Jonathan Sanchez, Walks and Pitching Success

Jonathan Sanchez is a pitcher with electrifying "stuff" who's capable of absolutely dominating a lineup. His slider rated out as one of the best in the game during the 2009 season, the year he threw a no-hitter. He has struck out over a batter an inning over the past three full seasons and posted a 3.07 ERA in 2010 while pitching for the Giants. Today he showed off that electric stuff, holding the Tigers hitless through 4 2/3 innings and not surrendering a run during his 5 full innings.

He is also a pitcher with absolutely NO command. This can be to his benefit at times, on nights when he is "effectively wild" and batters are swinging at pitches out of the zone. More often than not, however, his lack of command leads to high walk rates and far too many baserunners. His lowest BB/9 rate is 4.27 in 2008. This year he's walking 7.67 batters per nine innings, or over 4 more batters than the league average. It's due to this lack of command that he has only posted an above average ERA in one of his seven seasons in the majors.

All of this got me thinking: who is the starting pitcher who walked the most batters in a year he posted a sub-3.00 ERA? So over to Fangraphs I went, ridiculously looking up statistics like a far less skilled/important Joe Posnanski (or Mark Simon), and here's what I found:

• Since 1870, 2437 separate and individual seasons have produced sub-3.00 ERAs.
• 9 players have had sub-3.00 ERAs in a season that they walked over 5.0 batters per nine.
• Nolan Ryan and Johnny Vander Meer both have two such seasons.
• The most recent 5.0 BB/9, sub-3.00 season? Daisuke Matsuzaka in 2008.
• The highest walk rate in such a season? Nolan Ryan who walked a ridiculous 6.14 batters per nine and still managed a 2.77 ERA in 1977.
• The lowest strikeout rate in such a season? Hal Newhouser in 1942 who's rate of 5.05 K/9 was lower than his walk rate.

Interesting stuff. If looking at these pages of data tells me anything, it's that it's possible to have good results as a pitcher despite bad command. It's just very unlikely, so Royals fans, please temper your expectations of Jonathan Sanchez because more likely than not he's going to be a below average pitcher, yet again.

The possibilities of wRC+

On a recent episode of his excellent Up and In: The Baseball Prospectus Podcast, Kevin Goldstein interviewed Steve Berthiaume, host of ESPN's Baseball Tonight. During the interview the two talked about the practical application of advanced statistics when it comes to mainstream television broadcasts. Essentially both were in agreement that these advanced baseball statistics made bad television; the amount of explanation needed to convey the meaning and importance of the stats created a boring waste of space on an otherwise crammed program. I'm not going to disagree with their assessment because in my opinion it's true, most advanced statistics are not really suited for a mainstream public. Many casual fans don't care about the statistics enough to invest time into looking up their meaning and applicability. Although these advanced statistics are important for the survivability of major league front offices, they are not necessary when it comes to baseball programing.

Which doesn't mean that I don't like the inclusion of advanced statistics in my baseball watching experience. I've cherished the Cubs broadcasting teams' "Stats Sunday" segments even though the Cubs announcers seem to have a very elementary grasp of the statistics they're describing and approach the segments with an antiquated old-school mentality. Similarly, I liked that the Astros added the Run Expectancy statistic to the scoreboard at Minute Maid park for last nights game. I can only hope that my favorite team, the Tampa Bay Rays, add this feature in the near future.

The problem with advanced statistic, at least for casual fans, has always seemed to be one related to their immediate understandability. Wins Above Replacement (WAR), which measures the value added to the team by an individual player, would seem to be a simple concept but attracts criticism by skeptics who dislike the assumptions and mathematics behind the theoretical "replacement player." Other statistics like Fielding Independent Pitching (FIP), it's close relative Expected Fielding Independent Pitching (xFIP), and the all inclusive offensive stat Weighted On Base Average (wOBA), require complicated formulas to calculate and have an average baseline that is unfamiliar to casual fans. They also become even more convoluted by year to year fluctuations in what constitutes an average performance. For instance, in 2007 the average wOBA was .331, whereas last year the average wOBA stood at .316. This, I think is where wRC+ comes in to play.

Although the formula to calculate wRC+ is even more complex than those needed to calculate the above statistics, it's far more understandable due to the scale that it uses. wRC+ is essentially a league and park adjusted statistic that uses wOBA as its base stat and then adjusts it to reflect average performance. According to wRC+, an average performance is always going to be 100 and each point up or down is a percentage measure of how much better or worse that particular player was than average given his particular set of circumstances. For instance, Evan Longoria's 169 wRC+ in 2012 means that he is 69% better than a league average hitter so far, while Jose Reyes 69 wRC+ means that he has been 31% below average as a hitter.

