NOT THAT KIND OF BATTERY, GUYS.

Well, that’s probably not fair to Devin. In any case, here’s a battery combo chart (which I started doing last year), for the 2012 Reds. (The 2011 version, with an explanation is here).  This chart is very different from 2011′s, but at the same time, it’s remarkably similar. For one, we had only 6 pitchers start this season, a far cry from the 10 different starters we used in 2011. Along with that, Redmond only started one game, so having 5 starters combine for 161 starts this season is really remarkable – in 2011, we had six pitchers with at least half a season’s worth of starts, and Willis and LeCure had a few as well.

This shows us that whatever Dusty may have said back in 2009 (~), he definitely favors designated catchers, no matter the primary language of his backstops. Arroyo/Hanigan is a combination that’s been going on forever, but Cueto has been caught almost exclusively by Hernandez since getting to the big leagues. This year, all but one of his starts was caught by Hanigan, and that turned out really well for both Cueto and the Reds. Leake has expressed him preference for Mesoraco before – so it’s not surprising that Devin became his full-time catcher this year.

I think the Latos and Bailey situations are pretty interesting. I’m probably reading too much into this, but the fact that Meso caught Latos’ first three starts really caught my eye. It makes sense that Dusty would try to assign Mesoraco to Latos , both of them being new to the Reds, essentially. But Latos’ first three starts were not impressive. In his fourth start, Latos was caught by Ryan Hanigan, and his best outing thus far, and his very first Reds win – after that it was all Hanigan. Now, that, again, is probably not fair to Devin. Latos’s firth start was also not great, and Mat’s had some recurring early season woes. You hope that the switch to Hanigan was more just about a change of pace for Latos, as both him and Mesoraco figure to play big parts in Cincinnati Reds teams of the future.

On the other hand, it’s no slight to Devin that Hanigan is an excellent defensive catcher, and has a lot more experience calling games than Mesoraco does. Meso’s only 25, which gives him plenty of time to learn some veteran catching tricks. Plus, he’s got a good chance to develop into a pretty strong hitter. For now though, matching up Latos and Hanigan meant that Mesoraco needed to catch another pitcher almost full time – and that pitcher was Homer Bailey. Bailey was caught mostly by Hanigan in his MLB starts in 2o11, but he also matched up with Mesoraco a few times, and probably worked with him during his rehab time at AAA.

Homer had a pretty great season with Devin as his full time backstop. But it probably hasn’t escaped anyone’s notice that it was Hanigan who caught Homer’s no-hitter – and by ERA, K and BB numbers, Bailey was better with Hanigan calling the shots. Of course, that was mostly in the last part of the season, after Mesoraco got suspended and demoted in favor of Dioner Navarro as backup – the end of the season has also been when Bailey has done some of his best pitching in the last two years – so much like with Latos, it could just be an unfortunate happenstance that puts Mesoraco’s handling in a bad light.

All this makes me wonder what the plan is for next year. The Reds definitely favored Navarro after Mesoraco’s suspension this year, but Navarro is gone now, which leaves us once again with the Hanigan/Mesoraco situation. Hanigan catching Cueto/Arroyo/Latos, with Mesoraco catching Bailey/Leake is fairly like scenario, but it’s a little hard on Bailey to say “With Hanigan, you threw a no-hitter, but Mesoraco will be catching for you for all of 2013, kthxbye!”  It may be time to shake up the catching situation so that no one has a designated catcher. (Or maybe just Arroyo). I also wonder a little bit about Hanigan – Hanigan played 112 games in 2012, the most he’s ever played in the majors. Along with that came one of his worst hitting performances. Now, he’s still valuable at that level, given his on-base and defensive talents, but if we can get him down to half-time, he may be able to hit a little better, as well.

Of course, maybe we’ll just trade away Homer Bailey, and it won’t be an issue anymore. (/sadface)

Or, more likely, I’m reading too much into things.

(Photo by David Slaughter/Flickr)

….some more.

