Talking Tribe, Dog Days, and a Risky Theme Park: While We’re Waiting…
July 8, 2015A picture is worth 1,600 words
July 8, 2015Corey Kluber getting left off of the American League All-Star team has left many analysts who favor advanced statistics baffled, as he is having another strong season when looking at stats like FIP, WAR, K%, SIERA, among others1 . Of course, when looking at his record (4-9 personal record or 5-13 team record when he starts) and ERA (3.45) an old-school analyst can wonder why there is even a conversation about Kluber for the All-Star Game. Additionally, Kluber gave more steam to the sabermetrics crowd on Tuesday as he contributed seven beautiful innings as the Cleveland Indians shut out the Houston Astros 2-0.
As with most things, the answer lies somewhere in the middle. Team record and ERA are a historical accounting of what actually happened, as are runs, RBIs, and actual batting average (and OBP); numbers like BABIP are not always taken into account2 . It is true that many of the above statistical categories are somewhat reliant on the team around the player — that what they measure is a function of the team that they were on. Still, baseball is a team sport, and the All-Star game and year-end awards are historical markers not only for the players, but also for the seasons and teams. The new advanced statistics are much better for separating expected individual performance from other outstanding factors such as luck and teamwide play. As such, they are fantastic for predicting future performances compared with the traditional statistics. However, luck and teammates are part of the game, and one should be careful about the elimination of these factors when looking backwards.
But, the advanced statistics still do provide a better overall understanding of the game of baseball and what to expect from players moving forward. As such, look for a primer on how to understand some of the more common advanced statistics later today. For now, let us dig into the ball that was played on Tuesday.
Keys of the Game
Corey Kluber :
It is a pure joy to have Corey Kluber on the Cleveland Indians. Even when he does not have his best outings, his pitches have such great movement that he can induce batters to swing at pitches they would normally lay off.
Corey Kluber was in control on Tuesday and he took advantage of the Astros league-worst strikeout rate. He only3 finished with seven strikeouts, but he was getting softly hit balls all night as batters whiffed on pitches out of the strike zone.
Take a look at his payoff4 pitch map. Note that the map shows inside and outside of the plate, so it has been adjusted for left-handed and right-handed batters.
In case you cannot see it, the four lowest and the one highest pitch are all strikeouts. He was getting those batters to chase crazy pitches. His other two strikeouts were more in the inside-middle of the zone. Kluber did end his night with two walks and those were the two of the more outside pitches on this map in green. However, Kluber also induced Houston to swing at two other pitches in that region.
As one of the marks of a good pitcher, notice the complete lack of any inside strikes. Everything even close to that region was either low, or high, or too far inside. Houston batters still managed a couple hits on those high inside pitches, but Kluber jammed them on all other inside pitches, which caused pop ups.
Overall, it was a beautiful performance that was then upheld with some timely hitting and defense.
Defensive Plays:
Houston and Cleveland were among the worst defensive teams in MLB in 2014. In fact, they were the two very worst teams in Def (-74 and -64.8, respectively. Zero is defined as average, so they were both really, really bad). Earlier this season, the Indians were on pace for historic awfulness in the field. Of course, no one watching the game Tuesday would have known it.
The Astros have been a much better defensive team in 2015 and they demonstrated why on several occasions Tuesday. In the second inning, Giovanny Ursela was robbed of a looping line drive up the middle when Jose Altuve made a spectacular play to complete a fielder’s choice at second base. Michael Bourn immediately followed up that play with a rocket shot to right field which Preston Tucker made an out-stretched, over-his-head catch on to end the inning.
Michael Bourn was not even done getting robbed of hits on the night. In the fifth inning, Bourn hit one away from Colby Rasmus. Except, Rasmus got a great jump on the ball and managed to just barely stretch his glove out far enough to send Bourn back to the dugout, again. In fact, when the Astros turned a nice double play off a Yan Gomes hit in the sixth inning, it felt ho-hum compared to the theatrics their defense had shown earlier.
