Aaron Cibia is the Mayor of Split City

You know what's awesome? Being wrong. The value of being dead wrong is two-fold for someone as ironically detached as myself:

1. When you're constantly negative, being wrong means things actually went well!
2. Something something learning.

Astute readers may remember me expressing concern with J.P. Arencibia's offensive potential. Quite clearly, I was wrong. Which is great, because it means JPA is having a fine season. Third among rookies in home runs and not a single pitcher died under his watch. Way to go JPA!

All was well until the calender turned to June. This month, Aaron Cibia's gone in the tank some. Tired? Maybe, but he's 25 and it's only June. Maybe the league figured something out about the studly catcher. Like, maybe, I dunno, he can't hit a slider?

Arencibia currently sports some pretty gaudy left/right splits. His exposure to left-handed pitching is pretty minimal but he's smacking it around with extreme prejudice. 5 of his 10 home runs came from southpaws in 1/3 the PAs.

His OPS is nearly double versus lefties, his ISO 200 points higher. The numbers are eye-popping but, we must remember, the sample is small and neither side is an accurate representation of his true talent level. (As a weird aside, he displayed large reverse splits in the his final year at AAA. Can't predict baseball!)

Wait, hold on. What if these splits are indicative of a pattern, of a hole in his swing or the league figuring him out? Arencibia's wOBA by month tells a tale (.369, .341, .211). You know what else tells a similar tale? The percentage of sliders he sees from right handed pitchers, also by month.

Arencibia, percentage of sliders (from RHP) faced by month

• April 11%
• May 18%
• June 31%

Which would be fine if, well...

Whiff rate versus slider (from RHP) by month

• April 18%
• May 27%
• June 52%

Having watched Joe Carter and Vernon Wells play baseball for much of my natural life, I'm pretty confident I know how right-handers are pitching JPA these days. For the sake of showing our work, let's take a look at all his swinging strikes versus righties this year.



Sliders and slider-shaped items down and away with fastballs up in the zone? You don't say!

While J.P. Arencibia is far from the first right-handed batter to struggle with the slider down and away, it is now his duty to make an adjustment. Arencibia's young enough that there is plenty of learning and/or development time before we throw up our hands and declare him a one-trick pony. God only knows the last thing this team needs is another platoon player.

Strikeouts are Good

I assure you that strikeouts are, in fact, essential. One might link the struggles of a certain lefty back to his complete inability to strike people out.

Poor Brett Cecil notched 3 strikeouts in both his troubled & belabored 5 inning outings this year. He looks very ungood on the mound, grinding his way to 15 outs amid a hail of line drives and befuddled looks.

Why might this be? What is killing Cecil early this season? The lack of velocity certainly doesn't help but allow me to focus on his changeup. The serendipitous pitch that suddenly allowed Cecil to retire right handed batters and keyed his strong 2010.

In a mere two outings, right handed batters are bashing Cecil around pretty good. Not that we should expect a left-hander with less-than electric stuff pitching in his first April to run over glove-sided batters, but the results are not pretty.

As we saw at times last year, when guys like Cecil (and to a lesser extent Ricky Romero) struggle, it tends to be the changeup that lets them down. Either the offspeed offerings get pounded up in the zone or hitters stay patient with pitches off the plate, designed to elicit swings-and-misses. The bi-product of the latter is more fastballs from guys better served going with junk, the former simply results in line drives that don't get caught.

So I looked at what's become of Cecil's changeups this season compared to last and where in the zone he's putting them. These figures are versus right-handed pitching only. Click to enlarge, pitch f/x data courtesy of Joe Lefkowitz.


I'm mildly surprised to see the swinging strikes so similar, even in a tiny 10 inning sample. The only thing that stands out is gains made in the "in play, tears" section. The dreaded "wild in the zone?" Say it ain't so!


That is pretty much what "wild in the zone" looks like. Lots of pitches in hittable places. Too many thigh-high pitches in the middle of the plate. Again, troubling.

It don't mean to suggest Brett Cecil is a lost cause - he certainly is not. His swing-and-miss changeup makes him a viable starter for any team, let alone this rebuilding unit. I don't know if it is confidence or mechanics but if Brett Cecil cannot command this vital pitch, he's back to being a man without a real weapon against right handed pitching.

Picking 10 early season innings to hold up as proof of deep flaws is not my intention: I'm simply looking for what's gone wrong so far. For his and all our sake, let's hope it's something a few minor adjustments can rectify.

A.P. Photo courtesy of Daylife, pitch f/x stuffs from Joe as mentioned.

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.

An Inning in the Life of Brett Cecil

All minor league pitchers should have to watch Brett Cecil's 1st IP. Struck out the side with location and changing speeds.

