Player Profile: Doug Fister

For four months in 2011 Doug Fister was who we thought he was. Then, mysteriously, he was dealt to the Tigers and somehow he channeled his inner Greg Maddux. What pitcher should we be expecting in 2012 – the solid innings eater or the historically elite control artist we saw in Motown?

This 6’8”, lanky right-hander (he weighs 210 lbs) was a moderate option on the hill for his two and a half year run with the Mariners. Sure he posted a solid 3.81 ERA and 1.24 WHIP over his 378 innings, but he also went 12-30, allowed more hits than innings pitched (389) and struck out just 5.2 batters per nine innings (remember, the major league average is about seven per nine). So, how did this league average arm, over 60 games mind you (59 starts), suddenly morph into an elite hurler with the Tigers?

I don’t put much stock in W-L records, you all know that by now, but Fister did go 8-1 in his 11 games with the Tigers. Brushing that aside, what about his performance on the hill? Fister posted a 1.79 ERA and 0.84 WHIP for the Tigers. Uh, yeah, not sustainable, but you already knew that. Even the most optimistic of prognosticators would probably say that a 2.83 ERA and 1.03 WHIP are wildly out of control expectations for Fister, and those numbers are his year long totals from 2011. Hopefully you come to BaseballGuys regularly and I don’t have to say anything more than this – there is no way that Fister remotely approaches those ratios in 2012, it just isn’t going to happen.

So how did Fister have all that success with the Tigers?

First off, the competition wasn’t exactly elite. In his 11 appearances with the Tigers he faced the Orioles once, the Rays once, the Athletics once and the Indians four times. Those teams weren’t exactly offensive powerhouses.

Second, Fister didn’t allow many long balls dropping his already impressive career HR/9 rate of 0.7 down to 0.5. Fister generates a good deal of ground balls, 46.5 percent for his career, but he’s also been aided in keeping the ball in the yard by favorable home pitching environments (don’t forget that the porous infield defense the team figures to run out there this season could also hurt Fister). Last season Comerica Park was completely neutral in terms of the long ball with a Park Indices mark of 100 (the number 100 signifies that the park was exactly neutral not favoring either the hitter or the pitcher) which doesn’t explain why he was so fortunate in the HR/9 column. A regression is coming perhaps?

Third, Fister pushed his poor 5.5 K/9 mark with the Mariners, which was an exact match for his career rate, up to 7.3 with the Tigers. It’s pretty darn rare that any hurler is able to add two batters to his K/9 mark, especially when we have nearly 400 innings at the lower rate. I’m not saying that Fister won’t be able to hold on to  some of that in 2012, but the smart money would certainly be on that mark dipping back down into the six’s if not the five’s.

Fourth, and this is the most remarkable part of his 2011 work, he simply didn’t walk anyone with the Tigers. A career 1.9 BB/9 arm with the Mariners – an excellent mark given that the big league average is about 3.1 – Fister dropped that mark to 0.6 per nine as he walked a total of five batters in 70.1 innings. Remember when I mentioned Greg Maddux earlier? Widely regarded as one of the best pitchers of all-time (mostly for his pinpoint control), Maddux had a 1.8 BB/9 mark for his career an only once did he ever post a BB/9 mark under 1.0 (it was 0.8 in 1997). Simply put, Fister has as much chance of repeating that number over a full season as I do of convincing you all that I know exactly how many base hits that Brandon Inge will rack up this year.

Fifth, I’m all about K/BB ratios and how important they are (see my recent work on SWIP), but come on now. Fister’s 11.40 mark was, get this, four times greater than his career mark of 2.76. Speaking of SWIP, even with all of Fister’s success at keeping the free passes completely removed from his game, his SWIP mark of 0.50 was barely better than the league average of 0.45.

