Money Well Saved

(Editor's note: the bulk of this post was written before Rzepczynski walked Vlad Guerrero. All bets are now off.)

After my monocle came back from the cleaners, I impatiently waited for my pool boy to finish detailing my ornate encyclopedia collection. With my other houseman on a errand run (fetching foie-gras taco fixins) I took a break from shooting toonies with my Desert Eagle to read a Grantlands article from start to finish. Despite needing a shave halfway through, it was quite interesting.

This article was about the Moneyball revolution and what constitutes the new inefficiency. Building a bullpen on the cheap is key in this, as most of the people reading this site already know.

I later "saw" Scott Downs pitching for the Angels in an early-morning highlight pack (his name came up as my staff pantomimed each clip for my amusement, as per our morning routine). Heading over the Downs' Fangraphs page, I saw Scott Downs is doing Scott Downs-shaped things once again.

Downs currently owns a 65% ground ball rate, 3.25 FIP and strikeout to walk ratio of 2.2. Pretty good, yes? Interesting that Marc Rzepczynski's numbers are better across the board.

Rzep's 65.3%, 3.65 FIP, and 2.17 K/BB are pretay, pretay good. His swinging strike rate nearly doubles his former teammate. His numbers look even better when your consider 50% of his walks came in 2 outings and he's really a starter taking lumps as a reliever for the first time.

His numbers look worse when you play the arbitrary endpoints game and realize his June has been as bad as his May was good. But, do his credit, he works for free!

So few teams require high-priced relief talent to get them over the proverbial hump. Getting such talent below market price is hardly "the new Moneyball"; it just makes sense to keep costs low for roles which are easily filled without paying a premium.

As good as Scott Downs was (and is), wading into the free agent market to acquire a player like Downs just isn't smart. Which explains precisely why the Angels went ahead and did it. A middling team (sorry) like the Jays is fine with young player like Rzepczynski providing very similar service at a discounted price.

Image and life inspiration courtesy of Birds with Arms.. They are the wind beneath ourwings, amirite?

Nibbles

So I'm a pretty huge Marc Rzepczynski apologist. Call me whatever you want, I'm just a sucker for left-handedness and general effectiveness. Totally enamoured with the high level of usage he's been given this season, I was predictably impressed that he only walked one batter throughout 11 appearances in the entire month of May.

For your consideration, you can imagine how I felt after THIS happened last night with a runner on and 2 outs in bottom of the 7th of a 1-run game.

That's uh... not great.

If you're good at counting, you'll notice that there are 12 green blips up there, correlating to 3 consecutive walks. The Blue Jays lost this game. Sure you could argue that he got squeezed on a couple pitches but there are two walks worth of balls nowhere near the zone. If you need me I'll be ignoring this information and going back to my regularly scheduled blind praise of the man they call Eye Chart. Some nights a guy just doesn't have it and can't get a break to save the lack of 'stuff'. Right??? Right?? Right.

/sadface

{Follow Archi on twitter here}
{Photo Courtesy Art Of The Wire}
{Pitch F/X Courtesy Joe Lefkowitz}

Old Habits Die Hard

It isn't that I plan to dump on Jesse Litsch's fine outing. Litsch did a great job moving his pitches around the (generous) zone, getting backwards K after backwards K. He only gave up 6 hits and 2 walks, a great start indeed. Credit to both him and JPA for keeping the A's hitters off-balance.

That said, when the A's batters did manage to get their bats on Jesse's offerings, MAN did they hit him hard. Much like Jo-Jo Reyes the night before, Litsch surrendered as many line drives (6) as he did ground balls (6). While Reyes took it upon himself to boost Travis Snider's UZR and arm scores, Jesse Litsch might just win Rajai Davis a Fielding Bible award. Stinging liner right to Rajai Davis in centerfield becomes a great over the shoulder catch. Long shot to the gap, Davis runs it down in the most spectacular manner possible.

