][tr][td]Joe Mauer[/td][td]503[/td][td]2156[/td][td]11.90%[/td][td]9.50%[/td][td]0.149[/td][td]0.332[/td][td]0.411[/td][td]0.481[/td][td]0.384[/td][td]138[/td][td]-3.6[/td][td]21.1[/td][/tr][tr][td]Brian McCann[/td][td]417[/td][td]1677[/td][td]10.90%[/td][td]16.30%[/td][td]0.196[/td][td]0.274[/td][td]0.358[/td][td]0.469[/td][td]0.357[/td][td]122[/td][td]14.2[/td][td]14.2[/td][/tr][tr][td]Russell Martin[/td][td]520[/td][td]2101[/td][td]12.20%[/td][td]14.50%[/td][td]0.112[/td][td]0.256[/td][td]0.355[/td][td]0.368[/td][td]0.325[/td][td]98[/td][td]5.5[/td][td]11.9[/td][/tr][/table]
All three players have remained incredibly effective for the first couple of seasons. Mauer was other-worldly until injuries took hold during his age-28 season. Martin fell off a bit during his age-27 season, due to overwork, but he rebounded nicely last year. McCann has been pretty consistent through his age-27 year, and he posted a WAR above 4 in each season. So how does all of this apply to Posey?
We know that Posey is young, exceptionally good for his age and he should continue to play at a high level for a least the next three seasons. While Santana’s deal is a good starting point, Posey has more encouraging comps when you sort by age. Some of the same players appear on Santana’s comp list, but he’s more similar in value to Kurt Suzuki and Yadier Molina than to Mauer, Martin or McCann.
Mauer had already put in six years of service time before signing his monster deal, so there’s no chance Posey will get that type of contract. Martin has never signed an extension, so we can’t use a contract as a comp for Posey. McCann makes for an interesting comparison, though.
During his age-23 season, McCann signed a six-year, $26.8 million extension with the Atlanta Braves. That contract also carries a 2013 club option. While McCann and Posey are a good comp from a statistical standpoint, McCann also signed his deal with about nearly the same amount of service time.
Since Posey is slightly older than McCann, he might not get a six-year deal. But based on his numbers — and comparable players at his age — Posey should ask for McCann-like money. Since the market has changed a bit since 2007, when McCann signed his deal, it wouldn’t be a surprise to see Posey get five-years, $30 million.
Daniel Bard in the Rotation: So Far, So Good.
Spoiler [+]
The Red Sox moving Daniel Bard to the rotation has been a hotly debated move in Red Sox Nation this spring. But after two starts, it’s clear that Boston at least had the right idea in letting Bard move from the bullpen back to the starting rotation, where he threw in college and at the outset of his pro career. Bard has had a bit of an issue with issuing free passes, but has otherwise had positive showings in his first two times through the rotation.
One of the most important questions for any pitcher is can he throw strikes? If you can’t throw strikes, you’re going to make things really difficult for yourself, no matter how much talent you have. So naturally, people are going to question that ability when you walk seven batters in a single game, as Bard did today against the Tampa Bay Rays. In each start, Bard showed a good ability to keep the ball in the zone in the early part of each game, before faltering in the middle innings.
Today against the Rays, Bard had four walks through six innings — which is not great, mind you — before walking three of the last four batters he faced in the seventh. It was clear that Bard was laboring, but Red Sox manager Bobby Valentine left him in to face Evan Longoria with the bases loaded in a tie game nonetheless (Valentine admitted this was a mistake after the game). And while Bard only walked one batter in his first start against Toronto, a quick look at his strike percentage by inning shows that he has had more trouble finding the zone as the game has moved along. In innings one through three, Bard’s strike percentage is 65.3 percent. From the fourth inning on, it is just 58.7 percent.
Now, this is two starts, and a grand total of 207 pitches, and when we break it down by innings, you come up with an even smaller sample. But so far, it looks like Bard’s control issues may be attributable to the fact that he is still building up the stamina to be a starter. After walking 4.01 batters per nine innings in 2009, Bard lowered his mark over the past two years — his BB/9 dropped to 3.62 in 2010, and was 2.96 last year — so it’s not as if he has been wild all that much recently. If we reach June or July and Bard is still having problems throwing strikes after the first few innings, then that might be more of a cause for concern, but at the moment, it is an acceptable issue.
The reason it is acceptable is because of the ridiculous stuff Bard has displayed. In the past, Bard has been a three-pitch guy — four-seam fastball, slider and changeup — and that appears to still be the case (the guys at Brooks Baseball reclassified some of the four-seamers and changeups from his first start to sinkers, so that will bear watching, but for now we’ll work off of the raw Pitch f/x logs found here and here). The slider is the most impressive of the bunch. While noting that continuous use of a slider may not be the best thing for a pitcher’s arm, Bard’s slider has been so impressive that it would be a crime for him not to throw it with the frequency he has in the first two outings.
