Flames regularly emanate from the right arm of Mr. Jimenez.
Last week I looked at a few pitchers who succeed despite well-below-average fastball velocity. While it certainly is a lot of fun to watch a player with natural shortcomings get major league hitters out, a special allure comes with pure physical talent, with fireballers who can send pitch after pitch sizzling through the zone. From Nuke Laloosh to Ricky “Wild Thing” Vaughn, and on to Kenny Powers, the obsession with ethereal brilliance, and the unbridled wildness that often accompanies it, is reflected in depictions of fictional baseball players.
Getting up for six or seven innings and throwing 100 times puts a lot of stress on a player’s arm, and thus, while many starting pitchers can reach the mid-90s on occasion, those who are able to maintain an average fastball velocity above 95 miles per hour are in short supply. Righties Justin Verlander of the Detroit Tigers, Ubaldo Jimenez of the Colorado Rockies, and Felipe Paulino of the Houston Astros are the only active players in this category, and all three can touch or top 100 miles per hour.
Continue reading ‘Great Balls of Fire’
Despite studying Wake’s knuckler for 18 years, hitters are still confused about exactly how to hit it.
A general prerequisite for pitching in the major leagues is a good fastball. Most of the best pitchers have fastballs that reach an average velocity in the low-90s. A few, like Justin Verlander of the Detroit Tigers and Ubaldo Jimenez of the Colorado Rockies, are regularly in the mid-90s and occasionally able to touch 100 miles per hour. Mike Fast recently examined the importance of fastball velocity to a pitcher’s effectiveness and found it to be directly related to runs allowed. However, as I recently explored in my two-part series on batters who swing and miss, part of the beauty of baseball is the variety of skills and styles that can make up a successful player.
There is a small contingent of starting pitchers that survive and even prosper in the major leagues without a big fastball. In a typical season, these players average less than 86 miles per hour with their fastest stuff. As one might expect, they use several different methods to achieve success with this distinct disadvantage.
Continue reading ‘The Slow-balling Starters’
One constant in baseball is that employment opportunities are strictly limited. There are only so many plate appearances and innings to go around, and when one player gets the call, someone highly qualified often receives the shaft. Egregious cases happen every year—Dodgers manager Joe Torre benching Orlando Hudson for Ronnie Belliard last fall, for example. However, a particular level of crazy seems to overtake managerial minds when it comes to catchers.
He may look awkward, but this guy can hit the ball very, very far.
Perhaps part of the problem is how difficult it is to value the contributions catchers make behind the plate. When a batter hits a fly ball to center, say, the center fielder either does or does not record the out. There may be disagreement about how hard the play was, but there can be no argument about whether or not the fielder was successful. Nothing the catcher does is as clear. When he throws a runner out stealing, how much credit goes to his arm and footwork, and how much to the pitcher for keeping the runner close to first base? When he makes an excellent tag at the plate, how much credit goes to his quick reflexes, and how much to the outfielder who made a beautiful throw home? And how much does “handling the pitching staff” matter? The latter question is the subject of continual debate, with no real resolution except that it is probably less than conventional wisdom dictates.
Continue reading ‘Crazy About Catchers’
Lefty Brett Anderson gave the A’s 3.8 WAR as a rookie.
Every year, articles come out that show the amount each team spent per marginal win. This takes into account that a replacement-level team would win about 30 percent of its games and would cost $10 million for minimum salaries for a 25-man roster. In 2009, the Marlins were most efficient, though they did miss the playoffs. The Mets were the least efficient.
Cot’s Baseball Contracts has a spreadsheet that shows how each team allocated its payroll between pitchers and position players in 2009. Using these numbers, we can determine separate efficiency rankings for pitching and hitting. However, the standings cannot tell us how many wins each type of player accounted for, so instead I will use the wins above replacement (WAR) numbers from FanGraphs’s team pages.
Continue reading ‘Cost Per Win by Player Type’
Troy Glaus, who has hit 304 home runs in his career.
The baseball season has started, and, thanks to free agency, many players are in new uniforms for 2010. Early in the offseason, there was plenty of talent available. As I explored in my posts on the remaining hitters and pitchers on the market, teams did a good job acquiring all but the highest-risk options. Many of those acquisitions came at surprisingly low cost given the level of production they are likely to provide.
In the following table is a full 14-man staff of position players and backups, all of whom were free agents who signed one-year deals for less than $3 million this offseason. I have listed each player’s 2010 salary, from Cot’s Baseball Contracts, and CHONE projections for plate appearances and wins above replacement (WAR). The latter is via FanGraphs, which translates CHONE’s raw projection data to WAR on its player pages.
Continue reading ‘A Team of Free Agents’
There’s still hair on his fastball, if not his head.
On Wednesday, I went through the remaining free agent hitters and concluded that teams have done a great job finding and signing every bit of value. At most positions, there are no options who are likely to perform better than a decent career minor leaguer. The remaining aging sluggers are probably finished as useful players, and the few guys who could actually help a team are injury or personality risks.
The story is different on the pitching side. Though the remaining options are generally old and injury prone, there is quite a bit of value still available. One could cobble together a full pitching staff from players who are still looking for jobs. Here is how I would construct an 11-man staff, with player ages and 2010 CHONE projections. Note that Casey Fossum and Randy Messenger, while not affiliated with MLB teams, both currently play for the Hanshin Tigers of Japan.
Continue reading ‘Bottom of the Barrel: Pitchers’
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