- 5,814
- 1,937
Big series for the Orioles with Tampa Bay coming to town for a 3 game series. 2/3 is a must.
2016 MLB thread. THE CUBS HAVE BROKEN THE CURSE! Chicago Cubs are your 2016 World Series champions
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Orioles Defying the Odds.
B.J. Upton Now Differently Confounding.
The Strasburg Shutdown and What We Don’t Know.
Over this past weekend, the Orioles split a 4 game series with the New York Yankees. Baltimore was able win 2 games and stay only 1 game behind the Yankess in the AL East standings, even though they were outscored 31 to 23. This trend of winning while being outscored is not uncommon for the Orioles this season.
The most remarkable part about the Orioles keeping pace with the elite teams in the AL is that they have done it with a negative run differential, (608 Runs scored vice 637 Runs Allowed). It may seem that it would not be too uncommon for a team to be a few wins over .500 and have a allowed a few more runs then they have scored, but it isn’t. Only the San Francisco Giants achieved the feat in 2011 (86-76, -17 runs) and no teams in 2010. Since 1962, when both leagues went to 162 games, 54 teams have been able to reach this feat, or just about 1 per season. The average run differential for the teams was -18.6 runs and the average number of games over .500 was 6.8 games.
Baltimore is doing more than defying the Lords of Math, they have a chance of having the best record ever for a team with a negative run differential. Of the 54 teams with a negative run differential, only 11 have been 10 games or more over .500.
Team Season W L Diff RS RA Diff
Arizona Diamondbacks 2007 90 72 18 712 732 -20
San Francisco Giants 1997 90 72 18 784 793 -9
New York Mets 1984 90 72 18 652 676 -24
Baltimore Orioles 2012 78 62 16 608 637 -29
Seattle Mariners 2007 88 74 14 794 813 -19
Baltimore Orioles 1981 59 46 13 429 437 -8
San Francisco Giants 1982 87 75 12 673 687 -14
Houston Astros 2008 86 75 11 712 743 -31
Boston Red Sox 2006 86 76 10 820 825 -5
San Francisco Giants 2011 86 76 10 570 578 -8
New York Mets 1972 83 73 10 528 578 -50
Houston Astros 1989 86 76 10 647 669 -22
The best a team has ever done in the W-L column was 18 games over .500 (3 times). The key for those teams wasn’t their great record in close games. All teams that are 18 games over .500 have to perform decently in 1-run games to have that good of a record. The difference for the 3 teams is how they do in blowouts. Here is a graph with the percentage of times the teams had a certain point difference.
Normally teams that are 18 games over .500 are blown out 5% of the time and blow teams out 7% of the time. The 3 teams instead get blown out 9% of the time and win in blowouts in 5% of their games.
The Orioles have two distinction from the distribution. First, they have rarely lose by 1 runs (5%). They have lost by 2, 3, 4 and 5 runs more than they have be one run. Also, Baltimore has won by 2 runs more than average.
Not one root cause exists for the discrepancy between the wins and runs the Orioles are seeing, but several different causes add up. The main way a team can have some control over their difference in runs scored and allowed is how their pitching staff performs in certain instances. Teams can just give up in blowouts and let them get those games get out of hand. On the other hand, they can then make sure they stay in every close game with a good bullpen.
The Orioles’ starters are 9th in the A.L. with an ERA of 4.58 ERA and 10th in QS. The starters have had a problem of keeping the game close and getting to the bullpen. Once the bullpen takes over, they have been lights out. In the AL, they are 1st in WPA and shutdowns and 4th with a team 3.07 ERA. For example, the Orioles have correctly leveraged Jim Johnson, their closer, in close games and he has performed great. He has the league’s highest WPA among relievers.
Another way the Orioles have been able to win close games is because of their performance in extra inning games. They are 12-2 and have scored 25 runs and only allowed 5.
The Orioles have been defying the odds by being 16 games over .500 with negative run differential. They kept up the trend this weekend with their series with the Yankees. While it has been a unique way to get a winning record, it has worked for them this season.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The most remarkable part about the Orioles keeping pace with the elite teams in the AL is that they have done it with a negative run differential, (608 Runs scored vice 637 Runs Allowed). It may seem that it would not be too uncommon for a team to be a few wins over .500 and have a allowed a few more runs then they have scored, but it isn’t. Only the San Francisco Giants achieved the feat in 2011 (86-76, -17 runs) and no teams in 2010. Since 1962, when both leagues went to 162 games, 54 teams have been able to reach this feat, or just about 1 per season. The average run differential for the teams was -18.6 runs and the average number of games over .500 was 6.8 games.