The bottom line with Fister is this. He was out of his mind locked in the final two months of 2011. He has no chance to produce at that level over 30 starts in 2012. None. Could he match his season long totals from last season? It’s certainly possible. Still, a 6.07 K/9 mark is nothing to get excited about in the fantasy game (his 2011 season long total). Second, his xFIP says he was a 3.61 ERA arm last season, not the 2.83 mark his raw ERA suggested. Third, his BABIP was down .030 points from 2010 despite the fact that he gave up more line drives than at any point in his three year career (the 20.4 line drive was a bit above the big league average of 19-20 percent while his BABIP was below the big league average of about .300). Those two factors don’t point to him holding batters to a .237 batting average yet again (don’t forget that Fister could also be handicapped by what figures to be a less than average group of defenders in the infield).

Fister is a solid reserve round add but he unlikely to match the overall totals he posted last season with no chance at all of continuing the elite level production he offered as a Tiger in 2011.

By Ray Flowers

Maddux or Halladay?

There’s been some back and forth about whether or not, at their peak, that Roy Halladay or Greg Maddux was the better pitcher. I came down on the side of Maddux, while most others seemed to favor Halladay. Here are a few thoughts about their peak value, as well as their career long exploits.

Maddux: 8 All-Star Games, 4 Cy Young Awards (1992-95), 18 Gold Gloves
Halladay: 8 All-Star Games, 2 Cy Young Awards (2003, 2010), 0 Gold Gloves

Maddux: Top-5 in ERA 10 times, Top-5 in WHIP 10 times
Halladay: Top-5 in ERA 7 times, Top-5 in WHIP 6 times

Maddux: Top-5 in IP 11 times, Top-5 in WAR 11 times
Halladay: Top-5 in IP 8 times, 6 times

Who had the best four year span of pitching? Come on now.

Maddux (1992-95): 75-29, 1.98 ERA, 0.95 WHIP, 6.97 K/9, 4.16 K/BB, ERA+ 200
Not only did Maddux win 4-straight Cy Young awards, he posted a 4-year ERA under 2.00. Oh, and that ERA+ mark points out that his ERA was, literally, 100 percent better than the league average (If you had a 3.00 ERA, and the league ERA was 3.00 it would be 3.00/3.00 = 1.00). His ERA was 1.98 while the leagues mark was 3.96.

Halladay (2006-10): 90-43, 2.96 ERA, 1.11 WHIP, 6.89 K/9, 4.86 K/BB, ERA+148
Halladay won 15 more games, but he also lost 14 more. His ERA was nearly a full run higher, and in a surprise to most I would bet, Maddux produced a better K/9 mark in our four year comparison.

Maddux was a more durable pitcher. Think about this. As great as Halladay is, for all those innings he eats up, he hasn’t even tossed half as many innings as Maddux did in his career and he’s already 34 years old (2,482 innings compared to 5008.1). How many more elite seasons does Doc have left in his body?

I just can’t see how anyone could side with Halladay here.

ODDS AND ENDS

J.J. Hardy continues to impress. Since June 1st he has 21 homers, tied with Albert Pujols for the major league lead. Stick that in your pipe and smoke it. On the the year his 23 homers are 13 more than Orioles’ shortstops hit the last three years. Wow. He also leads AL shortstops with a .988 fielding percentage.

Zack Greinke might be 3-4 with a 5.01 ERA and 1.33 WHIP on the road, but in 10 starts at home with the Brewers he has gone 8-0 with a 3.36 ERA an a 1.03 WHIP. Toss in a stupendous 11.89 K/9 mark and 9.44 K/BB ratio and you can make an argument that he has been the best “home” pitcher in baseball this year.

Casper Wells has only 250 big league at-bats, but he’s hit .296 with 13 homers, 41 RBI and 39 runs scored in that time. Dealt to the Mariners from the Tigers in the Doug Fister deal, Wells has taken off hitting .341 with five homers, 12 RBI, two steals an a 1.102 OPS in just 12 games. For those of you looking for a waiver-wire boost there aren’t likely to be many options performing better right now.