Davis nearly made another great catch but, I feel, fell victim to the video boards in the gap and lost it off the end of his glove. Missing one liner is okay as Davis well on his way to fulfilling Parkes' prophecy and becoming your favorite baseball player, likely ever.

A dangerous game to play but Jesse Litsch played it very, very well last night. He did exactly what Jesse Litsch needs to do: scatter the hitters, avoid walks at all costs, keep the ball in the ballpark. I'll take a few ringing doubles if the strikeouts outnumber the walks, every time.

Speaking of strikeouts, Marc "Led Rzeplin" Rzepczynski pitched OFF HIS ASS last night. 6 batters faced, three strikeouts, another broken bat, two broken bats, one infield pop fly, no hits surrendered. It was awesome, even more awesome than David Purcey's outing the previous day. It is a good time to be a GROFavorite.

Almost as awesome as the manner in which manager John Farrell used Rzepczynski. "Fuck a save", the manager was (not) quoted as saying after the game. Anytime I'm only asked to buckle up for a two-out Rauchride, I'm on board.

AP Photo courtesy of Daylife.

Stepping Up to the Downs Spot

Please excuse my self-indulgence, but GROF favorite Marc Rzepczynski took the mound twice this weekend as a relief pitcher. No way is a momenteus occasion such as the emergence of The New Scott Downs going to slip past me.

Rzep contributed an inning to Kyle Drabek's masterpiece on Saturday and felt the sting of the luck dragon on Sunday. The results were good(ish) but the process was sound. See the strike zone plot below.


Breaking bats and breaking hearts! Rzepczynski, in limited action, stuck with the slider and sinker. Everything is down in the zone save the pitch that plunked that hump Jason Kubel.

Two broken bats, two GIDP, good stuff all around. Still early but encouraging, if Marc Rzepczynski succeeding as a reliever encourages you. Me? It bums me out, as the better he pitches in the pen, the less likely he is to return to the rotation.

I'll keep my complaining to a minimum and simply take what precious satisfaction I can muster from seeing a pitcher come (back?) into his own. Here's hoping the bullpen rigors don't wear him down too quickly.

AP Photo courtesy of Daylife, pitch f/x data from Joe Lefkowitz.

R.I.P.czynski

...and with that, Marc Rzepczynski's career with the Blue Jays comes to an effective end. Probably?

Hyperbole? My specialty. Gregor Chisholm got some key quotes from AA regarding RZep's future, I'll do my best to provide them without comment.

...at the end of the day we still think he [Rzepczynski] has upside as a starter. But we know his first and foremost priority is that obviously he wants to be up here and he wants to be in Toronto.

Call me crazy but offering a "marginal" big leaguer the choice between trying to make the club as a reliever or taking a guaranteed trip to AAA to iron out the kinks is offering no choice at all. Not many professional athletes are wired in such a way that they'd make the "sound" decision.

I admire Rzepczynski's ambition, in some ways. When asked about possible role in the bullpen, RZep sounds like he models himself after one of the best.

"We had a great guy in [Scott] Downs ... he found a home in the bullpen," Rzepczynski said. "I'm not saying that's going to be me but for right now I see myself kind of as the same guy. We throw about just as hard, have the same kind of stuff. For right now, it fits perfect for [Toronto] so it works for me."

When I think about valuable guys in the bullpen, pitchers who struggle with their command (due to inconsistent mechanics) and pitchers who give up the occasional long ball don't jump out at me as high-leverage reliever candiadates.

Rzepczynski issues too many walks when he isn't right and fights the tater tot from time to time. I really don't how moving to the bullpen would help that. Maybe he doesn't listen or maybe he doesn't work. Maybe he Accardoed somebody he shouldn't have. It just seems that, despite AA's assurances of upside, that the Jays don't see a real spot for Marc Rzepczynski long-term.

Overreacting as I might be, it remains difficult to see where the guy with the name I can't spell fits in. If can sort out the issues that keep him from throwing strikes in the bullpen, he has to be a rotation candidate again, right?

