Riding High in April, Shot Down in May (and Vice Versa)
Posted by ubelmann on Saturday, May 31st, 2008 at 11:48 pm
- I'm feeling a bit for Boof right now. He works his ass off in the offseason to lose weight, because he's essentially been promised that losing weight will help him pitch better (even though there's not really a whole lot of evidence that that would be the case), then he winds up pitching about as well as he has in the past, with the results probably looking worse than they should have (at least if you're judging by ERA.)
I suppose that it was appropriate that Jesse Crain came into the sixth inning and allowed both runners on base to score. Last year, situations with runners on first and second base with no outs led to 1.5 runs on average, and Crain allowed 3 runs to cross, including Boof's two. Adding that into the rest of the season, the bullpen has allowed about 1.7 additional runs in Boof's ERA than an average bullpen would, which is nearly the worst bullpen support any of our starters have had (Blackburn is at about 1.9 additional runs.) This comes after the bullpen gave Boof the least support of all our starters last year, too.
I also suppose we'll hear about how Boof allowed 117 earned runs over his last 177 innings (for a 5.95 ERA) and that's just not "getting the job done." It's probably some combination of bad pitching, poor bullpen support, a non-stellar defense, and bad luck, but it was about 26 runs worse than league average and that's what people are going to look at, I guess. Tradition dies hard, and giving pitchers too much credit for run prevention is an age-old baseball tradition.
That's life, I guess. You work your ass off, things don't go your way for a while, and people naturally jump off the bandwagon. The good news is that, for one, there are a number of non-baseball reasons to lose weight. And additionally, if Boof keeps working hard, his results will turn around eventually, and when some other mediocre starter runs into a rough patch, or someone less durable than Boof gets injured, he'll get his shot at a rotation spot again, whether it's with the Twins or some other team.
- It seemed like Kubel was totally overmatched by Wang, and it got me to wondering if Kubel has trouble with pitches at the bottom of the zone, so that it's tough for him to hit a good sinker. Well, I checked his career splits, and so far in his career, he's hit:
.266/.338/.447 -- Kubel vs. Fly ball pitchers
.265/.311/.444 -- Kubel vs. Avg G/F pitchers
.254/.302/.369 -- Kubel vs. Ground ball pitchers
His strikeout rate is actually better against GB pitchers than it is against FB pitchers, but certainly the power totally evaporates against GB pitchers.
Anyway, it's always tough to tell if patterns like this will keep up, but it's something to keep in mind. Coming into last night's game, Kubel was .269/.333/.433 in May. Certainly nothing spectacular, but closer to what many were expecting out of him than his rather forgettable .237/.257/.381 line from April.
Loading ...
I'm not so sure people were telling Boof losing weight would help him pitch better so much as it would help him pitch longer. The take was that he tired earlier in the game than he should be. Tiring early usually mean getting in a jam and leaving before the 7th or 8th, and depending on your relievers to deal with the runners you left on (which the relievers weren't dealing with very well). In theory it was a good idea.
See, I still don't really buy that. Look at Livan. Or even Silva, to an extent. Those guys were known as innings eaters and their physique certainly didn't hold them back. I can see where it's a tempting argument, but for one thing, I don't think Boof's late inning problems were as significant as people thought they were (small sample size) and there's just not much evidence that fat pitchers have trouble getting tired at the end of the game. I've even heard people suggest that fat pitchers are more durable than fit pitchers.
Healthwise, it was still a good idea for Boof to lose the pounds, but I just think that there was little chance he was going to see any sort of benefit in his performance as the result of losing weight.
I never said I agreed with people saying it would help Boof pitch longer, only that people were saying that. Obviously there are hefty pitchers that eat the innings, but Boof didn't seem to be one of them. Hence the suggestions.
Comment of the day from LEN3's game recap:
GARDY AND PRESIDENT BUSH: TWO PEAS IN A POD.
Why in the world when there are runners at first and second and nobody out, does the manager not bunt them to third? the score was tied, we only needed one run and a hit to the outfield would have scored it after a sacrifice. Sure, Morneau was at the plate, but he can bunt just as well as anybody else (probably better since he uses a larger, heavier bat). What a lame-brained idea to let the hitter hit away in this situation. Come on Gardy, take control of your gaggle!
posted by greig on Jun. 1, 08 at 7:11 AM |
0 of 2 people liked this comment. Do you?
I love the Bush tie in and the 'larger, heavier bat."
Sure, Morneau (their best hitter) was at the plate, but come on, give up the out!
That's probably the same guy who basically called Mauer a selfish jerk for not changing his approach at the plate to hit home runs.
We need to grant this guy citizenship ASAP. He's brilliant!
I want (translate: I am dying) to hear more about this so-called "big bat theory."
Size matters.
I would love to hear this guy's reasoning, I'm sure it's rock solid. I just have a question, and please correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't the bat barrels a standard (like a maximum legal) size and the only thing that may be "larger" about Morneau's bat is the length? If this is the case, I would be real curious to know how a longer bat would make it easier to get a bunt down.
And the fact that he says someone who I have never seen bunt is as good a bunter as anyone, wow, just wow.
from the official rules:
bats can be narrower at the barrel than the standard, but not wider.
Only colorless bats are permitted. Moss never knew that.
No colored bat? That's pretty racist.
Rhu_Ru channels his inner-Al Campanis.
Inner-Rev. Sharpton, maybe.
Listening to Reusse and Souhan this morning interviewing Gardy and it comes out that Redmond is playing today.
Reusse: Where's Redmond hitting, eighth?
Gardy: No, we're going to hit him third.
SBG: Quel surprise!
