R.A. Dickey: Consistently Good
Before R.A. Dickey started throwing a knuckleball, he was on his way out of baseball. As a 30-year old who had seen significant action in the Majors in two seasons, but never action that came with a consistent role, he was fighting for a place at the table. And while he initially didn’t have much success with the knuckler, he stuck with it, crawling to freedom through more than three seasons of Pacific Coast League foulness that I can’t even imagine. Or maybe I just don’t want to picture what happens to a knuckleball in Colorado Springs. In that time, the Rangers, Brewers, Mariners and Twins all gave up on him, but now the Mets are reaping the benefits of their combined patience, as Dickey is in the midst of a career year at the tender age of 37.
One of the toughest things about being a knuckleballer is that sometimes, the ball just won’t dance. In a career that included 463 starts, Tim Wakefield’s longest streak of consecutive starts with four runs or less allowed was 12. Sooner or later, the knuckleball will come through straighter than a Katniss Everdeen arrow, and it is going to be tatered. Dickey is no stranger to this phenomenon, as evidenced by his outing on April 18 in Atlanta. But while Dickey has not yet strung together a 12-game streak like Wakefield, he’s come awfully close. In the past calendar year, Dickey has made 32 starts (dating back to June 11 of last year), and he has allowed four runs or less in 29 of them. In that time, his 3.37 FIP is tied with Johnny Cueto for 22nd-best in the game among qualified starters, ahead of such luminaries as Jered Weaver, Felix Hernandez, Tim Lincecum and James Shields. And as the astute observer will notice, you can even back up four more starts to May 20, 2011, and make that 33 of his last 36 starts allowing four runs or less.
After yesterday’s dismantling of the Nationals in Washington, Dickey’s current streak stands at nine games without allowing more than four runs. And he’s not just teetering on the edge of that streak either, as he has allowed just one run in his last four starts. What sticks out about the four starts, as well as the one preceding it, is that Dickey has been racking up the strikeouts. Dickey has struck out eight batters or more in a start just nine times in his career, and five of those nine are his last five starts. In those five starts, Dickey has struck out 46 batters. For 2012, his K/9 and swinging strike percentage are both at career highs, and he’s getting batters to chase pitches out of the zone more frequently than he has before as well.
Most of the difference comes from, as you might imagine, the effectiveness of his knuckler, which is generating a lot more whiffs than before:
| Year | Whiffs |
|---|---|
| 2008 | 7.69% |
| 2009 | 8.53% |
| 2010 | 10.24% |
| 2011 | 10.08% |
| 2012 | 14.36% |
Looking for a magic bullet to explain this increased effectiveness leads mainly to dead ends. He is throwing his knuckleball slightly harder than he did last season, and he is getting more vertical movement on his knuckler than he did in 2010 or 2011, but the differences don’t stack up as monumental. His vertical release point isn’t appreciably different either. Dickey is simply doing what he has always done, but doing it better.
With the improved effectiveness, Dickey is climbing up leaderboards. This handy leaderboard of knuckleball pitchers built by our fearless leader Dave Cameron shows that Dickey’s season is currently the 22nd-best knuckleballer season in the Integrated Era, and the seventh-best in the past 40 years, according to ERA-. And this season, his 2.98 xFIP is bettered only by Zack Greinke, Stephen Strasburg, Cliff Lee and Gio Gonzalez.
Last week, in the wake of Johan Santana’s no-hitter, I saw someone ask on Twitter whether or not Santana and Dickey were the best one-two combo in baseball. Initially, I dismissed it out of hand, but the notion does have some merit. The two aren’t the best, but thanks to Dickey’s career year, they are one of seven or eight teams that can legitimately be part of that discussion. Knuckleballer’s are usually prone to several flare-ups per season, but Dickey is challenging that notion this year. He has been very good in the past month, but if you take a longer view, it’s clear that these are not isolated events — R.A. Dickey has been consistently good.
He’s also got the best K/BB on that leader board.
Wasn’t that April start pretty much in a monsoon or is that my imagination playing tricks? Anywho, not to sound too much like a working girl but all I can really say is I love me some Dickey, also has he had any more AB’s this year where he’s rocked his “butcher boy” ? Swing. I saw it last year for one / only time. does he still do this, any cool kids want to enlighten me?
Definitely correct about the rain in Atlanta messing up that start, he couldn’t get a grip on the knuckler.
I haven’t noticed Dickey use the butcher-boy swing this year, though it is possible. Al Leiter is the only pitcher I know of who used that on a regular basis
“Sooner or later, the knuckleball will come through straighter than a Katniss Everdeen arrow, and it is going to be tatered” is a fantastic sentence sir.
“not to sound like a working girl but I love me some Dickey”
You win so many internets
“Looking for a magic bullet to explain this increased effectiveness leads mainly to dead ends….(snip)….Dickey is simply doing what he has always done, but doing it better.”
