ALDS Coverage: Possibly Lucky Lackey (and Other Notes)
In case you didn’t notice, Los Angeles Angel John Lackey threw what is commonly referred to as “a gem” last night. Over 7.1 innings, he allowed zero runs against a Boston lineup that finished the season second only to the Yankees in wOBA, with a .352 mark.
Still, looking at the final line, I couldn’t help but be suspicious that Lackey had gotten a little lucky.
Consider: against 27 batters Lackey recorded only four strikeouts, only 10 groundballs, and allowed five line drives. By percentage, that comes to a 14.8% K-rate, 37.0% GB-rate — both of which are worse than league average for pitchers (16% and 43.2%, respectively) — and an LD-rate of 18.5%, which is just a shade better than the league average of 18.9%.
Well, in a move that is entirely uncharacteristic for me, I decided to probe even further, and turned to the Expected Run Values per Event table over at StatCorner for help. If we plug in the relevant events from Lackey’s performance, we get something that looks very much like this:
Event RV/E Lackey RV Lackey K -0.105 4 -0.42 BB 0.329 1 0.329 HBP 0.345 0 0 LD 0.384 5 1.92 GB 0.053 10 0.53 OFB 0.046 4 0.184 IFB -0.096 2 -0.192 HR 1.394 0 0 Total 2.351
That’s a lot better than league average for 7.1 innings of work. The key for Lackey seems to be that he only walked the one batter — Victor Martinez in the sixth. The infield fly balls don’t hurt, either — if for no other reason than they aren’t other things.
The one caveat here — or at least the one I’m smart enough to consider — is that fly balls leave ballparks at right around 11%, or about one in every nine. Given the lowish RV/E for OFB above, home runs seem to be omitted from that number. If that’s so, it might make sense to add 4/9 of a home run (ca 0.62 R) to Lackey’s line, which leaves us right around three runs, and creeping closer to league average.
On Bobby Abreu
Bobby Abreu acted so much like Bobby Abreu last night, it’s crazy. In four plate appearances, the Angels right fielder saw 25 pitches (over 6/PA) and hit none of them fair. His line for the night? Zero at-bats, four walks, one run scored.
Despite his shyness with the bat, Abreu finished the game second only to Hunter (who jacked a three-run donger) in batting WPA with a 0.066 mark.
Furthermore, though Abreu’s four plate appearances made up only 10.8% of the team’s 37 overall, he saw 18.8% of the 133 pitches that Boston pitchers threw.
On Tonight’s Game
This evening, Jered Weaver pitches for L.A. of Anaheim. One thing that means is that we’ll probably see Jeff Mathis again. Mathis has caught in 21 of Weaver’s starts, versus only 13 for Napoli.
Weaver himself has slightly peculiar make-up so far as his stuff goes. His per-100 marks for his secondary pitches are all above average — 0.97 wSL/C, 0.58 wCB/C, and 1.87 wCH/C. It’s his fastball that’s hurt him, coming in at -0.33 runs below average per 100 and -6.6 runs below average overall. Angels fans should hold their breaths when they see Mathis put a single finger down — and expect above-average results in other cases.
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How many flyballs even came close to being homers? I didn’t see the whole game.
Just as an fyi, Scioscia has already announced that Napoli will start tonight and game 3 in Boston.
Thanks for the analysis. It certainly did look like Lackey got a bit fortunate with some of those line drives. I remember 4 distinctly, two each that were hit to Abreu and Rivera. He didn’t give up any particularly long fly balls, though.
Careful about extrapolating the batted-ball profile from one start. That’s a pretty small sample size to draw conclusions from. It’s not necessarily unusual for a pitcher to be unharmed by 5 line drives…just too small a sample size.
Rapscallion, you just reminded me! I wanted to mention small sample size in my article expressly so that I could link to this entry from the Rogue Baseball Index.
I don’t think the intent was to analyze Lackey in general – just to specifically show that the whole isn’t the sum of the parts. I think it would be interesting to have a database of outings and percentages (GB, LD, K/BB) and see how much variance there is in runs allowed. Like, in outings where a pitcher had a 14% K rate, 37% groundball rate, and 18% line drive rate, what is the range of runs allowed?
Or maybe there already is something like that. I can’t keep up with you crazy kids and your newfangled databases.
At any rate, I just love any time Fangraphs analyzes a player/game that ESPN gushes about, and responds with an overwhelming, “Meh, he was alright.”
And Matthew, just to continue your point, I think the reason it’s important to say “he was only alright” sometimes is so that, when a guy really plays well, it’s that much more significant.
Often times when a player “really plays well” it doesn’t actually show up in the statsheet. I’m not talking about intangibles of course, but about the process and not the results.
Earlier this year, Felix had a game where he struck out like 14 hitters and got 15 grounders. I think Dave had an article on it a few weeks ago. Yet he gave up 4 runs, so it wasn’t a “good” start or whatever.
There are games when hitters foul off some really good pitches and hit the balls right at people. They go 0-4 with a walk, and people say “meh”.
donger?