AFL Pitch F/X Data: Amador and Rua

Eventually what you want to be able to do with Pitch F/X data is to evaluate players. I have been looking at Pitch F/X data in the 2013 Arizona Fall League from several different perspectives, but have yet to look at isolated individual players. In this post, I wanted to look at a couple of notable hitters, not highly rated traditional prospects, but a couple of players I think are interesting, and see what the Pitch F/X data says about their tendencies during the AFL season (and perhaps, their offensive game as a whole).

Japhet Amador is 26 year old former Mexican League slugging 1st baseman signed by the Astros late in the 2013 season. Amador is most known for his weight, but he had some impressive seasons in Mexico. He
saw 160 pitches measured by Pitch F/X in the Arizona Fall League

His 32 swinging strikes is twice as many swinging strikes as you would want (at least compared to MLB league average), and that is going to be a serious problem if he is going to be a MLB player, so let's take a look at the pitches he swung and missed at

Amador is a right-handed batter, but their appear to be plenty of whiffs on both sides of the plate for him. There were also several high inside fastballs that Amador swung and missed at. So perhaps he is struggling with velocity, but let's continue to look at locations and start to focus on the good things he did in the AFL measured by Pitch F/X. Here are his 4 home runs.

 Up and in is also where Amador hit a couple of home runs, as well as missing some pitches. It is worth noting that Amador appeared on the list of hitters that hit a homer in the same at-bat they had a swinging strike. It would seem that pitchers could throw it there effectively at times, but Amador could strike there successfully. How about all of Amador's batted balls?

Amador was able to put balls in play when they were inside, and preferably up. Pitches away, especially low and away, were almost never put in play by Amador. To illustrate the differences, let's look at his average locations.

While his average home run was on pitches that were harder than the average pitch, just as we saw in the home run graph, his average whiff was on pitches harder than the ones he put in play. His whiffs were much lower as well, and he hit balls inside better than outside. He was pitched slightly inside on average, something I have chalked up to inexperience and lack of control in previous AFL posts, and if he played in the Majors, we would expect to see more pitches outside. This could really hurt Amador's chances of hitting, as he doesn't seem to hit these pitches. Checking on whether or not he struggled with velocity, I checked the 4-seam fastballs he saw, all 90 by Pitch F/X, and saw that the average one he swung and missed at averaged 93.98 MPH, while the ones he put in play were 90.67 MPH, making it seem that he was dramatically affected by velocity in fastballs. The four seamers that he fouled off were 92.69 MPH on average, and the called strikes were 91.54 MPH, while the balls were 92.15 MPH on average.

Moving on from Amador, I wanted to take a look at someone who had a home run explosion in the lower minors (32 homers in all in 2013) for the Rangers system, Ryan Rua. Rua saw 228 pitches measured by Pitch F/X in the Arizona Fall League, 28 of them for swinging strikes. Here are were they were located, labelled with MLBAM tags:

Rua is also a right-handed hitter, so the low breaking balls to the right are actually inside, which is strange. While there are some low balls on both sides, and two pitches higher than the strike zone, almost all of these pitches are actually in the strike zone. Like Amador, Rua hit four home runs that were measured by Pitch F/X. This is what they looked like:

All four are obviously in the strike zone, and are roughly middle height, three of them inside, one outside. Let's look at all of Rua's contact plays in context of location and the opposing pitcher's release point.

Rua seems pretty balanced at making contact on pitches both inside and outside, even making contact on a pitch outside of the strike zone, as well as a pitch low and in, not in the zone. He also made contact on pitches in the normal right-handed pitcher cluster. Interestingly, it didn't seem like he made contact with a lot of pitchers with high release points, though the average AFL release point was lower than the average MLB release point in 2013.

Finally, here are his average locations to give us a better idea of his hitting tendencies in the AFL

Obviously the homers are higher on average, but interestingly they were further away on average as well. His contact came on pitches slightly closer to him than the average pitch, while his whiffs generally came low. While his home runs were on harder pitches than average, both his contact and whiffs were on slightly slower pitches, with his whiffs being slower on average. It would seem that he can hit for power if you get the pitch up and over the plate, while you can still throw inside on him, low preferably, and get him to swing and miss.

Quantifying Yu Darvish's Injury

There are a lot of poorly constructed narratives and talking points when it comes to Yu Darvish, and I have no interest in deconstructing or rebutting any of them. However, from watching nearly every single Darvish start since he came to the United States (mainly because of geography), I found it interesting, though perhaps not surprising, that Darvish was struggling with an injury, in this case, a nerve problem causing him to lose feeling in his leg.

For this post, I wanted to see if there was something in the Pitch F/X data that showed if/how the injury was hampering Darvish, and to look at his season as a whole. I decided, since I am looking at each outing individually, that I would only to look at his 2013 home outings. This way we won't be subject to any biases in Pitch F/X data from park to park (this is especially important when looking at release point and movement data).

