Should Browns Have Reacted Against Ndamukong Suh?
September 1, 2010Why Care About Manny?
September 1, 2010Stop me if you’ve heard this one. The Indians’ offense struggles for most of the game—down three runs heading into their last at bat. They rally to come back, but ultimately fall short, losing a game to Ozzie Guillen’s White Sox.
Yes. I’m sure I’ve read something like this before. Like, yesterday.
Let’s get to the lowlights, because I’ve got some stuff on Justin Masterson designed to blow your mind.
The game was scoreless into the bottom of the seventh, behind strong outings from both Masterson and Chicago starter Edwin Jackson. Then, David Shelley Duncan smashed a solo home run to the porch in left, putting the Tribe up 1-0.
With this massive lead, Masterson proceeded to give up a lead-off walk to Mark Kotsay to start the eighth. As an aside, Mark Kotsay is batting .237 this season and is a fairly useless offensive player. After an Alexei Ramirez sacrifice, Mark Teahen singled home the tying run. Masterson walked one more batter, before being replaced by Tony Sipp who got out of the inning without any further damage.
The real blow came in the top of the ninth: after Joe Smith walked two batters, AJ Pierzynski (he of the frosted tips) homered to right off Frank Herrmann to put the Sox up 4-1. Herrmann was eager to remind people that he went to Harvard, and if this pitching thing doesn’t work out he’s going to design spaceships and write papers on foreign policy.
Manny Ramirez was on-deck during Pierzynski’s at bat, but was called back after he became useless, because we all know that the Indians never score three runs in the bottom of the ninth. Never.
Anyway, the Indians only managed two runs in the ninth this time, leaving the comeback a bit lacking. It was good to see some offensive life, though. Nix, Crowe, Donald and LaPorta all got hits in the ninth, but we didn’t have any frosted tips on the bench, so the game had to end on a Michael Brantley ground out.
Acta’s thoughts on the loss: “I’m extremely proud of these guys. We’re facing a team that was in first place and is battling for the division title, and these guys, some of them playing for the first time in the big leagues, just continue to put up a fight.”
Sure, the “fight” is nice. I’m sure Mangini would praise their high motors. But a win would be kinda cool too. That’s just me.
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Justin Masterson is a frustrating and perplexing pitcher. It seems the masses are fairly certain he belongs in the bullpen, due to his troubles with left-handed batters and an odd arm-slot.
But then he puts in a performance like last night, going 7.2 innings, allowing only one run, and basically looking like a real, live starting pitcher. It’s outings like this that make it hard for me to give up on him in the rotation.
So I’ve written about Justin Masterson a lot this season. On what his platoon splits are like. On whether I believe in the starter-experiment. On his mid-season resurgence. On the Big Lebowski. I’ve spilled some serious ink on this Jamaican.
But maybe it’s simpler than all that. Last night I looked at every start Masterson has made this season—all 27 of them—and tried to split them up by the number of walks he allowed in each start. In 15 of his starts, Masterson has allowed 2 or fewer walks. In his other 12, he allowed 3 or more walks.
Check this table out:
≤ 2 Walks | ≥ 3 Walks | |
IP per Start | 6.5 | 5.1 |
ERA | 4.24 | 6.31 |
FIP | 3.13 | 5.40 |
H/IP | 1.12 | 1.14 |
WHIP | 1.34 | 2.14 |
HR/9 | 0.65 | 0.88 |
K/9 | 7.28 | 6.16 |
BB/9 | 1.94 | 7.34 |
K/BB | 3.76 | 0.84 |
GB/FB | 2.64 | 2.37 |
There are things in this table that shouldn’t really surprise you. For instance, he pitches about an inning and a half longer when he lets up fewer than three walks. His ERA is more than two runs lower. His WHIP is .80 lower. His walks-per-nine drops by nearly 5.50. His “expected ERA” (FIP) drops by more than two runs.
But this should be obvious stuff. Of course his WHIP is lower: WHIP is inflated by walks. So is ERA. So is BB/9. And I can’t see anyone being surprised by him going further into the game when he walks fewer people. That seems so obvious it’s hardly worth mentioning, except to reinforce the notion that walks are really, really crummy things to do if you’re a starting pitcher.
However, let’s look at some of those other stats. When Masterson walks fewer than three batters, he gives up considerably fewer home runs—a drop of about 30%. He also strikes out more than a batter more per nine than when issuing three or more walks. Further, when Masterson limits walks, he induces more groundballs—the secret to his success.
This stuff doesn’t really make a lot of sense to me. Why would fewer walks result in fewer home runs allowed? Why would fewer walks allow him to strike out more batters? Why would fewer walks increase his groundball rate?
I haven’t any clue. But we’re approaching reasonable sample sizes here. It seems clear that when Masterson can limit his walks, not only does he reap the obvious and direct benefits (fewer baserunners, a lower ERA, longer outings), but he gets some not-so-obvious benefits (fewer HR, more strikeouts, more groundballs, a truly dominant K/BB figure). Again, I don’t know why this should be the case; it doesn’t seem necessarily tautological to me, and other pitchers don’t reap these same “collateral benefits.”
