SoxProspects News
|
|
|
|
Legal
Forum Ground Rules
The views expressed by the members of this Forum do not necessarily reflect the views of SoxProspects, LLC.
© 2003-2024 SoxProspects, LLC
|
|
|
|
|
Forum Home | Search | My Profile | Messages | Members | Help |
Welcome Guest. Please Login or Register.
ericmvan
Veteran
Supposed to be working on something more important
Posts: 8,923
|
Post by ericmvan on Sept 2, 2020 14:05:39 GMT -5
Let's start with what I believe are his fundamental splits, over his career.
As always:
PA* excludes IBB and SH EqA is estimated from OBP and SA, and is scaled to be equivalent to BA with .260 as MLB average BB% excludes IBB HRC is HR/Contact
When PA* BA OBP SLG EqA K% BB% HRC BABIP
Men on, <2 out 457 .326 .372 .526 .312 .212 .081 .063 .368
Empty, <2 out 745 .281 .341 .517 .297 .260 .077 .076 .343
Men on, 2 out 266 .253 .351 .459 .287 .226 .120 .064 .296
Empty, 2 Out 242 .180 .264 .286 .207 .289 .083 .027 .245
First, is this significant?
Well, Brandon Workman in 2019 had 281 PA*. So the 242 sample size in the last line is large enough to pay attention to.
The split in his home run rate versus the other three situations combined has a 1 in 15 chance of being random, while the split in BABIP has a 1 in 49 chance (the split in BABIP between the top two lines (all PA with 0 and 1 out) and the last line has a 1 in 87 chance despite the smaller sample size).
HR per Contact and BABIP are the two components of harder contact. If this were random, changes in them should be unrelated. So the odds of getting both the HRC and BABIP values in the last line, given the other three, are 1 in 727 (p = .0014). It's real.
If he could approach that last line all of the time, he'd be pretty good, right? Last year the overall MLB slash line was .009 / .007 / .016 higher than the line for 2 outs and nobody on. Add that to the last line, and you get .189 / .271 / .302. For a point of comparison, Clayton Kershaw is .208 / .262 / .318 in his career.
So, what's going on here?
Bases empty, 2 outs, is when you are most willing to walk guys. But his walk rate is unchanged! His strikeout rate is better, and in fact it's better with the bases empty regardless of outs.
What can you do that gets weaker contact and ups your K rate while not harming your walk rate?
Get guys to chase successfully.
So starting tomorrow (I hope), I'm going to break these numbers down 80 ways. Thank you Statcast!
I'll start with the great split versus everything else, of course.
And I will get a 4 x 4 table for each of the two situations. FB, SL, CU, CH, versus heart of the plate, edges of the zone, chase zone, and what Statcast calls "waste" but which is just a mis-thrown pitch. I can get the number of each pitch thrown, plus the results (both wOBA and xwOBA). This is actually just 8 quick StatCast searches, because you can a table of what pitches were thrown and what happened with them for any situation.
(It just occurred to me that I can easily get EV, HardHit, and Barrels, and with some extra clicks SO and BB. So I can calculate my Projected ERA from those).
I'm interested in the spike in BB rate with men on and 2 outs, and the aforementioned split in K rates depending on men on vs. empty. So at some point I'll repeat this breaking it down four ways instead of 2.
|
|
|
|
Post by soxin8 on Sept 2, 2020 17:16:12 GMT -5
I appreciate all the work eric and others do with this kind of analysis I couldn't begin to come up with. I just wanted to mention since he has had problems keeping the ball in the yard, just getting out of the Philly ballpark should help. His 2019 home OPS against was 889 compared to a road OPS of 830. Still not great but something for the coaches to work with.
|
|
sdl
Rookie
Who the hell is Stan Papi?
Posts: 135
|
Post by sdl on Sept 2, 2020 21:35:14 GMT -5
I've seen Pivetta pitch in minor league ST games at the Phillies complex. I like him and getting a fresh start with us may help him.
