Charting Shohei Otani's First NPB Start

Last year, Shohei Otani was the talk of the baseball world for a short time, thanks to being a YouTube sensation for hitting 100 MPH in high school. Rumored to be interested in a MLB deal, I wrote about him for another site, but he was drafted by the Nippon Ham Fighters, and signed with them. The Fighters have used him as a positional player in the NPB, and then sent him to the Ni-Gun to pitch. Earlier in the week, they let him make his NPB debut as a starting pitcher. This post is about his first start, charting him from both watching his outing, and the Yahoo data from the NPB version of Gameday. Each pitch is classified, but I also classified each pitch on my own, just from a live standpoint. In the spreadsheet below, I recorded the pitch data given by Yahoo, along with my own classifications, and transferring the kilometers to miles per hour. I sorted the spreadsheet by opposing hitter:
 First, let's look at his velocity breakdown chart, this one sorted from pitch 1 to pitch 86:

Otani reached his peak velocity about midway through his outing, and wasn't throwing as hard at the end of the game as he was at the start of the game. This could be because of how his pitch schedule at the start of the season was off because the Fighters wanted to use him as a position player. His arm strength may not be all the way built up. 

Here were his pitches according to my classifications:

50 Fastballs: 93.32 MPH, 25 in the strike zone, Middle High and Glove Side and Low the most common locations (10 each)

8 Two-Seamers: 91.63 MPH, 5 in the strike zone, Glove Side Middle, Arm Side High, Arm Side Middle all had two locations.

6 Sinkers: 94.86 MPH, 1 in the strike zone, Glove Side and Low the most common location.

18 Sliders: 79.29 MPH, 6 in the strike zone, Glove Side and Low the most common location.

2 curves: 63.24 MPH, 0 in the strike zone, Glove Side and Low and Arm Side and Low.

1 change: 80.6 MPH, not in the strike zone, Glove Side and Low.

This is how the Yahoo data broke up his pitches, in case you were wondering:

19 sliders: 79.36 MPH

65 Fastballs: 93.25 MPH

2 Curves: 63.24 MPH

The first thing I notice is that the slider velocity doesn't match the fastball velocity. Otani's slider was the slider that breaks just vertically, like a lot of sliders you see in Japan, often called something like a baby slider. It doesn't look like a hard curve, but it would make more sense when comparing velocities that he has a hard curve and slow curve. When you look at starters in the Pitch F/X era that have an average fastball of 93-94 MPH, Daniel Cabrera had the slowest slider at 81.4 MPH. Two of those pitchers even have curves over 80 MPH on average. Otani's slow curve acts somewhat like an eephus pitch, similar in velocity to Paul Maholm's eephus. The lack of a changeup is something that I think MLB teams will look at and consider when scouting Otani, as none of the qualified starters in the Pitch F/X era that threw 93-94 MPH on their fastball didn't have a changeup. I counted one, a slider/curve (according to Yahoo) against a lefty that dropped differently. Whether he threw one or none in the start doesn't really matter, it is something I think he really needs to develop to get out lefties. Anecdotally, it seemed that he got really fastball heavy when he faced lefties. It is nearly impossible to make MLB comparisons because of how his slider acted and his lack of changeup or some kind of cutter (his fastball has a lot of movement, but it is usually arm side tail, breaking back like 2-seamers).

Overall, Otani threw pitches in the strike zone 43 percent of the time. In the Pitch F/X era, only 5 out of the 201 qualified pitchers have a lower zone percentage than that. Strangely, only Francisco Liriano is extremely wild out of them, and he is the only one that you can really call a hard thrower (Gee, Hellickson, Lowe, and Vogelsong being the other four). A low zone percentage doesn't mean you can't succeed, as Hiroki Kuroda has only thrown 43.5 percent of pitches in the strike zone in the Majors, and the highest zone percentage pitchers seem to be less successful. Throwing strikes, can, at times, be overrated. The important thing is to miss bats. Here is Otani's approximate strike zone for the game in a really simple zone chart (catcher's perspective, I am not sure why it is stretching weirdly, and didn't keep my format to show the actual strike zone, which is the middle three rows and columns):