— Marc Hulet (@marchulet) April 3, 2011

An innocent tweet from Marc Hulet (of Fangraphs fame) got me thinking about a few things. First, I thought of Cecil's rapid evolution towards a cagey, soft-tossing lefty before his time.

Then I thought of the old Medical School posts I wrote on Halladay's sequencing. Then I thought of delicious sandwiches.

After lamenting the first and enjoying the third, I came back to the second. Why not take a look at what Cecil did against the Twins on Sunday? See if he actually changed speeds and angles or whatever.

Everything started out well enough, right up until I realized that GAMEDAY HATES BRETT CECIL. The biggest casualty of Cecil's disappearing velocity is the ability of these poor, overworked robots to discern what in the Hell Brett Cecil throws.

After some time I'll never get back and a little tweaking (with Excel 2003 at home, sad face) I took Marc's tweet literally and laid out Brett Cecil's first inning below. Let's travel along with the increasingly crafty lefty and see what worked for him against the Twins during the opening frame.

As a refresher: to properly read these graphs, imagine you are the catcher or umpire. The pitches are coming towards you (from the right hand-side of the image in this case, as Brett Cecil throws with his left hand.)

The RED dots are four seam fastballs, the BLUE dots are two seamers/sinkers, and the green dealies are change ups. Swinging strikes are X'd, called strikes boxed, and balls circled. Foul balls are starred and indicated as such. The bigger the point, the slower the pitch.

The batters are Denard Span (L), Tsuyoshi Nishioka (R), and Delmon Young (R). The strike zone is standardized...mostly. It is pretty much Span's zone for all three bros, which only affects Nishioka in any real way. Here we go.


Great start for Cecil! A Brett Cecil Attempted Four Seamer starts Span off 0-1. First pitch of the game, not a bad time to groove one. Next, Cecil opts for the sinking two seamer under the hands, which Span swings right through. Awesome. 0-2 on the leadoff man is a great way to live.

Cecil (and Arencibia, it should be noted) then attempt to trick poor Denard. Throwing a similar-looking pitch — the change up — in the same spot. The pitch is too far inside and too low, so Denard takes. 1-2.

Rather than waste a pitch, Cecil crosses Span up by coming with one of his "fast-balls" down and away. Span freezes, strike three. Cue cheering, ball thrown around the horn, goggle adjustments. Up next is Tsuyoshi Nishioka, a.k.a. Not Ichiro.



Again, the bottom of Nishioka's strike zone is a little higher than shown here, making the first pitch fastball down and away a clear-cut ball. Cecil then pounds the same spot again and gets the call, evening the count at one.

The slappy Nishioka figures to get defensive with the next pitch so Cecil and Cibia come way inside with a two seamer, a pitch that likely started on the edge of the plate. Nishioka takes and jumps ahead 2-1.

Cecil doesn't want to fall behind a guy without much power (he and I assume, because we're probably racist) so he comes back over the plate. But, as he plays in the American League East, it is a change-up, not a fastball. Nishioka swings through it and immediately regrets many decisions made over the last six months.

With the count now even at two, Cecil throws his BFF change-up on the inner half, freezing the Twins second baseman. Great job of keeping an inexperienced hitter off balance. Two down and up steps the free-swinging Delmon Young.


Despite my "free-swinging" billing, Cecil throws two straight sinkers up and over the plate to Young. Delmon fouls them both away, finding himself in a 0-2 hole.

Cecil then dials up his four seamer, buzzing Young's tower with the highest velo'd fastball he threw all afternoon. Good job of giving Young something to think about and "changing his eye level", as they often say.

Still in the driver's seat against a guy allergic to walking, Cecil goes to his new out-pitch: the change-up. For the second straight time, he throws the change in search of the strikeout.

And a strikeout is exactly what he gets as Young swings through the well-placed change down in the zone. Inning over! Parade planning under way!

This was, sadly, the high point of Cecil's day. He didn't look great at points on Sunday, seeming to battle fatigue as his velocity slipped as the day wore on.

If this is mechanical issue as the Tao and Cal from MUD discussed on Twitter, perhaps Walton and the new bossman can fix it. As he showed in this snapshot, he can mix it up and miss bats in a real way. If it is a health issue...getting it figured out sooner rather than later is preferable. This team will need him come October.

Pitch F/X data courtesy of Brooks Baseball. Get used to reading that.

Contrast & Compare

After tackling the great WAR divide for positional players, it is only logical we examine the way value is determined for pitchers. Not nearly as uniform or tidy as batter Wins, as we will soon see.

The biggest difference between Fangraphs WAR and Rally WAR is FIP. Fangraphs attempts to isolate the factors controlled by the pitcher¹ (strikeouts, walks, and home runs) and work from there. They don't make "corrections" for defense because the figures they incorporate come pre-stripped of defensive meddling.

