Tim Hudson’s Charmed Season
After returning from Tommy John surgery last September, Tim Hudson picked up right where he left off. The undersized righty logged 42.1 innings pitched for the Atlanta Braves, striking out 6.38 batters per nine, issuing 2.76 BB/9 and getting ground balls at a characteristically strong clip (62.2 GB%). Hudson’s xFIP was 3.47. Convinced that the former Auburn star was none the worse for wear after going under the knife, the Braves signed Hudson to a three-year, $28 million contract extension, with a $9 million club option for the 2013 season.
So far in 2010, the 35-year-old has pitched relatively well, if not quite up to his usual standards. His strikeout and walk rates aren’t as sharp, as he’s got 4.47 K/9 and 3.2 BB/9 in 135 frames. That punch out rate is the lowest of Hudson’s career, due in large part to a 6.8 percent swinging strike rate (9.2 percent average for Huddy since 2002) and an 83.9 percent contact rate that’s several ticks above his 80 percent mark dating back to ’02. Hudson has also placed fewer pitches within the strike zone than the MLB average for the first time since 2005, and his 53.4 percent first pitch strike percentage doesn’t come close to his 59.7 percent average since ’02.
But, Hudson’s scorched earth policy has been in full effect — his 66% ground ball rate leads all qualified starting pitchers by a wide margin. The next closest competitors are Justin Masterson (64%) and teammate Derek Lowe (57.9%). With those extreme ground ball tendencies, Hudson has still managed to post a 4.22 xFIP despite the downturn in K’s and increase in walks.
If you just focused on Hudson’s ERA, however, you’d be convinced that he’s experiencing a career year. His ERA currently sits at a sparkling 2.47. The 1.75 run discrepancy between his xFIP and ERA is the third-largest among qualified starters — only Jason Vargas and Johan Santana have larger splits between their peripheral stats and their actual ERAs. Hudson is stranding far more base runners than usual, with an 83.2 LOB% that exceeds his career 74.1% left on base rate. And, he’s also getting some fantastic bounces on balls put in play. Hudson has a .231 BABIP, compared to a career .286 average.
According to Baseball-Reference, his BABIP on grounders is just .190. For comparison, the 2010 NL average is .238, and Hudson’s career BABIP on ground balls is .209. Dave Allen has kindly provided a pair of Pitch F/X graphs that shed further light on Hudson’s ground balls. The top image shows the frequency of Hudson’s grounders by direction of the ball put in play, compared to the 2010 average for right-handed pitchers. The bottom image shows Hudson’s BABIP on ground balls by the direction of the ball put in play. The labels (3B, 2B, 1B) are the location of the bases, not the fielders.
A large portion of Hudson’s grounders have been hit right where the second baseman is typically positioned. As you can see, the BABIP on grounders hit to that spot, both for Hudson and the average RHP, is very low. Also, Hudson’s BABIP on ground balls hit down the first base line is much lower than the average righty. Here’s what Allen had to say about Hudson’s high rate of grounders hit toward the player manning the keystone spot: “I don’t think there is any reason to think that Hudson can magically throw pitches that turn into grounders straight to the second basemen, and it looks like tons of luck.”
Whether it’s a trend or just a coincidence, Hudson’s strikeout rate has climbed to about five whiffs per nine since June, and his walk rate has decreased every month of the season. Those are good signs for Hudson if he doesn’t want to see his ERA regress into the fours from this point forward, as he likely won’t get as many outs on worm burners in the months to come.
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Something I’d like to see more in these kinds of articles is more thorough discussion than just a big arrow pointing at the BABIP column. Although Hudson’s BABIP is likely to regress, is his strikeout rate actually going to remain this low? I see no reason why it would. The average velocity on his fastball is 91.2mph, which is actually above his career average. His K/BB rate his been trending upward since June.
ZiPS projects a strikeout rate just above 5 for the rest of the season and a walk rate just below 3, which should negate some (not all) of the regression he’s due for in BABIP and LOB%.
Did you miss the last paragraph? I suppose it doesn’t count as a full-blown discussion, but clearly the writer is aware of those encouraging trends.
“I don’t think there is any reason to think that Hudson can magically throw pitches that turn into grounders straight to the second basemen, and it looks like tons of luck.”
This quote is a joke and I am just missing the sarcasm right? Yes, Hudson is magically locating his sinker and off-speed pitch on the outside corner that lefties are magically rolling over and hitting to second base. IT’S MAGIC!
His point is that it’s not to the left or to the right of the 2B, its right at the 2B
Actually a little left of the 2B compared to league average. And notice how the league as a whole has a spike right where the 2B plays? Think that may have something to do with pitching talent and just not pure luck?
he’s channeling Tom Glavine, low Ks, intentional unintentional walks.
