Lannan’s Continued Struggles
As has been well documented in this space, John Lannan has defied DIPS theory for much of his career, posting a 3.98 career ERA in 438.2 career innings despite a 4.83 FIP and a 4.65 xFIP. Lannan doesn’t strike out many batters (4.58 career K/9) and walks too many (3.41 BB/9) to be considered an elite control pitcher. His only redeemable quality as a pitcher is his extreme ground ball rate – 52.7% for his career to only a 29.0% fly ball rate.
Through three starts, Lannan’s peripherals had dipped to a career low level – in particular, his K/BB was a staggeringly low 0.78. Thanks to his inability to control the strike zone or get batters out through any way but a ground ball, Lannan’s FIP sat at 5.69 entering Wednesday night’s start against Colorado.
Things didn’t improve for Lannan, despite a Nationals victory. On the plus side, Lannan only allowed one walk, but he also couldn’t find the strikeout, either. Finally, allowing so many balls in play is catching up to Lannan. On Wednesday, he allowed 11 hits in total, including one homer, and was pretty much knocked around by the Rockies for the whole game.
Lannan just doesn’t have the type of stuff to make batters miss. His career swinging strike rate of 5.8% is well below the league average, and that has dropped to 3.7% so far this year. On Wednesday, he only drew 2 swinging strikes in 106 pitches – only 1.8% swinging strikes. A pitcher cannot rely on called strikes to induce strikeouts, and at the rate that Lannan is drawing whiffs both for this season and for his career as a whole, he likely won’t be able to draw enough strikeouts to be effective.
The ridiculous amount of balls in play that Lannan allows is finally catching up to him, it would appear. It is a long season, and there is time for Lannan to revert to the form that added up to that 3.98 ERA the first few years of his career. As Joe mentioned earlier this month, Lannan has been a bit of a study in DIPS theory for his whole career. What we’re seeing now is much closer to what DIPS theory would tell us to expect from a pitcher like Lannan.
Sorry for the off topic post, but the link to Zimmerman’s prospects story on Rotographs is dead or incorrect.
I get a little I told you so moment. In the offseason I was criticized here for my belief that Lannan’s mediocre talent would catch up to him. I had him projected at 110 IP of 5.5 FIP ball. If he surpasses the IP projection, it may only be because Jason Marquis, Craig Stammen, and friends are equally futile.
No way that happens. I bet you by the time he reaches 110 IP, his ERA will be around 4.20 or less. No way does he play at 5.50 FIP. He’s never done that before in his career. His 12.0 HR/FB% will regress, so will his .350 BABIP that will go closer to his .280 career BABIP average. 3 starts into last year, Lannan’s ERA was over 6. 6 Starts in and his ERA was 4.63. He will be fine.
While I don’t disagree that Lannan could post an ERA much closer to his career FIP over the next 110 IP, there’s no way he only pitches 110 innings. Even on a good team, two solid 200+ inning seasons earns you a longer leash that that (see: Wellemeyer, E. Santana). When you factor in the fact that the options beyond their current rotation is Shairon Martis and Collin Balester, who could only dream of a 5.50 FIP, it’s even more unlikely he doesn’t last the whole season.
Side note: Strasburg will be replacing Scott Olsen in the rotation. Olsen is inarguably much worse than John Lannan.
That 110 IP projection is so dumb unless you see him getting injured midseason. He has never been injured in his career and has no mechanical issues. The idea that you thought the Nats could potentially replace from the rotation is so laughable even if you factor out the bad options the team has. Why would a team replace a guy midseason who has been a sub 4 ERA guy with 200 IP consistently? Teams don’t just send those kind of guys out into market.
Really, you’re discounting Lannan’s entire career of outperforming DIPS in favor of 4 starts? That, sir, is conformation bias!
Yeah i don’t really understand this article. It seems to me that the author is saying that it was bound to happen that because of his low K numbers and high walk BB numbers his ERA was bound to rise but it look likes to me that his ERA has risen because his Ks are down this season.
A little premature on the Strasburg-Olsen swap aren’t you Will? Two good starts-one bad one, the second being a 7 innings shutout. Wait until June to make pronouncements.
Followed the link contained in today’s Washington Post Nats Journal and registered just to leave this comment: I’m not a stats maven and don’t pretend to know about a lot of the metrics the article refers to. And I’m not going to predict which way JL will go from here (after today’s loss to the Marlins). All I want to point out, which isn’t mentioned in the article (maybe because it has more to do with W-L than with ERA or other more individual stats?), is that with this season’s improved Nats infield + outfield defense and bullpen (even accounting for R. Zimmerman’s injury absences so far), a pitcher of Lannan’s ilk, *if* he reverts to form, could be even more successful than he has been in the past (when he was often a tough-luck loser in quality outings, also due largely to a lack of even a modest amount of run support). Just another one of the ‘many mysteries’ of his career thus far I suppose…
Lannan requires a broad and low strike zone to be effective. He doesn’t have any stuff he can throw past anybody so he requires a the umpire to define a zone that allows him to throw strikes out of reach of batters inside or outside, depending on their stances, and low enough to induce ground balls. He’s gotten that zone a lot in the past — it is the traditional “National League Strike Zone” — but it appears that this year the umpires (or more probably the NL powers-that-be have instructed the umpires to do this) have significantly narrowed and raised the strike zone, probably because run production draws fans to the ballparks. Last night against the Marlins he was getting no calls on the black and so he got rocked again. The Nats’ Stammen is a lot the same way — with a smaller strike zone, these guys aren’t going to make it in The Bigs.
It’s now reported (see the Washington Post Nats Journal for one) that JL will miss his next scheduled start and has been pitching with elbow pain for anything other than fastballs, starting with his 4/21 outing against Colorado and continuing over his following two starts, during which time he underwent an MRI that proved negative and received a cortisone shot that failed to alleviate his discomfort.
I wonder if you’re ready to return to this topic. It took only 4 starts to for the “I told you so” moment, and it’s been 7 since he was called back up. In which time he has a 3.45 FIP over 43 innings. So you could actually praise the adjustments he made and not have to back off of saberstats. Or is FanGraphs just going to sit on their laurels on this one?