VFTB

Say it ain’t So Bill…Say it ain’t So

This goes against everything I’ve been saying for the past. I’m sure it will thrill Matt to no end:

Are long at-bats more productive than short ones?

It seems obvious. Work the count. Make the pitcher labor. Foul off those two-strike pitches. As you go deeper in the count, it’s going to work in the batter’s favor.

Or does it?

The numbers beg to differ. Here are the major league averages for long and short at-bats (Short defined as three pitches or less, long as four pitches or more):
Avg On-Base Slugging OPS
Short At-Bats .301 .317 .467 .784
Long At-Bats .223 .352 .348 .700

Surprisingly, the OPS for short at-bats is significantly higher than long at-bats. What’s clear is that there is an advantage to hitters when they put one of the first three pitches in play. They hit almost 80 points higher and slug over 100 points higher.

There are two things that work in favor of hitters who work the count for longer at-bats. OPS is a great stat but not perfect. One of it’s imperfections is that it undervalues on-base percentage. Hence, the 84 point difference suggested is really less. The second element is hard to measure. There is certainly value to making pitchers work harder (i.e. throw more pitches) over the course of the game that is not measured here.

What about the really short and long at-bats (one-pitch ABs and ABs with seven or more pitches)?
Avg On-Base Slugging OPS
One and done .344 .349 .543 .892
Seven-up (7+) .230 .406 .372 .778

In both cases, hitters get better. Hitters, in general, are more selective on that first pitch and look for something in their wheelhouse as the pitcher tries to get ahead in the count. Nevertheless, it also pays off to really work deep into the count.

This is a new profile that we just added to Bill James Online. For more in-depth information (including short and long at-bat performance for every player going back to 2002), check out www.billjamesonline.com . It’s a subscription service, $3/month.

“Used with permission from John Dewan’s Stat of the Week™, www.statoftheweek.com.”

Posted in Research | 9 Comments »

Two Outs With The Bases Loaded…

Over the past month or so, Brandon and I have been previewing each team with bloggers on the podcast and closing by asking them if they were in that situation with the game tied in the bottom of the 9th if they would pinch hit for their star to bring in a midget. Most say no, but a few said they would, based on how midgets have performed in the past (1 plate appearance and 1 walk)

I decided to use Baseball Reference’s tool Play Index to take a look at how our stars have faired with two outs and the bases loaded, regardless of inning, in their career. Here were my findings:

(Plate Appearances / HR / RBI / AVG / OBP / SLG)

Soriano: 45 / 3 / 28 / .262 / .311 / .500

Ramirez: 52 / 2 / 34 / .255 / .327 / .511

Lee: 51 / 2 / 24 / .152 / .235 / .326

Jones: 55 / 1 / 34 / .291 / .291 / .400

Ouch, if there is such a thing as being clutch, it doesn’t seem like we’ve got guys that fit the mold in that situation. Let’s compare them to someone widely considered to be clutch, David Ortiz. Here are his career numbers in that same situation:

Ortiz: 66 / 4 / 57 / .317 / .379 / .650

What does this mean for this season? I have no earthly idea. Draw from it any whatever conclusions you will. I just found it interesting and thought I’d share.

Posted in Research | 5 Comments »

Pitch Use & Velocity From the Big Three

If you didn’t already know it, Fan Graphs has taken some cool data on pitch usage as well as velocity over the past three seasons. I decided to take a look at some of the members of our staff to see if we notice anything. What will we pull from the data? Who knows, maybe nothing. Let’s take a look.

Carlos Zambrano
A lot have said that big Z has lost some velocity on his fastball, yet he maintains that he hasn’t. Let’s let the data do the talking here. The following are the average velocities of his fastball over the past three seasons.

2005 - 92.8 mph
2006 - 92.2 mph
2007 - 91.6 mph

On the whole it doesn’t look drastic, but there is no doubt that the fastball has, in fact, declined in velocity. Whether or not that indicates any type of dead arm or concealed injury is up to you to speculate. One thing I know is that it bears watching this year to see if the decline continues. If he averages in the range slightly below 91 this year, I’m going to be a little concerned.

As for pitch usage, I noticed something interesting about his pitch selection. In 2005, his usage of the slider was roughly 16% of the time and he used his cutter just 1%. Fast forward to last year and you see roughly the same fastball usage, but the slider use has declined to 13% with the cutter use increasing to 9%. That’s a significant change and I wonder if it’s the result of his feeling less confident in the slider or more confident in the cutter.

Ted Lilly
Lilly appears to provide absolutely nothing to discuss other than his consistency in approach. His pitch usage breaks down to 56% fastball, 15% slider, 17% curveball, and 12% changeup. His fastball averaged a velocity of 88.4 mph.

The only other thing worth noting about Lilly’s pitch usage is his increase in curveball usage from 2005 - 2007 as he’s gone from 13.6% to 16.9%.

Rich Hill
I was very excited to look up Hill’s numbers because I wanted to see if he had changed anything over the past two years as he begins the process of being a legit Major League starting pitcher. What I found was exactly that. Hill did make a change last year.

2006 Pitch Usage - Fastball (70%), Curveball (23.4%), Changeup (5.0%)
2007 Pitch Usage - Fastball (60.6%), Curveball (27.3%), Changeup (8.3%)

He threw some sliders in there as well, but not really worth mentioning. What I see is a pitcher who is beginning to trust his off speed and breaking stuff a little more and rely less on his fastball. It’s no secret that his curve is one of the best in the Majors and it’s good to see him begin to trust it more.

All stats and information provided by Fan Graphs. Go check them out. In addition, have you gotten your entry done for the 2008 Home Run Derby Contest? The prize this year is a copy of MLB 08: the show for PS3. Click Here to enter

Posted in Research | 12 Comments »

Expected Wins By Starting Rotation Spot

A few weeks ago, a reader asked for a breakdown of exactly what kind of wins we could expect out of each slot in the rotation. To answer this question, I took the top starters from each team in terms of number of starts and then added the highest win total as the number one starter and so on down the line through the fifth spot in the rotation. What I found confirmed, yet again, that the Cubs are well above average in the starting pitching department. Here is a breakdown of the wins by rotation spot for every team in 2007 along with the average by team and rotation spot.

Can we finally put away the debate about whether or not the Cubs needed to go out and get Bedard? I’m perfectly content with what we have in house going into this season.

Don’t forget that if you’re interested in competing in the 2008 VFTB vs. Rays of Light fantasy baseball challenge on MLB Fantasy Open, shoot me an e-mail:

We’ve got 3 spots left for our team. If you have no idea what I’m talking about, here was the post about it.

Posted in Research | 7 Comments »