But however it’s happening, it is happening. And it’s all the more reason for this coaching staff to continue working with Masterson’s consistency. When he walks fewer than three batters in a start, he looks like a solid #2 starter with a 3.13 expected ERA (which, needless to say, is far more valuable than a setup guy in the bullpen). But when he walks three or more? He looks sort of like this guy.
Get on that, Belchacta. We kinda need some starters for next season.
Photo Credit, Chuck Crowe/PD
19 Comments
Masterson: correlation v. Causation. Better command yields fewer walks, more groundouts and fewer HOUR, all because he’s keeping it in the bottom half of the zone.
If he stays consistent the rest of this season it will be awesome and exciting heading into next season. If he continues his up and down ways I think the team needs to reconsider his role.
@ Andy:
I’m not totally sure what you’re driving at with the Causation v. Correlation remark. But you made me think of two things.
First, look at his hits per inning pitched in that table (H/IP). They’re pretty similar: he basically let’s up the same number of hits, regardless of his walks. But for some reason, far fewer of those hits are home runs, and he’s striking out considerably more batters when he doesn’t walk people.
Second, other pitchers simply don’t have these secondary effects. I think you’re right that it has something to do with superior control (obviously), but it does strike me as odd that walks are a barometer of these seemingly unrelated performance indicators with Masterson, but not with most guys.
I am stunned that there was no mention of Nix and his failure to run out the fly ball that was dropped. I mentioned to my son that some managers would have immediately replace Nix in order to send him and the rest of the young team a message. At the very least, I expected Acta to fine him. There was no mention in the PD this morning, as if this never happened. There is simply no excuse for not playing hard all the time, and Acta should have taken action. (I must admit that there is the possibility that he dealt with this in house), but for the PD and your article not to mention this is an oversight. The kids many not have a great deal of talent, but they can at least play hard.
WFNY has been throwing a lot of hate at Masterson and while some of it is justified I don’t fully understand the reason for all of it. We’re talking about a team that is literally playing for nothing and has a guy who has the potential to be a credible starter. Why in God’s name would they move him to the bullpen when it’s known that the team is in desperate need for starters next year?
@ tsm:
On a moral level, I think I agree with you. Nix should have run harder. But he DID end up on second base after the error, and the Indians proceeded to strike out twice before ending the inning on a weak grounder, so the play didn’t matter all that much in the outcome of the game. Had he been on third he still wouldn’t have scored that inning.
Sorry for ignoring it in the write-up though. I probably should’ve mentioned it, but now we’ve given it more attention than it otherwise would’ve gotten. Thanks for the note.
@ J-Dub:
“WFNY has been throwing a lot of hate at Masterson”
Really? Did you read those links to the pieces I wrote this season? Every single one suggests that he should stay a starter (and walk fewer guys).
Let me be clear: I want him in the rotation next year. That doesn’t mean he’s perfect and doesn’t have things to work on, but it’s also a far cry from “throwing hate.”
Isn’t the baseball season almost over in Cleveland? The Indians aren’t even watchable anymore.
Why would fewer walks result in fewer home runs allowed? Why would fewer walks allow him to strike out more batters? Why would fewer walks increase his groundball rate?
I believe you already touched on this in the comments but it seems pretty straight-forward…
when he is wild or trying to nibble, a la Charlie Nagy, he tends to get himself into trouble by falling behind hitters and having to make sure he gets one over…these lead to fat pitches, hanging sliders, and the like…in this same sense, less walks can also mean that he is pounding the strike zone and his pitches are working and are not hittable by batters…it goes both ways, and stats can be deceiving in that manner…fewer walks can also mean more groundballs by the same logic…the pitches that are hit are more likely to be beat into the ground when he has his stuff going and moving…
typically in my experience, you start aiming the ball and you lose any tail to your pitches because you are changing your mechanics slightly to assure you get a strike…trouble with control comes from having too much movement on pitches or a lack of consistancy with your motion…he has a few things about his delivery that can cause this…whether its the shoulder angle he starts with in comparison to where he is when he actually throws, or his elbow snap, I dont know that either are able to be changed without completely overhauling his delivery, which at this point, is not advisable…
that being said…he does have great movement on his pitches, but I can see him having shoulder problems down the road if he continues to be a starter based on the way he brings his arm straight down and has an L in his arm while doing so…during his delivery, its then raised up and torqued back, a completely unnecessary (in my opinion) movement…think Jimenez how he points his arm straight down during his delivery and then look at masterson’s arm…theres a reason why…unneeded motion is usually just something that causes other issues with your mechanics…less movement the better…think bout the dontrelle willis delivery and then someone like curt shilling or clemens…simple and repeatable…thats typically the recipe for success…and yes i know, he may have been doing it long enough to be able to repeat it, but it doesnt mean its right…
I like him as a starter for his stuff, but would like to see him in the bullpen for longevity purposes…
I wonder what his splits are from the stretch versus from the wind-up? Perhaps when he pitches from the stretch he is more apt to giving up the long-ball?
