Will Yasiel Puig be a Superstar?

Yasiel Puig has caught the baseball world by storm, after signing a large contract with the Dodgers out of Cuba, much of the baseball world scoffed at the enormity of the contract, especially since it seemed that he was far off from the big leagues. Puig then had a monstrous spring training that had some calling for him to make the team out of camp. After a dominating stint in AA and a couple of outfield injuries, Puig was eventually promoted, where, in a small sample size, he has been hitting well.

The average of all pitches Puig has seen so far is 86.64 MPH, which is about normal. The pitches he has swung and missed at have averaged 84.26 MPH and the ones he has made contact with have been 87.84 MPH. So he appears to be a dead fastball hitter. His average strike zone also shows that his problems, at least when it comes to swinging strikes, are on pitches low in the strike zone, usually non-fastballs

This chart also shows the average release points per each result. Not surprisingly, his success is coming on pitches released closer to the center of the rubber than far out right-handers. The strange part is that the swinging strikes are coming closer to left-handed than his success. I thought this might be because he is struggling against left-handed changeups, but he isn't (I have just 19 changeups faced according to MLBAM tags, with no swinging strikes). Instead, the problem was a few traditional breaking balls (curves and sliders) from lefties.

One thing you can poke a whole in Puig's numbers so far is that he hasn't walked yet, and in both spring training and the season he is relying on high BABIPs. This graph shows which pitches he has been chasing, the pitches he has swung at that are not in the traditional strike zone (labelled with MLBAM tags)

Obviously some of these are borderline pitches that he can't really be blamed with swinging at, but we see two general areas that he is chasing pitches at, low and away breaking balls, and inside fastballs. Pitchers have tried to throw him inside, and while he will swing, it is hard to argue that it is working real well, as his velocity on contact is higher than the average velocity he has seen.

As this spray chart from Texas Leaguers' shows, Puig has shown power to both fields, not pull happy, but not without pull power.

In the average strike zone above (the first graph) we see that his homers are actually coming on the outside of the plate, further away from him than the average pitch he saw or the average pitch he made contact with (which were virtually the same).

The power is real I think, as he can hit the ball out anywhere in the ballpark, and he likes to hit fastballs. The problem is that he isn't going to set a record for batting average on balls in play, which has been what has made his MLB and ST numbers look so absurd. He is going to have to walk eventually, or he's not going to get on base enough to be a real impact hitter. If the holes against breaking balls outside continue to be exposed, and he doesn't adjust, it is hard to imagine, even with his evident natural skill, that he will be successful in the big leagues. If he makes the adjustment, I do think he will be a star, an elite player, but at this point, it is hard to tell if he will or not. Perhaps the best thing for him would be for his BABIP to regress to worldly numbers, for him to struggle for a while, which would force him to make adjustments. When this happens, we will be able to evaluate Puig in a better manner than we can now, when everything is going right.
 
Thanks again 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.

Pitch F/X data from the Netherlands WBC Team

In Spring Training, the Netherlands World Baseball Classic team played against the Seattle Mariners in their spring training park. This means we got Pitch F/X data on the pitchers, so I thought it might at least be fun to look at the pitch data and see what the Netherlands pitchers were throwing.

Tom Stuifbergen is the only one that has experience in organized baseball, and has been in the Minnesota Twins' organization since 2007. Stuifbergen is a 24 year old right-hander listed at 255 pounds. He has just one appearance in AA, so he is a little behind as a prospect, excelling when he repeated A+. He has been a low walk, mediocre strikeout, low home run pitcher in his minor league career. Here is what his stuff looks like, via a spin and speed chart:

An acceptable fastball, along with probably a change and slider. He has a pretty standard release point, but it may have been a little more inconsistent than you would want.

Here are where he threw his pitches on average in his outing, based on the MLBAM tags:

He has to get the change and slider down a little more, and his fastball was extreme arm side, and probably was too high in the zone. He needs to get on top of the ball better than he did in the outing.

David Bergman is a 31 year old pitcher that has 94 career starts in the Dutch Major Leagues. We need to get some context statistically for the league (I don't have park factors for the league). We don't really know the talent level of the league, and just using the data from baseball reference, it seems to be a league that is incredibly unbalanced. One team went 34-7, and another team went 5-37 in 2012. Only 3 of the 8 teams were under .600, but they all won less than 20% of their games. So far in 2013, one team is 2-25, another is 23-3. As a league, over the past three seasons the average ERA has been 4.11, 5.05 Runs Per Game, and 3.53 FIP (homers are very rare, lot of walks, not many strikeouts comparitively). So we will use those numbers for comparing to league average. Bergman has numbers in the league since 2007, and has a career 42 ERA -, 47 R/G -, and 68 FIP -. In 2013, he has a 28 ERA -, .42 R/G-, and 50 FIP -. In other words, he has been really dominant in the league and is still on top of his game. He has a mediocre fastball, getting it up to just over 90 a couple of times, but mainly sitting at 85 MPH:

 It also loooks like he has a changeup, slider and curveball. His release point is relatively standard, perhaps a little more out and a little lower than the average right-hander:

Using the MLBAM tags, here are his average locations:

It seems that he had problems commanding the slider, but got the curve down, with a very high fastball on average. It is hard to imagine he would have success in a more competitive league with that high of a fastball with that little of velocity.

Kevin Heijstek is a 25 year old with data since 2007 in the Dutch Major Leagues. The 6-4 right-hander has a career 47 ERA -, 48 R/G -, and 76 FIP - in his career. In 2013, he has a 14 ERA - (not a typo), 19 ERA -, and 53 FIP -. His fastball didn't get up to the Bergman's, or even 90 MPH, but his average fastball might be a little bit better.

