Johnson vs. Jimenez, and other thoughts
by Satchel Price on Jul 2, 2010 12:30 PM EDT
Email
PrintWe're going to be taking a break from our regular programming today (i.e. the A Look to the Future: Your 2013 _______ Series) to take a look at some noteworthy occurrences around the league. Alas, I plan to hop right back on the Future wagon tomorrow with my next scheduled team: the Cleveland Indians.
- Josh Johnson has the same ERA as Ubaldo Jimemez
It's time to temper our excitement with Ubaldo: despite being 4-0 in his last five starts, he's put up a 4.41 ERA along with a 32/14 K/BB, 4 home runs allowed and more fly balls than grounders in 32.2 innings covering that span. He gave up 1 home run in his first 11 starts.
Meanwhile over in Florida, Josh Johnson has finally caught up to Jimenez in terms of ERA, and his June 26 start against the Padres was the first time that he gave up more than one run in a start (he gave up two) since May 8.
So now it's time to beg the question, "How is Jimenez remotely better than Johnson?"
ERA? They're tied. FIP? Johnson, 2.47 to 3.07. xFIP? Johnson, 3.16 to 3.68. tERA? Johnson, 2.58 to 3.01.
What about the components? Strikeout rate? Johnson, 8.92 to 8.12. Walk rate? Johnson, 2.25 to 3.19. Whiff rate? Johnson, easily, 11.9% to 8.7%. Contact rate? Johnson, easily again, 73.9% to 78.9%. Groundball rate? Okay, it's Jimemez, but the margin is just 51.7% to 48.0%.
Unless you rate pitchers solely by fastball velocity and groundball rate, ignoring everything else, such as allowing runs and stuff, I don't see how Josh Johnson isn't a better pitcher than Ubaldo Jimenez right now.
- The Chicago center fielders
I've covered this before, but the crazy thing is that nothing has really changed: Alex Rios and Marlon Byrd continue to be two of the game's most effective center fielders in 2010. They're currently first and second, respectively, in WAR among the game's center fielders, with each player combining an impressive offensive effort with quality defensive work.
Rios has been a godsend to the White Sox's offense this season, putting up a .307/.363/.522 line (.386 wOBA) in what's been one of the most noteworthy comeback seasons in baseball. Oh, and he's thriving in the field (+5 UZR, +6 DRS) and on the bases (21 steals) as well. He'll probably slow down from here, but ZiPS projects him to finish with 37 doubles, 24 homers and 36 steals in 627 PA, and I'm guessing that Kenny Williams can breathe a little easier after it looked like he made a huge mistake claiming Rios off waivers last August.
Byrd has been almost equally as impressive for the Cubs; he can't match Rios' offensive numbers but he closes the gap with superior defensive marks, as his 3.0 WAR is only a run behind Rios' 3.1 mark. Byrd has been a doubles machine so far, with 25 on the season already, and he's not getting all that lucky, his .329 BABIP isn't that far off from his .323 career BABIP. ZiPS essentially projects him to hold steady, with a .360 wOBA for the rest of the season compared to his .365 wOBA to this moment. The Cubs have shown an impressive propensity to waste money, but they may have gotten a bargain in Marlon Byrd.
- Toronto's power explosion... and the lack of results.
I was going to include Vernon Wells, and then I remembered Jose Bautista, and then I remembered Alex Gonzalez. And then I thought, "Hey, John Buck is having quite the season, too."
So I just decided to go with Toronto's entire offense, which currently leads all of baseball in home runs and isolated power, along with being second in doubles. Despite this, they're essentially a middle-of-the-pack offense due to the AL's worst batting average and on-base percentage, the league's highest strikeout rate, and the lowest BABIP in baseball. But it's not like they've been particularly lucky; their RAA is -3 on the season. They're just an offense that's absolutely loaded with power, but not a whole lot else in terms of plate discipline or hitting ability. They won't hit it particularly often, but when they do, they'll hit it particularly far. Just check out this lineup:
Bautista: .299 isolated power, .229 batting average, .223 BABIP
Wells: .277 isolated power, .280 batting average, .274 BABIP
Encarnacion: .267 isolated power, .200 batting average, .167 BABIP
Buck: .249 isolated power, .263 batting average, .309 BABIP
Snider: .241 isolated power, .241 batting average, .272 BABIP
Gonzalez: .226 isolated power, .264 batting average, .285 BABIP
Hill: .172 isolated power, .191 batting average, .185 BABIP
McDonald: .182 isolated power, .218 batting average, .244 BABIP
The only guys with consistent playing that time that don't have a high isolated power along with low BA/BABIP marks are Fred Lewis, Adam Lind, Jose Molina and Lyle Overbay.
Why is this noteworthy? Because teams that hit for that kind of power are almost always among the best offenses in baseball. Remember that Toronto's RAA is -3? Well look at the RAA's for the next five teams after them on the isolated power list: +86, +40, +18, +48, +63. Of the 15 teams with an ISO of .145 or better, only 3 of them (the Jays, White Sox and Angels) have a below average RAA mark.
We're seeing a truly rare combination of impressive power and mediocre results.
