Isolating Zack Greinke
To a certain extent, it seems like almost the entire market is waiting on free-agent starter Zack Greinke to make a decision. Greinke seems to be choosing between the Dodgers and the Rangers. If Greinke goes to LA, Texas might turn its attention to Josh Hamilton. If Greinke goes to Texas, Hamilton will end up elsewhere. As Greinke makes his decision, Hamilton makes his decision, and then things become clearer for Michael Bourn, Nick Swisher, Justin Upton, and so on and so forth. Greinke needs to choose an employer before the rest of the big-ticket acquisitions can identify their own.
As we’ve talked about, Greinke’s the available free-agent ace, so long as your definition of “ace” isn’t “Justin Verlander or above”. He’s going to get paid accordingly by someone, with a shot at beating the CC Sabathia contract. Being that Greinke is exceptionally talented and still not very old, the appeal is obvious. He’s ready to help in the regular season and he’s ready to help in the playoffs. There is a thing about Greinke, though, that’s worth exploring in greater depth than we have.
I guess there are several things about Greinke that are worth exploring in greater depth than we have. Here, we’re going to focus on Greinke’s catchers. In writing about Greinke and Anibal Sanchez the other day, I mentioned that Greinke has spent a lot of time throwing to Jonathan Lucroy. Pitch-framing research has identified Lucroy as one of the very best in the business. Early indications are that Martin Maldonado is also quite good, and he caught 11 of Greinke’s games in 2012. Greinke was a Brewer for a year and a half, and over that year and a half, he threw to some spectacular pitch-framers. Over the rest of his career, he has not. If you believe that the pitch-framing research is onto something, then this is definitely something to explore.
If catchers can have an effect on called balls and called strikes, then it stands to reason one should try to isolate pitchers from this effect, at least toward the extremes. In a way we’re going to try to isolate Zack Greinke. We’re going to look at Greinke’s called balls and called strikes between 2008-2012, during the reliable PITCHf/x Era. We’re going to use simple data that’s entirely available here at FanGraphs.
We can see how many strikes Zack Greinke generated. We can also calculate how many strikes one should have “expected”. You expect all zone pitches and all out-of-zone swings to go for strikes. By comparing this “expected strikes” total to the actual strikes total, you can learn, and with Greinke, we see some remarkable data. I’ll try to lay this out as best I can:
| Season | Team | Strikes | ExpStrike | Diff/1000 | LgDiff/1000 | vs. League |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2008 | Royals | 2057 | 2112 | -31 | -21 | -10 |
| 2009 | Royals | 2206 | 2219 | -7 | -26 | 19 |
| 2010 | Royals | 2159 | 2187 | -15 | -23 | 9 |
| 2011 | Brewers | 1812 | 1760 | 33 | -17 | 50 |
| 2012 | Brewers | 1227 | 1169 | 52 | -9 | 61 |
| 2012 | Angels | 883 | 886 | -4 | -9 | 5 |
Diff/1000 refers to the difference between strikes and expected strikes per 1000 called pitches. LgDiff/1000 refers to the league-average difference between strikes and expected strikes per 1000 called pitches. Vs. League refers to the difference between Zack Greinke and the league average. Greinke has averaged just over 1800 called pitches a year over the last five years.
With the Royals and with the Angels, we see Greinke in the neighborhood of league-average. With the Brewers, he’s way way above. As a Brewer, the difference between Greinke and the league average was 54 strikes per 1000 called pitches, by this analysis. As a non-Brewer, since 2008, the difference between Greinke and the league average was five strikes per 1000 called pitches, by this analysis. That seems fairly substantial, and this demonstrates that Greinke doesn’t have some special ability to get strikes called on should-be balls. That happened for him in Milwaukee, but because it didn’t happen for him elsewhere, it suggests it wasn’t so much about Greinke, and was more about someone or someones else.
Unsurprisingly, Greinke spends a lot of his time working the edges. Here’s Greinke throwing to right-handed batters over the last two years, via Texas Leaguers:
And Greinke against left-handed batters over the same span:
Greinke spends so much of his time in the low-away quadrant, and that’s where a catcher can really make a difference. The more a pitcher hovers around the borders, the more the pitcher needs to depend on other people. Lucroy and Maldonado helped Greinke get some calls he might not have otherwise deserved. Greinke’s other catchers over the years haven’t done him quite so many favors.
