How 'bout that Carl Pavano

Don’t tell Yankee fans, but Carl Pavano is very quietly having an excellent year. He currently is tied for 5th in the majors in pitcher wins, owns a 3.48 ERA, and has a FIP and xFIP under 4 to compliment the earned-run average. His 5.15 K/9 rate isn’t flashy, but his ability to keep batters off base via the walk has helped him immensely: his 1.20 walks per 9 rate is ridiculous and is third in the majors behind Roy Halladay’s and Cliff Lee’s. Similarly, he excels at getting first-pitch strikes. His rate of .685 is again third in the majors, this time behind the rates of Lee and Carlos Silva.

Probably the biggest asset Pavano has given his Twins this year is durability. Durability is something I find very interesting. Depending on how you define it, a “durable” pitcher can be one who can throw a lot of pitches (remember those high pitch-count games Livan Hernandez threw?), or one that can throw a lot of innings through pitch economy. The best pitchers, ideally, would be have the ability to do both when needed. In terms of innings per start, Pavano ranks fifth in the majors behind Lee, Halladay, Felix Hernandez, and Adam Wainwright with an average of 7.09 innings, which means that on average, he works into the 8th inning. This is obviously spectacular, and puts little strain on his bullpen. As for pitches, Pavano only averages 98 (the leader, Dan Haren, averages 110), which means that his ability to get ahead on hitters and prevent the base-on-balls is really helping him provide valuable innings.

Data is from Fangraphs.

NYTimes: "How Mariano Rivera Dominates Hitters"

Time for a quick link dump! I came across an excellent video piece on the New York Times that goes pretty in depth (in less than three minutes) on Mariano Rivera's brilliance. Here is the link.

Enjoy.

Throwing 100 pitches

Edwin Jackson's no-hitter yesterday got me thinking about pitch counts (and the beauty of Baseball Prospectus data). There's obviously a greater focus these days on in-game pitch counts and season inning limits now than there was 20 or 30 years ago, making performances like Jackson's all the more remarkable. So I did some digging through some BPro statistics, and was a bit surprised to find that the average number of pitches per game has stayed virtually the same or actually risen since the late 1980s. What's more intuitive is that the average of maximum pitches thrown per start for all pitchers has decreased steadily over the past two decades. Here is the graph that shows average number of pitches per game, and average maximum number of pitches by a pitcher in a season.

There's more fluctuation for average number of pitches; there's no clear trend in one direction or another. I would figure that with more and more attention being put to the 100 pitch mark, starters of this generation are being asked to throw 100 pitches or so (and not much else) than those of previous generations were. It's possible to test this, at least rudimentarily, by splitting up starts by a defined criterion. This next graph shows the percentage of starts that went a certain amount of pitches.

Most notable is the steady rise in appearances between 101 and 110 pitches, and the steady decline in appearances of more than 111 pitches. So, it seems that the the recognition of "century mark" as being meaningful has had some sort of significant impact on how managers handle their pitchers.

Edwin Jackson's pitch count

Congratulations to the Diamondbacks' Edwin Jackson, who on Friday pitched the 267th no-hitter in Major League history, and the 4th of the 2010 season. He walked 8, which was the most in a no-hitter since A.J. Burnett's 9-walk no-no in 2001. Jackson also struck out 6, making it also the first no-hitter since Burnett's in which a pitcher walked more batters than he struck out. Since Jackson was wild early before setting down (7 walks in the first 3 innings, 1 walk and 1 hit batsman after), his high pitch count was a developing story throughout the game. Entering the 8th, Jackson had 117 pitches, and entering the 9th, he had 134 pitches. Any other circumstance, he'd be long gone from the game, but manager A.J. Hinch opted to let his pitcher go for the record books. When all was said and done, Jackson had 149 pitches. Let's put that into perspective for a minute. Courtesy of Baseball Prospectus, here are the maximum in-game pitch counts since 1996:

Year	Pitcher	Team	Pitch Count
2010	Edwin Jackson	Diamondbacks	149
2009	Roy Halladay	Blue Jays	133
2008	Tim Lincecum	Giants	138
2007	A.J. Burnett	Blue Jays	130
2006	Livan Hernandez	Nationals	138
2005	Livan Hernandez	Nationals	150
2004	Jason Schmidt	Giants	144
2003	Kerry Wood	Cubs	141
2002	Randy Johnson	Diamondbacks	149
2001	Randy Johnson	Diamondbacks	145
2000	Ron Villone	Reds	150
1999	Pedro Astacio	Rockies	153
1998	Livan Hernandez	Marlins	153
1997	Tim Wakefield	Red Sox	169
1996	Roger Clemens	Red Sox	161

Jackson threw the most pitches in a game since Livan Hernandez in 2005, and there really wasn't a game since Tim Wakefield's 8 2/3 inning, 7 walk, 10 strikeout, 169 pitch outing in 1997 that wasn't within three or four pitches of Jackson's no-hitter. Given the increased focus on pitch counts and decreasing in-game totals, certainly this performance by Jackson is one of the most impressive --- or, depending on whom you talk to, abusive --- we've seen in a while.

