Numbers Lie! (Or: He Can Hit .400!)
Outside of a three month stretch when I was 14 years old and was not following baseball at all and was listening to a lot of rap music, and was wearing Yankees hats because that’s what rappers wore, I have been a Red Sox fan all my life (a side note: I was working in a True Value hardware store at that time in the small town in which I grew up, eight miles north of Boston, and they somehow allowed me to wear my Yankees flat bills to work; I’m surprised I didn’t get fired on the spot, honestly – and if that had happened, I would absolutely have deserved it; and listen, I’m not one of those “Yankee Hater” Red Sox fans – I have immense amounts of respect for Jeter and Rivera, and I certainly appreciate the historical significance of the franchise – but come on, if you’re living right outside Boston and wearing a Yankees hat to work, even though you’re not following baseball at all, you deserve to get canned!).
That was all one sentence.
Okay. I’ve caught my breath now. Moving on…
A few years back, the Red Sox had a defensive wizard from Cuba whom they brought up from the minors. You may have heard of him. His name was (and still is) Jose Iglesias.
I absolutely loved Iglesias. I followed his progress through the minors (reading stories about how he was learning English by watching movies with the subtitles on, and keeping up with his development at the plate in his quest to not become the next Rey Ordonez – awesome with the glove, but impressively bad with the bat), and when he was promoted to the Majors, I was probably more excited than any other Red Sox fan.
During the beginning of his first full season in the Majors, Iglesias was batting over .400. Every time he stepped up to the plate, it was “must watch” baseball for me. Eventually, I started searching the Web to find what baseball writers were saying about him. Surely, he should be getting as much attention as Miguel Cabrera, right? Surely, he had as good of a shot that year as Miggy to bat .400, right? Surely, Iglesias should have been the talk of baseball.
But all I found, as I scoured the Web, was a few articles talking about Iglesias’ unsustainable BABIP (which, I discovered – upon looking it up – meant “batting average on balls in play”). This dumb, nerdy sabermetrics stat seemed to think Iggy’s .500 BABIP was unsustainable. Why? Just because the Major League average is around .300? Just because even guys who hit lots of line drives only see their BABIP run up to about .310? Okay, sure, but did the fellas writing these articles realize that Iggy had a lot of speed, and that he was notching plenty of infield singles because of this? Did they realize that he was just, generally, totally awesome, and that this meant their fancy “BABIP regression” talk meant nothing?
At that year’s trade deadline, the Red Sox shipped Iglesias off to the Tigers. By the end of the season, his batting average was down to .303. During his two months with the Tigers, he hit .259.
You know why? Because: BABIP.
Of course, all this was before I got into daily fantasy sports (and subsequently became one of those “nerdy sabermetrics fellas” myself). Now, I know better. Now, I could look at a guy batting .400 with no power and no other discernible “at the plate” talents that would make him a higher-than-normal BABIP guy, and I would feel comfortable predicting regression. But back then, the lenses through which I viewed baseball impaired me from seeing the sport as it actually is.
Another way to say that: My preconceived notions and my overall perception of the sport prevented me from recognizing the fundamental, statistical truths that absolutely govern the sport.
Yes, I know better now. But how much do I know better? How much are my judgments still clouded by what I perceive, or what I “know to be true” outside what the stats say? How often do I trust what I know, instead of trusting what the numbers say?
I would say I do a fairly good job in this area, honestly. But we all still have areas where our assumptions and the “things we know” get in the way of what the numbers tell us. And so, today, we are going to look at some of the things we “know to be true“…and the numbers that disagree.
Use these stats in your team-building this week. Realize that the numbers tell the truth far more than preconceived notions or perception ever can.
WHAT THE NUMBERS SAY
I’m going to start with my favorite stat of the season so far. Ready for this one? Let’s go!