Baltimore is doing more than defying the Lords of Math, they have a chance of having the best record ever for a team with a negative run differential. Of the 54 teams with a negative run differential, only 11 have been 10 games or more over .500.
Team Season W L Diff RS RA Diff
Arizona Diamondbacks 2007 90 72 18 712 732 -20
San Francisco Giants 1997 90 72 18 784 793 -9
New York Mets 1984 90 72 18 652 676 -24
Baltimore Orioles 2012 78 62 16 608 637 -29
Seattle Mariners 2007 88 74 14 794 813 -19
Baltimore Orioles 1981 59 46 13 429 437 -8
San Francisco Giants 1982 87 75 12 673 687 -14
Houston Astros 2008 86 75 11 712 743 -31
Boston Red Sox 2006 86 76 10 820 825 -5
San Francisco Giants 2011 86 76 10 570 578 -8
New York Mets 1972 83 73 10 528 578 -50
Houston Astros 1989 86 76 10 647 669 -22
The best a team has ever done in the W-L column was 18 games over .500 (3 times). The key for those teams wasn’t their great record in close games. All teams that are 18 games over .500 have to perform decently in 1-run games to have that good of a record. The difference for the 3 teams is how they do in blowouts. Here is a graph with the percentage of times the teams had a certain point difference.
Normally teams that are 18 games over .500 are blown out 5% of the time and blow teams out 7% of the time. The 3 teams instead get blown out 9% of the time and win in blowouts in 5% of their games.
The Orioles have two distinction from the distribution. First, they have rarely lose by 1 runs (5%). They have lost by 2, 3, 4 and 5 runs more than they have be one run. Also, Baltimore has won by 2 runs more than average.
Not one root cause exists for the discrepancy between the wins and runs the Orioles are seeing, but several different causes add up. The main way a team can have some control over their difference in runs scored and allowed is how their pitching staff performs in certain instances. Teams can just give up in blowouts and let them get those games get out of hand. On the other hand, they can then make sure they stay in every close game with a good bullpen.
The Orioles’ starters are 9th in the A.L. with an ERA of 4.58 ERA and 10th in QS. The starters have had a problem of keeping the game close and getting to the bullpen. Once the bullpen takes over, they have been lights out. In the AL, they are 1st in WPA and shutdowns and 4th with a team 3.07 ERA. For example, the Orioles have correctly leveraged Jim Johnson, their closer, in close games and he has performed great. He has the league’s highest WPA among relievers.
Another way the Orioles have been able to win close games is because of their performance in extra inning games. They are 12-2 and have scored 25 runs and only allowed 5.
The Orioles have been defying the odds by being 16 games over .500 with negative run differential. They kept up the trend this weekend with their series with the Yankees. While it has been a unique way to get a winning record, it has worked for them this season.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
B.J. Upton Now Differently Confounding.
Things to know before we proceed with this article about B.J. Upton:
(1) B.J. Upton is set to become a free agent after the end of this season, and he is newly 28 years old.
(2) Yesterday, in the last game of a series between the Rays and the Rangers, B.J. Upton slugged three home runs. They were his 19th, 20th, and 21st home runs of the year.
I was tricking you before — this article about B.J. Upton began with the word “Things”. Now let us move on to the rest of it!
Upton is no stranger to transaction talk, and it’s something of a minor miracle that he’s still with the Rays considering how often he’s been in the middle of trade rumors. Now people get to talk about him as a potential free-agent acquisition, and as a potential free-agent acquisition, Upton is as confusing as he’s ever been. I mean, on the one hand, I guess he isn’t confusing at all. He remains an everyday center fielder who is more than capable of handling the position. Here are Upton’s wRC+ figures for the last three seasons:
2010: 113 wRC+
2011: 115
2012: 113
I bet I can guess how projection systems are going to view Upton going forward. But remember that Upton was the second overall pick in 2002, and remember that he’s always seemed capable of more than he’s done. Upton, like his brother, is blessed with more tools than you can keep in one shed, but he only very seldom puts them all to proper use. Additionally, below the surface, there have been changes, and it’s those changes that I’m here to talk about.
I think the easiest way to lay this out is like so: five years ago, Upton finished with 93 unintentional walks and 134 strikeouts. That’s a whole lot of patience, from a very young player. So far this season, Upton has 39 unintentional walks and 144 strikeouts. Forget about the different sample sizes and just focus on the ratios. Clearly, B.J. Upton has changed as a hitter. And the evidence suggests that he isn’t done changing.
