Last week Rob Neyer posted a very interesting article about Melky Cabrera, and in the piece Rob was using detailed hit data to perhaps explain the difference in Cabrera this year versus prior years. [Here is the article for your reference ( http://mlb.sbnation.com/2012/8/17/3248066/melky-cabrera-testosterone-2012-season-giants-suspended ) ]. Now Rob, as you know, has spent the last 20 years being one of most recognized and respected baseball writers; first working for Bill James, then for over a dozen years at ESPN, and now he resides at SB Nation in his pretigous role as National Baseball Editor. Thus it would be impossible to think that he is trying to minimize the decision of Melky's use of PEDs, or the impact that it had on the game and its fans. And in fact he says as much in his piece. Rob did have some very interesting points, and he also referenced some excerpts from a posting by @jackdickey from deadspin.
Here are some of the tidbits:
"The only big spike for Cabrera came with his BABIP. His career BABIP is .309, but he hit .332 on balls in play last year and .379 on balls in play this year..... Cabrera got faster after losing 20 pounds during the offseason. In 2011, he set career highs in infield hits—with 26—and bunt hits—with 8. Those balls would have been outs in past years, but because of his new physique they were hits in 2011. His BABIP and batting average increased accordingly" (Dickey)
"Again, hardly enough to explain a .346 batting average.... Maybe he's actually been hitting the baseball harder these last two seasons.... it feels overly simplistic to merely assign all of them to good luck. But if he's actually hitting the ball harder, wouldn't we expect to see a significantly higher line-drive rate? Wouldn't we expect to see more home runs per fly ball? Cabrera's line-drive rate has gone up just slightly in the last two seasons. But his home runs per fly ball has skyrocketed from 6 percent before 2010 to 10 percent in 2011-2012 ... ah, but again we run into a sample-size issue, because we're talking about 29 home runs over two seasons. Take away just 11 home runs over those two seasons and we're right back to 6 percent." (Neyer)
Clearly the data found on www.fangraphs.com is opening up new worlds for the average (or perhaps the 'above-average') fan to gain detailed perspectives on the numbers we are seeing. This is exactly what we were discussing on our Sunday night "Just Talking To The Cornfield" show. A lot of what we were discussing was geared towards being able to project performance trends, yet clearly I was just catering to my own interest and desire to understand how the 2012 Andrew McCutchen differs from the 2011 version. As we often like to quote movies to explain things, the sensitivity of statistics is best explained by Crash Davis as he wished to explain what it takes to be a .300 hitter:
"That means if you get just one extra flare a week - just one - a gorp... you
get a groundball, you get a groundball with eyes... you get a dying quail, just
one more dying quail a week... and you're in Yankee Stadium."
So how did Andrew McCutchen (who we nickname "McFly" based upon a contest submission) go from being a slick fielder with above average power and an incredible consistentcy in getting on base (prior 3 years OBA .365, .365, .364) to being an MVP candidate and a flat-out superstar. A couple of years ago I'd be satisfied with the ole "Well as a player approaches his late 20's he begins to enter into his prime offensive years". Blah... Blah....Blah. Explain Jeff Francouer with that logic and I will buy you an Official Red Ryder Carbine-Action Two-Hundred-Shot Range Model Air Rifle. And you will DEFINITELY shoot your eye out kid.
So I dug into McCutchen's fangraphs page and found something quite interesting. Expectedly, you will find that McCutchen's line-drive % has risen in the last 3 years from 19%, to 20% to 22%. This stat was used in part to explain Melky's increased performance as well. You can also see that while McCutchen's flyball rate has gone down, his % of home runs to flyball has gone up, and that was merely a result from his spike in power. However the stat that stood out to me was the trend in his Z-Swing % (defined as "The percentage of pitches a batter swings at inside the strike zone.") In 2010 McFly's Z-Swing % was 56%, and it rose to 61% last year, yet his average decreased from .286 to .259. In addition, between 2010 and 2011 his ground ball ratio went from 43% to 38% while his fly ball rate went from 38% to 42%. His BABIP also decreased from .311 to .291. Clearly Andrew was swinging for the fences. But why??
In 2010, 67% of McCutchen at-bats came from the #1 or #2 spots in the lineup, with 33% coming from when he was in the 3-hole. In 2011, he spent most of the season batting 3rd or even cleanup, which he had a combined 68% of his at-bats, with the remaining 32% as a leadoff hitter. However, in 2012, he is fully entrenched into the 3rd spot in the lineup, and to a degree he returned to the type of hitter that he was accustomed to being, and his ground ball ratio increased back to 44%. Yet one other thing happened in 2012. McCutchen's Z-Swing score (once again defined as the % of pitches a batter swings at inside the strike zone) skyrocketed to almost 70%. This seemingly changed everything about McCutchen's game. His line-drive % jumped from 19% to 23% and while his fly ball rate dropped from 42% to 'only' 32%, his FB/HR ratio leaped from 12% to 22%, and his BABIP climbed to .400.