Finally, don’t forget to sign up for this weeks fantasy baseball contest that will be held on Friday. You can sign up to play me in the one day contest, it’s FREE, and you can win real money. For more see Win $100 FREE Taking on BBGuys.

By Ray Flowers

Pitching on Trial

The mighty has fallen. It may not be as depressing as the fact that the house you bought for $300,000 dollars two years ago might sell for $225,000 today, but in fantasy circles the loss was just as severe. Stephen Strasburg suffered a substantially torn ulnar collateral ligament, and what that means is that there is an exceedingly high probability that he will undergo Tommy John surgery. I already wrote about the ramifications of this situation in Five Questions: Is Strasburg Finished?, but I wanted to expand on something I only briefly mentioned in that piece – and that is the way that organizations baby their pitchers. Is there any benefit to this recent practice?

It has become a comical situation really. Teams are so worried about protecting their investments that they treat them as if they were made out of paper mache. In fact, the level of injury in today’s pitcher seems to be much higher than it was in years past despite the advent of advanced physical training and medical proficiency. How is it that guys who are bigger, stronger, more reliably trained, and more closely watched than ever before break down more quickly than at any point in the past? I just don’t get it.

In the case of the Nationals, the team counted everything Strasburg did with the attention of an auditor from the government who is trying to extract every penny from your wallet. They never let him toss more than 99 pitches in a big league game, and only twice was he allowed to log even seven innings in an outing. A lot of good that all that monitoring did for Mr. Strasburg.

At the other end of the spectrum we have his teammate, Livan Hernandez, who has never missed a buffet in his life – yet he continues to roll on basically injury free. Listed as 35 years old, he might actually be 40 for all we know, Livan continues to rack up innings year after year, and he’s now 11 innings from 13th straight season of at least 180-innings. Is Livan simply gifted with a “rubber” arm? Was he genetically predisposed to never have a serious arm problem? Has he avoided injury because his career average for a fastball is a mere 85 mph? I mean after all, Strasburg’s average change-up this season was 89.7 mph.

I have no idea what the answers are to these questions. All I know is that time after time we are smacked in the face by the fact that even though we think we have it figured out, we actually have no clue.

Strasburg had his innings pitched totals limited – almost obnoxiously so. Strasburg had hid pitch total managed fastidiously as well. Yet here we are with a torn tendon and the inevitable surgery.

Perhaps the truth is that human beings simply aren’t meant to throw a baseball over an over again at such speeds. There were hurlers in the past who could rush it up there in the high 90′s, guys like Walter Johnson, Bob Feller, Nolan Ryan and J.R. Richard obviously come to mind, but there is no disputing the fact that today there are more pitchers than ever capable of tossing the old ball at speeds in excess of 95 mph. As training methods have improved, pitchers are able to get more out of their body than ever before, but perhaps we’ve gotten to the point that we have taxed the human body so excessively that sooner or later, like a taught rubber band, there will be an inevitable snap back.

If you ask me here is the simply truth – each man has a certain amount of bullets in his gun. It doesn’t matter if he stands 5’11″ or 6’6″, it doesn’t matter if he weighs 165 or 250 lbs, and it doesn’t matter if he throws 87 or 97 mph. Sooner or later everyone’s arm goes, and for every Greg Maddux and Tom Glavine we have a Francisco Liriano, Stephen Strasburg, Chris Carpenter, Brian Wilson, Joakim Soria etcetera, etcetera. The real issue here isn’t training methods or velocity as much as it should be a realization that sooner or later all pitchers have to pay the price for the fame and fortune they attain.

By Ray Flowers

What is His Legacy?

I was recently asked by a friend what I thought of Pedro Martinez. Why did his career end so abruptly? Did I think he had a chance to be an effective pitcher this season if he signed with someone? And finally, what is his place amongst the greats of the game? Here are my thoughts on each matter.