Interesting to note the Phillies got him from Washington in the Papelbon deal
|
|
ericmvan
Veteran
Supposed to be working on something more important
Posts: 8,923
|
Post by ericmvan on Sept 2, 2020 23:57:19 GMT -5
I appreciate all the work eric and others do with this kind of analysis I couldn't begin to come up with. I just wanted to mention since he has had problems keeping the ball in the yard, just getting out of the Philly ballpark should help. His 2019 home OPS against was 889 compared to a road OPS of 830. Still not great but something for the coaches to work with. Thanks for pointing that out! I'll definitely look into splitting the overall results by home and away. Statcast can do that.
In the meantime, there have been 97 MLB pitchers who have faced 225+ hitters with 2 outs and nobody on from 2017 to today. The top 15 in wOBA allowed follow; the number after the slash is their wOBA allowed with 0 or 1 out.
.235 / .300 James Paxton .240 / .261 Corey Kluber .246 / .319 Lucas Giolito .247 / .335 Andrew Heaney .248 / .310 Madison Bumgarner .248 / .367 Nick Pivetta
.249 / .304 Dallas Keuchel .249 / .331 Chase Anderson .250 / .293 Kenta Maeda .255 / .259 Jacob deGrom
.259 / .275 Zach Greinke .259 / .343 Jason Vargas .262 / .284 Clayton Kershaw .263 / .292 Luis Castillo .265 / .289 Blake Snell
There are three other guys who made this list despite being below MLB average with 0 or 1 outs, and hence have big splits.
.082 Anderson. Brewers. Great 2017, essentially league-average before and after.
.083 Vargas. Royals, Mets, Phillies. Hit hard, now 37 and retired.
.088 Heaney. Angels, good 4th starter results.
.119 Pivetta. Phillies.
The Brewers have been well run and don't have a bad reputation for analytics. The other teams have not been well-run in this time frame.
The thing is, Pivetta is off the scale here. Even if all you can do is improve his numbers into the Anderson / Heaney territory, that's a league average, #3 / #4 starter type.
|
|
mobaz
Veteran
Posts: 2,761
Member is Online
|
Post by mobaz on Feb 8, 2021 10:50:40 GMT -5
Dumb observation: Getting Pivetta/Seabold was like the Sox made a trade with Dombrowski before he even got to Philly.
|
|
|
|
Post by manfred on Feb 8, 2021 10:56:35 GMT -5
Dumb observation: Getting Pivetta/Seabold was like the Sox made a trade with Dombrowski before he even got to Philly. That trade is likely the only good thing to come out of last season. It feels potentially Heathcliff Slocumb-y. |
|
|
|
Post by julyanmorley on Feb 8, 2021 12:12:35 GMT -5
Given that the Red Sox acquired Pivetta for next to nothing, that would seem to be a creative use of the phrase "tried hard"
|
|
cdj
Veteran
Posts: 13,972 
Member is Online
|
Post by cdj on Feb 8, 2021 13:07:41 GMT -5
Given that the Red Sox acquired Pivetta for next to nothing, that would seem to be a creative use of the phrase "tried hard" It ended up being next to nothing but the Phillies were desperate for bullpen arms and Workman and Hembree had been pretty reliable for a successful franchise. Worked out horribly for them. Oh well, not our problem  |
|
ericmvan
Veteran
Supposed to be working on something more important
Posts: 8,923
|
Post by ericmvan on Feb 8, 2021 18:08:01 GMT -5
Meanwhile, I:
A) Never did the project I said I was about to do
b) Forgot these specifics of why he had upside. All I remembered is an earlier finding that bad hitters hit him harder than good ones. I have to trust my past self that the splits in the first post are the ones looking into!
At least I finished explaining why Tanner Houck has silly upside. Now I have to both do Pivetta, and see if it's true for Dalbec. The latter comes first ...