- It's been sort of a rough year for premium position players
Check out the position-by-position WAR leaders:
C: Brian McCann - 2.4 WAR
1B: Justin Morneau - 4.8 WAR
2B: Robinson Cano - 4.6 WAR
3B: David Wright/Adrian Beltre - 3.7 WAR
SS: Troy Tulowitzki - 2.6 WAR
LF: Carl Crawford - 4.1 WAR
CF: Alex Rios - 3.1 WAR
RF: Ichiro Suzuki - 3.1 WAR
Those are some pretty weak showings from the league's shortstops, catchers and center fielders, no?
The most valuable catcher/shortstop in baseball right now is Troy Tulowitzki, who hasn't even played in a while, and he's 28th in baseball in WAR. Last year's highest ranked catcher/shortstop? Joe Mauer at No. 3. How about 2008? Hanley Ramirez at No. 5. 2007? Jorge Posada and Jimmy Rollins went No. 11 and No. 12. 2006? Jeter went No. 8. We haven't seen this lack of elite-level performance from shortstops and catchers since at least 2005, I would argue.
27 comments
|
1 recs |
Do you like this story?
Comments
Thanks. I mean, I love the aesthetic qualities of a 14-1 win-loss record, too.
But he’s won a lot of games this season with performances that got guys like Johnson and Liriano stuck with losses.
He’s really not pitching all that much better than last season, it’s just that nobody would acknowledge the guy as an ace when he had a 15-12 record with a mid-3’s ERA.
I like baseball.
I write for Beyond the Box Score and The Hardball Times Fantasy
by Satchel Price on Jul 2, 2010 1:23 PM EDT up reply actions
It's amazing how influential a pitcher's win-loss record still is.
Even though it’s been so thoroughly proven as out of a pitchers control. Even without any statistical analysis or anything, it’s just common sense that it’s 50% luck. But still.
I don't understand how it needed to be proven.
How is it not just common sense? There are a lot of ideas I’ve held that the sabermetric movement has taught me to give up. But there was never a point that I really thought wins and losses were a good way for evaluating pitchers.
by philkid3 on Jul 3, 2010 4:39 AM EDT up reply actions 1 recs
I'm saying that common sense tells me at least that a win-loss record is mostly luck.
I agree, even when I first started watching baseball, I was always confused why people cared so much about win-loss records. Actually, the reason I was confused the most was why people even put up relief pitcher’s win-loss records. But somehow, they still have this grasp on the baseball community, so many people still think they’re important even though they’re not.
Jimenez has an era 1.70 HIGHER (2.95 v. 1.23) when he has to pitch at Coors Field than on the road.
Johnson has an ERA 1.10 LOWER (1.52 v. 2.61) when he gets to pitch at home.
Now, here’s the catch: out of 16 starts Johnson has made 11 of them at home. He has only pitched 31 innings on the road all season!
Obviously it sucks to pitch at Coors Field so it’s not fair to compare their home ERA. Instead, look at a stat where Johnson should have a big edge: notice that Ubaldo’s road ERA is quite a bit better than Josh’s home ERA.
Whatever Sabean thinks about the IQ of the average baseball fan, you just proved him right.
None of that really matters to xFIP
and a higher HR/FB rate would mean Jimenez should have a higher FIP than xFIP, something that isn’t true.
Now, hold on.
There’s more to park affecting offense than just the home run rates, yes? So wouldn’t that effect xFIP? Things like getting better break off of your curveball and such.
That said, I’m pretty sure that even with park adjustments, Johnson wins.
Coors field only has a slightly higher park factor than Sun Light over the past couple of years
Is “comparing the road stats” going to be the new defense of Jimenez?
Good mention of Johnson, Satch
In my mind, they are at the same level in terms of overall talent ranking of pitchers, so it’s only fitting that they seem fairly even in 2010 as well. JJ has had a very good year that’s been mostly overshadowed.
Marlin Maniac, a Florida Marlins blog
Writer, Beyond the Box Score
Writer, Baseball Propsectus Fantasy Beat
Writer, Heater Magazine
Jimenez's ERA now up to 2.27
Now higher than Jaime Garcia’s as well and barely lower than Wainwright’s, Lee’s and Halladay’s.
I thought it was ludicrous two weeks ago to make the argument that Jimenez had been the best pitcher in baseball. Now it’s impossible. I guess that’s the problem with relying on ERA – the most fickle metric in the history of the game.
I think that Jimenez's 14-1 record and the no-hitter also played into his early-season hype
Not to mention that he was pretty much the hardest throwing starter in the game until Strasburg came along.
But this is a guy who was getting awfully lucky with earned runs and wins all year, so it’s nice to see him fall back to Earth a bit.
I like baseball.
I write for Beyond the Box Score and The Hardball Times Fantasy
by Satchel Price on Jul 4, 2010 10:41 AM EDT up reply actions
perfect game > no hitter
and Jimenez have been extremely lucky with W-L category, even yesterday, he gave up 7ER which should be suffice to get a loss but he didn’t, his teammates picked him up there.
whereas Halladay has been extremely unlucky with Balls in play and little run support.