 

 He also seems to have curve, change, and slider. His release point is also further out than Bergman's, and not any higher:

 

The MLBAM tags says he throws only three different pitches:

In his outing, he did a better job of getting the fastball down than Bergman, but the change stayed up, and he located the curve like a slider.

Berry Van Driel is a 28 year old 6-6 right-hander with data since 2007 in the Dutch Major Leagues. He has worked mainly as a reliever with a career 59 ERA -, 62 R/G -, and 93 FIP -. So far in 2013, he has a 14 ERA -, 23 R/G -, and 53 FIP -. His fastball seems to be much better than Bergman or Heijstek:

His release point is very similar to Heijstek's, but was really inconsistent in his outing:

This seems to explain why his average strike zone looks pretty bad:

It sure doesn't look like he was finishing his delivery.

Johnny Balentina appears to actually be a position player in the Netherlands, at least that is the only Johnny Balentina I can find. He's a left-handed sidearmer:

He's also an extreme soft-tosser:

Really just two pitches, nothing over 83 MPH, fastball/curveball. The MLBAM tags called all his fastballs "changeups", but since he didn't throw anything harder, I just called them fastballs:

The "slider" designated by the MLBAM tags is probably a curveball. 

Here are the average locations of all pitches thrown for each of the 5 pitchers:

You can see that Berry Van Driel had his serious problems, and Stuifbergen was a little too high as well. Balentina was pretty standard for a lefty, while Hiejstek pitched low in the zone and glove side, with Bergman having a very standard right-handed pitcher location.

Kevin Gausman's First Start, A Pitch F/X Perspective

Kevin Gausman, the Orioles first round pick in 2012, made his much anticipated MLB debut against the Toronto Blue Jays. It went reasonably well and many national writers noted scouts raving about his stuff. Let's look at the 22 year old from a Pitch F/X perspective.

His closest release point comparison is Jair Jurrjens or Philip Humber, two sort of frustrating pitchers in the Majors that didn't age very well. Here is what his release point looks like in graph form:

I see three pitches, A fastball, a changeup, and a hard curve (the movement data suggests it is a curve, not a slider). Here is his spin and speed chart:

The first thing I noticed was that his velocity was much better than what I saw in Spring Training. I did mention the gun might have been slow on the TV that day (though Neimann and Bundy both proved to be velocity decliners and injured), or Gausman could have just been having a off day velocity wise (or didn't have the arm strength built up yet). It should be noted that I am using Brooks Baseball's scraped data (by just exporting the tabular data and then manipulating it to look like how I want), which because of the release point, adds some velocity as well (though I compare it to other Brooks' leaderboards). Also, remember that we saw that Toronto's Pitch F/X system has been very hot this year.  Assuming that hasn't been corrected, I'll post the regular Brooks Baseball average velocities of his pitches sorted by my tags, along with an adjusted MPH of 2 MPH less. The adjusted MPH will be the velocities I will make the comparisons with.

Fastball: 97.26 MPH, 95.26 Adjusted MPH. Michael Pineda is the closest comparison.

Horizontal Movement: -6.23. Koji Uehara is the closest comparison and it is more than Pineda's.

Vertical Movement: 8.88. Santana and Jimenez are the closest comparisons and it is more than Pineda's.

Curve: 83.56 MPH, 81.56 AMPH. Johnny Cueto.

Horizontal Movement: 2.29. Jeff Suppan. Less than Cueto

Vertical Movement: -2.04. Jon Garland. Less than Cueto.

Change: 84.32 MPH, 82.32 AMPH. David Pauley.

Horizontal Movement: -5.2. Tommy Hunter. Less than Pauley

Vertical Movement: .2. Brandon Webb. Less than Pauley

So just stuff wise, you see why he was such a high draft pick and a big prospect, because of the fastball. The change and curve don't bring as good of comparisons as his fastball. Let's see where he located these pitches on average:

He works more arm side than most right-handers, at least being more extreme. Perhaps he wasn't finishing his delivery, or maybe it is on purpose, it is hard to tell in one start (unless you are a mechanics expert). The change and curve were both located well low in the zone on average (the curve being glove side rather than straight down the middle). The fastball was only mid plate high, so he worked low in the zone overall. 

His last pitch was over 97 MPH (non adjusted), so it seems that he maintained his velocity well, and didn't just show off early and then dip off. I do wonder what the release point data means, and whether that means he won't be able to repeat his delivery long term (he repeated his arm slot well in the game, for what it is worth), but the fastball is very good, and he locates the other two pitchers (or at least he did in the game), so I don't think that the overly arm side pitching means a lot, and there are more reasons than not to believe that Gausman will be a good pitcher in the big leagues.

Mark Hendrickson: Tall Sidearmer

I've been really fascinated by Mark Hendrickson's reinvention of himself. Hendrickson is a former NBA player that had a long (if rather poor) MLB career as a reliever as well. However, he has now come back with the Orioles as a 38 year old sidearmer.

Here is a picture of him pitching in Spring Training from one of the Orioles beat writers:

Everything just seems really simple in Hendrickson's new delivery. It is a repeatable delivery, which is important for his size. It is still a high release point, but he is coming out quite a bit. His plan against righties was just to sort of pitch around them, trying to throw changeups and throwing inside with fastballs. He isn't going to fool them, and probably won't get many out.

