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.

The Rangers, Cliff Lee, Beltre, and Napoli

Around the World Series, I heard a member of the Dallas media say that the Rangers used the money they would have spent on Cliff Lee and spent it on Beltre and Napoli and that is why they were in the World Series. So I wanted to look at the numbers.

They lost: 
Cliff Lee: 6.8 WAR 11 million dollars (will make 21.5 million in 2012)
Frank Francisco: 1.1 WAR 4 million dollars.

They gained:
Mike Napoli: 5.5 WAR 5.8 million dollars
Adrian Beltre: 5.2 WAR 14 million dollars.

The Rangers lost 7.9 WAR (at 15 million dollars), but gained 10.7 WAR (19.8 million dollars). So by signing Beltre instead of Lee and trading Francisco for Napoli (the most lopsided trade of the year), they gained 2.8 WAR at 4.8 extra million dollars, a 1714 WASP, meaning they got good return for the extra money they had to spend. Cliff Lee and Frank Francisco put up a 1898 WASP, while Beltre and Napoli put up a 1850 WASP, meaning the Rangers gained a slight efficiency with these moves.

In this article, I wanted to see if the Angels had any reason whatsoever to trade Mike Napoli. His 2011 .414 OBP, and 1.046 OPS were clearly career highs, and it is hard to imagine anyone would have predicted this. But how was he as an Angel? A .346 OBP, .831 OPS, and 2.14 WAR average in his 5 years in LA is nothing to sneeze about. In fact, every single one of those numbers are better than Vernon Wells numbers in Toronto. Just a straight up trade would have been a loss, and the Angels also sent Juan Rivera to Toronto. I know a big reason for the trade was Napoli's defense, but Vernon Wells also has a career negative D-WAR. Every year in LA, Napoli had an offensive winning percentage of over 50%, and he had a 2.61 PAPP. You just don't find catchers like that. He also had a really impressive 102.73 PPS.

As far as Adrian Beltre goes, he is a hard one to figure out. He has been a notorious contract year player, which made his 2011 season that much more surprising. In 2004 with the Dodgers, he put together one of the alltime great seasons, posting a 10.1 WAR. The next year, his first year in Seattle, he posted just a 1.9 WAR. He then followed up his last year in Seattle with a 1.1 WAR, then had a 6.1 WAR with the Red Sox the next year. One thing you notice about Beltre, a mediocre OBP at .329 on his career. A lack of patience becomes apparent, only walking 6.8% of the time, and seeing a league average 3.76 pitches per plate appearance (leads to about a league average 89.95). When this happens, BABIP and power becomes even more important.  In 2004, he had a 1.79 PPG, in 2005 it was 1.14 PPG. In 2009 he had a 1.07 PPG, but in 2010 was 1.4. You wouldn't think power would fluctuate that much, but in 2004 he hit a homer 7.3% of the time, but in 09 it was just 1.7% and for his career it is 3.9%. We saw this when we looked at Vernon Wells in a previous post, impatient hitters tend to be inconsistent, and I think that is what we see with Beltre.

Rangers' prospect Tommy Mendonca

In the Pan-American games, the leader in RBIs for the USA team was Tommy Mendonca, a member of the Texas Rangers' organization. He went to Fresno State and was drafted in the 2nd round in 09. He had a 1.99 PPG, 2.13 ABPP, and 961 OPS. The College metric suggests he may have been drafted too high at: 2.85 ABPP .93 PPG, and 711 OPS. In 3 seasons at A and AA Mendonca has a .335 OBP, and .790 OPS, certainly not impressive. He has a relatively solid 1.26 PPG, but his PAPP was poor at 2.92, giving him a Simple WAR of .7. He only walks 6 percent of the time, but homers 3% of the time (MLB average is about 2.7%). There are two ways to look at this. The optimistic option is that because of his power he will be pitched more carefully, and will get more walks and get on base more. The pessimistic view is that because of his power, he will be pitched more carefully and he doesn't have the discipline to draw walks and will become a terrible hitter. It should also be noted that a homer % of 3 is not amazing, it is just above average. There have been tons of guys that have good power that didn't turn out to be major league players because they didn't have the plate discipline. Mendonca plays 3rd and has a low fielding percentage, and below average range factor. Fielding statistics matter, but they aren't always reliable. With that said, it is hard to imagine that a team wants a impatient hitter with low fielding metrics.

