Baseball BeatMay 15, 2006
Mmm Mmm Good!
By Rich Lederer

May, Monday, Miscellany. With apologies to Minnesota Mining & Manufacturing (as well as to my Mom--Happy Mother's Day!), these are my 3M for the day. Pieced together by Scotch Tape, I hereby convert my Post-it Notes into today's column.

  • For those readers who missed the announcement at the end of April, we have been updating the league leaders in the four QUAD categories and the top three in strikeouts per 100 pitches every Sunday morning. The stats are always through the end of play on Saturday.

    To show you how well Albert Pujols has performed during the first month-and-a-half, look no further than the bottom of our sidebar on the left. Pujols is leading the National League in on-base percentage, slugging average, times on base, and total bases. Should the reigning MVP keep this pace up, he will become only the 18th player in modern history to earn The Quad Award by leading his respective league in all four Quad categories. He would become the first player to achieve this rare distinction since Todd Helton in 2000 and only the third National Leaguer (Mike Schmidt being the other) since fellow Redbirds star Stan Musial captured such honors in 1943 and 1948.

    Over in the American League, Jason Giambi sits atop the leaderboard in OBP and TOB. He relinquished bragging rights in SLG this week to Jim Thome, who is the early favorite to win Comeback Player of the Year and may be a good reason why Kenny Williams could earn the title of Executive of the Year.

  • On the pitching side, Pedro Martinez and Johan Santana jumped to the top of the K/100P stat. Martinez leads the majors with 7.60 Ks per 100 pitches. Santana leads the AL (7.09). The southpaw led all starting pitchers last year with 7.14 K/100P.

    I love pitchers who combine strikeouts with groundouts but Pedro and Johan are proof positive that flyball types can succeed, too. However, such pitchers need to be able to punch out batters or else the tendency to give up flyballs will come back to haunt them. To wit, Dave Williams has the third-worst K/100P (2.40) among qualifieds and the lowest G/F ratio (0.67). It should be no surprise that he has one of the worst ERAs (6.32). Paul Byrd also sports a low strikeout (2.69)/high flyball (0.88) combination that virtually guarantees trouble (6.52 ERA).

  • Brew Crew Ball has created a Minor League Splits Database, a valuable resource for situational statistics that have never been readily available before. The information is gathered from play-by-play logs and includes lefty-righty and home/road splits, batted-ball data, and stats specific to certain base/out situations.

    Let's say you want to look up a player's stats like...oh, Jered Weaver. You can get his AVG/OBP/SLG, BABIP, WHIP, BB/9, K/9, HR/9, and batted ball types vs. LHB and RHB, home, road, with 0-1-2 out, none on, men on, and RISP.

    Speaking of Weaver's splits, you can see for yourself that he is handling left-handed batters just fine despite claims to the contrary. (The Brew Crew numbers don't include Weaver's last outing on 5/11 and his AVG/OBP/SLG stats are all materially lower than what is shown.) I have rarely, if ever, seen a pitcher who is held to a higher standard than all others as I have with Weaver. "Doesn't have good enough stuff" becomes "Gives up too many flyballs" becomes "Can't get LHB out." If it's not one thing, it's something else.

    All I know is that the guy is 3-1 with a 2.79 ERA in Triple-A. He is also striking out batters at a rate of 10.71 K/9, 30.5% of batters faced, and 7.68 K100P.

                IP   H   R   ER   BB   SO   BF   PIT   ST   BA   G   F
4/08 @ TUC   7   2   1    1    0    8   24    83   62   21   5   8
4/13 @ LV    5   9   4    4    0    6   23    91   63   28   1   7
4/19 vs TUC  6   5   0    0    2    6   25   102   64   38   3   8
4/24 @ POR   5   7   5    5    2    6   23    95   58   37   2   7
4/29 @ TAC   6   4   2    2    1   12   23    90   64   26   2   4
5/06 vs TAC  6   5   1    1    1    8   24   101   70   31   5   5
5/11 @ OMA   7   3   0    0    0    4   22    89   64   25   6  10 
TOTALS      42  35  13   13    6   50  164   651  435  206  24  49

    Interestingly, like Martinez and Santana, Weaver is another example of a pitcher who can do just fine by giving up more flyballs than groundballs. Would I like to see Jered induce more grounders? Sure. But, as long as Weaver keeps his K rate up, he will succeed no matter where he pitches.

    For more on Weaver, be sure to check out Eric Neel's human interest article on Jered and Jeff online (subscription required) or in the May 22 edition of ESPN The Magazine.