Inevitable Heat Maps Post

Heat maps! As I am not talented enough to create them using R or any such graphing software, I'll take advantage of Fangraphs latest attempt to get you fired - heat maps.

Heat maps are great way to visualize the relative effectiveness of pitches by location. The awesome dudes at The Process Report use heat maps to show how the Danks Theory worked to foil Shaun Marcum's dastardly change up.

Might clever meddlers like Joe Maddon apply similar witchcraft to neutralize this year's Opening Day starter¹ Ricky Romero? Let's look at the usage of Ricky's change up in 2010. The maps are from the perspective of the catcher, with the colours ranging from blue to red. Blue being less frequent, the stronger the colour the more frequent a pitch went to that location. Got it? Got it.



Hrrm. Don't be too surprised if you see Manny get a day off against Romero should the Jays new ace come up against the Rays in 2011. Romero does not show extreme splits between left and right but eliminating his best pitch is a good way to tip the scales.

The transformation of Brandon Morrow upon arrival was more than adjusting his arm angle and attempting to set his head straight. The Jays also expanded Morrow's arsenal by demanding the hard-throwing right-hander use his change up against lefties and increase the use of his curveballs from "none" to "some."



Wow, what a weapon! If Brandon Morrow — he of the high 90s fastball and moderately unfair slider — can work a decent change up over the outside corner to left-handed pitching?? Well, you might just have something there.

Finally and most predictably, here's a look at Marc Rzepczynski from deep inside the tank currently serving as my full time residence.



Based on Rzepczynski's unsightly splits in 2010, I say do less of that. Whatever it is. Please head over to Fangraphs yourself and fart around with this excellent new tool.
¹ - Book it. I'm way out there the limb with this bold prediction, I know.

Fetch Me a Polish-to-Spanish Translator!

The good men of Bluebird Banter have a sweet little offseason feature wherein they mine their readership for predictions. When it came for Marc Rzepczynski, I couldn't resist offering my two cents.

As a dyed in the wool R-Zep supporter, I quickly started typing numbers as they came to my head. Without giving too much thought or consideration, this is what I jabbed into my workLEISURE TIME AT HOME keyboard.

I think 120 innings would be great. 8 K/9, 3 BB/9, 1.10 HR/9. 4.30 FIP, 8-10 Won loss.

I threw the W/L record in as for "when in Rome" sake but the rest, upon reflection, doesn't look too bad. Certainly not unattainable. The Bill James Projection System TM figures Rzepczynski for a 110.0 IP, 9.08 K/9, 4.25 BB/9, with a 0.82 home run rate. Good enough for a tidy 3.83 FIP.

Others remain unconvinced. Many see R-Zep as a potential bullpen arm, perhaps developing into a Scott Downs high-leverage jack-of-all-trades. While that role is crucial and Rzepczynski could possibly fill it, why settle for the pen when the rotation is within his grasp?

Consider the man pictured above, Jorge De La Rosa. Like R-Zep, De La Rosa battled control issues for years before cutting his walks to a manageable number. The Brewers tried JDLR as a reliever before he eventually moved to the rotation full time with the Royals after surviving a stern DFAing.

Since moving to the Colorado Rockies, De La Rosa proved himself quite valuable. Decreasing the walks and increasing his ground ball rates helped him amass nearly 8 WAR in three seasons in the mountains. A 2 year plus an option, $11 AAV contract was his reward after testing free agency this fall.

Looking at the De La Rosa's strikeouts, walks, home runs and the like, there is no reason to believe Marc Rzepczynski can't put up nearly identical numbers this very season.

De La Rosa throws harder but they miss nearly the same number of bats. They handle lefties and rights with similar levels of effectiveness. If anything, R-Zep shows similar control now, as a 25 year old with less than 2 years in the Show, to De La Rosa at his 29 year-old peak.