Because I’ve obviously known that Johnny wasn’t in the top 3 in the voting for like a week now, and I complained about it then too. But Christina Kahrl agrees with me! And so does Harold Reynolds! (I don’t have a reference for that, I heard it on MLB Tonight one night…probably).

Of course, there’s nothing like actual vote tallies to get the anger-sap flowing again. At least it’s a comfort that Cueto did come in fourth, just shy of ‘finalist’ status. (Listing the top three vote getters in advance is fine, MLB, but calling them finalists is totally misleading.) If Cueto had come in, like 10th, with three fifth place votes, shit would have gotten real.

On the other hand, now I can point angry little fingers at all of the voters who didn’t vote like I wanted. Well, unfortunately, almost everyone voted Dickey first and Gonzalez and Kershaw second. Which is, I have to admit, not extremely mockable. There’s decent arguments to be made that Dickey and Gonazalez and Kershaw were all better than Cueto. On the other hand, I think the arguments the Cueto was the best in the bunch are about as legitimate. (I realize that this comes down to me yelling, “WHY DOESN’T A SLIGHTLY LARGER PORTION OF THE POPULATION AGREEE WITH MEEEEEEE?’ but what can I say?)

On the other hand, voting Craig Kimbrel in first place is kind of ridiculous. Also, five ballots left Cueto off entirely – consigning him to the rank of ’6th best pitcher’ or worse. (Surprisingly, none of them from the STL writers.) I should also probably mention that the only first place vote for Cueto came from our own dear John Fay. Cueto also got four second place votes: all from voters from the NL Central, which is interesting, I think, and maybe sort of a compliment.

Really, I’m not that angry that Cueto did not win the Cy Young this year. But I am angry because, after looking at the voting, I suspect that Cueto will never win the Cy Young while pitching for the Reds without having an all-time great season – like having a record-setting scoreless innings streak, or an ERA of 0.50, or throwing two no hitters in a row. Cueto has the unfortunate luck to be an excellent pitcher who doesn’t have great strikeout rates, who throws half his games in a very small ballpark. Poop. .

When trying to throw a no-hitter, it probably helps to be the best fielding pitchers in the majors. (Photo by Keith Allison/Flickr)

So, every year, since 1958, two baseball pitchers have won a Gold Glove award. This is despite the fact that most of them field about 200 (these days) to 300 (in the old days) innings, where most of the other Gold Glove winners have over 1000. The award is voted on by managers and coaches, which also helps explain why the award is a bit idiosyncratic. You can imagine that half the coaches in the league probably see, for example, Clayton Kershaw, in the field for maybe 6, 7 innings, which isn’t a strong sample size to go on. That’s probably why when the voters find a pitcher they like, they tend to stay with him over, and over, and over, and over again. (And only 27 different pitchers have won the 109 Gold Gloves awarded.)

So when I look at the numbers, I’m not really suggesting the voters looks at the numbers (because I doubt they do), or that the decision should match the numbers more closely (because with such a small sample size, I’m not sure it’s all that important). I’m merely looking at whether the numbers reflect the kind of fielding that the voters tend to go for. I mean, it’s not that big of a deal. You’ll see that Gold Glove winners generally have a lot of assists, which you know,  means that the pitcher fields a lot of ground balls, and people are going to see that. So, I’ve put a bunch of information in giant chart which is mildly color-coded. You are welcome.

So, that’s a really big chart. I mean, putouts, assists, and fielding percentage aren’t the most compelling fielding statistics out there, but considering that pitchers these days tend to participate in about 60 plays in the course of a year, you’re limited on meaningful data anyway. I also just wanted to include some SB and PickOff numbers, just to indicate how well the runner controlled the running game.

Mostly, I think the Assists number is a pretty strong indicator, but that may just be because Greg Maddux was excellent at fielding groundballs, and the voters were really addicted to him. Maddux tended to make an error or two, but if you’re trying to slip in to the voting, having a 1.000 fielding percentage can’t hurt you. Mussina, you can tell, had a great three consecutive years with no errors, which pretty much cemented his defensive reputation for the rest of his career – even winning him a Gold Glove in 2008, when nothing really indicates he had a very good fielding year.

