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.

Kevin Whelan Scouting Report

The Cincinnati Reds signed Kevin Whelan to a minor league contract. Whelan had been in the Yankees' organization since 2007 and even got a cup of coffee with the big league team in 2011. Whelan was originally drafted by the Tigers in the 4th round of the 2005 draft out of Texas A&M (and eventually traded to the Yankees for Gary Sheffield).  A career minor league reliever, the 29 year old (at least that is what he will turn on the 8th of December) caught my eye thanks to some really good looking minor league statistics.

Of course, as we have seen, velocity matters more than minor league statistics when trying to determine future MLB success, and thanks to Pitch F/X data, we know how hard Whelan throws and what he pitches he uses. In his two MLB outings (both against Cleveland with the Yankees in 2011), he threw mainly 4-seam fastballs at the mediocre velocity of 91 to 91.6 MPH. According to the patterns we saw in the post linked to above, this velocity lends to a projected 110.17 FIP, which would have been between Santiago Casilla and Fernando Rodriguez in 2012, both below replacement pitchers in 2012 according to FanGraphs. Of course, both of those pitchers actually throw harder than Whelan, and Casilla actually strangely got an extension after the season. You would expect, since their velocities are better than Whelan, that they had worse minor league numbers than Whelan. This was only somewhat true.

Whelan: 3.44 kwERA (I used kwERA because it only uses strikeouts and walks, and we don't have to deal with the home run factors of the different minor league parks and leagues)

Rodriguez: 4.36 kwERA

Casilla: 2.97 kwERA (to be fair, Casilla has had some success in his career, but an ERA - of 87 with a FIP - of 101 for a career reliever is a little surprising considering his above average velocity and his minor league numbers)

So Whelan's numbers according to kwERA aren't overwhelming, especially for a reliever, but he has had success in the upper levels, with a 129 FRA + in AA in 2009 as a 25 year old and 108 FRA + in AAA in 2011. Over the last two years in AAA, he has a 3.25 FIP and 3.05 SIERA in the International League. When you just look at the International League leaderboard (I used a minimum of 50 games) from 2012 according to FIP, this puts him in some weird company. He is below Josh Lueke, who has really been struggling in the Majors and has a fastball that may be a tick better than Whelan's, and around Terry Doyle and Adam Wilk. Wilk will pitch in Korea in 2013 and Doyle spent some time in Japan in 2012 (and got a minor league contract with the Red Sox for 2013). Whelan's fastball is better than either of these pitchers. Miguel Socolovich, also going to pitch in Japan, shows up around where Whelan would be, but so does Pirates' prospect Jeff Locke and Rays' flamethrower Chris Archer. Veterans Rich Vanderhurk (going to pitch in Korea) and Jeff Francis (who got another deal with the Rockies) also show up around that 3.25 watermark. It truly is a mixed bag statistically, and I don't think numbers are going to help a lot if we are looking at what Whelan's MLB value might be.

Whelan was once projected to be a closer, but he never really got a shot, and injuries may have played a role in this. He had several small injuries earlier in his career, and in 2012 he didn't pitch after June 3rd and has a combined 79.1 innings.

He was known as a guy who threw a 4-seamer, 2-seamer, splitter, and cutter when he was a prospect. However, Pitch F/X only showed him throwing an occasional slider and change to go with his 4-seam fastball. It certainly paints a picture less exciting than scouting reports were a couple of years ago. So I went back and watched his outing on April 6th (because it was in Lehigh Valley, which has an on screen radar gun) to see what I could gather.

He was throwing just 86-89 MPH and his command was not there. The right-hander has a really complicated delivery that looks really ugly and is hard to watch. It looks like it gives him deception, but it has to be hard to repeat and looks hard on his body. It is not a fluid motion, and he uses an extremely high leg kick. He did show off a 84 MPH splitter, that looked like a MLB pitch to me. Pitch F/X may have called it a change, but it is a splitter and it has nasty movement, much like the best splitters (such as the one thrown by Koji Uehara) we see in the Majors. The question will be, especially if he is now throwing below 90 MPH, is can he get enough speed differential for it to matter? He also showed off the slider that hit 83 MPH, but the break wasn't hard or sharp, though he does have some horizontal movement as well. He was really struggling with command though, and if he really did lose fastball velocity, I just can't see him pitching in the Majors for the Reds.