Here is a very terrible graphic I whipped up to compare B.J. Upton to Bobby Abreu. I selected Upton because this article is about Upton. I selected Abreu because he was the first guy who came to mind when I thought about a consistent veteran. I put part of Abreu’s name in parentheses because he seems old enough to just go by Bob now. We look at three different plate-discipline statistics:
I warned you before that this was terrible. Upton’s overall swing rate is on the rise, his first-pitch swing rate is on the rise, and his contact rate is going down. Bobby Abreu has been Bobby Abreu. The once selective Upton has become more and more aggressive, and still it continues.
Through August 10 of this season, Upton owned a .676 OPS. The free-agent-to-be wasn’t doing anything to boost his value, and then on August 11, Upton hit two home runs. Upton hit three home runs yesterday, on September 10. FanGraphs leaderboards have a very handy “Last 30 Days” option in the pull-down menu for splits, and the last 30 days capture both August 11 and September 10. Upton has been streaking. Over the last 30 days, Upton has posted the fourth-highest wRC+ in baseball, at 193. He’s right in between Adrian Beltre and Miguel Cabrera, and that tends to be good company as offensive statistics are concerned. Yet at the same time, over the last 30 days, Upton has posted the very lowest contact rate in baseball, at 57 percent. The next-lowest belongs to Chris Carter, at 63 percent. Upton’s hottest stretch at the plate by one statistic coincides with his coldest stretch at the plate by another. Not that contact rate is even close to being as important as wRC+, but this is weird. Upton has hit the crap out of the ball. At the same time he’s posted a lower contact rate than Aroldis Chapman has allowed.
As the Rays have scrambled back into the playoff race, Upton has done a lot to boost his value as a free agent, but even his value boost carries a major red flag. He’s hit, and he’s hit for power, but how much of that can continue if he keeps on swinging and missing? What is the story behind all of the swings and misses?
Let’s break Upton’s 2012 season down, splitting after August 10. A table:
Split O-Swing% Z-Swing% Swing% Contact% 1st% OPS
Through 8/10 29% 71% 50% 73% 44% 0.676
Since 8/11 35% 73% 53% 57% 52% 1.050
I can’t stop staring at the recent contact rate. It is such a low contact rate. That is three whiffs for every seven swings. But one can’t ignore the far right column, and one can’t ignore that the numbers in the far right column correspond with increased aggressiveness in the other columns. Upton’s swung at more balls, more strikes, more first pitches — more everything, and when he’s hit the ball, he’s pummeled the ball. He’s hit the ball some.
Right now, what’s important isn’t B.J. Upton’s free agency. Upton and the Rays are trying to get to the playoffs, and lately Upton has done a lot more helping than hurting. Over 28 games over those last 30 days, he’s hit 11 home runs and also stolen eight bases for good measure. But what matters for Upton’s free agency is also what matters right now. And that’s the question of: how good is B.J. Upton going to be? He’s a tricky one to pin down. Some numbers suggest that right now he’s locked in, and some numbers suggest the very opposite. Some numbers suggest that Upton is beginning to really tap into his abundant potential, and some numbers suggest that he’s going to get exposed once pitchers figure out what he’s doing.
For the final month or so, the Rays will have a player who is very good, very frustrating, or somewhere in between. It’ll probably be the same story for Upton after this last stretch is over and he finds a new home. I don’t know what Upton’s numbers are going to look like between now and the end of the year, but for a month he’s seemingly been all-or-nothing to an extreme degree. B.J. Upton’s hot streak has undeniably been a hot streak, but it’s been a hot streak far different from most.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
(1) B.J. Upton is set to become a free agent after the end of this season, and he is newly 28 years old.
(2) Yesterday, in the last game of a series between the Rays and the Rangers, B.J. Upton slugged three home runs. They were his 19th, 20th, and 21st home runs of the year.
I was tricking you before — this article about B.J. Upton began with the word “Things”. Now let us move on to the rest of it!
Upton is no stranger to transaction talk, and it’s something of a minor miracle that he’s still with the Rays considering how often he’s been in the middle of trade rumors. Now people get to talk about him as a potential free-agent acquisition, and as a potential free-agent acquisition, Upton is as confusing as he’s ever been. I mean, on the one hand, I guess he isn’t confusing at all. He remains an everyday center fielder who is more than capable of handling the position. Here are Upton’s wRC+ figures for the last three seasons:
2010: 113 wRC+
2011: 115
2012: 113
I bet I can guess how projection systems are going to view Upton going forward. But remember that Upton was the second overall pick in 2002, and remember that he’s always seemed capable of more than he’s done. Upton, like his brother, is blessed with more tools than you can keep in one shed, but he only very seldom puts them all to proper use. Additionally, below the surface, there have been changes, and it’s those changes that I’m here to talk about.