Darvish made 19 home starts in 2013, and just to use a random sample size, his last 7 starts had a higher game score on average than his first 7 starts. He also averaged over a strikeout more and about a half a walk less per outing in those last 7 starts. His ERAs and FIPs of those starts were better in the last 7 than the first 7, so it is impossible to make the argument that Darvish faded down the stretch when it comes to effectiveness. However, it does seem that Darvish wasn't able to go as deep into games, as he averaged 2 less batters and 6 less pitches in his last 7 outings. Whether this was quicker hooks, general fatigue, or the nerve issue (or the back or neck issues which bothered him in Japan and off and on in Texas) isn't worth speculating about unless you've stolen Darvish's medical records or given him a physical. So instead, let's look at the data and see if there is any evidence that his injury was affecting how he was pitching.

First let's see where he has located the ball, on average, per start:

You probably wouldn't think it considering that Darvish was a high strikeout, high home run pitcher in 2013, but he is a pretty extreme low ball pitcher. He throws a lot of sliders, so perhaps it isn't too surprising, but he does stay arm side on average (he does change his slider location based on platoon split a little more than average). In September, you will notice that he was throwing the ball lower than he usually does, and two of those starts were more glove side than usual. His April 7th was his most glove side start. August, perhaps his best month (by wOBA against it was), was the month he consistently threw higher. He wasn't as effective in September (May was still probably worse), and it is easy to see the differences between the two months. Here we can see how Darvish's release point changed from start to start at home:

August shows up as the highest release point, something that makes sense with the highest average locations. Higher release points are usually better, and the statistics don't suggest anything different here. Darvish went on the DL for a short time in early July, and we saw that one of his late June starts had an average location stand out for being pretty heavily glove side. That particular start (the 18th) has a pretty normal release point compared to his others, but June 30th stands out for being closer to the center of the rubber, as does an early July start. Late April and early May is when his release point got the furthest from the center of the rubber and the lowest. His September starts don't stand out here, but his August starts do again.

The article linked to above does show that his fastball lost a little velocity at the end of the year. How about fastball movement?

The June 13th start stands out on the graph, but I believe this is due to an error. One of the fastballs had negative vertical movement, which doesn't make a lot of sense (though it was 91.5 MPH so I don't think it was a classification error, just a Pitch F/X error). Other than that, it appears that to be hard to find real trends. In September, he didn't have the lowest vertical movement starts, but he lacked the elite ones he got throughout the season. However, his September 14th start had the 2nd most horizontal movement of the home part of the season. I don't think this is particularly helpful.

It seems that the data doesn't explicitly show an injury late in the season for Darvish, as we don't see in either the release point or location data a clear difference in September from the rest of the months. That doesn't mean that the injury was not there, it just didn't show up in an obvious way in the Pitch F/X data. The biggest difference was actually August, a month where he was dominant. One can easily see the difference between August and September, but August seems to be the outlier, and would be the red flag month if you didn't know that he was struggling to finish games in September.

Is the Radar Gun in Japan "Cold"?

In my article on Masahiro Tanaka, I speculated that Tanaka could see an average fastball velocity increase in the Majors because of some slow pitches that were tagged as fastballs by Yahoo!. The point was that the MLBAM tags seem to be superior to Yahoo! tags, so the fastball wouldn't actually be better, it would just look harder thanks to better labels, even if it is a slight increase. However, I have had a couple of readers on Twitter argue that pitchers who go from the NPB to the Majors have an increase in fastballs for whatever reason, unrelated to Yahoo's taggings. With Patrick Newman getting his NPB pitch data back online, this is something we can test. The data starts in 2009 and (currently) ends at 2012, so I looked through the player index, and looked for pitchers that pitched in the Majors as well as the NPB. I then removed every player that didn't play in the Majors and the NPB in consecutive years, because if there is a gap in years, then of course there will be drastic velocity changes. I only inputted the fastball velocities of the consecutive years. To use Yu Darvish as an example, I used just his 2011 NPB fastball velocity and just his 2012 MLB fastball velocity (there were a few pitchers that pitched in the MLB, then Japan, then the MLB again. For those pitchers, I used the first year of the second stint of the MLB as the velocity, along with the last year of the NPB stint). For the MLB velocity, I just used FanGraphs' Pitch F/X section for ease. I got 44 pitchers in my sample, not a large one, but one that should at least give us an idea of whether or not the hypothesis is correct.

The pitchers' average fastball velocity in the NPB was 89.04 MPH, while their average velocity was 91.22 MPH in the Majors, a gigantic 2.18 MPH difference. Of course, it isn't that easy. Many times, pitchers that were used as fringe relievers in the MLB were/are signed to NPB teams to be used as starters. If a pitcher pitches in relief in the Majors, and then as a starter in the NPB, then their average fastball velocity will be artificially down in Japan. For instance, in the Majors, the average velocity for starters is 91.4 MPH in 2013, and 92.9 MPH for relievers. This doesn't make up the whole difference, but it does possibly explain at least some of this. So I looked at the 44 pitchers again, and noted whether or not they changed from a starter to reliever or vise versa (if the majority of their outings were as a starter, I considered them a starter, etc.). Only 19 of them actually had role changes, with the other 25 staying the same.

Out of the 25 that stayed in the same role, their average NPB velocity was 90.02, while their average MLB velocity was 91.66 MPH. So there still seems to be a difference of about 1.5 MPH in velocity between the NPB and the Majors. The actual reason for this is unclear, and any theories put forth by me would all be speculation. Also, I should note that I didn't look at 2013 data, so there is always the chance that this has changed in someway, but for now, it appears that Yahoo's radar gun readings for the NPB are about 1.5 MPH slow compared to those of MLBAM's 50 foot release point designation.

