On the Wild Side

People like to think that all organizations think the same about the type of baseball its teams should play. And indeed, the inclusion in front offices of statistical analysis on most teams now would seem to trend these teams in the same direction. Perhaps batting philosophies have become more similar, but not pitching. Some nice studies have lately shown that Dave Righetti, pitching coach in San Francisco, has really focused with great success on the ability to limit fly balls from leaving the park. Other teams stress ground balls and others strikeouts. And some, like the Twins and Cardinals hate giving up free passes. There were fourteen pitchers in 2010 that pitched 100 or more innings and gave up more than four walks per nine innings. These fourteen guys wouldn't last a week in Minnesota.

And yet, six of the fourteen had winning records. Five of them had ERAs under 4.00. Two of them pitched more than 200 innings. Two of them pitched for World Series teams. So obviously, the teams they play for live with the walks or they wouldn't run those pitchers out there for that many innings. As you can imagine, all but two of those fourteen have pretty high strikeout rates. And so the old image of the power pitcher without command is one of the constants of baseball down through the years. Bob Feller and Nolan Ryan both led their leagues in walks many times.

Frankly, it drives the Fan crazy when pitchers walk batters. The Fan believes in making a player earn his way on base. If you walk a batter, that batter has a 100 percent chance of getting on base. If you let the batter hit the ball, the batter only has a 30 percent chance of getting on base. The Fan would always take his chances on the latter. But hey, that's why the Fan sits and thinks about baseball in the basement and not in the dugout.

So who are these fourteen? Maybe you would guess the guy on the top of the list. Maybe you wouldn't. But here is the list:

1. Carlos Zambrano - 4.79
2. Scott Kazmir - 4.73
3. Manny Parra - 4.65
4. Bud Norris - 4.51
5. Tom Gorzelanny - 4.49
6. Jonathan Sanchez - 4.47
7. Daisuke Matsuzaka - 4.33
8. Jake Arrieta - 4.21
9. Gio Gonzalez - 4.13
10. C. J. Wilson - 4.10
11. Jorge De La Rosa - 4.07
12. Brandon Morrow - 4.06
13. Tony Pena - 4.02
14. Jhoulys Chacin - 4.00

Of those listed above, Zambrano, Wilson, Gonzalez, Chacin and Sanchez all finished with an ERA+ of over 120. Gorzelanny and De La Rosa both finished over 100. So at least half of the above pitchers were more of a benefit to their teams than detractions. Arrieta and Tony Pena are the two exceptions to the high strikeout members of this club. Both finished under 100 (under league average) in ERA+ though Pena had a winning record and Arrieta finished 6-6 despite pitching for the Orioles.

Zambrano was a surprise for this writer. But perhaps he shouldn't be. He's led the league in walks twice over his career and he's only had three years where his walks per nine were south of 4.0. His career average is 4.1 walks per nine. As mentioned here in another post, the Cubs have a ten or more year history under Larry Rothschild (now with the Yankees after years with the Cubs) with high strikeouts and high walk rates. Gorzelanny and Zambrano are just two in a long line of Cubs pitchers that strikeout a lot of guys and walk a lot too. Their closer, Carlos Marmol is another famous example.

Scott Kazmir is another pitcher who has always walked people at a high rate. He got away with it through 2008 when he was striking out ten guys per nine innings. But his strikeout rate has fallen in recent years and with it, his effectiveness has gone out the window. He may just be the least effective starting pitcher in baseball the last two years and his Spring Training this year has not shown any improvement. Don't be surprised if the Angels start the season without him.

Walks are a pet peeve of this writer. And yet many as shown here on this list, have success despite the high walk rates. But how much better could these pitchers be if they attacked the strike zone more vigorously? A young guy like Jonathan Sanchez always finds himself at 100 pitches by the fifth inning. That is a strain on his arm and his team's bullpen. And Sanchez's velocity took a dip toward the end of 2010, so maybe it's catching up with him. Carlos Marmol's monster season in 2010 was due largely to his decrease in his walk rate. All these pitchers walk a fine line between success and failure. And sometimes, as in Kazmir's case, that fine line has a cliff on the other side.

Are Jonathan Sanchez's Stats Misleading?

There is this queasy feeling in the pit of the Fan's stomach because every day it becomes more clear that this writer often doesn't know what the heck he is talking about. This old guy has attempted to become conversant with the amazing number of statistics now bandied about. As a result, this Fan has little confidence that he can truly figure out a player's worth with any degree of accuracy. To be sure, people out there must be able to come close to figuring out that kind of thing. But the Fan would hazard a guess that there are more people in this writer's boat than are in the accurate elite ("elite" is not used here as a derogatory, just so you know). Most people would probably be in this writer's boat by stating that Jonathan Sanchez is a great pitcher who had a great year. But every time this observer watches Sanchez pitch, the feeling is always, "Is this all there is?"

