FanPost

Angels pitching report card (because ERA sucks)



I'm not the saber police, but I do think that ERA is more a measure of history (what actually happened) than a measure of performance (how well someone is doing). Is Angels pitching really as bad as the quarter-season results suggest? Pencils down, everyone. Answers (plus a Chinese-made plastic toy prize suitable for ages 2-12!) inside.

My grading rubric has only two rules:

  1. If you walk as many or more guys than you strike out, you fail.
  2. If you have as many or more walks than innings pitched, you fail.

Neither of these things should ever happen at the big-league level. In better days, I wouldn't have even had to consider these two possibilities. I'm also ignoring anyone who hasn't pitched in at least five games (Bell, Cassevah, Rodriguez). All stats are of May 13.

Starting Rotation

Jered Weaver: A+

ERA     WHIP    K/9     BB/9    GB/FB   LD%     BABIP   HR/FB   LOB%
2.47 1.06 10.41 2.12 0.91 18.0% .304 8.8% 78.7%

This one's no joke: Jered Weaver is for real. He currently leads the whole damn league in the almighty strikeout-to-walk ratio. Currently he's striking out more than 10 guys and issuing just over 2 walks per 9 innings pitched. And all this in spite of facing tougher lineups than just about any other pitcher in baseball. With some added grease on the fastball and a heavier, more frequent curve, he's totally kicking ass and taking names. If the Angels' season goes to hell by the All-Star Break, watching Weaver compete for the AL Cy Young award down the stretch may be the one reason to keep watching (at least once every five days).

Now, I'm a little skeptical that the Ryan-esque K-rate will hold up all season. He hasn't gotten especially lucky or unlucky on balls in play, although his strand rate is a little high. But we all know that Weaver's flaw is the home run ball. In fact, 6 of the 17 runs to cross the plate with him on the mound have come via deep flies. He might be in for some tough games against flyball hitting teams (ahem, Texas) in bandboxy stadiums (ahem, Texas) in places with wicked summer heat (ahem, sorry, just clearing my throat). A sub-3.00 ERA may be too much to hope for, but if Jered continues to keep the bases clear, even the homers may not put a serious dent in his record (4 of the 5 HRs he's allowed have been solo).

Ervin Santana: B+

ERA     WHIP    K/9     BB/9    GB/FB   LD%     BABIP   HR/FB   LOB%
4.40 1.32 7.66 2.68 0.98 21.8% .302 14.3% 71.8%

It may come as a surprise to some, but Ervin has actually pitched decently. Even after a poor outing last time, his walk and strikeout rates are moving closer to his excellent 2008 than his abortive 2009. He may have permanently lost some velocity, especially on his fastball (or he may be restraining himself for health reasons) but he seems to have compensated by boosting his changeup. The problem is that his slider doesn't have anywhere near the same movement, even compared with last year. Right now his slider is essentially straight, and hitters have punished him for this to the tune of a 21.8% line-drive rate and a 14.3% home run per flyball rate. This is very distressing when Ervin has owned hitters with this pitch in the last two years.

Sliders are notoriously hard on the elbow, so it's not impossible that Ervin is dealing with a ligament problem again. If that's true it probably means Tommy John this time around, which equals goodbye until 2012. Let's hope he just needs to "rediscover" the slidepiece. In the meantime, bring on some more of those nasty changeups. Assuming he isn't hurt, look for Ervin to bounce back as he gets more fortunate with balls finding gloves instead of grass or even seats.

Joel Pineiro: B+

ERA     WHIP    K/9     BB/9    GB/FB   LD%     BABIP   HR/FB   LOB%
4.50 1.48 6.00 1.93 2.38 21.8% .347 14.7% 73.2%

Pineiro is a little slippery. His groundball and walk rates are excellent, and his strikeout rate has jumped from last year. At the same time, he's been hammered by line drives (21.8% of the time) and he's already almost half way to the total number of home runs he allowed last year. This is probably just bad luck on balls in play (or over the fence, as the case may be), which he has had plenty of. His current BABIP of .347 just has to come down sooner or later.

