Archive for C.C. Sabathia
Pitchers in the first year of a $100 million deal
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On Tuesday night the Oklahoma Sports Museum honored CC Sabathia with the Warren Spahn Award, given to the best left-handed pitcher in baseball, for the third straight year. Created in 1999 and handed out annually, the award has seen just five winners. Randy Johnson won the first four years, Andy Pettitte took it in 2003, Johan Santana won it when he won his Cy Young awards, 2004 and 2006, and Dontrelle Willis won in 2005. The story of the night, however, was not the award itself, but rather how Sabathia handled the pressure of moving to New York.
Jeff Latzke of the Associated Press gathered some quotes from Sabathia about his transition from the smaller markets of Cleveland and Milwaukee to baseball’s biggest stage. Good guy that he is, CC credited his teammates for all the support they provided.
“It takes a lot of pressure off when you play with great players,” he said. “Just being around those guys and them having experience of being in the postseason and being on a championship run, it definitely gives you a calming feeling to be able to be around those guys every day and know what it feels like to win a championship.” He then added, “Every game I started this year, I didn’t feel like I needed to go out and throw a shutout or go out and be perfect. Just keep the game close, and hopefully my team is going to score enough runs to win.”
Intuitively it makes sense that a big-time pitcher would face less pressure on an offensively charged team. A $100 million contract might buy you and your family anything you want, but it can’t buy you a break with your new team’s fan base if you don’t live up to the deal. Still, there’s no way to actually prove the calming effect of a 900-run offense. We’d have to play mock psychiatrist, and I’m just not interested in that game.
Still, to explore this a little deeper, look at Mike Hampton, baseball’s second $100 million pitcher. He headed to Colorado in 2001 after two stellar seasons with the Astros and Mets. The Rockies offense that year scored 923 runs, leading the NL by 76. They OPS’d .837 as a team, .035 higher than the next highest. Yet Hampton posted, by a run and a half, the worst season of his career, pitching 203 innings to a 5.41 ERA.
(Of course, that Rockies team didn’t quite have the experience the 2009 Yankees had, but again I’m not trying to prove or disprove Sabathia’s statement. Just looking at other similar situations.)
Then look at Kevin Brown, baseball’s first $100 million man. He didn’t quite repeat his stellar 1998 after the Dodgers signed him for the 1999 through 2005 seasons, but he still managed a 3.00 ERA, good for a 143 ERA+ as offense flourished in baseball. His team, however, scored just 793 runs, 17 below league average.
Yet while Brown and Hampton don’t conform to the idea that a high powered offense helps calm a pitcher, the two $100 million pitchers prior to Sabathia do. Johan Santana moved from small market Minnesota to big market New York in 2008 and lowered his ERA by 0.80 runs to 2.53. He also led the league in starts. The Mets offense was third in the NL in runs that year. Barry Zito, who made the move a year earlier, saw his ERA inflate by 0.80. The Giants had the second worst offense in the league that year.
I’m sure that in some way, having a powerful offense full of experience players helped ease Sabathia’s tension as he took the mound early in the season. How much it affected his pitching, however, we’ll never know. I’m fine with that. All we do know is that after a slow start to the season Sabathia pitched as well as we could have reasonably expected. He appears ready to do it again in 2010.
“I’m itching to get to spring training, itching to get started, itching to see the guys and just try to do it again.” More excellent words have never been spoken.
Credit: AP Photo/Nate Billings
The best fastball, curveball, slider, cutter, and changeup on the Yankees
Posted by: | CommentsOver the past couple of weeks we’ve started writing about the stats we use. One concept we saw in both current entries, UZR and wOBA, is linear weights. The idea might sound complex, but it is not. The idea is to assign a value to different outcomes and situations, so we can get a truer sense of how baseball players add value. During the 2009 season, FanGraphs introduced pitch type linear weights, which took the actual results of different pitch types, as provided by Baseball Info Solutions, and ran them through linear weight conversions by not only event, but by count. This gives us a decent idea of how a pitcher fared with his arsenal.
Let’s see how each of the Yankees fared. We’ll look at pitchers who spent a decent amount of time on the roster, 40 innings for relievers plus the starters. Then I’ll compare them to the league leaders, both for starters and relievers. These measurements will be on a per 100 pitch basis, as to put it in a rate form rather than counting form. Finally, for the secondary pitches I’ll weed out the short sample size numbers by noting only pitchers who threw the particular pitch at least 10 percent of the time.
