tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23735245.post2834039225146000024..comments2024-02-23T20:49:09.057-08:00Comments on obsessivegiantscompulsive: One is the Loneliest Numberobsessivegiantscompulsivehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11362706004246875823noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23735245.post-15806805961511059382008-05-27T18:30:00.000-07:002008-05-27T18:30:00.000-07:00>> And where exactly did I get into the meaningful...>> And where exactly did I get into the meaningfulness of 4 starts? I mean, other than noting that this was his first DOM start?<BR/><BR/>Well, you said he's been "very good" since his break from the rotation, which if you aren't putting some stock into his last 4 starts, why would you say such a thing? Where did you draw that conclusion? Certainly from those 4 starts, or am I wrong?<BR/><BR/>I haven't read Tango's study, but isn't part of stereotypical "crafty lefty" having good control? Glavine is "crafty lefty" but he's had brilliant control through his career. Jamie Moyer would fit into that same category but with superb control.<BR/><BR/>Zito doesn't have that control. <BR/><BR/>>> But since you want to bring meaningfulness into discussion, I will just quote you the same regarding his first 6 horrible starts. I could do the same and one up you, I can take the best pitcher in the history of major league baseball and find 6 starts were he stunk it up, as well as the worse pitcher ever and find 6 starts where he did well. Heck, I can get into pitchers who have thrown no-hitters but had middling careers, if you want to get esoteric.<BR/><BR/>Sure, you could do that. But after '07 it's clear that Zito is losing something as a pitcher. So, I'm not shocked to see him have 6 bad starts to begin this year.<BR/><BR/><BR/>>> Hyperbole aside, Zito has made a good living previously when he was an A's player walking too many guys.<BR/><BR/>Yes, and he was also striking out hitters occasionally, too. Which helps. I understand that part of his value comes from keeping his BABIP low. <BR/><BR/>His K% has been down trending and I would not be surprised to see his BABIP also go up as a loss of his velocity, worsening of control, and potential loss of pitch quality.<BR/><BR/>>> Now, will he continue to do so? If he is throwing right, it appears that he would be able to, his BABIP in 2007, which was a poor year for him, found his BABIP still superlative at .265.<BR/><BR/>That's the ten dollar question. <BR/><BR/>>> but all I really was saying before was that he wasn't pitching well before, ain't it nice he's pitching well now.<BR/><BR/>And that's what I'm saying, I don't see much change in his underlying stats, besides him striking out a few hitters which obviously helps. <BR/><BR/>Zito will not be successful while walking 13% of batters per PA. You can talk about his control in his Oakland days, but that's nearly 3%+ percent over his BB% during that time period.<BR/><BR/>Trust me, I hope and hope that Zito will pull it together, but I'm not seeing it, personally, yet. We'll just have to keep watching his starts to see where he goes.<BR/><BR/>I admire the optimism, as always.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23735245.post-78035457649573079652008-05-27T15:57:00.000-07:002008-05-27T15:57:00.000-07:00And where exactly did I get into the meaningfulnes...And where exactly did I get into the meaningfulness of 4 starts? I mean, other than noting that this was his first DOM start?<BR/><BR/>All I noted was that he has been better since his break, no more, no less.<BR/><BR/>But since you want to bring meaningfulness into discussion, I will just quote you the same regarding his first 6 horrible starts. I could do the same and one up you, I can take the best pitcher in the history of major league baseball and find 6 starts were he stunk it up, as well as the worse pitcher ever and find 6 starts where he did well. Heck, I can get into pitchers who have thrown no-hitters but had middling careers, if you want to get esoteric.<BR/><BR/>Hyperbole aside, Zito has made a good living previously when he was an A's player walking too many guys. Research has shown that there are numerous pitchers (in fact, a whole category called "Crafty Lefties") in the history of major league baseball who have survived high walk rates by achieving significantly below league average BABIP. Yes, Virginia there are pitchers with BABIP's under the .300 (or .290 depending on your favorite source but MLB in 2007 had a BABIP of .303).