Why its time for the Rangers to trade Michael Young

Yes, you read that right, The Rangers should trade Michael Young. Despite making 16 million dollars (he will also make 16 million for 2012 and 2013) in 2011, he had a 2.4 WAR. This is a WASP of 6667, over twice as much as the Halladay Standard. This means, at least according to the Halladay Standard, his salary is over twice is much as his production is actually worth. In 2011, the Rangers had a payroll of about 92 million dollars. This means that, according to WAR calculations that I have used before on this blog, for every 1 Win above Replacement (assuming the Rangers want to make the playoffs by winning 95 games), they can pay 2.13 million dollars. This means that Young's 2.4 WAR is worth 5.11 million dollars, about a third as much as Young makes. According to his WAR average of the past 3 years, he is worth slightly more to the Rangers at 5.68 million. These simple calculations show that Young is hurting the Rangers with his gigantic salary and low production, and that it is quite obvious that the Rangers need to trade him. However, let's look at other numbers to see if they tell the same story. In 2011, some of his basic metrics looked pretty good, as he had a .380 OBP, 124 OPS +, and 1.994 O4S. He had an Offensive Winning Percentage of .666 and 6.7 Runs Created per a game. These are very good numbers, but there are a couple of concerning ones that I think shouldn't be ignored, such as Secondary Average (just .217), ISO (.136), walk percentage (6.8%), HR percentage (1.6%), and pitches per plate appearance (3.61, with a PPS of just 89.67). So many essential metrics suggest that Young was not all that great offensively. He was also 5th in the league in BABIP with a .367. This most likely means that his positive 2011 season statistics were probably very fluky. He actually has an above average BABIP at .338 for his career, but it is still a .029 difference. If that BABIP was adjusted to his career average, his OBP would have been .350, less impressive, but also exactly his career OBP. Along with that career OBP, he has a 106 OPS +, 1.851 O4S (about .100 above average), .554 Offensive Winning Percentage, 5.6 Runs Created Per Game, and .229 Secondary Average. Again, most of these are pretty good numbers. His PPS is 91.15, and this is a microcosm of Young, just above average offensively. On defense, there is a different story. In his 12 year career, he has a -7.9 D-WAR. Much is made about his ability to play several different positions, but it appears he plays none of them very well. In 2011, he had a -.9 D-WAR, despite playing 69 games at DH. At first base (a position he hadn't played before), he was very poor, with a Range Factor of 7.78 (league average is 9.24), and fielding percentage of .989 (league average is .993). He also had below average range factor at every position he played in 2011. "Runs Saved" metrics also showed that he was a well below average defender. To give you another idea of just how poor of a defender Young is, when at third, 85% of balls hit to him turned into outs (89% is league average), and at first 86% of balls hit to him were turned into outs (94% is league average for first basemen). Much is written about Young's leadership skills and team attitude (and in following the Rangers for almost all of Young's career, I can say that a lot of this is true. However, Young ran to the press to blast Ranger's management after both his move to 3rd base and 1st base/DH, and even demanded to be traded. His team attitude is probably overrated, he is, after all, making 16 million dollars), but these immeasurables are just that, immeasurable. In the face of numbers that clearly show that Young is not even close to worth his 16 million dollar salary, and the fact that he has no real position, it simply doesn't make any sense to say "he is a good leader, and therefore he is valuable". With the Rangers stupidly deciding to give a whole bunch of money to Joe Nathan, and players like Cruz, Hamilton, Feldman, and Uehara all making big money or due big money, it is obviously time for the Rangers to move on.

The Koji trade, and deciphering what exactly happened to Uehara in Texas

Uehara roughly means "great control" in Japanese. For Orioles fans, this is extremely appropriate, for Ranger fans, Koji Uehara has struggled with just that. The reliever that was aquired at the trade deadline was left on the Texas Ranger's World Series roster after a mediocre last two months of the year and a horrible postseason. While he had a 2 WAR (awesome for a reliever) with the Orioles in 2011, he had just a .2 WAR with Texas (would be a .6 WAR if extended into a whole season). The Rangers traded for Uehara by shipping off two Major League players to Baltimore, Tommy Hunter and Chris Davis (Davis was technically in the minors at the time of the trade but has been in the majors for most of the last few seasons). Chris Davis was pretty pathetic with the Orioles with a -.5 WAR, while Tommy Hunter had a .6 WAR, adding up to a .1 WAR for the Orioles. This means that the Rangers barely won the trade down the stretch, but all 3 players are under contract for next season, so we will have to come back to this trade in the future. The Rangers had to pay 1 million of Koji's contract for this year, while Hunter and Davis made less than that combined. So the Rangers got slightly more production, while the Orioles got much better value. So what happened to Koji? In Baltimore he racked up an incredible -7.94 PE, while in Texas his PE was still really awesome at -6.529. In both places, he has struck out more than 11 per 9 innings. In Baltimore, his TR was the highest I have ever seen at almost 20! However, there were some things that probably should have caught the Rangers' eyes. In Baltimore, he averaged more than one homer per 9 innings, a little high. In Texas, that exploded to 2.5 HR/9IP. He is not the first pitcher to go to Texas and struggle with the longball. What should have been concerning, and I find it hard that Jon Daniels and company would have missed this, is that he is a flyball pitcher. It has been well documented that starter Colby Lewis, being a flyball pitcher, has an ERA of more than 2 higher at home. So why would the Rangers trade for a reliever that gave up 2 flyballs to every groundball in Baltimore? This doesn't mention that Uehara's great ERA was kind of fluky, with a FIP of about 1 higher than his ERA (still would be really good). We will see in the future if Uehara is able to adjust to the hitter friendly park that is the Ballpark in Arlington.