Although, theoretically, a pitcher’s ability to control the running game and pick runners off the bases is a relevant fielding consideration, I don’t think it looks like the voters really give it much consideration. To the extent that Gold Glove winners do have good baserunning numbers, I think it’s more that left-handed pitchers have better fielding numbers and control the running game better. Again, though, the case of Greg Maddux is either instructive or obstructive – Maddux clearly couldn’t care less about the running game, but he was great at getting assists.

So, for example, Johnny Cueto probably isn’t going to be able to count on the sweet-pickoff-move part of his Defensive Runs Saved to win him a Gold Glove. That is, of course, what the original idea on this article was – Who is Going To Win the NL Gold Glove Award in 2012? But with a little research, it becomes obvious. Now that Maddux is out for good, the NL voters have been flailing around, selecting Kershaw, Arroyo, and Wainwright in the last three years. These are all ok choices. (I love Bronson, I really do. I don’t know how good a fielder he, though.) They don’t generally have very good assist or putout numbers, but maybe most importantly, none of them made any errors. A safe method of choosing the best fielding pitchers, generally speaking. Of course, there are generally at least five starting pitchers every year with a perfect fielding percentage, so it still seems a bit arbitrary.

(Incidentally, the leading pitchers in Defensive Runs Scored in the NL for the last three years have been RA Dickey, Jon Garland, and a Zambrano/Wolf/Garland tie. The AL voters have actually selected the AL leader in DRS for 8 out of the last 9 years. The NL voters have done so once.)

That’s why I think voters in the NL will leap at the chance to vote for Mark Buehrle, three time AL gold glove winner, this year. Buehrle, coincidentally, still has great fielding numbers, and his DRS of 12 is number 1 in the NL. All around, it’s a choice that makes sense. Sorry, Johnny, you really did have a great year both in fielding batted balls and picking off runners, but maybe when Buehrle retires.

Of course, that leads to the somewhat more interesting question – Who is Going to Win the Gold Glove in the American League This Year?

(I have no idea)

The C-ing Red puppy is very proud of the 2012 Reds, and he’s especially impressed with how great the rotation was. It’s not easy to pitch so well in this ballpark, woof!

It’s been a rough few days, Reds fans. The historical catastrophe of the National League Division Series we lost on Thursday night is not something that can be erased from our memories in a few hours. Most of us are still pretty deep in mourning, realigning mostly into camps based on whether they won’t watch the rest of the post-season, have some attachment to the Tigers/Yankees, or can forgive the Giants enough for beating us to hope they beat the Cardinals, and maybe even win it all. Even though there has been some terrible, terrible things that have happened to the 2012 Reds in the last week, there are some amazing things that happened to the 2012 Reds, and I think now’s a perfect time to be reminded of those things.

Most of these are short notes, and I’ll probably cover some of them in more detail as the off-season crawls on, but for now, I just want to remember how good things were for Reds fans this summer.

10. 10,000 Reds win - This was well covered back in April, even here, but the Cincinnati Reds franchise, at least counting the eligible years as baseball-reference and official MLB stats do, won their 10,000th game this year. Unfortunately, there’s no awesome prize for the franchise that wins 10^4 games over a century or so, but it’s a cool marker and our 10,091 wins put us 6th among all the teams. It’s just another fantastic reminder that this is a great team with a proud franchise history.

9. Ryan Ludwick’s 500th RBI – This isn’t so much exciting in and of itself, but more of a symbol of the Ryan Ludwick that we got, as opposed to the Ryan Ludwick some fans worried we might get. For what it’s worth, Ludwick’s 530 total RBI sneaks him into the top 1000 career RBI-attainers. Ludwick seems like a great guy, a good clubhouse influence, and a solid bat now, but back in March, only a small percentage of fans were really excited about him. That’s not for terrible reasons. Ludwick’s put together some excellent seasons since his first at-bat for the Texas Rangers in 2002, but they’ve been spliced in-between a lot of mediocre performances, and some time in San Diego where he seemed outright bad. Now, Walt’s faith in Ludwick dating back to Ryan’s Cardinal days appears very well-founded indeed. He was one of many important cogs that got the Reds into the post-season, but it’s still fair to say that without Ludwick, the Reds do not fare very well in 2012.

