Part I of this series showed us that the first five pitches Pirates’ starters threw were being hammered pretty good and, more specifically, pitches one, three, and four seem to sink our ship more often than any others.  We also learned that the combined number of runs allowed over league average in the 1st, 4th, and 6th innings theoretically amounted to ten losses last year.

So obviously our pitchers are getting hammered some where, some how.  A trip to Baseball Reference’s wonderful website shows us opposing batter’s ball in play (BiP) production stats on any given count (look at the section called Count/Balls-Strikes), but it doesn’t tell us what the pitch type was the batter put in play, nor does it tell us what the pitch sequence was that got the batter there.  That’s where Part II of this series begins… trying to identify where our biggest holes are.

Let’s start by taking a look at the percentage of pitches put in play against our pitching by opposing batters in the first five innings of every game PITCHf/x data is available for in 2008, and then compare those to league average.  By league average I mean the average of all thirty clubs combined under the same condition(s).

For instance, the Pirates saw 16.6% of all first pitches thrown put in play (0-0 count) where the league average was 15.9%.  So, the Pirates had a 0.7% higher BiP rate on first pitches thrown.  Now, as you glance down the chart a couple of other facts cry out to be noticed:

– more pitches were put in play against Pirates’ pitching on what are known as hitter’s counts (2-0, 2-1, 3-0, and 3-1); and

– fewer pitches were put in play on pitcher’s counts (0-2, 1-2, and 2-2).

That’s an important start because every batter is taught from little league up to look for a fastball on a hitter’s count and, conversely, a breaking ball on a pitcher’s count.  Now the question becomes, were we even hurt by the higher BiP rate on hitter’s counts?  Since we’re interested in innings 1 and 4, let’s back up and use just the first four innings of data and see:

Hurt?  Sure, a tummy ache.  However, we weren’t mauled as you might have expected.  But notice the 53 additional batters faced and combine that with the knowledge above that more batters put these in play than league average.  So how did we fare on pitcher’s counts? 

Even better, with only 30 additional BiP, although our OPS allowed seems to be starting to inch up.  Surprised?  I know I was.  Clearly the main answer to our exceedingly high run allowance has to be in the rest of the counts which are sometimes called neutral counts (0-0, 1-0, 1-1, and 3-2).

Ouch.. now that’s what I call an old fashion whipping.  More than 100 extra total bases (TB) allowed despite about a 1% lower out conversion rate.  That’s getting mauled.  So we need to look at what pitches are being thrown in neutral counts (CH is change up, CU is curve, FA is fastball, and SL is slider):

Realize again that the above percentages are a comparison to MLB league average rates so, as an example, on a 0-0 neutral count in the first inning we are throwing 7% more fastballs than league average.  And look at the 6th as well - my that’s a lot of fastballs late.. you might want to remember that for the next part of this series.

What jumps out at me is the patterns in each count, as well as across the board.  For instance in 0-0 counts, a fastball/curve combination is served up in the first inning and then every other inning we drop the curves and throw in sliders.  Or in 1-0 counts we are fastball/curve dominant until the fifth inning then drift off to a change up.  The closer you look, the more obvious the patterns become.

And that’s what Part III of this series is going to explore – how our game management has been so predictable by each pitcher that Bozo the Clown could probably get a hit if he really wanted to.  Ok, just kidding, but you get the idea.

You have to go back quite a few years to find a Pittsburgh Pirates starting pitching group that ranked at the bottom of the National League in ERA like we saw in 2008.   But ranked dead last in ERA in the league is one thing – almost one run higher than league average is quite another. 

Performance that poor mandates change and general manager Neal Huntington pulled the first string when he forced rookie pitching coach Jeff Andrews to walk the plank and replaced him with a seasoned professional in Joe Kerrigan.  But is that enough?

If you look at the chart above you’ll see that the ERA for our starters has grown progressively worse six of the last seven years and, more importantly to this series, ballooned well above the league average club’s starting pitchers average the last three years.  Considering four of the Pirates five starting slots in 2008 were filled with players who had no less than three years experience in the  league, there must be a lot more wrong than just who the pitching coach is.

That is what this three-part series looks at, in part.

When a major league front office evaluates players for the amatuer draft, they consider five factors on each player in the pool before making their selections: tools, track records, projectability, makeup, and signability.  The players they select are then developed within their system and hopefully a few make it to the majors.  Those that do are then re-evaluated year-after-year on those same five factors.

When we look at those factors and our main starting pitchers, a few things jump out as obvious facts…

1.   None of them have Roger Clemens or Bob Gibson arms, thus they are all lacking in at least some ’tools’;

2.   None of them have a .500 or better win-loss record in the majors, thus lacking in a positive major league ‘track-record’;

3.   All of them have some potential or they wouldn’t be pitching in the majors, however their ‘projectability’ (that is, things like clean mechanics, command, pitchability, power arms, and good body size with athleticism) is about as far along as they will ever be at this point, although refinements over time are expected like adding/subtracting body weight, tweaking mechanics, gaining command experience, and the like;

4.  We’ll assume that all of them have plus ‘makeup’ or they wouldn’t be employed by the Pittsburgh Pirates.  But I want to distinguish here between off-field and on-field makeup because some players are great citizens away from the park but on the field they might lack the heart, or drive, it takes to take them to the next level; and

5.  All of our pitchers are affordable right now since they are under club control, so it would appear some fruits of the ’signability’ tree aren’t necessarily an issue.  But as I mentioned in 4 above, makeup has to be considered here because some might lack the drive to excel until they come to a point in their career they stand to benefit financially.

