Why do we love no-hitters?

This isn't my idea and it's been brought to recent light by Brian Kenny.

https://twitter.com/MrBrianKenny/statuses/352416418056257536

Why fascination w/ no-hitter?Because in formative years of baseball, walks were considered a pitcher's responsibility, not a batter's skill

https://twitter.com/MrBrianKenny/statuses/352419081082773505

Yes, I'm saying it: No-hitters, hitting streaks - antiquated notions.  From a time where we are baseball values were misguided.

No-hitters are...?cool?...I enjoy them.  But what do they mean?
Nothing really

Lincecum pitched a no hitter yesterday, you may have heard.
9 innings, 0 hits, 0 runs, 4 walks, 1 hit batter, wild pitch, 13 K's, 148 pitches.

Though it'll be the game that goes down in history, I'm not sure it was the best game pitched yesterday.

Zack Greinke also pitched a pretty good game yesterday.
9 innings, 2 hits, 0 runs, 1 walk, 9 K's, 110 pitches.


Greinke allowed 2 less runners to reach base.  He needed 38 less pitches to retire 27 hitters than Lincecum did.  The two hits off Greinke were a loopy line drive to left-center and a bunt

Greinke allowed 20 balls in play.  14 of them were ground balls, 3 were classified as line drives, 1 was an infield fly ball.
Lincecum allowed 14 balls in play.  6 were ground balls, 6 were outfield fly balls, 2 were classified as line drives.


Lincecum pitched a great game.  Greinke probably pitched a bit better.


Lincecum's game will go down in history because Hunter Pence made this catch.


Johnny Vander Meer allowed 12 base runners in his back-to-back no-hitters.
Francisco Liriano walked 6 in his no-hitter
Joe Cowley gave up 6 walks and an earned run in a no-hit game.
AJ Burnett walked 9, hit a batter, threw a wild pitch and allowed 3 steals in his no-hitter.
Edwin Jackson also allowed 9 base runners, but none by hit.

There have been plenty of better pitched games than those above, but they aren't considered historic.

Contract Analysis: Anthony Rizzo

Anthony Rizzo flopped as a Padre in 2011.

He was good as a Cub in 2012.

He's been excellent as a Cub thus far in 2013.

Now he's a multi-millionaire 41 times over.

You probably know about Rizzo's and Jed Hoyer's history.  Hoyer drafted Rizzo when Hoyer with with the Red Sox.  Hoyer traded for Rizzo when Hoyer was with the Padres.  Hoyer traded for Rizzo again when Hoyer was with the Cubs.  Now, they look to united for the near future as Rizzo and Hoyer agreed on a 7 year-$41 million deal (it's more complex than that with a couple of option years and some bonuses.  $41 million is the minimum).

Is it a good deal?  Of course it's a good deal.  If it wasn't then one of the parties wouldn't have signed it.  But who was it good for?

Both parties, most likely.  It's hard to say that a 23 year old assuring himself $41 million is in any way getting a bad deal.  He's set himself up for the rest of his life.

But, how does this deal look in more businesslike terms?

As of right now, Rizzo is on a pace for about 3.5 WAR this season.   Some of that is due to a somewhat unforeseen hot start.  STEAMER and ZiPS projections (available on FanGraphs) project Rizzo for about 2.5 WAR over the rest of the season.  That's a 3.0 WAR pace for an entire season.  Let's say that's Rizzo's real, current, talent level.

Using the same assumptions that I've used with Buster Posey and Justin Verlander, to name just a couple (not that Justin and Buster are dating), what do I end up with for Rizzo?

YEAR      projWAR     SALARY     WARvalue
2013        3.0       $1.0       $15.0
2014        3.5       $3.0       $18.4
2015        4.0       $5.0       $22.1
2016        4.0       $5.0       $23.2
2017        4.5       $7.0       $27.3
2018        4.5       $7.0       $28.7
2019        4.0      $11.0       $26.8
2020        0.0       $2.0        $0.0
TOTAL      27.0      $41.0      $161.0

*NOTE: the $2 million in 2020 is a buyout if the options are declined.
*Cot's Contracts

I get Rizzo producing 27 WAR worth $161 million over the life of the contract and being paid $41 million.  Pretty fine deal for the Cubbies.

A few things are left out of this
First, The Cubs have all of the risk.  If Rizzo never gets another hit, the Cubs are paying him $41 million dollars.
Second, Rizzo wasn't even arbitration eligible yet.  This would have significantly depressed his salary the next few seasons.  Rizzo would have been eligible for arbitration after 2014.  If we use the standard 40/60/80 model (plus a year for super-two eligibility) then the chart looks something like:


YEAR      projWAR     SALARY     WARvalue
2013        3.0       $1.0         $.5
2014        3.5       $3.0        $1.0
2015        4.0       $5.0        $2.0
2016        4.0       $5.0       $13.9
2017        4.5       $7.0       $21.9
2018        4.5       $7.0       $25.8
2019        4.0      $11.0       $26.8
2020        0.0       $2.0        $0.0
TOTAL      27.0      $41.0       $91.9


The Cubs still come out WAY ahead.

