Baker needs to keep hitters from teeing up his fastball

Last season, Scott Baker was the owner of one of the American League’s best fastball. According to fangraphs.com, his fastball was 21.9 runs above average, seeding him third in the league behind such pitching nobility like the Cy Young award-winning Zack Greinke (25.8 runs above average) and Justin Verlander (25.1 runs above average). This season, however, is a different story as the Fabulous Baker Boy has seen his fastball obliterated across the summer sky. Instead of soaring with the big guns at the front of the leaderboard, Baker’s fastball is residing toward the bottom of the league at -5.1.

His success with the heater was geared around pinpoint location. Baker exercised an uncanny ability to place his fastball all over the strike zone as well as just outside of it thereby enticing opponents into making contact into less favorable pitches. At the same time, this kind of ownership of the strike zone can invite some unwanted contact. And this season, it appears that teams have figured that out. 

Baker’s Fastball:	OPS against	Chase%	Miss%	Strike%	1st Pitch Strike%
2009:	.742	32%	18%	71%	66%
2010:	.902	26%	20%	72%	65%
Lg. Avg:	.799	19.1%	14.5%	64.1%	59.8%

(via myinsideedge.com) 

There is little evidence of Baker making any changes to his fastball. The velocity is still in the 91-mph range and he delivers it around 62% of his total offerings. Yet, instead of the allowing a manageable .259/.309/.433 batting line like he did in ’09, teams have hit .317/.364/.538 off of his number one pitch this year.   

 

For some reason, the wheels fall off altogether for Baker after his 50^thpitch of the night. Prior to that number, Baker has held opponents to a .246/.272/.357 batting line while allowing four home runs with a decent 5.6 K/BB ratio. Anything after pitch number 50 and Baker might as well be chucking pure gasoline out there. The opposition has tagged him for 11 home runs as well as a .331/.366/.631 line and a slightly depressed 3.45 K/BB. Perhaps Baker’s pitch pattern is too recognizable by the third time through the lineup.

 

In order to work past an outstanding Tampa Bay Ray lineup – one that contains some very good fastball hitters, fifth-best in the AL (21.9 wFB) – Baker needs to be more precise with his heat, using the corners and the fringe to his advantage.   

Ain't no rest for the Thome?

Star Tribune columnist Jim Souhan today discussed the ramifications of keeping the aging Jim Thome in the lineup regularly.  In Souhan’s piece, he noted that the Twins require Thome’s thump for optimal offense yet at his accelerated age, he needs respite in order to ensure a September presence. According to Souhan (pardon the sheck):

This makes for the Twins' best possible lineup. The catch, Gardenhire says, is that when Thome plays several days in a row -- even at DH, which seems about as physically demanding as miniature golf -- Gardenhire sees signs of wear.

Said Gardenhire:

"We can run Thome out there every day, but he wasn't as good today as he was the last two days. You can see he's a little stiffer in his swing. You're pushing it when you play him three days in a row. If you kill him now, he won't be any good the rest of the way. You have to pick your moments."

To date, Thome has been one of the biggest free agent values in the offseason. In his limited playing time, Thome has hit.241 but has buttressed that with a great on-base presence (.382) and pop (.547 slugging) leading to a .929 OPS – comparable to David Ortiz and Vladimir Guerrero, who are leading all designated hitters in that category. In the general sense, Thome’s production at DH has been “worth” $4.1 million according to Fangraphs.com and is an outright steal in comparison to his actual $1.5 million contract. With that kind of output, you would want him in the lineup daily. You’d want him there so bad that you might even move your right fielder back to third base, a position he hasn’t played in five years, in order to get his bat to the plate more than once a game. Still, you have to consider the effects it has on him.

Without question, Thome’s bat speed has slowly degenerated over the past four years. While in Chicago, Thome was yanking pitches with authority into - and over - the right field wall. As he progressed into his late 30’s, those power vitals have shrunk considerably:

Thome’s Pull Numbers:	SLG%	ISoP	HR%
2007	.732	.322	40%
2008	.684	.384	44%
2009	.520	.224	22%
2010	.419	.129	0%

(via Fangraphs.com)

At 39 years old, Thome is still a stout slugger capable of powering the ball over a great distance but without the same outstanding pull power that he had as recently as 2007. Although he retains the ability to get on-base and punish fastballs (.301 BA on fastballs), injuries and years have taken an irreparable toll. Allowing him the occasional breather should help him maintain his current pace for the duration of the season. 

Delmon Young and the Inside Pitch

On May 1^st, Delmon Young was staring at a .222/.292/.381 batting line. This was hardly the anticipated results after finishing the final two months of 2009 in which he batted .305/.327/.513 with 9 home runs. Judging from his batted ball numbers, he was looking more like the pre-August 2009 version – one in which his groundballs were chewing up more than 50% of the total pitches put into play. If you were looking for signs of progress, Young managed to coax 8 walks to his 7 strikeouts, a significant different from the prior year in which he walked just twice and struck out 15 times in the season’s first month.