Don't like George of the Rose? Consider another young lefty picking up big-time hype and praise everywhere these days, Gio Gonzalez. How different, exactly, are Gonzalez and Rzepczynski? All numbers across 2009 & 2010.

	Marc Rzepczynski	Gio Gonzalez
IP	124	289.2
K/9	8.27	8.42
BB/9	4.35	4.32
HR/9	1.09	0.90
BABIP	0.312	0.308
LOB%	74.10%	74.90%
GB%	51.00%	48.30%
HR/FB	13.60%	9.90%
ERA	4.35	3.95
FIP	4.39	4.01
xFIP	4.03	4.08
WAR	1.6	4.2

I must be getting old and forgetful, which one of these guys is an OMGSTUDALWESTFAVORITE and which one is potentially battling with Jesse freaking Litsch for a rotation spot?

Obviously the innings are a thing, as well they should be. 200 inning seasons are 200 inning seasons, giving more legitimacy/stability to Gio's rates. But why the huge gulf in opinion?

If you factor in more park effects than simply HR/FB normalization...you see what I mean. Marc Rzepczynski has all the tools to be a league-average starter— and a history of using them. Considering a few similar starters, he starts to look even better.

All numbers courtesy of Fangraphs.

Getty Images photo courtesy of Daylife.

I Defy You to Make Sense of Jesse Litsch

There is no middle ground on Jesse Litsch. You either think he's the worst starter the Jays have, or simply bad. So polarizing! Might he be the fifth starter, or fighting for the long man role? Unless you're Mike Wilner in Daytime Radio Host/Chase Producer mode or have a thing for freckles, you probably don't think too highly of Jesse Litsch. Both of which are somewhat understandable but not especially estimable.

Let me get this out of the way: I don't understand the appeal of Jesse Litsch. Every non-disastrous outing he makes seems more unlikely than the last. I don't think I'm alone in this. In fact, the Fangraphs community projections for Litsch serve as a great reminder for the value of scouts.

Four different Fangraphs users submitted 2011 projections for Jesse Litsch. 2 self-identified Jays fans and 2 out-of-town fans. The Jays fans, likely armed with scarred memories of Listch's outings past, project a dire 2011 for the Jays right hander. The non-Jays fans hardly toss him Cy Young votes but those with Litsch baggage foresee half as many innings with fewer strikeouts and more base runners.

Base runners are not the friends of pitchers like Litsch. Pitchers who miss bats at a below-average rate must hope against hope to induce a ground ball to do the work they're out pitch cannot. It's stressful stuff, hanging on by a BABIP thread.

Just look at the company Litsch keeps. Here is a complete list of pitchers (since 2007) with at least 340 innings pitched, K/9 under 5.00 and ground ball rates under 50%. Children, look away from the screen.

Jesse Litsch Braden Looper Jon Garland Kyle Kendrick Scott Feldman Mark Buehrle

Paul Byrd Nick Blackburn Livan Hernandez Jeff Suppan Carlos Silva Zach Duke

A rather contemptible lot. Some "effective" starters, durable hurlers who dutifully take the ball every fifth day. Mark Buerhrle is the best of the lot (15 WAR over this time frame) but he features the group's highest K rate while yielding the fewest home runs.

When compared to the august company he keeps, two factors work against young Jesse Litsch. His in ball average is the lowest and his strand rate is the second highest. That, to me, is terrifying. Regression waiting to happen. Jesee Litsch isn't exactly the kind of guy who can afford to regress. A rebuilt elbow might keep Jesse Litsch from using his ground ball-inducing cutter as frequently in the future, exposing him to even more fly balls and home runs.

Some pitchers demonstrate repeatable ability to maintain high strand rates and below-average in play averages? Yes, yes they do. But they aren't among this wing and a prayer bunch. If Jesse Litsch transitions to more of a fly ball pitcher, his in play average might stay down but the strand rate will rise when the home runs roll in.

