Point Blank – July 1
On Jason Hammel, & the Cubs Defense (you can’t understand one without the other)…The no-Kershaw cycle begins for the Dodgers (welcome to the Big Leagues Dave Roberts)…It was a vastly different Steven Matz on the mound last night…The Phillies had a better road trip than you think…
It might seem like an odd time to focus on the Cubs defense, the morning after an error by Javier Baez played a key role in Thursday’s turn-around at CitiField, but it was actually a good decision by Baez, merely poor execution. And it has been the good decisions by this defense, starting with the managerial crew putting the players in the right places, that is so essential in doing something that many in the marketplace are struggling to do – understand Jason Hammel.
Because we have a lot to cover today, and the details really do matter if you are going to get the best understanding of both Hammel and the Cubs going forward, some background is needed, the jukebox being plugged back in. It really has become “Sweet Home Chicago” for Hammel, so let’s listen to a superb cast that includes Buddy Guy, Eric Clapton, Robert Cray, Johnny Winter, Hubert Sumlin and others having a little fun –
Hammel has been the undercard for Jake Arrieta over the past two seasons, like Arrieta having by far the best run of his pitching career in a Cub uniform, but not to the remarkable extreme of his teammate. Yet the perspective is still striking –
Hammel through 2014: 59-70/4.60
Hammel 2015-16: 17-11/3.35
That includes a career-best win rate of 7-4, and career best ERA of 2.58, this season. And those are the numbers that are causing a lot of difficulties for students of pitching statistics. Let’s start here –
Career 2016
K/9 7.1 7.2
BB/9 2.9 2.8
GB% 43.8 44.2
SWS% 8.7 9.7
Hammel is not throwing the ball all that much differently from the past, but the outcomes have sure changed. That bothers some of the advanced pitching metrics –
Hammel’s 2016
ERA 2.58
FIP 3.89
xFIP 4.36
SIERA 4.34
To see a pitcher with an allowance more than a run and a half below some of those measures this deep into a season (87.1 innings) is most rare, and it ordinarily would mean folks looking for his ERA to regress to a higher point. In most instances they would be right, especially with Hammel being one of the rare pitchers with the luxury of being in the Top 10 in both BABIP (.246) and LOB% (83.3), a couple of categories that can run more on luck in the short-term than skill. And you should pencil in the latter category to regress, with his career 71.3 much closer to the MLB norm. It is BABIP that is the issue – it just so happens that for all of the dynamic things the Cubs have done the past two seasons, it is their ability to make plays in the field that has been the most impressive of all.
There are two keys here – the talent of the players, and the way that they are positioned, Joe Maddon having been among the pioneers of this new defensive era (you can read a good take on that philosophy from this piece four years ago – Rays’ Joe Maddon: The King of Shifts). The numbers in Chicago have been remarkable, and the irony is that they are not shifting nearly as much as Maddon did in Tampa. But it isn’t so much being as dramatic as a full shift, but instead the attention to detail to get the players closer to the right places. So now we are going to look deeper into the Cubs 2015 and 2016 success, in particular how it relates to Hammel, because it is something that you just won’t notice all that much from the daily box scores.
Let’s start with the basic Chicago defensive upgrade since Maddon came on board last year, which also happens to coincide with some superb young talent being inserted into the lineup, using Park Adjusted Defensive Efficiency as the measure –
Cubs PADE
2014 #21
2015 #4
2016 #1
That is a prime reason for the major turnaround in the standings, but it is something that you just don’t notice from the box scores each day. What does add up over time is BABIP, the simple basic measure of how often a ball in play becomes a hit, something that measures the ability of a defense to get to the ball, while PADE also includes their doing the right thing with it when they get it. This is where the 2016 Cubs have not just been good, they have been brilliant, and with the season reaching the half-way point this weekend, that is a long time to hold up to brilliance
Cubs BABIP allowed
2014 .304 (22)
2015 .287 (7)
2016 .253 (1)
Now let’s grasp just what that .253 means, because if it does not jump off the screen at you it should –
MLB 2016 BABIP
1. Cubs .253
2. Indians .274
3. Dodgers .275
4. Rangers .282
5. Blue Jays .284
MLB Average .298
To be that far out in front of the rest of the league, and that much better than league average, is staggering. How does that .253 compare to recent MLB history? Let’s go back to the league leaders since 2010 -
2015 Rays .279
2014 A’s .272
2013 Reds .273
2012 Rays .277*
2011 Rays .265*
2010 A’s .274
* - Maddon Teams
What the Cubs are doing defensively lacks precedent, yet this deep into the season you have to attach legitimate weight to it. It also provides the path to best understand Hammel – while that .246 BABIP would look like a pitching fluke over MLB history, in truth it is just his offerings being fielded by the Chicago defense at near the same rate that defense is making all plays.
