Gavin Floyd Flying Under the Radar?
On the surface, Chicago White Sox righty Gavin Floyd appeared to take a step back in 2009. After all, his ERA rose from 3.84 in 2008 to 4.06 this past year, with his win total dipping from 17 to 11 in the process.
Recently, ESPN fantasy analyst Tristan Cockcroft came out with a preliminary top 200 list for the 2010 season. Floyd checked in at number 200. He ranked below starters such as Derek Lowe, Daisuke Matsuzaka and Ervin Santana.
Santana (elbow, triceps) and Matsuzaka (shoulder) lost big chunks of the ‘09 season with injury problems. Lowe, meanwhile, pulled off an undesirable trifecta by missing fewer bats, walking more hitters and getting fewer ground balls than usual.
But Floyd? He’s coming off of his best season in the majors, win total and higher ERA aside.
This time last year, I examined Floyd’s 2008 season and came to a rather harsh conclusion:
Floyd’s prospect pedigree, superficial improvement in ERA and big win total might trick some people into believing that he has taken major strides toward becoming an ace-level starter. However, there just isn’t any evidence to suggest that’s really the case. Floyd is worth selecting in the later portion of most drafts, but don’t be the guy that takes him really high and then spends the season wondering why his ERA went up by a run.
Today, I can say that I was wrong about Floyd. And now, I fear that other analysts may be making a similar mistake in underestimating the former Phillies prospect.
In 2008, Floyd struck out 6.32 batters per nine innings. In ‘09, his K rate climbed to 7.6 per nine frames. The increase appears to be supported by a drop in contact rate. Opposing batters made contact when swinging at Floyd’s pitches 81.7% of the time in ‘08, but just 77.8% in ‘09 (80-81% MLB average).
Also, his rate of swinging strikes spiked from 8.4% in ‘08 to 9.9% this past year (7.8% average for starting pitchers). Floyd ranked 17th among starters in contact rate and 21st in swinging strike rate.
The soon-to-be 27 year-old also lowered his walk rate a bit, from 3.05 BB/9 in 2008 to 2.75 BB/9 in 2009. Floyd kept the ball on the ground more than in years past, with a 44.3 GB% (41.2% in ‘08).
That’s not a massive increase, but it makes a difference. His home run/fly ball rate didn’t change all that much between 2008 (11.8%) and 2009 (11.2%), but his HR/9 figure fell from 1.31 to 0.98. Considering U.S. Cellular Field’s homer-happy tendencies (1.26 HR park factor from 2007-2009), getting a few more grounders can’t hurt.
For most of his major league career, Floyd struggled to retire lefty batters. In 2009, that wasn’t the case. Baseball-Reference keeps track of a stat called sOPS+, which compares a player’s performance in a given split to the league average. An sOPS+ of 100 is league average. A score below 100 for a pitcher means that he was better than the league average, while a score above 100 means he did worse than average. Here are Floyd’s sOPS+ figures vs. lefties since 2006:
2006: 155
2007: 132
2008: 111
2009: 74
While one year of platoon data shouldn’t be taken as definitive proof that Floyd has conquered southpaw batters, there’s other evidence to suggest the improvement is legitimate.
Floyd has shifted his pitch selection in recent years, progressively tossing fewer low-90’s fastballs in favor of more mid-80’s sliders and cutters:
Floyd’s fastball, slider and cutter percentage, by year:
2007: 62.1 fastball (FA) percentage, 7.6 slider (SL) percentage, 6.7 cutter (FC) percentage
2008: 54.9 FA%, 9.2 SL%, 9.4 FC%
2009: 41.5 FA%, 16.3 SL%, 12.7 FC%
Floyd’s fastball has been scorched for a career run value of -0.92 per 100 pitches, making his decision to throw fewer heaters a wise one. His slider and cutter are lumped together on his Pitch Type Values section. Floyd’s Pitch F/X graphs (like this one from a 9/16 start vs. Seattle) show that they’re two distinct pitches, though:
The run value of his slider and cutter combined is +0.58 during the course of his big league career.