There should be some caution exercised however, with a sample size this small, because there could be other factors driving the velocity changes. For example, two of the biggest velocity climbers from the NPB to the Majors were Hisashi Iwakuma and Chang-yong Lim, whose velocity increases could be explained, at least partially, from better health in the Majors (Iwakuma has batted shoulder problems in his career and was scarcely used in the first half of the season with Seattle, only to emerge in the rotation in the second half, Lim had Tommy John surgery in 2012, and his 2013 season is him coming off that. These injuries could have slowed down their fastballs in their last year of the NPB, while the MLB version of the pitcher is the healthy version). Pitchers like Yoshinori Tateyama, Colby Lewis and Yu Darvish actually saw a small decrease in velocity from the NPB to the Majors (all of them going to Texas), and Kam Mickolio has actually gained about a MPH in Japan after leaving the Majors.

The CPBL hitters better than Manny Ramirez

Despite playing games for 23 years, the Chinese Professional Baseball League probably received the most notoriety in the United States for the exploits of Manny Ramirez with the EDA Rhinos.

Ramirez had a .422 OBP and .555 SLG in his 49 games, making him not only the most notable hitter in the league, but arguably the best as well.  He would go on to play 30 games for the Rangers' AAA affiliate Round Rock, and things didn't go well, as the power evaporated (.111 ISO) and he had a 82 wRC +, similar to his 84 wRC + in 17 games with the Oakland Athletics affiliate in 2012. Of course translations don't work perfectly, or even well at times, but it probably does speak to the talent level of the CPBL that Ramirez couldn't hit in AAA, but dominated the league in his half season. For this post, I found three hitters that had similar 2013 seasons (though they played the full season instead of the first half) to get a look at a few of the best hitters in the league. Like the majority of posts on this blog, it is from an American perspective, so the goal is to see whether or not any of them are MLB prospects. All three players are 27 years old, so they could be considered in the prime of their careers.

Yi-Chuan Lin

The 2013 Home Run derby winner, Lin had the exact same HR % and OBP as Manny Ramirez. Lin also outdid him in slugging percentage by .005. These statistics nearly match 2012's exactly (.419 OBP, .573 SLG). He had more groundouts than flyouts, though the ratio is closer to 1 in 2013 than in 2012. Obviously not much of a runner as a first baseman, he provides no real positional value, though it appears he played a couple of games at 3rd base.For each individual hitter, I GIF'd one of their swings on a home run:

When pitchers throw low and in on him, he can pull the ball with quite a bit of authority. However, he doesn't always have a power swing, and his extreme contact ways are not typical when scouting first basemen. He will cut down on his swing to make sure he puts the ball in play, even going down low and slapping the ball. I don't think that elite pitching would be able to blow the ball past him, but good breaking balls can make him chase and cause him to sacrifice all his power. Perhaps he doesn't have the elite power you want in a corner infielder because he doesn't look the part. If you saw him on a baseball field without seeing his numbers compared to other CPBL hitters, you wouldn't peg him as a power hitter, and at least in this case, I think the bias is warranted. Also, if a picture of Lin was shown to the Rangers before they signed Manny Ramirez and they were told that the two of them hit for the same power in Tawain, then they might not have signed him, or at least, they could have predicted that Manny would fail in AAA. So this is what Lin has stacked against him when getting evaluated by MLB scouts. He is a first baseman that has an offensive game of a solid second baseman or shortstop. He hits for a good average by relying on contact with an occasional home run. That is a skill set that has value, but not from the most power driven position in the MLB.

If Lin (or 2013 Manny) is the best the CPBL has to offer when it comes to power then the MLB isn't going to be looking to the league for powerful position players. So if there is a MLB prospect that is a position player, they have to establish being one by doing something other than hitting for power. It is going to have to come from being a high average hitter with positional value or by great speed or defense.

Kuo Hui Lo

His OBP was .014 points smaller, but he out slugged Ramirez by .010 points. Lo was once a minor leaguer in the United States, playing in the Mariners system from 2006-2011, reaching AA and holding his own (.335 OBP and .430 SLG in pitcher friendly league), but a horrible leg injury at home plate cost him the 2012 season and ended his MLB affiliated career. However, with the season he had in 2013, perhaps he will be back on MLB radars even though he is now 27 years old. Perhaps the biggest thing for him is that he played 89 games in a season and was able to play the field.

Lo had 8 assists defensively, playing all three outfield positions, but mainly centerfield this season. In the minors, he mainly played left field with mostly positive FRAAs, with 2008 being an exception.

He was a pretty extreme flyball hitter this year:

In the minors, the only time he hit more than 10 homers or had an Isolated Slugging over .200 was in the extremely hitter friendly environment of High Desert in 2009. Just by league averages that season, he wasn't overly impressive, but was close to some fringy big leaguers like Konrad Schmidt, Efren Navarro, J.B. Shuck, and Charlie Blackmon. He clearly has some occasional power that he brings into games, and despite not having huge size (he does after all, have to play in the middle of the outfield), he is 6-2 188, certainly big enough to be a big leaguer.