I’m not sure this is true. I thought I read (or heard) that he had been working on a new ‘rising’ knuckleball and he implemented it a month or so ago. I don’t know the physics, but I guess it doesn’t drop off a cliff like a lot of knuckleballs so when a batter swings low – because they anticipate the pitch to drop – they wind up swing under the pitch. The new pitch has coincided with his increased K/9, but somehow he still manages a very low BB/9.
The consistency is remarkable. I’d expect a knuckleball pitcher to get lit up every month or so, but as long as the weather is decent it seems like he always pitches well. He’s pitched like a legit ace this year. But the one drawback is the weather. He struggled at the beginning of 2011 in bad weather, and got crushed this year in Atlanta when it was pouring out. If his pitch isn’t effective in bad weather, I wonder if he’d be decent in October (if it ever comes to that).
Lets see him try and mow through the Jays lineup. Fat chance. I’d predict 2 or 3 bombs from Bautista and anotther couple from EE. Hell, Rajai Davis might just have to add one for good measure.
Dickey just pitched a CGSO against the Cardinals and their .452 team SLG. I’m pretty sure he can handle the Jays (.418).
little full of yourself, don’t you think?
love the Shawshank reference
I know FIP is gospel in Fangraphs-land, but it still bothers me when writers here blithely cite it in evaluating pitchers (knuckleballers, Mariano Rivera) with a long history of significantly outperforming DIPS stats.
Agree. Dickey consistently outperforms his fip. You have to acknowledge at some point that fip is a relatively poor statistic for certain pitchers, and Dickey is one of them. Given his contact figures, I can only imagine the kind of run prevention the current incarnation of Dickey could take part in if he had a decent set of fielders behind him and not Daniel Murphy playing second base in shallow right next to Duda.
Just because a players ERA (or however else you are saying he is outperforming it) doesn’t properly reflect their FIP, doesn’t mean that FIP isn’t a useful stat for evaluating said pitcher. Think about what the FIP formula considers – HRs, BBs, Ks, and IPs – and what it doesn’t – ER, defense, hits – and judge the pitcher accordingly. Just because a pitcher outperforms their ERA, doesn’t automatically mean FIP is a bad stat for them – e.g. if a pitcher plays in front of a great defense for most his career, he probably is going to outperform their FIP.
Regarding Dickey and FIP… Isn’t the fact that he’s a knuckleball pitcher pretty much mean that FIP will make him look less effective than he is? [Isn't it generally agreed that knuckleball pitchers, as a class, tend to consistently outperform their FIP?]
I think the point here though is that Dickey is not playing in front of a good defense. The Mets are tied for 26th in the majors in errors, 27th in fielding percentage, 20th in most assists and 15th in most put outs. They’re also tied for 20th in most unearned runs allowed.
UZR and UZR/150 the Mets are 32nd.
One thing you missed about his start in April was; it was raining which kept Dickey from gripping the ball. He said it was like throwing water balloons. So that start was effected mostly by the weather and not occasional non-knuckling knuckle ball.
I’ve watched at least 90% of Dickey’s starts since he first came up to the Mets and other than not throwing his fastball as much, I’m not seeing much difference in what Dickey is doing.
I really think the main reason for Dickey’s great start is the really good weather the Met’s have see this year. Dickey started off slow last year in the cold spring we had. Once the weather warmed up, Dickey’s performance went up. Warm spring means Dickey has better feeling for the ball and he missed those potential bad games to skew his results.
If you watch that often then you know he has been honing his knuckleball skills, and there is a difference in approach. He is more confident in it, hence why he throws the fastball less than you mentioned, and he has more than one speed for it, which allows him to sequence the pitches. When he first came up, his knuckler was mostly one speed, with a less often faster knuckleball. Now he will throw those two pitches at any time, and with more confidence of where it will go than I think some guys have with their fastball. He supposedly throws it differently than previous knucklers, giving him slightly more control. I think it is like the OP said, he is mostly just getting better at throwing it.
The wetness will affect the control, because it affects his grip, but I don’t know how much the cold weather would.
i never thought id be the one to say this but fake everdiso is getting kinda old
What’s crazy is that Dickey may be getting unlucky this year. His HR/FB% is 4% higher than the past two years. His BABIP is right on line, and although his LOB% is high, it still shouldn’t make up for the big HR/FB difference. If that goes down, isn’t it conceivable that Dickey is a true talent 2.10 ERA pitcher this year? That’s insane.
Who the heck asked if Santana/Dickey was the best 1-2 combo in baseball? Strasburg/Gonzalez, Sanchez/Johnson, Halladay/Lee/Hamels, and a couple of others. You could make the argument that Strasburg and Gonzalez have not just been the best two starters on the same team, but that they’ve been the best two starters in baseball period.
Sanchez/Johnson? Johnson’s been a bit off this year. Sanchez has had a nice start, but he’s never sustained this level for a full season.