@jon
The post doesn’t have any data on other pitchers, and I haven’t got any data either way. I just meant to say that the post says that the lower walks *cause* the better pitching stats. The data provided show that better pitching stats are correlated with fewer walks. I argued (not terribly well) that the fewer walks and the other better stats may all result from the same (unlisted) cause or causes. Hence ‘correlation v. Causation.’.
The comments on this piece are surprisingly credible, at least until boogeyman jumped in. I fully expected “Masterson belongs in the bullpen!! Acta is an idiot for continuing to start someone with an ERA over 5!!”
@7
Outside of you Jon, the website seems to be fully in the “masterson to the bullpen crowd” so I understand what J-Dub is saying.
The conversation you bring up about Masterson though, is an extremely interesting one. I think I have the tendency to fall in line with what Andy said. Fewer walks for Masterson do not result in fewer HR or more GB. This is not an if A than B thing, where walks are A and HR, K and GB rate are B. This is an if A than both B and C, where A is ‘Justin is locating his pitches’ therefore he is ‘walking fewer people’ (B) and ‘getting more groundballs, k’s and less HR’ (C).
I think its pretty clear that BB rate is the best indicator for how Justin is pitching. For a lot of pitchers its home runs because when they struggle with location its left over the plate and gets hammered. When Justin struggles with location, the ball usually still has that heavy, downward movement so its diving out of the zone, or even if its left over the heart of the plate, its difficult for most hitters to lift it up and out.
So at the risk of sounding repetitive, I want to clarify my point that the main factor in Justin pitching better is not his BB rate, its his overall control, which then shows up in all his stats, like HR, K, GB and obviously most heavily in BB rate.
@Jon/Andy – I think you’re on the right track here. I think his better command because of the style of pitcher he needs to be to gain success is the key.
When Masterson is successful, he is throwing it low in the zone and inducing groundballs. Hits really shouldn’t change too much because some of those groundballs will still make it through.
When Masterson loses control, he lets the ball get up in the zone, which allows for more flyballs (and hence HRs).
Not really sure on how this correlates to more SO’s other than batters might not be waiting on the balls to get a free pass? That’s shaky at best.
What I would really be curious to see is if this correlates with other groundball pitchers rather than pitchers on the whole. Do Westbrook and Cliff Lee have similar break-outs?
I have some super-smart and attentive readers. Thanks for all your contributions here. (Almost) everybody added something to the conversation that was both thoughtful and interesting. As Denny would say, “That is chill.”
Masterson, to me, is one of those guys who breaks a lot of molds–there’s just not a lot of guys like him. He stands out in almost every way: FIP doesn’t seem to work with him (he underperforms it consistently); no starter has more pronounced platoon splits; no starter has a higher GB rate; he’s among the top of the league in BABiP; few starters vacillate from “very good” to “very bad” more decidedly than he does.
Which is probably why it’s so hard to get a statistical hold of his performance. We can’t rely on precedent, because there really aren’t any. He’s a different sort of pitcher, and that’s probably why I’ve spent so much time writing about him this year.
Thanks again for all the input, guys. Much appreciated.
Stats are awesome for this kind of discussion but I think DK may be right when he says they can also be deceiving. From reading your work before I know that you harp on Masterson’s walks a lot. And while I agree with you that they are extremely important, it would make sense to me that when trying to analyze Justin’s performances with stats, you come into them with preconceived ideas that cause you to not see the whole picture.
What if you had split Justin’s starts by IP, or K rate, or GB/FB? Or even BABIP, or how bout # of LH in the opposing lineup? I wonder if they would look extremely similar.
Another issue I was thinking about with your chart, is that I wish you had included more stats, particularly PA and maybe BABIP. I know we have discussed it previously on this site a little, but it would be interesting to me to see how high the correlation is between his inexplicably high BABIP and his quality of starts. But also, most all of your rate stats are per IP or per 9, and we all know that all IP are not created equal. It would make sense to me that in starts where Justin is walking more batters, and sometimes A LOT more, (and his other stats are suffering as well) that he is facing significantly more batters per inning, which could distort the comparison.
Dont mean to sound too critical. I love breaking down your columns when I have the time.
IMO, Jon=most thought provoking writer on WFNY. You bring a lot of credibility to this place.
At least I didn’t feel the need to make a personal attack. Sigh, some things never change just like the mounting losses.
boogey – i dont know that i call that a personal attack…you really werent bringing anything into a rational and interesting conversation about one of the players…i can see why they said that…had you wrote a long diatribe about how masterson is bound for baltimore or that he was the second coming of Greg Maddux and THEN someone said that, then i can see it being a personal attack…
as it were…if its not something youre interested in, no need to comment 🙂
Unlike many pitchers who walk a lot of guys, Masterson’s wildness comes from the fact that his ball moves so much. A pitch that starts out looking good moves out of the zone. When it’s moving out of the zone, he has to try to rein in the movement, or avoid mixing his pitches up as much as a major league pitcher should. Both of those things lead to more home runs and less ground balls. Most wild pitchers (think Charlie Sheen in Major League) don’t throw the ball anywhere close to the zone, so hitters aren’t even swinging, let alone hitting home runs. Command and control are keys, but I think Masterson’s future in the Indians’ organziation is as a starter.