I had seen him a couple of times this spring training, but not with a broadcast radar gun (and the Florida spring training facilities do not have Pitch F/X), so Wednesday night was the first time I got a good look at his velocity. I put all the pitch velocities (according to the MASN gun, which looked accurate on known pitchers) in a spreadsheet, and here is how they broke down (with MLB comparisons in the Pitch F/X era):

Fastballs: 26 (74.3 %, Jim Johnson), 90 MPH maximum, 84 MPH minimum, 86.46 MPH average (Joe Beimel).

2 plane break curve: 4 (11.4%, Craig Stammen), 77 MPH maximum, 74 MPH minimum, 75.5 MPH average (David Pauley).

He threw a separate change, but did not have much movement at all: 5 (14.3 %, Brian Fuentes), 81 MPH maximum, 79 MPH minimum, 80.4 MPH average (Matt Herges)

When you look at Hendrickson's old pitch data, we basically see the same guy, with velocity down a tick or two. Since he took time off, we would sort of expect that anyway. 

Almost everything was thrown glove side, that is, outside to lefties. According to his old Pitch F/X data, he wasn't a guy that threw down and away a lot, he would either go arm side and low, or high and glove side. This is where we see the new release point most likely impacting his pitching philosophy. It is hard to see him going up and in a lot to righties or up and away from lefties just because of the release point.

Is he a MLB reliever at this point? Maybe as a lefty specialist if he can throw strikes, and there is nothing I've seen in Spring Training that tells me he can't. 

Comparing Left-Handed Bullpen Candidates: Robertson and Ortiz

The Texas Rangers' have been looking for a second lefty in the bullpen (now that Robbie Ross is in the bullpen again), and since Michael Kirkman is in the competition for the 5th starter, I wanted to compare two lefties that seem to have some chance of making the team as spring training, Joe Ortiz, who is on the 40 man roster, and Nate Robertson is not. So in this post I will look at the Pitch F/X data of both from this spring training.

I saw Ortiz pitch in person last season, and was impressed (I've seen both pitch on television this spring training, but I'll put that aside for now and just focus on the data). He looked like a future big leaguer to me as a reliever. Both Robertson and Ortiz are really quirky pitchers. Ortiz is extremely short for a pitcher, while Robertson has been reinventing himself as a sidearmer after having some success (but injuries) as a traditional starting pitcher.

First let's compare their fastballs, which seems like a good place to start when talking about pitchers:

Ortiz' fourseam fastball is averaging 91.65 MPH in spring training, while Robertson's is averaging 90.15 MPH according to Brooks Baseball. However, Robertson's is getting more movement both horizontally and vertically than Ortiz'.

They both also throw sinkers. Ortiz throws his at the same velocity as his 4-seamer, while Robertson takes quite a bit off of his, throwing it 86.75 MPH. Robertson gets slightly more horizontal movement on his than Ortiz', while Ortiz gets better vertical movement.

Let's compare their release points:

Here is Ortiz:

Here is Robertson:

Obviously Robertson released some sinkers much differently than the rest of his pitches. I wasn't sure if this was some kind of error (we have seen weird release point errors with Kameron Loe) or something he just did in my outing. When I looked at other games from this spring training, he did the same thing. So he releases some pitches way differently. It would seem that this would be on purpose. Can we find the situation? It didn't seem to be based on splits, as they (the stray marks) appeared against both lefties and righties. It didn't appear to be on two strikes, and it wasn't all of his sinkers, and there appears to be at least one fastball he released strangely.

What does it mean? It isn't exactly clear. Inconsistencies are usually bad, mainly for health reasons. It would also seem that he is doing some kind of pitch tipping, though again, it isn't all of his sinkers.

I promised comparisons. We see that both pitchers are releasing the ball from basically the same height (5.48 feet on Ortiz' fastballs, and about 5.35 on average for Robertson, who I added up all the pitches because of the difference), with Robertson a little lower. Obviously Robertson is releasing the ball sidearm, but Ortiz is mainly just short (though he is coming out quite a bit, about 2.7 feet on average). This is the biggest difference, as Robertson is releasing the ball much further out than Ortiz. This will make him tougher against lefties, though much less likely to be able to get righties out. 

Though it should be emphasized that Ortiz is coming out quite a bit, and while he has been decent against righties, he has been rather significantly (about a run per 9 innings depending on which estimator you use) better against lefties. This picture may help emphasize that he is coming out quite a bit:

Both look like left-handed specialists. So I created this nifty little chart comparing the 2013 movement data for Ortiz and Robertson's spring training versus the movement data (career wise) of some other notable (my definition) "LOOGYs" in the Pitch F/X era.

This is average movement per pitch regardless of classification. What we see is that Robertson is getting a silly amount of horizontal movement on his pitches, which is probably because of his release point (note that Rapada, a noted sidearmer, is 2nd). Ortiz gets slightly better vertical movement, which makes sense considering that we saw that his release point was a little higher (I have no idea what is going on with Randy Choate). Out of the 6 or 7 pitchers that you might consider "active", Ortiz has the best vertical movement.

One of the things that make comparing Robertson and Ortiz interesting is that they throw the same 4 pitches according the the Brooks Baseball tags, Fastball, Sinker, Slider, and Changeup. I hate to make too much out of pitch selection with such small sample sizes, and in games that don't officially matter, but Robertson seems to like his change more than his slider, and Ortiz is vice versa. Not surprisingly, Ortiz throws his slider harder than Robertson, while Robertson throws his change harder than Ortiz (by just .03 MPH). This makes the pitch selection make more sense.