I think the easiest way to lay this out is like so: five years ago, Upton finished with 93 unintentional walks and 134 strikeouts. That’s a whole lot of patience, from a very young player. So far this season, Upton has 39 unintentional walks and 144 strikeouts. Forget about the different sample sizes and just focus on the ratios. Clearly, B.J. Upton has changed as a hitter. And the evidence suggests that he isn’t done changing.
Here is a very terrible graphic I whipped up to compare B.J. Upton to Bobby Abreu. I selected Upton because this article is about Upton. I selected Abreu because he was the first guy who came to mind when I thought about a consistent veteran. I put part of Abreu’s name in parentheses because he seems old enough to just go by Bob now. We look at three different plate-discipline statistics:
I warned you before that this was terrible. Upton’s overall swing rate is on the rise, his first-pitch swing rate is on the rise, and his contact rate is going down. Bobby Abreu has been Bobby Abreu. The once selective Upton has become more and more aggressive, and still it continues.
Through August 10 of this season, Upton owned a .676 OPS. The free-agent-to-be wasn’t doing anything to boost his value, and then on August 11, Upton hit two home runs. Upton hit three home runs yesterday, on September 10. FanGraphs leaderboards have a very handy “Last 30 Days” option in the pull-down menu for splits, and the last 30 days capture both August 11 and September 10. Upton has been streaking. Over the last 30 days, Upton has posted the fourth-highest wRC+ in baseball, at 193. He’s right in between Adrian Beltre and Miguel Cabrera, and that tends to be good company as offensive statistics are concerned. Yet at the same time, over the last 30 days, Upton has posted the very lowest contact rate in baseball, at 57 percent. The next-lowest belongs to Chris Carter, at 63 percent. Upton’s hottest stretch at the plate by one statistic coincides with his coldest stretch at the plate by another. Not that contact rate is even close to being as important as wRC+, but this is weird. Upton has hit the crap out of the ball. At the same time he’s posted a lower contact rate than Aroldis Chapman has allowed.
As the Rays have scrambled back into the playoff race, Upton has done a lot to boost his value as a free agent, but even his value boost carries a major red flag. He’s hit, and he’s hit for power, but how much of that can continue if he keeps on swinging and missing? What is the story behind all of the swings and misses?
Let’s break Upton’s 2012 season down, splitting after August 10. A table:
Split O-Swing% Z-Swing% Swing% Contact% 1st% OPS
Through 8/10 29% 71% 50% 73% 44% 0.676
Since 8/11 35% 73% 53% 57% 52% 1.050
I can’t stop staring at the recent contact rate. It is such a low contact rate. That is three whiffs for every seven swings. But one can’t ignore the far right column, and one can’t ignore that the numbers in the far right column correspond with increased aggressiveness in the other columns. Upton’s swung at more balls, more strikes, more first pitches — more everything, and when he’s hit the ball, he’s pummeled the ball. He’s hit the ball some.
Right now, what’s important isn’t B.J. Upton’s free agency. Upton and the Rays are trying to get to the playoffs, and lately Upton has done a lot more helping than hurting. Over 28 games over those last 30 days, he’s hit 11 home runs and also stolen eight bases for good measure. But what matters for Upton’s free agency is also what matters right now. And that’s the question of: how good is B.J. Upton going to be? He’s a tricky one to pin down. Some numbers suggest that right now he’s locked in, and some numbers suggest the very opposite. Some numbers suggest that Upton is beginning to really tap into his abundant potential, and some numbers suggest that he’s going to get exposed once pitchers figure out what he’s doing.
For the final month or so, the Rays will have a player who is very good, very frustrating, or somewhere in between. It’ll probably be the same story for Upton after this last stretch is over and he finds a new home. I don’t know what Upton’s numbers are going to look like between now and the end of the year, but for a month he’s seemingly been all-or-nothing to an extreme degree. B.J. Upton’s hot streak has undeniably been a hot streak, but it’s been a hot streak far different from most.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Strasburg Shutdown and What We Don’t Know.