Look at what the defense does to the Cubs pitching staff across the board –
ERA FIP xFIP SIERA
2.86 3.53 3.78 3.75
Much like Hammel individually, the Chicago staff collectively is better judged by ERA for handicapping purposes. The other measures are based on isolating pitchers from their defenses, to get a better rating on the pitcher himself. The money that we are betting is on the Cubs pitchers and fielders, and if the defense keeps playing at this historic rate, the pitcher-only metrics will struggle to reconcile with the outcomes.
You notice a little bit above that the Dodgers have also been playing some solid defense this season. They are going to need to continue that, because…
Item: The no-Kershaw cycle begins
Instead of having his ace throwing curveballs at opposing hitters, now Dave Roberts gets a first-season challenge of a curveball being thrown at him, with some major juggling of pitchers ahead. I have focused on this point the last couple of days here concerning the Texas Rangers, and the fact that the inability of their current non-Cole Hamels rotation to eat innings is going to really tax the bullpen over the next stretch. Now the Dodgers face a similar challenge, not only losing the sublime quality of Kershaw, but the quantity of the innings he worked as well.
How bad could this get? No Dodger starter other than Kershaw has completed the 7th inning of a game since Scott Kazmir did it vs. St. Louis back on May 14. That is a long stretch. Here is where it gets tougher – this is also the very time at which Roberts is being asked to bring Julio Urias and Brock Stewart along slowly, those two being so valuable to the team future. Since that outing vs. the Cardinals, Kazmir has only worked 42.2 frames across eight starts. Kenta Maeda had not finished the 7th over 13 consecutive starts. Bud Norris can go out and grind, and perhaps even find some success in West Coast ballparks, but about the best they can hope from him is to be average, both in terms of run prevention and innings.
There is that defense to fall back on, but for now you should be going through each Los Angeles game under even heavier magnification in terms of how it sets up the next outing. There is the advantage of 10 straight home games prior to the All Star break, which will ease things just a bit, but it will still be a challenge for Roberts to sort through.
About Last Night…
Steven Matz was front-and-center here yesterday, and while we could not quite get the preferred game outcome, his part of the equation fell into place, and there was plenty to see. A big part of the focus was on how he would mentally approach the game, and whether that bone spur in his elbow would impact his processes. It did. Matz was a different pitcher, and let’s look at the percentages of his offerings -
Season Last Night
Fastball 62.4 51.0
Slider 10.4 2.9
Curveball 14.5 24.0
Changeup 12.7 22.1
And note that the Mets broadcast team did not chart Matz as having thrown any sliders at all. Baseball did not grade the performance well and it shouldn’t, with ERA at 5.06 and FIP at 7.48 – the Cubs hit a pair of home runs against him, but they accounted for all three runs, the other seven base-runners allowed not coming around.
Now the issue going forward – the Chicago hitters were at a slight disadvantage because there was no real way to prepare for the pitcher they saw. Now future opponents will be alerted to the possibility of more curves and changeups, and if Matz is not mixing his slider in, the fastball becomes easier to read. This will continue to be a cycle that bears close scrutiny.
