Fantasy Pitch F/X

Continuing to look at pitchers who may or may not end up being injured is Carlos Zambrano. Zambrano is an interesting case partly because he may simply be detoriating at an accelerated pace or he could still be dealing with the shoulder problems that bit him last year.

I asked Troy, my friend and lead writer/owner of RotoSavants.com to help out with the statistical analysis of Carlos Zambrano and this is what he came up with.

Carlos Zambrano has been greatly over valued the past few seasons and if anyone is expecting a repeat of 2004 they will be greatly disappointed. Zambrano was extremely lucky in 2004, but has also had declining components since 2005. He has some interesting ratios though and lets take a look at what to expect in 2009.

Strike out and Walk Rates
Zambrano had a peak of K/9 in 2004 and 2005 when he topped 8 strike outs every 9 innings. Since 2005 though it has dropped consistently until he threw a career low 6.20 K/9. He has lost over a mile per hour from his fastball since 2005 and hitters contact rate on him was at a career high.

He has never had a elite walk rate, but has dropped it two seasons in a row after his career high in 2006 of 4.84. He has never broken under 3, which would really improve his production.

His resulting K/BB has never been ace level as 2004 and 2005 where his peak at 2.32 and 2.35. Ever other season he has been around 1.80, which is a poor K/BB. His control and dominance doesn’t look to improve the next few seasons so a continued 1.80 K/BB should be expected for Zambrano.

Other Skills
The other important aspect of a pitcher is always his GB% and Zambrano doesn’t disappoint there, but he has slipped there since 2005 as well. Up until 2005 Zambrano was above 50% in his GB%. Since then he has slipped into the high 40% range. This may not look like a little change, but each of these hits is now a flyball with a 11-12% chance of turning into a homer.

Zambrano has also beaten his career FIP of 3.99 by a half a run with his career ERA of 3.48. So how has he been so consistent in beating his FIP? His groundball rate and defense have helped him maintain an impressive BABIP of .277 in his career. He has yet to have a BABIP in his career over .300, but it has risen recently and if he reaches .300 he will have his first ERA to match his FIP over 4.

Final Analysis
Zambrano could be a dangerous pick in 2009 as his skills have declined recently. I prefer to draft pitchers with ace level K/BB numbers early in the draft. The projections are a mix as both Bill James and Marcel call for an ERA under 4 while Chone expects his first ERA over 4 in his career.

I would tend to agree with the high 3 ERA and a chance to go over 4. Is that worth his currently ADP of 111 when a pitcher like Kevin Slowey who projects to a similar finish and is going 60 picks later? I would even suggest Javier Vazquez moving to a pitchers park who has an ADP of 144 right now.

I agree with Troy’s analysis and I wanted to see if PFX bore it out.

Zambrano’s end speed:

(FA) (CH)(SL)

(SI)(FC)

As you can see above, his velocity actually increased throughout the year notably after the DL stint in late June. Could it be that in the weeks before the DL stint he was breaking down and simply needed some rest for his shoulder? This could possibly be the case, so I wanted to see the other two aspects of his PFx profile.

(FA) (CH)(SL) (SI)(FC)

This is where I start to begin to question his health again. Looking specifically at the CH and SI graphs, you can see that his movement spiked up at his return from the DL but then slowly continued to deteriorate through the rest of the year. This makes me worried because the movement on pitches to me is the best indicator in the PFx system as to subtle health changes. Obviously, any major changes would be noticed immediately, but for fantasy purposes, knowing when someone could be headed down the wrong path would be much more valuable.

Next, I looked at another aspect of potential health concerns, release point.

(FA)(CH)

(SL)(SI)

(FC)

I don’t consider this good news for Zambrano at all. Throughout the year his release point decreased with all his pitches, but especially his off-speed pitches. His slider and sinker decreased the most but his release point with all the others continued to decrease as well.

This worries me because that means something is wrong with his shoulder or he is compensating for something else in his delivery.

Lastly, I wanted to see how well the batters saw his stuff but looking at hit % and BB %.

The hit rate varies a lot with the drop down to 0% obviously representing his no hitter. What I see though is that the BB% was increasing since his return from the DL which is not what you normally would expect. This concerns me because this means at the very least his mechanics change and potentially means that his health is effected.

Summary:

Troy’s excellent statistical analysis raises red flags about his health and/or effectiveness. Looking at the PFx data, I have reason for concern as well. His movement dropped off with his off-speed pitches and his release point dropped throughout the year on all his pitches. Also, his BB% increased near the end of the year. I’m worried about his health to his shoulder/elbow and would not be surprised at all if he ended up on the DL again this year.

Buyers beware.

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