Given the Reds ballpark being a home run heaven for hitters, getting pitchers that induce ground balls is generally a good thing (lets just pretend the Kirk Saarloos experiment never happened). I went through and ran tons of data through www.firstinning.com and checked out the groundball percentage on most of our relievers with a decent sample size to work with. I came down to the top three guys in ground ball percentage and it worked out that all three are some of the better relievers we have.
Derrik Lutz, drafted in 2006 out of George Washington University, led the way with inducing groundballs. The right hander turned 60% of the balls in play against him into ground balls. On top of that, he also was striking out a solid 19% of the batters he was facing.
Josh Roenicke, the Reds best relief prospect, is not just a guy who can throw 98 MPH but he also gets a ton of groundballs. Last season split between Sarasota and Chattanooga the UCLA product turned 55% of the balls in play against him into grounders. To top that off, he also struck out 29% of the batters he faced last season, which when coupled with his groundball rate is a very strong combination.
Tyler Pelland began the year as a starter, but was quickly transitioned into a reliever where he had quick success. The lefty split time in Chattanooga and Louisville. Pelland also is a hard thrower out of the bullpen, although with a little less velocity topping out around 95 MPH. The former starter turned 50% of the balls in play against him into groundballs while also striking out 25% of the hitters that stepped to the plate against him.
Tomorrow I will look at the starting pitchers to see how they fare in churning out groundballs.
Sunday, 3. February 2008
I’m impressed that our GM seems to be actually tracking this stuff. At least that’s what I infer from his picking up Herrera as the second guy in the Volquez deal. I saw somewhere that Herrera was the top groundball pitcher in college his last year; second was Derrik Lutz–which tells me Krivsky was influenced by this tendency in Lutz at the time of the draft and that he’s been aware of Herrera (and maybe that means the guy does actually have more of a chance than his physical stature would lead one to believe). I wish I could remember where I saw this but unfortunately cannot.
Sunday, 3. February 2008
Fritz,
I know the article you are talking about. It was over at Baseballanalysts.com. I also read that one. Herrera however was not where he was in college as he pitched last year. He was still solid though, getting 51.5% groundballs. I didn’t include him in the study though as he was not in the Reds system at all last year, and I don’t know the Reds plans for him as far as if they want him to scrap this or that or change something with his delivery and those types of things can cause changes in results.
Sunday, 3. February 2008
Pelland was always a flyball pitcher in years past - did it really reverse that dramatically this year? Maybe the slider that replaced his curve helped change things. Also the relief role means more sacrifice bunts to goose the grounders total a tad.
However, it also surprises me quite a bit that a GB figure of just 50% is among the organization’s leaders. Pelland’s my guy, but… Just pulling a name out of a hat, I checked Brock Till (on minorleaguesplits) and he seems to have a much higher GB percentage.
By the way, I also see quite a difference in accounting of groundball/groundout figures, between minorleaguesplits, milb.com, and firstinning.
Sunday, 3. February 2008
One more thing related to the new site design - somehow the timeclock on comments is off by about 5 hours. Greenwich Mean Time?
Sunday, 3. February 2008
This is kind of off topic but I just saw on John Fay’s blog that according to Baseball America, the reds have the third best minor league system.
Sunday, 3. February 2008
Doug is that your Lutz card? Did you get a good scanner yet? I wanna see your collection
Sunday, 3. February 2008
DA,
I did do some selective scanning for relievers. I only ran the numbers on about 12 guys. For the starters, I ran 28 guys through. As far as starters go, I know in MLB that there were only 10 starters in the AL with a GB% over 54 and just 7 over 54% in the NL.
One problem I have found with minorleaguesplits, is that they don’t have full data on almost every player. Hitters are missing at bats, pitchers are missing innings…. so its tough to get a full picture.
The difference from Firstinning.com and Minorleaguesplits.com is noted above, while the difference between firstinning.com and Milb.com is simply that milb.com only shows ground outs and fly outs, not groundballs and flyballs and that can cause a major problem. For example, Aaron Harang had 0.94 GO/AO ratio, but in terms of ground balls/fly balls he was actually 0.75.
As for Pelland, in 2005 he had a 43% GB rate, in 2006 he had a 45% GB rate, last year he had that 50% rate…. I think you are along the right lines with the thinking with his improvement in that area in his pitches, but the bunts aren’t the issue, as he only had 2 bunts against him last year in nearly 90 innings.
As for the time clock…. I had noticed it too, but didn’t find much of an issue with it except when I make posts after 7pm at night, I have to edit the time clock on the post to show an accurate time so it shows it as being posted on the right day.
Sunday, 3. February 2008
Tom, that is not my card of Lutz. I haven’t gotten a scanner yet. Right now I am trying to figure out whether or not to hold onto or sell my Bruce refractor rookie right now…. its selling for roughly 5 times what I paid for it and the money wouldn’t exactly hurt to have. I might be going to my cousin’s house later in the week though and if I do, I will be taking some of my collection and a flash drive to get some pictures. That will only be good for cards, but its a starting point.
Sunday, 3. February 2008
If you get the ball up in the strike zone, you better have some heat otherwise the hitters will get you. So these guys, especially the latter two, throw hard, which should in turn, convert potential fly balls into swings-and-misses. I think that’s one reason for this particular crop. This phenomena might be accentuated more in the minors but I’d have to think that through a bit more.