Putting this into words..... McCutchen was a very good, and a very consistent hitter. His power dictated that he would become an effective #3 hitter in the lineup. In moving down from leadoff to the 3 or 4 spot in the lineup, he began to forego his hitting style and began to try to produce more power. This resulted in more flyballs, less ground balls, a lower BABIP, and a lower batting average. In 2012, he returned back to his hitting style, yet began to swing at more pitches in the strike zone. While always a very consistent OBA guy, his pitch recognition seemingly increased vastly, all while becoming a more aggressive hitter. The results.... he became "the shit".
All of this theoretically has been well understood by baseball people for years. Yet the baseball-stat nuts of the world can now easily find mathematical evidence to help explain what we see in the leaderboards. And man I could do this all day. Here are some more items that I noted:
Chipper Jones - Hit 20 homers a year from 1996-2008, but since has his 18, 10, 18. His batting average in the last three years has been around .270. In 2012 he has had a bit of a resurgeance in power, all while carrying a batting average greater than .300. But how?? Per the fangraphs data, Chipper has historically been an incredibly consistent hitter, extremely disciplined. However over the past few years his O-Swing % (% of Swings on pitches 'outside' the strike zone) has climbed to 25%, after not reaching 18% at any other point in his career. In addition, his fly ball % has decreased to under 33%, which is the lowest point in his careeer. Thus, one can deduce that after 3 years of decreased performance and decreased power output, Jones has evolved into a bit more of a slap-style hitter, and he has begun to swing at more pitches outside the strike-zone. In turn his well-regarded batting-eye has allowed him to make consistent contact with those pitches, and increased his line drive % to over 22%, the highest since 2008. Result is a 40 point increase in batting average.
Want more?? Take a look at Dustin Pedroia. His batting average is down about 25 points from his career average. His home run rate appears to be somewhat consistent, but he's knocking a bit less doubles than he was back in 2008-2009. What you also can note is that his walk rate (as well as his BB/K ratio) is the lowest of his career. Most of his "swing" %'s appear to be consistent, but as the case is, one stands out. Pedroia's Z-Contact % (or the % of pitches in the strike zone that he makes contact with) is down from his career average of 94%, down to 90% this year.
Going back to Rob Neyer's piece for a moment, he states: "His (Cabrera's) ground-ball rate this season is 52 percent; his career rate is 49 percent. Please feel free to correct me, but while a three-percent increase might be significant, it sure doesn't seem significant to make Cabrera one of the better hitters in the National League."
It may not seem significant, and at first to me I wasn't sure if it did either. But lets use Pedroia to summarize what we've learned. Pedroia's Z-Contact rate is down 4%. Assuming that Pedroia sees 1,200-1,400 strikes per year thats approximately 56 pitches that he is no longer making contact with. Now lets assume 75% of those pitches are put in play (i.e. not foul or not home runs). With a .311 career BABIP thats about 13 extra hits per year. Those 13 extra hits return Pedroia to his typical .300 batting average. Yeah, I'd say in this case that 4% is pretty signifcant.
And man that Crash Davis sure knows his hitting.
Thanks for listening,
Colonel Sunday
Just Talking to the Cornfield is baseball talk show that often goes horribly wrong. Join Earl and the Colonel as they talk about baseball and all things baseball-related. We're mostly on Sunday nights at 9PM EST, but sometimes we prefer to do a post-Happy Hour show on Friday nights because normally we're idiots. But after a few cocktails we're geniuses. Until we listen to the show the next day. Sigh
SundayColonel@aol.com
@JTTTCColonel (Colonel)
@VerdantDude (Earl)
Earl N Colonel (Facebook)
Sunday 9 PM on Talk Shoe:
http://www.talkshoe.com/talkshoe/web/talkCast.jsp?masterId=95365&cmd=tc
Tuesday, August 21, 2012
Friday, August 17, 2012
The Purity of the Game
Hey friends,
So for many many months, I've spent way too much time considering if I should create a blog. I've resisted it so often, strictly because it was just "one more thing" I needed to attend to. For those who listen and follow our show "Just Talking To The Cornfield" you will know that for all of our unusual behavior and weird topics, Earl and I are the most simple of baseball fans. In general, Earl, also known as "The Verdant Dude" (http://beearl.blogspot.com) , has the most eclectic tastes. Yet, we like our baseball straight, the way it was meant to be. Trey Wilson, who played Skip in Bull Durham said it best:
"This... is a simple game. You throw the ball. You hit the ball. You catch the ball."