Fastball
Starter: CC Sabathia, 0.64
Reliever: Phil Coke, 1.40
Some might be surprised to see Coke atop the list — some might even say it delegitimizes the stat. I believe it, though. It seemed that Coke got into major trouble when he overused his slider. We saw that first hand early in the season when the Twins, namely Morneau and Mauer, lit up Coke’s slider. He came back later in the series to face Morneau, and struck him out using just fastballs. It was certainly his most effective pitch, which probably explains why he had such spotty success. Relievers certainly need that second pitch. Also, for good measure, Phil Hughes’s fastball wasn’t far behind, at 1.22, and it rated higher on a counting basis.
What comes as no surprise is CC Sabathia’s fastball ranking highest among starters. A.J. Burnett is known for his blazing fastball and devastating curve, but in 2009 his fastball didn’t quite measure up. That leaves Joba, Sabathia, and Pettitte, and it’s pretty clear who had the best fastball among that group. Joba, in fact, had a pretty terrible fastball, ranking among the worst for AL starters.
AL leader, starter: Zack Greinke, 1.27
AL leader, reliever: Craig Breslow, 2.65
Credit: AP Photo/David J. Phillip
Slider
Starter: Joba Chamberlain, 1.29
Reliever: Phil Coke, -0.30
It seems Joba has good reason for loving his slider so much, as it appears a damn effective pitch. Overall it was worth 7.5 runs above average, an excellent mark, especially for a guy pitching his first full major league season. He kept shaking off Jorge Posada to get the three fingers, and he kept throwing it with effectiveness. If he can further harness the pitch this year and get his fastball back to 2008 levels, when it was at 0.79 runs above average per 100 pitches, he should have a wildly successful 2010 season.
As for Coke being the top reliever, that’s more a result of so few Yankee relievers using the pitch. David Robertson actually ranked highest, but he threw the pitch just 1.4 percent of the time, so we can discount the performance. Likewise, Burnett led among starters but threw the slider just 0.1 percent of the time. The Yankees bullpen, it appears, is more of a curveball/changeup crew.
AL leader, starter: Zack Greinke, 2.90
AL leader, reliever: Mike Wuertz, 2.75
Credit: AP Photo/Elise Amendola
Curve
Starter: A.J. Burnett, 1.47
Reliever: Al Aceves, 1.74
Though we saw it fall flat on a few occasions this season, Burnett clearly has the best curve on the team, and among the best in the league. His is a power curve, coming in something like a slider as it dips down and away from righties.
Aceves boasts a number of pitches in his arsenal, but none appears as effective as his curve. He’s a nice change of pace in the Yankees bullpen. While they have Robertson, Marte, and Hughes with strong fastballs, Aceves brings it down a tick, mixing high 80s heat with a slew of breaking and off-speed pitches that keep hitters guessing.
AL leader, starter: Tommy Hunter, 2.27
Al leader, reliever: Joakim Soria, 4.86
Credit: AP Photo/Elise Amendola
Change
Starter: CC Sabathia, 3.59
Reliever: Al Aceves, 3.10
Mike already wrote about CC’s changeup and how it devastates righties. So devastating, in fact, that it ranked best in league. Go CC. On the relief front, Aceves proves his versatility by not only ranking highest for curve, but also for changeup. He throws them with similar frequency, keeping hitters off-balance. Again, I love the change of pace he brings to the bullpen.
AL leader, starter: Sabathia
AL leader, reliever: Aceves
Credit: AP Photo/Kevork Djansezian
Cutter
Starter: Andy Pettitte, 2.50
Reliever: Mariano Rivera, 2.03
Neither of these comes as a surprise. Surprisingly, Hughes’s cutter ranked not far behind Mo’s on a rate basis, at 1.98, but clearly didn’t even approach it on a counting basis. Both of Hughes’s fastballs ranked well, with his curveball lagging behind. He probably needs to start throwing it more in 2010, though it appears he favors the four-seamer and cutter much more when pitching out of the bullpen.
Pettitte mixed his pitches well in 2009, going with healthy doses of four-seamers, cutters, curves, and changes. His cutter ranked the best, and his curve provided value as well. Those two pitches, I believe, help compensate for his four-seamer, which sits at 89 mph. Because he can go to the cutter and curve so frequently, he can keep hitters guessing, meaning they can’t jump as quickly on his four-seamer. His cutter, as you can see, ranked just below best in the league among AL starters.