	11	7	1
	2	5	2
1	3	4	11	3
	2	3	5
	4	3	19

His favorite zones were low and away and throwing it high and arm side. Anecdotally, most of the high and arm side pitches were mistakes where he didn't finish his delivery. Perhaps one way to get out lefties, especially lefties in Japan, who don't face a lot of elite velocity pitchers, is to throw hard fastballs inside on them. It would seem that it would be better for Otani to throw those fastballs high and in to them get them out, rather than low, and then go low and away with the 2-seamer, something he didn't do very much. I found it interesting that both slow curves he used were against Iwamura and Milledge, two former MLBers. He threw a lot of fastballs to both of them, but focused on keeping the ball away from them.

A big thanks to Kazuto Yamazaki (@Lablynne) for pointing out the videos on YouTube, Patrick Newman (@NPBTracker) for helping me with the Yahoo data, and @YakyunightOwl as well.

Charting Mark Appel

Mark Appel pitched in a much publicized game against Arizona State and another possible 1st rounder in Trevor Williams. Since the game was on ESPN U, it had a broadcast radar gun, so I decided to "chart" his outing. I don't feel the need to write a scouting report on Appel, because that has been done by several writers who would do it better than I would. He isn't exactly an unknown commodity, but I wanted to get his velocity numbers from the outing, and then compare him to MLB pitchers using Pitch F/X data (unfortunately, we will be dealing with the MLB AM tags when looking at the MLB pitchers, which obviously isn't ideal, but for this post necessary).

Of course the broadcast gun didn't pick up all the pitches, and I just ignored the ones that it didn't since I wasn't charting location or anything. In the 6th, evidently the gun stopped working for several pitches. Overall, ESPN had him at 121 pitches, but there were velocities for 112. Classification was somewhat difficult at times, but generally, the change is the pitch that "breaks" arm side, slider breaks glove for him (for the most part, I also went on whether or not the pitch actually appeared to break like a slider does). Here is Appel's breakdown:

56 fastballs, 50 %, 93.36 MPH average

34 changeups, 30.36 %, 82.97 MPH average.

22 sliders, 19.6 %, 85.27 MPH average.

In just fastball velocity for a right-handed pitcher, Mat Latos is the closest comparison (for qualified starters in the Pitch F/X era). Armando Gallaraga provides the best comparison in slider velocity, above average, but not elite. His closest changeup comparisons are Leake, Slowey, Hunter, Danks, and Hochevar, all who have softer fastballs than he does.

I would really like to see a curveball, something that didn't appear in the outing. Only two of the qualified starters in the Pitch F/X era have no curveballs to their name, Justin Masterson and Bud Norris. If you switched the slider and the changeup percentage, his pitch selection would be very similar to Bud Norris, as Jeremy Hellickson is the only pitcher with 30% changeups. The 19.6 % slider usage is right at Masterson, Jhoulys Chacin, and Ross Ohlendorf. It is hard to find a starting pitcher that throws some kind of fastball only 50 % of the time. John Smoltz seemed to do it, Carlos Villanueva does it, Hellickson nearly does it, Paul Byrd did it, as did Tim Stauffer, Mike Mussina (remember, this is all in the Pitch F/X era only), Anibal Sanchez, James Shields, Bronson Arroyo, Freddy Garcia, Jesse Litsch, Bruce Chen, R.A. Dickey, and Tim Wakefield.

These are all soft tossers or heavy slider pitchers. That is, except James Shields. Shields has had about an average fastball (not as good as Appel's), and throws a lot of changeups. However, Shields also throws a lot of curveballs and Wakefield is the only pitcher that threw just 3 different kind of pitches. Perhaps Appel just needs to develop a cutter to go along with his fastball (he didn't show one), but a curveball would be preferable.

In the actual outing, Appel threw almost a stupid amount of strikes, showing good control, though certainly not all of them were quality strikes (perhaps not good command, but Arizona State rarely made him pay). Appel did a good job of maintaining his velocity all game.

