Shandler has discussed High K High GB pitchers at length in the past. I think he has an article about it in the 08 Forecaster which was the first time is labeled pitchers as FB or GB or xGB xFB (x = extreme) Dont know if he was the pioneer of this analysis however.
I stumbled across this earlier today, it's really good stuff. The NE quadrant is a who's-who list of the elite SPers in baseball, which I guess shouldn't be a surprise. It's simple stuff really...strike guys out and keep the ball in the ballpark and you'll do fine. I don't think anyone's surprised to see names like Sabathia, Lincecum, Burnett, Oswalt, Shields, Billingsley, Haren, Halladay, Hernandez, etc.
Three names that stand-out a little are Manny Parra, Jorge De La Rosa, and Ubaldo Jimenez. The one thing they had in common last year was control problems. Of the three, I think I like Parra's chances the most of breaking out, largely because he has a stronger minor league track record of good control than the other two. In his minor league career he averaged 2.4 BB/9 and 3.6 K/BB. With major league experience I think his walks will come down a bit, and as long as he maintains the K rate (doable considering his stuff) and his GB% (also doable given his good splitter), he could take a big step forward.
The dreaded SW quadrant is interesting to look at too. There a few guys there (namely Gavin Floyd, Matt Garza, Dave Bush) who I would have considered as late round SP candidates, but this makes you think twice. Gavin Floyd, in particular, seems like he got very lucky last year. He had a 3.84/1.26 line, but only 6.3 K/9, a .268 BABIP that was well below career norms, and a 11.4% HR/FB rate that appears to be unsustainable given his home park, and put in context against his career levels. It's not surprising then that CHONE has him down for 5.05/1.46 line this year.
J35J wrote:How many guys showed up in those lists that suprised anyone though?
Jorge de la Rosa. I forgot how well he pitched down the stretch and wasn't aware of how much of a groundball pitcher he was.
I'm jaded I'm sure but Jorge del la Rosa couldn't make the Royals rotation for a couple years. The change of scenery and the move to the NL will help but this guy has never been a good pitcher. He can get his strike outs and he can go on 3-4 start runs where he pitches pretty well but he'll do double that many starts of pitching horrible. At least thats the way he's been pretty much his whole career. I'll let him break out on someone elses team but this guy will probably always be awful in my eyes....like I said I'm biased though.
J35J wrote:How many guys showed up in those lists that suprised anyone though?
Jorge de la Rosa. I forgot how well he pitched down the stretch and wasn't aware of how much of a groundball pitcher he was.
I'm jaded I'm sure but Jorge del la Rosa couldn't make the Royals rotation for a couple years. The change of scenery and the move to the NL will help but this guy has never been a good pitcher. He can get his strike outs and he can go on 3-4 start runs where he pitches pretty well but he'll do double that many starts of pitching horrible. At least thats the way he's been pretty much his whole career. I'll let him break out on someone elses team but this guy will probably always be awful in my eyes....like I said I'm biased though.
I feel the same way about him; he was supposed to be the key piece in the Six Pack we got from 'Zona for Richie Sexson (De La Rosa, Capuano, Overbay, Spivey, Counsell, Moeller). Obviously that deal worked out pretty well for us (Cappy has been an all star, Overbay did well and then was flipped for Dave Bush, Gabe Gross, and Zach Jackson, Counsell's still a Brewer as a decent utility player), but Jorge did nothing for us. The most value he brought was getting Tony Graffanino in trade from KC. His stuff was always there he was just wildly erratic. His 2nd half in Colorado last year was interesting, and he finally tapped into that potential a bit. But his problem has been consistency his whole career, and I just can't possibly feel comfortable drafting him until he starts showing a little of it.
Anyone else notice how the 2008 Northeast Quadrant was filled with a lot of guys who regressed from 2007 to 2008 (Ian Snell, Carlos Zambrano, Dustin McGowan, Jeremy Bonderman, Jeff Francis, etc.). Guys either stayed the same (Felix Hernandez, Dan Haren, Brandon Webb) or just fell off.
Meanwhile the Southeast quandrant seems to be where the few improved pitchers came from (Ervin Santana, Cole Hamels, Chad Billingsley, Shaun Marcum). Granted there's a lot of nobodies there too.
My unfounded reasoning behind this would be that the northeast guys may have already "peaked". They pitched as well as you can so they either stay the same or regress. If you're looking for breakouts though, I'd look for the guys who were effective but just didn't put it all together, aka Southeast quadrant.
If you're like me, you like for your sleeper pitchers to have displayed a combination of control (avoiding walks), dominance (K's), and ability to induce ground outs. I took K/9, GB%, and BB/9 and calculated Z-Scores for each pitcher in each statistical category. Rich suggested that I weight the resulting Z-Scores 3/2/1 for K9/BB9/GB%, so I did that too.
higher pie I applaud you! That is an awesome spreadsheet. I remember using the quadrant graph posted last year, and incoporating walks into the equation is very handy. A name that is very much of interest to me since he'll likely be flying waaaaaay toward the bottom of people's radars is Wandy Rodriguez. Good K-rate, solid GB rate (which I was unaware of) and solid control. If I'm not mistaken his greatest problem has been his home/road splits in the past (hmmmmm wasn't the Ervin Santana's biggest problem coming into this season... just saying ). Nice work.
Cafe Home
Fantasy Football
Fantasy Basketball
Fantasy Hockey
by SignGuy » Tue Feb 10, 2009 4:26 pm 
). Nice work.
]
