Porcello’s Rookie Year
On Tuesday evening, Detroit Tigers right-hander Rick Porcello will look to tame the Twins and pitch his club into a divisional series matchup against the leviathan otherwise known as the New York Yankees. Much has been written about the 20 year-old’s ascension from Seton Hall Prep to the Motor City in the blink of an eye. Just how has Porcello combated unrelenting American League line-ups as a 20 year-old? Let’s take a look.
Porcello, of course, spent very little time on the farm. The highly-touted 6-5 starter came with all the scouting accolades, but teams selecting at the top of the 2007 amateur draft shied away. The Tigers, at pick number 27, finally came calling, gambling that an agreement could be reached. Detroit eventually kept Porcello from becoming a North Carolina Tar Heel, dishing out a cool $3.58M bonus.
Making his pro debut in 2008, Porcello tossed 125 frames for Lakeland of the High-A Florida State League. In its 2009 Prospect Handbook, Baseball America noted that Rick’s best offering was “a heavy two-seamer that averages 92 MPH and ranges up to 95, with boring action in on the hands of right handers.” That pitch was on full display in the FSL, as Porcello posted a 64.1% groundball rate. He also did a nice job of painting the black (2.38 BB/9), though his strikeout rate was less than anticipated for a premium prospect (5.18 K/9).
Baseball America offered some clues as to why that whiff rate was modest. He “shelved his slider to focus on his curveball”, and the Tigers “placed him on a 75-pitch limit for each start.”
In 2009, Porcello shot straight to the majors. Heading into his tilt with the Twins, Rick has racked up 165 frames in his rookie campaign. He has again burned worms at an impressive clip, inducing a grounder 54.4% of the time. That’s the highest rate in the A.L., and places fifth among all starters. Porcello has been stingy with the walks as well, issuing 2.73 BB/9.
In most cases, there’s a trade-off between grounders and punch outs; more of one usually entails less of the other. That has certainly been the story with Porcello. He has whiffed just 4.42 batters per nine frames, fourth-lowest among starters. Only Joel Pineiro, Nick Blackburn and John Lannan have fooled fewer batters on a per-inning basis.
The reason for the lack of swings and misses becomes apparent when one looks at Porcello’s pitch usage. Rick has relied upon a 91 MPH sinker about 77 percent of the time. True to the scouting reports, that pitch has excellent tailing action in on the hands of righty batters and is responsible for the hefty groundball rate.
But, as Harry Pavlidis showed earlier this summer, that sinker gets very few whiffs. Still, Porcello’s boring two-seamer has been worth +0.81 runs per 100 pitches this season.
Porcello does feature three other pitches: an 81 MPH slider (used about five percent of the time), 77 MPH curveball (eight percent) and an 81 MPH changeup (ten percent). None of those offerings are instilling much fear in opposing batters, though. Porcello’s slider comes in at -1.17 runs/100, with the curve worth -2.53 per 100 tosses. He hasn’t pulled the string especially well, either (-0.98).
Armed with one plus pitch and a three other seldom-used offerings in their nascent stages of development, Porcello has often had the ball put in play against him. His overall contact rate is 84.7% (80.5% MLB average), with opponents putting the bat on the ball 91 percent of the time on pitches within the strike zone (87.8% MLB average).
It’s not especially surprising that Porcello, using a sinker nearly four out of five pitches, has generated so few K’s. As Dave Allen explained back in August, there is a positive relationship between the vertical movement of a fastball and its whiff rate (the higher in the zone, the more whiffs generated; the lower in the zone, the fewer whiffs gotten).
There is also an inverse relationship between vertical movement and groundball rate. In other words, a fastball thrown high in the strike zone is likely to generate more swings and misses, while generating fewer groundballs. By contrast, a fastball like Porcello’s, buried at the batter’s knees low in the zone, is going to garner a higher groundball rate but few whiffs.
At an age where most pitching prospects are in A-Ball attempting to refine their secondary stuff, Porcello has managed to keep his head above water in the DH league. But his FIP (4.81) is more indicative of his performance than his ERA (4.04). Porcello obviously has plenty of development time left, though, and has a strong base of skills to build upon.
With strong groundball tendencies and quality control, Rick doesn’t have to post obscene K rates to be a successful starter. Will Porcello become a different sort of pitcher in the years to come, mixing in more breaking balls and changeups? That would likely lead to more strikeouts, but may come at the expense of some of those grounders.
That’s a question for another day, though. For now, Porcello will look to get Twins batters to chop that sinker into the dirt often enough to clinch a playoff berth.
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It’s worth remembering that his HR/FB is high, so FIP doesn’t do a great job of capturing his performance either. His xFIP is 4.59 (per Hardball Times, it’s interesting to note that they have his FIP at 4.91, a little higher than FanGraphs).
With a good sinker, Polanco (8.8 UZR/150,) Adam Everett (8.8,) and Inge (8.5) behind him, who needs K’s?
Now if Polanco and Everett don’t return…
I hope he has a better future than Carmona did after his breakout 2007 given his control. But beware, even Carmona had a 2.55 BB/9 that season. Once people laid off the sinker, it rose to 5.44 in 2008 and 6.32 in 2009.
