Comments on: Javier “Frustration” Vazquez

By: Chris

Chris — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 01:54:56 +0000

I think a lot of his struggles are between his ears. He seems to not be able to pitch around errors or be able to put bad pitches behind him. I’ve seen him on cruise control for 4 innings, then an error or a homer completely derails him and he can’t even get out of the inning. I agree about his stuff, it’s excellent, but he loses command once something goes awry. Reminds me a lot of old Scott Erickson of the Twins. He too had fantastic stuff, but when stuff started going wrong, more often than not he couldn’t get it back.

P.s. I just dropped him from my Fantasy team too….

By: Big Steve

Big Steve — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 21:04:54 +0000

Strike all of that. I guess baseball-reference had different batted ball data than fangraphs. According to BR Bonderman’s career ld rate is 18.3 %. I guess I have no idea why he has been underperforming except for his lob rate.

By: Big Steve

Big Steve — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 20:50:19 +0000

Actually league average in 2007 was about 19.1 % * which was higher than the average ld rates the rest of Bonderman’s career.

2006- 18.6 %
2005- 18.3 %
2004- 18.4 %
2003- 18.5%

This is actually a bigger difference than on may think. If you add .12 to these numbers to derive babip the difference does matter. If you use 18.6 % ld rate you would guess a babip of 306 compared to one of .316 with and ld rate of 19.6%. This would not account for the whole discrepancy, but its a start.

*Line drive rates derived from hit trajectory numbers at baseball reference.

By: brendan norton

brendan norton — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 20:49:22 +0000

Kris Benson was always mentioned to have underperformed, but looking at his FIP and K/BB, i never really thought he had much going for him

………………. except for his wife

By: Sucker Bets

Sucker Bets — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 19:38:15 +0000

RE: Bonderman
Isn’t 19.6 LD% slightly below the league average (thus, a good number for him)? If I’m not mistaken, the 2007 average LD% was 20.3 so Idk if that can’t explain it.

By: Big Steve

Big Steve — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 15:43:29 +0000

Jeremy Bonderman is at the top of my list. With a career FIP of 4.10 and a career ERA of 4.74. More specifically he has an above average K rate and an above average walk rate, which gives him a good K/BB rate. He also sports an average groundball rate, which has contributed to his about average hr/rate. The best thing I can point to for his lack of success is a career babip of .317 (in line with his LD rate of 19.6 %), and his low LOB % (67.5% which corresponds with his high babip). Looks like the dude just gives up a bunch of line drives/ I don’t know if it’s something he is doing or just bad luck. Though in about 1000 innings one would expect luck to even out.

By: Chris Miller

Chris Miller — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 14:55:18 +0000

I think that could explain a lot of it.

By: Sky

Sky — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 14:37:57 +0000

Vazquez is pitching in a homerun-happy park in front of poor fielders. Could explain some of it.

By: Mike

Mike — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 12:42:31 +0000

David Bush goes in the same category – or at least, so far, is on pace to join it. I think it’s something about the fly balls. Maybe they pitch up in the zone too much?

By: taro

taro — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 08:27:37 +0000

Vazquez is an example of a guy with good “control” and not “command”.

He could probably afford to be a little less aggressive with his stuff; he gives up a pretty healthy dose of XBHs.