This. (Photo by Paul Miles)

So, I’m back.

With some very important, useful baseball analysis, because that is totally my thing.

Hanny-way, I was watching the game tonight as Ryan Hanigan (see what I did there?) was up to bat in the bottom of the 8th inning, and I realized that thus far, Hanigan had singled, walked, and been hit by a pitch – which meant he got to first base  in three different ways. So, I wondered, how many times had a player singled, walked, been hit by a pitch, and reached on an error in a single game? Or, the cycle of first base, or, of course, the Uni-Cycle.

There are some other issues here, like the fact that you can also get to first by hitting into a fielder’s choice, but I’ll adjust it to ‘reaching first base without making an out’, and make that problem go away.  Also, reaching on error and being hit by a pitch aren’t exactly accomplishments, like home runs, and triples. but as Chase Utley has shown us, there’s definitely a ‘skill’ in getting hit by a pitch.

In any case, according to Wikipedia, 302 normal cycles have been hit in MLB ever – when you stick it into baseball-reference’s play index tool, in comes up with 239 instances of hitting for the cycle (from 1916-2013) . In comparison, the unicycle has only been hit in that period 168 times .  The other caveat is that definitely, some of those reach on errors could also end with the batter not on first, but that I’m just going to ignore, because, I want to.

The list contains a motley assortment of players – from beloved former Red Wily Taveras to Derek Jeter and Sammy Sosa. No player has ever done it three times, but several have done it twice-  Albert Pujols, Bob Allison, Chuck Knoblauch, Damion Easley, Jeter, Eddie Murray, Eddie Yost, Fred Hatfield,  Kenny Lofton, Mark Ellis, Minnie Minoso, Mitchell Page, and Raul Mondesi.

Only two Reds have ever accomplished the feat – Davey Concepcion in 1980, and Pokey Reese in 2000. Isn’t that just perfect? That’s baseball poetry, right there. (And they both only reached first base on the error, incidentally).

As you may know, Ryan Hanigan did not reach first base on an error last night (he walked instead), which makes this exceptionally dubious honor just out of reach for him. Thus far, Jay Bruce has been the king of reaching on errors, but Choo may be a better bet, with his recent love for getting hit by a pitch and walking. We’ll all be waiting with bated breath, I’m sure, to see which Red will be the next to hit for the Uni-Cycle.

(Also, if you didn’t already, you should watch this video of Jay Bruce’s home run last night.)

I’ll miss you, Scott and Miguel. But not too, too much. (Photos by Keith Allison/Flickr)

It’s a strange thing – though generally the Reds had very low turnover this offseason, the opening day roster will still feel very “new look”, thanks to the lack of Scott Rolen and Miguel Cairo. Neither player will be suiting up for the Reds in the 2013 season. Miguel Cairo has taken a position with the Reds, as a Special Assistant to the GM. While Scott Rolen has not said what he’ll be doing, he won’t be attending camp with the Reds, and it’s hard to see him joining the team midseason without significant injury to the current roster. Rolen’s ambivalence this off-season suggests that he’s not ready to leave baseball just yet. It’s not impossible for him to end up with some team in 2013, but I think it’s more likely that he’ll end up taking some time off, and maybe gradually inching into management positions – but he’s said he wants to spend more time with his family.

Cairo and Rolen haven’t defined the recent Reds teams, but they’ve been a mainstay since 2010 – as part of Walt Jocketty’s Veteran Presence Former-Cardinals Initiative. (It’s like the Avengers Initiative, but with less pecs and more shoulder injuries.) Rolen was brought in to provide a more stable presence (offensively and defensively) at third base in a trade that sent Edwin Encarnacion, Zack Stewart (who?) and Josh Roenicke (who?) to the Blue Jays, while Cairo came in as a free agent in the following offseason.

2010 was definitely the best year for CaiRolen – Rolen was great everywhere, at the plate, in the field, in the the clubhouse, and Cairo was pretty excellent for a bench player. 2011 went a little haywire: Cairo still provided league average offense, but had an increased responsibility, thanks to Rolen’s injury problems. That was only one of the multiple failures with the 2011 team, but it surely showed us one of the potential drawbacks of older players. 2012 was a bit of a return to form for Rolen, but the 37-year-old was still subpar, especially with a young fun like Frazier knocking down the door. Meanwhile, Cairo sank into the pit that was the 2012 Reds bench.

