Javier Vazquez

[XFactah416]

Alright, I think it's time to create a thread on Javy.

Is there something wrong with him? His April and May were really solid, but his June and tonight's start leaves me a little bit to worry.

I mean, he still is a very good source for strikeouts, but he's had a lot of mediocre to pretty below average outings for a while now (excluding the July 3rd start against Oakland). Anyone in Chicago mind telling me what's happening with Javy?

[OneLoveBoomer]

He's a good pitcher, not a great pitcher. People overdrafted him as a "soft ace" and he never really deserved that status (performance wise).

He's locating badly and batters are squaring up against him with relative ease. I'd bench him until he throws a good start and shows something decent.

[cordscords]

Just a bit of bad luck. K/BB is still very sharp. His BABIP is just a little high.

I've got no problems with him. I'd buy low during this rough patch.

[Snakes Gould]

Just a bit of bad luck. K/BB is still very sharp. His BABIP is just a little high.

I've got no problems with him. I'd buy low during this rough patch.

you know the funny thing about javi is that even in his terrible years his k/bb was always fairly good.

[kcs261]

I'm going to bench the guy. He is killing me. I don't know why I keep sticking with him.

[freeling_prideful]

Javy is among a group of sabermetric-freak pitchers who have inexplicably bad results in ERA to go along with generally solid WHIP, good walk rates, and high strikeout rates. One common denominator among these sorts of pitchers is that their strike-throwing tendencies are almost too consistent--they don't walk people, but that's b/c they leave a lot of hittable pitches (especially fastballs) around the plate. Vazquez unsurprisingly has a pretty high career LD rate, and check out his year-to-year numbers:

04 - 19.1%
05 - 22.9%
06 - 19.5%
07 - 16.8%
08 - 22.5%

Which one looks like the outlier here? Unsurprisingly, 07 was the only year he went under 4.00 in ERA.

The other common denominator is high FB/GB ratio. Vazquez gives up a ton of homers, more than 1 every nine innings, or essentially almost 1 per start. Homer-happy pitchers tend to be harder to stomach in fantasy b/c they might throw 6 good innings and then give up 2 homers and end up with 4-5 ER on a night where they pitched well except for a few mistakes...whereas a guy like Brandon Webb can make 20 mistake pitches in a given night but most of the time batters still can only get line drive doubles off his heavy sinker.

[gatorgreenwell]

Bottom line-he's a pitcher with ace-potential stuff who never really gets it done. He's probably weak mentally. He's one of those guys you should just avoid. Someone will always draft him too early.

[Snakes Gould]

Bottom line-he's a pitcher with ace-potential stuff who never really gets it done. He's probably weak mentally.

[ocicat]

Javy is among a group of sabermetric-freak pitchers who have inexplicably bad results in ERA to go along with generally solid WHIP, good walk rates, and high strikeout rates. One common denominator among these sorts of pitchers is that their strike-throwing tendencies are almost too consistent--they don't walk people, but that's b/c they leave a lot of hittable pitches (especially fastballs) around the plate. Vazquez unsurprisingly has a pretty high career LD rate, and check out his year-to-year numbers:

04 - 19.1%
05 - 22.9%
06 - 19.5%
07 - 16.8%
08 - 22.5%

Which one looks like the outlier here? Unsurprisingly, 07 was the only year he went under 4.00 in ERA.

The other common denominator is high FB/GB ratio. Vazquez gives up a ton of homers, more than 1 every nine innings, or essentially almost 1 per start. Homer-happy pitchers tend to be harder to stomach in fantasy b/c they might throw 6 good innings and then give up 2 homers and end up with 4-5 ER on a night where they pitched well except for a few mistakes...whereas a guy like Brandon Webb can make 20 mistake pitches in a given night but most of the time batters still can only get line drive doubles off his heavy sinker.

Excellent analysis!

I too was wondering about him, thinking he might be a good buy-low candidate. Thanks for all the info!

[J35J]

Others have mentioned it but I'll mention it again. He has good stuff....see K/9 and BB/9 but he is wild within the strike zone and guys take advantage of that. Too be honest its the same problem Meche has. Meche has above average stuff across the board and even when he isn't walking alot of guys he just seems to miss in the wrong spots WITHIN the strike zone and guys take advantage of it. You don't have to walk alot of guys to be "wild". Javy leaves stuff up in zone way to often.