By putting probably the best offensive statistic available to us on a relatable scale, wRC+ is able to break the barriers that hold back other advanced stats. You don't need to know how it was calculated to understand that the hitter at the plate who owns a 109 wRC+ has been pretty good so far this year, while the one behind him who holds a 84 wRC+ has not been. It's easy to describe to people and I think it can be genuinely useful to casual baseball fans. It's not unlikely that in the near future wRC+ is added next to a players batting average, on base percentage and other established statistics used during television broadcasts.

MLB: Revisiting Small Sample Size Anomalies

In April, about a month into the Major League Baseball season, I wrote a post about some odd baseball statistics that I noticed while perusing fangraphs. I'll give you a chance to follow the link and read the article for yourself ...

Back? Ok good. Two months later and more than half-way through the season I thought it would be interesting to take a look at how those statistics have normalized, or rather IF they had normalized.

1) A.J. Pierzynski's strikeout rate has risen all the way up to 5.4%. That's still the lowest rate among qualified starters and would represent a career low. There are three true outcomes (TTOs) in baseball, outcomes that are fielding independent: strikeouts, walks and home runs. When Pierzynski comes to the plate one of these true outcomes occurs 11% of the time. This also ranks as the lowest rate amongst major leaguers (Juan Pierre is second at 13%). Compare that with Adam Dunn, the king of the TTOs, who experiences a HR, BB or SO in over 53% of his plate appearances.

2) Jack Cust's ISO (or Isolated Power) is still rather low at .115 and he has only managed to hit 3 home runs this season. Both represent career low paces and because of his power drain Cust has posted his first below average wOBA since he joined the A's in 2007.

3) Ever since he hit the disabled list last year with a wrist injury Jason Heyward hasn't looked quite the same. His power numbers match his freshman campaign but he's walking less (11.7% compared to 14.6%) and the balls that he is making contact with are going for hits less often. His line drive rate is very low at around 13% and he's popping the ball up at an alarmingly high rate (22.6%). It just doesn't look like he's hitting the ball well this season and that's a troubling revelation.

4) Carl Crawford's defensive numbers have improved since April but he still holds a negative Ultimate Zone Rating (UZR) and baseball reference's defensive numbers support UZR. It's possible that Crawford has had a hard time adjusting to Fenway Stadium's unique dimensions, but this would be somewhat odd considering Crawford played in the AL East for nearly a decade before joining the Red Sox this year.

5) Jay Bruce's line drive rate has risen up to 16% and his batting average on balls in play has dropped to .297. Those fall in line with his career rates. Normalization indeed.

The Statistical Anomalies of a Small Sample Size

We're almost a month into the season, which correlates to around 18-20 games and 70-90 PA's for full time starters. Time to take a look at some weird statistics that this small sample size has presented so far:

1) A.J. Pierzynski is striking out 1.9% of the time so far. That's one strikeout in 54 at bats. Since he joined the White Sox in 2005 he's slowly cut down his strikeout rate from 14.8% to 8.2% last season. The man just doesn't strike out ... but he doesn't get on base very often either due to his 4.0% career walk rate. For even worse walk rates, however, I refer you to this piece.

2) Jack Cust has a .016 ISO. The big 235 lb. DH/OF, known for his power and patience, has just one extra base hit in 75 plate appearances. This is bound to change but it's also a bit disconcerting considering the drastic drop off in power he's experienced the past two seasons (ISO's of .177 and .166). You have to feel bad for the guy, going from one pitchers park (The Oakland Coliseum) to another (Safeco Field).

3) Jason Heyward is hitting .190 and still has a .327 wOBA. The league average wOBA for this year is .318, so despite the low batting average Heyward has still been 0.7 runs above replacement with the bat. He's managed this by hitting for power (4 HR and a .238 ISO) and walking at a high rate (14.9% compared to 8.6% league average). The kid is pretty damn good ... but you already knew that.

4) Carl Crawford has a -4.2 UZR. Not to heap more criticism on Crawford, but this has not been a good start for him. In the 9 seasons he spent with the Rays he amassed a 119.3 ultimate zone rating, or around 13.3 per season, with only one of those years having a negative value. Simply put he's been arguably the best defensive left fielder in the game, which makes sense because he is basically a center fielder playing left field. To see that Crawford has been the 5th worst defender in the league is downright shocking, although it makes sense in the context of the season he's having. Expect that UZR figure to become positive as more data comes in.

5) Jay Bruce has a line drive rate of only 2.3%. What makes this statistic more remarkable is the fact that he has a .341 BABIP on the young season. Simply put, unless his batted ball data is remarkably wrong, he's been extremely lucky on balls in play, as evidenced by his .253 xBABIP. I wouldnt expect his BABIP to stay that high (career .292 rate) or his LD% to stay that low (career 17.7%).

I know that I tend to ignore this blog for long patches at a time but expect more to come in the next couple of weeks