Baseball By Paul

Coming into the 2012 season, the Washington Nationals were a chic pick to improve upon last year and even contend for a playoff spot for some (I gave them top NL wildcard with 87 wins), especially in light of the added wildcard.  On the heels of their 80-81 record a year ago, they added two big time arms in Gio Gonzalez and Edwin Jackson via trade and free agency, respectively.  Perhaps even more importantly, they have Stephen Strasburg for most of the year (likely being capped around 160 innings) and Jordan Zimmermann for the entire season after his successful 161-inning return from Tommy John Surgery.

Zimmermann, a big time prospect in his own right though definitely a cut below Strasburg in terms of hype and pedigree, is building off of a solid foundation with 284 innings under his belt coming into the year during which he has posted a 3.84 ERA, 1.23 WHIP, 7.7 K/9 and 3.5 K/BB.  With the reins off in terms of an innings limit, he is poised for a breakout in what should be his first full season of action.  He is off to great start already with a 1.29 ERA, 0.71 WHIP and 5.0 K/BB in his 21 innings spread across three starts (he has exactly three 7-inning, 1-run outings).

The gaudy 5.0 K/BB rate catches the eye, but it is spurred by his allowing just two walks (0.9 BB/9) as his 4.3 K/9 is far from special.  The first thought when strikeouts are down against expectations or track record is to check velocity, but Zimmerman’s fastball velocity is exactly the same as last year’s at 93.4 MPH so there is nothing amiss in that realm.  In lieu of the strikeouts, he is inducing plenty of weak contact with a sky-high 52% groundball rate off of which batters have a meager .121 batting average.  We saw something like this from him last April when he had a 4.3 K/9 while posting his best groundball rate of any month at 45% in 30 innings.

In fact, his two best groundball months were easily his worst strikeout months by a significant margin.  In June, he had a 41% groundball rate while striking out just 5.7 K/9.  In the other months (excluding April), his strikeout rate was 8.1 or better while the groundball rate failed to top 37%.  Can he get back to inducing groundballs and missing bats simultaneously?  In the first 23 starts of his career spanning 2009-2010, he had an 8.8 K/9 with a 46% groundball rate so he has the ability to combine the two skills.

A sharp difference early on has been his curveball and Zimm’s ability to generate swings-and-misses with it.  In 2011, he was at a 15% swing-and-miss rate with it and for his career coming into 2012, he was at 21%.  The curve has definitely been his knockout finisher in the past.  This year he has just a 7% swing-and-miss rate on his bender due in large part to batters laying off of it as he tries to get them to chase out of the zone.  Just 29% of his benders have even hit the zone compared to a healthy 51% coming into this season.

Courtesy of MLB.ESPNTrueMedia.com

With hitters laying off the low, out-of-the-zone curveball, Zimmermann will need to change his approach if he wants his strikeout rate to return to previously established levels.  Of course, we are just three starts into the season, too, so while there is definitely a difference between what we have seen from Zimm in the past, it could just be him getting a feel for the curve as the season starts.

Another difference we have seen in the early (and small) sample is that he isn’t afraid of contact with two strikes.  Batters have put it in play during 21 of Zimm’s 34 two strike plate appearances (62%) with just a 29% strikeout rate while last year those rates were at 57% and 37%, respectively (meanwhile his career rates coming into ’12 are 55% and 38%).

It has served him well thus far with a .191 average and .491 OPS against in two strike situations, but in the long term he would be better served to start hitting the zone more (specifically with his curve as previously mentioned) and generating strikeouts instead of trusting his defense so often.  Based on both his talent and stuff, I think we will see Zimmermann start putting away more hitters as the season progresses.

Batters will start to get more hits off of him going forward (5.6 H/9, .200 BABIP), but hopefully he is able to counter that with an improvement in punch-outs.  You can’t argue with the outstanding results in his first three starts (though I’m sure he isn’t thrilled with the 8 runs of support from his offense across the three games) and I think we will see an even better Zimmermann going forward though the gaudy results (1.29 ERA, 0.71 WHIP) are sure to rise.

If anyone in your league is trying to “sell high” on Zimm in fear of the miniscule strikeout rate, take them up on it as long as the price isn’t egregious (Justin Verlander/Roy Halladay).  I don’t think any reasonable fantasy manager expects a leaguemate to pay for a 1.29 ERA and 0.71 WHIP knowing full well that neither is sustainable, but if they are thinking of buying low on Josh Johnson or Tim Lincecum, for example, and offering Zimmermann as a foundation, then I would entertain such a move without question.

Well before the Joey Votto and Brandon Phillips contracts this season, the Reds announced their intent to contend (or try to, at least) in the near term by trading a significant haul of prospect value and major league arm Edinson Volquez to the San Diego Padres for top starter Mat Latos back in mid-December.  While he benefitted from the favorable PETCO Park, Latos was hardly a product of the pitcher’s haven seeing minimal (if any in some cases) degradation in his numbers away from home.

He posted a 3.22 ERA in 190 innings at home while toting a 3.57 ERA in 249 road innings.  His WHIP was actually a tick better while his strikeout and walk rates were nearly identical regardless of venue.  Armed with a bat-missing arsenal and a groundball lean, I was definitely on the high end of the spectrum when it came to projecting Latos for 2012.  After three starts, things aren’t looking so good.  Time to readjust expectations or simply a slow start for an ultra-talented arm?  Let’s take a closer look.