8. We have an actual starting shortstop - Hooray for Zack Cozart. Now, while Cozy had a hot start that he eventually couldn’t live up to, he accomplished with his glove what he couldn’t with his bat. Overall, his offensive numbers are not what you might wish, but Cozart never really profiled as a slugging type shortstop anyway. I think we all have hopes that he can his improve his hitting numbers to a more healthy, say 90-ish OPS+, but his defensive numbers, though a small sample size, give him a lot of value.  His 131 games started at shortstop is the most by a Red since Felipe Lopez in 2006.

7. Brandon Phillips’ Bazillionth Web Gem – So, this one might not be totally technical. But though it’s hard to find a milestone for BP’s defensive prowess, his ability in the field is undeniable. Brandon is a great defensive constant in our infield, and it really makes him worth every penny. There are some (jealous, bitter, haters, obvy) who think that his flashy plays are not particularly well-correlated to actual defensive values. While this may be true to some extent, those people suck, Brandon is an excellent defender, both in true value and being an exciting player to watch. People want to watch him play second, and pitchers want him playing behind them. What else can you say?

6. Healthiest rotation ever – The 2012 Cincinnati Reds had five starting pitchers who started 161 games this season. Todd Redmond started one game, and that’s only because of a double-header situation. The rotation that opened the season went on to pitch 99.4% of all starts in the season. I’m sure I’ll write more on this later, but I’ve gone back 30 years, and no Reds rotation has come close to 2012′s reliability.

5. Todd Frazier ROY - I think, now Harper is the front runner for the Rookie of the Year award among all hitters, and probably deservedly so. Frazier’s bat was just a little bit better, and Harper played better defense at a more important position. He’s also younger, which is probably at least a little bit relevant. Still, though Frazier’s had his struggles in the Reds system, he came up this year and put up a great first season, while producing enough material for 10 verses of the Ballad of Todd Frazier. I’m really looking forward to see him as the Reds regular Third Baseman in the future.

4. Johnny Cueto dodges DIPS regression again - While Cueto, like Frazier probably won’t merit an end-of-the-year award, Cueto was fantastic this year. Though just one of many pitchers whose WAR somewhat understates what seems to be a repeated ability to prevent runs from being scored, Cueto is one of the best. This season finally puts to rest most of the troubling ‘regression’ theories when it comes to Cueto. He’s one of the best pitchers in the NL, and people know it now.

3. The rise of Aroldis Chapman - Chapman’s been making waves since he first arrived in the US, but he’s made great strides as a pitcher this season. This success may put the final nail in the coffin of Chapman’s starting career, but it’s hard to complain. His K/9 on the season is over 15, and his BB/9 has shrunk to a more than respectable 2.89. He’s excellent against righties with a .501 OPS against, but lefties might as well just give up before they get to the plate.

2. Homer Bailey no-hitter - This hardly needs any more comment, since it happened so recently. Homer Bailey is going to be a good pitcher. That wasn’t always clear, but it’s pretty obvious now. Of course, nothing in baseball-future is ever guaranteed, but no matter what, no one can take the no-hitter away from him.

1. Reds win a playoff game - It’s easy to remember the really shitty part of the NLDS, but let’s not forget the great parts. We went out to San Francisco and got a great pair of wins away from home. Those two wins are our first since the 1995 NLDS against the Dodgers, so it’s always good to end a 17 year playoff win drought. We’ve gone to the playoffs twice in three years now, and we’ve improved. So, in 2014, we can expect to go to the NLCS, and we’ll probably win the World Series in 2022.

All in all, I’d say it was a pretty excellent year.

 (Photo by David Slaughter/Flickr)

And now we return to regularly scheduled, 2012 programming.

Even though we’re on the home stretch, the Redlegs put a pretty good squad on the field today – with one of the better lineups we’ve seen in weeks taking the field behind Johnny Cueto. Neither disappointed.