I don't love the swing, and that may be an obstacle for potential MLB teams. He dips his front shoulder, not giving him a smooth or quick swing path to inside pitches. It doesn't seem to take away from his power and he still has the reach and plate coverage to hit pitches outside well, but I think elite pitching would come inside on him and have success.

Hung-Yu Lin

Listed as a catcher, but appears to be mostly a DH, as he caught just 28 of the 97 games he played. Lin has less power than the two players above, slugging just .477 (4th best out of qualified hitters, which Ramirez wasn't because of lack of at-bats), but his OBP was .431, best in the CPBL.

This year, he was a groundball hitter for the first time in his career. While it doesn't look like Lin has great bat speed, he clearly has the strength and plate coverage to hit balls on the outside part of the plate with some authority.

The decider of Hung-Yu Lin's value will be his abilities behind the plate. While I can't speak intelligently about whether or not he is a good receiver, thrower, or even game caller, the fact that it seems he has mostly been a DH suggests that he isn't a plus catcher. This really hurts any value he has with MLB teams because he doesn't hit for the power of the guys above, and doesn't have a real position.

Assorted Round Rock and Oklahoma City Hitter Notes

In a few previous posts, I looked at some of the players I saw in a game between the Rangers and Astros' AAA affiliates. In this post, I'll look at some more players I had notes for but didn't belong in separate posts.

I wrote about Chris Mcguiness from a Pitch F/X perspective in a previous article, and while he spent a short time in the Majors, he spent most of the year in AAA, where he hit reasonably well, but perhaps not as dominating as you would hope a 1st baseman to be in the minors. When I saw him, he seemed to pull off too soon on many pitches, even fastballs. He did hit a couple of balls hard though.

 Robinson Chirinos was acquired by the Rangers from the Rays, but was initially in the Chicago Cubs system. He did see a little bit of time with the MLB team this season. Behind the plate, he showed a strong and quick arm behind the plate, but a bad throw gave runner a free base

At the plate, Chirinos had a decent season, but didn't have real eye-popping number:

Joey Butler has also received a small amount of MLB playing time, but not enough to evaluate. He has spent nearly the entirety of the last three years at AAA, where he has put up nearly identical numbers each year, hitting very well. When I saw him, he was selective, but often seemed like a 4A mistake type hitter. He does have nice build and beat out what looked like a routine out

Jonathan Singleton is one of the top prospects in the Houston Astros system, but had a really frustrating season in AAA following a drug suspension. He is just an impressive mound of muscle on muscle, so you can see why he is an attractive prospect from a physique standpoint. At the plate, I noticed that his legs are split pretty far and he was way too antsy and aggressive at times. He was also late on a slider, seeming to just misjudge the pitch. Singleton had a huge swing and I didn't see great bat speed. He had some bat control though as he was fooled baddly on a slower breaking ball but kept the bat in the zone to make contact. He chased another slow curve and pulled it reasonably hard, doing a good job just to make contact. However, he was blown away by a 88 MPH fastball. He stole his first and only base of the season in the game I saw.

Another at-bat:

Marc Krauss got some time in the big leagues with the Astros this year but really struggled. He was acquired by Houston in a trade with the Diamondbacks for Chris Johnson and had a really nice season in AAA. You can see the raw power just on the fouls. He was initially a bit ahead and then got blown away, striking out on a pitch down the middle. In a later at-bat he was blown away by a 88 MPH fastball, though he did a good job of staying alive with fouls

Che-Hsuan Lin was acquired on a waiver claim from the Red Sox and despite walking more than he struck out, he struggled in AAA this year. He dropped the bat to work counts to start off at-bats. I still like the bat speed, but his pitch recognition wasn't great and his lack of punch really showed.

Jose Martinez was originally a Cardinals' minor leaguer, and struggled in AAA at a similar rate as Lin. He was a little ahead of breaking balls despite slowing down his bat. At 2nd, he didn't make a good read on a line drive.

Carlos Perez was acquired by the Astros in the J.A. Happ trade and struggled with the bat in AAA this year. Behind the plate, he has an easy quick release. He didn't appear to be a great reciever, though his starting pitcher didn't seem to help him. He misjudged some bouncing pitches, and also flat out dropped a ball.

Notes on Engel Beltre and Jimmy Paredes

Continuing my look at players from the Oklahoma City/Round Rock game, in this post I'll look at a player on each team that has shown athleticism and raw talent, but have had questions raised about their hitting abilities.

Engel Beltre is a 23 year old outfielder in the Rangers organization, originally acquired in the Eric Gagne trade with Boston. He made his MLB debut this season, playing in 17 games so far in a couple of different stints. After hitting at a league average level in AA in 2012, he played the whole year (not counting his MLB time of course) in AAA, and was very slightly below league average. While he doesn't strikeout at an alarming rate, he doesn't walk much, and wasn't the stolen base threat this year that he was the year before.

Plate discipline seems to always be the question with Beltre, and in the game I saw him, he was pitched backwards a lot, meaning breaking balls coming early in the count and fastballs coming late. He was late on 89 MPH, but did take a close 91 MPH fastball before swinging horribly at 80 MPH. At times he showed a good contact tool, fouling off fastballs to stay alive in counts. Here is some video of one of his at-bats:

He also had an at-bat that might possibly encapsulate all the frustration over his hitting abilities at once. He started by trying and failing to bunt, then whiffed at an ugly breaking ball, and then took a 0-2 fastball in the zone for called strike 3. It was apparent, even at the AAA level, that Beltre was not seeing the ball well, not anticipating what was going to happen, but instead guessing.