The break-even point is a little under 2 WAR per year.  Rizzo would have to be something like 2007-2011 James Loney for the Cubs to come out on the wrong side of this deal.



Anthony Rizzo on FanGraphs

2012: Defensive Plays of the Year

9/27 Travis Snider goes Spiderman on Mike Baxter

9/15 Brendan Ryan throws out Andrus from his butt

9/12 Manny Machado fakes out the runner
9/12 Coco Crisp hates Chris Ianetta with the glove and the arm.

9/11/12 Joey Votto cuts of the throw, flips to Phillips
9/9/12 Austin Jackson robs a homerun
9/9/12 Jeff Francoeur throws out Ramirez at 3rd

9/8/12 Mike Trout takes a homerun away to end the game
9/5/12 Cameron Maybe uses his length to rob Kemp

7/24&8/29&31/12 Beltre barehands the bunt and again and again.



8/11/12 Mike Trout robs a homerun and throws for a double play

8/4/12 Mike Trout takes a homerun away
8/4/12 Mark Buehrle gloves the ball to 1st


6/27/12 Mike Trout takes a homerun away

6/12/12 Mike Trout goes deep

http://mlb.mlb.com/video/play.jsp?content_id=23771927
http://mlb.mlb.com/video/play.jsp?content_id=23634015
http://mlb.mlb.com/video/play.jsp?content_id=23631477
http://mlb.mlb.com/video/play.jsp?content_id=22840671

Roy Halladay: What's up? What's down?

Roy Halladay.

?One of? the best pitchers in baseball over the last decade.

Struggled with injuries last season.

Struggled through spring training.

Had one of the crazier stat lines you'll see in his first start of 2013.
3.3 innings, 6 hits, 5 earned runs, 2 home runs, 3 walks, 9 strike outs, 1 loss.

Doesn't look like he pitched well.  All those hits, all those runs, all those home runs, all those walks, all those...strike outs?

Halladay faced 19 hitters.  He struck out almost half of them.  That's typically a recipe for success.

What gives?

I don't pretend to know.

Batted Ball FIP says that Halladay should have given up 3.64 runs per 9 innings giving up those rates of walks, line drives, ground balls and fly balls while getting those strikeouts.


In the 2011 game, Halladay threw strikes on 63% of his pitches.
In today's game, Halladay threw strikes on 57% of his pitches.




Halladay's fastest pitch today was measured at 91.7 MPH and his average fastball was at 89.6 MPH.
On May 5th 2011, also at Turner Field (I used this game to avoid issues with camera angle, radar readings, etc), Halladay's fastest pitch was 94.3 MPH and his average fastball was 93.2 MPH.  Halladay had 46 pitches faster that day than his fastest pitch today.

Braves hitters swung and missed at 13 of 118 pitches in the 2011 game - 11%
Braves hitters swung and missed at 14 of 94 pitches in today's game - 15%

It's odd that a guy could lose that much velocity + get that many more whiffs + get hit around like that.  BABIP and HR/FB are flukey and this is just 1 game and all that jazz...

Another thing, not noticed by me but noticed by lots of people who know more about baseball than me is Hallday's arm slot.

*click to make bigger

The image on the left is from today's game.  The image on the right from the 2011 game.

Notice that the clump of pitches from 2011 is basically bisected by the 6' line.  Meaning that most of Halladay's pitches in 2011 left Halladay's hand about 6' above the ground.  Now, look at the pitches from today's game.  Notice that none of the pitches from today were released from 6' above the ground.

Look at those two clumps again.  The clump from 2011 mostly occur to the right of the -2 foot marker - they were released less than 2' to the right of the center line.  Now the pitches from 2011.  The -2 foot marker bisects the clump a lot more - more pitches were thrown from more than 2 feet from the center line.

Halladay's arm slot appears to be different.  It's lower.


Does this mean anything?

I still don't pretend to know.




Data from May 5 2011
Data from April 3 2013

Debut Review: Hyun-Jin Ryu

Hyun-Jin Ryu's first major league appearance was...

...interesting.


He went 6 and a third innings.  That's good.

He gave up 1 earned run.  That's good.

He didn't walk anybody.  That's good.

He struck out 5.  That's good.

He induced 11 groundballs and only 3 fly balls.  That's good.

He gave up 10 hits.  That's not so good.