Ortiz gets some pretty odd movement on his slider, seemingly very similar to Raul Valdes, who throws his nearly 5 MPH softer. Valdes is another short lefty, though not quite as short, and the MLBAM tags call his slider a curveball. However, when you look at spin graphs, Valdes is clearly not throwing a curveball:

When we look at Ortiz, we see the same thing:

It doesn't have traditional movement (that is, it has what you might call "top spin") for a slider, but it definitely has too much spin for a curveball. Sean Burnett's slider is pretty similar as well (and both Valdes and Burnett have good whiff, average groundball sliders), and we find a few right-handed ones like Strop, Jansen, Albuquerque, and Esmil Rogers as well (and Fu-Te Ni had a curveball that was similar in movement). These are mostly good names, but it is sort of an odd pitch.

Robertson's is a more traditional slider, but it doesn't move much, especially when we look at horizontal movement, which he got a lot of as a whole. Mark Lowe and maybe perhaps Eric O'Flaherty provide the best movement comparisons, but both are about 5 MPH harder than his. The changeup has the high horizontal movement that helped his overall movement above, but it is hard to draw comparisons for Robertson's change because it moves so well horizontally, but doesn't move much vertically. He gets more horizontal movement than either of these, but Fuentes and Burke Badenhop provide good comparisons in just the difference of vertical and horizontal movement. Ortiz' is actually much more traditional, sort of a left-handed Guillermo Mota (a very successful change) changeup.

Even without taking into account age or roster status, Ortiz seems to be the better pitcher. His pitches are thrown a little harder on average, and he seems to be less of a trick pitcher. Robertson seems to rely too heavily on throwing pitches with extreme horizontal movement with his way out arm slot to be anything more than a one batter specialist. He will be tough on lefties, throwing with decent velocity and an array of pitches from the side, but he isn't as balanced as Ortiz. Ortiz has strangeness as well, but a balance of pitches, a repeatable release point, ability to throw strikes, okay velocity, and good movement makes it look like he is the kind of guy that can pitch in the big leagues for quite a while as long as his body holds up (he is short, but he is not small).

Michael Roth: Future Loogy?

Michael Roth just turned 23 last month, and we also got Pitch F/X data on him for the first time. In the context of college baseball pitchers, Roth goes down as one of the greatest of all time. His outings, including those in huge College World Series games, will go down in history as some of the best performances of all time. College numbers aren't predictive for pitchers, but, he had a 1.91 ERA and 3.05 FIP in his 4 year career at South Carolina. Of course, numbers don't neccessarily make a prospect, and this is the case with Roth.

When talking about Roth, I am reminded of an ESPN segment with Keith Law and Ben Mcdonald, in which they discussed Roth's above average command as a college pitcher, but the fact that, because of his lack of a fastball and big league stuff, he wasn't a big league prospect. He was drafted in the 9th round by the Angels anyway, but I saw him, just from seeing him pitch in college, as more of a left-handed specialist reliever. Pitching in the Pioneer League after the draft, the sample sizes were much to small to speak intelligibly about him at all, much less his splits. He faced 99 hitters, got 34 of them to hit ground-balls, 21 of them to strikeout, walked 11, and gave up two homers.

His 5 fastballs that Pitch F/X tracked averaged 91.45 MPH, respectable, even when we understand it in context. It was a relief outing, but is still a slightly above average fastball from the left side in relief, closest to Dan Meyer, who last pitched in the big leagues in 2010.

Roth's release point is rather low and somewhat out (which supports my initial thesis that he is a left-handed specialist), as you can see here:

However, it isn't as out or as sidearm as a Chris Sale or Randy Choate

Those two pitchers have extreme platoon splits (even though Sale is a starter who just got an extension), and it seems Roth is more "normal" or standard than them. I compared Roth to Meyer earlier, and as we see with Meyer's release point, the horizontal release is basically the same, perhaps even a little more out, though Meyer clearly releases the ball higher.

Meyer didn't have much success in his MLB career, and his platoon splits were pretty weird. OPS wise, he was better against righties, but his DIPs were borderline acceptable against lefties, and horrible against righties. Meyer was basically a fastball/cutter pitcher, but he also threw a changeup 14 % of the time. Meyer's change was nearly 5 MPH slower than Roth's, and while it got better horizontal movement, the vertical movement Roth gets is much better. Meyer's change was terrible, with a 138 wRC + against. Meyer's 4-seam fastball also moved better than Roth's did in his outing, and Meyer's fastball was even worse than his changeup in the Majors.

The closest comparison I could find in release point to Roth is Craig Breslow. It is also a convenient comparison when it comes to fastball velocity as well (though Breslow's movement is a lot better). At the risk of having too many pictures, here is a release point graph from a recent Breslow outing:

Even though Breslow doesn't throw a great deal of strikes (61.7 %), he has had a relatively successful career, especially if you believe his ability to outperform his FIP with low BABIPs is real (strangely, he had a high BABIP in 2011 in his last year in Oakland, but he had a lower than league average BABIP in 2012 with the Diamondbacks and Red Sox, two relatively hitter friendly parks). For his career, his BABIP and batting average has been virtually the same when it comes to lefties and righties, though his defensive independent metrics are stronger against lefties (but he is still acceptable against righties). So this release point doesn't seem to constrain Roth, even with his fastball, to being a left-handed specialist as a more extreme one might.

Roth's horizontal movement on his fastball is well below average, as is his vertical movement. It is going to take some really special command to make up for this, and even then, big league hitters can still take advantage of below average pitches that are well located. I count 21 relievers in the Pitch F/X era with fastballs of 91-91.99 MPH, and 20 of those pitches have better vertical movement on their fastballs than Roth's.