Beltre has not seen a lot of time in the Major Leagues, seeing 115 pitches tracked by Pitch F/X. The following graph is the left-handers' average locations broken down by results.

So far in the big leagues, Beltre is whiffing on pitches that are actually harder than the pitches he is making contact with, even though his whiffs are lower than the contact pitches. This does raise the question as to whether or not he is struggling with velocity. So I looked at all the pitches Beltre has seen 94 MPH or higher as a MLBer to see if there is evidence that he is struggling with velocity

Obviously Beltre isn't seeing any hard pitches inside, so it is not like he is being busted in. This suggests that scouting reports are saying that he has good bat speed, and that isn't the best way to pitch him. High and away with hard fastballs seem to be risk and reward so far, as he will miss, but he will also make some occasional contact as well. Down and away with hard pitches have led to a couple of whiffs, but obviously the sample size is small so far.

In his time in the Major Leagues so far, this is the pitch furthest out of the strike zone that Engel Beltre has swung at, in GIF form:

Jimmy Paredes was acquired by the Astros from the New York Yankees in the Lance Berkman trade in 2010 and the 24 year old has played in 108 big league games for the team at a well below replacement pace. He has struggled in all facets of the game, hitting, baserunning, and defense despite being ranked as the organization's 7th best prospect after 2010. At AAA this season, he has been okay, above league average, but not really hitting like you would want for a guy that you think could perhaps help the Major League team.

Seeing him live, I did like the bat speed. However, he wasn't above the frequent  bad chase out of the zone. On a breaking ball that stayed up he got his hands through the zone well and got a base hit, but later in the game he had a horrible swing on a pitch that was bounced for a whiff. The next pitch in that particular sequence was bounced on the plate, and while he held back, he wanted to swing. Yet he continued to tease by smoking a double on a 83 MPH breaking pitch by staying back on the ball.

Defensively, I saw him play shortstop, though Houston has had him playing just about everywhere since they acquired him (RF, 3B, 2B in the Majors, with some shortstop and centerfield sprinkled in at Oklahoma City). He stayed back on a grounder that turned a routine play into a base hit. Yet, he had a nice turn at short on a double play. He can play multiple positions and with his athleticism, so you have to think he is going to keep getting chances despite the problems at the plate. Perhaps the biggest difference in Paredes' game from Beltre's (besides being a year older and being a switch hitter) is defense. Beltre is an obviously plus defender with great range and a great arm, with the ability to patrol centerfield, while Paredes is not a real good defender at any position, making him a forced utility player.

He has seen 1374 pitches tracked by Pitch F/X, so we can feel more confident about his sample size. Here is his result locations chart:

Not surprisingly, his whiffs are the lowest and slowest pitches. He swings at pitches a little lower than the average pitch, showing a small glimpse of his plate discipline lacking against low breaking pitches. His contact comes on higher pitches, usually fastballs, meaning they are coming in an opposite direction from the average pitch thrown and his average swing. He isn't waiting for the pitches he can hit well, meaning he is failing at the the most basic part of plate discipline. 

Here is a GIF of Paredes' "worst swing" in the Majors so far

Round Rock Relievers: Ortiz, Burns, and Rowen

Round Rock, the AAA affiliate for the Texas Rangers, used three relievers in the game I saw them play live against Oklahoma City. In this post, I'll take a short look at each of them using both my live look and Pitch F/X data.

Joe Ortiz made the Rangers' club out of Spring Training and pitched reasonably well in a couple of stints with the team by not walking anyone, but failing to miss any bats as well. He should be back with the big league team once the AAA season ends and MLB rosters expand to 40. When looking at a GIF of his delivery, the first thing you notice is his odd size:

Ortiz is listed at 5-7 175, which I think is conservative when it comes to weight. He is one of the shortest pitchers in affiliated ball, but he has a pretty pudgy frame to go with it. Here are the pitches Ortiz threw in his AAA outing I saw live (click to enlarge):

As you would expect with such a small frame, he has a low release point:

The above graph shows that he is clearly a low ball pitcher, but I think a graph showing the locations of his individual pitches demonstrates it even better:

He throws his slider and changeup in pretty traditional locations, but is actually a glove side pitcher with his fastball. This helps him pitch successfully against both lefties and righties, as he can throw the sinker away to righties and the 4-seamer away to lefties. Overall he throws arm side and glove side about equally.

Cory Burns was traded to the Rangers in the off-season by the Padres for Wilfredo Boscan. Burns has very limited time in the big leagues with both clubs, but has been downright dominant in the PCL the last two years (FIPs under 2.00 both times). Burns has a weird turn in his delivery that he has to get rid of with runners on base. He still didn't hold runners on at all:

Besides the turn in his delivery, the most notable thing about Burns is his high volume of changeups, something that showed in the outing I saw of him:

This makes him a reasonably heavy arm side pitcher on average:

Burns also has a weird slider that he can't get glove side, and he doesn't seem to throw a four seam fastball, instead opting for a 2-seamer that he can locate on both sides of the plate:

Ben Rowen makes the uniqueness of Burns seem trivial with his submarine delivery. Rowen has not pitched in the Majors, unlike the two above, but he has been dominant in AA and AAA:

I didn't get a great look because he only faced three hitters, and disposed of them quickly.