With more whiffs, fewer walks and the patented “Cooper Cutter” in his arsenal, Floyd was one of the better starters in the A.L. in 2009. Floyd’s Expected Fielding Independent ERA dropped from 4.61 in ‘08 to 3.82 this past season. That placed 8th among A.L. starters.
Gavin Floyd might not be an elite starter, but he’s pretty darned good. Don’t let the win total fool you: Floyd was better than ever in 2009.
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Yeah, he’s really an interesting player. He keeps on overcoming… well, not quite “steep” odds, but his continued development goes against both the statistical and scouting grain in a slightly interesting way. Both statistically and scouting wise you would have to admit the potential was there in the past, but you didn’t really expect him to keep getting better like this.
Actually, kind of par for the course for Kenny Williams and the White Sox. I don’t think Ive ever liked a move theyve made and yet they often seem to work out surprisingly well.
Nice graph :)
haha the graph really helps prove your point. That aside, nice article, I’ll put him on my sleeper list for draft day.
More information in the name link, but…
Last offseason, I repeatedly advised drafters to avoid Gavin Floyd and instead draft John Danks. Although the surface numbers say I was right (Danks has a 3.69 ERA and 13 Ws compared to Floyd’s 4.06 ERA and 11 Ws), but the peripherals disagree.
Last season, Gavin Floyd struck out a below average 6.32 batters per nine, walked a decent 3.05 per nine and a gave up a sustainable 1.2 longballs per nine (given his neutral GB/FB tendencies) — good for a 4.77 FIP and one of the largest ERA-FIP splits in the league (going in the bad direction, that is). John Danks, on the other hand struck out a slightly above average 7.34 batters per nine, walked a very quality 2.63 per nine and only gave up 0.69 HR/9 (slightly low, given the 1.20 GB/FB rate) and showed a lot of potential, posting a 3.44 FIP in his age 23 season.
This season, Danks and Floyd have essentially flipped numbers. Floyd’s posting a 7.60 K/9, 2.6 BB/9 and 0.98 HR/9 (1.34 GB/FB rate), taking all of the right steps in the right directions. His FIP fell a full run to 3.77. Danks, on the other hand, regressed across the board. The strike out rate fell to 6.82, the walk rate ballooned half a batter per game to 3.18 and he became less groundball oriented (1.06 GB/FB) and saw his HR/9 rate spike up to 1.20. Danks’ season FIP currently stands at 4.44
I have to admit I was entirely wrong in my judgment of these two player’s abilities. Floyd had the first round pedigree and I was entirely too quick to dismiss him. I still believe in Danks, but looking at his HR/FB rates per season, which have been lucky so far in his career, and his big step back in K/BB this season, I no longer have the strong belief I once did that he was to be, as I once called him, “the future of the White Sox rotation” (especially now that the Sox have Peavy).
Going forward, however, what can we expect? Floyd has posted a sustainable HR/FB rate each of the past two seasons and unless he gets extremely unlucky next season or if it turns out the gains in K and BB per nine he made in 2009 we flukes, Gavin Floyd should be poised to have a big 2010 season. A 1.25 WHIP, sub-4 ERA and double digit wins season are entirely plausible. He may provide great fantasy profit next season if his ADP doesn’t balloon too high.
Danks, on the other hand, might be a candidate to avoid. The regressions in GB tendencies, walks and strikeouts are more than a bit concerning. Its not implausible to expect some regression towards his 2008 numbers in these areas, but there is still HR/FB regression looming. The league average HR/FB rate amongst pitchers is 11% and a lot of studies have shown this figure to be beyond the control of the pitcher. Couple this with the home run happy Cell and you may share some of my concerns about what John Danks does going forward.
Regardless, it will be interested to see how the White Sox rotation develops for 2010.
“The league average HR/FB rate amongst pitchers is 11% and a lot of studies have shown this figure to be beyond the control of the pitcher.”
