I recently wrote a FanPost for the SB Nation blog "DRaysBay" this week on Drew Smyly and his new approach to right-handed hitters that made the front page of the blog!! If you would like to read my piece, here is the link to the article.
As for the major announcement, I am excited to announce that I have been hired by DRaysBay as a writer!! As a writer for DRaysBay, I will continue to write blog posts similar to the one I wrote on Smyly and the ones that I have posted on this blog. I am looking forward to the experience of writing about Major League Baseball at the professional level!!
Wednesday, August 31, 2016
Wednesday, August 17, 2016
The Descent of Will Harris and the Rise of Ken Giles into the Astros' Closing Role
Prior to opening day of the 2016 season, the Houston Astros' closer position was a murky situation. The team acquired the righty flamethrower Ken Giles from the Philadelphia Phillies during the offseason to close games, even though the organization signed now-32-year-old reliever Luke Gregerson the offseason prior to that to a 3-year $18.5 million dollar contract to close games for the team. Nonetheless, Houston ultimately chose to stick with Gregerson who saved 31 ballgames to the tune of a 3.10 ERA in 2015.
Since then, the backend of the bullpen has been like a game of musical chairs. Gregerson lost the closer gig at the beginning of June after a blowing two saves to start the month as well as three more in May. Gregerson has struggled with his control all season with his control as shown by his 2.68 BB%, which is up over a full point from last years rate.
At the same time Giles was also struggling out of the gates, so Will Harris was the next man up. He also had some hiccups during his tenure and eventually lost the job this past week. And then the baton was passed on to Giles, who finally got his hack at the role, looked to be settling in well before his recent placement on the paternity list.
So in Giles' brief absence, Harris will be closing games again for the Astros, but once Giles returns he should be the man again in Houston ... hopefully ... maybe ... I don't know, honestly. At this rate of volatility, Houston will probably have Orbit shutting the door down for the squad. Hey, laugh all you want, but the big-bellied green fella has quite the nasty hook.
Harris's recent troubles on the mound certainly has been perplexing to Astros fans, especially because of the dominant season he had in 2015. But when we dive into the advanced statistics, Harris was bound for some regression heading into this season. I mean, his .192 BABIP and 87.4% LOB% were unworldly, and both have adjusted themselves rightfully this season to .299 and 76.9%. Opposing batters' wOBA against the shift is up from .152 to .278 from last season and their wOBA with men on base increased from .184 to .241. His batted ball metrics also shifted, with his Soft% dropping from 21.1% to 14.7% and his Hard% elevating from 27% to 33.1%.
Through the first two months of 2016, Harris picked up right where he left off in 2015. He posted a ridiculous 0.38 ERA, surrendering only one run in 23.2 innings. But then the calendar turned to June, and Harris was named the closer of Houston and his performance began to dip. Since then, he owns a 5.09 ERA through 23 innings pitched and even though the ERA was bloated somewhat when he was tagged for four runs against the Oakland Athletics back on July 8, Harris still has not been the same shutdown reliever.
Harris is a two-pitch hurler, throwing a cutter and a curveball. He throws his cutter about 70% of the time and the other 30% goes to his curveball, and those percentages are relatively the same towards right-handed and left-handed batters. Through the first two months of the season, batters only hit a scarce .175 against his cutter and .143 against his curve, according to Brooks Baseball. But of course as stated above, Harris' luck eventually ran out. From June on, batters hit a robust .321 against his cut fastball and an improved .257 against his curve. So what specifically changed in Harris' game that allowed opposing batters to have more success against the 31-year-old? Let's take a deeper look.
From June to August 12, righties have pummeled Harris' breaking ball with a gaudy .368 average. Prior to June, Harris, being the ground ball pitcher that he is, was inducing 87.50 GB/BIP on the breaking pitch. Over the next three months, that rate dropped to 53.33 and his LD/BIP leaped from zero to 26.67.
Harris has done a great job at getting righties to chase his curveball down and away all season. However, Harris has had a slight propensity to hang the pitch in the middle of the strike zone through both April and May as well as June through August. Here is a heatmap per FanGraphs of opponent's batting average against Harris' curve through the first two months of the season:
Limited success, indeed. But now take a look at the heat map through the three months after:
A whole lotta red this time. Batters definitely have been staying back more and capitalizing on those hangers as the season has progressed.
Aside from crushing his curveball, righties have also been handling Harris' cutter much better. Since June, righties have augmented their batting average against the pitch to .281. His GB/BIP of 51.58 is 16.84 points lower from the first two months and his LD/BIP of 29.63 is 19.10 points higher.
