OT: Are the Pirates in trouble...(calling Pittbaseball to give us hope)

[ratking17]

Bouncing back and forth between outdoor chores and the game today and this team left an incredible 18 men on base today. Watching Pedro air mail the throw home that nearly decapitated someone in the upper deck (thankfully the backstop screen protected the poor fans), I asked the same question last year with his 3rd base debacle: how much longer do you wait on this guy? He isn't hitting, so is he really an upgrade over Gabby platoon at 1st.

The starting pitching has been lights out, but they need to be perfect with this team not hitting.

Cutch is clearly hurt. Do you have surgery on knee, clean it out, come back in 6 weeks, or continue to play in pain, hitting around .200?

So Pittbaseball...you say bullpens are what concern you, and while Melancon's velocity certainly is a concern, the bigger one right now is the hitting, or lack thereof. So, in you or anyone else's opinion...do the Bucs start hitting, or is this what we should expect all year? Maybe some guys just played above their heads the past few years and we are regressing back to the mean? Or maybe this is still very early in the season and I am over reacting. But it seems like these past few games of one run ball is really getting me concerned...

 

[LemonEars]

Bouncing back and forth between outdoor chores and the game today and this team left an incredible 18 men on base today. Watching Pedro air mail the throw home that nearly decapitated someone in the upper deck (thankfully the backstop screen protected the poor fans), I asked the same question last year with his 3rd base debacle: how much longer do you wait on this guy? He isn't hitting, so is he really an upgrade over Gabby platoon at 1st.

The starting pitching has been lights out, but they need to be perfect with this team not hitting.

Cutch is clearly hurt. Do you have surgery on knee, clean it out, come back in 6 weeks, or continue to play in pain, hitting around .200?

So Pittbaseball...you say bullpens are what concern you, and while Melancon's velocity certainly is a concern, the bigger one right now is the hitting, or lack thereof. So, in you or anyone else's opinion...do the Bucs start hitting, or is this what we should expect all year? Maybe some guys just played above their heads the past few years and we are regressing back to the mean? Or maybe this is still very early in the season and I am over reacting. But it seems like these past few games of one run ball is really getting me concerned...

I could really see the Bucs fighting it out with the Brew Crew for last place. The starting pitching will cool off. Kang and Lambo should be sent to the minors. Harrison is reverting to his true self -- a part time utility guy, not a starter. The Pirates are in sad shape.

Watch for Pedro to get traded soon to an AL team. He is the poster boy for DH.

 

[drunkinoakland]

Bouncing back and forth between outdoor chores and the game today and this team left an incredible 18 men on base today. Watching Pedro air mail the throw home that nearly decapitated someone in the upper deck (thankfully the backstop screen protected the poor fans), I asked the same question last year with his 3rd base debacle: how much longer do you wait on this guy? He isn't hitting, so is he really an upgrade over Gabby platoon at 1st.

The starting pitching has been lights out, but they need to be perfect with this team not hitting.

Cutch is clearly hurt. Do you have surgery on knee, clean it out, come back in 6 weeks, or continue to play in pain, hitting around .200?

So Pittbaseball...you say bullpens are what concern you, and while Melancon's velocity certainly is a concern, the bigger one right now is the hitting, or lack thereof. So, in you or anyone else's opinion...do the Bucs start hitting, or is this what we should expect all year? Maybe some guys just played above their heads the past few years and we are regressing back to the mean? Or maybe this is still very early in the season and I am over reacting. But it seems like these past few games of one run ball is really getting me concerned...

Well, the third best hitter in all of baseball is hitting below .200. That has a big impact in scoring runs. Either he is hurt, or he'll soon turn it on. Either way his avg WAR the last 3 years was like an average of 7 per season.

J Hay won't hit .315 , but he probably won't hit .202 either.
Marte and Polanco have been fine. I think we need more out of the vaunted bench that everyone had such high expectations for.

