To say that I’ve been pleasantly surprised by a .376 average, 1 HR, 9RBI, 23 Runs and 5 SB is an understatement.  Beneath these numbers lies the ugly truth: A BABIP of .524, a K% of 30, and a LD% of 39!

If Jackson cares to build on his early success en route to an AL ROY award, something has to change, because as Fangraphs and Yahoo will tell you, “This Shit Aint Sustainable, Son!”

The Tigers understand that Jackson’s also bound for regression, but they’ve apparently planned for this.  Unlike may of the floundering youngsters, with Jackson, the Tigers have said “Fuck it” and stuck him in the lead-off hole.

The Tigers know Jackson strikes out too much but they’ve said, “Fuck it!  Stick him ahead of Damon, Ordonez, and Cabrera.”  As a result, Jackson has been getting quality pitches on almost every AB.  It doesn’t matter that Jackson’s struggling against Change-Ups.

At the big-league level, almost every pitcher can spot his fastball or at the very least, it’s the pitch he goes to when he’s behind in the count.  Jackson can hit the fastball and with the trio of quality hitters trailing him, he’ll continue to get his fair share of ‘em.  Jackson will struggle against many of the premium pitchers that can spot their off-speed stuff each and every AB.   However, against league-average pitchers, Jackson has a decided advantage when he steps into the batter’s box.  If pitchers feel confident that Jackson will chase junk, they can try their luck.  Once Jackson gets on base though, he’s got the speed and the batters behind him to make the pitcher pay immediately.

Jackson is exhibiting league-average discipline skills and as long as he sits atop the Tigers’ line-up, he’ll continue to produce.  Obviously not at this ridiculous level, but I wouldn’t be writing him off quite yet.  If you have Jackson and can sell high, go ahead and do just that.  In the internet era, no one’s buying what you’re selling, though.  Jackson’s doing so well that everyone’s focused on his flaws rather than his success.

If I were in a league with a bunch of stats-driven nerds, I’d be tempted to acquire rather than deal Mr. Austin Jackson.

Yet, after 20 starts and 133 Innings Pitched, I feel the need to look into this mysterious resurrection.  Maybe Washburn got healthy, maybe he took some “supplements,” but that would make for a dull article.

What’s Changed?

Washburn’s always been able to get lefties out, save a ridiculous 2006 season, but he’s seen his WHIP deflate to a minuscule 0.72 against lefties while holding them to a 0.168 batting average.

It’s righties that’s Washburn’s had difficulty getting out.  In 2007 and 2008, right-handed batters nearly hit .300 off Washburn, ballooning his WHIP to nearly 1.50.  In 2009, Washburn’s similarly lowered his WHIP (1.20) and BAA (.244) against righties.

So How’d He Do It?

Popular belief leans towards Washburn’s new fangled two-seam sinking fastball.  The pitch itself isn’t spectacular, it’s shockingly average actually, but considering that Washburn can throw every pitch in the book, it’s a useful pitch.

What does stand out is Washburn’s across the board improvement.  He not only added an extra pitch, all of his other pitches just got inexplicably better.  Normally when a pitcher adds velocity, he’ll sacrifice movement and vice-versa.  Washburn however has managed to add velocity across the board, while simultaneously increasing movement.

Washburn’s getting more swings and less contact by cutting and sinking his fastball, which is generally a good combo.  The mixture of these pitches with his average off speed stuff has resulted in a few more missed bats, but he still doesn’t have a true “out pitch.”  In turn, his K% has remained stagnant at around five and a half batters per nine.

The Other Stuff…

Washburn benefits from Seattle’s spacious confines as Safeco almost always falls in the bottom third of parks for home-runs.

In addition to the park, Seattle’s defense has been uncontrollably awesome.  Between Gutierrez, Ichiro, Chavez and Langerhans, the Seattle Mariners have one of the best outfields in the business.  All of their regulars have a positive UZR/150 and their team defense is second only behind the San Francisco Giants.

…The Other Stuff Part II — The Bad Stuff.

The move to Detroit and Comerica Park shouldn’t hurt Washburn too badly.  Comerica plays similarly to Safeco on deep flies, and the Tigers defense sans Magglio is also fairly solid.

Washburn’s posting a career best BABIP of .249, almost 50pts below his career average.  Furthermore, Washburn’s leaving almost 80% of runners on base, which comes close to matching his career best of 82% LOB from 2005.