Here are the numbers for two different lineups this year against right-handed pitching:
Team 1: 21.1% strikeout rate, 8.9% walk rate, .277 wOBA
Team 2: 20.2% strikeout rate, 6.9% walk rate, .272 wOBA
Clearly, these are two teams that are very strong targets to pick on with pitchers. Team 1 strikes out at a slightly higher rate; Team 2, however, walks less (which means they work our pitcher less), and they have a slightly lower wOBA. In trying to decide which of these teams would be better to pick on with pitchers, it’s pretty much a toss up.
Team 1 is the Rangers. Okay. No surprise there.
Team 2 is the Angels.
Of course, we can come up with all the reasons why we feel this is fluky, or why this will not remain the case, or why we should not really be going out of our way to upgrade pitchers against the Angels. And if you want to feel that way, be my guest! But that’s the second-lowest wOBA against right-handed pitching in all of baseball (ahead of only the Phillies). And that’s the 12th highest strikeout rate and seventh worst walk rate. Do you upgrade pitchers when they’re facing the Rangers? If so, you should be upgrading pitchers when they face the Angels as well.
This second statistical exploration deals with lineups again.
Team 1: In 271 at-bats against left-handed pitching, this team has a 16.6% strikeout rate, a 7.4% walk rate, and a wOBA of .319.
Team 2: In 926 at-bats against right-handed pitching, this team has a 20.8% strikeout rate, a 9% walk rate, and a .326 wOBA.
Of course, the sample size for Team 1 is smaller than the sample size for Team 2, but that will always be the case when talking about at team’s stats against left-handed pitching, and the sample size for Team 1 (over a month into the season now) is large enough that we can begin to rely on it.
Given the wOBA of these two teams, we obviously do not want to go out of our way to use pitchers against them. Especially given the low strikeout numbers of Team 1, however, we want to do our best to avoid them (low strikeouts and high wOBA, after all, is not good news for your pitchers!).
Team 1 is the Phillies. Would you have guessed that?
Team 2 is the Blue Jays.
You don’t go out of your way to target the Blue Jays with right-handed pitchers, do you?
Do you still go out of your way to upgrade a pitcher against the Phillies when that pitcher is a lefty?
In this next set of statistical explorations, I’m going to take a look at a handful of pitching pairs. See if you can spot which pitcher would be the better option if the two were in similar matchups.
Pitcher 1: 22.9% strikeout rate, 3.9% walk rate, 3.24 SIERA
Pitcher 2: 22.9% strikeout rate, 7.8% walk rate, 3.66 SIERA
Both are pretty good pitchers, right? Each of them are worth using in good matchups. But one of these guys is clearly superior to the other to this point in the season, right? No question about it.
That pitcher – the guy who is “clearly superior to the other”? Yeah – that would be Jason Hammel.
The pitcher he has been “clearly superior to” so far is Sonny Gray.
Another set of pitchers:
Pitcher 1: 20.7% strikeout rate, 8.7% walk rate, 3.94 SIERA
Pitcher 2: 19.7% strikeout rate, 6.1% walk rate, 4.11 SIERA
Pitcher 1 is slightly better. He has a slightly higher strikeout rate, and even though he walks more batters, he has a slightly better SIERA. But neither guy would be especially appealing to use on your rosters outside of an excellent matchup with a low price. And neither guy should make you scared to use hitters against them.
We’ll flip things around this time and tell you Pitcher 2. Because Pitcher 2 is Colby Lewis. And that should not surprise you.
But who is Pitcher 1? None other than DFS darling Shelby Miller.
Hey, don’t get mad at me. Don’t tell me the reasons why the numbers are misleading. Don’t tell me why it’s sustainable for Jose Iglesias to bat .400, either. I trust the numbers.
A final pitcher exploration:
Pitcher 1: This pitcher has a measly 16.6% strikeout rate, a 7.3% walk rate, and a bloated 4.39 SIERA.
Pitcher 2: This pitcher has an even lower 15.3% strikeout rate, an excellent 4.2% walk rate, and (back to the bad) a bloated 4.27 SIERA.
Pitcher 1 is Jeremy Hellickson – who, of course, you’re probably never looking to use on your rosters.