The Reds took the lead early on a somewhat bizarre rally by the second half of the lineup. In the bottom half of the second, Jay Bruce hit a single. Then, Heisey hit another single. And then, triumph of triumphs, Drew Stubbs comes up and hit a single. Unfortunately, the hits and the baserunning did not combine particularly well, so after three batters, we had three men on and no outs. Thankfully, Dioner Navarro comes up and hits yet another single, which scored Bruce and Heisey. After that, you can hardly blame Johnny Cueto for not hitting the ball – but he did put down an arguably successful sacrifice bunt. Phillips did come up and hit yet another single – making it five singles in the inning, but Cozart hit into a double play, ending the inning.

The Reds didn’t score again until the 5th, and this inning was all extra base hits. Cozart redeemed his earlier GIDP with a triple, was driven in by a Votto double, and Votto by a Jay Bruce double. After that, Mike Fiers was done for, and Milwaukee brought in Brandon Kintzler, who got them out of the jam.

That was all the run scoring the Reds did, but it was all we needed tonight, because Cueto had a pretty excellent game, going seven innings, allowing 2 runs on 5 hits, one home run, no walks, and 5 strikeouts. He also finished in just 95 pitches. There’s no specific reason why Cueto didn’t go out in the 8th, but we had a lead, a well-rested bullpen, and there had been a been a little baserunning incident in the second inning. That brings Cueto up to 19 wins, which keeps him well able to hit 20 for the season. It is a meaningless milestone, but the last time any Reds pitcher had 20 or more wins in a season was the 1988 performance of Danny Jackson – and he threw over 260 innings that year. If Cueto reaches 20, he’ll do it in less than 220.

While this was not the start Cueto needed to jumpstart his name in the Cy Young conversation again, it was excellent, and we shouldn’t forget what an amazing year he’s had for the Reds. One that should go in the Reds record-books, if no one else’s.

The more important, and dismaying news is that Dusty Baker’s mystery ailment is a mini-stroke that he suffered in Chicago. It’s no wonder, then, that he’s been kept under observation, and we’re pretty lucky that a trainer was around and knowledgable enough to know that Dusty needed to be taken to the hospitable immediately. Dusty Baker is extremely important to this ball club, and we’d all like him back for the playoffs, but I know all of us in Redsland wouldn’t want Dusty to rush or put his health in any danger at all. Please feel better soon, Dusty.

Yay for Bronson! (Photo by DavidMeyersPhotos on Flickr)

There’s not much to talk about right now: the Reds had the day off, the division is well in hand, and our manager doesn’t go around telling people he . There is some mild concern in the Cueto arena. He’s had three increasingly distressing starts. It started with a reasonable, but somewhat hard luck start, where four runs scored, via two home runs – and we all sort of knew Cueto’s home run had to run out at some point. The last two have been more in the way of bad.

It doesn’t seem like an issue, but it’s nice to remember that we have other capable pitchers in the rotation. Leake hasn’t been so great of late, but he’s more than serviceable for a No. 5 .  All members of the rotation show up in this list – it seems unlikely, but it actually includes the top 7 pitching performances, since three starts are tied for number 5. Yes, I’ve used game score, as is my wont. I like it.

Number 5 (ish): Johnny Cueto, June 23; Homer Bailey, May 29; Mike Leake, August 15

• This is Cueto’s only appearance on the list, somewhat surprisingly – not too much, because Cueto’s byword is sustained excellence, not individual performances here and there. Cueto pitched this perfect game against the Twins. The three hits he allowed included a double by Joe Mauer, but no other extra base hits, and he yielded only one run, with 9 strikeouts. He did hit a dude, as well, but I think that doesn’t count towards gamescore.
• Bailey appears one more time on the list, but this game was against the Pirates, who we know Homer loves to face. He pitched a complete game, allowing only 1 run on 4 hits – with 1 BB and 5 K. Bailey’s complete game was in contrast to the Pirates, who used 6 pitchers after starter Charlie Morton left after the fourth
• This is also Leake’s only game on the list, just one month ago versus the Mets. Mikey outpitched R.A. Dickey in this one – throwing a complete game, 1 R, 0 BB, 4K. None of the hits he allowed were for extra bases, and went to only two of the Mets hitters – he shut down the other 3/4 of the line up entirely.