On Friday night, Stephen Strasburg took the mound in Nationals Park for the last time in 2012. Since I live about six hours from DC and I hadn’t seen him pitch in person yet, I figured I shouldn’t pass up on the opportunity to see him for myself, so I made the drive up on Friday afternoon. As you’ve undoubtedly heard, Strasburg wasn’t particularly sharp on Friday, getting removed after throwing just three innings, and so the Nationals decided that Friday was his final start of the year, moving his shutdown up one start and ending his season at 159 1/3 innings.
It’s obviously a rather controversial decision, and I’ve advocated for the position of more aggressive usage, skipping starts and manipulating the off days to try and make him available for the postseason. Watching him struggle in his final start didn’t disuade me from believing in the merits of that kind of approach, and I do think that perhaps there were alternative ways of handling his workload that might have allowed him for pitch deeper into the season. However, the unavoidable reality of this situation is that everyone is dealing with a great quantity of unknown variables, and for any of us to say that one decision is distinctly better or worse than another is probably an on overestimation of our own knowledge.
The secret to keeping pitchers healthy is still perhaps the biggest unknown entity in baseball, and our ability to predict which pitchers are going to stay healthy is not much better than simple dart-throwing. As more focus has shifted to the causes of physical breakdown, workload has gotten more than its fair share of attention, and efforts to avoid overuse have become far more commonplace in the last 10 to 15 years. However, even with this focus on responsible workloads, we haven’t seen a sea change in how often pitchers are getting hurt.
Given that pitchers have different physical strengths and weaknesses, it’s likely that a one-size-fits-all approach isn’t all that useful, and what might be good for one pitcher could be bad for another. So, while we can say with some certainty that Strasburg would have been at a higher risk of injury if he would have thrown 250 innings this year rather than the 160 he actually threw, we don’t really know where he lies on the reasonable usage spectrum. You could probably make a case for any number between 160 and 250 and have a reasonable amount of evidence on your side that the total innings count wouldn’t be significantly more harmful than any other number in that spectrum. And, with a knowledge gap that large, it’s just hard to have any kind of strong opinion about what the right number for Strasburg this season actually was.
The Nationals obviously erred on the side of caution, giving their ace a number pretty close to the lower bound, and refusing to shift his starts around to maximize the leverage of those innings. They wanted to allow him to maintain his regular patterns, and again, this is an area where we simply don’t know the effects of alternative options. There just isn’t much historical precedence for this kind of situation, and the uniqueness of each pitcher’s body limits what we could learn from earlier cases anyway.
So, the Nationals chose something like the most conservative usage path possible, but given how little is known about keeping pitchers healthy, their decision is certainly within the bounds of what one could consider reasonable. And, of course, health isn’t the only variable in play here.
As we saw on Friday night, there is some evidence that Strasburg is currently somewhat less effective than he was earlier in the season, and perhaps a full season of pitching is starting to catch up with him to some degree. For instance, take a look at his PITCHF/x velocity chart:
While he has mostly maintained his average velocity throughout the summer, his peak velocity is down from earlier in the season. In May and early June, he was regularly getting up into the 98-99 range, but lately, he’s topped out at 96 or 97. It’s not a smoking gun, but given that velocity tends to increase as the season goes on, the fact that Strasburg’s fastest pitches have gotten a little bit slower suggest that there is some legitimacy to the idea that he’s beginning to wear down.
There’s also some evidence of declining dominance in opposing batters swinging strike rates. In his first start of the season through July 15th — his first 18 outings — opposing batters only posted a swinging strike rate below 9% twice, and they were over 13% seven times. In his last 10 starts, however, he only posted a swinging strike rate over 9% five times, and only once got over 13%. His command also wasn’t as crisp as it was earlier in the year, as he walked three or more batters in a game four times in his last 10 starts after doing it four times in his first 18 starts.
Early season Strasburg was the most dominant pitcher in baseball, at least on a per-innings basis. Recent Strasburg has been more human, mixing in some good starts with some clunkers. If this trend was going to continue, it’s certainly possible that the gap between Strasburg and Ross Detwiler in October wouldn’t be so large that swapping them would result in a huge change in expected outcomes. In fact, you could argue that the outcome differences now aren’t even that large.
Strasburg’s posted a 2.82 xFIP this year, just about 1.50 runs per nine innings better than Detwiler this season. Strasburg’s posted higher than average BABIP and HR/FB rates, while Detwiler has been below average at both, so you might want to adjust that gap down slightly to account for the fact that there might be some difference in skills in those FDP areas. So, maybe the gap is 1.25 runs per nine innings instead. That’s certainly a big difference, but we also have to remember that October baseball is not the same as regular season baseball, and that managers can be much more aggressive in their bullpen usage in the playoffs. Given how deep Washington’s relief corps is, it’s unlikely that either pitcher would be asked to go beyond six innings, and five is probably more likely against a good offensive opponent. So, instead of 1.25 runs, we’re probably dealing with something closer to 0.7 runs per start difference.