|
|
ericmvan
Veteran
Supposed to be working on something more important
Posts: 8,923
|
Post by ericmvan on May 16, 2021 5:30:42 GMT -5
Do you have Pivetta’s numbers by any chance? &nbsp;I’m curious what they are in comparison. I waited till this start. He's 74th in xwOBA, which puts him right at MLB average and the borderline between 3rd and 4th starter. However, he's 30th best in wOBA relative to xwOBA. He's 41st in wOBA, which is a lesser #2 starter, and that's the best figure on the Sox. Well, this is interesting: his first 5 starts with the Sox (including 2 last year) versus his last 5. Each line is expected, then actual. First:
.262 / .373 / .453 = .360 xwOBA .233 / .349 / .356 = .319 wOBA Then: .216 / .304 / .338 = .288 xwOBA .158 / .252 / .253 = .235 wOBA. He's been working on learning how to use his stuff most effectively, so a real improvement was to be expected. His latest stretch includes a game with a .383 xwOBA (his previous start), so that reduces our sense of how much regression to the mean can be expected for the .288 xwOBA. And a .288 xwOBA puts him 33rd, which is an average #2. Even I'm blown away by that, and I've been loving this acquisition since day one. Furthermore, he smashed his expectations in both phases, to a similar degree, which suggests some of that is for real. The way to test that is to break down his "luck" 9 ways: Pull, Straight, Oppo versus Fly, Liner, Grounder, and compare the percentage that's in each bucket to MLB average, and see what he's doing in each bucket, same comparison. Pulled fly balls have a really bad xwOBA - wOBA while balls hit to center have a really good one. If you have a skill of not letting guys pull the ball in the air, that shows up in Statcast as luck.
Pivetta in this stretch has allowed 66 balls in play, and 4 have been pulled fly balls. That's exactly MLB average for 2021 (6.06% vs. 6.13%).
.690 / .915 xwOBA / wOBA, league
.235 / .739, Pivetta last 5 starts So he's actually been un-"lucky" on pulled fly balls, while giving up as many as average! That makes his "luck" even weirder. So much for the quick and dirty comparison -- I have to do the other 8 buckets, it seems. If I get to that today, I'll be neglecting more important stuff ... I'll quote this and put the results in his thread, ideally before his next start.
OK, this is mind-blowing, in that the pattern is obvious but at the moment I can't explain it at all.
So, all of Pivetta's good karma on balls in play in his last five starts, as measured by xwOBA - wOBA, comes in 2 of the 10 batted-ball types (the bolded part above, plus popups). In fact, it's more than all; he's been a net "unlucky" on the other 8 types. Those two types are pulled line drives, and pulled grounders. Well, those are separated by an arbitrary dividing line! It's all pulled balls that aren't fly balls. Here's his start-by-start xwOBA, wOBA, and karma (the difference) on them: .505 .253 -.252
.340 .000 -.340
.236 .000 -.236
.450 .177 -.273
.331 .000 -.331
Gee, that doesn't look random, does it! This is 21 batted balls, with 8 expected hits, but he gave up only 2, the two on the balls with the highest xwOBA.
A paired t-test gives the odds getting a set of numbers like this at random as 6,047 to 1. And that's 2-tailed; the odds of getting a consistent improvement are double that.
The next question is obvious: what happens on pulled fly balls?
Well, that, my friends, is where Nick Pivetta has had a crazy skill in these five starts. He's allowed a .235 xwOBA. That's nuts. The league has allowed .650. Expressed as a + or - figure (where 100 is average), that's an xwOBA- of 36.
And this I think I can explain. Expressing his event frequency as a +, he gives up Oppo fly balls at a 130 rate, flies to center at 109, and pulled flies at 97. Given his overall flyball rate, he is definitely trying to get guys to not pull the ball.
He has a 54 xwOBA- on flies to center, and a 159 on flies to the opposite field. (He's 104 on grounders, with no significant differences by direction, which is to say that he gives up slightly harder grounders than average. Other than these, all of his other batted ball types, as measured by expectations, are good; he's a 90 on line drives, again with nothing significant by direction.)
What makes sense is that most of his out pitches are designed to let guys go the other way if they want to. If they do, they hit him very much harder than usual. But when you throw that pitch to a guy you believe will try to pull it anyway, and he does, you get very weak pulled or straightaway contact.
And if they don't get that ball in the air when they try to pull it? The numbers above can be explained only one way: the balls are hit to predictable, defensible spots. And anyone who grew up watching Yaz hit one grounder after another right to the 2B when he was slumping knows that guys who pull outside pitches can be very predictable in their hit locations.