This shouldn’t be interpreted as asserting that Zack Greinke isn’t actually all that good. Greinke was amazing in 2009, with Miguel Olivo behind the plate. Greinke was effective with the Angels, and his strong numbers with the Brewers weren’t due entirely to the backstops. It’s also possible this analysis has a fatal flaw and doesn’t actually mean anything. Maybe Greinke earned those extra strikes. Maybe Greinke has improved his command, and is more often given the benefit of the doubt. Regardless of the catchers, Zack Greinke is a good bet to be the best starting pitcher available.
But this sure seems like it ought to be a consideration, because neither the Dodgers nor the Rangers have a Lucroy or a Jose Molina behind the plate, as things stand. The evidence doesn’t love A.J. Ellis as a framer, and Geovany Soto is merely fine. Greinke’s going to be a massive investment, so these teams need to figure out exactly what he is, and what he is is a guy who seems to have benefited from some talented receivers. It’s on the Dodgers and the Rangers to figure out how good Zack Greinke truly is on his own.
Dan Brooks has shown that umpires on average tend to call pitches away off the of plate against left-handed hitters more frequently than any other pitch that does not end up in the zone. Greinke could be not only benefitting from his catcher, but also bias in umpires.
But he probably would have benefited from that bias every season, not just those with the Brewers.
Glenn brings up a good point though. These “expected strike” comparisons assume that all umpires have equal strike calling biases, independent of catcher framing. Is this true? What do we know about Dan Iasonia’s zone compared to Joe West’s?
to compare a mere 2000 strike calls against another 2000 strike calls – there are what, 140 or so MLB umpires? Those variances – or a significant portion of them – could theoretically be explained by who was calling balls and strikes in those years.
And from his reputation. Without running the numbers, I would assume pitchers that are considered top quality probably get a few more strikes called that a Cole de Vries type.
That was supposed to be a reply to Glenn Dupaul.
That’s true, but his big year was 2009. In 2010, and in 2012 with the Angels, he didn’t get much of a bump. I don’t see why umpires would respect him more in a Brewers’ uniform.
The question that wasn’t addressed is whether this is something unique to Greinke that he benefits from disproportionately compared to other top pitchers. Is Verlander just pounding the center of the zone with filthy pitches and therefore doesn’t gain as much from a good pitch framer?
Instead of this analysis meaning that “it’s on the Dodgers and the Rangers to figure out how good Zack Greinke truly is on his own,” it probably means that they would be smart to maximize what they get out of their investment by getting him a pitch framing specialist to serve as his caddy. He’s getting paid, there’s no way around that, and as it appears that it is not really the teams that are doing the choosing at this point. they should be asking themselves how to get the most out of him once they are “chosen.” Looking for a framing specialist is probably a good idea once you look at this article, but as to whether that’s just a good idea anyways if a team wants to maximize what they get out of their pitchers hasn’t really been addressed.
I’d say that finding whether or not there are specific pitchers who benefit from pitch framers disproportionately to others would be a fascinating read.
The Rangers should trade Profar for Jose Molina to maximize their investment.
Snark noted.
Shouldn’t all teams though get a pitch-framing specialist to catch for them? Every pitcher would benefit from the expertise, not just Greinke.
And also benefiting from pure randomness. What does the distribution of “league-average difference between strikes and expected strikes per 1000 called pitches” look like? Can we assume it is normal? If we can say that, we could proceed to assigning some descriptive numbers to that distribution pretty easily.
The narrative here stacks up nicely, but what if 68% of pitchers are within +/- 40 expected strikes of the mean? Then the narrative changes pretty drastically.
Unless I am missing something about how the data was compiled
NOBODY PUTS GREINKE IN A BOX!
Ohhh I know a guy that could….
It will be a joke if Greinke gets 20-25 million for multiple years. He isn’t getting any younger and he hasn’t even justified his salary since his 2009 season. They are paying for a name. Considering his actual track record (career 3.77 ERA, only one notable season), his contract will be more ridiculous than Johan Santana’s. Ok, so maybe it will be equal to Santana’s including inflation.