AL leaders, starter: Scott Feldman and Jon Danks, 2.56
Al leader, reliever: Rivera (conveniently ignoring Lance Cormier’s slightly higher per-100-pitches mark, because Mo’s counting stat was far, far higher, and I’m biased and Mo is Mo)
Pettitte photo credit: AP Photo/David J. Phillip
Mo photo credit: AP Photo/David J. Phillip
CC Sabathia’s better than expected changeup
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When the Yankees signed CC Sabathia last offseason, everyone pretty much knew what he was. He was a dominant, hard throwing lefthander that put you away with his hard slider. However, as the 2009 season went on, something became very apparent about the big guy: he had a damn good changeup. We saw many a righthanded batter flail at the low-and-away change last season, and there’s perhaps no better example of this than Jayson Werth in the fifth inning of Game 4 of the World Series. With runners on first and second in a two-run game, CC threw Werth five changeups in a seven pitch at-bat, getting two swings and misses, the last for an inning ending strikeout.
FanGraphs’ pitch values say that Sabathia’s change was worth 3.59 runs above average per 100 pitches in 2009, which was the best mark in the American League. And not by a small margin, either. Felix Hernandez’s changeup was second at 2.63 runs above average, almost a full run difference. This isn’t a one time fluke thing either. CC had one of the game’s 15 best changeups in 2006 (1.33), 2007 (1.65), and 2008 (2.30) as well. In case you didn’t already notice, his changeup has gotten more and more effective in each of the last four (really five) seasons.
I was completely oblivious Sabathia’s changeup before he wore pinstripes, so I asked Keith Law if it was always a good pitch for him. “Yes, but he didn’t use it much,” said KLaw, and he’s right. Over the last three seasons, CC has thrown his changeup approximately 19% of the time. During the five seasons prior to that, he threw it just ~13% of the time. All those extra changeups came the expense of his curveball, which went from being used 15.5% of the time in 2005 to so little that it registered with FanGraphs as being used 0.0% of the time last year. I know he threw at least a handful in 2009, I remember seeing them.
I’ve always felt that a knockout changeup was the most dominant pitch in baseball. If you could throw it with identical arm speed to your fastball and keep the separation between the two pitches to around 10 mph or so, then forget it, batters had no chance no matter how hard you throw because they’re unable to tell the two pitches apart until it’s too late. Just look at Trevor Hoffman, or Tom Glavine, or Johan Santana, or Pedro in his prime. All dominant changeup guys. I’m not suggesting that CC can be like that, but he has a clear cut weapon against righty batters now, and that makes him even more dangerous than he already is.
Over the course of his career, Sabathia has evolved from a dominant power guy that relied on a fastball-slider-curve combo to get by, though like most young pitchers he had trouble with the free pass (4.22 BB/9 in his first two seasons). Now he’s a fastball-changeup-slider pitcher that is stingy with walks (2.03 BB/9 over the last four years) and baserunners in general. He’s not just a meathead thrower folks, CC’s a pitcher, as the old schoolers are wont to say.
Photo Credit: Kathy Willens, AP
The difference between Posada and Molina’s game calling
Posted by: | CommentsOne of the most notable and certainly most annoying storylines from last season was Jorge Posada’s apparent inability to do anything right behind the plate. He’s slow, can’t frame pitches, can’t block a ball in the dirt, he goes out to the mound too many times, can’t do anything right, especially call a game. Just look at the stats:
Yankee pitchers with Posada catching: .264-.347-.426 against, 18.4 K%
Yankee pitchers with anyone else catching: .234-.298-.385 against, 22.5 K%
See? That right there tells you everything you need to know about Posada’s game calling ability. [/sarcasm]
Actually, yeah there’s definitely a difference between how certain catchers call games, but you can’t tell that based on just simple observation, or Joe Girardi’s idiotic decision to let Jose Molina catch certain pitchers (he sure helped A.J. Burnett in Game 5 of both the ALCS and World Series, right?). We now have the tools to dig deeper into this phenomenon, and Max Marchi at THT did just that.
Using PitchFX, Marchi broke down the how Posada and Molina called games for CC Sabathia last season, noting that the biggest difference is that Posada tended to rely on the big guy’s four-seam fastball while Molina favored the sinking two-seam variety. Here’s the breakdown so you can see for yourself:
That’s the percentage of total pitches, so Posada called for 49% fastballs, 33% sliders, and 18% sinkers against lefty batters. Of course, there are many more factors in play here than just what the catcher calls for. Sabathia could shake them off, and certainly players evolve during the course of the season and may change up their patterns. Posada also caught CC’s first four outings, which were part of his customary slow start, and that probably skewed the results.
