Kentucky Joe in 2008
by JediLeroy on May 6, 2008 1:47 PM PDT
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PrintI want to preface this by saying that I am not a statistician. This could all be hogwash, so bear with me.
Last year, Joe Blanton reach career bests in a few categories, including strikeouts (140) and K/9 (5.48). While Blanton is pitching deep into games this year (sample size warning), he is not striking out many batters. Blanton's 3.56 K/9 is by far the lowest of any of the A's starters, and good for 45th out of the 48 pitchers who have amassed at least 40 innings this year.
In addition to his low strikeout totals, Blanton is giving up 10.5 H/9, as opposed to last year's rate of 9.39. While his BB/9 is as solid as it’s ever been, his WHIP has jumped to 1.347 (last year: 1.217). His ERA+ is 99, even though he’s seemingly having a good season. It’s not a huge sample, but on average, Joe’s struggles typically seem to escalate after the fifth inning.
That Joe struggles later in the game isn’t any huge revelation. Conventional wisdom says that batters get more comfortable after having seen a pitcher a couple times already. On top of that, pitchers tire and lose effectiveness as a game goes on. With decreased command, pitchers will typically either walk more batters or leave pitches in the zone for hitters to demolish. The graph isn’t perfect, because with such a small sample, one bad inning can skew all the rest of the data.
So, is Bob Geren leaving Blanton in too long? While Blanton has given up 15 runs (12 earned) in the 40 first-through-fifth innings that he’s pitched, he has been tagged for 12 runs (all earned) in the 15 2/3 innings that he’s pitched beyond the fifth. Blanton’s blanked the opponents in four seventh innings so far and given up two runs and one run, respectively, in the other seventh innings he’s pitched in. He’s had one shutout eighth inning and given up runs in both of the other eighth innings he’s pitched in. While he’s pitched six shutout sixth innings, he’s allowed a lot of people to reach base.
Joe gives up a lot of hits, and almost always has baserunners to deal with. It’s hard for me to make any conclusions with this data, other than the obvious ones. Perhaps you guys have some insights.
Let’s go back to the subject of strikeouts. With only eight starts in the books, it’s probably a bit premature to try to find the reason why Joe isn’t striking anybody out. Is it his stuff?
I found an article at THT from February that tries to find the best pitch in the majors in 2007. It’s an interesting study, though I’m not sure if it accounts for park effects. According to the study, Joe Blanton had the second-best slider in the majors last year. His changeup was also rated second in the majors, while his sweeping curveball was ranked 15th.
Most pitchers with good offspeed stuff still throw fastballs the majority of the time to keep hitters off-balance. Blanton is no different. He threw his fastball 54.2% of the time last year, and is only slightly below that amount in 2008 (53.5%). His changeups have been slightly more frequent this year than in the past, moving from 15.1 to 16.9. So early in the season, it’s fair to say that this could be random variation. His curveball selection has risen from 14.4% to 20.9%.
Last year, Joe Blanton threw his slider 16.3% of the time (567 times out of 3481 total pitches). This year, he has only thrown it 8.7% of the time. In essence, he has thrown the curveball in place of the slider almost half the time. Why has he been so stingy with the sliders? Could the lack of second-best-in-the-league sliders have anything to do with his dangerous decline in strikeouts?
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This is good stuff
Definitely worth reading.
Blanton’s strikeout dip is troubling, and you may be right about it being connected to the decline in sliders. Blanton’s curveball is a big looping pitch that’s relatively easy to make contact with (although often that contact is poor, causing short flies and weak grounders) and he doesn’t get a lot of swingthroughs with his fastball or changeup. I would also be curious to know if he’s throwing more straight fastballs as opposed to sinkers this season (I know in the past he threw as many as 80% sinkers) which might also decrease his Ks because they move less.
Then again, it could just be a coincidence, or a random string of mediocre outings.
Your 2008 Athletics: It's Nothing Personal.
Coincidence is definitely a possibility
I would be very interested to compare Joe’s WHIP by inning for his career with that of the rest of the league. I’d also like to know about the results of each pitch he has thrown so far. Any idea where they keep such statistics that are up to date?
Chiba Lotte lost simultaneously in the fighter plane of the Japanese ham.
