Lackey’s Lefty Blindspot
John Lackey certainly hasn’t been the pitcher that the Red Sox hoped they would be getting when they signed him for over $80 million this past winter. As an Angel, Lackey had consistently run xFIPs right near the 4.00 mark with stable rates in strikeouts, walks and ground balls. 2010 John Lackey however has fewer strikeouts and a lot more walks raising his xFIP to 4.63 coming into play today. That is the highest mark of Lackey’s career and does not portend well for the next four seasons to Boston.
Lackey’s pitch types and frequencies have not changed much if at all and signing with Boston did not mean a change in leagues. While the AL East might appear to pose stiffer competition than the AL West did, when discussing an individual pitcher, the sample sizes vary too much to be generalized. Lackey’s average hitter faced his season had a .737 OPS while it was .755 and .766 the previous two seasons with Anaheim. Even adjusting for the overall decline in offense this season, Lackey has faced weaker hitters in 2010 than in either 2009 or 2008 and yet his performance has declined noticeably.
Lackey’s struggles can be parsed further by examining his splits. His performance against right-handed hitters remains close to his established levels while he has struggled mightily against southpaws this season. Lackey’s strikeout to walk rate versus righties was 3.0 in 2008, was 2.9 last year and is at 2.9 this season. Versus a lefty it has slipped from 3.6 in 2008 and 3.1 in 2009 all the way to 1.3 in 2010. John Lackey isn’t facing significantly more lefties this season than he did in the past, but perhaps he should be given his collapse against them this year.
As always with splits, it’s a small sample and more time will be needed before being able to see if this is a mere blip or if this is something that will severely hamper his ability going forward. Not being able to retire other handed hitters will lead to teams more dramatically stacking their lineups and also makes the chances for a return of the 4.00 xFIP version of Lackey much less likely.
25
Is there some sort of fangraphs curse on pitchers?
You write an article about Lee and a couple days before it is published he gives up 4 HR and has a tough outing.
You publish an article about John Lackey struggling and he goes out and strikes out 10, while only giving up 6 hits over 8 innings.
I think you need to write one about how Nolasco is making the right decision by trying to pitch through a torn meniscus.
great post
He faced the Seattle Mariners, I wouldn’t go out and celebrate shutting down one of the worst offenses in recent memory.
Where did you get this information? I would love to add it to my “data” to compare the CYA candidates.
I’m pretty sure that is available both here and on b-ref.
His WP% is .019 points higher than his career average, and the Red Sox this year are actually worse than the Angels teams he pitched for. I don’t see the cause for concern.
Troll or no? I can never tell anymore.
I’ve watched Lackey all year and his stuff is still good. His problem is that he gets wild for an inning and either starts walking batters or leaving pitches up in the zone that get crushed. He has given up a ridiculous number of hits this year, 2nd most in baseball, and that is not likely to happen again next year. Considering how many walks and hits he has given up this year, you would think the guy has been a total mess. Really though he’s battled, performed decently under pressure, and been the victim of his own wildness sometimes. I am a big Sox fan and I am not worried about him long term. The stuff is there, he just needs to get out of this funk. Maybe he’ll have better luck next year after VMart walks.
I wonder how batter-handedness can affect a pitchers’ ability to throw strikes. Is it a head-thing, as in “uh oh, a lefty is up, I have to pitch differently” or is it the fact the guy is on the other side of the plate.
I’d love to see some of the pitch f/x data.
While I’ll applaud anyone who brings out the data on this, I have to say that this idea doesn’t really pass the sniff test. We’re talking about guys who have been pitching since they were 8, who are at the absolute top of their profession. I don’t think a left handed hitter coming to the plate is going to get them to think significantly differently.
There was a similar line of thought on batter protection that was shot down quite well either here on on hardballtimes; it basically said that it’s kind of insulting to think that a professional at this skill level would pitch less than optimally because of fear of the next guy at bat.
Maybe I shouldn’t have written “uh oh” because I wasn’t talking about fear, per se, but whether the strategery for pitching to lefties v righties is different for Lackey. Maybe he tries to hit the outside corners more often for lefties for whatever reason.
Otherwise, why the difference? It’s harder to believe that it’s because of where the guy is standing. The plate is still the plate.
I can’t say I agree. Look at a pitcher like CC, his strategy against lefties and righties is different. With one group the out pitch is the change and with one its the slider. LOOGY pitchers are similar, their whole game is targeted to lefty batters, and when they face righties they have to make awkward adjustments and get crushed. that doesn’t mean giving up mentally against a batter because of handedness is acceptable for these professionals, but its not impossible.
Isn’t it possible (I would argue probable) that Lackey’s opponents have lower OPSes this year because the hitters in the AL East face better pitchers more often than their AL West counterparts?
Of course, there’s a lot of good hitters in the AL East, too. It’s not just good pitching that drives the wins in that division — NY, TB, and Toronto all score a lot of runs.
I thought the term southpaw only referred to left-handed pitchers?
No, lefties in general can be called southpaws… Though it is more OFTEN used to refer to pitchers when talking baseball.
I think the term originated with how pitchers stood: batters face east away from the sun in most parks, pitchers face west, so the left hand is south. It’s used in boxing all the time, too.
I’ve mentioned this before and may post on it later, but the more I look the more I’m convinced that the size of a split is almost entirely resultant from a players skill versus a certain pitch. If that’s true then I have to think that even minute changes in effectiveness of certain pitches would be magnified in splits against for pitchers.
Lackey’s troubles might have something to do with his pitch selection. All past three years, he’s been relying on his fastball more than 50% of the time. This year it’s 17%. His cutter, which was used at a whopping 2.7% in ’08 is now up to 39%. Is this coaching? A change in approach? His velocity and movement on all of his pitches isn’t significantly different (based on the PitchFx tool). Being a sox fan, I’ve also noticed a difference in their other struggling starting pitcher, Beckett. He’s down from 60+% fastballs to 40% and is also throwing 10% fewer curveballs. Did he really take off half the season to keep away with his successful fastball-curveball combo? Suspect.
One thing I noticed this year about Beckett and Lackey is that they couldn’t hit the left corner of the strike zone (from the pitcher’s view). It seemed like they either missed way outside or left it down the middle, which explained the increased hits and walks.