Comments on: Jeremy Hellickson Defies The Odds

By: 4233

4233 — Mon, 24 Dec 2012 14:19:00 +0000

Matheus,reliever for the Nationals is brilliant when there are runners on base and actually, even better when the bases are juiced!! something to see..That is something that can’t be teached, and if I were a Ray fan, I would just enjoy instead of statistically pull him apart…

By: Aj

Aj — Mon, 24 Dec 2012 02:38:28 +0000

Also Maddux at 26 had WAY better stuff then Hellickson. He was elite just from stuff standpoint til he got older. Early Maddux had control issues ect.

By: Aj

Aj — Mon, 24 Dec 2012 02:37:16 +0000

If he does it again this year it will probably have to get put into the Matt Cain territory of “idk how but he just breaks the statistical mold of success”. Until his stuff falls off he will probably be extremely viable, just gotta wait around til he loses FB mph and turns into Zito 2.0. The Rays amazing defensive situation probably helps him a good deal but he still has to make pitches, curious how the Rays value him going forward. If they lowball or trade him off before even a James Shields type contract you’ll know they think its mostly there system creating his stats and hes not worth paying for.

By: Glen

Glen — Thu, 20 Dec 2012 19:31:00 +0000

Interesting stuff and I completely agree that Hellickson seems to have the mentality to excel under pressure. The pitch information is interesting, however basic: fastballs and cutters on the corners, curves and changeups down. That doesn’t tell us anything. Pitch information on when in counts would be much more telling. I’m a Red Sox fan so I’ve seen him pitch many times. What I’ve seen him do so many times with men on base is pitch backwards. He seems to have tremendous confidence in throwing his changeup when behind in the count, especially when he feels he has an aggressive hitter at the plate. This would explain his ability to get more ground balls, K’s and IFFB with RISP. I can’t prove this and don’t have time right now but I’d be willing to bet there is a strong correlation.

By: Swfc-dan

Swfc-dan — Thu, 20 Dec 2012 13:50:49 +0000

Some great stuff in here guys, nice work.

I was always a hellboy disbeliever, but having read this maybe he really is capable of continuing his success.

Someone who’s an average pitcher who just uses his D, until he gets in jams and then he really knuckles down and turns into a bulldog who just won’t give in. Modern day Greg Maddog Maddux?

All about that nasty changepiece, and Maddux had one of those.

By: Ruki Motomiya

Ruki Motomiya — Thu, 20 Dec 2012 06:56:35 +0000

Does that hold true with men on base, though? If you get the force at 2nd then it isn’t scored as a hit and thus doesn’t count as a hit for example. Could it be something like that?

By: Transmission

Transmission — Thu, 20 Dec 2012 03:43:14 +0000

Echoing what several people have found in Hellickson’s splits, it seems like every time I watched a game Helli pitched last year (no more than three or four), the Rays’ announcers would carry on about how emotionally restrained and composed Hellickson is. They’d regularly talk about this in terms of superlatives, the calmest they’d ever seen, preternaturally calm, and so forth, and this talk invariably came up as Hellickson was walking off of the mound after getting out of some jam. Anyway, Rays announcers subjective first-hand observations match very well with the data. Maybe the guy just has some freakishly elite level of self-composure and discipline?

By: SKob

SKob — Wed, 19 Dec 2012 20:44:22 +0000

On the Fangraphs player page there is a ‘Splits’ tab. It breaks down all the components that I mentioned.

By: danielschwartz.rotobanter

danielschwartz.rotobanter — Wed, 19 Dec 2012 18:57:38 +0000

WOW – nice find, SKob – can you let me know where you found this data for future reference. Excellent point & Thanks.

By: Mike Podhorzer

Mike Podhorzer — Wed, 19 Dec 2012 17:50:19 +0000

Good find Ben, but BABIP is higher on ground balls, so it’s still counter intuitive that Hellickson’s GB% rises, while his BABIP declines.