Since May 1^st, however, Delmon Young is on a 52-for-150 tear (.347) slashing 20 extra base hits including 6 home runs and 14 doubles. Additionally, he tied his base-on-ball total from a year ago on May 22^nd and broke it the following afternoon, demonstrating that patience can be a virtue.

Clearly, just based upon the manner in which he is launching the ball, Young has regained the ability to drive the ball, swatting more line drives around the ball field:

2010	Line Drive%
April	12.5%
May	15%
June	25%

With this squared-up contact, Young marched his offensive numbers northward and to the point where he is the team’s third-best contributor, with an argument for the second-best, while batting seventh regularly. Regarding his current hot streak, Star Tribune columnist Jim Souhan relayed some Ron Gardenhire insight:

"He's [Young] learned to click on the ball better now, and jerk the crap out of it, and look for pitches in situations, so I think it's just the maturity process of more at-bats and figuring out what you can do and can't do."

Yes, he’s clearly “jerking the crap out of it” this year:

%/SLG	Pull	Middle	Opposite
2008	29%	35%	35%
	.576	.431	.497
2009	39%	39%	22%
	.576	.632	.279
2010	36%	36%	28%
	.838	.508	.345

While he’s showing no greater tendency to pull the ball this year than his 2009 campaign, he’s definitely hitting it with greater vigor, as the 260-plus point uptick in his slugging percentage would suggest. This is a product of handling inside pitches better this year. Using MyInsideEdge.com data, we see that Young’s well-hit average on pitches inside has risen steadily since 2008:

	WHA (Sw. In)
2008	.084
2009	.099
2010	.139
League Average	.078

Souhan asked if the manager thought it was something mechanical that kept Young from turning on the inside pitch, to which Gardenhire responded:

"I think it was his approach. You have to make adjustments in your approach sometimes. There were a few mechanical things he's had to work on. He'll tell you, 'No,' but we all know different."

Anyone who has been privy to any amount of Twins games in the past three seasons could tell you that Young has made some adaptation to his mechanics. I highlighted just a small portion of them in December. My findings showed that Young’s ability to pull the ball with venom correlated with his mechanical changes:

From the first of that month to the conclusion of the season, Young was a different hitter in the batter’s box. No, the plate discipline did not improve - he still couldn’t buy a walk in Chinatown – but suddenly the ball left his bat with a bit more zest. It no longer trickled off of the lumber towards third base all yippy-skippy.  It charged off the grain on a mission. He slugged over .700 when pulling the ball after hitting a ho-hum .444 on pitches he yanked prior to that.

Most likely, it is a result of both mechanical adjustments and a refined approach at the plate that has allowed Young to turn on pitches with such force. Either way, this development, beginning back in ’09, has given indications that the 24-year-old Young is on-track to reaching the vaunted projections bestowed upon him when the Twins acquired him in 2007. 

Pavano meeting expectations

As Carl Pavano breezed through what had become a very potent Phillie lineup in the two previous games, while tossing his second complete game of the year, he reduced his earned run average to 3.65 - a substantial improvement over his 5.10 ERA from a year ago.
Of course, this production shouldn’t have been unanticipated. Back in January when Pavano accepted the team’s offer of arbitration, I wrote:

To this day, a vast majority of the baseball world places an ungodly amount of emphasis on numbers like the ERA. Yes, it demonstrates that, superficially, Pavano’s season was sub-par however it does not indicate how he actually pitched. His left-on-base rate (66 percent) was well-below league average while his average on batted balls in play (.335) was much higher than the norm. He maintained a very good strikeout rate (6.6 K/9) and did not allow many walks (1.8 BB/9). If he posts similar peripherals next season, his LOB rate and BABIP numbers are almost certain to regress towards the mean. In short, his ERA should end up substantially lower in 2010.

Up to this point in the season, everything stated has more or less come to fruition. His strikeouts are down slightly (5.5 K/9) but he has compensated for that by walking fewer batters (1.4 BB/9), but for all intents and purposes, his peripheral numbers this season are essentially identical to his 2009 marks. Additionally, his previously below average left-on-base rate in ’09 has retreated back toward the average (71.9%) while his batting average on balls in play (BABIP) have dropped considerable too (.288). The results have been a 3.65 ERA through 14 starts – trailing only Francisco Liriano in the pitching staff.

The retention of his peripheral numbers is not surprising. While he’s not necessarily a strikeout pitcher, Pavano’s got enough dirt in his repertoire to get hitters to miss or freeze them cold. After leading baseball with 31.6% out-of-zone swings, Pavano is once again pacing the field, getting swings on 36.4% of his out-of-zone pitches. His changeup has been particularly lethal in getting hitters to pursue as opponents have strayed after the pitch frequently, 41% of the time, leading to a high amount of groundballs in play. To put that chase rate into perspective, Francisco Liriano’s slider incites a hitter to chase after it 48% of the time it is thrown out of the zone. This has equated to the sixth-best changeup in American League (6.4 wCH).

Furthermore, Pavano throws strikes, plain and simple. As it stands, Pavano trails only Seattle’s Cliff Lee and teammate Scott Baker in the highest percentage of first pitch strikes. What’s more is that while the rest of the league’s pitchers are able to get a strike with one of their first two pitches in a plate appearance 85% of the match-ups, Pavano has done so in 90% of his. Working ahead allows him to throw his changeups and other breaking pitches regularly where he succeeds at getting hitters to make contact with out-of-zone pitches.

