Player Profile: Wandy Rodriguez

Wandy Rodriguez is one of the better left-handed starting pitchers in the National League, even if that’s sometimes difficult to discern given that he plays for a team that is fairly inept in Houston. As a result of a lack of offensive support, Wandy has gone 22-23 the past two season causing people to often overlook his work on the hill. Due $10 in 2012, $13 million in 2013 and $13 million in 2014 (there is a $2.5 million buyout for ’14), the Astros may look to move Wandy this offseason (the Rockies are known to be very interested). What type of pitcher will Wandy be for whichever team he ends up pitching for in 2012? A very solid one if you ask me.

Wandy isn’t exactly the pitcher you think of when you talk about durability, but it should be noted that he has thrown 190 or more innings each of the past three years. There are only six other lefties in baseball in that club and that supports the contention that Rodriguez is one of the better lefties in the game if we can show that his performance has been impressive.

Rodriguez isn’t a massive strikeout arm in the mold of other Astros’ arms like J.R. Richard, Nolan Ryan and Mike Scott, but Wandy does own a 7.68 K/9 mark in his career, and in three of the past four season that K/9 mark of his has been better than 8.20. Moreover, when you combine the Ks and the innings you end up with a hurler who has struck out at least 165 batters in each of the past three years. There are only five other lefties in that club of 165 K men the last three years.

Unfortauntely, Wandy has seen his walk total increase the last couple of years as he walked a then career worst 68 in 2010 followed up by issuing 69 last year. After seeing his BB/9 dip below 2.90 in 2008-09, it’s disappointing to see that it has crept back up anove 3.10 the last two seasons. Still, he’s right about the league average here so it’s not awful. The result is a K/BB mark of at least 2.41 in each of the past five years, thought again, the mark has dipped to solid the last two years after being strong in 2008-09.

In terms of batted balls, Wandy has done a better job the past couple of years at generating grounders. In fact, he’s a pretty decent ground ball artist who has posted a GB-rate of 44.9 percent or better the past three years. The result has been a solid GB/FB ratio of 1.21 or better in each of those years culminating in a 1.49 mark in 2010. He’s also posted exactly the same number in the line drive category the past two years at 20.0 percent, right about identical to the big league average. He’s also about big league average when it comes to his HR/F ratio. However, there’s room for improvement here as his 13.0 percent mark last season was a six year high, and coming on the heels of 3-straight seasons below 10 percent some regression in 2012 would seem like a fair bet to place.

So in Rordiguez we have a fairly durable arm that posts strong strikeout totals and keeps the walks in check. He’s also better than average at inducing grounders which also help him to remain fairly consistent – not necessarily from start to start, but from season to season. Check out his numbers the past four years.

ERA: 3.54, 3.02, 3.60, 3.49
WHIP: 1.31, 1.24, 1.29, 1.31

Wandy isn’t likely to challenge for the Cy Young Award, and he’s not exactly a fantasy ace, but he is a solid, dependable arm that should be prized in mixed leagues in 2012.

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

For the Record Books

Ubaldo Jimenez finally had a hiccup last night, and whether it was because of the flu or just the regression gods coming to the fore, the bottom line is that for the first time this season he allowed more than three runs in a game (six earned runs in 5.2 innings) to cause his ERA to skyrocket from 1.15 to 1.60. Ubaldo deserves all the accolades he is receiving this year, but I thought I would bring up a comparison that I’m fairly certain no one has ever made anywhere, so consider yourself pretty special if you are reading this (I think of myself as “special” all the time, though I might be the only one who shares that sentiment other than my mommy). Let me compare Ubaldo’s work this season with a mystery pitcher to show you just how good Pitcher X has been.

Ubaldo: 1.60 ERA, 1.04 WHIP, 7.99 K/9, 2.64 K/BB, .202 BAA in 107 IP
Pitcher X: 2.73 ERA, 1.00 WHIP, 11.25 K/9, 4.00 K/BB, .191 BAA in 112 IP

Who is this marvelous Pitcher X? It’s Luke Gregerson of the Padres. We are obviously talking about Gregerson’s totals since the start of the 2009 season, but isn’t it pretty amazing that he has been so dominating in his time in the Pads pen? Not to continue to belittle Ubaldo in any way by comparing him to hurlers who have actually been at least his equal, but here is Ubaldo in another comparison.

Ubaldo: 1.60 ERA, 1.04 WHIP, 7.99 K/9, 2.64 K/BB, .202 BAA in 107 IP
Pitcher Y: 1.80 ERA, 0.98 WHIP, 8.82 K/9, 3.77 K/BB, .201 BAA in 100 IP

Pitcher Y is the Marlins’ Josh Johnson. In case you missed it, and many have with all the press floated to Ubaldo this year, Johnson has done something that only two other men in the history of the game in the modern ERA have accomplished – he has tossed 8-straight games of at least six innings pitched with one or zero earned run allowed. The others to accomplish the feat are J.R. Richard who did it eight times in 1979 and Bob Gibson did it 11 times in his magical 1968 season. Take that Ubaldo.

It has nothing to do with baseball, but did you get a load of that match at Wimbledon that finally ended with John Isner defeating Nicloas Mahut 70 games to 68 in the fifth set? The match took 11 hours and five minutes, and the fifth set alone broke the all-time record for the longest match ever played. I haven’t had that much fun watching or playing tennis since I used to play home run derby at my local court with my friends. I was quite the power hitter by the way pounding balls into the pool. I never understood why that the court wasn’t a foot longer since every groundstroke I put any pace on always seems to go eight inches long.

How good is Stephen Strasburg? I spoke to his dominance yesterday in Around the Horn, June 23rd, but here is something I didn’t mention in that video – his total of 41 Ks in his first four starts breaks the previous four start record to start a career of Herb Score who struck out 40 batters in his first four starts back in 1955.

I’m going to central park tonight where I live to listen to some live salsa music. Think I should bust out my dance moves. You’re right, I’ll probably just drink some Sangria instead.

Entering play on Thursday, do you know who was first at the catcher’s position in homers (12) and RBI (38)? If you guessed this one you spend way too much time staring at box scores (don’t worry, I doubt you do it more than I do which tells you all you need to know about my exciting life). No, it’s not Victor Martinez (9 HR, 37 RBI) or Brian McCann (8 HR, 30 RBI), and you certainly know its not Joe Mauer since he has only gone deep three times in 236 at-bats. Nope, the answer is none other than John Buck of the Blue Jays. Don’t forget to pick up your jaw off the floor.

By Ray Flowers