Rowen pitched for the Rangers' big league club in Spring Training for a few outings in Pitch F/X parks, so we do get a look at his release point and his average location of all his pitches in Spring Training (though instead of the traditional MLBAM, this data comes from Brooks Baseball's adjustment of Pitch F/X data). There aren't many pitchers that locate pitches higher on average than their release point:

 

 Especially considering it was Spring Training and a small sample size, we should be cautious paying attention to pitch locations for Rowen. MLBAM thought Rowen's fastball was a changeup, so I changed it to a fastball. It was the only pitch he could get down in his Spring Training outings.

Evaluating Josh Lindblom as a Starter

Josh Lindblom was acquired by the Texas Rangers from the Phillies in the Michael Young deal. A career reliever, the Rangers decided to convert him to a starter and stash him in AAA. So far, the change seems to be working reasonably well in Round Rock, as he has made 18 appearances, throwing 98 innings with a manageable home run rate of 1 per 9 innings, and a roughly league average kwERA of 4.13. Lindblom has also made 5 starts on the big league club in 8 appearances, with a 4.52 kwERA, somewhat struggling to miss bats. I saw him pitch against Oklahoma City, the Astros AAA affiliate, and you can see him and his delivery below:

Listed at 6-4, size is clearly not an impediment to him being an effective starter, and I think the slow and smooth delivery is pretty repeatable (walks have clearly not been a problem for him). He uses a pause when his leg comes to create some timing issues for hitters, not coming forward until it comes back down.

According to MLBAM pitch tags (the Brooks Baseball tags more or less agree with them), Lindblom has gone to more moving fastballs, curveballs, and changeups, throwing the 4-seamer 26.6 % of the time instead of over 50 % of the time. The BIS tags have him throwing any kind of fastball less than half the time with the Rangers' as a starter this season. For his outing that I saw live in Round Rock, I charted the velocity of each of his pitches, labelled with the opposing batter, pitch number, and the result of the at-bat. 
As far as general observations from his outing itself, his 82 MPH slider seemed sort of flat looking. He often bounced the slow curve, and seemed to slow down his arm to throw it. I thought he became a lot more hittable late in the game, as the stuff wasn't overpowering even for a AAA game. Some of the slower fastballs had a little bit of cut or something to them, even though it doesn't appear that he throws a cutter.

His release point this year is closest to Bobby Parnell and Darrell Rasner (with the high leg kick and the slow curve, it has been hard for me to shake the idea that he reminds me of certain NPB pitchers, with Rasner, currently a reliever for the Rakuten Golden Eagles, showing up, that feeling isn't going away) as starters.  Here is a visual look at what his release point looks like and the average location of all the pitches he has thrown in the Majors this season:

 This graph (which is just the strike zone) shows the average locations of his individual pitches in the Majors so far this year:

 While the sinker (his 2-seamer according to MLBAM tags, I changed the name here to match what Brooks Baseball calls it), curve, and changeup locations make sense, I was really surprised to see him be such a heavy glove side pitcher with his 4-seamer. He also throws it very high in the zone despite not having good velocity. His slider also doesn't get down or get as glove side as you would like. By contrast, this is what his average locations look like broken down by results:

 The homers are the most arm side and high, but are also some of the slowest pitches, not counting the swinging strikes, which he gets more glove side than anything else (suggesting the curve and slider are working). He gets fouls with the most velocity, when hitters can't catch up, and his outs come more glove side than his called strikes.

Lindblom is a pretty heavy groundball guy, getting more groundouts than strikeouts this season, and it appears that hitters are pretty balanced as to where they hit the ball against him (courtesy of MLBfarm)

 As a starter, I think Lindblom is going to have a hard time successfully navigating through MLB lineups. His fastball is below average, I am not a big fan of his slow curve, and his slider doesn't seem to be a very effective pitch. I don't think these pitches will amount to Lindblom missing any more bats than he already is.

Can Chris McGuiness be a Successful Big League Hitter

Chris McGuiness was a guy that I liked quite a bit offensively when I saw him in AA Frisco last year, and had a good Arizona Fall League season (which means nothing), but floundered in Spring Training as a Rule 5 pick with Cleveland. He went back to Texas, where he had a lot of success in AAA, and was brought up to the big league team, where he hasn't exactly started off hot. I wanted to take a look at his pitch data that he has seen so far, and see if we can make any judgments about whether McGuiness will succeed long term in the Majors as a hitter or not.*

Average Speed of all pitches seen: 86.64 MPH

Average Release Point of all pitches: Vertically: 5.62 Horizontally: -1.02

Average Spin of all pitches: 197 degrees

Swinging Strikes:

5.61 vertically -.9 horizontally

83.16 MPH

180 degrees

So he is whiffing at more breaking balls on average, which isn't anything unusual. It also isn't unusual, considering he is a left-handed hitter, that the closer to the center of the rubber (or more lefties) is giving him more problems than average.