Washburn’s posting yet another career high when it comes to keeping long-flies in the park, posting a 6.4% HR/FB percentage. What makes this even more concerning is that the majority of Washburn’s fly balls are leaving the infield (8.1% IFFP.)

Finally, the quality of batters that Washburn’s faced haven’t exactly been stellar:

Against the teams below .500 (Baltimore, Cleveland, Kansas City, Minnesota, Oakland, Toronto, Arizona and San Diego,) Washburn has pitched incredibly well with a 1.17 ERA and 0.93 WHIP over the course of 76 IP.

Against teams above .500 (Detroit, Anaheim, New York, Tampa, Texas, Colorado,) Washburn hasn’t faired nearly as well posting a 4.63 ERA and 1.26 WHIP with a couple epic blow-ups against the Angels and Yankees.

It makes sense that his numbers would be worse facing the tougher squads, but considering that Washburn’s faced fairly poor teams 60% of the time, is at least moderately interesting.

Luckily for Washburn, he was traded to the AL Central and the Tigers have Baltimore, Minnesota, Kansas City, Oakland and Seattle mixed in with their series against Boston, Tampa, and Los Angeles.

Things get even better in September with series against Cleveland x 2, Kansas City x 2, Toronto, Minnesota x 2, before the Tigers face Tampa and the White Sox x 2.

From the looks of it, the Tigers have 12 series against mediocre squads and only 6 against .500 or better teams.

Finally, the end…

Washburn has improved, there’s no doubting that.  He’s also gotten fairly lucky as noted by the large difference between his ERA and FIP.  You should expect him to come back down to earth, but he also has a lot of easy games coming up.  He’s faced the majority of these teams before, and dominated them, but I’d be worried the second and third time that Washburn faces the same teams.

Rick Porcello - Rivals.com

It’s Porcello, one year removed from his 7-million dollar prep-bonus, that’s adapted to the level of competition quicker — or so it appears. Porcello’s currently 6-and-2 with a sparking 3.48 ERA which is head and shoulders above Cahill’s 4.48 ERA and 2-and-5 record. Their Fielding Independent Pitching ERAs aren’t nearly as pretty, but Porcello once against bests Cahill with a 4.67 to 5.61 advantage. Neither Porcello nor Cahill has been as dominant as expected; both posted painfully low strike-out numbers, especially given their pure stuff.  Porcello posted surprisingly low strike-out totals in his first professional season, failing to tally 6-K per 9 in High-A.  Porcello‘s continued to post mediocre strike-out totals in the show, notching only 5.57 K per 9, thus far.  Porcello‘s succeeded on the strength of a ridiculous 54% ground-ball rate and by limiting free passes.

Trevor John Cahill

Cahill on the other hand, …what the hell happened to Trevor Cahill?

Cahill doesn’t throw quite as hard as Porcello, but he’s got a solid repertoire of pitches to go with his heavy two-seamer. Prior to his 2008 promotion to Double-A, Cahill was consistently notching 10+ K-per-9. Even after his promotion (as a 20-year old,) Cahill managed 34 strike-outs in 37 IP or 8K/9.  Upon Cahill‘s arrival in Oakland, he’s either been told to pitch to contact or has been abandon by his secondary offerings, as he’s seen his K-per-9 level off at 3.95 batters per 9. Coincidentally, 3.95 batters per nine is also the number of free passes Cahill’s allowing in the majors, good for a 1.00 K:BB rate.  It’s not the walk rate that’s been surprising though, it’s the drastic decline in strike-outs — even the most conservative models didn’t peg Cahill as a sub-4.00 K/9 pitcher.

It’s almost certain that both of these future aces will be demoted at some point to fine tune their mechanics, but viewing their future through the paradigm of a re-draft fantasy baseball league should be interesting at the very least.

When it comes to pure stuff, Porcello notches out Cahill based on pure velocity. Both pitchers throw hard, but Porcello has no issues firing his fastball upto 95mph whereas Cahill generally tops out in the 93-94mph area.  Porcello also changes speeds marginally better, as his curveball and slider drop below 80mph.  Both pitchers rely on their two-seamer heavily and while Cahill has the potential to get more vertical and horizontal movement, it’s Porcello that throws the pitch with consistency.  Cahill‘s clearly experiencing major issues with his release point, and replicating pitches as we use http://www.brooksbaseball.net/pfx/ to compare their most recent starts on May 27th.