Some starting pitchers are able to limit their HR/FB ratio better than others. It is just that we need about 6 to 7 seasons to establish an appropriate baseline.
I would have to disagree.
As expounded upon at THT (http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/fantasy/article/explaining-lips/), BP and other places, a pitcher really only controls a handful of things: strikeouts, type of contact, and walks. Park effects tend to be the only factor that affects HR/FB rates with a true correlative effect, at least in the data sets i have perused.
It is outside of the pitcher’s controls how much of the ball albert pujols will hit. The pitcher can just go for a straight whiff or a type of contact (ie, keep the ball low and with sink), but after he has thrown it, it is up to pujol’s to guess as to where/how to hit it.
Again, on the average, you are correct. But, like with BABIP, some pitchers are able to exhibit a bit better control of their HR/FB ratio than others. I do prefer xFIP over FIP b/c it does take a lot of data on a pitcher to establish a baseline for him. But, CC Sabathia is one pitcher who has a career 8.4% HR/FB ratio and he kept it below normal this season even as he went to new Yankee Stadium. Justin Verlander is another pitcher who has kept his HR/FB ratio below average in a pretty neutral ballpark. We only have 4 years of data on him, but so far he has limited his HR/FB ratio. He will be one to keep an eye on to see if that continues.
One point to add in as a White Sox fan: I’m not sure how much of the season this affected, but Danks was dealing with blister issues this year. I think they weren’t enough of a problem for him to stop throwing, but they seemed to affect his pitching. Hopefully there won’t be the same blister issues next year.
A blister seems trivial but we all saw how greatly if affected Beckett in his early career….that could be a possibility….
it was more than just that…some pretty serious circulation issues in his left hand, as well
Sorry about the graph, guys. Guess I’m not allowed to use that. I used one from Floyd’s Pitch F/X page that serves the same purpose.
I don’t understand the take that his improvement should not have been expected. The offspeed stuff is video game and he does a really good job of getting swings and misses with the high fastball. If you just look at the fastball velo, you’ll miss that he can get 95-96 with it, especially up in the zone, then drop the 12-6 or the slider. It’s not fair. He was unbelievably unlucky through about his first ten starts last year. Combine that with the injury that kept him from continuing to dominate late in the season, and you have those numbers that look just okay. That’s the only note of caution, the recurring hip soreness. They say they will need to change his mechanics to address the soreness. That scares me. If you’re comfy with that I think there is more SO% and decent E.RA upside (considering the park and FB%).
Floyd broke 95 in two starts this season.
He’s a good pitcher but he’s a breaking ball kind of guy. His fastball isn’t much next to his curve and lately his slider.
Floyd’s numbers after his first eight starts (when it was reported that the Sox fixed a tell in his delivery) were extremely impressive, too. Nice write-up, David.
Excellent article. Floyd has gone from overrated to underrated a few times in his career already and now is a great time to jump on the bandwagon, acquire him in fantasy leagues, etc. All of these improvements would look even more dramatic if you just looked at 2H numbers.
Floyd is a guy that I will almost certainly be owning once again next year. He was a guy that I targeted this year as a “toss in,” given his underlying stats. I love the improvement in inducing GB’s. The higher k/9 is nice, and the lower BB/9 is gravy. Most people will look at his “actual,” stats and see a ho hum starter. As you’ve pointed out in this awesome article, he was better then those stats would lead one to believe. My personal opinion is that Floyd will be drafted as a 4th-5th starter in 12 team leagues (putting him in the 48-60 range for starting pitchers). I believe his actual numbers by season’s end next year will rank in the top 40 for starting pitchers, maybe even the top 35.
Great article. Floyd still doesn’t have a ton of believers as most remember him being a bust in Philly or being a guy who had a so-called lucky 2008…. but from mid summer 2008 on he has been a different guy.
espn fantasy analyst? lol theres your problem
One thing possibly to consider re: Floyd’s evolution is that 2008 was his first full year in the MLB.