In general, a catcher’s ability to work with pitchers is over-stated. Saying a guy handles pitchers well is usually something reserved for catchers who can’t do anything else even decently, like Molina. What makes Posada so great is his bat at the most premium of positions, and moving him to designated hitter to let someone like Molina catch full time makes the team worse. A league average DH with Posada catching is greater than Posada at DH and a defensive specialist like Molina catching. It takes an awful lot of defense to make up for the complete lack of offense.
At 38-years-old, Posada’s not getting any better defensively, and chances are his offense will take a hit next season. However, the best team the Yankees can field features him starting behind the dish, even if it means sacrificing an extra 90 OPS points to the opposition. The difference in offense – 325 OPS pt advantage over Molina, for example – makes up for it.
Sabathia beloved in his former hometown
Posted by: | CommentsEven though he was a 28-year-old ace on the free agent market, a rarity for sure, only the Yankees and the Brewers bid for CC Sabathia’s services last winter. Perhaps teams were scared by the Yankees’ imposing six-year, $140 million opening offer, and figured they couldn’t afford Sabathia. There was still hope, though, that he’d take a discount to play for another team. The Brewers took a shot with their five-year, $100 million offer, but there was a greater fear that the hometown team would swoop in with an offer.
Despite pitching across the country in Cleveland for most of his career, Sabathia has remained active in his hometown of Vallejo, California, about 30 miles northwest of San Francisco. Because of his family and community ties, the connection to the Giants was inevitable. Who wouldn’t want to pitch in front of their hometown crowd? But the Giants never made a serious offer, and the Yankees increased theirs. Sabathia opted to play on the opposite coast.
The residents of Vallejo aren’t spiteful, though. Sure, they’d love to see Sabathia pitching in black and orange, but they’re happy for his success no matter where he pitches. Carolyn Jones of the San Francisco Chronicle captures the town’s love for Sabathia.
“Everybody here loves CC,” said Tony Hodges, president of North Vallejo Little League, where Sabathia learned to play baseball. “His smile, his leadership – it’s infectious. He can ride around here and he’ll never get hassled.”
The article describes CC’s involvement over Thanksgiving weekend. Vallejo, like many towns in California, is bankrupt. Sabathia is doing his part to help raise money for programs that, out of necessity, the town had to cut. The town will honor him tonight at the Mayor’s Image dinner.
Now (as Ben noted to me earlier), if only the residents of Vallejo can convince Sabathia to not opt out of his contract…
Greinke takes home the Cy Young
Posted by: | CommentsBoth the AL MVP and AL Cy Young are pretty obvious picks this year, and half of those awards were made official today. Royals’ righthander Zack Greinke was named the AL Cy Young Award winner, beating out Felix Hernandez in a landslide. Greinke’s season was simply off the charts: 242 K in 229.1 IP, 2.16 ERA, 2.33 FIP, 2.81 tRA. His 9.4 WAR was by the far the most in baseball this year (Ben Zobrist was second with 8.6), and it was the best mark put up by a pitcher since Randy Johnson went for 9.9 WAR back in 2004. Congrats to Zack, there really wasn’t much of a debate here.
In a normal year, CC Sabathia might have gotten more consideration, but thanks to the phenomenal seasons put forth by Greinke, Justin Verlander, and Felix Hernandez, he finished fourth (two second place votes, seven third place votes). It’s all cool though, Sabathia added something to his resume this season that none of those guys have.
The case for CC Sabathia as SI’s Sportsman of the Year
Posted by: | CommentsEvery December, Sports Illustrated announces its Sportsman of the Year. Among the nominees this year is New York’s own Carsten Charles Sabathia, a good choice for the award for many reasons. Ben Reiter takes up CC’s case, writing about why our favorite big man should be the choice. It’s a great read on a great guy, both on and off the field. Takeaway quote on Reiter’s advocacy of Sabathia: “But Sabathia is also my Sportsman of the Year because he showed us, in this money-fueled era of pro sports, that cash doesn’t always change athletes, or corrupt them, and that the idea of a ‘contract year’ can sometimes represent nothing more than a matter of timing.” We’ll find out soon that Sabathia didn’t win the Cy Young, but I think he’d be happy to take home SI’s Sportsman of the Year.
What Went Right: The Offseason Pickups
Posted by: | CommentsOver the next week or so, we’ll again break down what went wrong and what went right for the 2009 Yankees. The series this year will be much more enjoyable than the last.