IMO, there are signs of concern, but it is way too early to panic.

 

[drunkinoakland]

I could really see the Bucs fighting it out with the Brew Crew for last place. The starting pitching will cool off. Kang and Lambo should be sent to the minors. Harrison is reverting to his true self -- a part time utility guy, not a starter. The Pirates are in sad shape.

Watch for Pedro to get traded soon to an AL team. He is the poster boy for DH.

You just went full Simple Jack/Yinzer on us. As bad as the Bucs have been, they were still a Wild Card team before the loss to the Cards today.

 

[PA_Panther]

Not Pittbaseball but I will give you my opinion on the matter so far.

Pedro Alvarez last year amid his horrible 2014 year produced 1.4 oWAR which takes purely hitting into the equation. You can't really compare Gabby Sanchez to Pedro. You would have to look at Ike Davis' 2014 campaign to see if he would be an upgrade, the reason why is Pedro is essentially taking his at bats in the LH hitting Platoon at First Base. Ike last year produced a 0.3 oWAR worse than Pedro. While Ike has been good to start off the year he hasn't produced like this since 2011 his second year in the league. In case you were wondering though Sanchez was a negative 0.1 last year.

I don't think that Cutch is seriously hurt at all. Yes he may need to take a day off here and there to get a little extra rest but no big deal. His track record says he should brake out of this soon enough. He's suffering through bad luck right now also. The League average of Batting Average of Balls In Play is .294 he is at an extremely unlucky .220, while his Line drive rate has been on average of his career track.

The bullpen is the bullpen. So many ups an downs happen in spurts through the year. While Melancon's velo is down he will find a way to get outs. He might not be the closer soon however we have what seems to be a very reliable arms in Hughes and Watson who could take the roll.

Stretches of not hitting happens in the season. Marte is starting to turn it around and Polanco has been arguably their best hitter so far. Don't worry yet there is a long season ahead of us and the Pirates will be contending just based on their starting pitching.

 

[9nationalchampionships]

Over the course of a 162 game season, pitching will determine a team’s success. The Bucs have pitching so just wait for the bats to come around.

 

[wbrpanther]

Bouncing back and forth between outdoor chores and the game today and this team left an incredible 18 men on base today. Watching Pedro air mail the throw home that nearly decapitated someone in the upper deck (thankfully the backstop screen protected the poor fans), I asked the same question last year with his 3rd base debacle: how much longer do you wait on this guy? He isn't hitting, so is he really an upgrade over Gabby platoon at 1st.

The starting pitching has been lights out, but they need to be perfect with this team not hitting.

Cutch is clearly hurt. Do you have surgery on knee, clean it out, come back in 6 weeks, or continue to play in pain, hitting around .200?

So Pittbaseball...you say bullpens are what concern you, and while Melancon's velocity certainly is a concern, the bigger one right now is the hitting, or lack thereof. So, in you or anyone else's opinion...do the Bucs start hitting, or is this what we should expect all year? Maybe some guys just played above their heads the past few years and we are regressing back to the mean? Or maybe this is still very early in the season and I am over reacting. But it seems like these past few games of one run ball is really getting me concerned...

In short the answer is NO. It's a long season and the Pirate hitters as a group are underachieving right now. You will get the usual suspects going all doom and gloom on us but leaving 18 men on base hasn't happened since the early 40s so I doubt that will become the norm.

 

[deepelemblues]

Cole is on the cusp of being an ace if he isn't there already, Liriano and Burnett are pitching lights out, Locke is Locke and Worley is Worley, both can turn in absolute gems or get crushed for 6 runs in any given inning. Morton should help once he gets back. The problem is it seems like half the starting lineup is in a major slump at the plate. Have a few guys turn that around and the excellent starting pitching will get rewarded with a bunch of Ws.

 

[Pittbaseball11]

Right now the offense is pointing to bad luck more than anything. Problem is that you can only be unlucky for so long before it effectively buries you.