Roth's changeup is a little more interesting, especially in velocity terms. Averaging nearly 85 MPH, it is a pretty hard changeup, with only 5 relief lefties having a harder change than 85 MPH in the Pitch F/X era. He doesn't get a lot of horizontal movement on it, but it does get vertical dip. His closest comparisons are not that attractive in either grounders or whiffs, but one could picture this being a big league pitch and help him keep his platoon splits down.

Obviously we didn't see a third pitch, which isn't that big of a deal for our purposes, since I don't see him as a starter anyway.

I am not sure what to make of his lack of spin:

Most pitchers' fastballs usually sit around 250 degrees, and spin is usually good on fastballs.

This is obviously a small amount of data, and early spring training data, which is what this is, may be taken with a grain of salt if necessary. However, we can look at the data and allow us to make some conclusions on Roth until more data becomes available. The fastball is underwhelming for different reasons than I initially believed, he can succeed with his release point, and his change may actually be a good pitch. Lack of overall movement hurts Roth's chances, especially as an older prospect who needs to move very quickly. It would seem wise for the Angels to try to fast track him by moving him to the bullpen for 2013, and see if the fastball is good enough to get middle to high level minor leaguers out. If not, then he is probably just a minor league filler player. Just because of the pedigree, you can see why the Angels would take him in the 9th round, but because of his fastball, he comes with a lot of risk.

Chad Cordero's Pitch F/X Data

At Seattle Sports Central, I wrote about Jeremy Bonderman's spring training Pitch F/X data, a pitcher who hasn't pitched since 2010 before the outing. Chad Cordero is another pitcher who hasn't pitched since 2010, but is currently in camp with the Angels and pitched in a spring training game at Peoria, giving us some Pitch F/X data to look at.

Of course, the first thing you notice is fastball velocity. He averaged 89.4 MPH, maxing out at 90.4 MPH, obviously well below average for a bullpen pitcher. However, this is the best we have seen Cordero since 2007. Back then, he averaged over 91 MPH on his fastball. Due to some arm problems, that fastball velocity cratered to 84.41 MPH in 2008, he didn't pitch in 2009, and got back up to 88.37 MPH in 2010. Unlike with Bonderman, the years off seem to have given Cordero a better fastball that he has in quite a while.

Of course, he only threw three of the 4-seam fastballs. Even though Brooks Baseball didn't separate his 4-seamer into different fastballs when he was still pitching in the Majors, MLB AM data did when they started separating 2-seamers and 4-seamers in 2010. The MLB AM data says Cordero mainly threw the 2-seamer in his spring training outing on Friday. This pitched got nearly as high as the 4-seamer (90.3 MPH), but on average was a couple MPH slower. With that said, he did get very good movement on the pitch:

You will notice though that he didn't get much movement on the slider. In his last decent year, 2007, Cordero's slider averaged 80.93 MPH. In his spring training outing, it averaged 80.05 MPH, almost a full MPH down. His slider was about average in horizontal movement and probably a little bit below average in vertical movement (though sometimes it is hard to tell thanks to misclassifications). 2007 data is a little harder to gather, but this slider from 2007 suggests that the pitch was moving more horizontally in 2007.

He threw 5 curveballs according to Pitch F/X in 2010, but he didn't throw any before then, and didn't throw it in his outing against the Mariners either. So this was probably a mistake in the system anyway, especially since the velocity was so similar to the slider (though the movement was much different).

At 6-0, he obviously isn't releasing the ball very high. However, it seems that he is releasing the ball even lower now, as you compare a 2007 chart to his chart from Friday:

He also seems to have, although this is a bit more subtle, begun to release the ball closer to his body.

 

 This creates a somewhat bizarre picture of Cordero's delivery, as you usually don't release the ball lower if you are releasing it closer to your body (it usually works vise versa). I do think that we can see the difference in a couple pictures I found in a quick Google Search (the first is from Rant Sports, and the 2nd from Orange County Register). First, here is Cordero as a Mariner in 2010:

It hurts my elbow to see it at this angle (I think you could call this "arm drag", as the arm seems to be behind the body), but this looks like a 3/4 delivery. Here is a picture of Cordero pitching for the Angels:

This is at a different point in the delivery, but it seems that the elbow is more down, less out, and he is releasing the ball a little more over the top, which meshes with the release point data.

This is usually a good thing, especially when it comes to platoon splits, but as a guy trying to make the team as an extra reliever, this may not necessarily be a good thing. For short term relievers, big platoon splits are actually a good thing, as it gives them a niche and role to fit in on the big league club. With that said, for a guy like Cordero, who has had major arm issues for several years now, the importance lies in delivery repetition. If the new delivery puts less stress on his arm, then it is successful, even if it erodes at his platoon splits a little.

Cordero also threw a changeup that we haven't talked about yet. In 2007, this was a small but existent part of his repetition, as he threw 6% of the time. If you look at the movement chart from the spring training outing, you notice that the pitch moves a lot like his fastballs, but in the game, was about 4 MPH lower (which is about 1 MPH slower than it was in 2007, matching the rest of his pitches in the velocity drop for the most part, above where it was after 2007, but below 2007 itself). You would usually like to see a difference in not only velocity, but more importantly I think, movement in the change and fastball.

While this comparison isn't really fair, look at the difference between Felix Hernandez' changeup and fastball in movement:

Felix has one of, if not the, best changeups in baseball. Even though he throws it over 89 MPH, and sometimes over 90 MPH, a 3 or 4 MPH difference from his fastball, it is so effective because it looks like the fastball, then moves differently horizontally and vertically than his fastball, and has more vertical drop than his sinker.