I haven't done any research on this at all, but I would think that a lot of hitters show drops in SLG against ground ball pitchers, right? Is Kubel's drop a larger one than most?
I would agree (also with no research). Using Silva as an example, he gave up alot of hits and logic would say that if his SLG against wasn't lower than other non ground ball pitchers he'd get lit up every game right? But on the flip side of that every hitter that gets a single has a 1.000 SLG for that at bat so you'd think that's add up.
SLG is just TB/AB, so the calculation is pretty easy with one ancillary assumption about the distribution of XBH (or rather, 2 assumptions -- a specific assumption about the avg bases per XBH and the assumption that the distribution is independent of pitcher type).
assume Kubel's average XBH is a triple, independent of pitcher type. Since a triple is worth 3X the SLG as a single, it follows that his SLG goes up against a GB pitcher relative to the fly-ball pitcher if his increase in singles rate is greater than 1/3 the decrease in his XBH rate.
so, if his singles rate is 30 pts higher but his XBH rate is 10 pts lower, the effect on SLG is a wash.
*waits for GH to check his math*
for his career, here are Kubel's splits by pitcher type:
265/336/445 Fly ball (9 2bs, 0 3bs, 9 HRs)
265/311/444 avg (21, 3, 16)
249/296/361 Ground ball (16, 0, 4)
apparently, Kubel's XBH distribution is NOT constant across pitcher types. Which makes some sense. When a GB pitcher makes a mistake up, it can go a long way. But a Fly ball pitcher makes his living with high pitches. More opportunities for the batter to beat the pitcher with a ball up in the zone.
and given his knee injury, I'm not surprised that his BA is lower against GB pitchers. He had at least a whole year where he wasn't gonna beat out any grounders deep in the hole. For his career, he is hitting 039/039/039 on balls to the infield; 546/534/901 on balls to the outfield, 205/205/208 on ground balls, 271/262/700 on fly balls, 691/691/926 on line drives. And he's never had a bunt hit.
compare to mauer:
286/372/413 FB
323/402/479 avg
320/403/429 GB
070/070/070 to infield
600/587/891 to outfield
243/243/251 ground balls
281/269/672 fly balls
713/713/943 line drives
I guess it would help if I read the article before posting a comment. Doh!
I haven't done any research on this at all, but I would think that a lot of hitters show drops in SLG against ground ball pitchers, right? Is Kubel's drop a larger one than most?
I'm sure it's true to a certain extent that XBH go down against GB pitchers, but if GB pitchers in general showed that big of a dip in SLG, GB pitchers would be the only pitchers left employed in baseball.
Judging by Kubel's sOPS+ last year, which was 62, he was way, way below league average against GB pitchers. And while that was a somewhat extreme season for him, this year his sOPS+ against GB pitchers is 70, so he's still doing a lot worse than league average against GB pitchers. If I had to guess, I would guess that no one else on the team shows such an extreme split. (Morneau, for instance, shows a drop (115 to 93, but nothing like Kubel's.) Cuddyer shows basically even power splits vs. FB and GB, with a much higher OBP vs. GB.
I tried to think of a good example of a low ball hitter who might excel in power against GB pitchers, but at the moment all I could think of was Gary Sheffield, and his career splits are basically even against FB and GB.
From my brief look through the stats that I keep, Boof has had some bad luck with bequeathed runners, but not unreasonable bad luck. Of his bequeathed runners, 5 of 6 base runners scored when Boof left the inning with no outs, 0 of 2 with one out, 2 of 2 with two outs--the last one is definitely bad luck. Now, to have that many score with no outs is not good at all, but he is leaving the relief pitcher in a tougher situation.
Why do we even care if Bonser is in the pen or the rotation? A manager's decisions only affect the outcome of about one game a year, right?
I know from the wink that you are at least kind of joking, but I will say that the difference between Perkins and Bonser probably isn't very big right now. My preference would just be to have Boof in the rotation is all.
I mean, if I was saying that Boof is clearly way better than Perkins, I would be making the same mistake as I would by saying that Boof is clearly awful and obviously should be taken out of the starting rotation. Over short periods of time it's easy for two players to look significantly different from each other when the difference going forward really isn't all that big.
The state of rhetoric in sports media these days (or maybe this is the way it is everywhere and the way that it has always been throughout time) is that there has to be an absolutely right way and an absolutely wrong way, and that the difference between the two choices is the difference between a great success and a major catastophe, when usually the truth is much more nuanced and much less exciting.
It seems like the decision is really based more on punishment than it is what will be the best for the team going forward. I've never heard anyone explain that Boof would be better out of the bullpen.
I don't think it's a punishment. I think the Twins right now simply feel that Baker, Hernandez, Blackburn, Slowey, and Perkins are better options for the starting rotation. ubelmann disagrees with that, and it's certainly arguable, but I don't think it's an indefensible position.
Here's a quote from Bill Walsh at the Media Literacy Review that seems fitting:
There are some folks who believe that the world is black and white, good and bad. There is no in between. "This is good," they announce, "and that is bad." They put everything into one of those two categories. It's a simplistic (but easy) world-view which most of us avoid.
And then there are those who see the opposite - absolutely no black or white, but merely varying shades of gray. To them, there is no good or bad - just stuff in between. One thing could be more or less desirable than another, but there are no absolutes, no limits in their world-view. Such an outlook is also conveniently easy.
What I (and perhaps others as well) have trouble dealing with is the realization that it's both of the above. Yes, there is black and white, but yes, there are also about a million shades of gray in between. There ARE lines between acceptable and not acceptable - sometimes they are hazy or indistinct or even changing, but they're there.