Slow Starter

Latos is starting his third full year as a major leaguer in 2012 and in his two 31-start seasons the last two years, he has shown himself to be a perennial slow starter posting a 5.57 ERA and 1.40 WHIP in 42 April innings.  Adding in his three starts from this year, the numbers balloon to a 6.28 ERA and 1.54 WHIP in 57 April innings.  Meanwhile, May is his best month from an ERA and WHIP standpoint.

Regardless of whether or not you include his 2012 numbers, April is far and away the worst month for Latos.  History alone suggests he should improve once the calendar turns or rather, as he accumulates more work to iron out the kinks.

Velocity

With Pitch F/X data more prevalent than ever, the first data point most people check when a pitcher is struggling is fastball velocity.  It can often be an explanation for a downgrade in performance as well as be an indication of potential injury in some instances.  In the case of Latos, velocity doesn’t appear to be tied to his struggles in any way whatsoever.

In 2010, his April velocity (93.8 MPH) was actually better than his velocity the rest of the way (93.6 MPH), though just marginally.  He got a late start to 2011 accumulating just 10 Spring Training innings and then not starting until the 9^th game of the year due to a strained right shoulder.  Thus it wasn’t really a surprise that his April velocity (92.0 MPH) was a tick below his 92.8 MPH mark from May on.  Through his three starts this year, his fastball velocity is right in line with 2011’s at 92.7 MPH.  In fact, he was at 93.7 MPH on Wednesday night and 76 of 112 pitches were heaters.  Velocity isn’t the problem for Latos.

Pitch Performance

While the velocity isn’t askew, the quality of his fastball early on has been in question.  Batters are tattooing the pitch to the tune of a 1.197 OPS and it hasn’t been nearly the put away pitch it was last year when he generated a 13.6% strikeout rate with it compared to just 7.5% this year (just to clear up any potential confusion, this means plate appearances that end with a fastball are yielding a strikeout 7.5% of time).  Even with the lowered velocity, his fastball was more effective last April though it was still not to the level he would enjoy from May on.  It yielded an .815 OPS last April but dipped to .752 the rest of the way.

More important than the fastball, his slider (which is easily his best pitch) hasn’t been as effective as usual thus far in terms of inducing poor contact.  The pitch earned 13.2 and 10.5 pitch values at FanGraphs in 2010 and 2011, but it’s at -1.3 through his first two starts and will likely go down once they factor in the results from Wednesday night’s start in St. Louis.  In 2010 and 2011 combined, the slider yielded a paltry .409 OPS while amassing an insane 41.8% strikeout rate.  It’s his finisher and while he has an excellent 42.9% strikeout rate with it so far this year, it is also being hit around to a .714 OPS, astronomical for that pitch when you compare it to rest of Latos’ career.

Perhaps he needs to start incorporating more sliders into his pitch mix.  He has thrown it 15.8% of the time so far this season, down a bit from the 18.6% rate in 2010 and 2011 combined.  Last April his changeup was getting blasted to a 1.214 OPS.  He was using it 12.4% and cut that by 5% from May on giving all of the excess to his slider (going from 15.2% to 20%) and it clearly spurred his success as batters had a video game-esque .338 OPS against it from May on.

He is currently throwing his changeup at an equal rate to the slider (15.8%) and while it’s not being pummeled like last year, it isn’t faring too well at .819 OPS.

Conclusion

The information available seems to suggest that Latos simply takes a while to get going.  There is nothing that jumps out in his data that points toward a prolonged degradation in performance or worse, an injury.  Some pitchers just stumble out of the block before turning it on.  While I’m not comparing the two directly, Justin Verlander had notoriously awful Aprils heading into 2011.

He made a concerted effort to work harder in Spring Training and treat those like important games instead of just tune ups so he would be ready on Opening Day.  The results were immediate as he posted 3.64 ERA, 1.02 WHIP and 9.2 K/9 in 42 April innings last year.  Even with the strong April last year and great start this year, his April line is still ugly compared to the rest of his numbers: 4.45 ERA, 1.22 WHIP and 7.7 K/9.

If you have Latos on your team, you have to stay the course and give him time otherwise you are doing yourself a disservice and wasting your draft day investment.  The peripherals are weak and the surface stats are even worse, but weathering April before breaking through is Latos’ modus operandi.  As for those of you who don’t currently have him on the roster, he makes a nice trade target who may even come at a discounted price.

I don’t like the practice of looking at struggling stars in April and labeling every single one a “buy low” as I don’t think anyone with any knowledge of how to play this game is actually putting a severe discount on Tim Lincecum or Matt Holliday to name a couple.  The price was simply too high on draft day and cutting bait for pennies on the dollar after half a month is just stupid for the current manager and a pipedream if you’re the buying manager.

Latos isn’t exactly on the level of those two (24^th and 36^th picks, respectively), but he’s star-ish as a top 70 pick in average draft position and so you shouldn’t go in expecting someone to completely cut their losses and take Joe Saunders or Omar Infante for him.  Maybe they will take someone in the 90-105 ADP range which would be a nice little discount, but even at draft day cost (someone in the 65-75 ADP range), Latos is worth buying in on because it is plenty reasonable to expect him to improve soon and stay good for the remainder of the season.