For instance, the Pirates are 6th in baseball in hard-hit rate per Mark Simon -- yet they have a BABIP of only .274 (in general, you'd expect a team to wind up around .300). So the hits aren't really finding any holes.

Right now the guys who are having the most bad luck are Mercer, Harrison, and McCutchen. Harrison especially, as he is among the league leaders in individual hard-hit rate.

McCutchen legitimately concerns me since he's admitted to being less than 100%.

The beauty of baseball is that there's a ton of luck involved and we have some pretty good indicators and predictors to separate the luck out. The frustrating part of baseball is that you never know when the luck is going to turn.

 

[recruitsreadtheseboards]

Harrison was an amazing 0 fer 7 today.

The pitching is so lights out, it is a shame. That can't keep up. But neither can the hitting slump.

 

[Delpanther]

In short the answer is NO. It's a long season and the Pirate hitters as a group are underachieving right now. You will get the usual suspects going all doom and gloom on us but leaving 18 men on base hasn't happened since the early 40s so I doubt that will become the norm.

Hey, WBR, how are you? I agree that the Bucs will get better but all things considered, given the number of years into the rebuild, I believe they should have a much better everyday lineup than what they're trotting gout on the field. It's either HR or famine. Is Harrison an everyday player? Is Cervelli a true starting catcher? Will Marte and Polanco actually become productive hitters? When will Pedro show some consistency at bat? The pitching had better remain strong. Beat em Bucs!

 

[vietvet1]

This last loss is on Hurdle, in my opinion. Should have never let that relief pitcher appear in the 14th, he was obviously tiring.

 

[KennyTheKangaroo]

Right now the offense is pointing to bad luck more than anything. Problem is that you can only be unlucky for so long before it effectively buries you.

For instance, the Pirates are 6th in baseball in hard-hit rate per Mark Simon -- yet they have a BABIP of only .274 (in general, you'd expect a team to wind up around .300). So the hits aren't really finding any holes.

Right now the guys who are having the most bad luck are Mercer, Harrison, and McCutchen. Harrison especially, as he is among the league leaders in individual hard-hit rate.

McCutchen legitimately concerns me since he's admitted to being less than 100%.

The beauty of baseball is that there's a ton of luck involved and we have some pretty good indicators and predictors to separate the luck out. The frustrating part of baseball is that you never know when the luck is going to turn.

I'm most interested in Harrison's hard hit rate this year compared to last year. To me thats the real tell tale sign.

I'm alarmed by the pirates fantastically terrible walk rate of 5.4%. Worst in the MLB> . J-Hay's current walk rate is 2%!!

 

[Pittbaseball11]

Harrison's batted ball profile is pretty much in line with last year, even right down to his LD%/GB%/FB%. I think he was lucky last year with a .353 BABIP, but he still has a BABIP around 90 points lower than his career BABIP so far this year (for hitters, their BABIP tends to stay in the same area from year-to-year; for teams and pitchers, their BABIP tends to be right around .300). His profile is nowhere near a point where he should be that far off the pace.

Harrison's never been much of a walker. Polanco is the guy who needs to turn it around from a plate discipline standpoint. He always got really high marks in the minors for his discipline, and the numbers backed it up -- he seems anxious so far, though. He's also a tall, long-armed hitter and those guys tend to take a little bit longer to put it together at the big league level (bigger strike zone, more holes in the swing, better pitchers who can exploit the holes, etc.).

Still, he's managed to be -- on paper -- their most valuable player so far this season on the back of his defense and baserunning coupled with a slightly above average bat (104 wRC+). I think most likely it's really been Marte, though. Been their best hitter and his defense has been pretty solid. He's another guy who could see a breakout, has a strong hard hit rate so far and his BABIP is around 45 points lower than his career mark.