Anibal Sanchez FIP: 2.77
Anibal Sanchez ZIPs ROS FIP: 3.27
Josh Johnson FIP: 2.89
Josh Johnson ZIPs ROS FIP: 2.81
I guess you meant to say “Josh Johnson has been unlucky so far this year, and Anibal Sanchez has been really good three seasons in a row.”
For comparison, RA Dickey and Johan Santana have a ZIPs ROS ERA of 3.66 and 3.55, respectively. Both have worse FIPs so far this year than Johnson and Sanchez, but they do both have a better ERA.
I think you could definitely make the argument that Santana and Dickey have done better, but I think you could also argue that Johnson and Sanchez have been better. ZIPs likes the Marlins more going forward. The one big point in Dickey/Santana’s favor is the injury history, but if we ignore that I’ll take Johnson/Sanchez all day. Even including the injury history I’d take the Marlin’s pair for their big advantage in youth, but at least I’d have to think about it.
Except Santana and Dickey have both been able to consistently outperform their peripherals, so FIP consistently underrates them.
you’re using FIP to evaluate a knuckleballer. wat
and santana has outperformed his FIP all but twice in his career.
Me: “For comparison, RA Dickey and Johan Santana have a ZIPs ROS ERA of 3.66 and 3.55, respectively.”
The next two comments: “Use ERA instead of FIP!”
I did use ERA for them. I used FIP for Johnson and Sanchez, ERA for Santana and Dickey. Next time please read my comment before arguing with it.
skippy, you didn’t use ERA (except to say that the Mets combo has a better ERA than the Marlins combo). You used a projected ERA based on one system. Considering Santana missed all of last season, and has come back at the very top end of expectations, I’m not so sure that ZIPs really has any idea of how to forecast his ERA. They projecting a 3.52 ERA for the rest of the year. He’s never had an ERA that high since becoming a starter, and he’s only been over 3.00 twice in his career. They’re also projecting a .301 babip, even though he’s never been above .280 since becoming a full time starter. Maybe he’ll suddenly start to show career-worst numbers, but that seems like a very pessimistic projection to me.
And with Dickey developing a new pitch and suddenly striking out a boatload of players, I’m not so sure that ZIPs knows what to do with him either.
Acting like missing a full season after trending slightly downward for a couple of years should be ignored in the face of two good months seems very optimistic to me. There is obviously a chance that Santana at 33 and having just missed a full season posts his best k/9 since ’07, his best or second-best babip ever, and doesn’t get hurt too much by his 2nd lowest career gb%. I’m not going to bet on that, though. He should still be a very good pitcher, but I’d be willing to bet his ERA comes up over the rest of the year.
Dickey is not the first player in history to drastically increase his k/9 in a two-month sample. Sometimes the difference is for real, other times it isn’t. I’m not going to try to guess which is which, because there’s ALWAYS an explanation given, even when it’s just luck. If he keeps this up for another couple of months I’ll agree that his true talent has changed. If you want to disagree with ZIPS and project him for an ERA of 3.00 or something around there I can understand that, but I’m not going to be on board with projecting him under a 3.00 right now.
Putting too much stock in ERA over a two-month sample is problematic. I’m not going to say that we shouldn’t use it, but in evaluating the four guys I’m not going to exclusively use Santana and Dickey’s ERA. I brought up their ERAs, and made the statement that you could argue they had done better (the reason being their better ERAs). In terms of production so far this year, I think it could go either way. But add in the better projections for Sanchez and Johnson (and I was restricted to ZIPs because I don’t know of any others that update during the season), and I think it swings firmly in favor of the Marlins pair. And that’s not to mention their home parks, which is another point in favor of Sanchez/Johnson. So far this year, Miami’s home park looks like a hitter’s park, while we know Citi Field is one of the better pitcher’s parks in the majors.
Two things from this article which originally appeared in Newsday. First, he has a knuckler that is moving upwards. This is something batters are completely unprepared for, as it does the opposite of every other pitch they’ve ever seen in their lives. Second, unlike other knuckleballers, Dickey is developing a feel for where the ball is going to go based on how he throws the pitch. While he’s always had good control for a knuckler, I think this has launched his K rate way up, as he can set guys up inside/outside like a traditional pitcher.
Maybe this evens out over the course of the season, but for a guy who was already an untraditional knuckler, he seems to have become even more of one this year.
And Newsday got it from SNY probably, which mentions this stuff every start. I would doubt a Fangraphs writer copied anything from Newsday, why are you even reading that crap?
I didn’t imply the fangraphs writer copied anything. “This article” referred to the article I linked to (the fangraphs design doesn’t show the link well).
There’s a lot wrong with Newsday in general, but there is plenty of decent Mets stuff in there. Not sure why it’s “crap,” or what your problem is with the points I brought up, since your response was flippant and devoid of useful information.
To toot my own horn… I actually drafted Dickey in my fantasy draft in March.