    • Comments

    Flyball tendencies are an interesting thing. Most people are not bothered by Jered Weaver's flyball tendencies, but I've read a few reports that Chuck James is due for a huge fall in the majors because of it.

    The minor league splits resource is very nice, I hope they update it a little more consistently. I looked up a minor league team's hitting and it hasn't been updated since 5/10. Still, I won't look gift free access in the mouth.

    Posted by: APiNG at May 15, 2006 3:56 AM

    Speaking of Weaver's splits, you can see for yourself that he is handling left-handed batters just fine despite claims to the contrary. (The Brew Crew numbers don't include Weaver's last outing on 5/11 and his AVG/OBP/SLG stats are all materially lower than what is shown.) I have rarely, if ever, seen a pitcher who is held to a higher standard than all others as I have with Weaver. "Doesn't have good enough stuff" becomes "Gives up too many flyballs" becomes "Can't get LHB out." If it's not one thing, it's something else.

    We're not allowed to be skeptical? Weaver at present is pitching to batters of generally less than major league ability. Yet everyone who sees Jered says his delivery is very similar to his brother's. He might be good at getting AAA batters out, but let's see him do it over the course of a full year. After Sunday, I'm willing to bet the Mariners would know how to hit him pretty well.

    As to his flyball tendencies, yes, those have improved recently. But I think those of us who have become Weaver skeptics have done so with pretty good reason, and not because we're simply nitpicking, as you seem to imply.

    Posted by: Rob McMillin at May 15, 2006 7:14 AM

    We're not allowed to be skeptical?

    Give me a break. That is obviously not what Rich said. Either respond directly to what Rich said, or don't say anything. That comment makes you look ridiculous.

    Posted by: Justin at May 15, 2006 9:57 AM

    That is obviously not what Rich said. Either respond directly to what Rich said, or don't say anything. That comment makes you look ridiculous.

    Wow, what arrogance. Rich is saying outright that Weaver's skeptics are inventing reasons to be skeptical, and dismissing them all out of hand. I would say that's not the case at all.

    Posted by: Rob McMillin at May 15, 2006 1:16 PM

    Rich:

    About the K/100 leaders, any way you could give us a top 25 (or more)?

    Thanks.

    Posted by: Jurgen at May 15, 2006 1:52 PM

    At this rate, Mike Lowell is a candidate for Comeback Player Of The Year as well. Thome was injured most of the year, I'm not sure his comeback is any more miraculous than Richie Sexson's in 2005. Lowell stayed in there the entire year and was absolutely abysmal. I still can't believe he's doing it. I don't expect it to continue, but if he does, he definitely deserves to be mentioned.

    Posted by: APiNG at May 16, 2006 1:54 AM

    I'm not as surprised about Lowell. Here is what I wrote last November when analyzing the Red Sox and Marlins trade:

    As to whether it is prudent for Boston to take on Lowell's bloated contract, I think the answer is clearly "yes." Don't get me wrong, I'm not suggesting that the soon-to-be 32-year-old third baseman (.236/.298/.360) is worth $9 million over each of the next two years. He's not. But I don't think he is a lost cause either. The Gold Glove third baseman had the second-lowest BABIP (.253) among qualifiers in the majors last season and his strikeout rate (.116) was the lowest of his career. The multi-million question is whether he has completely lost his power. Lowell's Isolated Power (.124) was a personal low and his HR/FB ratio (.04) was near the bottom among all hitters.

    Lowell is a good example why "peeling back the onion skin" is important when evaluating players based on stats.

    Posted by: Rich Lederer at May 16, 2006 8:41 AM

    About the K/100 leaders, any way you could give us a top 25 (or more)?

    I will provide such a list next Sunday when I update our sidebar.

    Posted by: Rich Lederer at May 16, 2006 4:58 PM

    I hope they update it a little more consistently. I looked up a minor league team's hitting and it hasn't been updated since 5/10. Still, I won't look gift free access in the mouth.

    As I say on the project main page, part of the issue is that the game logs on the official site aren't really finalized until two or three days after the fact. Therefore, unless I'm willing to go back every day and change a bunch of data after the fact, the best you're going to get from the source data I'm using is three days old.

    Posted by: Jeff at May 16, 2006 8:21 PM

    the best you're going to get from the source data I'm using is three days old

    We'll take it, Jeff. Thanks for all you're doing here. I think this is a huge breakthrough. You are to be commended for the idea and its implementation. Bravo!

    Posted by: Rich Lederer at May 16, 2006 9:07 PM