Post by ericmvan on Dec 1, 2013 6:03:03 GMT -5
Short version: really cool stuff, and worth it even for non stat-heads! I hope.
I've mentioned these splits in other threads, but if you missed it, the idea is simple.
Everyone knows that there are base-out situations where you can pitch around the hitter, because a walk is a lot less costly. With RISP and 1B open, you try to nibble and induce weak contact. You are willing to allow an elevated OBP, because you are reducing SA.
Less obviously, there are base-out situations where a walk is more costly, and pitchers challenge hitters more than usual, and hence issue fewer walks. Bases full and no one out is the supreme example, with bases full / 1 out and runner on 1st, nobody out being the next most extreme.
You can take a pitcher's line in each of the 24 base-out situations and weight it by the amount that the MLB walk rate diverges from average. And then combine them to get the pitcher's performance in a hypothetical average challenge situation, in a totally neutral situation, and in an average pitch-around situation.
Here are the career splits for the Sox pitchers, sorted by their performance in neutral situations. The number used is estimated EqA allowed, which is just OPS allowed with OBP properly weighted, converted to the same scale as BA.
The first line gives the MLB average over the last five years. The last two columns show how much better (positive number) or worse (negative) than average the pitcher has been in challenge and pitch-around situations, respectively, compared to his neutral split. E.g, Koji has been .005 better in challenge situations, relative to what you'd expect given his performance in neutral ones, and .038 better in pitch-around situations.
You will notice that there is a medium amount of variation in the neutral split, and about half as much variation as that in the dC column, which is to say, a pitcher's skill at challenging hitters. The big whopping differences, as you might have guessed, come in a pitcher's skill at pitching around hitters. That's an art form, eh?
So, what do we notice here?
There are three guys who have actually been better in their career when challenging hitters than in neutral situations: Craig Breslow, Brandon Workman, and Bryan Villareal. We'll leave Workman aside for the time being, since his sample is so small (I included post-season to expand it), and start by considering Breslow.
If a pitcher is actually more successful when he challenges hitters, that suggests that he's not trusting his stuff. And Breslow's stuff doesn't seem to be great. It would make sense that his catchers have had him nibbling more than he needs to in neutral situations. And that would also explain why his career pitch-around split is bad.
Is it possible that the Red Sox acquired Breslow because they felt that his stuff hadn't been used to its best advantage, and that with better pitch-calling, he could be considerably more effective? And could that be the reason why he has been a huge, pleasant surprise?
Well, here are his (SSS) splits for 2013, including post-season. I'll put them under his career splits for contrast.
.220 .231 .261 (challenge, neutral, pitch-around, career)
.219 .246 .228
Essentially all of the 2013 improvement in Breslow over his career norms was in pitch-around situations, where he went from being bad to Buchholz-level good. That could absolutely be the result of better pitch-calling in those situations.
While Villareal doesn't have Breslow's bad pitch-around split, his challenge split is still .016 better than you'd expect from his neutral split. That's consistent with a guy whom they feel has an arsenal that could be made better use of.
And on that theme, look at Badenhop (if you haven't already). His splits are insane. There's no way a guy who's allowing a .226 EqA in neutral situations should be allowing .267 in challenge situations (a split about 2 1/2 standard deviations bigger than usual, using this set of pitchers as a sample) and .278 in pitch-around. And clearly that explains why he's been bad in high-leverage situations. I can almost guarantee you that they have a scouting report that says when he just throws his sinker and tries to get outs, he's tremendous, and that his ineffectiveness with men on comes from trying to adapt his approach to the situation instead of staying the course and trusting his stuff.
Some further thoughts: I believe that successfully pitching around hitters is indeed a skill, and that it explains why some pitchers have a BABIP skill that persists from year to year. Therefore, the guys who lack that skill are going to have a negative dP figure, even though they're not actually doing anything wrong. So it's hard to say whether Morales, Doubront, and maybe even Lackey could have been more effective over their careers by doing a better job in pitch-around situations.
And finally, those Tazawa splits go a long way to explaining his inconsistency, eh? We can hope that the team is noticing how deadly he is when 1B is open with RISP, and have him attack the strike zone less and be more willing to walk guys in other situations as well.
If only BrooksBaseball had an option for looking at data by base-out situations as well as by count, we could really go to town with this. But I think it's an interesting start.
I've mentioned these splits in other threads, but if you missed it, the idea is simple.
Everyone knows that there are base-out situations where you can pitch around the hitter, because a walk is a lot less costly. With RISP and 1B open, you try to nibble and induce weak contact. You are willing to allow an elevated OBP, because you are reducing SA.