And that’s using Strasburg’s full season line. If you think he’s wearing down, maybe he’s more of a 3.25 xFIP guy going forward, and that would push the difference more towards 0.5 runs per start. Don’t be fooled by those “ERA since the All-Star break” graphics that say that there’s no drop-off here, but a half run gap isn’t overwhelming, especially if you think that the trade-off is getting a healthier Strasburg for the future.
And then, of course, there’s the significant variance around player performance in small samples to begin with, and we’re not just talking Strasburg and Detwiler here. There’s a real chance that the playoff games that Strasburg would have pitched in wouldn’t have been close enough to be decided by the quality of the starting pitcher anyway. If we built a histogram of the potential outcomes of any Strasburg playoff start, there would be a tail on one end that represented a blowout by the Nationals, in which they could probably roll out any pitcher they wanted and still win the game. Likewise, there would be a tail on the opposite side of the spectrum that represented a dominating performance from the opposing starter so that even a great performance by Strasburg would still result in a loss.
The starting pitcher is an important factor in the end result of a ballgame, but it isn’t the deciding factor, and it’s certainly possible that the decision to use Detwiler instead of Strasburg ends up not having much of an effect on the Nationals playoff chase at all, simply due to outcomes that have nothing to do with the quality of each pitcher. Combine that with the volatility of projecting Strasburg going forward, the huge unknown that is pitcher injuries and reasonable workloads, and the fact that the Nationals do have a good team even when Strasburg’s not on the mound, this decision by the Nationals is certainly defendable.
It’s not the only defendable decision that they could have made, but this is an area where it just doesn’t make much sense to take a strong stance one way or another. There are so many unknowns that the best thing we can do is admit that we don’t know enough to have a strong opinion either way. The Nationals are doing what they think is in their franchises best interests, and they very well may be right. They may also be missing a chance to take a deep playoff run, and the reward that comes from that kind of run might be worth the extra risk. There are a lot of maybes here. When there are this many questions that we just don’t have the answers to, the best thing we can do is acknowledge where our limits are. On handling Stephen Strasburg, we just don’t know enough to say whether any one decision is better than another. The Nationals made a decision and stuck with it. That’s probably all they could have done.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
It’s obviously a rather controversial decision, and I’ve advocated for the position of more aggressive usage, skipping starts and manipulating the off days to try and make him available for the postseason. Watching him struggle in his final start didn’t disuade me from believing in the merits of that kind of approach, and I do think that perhaps there were alternative ways of handling his workload that might have allowed him for pitch deeper into the season. However, the unavoidable reality of this situation is that everyone is dealing with a great quantity of unknown variables, and for any of us to say that one decision is distinctly better or worse than another is probably an on overestimation of our own knowledge.
The secret to keeping pitchers healthy is still perhaps the biggest unknown entity in baseball, and our ability to predict which pitchers are going to stay healthy is not much better than simple dart-throwing. As more focus has shifted to the causes of physical breakdown, workload has gotten more than its fair share of attention, and efforts to avoid overuse have become far more commonplace in the last 10 to 15 years. However, even with this focus on responsible workloads, we haven’t seen a sea change in how often pitchers are getting hurt.
Given that pitchers have different physical strengths and weaknesses, it’s likely that a one-size-fits-all approach isn’t all that useful, and what might be good for one pitcher could be bad for another. So, while we can say with some certainty that Strasburg would have been at a higher risk of injury if he would have thrown 250 innings this year rather than the 160 he actually threw, we don’t really know where he lies on the reasonable usage spectrum. You could probably make a case for any number between 160 and 250 and have a reasonable amount of evidence on your side that the total innings count wouldn’t be significantly more harmful than any other number in that spectrum. And, with a knowledge gap that large, it’s just hard to have any kind of strong opinion about what the right number for Strasburg this season actually was.
The Nationals obviously erred on the side of caution, giving their ace a number pretty close to the lower bound, and refusing to shift his starts around to maximize the leverage of those innings. They wanted to allow him to maintain his regular patterns, and again, this is an area where we simply don’t know the effects of alternative options. There just isn’t much historical precedence for this kind of situation, and the uniqueness of each pitcher’s body limits what we could learn from earlier cases anyway.