He out-dueled the Twins ace in impressive fashion today. Watch out, AL Central. He’s going to be rough for years to come. The sinker is lethal, and his 4 seamer can hump up to 96 or so. The slider and change are coming. His control is pretty good. His HR/FB% was unlucky this season. With a few more whiffs (maybe 6/9 next season) and a normal HR rate, he’ll be a great #2-3 type starter next season at 21. Pretty cool.
I wouldn’t be real optimistic about too many more whiffs just yet – his strikeout rate actually decreased quite a bit as the season went on (today notwithstanding): his K/9 was 5.6 through the end of May, but just 3.9 thereafter (not counting today), including 2.5 in September. That’s not to say that he can’t wrack up the strikeouts – obviously the scouting reports were glowing and I expect him to, barring injury, put it all together at some point – just that the numbers suggest that they won’t suddenly appear next year.
The Tigers pitching coach has told him to avoid K’s and go for GBs in order to keep his pitch count down. So both those rates are artificially low and high respectively. I wouldn’t be too worried about his walk-rate rising dramatically since he will be moving away from his sinker and towards his other pitches.
I just don’t buy that. There are lots of situations where it’s worth getting your pitch count up to save a run: guy on 3rd, 1 out. Really, only a strikeout helps there. If pitchers were avoiding strikeouts generally but able to get them when they wanted, those runs would usually get stranded.
I think Halladay’s got it right for ground ball pitchers: get ground balls, but if you’ve got 2 strikes on a guy, strike him out. Really, Halladay is the sort of ceiling people are talking about for Porcello, too. Not sure if it’s attainable, but he made it through 170 innings with basically 1.5 pitches this season in pretty respectable fashion at age 20. So his future looks pretty bright.
What, you don’t buy that a pitching coach would tell someone to pitch to contact instead of trying to miss the bat? Groundballs can get you an out in one pitch, instead of a K, which requires at least 3 pitches.
Sure, but once you get 2 strikes, strikeouts are better than anything else, so it makes sense to go for them when you’ve already thrown the 2 pitches to get to them. You can’t argue that. A groundball results in a baserunner 30% or more of the time, and a strikeout results in a baserunner less than 1% of the time. So while I agree that getting groundballs is generally an efficient way to pitch, the most efficient way would be to get groundballs (or flyballs, if you can limit the HRs) until you get to 2 strikes, and then strike the guy out.
how do you know?
I know the thing about what the Tigers pitching coach told him because it was a story on ESPN. But it makes sense.
Eric: Well, it depends, to get the strikeout you have to be using your set up pitches, risk getting lots of pitches fouled off, etc. If there is a runner on first and one out (or zero) a groundball will get you out of the inning faster than a K.
Look at the leaders in PAP: http://www.baseballprospectus.com/statistics/sortable/index.php?cid=204015
Yea, they all throw a lot of innings, but they also all strike a ton of people out. There aren’t any many wormburner pitchers on that list.
Rick Porcello = Jon Garland/Jason Marquis type?
Maybe for now. It’s easy to watch him pitch and see the makings of a good changeup, a passable slider, and more recently, a good four seam fastball to offset his sinker. Throwing a 91 mph sinker with the ability to straighten it out up in the zone at 95 is a good start for a 20 year old. I think he’ll be better than either of those guys once he’s done developing. But for last season, sure, that’s probably the sort of company he was in.
Before last season began for Rick in A ball, the Tigers had him totally change his approach… they specificlly wanted him to become a goundball pitcher so that they could limit his innings..
they did this so that they could do what they did this season.. Bring him up as a 20 year old…
I have tried to look it up, but from watching all but one of Porcello’s starts this season, that Rick probably threw less pitches per inning or per batter than most players in the game..
If I had to guess I would think that Porcello’s 170 innings were the equivalant of most pitchers throwing 130 or 140 innings..
They are trying to not have the kids arm fall off…
Polanco_Fan, you made me curious, so I looked it up. Porcello was actually pretty “average” on “pitchers per inning”… ranked 38 of 80 pitchers who threw more than 160 innings. Avg 16.0 pitches per inning.
Interestingly, the leaders were both St. Louis guys. Pineiro with 13.8 and Carpenter with 13.9 pitches per inning.
I like Porcello a lot. Near the end of the year, his change-up seemed better. But his slider/curve is definitely work in progress. Early in the year, it seemed like he was getting beat with offspeed pitches that missed on location (across the middle of the plate). Maybe that’s another reason why the coaches were telling him to lay off the slider. But I’m hopeful that he can develop that pitch and when he does, watch out. He’ll be more like Halladay than Garland or Marquis.
I watched almost all of Porcello’s starts on mlb.com and even I was surprised at his 96 mph high hard one vs. Twins in game 163. I just didn’t see that all year. The fact that a kid could follow coaching so well as to not use this weapon a whole year shows a Maddox-type will and intelligence. I think by this time next year there will be a debate as to who is Tigers’ ace, him or Verlander.