New and Improved: A Dissection of Lyle Kohse
This past offseason, Kyle Lohse shared a lot in common with 7.7 million other Americans across the country: he was unemployed and couldn't get a job.
Like an unwanted vagabond, Lohse and his agent knocked on doors of front offices only to find that there was no need for a career back-of-the-rotation starter seeking a 3-year, $24-million dollar deal. After the Seattle Mariners locked up Carlos Silva to the tune of 4-years and $48 million dollars in December, the contract request from Lohse appeared quite reasonable. After all, Silva, who was only a few months younger than Lohse, carried with him the same kind of pedigree. Silva was 54-46 (.540 wpct) in his six seasons of pitching while Lohse was slightly less victorious in his seven seasons in the majors with a 63-74 record (.459 wpct). Still, the phone did not ring. Up until January, the New York Mets flirted with the idea of Lohse being Plan B if they did not land Johan Santana. Alas, Mets GM Omar Minaya was able to package together a group of prospects enticing enough for newly-anointed Twins GM Bill Smith to swap the left-handed Cy Young winner in exchange. "Some teams said they were going to do some things, and they never materialized,'' Lohse said. "I know a lot of people talked about how I turned this and that down. I'm not going to get into what was really going on, but I think a lot of people heard a lot of rumors and assumed they were true.''
As pitchers and catchers report date past for Kyle Lohse without a contract, Lohse must have felt about as desirable as frostbitten teabags. Instead of wallowing in unsigned pitcher self-pity, Lohse took to honing his craft against NCAA opponents, pitching against Cal-State Irvine and Cal-State Fullerton and the dreaded aluminum bats. Reportedly teams like Toronto, San Francisco, Texas and St. Louis began taking serious consideration in Lohse as his asking price dipped to 1-year, $5-million. On March 14th, the St. Louis Cardinals, riddled with various injuries to the starting rotation, signed Lohse to a 1-year, $4.25 option-laden contact.
"He can make pitches, he's not out there just heaving it," Cardinals pitching guru Dave Duncan said after Lohse reported to spring training. "There's been times when he's going out there and had overpowering type games and there's been times when he's gone out there and you wonder, 'What's he doing?"' Twins fans will probably remember Duncan's inquiry most memorably when it comes to Kyle's performance. While with the Twins Lohse constantly alternated between very good starts and piss-poor outings. It was in 2006 when he only to produce three starts in eight with Game Scores higher than 50 (50 being the quality threshold). In that stretch he was averaging Game Scores of 33 and allowing opponents to hit .339/.400/.500 off of him in that stretch. After a 2.2 inning, five-run debacle at Comerica on May 16th, 2006 solidified Lohse's demotion to triple-A. This demotion finally opened the door to move Francisco Liriano into the starting rotation. The subsequent demotion was followed by a brief stint in the Twins bullpen then a mercy trade to Cincinnati for minor league flounderer Zach Ward (now being converted into a reliever at double-A).
In his 63 innings of work with the Reds, Lohse improved his control walking far fewer batters and increased his strikeout rate through the transition to the National League but was still hit fairly hard in his 11 starts (.278/.329/.426). The following season with a bad Cincinnati team, Lohse started the season 1-6, getting hit hard in his 57.6 innings of work (.318/.350/.502). Between then and July 25th, he fared better, eking out five victories while losing six and bringing down his opponents batting line to .247/.331/.402 in 74 innings of work. Cincinnati however was treading water near the bottom of the NL Central with a record of 43-59 and intuitively decided to be sellers at the trade deadline. Lohse was flipped to Philadelphia for minor league left-handed pitcher Matt Maloney. Philadelphia was attempting dethrone the New York Mets for the NL East title and was at the time in third place five games back from the Metropolitans. Though his record indicates that Lohse would finish 3-0 in 11 starts for the Phillies in that span, the team went 8-3 in his starts propelling them past the nose-diving New Yorkers by one game to win the division. "We had a lot of fun going down the stretch," said Lohse, reminiscing about his run with Philly, "From Day 1 when I got over there [to Philadelphia], it was like a playoff atmosphere every game. I can't think of a better time that I've had, because guys were competing and doing everything it took to win. We pulled it off. "
It is hard to see who is going to come out on top of that trade. If the objective to acquiring Lohse was to help get the Phillies into the post-season the mission was accomplished, however once there, Lohse was asked to retire Kaz Matsui with the bases loaded in a critical spot of Game 2 at Coors Field clinging to a 3-2 lead. Instead of maintaining the lead, Matsui crushed Lohse's offering to right for a grand slam on the way to a 10-5 victory (and later the series). On the other hand, Matt Maloney is proving to be a genuine left-handed pitching prospects, the value of developing a left-handed starting pitcher to a franchise is substantial. So far this season, the 24-year-old Maloney has struck out 93 and walked 28 in 100 innings of work at triple-A Louisville and recently shutout Rochester 8-0. Maloney could very well prove to be a welcomed addition to the already existing talent of Edison Volquez, Homer Bailey and Johnny Cueto as the Reds attempt to build a sustained winning franchise with affordable talent developed from within. The Phillies, on the other hand, with their aging pitching (30.8) staff currently led the NL East but do not have major league ready pitching in their farm system.
