Ranting about the Cleveland Indians and perception
October 13, 2016Browns Film Room: The Bad, Worse and Worst of the loss to NE
October 13, 2016Toronto Blue Jays pitcher Marco Estrada is starting Game 5 of the American League Championship Series against the Cleveland Indians, with the Indians currently holding a 3-1 lead in the series. In Game 1, the right-hander allowed two runs in 8.0 innings while striking out six batters. For a cursory introduction to Mr. Estrada’s 2016 season, he posted a 3.48 ERA with a FIP of 4.15. While the FIP may suggest Estrada is overperforming his underlying skills, he has shown an important ability not well contemplated by FIP: Contact management. Estrada induces a lot of soft contact, including high infield fly ball rates which have out conversation rates similar to strikeouts. Estrada’s control will be a large flashpoint in Game One with an Indians lineup which carries many disciplined hitters.
In repeating the format of this preview series, I will first touch upon base running, something the Indians did as well as any team in baseball, and follow with what the Indians lineup should be able to muster against the Blue Jays’ starter.
First, on Estrada in 2016, 12 of 13 stolen base attempts were converted. For the Blue Jays, this is a dynamic issue.
On the base running front, the Blue Jays catchers caught only 20 of 104 runners attempting to steal. This will be tested heavily in ALCS.
— Mike Hattery (@snarkyhatman) October 11, 2016
Similarly, Game 1 catcher Russell Martin had huge problems with the running game.
The Indians had a regular season SB% of 81% (134/165). Russell Martin was 11/72 (15.2%) in throwing out runners. League avg was 29.4%.
— Adam Burke (@SkatingTripods) October 12, 2016
In terms of the Indians capitalizing on their base running strength, Estrada and the Blue Jays are a very favorable matchup.
Before continuing, a useful reminder that the absolutely Indians mash right-handed pitching.
WFNY’s projected Cleveland Indians Game 5 lineup with wRC+ against RHP:
- Santana 122 S
- Kipnis 123 L
- Lindor 119 S
- Napoli 115 R
- Ramirez 100 S
- Chisenhall 102 L
- Naquin 138 L
- Crisp 100 S
- Perez 84 R
Now, on to Estrada. The conversation as always begins with usage.
Estrada is largely a two-pitch pitcher in terms of usage with the fastball being used roughly 50 percent of the time and the changeup being used roughly 30 percent of the time. Due to the high frequency of these two pitches we will look at how each is used.
Estrada’s fastball sits at roughly 88-89 miles per hour down almost a full mile per hour from 2015. With velocity like this, Estrada has to live off avoiding mistakes over the plate. With the Indians lefty heavy lineup, expect fastball usage to be away, away, away.
This pitch works for Estrada because it induces such weak contact on the outside half. His fastball has allowed 50% fly balls, 34% of which are infield fly balls! A remarkable conversion rate. A big part of facing Estrada is the ability for left handed hitters to lay off fastballls off the plate away, and forcing him into the zone.
Here are how a couple of Indians hitters fare against the outside third fastball.
Lonnie Chisenhall has traditionally fared relatively well against fastballs on the outer half.
As for the slow to warm in the postseason Carlos Santana, he crushes fastballs on the outer half and could be a key for the Indians offense on Friday night.
For Estrada, the changeup is much like the fastball, living on the outside edge, except with the added priority of burying it down against left handed hitters.
Estrada’s changeup is fantastic as it serves to neutralize left-handed hitters. One hitter who could punish a mistake changeup on the outer half, however, is Jason Kipnis.
If Naquin was to avoid overdosing on fastballs up, he could also punish an Estrada breaking ball. But if the Blue Jays throw him anything other than a fastball chest high, I would be surprised.
The Indians success against Estrada will be predicated on their ability to force him into the strike zone. He does have a relatively high walk rate and hitters like Santana, Napoli, Lindor, Kipnis, and Ramirez have the discipline to either take walks or force him to throw his fastball in the zone. Strategically, Estrada poses an interesting test: Can the Indians lay off the fastball starting on the outside edge and running off the plate? Similarly, can they spit on the changeup and wait for a pitch to drive?
Cleveland’s patience will decide the outcome of this game.
9 Comments
Fantastic stuff, per usual, Hattery. Estrada has always been “Good Tomlin” to me. You always watch him pitch and shake your head thinking you should have killed what he was offering, but don’t. Would love for Santana to have a big game to help take the pressure off Kluber.
We need to humiliate their catchers like we did to the Orioles in the 97 ALCS
I might be the only person in town not so keen on running. Don’t risk giving them easy outs. Make these starters work and get to a middle relief staff I don’t find impressive, and Osuna has had some issues too recently. Make them throw a ton of pitches, and have to move off their fastball and onto the offspeed stuff we have hit better all year.
Indians are above 80% steal rate, Blue Jays are giving up 80% steals
I mean, don’t be stupid, but one of our few advantages grabbing extra bases (not just SB but on hits to OF too).
I do agree we need to make their starters throw pitches and lots of them.
But isn’t part of the reason the Tribe is good at baserunning is that they are smart enough about it to avoid giving up easy outs? Is there a metric that shows how many more runs the Indians “created” as a result of successful baserunning?
http://www.baseball-reference.com/leagues/MLB/2016-baserunning-batting.shtml
XBT% shows how often teams were able to successfully take an extra base (2 on a single, 3 on a double). SB% shows how often teams were safe on steal attempts.
Indians top in AL in both (2nd in MLB in both)
Thanks Mr Bode, I figured you’d be in there with an answer: but more specifically, how many runs or even wins were generated as a result?
They don’t do those types of calculations on baserunning (yet)
Yes. I think the difference of opinion is actually quite small, and mostly just reading into the statements differently. I don’t want to see this team be any more aggressive than they already are, and take risks they wouldn’t have taken before (except Rajai trying to steal third with no outs, I would prefer that was gone entirely). They should have success on the basepaths, there’s no reason to go Skinner out there, but I’d say there’s even less reason to imitate the Nationals third base coach.