Number 4: Homer Bailey, September 1.

This is sort of a horrible one, because, as you might remember (it was only two weeks ago), the Reds actually lost this game – and not even in extra innings. Homer Bailey pitched about as well as you could want – though to the not-well-hitting Houston Astros. He went 8 innings, allowed 1 run on 3 hits, a walk, and 9 strikeouts. Of course, one of those hits was a home run – which figures for the run scored. Homer’s mistake was throwing 107 whole pitches in that 8 innings, which meant that Sean Marshall took over the mound in the bottom of the 9th, with the game tied 1-1. Marshall allowed a double, intentionally walked the next guy, and hit the guy after that. Thus, when Brandon Phillips made on error on Jose Altuve’s groundball, the Astros walked off, despite all Bailey’s fine work. Boo.

Numbers 2 and 3: Mat Latos and Mat Latos, June 25 and June 30

Mat Latos really outdid himself against the Brewers on June 25 – pitching a complete game, with a very impressive 13 strikeouts, especially since that’s a team that can kind of hit. It’s tough to come back and try to match that performance, but Mat did it against the Giants. Exactly. Obviously the game wasn’t exactly the same, but he matched his gamescore of 86 exactly with another complete game – one run allowed, no walks and 7 strikeouts. Latos has struggled with home runs at Great American, but you can still tell that he’s a great pitcher in the making.

Number 1: Bronson Arroyo, July 6

It’s appropriate that number one on this list belongs to the elder statesman of the Reds rotation – who has both struggled and excelled during his time with the Reds, but whose innings numbers will be hard to match. It the only shutout pitched by a Reds pitcher in 2012. Arroyo did so in PetCo against the Padres, which perhaps hints at the secret of Bronson’s success, but it’s undoubtedly a great pitching performance anyway: 9 innings, 0 runs, 3 hits, 1 BB, 8 Ks. That’s the second best number of Ks in a game for Bronson this year, so you know it was a pretty great day for him all-around.

So now that we’re all thinking happy thoughts, let’s not lay awake in our beds, obsessing about the playoff rotation. Go to sleep friends, it will be alright. There’s baseball tomorrow.

After last night’s win, the magic number dropped to 8 – the total number of Reds wins and Cardinals losses that the Reds need to clinch the division. Technically, it’s probably the combined number needed to finish ahead of the Cardinals, but at this point, it’s looking like that is the question.  Here’s how Magic Number 8 stacks up, historically.

• The 2010 team got down to magic number 8 on September 19, a week after this year’s team. Does that mean a potentially less exciting clinch-day, as it probably won’t come in the last week of play? Maybe, but does anyone care? No!
• The 1995 team hit 8 on September 11, 1995 – though they had had fewer games to get there, since it was a shorter season.
• In 1990, the Reds fell through magic number 8 pretty late – on September 22, as the team won both games of a doubleheader against the Padres, though the second place Dodgers also won.
• The otherworldly 1975 World Series champs passed the number 8 on September 2 – almost two weeks ago.

Let’s hoping that the bats start to heat up in the second half of September, here are the season/last seven day splits for the hitters.

Hanigan and Phillips look good, Valdez has been comparatively not as bad, and Chris Heisey has been holding up his “not as bad at hitting at Stubbs” end of the bargain, though he’s still not blowing me away. Votto isn’t being Joey Votto, but I’m not worried, he’s just somewhere on the road between injured Joey Votto and full-strength Joey Votto.

On the other side of the team, a couple rough outings have dimmed the Cy Young stars of both our ace and our star closer. While Chapman’s been bad enough to get shut down for awhile with arm fatigue, Cueto’s been just bad(  enough to lose that Cy-shine, and to distract the national media in favor of other candidates. Now that Cueto’s has slipped behind Dickey in wins and ERA, I suspect he’ll have a hard time beating the knuckle-baller (and maybe Gonzalez, as well), park effects be damned.

