Fantasy Pitch F/X

Lots of attention is being paid towards Joba Chamberlain this spring, mostly towards his lack of velocity on his fastball. Last August he was sidelined with rotator cuff tendinitis for 27 days. This is worrisome for all of Yankee fans (not necessarily Red Sox fans though) especially considering how he served multiple roles last year and his starting role this year.

Starting in 2008 the Yankees wanted to limit the innings and the stress on his arm so he began in the bullpen. Look at the chart below for the breakdown of results of his role.

Pitch FX, SP Joba Chamberlain, PFx, Pitch FX

Justin is having a lot of problems lately with his control as he has walked 9 in his last 9 innings roughly during spring training. By now hopefully everyone knows that when a pitcher starts to significantly lose his control, it could mean that there is an injury that is being hidden from either the medical staff or the public or both.

Verlander is obviously a key component for the Detroit Tigers so I looked at his game log, courtesy of baseball-reference.com. Even though I cherry picked the dates a little bit, after July 26th he had a 6.72 ERA while having only less than a 2:1 K/BB ratio which is well below his performance in previous years. His control suffered greatly as he ended last year with a 3.90 BB/9 which was his 3rd straight year which it increased. So, let’s take a look at PFx to see if non-traditional metrics show something.

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Pitch FX, SP Justin Verlander, PFx, SP

Oswalt has been getting some press lately about still being an ace. One wonders if injuries have begun to take their toll on him.He’s been on the DL 5 times since 2003 with 4 times being to the hip/groin area. The 31 year old made 32 starts last year mixing 4 pitches fairly well together while throwing almost 209 innings.

The results were good by all accounts posting a 3.54 ERA and 1.179 WHIP while striking out 165. According to baseball-reference.com, his *ERA+ which measures how his ERA compares to the league ERA, was the lowest of his career at 120. He has only been down in the 120’s one other time, 2004, when he posted a 125 ERA+. The last 3 years his ERA+ dropped from 149 to 138 and down to 120 last year.

He throws 4 pitches: fastball, curveball, slider, and changeup. He throws the curve slightly more than the slider, but much more when he is ahead or with 2 strikes. Overall I think that PFx data will show how he’s really not quite into decline yet and should be targeted in fantasy leagues everywhere.

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Pitch FX, SP PFx, Profile, Roy Oswalt, SP

During my draft prep, I was reading Shandler’s excellent forecaster and I noticed something interesting to me. After missing the first several weeks of the season last year with a triceps strain, Lackey started off extremely strong when he came back with an ERA of 2.47 in the first half. In the second half, it struck midnight and the carriage turned back into the pumpkin with his ERA ballooning up to 4.99. He mentioned that it was nearly the statistics correcting to their normal levels.

His BA against in the 1st half was around .230 while in the second it was .330. Amazingly in the first half he stranded 91% of the runners so of course, it regressed back down to 69% in the 2nd half. This part looks like it was just regression but his control seriously spiked up to levels not seen since 2006. His strikeout rate stayed in line with the last 2 years so his K:BB ratio significantly dropped in the 2nd half. My last bit of true statistical analysis was his HR/FB% went from 9% to 20% in the second half. The problem is that even the 9% isn’t “normal” for him. The last time his HR/FB% was 9% was 2004.

This made me think twice as to why his HR/FB% suddenly spiked up and me being me, decided to look at my PFx graphs. Before I move onto my graphs, I must explain there are some slight differences in how I present them now. All of them use the averages for each game just like before however there are now two lines. First is the normal daily average which is the blue line. This represents the group average for all of the pitches/events on that particular day. The second line (red) is a “moving average” of the last 5 games which is the average over 5 games which I use to notice trends by flattening out the large fluctuations. Each new day’s average is added to the average and the oldest game is dropped, thus “moving” the average over the time. Please let me know what you think. Read more…

Pitch FX, SP, injury analysis John Lackey, PFx, Pitch FX

News out of Minnesota is that Bonser had tears in both his labrum and rotator cuff which was repaired during surgery yesterday. They say it’s a 6-8 month process publicly but for all intensive purposes it means the season. Having tears in both the labrum and rotator cuff is an extreme injury for a pitcher.

Knowing what the injuries are, I want to go back in time and see if there were any significant signs from PFx.

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Pitch FX, SP, injury analysis Boof Bonser, PFx, Pitch FX, Profile, SP

Kevin Slowey has been getting a lot of press about being a sleeper this year. Because of this, looking at the scouting reports and the PFx profile could be more than beneficial to see if this sleeper focus is warranted or not.

Slowey throws a fastball, curveball, changeup, and slider. He strikes guys out at close to a 7-K/9 clip while walking next to no one coming in under 1.4 BB/9. His command is absolutely impeccable with a 5.1 K/BB ratio and a 1.15 WHIP so he’s not going to get himself into trouble too often. Not everything is picture perfect though. He’s primarily a FB pitcher coming in around 45% and his GB% is only 36% but he has been able to control his HR/FB% to 10%.

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Pitch FX, SP Kevin Slowey, PFx, Pitch FX, Profile, SP

I looked into the Beckett explanation a little more because I had some comments that it was counter intuitive. How can a pitch go slower but have more backspin/ resist gravity more. I could only explain it that he threw the pitches at a different trajectory.

Using Dan Fox’s method of showing trajectories (subscription required), I was able to show Beckett’s average trajectories pre June 15th and post June 15th.

Fastball

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Pitch FX, SP, injury analysis Josh Beckett, PFx, Pitch FX, SP

Reviewing the comments, it was suggested that I do a comparison of a good profile versus a bad profile. It was a difficult challenge for several reasons including but not limited to: finding pitchers of roughly equal talent, finding a pitcher who was unhealthy, and finding a pitcher who stayed healthy.

After looking though several pitchers, I think the best comparison would be Halladay versus Beckett. They both pitch in the AL East, they are both power pitchers, Beckett was injured towards the end of last year while Halladay stayed healthy. For comparison sake, I will only display the similar type pitches and I will always list Beckett first.

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Pitch FX, SP, injury analysis Josh Beckett, PFx, Roy Halladay, SP