It’s no secret that Bard has a good slider, of course. Among the 197 pitchers who tossed at least 70 innings last year, Bard’s 1.72 wSL/C mark (Pitch f/x numbers) ranked 28th overall. It’s hard to know how a pitcher’s stuff will translate when he changes roles though, so his success thus far is encouraging. This season, he has thrown 75 sliders — which accounts for 36.2 percent of his workload — and has generated swings and misses a ridiculous 20 percent of the time. For context, the league average swinging strike percentage the past three seasons has either been 8.5 or 8.6 percent, and thus far in 2012 it has been nine percent (those are Baseball Info Solutions numbers, and Bard’s data is Pitch f/x, but the differences shouldn’t be that drastic). In his first two starts, Bard’s slider literally generated more than double the swings and misses over the league average. Again, it’s early, and hitters are going to adjust, but his slider so far has been impressive.
Bard has also generated above-average swings and misses on his fastball and changeup, but his fastball today was less effective. In each outing, coincidentally, he threw 49 fastballs as classified by Pitch f/x. In his first outing, 39 of them went for strikes, with eight being swinging strikes. In today’s outing, only 28 of them went for strikes, with just four swinging strikes. Bard was well aware of this after the game, calling his fastball command “terrible.
One of the most important questions for any pitcher is can he throw strikes? If you can’t throw strikes, you’re going to make things really difficult for yourself, no matter how much talent you have. So naturally, people are going to question that ability when you walk seven batters in a single game, as Bard did today against the Tampa Bay Rays. In each start, Bard showed a good ability to keep the ball in the zone in the early part of each game, before faltering in the middle innings.
Today against the Rays, Bard had four walks through six innings — which is not great, mind you — before walking three of the last four batters he faced in the seventh. It was clear that Bard was laboring, but Red Sox manager Bobby Valentine left him in to face Evan Longoria with the bases loaded in a tie game nonetheless (Valentine admitted this was a mistake after the game). And while Bard only walked one batter in his first start against Toronto, a quick look at his strike percentage by inning shows that he has had more trouble finding the zone as the game has moved along. In innings one through three, Bard’s strike percentage is 65.3 percent. From the fourth inning on, it is just 58.7 percent.
Now, this is two starts, and a grand total of 207 pitches, and when we break it down by innings, you come up with an even smaller sample. But so far, it looks like Bard’s control issues may be attributable to the fact that he is still building up the stamina to be a starter. After walking 4.01 batters per nine innings in 2009, Bard lowered his mark over the past two years — his BB/9 dropped to 3.62 in 2010, and was 2.96 last year — so it’s not as if he has been wild all that much recently. If we reach June or July and Bard is still having problems throwing strikes after the first few innings, then that might be more of a cause for concern, but at the moment, it is an acceptable issue.
The reason it is acceptable is because of the ridiculous stuff Bard has displayed. In the past, Bard has been a three-pitch guy — four-seam fastball, slider and changeup — and that appears to still be the case (the guys at Brooks Baseball reclassified some of the four-seamers and changeups from his first start to sinkers, so that will bear watching, but for now we’ll work off of the raw Pitch f/x logs found here and here). The slider is the most impressive of the bunch. While noting that continuous use of a slider may not be the best thing for a pitcher’s arm, Bard’s slider has been so impressive that it would be a crime for him not to throw it with the frequency he has in the first two outings.
It’s no secret that Bard has a good slider, of course. Among the 197 pitchers who tossed at least 70 innings last year, Bard’s 1.72 wSL/C mark (Pitch f/x numbers) ranked 28th overall. It’s hard to know how a pitcher’s stuff will translate when he changes roles though, so his success thus far is encouraging. This season, he has thrown 75 sliders — which accounts for 36.2 percent of his workload — and has generated swings and misses a ridiculous 20 percent of the time. For context, the league average swinging strike percentage the past three seasons has either been 8.5 or 8.6 percent, and thus far in 2012 it has been nine percent (those are Baseball Info Solutions numbers, and Bard’s data is Pitch f/x, but the differences shouldn’t be that drastic). In his first two starts, Bard’s slider literally generated more than double the swings and misses over the league average. Again, it’s early, and hitters are going to adjust, but his slider so far has been impressive.
Bard has also generated above-average swings and misses on his fastball and changeup, but his fastball today was less effective. In each outing, coincidentally, he threw 49 fastballs as classified by Pitch f/x. In his first outing, 39 of them went for strikes, with eight being swinging strikes. In today’s outing, only 28 of them went for strikes, with just four swinging strikes. Bard was well aware of this after the game, calling his fastball command “terrible.
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MLB teams and pitching coaches are simply stupid dinosaurs, I mean, most of them are just figuring out that throwing excessive amounts of sliders is bad for your elbow. Science has advanced, knowledge has advanced, teams simply have not.
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MLB teams and pitching coaches are simply stupid dinosaurs, I mean, most of them are just figuring out that throwing excessive amounts of sliders is bad for your elbow. Science has advanced, knowledge has advanced, teams simply have not.
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Leyland went old school completely disregarding Verlander's pitch count.
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