In the Sights…
One of the things I note here every once in a while, and will do a full column on some day, is that two of the most successful groups ever in baseball betting paid almost no attention to Wins and Losses. It was all about how well an offense could produce vs. how well a pitching staff and a defense could prevent production. A case in point would be the recent Philadelphia road trip. While some will look at a 5-4 and consider it a mild success, from a team standpoint I see it as having been a resounding one. The Phillies scored 57 runs in those nine games, and while the standings chart them with losses on days in which they scored 10 and seven runs, those are not really losses for the hitters – they did their job, and can come away confident. So with the markets having put out an order on Kansas City this morning, running the Royals to an underserved -125 (there is as high as -130 out there), it will be #976 Philadelphia (7:05 Eastern) going into pocket.
The Phillies are more than aware of how well they played on this road trip. Start with manager Pete Mackanin – “This is a different team than when we left Philly. This team keeps responding.” And a big part of that was bat of Cody Asche, who hit .400 with six doubles. From Asche – “For us, I think the bubble was about to burst. It look a couple of guys to pop it and when that happened, it seemed like everyone followed. For me, I’m improving since my rehab start and Pete showed confidence in sticking me in the three-hole. Just plug me in anywhere and let’s get it going.”
The offense can keep it up against Ian Kennedy, who can survive Kaufman Stadium with his fly ball ways, as he did Petco for a couple of years, but his GB% of 32.9 is now at a career low, and each of the last two seasons have marked his career high in HR/FB rate. As such it has been a 5-15/4.59 from anywhere but the Petco/Kaufman mounds the past two seasons, with 27 home runs allowed in just 133.1 frames. Kennedy is averaging less than six innings per start, and that can mean a problem on a night in which Wade Davis, Kelvin Herrera and Luke Hochevar are all off of back-to-backs, plus travel, not getting the benefit of an afternoon getaway vs. the Cardinals on Thursday.
Meanwhile Jeremy Hellickson is more interesting than the 5-6/4.23 that is eliciting yawns from the marketplace. His K/9, BB/9 and SWS% are all at career bests, and while it may seem like he has been around forever he just turned 29, and shows the capacity to get back to his pre-injury form. With the entire Phillies bullpen rested and ready, the home team should not be the underdog for this setting.
In The Sights, Saturday MLB…
A prime statement made earlier here about the 2016 NY Yankees is that they only had “warning track power” on the road, and there is a good value opportunity to take advantage of that tonight with #930 San Diego First Half (10:10 Eastern), -125 available in the early trading (up to -135 is a fit). Not only is the Yankee road slash line of .239 (#24), .298 (#29), and .358 (#29) abysmal across the board, but overall against left-handers it is a .694 OPS that rates #27. Now they bring little experience against Drew Pomeranz, but no choice but to have a significant part of the lineup loading up from the left side, and Pomeranz has held lefties to a .198 average, including a .258 SLG that rates #4 in the Major’s this season.
Also note that the Padres are playing better as a team than the markets are appreciating – while the current run is only 8-6 in terms of Wins and Losses, which can elicit yawns, in four of the six losses they scored at least five runs. They have plated 20 runs across the first three games of this home stand, and can continue that form early against Ivan Nova, who has labored to an 0-2/9.00 over this last three starts, with 24 hits, seven walks, and four HRs allowed over just 14 IP.
In the Sights, Sunday MLB…
The Pirates were dead last in the Major’s in OPS in the month of June, a rather shocking .671. This lineup is much better than that, and I believe the timing is right to be buying in low, which leads to #977 Pittsburgh Team Total Over (4:05 Eastern), on a pleasant afternoon in Oakland with a slight hitter’s wind. This one is shaping up well in the early trading, with Over 4 at +110 available. A recent steam move to the Full Game Under might even bring a 3.5, so you can be be patient.
The Pirates are turning their game around, a 6-2 current run in which they have only been held to less than four runs one time, and in particular a key has been seeing some life from Andrew McCutchen, who at .239/.311/.411 is having the worst season at the plate of his career. I do not expect them to be held to three or less by an average A’s bullpen and 23-year old starter Daniel Mengden, a decent prospect but also someone that had never been above the A level until this season, and note that Mengden’s readings of 3.83 FIP and 3.90 SIERA likely paint a more accurate portrait than that ERA of 2.81 so far.
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