Giving Gallardo Love
Yovani Gallardo is one of four National League starting pitchers with a sub-3 FIP and yet only three posts have included him this season. Two April posts on his extension and fantasy availability and then Gallardo’s entry into the Trade Value series. Otherwise, Gallardo’s season is one of the fertile patches around these parts thanks to Jack Moore’s tears cried from neglect.
Workload appears to be the reason Gallardo’s name is absent from the best pitching season talk. He missed time with an oblique injury, limiting his innings total to 149 innings. Most of Gallardo’s company is at 180 innings and rising, making Gallardo’s innings supply appear bare. Still, 2010 is an impressive season. Gallardo is the same age as that Felix Hernandez guy and his FIP this season (and for his career) is comparable to the King.
Now, Gallardo has something like 640 innings fewer than Hernandez and his ability to get groundballs and limit walks is clearly trailing Hernandez’s, but that he can stand next to Hernandez and not look like a complete second-class citizen is a compliment. The hierarchy effect does come into play when comparing Gallardo to his slumdog rotation mates. While Gallardo himself has accrued 3.9 WAR, the sum of the next five pitchers with the highest starts total (Wolf, Bush, Narveson, Parra, and Davis) is 1.1. You can triple that and Gallardo still wins.
Gallardo’s fastball is a fine pitch that sits in the low-90s. It does not miss bats as often as one would expect, however, Gallardo supplements that aspect with precision. The true seductresses in his arsenal are his breaking pitches. A delightful pair, indeed, which tempt but rarely fulfills batters’ need for contact. Both pitches have a whiff rate over 10%, leading the rest of the Gallardo’s pack.
The smudge on Gallardo’s Mona Lisa is simply durability. Simply not because durability is the easiest thing in the world to alter or fix – just ask the last great starting pitcher the Brewers’ system produced – but in the sense that the number of issues with his play is one. To compete next year, Milwaukee needs insurance, not just from Lloyd’s of London, but also in the form of an upgraded rotation in order to complement their young ace. They also might need a spotlight to ensure Gallardo gets the shine he deserves.
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You missed something else:
Gallardo has 4 HRs in 50 ABs. He’s also hitting .220 or so. If pitching doesn’t work out, he could always become Adam Dunn.
You definitely jinxed him bud.
I always thought that Gallardo doesn’t get the recognition he deserves.
Who was the brewer’s last great starting pitcher. I’m blanking, or is that the point of bringing up that point.
Ben Sheets
Here’s a hint: He’s currently not being durable with the A’s.
Dave Burba?
Rubén Quevedo?
He’s been getting hit around a bit lately.
I’ve never really been a big fan of Gallardo’s. I did this rather quickly but in Gallardo’s career, 25% of his starts and 26% of his innings have come against the Astros and Pirates. In those 121.2 innings he’s allowed 102 hits, 45 bb, and k’ed 121 with an era of 2.59.
Now I don’t know if that’s typical, but it seems to me that Gallardo has been beating up on lesser teams while putting up much more pedestrian numbers against the better teams. Especially when it comes to BB. His bb/9 rate against the Astros and Pirates is 3.33 while it stands at 4.04 against everyone else.
I think Gallardo is a good pitcher, but I’m not sure if he’s great.
I’d be inclined to agree that he’s not really elite.
This stat was mind-blowing, though: “While Gallardo himself has accrued 3.9 WAR, the sum of the next five pitchers with the highest starts total (Wolf, Bush, Narveson, Parra, and Davis) is 1.1. You can triple that and Gallardo still wins.” Still, I think it says more about the Brewers’ god-awful rotation than his dominance.
He reminds me a lot of Jhoulys Chacin. Dominant K/9 rates but shaky BB/9 rates, and both can be give up the long ball–although Gallardo does deserve credit for cutting back on HR/9 rates…
Hey Tom, I can play with numbers and make incredibly stupid arguments based on them as well. Just pick a random pitcher like Jon Lester. A full 29.1% of his IP and GS came against such powerhouse offenses like BAL, OAK, SEA & KC. Wow, that Lester sure is overrated by your crazy logic.
oh don’t be so mean.