Here is Rolen’s final line with the Reds:

And Cairo’s:

By the numbers, at least, Rolen and Cairo won’t be hard to replace. Rolen was worth about 1.1 WAR last year, while Frazier was worth 2.8 (in more playing time, overall). More time will exacerbate Frazier’s slightly below average fielding, but then again, settling into one position might improve Todd’s defensive skills. Still, the projections see Frazier as about a 3 win player in 2013, and I agree.

Cairo was rated as worth -1 wins last year. Infield bench replacements look likely to be Jack Hannahan, and Jason Donald. Hannahan was worth about 0.5 wins (~300 PA, 750 innings) with the Indians last year, and Donald was worth -0.4 wins (~130 PA, 300 innings). Neither are spectacular options, but bench guys rarely are. In any case, they can almost certainly match the work of Valdex and Cairo last year.

Of course, the line on both Cairo and Rolen has been their role as veteran clubhouse leaders. While I, like most interneters, have no direct knowledge of this, the stories do suggest that this was of some importance. I certainly appreciated their ability to not be involved in scandals, and even to not say anything that caused too much of a stir. A team of 25 of those guys might be a little boring, but a couple of solid presences is always appreciated.

In 2013, though, the team has changed in substance. Joey Votto is not promising youngster – he’s an MVP who’s been to the post-season twice, and overcome multiple struggles. Brandon Phillips is now a part of the fabric of this team, you have guys like Bruce and Hanigan who have been around for awhile. There are still older, experienced players around – like Arroyo in the rotation, and Ludwick in the outfield. Mostly, though, when I look at this team, I see a team that has grown together. They know each other’s quirks and idiosyncracies. They’ve won and lost together.

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.

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.

This segment is from the third pitch of the plate appearance. Yikes, Drew. Yikes.

So, here it goes with Drew Stubbs. It’s a little hard to compare with the Ryan Hanigan chart (here), just because Stubbs has over 100 more PA than Hanigan. Also, he’s got significantly more P/PA (as he has a similarly low swing % to Hanigan, but a ludicrously lower contact rate), so there’s just more pitches to chart.

I don’t think this turned out as different from Hanigan’s as I thought – mostly because both Hanigan and Stubbs boast very low swing rates – Stubbs does have a reasonably respectable walk rate, though it’s (rightfully) overshadowed by all the strikeouts.

I think the craziest part is when Stubbs has two strikes. The example to the right is only about 100 plate appearances, so it’s a bit of a small sample size. But if I wanted to vastly overreach the power of this data, I might conclude that down 0-2, Stubbs is better off leaving the bat on his shoulders. Part of the problem is that Stubbs’s BABIP this year, which reduces the value we’re getting from the balls he manages to put in play at all. It’s not really too low compared to the league, but perhaps belies his baserunning ability. For a guy with Drew’s speed, .291 may very well be unlucky.

Really though, Stubbs’s contact rate is pitcher-level, which is his always going to give him problems (though there are several better hitters with lower or similar contact rates). I feel like this makes a reasonably good argument to switch Hanigan and Stubbs in the lineup. Hanigan has the contact skills to deal with a pitcher throwing a lot of skills – and can spray them all across the (in)field, while in the 8-hole, Stubbs standing with the bat on his shoulder could be more valuable. Of course, there’s the baserunning issue to take into account, which probably is substantial.

I think it might be fun for the next chart to be Brandon Phillips, a free-swinger of the first order.

(click for larger image)

Photo by EmmyMik/Flickr

It’s more Ryan Hanigan coverage day! Really, I started looking at this yesterday, but the whole thing took quite a while, so I decided to go ahead and wax not-so-poetic on Ryan Hanigan without an enormous, but maybe only marginally informational graphic. This chart essentially traces the path of every Ryan Hanigan plate appearance in 2o12. Well, at least 307 of them. I’m not totally sure what happened to the other 15 PA, though I did notice that the data was only updated through 9/5.

Each ‘row’ represents the pitch number in that plate appearance. Each circle represents a different count, and the size of the circle is related to the number of plate appearances that contained that pitch number/count. The arrows are also sized to represent the number of pitches, but they’re labeled, too. The blue arrows represent pitches taken, and the red arrows are swung at. (Though I may have missed one or two, here or  there.

All the data comes from Joe Lefkowitz, who makes manipulating pitch f/x data on your own super easy AND fun.