Harris is still handling left-handers well with his curveball at this point in the season, but lefties have figured out his cutter. Lefties are mashing the pitch as shown by their .381 AVG, .714 SLG and .333 ISO.
He was doing an excellent job in dotting lefties with the backdoor cutter throw April and May, but over the next three months those cutters started to leak more over the plate where lefties have hit them hard as shown by this graph from BaseballSavant:
While Harris had a more fruitful beginning to the season, Giles had a lackluster start to 2016. In the month of April, the flame-throwing righty owned a 9.00 ERA (3.20 xFIP), serving up ten runs in ten innings of work while also surrendering four home runs. However, the months after Giles sported a sparkling 2.23 ERA (2.36 xFIP) while only allowing one long ball and lowering his season ERA to 3.69 (2.54 xFIP).
What has plagued Giles's woes this season is his four-seam fastball. Opposing batters have been clubbing his heater to the tune of a .381 AVG and a .196 ISO. Giles' -8.3 wFB is not only far worse than last years value of 3.4, but also it is the fourth worst value among relievers, only trailing Gonzalez Germen (-10.1), Mark Lowe (-9.7) and Ross Ohlendorf (-9.4).
As the season has progressed, Giles has added a few ticks to his fastball, which has contributed to a slight increase in his whiff rate. But for a rising four-seamer that averages around 97 to 98 mph for his career, the whiff rate on the pitch this season is just 8.24%. That is because while righties are whiffing at his fastball at a rate of 10.90%, lefties are only whiffing at a rate of 5.88%, which ties into the next segment on Giles.
Giles has suffered through a .364 BABIP all season, including a .425 BABIP off his fastball. Although it is a limited sample size (203 total batters faced), the numbers are still glaring. While some tough luck may be involved, there is a far greater factor at play here. Hitters are batting .373 against the shift when Giles is on the bump in 2016. Again, it is another limited sample (59 total batters faced), but still it is a noteworthy stat. The reason behind this is that lefties are hitting the baseball to the opposite field 13% more of the time this season (36.9% Oppo%), so they are beating the shift more often for base hits. And what is allowing them to do this is Giles' iffy command of his fastball this year. Just take a look at this heatmap:
At times he has been stellar at hitting the outside edge of the plate as well as the knees of opposing lefties, but some of those fastballs have found a little too much of the outer half of the plate. And while lefties have done their damage predominantly on the inner half, they have still hit that outside pitch well and are shooting it the other way to beat the shift.
Of course, if Giles now owns the closer job he must be doing something well. That something happens to be his second pitch of his repertoire, his slider. To say Giles' slider has been filthy this season would be an understatement. The breaking pitch has generated a whiff rate of 33.71% that has grown over the course of this season:
Since then, the backend of the bullpen has been like a game of musical chairs. Gregerson lost the closer gig at the beginning of June after a blowing two saves to start the month as well as three more in May. Gregerson has struggled with his control all season with his control as shown by his 2.68 BB%, which is up over a full point from last years rate.
At the same time Giles was also struggling out of the gates, so Will Harris was the next man up. He also had some hiccups during his tenure and eventually lost the job this past week. And then the baton was passed on to Giles, who finally got his hack at the role, looked to be settling in well before his recent placement on the paternity list.
So in Giles' brief absence, Harris will be closing games again for the Astros, but once Giles returns he should be the man again in Houston ... hopefully ... maybe ... I don't know, honestly. At this rate of volatility, Houston will probably have Orbit shutting the door down for the squad. Hey, laugh all you want, but the big-bellied green fella has quite the nasty hook.
Harris's recent troubles on the mound certainly has been perplexing to Astros fans, especially because of the dominant season he had in 2015. But when we dive into the advanced statistics, Harris was bound for some regression heading into this season. I mean, his .192 BABIP and 87.4% LOB% were unworldly, and both have adjusted themselves rightfully this season to .299 and 76.9%. Opposing batters' wOBA against the shift is up from .152 to .278 from last season and their wOBA with men on base increased from .184 to .241. His batted ball metrics also shifted, with his Soft% dropping from 21.1% to 14.7% and his Hard% elevating from 27% to 33.1%.
Through the first two months of 2016, Harris picked up right where he left off in 2015. He posted a ridiculous 0.38 ERA, surrendering only one run in 23.2 innings. But then the calendar turned to June, and Harris was named the closer of Houston and his performance began to dip. Since then, he owns a 5.09 ERA through 23 innings pitched and even though the ERA was bloated somewhat when he was tagged for four runs against the Oakland Athletics back on July 8, Harris still has not been the same shutdown reliever.