FWIW, Francisco Cervelli has the highest hard-hit% among all C in MLB. That'll probably be one of those funny small sample oddities by the time the season is over, but he's generally viewed as a solid catcher -- just not very durable. His pitch framing has been legitimately exceptional so far.

 

[ratking17]

Pittbaseball, I love your analytics. That said, I admit to being unknowlegable in some Saber metrics. If you ever have time, could you post in layman's terms what some of these stats are?

 

[recruitsreadtheseboards]

I think analytics is not always accurate. The game is scored still by Runs. You can come up with all the stats (analytics) you want.....but if you can't score runs or can't stop the other team from scoring them, nothing else matters. It is like the ridiculous analytics numbers in hockey that show the Pens should be better than they were? Puck possession? Really? If I possess the puck for 80% of the time, and you possess it for 20% and score 1 more goal than I do, you win.

Excuse me, I am sorry for interjecting my opinion. I know this is only a message board where people post topics and their opinions. I am sorry that I joined in and interrupted other people's opinions. I will try and do better.

 

[KennyTheKangaroo]

I've read some compelling stuff about Polanco. I think it was the Trib that had a piece in spring training about his adjustment to major league pitching. Supposedly he had a tough time adjusting to major league fastballs; I can't remember the exact measurement, but he was as effective as Jeff Locke was in terms of hitting fastballs effectively. My conclusion is one of the following: A.) he was timid in his initial season B.) he was trying to hard to "be a leadoff" and take pitches or C.) his bat is too slow to hit really fast fastballs.

He was also craptastic against lefties last year. He hit AAA lefties well in 2014, but my simple conclusion is that if you are in AAA and are lefthanded, you probably have some serious defect (see Oliver, Andrew or Owens, Rudy) that can be solved by a good hitter like Polanco.

 

[Pittbaseball11]

I think analytics is not always accurate. The game is scored still by Runs. You can come up with all the stats (analytics) you want.....but if you can't score runs or can't stop the other team from scoring them, nothing else matters. It is like the ridiculous analytics numbers in hockey that show the Pens should be better than they were? Puck possession? Really? If I possess the puck for 80% of the time, and you possess it for 20% and score 1 more goal than I do, you win.

Excuse me, I am sorry for interjecting my opinion. I know this is only a message board where people post topics and their opinions. I am sorry that I joined in and interrupted other people's opinions. I will try and do better.

I think analytics are more for predicting things than anything else. Luck plays a much bigger part of sports than a lot of people like to acknowledge, and athletes don't necessarily have as much control as people like to think (there's no evidence that in baseball, for instance, a guy can will himself into getting a hit and increase/decrease his abilities on a whim). So analytics are pretty good at sussing out things that happen because of luck or unluck and identifying true issues/solutions to sort of give yourself a bigger margin for luck/error.

Cluster luck, for instance, is gaining traction now in baseball. It was developed by Ed Feng, and Jonah Keri is a relatively large proponent of it now. Sometimes it'll be called sequencing instead, but the concept is the same. It's relatively accepted at this point that stringing hits together isn't necessarily a skill. Hitting is a skill, but one hit doesn't really increase or decrease the odds of a hit for the next batter -- if he's a .280 hitter he's going to perform like a .280 hitter. It's more of a random occurrence than anything. The Cards of 2013 vs the Cards of 2014 (and, on a more micro level, Allen Craig in 2013 vs Allen Craig in 2014) have been illustrative of that. So, if you look and have a team that's hitting well but isn't stringing them together and translating it into runs, you can feel pretty comfortable that eventually it will turn around and be converted into runs because if you get enough hits you'll eventually get some bunching.

Obviously results matter, but not overreacting to results -- both good or bad -- is important, too. You don't want to stand pat when you were clearly lucky, and you don't want to blow things up when you were the victim of bad luck either.