Contact Plays:

85.43 MPH

5.68 vertically, -1.17 horizontally

203 degrees

Still not the average velocity of all pitches, but he is making contact with pitches that are harder on average, with more spin on average, than the pitches he is whiffing at, suggesting he is doing better with fastballs than breaking balls, nothing unusual. The release point data also isn't surprising, he is doing better the further out right-handed the pitcher is, and maybe not as usual, pitchers that are releasing the ball higher. 

Here are where pitchers have pitched McGuiness on average, along with his average swinging strike and average ball put in play:

 

Nothing unusual here, as he likes the ball a little more inside than he is normally pitched, and his swinging strikes are coming low, very low in this case. This shows us what the average spin and MPH of his whiffs (compared to all pitches seen) told us, he is having a lot of problems with breaking balls. However, something I found interesting was that his contact plays were still at a lower MPH than his average pitch seen. So here are all the pitches he has seen at 91 MPH and above, labelled with results, giving us an idea of how he is doing with velocity:

 

He is making plenty of contact in the zone with them, not missing many at all, but it is coming with a low BABIP, which of course, may not be his fault. Looking at all the balls he has put in play, labelled with the position McGuiness hit the ball to, may give us some kind of insight (and we should mention that his regular season BABIP is above league average so far in the very small sample size):

There clearly aren't many pitches high is the first thing you notice, and he is pulling everything from the middle of the plate in. For the most part, he is taking pitches outside the other way, though he tried to pull a couple low and away ones. The approach is certainly not bad, not too pull-happy, but willing to pull if the pitch is on the inside. At least so far (and plate discipline numbers usually make sense rather quickly), he is not swinging as much as an average hitter would, either in the zone or outside the zone. He has also shown good walk and strikeout numbers the last two years in AA and AAA suggesting a good approach.

To me, it seems that the skills are there (he can handle big league fastballs well), and the approach is there as well. I think he can be a good big league hitter if given the chance, especially if he adjusts his problems with breaking balls so far.

* Thanks to Daren Willman of Baseball Savant, as I got the regular season data from his website, and he also got me the Spring Training data, which was just 4 pitches, but I included them into the post. I did not include Arizona Fall League data.

Diagnosing Cody Buckel

Cody Buckel is a good prospect. Nearly two years ago, FanGraphs' Mike Newman noted his advanced tools, saying "in terms of sheer “pitchability”, Cody Buckel is the best I’ve seen at the South Atlantic League level". Marc Hulet ranked him as the 7th best Texas Rangers' prospect going into 2013, saying "He uses a four-pitch repertoire to disrupt hitters’ timing and he moves the ball around the plate". Baseball America said he had the best control in the Rangers' system in 2011 and ranked him as the 8th best prospect in the system before the season. However, Buckel has been a Dellin Betances meltdown machine statistically so far in 2013 (and just as painful to watch).

According to Lone Star Dugout's Jason Cole (on the Frisco Roughrider's broadcast), at least some of his problems stem from "arm drag" (that is, the arm is behind the body, as his body has already committed and his arm is still "coming through") and that is causing him to miss a lot armside with his fastball. The velocity is not down according to Cole and others, which we wouldn't necessarily expect it to be down anyway, because his problem is throwing strikes, not getting hit (though if it were down, we would certainly wonder about whether or not he was healthy).

Tepid Participation of Lone Star Ball has talked to scouts that believe the problem is mental. They believe that these mental problems (whatever they are) are causing mechanical problems. We can't (or I can't, with absolutely no psychological training) measure "mental problems", so let's take a look at Buckel's mechanics through screenshots. Since he was successful at the end of 2012, I picked a game from August 13th and compared it to his meltdown on April 27th 2013.

The 2012 outing is the top (bad quality is just because the feed), the 2013 is the bottom:

Leg kick is the same:

The release point:

I don't see the arm drag that Cole is talking about, at least not in a way that wasn't present when he was going really well in 2012 (his posture is certainly not good, but to make the argument that this is the problem, you have to argue that his success was fluky). The head even looks like it is in the same place.

We do have Pitch F/X outings from Buckel's 2013 spring training. It is hard to see any kind of mechanical problem with that data, as he was extremely consistent in repeating his delivery, with a .078 horizontal standard deviation and .07 vertical standard deviation. When I gathered a full turn through the rotation for all the MLB teams a week ago, no one had this consistent of a delivery. The fact that he was throwing short outings in spring training helps, but he was repeating his delivery well, and clearly wasn't a mess, something the screenshots support. Here is his release point from spring training in graph form:

As we can see, very consistent, but also bizarre. As we see in (all of) the screenshots, Buckel is right-handed, yet stands on the very first base side of the rubber. This gives the impression, when looking at the chart, that he is a short pitcher that comes right over the top. Looking at our starting pitcher release points, the only one that is even close is Justin Germano, who has almost exactly the same horizontal release point, but releases the ball about two and a half inches higher than Buckel. Here is a screenshot of Germano, compare him to Buckel:

As you can see, there are similarities, but for one, Germano is a little more upright than Buckel, and yet comes out a little more with his arm. It needs to be said that Germano is a journeyman, pitching for 5 different MLB teams (and probably his 6th soon, with the Blue Jays), and in both Korea and Japan. However, he doesn't throw as hard as Buckel either, averaging about 88 MPH on his fastball, while Buckel's fastball is closer to MLB average. So when Buckel is right, he has a much higher ceiling than Germano, but he may inherit some of Germano's good aspects as well. Germano has had good command in the Majors (7.3 BB %, 62.6 strike percentage), and has had reverse splits (via FIP and wOBA), most likely because of where he stands on the rubber. This basic Pitch F/X data says that Buckel is not only a good prospect, but has the consistency to pitch in the Majors already. However, he is clearly not, and closer to being sent to Arizona for more Spring Training than the big leagues.