Obviously Cordero isn't trying to throw a changeup as good as Felix. As a reliever, the changeup, his 3rd (his 4th if you separate his fastballs) pitch, isn't that important, so the fact that it doesn't appear to be a very good pitch isn't a big deal. It is nice to have as many good pitches as possible though, especially if you don't throw very hard, and Cordero doesn't compared to other relievers.

This is spring training, so we shouldn't put much stock in results. This is good for Cordero, because his results were not very good. He gave up a homer to the first batter he faced, defensive shortstop Brendan Ryan. He didn't get a single whiff in his 20 pitches, and threw 11 strikes, which is a little low percentage wise.

At this point, it is early in spring, but it is a little hard to see Cordero cracking the Angels bullpen, even to start the year. The Angels bullpen struggled last year, but we have to be realistic when talking to Cordero. He is right-handed, has a long injury history, doesn't throw hard or even average, and at this point, doesn't look like he has a very good breaking or off-speed pitch. It is a good story, but he will probably start in AAA. If he stays healthy, finds his slider again, and pitches well in the PCL, then it is possible you will see Cordero in the Majors this year, but as is the case in all comeback attempts, the odds are stacked against him.

Non Roster Invitees: Pitcher Velocity

To finish the Non Roster Invitee series, I looked at all of the official pitcher non roster invitees (as of January 30th) and sorted them by velocity. There were a handful of ones that I couldn't find velocity data for, so I took them off. I also put handedness on the sheet, but sorted them by velocity. I gathered the velocity data from FanGraphs for pitchers that have been in the Majors, Brooks Baseball for pitchers that have not been in the Majors but have pitched in the Arizona Fall League or a Pitch F/X Spring Training park, and my collection of minor league velocity for other pitchers. For the rest of them, I found scouting reports on (obviously I didn't for a few of them). Instead of using ranges, I used averages, as that is what Pitch F/X systems use obviously. So for scouting reports and my minor league velocity collection, I just used the median. Here is the spreadsheet:
The lack of left-handed velocity is interesting. 

Non Roster Invitees: Outfielders

Continuing our look at the non-roster invitees to spring training in the Majors, here I will look at the Outfield Non Roster Invitees. First, a quick note on some of the numbers I am using.

Rv600 is what Stat Corner estimates would be the run value of a player over 600 plate appearances using their wOBA numbers. This value, like FRAA, Range Factor, and Speed Score, will only be the 2012 numbers, while the RBAT is career wise in the Majors and by it's nature, the odds system is career wise.
This gives us two defensive rankings, two offensive rankings, and one baserunning rankings, which seems to make sense with how we (or at least I) evaluate players.

I realize that Range Factor creates a bias towards centerfielders since their range factors are usually higher. I am fine with that bias, as it creates a positional adjustment. To be clear, I am only looking at 2012, and each player's OF number as a whole (so if a player played 10 games in left, 10 games in right, and 80 in center, then I am taking the combined number). For minor league players, we will obviously use RF/G since that is all that is available, but for MLB players, we will use the more reliable RF/9. Billy Hamilton's RF/G was left out since he played shortstop in 2012. This makes his ranking artificially low, especially since he showed very good range in the Arizona Fall League and should have elite range in center long term. He ranks 3rd, but he probably deserves to be first (like he does in the odds rankings). You should be able to view the spreadsheet below:

Non Roster Invitees: Infielders

Continuing our look at non-roster invitees to Spring Training, here I look at the infielders using FRAA, Speed Score, and Baseball Reference's batting runs above average for players that have a significant amount of plate appearances in the Majors (I didn't use a hard cutoff) and my odds system for players with no or an insignificant amount of plate appearances in the Majors. To download the spreadsheet, click here or copy the address below into your browser:

https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B_DUd_c_mKWrMEFjM284WFF5NWM/edit

Non Roster Invitees: Catchers

Here, I broke down all the announced (that is, official and on each team's website) non-roster invitees to Spring Training catchers and put them all in one spreadsheet. I used their passed balls per game, caught stealing percentage, along with their offensive odds or rWAR if they have played a significant amount of time in the Majors. I combined their rankings like I have in previous posts to make a ranking of the catchers. No reason for a longer introduction, so here is the spreadsheet:

Matt Stites Scouting Report

The Padres announced their non roster players invited to spring training. Right-handed pitcher Matt Stites was one of those pitchers, and was also one of the pitchers that pitched in the Arizona Fall League in 2012.

In a relief outing in Arizona, Stites showed off a 4-seam fastball that averaged nearly 96 MPH along with a hard changeup and hard slider (both averaging over 87 MPH). Stites has only pitched in relief in the minors, but despite his velocity, he was drafted in the 17th round by the Padres out of the University of Missouri in 2011. Since signing, he has been dominant, with a 2.08 FIP and 1.78 SIERA in 82.2 innings in the minors. He may have been drafted so low thanks to his small stature (listed at 5-11 170) as a right-handed reliever.

Despite these numbers, his ground-ball rate is horrible and he had a really messy release point in the AFL. Over the last two seasons, his GB % is just 32.4. It seems to be a small miracle that he has a .55 HR/9IP, as he has a 10.1 IFFB%, leading to a 6.8 HR/OFB %. One would expect this to regress (as in get higher) as he gets in more advanced levels of the minors and faces more power hitters. In 2012, his home park actually played hitter friendly, though in 2011, the main park he played in played pitcher friendly. Of course SIERA (and his 1.91 kwERA in the minors) zero out the home run/ground-ball rates, and his FIP was actually a little worse at home over the last 2 years.

His delivery is somewhat like we saw with Whelan, though it is not quite as violent or dramatic as his, Stites has a gigantic leg kick and a motion that isn't fluid at all, more jerky than anything. I can see why his release point data was so messy, but we have seen before, this doesn't matter with elite relievers, while it does with starters.