Gameday data
It’s all available online through MLB.com, but parsing it requires computer skills I unfortunately don’t have.
Your 2008 Athletics: It's Nothing Personal.
Interesting piece
The fact that it’s early in the season, which you conceded, makes me worry alot less about Blanton’s strikeout woes. It’s just too early in the season to compare to last season’s full body of work. Joe could have also overachieved in those areas, which could bring his current totals into context.
He’s never really been a big strikeout guy, but more of a durable innings eater. He’s the ace of the staff only because Haren was traded and Harden is unreliable. I’m not pickin’ on Big Joe by any means, but his strikeout numbers from last year didn’t really impress me, and this very small sample size equally does not worry me.
Like Paul, I think that this is more of a few mediocre outings, rather than a him hitting a downtrend of any sort.
by passionately objective on May 6, 2008 4:04 PM PDT reply actions
He’s had stretches of strikeout aversion in the past … the first couple of months of 2005, May-ish through July-ish of 2006, July-ish last year. Not so shockingly, he also surrendered tons of runs during those periods.
So:
1. Great diary.
2. It’s not a totally new phenomenon. Whether due to pitch selection, opponent quality, or planetary alignment, he seems to go through similar droughts every year.
3. On the other hand, 3 or fewer K’s in 7 of 8 games is problematic.
4. I guess we should be thankful his ERA is respectable.
5. The slider vs curveball thing is interesting. I wish some reporter-type would ask him (or Suzuki) that question.
1: Thanks!
5: I wonder how much of it is Suzuki and how much is Blanton not wanting to throw the slider. Blanton had Kendall and Melhuse for the last couple years.
Chiba Lotte lost simultaneously in the fighter plane of the Japanese ham.
I'd be curious
as to whether the percentage of sliders has been more or less constant from game to game, or whether there are some games where he’s throwing it as much as he did last year and others where he hardly uses it at all.
"Tomorrow it may rain." - Leo Durocher
Here are his game by game pitch splits, according to this tool:
They don’t have data for the Japan game, and the individual pitch quantities don’t precisely add up to his actual pitch counts for each start, as I suppose there are some unclassifiable outliers. In any event, the totals roughly match what JediLeroy cited above, so it works for the purposes of this discussion.
He seems to have abandoned the slider after the first Cleveland game. Weird.
Thanks for the link! I've been looking for something just like that all day.
It’ll be interesting to see if he uses the slider more in the next few games.
Chiba Lotte lost simultaneously in the fighter plane of the Japanese ham.
Thanks
That’s exactly what I was looking for. It seems that the sliders have been replaced by extra curves (CU% + SL% has hovered right around 30%). Looking further at their graphs, the curve averages around 73 MPH and has significant horizontal and vertical break, while the slider averages around 82 MPH (the same as his changeup) and mostly breaks horizontally compared to his fastball and changeup. Still no idea why he would avoid using one of his most effective pitches, unless it was putting too much strain on his arm.
"Tomorrow it may rain." - Leo Durocher
Interesting ...
I wouldn’t pay too much attention to split stats at this point in the season. Clearly Blanton was left in too long on 4/11 in Cleveland … take out that one game and the graph would look very different.
The lack of Ks is definitely a concern, though …
"It's for your own good. Big strong Devo knows whats best for Poppy" -- Mossback
I honestly think that Blanton’s pitched pretty well this year. I think he’s been left in too long in two of the games, which definitely does skew the numbers with so few games played. I do hope that he finds a way to get a couple more strikeouts per game, since it helps a guy like him who always seems to have runners on base.
Chiba Lotte lost simultaneously in the fighter plane of the Japanese ham.
It may just be coincidence (and in Harden's case I'm sure it is)
but of the 2 A’s starters who had to accelerate their Spring Training schedule to pitch in Japan this year, one is hurt and one is having even more trouble than usual striking people out.
"And Julio Franco is batting right-handed!" -- Wayne Hagin, A's radio play-by-play, mid-80s
Good observation
there’s always some fallout, somehow, from excessive time-zone travel. Hard to prove “cause and effect” as usual, but maybe the A’s should avoid Eastern Hemisphere games that count in the standings.