Certainly there are some MLB tools in the Mark Appel toolbox, but there are also some things missing. The fastball velocity is obviously very good, and his changeup movement (something we can't really quantify here) is big league esque. However, the lack of other pitches make real big league comparisons difficult.

Free Agent Watch: Wei-Ying Chen

Japanese pitcher Wei-Ying Chen pitched just 16 innings in 2011 due to injury. So we will instead look at his 2008-2010 statistics. In that time, he had a -2.14 PE.
Through the metric we used in the original Yu Darvish article, we can project Wei-Ying Chen to have these Major League numbers: 1.162 WHIP 3.02 ERA and 6.072 K/9IP. This would be roughly a .32 PE. To give you an idea of starting pitchers with these kind of numbers, this would be in the territory of Jeremy Hellickson, C.C. Sabathia, and Hiroki Kuroda's 2011 campaigns. Perhaps this is why teams like the Orioles, Yankees, and Cubs are foaming at the mouth to bring in Chen. Perhaps the best news is that the expected contract would be about $20MM over four years. Getting a very quality starting pitcher for 5 million dollars a year (look at how much the Yankees are paying Sabathia) is quite a bargain. I would sign him for that, and probably even go a little more if the bidding goes up.

Durham Bulls metric: Minor Leagues

 I have been extremely curious as to what the difference between AAA and the Majors is. So here, in a relatively small sample, I set out to find some answers. I will use current Tampa Bay Rays players (along with a couple former ones) difference between their Major League careers and their AAA Durham Bulls career. Since Durham plays in the International AAA league, I think it will be safe to (currently at least) use the metric for all International AAA league players.

Wade Davis: In Durham: -1.642 PE, In Majors: 2.275 PE and .77 WAR a season

Carl Crawford: In Durham: 1.69 PPG, 2.55 PAPP, .335 OBP and 1.07 Simple WAR. In Majors: 1.48 PPG, 2.5 PAPP, .333 OBP, and 2.74 WAR a season.

Delmon Young: In Durham: 1.54 PPG, 2.66 PAPP, .325 OBP, and .423 Simple WAR . In Majors: 1.17 PPG, 2.93 PAPP, .321, and -.1 WAR.

Jeremy Hellickson: In Durham: -4.86 PE, In Majors: .32 PE, and 4.2 WAR in 2011 (his only full season)

J.P. Howell: In Durham: -3.435 PE, In Majors: -.021 PE, and .45 WAR a season

Jake McGee: In Durham:  -6.713 PE, In Majors: -.986 PE, and .01 WAR a season

Jeff Niemann: In Durham: -.785 PE, In Majors: 1.3 PE, and 1.1 WAR a season

David Price: In Durham: -.699 PE, In Majors: -1.3 PE, and 3.33 WAR a season

James Shields: In Durham: -2.722 PE, In Majors: .24 PE, and 2.95 WAR a season

Andy Sonnanstine: In Durham: 1.182 PE, In Majors: 3.77 PE, and -.08 WAR a season

John Jaso: In Durham: .91 PPG, 2.74 PAPP, .356 OBP, and 1.81 Simple WAR. In Majors: .84 PPG, 2.83 PAPP, .340 OBP, 1.25 WAR a season

Reid Brignac: In Durham: 1.08 PPG, 3.03 PAPP, .316 OBP, and -.56 Simple WAR. In Majors: .63 PPG, 3.54 PAPP, .272 OBP, -.05 WAR a season

Dan Johnson: In Durham: 1.65 PPG, 2.19 PAPP, .412 OBP and 5.88 Simple WAR. In Majors: 1.01 PPG, 2.74 PAPP, .334 OBP, .58 WAR a season.

Elliot Johnson: In Durham: 1.23 PPG, 2.75 PAPP, .325 OBP, and .09 Simple WAR. In Majors: .61 PPG, 4 PAPP, .257 OBP, .1 WAR

Ben Zobrist: In Durham: 1.38 PPG, 2.24 PAPP, .416 OBP, and 5.14 Simple WAR. In Majors: 1.27 PPG, 2.56 PAPP, .348 OBP, 2.28 WAR a season.

