MattS at Baseball Prospectus: What Happened to Cole Hamels?

Answer: nothing but bad luck following a year of very good luck. Excellent piece from former TGP'er MattS over at Baseball Prospectus. A snippet of his conclusion: "Taken all together, Hamels simply is the same pitcher he was last year. He throws the same pitches at the same speeds, and induces the same amount of contact and same magnitude of contact. He throws as many balls and as many strikes. He is neither the type of pitcher who will consistently put up ERAs as low as 3.09 or as high as 4.32; his skill level is more likely around 3.65." Read the whole thing while it's hot!

3 months ago David S. Cohen 24 comments 0 recs |

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Kind of disappointing. 3.65 is no great shakes. Maybe we should have traded him last offseason (kidding).

by taco pal on Oct 21, 2009 2:21 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs

you’re kidding but there were some schmucks (not Peter) on this site earlier this year calling for us to do just that. Ridiculous.

by Boundforbeach on Oct 21, 2009 3:56 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

Yeah they wanted to do it in April and May when he was struggling because they thought he was “soft.” Idiots.

Trading him the offseason would have been somewhere closer to the realm of being defensible, since his trade value at that time was probably much higher than that of a 3.65 pitcher. Of course, he’ll probably also get better as he gets older, provided he stays healthy.

by taco pal on Oct 21, 2009 4:59 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

keep in mind that your opinion of a 3.65 pitcher is somewhat different than what a 3.65 pitcher is. you always need to regress to the mean when hear a pitcher’s numbers, so even cc sabathia and johan santana are probably 3.30 or 3.40 pitchers or so. a 3.65 pitcher is one who will put up a 2.65 ERA once a decade and a 4.65 ERA once a decade. people will think the latter was an “off year” but credit the 2.65 year as being in the zone.

by Matt Swartz on Oct 21, 2009 6:17 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

Absolutely. The 3.65 pitcher is criminally under-appreciated.

I keep this article handy at all times. In those terms, what you have argued is that Cole Hamels was an average “number-one” starter in both seasons, despite looking like a “true ace” in one year and a middling major-league starter in the next.

by Jay on Oct 21, 2009 9:10 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

Matt really digs deep there, and it’s interesting that pretty much whatever level you analyze Hamels on, the conclusion is the same.

by PhillyFriar on Oct 21, 2009 2:39 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs

I hope luck+composure+stuff is on Hamels’ side tonight.

by FuquaManuel on Oct 21, 2009 2:50 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs

+Comcast Triple Play

http://www.thegoodphight.com

by WholeCamels on Oct 21, 2009 2:53 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

a beautiful dream for a beautiful dreamboat.

by Wet Luzinski on Oct 21, 2009 5:39 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

what does the stat line HR/OFFB mean?

Whatever it is the fact that its around 14-15% scares me. That’s about a 1 in 6 shot, and I can’t think of any pitcher stat where having 1 of 6 occurences being a home run is good, unless it’s balls hit as far as the warning track maybe, and I really doubt that’s a tracked stat.

by Bilzo on Oct 21, 2009 3:20 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs

Home Runs per Outfield Fly Ball

by taco pal on Oct 21, 2009 3:25 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

yeesh, one in 6 fly balls to the OF goes over the wall. That seems bad.

by Bilzo on Oct 21, 2009 4:08 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

I’m not terribly familiar with the averages for that statistic, but it doesn’t seem all that out of line to me.

I do know that HR/FB% — this includes all fly balls, so pop ups as well — usually normalizes around 10% to 12%. So 15% for outfield flies makes some sense. This isn’t specific to Hamels, either — this is all pitchers (although home run percentages usually fluctuate just like BABIP does).

by PhillyFriar on Oct 21, 2009 4:30 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

home runs per outfield fly ball— it’s a stat that does not have much persistence. in other words, it seems like it is luck based. his home runs per batter faced is actually DOWN this year. he just kept the ball on the ground or popped up more to compensate.

league average is about 11%, but not at CBP— closer to 14% at home, so luck neutral would indicate he should be around 12.5%.

by Matt Swartz on Oct 21, 2009 4:58 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

Just to play devil’s advocate, the fact that a stat doesn’t have much persistence doesn’t mean it’s necessarily luck-based. There may be certain fine elements of playing skill that are simply difficult to maintain over long periods of time. (Then again, even if this is so, it may not make any difference when it comes to projections.)