For instance, in the seventh inning Giovanny Urshela hit a hard ground ball to his third base counterpart Marwin Gonzalez that took Gonzalez into foul territory. Despite the lack of momentum, Gonzalez threw across his body from that foul ground all the way across the diamond to get Urshela by a step. Somewhere out there, Brooks Robinson tipped his cap.
The Astros were not even done yet. In the eighth inning, Altuve positively robbed Francisco Lindor with a diving stop to his right. Carlos Correa then almost managed to make a similar play on Michael Brantley, but Brantley hit the ball just hard enough5 so that Correa could not handle it, and the ball sputtered past him.
Earlier in the season, such defensive heroics by the opposition would have killed any chance the Indians had at winning the game. There likely would have been a Tribe defensive flub at some point that would have unraveled the entire game. However, since Lindor and Urshela have been called up to take over the left side of the infield, the entire defense has seemingly been transformed.
Early in the game, Kluber was in control (as discussed above), so there were not many chances for the defense to show off their skills. That all changed in the sixth inning.
Preston Tucker led off the inning with a hard hit ball to the gap that should have fallen. Heck, it might have dropped in even back when Michael Bourn had all his speed. But, somehow, some way, Bourn got his legs to churn and tracked the ball’s trajectory to the one and likely only spot that he had a chance at it. With outstretched glove he threw his arm into the night with the hopes of catching that falling white ball. It appeared to nip the very outer edge of his glove before falling into the webbing. The play was so spectacular that Corey Kluber pounded his glove in appreciation (though his facial expression did not change).
Carlos Correa was the next batter and he hit a hard ground ball to Lindor’s glove side. The glove side might as well stretch to the first row with how Lindor manages to demonstrate range in the field that Cleveland fans may have forgotten about after years of watching Jhonny Peralta and Asdrubal Cabrera man shortstop. The play was not over as Lindor’s throw took a dive into the dirt just before arriving at first base. Carlos Santana (yes, that Santana) dug the ball out and swept his glove up into the air in triumph. The umpire would rule Correa safe, but replay would quickly overturn that error of judgment.
In the eighth, Urshela almost matched the Gonzalez foul territory throw. The issue was that Urshela had to attempt his from close to the outfield and, as a result, his throw was offline. Carlos Santana did a fine job of coming off the bag to stop the throw, but it still demonstrated that the defense is capable of attempting such plays.
Urshela showed his ability again on the next at-bat, getting the lead runner on a Carlos Correa ground ball. All of the Indians’ defensive theatrics made Evan Gattis grounding into a Kipnis-Lindor-Santana double play to end the inning seem rather expected instead of fantastic, which it was.
Michael Brantley:
On a night when pitching and defense carried the game, Michael Brantley went 3-for-4 with two runs scored and an RBI. He ran so hard from first base to home on a David Murphy double that there was not even a thought of the Astros attempting to make a play at the plate. He blasted a ball so hard that he pushed it through an Astro infield defense that was swallowing up hits.
And, Cleveland Indian fans were treated to Michael Brantley putting the heavy part of the bat on the ball and seeing his sweet swing knock it out of the ballpark for just the fifth time this season.
Brantley may have been scuffling a bit lately, but on Tuesday, he was the offense, and he was enough all by his lonesome.
Key Moment Scorecard:
Houston Astros: 1 (as good as the Indians’ defense was, the Astros’ was better)
Cleveland Indians: 2
Old Friends; Help or Haunt
Tony Sipp: Sipp came in, set down Bourn and Kipnis, then went back to the dugout. HAUNT
Roberto Hernandez: It took some outstanding defense for the old Fausto Carmona that self-destructed with the Indians back in the day to not rear his ugly head last night. Even so, the Indians managed two hits in his lone inning of work. HELP
The Nine
Yeah, so I went on and on and on, my friends. I should probably just wrap things up for today.