Checking in on the Yankees' changeups

"Show-me" changeups were the hot topic at the Yankees' spring camp this year. At least four pitchers - most notably A.J. Burnett, Phil Hughes, Joba Chamberlain, and David Robertson - used Spring Training as a way of improving their seldom-used changeups. Though a lot was made of them during March, none of these pitchers has displayed an abundance of confidence in the change so far this year. Let's go one by one and start with the two relief pitchers.

DAVID ROBERTSON

David has a hard, high-80s changeup, usually about 4-5 mph off of his fastball. He has thrown only two this year (both to lefties). Both pitches have been balls - one was about a foot outside and the other bounced up to home-plate. Last year, Robertson's changeup was in the strikezone less than a third of the time, and of those pitches out of the zone, batters swung only once. So, it's understandable that Robertson would want to tighten up his changeup command, especially given that he only has two pitches that he can rely on (fastball/curveball).

JOBA CHAMBERLAIN

Chamberlain's changeup is pretty slow, averaging about 10-11 mph off of the fastball. With his move to the bullpen, Chamberlain has been fastball/slider/occasional curveball; he has thrown just one changeup all season long, and none since the first game of the year. Last year, he used it 4.4% of the time (120 pitches). Though he got some encouraging results on it last year (.315 whiff rate on swings, mind the limited sample), it doesn't look like he and Jorge Posada/Francisco Cervelli are willing to go with it that much.

PHIL HUGHES

Apparently, Hughes' changeup development was earned him the final spot over Chamberlain in the Yankees' 2010 rotation. It gets similar action to Chamberlain's, though these days he throws it a bit harder - 83.3 mph average as a starter in 2009, 84.7 mph average this year. This might be due to the new grip he's using this year. Despite the pitch's apparent improvement, Phil doesn't show it that much. He's only thrown 26 all year (1.9% of his repertoire), and has only thrown it for a strike (called strike, swinging strike, or hit into play) 9 times. Hughes is having an impressive season, so he probably wouldn't be willing to disrupt the four-seam/cutter/curve combination that has helped him win 10 games thus far.

A.J. BURNETT

A.J. has thrown 35 changeups this year (2.3%). His change is kind of like a splitter, and it averages around 88 mph. This year, only 7 have been in the zone, though 4 of those pitches have been swung at. Burnett's really a two-pitch pitcher, since his fastball and curveball make up about 98% of his pitches. Actually, I'd call him a three-pitch pitcher with one off-speed offering since he uses two distinct kinds of heaters - a rider and a sinker. But, obviously, it would be nice for him to be able to throw his change for a strike.

WRAPPING IT UP

Basically, it's the same story for all of these guys. They came into camp wanting to work on their weakest pitch, and it appears that that pitch is still pretty weak. I think that it's more important for Hughes and Burnett than for Robertson and Chamberlain, since the latter two are relievers and have more condensed repertoires to work with.

Gameday PITCHf/x data is from MLB Advanced Media; it can be easily accessed via this tool.

More location graphs from yesterday's game: D-Railed Train

The tone for yesterday's sloppy Yankees/Diamondbacks game was set by Arizona starter Dontrelle Willis. Willis was absolutely terrible, and only allowed one hit. Needless to say, he had control issues. He allowed 7 walks and threw a wild pitch in 2 1/3 innings. After struggling mightily out of the gate, Willis got into a groove in the second before losing it again in the third. Here are Willis' pitch locations by inning:

Lots of misses down (particularly in the 1st) and up/armside (particularly in the 3rd). It was painful to see him struggle out there, and it's very sad to see someone who's still young have such a lapse in ability. I really hope he can somehow pull himself together.

Gameday PITCHf/x data is from MLB Advanced Media; it can be easily accessed via this tool.

Rivera's clutch performance

Yesterday's Yankees/Diamondbacks game was one of the better games I've seen all year. That actually seems like a strange assessment, given all of the horrible baserunning plays, walks that didn't come around to score, and other stuff (balks, wild pitches). Alright, maybe "better" isn't the greatest word here --- entertaining? Anyway, the last two innings were incredible. In the 9th inning, the Yankees erased a 5-4 deficit and tied the game without the benefit of a hit. In an interesting move, Joe Girardi pulled Joba Chamberlain, who had pitched well in the 8th inning, in favor of Mariano Rivera. I'd always prefer the closer not be wasted in an extra inning game (as opposed to waiting out a save situation and not pitching at all), but with the off-day today, I thought Girardi might consider squeezing another inning out of Chamberlain. Nonetheless, Rivera came in and pitched a perfect 9th --- his 7th consecutive perfect inning. After the Yankees scored a run on a Curtis Granderson homer and Rivera wound up having to hit, it was time for a second inning of relief. The relief perfect game was promptly broken up on a single, double, and an intentional walk to Miguel Montero. This set up Rivera's ridiculous Houdini act: weak pop-up, weaker pop-up, strikeout. The first at-bat was to Chris Young:

The best location to Young was the third pitch that was popped up. Two-seam fastball right on the inside corner. Up next was the lefty-swinging, Yankee-killing Adam LaRoche:

More jamming on the inside corner, this time with the cutter on a lefty batter. More ridiculous command. Finally, it was time for right-handed hitting Mark Reynolds:

Away, away, away. And that's all she wrote.

This is obviously just one game, but it's a microcosm of what makes Mariano Rivera so special.

Gameday PITCHf/x data is from MLB Advanced Media; it can be easily accessed via this tool.