Every season starts with some new faces in Yankee pinstripes. Some are more notable than others, but they’re all expected to produce. The offseason brought three big time free agents to the 2009 Yanks, and after several high-profile flops in recent years, Yankee haters and the MSM were chomping at the bit to tear into the club should they fail. Unfortunately for those folks, they didn’t.
Mark Teixeira joined the Yanks on an eight year deal that will put $180M into his bank account, and his poor start (.182-.354-.338 in his first 99 plate appearances) already had some questioning his ability to play in New York. Tex answered all the doubters in a big way, hitting .308-.388-.598 the rest of the way, tied for the AL lead in homers (39), runs batted in (122), extra base hits (85), and total bases (344). His defense at first was top of the line, whether he was snagging line drives, ranging to his right, or scooping throws from other infielders.
The playoffs weren’t kind to Teixeira, but it seemed like each of his hits came at a crucial time. He singled off Joe Nathan ahead of Alex Rodriguez’s game tying two-run homer in the bottom of the ninth in Game Two of ALDS, winning the same game with a walk-off homerun in extras. Teixeira doubled in three runs to help mount a comeback in Game Five of the ALCS, and his homer off Pedro Martinez in Game Two of the World Series ignited the offense. His 5.1 WAR was the most by a Yankee first baseman since Jason Giambi’s monster first season in pinstripes.
For the first time in history, a team handed out two contracts worth over $100M in the same offseason, and that means Tex wasn’t the only new star in town. CC Sabathia signed on for seven years and $161M, giving the Yankees a sorely needed front-of-the-rotation starter still in his prime. Just like Tex, Sabathia struggled early, posting a 4.85 ERA as the team lost four of his first six starts. After those first six starts, though, Sabathia was everything the Yankees hoped for and then some. He pitched to a 3.06 ERA with a .226-.281-.360 batting line against in his final 28 starts, completing at least seven innings in 22 (!!!) of those starts.
The regular season was a sign of things to come for Sabathia, who was the absolute man in the postseason. He beat the Twins to start off the ALDS, the Angels twice (once on short rest) in the ALCS, and put together two commanding performances (again, once on short rest) against the defending World Champion Phillies in the Fall Classic. Sabathia threw 36.1 IP with a 1.98 ERA in five postseason starts, knocking more than three-and-a-half runs off his career playoff ERA in the process.
As if Teixeira and Sabathia weren’t enough, the Yankees added another impact player in A.J. Burnett, who inked a five year, $82.5M deal. Given his questionable medical history, Burnett had the highest flame-out potential of the three big free agent signings, but he proved to be the team’s most durable starter. He made every start without incident and didn’t have to leave any games with health concerns (even Sabathia had his little run-in with biceps tendinitis against the Marlins), and pitched into the sixth inning in all but two if his 33 starts.
Burnett may have been Robin to Sabathia’s Batman, but he turned in the biggest performance of the season (and his career) in what was the team’s most important game of 2009, shutting down the Phillies in Game Two of the World Series to tie the series up at one heading to Philly. Sure, he was frustratingly inconsistent, but the Yankees do not get to where they ended up without him.
The Yankees didn’t just stop at the free agent market, however. They also added an impact player via a trade. Long before Teixeira, Sabathia, and Burnett agreed to come to the Bronx, Brian Cashman fleeced Kenny Williams imported Nick Swisher from the White Sox in exchange for Wilson Betemit and two disposable minor league pitchers. Slated to begin the year as the fourth outfielder, Swisher was pressed into full-time duty after Xavier Nady blew out his elbow, and did more than replace Nady’s production.
Swisher hit .249-.371-.498 with 29 homers, seeing the second most pitches per plate appearances (4.27) in the AL. His .869 OPS was the 12th best among all outfielders in the game, better than brand names like Ichiro, Matt Kemp, Bobby Abreu, and Nick Markakis. While Swisher’s defense in the outfield was adventurous at times, he was solid overall and turned in several spectacular, heads-up plays in the postseason.
It’s not often that a team is able to bring in four above-average players in one offseason, let alone two that are bonafide franchise cornerstones, yet that’s exactly what the Yankees did last winter. They flexed their financial muscle to grab Tex and CC, used tremendous foresight to target A.J. over the imminently declining Derek Lowe, and flat-out stole Swish in a shrewd move. All four players met or exceeded expectations, and all four were huge reasons why the season ended on the Canyon of Heroes.
Photo Credits: AP, Getty Images, AP
The Yankees signed him to be the ace
Posted by: | CommentsAnd throughout the season, he was just that. Soak it in, CC. It’s why they brought you here.
