Point Blank – April 16
Doug Fister’s 2014 was not all sunshine (time to discuss those clouds)…A different kind of Holiday ahead for the Pelicans…A wink, and a tip of the cap, to Erik Spoelstra…
There has been a lot of early-season focus in this column on finding MLB pitchers that the markets may be reading the wrong way, and in the process helping to bring some of the ways that pitching performances can be better measured, in order to get the jump on those markets (or to take patiently advantage when the markets run the wrong way). Which takes us to Doug Fister’s home start against Philadelphia this evening, an opportunity for the Eye Test.
Fister will take the mound for the second time this season, after shutting the Phillies out over 6 1/3 innings on the road in his 2015 debut. It was seemingly a strong carry-over from the 16-6/2.41 he posted with the Nationals last year, a campaign that moved him closer to the elite level by the Betting Markets - he was favored in 17 of his last 18 regular season starts, the only dog role coming against Clayton Kershaw in Los Angeles.
The tall right-hander came to Washington after a successful run in Detroit that turned his career around, with the last salvo that 14-9/3.67 of 2013. So if you take that base performance measurement, and then view 2014 through the same scope, there is an appearance that he stepped his game to an even higher level. Be careful with that. He actually threw the ball worse in 2014, but he came away with better results. Sometimes baseball allows that.
Fister missed the first six weeks of the season with a shoulder strain, and after a couple of tune-ups in the Minors finally took the hill on May 9. While there was the appearance of pronounced success through the basic bottom line, take a closer look at the 2014 version, compared to the previous season, and it tells a much different tale -
ERA BB/9 K/9 GB% SwS% FIP
Detroit (2013) 3.67 1.9 6.9 54.3 8.0 3.26
Washington (2014) 2.41 1.3 5.4 48.9 6.1 3.93
Fister’s control was better with the Nationals, but his strikeout and ground-ball rates went significantly the wrong way, as did his ability to get batters to swing and miss pitches. FIP (Fielding Independent Pitching) recognizes that, and called him less effective, all the while W/L and ERA were trying to get him near Cy Young contention had the National League not possessed a Kershaw.
OK, you ask, so how can the bottom line be so good with those declines? A big part of that was the way that geometry and sequencing impact the sport. The geometry in terms of where batted balls happen to go, and the sequencing of base-runners ending an inning in the infield dirt, instead of the dugout after they had touched home plate. So time for more comparisons -
BABIP LOB%
Detroit (2013) .332 73.5
Washington (2014) .262 83.1
The first category is Batting Average on Balls in Play. There was a major jump between these seasons, part of it being a baseball correction, because Fister was a bit unlucky in 2013. The league played to a .295, and a below-average Detroit defense was at .312. In 2014 the Washington defense was only average in that category at .294, which meant that Fister had far more balls find gloves than should have been expected. How fortunate was he compared to others? Of the 102 pitchers that worked at least 150 innings, he checked in at #7. Or how about this comparison with his fellow Washington starters –
Strasburg .315
Gonzalez .294
Zimmerman .302
Roak .270
The second category is Left on Base percentage, which could also be called Strand Rate. In 2014 the Major’s played to a 73.0, far below Fister’s success. How good, or fortunate, was he at keeping base-runners from scoring? Of that same group of 102 starters, he was #2, with only Miguel Gonzalez stranding runners at a higher rate.
Is LOB% a skill? There has been a lot of historical debate about it, but the numbers over time say no – most pitchers hover right around the league average over large samples. Those that fare the best are naturally those that can get Ks, which are important in early-inning situations (runners on 3rd with less than two outs, etc.), and also prevent a batted ball from finding a hole when there are multiple runners on base. So then factor this in – of the top 30 in that category last year, only #11 Henderson Alvarez had a lower K/9 rate (5.3).
So there is a much different view on Doug Fister’s 2014 season than the markets are likely to take, and note that even in holding the Phillies scoreless last week, he only recorded one K of the 26 batters that he faced. He is a good pitcher, with the ability to throw strikes and stay away from big innings. But he is not a great one, and over the course of this season there may be some value opportunities to take advantage of any false perceptions that show up at the betting windows.
About Last Night, Part I…
The biggest takeaway from New Orleans winning almost wire-to-wire vs. San Antonio in that key setting last night is that it did not look like an upset. The Spurs came to play, with that #2 seed in the West a major motivator, and chased hard throughout. But the Pelicans not only showed their athleticism, there was some poise under the pressure as well. And there was also a big showing by Jrue Holiday that should not go un-noticed.
Holiday was a key cog in the starting lineup as the New Orleans season got off to a strong start, but he was injured at Boston back in early January, and did not return until last Friday, in that home win over Phoenix. It was Holiday’s play that sparked a run late in the first quarter that gave the Pelicans a working margin last night, and they were +12 in the 25:10 that he played. Will he be ready for more minutes come Saturday afternoon at Golden State? If so, those games have a chance to be rather interesting – New Orleans brings just the kind of attitude to not be intimidated right now. It is a series that the Pelicans will not win, but they may compete much closer on a per-game basis than the markets call for (no openers yet as this is being written).
About Last Night, Part II…
This has been a difficult season for Erik Spoelstra, first beginning it without LeBron James and Ray Allen, then losing Chris Bosh, and not having a fully healthy Dwayne Wade on all that many nights. But Spoelstra managed to keep things patched together to the point at which a .500 campaign was still viable late into the schedule, and the Heat were not officially eliminated from the playoffs until Monday night. So in the first Miami game in many years that meant nothing at all, he had some fun with it. While it further shows the absurdity of these late-season games going into all of the official statistical databases, Spoelstra’s player rotation brought a smile over the morning coffee –
Player Minutes
Johnson 48:00
Beasley 48:00
Ennis 48:00
Walker 48:00
Dragic 40:41
Haslem 7:19
Dragic sat out the final 7:19 of the first half because of foul trouble. Spoelstra was still trying to win, after all, and on the final scoreboard he and his team did.
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