Free Agent Watch: Rafael Furcal

In his 12 year career, shortstop Rafael Furcal has posted a 33.1 WAR in 12 years, worth 8.3 million dollars according to the Halladay Standard. However, there was a clear dropoff from his Braves career to his Dodger career. In 6 years for each team, he posted a 19.2 WAR in ATL, and 12.5 WAR (worth 6.25 million) in LA. In 2011, he had a -.5 WAR in LA, and a 1.4 WAR (only 50 games, in a season of 150 games, that would average out to be a 4.2 WAR) with St. Louis after he was traded, giving him a .9 WAR overall. His career offensive numbers look exactly like this: .756 OPS, .313 BABIP, .348 OBP, .535 O/Win %, .261 Secondary Average, and a 93.66 Pitches per Starter (PPS). In 2011: .298 OBP, 646 OPS, .240 BABIP, .480 O/Win%, .213 Sec. Avg., and 85.28 PPS. 2011 in St.Louis: .316 OBP, 735 OPS, .250 BABIP, .511 O/Win %, .260 Sec. Avg., 88.59 PPS. As you can tell, even his St. Louis numbers aren't very impressive. He is supposed to be a leadoff hitter but he has an extremely poor PPS and OBP for the 2011 season. For his career he has a 1.3 PPG and 2.56 PAPP. As a Dodger in 2011: .89 PPG, and 3.71 PAPP, and as a Cardinal: 1.12 PPG, and 2.86 PAPP. His OBP (and PPS) isn't good enough for a leadoff hitter, but his production isn't good enough for a middle of the order guy. He is pretty hit or miss defensively (.2 WAR in his whole time in LA). He also has wild streaks of inconsistency, and some real flat tire seasons (perhaps because he isn't consistently patient, as the metrics show). 2011 was a pretty bad season, and the has has to be that 1) he is able to return to his 2010 .366 OBP season and 2) he is undervalued in the market because of his poor 2011 season. The uncertainty of those two questions is what makes free agency exciting, and spending a lot of money on one player dangerous (for my money, I wouldn't count on his 2010 season repeating, advanced metrics like BABIP, ISO, and Sec. Avg. were all above his career average, while his Pit/PA was barely above his career average), and one can probably find a better cheaper hitter.

Free Agent Watch: Nick Punto

Nick Punto posted a 1.5 WAR in 2011, even though he played in only 63 games.  He has a.97 WAR average over the past 3 years, worth 2.91 million according to Halladay Standard. The only year he really played full time (150 games in 2007) he had a -.7 WAR. In 2011, he had an OBP of .388, OPS of .809 (career highs), .68 PPG, and 2.63 PAPP. In his career, he has an OBP of .325, .652 OPS, .76 PPG, and 2.91 PAPP. Unless you believe that he will walk more than he will strike out again next season, his 2011 stats seem fluky. His BABIP (at .319) was one of the highest in his career and .021 points higher than his career average. For the first time in his career, he broke .100 on Isolated Slugging. At 33, it makes little sense to say that he has somehow gotten stronger. Baring banned substances, it is not really possible. It is much more likely that it is simply a small statistical size (166 PA). Instead, he is a below league average in both career OBP and career Slugging, hits more grounders than you would like, and can't hit the long ball. On the positive side, he walks more than league average, sees a lot of pitches and has a pretty good pitches per starter metric (a great 105.18 in 2011, not too bad 94.92 for his career). I don't see him playing really any other role than a back up utililty player, and he really shouldn't receive more than about a million and a half.

World Series Champion Arthur Rhodes

Arthur Rhodes was released by the Texas Rangers earlier in the year, and was signed by Cardinals. No matter who wins the World Series, he gets a ring. The Cardinals are only paying him $100,000. Rhodes has posted a .1 WAR in both Texas and St. Louis. For St. Louis, that is a very nice WASP of 1000. Texas gave him a 3.9 million dollar contract for 2011. On first blush, it would seem that he is a  victim of the home run friendly Ballpark in Arlington. In 18 games in the Ballpark of Arlington, he gave up an OBP of .367, OPS of .992, .326 BABIP, and 4 home runs in the 60 batters he faced. In St.Louis' home park, he is giving up just a .200 BAA. Rhodes certainly wasn't unlucky in Texas though, as his ERA was 4.81 but his FIP was 5.98. It certainly seems like he has been lucky and a beneficiary of good fielding as a Cardinal, as his FIP is pretty putrid at 5.68 (his normal ERA is 4.15), and his BABIP is extremely low at .182. While he gave up 2.22 HR/9IP as a Ranger, he has still given up 2.08 HR/9IP as a Cardinal (he hadn't given up anything close to that since 2004). Rhodes is certainly not the same pitcher he was in 2010 as a Red. Sometimes I guess that it is better to be lucky than good.