With 11 team wins in 18 of Lohse's starts thus far into the 2008 season, the Cardinals are should be very pleased with his low-cost performance. His 10-2 record with a 3.67 era is going to earn him All Star considerations. A phrase that might have been unheard of in his tenure as a Twins. "I feel like a completely different pitcher out there," Lohse said after his June 30th 7-1 victory over the Mets, the team that passed on him this past offseason, for his 10th victory of the year. "I'm not trying to guess my way through the lineup. I know what I want to do. It's worked out really well." Is the recent success of Kyle Lohse based upon a legitimate improvement or a statistical aberration?
On the surface, judging from his strikeout and walk rates coupled with his batting average on balls in play and run support dating back to his 26-year-old season (2005) we find little evidence to suggest that this season is anything but a fluke:
| year | k% | bb% | babip | run support | average game score |
| 2005 | 11.1% | 5.7% | .312 | 3.36 | 48 |
| 2006 | 17.1% | 7.7% | .341 | 4.56 | 43 |
| 2007 | 15.5% | 6.8% | .307 | 4.45 | 48 |
| 2008 | 11.4% | 5.9% | .289 | 4.63 | 51 |
| career | 14.2% | 7.0% | .306 | x | x |
What we can ascertain is that his strikeout rate is lower than every year but his 2005 season as well as his walk rate. In 2006 and 2007 both the strikeout and walk rates increased. After his terrible 2006 season, Lohse's 2007 batting average on balls in play lowered and his run support increased. This lead to better starts which is indicated by his 48 game score average. What differentiates his 2008 season with the rest is that not only did his strikeout and walk rate rescind back to the 2005 totals, but his average on balls in play has been at an all-time low (.289) in addition to his run support being greater than any of the rest of the previous seasons. This has resulted in an average game score of a quality start in each outing. The additional runs provided by his offense has translated into more victories. Does this mean it is luck or that something in Lohse's approach has changed?
| year | ops | rhb - ops | lhb - ops |
| 2005 | .799 | .788 | .813 |
| 2006 | .804 | .838 | .757 |
| 2007 | .786 | .793 | .779 |
| 2008 | .709 | .674 | .754 |
| career | .787 | .749 | .825 |
Looking back on his opponents OPS (on-base plus slugging) we find that the splits between right-handed batters and left-handed batters have fluctuated wildly. For instance, in 2005 left-handed batters did much better against Lohse while in 2006 the results were much different: right-handed batters bested Lohse. In 2007 right-handed batters repeated but did not generate enough of a difference to consider it that significant of a split. This year left-handed batters are doing better but are failing to hit better against him this year than any other year. How has his pitch selection varied from year to year?
| year | fastball | slider | change | curve | cut |
|
| usage | mph | usage | mph | usage | mph | usage | mph | usage | mph |
| 2005 | 54% | 91.6 | 23% | 85.2 | 11% | 82.2 | 1% | 78.0 | 1% | 88.2 |
| 2006 | 53% | 91.9 | 22% | 85.0 | 14% | 83.1 | 0% | 77.3 | 6% | 88.7 |
| 2007 | 52% | 90.8 | 23% | 84.9 | 18% | 82.3 | 6% | 75.2 | 0% | 0 |
| 2008 | 59% | 90.1 | 23% | 83.5 | 10% | 82.7 | 6% | 75.5 | 0% | 0 |
After landing late in the spring with the Cardinals, Lohse has made some adjustments under the Cardinals pitching coach Dave Duncan's tutelage, a pitching professor that has been able to squeeze more out of his pitchers than anyone else. One of the biggest alterations was focusing more on locating the fastball better and a serious change-up reduction. It would behoove him to do as such considering that the slider and the change have been thrown at the same velocity. This would mean that his change-up is basically a hanging slider.
| year | fastball | slider | change | curve | cut |
|
| rhb | lhp | rhb | lhp | rhb | lhb | rhb | lhb | rhb | lhb |
| 2005 | 53% | 54% | 28% | 16% | 6% | 16% | 2% | 1% | 1% | 2% |
| 2006 | 52% | 53% | 29% | 12% | 7% | 21% | 1% | 0% | 5% | 7% |
| 2007 | 54% | 49% | 25% | 20% | 14% | 22% | 5% | 7% | 0% | 0% |
| 2008 | 59% | 59% | 36% | 7% | 3% | 20% | 2% | 12% | 0% | 0% |
The Cardinals and Dave Duncan reestablished Lohse's confidence in his fastball. So far this season, Lohse is throwing his fastball nearly 60% of the time to both right-handed and left-handed batters. This has led to him working ahead in the count getting strike one on the first pitch 64% of the time, an accomplishment he flirted with in 2006 when he started with a strike 63% of the time. The remainder of his career he was getting strike one on the first pitch 62% of the time or less. His approached to right-handers once he achieved strike one was to bust them with the slider, through the pitch that breaks away from their swings 36% of the time. He essentially uses the same formula with left-handed batters with the exception that he exchanges the slider (a pitch that would break into the swing of the lefty) for the change-up (a pitch that disrupts the swing all the same) but has the caveat of throwing the curveball more frequently.
Kyle Lohse will undoubtedly draw plenty of criticisms from experts that claim that Lohse's 2008 success is a false positive. When you analyze the first table, it is easy to make this assumption as well. Strikeouts are low and his batting average on balls in play is lower than any of his previous seasons on top of that his run support has been higher than it has been since his 26-year-old season. His velocity is also declining as he ages and presumably will be in the high-80s next season. But he is learning how to pitch and is pitching to his strengths (as well as his opponent's weaknesses) which is making his 2008 campaign successful. The multi-million dollar question is if Kyle Lohse will be this successful away from St. Louis if he chooses to sign a long-term deal with another franchise.