Rally WAR (pioneered by Sean Smith, a very smart guy who now works for an unnamed big league team) starts with runs allowed and works backwards. rWAR makes adjustment to the replacement level runs based on the quality of defense (Total Zone derived) and ballpark (derived using magic and answering the bridge troll's riddles three.)

While FIP and its brethren are good and runs against seems uncouth and cruel, it turns out run allowed per 9 innings pitched has the greatest correlation for year-to-year performance. So I can see value in each of these methods.

This schism within the nerd herd threatens to split the fraternal brotherhood like nothing since Princess Lea in the Gold Bikini versus the Canadian broad on BSG. The great love of over-complication called out by the simplistic. WHO WILL TRIUMPH???

As it turns out, us. The functionally nerdy benefit from the spastic yelps of socially-bereft savants lurking in dark corners of the computer supply store. Let's see how it shakes down. First is Baseball Reference's version with Fangraphs below. The rWAR sits on both for comparison purposes.

Name	IP	GS	R	Rrep	Rdef	aLI	RAR	rWAR
Brandon Morrow	146.1	26	76	92	0	1	16	1.6
Brett Cecil	172.2	28	87	109	0	0.9	22	2.2
Brian Tallet	77.1	5	60	45	0	0.8	-15	-1.4
Casey Janssen	68.2	0	29	38	0	0.4	9	0.7
Dana Eveland	44.2	9	35	27	0	1	-8	-0.8
David Purcey	34	0	16	19	0	0.4	3	0.2
Jason Frasor	63.2	0	30	36	0	1.1	6	0.6
Jesse Carlson	13.2	0	7	8	0	0.8	1	0.1
Kevin Gregg	59	0	24	32	0	2.1	8	1.3
Kyle Drabek	17	3	9	10	0	1	1	0.1
Marc Rzepczynski	63.2	12	37	39	0	1	2	0.2
Ricky Romero	210	32	98	130	0	1.1	32	3.4
Scott Downs	61.1	0	19	33	0	1.5	14	1.8
Shaun Marcum	195.1	31	84	121	0	1	37	3.8
Shawn Camp	72.1	0	26	40	0	1.2	14	1.5
Shawn Hill	20.2	4	8	12	0	1.1	4	0.4

Name	Start-IP	Relieving	Relief-IP	fWAR	(rWAR)
Brandon Morrow	146.3	0.0	0.0	3.7	1.6
Brett Cecil	172.7	0.0	0.0	2.5	2.2
Brian Tallet	27.3	-13.2	50	-1.5	-1.4
Casey Janssen	0.0	3.4	68.7	0.4	0.7
Dana Eveland	44.7	0.0	0.0	0.1	-0.8
David Purcey	0.0	2.4	34	0.2	0.2
Jason Frasor	0.0	8.6	63.7	0.9	0.6
Jesse Carlson	0.0	-2.6	13.7	-0.3	0.1
Kevin Gregg	0.0	7.8	59	0.8	1.3
Kyle Drabek	17	0.0	0.0	0.2	0.1
Marc Rzepczynski	62.7	0.7	1	0.5	0.2
Ricky Romero	210	0.0	0.0	4	3.4
Scott Downs	0.0	11.8	61.3	1.2	1.8
Shaun Marcum	195.3	0.0	0.0	3.5	3.8
Shawn Camp	0.0	2.6	72.3	0.3	1.5
Shawn Hill	20.7	0.0	0.0	0.5	0.4

Weep for Brandon Morrow. Deprived of his gaudy components, Morrow is left to rot as a below-average starter. You know that isn't true, and I know that isn't true, but runs allowed shows no mercy.

Notice the lack of defensive adjustment afforded any Jays pitchers. Total Zone ranks the Jays as pretty much neutral, which is hard to argue unless you try. I can't imagine what sort of ballpark factor is included but if it doesn't cut the Jays plethora of lefties a break then consider me highly dubious.

Relievers who pitch loads high-leverage innings benefit greatly under the Rally system. The adjustment for leverage index/saving grace of runs allowed pumps up the value of both Shawn Camp and Kevin Gregg. I prefer to think of relievers as interchangeable, with the replacement bar set very high as other guys on the same staff can often step into bigger or higher-leveraged roles without issue.

One thing both systems — and all of humanity, I trust — can agree on: Brian Tallet is terrible. That Baseball Reference and Fangraphs can join in chorus proclaiming Brian Tallet is fundamentally awful gives me hope through this dark and gloomy holiday season. Hallelujah!

¹ - This is contentious assumption number 1 of many. But we soldier on.