Trevor Cahill Release Point vs. Seattle May 27th

Porcello Release Point Vs. Kansas City

It’s pretty clear that Porcello‘s (bottom) finding and replicating his release point fairly well for a young kid, a 6-foot-5 kid at that.  Cahill (top) on the other hand is having issues finding his release point, with almost a full 2 inch disparity on some pitches.  Of all Cahill‘s problems, this is a minor one, but it may be contributing to his trouble finding the zone.

Cahill Strike Zone Plot By Pitch

Porcello Strike Zone Plot

Cahill (top) is all over the map, but he’s keeping the majority of his strikes down in the zone.  Trevor’s still leaving more than his fair share of change-ups up in the zone, but for the most part he’s keeping his ‘strikes’ down in the zone. Porcello on the other hand, pounded the zone against the Royals en route to six strong innings of 4-hit baseball.

Cahill's Vertical and Horizontal Break Chart

Porcello's Horizontal Vertical Break Chart

It’s pretty clear that both Cahill and Porcello threw an insane amount of two seamers, even if Porcello‘s 2-seamer was often misclassified. Porcello‘s two seamer shows a tonne of movement, but doesn’t match the difference between Cahill‘s 4-seam and 2-seam fastball.  Cahill‘s 4-seamer has quite a bit of backspin, and a tremendous amount of tailing action to it.  Porcello’s off-speed offerings, along with a greater change of speed, also have superior movement. In the end, based on their two latest games, it’s clear that Porcello‘s exhibited superior refinement. However, if Cahill can clean up his delivery and release point, he does have the arsenal to drastically lower his walks while increasing his strike-outs.

There’s some evidence that Cahill‘s beginning to put it together after a rough start to the season, even if he’s faced lack-luster competition thus far.  As sinkerballers are prone to do, Cahill’s had two blow-ups where he failed to make it through 3 innings while giving up 7 ER ( @Detroit, May 24th, and vs. Tampa, April 24th.) 

Excluding those two outings leaves Cahill with a line of  55.1 IP, 15 ER, 46 H, 22 BB, 25 K or a 2.44 ERA, and a 1.23 WHIP!

While randomly eliminating two data-sets for shits and giggles isn’t exactly statistically professional, Trevor Cahill has proven to be capable of putting together solid outings.  More importantly, prior to last night, Trevor Cahill had put together two straight 5 strike-out performances in 6.0 & 7.1 IP against Arizona and Seattle.  Having a good outing versus Arizona is nothing special, but overlooking Cahill‘s performance against a mediocre Mariners team would be a mistake.  The Seattle Mariners had already seen Trevor Cahill twice and after being held to a single run in each of those games, they should’ve been comfortable with his entire arsenal.  Cahill‘s continued domination of the M’s showcases his elite stuff, rather than extended beginners luck.

Much like Cahill, Rick Porcello had a couple early season jitters but has been lights-out since allowing 4 ER to TOR and KC, and 6 ER to the Yankees. Since his Yankee blow-up, Porcello’s allowed 1-run three times, 2 runs once, and shut-out then Twinkies. Porcello has also seen his strike-out numbers increase, and stabilize at 5 or 6 K per 9.

Neither Cahill or Porcello is initiating that many swings-and-misses inside or outside of the zone.  I wouldn’t expect either of these future aces to surpass 6 – 6.5 K per 9 with their current philosphy, however they both have room to improve in the K-department. It’s pretty clear that both of these kids are really starting to put it together, but like most rookies they’ll be proned to blow-ups.  Quantifying composure is obviously a difficult thing to do, but Cahill should have the edge over Porcello at this point.  A few terrible starts for Porcello could spell the end of his 2009 Big League season, as the Tigers would prefer not to ‘Bonderman’ yet another future star.

]]> http://www.freefantasymagazine.com/2009/06/rick-porcello-trevor-cahill-past-present-future/feed/ 0 http://www.freefantasymagazine.com/2009/04/lets-talk-about-sex-justin-verlander/ http://www.freefantasymagazine.com/2009/04/lets-talk-about-sex-justin-verlander/#comments Tue, 28 Apr 2009 21:15:06 +0000 kris http://www.freefantasymagazine.com/?p=1398 I’m probably not the only one that’s compared Justin Verlander to a beautiful woman, a woman that’s clearly out of your league. A woman that you bring home for a chandelier rockin’ night of passion only to wake up the next morning and realize that your wallet’s gone, you’re handcuffed to the bed, and your radio’s stuck on the Colin Cowherd show…NOOOOO! TURN IT OFFFFF!