He probably has had some luck in these balls, but there's almost certainly some skill. And this only is working because his command is better; he's gone from a 60% strike percentage in his first 3 starts to 66% in this stretch. He needs to keep that command up ... and maybe the league figures out what he's doing and adjusts. But this guy, who had a reputation as just a thrower, is a pitcher now. |
|
|
|
Post by ramireja on Jun 3, 2021 16:52:44 GMT -5
|
|
|
|
Post by tjb21 on Jun 4, 2021 11:32:50 GMT -5
Really happy for Nick, what a season he's having so far!
|
|
ericmvan
Veteran
Supposed to be working on something more important
Posts: 8,923
|
Post by ericmvan on Jun 27, 2021 2:58:28 GMT -5
From the game thread: Pivetta interview just makes me like him even more. Seems like a thoughtful pitcher, great teammate. nice interview with Pivetta The brief mention of working with Bush is meaningful. He’s done a great job with the pitching staff this year. Like you wonder if he’s gonna get poached by another team for next season. He mentioned Bush in reference to the 6.2 hitless innings, but when basically asked, how did you go from being not good enough to start for the Phillies to being a strong #3 starter on a contender, he (in all apparent sincerity) attributed it to playing with teammates who wanted to win and were willing to do the necessary work. Unspoken subtext: "I'm not about to explain how I've changed my approach on national TV!" Sox versus Phillies: Walk rate is up 30% (.086 to .112). K rate is up 14%, from .244 to .279. HR/Contact is down 26% from .065 to .048, and BABIP is down from .324 to .279. Basically, limiting hard contact by staying out of the middle of the zone, getting guys to chase more than he used to, and being willing to walk more guys to get the extra strikeouts and the big reduction in hard contact. Earlier in his thread I noted how much success he'd had to the pull side. In the thread about his trade I made the observation that he had been hit harder by 7-9 hitters (excluding pitchers) than 1, 2, 5, and 6; this year he's fixed that completely.
|
|
|
|
Post by grandsalami on Jul 17, 2023 22:48:37 GMT -5
|
|
|
|
Post by GyIantosca on Jul 17, 2023 22:54:00 GMT -5
Why does it matter that Pivetta numbers are better in relief. I mean he comes in a clean inning. I am all for whatever it takes but I don’t understand this one.
|
|
|
|
Post by redsox04071318champs on Jul 17, 2023 23:00:36 GMT -5
I think he's an adrenaline junkie. I just remember how he pitched out of the pen at the end of 2021. At this point it's just a narrative, but one that has yet to be disproven.
|
|
|
|
Post by grandsalami on Jul 17, 2023 23:02:38 GMT -5
|
|
|
|
Post by grandsalami on Jul 17, 2023 23:22:19 GMT -5
🐐🐐🐐🐐
|
|
ericmvan
Veteran
Supposed to be working on something more important
Posts: 8,923
|
Post by ericmvan on Jul 18, 2023 4:38:47 GMT -5
More on Pivetta's night.
The record for strikeouts in a hitless relief performance was just 10. Hal Brown of the Orioles did it in 1955, walking 5, in 8 innings. And in 2020 Tyler Alexander of the Tigers fanned 10 in 3.2 innings, walking 1.
The record for K's in relief appearance of 6 IP or less was 12. Mark Guthrie of the Twins did that in 1995, in six, but he gave up a HR and 2 ER. If you want a scoreless outing, you have to back to 1909 when Tom Hughes of the Senators fanned 11 in six, while scattering 5 hits. If you want a lively-ball outing, it's
Alexander.
The only prior 13-K relief outing that was even scoreless was Randy Johnson's 16 K's in 7 IP, allowing 1 hit and 1 walk, for the DBacks, when he was 37.
Who started that game and went 2 perfect innings, fanning just 1? Curt Schilling!
17 K, 1 H, 1 BB -- Schilling and Johnson. 18 K, 1 H, 3 BB -- the Sox last night.
This was in fact just the third 1-hit shutout with 18 K's or more in MLB history. One was Kerry Wood's 20 K game, likely the greatest pitching performance in MLB history.
There was a also a 19 K game in 2015 where the starter fanned 18 in 8 and closer Cody Allen fanned another.
