Leveque’s open-minded approach suggests that there isn’t a roadmap or a “right way” to developing velocity. From a macro perspective, that seems right: Each individual pitcher is too different for a velocity blueprint to function at an organizational level. Rather, the teams that develop velocity best are the ones that intentionally build arm strength and provide flexible training plans for their pitchers. It stands to reason that these clubs will see more pitchers enhance their fastball than clubs taking a more conservative approach to development. In fact, muddled as it is, there is evidence to support this theory: Of the 30 hardest-throwing starters in baseball, the Indians helped develop four of them.
Some of the above relationship can be explained generally by the nature of successful teams. A successful team, like the Royals last season, might very well choose to reinvest their money into the team after a successful season. If wins last year and wins this year are high, it would make sense that the Opening Day payroll for this season would be decently high as well. The same is true for teams that have been successful for multiple years. As they continue to succeed, they continue to reinvest to maintain that level of success, leading to higher payrolls and higher win totals.
I have to imagine that at least somewhere out there, there's a pitcher (or 10) who really do pitch to the defense. It would make sense for them to do so, especially ground-ball pitchers. We saw last week that even keeping their number of ground balls the same, a pitcher playing in front of a good infield defense (vs. a bad one) could expect his outcomes to improve by several runs worth of value, simply by virtue of his infield defense. If he can generate even more ground balls, why not? In these analyses, we don't see evidence that pitchers in general pitch to their defense, but there could be individual pitchers for whom this really is the case.
But here's a question I asked last week that I think deserves a little more reflection. Who gets the WAR for the ground ball that happens because the pitcher felt more comfortable in front of a good infield defense? What "caused" the ground ball was the pitcher changing his approach to induce more contact. But the reason that he did it wasn't because of anything that defense did, but because of what they might do. Still, at the same time, the pitcher has to get some credit for noticing (or being told?) that the infield behind him was really good, so he should throw that sinker a little more. And then being willing to do it. It's not something that he normally would have done, but the circumstances dictated it and he adapted. Maybe the pitching coach should get the WAR for suggesting that course of action in the pregame meeting. Maybe the GM gets some credit for realizing that pairing a ground-ball machine with a bunch of Hoover infielders was a great idea.
If we were to set the automatic-free-base range at greater than 2.1, based on the average hit by pitch, and remove all swinging strikes and fouls, we’d see an increase in the number of tallies from 1,211 to 1,915: a 58 percent increase. This isn’t necessarily a problem, given the lack of baserunners in the current offensive environment, though it is admittedly a drastic jump. The cutoff would have to be greater than 2.29 in order to maintain a roughly equal free-pass rate to our current standards. Of course, the almost immediate consequence of the rule would be to cause pitchers to re-evaluate the benefits of the outer third of the plate, so basing our line on current rates is a bit misleading. For purposes of practicality and public aesthetics, a rounder number, whether that is 18 inches inside or 20, would probably be preferable.
Of course, not all pitches with the same X value are equal—to statistics, or to batters. There’s a cluster right around elbow-range, beneath the three-foot mark, where hit by pitches average 2.29 feet inside, whereas above that line they average only 1.94 feet. It’s a marked difference, but attempts to adjust would only overcomplicate a potential rule, and leave people wondering why elbows are so sacred in the first place. It’s the head that we really care about, and since that danger zone moves around from batter to batter, it’s difficult to officiate. Perhaps this is where we restore autonomy to the umpire and ask him to eject anyone who throws a ball at a batter’s head, accident or no.
Wednesday
“It’s sort of hard to explain, but really what has changed is maybe how we process information. For instance, when I watch a young man now and I see him watch a pitch all the way into the zone, or I see him lay off pitches that are off the plate I used to think how it bodes well for his tool, now I think about how it can help his on-base percentage. Whenever they are available I’ll look at things like BABIP, or the K/9 before the game, and I have that information in the back of my head while I’m filing my report or evaluating.”
“The big difference for me now is that I’m much more aware of this information than I was before websites like Baseball Prospectus and the others came along and promoted them so much more, even including the Bill James stuff it just wasn’t talked about as much. But my job is not to come up with these stats or figure out how they work, my job is to be as educated as possible as to what they say, and give my boss a report on why these stats do or do not stay in line with what they say.”
The changes over the season are decidedly not uniform. Almost no position experiences a steady decline, not even catcher, but each of the outfield positions sees a steady increase in defensive performance, finishing more than a run per 600 PAs above where they started.
I have no explanation for this! If anything, I would think outfield is harder than the infield, with more running and walls to bang into, and more likely to grind a player down over the course of the season. If that is the case, however, it's not enough to impact the defensive ability of outfielders, and there's something else that's making them improve as the season goes on, something that doesn't affect infielders. Maybe outfielders take longer to get loose, maybe it's an atmospheric thing, and with more outfield plays coming on balls in the air and more infield plays on grounders, the outfielders benefit while the infielders don't.
So far this season, Miley has allowed 62 air balls to be hit to left field. Hanley has converted 38 of those balls into outs. If we estimate that Bradley/Castillo would be able to convert five additional balls into outs, then that difference approximates to about five runs—accounting for the fact that most of those balls would become either doubles (about .75 runs) or outs (about -0.30 runs). That would be enough to drop Miley’s ERA from 4.51 to 4.22. Nine extra outs would drop Miley’s ERA below 4.00.
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