Thanks again to Fangraphs and Baseball Reference for the data. And Modern Life is War for actually writing a song with a decent payoff.

Compare & Contrast

If you can remember all the way back to Wednesday when I mentioned, at the end of the post, my feelings on the various and sundry defensive metrics. This got me thinking about the ongoing disparity between Fangraphs WAR and Baseball Reference aka Rally WAR.

Are the differences really that striking? We often come across examples of disagreement between the two systems, leading to more confusion rather than increased understanding.

To review - Fangraphs version of WAR uses UZR for the defensive component while the batting runs are based on weighted on-base average (wOBA). Rally uses Total Zone for defense and park adjusted batting runs for offense.

How the sausage is made doesn't really matter for the bulk of us, but we like to know where the flavor comes from sometimes. Below are both WARs, broken down into their compents for worthwhile, contributing Blue Jays. Each numbers is displayed at the end of each row to allow for easier comparison. Let's get nerdy!

Name	Batting	Fielding	Replacement	Positional	RAR	fWAR	(rWAR)
Aaron Hill	-13.9	3.7	19.3	1.9	11	1.1	0.8
Adam Lind	-5.9	-2.7	20.4	-14.5	-2.6	-0.3	0.1
Alex Gonzalez	5.7	4.9	11.6	3.8	26	2.7	2.8
Edwin Encarnacion	5.5	-1.5	12.2	1.3	17.6	1.8	1.6
Fred Lewis	4	-6.1	16	-4.9	9	0.9	0.8
John Buck	8.5	-3	14.6	7.6	27.6	2.9	3
John McDonald	-1.6	1.6	5.4	1	6.4	0.7	1.1
Jose Bautista	55.9	-7	22.8	-4.7	66.9	6.9	5.6
Jose Molina	-2.5	3	6.1	3.7	10.3	1.1	0.6
Lyle Overbay	5.5	0.1	20.3	-11.3	14.6	1.5	2.4
Travis Snider	2.7	4.2	10.6	-3.5	14.1	1.5	0.9
Vernon Wells	21.3	-6.4	21.5	1.8	38.3	4	3.4
Yunel Escobar	-1.4	-1.3	8.9	2.7	8.9	0.9	1

Name	Rbat	Rbaser	Rroe	Rdp	Rfield	Rpos	Rrep	RAR	rWAR	(fWAR)
Aaron Hill	-18	0	0	0	3	2	20	8	0.8	1.1
Adam Lind	-9	0	0	0	2	-13	21	1	0.1	-0.3
Alex Gonzalez	4	0	0	0	8	4	12	28	2.8	2.7
Edwin Encarnacion	4	0	0	0	-2	1	12	16	1.6	1.8
Fred Lewis	2	1	0	0	-6	-5	16	8	0.8	0.9
John Buck	8	0	0	0	1	6	15	30	3	2.9
John McDonald	-2	0	0	0	7	1	6	11	1.1	0.7
Jose Bautista	54	1	0	0	-16	-5	23	56	5.6	6.9
Jose Molina	-4	0	0	0	0	3	6	6	0.6	1.1
Lyle Overbay	6	0	0	0	8	-10	21	24	2.4	1.5
Travis Snider	2	0	0	0	0	-4	11	9	0.9	1.5
Vernon Wells	21	-1	0	0	-10	2	22	34	3.4	4.0
Yunel Escobar	-3	0	0	0	2	3	9	10	1	0.9

Poor Jose. While he tells anyone who listens how much more comfortable he is in the outfield, it doesn't seem to matter. He's basically a Tarantino character roaming around with a rifle in place of his right arm. Total Zone rates him twice as harshly as UZR, which already held a low opinion of Bautista in the field. Vernon Wells' strong season takes a slight hit at the hands of Total Zone, while Lyle Overbay and his agent are sending bouquets of flowers to Sean Smith as you read this.

Nothing revealed here is likely to change your overall impression of any of these players. Whether you think Vernon Wells is a 4 Win guy or a 3.5 Win guy doesn't change the fact that he's a slightly above-average performer. WAR is a descriptive stat, it tells us what happened in 2010.

One year of data doesn't mean to suggest Jose Bautista will continue to put up 5 or 7 win seasons in the future. There isn't any great disparity among the position players. It is when we get to the pitchers (tomorrow) that the fussing and feuding gets serious.

Hat tip to Baseball Reference and Fangraphs for the info.

Think Along with Your Favorite Hurler

One of the highest compliments you hear of a control pitcher is his ability to "throw any pitch in any count." Said frequently of Shaun Marcum, it makes these masters of deception especially tough to hit. Think you'll sit fastball when you're ahead 2-1? Think again, clown.