And by the very fact that I haven't named him yet ... yup, that was Corey Kluber. He hit a batter in the first and lost the no-hitter in the 7th.
|
|
ericmvan
Veteran
Supposed to be working on something more important
Posts: 8,923
|
Post by ericmvan on Jul 18, 2023 4:41:57 GMT -5
Why does it matter that Pivetta numbers are better in relief. I mean he comes in a clean inning. I am all for whatever it takes but I don’t understand this one. He's been really bad in the first inning inning his entire Sox career. In fact, I pointed that out and said he should be following an opener maybe a month before they did it.
Cora said that he thought Pivetta had a different mind-set in relief.
|
|
|
|
Post by bluechip on Jul 18, 2023 4:49:15 GMT -5
Interesting that there are two different guys named Rube on this list. That is a nickname I’ve never encountered in my personal life. |
|
|
|
Post by pappyman99 on Jul 18, 2023 7:33:25 GMT -5
I clamored in here like crazy (the rotation forum) begged to move him to the pen.
I never found him to be a good starter at all. But his 2022 pen showing made me think that was the place for him to thrive.
So far so good
|
|
|
|
Post by wcsoxfan on Jul 18, 2023 11:31:41 GMT -5
Interesting that there are two different guys named Rube on this list. That is a nickname I’ve never encountered in my personal life. Rube Waddell received his nickname for his eccentric behavior and lack of sophistication (Rube means 'country bumpkin' or 'hick'). I suggest anyone interested in early baseball folklore read-up on him. Here are a few highlights: - country boy who developed his arm strength by throwing rocks at birds - lost his first professional pitching job because he couldn't pay rent after spending full signing bonus on booze - once left during the middle of a game to go fishing - would often run-off to chase fire trucks during games - spent an offseason wrestling alligators - lost track of how many wives he had - was bribed to not show up for the 1905 world series - died of TB, after multiple cases of pneumonia, at the age of 37 - inducted into the baseball hall of fame in 1946. Was the only man with consecutive 300K seasons for 60 years (Sandy Koufax). Rube Marquard highlights: - received nickname because his pitching (also a lefty) reminded a scout of Waddell - inducted into the baseball hall of fame in 1971 and lived to be 93 - intelligent man who wasn't nearly as interesting as Rube Waddell |
|
|
|
Post by wcsoxfan on Jul 18, 2023 11:39:34 GMT -5
I clamored in here like crazy (the rotation forum) begged to move him to the pen. I never found him to be a good starter at all. But his 2022 pen showing made me think that was the place for him to thrive. So far so good He's doing well, but for his last 4 appearances he's essentially been a starter who starts in the 3rd inning. Aside from having a lefty opener to perhaps help him avoid a loaded lefty lineup (his career lefty/righty splits are nearly identical), I don't see how the bullpen aspect is playing into his current success. |
|
|
|
Post by bluechip on Jul 18, 2023 12:10:37 GMT -5
Interesting that there are two different guys named Rube on this list. That is a nickname I’ve never encountered in my personal life. Rube Waddell received his nickname for his eccentric behavior and lack of sophistication (Rube means 'country bumpkin' or 'hick'). I suggest anyone interested in early baseball folklore read-up on him. Here are a few highlights: - country boy who developed his arm strength by throwing rocks at birds - lost his first professional pitching job because he couldn't pay rent after spending full signing bonus on booze - once left during the middle of a game to go fishing - would often run-off to chase fire trucks during games - spent an offseason wrestling alligators - lost track of how many wives he had - was bribed to not show up for the 1905 world series - died of TB, after multiple cases of pneumonia, at the age of 37 - inducted into the baseball hall of fame in 1946. Was the only man with consecutive 300K seasons for 60 years (Sandy Koufax). Rube Marquard highlights: - received nickname because his pitching (also a lefty) reminded a scout of Waddell - inducted into the baseball hall of fame in 1971 and lived to be 93 - intelligent man who wasn't nearly as interesting as Rube Waddell I have always found Rube Waddell fascinating guy. Any one who is distracted by dogs in the stands (one of my favorite stories)… |
|
|