(1) Why has his career basically ended so abruptly?
I actually don’t think it ended abruptly at all. Basically what has happened is that guys like Randy Johnson and John Smoltz have spoiled us into thinking that every top-flight pitcher can pitch effectively into their 40′s. The truth is, they cannot. Pedro might have “lost it” compared to the two guys we just mentioned, but he won 15 games with a 2.82 ERA as a 33 year old, and that certainly isn’t a bad effort at all. Pedro then started to suffer from shoulder issues, hardly a surprise for a guy who stands 5’11″ and weighs about 175 lbs and threw a 95 mph fastball for years. The fact of the matter is that his body just wore out, a rather normal occurrence for a man who has tossed nearly 2,800-innings in his big league career.

(2) Can he be effective this season?
I don’t see why he couldn’t be a better hurler than a ton of arms currently employed by major league clubs, even at age 37, as long as he is healthy. Certainly he won’t be able to recapture his past glory, but I don’t see why he couldn’t be an effective reliever, that is if his body could stand the transformation from throwing every five days as a starter. Pedro was always a “pitcher” who threw hard and not a hard thrower who tried to pitch. He might not be able to hit even 90 on the gun anymore, but I bet he could still pitch his way to some outs.

(3) What is his legacy?
This was the portion of the question that had me most intrigued. Let’s take a look at Pedro in a handful of categories and see how he stacks up against the all-time greats.

Wins and Loses
Pedro has 214 victories, tied for 86th all-time. Given that he has lost only 99 games, that leaves him with a superlative .684 winning percentage which just so happens to be the seventh best mark in baseball history. If remove pre-1900 hurlers he moves up to fourth on the all-time list. He may not have the volume of wins that others have, but it’s obvious that he was nearly as effective as any man who ever climbed the hill.

ERA
Pedro’s overall ERA of 2.91 is the 61st best mark in the history of baseball for a man who has tossed at least 2,000-innings. While that is impressive, it certainly doesn’t speak to just how dominating that Pedro was in his career. I touched on an idea called “normalization” in an earlier piece entitled Some People Never Learn. You can read more about the idea there, but the basic idea is this – raw numbers mean nothing until they are placed in context. When Pedro pitched there was a ton more offense in the game then when Cy Young was on the hill, so comparing their raw ERA’s to one another wouldn’t really tell you much of anything. The only way to know how effective a player is would be to compare him to his contemporaries who played the game under the same conditions that he did. To that end – Pedro has posted a 2.91 ERA in his career. When we adjust for his competition by comparing his ERA to the league average during his career (4.45), and adjust for the parks he pitched in, we come up with an ERA+ of 154. What this means is that Pedro was 54% better than a league average pitcher during his career which just so happens to be the best mark in baseball history amongst starting pitchers. Cy Young who had a raw ERA of 2.63 in his career comes in with an ERA+ mark of 138, good enough for 18th all-time.

WHIP
Since he began his career in 1992 Pedro is the only pitcher in baseball who has thrown at least 1,500-innings who allowed less than 10 base runners per nine innings at 9.90 (Greg Maddux is second at 10.08). Moreover, Pedro’s raw WHIP of 1.05 is the third best mark of any hurler, post-1900, who has thrown at least 1,250-innings in the history of the game.

Strikeouts
Pedro is tied with Bob Gibson for 13th all-time in strikeouts with 3,117 in his career (Smoltz is 101 behind). If we move to the ratio category of K/9, Pedro’s career mark of 10.08 is the second best in baseball history for hurlers who have tossed 1,500-innings trailing only the 10.62 mark of the Big Unit, Randy Johnson.

I don’t know if Pedro will come back this season, but I can tell you this without reservation – you may not know it, heck you may not want to admit it, but I think a plausible argument can be made that Pedro Martinez was one of the 10 greatest starting pitchers who ever lived, period. Care to disagree?

By Ray Flowers