That sounds like something we've all said. Doesn't mean it is the case. Following along the great work on the topic done by Royals Review and Baseball Analysts; I put my (newfound) pivot table proficiency to work and created these graphs, which track pitch usage by count. Ricky Romero and Shaun Marcum, at your service.


If you get ahead of Ricky Romero, you can put the curveball out of your mind, that much is clear. As always with Pitch F/X, you can argue or debate the pitch classifications but this makes a lot of sense. Interesting that Romero goes to his devastating change up more in 1-2 counts than 0-2 though the curveball rates stay about the same. What about Marcum?


I think Shaun Marcum's full count pitch selection is my favorite thing of today. What are you gonna get? NO CLUE! Shaun Marcum won't necessarily throw any pitch in any count, but he'll certainly keep you on your toes with the pay-off pitch.

As an added bonus, I took Shaun Marcum's numbers and split them by batter handedness. Behold the glory of The Danks Theory! (Click to enlarge.)

If you are a left-handed hitter, Shaun Marcum will throw you a change-up. This is something I now hold to be true. If you're a left-handed hitter facing Shaun Marcum with a full count, he's going to throw you a change up. Good luck convincing your brain of that as you stand in the batter's box.

It is that very indecision that makes Shaun Marcum effective. So effective that he might fetch a tidy haul in trade anchor this pitching staff again? I'm not quite sure.

Image courtesy of Boing Boing, Pitch F/X data courtesy of the wondrous Joe Lefkotwtiz.

Reconsidering Lind

It wasn't even that long ago that I referred to Adam Lind's 2010 as a "season-long slump." While his numbers are disheartening when you take a broad look, looking at his season in chunks we see much more promising results. Promising in a bad way, perhaps. But at least we'd have a better idea of what Lind represents.

There is no disputing Lind's final 2010 line: .237/.287/.425. Good for a .712 OPS and a .302 wOBA. Down 100 points from the year prior. Of course, Lind did manage 58 extra bases hits but that is about it. But together we can make something of this. Let's grab hold of a passing arbitrary end point (the All Star break) and watch things improve drastically!

From the break to season's end, Adam Lind posts a downright respectable .267/.309/.498/.807 line. Include the entire month of July and you get and extra 20 points of OPS. Not catastrophic by any stretch of the imagination.

Despite the heroics of 2009 and the extensive minor league track record; by True Talent Adam Lind is probably a .830~ OPS guy. Combining Lind's good year and off-year you get a two year average of .825. A season-long number like that puts Lind in the top half for designated hitters in the, um, American League.

So case closed, right? Lind is a good not great hitter without a real position. Not so fast. As I've written before, I believe Adam Lind's all-fields approach and power the opposite way makes him a legit power threat in the American league. I went as far as declaring him slump-proof!

Looking at the previous few 'grafs, you can safely assume Adam Lind slumped at some point during 2010. How about a two month stretch, 200 plate appearances almost exactly, in which Adam Lind put forth one of the worst stretches in recent memory.

On May 1st, Adam Lind strode to the plate sporting his now-traditional .360ish wOBA and .200ish isolated power. 4 home runs to his name, he was in the groove. Fast forward two months; Adam Lind wakes up on Canada Day realizing he his slash line since that fateful May Day of .166/.219/.276! A .495 OPS over 200 at bats. How could this happen?

That's what I'm attempting to find out. What happened to Lind over this span that he can hopefully avoid. A 200 plate appearance sample isn't sufficient in writing off a 27 year old with 80 home runs in fewer than 500 games.

Let's get nerdy and see if we can't pinpoint Lind's spring struggles. First, a plot of all the pitches he faced in May/June. Fans of pitching inside, take cover!



When new manager John Farrell hosted his first press conference, he noted the Red Sox "had a pretty good idea" how to get Adam Lind out. Despite the oppo heroics of 2009, it sure looks like pounding the outside corner is the key to retiring Lind. Or does it. Consider below, comparing Lind's pitches by position during his nasty slump compared to his season on the whole.



Interesting. Lind actually saw fewer pitches on the outside third of the plate during his struggles. The next logical assumption (which may not be logical in any way) is Lind got a little pull happy.

Looking at the batted ball data (as best I can for this time period), Lind sprayed the ball evenly around the outfield but hit lots of balls on the ground to the left side of the infield. Did Lind run afoul of the teachings of Citocity? Trying to do too little with pitches thrown in the middle plate, going the opposite way with nearly every pitch he saw?

At this point, I'm going a long way to say Adam Lind had two crappy months and isn't nearly as awful as he showed in 2010. Lind experienced some criminally bad luck in June both by average on balls in play and home run per fly ball.

As I stated earlier, "future Adam Lind" is a lot more likely to put up strong (but not spectacular) numbers in the .850 OPS/.360 wOBA neighbourhood. The .390 wOBA we saw a year ago is what the kids call "a career year." It happens.