Less obviously, there are base-out situations where a walk is more costly, and pitchers challenge hitters more than usual, and hence issue fewer walks. Bases full and no one out is the supreme example, with bases full / 1 out and runner on 1st, nobody out being the next most extreme.
You can take a pitcher's line in each of the 24 base-out situations and weight it by the amount that the MLB walk rate diverges from average. And then combine them to get the pitcher's performance in a hypothetical average challenge situation, in a totally neutral situation, and in an average pitch-around situation.
Here are the career splits for the Sox pitchers, sorted by their performance in neutral situations. The number used is estimated EqA allowed, which is just OPS allowed with OBP properly weighted, converted to the same scale as BA.
The first line gives the MLB average over the last five years. The last two columns show how much better (positive number) or worse (negative) than average the pitcher has been in challenge and pitch-around situations, respectively, compared to his neutral split. E.g, Koji has been .005 better in challenge situations, relative to what you'd expect given his performance in neutral ones, and .038 better in pitch-around situations.
You will notice that there is a medium amount of variation in the neutral split, and about half as much variation as that in the dC column, which is to say, a pitcher's skill at challenging hitters. The big whopping differences, as you might have guessed, come in a pitcher's skill at pitching around hitters. That's an art form, eh?
Name Chal Neu P-A dC dP
AVERAGE .258 .249 .252
Uehara .199 .196 .160 .005 .038
Badenhop .261 .226 .287 -.026 -.058
Peavy .238 .229 .257 .000 -.026
Breslow .220 .231 .261 .019 -.028
Lester .255 .245 .248 -.002 -.001
Workman .238 .247 .274 .018 -.025
Buchholz .249 .247 .223 .006 .027
Lackey .253 .252 .276 .007 -.021
Morales .261 .255 .272 .002 -.014
Dempster .258 .260 .292 .010 -.030
Doubront .267 .261 .280 .002 -.017
Villareal .260 .267 .268 .016 .002
Tazawa .281 .271 .192 -.002 .082
Miller .293 .284 .277 .000 .009So, what do we notice here?
There are three guys who have actually been better in their career when challenging hitters than in neutral situations: Craig Breslow, Brandon Workman, and Bryan Villareal. We'll leave Workman aside for the time being, since his sample is so small (I included post-season to expand it), and start by considering Breslow.
If a pitcher is actually more successful when he challenges hitters, that suggests that he's not trusting his stuff. And Breslow's stuff doesn't seem to be great. It would make sense that his catchers have had him nibbling more than he needs to in neutral situations. And that would also explain why his career pitch-around split is bad.
Is it possible that the Red Sox acquired Breslow because they felt that his stuff hadn't been used to its best advantage, and that with better pitch-calling, he could be considerably more effective? And could that be the reason why he has been a huge, pleasant surprise?
Well, here are his (SSS) splits for 2013, including post-season. I'll put them under his career splits for contrast.
.220 .231 .261 (challenge, neutral, pitch-around, career)
.219 .246 .228
Essentially all of the 2013 improvement in Breslow over his career norms was in pitch-around situations, where he went from being bad to Buchholz-level good. That could absolutely be the result of better pitch-calling in those situations.
While Villareal doesn't have Breslow's bad pitch-around split, his challenge split is still .016 better than you'd expect from his neutral split. That's consistent with a guy whom they feel has an arsenal that could be made better use of.
And on that theme, look at Badenhop (if you haven't already). His splits are insane. There's no way a guy who's allowing a .226 EqA in neutral situations should be allowing .267 in challenge situations (a split about 2 1/2 standard deviations bigger than usual, using this set of pitchers as a sample) and .278 in pitch-around. And clearly that explains why he's been bad in high-leverage situations. I can almost guarantee you that they have a scouting report that says when he just throws his sinker and tries to get outs, he's tremendous, and that his ineffectiveness with men on comes from trying to adapt his approach to the situation instead of staying the course and trusting his stuff.
Some further thoughts: I believe that successfully pitching around hitters is indeed a skill, and that it explains why some pitchers have a BABIP skill that persists from year to year. Therefore, the guys who lack that skill are going to have a negative dP figure, even though they're not actually doing anything wrong. So it's hard to say whether Morales, Doubront, and maybe even Lackey could have been more effective over their careers by doing a better job in pitch-around situations.
And finally, those Tazawa splits go a long way to explaining his inconsistency, eh? We can hope that the team is noticing how deadly he is when 1B is open with RISP, and have him attack the strike zone less and be more willing to walk guys in other situations as well.
If only BrooksBaseball had an option for looking at data by base-out situations as well as by count, we could really go to town with this. But I think it's an interesting start.