I'm not sure what to make of the strikeout rate--it could just be random variation. He seems to be virtually the same pitcher as last year, except that he is favoring the two-seamer over the four-seamer and the curveball over the changeup. Contrary to popular belief, his pitches don't move all that much, so I can only attribute his effectiveness at generating groundballs to excellent control of the lower half of the strike zone. He still makes me nervous going forward for the same reasons I had when the Angels first signed him: (1) he's not in the NL Central any more and (2) his success is very contingent on the defense. We'll see. At least there's reason to believe we'll see more good things for Pineiro in the future.

Scott Kazmir: C-

ERA     WHIP    K/9     BB/9    GB/FB   LD%     BABIP   HR/FB   LOB%
6.82 1.78 7.12 5.64 0.82 17.2% .320 13.3% 66.5%

On one hand, Kazmir has been brutally unlucky: a 13.3% HR/FB rate, a 66.5% strand rate, and a .320 BABIP. On the other hand, he's only making things harder on himself by walking too many damn guys. Even more concerning is relatively low strikeout rate, which continues a trend he started last year. His velocity is all over the place, which is the same situation he found himself in at the beginning of 2009. If you'll remember, he went on the DL in May, came back in late June, then struggled until mid-August when he suddenly regained velocity on his fastball and movement on his slider (just in time to lose them both for the playoffs).

Maybe he's hurt, maybe he's in poor condition, or maybe his arm has just exploded. It's really hard to know what to expect going forward. He's always been a flaky pitcher who seems just as likely to give up 7 runs by the fifth as he is to strikeout 12 guys over eight shutout innings. But either way, he needs to throw more strikes, especially if he has to compensate for losing some of the stuff that led the AL in strikeouts in 2007.

Joe Saunders: D

ERA     WHIP    K/9     BB/9    GB/FB   LD%     BABIP   HR/FB   LOB%
6.19 1.79 3.72 4.71 1.54 20.0% .308 17.1% 65.5%

It's not just bad luck, the Colonel has legitimately been one deep-fat fried bucket of fail. His walk rate is lower than Kazmir's, but his pitiful strikeout rate means he automatically fails under Rule #1. It's a bit hard to tell where Joe is going wrong, actually. Believe it or not, he's never really been a strike-thrower. Somewhat paradoxically, he's never been in the zone more frequently than he has been this season. This might be the root of the problem. Joe has been going about business as usual, but hitters have stopped swinging at his junk pitches out of the zone. Consequently he finds himself often having to throw over the plate when behind in the count, which is danger city for a pitcher with such a high career contact rate.

There's no indication of a systemic problem (i.e. injury) in the pitch data. Joe's velocity is up, but his fastball and change have flattened out a bit. He may be overthrowing while frequently challenging batters behind in the count. He's also been extremely unlucky with flyballs: his 17.1% HR/FB rate cannot last forever. So I'm of the opinion that he's being punished now for bad habits he's got away with in the past. Fortunately Joe might benefit more than anyone from the easier schedule from this point on. Impatient batters who don't hit the ball hard anyways are the kind of guys he can really carve up. (Update 5/14: The Oakland A's did just the trick.)

Combined Rotation: C+

ERA     WHIP    K/9     BB/9    GB/FB   LD%     BABIP   HR/FB   LOB%
4.72 1.45 7.19 3.19 1.27 20.1% .320 13.1% 71.0%

Comment: Thanks to Weaver's awesomeness, the aggregate stats look like they belong to a solid pitcher who's just having some tough luck. It's scary where the Angels would be without him. The good news is that everyone else probably can't pitch any worse than they have so far. Each one of these guys has had some amount of success in the recent past. Santana and Kazmir particularly have even been capable of total domination. I expect things to get better, but we just don't know with any confidence what to expect going forward. All five starting pitchers have some history of flakiness as well. This is why I think the projections were so hard on the Angels at the start of the season: flaky guys are hard to project. But let's hope to God no one gets hurt. I don't even want to think about the possibility of having multiple Salt Lake Bees in the starting rotation.