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.

World Series Preview: Rangers and Cardinals

So its time for the World Series. Here is the statistical preview:

The Rangers are going to look like this in the starting rotation: Wilson (.148 WAR per start, -1.87 PE), Lewis (.061 WAR per start, .51 PE), Harrison (.13 WAR per Start, 1.17 PE), Holland (.55 PE, .081 WAR per Start),  as starting pitchers. Their  bullpen looks like this Ogando (3.4 WAR, .3 PE), Feliz (-1.8 PE, .8 WAR), Gonzalez (-.55 PE, .2 WAR) , Adams (-5.24 PE, 1.7 WAR), Uejara (1.2 WAR, -7.09 PE), Oliver (-2.01 PE, 1.2 WAR), Lowe (.3 WAR and -.56 PE) and Feldman (.98 PE, .2 WAR). Their lineup will probably look like (in no particular order): Hamilton (.03 WAR per game, 1.723 PPG, 2.42 PAPP), Cruz (.011 WAR per Game, 1.52 PPG, 2.74 PAPP), Murphy (2.74 PAPP, .966 PPG, Negative WAR), Napoli (2.13 PAPP, .045 WAR per game, 1.504 PPG), Kinsler (2.39 PAPP, 1.67 PPG, .035 WAR per Game), Andrus (.024 WAR per game, 1.32 PPG, 2.68 PAPP) Beltre (1.76 PPG, .043 WAR per game, 2.63 PAPP), Young (.015 WAR per game, 2.5 PAPP, 1.33 PPG), and with the DH Torreabla (.006 WAR per game, .75 PPG, 3.14 PAPP).

 For the Cardinals, the starting rotation should look like: Carpenter (.11 WAR per Start, .07 PE), Lohse (.083 WAR per start, 1.66 PE), Garcia (.028 WAR per start, .34 PE), and Jackson (1.38 PE, .067 WAR).  Their bullpen maps out with these guys: Rhodes (2.95 PE, -.6 WAR), Rzepczynski (1 WAR, -2.07 PE), Dotel (-4.04 PE, .9 WAR), , Salas (-3.93 PE, 1 WAR), Westbrook (3.91 PE, Negative WAR), Mclellen (3.23 PE, negative WAR), Motte (-3.15 PE, 1.6 WAR), and Boggs (.3 WAR, .43 PE). They will probably run out this lineup (in no order): Jay (.01 WAR per game, 2.92 PAPP, .63 PPG), Berkman (.036 WAR per game, 1.5 PPG, 2.21 PAPP) , Holliday (.033 WAR per game, 1.48 PPG, 2.4 PAPP), Pujols (.037 WAR per game, 2.33 PAPP, 1.7 PPG), Freese (1.1 PPG, .019 WAR per game, 2.71 PAPP), Furcal (.028 WAR per game, 2.855 PAPP, 1.12 PPG), Schumaker (.005 WAR per game, 3.05 PAPP, .63 PPG), Molina (2.71 PAPP, .99 PPG, .028 WAR per game), and when DH Craig (2.33 PAPP, 1.19 PPG, and .039 WAR per game).

As far as starting pitching goes, The Rangers have advantage in game 1 (and in turn, gave 5), and in games 2 and 6 it is a split as Lewis has a better PE, while Lohse has a better WAR. Basically the same happens in game 3 and 7 between Harrison and Garcia. In game 4, Holland is better than Edwin Jackson, so the Rangers have the clear advantage in starting pitching. The Rangers bullpen has a much better WAR, and a much better than PE. It is not even close, the Rangers have the better bullpen. With or without the DH, the Cardinals have the better lineup according to WAR, but the Rangers have the better Production Per Game (with or without the DH). The Cardinals also have the higher Plate Appearances per Positive Play, which is bad, you want the lower number. Something similar happened in the Tampa Bay and Ranger series, as the Rangers were better at PPG and PAPP but worse at WAR. This is most likely because of defense. So the Rangers have the better offense and pitching. The Cardinals are only better at defense. So the statistics show a clear advantage for the Rangers in this series.