That's it. Its a ball game played on grass. We identify with the players because they seem like us. You don't need to be 7 feet tall, you don't need to weigh 320 and bench 500 pounds. Sports that require you to be a 'physiological outlier' such as basketball and football are interesting, but I personally prefer baseball, and have since I was 6. I vividly recall buying a pack of baseball cards from the ice cream man and opening it to find a Hank Aaron card. I remember the moment like it was this morning. I can remember the gasp, the deep breath I took when I looked at that perfect card, knowing what it stood for. It was the same size of my young hand, yet it held a history lesson. It presented a picture of a hero, who had performed for over 20 years at the highest level. The statistics on the back summarized accomplishments that only a handful of men have approached. On all of those small lines on the back it showed an aggregation of performance from over 3,000 Major League games played. My young mind could barely grasp the impact of it all, but I knew it was good. Damn good.
And thus, the bar is set. Millions of young men across the world play the game, and the select few are able to reach some of that success. Of course there can only be so many Aarons, Clementes, or Seavers, yet being a Teddy Higuera or a Steve Finley is pretty darn good too. The light may not shine as brightly, but it still shines.
As a fan I can appreciate the beauty of an outfield throw from Ankiel, or a double laced to the corner by some .200 hitter who was perhaps lucky to get a piece of one. I dig that Willie Bloomquist has his place in the game. I even like every teams need for a LOOGY (a Lefty One-Out Guy as coined by John Sickels). Yet lets face it, most of us are drawn to Strasburg, Josh Hamilton, Aroldis Chapman and the Dimaggio-esque introduction of Mike Trout. Unlike any other sport, and probably more so than even the stock market, the numbers associated with baseball are unconscionably addictive. I have dear friends who track lefty-righty stats on a daily basis. Seriously, if its August and someone is hitting .320 and they go 1-4 versus a righty, do you really need to ensure his average is now .318 after the game. The answer for many of us is yes. My answer is yes. The reason is we use these statistics to gravitate to our heroes. Thats for the fan.
As far as the player, he knows that other than his health and age, his statistics are the single biggest driver towards driving his or her rate of compensation. I do not begrudge any one for doing what is necessary to increase one's compensation..... except doing so under false pretense. So many of us work in a professional atmosphere, and have heard stories about others 'taking credit' for ones work. The anger and poisonous ill will that arises from such situations is as thick as the Walls of Babylon. Yet in those cases at least ONE of the parties did work on the level. The same can not be said of what we witnessed recently with Melky Cabrera. It was this latest episode that finally pushed me over the top and garnered me with the need to unload my feelings in permanence on the web.
Cabrera never hit 15 homers in a season, nor had he ever hit over .300 until last year with KC. He was a good fielder. He had an above-average contact rate, he was approaching his prime and had long-since overcome the death knell term of being coined as a 'servicable' Major Leaguer. He was making $6 Million this year. More than likely based upon his 2010 statistics (.255 / 4 / 42) he wasn't going to make much more, but surely he was going to be employed, and paid well. He made the conscious decision it wasn't enough. What he did was done with such puerile rationale that it was the equivalent of robbing a bank 5 minutes after being told the most sophisticated high-tech camera system was installed. Fortunately his theft was caught before a multi-million dollar contract was signed. Yet five-weeks ago he had the gaul to step foot in Kansas City and walk away with an MVP award. Yes.... a clandestine cheater was labeled as the MOST valuable player at a game in which the greatest players collaborate for a celebration of the sport.
I feel sadness for the player who should have been an All-Star instead of Melky. I feel sadness for Jonathan Sanchez who was traded from his beloved San Francisco for a basket of false ability. I feel sadness for the latest notch on the belt of integrity which has been punctured in the game. But yet I feel the most sadness for the loss of hope as some young child will gasp a bit less when he opens his next pack of baseball cards.
As the title of our weekly internet show "Just Talking To The Cornfield" is taken from the film "Field Of Dreams", I feel that its both right, and that I am graciously obligated to recite the following:
"The one constant through all the years, Ray, has been baseball. America has rolled by like an army of steamrollers. It has been erased like a blackboard, rebuilt and erased again. But baseball has marked the time. This field, this game: it's a part of our past, Ray. It reminds of us of all that once was good and it could be again."
Here's hoping it could be again.
Colonel Sunday
SundayColonel@aol.com
@JTTTCColonel (Twitter)
Earl N Colonel (Facebook)
http://www.talkshoe.com/talkshoe/web/talkCast.jsp?masterId=95365&cmd=tc
So for many many months, I've spent way too much time considering if I should create a blog. I've resisted it so often, strictly because it was just "one more thing" I needed to attend to. For those who listen and follow our show "Just Talking To The Cornfield" you will know that for all of our unusual behavior and weird topics, Earl and I are the most simple of baseball fans. In general, Earl, also known as "The Verdant Dude" (http://beearl.blogspot.com) , has the most eclectic tastes. Yet, we like our baseball straight, the way it was meant to be. Trey Wilson, who played Skip in Bull Durham said it best:
"This... is a simple game. You throw the ball. You hit the ball. You catch the ball."