Bullpen

Kevin Jepsen: A-

ERA     WHIP    K/9     BB/9    GB/FB   LD%     BABIP   HR/FB   LOB%
3.77 1.40 10.05 4.40 3.29 18.9% .347 0.0% 71.4%

Other than that tough night against the Red Sox (which I was unfortunate enough to witness in person), Jepsen has been awesome. The fastball/cutter has been an excellent combo for him, which along with a heavy curveball, has produced an insane number of strikeouts and grounders. His walk rate was rather good before the Boston meltdown, and he won't be victimized by a .347 BABIP all season. Barring a trade, this is the guy I expect will be closing down the stretch.

Jason Bulger: C

ERA     WHIP    K/9     BB/9    GB/FB   LD%     BABIP   HR/FB   LOB%
4.50 1.86 9.00 6.43 1.15 31.7% .355 15.4% 82.6%

Things go downhill pretty quickly after Jepsen. Bulger has been both lucky and unlucky in a manner that seems to roughly even out. It's the walk rate that is unacceptable. He's still fairly effective at missing bats, but hanging the changeup has been a huge problem. Consequently, his line-drive rate is a ridiculous 31.7%. He's also only as good as his curveball, and he just isn't dropping it in the zone often enough to entice hitters to chase it off the plate. I find his pitch selection questionable, as he throws that curveball over 50% of the time, gets behind in counts, and then hangs a changeup or falls back on his below-average fastball. Let's hope he reins in that breaking ball and becomes the moderately effective reliever he was last year.

Brian Fuentes: C-

ERA     WHIP    K/9     BB/9    GB/FB   LD%     BABIP   HR/FB   LOB%
7.04 1.57 11.74 4.70 0.67 25.0% .301 33.3% 79.6%

I puzzled at length whether or not to give Fuentes a passing grade. In the end, I decided to leave him the benefit of the doubt in light of his limited number of innings. Of the 9 flyballs he's allowed, 3 have left the yard. That is absurd, and fortunately it won't last. Right now his peripherals are almost a carbon copy of K-Rod's, which I don't expect to last either, but even with some regression it isn't hopeless that Fuentes will return to a marginally effective form. On the other hand, damn he looks bad. His fastball is lousy, his change is putrid, and his slider is all over the place. Those moments when he loses his head (e.g. throwing behind John Jaso) make you wonder if this guy should even have a job. I'm not optimistic personally, but the numbers suggest there's still reason to believe in him.

Fernando Rodney: D

ERA     WHIP    K/9     BB/9    GB/FB   LD%     BABIP   HR/FB   LOB%
2.70 1.20 5.94 5.94 2.17 13.6% .182 8.3% 80.7%

I'm going to get flamed over this one, but I don't care. Rodney fails Rule #1. He's currently sitting on 11 walks and 11 strikeouts in 16 2/3 innings, which is just unacceptable. Only an improbably low .182 BABIP and a high 80.7% strand rate are keeping him afloat. If you still don't believe me, consider that Rodney throws fewer strikes than anyone else on the team, and that is saying something when the Angels have one of the worst walk rates in baseball. He's relying on a fastball and a change to get guys out, but the poor control means that good hitters can pick one and sit on it. If he doesn't work through these issues soon, I can guarantee that people will not think so highly of him in September, let alone next year.

Matt Palmer: F

ERA     WHIP    K/9     BB/9    GB/FB   LD%     BABIP   HR/FB   LOB%
6.26 2.04 4.30 6.26 1.57 16.3% .358 3.6% 64.4%

I thought about giving Palmer an incomplete grade (doesn't go on your GPA if you fix it later) since he was apparently hurt, but then I decided, no, there's no taking those runs off the board. He fails under Rule #1. He didn't look hurt to me, I thought he was just a bad pitcher being put in front of good hitters (he narrowly avoided failing under Rule #1 last year). His velocity was good before going on the DL, but for some reason a lot of his pitch data is missing, so I can't make any empirical guesses. He's not throwing fewer strikes than last year either, but hitters have been laying off those garbage pitches out of the zone (see Saunders, Joe). Anyways, Scioscia is fond of "roles," and assuming he can suppress the walks, Palmer wouldn't be the worst mop-up man the Angels have had over the years (Chris Bootcheck anyone?).