Here's a decent article on sequencing. I think if you look at analytics as more informing decision making and sifting through good luck and bad luck, it makes it more palatable:

Clutch Baseball Teams Aren't Clutch Baseball Teams

 

[Pittbaseball11]

Pittbaseball, I love your analytics. That said, I admit to being unknowlegable in some Saber metrics. If you ever have time, could you post in layman's terms what some of these stats are?

Yep, I'll post later tonight.

 

[Pittbaseball11]

BABIP - Batting Average on Balls In Play. So it's a player's batting average when he has a plate appearance that ends with him hitting a ball that isn't a HR, bunt, or sac fly. For hitters, it tends to stay relatively steady over their prime. Some guys will have high BABIPs (Marte), others will be low (Alvarez) For pitchers (when you're measuring BABIP against them) and teams as a whole it tends to settle in around .300 or so. It's a pretty good way to measure luck, because hitters don't tend to have as much control over direction as once believed. This might be obvious but Line Drives have the highest BABIP, Fly Balls the lowest, and grounders somewhere in the middle. Sometimes when you see a guy's BABIP go up or down you'll be able to tell if it's due to his batted ball results changing or not. If the batted ball results have drastically changed, that's when it's all about scouting and identiftying some sort of mechanical change or reason for it. If the batted ball profile is more or less the same, then you're probably looking at luck.

wOBA - wOBA is weighted On Base Average. It was developed to give a more accurate representation of OPS. OPS makes sense, but the math was all wrong (literally). You were taking 2 different denominators (at-bats and plate appearances) and adding them together. As a result, OBP was undervalued when OPS was the "it" metric. wOBA weights everything based on plate appearances. wOBA isn't super important other than being the underlying stat for wRC+.

wRC+ - weighted Runs Created +. This is wOBA, but easier to understand, adjusted for ballparks (PNC is very tough on hitters and suppresses runs/stats, Coors is a hitter's paradise and inflates runs/stats), league, and era. A 100 wRC+ is considered to be dead average. For every integer above or below 100, that represents 1%. So, Polanco has a 104 wRC+. That means he's performing 4% better than the average hitter.

HR/FB% - Ratio of Home Runs to Fly Balls. This is another thing that tends to stabilize among hitters, much lIke BABIP. Pedro will have a relatively high one. An innefectual slap hitter like Ben Revere will have a low one. League average is around 10%.

FIP - Fielding Independent Pitching. This is comprised of a pitcher's K/9, BB/9, and HR/9. It's believed that those are the things a pitcher can control (xFIP will be better for you if you think HR can be fluky). If a defense botches a play or a team hits a couple of seeing-eye ground balls on a pitcher, ERA will be impacted. Similarly, a pitcher for a team like the Pirates who make a lot of plays behind him might have a better ERA. FIP controls for things like defense and BABIP. The Pirates were able to get a lot of relievers and SP based on FIP, as they were guys with poor ERAs, but pretty strong K Rates and BB Rates.

xFIP - xFIP is FIP, but controls for HR/FB%. Everybody pitcher is assumed to have a 10% HR/FB rate (league average). It's not bad if you're comparing guys from 2 teams, such as a Pittsburgh pitcher who is in a really bad HR park or a Cincinnati pitcher who is stuck pitching in a bandbox. It's another good way to see which guys might be having a lucky stretch and which guys are a victim of bad luck.

Defensive Efficiency is also something you'll see, which is the number of balls put in play which are converted into outs. It's picked up steam lately as people are realizing that errors aren't necessarily as damaging as believed. If a guy gets to 80 out of 100 balls and makes 10 errors, he's doing me more good than a guy who gets to 60 out of 100 balls and makes 5 errors because that's an additional 15 outs he's making for me. Derek Jeter vs Brendan Ryan was a popular article/comparison, as Jeter made few errors but had extremely limited range at SS. So he was still a damaging defensive player due to the fact that he wasn't able to make plays that the average SS could.

If there are others you can think of or you want clarifications on any of these, let me know.

 

[ratking17]

Thanks. I found those interesting.