Huddy’s got one of the highest GB% of the Fangraphs era, so I think rather than just trusting the metrics, maybe we ought to be suspicious of them at the extremes.
xFIP ignores the context of walks issued. I’ve watched Tim Hudson enough this year that its rather convincing that many of the BBs are of the intentional unintentional variety. He seems to not give in on a 2-1, 3-1 count when he thinks there is a better option to face on deck. The context of these walks is also modified by his extreme groundball/double-play inducing nature. An interesting research project might be to calculate the -WPA per walk issued for pitchers. Maybe this could give us an idea of which pitchers have command that is better or worse than their walk rate might suggest.
I think Tom Tango has done studies on this. I vaguely remember a post he did last year about J.A. Happ and situational walks.
If you find a link to Tom Tango’s studies please pass it along! Thanks
Here is the link to the article that Tango wrote this past March.
http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/index.php/j-a-happ-fip-and-situational-walks
I don’t really agree with this. He has missed the strike zone more frequently and I don’t believe he has done so on purpose any more than it has been in his career.
Hudson is pitching down and away very effectively and purposely this year.
(These stats were prior to last start)
In 2010, he has ( by nearly 10 percentage points) the highest O_Contact % (Percentage of times a batter makes contact with the ball when swinging at pitches thrown outside the strike zone) of his career, while at the same time he has a career low (by nearly 5 percentage points) in Zone % (Percentage of pitches seen inside the strike zone). Both of those are better than the MLB average by a pretty good margin. He isn’t throwing the ball across the plate much, and he is getting batters to swing at those pitches.
In other words, his BABIP/xBABIP and other metrics are so good (and belie his FIP/xFIP) because he just isn’t putting the ball in a position where the batter can get a good swing on it. When they do get contact, it is usually just a dribbler up the middle.
This year, he is pitching nearly flawlessly to his (and to some extent, his team’) strengths. More skill than he is being credited with, IMO.
One possibility on the lower than average BABIP on balls down the 1B line is that the Braves have a right handed former 3B manning the spot. Probably helps to some extent, though you’d obviously have to look at the data for all Braves pitchers to get an idea of how much.
I also take exception to the final paragraph where you claim he needs to get better with respect to Ks and BBs in order to keep his ERA from regressing into the fours going forwar. I don’t see much of a reason just to assume that it would be that bad. His tERA for the season is well below 4 and it just seems overzealous to unquestioningly apply FIP and xFIP to a pitcher that is clearly an outlier with regards to the numbers those models look at. Right now he’s the best GB pitcher we’ve ever seen. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with assuming that these models may not be quite accurate for someone like Hudson.
I am in the minority in agreeing with this article. I’ve been saying a regression is due for a while now, unless he started to pitch better.
On June 1, I wrote an article discussing the very matter being discussed here, his lack of strikeouts and increased walks pushing his success to that date towards luck rather than skill. On that date, his K/9 was 3.78 and his BB/9 was 3.50, so he has raised the strikeuots and limited the walks since then, which is probably why his ERA is still as low as it is despite poor peripherals.
Ben (and David for that matter)- I don’t think there is enough evidence yet to say whether Hudson’s performance this year is due to skill or luck (although there is obviously some of both). His graph of grounder location and BABIP on grounders looks very similar to the typical right hander. Furthermore, his extraordinarily high GB% is probably not calculated properly in FIP and xFIP. I know BP came up with a new stat similar to FIP this season called SIERA, which, unlike FIP, gave extra credit for more groundballs the higher the groundball percentage was. (In other words, going from 50% to 55% lowers SIERA more than going from 40% to 45%.) The reason for this was that ground ball pitchers tend to have more runners on first, leading to more double plays with increased numbers of grounders.
My second point is on walks—a study of the situational walks for Hudson is probably necessary. Very few pitchers can play the situational walk game well, but if anyone can, it is probably a savy veteran like Hudson. Most of the time it is pretty bogus, but Tom Glavine made a Hall of Fame career out of it (basically, looking back at Glavine’s career, he had great control with nobody on but was hittable, but was stubborn and insisted on nibbling with runners on, which led to more walks, but far fewer RBI hits) so it is a possibility worth investigating.
Hudson’s SIERA is 3.99, compared to a FIP of 4.26 and xFIP of 4.22. It’s lower, but nothing like his actual ERA of 2.47.
Bobby,
Thanks for the info! Where did you find that? I subscribe to BP, but I can’t find SIERA numbers anywhere on the site.
1.37 WHIP in the second half. Mark my words
Not 1.36? Not 1.38? Gee I dunno…can I place money on “not 1.37″?
Something not mentioned that might counter Hudson’s regression of BABIP and ERA: Alex Gonzalez. The upgrade defensively at shortstop might help more of those worm-burners turn into outs.
There’s no reason to think he’s significantly better than Yunel was. According the UZR, Yunel has actually been better so far this year.