His batting average on balls in play has been trimmed thanks to the offseason strengthening of the infield defense combined with more At ‘Em balls. Pavano’s groundball rate has remained consistent the past two seasons, hovering slightly above the league average. After turning in a .261 BABIP on groundballs in ’09, Pavano maintains a much lighter one at .200 this season. Part of the reason for the decline in this area is personnel related. Last year while splitting the season in Cleveland and Minnesota, the Indians and Twins had some extremely weak middle infield defense. The decision to sign Orlando Hudson and trade for J.J. Hardy while playing the defense-first Nick Punto at third has helped Pavano, as well as the rest of the pitching staff, dramatically. Now the Twins boast baseball’s best marks at short, sixth-best at second and fifth-best at third:

Twins’ UZR/150	Short	Second	Third	Twins BABIP on GB
2009	-1.3	-6.1	5.9	.259
2010	16.6	15.3	15.5	.229

(via Fangraphs.com)

Lastly, and possibly his biggest area of improvement, has been the correction of his splits against right-handed opponents. In ’09, right-handed opposition hit .317/.345/.504 off of him. So far through his 14 starts, Pavano has limited the same pool of hitters to a .238/.267/.384 batting line.

It goes without saying that there is still plenty of baseball left and approximately 16 or so starts for things to rattle off the tracks for the big mustachioed righty, however, Pavano has been invaluable to this point in the season, providing 10 quality starts in 14 outings. From this vantage point, the $7 million dollar investment in the starting pitcher has been wildly successful for the Twins.

Have pitchers adjusted to Mauer?

In efforts to explain the drop-off in Joe Mauer’s home run totals from 2009, Bloomberg Sports, an outstanding analytical entity, offers yet another theory: Pitchers are adjusting to Mauer.

Maybe pitchers are attacking Mauer differently too. This argument could potentially explain some of the catcher's power struggles. Pitchers, in fact, have been unwilling to throw him fastballs in certain counts, and seem to have replaced them with changeups, and occasionally curveballs.

Abstaining from throwing fastballs to the league’s best fastball hitter in 2009 would seem like a fairly good place to start if you were attempting to subdue his offensive onslaught. After all, Mauer swatted 27 of his 28 home runs leading to an AL-best .691 slugging percentage on fastballs. Nevertheless, at first blush, the repertoire used against him in 2010 is strikingly similar to the strategy deployed on him in 2009. Using the numbers supplied at Fangraphs.com, we find that opponents are tossing fastball at him most than 60% of the time mixed in with sliders and changeups augmented by the occasional curve. This is fairly consistent with the career norms.

However, like the article from Bloomberg indicates, once we dissect the individual pitch selection during specific counts, it reveals a much different tendency this season. For example, during the 2-1 count, a situation where a year ago Mauer slugged 9 of his 28 home runs, the catcher was thrown 4-seam fastballs half of the time. This year, pitchers have toned down the amount of straight fastballs to him:

2-1 count	4-seamer	2-seamer	Slider	Change	Curve
2010	43%	12%	10%	17%	3%
2009	50%	5%	15%	12%	7%

(via pitchfx.texasleaguers.com)

When you consider the success he had against 4-seamers in his career - particularly during a hitter’s count such as this where you would expect a fastball - the decision to alter the approach makes complete sense. Though it might not seem like much, the additional movement and variation in velocity has kept the reigning MVP from getting the same loft on his swing as he did the previous season. Last year Mauer hit fly balls 42% of the time during 2-1 counts but this season he’s lifting only 15% of balls in play in this situation. Likewise, the different look has enticed Mauer to turn the ball over more frequently, hitting groundballs 60% of the time.

Similarly, during the 1-1 count in which Mauer also launched another 4 home runs last year, pitchers are reluctant to feed him as many 4-seamers, instead changing speeds with more changeups and curves:

1-1 count	4-seamer	2-seamer	Slider	Change	Curve
2010	39%	8%	12%	17%	10%
2009	47%	3%	16%	15%	8%

(via pitchfx.texasleaguers.com)

Also, in efforts to disrupt his timing, pitchers have started him off with more curveballs:

First pitch	4-seamer	2-seamer	Slider	Change	Curve
2010	51%	9%	7%	7%	11%
2009	59%	4%	11%	7%	5%

(via pitchfx.texasleaguers.com)

This has seemingly kept him from pouncing on the first pitch for a home run as he did three times last year.

To be sure, there is no one reason as to why Mauer's home run totals spiked so suddenly in 2009 and dropped so dramatically this season. It has most likely been a concoction of several factors. As the writer at Bloomberg Sports pointed out, it appears that Mauer is no longer afforded the luxury of jumping on straight fastballs like he did in hitter’s counts last year. This - combined with Target Field’s home run restrictive nature (5th least home run conducive ballpark in MLB) and a regression to his career home runs-to-fly ball rate - provides some insight as to why the Twins catcher has been unable to pepper the bleachers thus far in the season.