Not unlike first-draft BIP normalization ideas, HR/FB normalization is an idea that badly needs some input refinement. We can say pretty safely that a 400-foot shot isn’t just a lucky outfield fly, nor is a flyball that fails to reach the warning track an unlucky one. If we can separate out marginal homers and warning track flyouts — declining to adjust the “no-doubters” and medium flyouts in any way — I think we’re going to get more useful results.

If anything, the small samples are going to show that there is even more variation in marginal HR/FB numbers than there presently appears to be. At the same time, we’re going to find a few hitters who appear lucky at first glance but were actually on a genuine power surge — and also true-surging pitchers, and true-slumping pitchers and hitters.

by Jay on Oct 21, 2009 9:07 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

Forgot to mention, we do have the data to separate out the “barely there” homers from the no-doubters.

by Jay on Oct 21, 2009 9:11 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

Are there any articles/stats that analyze the amount/frequency etc. of a pitcher throwing “meatballs”? I am not sure exactly how someone would define a meatball, but it seems like it would be possible using Pitch f/x data.

It would be really interesting to see if some of the luck stats, like BABIP and HR/Fly ball rates had any correlation with a pitcher throwing more or less “meatballs”. Also, it would be interesting to see how various pitchers “meatball” percentages went up and down over the seasons. Maybe some would be really random, but maybe some would have a steady increase or decrease in “meatballs”.

This may help give insight into variations in results that dont seem to correlate with variations in the peripherals. it would make a decent amount of sense if a pitchers ERA or other such counting stat went way up, even though his FIP (or K rate, BB rate, etc.) stayed more or less the same if something was very wrong with a small amount of the pitches he threw.

Another thing that would be interesting would be too see what the various BA, BABIP and HR rates for “meatballs” would be for hitters, both individually and across the league.

Sorry to use the term “meatballs” so much, but i dont know what else you would call those kinds of pitches.

by Whack8888 on Oct 21, 2009 6:32 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs

I have long advocated for a meatballs-served-up metric.

by Jay on Oct 21, 2009 9:08 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

The metric would need a name. Maybe just call it an Eaton?

by jkrisch on Oct 22, 2009 8:25 AM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

a Bertie, for Bert Blyleven. Or a Milton.

by Wet Luzinski on Oct 22, 2009 4:47 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

Call it a Wright

For Chase Wright, who served up four consecutive home runs in 2007.

"When you make your final stand
I'll be right there
I'll never leave
And all I ask of you is
Believe"

by The Dark on Oct 27, 2009 11:52 AM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

I guess you could define a meatball as pitch down the middle in the ‘heart’ of plyers strikezone and it could be defined and looked at.

I still want to take closer look at how Hamels threw pitches, distribution, make up of an at bat, if he made ny changes between 08/09, just to see if there’s something there.

Don't frack with me or you'll get a punch in the kidneys...you've been warned

by jemagee on Oct 21, 2009 8:22 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs

i’m sure he’s mixed up his pitches differently. you have to or hitters will pick up on it. hamels may have been more predictable this year, but that type of stuff very rarely sticks.

i guess the general and most important thing to note is that, statistically, it’s almost impossible to avoid having one pitcher in your rotation each year who has an ERA that is 0.75 or more higher than what would reflect how well he pitched and one pitcher in your rotation who has an ERA that is 0.75 or more lower than what would reflect how well he pitched. really. you almost ALWAYS have a pitcher who loses almost a FULL RUN to bad luck and another who gets almost a FULL RUN from good luck. it’s really hard to believe that the phillies would be an exception to this rule, and it’s really hard to believe that the 2009 versions of this guys had sirnames that didn’t start with H.

by Matt Swartz on Oct 22, 2009 10:01 AM EDT up reply actions 0 recs