Only Buehrle has a (fractionally) higher strand rate than our pink hero and I'm willing to credit his superlative pickoff move and general left-handedness as bonus points for his magical case against reason. We certainly can't make the same allowances for Litsch.

Is this a long way of saying I don't think Jesse Litsch is a viable fourth, fifth, or emergency starter? Yes. Not only does he have marginal at best skills, his inability to remain healthy pretty much discounts any inning-eater claims.

Is Marc Rzepcynzski a better option in every single way? Absolutely! I don't say that as an unabashed fanboy¹ but as someone who feels that the ability to miss bats and induce an above-average number of ground balls outweigh struggles with control and the occasional gopher ball.

¹ - This is a lie.

What's a Rzepczynski Worth?

The endless debate that is Marc Rzepczynski rages on within the Blue Jays blogosphere. In the previous post on this very site, the talk went back and forth between "I think R-Zep makes a fine swingman" and "I think he's a great 5th starter." As you likely know by now, I'm firmly in the latter camp. In fact, I think he's better than a fifth starter. Whether he gets a chance to prove it in Toronto is another story.

Marc Rzepczynski showed his best stuff last weekend in a start against the Angels. The two-seamer was diving and the ground balls rolled like heads at Sportsnet One if Bell doesn't sign on. It was a virtuoso performance.

One start later, R-Zep struggled badly against the weirdest team in baseball aka the Oakland A's. (Seriously, what an odd collection of oddities. ) What was the problem? Not enough sink in the sinker? Let's take a look, though I think the answer is much more obvious.



Remember this is our movement chart, plotting horizontal movement against vertical. I moved away from using this plot because it gets quite muddy. We see a little less horizontal break on the curve, for what that's worth. The fastball/sinker/changeup area looks a little muddy. Let's try to clean it up by measuring vertical break against the velocity of the pitch.



A little more clear, but nothing jumps out as being an obvious cause of his struggles. Am I overthinking? Looking for flat fastballs when the culprit lies elsewhere? It wouldn't be the first time I look for something cool and gimmicky when the answer is just good, old-fashioned, suckiness. Allow me to present what will have to stand in for The Smoking Gun.

	Angels	A's
Batters Faced	25	21
Ahead 0-1	13	8
Ahead 0-2	5	2
Behind 2-0	ZERO!!!	6
Whiffs	8	2

There really isn't much more to add. Get ahead. R-Zep already gets life-saving ground balls (50% of the time) and misses a few bats here and there. Just get ahead. Strike one - the most important pitch in baseball. Simple but effective.

If it was as easy to throw strike one as it is to say "get ahead", this wouldn't be an issue. But, again, all this stuff adds up to a guy like Marc Rzepczynski being a valuable guy as the Jays move forward. If Jesse Litsch was a good fifth starter then somebody with R-Zep's skill set can be much more. People love to focus on big righties like Chad Jenkins or Henderson Alvarez, but I think Marc Rzepczynski might be one to hold on to.

Ice Ages

On consecutive nights this week, the Rogers Centre showcased two very different pitchers. One who does nearly everything right, one who might be at the end of his leash.

Marc Rzepczynski pitched wonderfully Wednesday night, striking out 7 against only one walk. He missed bats, he changed speeds, he induced ground balls. It was awesome. I'm unabashed in my support/belief in Rzepczynski and last night went a long way in explaining why. Other than the two home runs he surrendered; he was great.

Jesse Litsch, deep in his post-Tommy John hangover period, was the opposite. Litsch was bad, as he has been all season long. Jesse Litsch gets nobody out, no matter how hard he tries. His 7 strikeouts in 24.2 innings thrown in 2010 make for a tidy 2.55 K/9! That's downright awful, even for "heave-it-and-hope" Jesse.

