Jonny Venters - A Danger to Worms Everywhere

Jonny Venters is a walking, talking anomaly. And it isn't just because he spells his first name funny. In two years pitching out of the bullpen for the Atlanta Braves, Venters has allowed 410 ball hit in play (not including bunts). In those 410 balls in play, 290 have been hit on the ground. Being a worm that lives in the infield of Turner Field has to be a terrifying prospect. Venters leads the majors in ground balls percentage over the past two years at 70.5 percent. His teammate, Peter Moylan, is second at 69.2 percent. Nobody else is even close.

In simplistic terms, the trajectory of a batted ball can affect a batter's success. There are a lot more factors as a comment by Robbie Knopf on another recent post correctly suggests. The speed of the ball off the bat makes a difference too. What is counted as a line drive can be just as much a soft hump-backer to the shortstop as it can be a rope into the gap. But in general and simplistic terms, it's pretty hard to hit a ground ball into a homer. Perhaps an inside the park homer is possible, but if a batter hits the ball on the ground, it isn't going to go over the fence.

A ground ball has to be fielded of course. And that is often out of the pitcher's hands. But if you induce ground balls, good things can happen. They've happened a lot for Jonny Venters. The Braves have leaned on him heavily.  He led all relievers in appearances in 2011 with 85. The year before, Venters pitched in 79 games. The Braves were criticized at the end of 2011 for burning out the bullpen, but when you have the likes of Venters, Moylan, Kimbrel and O'Flaherty at your disposal, it must be a hard temptation to resist. And Venters has been amazingly reliable in his first two years in the majors.

Venters' numbers are eye-popping. In his two years, his ERA has been 1.95 and 1.84 respectively. He's given up only three homers in 171 innings of work for an astounding 0.2 homers per nine inning rate. He's only given up six hits per nine innings and was even stingier in that category in 2011 with a 5.4 rate. Venters has fanned batters at a 9.9 per nine inning clip for his short career. His only statistic that is a detriment is his 82 walks, good for a 4.3 walks per nine rate. He's also hit 13 batters, so his control could be better. His walks are one reason for his FIP to come in at 2.74 or +.85 for his career. But geez, you'll take that from a reliever, right? Especially when 22 of his 206 base runners have been erased with double plays.

But there is more. While the high ground ball rate limits fly balls, Jonny Venters also does a great job of limiting line drives. Batters against him only delivered a 13.7 percent line drive rate against him in 2011 and his career rate is 14.4 percent in that category. League average during that time span is 18.7 percent. Venters' WPA was an excellent 4.28 which means he shared a good part of win probability for the Braves whenever he pitched. Is Venters' low BABIP rate for his career of .264 a product of his lack of line drives and large numbers of ground balls or just luck? It would easy to argue the former. 

If 70.5 percent of Venters' balls allowed in play result in a .221 batting average against and a .245 slugging percentage, that means that eight out of ten batters against him are going to lead to good results (the other one being a strikeout). Indeed, Venters has been favored by a .530 OPS against for his career. Amazing.

While it remains to be seen how the stress of all those appearances will work against Venters in the long run, what we've seen from him in his two years in the majors has been remarkable. If he can withstand the high usage and continue getting pitch values of 12 runs above average on his fastball and 11.9 runs above average on his slider, we can continue to expect a bunch of worms to be traumatized for years to come.

Braves' Bullpen Wearing Down?

Last night in a Twitter conversation with Mark L. Smith of The Platoon Advantage, the state of the Atlanta Braves' bullpen was discussed. Jonny Venters gave up a bunch of base runners and then Craig Kimbrel blew the save and gave up two runs after a long, long perfect stretch of spectacular appearances. Sure, it could be the law of averages catching up on them. Or it could be a bunch of "BABIP" hits. But there is a definite possibility that the Braves' bullpen is tired and with young pitchers, that's not what you want heading into the post season (if the Braves hang on to the wild card, that is).

The Braves currently rank third in all of baseball in reliever appearances behind only the Marlins and the Pirates. Kimbrel, in his rookie season, has pitched seventy-two times. Darn near all of those appearances were in high leverage situations. He is ninth in the majors among relievers in WPA. Number one on that list is Jonny Venters, himself only in his second season. Being that high on the WPA list means that Venters has been in even more high leverage situations than Kimbrel. Venters has made seventy-seven appearances good for 80.2 innings of work. Don't get this writer wrong, they have both been brilliant this season. But when you have such a good thing going in a bullpen, the danger is over using it.

Eric O'Flaherty has made seventy appearances with slightly less innings pitched than appearances. But still, each appearance means warming up and throwing a lot of baseballs. Scott Linebrink has "only" fifty-eight appearances, but consider that he had forty-one appearances in the first half alone and he is a pitcher ripe for breaking down. George Sherrill has fifty-one appearances.

To see if we can show any evidence of wear and tear on this fabulous bunch of relievers, this writer consulted Fangraphs' wonderful Velocity Charts on four of the key relievers. This writer believes you can see a drop in velocity over the last few appearances for each of the four. First up is Kimbrel's:

Next Venters which shows a significant drop:

O'Flaherty:

And finally Linebrink whose velocity has really gone down of late:

From the looks of things, these guys need a rest. As Mark mentioned in his final tweet on the subject last night, the Braves better clinch the wild card soon and then rest these guys. Venters in particular seems to be the one in most need of some shutdown time. The last thing you want is a bunch of dead arms going into the playoffs. Beachy, Minor, Hudson and the rest of the rotation could help by going deeper into games.

Super Sub and Submarines

The Braves looked like they were in trouble playing Houston on Tuesday night. Their NL East lead had shrunk to a game and a half to the surging Phillies and they were down 2-1 going into the ninth inning. Jair Jurrjens pitched a great game but three Atlanta errors led to two runs in the bottom of the eighth inning and they looked like they were going to miss out on a chance to gain on the Phillies, who got whacked by the Dodgers. Fortunately, Jonny Venters did what he's done all year and put out the fire in the eighth to keep the game at one run.

And then Brooks Conrad came up in the ninth inning. Conrad had come in to spell Chipper Jones at third late in the game. Brooked Conrad has not shown himself to be much of a major league hitter. In 186 plate appearances, he's hit all of .214. He's a utility guy at best and at 30 years of age, doesn't figure to get much better or ever figure to be more than what he is. But if it's late in the game with the game on the line, you don't want to be facing Brooks Conrad. The .214 lifetime hitter has a 1.060 OPS in high leverage situations. He had won another game earlier in the year with a walk off grand slam. And with this game on the line against Matt Lindstrom, he followed an Alex Gonzalez single with a two runner homer to put his team ahead. Troy Glaus added a solo homer to give the Braves a two run cushion, but Conrad was the difference.

Billy Wagner threw a perfect ninth for the save and the Braves ended up picking up a game on the Phillies after all. The Braves' bullpen has been amazing. Wagner, who has said he will retire at the end of this season, is throwing as well as he has in his entire career. He is proving that behind Mariano Rivera, he's probably the second best closer who ever played that position. But Venters has been an amazing story. His submarine style is just killer and his season ERA now sits at 1.09 to go along with a 1.01 WHIP. It's hard to imagine where the Braves would be this season without him. His season reminds this old Fan of 1996 when Rivera pitched the eighth for the Yankees in setting up Wetteland. Venters doesn't throw as many innings as Rivera did that season, but he is certainly as effective.

And so, a super sub and a submariner led the way for the Braves and gave them a little bigger cushion in the NL East race.