That's it. Its a ball game played on grass. We identify with the players because they seem like us. You don't need to be 7 feet tall, you don't need to weigh 320 and bench 500 pounds. Sports that require you to be a 'physiological outlier' such as basketball and football are interesting, but I personally prefer baseball, and have since I was 6. I vividly recall buying a pack of baseball cards from the ice cream man and opening it to find a Hank Aaron card. I remember the moment like it was this morning. I can remember the gasp, the deep breath I took when I looked at that perfect card, knowing what it stood for. It was the same size of my young hand, yet it held a history lesson. It presented a picture of a hero, who had performed for over 20 years at the highest level. The statistics on the back summarized accomplishments that only a handful of men have approached. On all of those small lines on the back it showed an aggregation of performance from over 3,000 Major League games played. My young mind could barely grasp the impact of it all, but I knew it was good. Damn good.
And thus, the bar is set. Millions of young men across the world play the game, and the select few are able to reach some of that success. Of course there can only be so many Aarons, Clementes, or Seavers, yet being a Teddy Higuera or a Steve Finley is pretty darn good too. The light may not shine as brightly, but it still shines.
As a fan I can appreciate the beauty of an outfield throw from Ankiel, or a double laced to the corner by some .200 hitter who was perhaps lucky to get a piece of one. I dig that Willie Bloomquist has his place in the game. I even like every teams need for a LOOGY (a Lefty One-Out Guy as coined by John Sickels). Yet lets face it, most of us are drawn to Strasburg, Josh Hamilton, Aroldis Chapman and the Dimaggio-esque introduction of Mike Trout. Unlike any other sport, and probably more so than even the stock market, the numbers associated with baseball are unconscionably addictive. I have dear friends who track lefty-righty stats on a daily basis. Seriously, if its August and someone is hitting .320 and they go 1-4 versus a righty, do you really need to ensure his average is now .318 after the game. The answer for many of us is yes. My answer is yes. The reason is we use these statistics to gravitate to our heroes. Thats for the fan.
As far as the player, he knows that other than his health and age, his statistics are the single biggest driver towards driving his or her rate of compensation. I do not begrudge any one for doing what is necessary to increase one's compensation..... except doing so under false pretense. So many of us work in a professional atmosphere, and have heard stories about others 'taking credit' for ones work. The anger and poisonous ill will that arises from such situations is as thick as the Walls of Babylon. Yet in those cases at least ONE of the parties did work on the level. The same can not be said of what we witnessed recently with Melky Cabrera. It was this latest episode that finally pushed me over the top and garnered me with the need to unload my feelings in permanence on the web.
Cabrera never hit 15 homers in a season, nor had he ever hit over .300 until last year with KC. He was a good fielder. He had an above-average contact rate, he was approaching his prime and had long-since overcome the death knell term of being coined as a 'servicable' Major Leaguer. He was making $6 Million this year. More than likely based upon his 2010 statistics (.255 / 4 / 42) he wasn't going to make much more, but surely he was going to be employed, and paid well. He made the conscious decision it wasn't enough. What he did was done with such puerile rationale that it was the equivalent of robbing a bank 5 minutes after being told the most sophisticated high-tech camera system was installed. Fortunately his theft was caught before a multi-million dollar contract was signed. Yet five-weeks ago he had the gaul to step foot in Kansas City and walk away with an MVP award. Yes.... a clandestine cheater was labeled as the MOST valuable player at a game in which the greatest players collaborate for a celebration of the sport.
I feel sadness for the player who should have been an All-Star instead of Melky. I feel sadness for Jonathan Sanchez who was traded from his beloved San Francisco for a basket of false ability. I feel sadness for the latest notch on the belt of integrity which has been punctured in the game. But yet I feel the most sadness for the loss of hope as some young child will gasp a bit less when he opens his next pack of baseball cards.
As the title of our weekly internet show "Just Talking To The Cornfield" is taken from the film "Field Of Dreams", I feel that its both right, and that I am graciously obligated to recite the following:
"The one constant through all the years, Ray, has been baseball. America has rolled by like an army of steamrollers. It has been erased like a blackboard, rebuilt and erased again. But baseball has marked the time. This field, this game: it's a part of our past, Ray. It reminds of us of all that once was good and it could be again."
Here's hoping it could be again.
Colonel Sunday
SundayColonel@aol.com
@JTTTCColonel (Twitter)
Earl N Colonel (Facebook)
http://www.talkshoe.com/talkshoe/web/talkCast.jsp?masterId=95365&cmd=tc
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