So, the Nationals chose something like the most conservative usage path possible, but given how little is known about keeping pitchers healthy, their decision is certainly within the bounds of what one could consider reasonable. And, of course, health isn’t the only variable in play here.
As we saw on Friday night, there is some evidence that Strasburg is currently somewhat less effective than he was earlier in the season, and perhaps a full season of pitching is starting to catch up with him to some degree. For instance, take a look at his PITCHF/x velocity chart:
While he has mostly maintained his average velocity throughout the summer, his peak velocity is down from earlier in the season. In May and early June, he was regularly getting up into the 98-99 range, but lately, he’s topped out at 96 or 97. It’s not a smoking gun, but given that velocity tends to increase as the season goes on, the fact that Strasburg’s fastest pitches have gotten a little bit slower suggest that there is some legitimacy to the idea that he’s beginning to wear down.
There’s also some evidence of declining dominance in opposing batters swinging strike rates. In his first start of the season through July 15th — his first 18 outings — opposing batters only posted a swinging strike rate below 9% twice, and they were over 13% seven times. In his last 10 starts, however, he only posted a swinging strike rate over 9% five times, and only once got over 13%. His command also wasn’t as crisp as it was earlier in the year, as he walked three or more batters in a game four times in his last 10 starts after doing it four times in his first 18 starts.
Early season Strasburg was the most dominant pitcher in baseball, at least on a per-innings basis. Recent Strasburg has been more human, mixing in some good starts with some clunkers. If this trend was going to continue, it’s certainly possible that the gap between Strasburg and Ross Detwiler in October wouldn’t be so large that swapping them would result in a huge change in expected outcomes. In fact, you could argue that the outcome differences now aren’t even that large.
Strasburg’s posted a 2.82 xFIP this year, just about 1.50 runs per nine innings better than Detwiler this season. Strasburg’s posted higher than average BABIP and HR/FB rates, while Detwiler has been below average at both, so you might want to adjust that gap down slightly to account for the fact that there might be some difference in skills in those FDP areas. So, maybe the gap is 1.25 runs per nine innings instead. That’s certainly a big difference, but we also have to remember that October baseball is not the same as regular season baseball, and that managers can be much more aggressive in their bullpen usage in the playoffs. Given how deep Washington’s relief corps is, it’s unlikely that either pitcher would be asked to go beyond six innings, and five is probably more likely against a good offensive opponent. So, instead of 1.25 runs, we’re probably dealing with something closer to 0.7 runs per start difference.
And that’s using Strasburg’s full season line. If you think he’s wearing down, maybe he’s more of a 3.25 xFIP guy going forward, and that would push the difference more towards 0.5 runs per start. Don’t be fooled by those “ERA since the All-Star break” graphics that say that there’s no drop-off here, but a half run gap isn’t overwhelming, especially if you think that the trade-off is getting a healthier Strasburg for the future.
And then, of course, there’s the significant variance around player performance in small samples to begin with, and we’re not just talking Strasburg and Detwiler here. There’s a real chance that the playoff games that Strasburg would have pitched in wouldn’t have been close enough to be decided by the quality of the starting pitcher anyway. If we built a histogram of the potential outcomes of any Strasburg playoff start, there would be a tail on one end that represented a blowout by the Nationals, in which they could probably roll out any pitcher they wanted and still win the game. Likewise, there would be a tail on the opposite side of the spectrum that represented a dominating performance from the opposing starter so that even a great performance by Strasburg would still result in a loss.
The starting pitcher is an important factor in the end result of a ballgame, but it isn’t the deciding factor, and it’s certainly possible that the decision to use Detwiler instead of Strasburg ends up not having much of an effect on the Nationals playoff chase at all, simply due to outcomes that have nothing to do with the quality of each pitcher. Combine that with the volatility of projecting Strasburg going forward, the huge unknown that is pitcher injuries and reasonable workloads, and the fact that the Nationals do have a good team even when Strasburg’s not on the mound, this decision by the Nationals is certainly defendable.
It’s not the only defendable decision that they could have made, but this is an area where it just doesn’t make much sense to take a strong stance one way or another. There are so many unknowns that the best thing we can do is admit that we don’t know enough to have a strong opinion either way. The Nationals are doing what they think is in their franchises best interests, and they very well may be right. They may also be missing a chance to take a deep playoff run, and the reward that comes from that kind of run might be worth the extra risk. There are a lot of maybes here. When there are this many questions that we just don’t have the answers to, the best thing we can do is acknowledge where our limits are. On handling Stephen Strasburg, we just don’t know enough to say whether any one decision is better than another. The Nationals made a decision and stuck with it. That’s probably all they could have done.