His changeup doesn't have dramatic movement, but it does look like his fastball before it drops off a little. He actually seemed to work his fastball both high and low, which is a little surprising for his ground-ball percentage. He was very fastball heavy, willing to just overpower hitters. The slider was obviously the superior breaking pitch, as it looked like a strikeout pitch to go with the fastball, dropping off of a table almost like a splitter.

Even as dominant as he has been, he hasn't pitched in a level past A-ball, so it is difficult to see him making the big league team out of Spring Training. He has been dominant against both lefties and righties and has a plus fastball, so I don't think Stites will be waiting for the big leagues for long, especially if he continues to succeed in AA and AAA.

Darin Gorski, LOOGY or more?: Scouting Report

According to beat writer Andy McCullough, the Mets are possibly going to use Darin Gorski as a LOOGY (lefty specialist) for the Major League team in 2013 (after getting added to the 40 man to be protected from the Rule 5 draft). Gorski, 25 years old, was drafted in the 7th round in 2009 out of college. He has impressive size at 6-4 210 and pitched in AA for the entire season. I assume that Gorski would have to compete with Danny Herrera (coming off Tommy John, probably won't be ready for the start of 2013) and Tim Byrdak (also coming off injury, is on minor league deal). While this would make maintaining the job difficult, it should make it easy to get the job initially.

Gorski made 24 starts (and 1 relief appearance) with the AA club where he was about league average when it came to age, and had a FIP .59 worse than league average but SIERA .03 better than league average. The home run problem was mainly on the road (1.52 HR/9IP) as the Mets' AA home park is pitcher friendly (95 one year park factor in a league that gives up .75 HR/9IP), but he also gave up more than a homer per 9 innings at home. His measly 30.8 GB % didn't help, as his HR/9IP was 12.9 %, high but not so much that you assume that it is fluky (and his HR/FB % was higher than league average in A+ in 2011 as well). He also had .9 HR/9IP in 2009 and 2010, in leagues that had averages of .4 HR/9IP and .6 HR/9IP respectively. It is clear that he has a home run problem and doesn't exactly keep the ball on the ground, but there is some good news statistically. He had exactly a league average walk rate along with a strikeout rate 1.4% better than league average in 2012.

The Mets probably want to use him as a LOOGY because of his large platoon splits. Over the last two years, Gorski has a 3.04 FIP and 3.76 SIERA against lefties, with a FIP near 5 against right-handed hitters. His home run problem doesn't exist against lefties and he actually has a decent ground-ball rate against them. The problem is, those numbers are not exactly dominant. Herrera has a career 3.38 FIP and 3.63 xFIP against lefties in his career, while Byrdak has a 3.50 FIP and 3.58 xFIP in his career. Obviously Gorski's numbers are a little better against lefties and he was a starter in the minors, but would the positive regression of the move to the bullpen outweigh (or at least be about the same) the general regression from AA to the Majors? I am not sure how to weigh that statistically, so lets look at his stuff and a scouting report.

John Sickels describes Gorski as a pitcher with "superior command of average fastball and off-speed stuff, refined changeup". He sits around 88-91 MPH with his fastball most of the time. He also throws a slider that is in the low 80s like his changeup and mixes in a two-seamer as well. His fastball is pretty straight and mostly high, so I can definitely see why it won't get right-handed hitters out in the Majors. He tries to locate it both inside and outside to righties, but I am still skeptical.

Evidently his delivery and mechanics improved after the 2010 season. He doesn't have much of a leg stride, instead having just a high leg kick. He also brings his arm and the ball behind him, giving him some decent deception. He doesn't have any kind of sidearm motion that you usually see in LOOGYs. It still is a delivery that seems to work a little better against lefties than righties. Honestly, I wasn't overly impressed with his changeup. He clearly looks like a strike thrower, so I don't think there will be control problems in a Major League 'pen.

It seems that the Mets have two choices with Gorski. They can convert him to a reliever and see how he does against lefties in spring training/early in the season in the MLB, or they can try him out as a starter in AAA. The latter option would be in an effort to see if he could latch on as a capable (but certainly below average, most likely a 5 in that terminology) starter in 2014. The Mets' pitching staff was worse against lefties than righties in 2012, and their best returning relievers against lefties were Bobby Parnell and Tim Byrdak. Brydak may not be ready for the start of 2013 and Parnell isn't really used as a LOOGY, pitching in more high leverage situations. Having Gorski in the Majors would help them avoid signing a free agent and I am not sure he would stick as a starter anyway.

Pirates sign several

The Pirates signed several different players to minor league and non-roster invite contracts. This is, of course, the lowest risk type of signing you can have, so you don't expect to find the next Albert Pujols or Roy Halladay in these kinds of signings. The question is whether or not you can find players of value to sign to these kind of contracts. First, Jake Fox, who has a -.8 career WAR in 534 PA, which would be about a full season worth of plate appearances. Most of this is his poor defense, a -.6 D-WAR, with hardly any real position, playing everything but SS, 2nd, and CF. There is a reason he plays all those positions, he is below average at every single one of them according to Range Factor. But his hitting is also below replacement level at a -.2 O-WAR. His OBP is just .288, with a OPS + of 87, and a Secondary Average of .243. He does have an Isolated Slugging of .188, which is decent but he is a way below average walker and has an offensive winning percentage of .413.
Next is Brandon Boggs. In 382 PA, he has an even 0 WAR. He plays every outfield position, but under league average according to Range Factor and Fielding Percentage. His OBP is .315, with an OPS + of 83. He has a good Secondary Average of .328, with 4.4 Runs Created per game (but just a .449 Offensive Winning Percentage). He is a great walker at 12.8%, an average home run hitter and an above average extra base hitter. He sees a very high Pit/PA of 4.33, giving him a PPS of 102.49, which is very good. There is certainly value there.
They also added Kyle Cofield, but I profiled him when he was released by the White Sox.
Shairon Martis had 2 years of experience with the Nationals, throwing 106.1 innings, basically all as a starter. He has a WAR of .1, PE of 4.38, adjusted PE of 4.59, and SIERA of 5.49.
Stefan Welch has been exclusively a minor league hitter, spending 5 different seasons in different levels of A ball. He has had a .337 OBP, 1.76 04S, and 2.99 PAPP. He walks just 7.6% of the time, and homers just 1.9%. A profoundly mediocre A ball player.
Lastly, Jose Diaz has pitched just 7.2 major league innings, and at least as far as I can see, didn't pitch in 2011.