What do you actually learn from this? Not sure, especially without comparisons. I’ll probably do Drew Stubbs next, as he’s something like the exact opposite. Obviously, Hanigan swings by the rules. When he’s up in the count, he takes, and when he’s down in the count, he swings. I also wonder a little about how this varies from Hanigan’s previous years  - although most of his numbers have remained constant since 2010, his pitches per plate appearance have taken a pretty big dive.

I should probably do Joey Votto, but since Joey takes about a zillion pitches per plate appearance, it would take me about a year.

Photo By BubbaFan/wikimedia commons

It is a truth universally acknowledged, that Ryan Hanigan is a righteous dude.

But on this off-day, instead of casting him as a Fitzwilliam Darcy in a zany baseball oriented retelling of a Jane Austen novel (there’s got to be something clever like “catching” a husband, or something), I’m just going to talk, a lot, about Mr. Ryan Hanigan. I mean, I assume you’ve already got the basic factoids, like “Ryan Hanigan played in the Cape Cod League” and “Ryan Hanigan played against the Reds in spring training when he was at Rollins college”, so instead I’ll pontificate on other Hanigan-related-matters.

Ryan #1 (Sorry, Ryan Ludwick, you are the #2 Ryan in my heart) is a hitter unlike any other on this Reds team.  He walks more than anyone (11.8 %),  except Joey Votto. He strikes out less than anyone (10.2%), including Joey Votto. This is generally considered a valuable skill-set, but most advanced metrics do not rate him highly, essentially due to his really, really low power numbers.

I mean really low. Ryan has 14 extra base hits this year. Among players with 250 or more PA in the NL, Ryan Hanigan is tied for 6th fewest XBH with Juan Pierre and Logan Forsythe. Among Reds hitters, Hanigan’s 0.065 ISO is the lowest, other than Wilson Valdez. His slugging is actually the only number that’s really changed between this year and last – he’s only hit 2 home runs this year, fewer than 2011 or 2010, but he’s hit approximately the same number of extra base hits – it just looks like they’re mostly doubles this year, instead of homers.

» Continue reading “Ryan Hanigan Appreciation Post: 2012 Edition”

The latest round of all-star voting came out and features a few Reds. We’re only a few weeks away from the end of all-star voting, so if you haven’t voted, go vote now. And often. Make up some new emails and vote again. And again. And again. AND AGAIN.

In good news, voters have clearly recognized the superlativity of Joey Votto, as he’s leading the NL 1B ballot, with over twice the votes of the next highest candidate (Cardinal Lance Berkman).

You’d be ridiculous to vote for anyone else – his latest ‘hot streak’ has brought him to the top of the leaderboard in a lot of categories. He leads the NL in walks, and OPS, and all of MLB in OBP and doubles. The only area in which Votto isn’t beating the NL’s pitchers like red-headed step-children in is home runs – but that clearly hasn’t slowed him down very much. Votto also has a solid defensive reputation from his gold glove, so you pretty much have an ironclad case for all-star-ism.

The rest of the all-star situation looks from “slightly less” to “entirely un-” rosy. For instance, Brandon Phillips is currently in second place in  2B voting, but trails the Braves’ Dan Uggla significantly.

» Continue reading “Ryan Hanigan, You’re An All-Star To Me”

In 2012, we get to see if this guy can keep on keepin' 'em 'on (first base).

Lately, I’ve been looking a lot at pitcher-allowed stolen bases. Usually, stolen base defense gets cited quantitatively to the catcher, but it seems like qualitatively, a lot of stolen base prevention is credited to the pitcher: having a good pick-off move, frequently checking a speedy runner on first, and the speed of a pitcher’s motion, as examples.

To start out with, I grabbed some stolen base numbers for the last few years for qualifying pitchers. You can get them all on baseball reference. Bee-reff is nice enough to keep track of what they call ‘stolen base opportunities’ for us, which they define as plate appearances where a runner was on first or second, with the next base open. Good enough for me.

My first instinct, is, of course, to look at a rate: stolen bases per stolen base opportunity. Of course right off the bat, that’s going to be tricky. The minimum number of stolen bases in the league for the last three years has been zero, and after that they come packed in pretty close – even among starters with a fair number of innings, there are about 50 of them before you get to someone with even 10 stolen bases. This makes the ratio close to meaningless at the top. For example, last year Johnny Cueto and Kyle Lohse both allowed 1 stolen base. Is Cueto really worse at keeping runners from stealing than Lohse because he pitched in fewer stolen base opportunities?