And every season. There is not a scintilla of evidence to suggest that Alex Gonzalez is a defensive “upgrade” at SS.
Everyone brings up FIP when talking about Tim Hudson, but does that not discount the effect of his otherworldly groundball rate? Isn’t he only given “credit” in FIP for a groundball insofar as it can’t produce a homer? Wouldn’t tERA probably be a more accurate league and defense independent metric for such pitchers?
His tERA is 3.79, much better than his FIP or xFIP. I’m not saying he will regress; most pitchers with a 2.47 ERA will regress. I’m just making the argument that it isn’t likely to be as severe as most predict.
Am I the only one to notice that the main place Hudson makes up for those incredible amount of grounders to second (relative to league average) is a lack of grounders directly to shortstop? You can’t say the positive luck trend will regress to the mean but the negative one will not. Also he has an above-average amount hit right up the middle – by this logic, that too should regress.
I think he has been around long enough we should regress to his personal .209 and not the league average of .238. That .238 figure represents an average of pitchers with a different skill set who aren’t all trying for grounders like harden. I’ll be you pitchers with high GB% also have lower BABIP on grounders — flyball pitchers who give up a grounder generally have made a mistake. I believe there was a study done on this very site that groundball pitchers tend to give up harder hits on fltballs than flyball pitchers do, so it makes sense that the reverse is true.
Obviously, I meant Hudson, not Harden.
There is actually data that shows that groundball pitchers have a lower BABIP on grounders. In fact, I think MGL takes account of this fact when he does UZR– a fielder who makes an out with a grounder with a ground ball pitcher on the mound will be given less credit than one with a fly ball pitcher on the mound.
Also, I agree that the writer ignores the lack of balls hit right at the SS. I don’t think Hudson’s BABIP is too far out of line– .190 vs. .208 career on ground balls? Not a big deal.
I think his strand rate however is out of line and will regress.
I have him on my team, so I hope I’m wrong, but he should regress. Throw out 2006, and he looks like a pitcher that should be at ~ 3.34, with no other considerations. Other considerations include being about 4 years older than the mid-point of his good years, and having an operation behind him.
Does it look like either took a toll? I’d have to guess yes based on K/W. 1.40 indicates an inability to put guys away. If this were a batter, I’d say that projects to a 2.86, and anything three or over makes it very difficult to survive. Like Jeffrey Gross said, I’m coming up with a 1.32 Whip going forward. Maybe a 3.70 ERA.
The owner of the Braves posts on Fangraphs. Wow.
Sold high on Hudson last week, figured this post would follow.
Would be interested in the same groundball location graph overlayed also with Hudson’s career GB locations, or as much batted ball location data as is possible. Maybe something about the way he pitches really is, consistently, yielding more ground balls in the hole and down the RF line. Would be pretty cool if so.
Those are fascinating graphs that Dave Allen provided you – I don’t think I’ve ever seen a pitcher’s BABIP divergence dissected in quite this pictorial way. I would caution however, that we probably have statistical significance issues here, and it may be specious to claim that Hudson has had “more ground balls hit right at the 2B” than league average simply because his spike there is a little taller.
It’s hard by eyeballing to tell how many bins there are to this directional histogram, but it looks like on the order of 30? If you figure 15 ground balls per start (a good figure for an extreme GB pitcher) and 20 starts to date, that’s 300 GBs. That gives you 10 for each bin. I think you’d need a much more extreme difference in proportions for any of those bins than the ones shown here for this to be definitively anything other than random deviations from league average.
(Caveat: Everything said above was off the cuff/napkin-backed; I haven’t gotten out my stat book to confirm. A strong hunch though, which perhaps someone else can confirm/reject.)
Personally, I still think he’s a strong regression candidate.
Just more luck I guess
At some point he will get some credit for being good at pitching.
well, Hudson has pitched over a month since this article was written. His ERA is tied for first with pitchers who have thrown 160+ innings. Look like he actually knows what he’s doing. Stats are good and all, but correlation doesn’t always equal causation. Maybe the stats that indicate he’s pitching worse than his ERA says are missing something else. If a guy hits a pitch that’s not in the strike zone (which Huddy gets a LOT of) the chances of it dribbling “right to” the 2B or SS are greater. I bet his ERA would be even better if they had a legit 1B this season and not old man Glaus.
His LD% in his first 17 games of the season was 11%, about half of the league average. His BABIP was .238 and his ERA was 2.44.
In the 2nd half, his LD% was 15%, still well below league average. His BABIP was .267 and his ERA was 3.23.
FIP is flawed in that it assumes that a pitcher does not control the hits that he allows. Therefore, it assumes a league average BABIP. Since BABIP is largely dependent on line drive rate, clearly, FIP doesn’t hold true for Tim Hudson.