It is unlikely that Pitch F/X would pick up "arm drag", at least not in release point consistency, but we can look at the (small sample size) strike zone Buckel had in spring training:

This is from the catcher's perspective, so we see that there is a heavy dose of armside pitches that miss, and miss a lot. He also has a lot of pitches up and not many down, which I've seen in some scouting reports as being a problem with Buckel, but is probably not part of the problem he is having now.

So the problem sure looks mechanical, but I just don't see it when I am actually watching Buckel and looking at the screenshots of his delivery. If the problem is mechanical, I don't see how he succeeded last year, at the same level, throwing strikes. I doubt it is armspeed, as his velocity is reportedly fine (and was solid in spring training). Perhaps it is mental, but I am not sure how one would measure, prove, or treat that problem. 

C.J. Wilson's Release Point

C.J. Wilson is probably the most successful reliever to starter conversion in at least recent memory. His move to the rotation helped the Rangers' reach two World Series and helped him get a 77.5 million dollar deal over 5 years with the Angels. So far, Wilson has not been the same pitcher in Anaheim, with a -1.3 WAA over 214.1 innings (he had a 5.2 WAA in 427.1 innings in his two years as a starter with the Rangers). When Wilson has had problems, it is usually because of walks. When he struggled against the A's on his most recent start (April 9th), he threw over 40 pitches in the first inning. Since becoming a starter, Wilson has thrown 3.97 pitches per plate appearance. This can be a good thing, in fact, the elite pitchers throw more pitches per plate appearance than pitchers that don't (strikeouts), so I wondered if we could use Pitch F/X data to see if we could reasonably conclude whether or not the high walk totals are a choice by trying to pitch around batters (and not being successful from a lack of stuff) or whether he just legitimately is having problems repeating his delivery.

If you look at all of Wilson's fastballs combined (cutters, 4-seamers, etc. all added together, skirting around most pitch classification problems), he is averaging 91.06 MPH so far in 2013 with 1.51 horizontal movement. In 2012, they averaged 91.81 MPH with a 1.59 horizontal movement. In 2011, his fastballs averaged 1.6 horizontal movement and 91.17 MPH. If you are looking for a dramatic loss of stuff for Wilson, then you need to look at something other than fastballs. We could break down the breaking pitches pretty easily, but instead, let's look at Wilson's release point to see if this gives us any insight into his command.

When looking at his release point data for his career, I noticed that he has come more "out", going from having his arm when it releases the ball about 1 feet from the center of the rubber/plate to about 2 feet in 2013. This started happening in August of 2012 so I decided to look at pictures (screenshots I took of highlights) and release point Pitch F/X data.

Here is C.J. Wilson in the World Series in 2011:

Here is C.J. in August of 2012:

The shots are at a little bit different times in the delivery and the 2012 photo is not zoomed in as much, but (especially if you zoom in) it seems that he has moved on the rubber closer to the 1st base side. Other than that, the body angle, posture, stride, and arm angle look the same to me. So it seems that he has simply moved on the rubber.

Let's look at the numbers to see if this changed how consistently he repeated his delivery.

2011: Horizontal SD: .214. Vertical SD: .192

2012 before he changed his stance on the rubber:
Horizontal SD: .211. Vertical SD: .1711

After he changed: Horizontal SD: .15578. Vertical SD: .1686

We wouldn't expect the vertical to change much, but it seems he has gotten more consistent at how high he is releasing the ball. He also improved horizontally, going from a horrible number to one that is a little more manageable.

In graph form, here is 2011:

Here is 2012 on a whole:

Here is C.J. after the change in 2012:

Obviously the further out part of his overall 2012 graph was simply his move on the rubber, which makes his year on a whole look worse. So the sample size was smaller, so we should be careful, but Wilson did repeat his delivery better after the change. Let's look at 2013 so far.

In picture form:

In Number form:

Horizontal: .207. Vertical: .1688

He is basically went back to his old horizontal inconsistencies, while his vertical release has remained better than it was. That is sort of a weird find, as we would expect the horizontal to be the one that is affected the most.

In Graph Form, here is the zoomed in version:

The larger view (like the other graphs above):

From a numbers perspective Wilson (small sample size alerts apply for early 2013 obviously) has not gotten better. His stuff seems to be more or less the same from 2010-2011, and he seems to be repeating his delivery at least a little better. So we are left with three choices in my view, 1) This data suggests he should get a little better, 2) He may be a little more consistent at repeating his delivery, but the move on the rubber is a negative thing and cancelling out any benefit or 3) It is some other variable that we are not considering. He is pitching in the same division, against similar opponents, and while yes he is older, the stuff seems to be there. I could be missing something, but I can't quite figure this one out.