That is ridiculous.
Actually, according to FanGraphs he’s been worth over $20 million dollars a year since 2008, but that figure is just based on his stats and performance and how well he’s performed…
Slight correction: 1 year he was only worth $18M, but I figure his 2009 value of $42 million kind of evens it out.
If you have a slavish devotion to FIP and ignore that some pitchers, like Greinke, under-perform their peripherals over fairly large samples
Yup, ERA that is 12% better than league average for his career sure isn’t worth it – except that past ERA doesn’t really help predict future performance. Perhaps there is something else about him – like a FIP that is 20% better than league average, in an environment of rapid inflation, while signing with teams that are built for winning now at the expense of the future. Whomever signs him will likely overpay, but it won’t be a disaster unless his arm literally falls off. He’ll probably be worth 4 or 5 wins for the next couple years before declining gracefully – “joke” and “ridiculous” are overstatements/misinformed ignorance depending on your baseball knowledge.
I think it would be a mistake to pay 25 per for 5, say. He has only been “worth” 25 one season, and it is true for the other seasons we are vaunting fip over his actual results for a few years running now, some of which may have been somewhat catcher-aided. He will likely get it, and not a huge overpay. He’s a really good pitcher and i’d love to see another 2009 out of him.
Whoever.
Greinke’s FIP is clearly misleading.
I never played professionally, but was a catcher up through high school. I’m not sure if this holds at the pro level, but there were some guys who were easier to frame than others. Is it possible that his pre-Brewers catchers were bad framers and that once he got a competent backstop, they no longer held him back? Just something to ponder.
This is a good point. I think a lot of the catcher strike analysis fails to account for the pitchers influence, as well as just random variation.
Furthermore, using Pitch f/x data is going to be problematic due to park effects (which are small, but exist).
But I think this is a fair partial explanation for why Greinke has had such a low xFIP the past two years with the Brewers, although I wouldn’t make too much of the effect.
His rWAR is listed at 7.9 total over the past three years, while averaging over 200 innings. Could it be that that’s closer to his real value? I know the peripheral stats we like to look at here suggest that he’s something more, but his actual performances on the field over that span seem to be above average but unspectacular.
rWAR does not measure Greinke’s “actual performance”. It measure’s his actual performance + luck and defense. I’m not saying fWAR measure’s his actual performance, but it likely comes closer than bWAR.
Have we gotten stupider? What’s the reason for the anti DIPS backlash recently?
Blame Matt Cain, I guess.
In turn, I’ll try to display greater respect for Greinke’s extraordinary performances, despite his pedestrian results.
Is league average major league average? If so, maybe grienke benefitted from the NL batting a pitcher.
A question… if we found a player that could frame a flyball in such a way that umpires called it a homerun, even if it wasn’t (or vice versa)… would that be a good thing?
I think not.
So, then why is it OK that catchers are doing this for balls and strikes… which are the core and essence of baseball?
Can we get a separate article on how awesome Brewers’ catchers are at pitch framing? If we find evidence showing Lucroy’s great pitch framing with other pitchers, then it can be applied to Greinke as well.
Better yet, can we get a separate article on how we need to utilize technology to get accurately balls and strikes EVERY pitch???
Screw pitch framers. Catchers aren’t there to convince umpires that balls are strikes… or… at least they shouldn’t be.
It is now measurable. Catchers can adversely affect umpires on ball/strike calls. Right? That simple fact proves to me that umpires need to be removed from that process.
I am appalled that a data driven baseball fanatic website does not devote more time and effort on promoting this clearly needed change.
Are there any good reasons why we should continue to allow erroneous ball/strike calls???
As long as the umpires are fair, it doesn’t really matter much that they’re inaccurate. Both teams have equal opportunity to frame pitches,and the theater of it all is just one more battleground for players to compete on.
Baseball is, above it all, just entertainment. It doesn’t really *matter*. An automated strike-calling system would remove a lot of uncertainty, but it would also remove a lot of the arguments and passion that makes sports fun.