No doubt the feeling comes from watching Sanchez pitch game after game where he has 80+ pitches notched by the fourth inning. Sanchez averaged 5.818 innings per start (yes, the Fan did throw out his one relief appearance). Or perhaps it is the fact that only 46.8% of his pitches are actually in the strike zone. He is often fortunate that anyone ever swings at one of his pitches. The figure, by the way, was the lowest of his career. His first pitch strike percentage was also the lowest of his career. There is no doubt that some of his success was due to the fact that more batters facing Sanchez swung at more pitches out of the strike zone than ever before. That's called O-Swing Percentage for those who need to know. So he threw less pitches in the strike zone, he threw less first pitch strikes and yet more batters swung at pitches outside the strike zone.

But what about the quality of his opponents? Giving you a full rundown of his game log for 2010 would stretch your patience. Besides, you can do that yourself at baseball-reference.com. Let's just do a summary:

Great games: April (2) Pittsburgh, San Diego. Not very good offenses. May (1) San Diego ibid. June (1) Orioles before they became the fighting Showalters. July (1) Mets. August (3) Colorado at Colorado. Okay, that's impressive; Phillies. Impressive again but the Phillies were struggling at the time. Colorado at home. September (2) Dodgers twice. Torre's team was dead in the water by September.

Good games: April (1) Phillies. But that is a stretch as he gave up 9 base runners in five innings covering 106 pitches. May (3) Mets, Oakland, Arizona. 19 innings, 4 homers, 329 pitches, 9 walks, but only 7 earned runs. June (1) Pittsburgh. July (1) Brewers. 6 innings, 11 base runners but only one run. August (0). September (1) Arizona.

So-So games: April (1) Phillies. Five innings, nine base runners, 107 pitches. May (1) San Diego. 4 runs on 7 hits, no walks. June (1) Cincinnati. Five innings, ten base runners, 3 runs. July (1) Arizona. Five innings, one run, 109 pitches, 10 base runners. August (1) Padres in a loss. Five plus innings. September (2) Cubs, Padres.

Bad games: April (1) Braves. May (1) Rockies. June (3) Red Sox, Dodgers, Blue Jays. July (2) Nationals, Marlins. August (2) Braves, Reds. September (0).

If the Fan is looking at all that right, then the only quality offenses Sanchez had either a great or good outing against was the Rockies twice and the Phillies twice. So, in conclusion, Sanchez's statistics are somewhat misleading. He doesn't fare well against good offenses as the post season is clearly showing us. A conclusion which many of you will probably confirm that the opening statement of this post is true in that the Fan probably doesn't know what he is talking about.

Sanchez Gaining on Lincecum

Managers all over baseball would love to have a top four starting rotation like the Giants have. And who would have guessed that Matt Cain would be the fourth best of the bunch? Barry Zito has been great so far and Lincecum has been...well Lincecum. But the biggest pleasant surprise so far for the Giants has been Jonathan Sanchez. He lost a heart breaker to the Padres last night but still pitched a heck of a game. At this point in the season, Sanchez has almost been as good as the ace.

Look at the ERA+ and WHIP of the top four:

Lincecum: 521, 0.800
Zito: 252, 0.879
Sanchez: 252, 0.983
Cain: 122, 1.125

Wow! If they Giants could start getting some good starts from Wellemeyer, then this rotation could be one for the ages. But the most pleasant surprise has been Sanchez. We all know he had that no-hitter and thus the talent to be this good. But he was erratic. He'd have great outings and then he would have stinkers. All of his outings this year have been very good and that consistency seems to indicate that he has come into his own as one of the elite pitchers in the National League.

Sanchez is averaging 12.6 strikeouts per nine innings and his 27 K's tops even Lincecum. The only difference between the two is their walk rates. Lincecum has only walked three guys in 20 innings whereas Sanchez has walked eight in 19.1. If Sanchez could knock down that 3.7 walks per nine inning rate, he would really be a monster.

But that walk rate is significantly better than last year's and his career rate. Last year, Sanchez walked 4.8 batters per nine innings and his career total is 4.6. So that's a vast improvement. That improvement has led to his best K/BB ratio of his career at 3.32. And he hasn't given up a homer in his three starts which is great. Last year Sanchez gave up 19 dingers and if you walk a couple and then give up a homer, you are down three runs before you knew what happened. Walking less means less stress and less mistakes.

His high walk rates meant that Sanchez has pretty much been a five inning pitcher. He averaged 5.09 innings per start last year. His average this year is well over six innings per start. That makes a huge difference in his results and is just one more step to being a really top notch starter.

It doesn't really matter that the Giants can't hit very much. The pitching staff makes the Giants relevant. The great turnaround by Zito and the vast improvement of Sanchez means the Giants can make a run at the National League West, where the teams seems to be wallowing a bit thus far. If you were to ever get this rotation in a playoff situation, they could be very dangerous.

It will be fun to watch if Sanchez can continue to build on what has been a great start to his season. He always had the talent. And now he is starting to get out of the way of it.