See, strikeouts are important. Jeff Sullivan of SB Nation and Lookout Landing summed it up nicely yesterday in reference to Brandon "holy shit, Anthopoulos made Jack Z his dog's bitch" Morrow

But you can afford some walks when you strike out more than a quarter of the batters you face. Striking out that many batters limits their opportunities to do damage...While strikeouts aren't everything, they can help make up for an awful lot of shortcomings

Everybody has shortcomings. Marc Rzepczynski sometimes loses sight of the plate and offers up a few more gopher balls than you'd like. But Litsch? If the Listch isn't exactly right, he gets covered to all corners of the yard.

Remember when B.J. Ryan came back from Tommy John and begged, borrowed, and stole 32 saves? It took him a while to find his spots and his velocity and movement were way down, but he was okay? Doing that for one inning a night, needing to con only three hitters into retiring themselves is one thing. Trying to get all the way through a major league lineup twice is something else entirely.

Jesse Litsch needs to go away - soon. Not that I wish him ill, he just doesn't have what it takes at this time. Usually the kind of guys who can get away with really low K rates are sinkerballing maniacs. Litsch may throw that slutter of his until the precious new tendons deep in his elbow are ground to a fine paste, but he has a long way to go to reach maniac-level status. See, that's the thing with barely above replacement-level fifth starters: it doesn't take much for someone better to take your job.

Why that video? No reason, it's simply the funniest thing I've ever seen in my life. It is perfect. Not many things are. Sorry, Lebron-fatigue (on both sides) makes me wistful.

Saturday News Noms

When news is what you're after, ordinarily GROF isn't the place to come. But I'm stuck at work tonight and a few quasi-interesting news bits leaked from Twitter like braincells from a Red Patch Boy.

Eye Chart Tries on a Necktie

With Marc Rzepcynski all but assured a starting slot from nearly the start of spring, I'd all but counted out Brett Cecil's chances to make the big club out of spring. Not so fast, completely uninformed guy 3000 kilometers away from the action. Jordan Bastian says otherwise:

One battle that is not drawing much attention right now is the quiet competition between young lefties Marc Rzepczynski and Brett Cecil for a rotation spot. It has been assumed all spring that Rzepcynski — a favorite of Gaston's — was a virtual lock. It's worth noting that general manager Alex Anthopoulos made the near three-hour drive to Fort Myers on Friday to watch Cecil spin a strong five-inning outing.

Alex Anthopoulos must have some dirty-ass fingernails from turning over every last stone in Florida. Driving for three hours in Florida counts as six hours of driving in Ontario, as every mile driven along a Florida highway brings you that much closer to death.

Before I get my Brett Cecil boner all engorged once again, I might balk at the viability of this battle. Unless Rzepcynski forgot how to throw strikes, I'd let him start the year at the big league level. It would make sense if, as Hugo at Bluebird Banter suggests, that Cecil is a part of The Plan while Rzepcynski is just a happy accident. Should the roles reverse and RZep starts the year in Vegas while Cecil's clock runs, would it be reckless it assume the opposite, that the Jays think they've got something special in Rzepcynski? Or is it just good old-fashioned baseball "who's throwing the best right now" thinking? The answers to theses questions say a lot about the direction of the Blue Jays; luckily I haven't a clue to those answers.

Branded!

The drugged up Dude singing in the back of the Malibu squad car is one of the funniest moments of The Big Lebowski. Though I'm sure Paul Beeston both makes a mean Caucasian and enjoys treating objects like women; I doubt he had a hand in branding Jason Frasor the closer. A report on Fox Sports by Jon Paul Morosi claims "Frasor is the guy they (ed. the Jays) seem to be peddling," attributing the quote to Bob Elliott's infamous "NL scout".

Could AA and friends market Frasor as their closer in an attempt to drive up his value? Would this even work? "He's our closer to start the season, YOU'D REALLY HAVE TO BOWL US OVER" hardly seems like the best way to extract maximum value for guy in the last year of his deal. Just as the rotational battles were likely over long before they began, I seriously doubt any team changed their valuation of Jason Frasor because Clarence deigned to name him The Closer.

Unless...added counting stats (like saves) could goose Frasor's value into Type A territory. If so, bravo Alex. You're a fucking genius.