We can argue all day long about whether Gorzelanny reported to camp out of shape in 2008 because he was lazy, he had no drive because he was two years before a possible big money contract, or he was just plain stupid thinking his tools were good enough to survive on without preparing himself physically.  The same goes for Snell – does he refuse to pitch inside because he is timid and doesn’t want to hurt anyone, because he doesn’t want a batter to take his head off, or because he knows he can’t find the plate when he does?  And, did he just lay out in 2008 because he got his big money like Jack Wilson, Jason Bay, and Freddy Sanchez all seemed to do the year after they got their big paychecks?

I’m sure none of those answers are correct for Gozelanny and Snell but I wanted you to get a feel for my train of thought - our starters have shown quite a few problems over the years and adding Joe Kerrigan isn’t going to magically rid them of their issues.  Kerrigan can help them to succeed by preparing them better, but he can’t throw the ball or think for them, as the saying goes.

So as fans we have to understand our starters aren’t all that toolsy, don’t have a winning track-record, many of them were still having their mechanics tweaked last year (most in their third year in the majors), and some might have makeup questions, not to mention any potential defense, bullpen, and run scoring problems.   Therefore, is it then rational for the fans to expect these men to significantly improve on their average MLB productivity level?

Significantly?  No. 

Dramatically?  Yes.  How?  I’m about to show you one solid way.

For now I’m going to assume Joe Kerrigan has reviewed each pitcher’s winter plan and is actively involved in making sure they are being carried out.  Therefore, for ther rest of this series I’m going to assume every pitcher will report to camp healthy, conditioned, and with a fire in his heart to succeed.  More importantly, I’ll also assume they have bought into Kerrigan.

I asked an ex-MLB pitching coach who watched at least 50 Pirates games last year to name one area that stood out as one of the biggest problem for the starting rotation and he quickly said:

“Game management. Game Management. Game management.”

He wasn’t talking about John Russell’s in-game management of handling the pitchers, he was talking about the preparation and execution of a game plan by the pitcher, catcher, and pitching coach.  But before you start cursing Jeff Andrews, you should know that game management plans start in the front office with traditional batter/pitcher matchup reports, utilizes other input from sources like advance, third-party, and/or video scouting, input from the GM, and then the field staff finally get to tweak the plan based on their own experience.  Plus, the newer technology advances allows game management to be adjusted on the fly in-game.

So it’s not just the pitcher, catcher, and pitching coach that are involved in game management – it’s the entire organization and game management can only be as good as the entire organization’s desire to prepare and win.

That being said, let’s assume the Pirates are preparing with at least league average ability and have the tools at their disposal necessary to make proper adjustments in-game and game-to-game.  I suppose that would make for an excellant Q&A with Neal Huntington but those are questions he’s not likely to answer because they might provide a competitive advantage to other clubs.

Since we can’t evaluate the unknowns, I decided to focus this series on what I have preached in this blog as a game management problem for the last two years – we’re simply too predictable.  Specifically, in Part II of this series I’m going to outline just how predictable we are overall and in Part III breakdown each pitcher’s predictability and end result therefrom, and then make some suggestions.

To give you a taste where I’m heading, take a look at the following chart which shows runs allowed by inning through the first nine as compared to the average MLB team and the difference:

You can clearly see where the 2008 Pirates had their hardest time halting runs allowed – the first, fourth, and sixth innings, which represented 99 more runs allowed than the MLB league average team had.  Theoretically, that’s ten of our ninety-five losses right there. 

I’ll be discussing the 6th inning problems in another article after this series because they are unique.  Here I want to focus on the first and fourth inning woes which have been a continual problem for years.  To do that, I want to break down our starter’s production.

To get you started, here’s another chart which looks at the first five pitches thrown to batters over the year and shows any outcome from those pitches as compared to what the MLB league average starter saw:

(Note: the chart utilizes PITCHf/x data for the 2008 season which includes only 158 Pirates games and focuses on the first five innings of data for the Pirates and all MLB teams.)

First look across the out rates obtained on each pitch.  For instance, when the first pitch was put in play the Pirates obtained an out 62% of the time compared to the MLB league average club rate of 66.7%.  That’s nearly a five-percent decrease in outs produced, and that’s huge, huge, huge.  The effect of that can be seen in the resulting .964 OPS (SLG plus OBA). 

Back up and read that again – opposing batters had a .964 OPS when they put the first pitch in play against Pirates pitching in innings 1 – 5.  That’s .104 higher than league average.

The third pitch is a bit better with an .881 OPS but high on the slugging side, and the fourth pitch is about as bad as the first pitch with an .912 OPS.  The second and fifth pitches are nearly league average although slugging is high across the board, especially when you consider we play half our games in a purported pitching friendly park.

In Part II we’ll look at why the Pirates are getting mauled on the first, third, and fourth pitches.