Harris is a two-pitch hurler, throwing a cutter and a curveball. He throws his cutter about 70% of the time and the other 30% goes to his curveball, and those percentages are relatively the same towards right-handed and left-handed batters. Through the first two months of the season, batters only hit a scarce .175 against his cutter and .143 against his curve, according to Brooks Baseball. But of course as stated above, Harris' luck eventually ran out. From June on, batters hit a robust .321 against his cut fastball and an improved .257 against his curve. So what specifically changed in Harris' game that allowed opposing batters to have more success against the 31-year-old? Let's take a deeper look.
From June to August 12, righties have pummeled Harris' breaking ball with a gaudy .368 average. Prior to June, Harris, being the ground ball pitcher that he is, was inducing 87.50 GB/BIP on the breaking pitch. Over the next three months, that rate dropped to 53.33 and his LD/BIP leaped from zero to 26.67.
Harris has done a great job at getting righties to chase his curveball down and away all season. However, Harris has had a slight propensity to hang the pitch in the middle of the strike zone through both April and May as well as June through August. Here is a heatmap per FanGraphs of opponent's batting average against Harris' curve through the first two months of the season:
Limited success, indeed. But now take a look at the heat map through the three months after:
A whole lotta red this time. Batters definitely have been staying back more and capitalizing on those hangers as the season has progressed.
Aside from crushing his curveball, righties have also been handling Harris' cutter much better. Since June, righties have augmented their batting average against the pitch to .281. His GB/BIP of 51.58 is 16.84 points lower from the first two months and his LD/BIP of 29.63 is 19.10 points higher.
Harris is still handling left-handers well with his curveball at this point in the season, but lefties have figured out his cutter. Lefties are mashing the pitch as shown by their .381 AVG, .714 SLG and .333 ISO.
He was doing an excellent job in dotting lefties with the backdoor cutter throw April and May, but over the next three months those cutters started to leak more over the plate where lefties have hit them hard as shown by this graph from BaseballSavant:
What has plagued Giles's woes this season is his four-seam fastball. Opposing batters have been clubbing his heater to the tune of a .381 AVG and a .196 ISO. Giles' -8.3 wFB is not only far worse than last years value of 3.4, but also it is the fourth worst value among relievers, only trailing Gonzalez Germen (-10.1), Mark Lowe (-9.7) and Ross Ohlendorf (-9.4).
As the season has progressed, Giles has added a few ticks to his fastball, which has contributed to a slight increase in his whiff rate. But for a rising four-seamer that averages around 97 to 98 mph for his career, the whiff rate on the pitch this season is just 8.24%. That is because while righties are whiffing at his fastball at a rate of 10.90%, lefties are only whiffing at a rate of 5.88%, which ties into the next segment on Giles.
Giles has suffered through a .364 BABIP all season, including a .425 BABIP off his fastball. Although it is a limited sample size (203 total batters faced), the numbers are still glaring. While some tough luck may be involved, there is a far greater factor at play here. Hitters are batting .373 against the shift when Giles is on the bump in 2016. Again, it is another limited sample (59 total batters faced), but still it is a noteworthy stat. The reason behind this is that lefties are hitting the baseball to the opposite field 13% more of the time this season (36.9% Oppo%), so they are beating the shift more often for base hits. And what is allowing them to do this is Giles' iffy command of his fastball this year. Just take a look at this heatmap:
Of course, if Giles now owns the closer job he must be doing something well. That something happens to be his second pitch of his repertoire, his slider. To say Giles' slider has been filthy this season would be an understatement. The breaking pitch has generated a whiff rate of 33.71% that has grown over the course of this season:
His slider has a weighted value of 8.7 that ranks this time fourth-best among relief pitchers behind Dellin Betances' "slurve" (14.5), Kyle Barraclough (9.9) and Alex Colome (8.8). Its O-Swing% is nearly up 5% from last year to 53.3% mark this season. Its O-Contact% has dropped 11% down to 20%, and its overall Contact% is down approximately 16% to 36.5%. Its SwStr% is about 9% more currently at 33.9%. Clearly, it is a beast. When used in the right situations, the pitch has helped make his fastball look better. It also has helped Giles escape jams like the one below against the Chicago White Sox in May as shown by his 81.3% LOB% after the month of April:
Since becoming the team's closer, Giles is one-for-one in save opportunities, but still has looked a tad shaky from time to time, even though he has only allowed one earned run since earning the job. He will need to straighten out his command issues with his fastball if he wants avoid the hairy situations in the 9th innings. And if he does so, combining that with his already filthy slider will finally give the Astros the shutdown closer they have been seeking that they can rely on down the stretch.
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