That doesn't mean getting him all the ABs he can handle and all the reps at first base he can stomach isn't Job 1 for 2011. If he struggles through another 200 at bat megaslump, giving the appearance of going out of his way to help pitchers get him out, only then might it be time to re-evaluate.

Lind's team-friendly, option-heavy deal provides the front office enough rope to bide their time and fairly assess if Lind is the right fit for the Jays and the eventual playoff push. If a cheaper or better option presents itself, so be it. Players with Lind's type of pop don't fall out of trees, but they're hardly endangered species either.

AP Image courtesy of Daylife. Pitch F/X data from the ever gracious Joe Lefkotwitz, splits courtesy of Fangraphs.

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.

What's Up with Brett Cecil?

Why beat around the bush? Brett Cecil's last three starts haven't been pretty. It's simple - his change up just isn't getting it done like it was. People aren't swinging at it, he isn't throwing it for strikes. The totality of the problem? Of course not. But I think the beginning of this season proved he needs it to get right handed hitters out.



The first thing you should notice is the lack of swinging strikes. He only registered one against the Padres and none versus the Phillies. His start against the Cardinals actually featured 6 whiffs, but very little tangible success. He also threw it far less against the Cards than usual.

The change can be a tough pitch to control, as Keith Foulke can attest. Sometimes it just refuses to stay in the strike zone long enough to force hitters to respect it. It is the only problem but I feel like many of Cecil's problems can be traced back to it.

His strike outs are down in June, his already-low strand rate is teeny tiny. His home runs are to a manageable-but-not-enviable level. Interestingly, or depressingly, Cecil's xFIP is exactly the same for May and June. 4.00. Still good, but a slight uptick in batting average on balls in play, a slight decrease in runners stranded and boom: trouble.

My biggest concern with Brett Cecil is his ability to keep the ball in the ballpark and strike dudes out. Cecil keeps it in the park much more this year, but the Ks just aren't really there. He struck out tons in the low minors but hasn't kept it up in the big leagues.

This isn't to suggest I think Brett Cecil is a 4.00 FIP third starter and that's that. Call me crazy but I believe he can continue to improve in the future, adding strikeouts and further limiting walks while maintaining his current groundball attack. Does that mean we'll keep seeing 4.00 ERA/FIP Cecil in 2010? Probably. He won't be this bad for long, a couple bounces and he's good. We're all good.

Splits from Fangraphs, Gameday data from Joe Lefkowitz.

Art

Sitting down to right another post (one that'll hopefully surface later today) I quickly learned Brett Cecil was pretty effing special tonight. His ongoing study in the advanced art of change-uppery is a site to behold.

The moderately hapless Indians were rendered completely without hap by Cecil's changeup, thrown in nearly equal measure to his fastball(s). The magic of Pitch F/x let's us appreciate an incredible start like this on another level. Strike zone plots help Jimmy play, and show how staying out of the middle of the plate is a very good thing.

A couple things to remember: the strike zone isn't actually shaped this way. Again I rounded the corners to give a better representation of what umps actually call, but the strikezone isn't wider than it is tall. I just do that to fill the frame a little more and give a better sense of where each pitch crossed. Again, we're looking from the catcher or ump's perspective, left handed batters stand on the right of the diagram.



So. Awesome. Cecil had incredible control of all his pitches Monday night; throwing his change almost exclusively to the righties in the Tribe's lineup, keeping them off-balance with his sinking fastball, thrown to the same half of the plate. Cecil spotted his fastball decently and threw his nasty slider and a few curves against the tough lefties (Choo, Sizemore, & Hafner) and generally looked every bit the stud.

That he kept the ball down and away from righties with both his hard sinker and feathery changeup is incredible. Cecil earned 5 big whiffs with his change, 12 total raising his season rate. That's how you amass 10 Ks in 8 innings, bringing that season total to 21. Against 3 walks. In 20+ innings. Bonertown.

Interesting: Cecil threw 29 four seamers, 27 two seam or sinking fastballs, 24 changeups, and 20 sliders. Wacky. That is some Shaun Marcum, any pitch in any count shit right there.

Further to that point, Cecil dangled his vaunted changeup in any number of counts.

• First pitch change: 4 times.
  
• 1-0 change: 4 times.
  
• 1-1 change: 4 times.
  
• 2-1 change: Twice.
  
• 0-1 change: 3 times.
  
• 0-2 change: Once.

He also (awesomely) threw a changeup in a full count and while behind 2-1 twice. He threw it in 2-2 counts twice, once ringing up a strikeout and once missing the zone. He doesn't give a damn, he just throws it.

