Tyler Anderson: King of soft contact

The Rockies always seem to need pitching. The Ubaldo Jimenezes of the world tend to lose their magic pretty quickly. Plus, whenever they deal for a great pitcher — say, the Rays’ Jake McGee — he struggles to adjust to Colorado, and the club ends up disappointed. Over the 24 years they’ve existed, the Rockies rank 25th in the majors in fWAR and 24th in RA9-WAR; the struggle, evidently, is real.

Last year, though, things appeared to get a little sunnier. The team improved to 15th in fWAR and 21st in RA9-WAR, and its rotation — 14th in fWAR and 13th in RA9-WAR — led the charge. Several young starters finally broke through, with Jon Gray, Chad Bettis, Tyler Chatwood, and Tyler Anderson all earning two wins. That last name stands out, because of one area in which he excelled like few Rockies pitchers ever have.

Anderson does a few things well. He pounds the strike zone, which allows him to limit his walks (his 5.9 percent free pass rate ranked 30th among 137 starters with at least 100 innings). Along with a moderate strikeout rate, that gave him a 14.9 percent K-BB rate, more than two ticks above the major-league average for starters. But that’s not where Anderson makes his living. No, he succeeds with something a little more uncommon for a Rockies hurler.

Here’s a leaderboard from last season, with an extra stat added in on the end:

Like Hendricks, Sabathia, Wright, and Roark, Anderson doesn’t let hitters get good wood. Unlike those four, he pitches (roughly) half his games a mile above sea level. That ability, unsurprisingly, isn’t one the Rockies find very often. Indeed, in the batted-ball era — i.e. the past 15 years — only one Colorado season has featured a better adjusted soft contact rate:

Prior to 2010, FanGraphs’ contact quality data was more subjective. In the new decade, Baseball Info Solutions (the firm that provides it) switched to an algorithm-based system. Over the seven years since that change, Anderson is in first place by a mile; the next-closest hurler is 2012 Jeff Francis, with a 110 Soft+.

What allows Anderson to rack up so many soft balls? In August, MLB.com’s Mike Petriello spoke with the lefty, who cited his aforementioned control, his ability to get ground balls — only 24 other starters beat Anderson’s 50.9 percent ground ball rate — and his ability to avoid the danger zone. That last one is what I’d like to narrow in on.

Baseball Savant divides the strike zone into nine sections, with four sections for the areas outside the zone (here’s a visual for reference). We’ll slice the plate into the upper area (zones 1-3), the middle area (zones 4-6), and the lower area (zones 5-9). Which one does Anderson occupy the least?

Anderson told Petriello that he wanted to “keep hitters off balance” to prevent them from squaring him up. Evidently, he’s done just that — he ranks in the middle of the pack in middle pitches, but places much higher when he puts the ball higher (or lower). In simpler terms, Anderson doesn’t serve up many meatballs, which means a lot of his balls in play are of the “soft” variety.

The one thing I’ve neglected to mention here: What happened on all that soft contact? Unfortunately for Anderson, not a whole ton of outs. When hitting the ball softly, opponents had a .202/.207/.207 triple-slash, good for a .182 wOBA. While that doesn’t seem bad on its own, it was the 11th-worst mark among starters. Still, with a process this effective, the results should come around in 2017.

The new-look Rockies will depend on their rotation to carry them through the season, and it looks to be up to the task. Anderson started 2016 in Short-Season A and finished it with a better ERA- than Corey Kluber and Jake Arrieta. If he can keep getting soft grounders in 2017, who knows how much improvement he’ll make from here?

Ryan Romano is the co-managing editor for Beyond the Box Score. He also writes about the Orioles for Camden Depot, sometimes. Follow him on Twitter if you enjoy angry tweets about Maryland sports.