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Based on Tampa's modest payroll, strong pitching options, and penchant for letting stars walk, I'm comfortable if the Rays let B.J. walk for more money in a bigger market. He's never taken that "next step" IMO, and this is coming from a fan of his.
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Nice win by the O's and good looking on the Sox for beating the Yanks.
jumpmanfromdabay
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My cousin who works for A's gave me her free Tix for O's @ Coliseum Saturday 
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And the Phils could be 4 games out after tonight....
They could snag that second spot in the wild card....and they have a 4 game set with the Astros coming up.
They could snag that second spot in the wild card....and they have a 4 game set with the Astros coming up.
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My cousin who works for A's gave me her free Tix for O's @ Coliseum Saturday
Should be a good game. Hopefully you see an O's victory though.
jumpmanfromdabay
Banned
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Dodgers keep losing 
And the phillies keep winning !Dodgers keep losing
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Orioles in 1st place with a -22 run differential.
Phillies will have a tough series against the Nationals coming up and play them 6 times total. They have a pretty easily schedule on the way out though. That series they have with Atlanta is huge. They did it last year so it can be done.
Phillies will have a tough series against the Nationals coming up and play them 6 times total. They have a pretty easily schedule on the way out though. That series they have with Atlanta is huge. They did it last year so it can be done.
jumpmanfromdabay
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Buster Posey should be MVP
TheGodFresco
formerly gsdoubleu
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Hands down.
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They can, but I don't think they will. They will need other teams to lose a lot. It would help them if they played a few of the teams head to head.
jumpmanfromdabay
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Cutch has been good this season no doubt. Buster .332 Avg 21 HRs and Carrying this team to a 6 GM lead in the West after Melky got suspended. Let's not forget the horrendous injury last year. He should be the MVP. If Pirates turn it around and get into playoffs I will haw no problem with Cutch over Posey
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Jumpman: I'm okay with either Posey or Cutch, TBH. I think Michael Bourn is one name that doesn't get talked about in the NL MVP discussion enough.
Nose dive since the ASB killed him. I don't think it's Posey hands down though. If the Brewers somehow even make it a few games over .500, I'd be tempted to give it to Braun.
do work son
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even with the nosedive, he's still ahead of posey in more than a few statistical categories. can't outright give it to posey. agree with braun having a case as well, 38 HRs and 100 RBIs as of now with a 309 avg aint bad
GB
| St. Louis | 75 | 67 | .528 | - | - | 4-6 | L2 | 9/11 @ SD, L 4-6 | 9/12 @ SD, 6:35 PM | N | |||
| LA Dodgers | 74 | 68 | .521 | 1.0 | 20 | 4-6 | L2 | 9/11 @ ARI, L 0-1 | 9/12 @ ARI, 9:40 PM | N | |||
| Pittsburgh | 72 | 69 | .511 | 2.5 | 19 | 2-8 | L5 | 9/11 @ CIN, L 3-5 | 9/12 @ CIN, 7:10 PM | N | |||
| Milwaukee | 71 | 71 | .500 | 4.0 | 17 | 7-3 | W2 | 9/11 vs ATL, W 5-0 | 9/12 vs ATL, 8:10 PM | N | |||
| Philadelphia | 71 | 71 | .500 | 4.0 | 17 | 8-2 | W6 | 9/11 vs MIA, W 9-7 | 9/12 vs MIA, 4:05 PM |
i remember they were like 13 games back and i said it in the Thread About Nothing watch out for them phillies
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I remember that and it's good to see them make a push, but STL will be hard to catch.
The Phillies will have to put in work when they play the Nationals and the Braves and beat the easier teams too. Dodgers crumbling and the Pirates ship has sailed.
The Phillies will have to put in work when they play the Nationals and the Braves and beat the easier teams too. Dodgers crumbling and the Pirates ship has sailed.
Yes they do man its gonna be an exciting end of the season. Im bout to watch lee do work on the mound right now "hopefully"
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Could be a potential Nationals vs Philly match up in the playoffs. The Nats better put Philly away in the regular season. Philly has played them well all year.
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I'd honestly pick the Phils confidently in that NLE playoff series. Elite pitching and playoff experience. I think the Nats crumble under the pressure without Stras.
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I would love to see Posey's numbers if he played in Miller Park.
But I'd say it's between those two and Braun is probably ahead by a bit.
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