He worked quickly and he worked well. We're all better for it. The Brett Cecil that crushed the Tribe last night isn't the same pitcher that crushed the Tribe last year: he's a new man with a terrible new weapon.

Pitch f/x data courtesy of good old Brooks Baseball. Check out their new forum & blog, they do an invaluable service. Image courtesy of Surfer Mag. THEY COULD BE BROTHERS AT LEAST

A Second Tale of Two Brandons

Adding a wrinkle to a pitcher's delivery is a lot like giving a kid a new toy. He wants to play with it all the time, his TV friends don't want to talk about anything else, and whoever gave it to him is sure he's going to break it in a matter of minutes.

Brandon Morrow, as you're well aware, dropped his arm slot a few starts ago and now everything is sweet naked nectar. Nothing but strikeouts, ground balls, and the occasional half-dozen walk outing. Which stands in stark contrast to his swap partner and namesake — Morrow's results are quite positive. Is there anything to this lower arm slot? Does it help him throw strikes? Is it even real? The nerdmachine will tell us all the answers.



It's safe to say that, yes; Brandon Morrow dropped his arm slot. He's no Quisenberry, but he moved it down and out. I know the release point numbers pitch f/x spits out aren't super reliable from one park to the next, but trust me when I say I looked at outings from Rogers Centre only and they checked out.

But the movement's the thing, right? I know I saw Brandon Morrow toss some filthy tailing fastballs Friday night, really fooling hitters who gave up on fastballs that looked to be headed directly for their front hip. Is that new or just newsworthy because he threw them for strikes?

Pitch	Horizontal Break - Old Slot	Velocity OS	Horizontal Break - New Slot	Velocity NS
Four Seam FB	-2.41	93.5	-6.8	93.4
Curve	2.7	84.1	2.1	83.2
Sinking/Tailing FB	-6.25	89.9	-8.7	91.6

Dramatic as some of those changes are, they come with some provisos. I ignored vertical break for no good reason. I used the pitch classifications as they came - save one exception. I treated all Morrow's change ups as sinking fastballs. Surely some of these pitches are indeed changes while others are straight up fastballs masquerading as funkier stuff, but I don't have all night here.

The important takeaway here is how much more Bruce Walton has Brandon Morrow's electric fastball moving around. If it isn't astounding, it's close. Whether Morrow can keep throwing it for strikes is one thing (and by my rough count, his new arm slot produces slightly more pitches in "the strike zone"), but he'll miss a shit tonne MORE bats (13.4%) than he already did (7.6% in the higher slot.) And that's a good thing.

If Bruce Walton's next trick is using this lower arm slot to keep Brandon Morrow healthy, I won't know what to do with myself. Make Walton the new manager! NO WAIT &mdash don't change a thing. Fire up the quality starter assembly line and go with a 162 man rotation! A no-hitter every night! The fun we'll have!!

Emasculating image courtesy of Reuters/Daylife. Pitch f/x help from Joey and Brooksie, two people who don't deserve hockey nicknames.

Better Know a Grifter

In the interest of completeness and giving a man his due, how about a hand for reclaimation project Dana Eveland. The Opening Day roster of the Toronto Blue Jays is not a place I'd ever see his name, but there he is.

Just what do we have on our hands with Mr. Eveland? A kitchen sink lefty, throwing all manner of crap against the wall hoping something sticks and you get yourself out. Not the kind of thing likely to shock the world, but a useful arm none the less. Let's look at nerdy stuff.


There they are, all 50 of his pitches. Fastball, cutter, slider, change, curve. He throws them all. They all move as you'd expect pitches like that to move, touching 90 on occasion but realistically he's upper 80s.


So we can see what, but what about how? What's his deal, what didn't he stick at the big league level before? Walks my friends, walks. Lots of them.

Even when Dana Eveland was pretty good, he still wasn't very good. He does some important things well (his career ground ball rate is over 50% and he gives up NONE home runs, way less than 1 per 9) but walks haunt him year after year. He doesn't really strike anybody out, making his walks that much more impactful.

He only missed 5.4% of bats in 2009, a bad year ever for him. His slider generates a good number of ground balls and a third of his total whiffs. Basically he lives for the grounders while dying by the middle of the plate. He fits the current model of Jays starters (ground balls, left handed, control issues) but the others have an out pitch that Eveland's lacked in the past.

Does Bruce Walton know how to glimpse into the soul of these troubled hurlers and cure their arms of wickedness? A lot of the Jays hopes in 2010 (innings eaten) and beyond (titles won) depend on nibbling lefties figuring out how to throw strikes. If Bruce Walton knows the key to that lock, he has a long, long career as a pitching guru ahead of him.

Image courtesy of Inside Social, pitch f/x from Joe Lefkowitz and rates stats by Fangraphs.