Brian Stokes: F

ERA     WHIP    K/9     BB/9    GB/FB   LD%     BABIP   HR/FB   LOB%
7.31 2.50 8.44 9.00 1.26 18.9% .411 15.8% 67.9%

Seriously, who the hell is this guy? He looks like a bum to me. He fails both Rule #1 and Rule #2. He throws one of the uncurviest curveballs I've ever seen, and he has no command of a simple four-seam fastball. I really have no idea how he ever got guys out even in the National League. Lots of weak grounders? No. Missing lots of bats? No, not that either. Low BABIP? Try again. His "luck" stats would seem to indicate some misfortune, but when your total of walks and hit batsmen exceeds your total number of innings pitched, all bets are pretty much off. This is a DFA waiting to happen.

Scot Shields: F

ERA     WHIP    K/9     BB/9    GB/FB   LD%     BABIP   HR/FB   LOB%
7.84 2.42 8.71 10.45 2.25 21.2% .365 25.0% 58.6%

Despite how bad Stokes has been, Shields has been even worse, and that makes me sad. This is one of the best relievers of his generation. Velocity on the fastball? Gone. Break on the curveball? Nonexistent. Movement on the slider? You might as well hang it from a clothesline. This can't just be a "mechanical issue"--he's either hurt or done, and it's depressing to think that the former scenario is the more positive one. If he's injured then maybe there's a chance he can come back and contribute. But he is a soon-to-be 35 year-old reliever with over 650 major-league innings on his arm. I'm inclined to think he's just been used up. Either way, whether it's to the DL or the great minor-league affiliate in the sky, I think Scot Shields will be leaving the team sooner rather than later.

Combined Bullpen: D

ERA     WHIP    K/9     BB/9    GB/FB   LD%     BABIP   HR/FB   LOB%
5.45 1.83 7.92 6.56 1.55 19.6% .337 11.9% 70.5%

Comment: Blech. That's an ugly line. I've come to expect this bullpen to be a circus, and the only question is which clowns will appear on any given night. They're dangerously close to violating Rule #1 as a whole, and when you throw in four hit batsmen and twelve wild pitches, I think you have to flunk them on principle. You can put whatever gloss you want on this, but if your idea is to squint your eyes until you see a solid group of relievers down on their luck, you'll probably go blind. That walk rate is just too high for any amount of good fortune to overcome. Excluding the miraculous (like Michael Kohn being K-Rod 2.0 or Brian Stokes actually being good), the Angels will almost certainly trade for an arm or two in July. Given the current state of the farm system, that could end up being very costly. This development could be the dramatic crescendo of the 2010 season. Stay tuned.

Combined Staff: C-

ERA     WHIP    K/9     BB/9    GB/FB   LD%     BABIP   HR/FB   LOB%
4.83 1.55 7.39 4.25 1.35 19.7% .321 12.4% 71.2%

Comment: This is not an encouraging sight when you consider that the Angels haven't had substantial injuries to the pitching staff. These are the guys they expect to win with. Fortunately the BABIP and HR/FB rate are just too high for a team that plays in a moderate pitcher's park. Regression to the mean will be the Angels' friend this season. Moving on to an easier schedule against teams that don't walk as much or hit as many homers will obviously help. But really, these pitchers are making their own bad luck. They absolutely have to stop with the walking guys thing. To put it in perspective, no Angels team has walked more than 4.00 guys per 9 innings since 2000, and 2009 was the first time since 2004 they've walked more than 3.00 per 9 (and even then they exceeded 3.00 by just a slight amount in both years).

Also consider this: the Angels have thrown more pitches than any other team in baseball (5,750) and they lead the league in pitches per inning (18.1). That's a great way to wear down your pitching staff. As shaky as they've been, just imagine what could happen if a few guys started getting tired or getting hurt. This is a problem not just for this year, but in the future. If Scioscia has to lean on only a handful of dependable arms, he puts those arms at risk in the future. The season would be especially tragic if the Angels miss the playoffs by a wide margin as well as put a few key players, such as Weaver and Jepsen, on the DL in 2011. Let us all hope for tangible improvement in pitch efficiency in the very near future.

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