Yep, I’m still on that Cueto-not-Chapman-for-Cy-Young, kick. (Photo by David Slaughter/Flickr)

Today, fangraphs unrolled some new pitching metrics that will help those of us who are mildly frustrated with the emphasis on defense independent pitching statistics (DIPS). As most of us are fans of Johnny Cueto, who is almost certainly underrated by FIP/xFIP/WAR, that would be most of us.

The most basic of these is RA9-Wins. It essentially takes your the pitcher’s absolute performance in allowing runs and calculates it on a WAR scale based on the innings pitched, and provides a park and league adjustment. This is great for people who totally reject DIPS, but want a single number to compare pitching quality and quantity between players (while correcting for home park). As Dave Cameron notes, most of acknowledge that while WAR undershoots a pitcher’s ability to control aspects of run prevention that aren’t BB/K/Hr, this probably overshoots.

The new calculation is the BIP-wins, which calculates the wins above replacement that comes from a pitcher’s BABIP. It uses linear weights for singles and doubles. LOB-wins, which should look at the value of how at-bat results are sequenced is just a catch-all – just Ra9-W minus WAR minus BIP-wins. Together, fangraphs is calling LOB -wins and BIP-wins Fielding Dependent Pitching, or FDP. So FIP and FDP combines to look at all the aspects of run prevention. We know that FIP is all under the pitcher’s control, we’re not totally sure about FDP, but some of it is attributable to the pitcher.

Now for the Johnny Cueto part. Just looking at Johnny’s ERA and WAR, gives you an idea that WAR may be underrating Cueto. Cueto doesn’t have the best peripherals (other than HR), but has managed to have one of the lowest ERA/the lowest in the league for almost two seasons now, and that’s in a very hitter-friendly park. He’s a bit of a ground-ball pitcher – but not like Trevor Cahill or anything. At a 49% groundball rate, he ranks in the top half of MLB pitchers, but is number one among Reds starters.

So I looked at some of the new pitcher value numbers for some of the major NL Cy Young contenders:

Johnny leads in RA9-wins, obviously, as Cueto has made all his starts, and done so with the lowest ERA in the league. Once adjusted for park though, Cueto’s advantage looks enormous. Cueto’s improved his WAR outlook recently, but he’s still second to Clayton Kershaw, though he’s put some distance on the other contenders, like R.A. Dickey.  So what’s the difference between Cueto’s RA9-wins dominance and WAR-not-so-dominance.

Cueto actually doesn’t have a very low BABIP, partially a consequence of the groundballs. That shows up in his BIP-wins number which is low, at about 0.2. Most of the difference for Cueto is coming from LOB-wins, that catch all stat. Cueto’s LOB% is at 79.7% right now, which is fairly high. This may be a little luck, a little clutchiness, and probably something to do with Cueto not allowing a lot of extra base hits. Allowing more singles means that more base-runners will get on, but not as many will score. And Cueto’s SLG against number is fantastic. At .335, it’s number three in the NL (behind Gio Gonzalez and Clayon Kershaw).

But that LOB-wins number can anything else relevant to preventing runs. It may be a little hard to think of many more things that are relevant, but when you’re talking about Johnny Cueto, I can think of a big one.  Baserunners. I’ve discussed before how Cueto is number one (with a bullet) at not allowing runners. This year is another point in Cueto’s favor. So far, Johnny’s allowed one stolen base, compared to 8 caught stealing – on seven pickoffs. That pickoffs number is good enough for second in MLB. But even though Clayton Kershaw has 8 pickoffs, he also has 8 stolen bases allowed while pitching.

Altogether, Cueto could probably considered the best stolen-base preventing pitcher in MLB right now, and that could definitely be showing up in that LOB-wins statistic. It’s also a good argument for contributing a little more of that FDP to Cueto. Even a little bit would boost Cueto above his competition in wins. Just listening in to places like MLB Network, I definitely think the national media is considering Cueto a CYA front-runner. C’mon Johnny, just throw a few perfect games this September, and there won’t be any debate.