Right, but when I argued earlier in the season that Halladay was better than Jimenez
I got a pretty significant amount of responses that disagreed with me, and a lot of that was presumably based around his W-L/ERA marks.
The point is that Jimemez was always going to fall back down to Earth with an FIP in the low-3’s and an xFIP in the mid-3’s.
I like baseball.
I write for Beyond the Box Score and The Hardball Times Fantasy
by Satchel Price on Jul 4, 2010 11:33 AM EDT up reply actions
yeah, was that you choose to start Halladay over Jimenez in the ASG right?
jimenez is good but not as good as his WL prct predicts and a 90% LOB was just unsustainable plus his walks are vey concerning
Are you kidding me?
it’s nice to see him fall back to Earth a bit.
You’re actually rooting for particular players to fail? Have you no shame?
"I have no special talents. I am only passionately curious." - Albert Einstein
by Andrew T. Fisher on Jul 4, 2010 12:56 PM EDT up reply actions
I suppose it just made my brain hurt to see a guy with a sub-2.5 K/BB putting up an ERA around 1 while winning essentially every decision
I love Ubaldo, but he was getting a lot of those “best pitcher in the game” labels for a bit while his whiff and strikeout rates are only slightly above average and he’s got a league average walk rate.
It just wasn’t easy to argue in favor of other pitchers when Jimenez had such a huge advantage in terms of W-L/ERA.
I like baseball.
I write for Beyond the Box Score and The Hardball Times Fantasy
by Satchel Price on Jul 4, 2010 1:02 PM EDT up reply actions
Oh I understand
You were rooting for him to regress, because his continued success challenged your ability to analyze the game.
And I don’t think you can say you love a player when rooting for him to fail.
"I have no special talents. I am only passionately curious." - Albert Einstein
by Andrew T. Fisher on Jul 4, 2010 1:08 PM EDT up reply actions
Well, I mean, technically I don't actually love any baseball players, it's tough to love people you've never met before or anything
But I do like watching Jimenez pitch a lot, whatever that’s worth.
I like baseball.
I write for Beyond the Box Score and The Hardball Times Fantasy
by Satchel Price on Jul 4, 2010 1:34 PM EDT up reply actions
Furthermore
His “regression” in his past four starts isn’t as much his “awfully lucky with earned runs and wins” regressing to normal luck. He has started flying open with his left shoulder, leading to inconsistent command. Throwing 99mph 2-seamers with command is legitimately filthy. Losing that command leads to walks. His adjustment was to take a bit off his fastball, and suddenly it doesn’t have the velocity to blow through people. That’s not something you could infer from a game log or LOB% rate.
"I have no special talents. I am only passionately curious." - Albert Einstein
by Andrew T. Fisher on Jul 4, 2010 1:12 PM EDT up reply actions
It's also something that you hear people say every goddamn time a pitcher has an aberrant start
When are people going to realize that ERA and runs allowed and the sort are just terrible stats in a small sample size?
You don’t think it’s possible that the results of his last 3 starts (in which he had a not terrible 19/8 K/BB) were produced with the same process that allowed him to have a 1.15 ERA over the first?
He never consistently threw 99 MPH two-seamers with great command. Even without having seen him pitch every time I can tell you that. His average fastball velo on the year is a touch over 95 MPH.
A touch above 95mph is 96.4?
It’s still tops in the majors.
And as for:
You don’t think it’s possible that the results of his last 3 starts (in which he had a not terrible 19/8 K/BB) were produced with the same process that allowed him to have a 1.15 ERA over the first?
I would be inclined to agree, but no….I watched all of his games. He isn’t pitching the same. Not even close. The HR pitches to Conor Jackson, Scott Hairston, doubles by Daniel Nava….they were hanging pitches that he just hasn’t thrown in the first part of the season. Control is far more than K/BB rates. It can be the control of pitches to prevent batters from barreling the ball, and he hasn’t had that of late.
"I have no special talents. I am only passionately curious." - Albert Einstein
by Andrew T. Fisher on Jul 4, 2010 2:43 PM EDT up reply actions
Yeah, sorry about the fastball velo, I was looking at his career numbers by accident
Well I’ll just say that I’ll continue to stick to my guts on this one, but I’ll defer to you for now. Maybe I’ll look at this with pfx.
I will admit
that it isn’t as if he didn’t hang a pitch or fire a fastball down the middle when he had a sparkling ERA. He did, and he lucked out sometimes that it wasn’t smoked. He’s just doing it more now, so I haven’t been surprised that he’s been hit.
"I have no special talents. I am only passionately curious." - Albert Einstein
by Andrew T. Fisher on Jul 4, 2010 3:12 PM EDT up reply actions
Comments For This Post Are Closed
Secondary Sidebar
User Tools
FanPosts
Community blog posts and discussion.
Recent FanPosts
Follow us on Twitter!
BTB: @BtBScore
Justin: @justinbopp
Satchel: @SatchelPrice
J-Doug: @RationalPastime
Josh: @garik16
Julian: @giantsnirvana
Bill: @BillPetti
Lucas: @DBITLefty
Jeff: @jeffwzimmerman
Lewis: @LewsOnFirst