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.

Take it Ruizy

One thing I'm guilty of repeating ad nauseam is the old "don't believe anything you see in April or September". I still espouse this school of thought for my own good reasons. The level of competition is lowered as are the energy reserves and motivation levels of players, for a variety of reasons. When a handful of Jays regulars strung together impressive Septembers, hitting for power and padding their otherwise lackluster stats, I was skeptical. Jose Bautista and Edwin Encarnacion hit many bombs in September but, under my intense scrutiny, neither man's accomplishments quite passed the smell test. Not that their home runs and power numbers came cheaply, I'm simply less than moved by their combined efforts.

I don't think I've given Randy Ruiz a fair shake. I downplayed his success as a free-swinger; running into errant fastballs. A basic one-trick pony. I was reluctant to devote the time for the type of "analysis" I did for EE and JoeBau as I didn't believe Ruiz warranted a second look. But when word of his raking in the DR broke and reader AndyMc requested I take a look, I figured I would. And am I glad I did. How wrong I was on Randy Ruiz.

Before I shower Randy Ruiz with effusive praise, let's remember a few important details: he strikes out. A lot. Which isn't a bad thing in and of itself, but he strikes out a ton while only walking a little. Randy Ruiz hit home runs at an ungodly rate last year, sporting the highest home run per fly ball rate of any player with 100 PAs. That might be tough to sustain, considering his rate of 31.3% is 7% higher than JIMJAM Thome. The rest of the HR/FB list reads like a who's who of big time sluggers. Can Ruiz stay in their elite company? Let's get to the facts.

Scumbag	Hand	FIP	HR Allowed	HR/9	HR/FB
Jason Berken	R	5.31	19	1.43	11.7
Tim Wakefield	R	4.58	12	0.83	5.9
Manny Delcarmen	R	4.62	5	0.75	6.4
Ryan Perry	R	4.52	7	1.02	10.4
Andy Pettitte	L	4.15	20	0.92	8.9
Tommy Hunter	R	4.40	13	1.04	8.3
Dan Wheeler	R	4.48	11	1.72	12.2
Josh Beckett	R	3.63	25	1.06	12.8
A.J. Burnett	R	4.33	25	1.09	10.8
Joba Chamberlain	R	4.82	21	1.20	12.4

Uh, wow. Very, very few shitballers in that mix. Not a single shot off Jeremy Guthrie either!! Only Berken, Wheeler and Joba surrender homers at steady rate, though Josh Beckett coughed up a few in the second half of 2009 (five more in the second half over the first, in 30 fewer innings.) But the rest of the list is pretty legit. Tommy Hunter is a ground ball machine who turned in a decent 2009, Manny Delcarmen throws hard and keeps the ball in the park. Anybody who can put good wood to Tim Wakefield is either doing something right or something very, very wrong.

If I was to quickly don my skeptic's hat again, I'd see a lot of flamethrowers on this list and assume Ruiz saw a bunch of thigh-high fastballs from guys who didn't know enough about him yet. Guess what? I'd be dead wrong. Click to enlarge the image. It won't be the only thing getting bigger.


That, my friends, is impressive. A wide variety of pitches, thrown in every single zone imaginable. What the fungus is going on here!! Compare that to EE and Bautista's graphs. The difference is remarkable. Only two fastballs up and over the plate. Golfing sliders and driving change ups. Crazy.

Even crazier? Randy Ruiz's approach. Ruiz hits home runs no matter the count. In fact, five or Ruiz's ten home runs came in 0-1 counts. Get cheated on your own time bitches! He knocked two out of the park facing 2-2 counts, including an eight pitch battle with Tommy Hunter. Awesome stuff.

Want a little more boner fodder? Remember when I got all up in the pants about Travis Snider's plate coverage? Ruiz more than holds his own, but you'll have to wait for another day to see the proof. Trust me.

What does all this mean then? Randy Ruiz is some sort of hitting savant. There is NO reason he shouldn't see consistent at bats during a throw-away year like 2010. Worst case scenario, the league figures him out. The Jays scuttle him sooner rather than later to prevent AB deprivation among their future studs. Best case? He hits like a maniac all summer long, providing entertainment and perhaps a reasonable prospect at the deadline? He figures into the plans moving forward if he suddenly turns himself into a left field worth mentioning? His solid performance against right handed pitching all but eliminates him from platoon consideration, meaning that is exactly what will happen. Ruiz will grab a few at bats here and there while Bautista gets run out there 4 days a week. Ugh.

As always, praise to Brooks Baseball for pitch f/x data, Fangraphs for the pitcher numbers, Hit Tracker Online for all things tater tot. Reuters Image courtesy of Daylife.