"I never predict anything, and I never will." Paul Gascoigne, English footballer
by One won lost won on May 6, 2008 10:09 PM PDT up reply actions
JediLeroy
thank you for the write-up; interesting stuff.
I’m not much of a “stat-head” but I like perusing good workups like this.
"I never predict anything, and I never will." Paul Gascoigne, English footballer
by One won lost won on May 6, 2008 10:11 PM PDT reply actions
re
He had some terrible defense behind him in the Boston game Opening Day.
This is the kind of diary it would be cool to see more of. Interesting stuff.
this is probably a really stupid question (it is 3am, when most stupid questions are asked)
the yellow line is runs per inning, it seems to be above 1 for almost every inning… so blanton is allowing over a run per inning??
A's v Giants "is kind of like the difference between going to see the Ramones and going to see the Bee Gees. A's fans will go see the Ramones." -BB 07/27/05
Seems like a pretty good question to me
And I suspect the answer is that the H+BB and Runs/Inning labels have been transposed.
That's it.
Excel 1, me 0. I’ll fix that.
Chiba Lotte lost simultaneously in the fighter plane of the Japanese ham.
just out of curiosity
i took a look at the teams Blanton has faced so far to see how much they are striking out.
(mainly because i knew he’d faced boston twice and they have the reputation of being a low strikeout, grinding team).
sorted by k/pa, with the teams striking out the least at the top (mariners?!) and the teams striking out the most at the bottom.
green = teams that have seen cupcakes once
orange = teams that have seen cupcakes twice
... not really anything there IMO
great post by the way.
Sample size issues still apply, but I fixed the chart
Chiba Lotte lost simultaneously in the fighter plane of the Japanese ham.
Apparently only the cool people get to see the new chart
I’m not authorized to view it.
Your 2008 Athletics: It's Nothing Personal.
Does it not show up at all for you?
I had to reimport the asset.
Here it is again. Let me know if it doesn’t show up.
Chiba Lotte lost simultaneously in the fighter plane of the Japanese ham.
It had disappeared for me when PT made that comment, but it's back at the top now
The A's colors are green and gold.
It looks better down here anyway.
When imported as an sbnation asset, the resolution is all funky. Is that something that can be changed? I guess I could always use the html editor instead of the wysiwyg one and just use img tags.
Chiba Lotte lost simultaneously in the fighter plane of the Japanese ham.
I had to reimport the asset.
That’s what she said.
We're going to knock balls out of the country's park, for the home team, which is America. @('.')@
I don't have much to add to the dialoge
but I just wanted to add that I really enjoyed this diary. Very good stuff, thanks for the effort JL.
I have even less to add to the dialogue
and I really really enjoyed this diary!
by WaddellCanseco on May 7, 2008 4:14 PM PDT up reply actions
Good work.
I like the graph.
In looking at his 3 year splits (via ESPN.com), Blanton hasn’t been demonstrably worse as the game goes on, whether in looking at pitch counts or innings.
I’m curious if this is sample size we’re seeing this season, or something else.
I think that in most, if not all, of the games I’ve watched Blanton pitch this season, there was a point where I could visibly “see” Blanton just look like a different pitcher. His control disappears, the walks come first, and then comes the hits. I haven’t noticed a pitcher so obviously changing at a certain point in a game since Darren Dreifort and his recurring “72 pitch limit” back when he was starting with the Dodgers.
Given my own observations tend to agree with the stats, I’m leaning towards something being up with Blanton, and this not just being random chance. I just think that for some reason, Blanton is tiring more easily this season than in the past.
good work
I suppose it’s early to make hard judgements on this, but still quite interesting.
Not to make much of one game, but in the 4/16 game against Seattle it seemed like Joe only had control over his fastball. Knowing that anything off speed wasn’t being thrown for a strike, the Mariners sat on the fastball and hit most of them that were not well placed. Joe knotched 2 Ks in that game, one in the 7th and one in the 8th, and he didn’t get many swing thru strikes either.
Extrapolating that, I suppose it’s possible that Joe’s problems locating have resulted in him trying to simplify things until he can get it sorted out.
Then again, it may just be his game plan versus the Mariners. They seem to hack at anything.
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