Desmond Jennings: In Durham: 1.53 PPG, 2.3 PAPP, .375 OBP, and 3.4 Simple WAR. In Majors: 1.35 PPG, 2.488 PAPP, .351 OBP, 2.2 WAR

Matt Joyce: In Durham: 1.49 PPG, 2.19 PAPP, .404 OBP, and 5.11 Simple WAR. In Majors: 1.11 PPG, 2.58 PAPP, .345 OBP, and 1.75 a season

Justin Ruggiano: In Durham: 1.63 PPG, 2.36 PAPP, .362 OBP, and 2.53 Simple WAR. In Majors: .55 PPG, 3.39 PAPP, .262 OBP, and -.2 WAR

B.J. Upton: In Durham: 1.69 PPG, 2.21 PAPP, .391 OBP, and 4.48 Simple WAR. In Majors: 1.37 PPG, 2.48 PAPP, .342 OBP, and 2.41 WAR a season.

Pitchers: In Durham:  -2.46 PE Average. In Majors: .7 PE Average, 1.59 WAR a season. Average pitcher going from Durham (or International League in AAA) would add 2.53 to their PE. WAR is not particularly helpful because the correlation between PE and WAR is skewed, because both PE (the lower the better) and WAR (the higher is better) are lower for pitchers.

Hitters: In Durham: 1.44 PPG average, 2.34 PAPP average, .365 OBP average, and 2.67 Simple WAR average. In Majors: 1.04 PPG average, 2.91 PAPP average, .319 OBP average, 1.18 WAR average. So on average, a player loses 1.49 from there simple WAR to their Major League WAR, lose .046 from their OBP, add .57 to their PAPP, and lose .40 from their PPG. So, for now at least, this is how we judge players in the International AAA league.

Why I like the Rays: Part 1,000,000

If you read the blog regularly, you know that I like and respect the Rays organization because of what they are able to do with so little money. Here is another move that has made a lot of sense: during the off-season, the Rays traded starter Matt Garza and 2 minor leaguers (that haven't played for the Cubs yet) for Sam Fuld, Brandon Guyer and 2 minor leaguers (that haven't played for the Rays yet). Of course, who "won" this trade will ultimately be decided by how the minor leaguers for both teams turn out. However, we can grade how this trade affected the teams this year. Despite losing Garza, the Rays still have the second best pitching in the American League at 3.59 and have the most complete games at 15 (mainly because of James Shields). The Cubs however, are last in the NL in fielding. For the Rays, Sam Fuld has given them a 1.6 WAR, and 1 WAR on defense (not to mention all those cool highlight catches). Brandon Guyer has given the Rays a .3 WAR (all on defensive WAR). So this year the Rays have gotten 1.9 WAR from those two outfielders and haven't missed Garza in the rotation. Matt Garza (with a complete game no earned run performance on Wednesday) has given the Cubs a 2.2 WAR. It is tempting to say, just by looking at the WARs, that the Cubs won the trade. However (not even mentioning that the Cubs desperately could use the outfield play of Fuld and Guyer), this is ignoring the salary situation and the real genius of Friedman and Maddon (and the reckless decision making by the Cubs that got their GM fired), Matt Garza is a free agent at the end of the year, and is making 5.95 million dollars this year (he is giving them a solid WASP at 2704, but he is definitely a candidate to be overpaid next year, and the Cubs are awful about doing that). Fuld, on the other hand, is making 421,000 this year (a great 263 WASP) and isn't even arbitration eligible at the end of the year (and won't be a free agent until 2016!). Guyer made his debut this year, so his official salary hasn't been released, but it is probably at the minimum of 400,000, and he won't even be arbitration eligible for a couple of years. This is why I like the Rays (as I write this, the Yankees are tied with the Rays 2-2 with Jeremy Helickson, making $416,000 this year, facing off against CC Sabathia, making 23 million dollars this year).