Image of the last thing left-handed hitters of the AL East in 2011 will ever see courtesy of Getty Images via Daylife.

Subtracting the Bear

It's Friday and it's suddenly cold as balls. A few random tidbits to pass around. Some slight, some otherwise.

That Time of Year

Yes, Spring Training is winding down, which means it is time for Rich Lederer to unveil his annual pitcher categorization post. Always an enjoyable day, though Blue Jays fans should look at it with some measure of concern. Lederer combined all innings from 2007 to 2009 to give a more complete profile of the pitchers.

As usual, the upper right quadrant spells out the keys to goodness pretty clearly. Ground balls, strikeouts, minimal walks. One of the reasons I like this post so much is it shows the true qualities that make Roy Halladay one of the best. The only pitcher to eliminate 15% of his own batters (strikeouts minus walks divided by batters faced) while inducing ground balls from more than 50% of his opposition. As always, ground balls don't turn into home runs very easily, this seems like a logical standard to set.

For the current Jays staff, the outlook isn't so rosy*. Brian Tallet ranks as one of the worst starters in baseball, landing in the dreaded bottom left corner. Just 8% of K-BB/BF and a mere 38% ground ball rate. Good thing he's only the nominal fifth starter! Whoops, third starter Brandon Morrow sports nearly identical numbers as Tallet, thanks to his complete inability to throw strikes. As a fly ball pitcher, he really, really, needs to eliminate the walks if he's to even approach respectability.

Ricky Romero isn't set up quite so poorly thanks to his heady ground ball numbers. He misses far more bats than some of the other wormburners in his section (Fausto Carmona, Chein-Ming Wang) and a slight decrease in walks could push our boy RR into the quadrant of greatness and riches.

Good signs or portents of doom? Both Shaun Marcum and Scott Richmond(!) rank as good strikeout guys dogged by persistent fly balls. Scott Richmond will fight for the remainder of his nascent big league career to keep the ball in the yard, while Shaun Marcum is the Opening Day starter we can all get behind. Strikeouts are sexy!

* - I should note, nay I MUST note, that Dustin McGowan's numbers land him in the super exclusive upper right column. Astounding! His strikeout numbers sneak up on you, as it turns out. Good for him, good for us. Hurry back Dusty!

SIERA Grande

Staying with the rotational audit, I finally threw some numbers into J's SIERA calculator. Is it a better ERA predictor than FIP et al? Who cares!! Let's see SIERA says about the current Jays starting crop.

Name	SO	PA	BB	GB	FB	PU	SIERA	tERA	xFIP	FIP	ERA
Shaun Marcum	123	630	50	192	176	17	4.021	4.38	4.24	4.46	3.39
Ricky Romero	141	771	79	286	141	12	4.180	4.67	4.09	4.33	4.30
Brandon Morrow	63	313	44	76	87	9	4.622	5.10	4.89	5.05	4.39
Marc Rzepcynski	60	261	30	85	47	0	3.799	4.62	3.70	4.14	3.67
Brian Tallet	120	717	72	185	220	14	4.662	4.98	4.93	4.68	5.32
Total	507	2692	275	824	671	52	4.353	4.75	4.37	4.53	4.21

Note the "total SIERA" you see comes from the total components posted while the xFIP etc are just averages. Does this mean we can expect the Jays starters to give up 4.5 runs per 9 innings? With the potentially lousy defense behind them that would go down as a mild victory. Again, I'm not too sure what to make of SIERA and what we can expect from this crop of starts (R-Zep is awesome!) but it's just more to chew on, I suppose.

There Comes a Time

I used to really like Minus the Bear. I saw them for the first time in 2003 at the Reverb Rivoli, at which time I observed them imbibing incredible amounts of Jack Daniels for such a technical band. As an unabashed Dave Knudson acolyte, I dove right into their early records with gusto.