The Arms
Corey Kluber: Effective velocity is basically a fancy way of saying to mix up speeds. It appears that Kluber is a believer.
Zach McAllister: McAllister has been so strong since moving to the bullpen. He has been as reliable as any of the Tribe arms out there. In fact, it makes me wonder if he could be a long-term Carlos Carrasco guy sitting in our bullpen should the Indians decide to trade any of their starters for a bat, or if they happen to get injured.
Bryan Shaw: Shaw told Tom Hamilton after the game that he found out in about the fourth inning that he would be closing. Terry Francona said after the game that Cody Allen had a stiff back and was day-to-day.
Shaw did not have anyone missing Allen once he started pitching as he dominated the Astros in seven pitches of a perfect ninth inning.
- If you don’t know what all of these are, then don’t worry. We are getting there [↩]
- And, there is a great argument that you need to look at how hard the batter is hitting the balls to understand if BABIP is luck or skill [↩]
- “Only” by Corey Kluber standards [↩]
- The last pitch of each at-bat [↩]
- Which is to say, really, really, really hard. [↩]
13 Comments
Klubes!
Kluber and Brantley both needed that but this offense continues to be offensive despite what that graphic says. 4.09 run support/9 IP is deceptive. They go on a run for a few games where they score 7, 6, 8, 5 & 5 (the previous 5 game win streak) and then they revert back to scoring 0, 3, 4 (3 game losing streak) and then 2 runs last night in a win. So in essence this offense is hot or cold but then again that’s what you should expect from this kind of lineup. Last year Brantley was the man now this year it’s Kipnis how great would it be if the Indians could ever have 2 guys produce at the same time?
“..it makes me wonder if he could be a long-term Carlos Carrasco guy sitting in our bullpen should the Indians decide to trade any of their starters for a bat, or if they happen to get injured.”
I just don’t see McAllister as having the stuff that Carrasco had but needed mental straightening. He doesn’t have enough reliable out pitches to work as a starter. He desperately struggled to throw his curves and sliders for strikes. I see McA as someone who is best suited for where he’s at, middle to late relief.
That said, I wish we could go out and get a bat. I suspect we’ll have to delve into some higher level prospects to do so.
That said, I wish we could go out and get a bat. I suspect we’ll have to delve into some higher level prospects to do so.
How many years has this been asked and gone unanswered? It’s just not going to happen. But I’ll be interested to see what, if anything, the front office does at the trade deadline.
http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/split.cgi?id=mcallza01&year=Career&t=p#sprel_extra::none
Keep him in the ‘pen.
Just saying that I would have said the same thing about Carrasco this time last season.
I definitely should look to see what his secondary pitches are doing lately and if he has any more command of them than he did. Carrasco was really a fastball only guy with no real control on his secondary pitches, when he gained control, he became really good.
Swisher and Moss were supposed to be bats and Moss has delivered about as expected. Murphy&Raburn have combined to be a nicely acquired bat. We still struggle with lineup depth where the OPS+ just drops off a cliff with certain batters.
The solution (as always) is less time for Michael Bourn (though he has looked a tad better lately).
The solution is players who can do multiple things instead of a collection of guys who can only do one part. You and I have been down this road before though and I’m still waiting for “the Indians way” to prove me wrong.
The difference is Carrasco had shown flashes as a starter; McAllister hasn’t, really. I think that he just does better in these shorter spurts, doesn’t try to save for later innings, etc. Every metric is far better as a reliever.
He’s also significantly better the first time around the order, which I know many are, but his numbers are hugely different. I wonder if he overthinks the second time facing a guy or just they get a much better feel for him within the one game (it doesn’t seem to be related to times facing a guy overall, just in a game).
Or maybe he simply tires faster as a starter.
Yeah, I haven’t done enough homework on it to offer more than conjecture (for now). I’ll look into it at some point and give my more full opinion on it. And, I may find myself on your side of the fence once I do.