Pitcher 2 is Jordan Zimmermann.
A list of notable strikeout rates:
Here is a list of some of the current strikeout rates among Major League starters. See any guys you are valuing lower or higher than you should be in your pursuit of strikeouts?
32.0% – Clayton Kershaw
28.8% – Max Scherzer
28.4% – Lance Lynn
28.0% – Felix Hernandez
26.9% – Gerrit Cole
26.4% – Tyson Ross
25.0% – Jake Arrieta
24.8% – Rubby de la Rosa
24.7% – Cole Hamels
24.5% – Travis Wood
24.2% – Matt Harvey
23.8% – Corey Kluber
23.7% – Johnny Cueto
23.2% – Madison Bumgarner
23.1% – Matt Shoemaker
Obviously, there are underlying stats on all these that point to how sustainable they are (some of these guys will move up the list a bit, some will move down the list a bit, based on a number of factors – primarily swinging strike rate, as discussed last week). But the placement of some of those names probably surprises you – and it absolutely should. The value you are putting on some of these names should also be adjusted, according to what the numbers are saying. (A final note on this: realize, of course, that SIERA and walk rate are also important in deciding how highly to value a pitcher. But we get the most points in DFS from strikeouts… and high-strikeout guys are the likeliest candidates to get you those strikeouts.)
Finally, I’m going to look at one interesting hitter per position. These are all stats from my personal “hitter sheet”; depending on the player (typically, younger guys still developing, or older guys on the decline), I sometimes weigh recent performance (last year or two, plus this year) more heavily, and the rest of the time I lean more heavily on career numbers (especially as most players have fairly consistent career numbers over time). Here, then, is one interesting player per position, based off the research I weigh most heavily:
Catcher: This catcher is a lefty batter who joined a new team last year. Since joining that team, he has a .245 wOBA in away games against right-handed pitchers. You read that right: .245! That’s extremely bad. This catcher’s name is Brian McCann.
First Base: This first baseman had a down year last year, largely due to nagging injuries. He seems to be back in form this year, with his 2015 numbers matching up nicely with his career numbers. He’s a lefty batter; his career numbers against right-handed pitching: a massive .418 wOBA, with line drive rates of 30%, 29%, 31%, and 27% the last four years (league average for line drives is around 20%). This same hitter, in fact, has a .385 wOBA even against lefty pitchers! This hitter is the criminally-overlooked Joey Votto.
Second Base: Second base is not generally a safe place to find power, so when you can pay a little extra for a power bat, it’s not necessarily a bad idea to do so. This guy is frequently a favorite “power bat” to pay up for. But while he hits his fair share of home runs, his wOBA against right-handed pitching is a truly awful .298. This hitter is Brian Dozier.
Third Base: This right-handed power hitter has notched a wOBA of .429 or higher each of the last two years against left-handed pitching. Wow! When facing right-handed pitchers, however, his wOBA drops all the way to .334. Who is it? If you guessed Miguel Cabrera, you’re wrong. If you guessed Josh Donaldson, you are absolutely right.
Shortstop: This is another position from which power is often difficult to find. Thank goodness for Jean Segura, though – right? Right… because he has that .300 wOBA against righties, and that .301 wOBA against lefties. “Sure, but he hits home runs!” Does he? Not only does he hit 60% of balls on the ground (which is just unheard of!), but when he does get the ball in the air, his HR/FB (home run per fly ball) rate is 7.3%. Compare that to a Major League average of 10%, and you might want to second-guess your “Jean Segura has speed and power” line of thinking.
Outfield: I’ll leave you today with one of my favorites. No need to keep this one a secret: his name is Corey Dickerson, and in case you didn’t know, he’s pretty freaking awesome when he plays at Coors Field against a right-handed pitcher. How awesome? Try this: a .369 average, a .488 wOBA, and a HR/FB rate over 21%!
Take those numbers for whatever you feel they are worth. I’ll take them as foundational truths on which to base my decisions.
In the meantime, I’ll stop waiting for Jose Iglesias to hit .400.