EDIT: If you want to read a somewhat/vastly better treatment of this subject, you should probably head on over to fangraphs to read Dave Cameron’s article. (I note that mine was published first, only to defend myself from claims of plagiarism.)

This is not an original idea or anything, I know I’ve seen them around, in various permutations and combinations, and maybe in almost exactly this form, too. The data is all from ESPN Home Run Tracker. The length of the line is the related to the speed off the bat, and the elevation angle contributes the angle of the vector. I also differentiated HRT’s main classifications by color. “No doubters” are in red, “Plenties” are in blue, and “Just enoughs” are in green. (The colors didn’t exactly come out perfect). I believe the speed off the bat is just calculated from the distance and angle, but it’s there to give an idea of the pure amount of force.

The best comparison is Bailey (above) and Arroyo. Bailey’s let a lot of low, hard hit go over the wall in Great American, but Bronson’s home runs are coming on a lot of higher flies. You can see how hard hit Bronson’s no doubters are, too.

Then, of course, you have Johnny Cueto, who makes my life easy by not giving up home runs.

Mat Latos has also had a few high flies – but also has a bunch of low, just-enough home runs. You can see where he would have done much better in PetCo’s spacious confines.

Mike Leake’s had a little better overall luck with home runs than Latos, or Bailey, but he seems to have a smaller proportion of GABP-specials.

To be honest, I don’t have a lot of analysis on these – I just thought they were pretty. And maybe a little interesting.

Yep, I’m still on that Cueto-not-Chapman-for-Cy-Young, kick. (Photo by David Slaughter/Flickr)

So, I’m gonna bust a chart at you that’s absolutely insane. It’s so big, I had to bust it into two separate image files before the blog would even let me load it up.

It’s also not that useful. But I think it’s a pretty way to look at how the Cy Young Award has changed over the years. Here’s the basic premise: I took every Cy Young Award winner, and looked at where they ranked among qualifying pitchers in that year and league for a handful of stats – from the very traditional to more ‘new=age’ statistics. I used percentile rank, so ’1′ or ’0′ is the league leader depending on whether it’s better for the stat to be high or low – those are all marked in red. Being in the top five %ile is marked in orange, and in the top 10% is marked in yellow. It’s a little problematic, because if you have enough individuals tied for the league lead, then none of them are considered in the ’100 %ile’ category. Without further ado: here you go.

I will make a couple general points, here.

• WAR has turned into a pretty nice indicator of Cy Young status. That makes sense, as it’s a stat that aggregrates other statistics and rewards pitchers who throw a lot of innings, well. Essentially, that’s what the Cy Young is all about, right? But it’s worth noting that that wasn’t the case, for years. WAR encapsulates what we think is important in pitchers now, and by ‘we’, that does include the baseball writers, these days.
• In fact, in the last ten years, WAR is a better indicator of the Cy Young award winner than any single stat. Again – sensible, because it’s aggregates good stats, but in the 19 winners since 2002 (not including Eric Gagne, because let’s not add that complication), the leader in WAR has won more often than the leader in ERA, the leader in strikeouts, or the leader in wins. Let’s be real, though, it’s still only correct about half the time.
• Speaking of which, Wins is losing the dominance it once held of the Cy Young Award. The wins leader still frequently wins the Cy Young, but it doesn’t hurt that the wins leader is still frequently very good at baseball. But Felix Hernandez wasn’t even in the top half of qualified pitchers in wins, and he still got his – that was the first time that had ever happened.
• Interestingly, since 2005, each winner has either led the league in ERA or in WAR.
• Of course, this still misses a lot of the voting dynamics that change so much from year to year. Like the 2011 NL award: Clayton Kershaw might have beat Roy Halladay because he had two more wins (and a magic 20+ wins season), or because he had a phenomenal strikeout rate – but it probably wasn’t because his ERA was 0.07 lower than Halladay’s. A bunch of orange and red boxes can only tell you so much.

So what does that tell us about Johnny Cueto?

» Continue reading “Johnny Cueto And Cy Young Trends, Part 2: The WAR”