<BR/><BR/>Now, is Zito one of them? He apparently is. Tango Tiger of The Book fame studied how much data is necessary to be statistically significant that a pitcher can keep his BABIP below average and he came up with 7 seasons worth of data. Zito is in his 9th season, so it looks like he qualifies with a .267 career BABIP.<BR/><BR/>Now, will he continue to do so? If he is throwing right, it appears that he would be able to, his BABIP in 2007, which was a poor year for him, found his BABIP still superlative at .265.<BR/><BR/>However, this year, thus far, his BABIP has been on the high side, .331 overall, still a high .318 for his nice 4 start stint since the break. Following normal DIPS (really stats) theory, his BABIP should revert to career norms at some point this season (regression to the mean), which should mean that he pitches even better.<BR/><BR/>Now will he? Who knows, he has been too mercurial in performance, even when he was an A's property, for anyone to judge accurately. But assuming he straightens his mechanics out - and he has done it before, numerous times, and appears to finally be figuring something out - he will get his BABIP down to career norms again and his performance should still be better going forward than his horrible 6 start stint to start the season. <BR/><BR/>Still, that's a low bar to hurdle over, so not so meaningful to say, about as meaningful to say that a 4 game stretch of goodness is not meaningful.<BR/><BR/>What would be meaningful to say is that with a BB/9 rate of around 5.0 both pre and post break, he would be hard pressed to continue to pitch well with regards to ERA as long as he is walking so many. Last season, his BB/9 was 3.8, which was not far from his career 3.6 BB/9 and probably close to his second half of his career stats than his first half when he actually was a strikeout pitcher. I think right now we would take a 4.53 ERA (talk about lowered expectations), so he basically needs to drop 1 walk per game to bring him back to recent career standards.<BR/><BR/>And I just realized I mis-spoke: this was actually Zito's second DOM game, his first start after his break was a 4 DOM start, I just didn't notice it because he only pitched 5 innings, so I assumed it wasn't, but technically, it was.<BR/><BR/>So after a 6 game stretch where he had 4 DIS starts and 0 DOM starts, he now as a 4 game stretch where he has 0 DIS starts and 2 DOM starts, that certainly looks like a trend change there. Yes, you can go to any pitcher in the history of major league baseball and find something like this, but all I really was saying before was that he wasn't pitching well before, ain't it nice he's pitching well now.<BR/><BR/>Now that I've looked a little deeper, he's obviously worked out whatever flaw he had with his pitching earlier this season - you have to in order to go from so many DIS and zero DOM to so many DOM and zero DIS starts. Sure, his peripherals are not the greatest, particularly his BB/9, but he has boosted his K/9 to 6.4, which would be great if he can keep that up and at least is proof that he's implementing what he said he was going to do during the break, which is throw strikes. Those are the meaningful things I can draw out of 4 starts.obsessivegiantscompulsivehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11362706004246875823noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23735245.post-55999560650377303692008-05-27T10:21:00.000-07:002008-05-27T10:21:00.000-07:00Zito does have a nice ERA over his last 4 starts b...Zito does have a nice ERA over his last 4 starts but it's a sample size that's so small that it's meaningless. At least right now, if he continues to pitch better, then great.<BR/><BR/>In fact, you could take the worst pitcher ever in the history of major league baseball and find 4 starts where he pitched well. Same with a hitter, I can find you a 2-3 week stretch when Albert Pujols was miserable. <BR/><BR/>My fear is that while Zito is at least striking out hitters at a league rate during this 4-game stretch -- his K% is at 16.16% over the 4-game stretch, league average is 16% -- is that his BB% -- which in my opinion, is a major, major cause for his troubles -- is at a bloated 13.13%. That's awful and not a good sign for Zito, despite the 4-game ERA.<BR/><BR/>I thought it would be interesting to look at the quality of the teams that Zito faced during his last four starts by using EqA.<BR/><BR/>Pit - .255<BR/>Hou - .264<BR/>Chw - .255<BR/>Fla - .270<BR/><BR/>He faced an above average offense in Florida and Houston and two below average offenses in Pittsburgh and Chicago.<BR/><BR/>Overall, the 4-game stretch is nice but I'm still concerned with Zito's terrible command and control. I'll be watching his next start.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com