So, looking at just stolen bases, but keeping in mind innings pitched and stolen base opportunities, does pitcher-skill reliably show up in the numbers? Maybe. Catchers are probably a big deal. In the last three years, notably coinciding with the advent of the Hernandez/Hanigan tandem, the Reds have done pretty well,  in terms of limiting stolen bases, generally sitting in the ‘bottom’ five of stolen bases allowed in a season. St. Louis as a team also pretty consistently allows very few stolen bases, which I suspect has something to do with a certain catcher-who-shall-not-be-named. (But it rhymes with Body-air Pole-ina).  Lefties, obviously, tend to do pretty well – in 2010 and 2009 combined, Dallas Braden allowed a total of ONE stolen base, despite the fact that Oakland as a team tends to be pretty average on the stolen-bases-prevented front.

Also, on the ‘does pretty well list’? Johnny Cueto. He’s allowed six total stolen bases in the last three seasons. That’s good. It’s also somewhat remarkably reliable. Of all pitchers with at least 120 IP  each season, no other pitcher has been in the top 10 fewest stolen bases for the last three seasons. Does this have to do with the Reds’ catchers? At least kinda – in 2008, Cueto’s rookie season, he allowed seven stolen bases, but note that he was being caught primarily by Paul Bako – not really known for his arm at that point.

However, for the last three seasons, Cueto has exceeded all the other Reds pitchers when it comes to the running game. Or at least in the countable results. In 2011, compared to Cueto’s 1 allowed stolen base, Leake and Wood each allowed 5, Bailey and Arroyo each allowed 9, and Edinson Volquez allowed 16. As Jack Donaghy might say, good god, Volquez. Cueto was mostly caught by Hernandez, which doesn’t appear to give him an advantage – Hanigan and Hernandez had very similar caught stealing percentages, and Hanigan’s SB/SBO rate was a little lower. And it isn’t just due to lack of baserunners: Cueto has generally had as many or more stolen base opportunities as any Reds pitcher, excepting Bronson Arroyo.

Additionally, Cueto has kept a very steady rate of low stolen bases as compared to his teammates. For example, Travis Wood allowed 0 stolen bases in 2010, in 100 innings, but then allowed 5 in the same number of innings in 2011. Harang allowed only 3 in 2010, but allowed 13 in 2009. The only other constant seems to be that Homer Bailey is consistently kinda bad (To be fair, Bailey’s ~10 SB/120 innings isn’t nearly as bad as say, Beckett or Lackey putting up >30 stolen bases last season. But on the other hand, Bailey doesn’t have the Varitek/Saltalamacchia catching tandem to blame).

So what about 2012? This year, Cueto has to switch catchers, as Ramon Hernandez has left us for mile-high country. But so far, Dusty’s had Hanigan catching his games, and we can be pretty confident that Hanigan won’t hinder Cueto when it comes to stolen bases. In any case, with zero stolen bases so far, Cueto is primed to continue his whatever-it-is-he-may-or-may-not-be-actually-in-control-of ways.

Photo by mwlguide @ flickr

One player who hasn’t gotten a lot of blog time this winter is Devin Mesoraco, our hypothetical starting catcher. We’ve been busy talking about just about everything else: rotation, relievers, left field, short stop, BP extension, who precisely is going to back up at catcher. But Devin himself is going largely untalked about. Some of this is probably because we’ve got good plans B and C at this point. We know Ryan Hanigan is a more than capable guy whose bat plays well for his defensive position. Corky Miller provides depth and wouldn’t totally suck. And who knows, maybe Dioner Navarro could have a bit of a breakthrough and surprise us?

Still, at least pre-spring training, Mesoraco’s looking like “the guy” and  he’s only got 53 MLB plate appearance to his name. Although he has an excellent prospect record, he wouldn’t be the first young player to fall flat on his face in the majors.

It’s a lot of pressure for a 24 year old with a team now built around pitching, and a lot of question marks in the lineup. So to see  the range of possibilities for Mr. Mesoraco in 2012, I looked at some previous catchers in his age range and situation. Think of it like an analog projection:

» Continue reading “What To Expect When You’re Expecting Devin Mesoraco.”