Free Agent Watch: Gustavo Chacin

Gustavo Chacin registered a 3.5 WAR in his first full season in the majors in 2005. He never repeated that success though, as in 2006 he dropped down to .6 WAR, then -.1 WAR in 2007. In 2010, he made it back to the Majors, only to register a -.1 WAR. In his good year in 2005, his PE was not very good at 2.43, and his adjusted PE was even worse at 2.97. His TR was 8.44, and his FIP - (FIP adjusted for ballpark factors etc.) was slightly under average (of course, you want lower numbers) at 96. His SIERA was awful though at 4.76. Even though SIERA kills him, he had a BABIP of .296 which is about average, and he gave up less than a homer every 9 innings at .89. He got more groundballs than flyballs, but the biggest complaint, and this is why the metrics hated him, was that he didn't strikeout many batters. So lets fast forward past his melt down in Toronto and his stint with the Phillies organization (and they never felt compelled to use him in the Majors) and look at his 2010 season in Houston. He was used only as a short inning reliever, averaging less than an inning an appearance. He had a PE of 2.34, and an adjusted PE of 1.68. His TR was just 7.45. However, he was the victim of a horrible Astro team and that really screwed with the metrics. He suffered through a .364 BABIP (giving him a BAA of .301 and WHIP of 1.85. Those who claim WHIP usually stays the same for a pitcher over a career are at the very least simplifying things, because BABIP can screw with that too), so even with the pedestrian TR and PE, he still had a just above average 103 FIP -. SIERA was still not impressed, as he had a 4.42. Again, he didn't give up the longball, at .7 HR/9IP, but he no longer got the groundball at .82 GB/FB. He also had major walk problems at a 4.7 BB/9IP. He didn't pitch in the majors in 2011, and pitched for the Astros and Mets AAA teams. He pitched just 15 innings for the Mets, so we will throw that out and instead look at his Astro AAA numbers, where he threw 66.2 innings as both a reliever and starter. He was miserable there, with a 4.67 PE and 4.5 adjusted PE. Uncharacteristically, he struggled with the long ball, with 1.08 HR/9IP. Even though his BABIP was a little high, at .319, that wasn't the problem. He didn't pitch well, and that was in AAA. Chacin really doesn't have any value, I don't see the point of bringing him in even to Spring Training.

Peter Moylan: Arbitration

Peter Moylan's injury problems led to just a .2 WAR in 2011. He has an average WAR of .683, worth about 2 million dollars according to the Halladay Standard. He made 2 million dollars in 2011, and one would think arbitration would give him more money. He has a career -.949 PE, gives up a .324 OBP and .652 OPS. Lets on slightly less runners on than average, and gives up quite a bit less total bases and power than average (with very few homers). He walks too many batters, but he can make up for it with all the groundballs he gets. He has a really solid TR of 11.68, but his FIP is around 3.66 in his career (if you replaced his ERA with his FIP, his PE would be a positive, which is not a good PE for a reliever). It would seem if arbitration increases his salary (as it probably will), then the Braves should attempt to unload him. With his injury problems and questions about whether he will even be ready for Spring Training in 2012, they probably won't get a very good return for him, but their really isn't much sense in keeping him around for the money he will make.

Free Agent Watch: Armando Galarraga

This was the pitcher that was robbed of a no-hitter by a bad call at first base last year. Since then, things haven't gone as well. His ERA in 2011 with the Arizona Diamondbacks was 5.91 and he had a 4.36 PE. Obviously these numbers are way too high. He has a career ERA of 4.69 and a PE of 2.91. In 2011, he had a 60% strike percentage (his career number is 62%), and struck out 6 batters per 9 innings (his career number is 5.72). In addition to his terrible major league year, he also had 5 terrible AAA starts where he struggled with the long ball in 2011. In his major league career, he has given up 1.53 HR/9IP, which is way too much. No matter what, he is going to give up a lot of bombs. He has shown the ability to be a back of rotation starter, but his ugly 2011 season should really concern people. In 08, he posted a 3.1 WAR, which would be a 129 WASP at "minimum wage", and would be one of the tops in the league. However, the rest of the years, he isn't worth more than a minor league/minimum wage contract. At 29, he is too young to be "washed up", but he should have peaked physically, and last years' horrible year becomes even more concerning. He has the ability to do well, and he has at times, one just wonders about his mental state and whether he will ever develop consistency. Time is absolutely running out. Some metrics, such as the percentage of strikes and strikeouts (see above), have stayed the same, so one wonders if he was lucky in 08, or unlucky now? If you can bring him in on a nonroster invitation or minor league contract, it seems worth it to bring him to spring training and see how he does.