Sadly, I think my time with Minus The Bear is over. I just can't get into the whole epic prog-rock thing from outer space. The live show always left me cold since only one guy in the band can sing, but the records always hold my attention. The current direction might just leave me in the dust. Thanks MtB, it's been a slice.

Update: I just realized the MtB show was at the Rivoli, not the Reverb. Smaller and more credible! I drank a lot that night. Sigh.

Quickly

• I added a newish Jays blog to the link roll at your right. Welcome A Blue Jay with a Machine Gun. While I don't agree, per se, with their stance on Lyle Overbay, they're gearing up nicely for the season. Reasoned posts without feeling too familiar, always a tough balancing act. Check out Infield Fly if you don't already, they too are nearing mid-season form.
  
• Joe Poz wrote an interesting piece on Ichiro, ifyoucanbelieveit. He calls him unique; I prefer to think of him as a singularity.
  
• Wezenball ranks Jack Morris as one of the worst Opening Day starters in history. But you already knew that.
  
• The Walkoff Walk Furious Five podcast made its return! Rob was out with a Fierstein and couldn't participate so DMac bravely (and drunkenly?) stepped in. Baseball talk always feels good.

Unscrambling Rzepczynski

For no real reason, I don't think I've given Marc Rzepczynski a fair shake. Could be his cameo was just brief enough to keep him in the shadow of more prominent prospects, or the fact that he looks like a kid I hated growing up, but I don't know that I've spent enough time thinking about the potential of guy they call Scrabble.

Looking back at Rzep's 2009 numbers, the strikeouts and walks are the first things to jump out, as he collected both in bunches. Not to mention the plethora of ground balls induced by his sweet sinking fastball. How does Rzepczynski do it? Let's get a sense of what he throws. Click to enlarge. A lot



That's every pitch he threw in 2009, word is he added a few miles per hour on his fastball, touching 91 regularly this spring. Exciting stuff. Lots of sliders from RZep, an incredibly effective pitch for him, ranking right alongside Zack Grienke in terms of value per 100 pitches thrown. So what makes Rzepcyznski promising and what may hold him back?

Despite racking up impressive strikeout numbers, Marc Rzepczynski doesn't miss too many bats. Below league average, actually. He gets swinging strikes around 12% of the time with his slider, again a low number for such an effective pitch. The guys at Mop Up Duty looked at his numbers and found a very high rate of called strikes with his slider. Is that repeatable? Was that a fluke? How many rhetorical questions can I ask in one post?



Look at all those swinging strikes on junk down and away (to lefties, down and in on right handed batters.) It is worth noting that many of the errant sliders on the right hand side of the diagram (or inside to left-handed batters, we're looking from the catcher's perspective once again) would sit among the sliders I labeled "somewhat ruthful" above. Spinners that didn't really go anywhere, thankfully. Clearly the slider is an effective pitch to lefties, but right handed hitters have an easier time laying off. Which brings us to the key pitch in R-Zep's development, the change-up.

Rzepczynski throws his change almost exclusively to right handed batters, but not particularly effectively. While it might help keep hitters off balance no matter the situation, he needs to show he can throw it for strikes if he wants it respected. Even with the added mph on his fastball this spring, Scrabble needs to change speeds if wants to live.



The classification of change ups is an inexact science, but I think that covers most of Rzepczynski's. Almost all away from righties, not many thrown for strikes. I don't care how sinking or boring your two seam fastball is; if every swinging dick is looking for it, they're going to hit it.

If the guy with the difficult name but no worthy nickname is going to stick at the big league level, getting right handed hitters out is the key. Otherwise, he'd better ask Brian Tallet about career advice or ask Scott Downs about life as a setup guy. Obviously, he wants to start and the Jays would love for him to stick there. It's exciting to wonder if his walk rate dips at the expense of his strikeouts. Actually, not exciting, but interesting. Excitement and rate stats hardly go hand in hand.

Pitch F/X data courtesy my new friend Joe. Don't worry Brooks, I'll be back soon.