So Lester logged 29.1% of his IP against 4 teams, or 30.7% of the teams in the AL.
While Gallardo logged 25.0% of his IP against 2 teams, or 13.3% of the teams in the NL.
Somebody is making incredibly stupid arguments here, but I’m not sure it’s Tom.
The guy also lost basically a full season of development at 22 due to a freak ACL injury. The following year his BB rate spiked, which he has brought back to acceptable territory in 2010. I am not sure if this is coincidence, but something to consider.
He needs to regain his fastball command to truly be great. But anyone who watches him and sees how nasty his stuff is can understand the potential he has. A 3.05 FIP and 3.42 xFIP with 3.9 WAR at the age of 24 suggests a path to stardom, especially paired with the glowing scouting reports on his arsenal.
In defense of Tom, that is actually a valid statement to make. You have to account for opposition when Gallardo has that many innings against pathetic offenses.
Every pitcher pitches against pathetic offenses, and they tend to post better numbers pitching against those teams. I’m sure this isn’t groundbreaking, but to knock Gallardo for a relatively minor split is pointless when you could say the same thing about every other pitcher in baseball.
His reply really undercut his original comment, however. Regardless of how many TEAMS that N% came against, it’s really only the aggregate skill X percent of innings that matter.
Among pitchers with at least 100 IP, Gallardo has the 12th easiest opponent quality, according to Baseball prospectus (ranked by batter OPS).
8 of the top 12 are in the NL central, so it’s really that the division is incredibly top heavy and features some of the worst teams in baseball.
I’m not sure why Tom was met with resistance either. At least according to Baseball Prospectus, Gallardo’s opponents have been 5 to 6 points below the NL average in wOBA in each of the past two years, or close to 20 points of ERA. It’s nothing earth-shattering but it’s certainly worth nothing.
But that’s the point….
IS IT a “relatively minor split” and CAN YOU “say the same thing about every other pitcher in baseball”?
How many pitchers have thrown almost 500 career innings with over a quarter of them coming against just two teams? In all honesty, I don’t have the data to answer those questions but I think it’s interesting!
Your statement doesn’t mean anything, however.
“How many pitchers have thrown almost 500 career innings with over a quarter of them coming against just two teams?”
What you’re trying to say is,
“How many pitchers have thrown almost 500 career innings with over a quarter of them coming against a lineup with a .300 wOBA?”
The number of teams is irrelevant. The percentage of innings against crappy offenses is what matters. And it only matter a little bit, certainly not as much as you’re making it out to be. (See the 6-7 points of wOBA comment further up in the article).
Yes, that was what I was trying to ask. But I figured that was pretty self evident given the content of my previous posts. More specifically, that Gallardo has faced two .300 wOBA teams in a high percentage of his innings.
I’m not saying that Gallardo is a bad pitcher, I just find it interesting that he’s faced such poor lineups in a high percentage of his innings and I wonder if that is somewhat unique. And if it is unique, I think it would be interesting to normalize his numbers a little bit to see what they would look like after the adjustment.
Kudos for giving Gallardo some much due pub; however, I’m also in the group that believes he is a good pitcher but far from excellent. You already highlighted his durability issues, but he is still very inconsistent. He faded badly last year and is doing it again this year.
Gallardo should be entering his prime over the next couple of years. It will be interesting to see if he can take the next step to stardom.
Nice work. You’re about 4 years behind me. You guys are getting better.
Gallardo isn’t an elite pitcher yet, but he could be. He hasn’t looked the same since being hurt this year right before the ASB though.
Me being an imbecile and not pining to bring Mike Maddox back has ended any chances of Gallardo becoming bona fide.