Justin Verlander does one thing extremely well, he throws really fucking hard.  After Verlander No-Hit the Brewers in 2007, Dave Bush had this to say,

I don’t know how else to describe it. A guy throwing 100 mph in the ninth inning with a no-hitter, I’ve never seen that before.

Verlander tantalized us with a stellar 2007 season in which he won 18 games, posted an ERA of 3.66 and struck out 183 batters. Fantasy experts salivated at his potential going into 2008, but those who drafted him were less than pleased with his 17-loss season.

Heading into 2009, if someone told they knew what Verlander was going to bring to the table, they were lying to your face and hopefully you stabbed them.

Until last night, it looked quite clear that Verlander was going to come fairly close to replicating his 2008 numbers, rather than his 2007 season.  Verlander went into the Yankees game with an ERA of 9.00 and a WHIP of 1.72 — Ouch. His strike-out numbers were there (25K/21IP) but Verlander was proned to allowing the long-ball having given up 3 HR in 4 Games.

Then it happened: 7 IP, 7 H, 0 BB, 9K, 0ER against the New York Yankees, none the less.

There’s a lot to take in here, especially for fantasy purposes and I’ll try and keep everything as straight forward as possible. Firstly, Verlander’s domination of the Yankees really wasn’t all that surprising.

Verlander’s Bad Luck

A couple of errors in the Texas game, and another in the Seattle game has resulted in 3 unearned runs thus far for Verlander.  Brandon Inge and Adam Everett are by no means poor defenders, but Everett’s yet to click and is sitting around a UZR/150 of (-27.2).  At the very least, you’d have to imagine Everett’s infield defense would get to about average, even after posting his worst range rating in years (10 – 11 RngR -> 5 RngR.)

Even after last night’s masterpiece, Verlander is still only stranding 50% of batters which is well below the league average of 71%.  Verlander should be sitting somewhere in the low-to-mid-70′s when all is said and done.

Verlander’s BABIP of .408 is what stands out at this early juncture of the season.  Expecting regression at some point seems logical, even if it only regresses to Verlander’s 2008 number of .305

Quite simply, Verlander should have better overall numbers than he currently sports. Verlander’s Fielding Independent Pitching of 3.24 clearly expresses just how well he has pitched.

What’ll Make Verlander Successful From Here On Out?

Verlander has to locate his fastball and curveball — that simple.

It’s clear, at least to me, that Verlander is pitching the same way he did back in 2007. Verlander’s striking out more than a batter per inning, and has gotten his BB/9 back to 2006-2007 levels as it sits comfortably under 3 batters per 9.

When Verlander’s locating his fastball and curveball at above 70-72 percent, he’ll be terrifically effective.   Verlander’s lack of velocity in the LAA game stands out quite a bit, which leads me to believe that he was clearly tweaking something.  Verlander had hit 98-100mph in each of the previous games, and suddenly he lost speed off his FB.  Whatever he tweaked, definitely helped him in the Yankees game.

With Verlander, there aren’t going to be nasty outings, but rather nasty innings.  So long as he locates his pitches, he’s got more than enough pure stuff to notch 8+ K per 9.

Verlander’s price just shot through the roof, but he’s definitely still worth buying at this juncture.  It looks Verlander’s next two starts are against the Indians who are tied for second with 160 strike-outs as a team but are also amongst the lead-leaguers in Home Runs.

If you’re trying to acquire Verlander, this could be one of the bigger risks you’ll take all year.  On one hand, Verlander could strike out 12 Indians no problem, but on the other hand they could go and take him deep a few times.  If the Verlander-Owner in your league is demanding full-price, it’s still worth acquiring Verlander but it might be worth waiting one more start and hoping the Indians take him yard.

The worst case scenario is that Verlander goes another 7-shutout innings, and lowers his ERA to 5.40 on the season.  If the owner doesn’t pay attention, then you should still be able to get Verlander on the cheap.

Here’s something else I picked up, but’ve yet to interpret it.

It appears as though Verlander may just  be throwing a cut-fastball here and there.  He wasn’t throwing them for strikes, but I’ve got a feeling those 5 fastball/sliders in the middle may just be Verlander picking up a cutter.  Of course, Verlander could just be throwing a slider — but either way, it’s nice to see.

Give Dave Cameron’s Article On Verlander a read — I, of course, stumbled on it about 3 minutes ago which makes this article less than relevant.