He only had a single 1-2-3 inning.  That's not so good.

He gave up 2 unearned runs.  Not so good.



The overall numbers on Ryu might look ok:  0 - 1 with a 1.42 ERA, 7.1 K/9 and a infinite K/BB ration.  But we know he didn't pitch that well.  Using Tom Tango's Batted Ball FIP, Ryu would have been expected to give up 3.64 runs per 9 innings.  That's certainly doable.  That's mostly due to the high number of groundballs (11 of 20 batted balls, 55%).  6 line drives (30%) is pretty high.  That'll have to come down.  Too many Giant hitters were squaring him up.  If he keeps getting hit like that, he won't be successful.

Ryu faced 26 hitters and K'd 5 of them.  That's 19%.  The average NL starter (they get to face pitchers while AL pitchers face DH's) K'd 19.2% of the hitters they faced last season.  So Ryu is right about average in that (through 1 game).  The walk rate is great (through 1 game).

Ryu induced 9 swings and misses - 11% of Ryu's pitches induced a swing and miss. Major league average last year was 9%.  Again, Ryu looks about average with his stuff.

Ryu threw 80 pitches.  55 were strikes.  That's a 69% rate.  All major league starters through strikes 63% of the time last season.  Ryu threw a good number of strikes, not a great number.  Not a number that would make one think that Ryu would go the entire season without walking a batter.

According to Brooks Baseball, Ryu threw:
43 4-seam fastballs.  They averaged 89.2 MPH with the fastest coming in at 92.3 MPH
7 2-seam fastaballs.  They averaged 89.5 MPH with the fastest coming in at 91.4 MPH
23 changeups.  They averaged 80.8 MPH.  That's about an 8 MPH difference from his fastball.
7 curveballs.  They averaged 69.9 MPH.

The changeup was tabbed as Ryu's best pitch.  He threw it 23 times and Giant hitters swung and missed 4 times (18%).

Felix Hernandez also has a pretty good changeup.  Hitters have swung on and missed Felix's changeup about 20.5% of the time in his career.

So Ryu's not Felix Hernandez.  I don't think anyone expected that.

Ryu looked like an average to slightly above pitcher with his command and ability to generate swings and misses.  If he can continue getting ground balls that translates into a pretty good pitcher.

If he keeps giving up line drives it's going to be a rough season.

Clayton Kershaw had a good game: 4/1/2013

Clayton Kershaw had a good game.

You can never say that one player "singlehandedly beat" another team.  But...

Kershaw: 9 IP, 4 hits, 0 ER, 0 walks, 7 K's.

and this

A go-ahead solo homerun.


Kershaw had .753 points of WPA today.  His contributions produced about 75% of a win.

How good is that?
If he did that every start this season he'd produce about 25 wins for the Dodgers.

How good is that?
Last season, in the whole season, 247 players produced more than .753 WPA.  Kershaw did it in 9 innings.

2013 Free Agent Team: Contracts

Opening Day.  Time to look to the future.  Major league teams are engaging in a marathon struggle.  7 months, 162 regular season games.


Instead of looking forward at that, I'm going to look back.

In November, the 7th of, I game myself an imaginary $100 million with which to imaginarily lure 25 players to play for my imaginary baseball team in the real year of 2013.

Here's the post and the team that I picked.



Now, the season is upon us.  Al(most all)l of the contracts have been signed and the players are taking the field.  In a over half of a year I'll be able to look back and see how my imaginary team fared.  Before that, though, I should see how well I did at signing players.

Here's a list of the players I wanted to sign along with what I thought they'd sign for.

I don't think I did too bad.  I offered a total of 25 contracts for a total of $98.7 million.  23 of those players actually signed, and for a total of $87.3 million.  A few players I wanted to sign did not sign.  I offered $6 million to Roy Oswalt  and minor league contracts to Kevin Millwood, Jamey Moyer and Dana Eveland.  Millwood retired and nobody else bit on Oswaly, Moyer or Eveland.  If they had signed for what I had offered my total contracts would have to $94 million.  Very close to the $98 million I projected.

My biggest misses were:
Eric Chavez.  I offered 2 years and $10 million.  Chavez signed for 1 year and $3 million.  Pretty big overpay on my part.
My 1 year $6 million offer to Melky Cabrera wouldn't have gotten him.  He took 2 years and $16 from the Blue Jays.
I broke the bank for Nick Swisher at 6 years and $102 million.  He signed for about half of that.  4 years and $56 million.
My 2 year $12 million offer to Jeremy Guthrie was a bit shy.  He took 3 years and $25 million from the Royals.

All-in-all, though, I think I did a good job predicting the contracts and didn't make a fool of myself over or under bidding for players.

Now I just have to wait and see how they perform.