What’s Wrong With Mat Latos?
The Cincinnati Reds may have some buyer’s remorse with Mat Latos. After acquiring the 24-year-old this off-season, the Reds finally had an ace. This season, Latos has been one of the biggest busts in fantasy baseball. Latos — the owner of a 3.37 career ERA before — has seen that number jump to 4.91 this year. Unless he can return to form, Latos’ time as a fantasy ace may be over.
While Latos has struggled this season, it’s tough to point out exactly why he hasn’t been as effective. His strikeout rate — while still solid — has fallen from 23.3 percent to 20.7 percent. Perhaps more alarmingly, Latos’ walk rate has jumped to 8.5 percent this season — his worst performance in the category since his rookie season.
Latos — who has always been a fly ball pitcher — has been punished by his new home park. His ground ball rate has fallen to just 38.2 percent, and that won’t work in Cincinnati. Latos’ extreme fly ball ways have led to a career high 15 percent home run rate this season. While that number is likely to regress as the season goes on, there’s also a good chance Latos will allow home runs at a higher rate now that he no longer pitches in Petco.
The most troubling aspect of Latos’ struggles is that only one of his pitches has been above-average this season according to pitch type values. In previous years, Latos has been able to rely on his fastball, slider and changeup. This season, only his fastball has a positive pitch value. His slider, which has typically been his most effective pitch, is getting knocked around quite a bit. It’s gone from being rated as one of the best sliders in the league last season (10.5 pitch value) to one of the worst this year (-2.7). His changeup has also be less effective, though the change has not been as drastic as his slider’s decline. The loss of his breaking pitches has nothing to do with velocity. He’s throwing pitches at the same speed he always has, but they haven’t been as effective.
According to PITCHf/x Latos has started throwing a cutter this year. While the cutter can be a deadly weapon for some pitchers, Latos hasn’t mastered the pitch just yet. He’s thrown the pitch 16.1 percent of the time, but it’s only produced a -1.0 pitch value. And while it doesn’t hurt for Latos to tinker with another pitch, he’s doing it at the expense of throwing the pitches that have been effective for him in the past. Latos’ four-seam fastball usage has dropped from 43.8 to 37.6. His slider and changeup have also experienced a similar decline in usage this year. Latos may be trying to throw fewer sliders to save his arm, but, by doing so, he’s taking away his most effective weapon. The cutter isn’t adding anything to his repertoire at this point, and it might be time to ditch this experiment.
Latos’ decline is tough to explain. While ditching the cutter in favor of more fastballs and sliders would help, it may not cure all of his issues. His pitching style isn’t suited for Cincinnati, and he’s going to give up a lot of home runs in that ballpark unless something changes. If the cutter was supposed to help Latos keep the ball down, it’s not working. Unless Latos adjusts to pitching in his new ballpark, his time as a fantasy ace may be over.
15% HR/FB is through the roof.
League average is about 9.5%, but I wonder what it is in GAB
Cwik nailed that in ¶3, right? The HR/FB is high but not “through the roof” given Latos’ home park. Bailey’s is about 12% this year and last. Arroyo’s was 16% last year and is over 10% this year.
As Cwik said: “While that number is likely to regress as the season goes on, there’s also a good chance Latos will allow home runs at a higher rate now that he no longer pitches in Petco.”
GAB HR/FB park factor is around 1.20-1.25, depending on the source. HR/OFFB is lower (according to THT) at 1.16. This is relevant to Latos because he does induce popups at a decent rate (10%). Either way you slice it, his expected HR/FB rate is probably around 11.5-12%.
how does a ballpark induce pop ups?
It doesn’t. :) Pitchers do, at varying rates, so some analysts prefer to look at HR/OFFB rates and HR/OFFB park factors, rather than HR/FB rates and HR/FB park factors, since “FB” includes both pop-ups and OFFBs, and pop-ups can never be home runs by definition.
Point being that if two pitchers have identical FB rates, but one induces more IFFBs, you should probably expect the one that induces more IFFBs to give up fewer home runs. To make that result show up in xFIP or other ERA estimator, you need to normalize HR/OFFB rate rather than HR/FB rate.
How does a ballpark induce more strikeouts or ground balls or walks? We’re not sure, but we see the effect all the same.
matt weiters could hit a popup homerun ;)
“Unless he can return to form, Latos’ time as a fantasy ace may be over.”
Who wrote that, Peter King? Careful out on that limb.
This type of summary statement seems like word-count filler. It basically states, “If Latos continues to pitch poorly, he may not be a great pitcher”. Why not state the inverse: “If Latos starts pitching better in his new park, he may still be a good pitcher”? Same level of value added.
This type of statement is utterly disconnected from the thorough analysis you just performed on his pitching. I could say that about any pitcher in the league.
Just a pet peeve, the content here was strong.
Why is his pace up to almost 25 seconds… well above prior years? Is/was he being coached to slow down and is this having a negative effect on him?
Thanks for this article. As a Latos owner who stubbornly hoped he would turn it around, this is the kick in the pants I needed. He sports a 19.2% HR/FB @ GAAB, 7.1% away. A look at just about any of the metrics on his Splits page shows he is atrocious at home and decent away. I think it is time to cut ties if you were counting on him to carry that ace workload.
How is it that an article about a pitcher can get posted on Fangraphs without reference to normalized ERA estimators??? His SIERA is 3.90. His xFIP is 4.19. And not that monthly splits are incredibly meaningful, but his xFIP has actually been improving since April’s 4.68. So he hasn’t met expectations, but his performance is hardly worthy of an obituary, and he has actually been doing better as the season has gone on.
I will go ahead toss this article into the same bucket as the recent Pujols and Hosmer articles which (not so) coincidentally coincided with the bottom in each player’s luck.
You conveniently left out his FIP, which is nearly the same as his ERA this season. And even if Latos is able to improve and match his xFIP or SIERA, it would still be considered a disappointing season for him.
No, I didn’t “conveniently” leave it out. I specifically cited normalized ERA estimators – FIP can be just as fluky over the short-term as ERA, thanks to HR/FB fluctuations. That’s why people extended FIP to xFIP in the first place. I don’t think I should have to tell a Fangraphs author that… SIERA is Fangraphs’ creation for crying out loud!
As for whether an ERA around 4.00 would be “disappointing”, what were people expecting? He was a flyball pitcher going from Petco to GAB… this wasn’t exactly a state secret. Steamer, which is my preferred pitching projection system, pegged him for a 3.76 ERA preseason. Other projection systems had him lower, but Marcel and ZiPS don’t take park factors into account… Something around 3.50-4.00 doesn’t seem at all out of the range of “reasonable” given a 3.76 expectation.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but I thought SIERA was BP’s brainchild, and it was just shared here (like ZIPS projections).
xFIP adjusts for ballpark no? it probably should be included, but it doesn’t really relate because part of the point of the article is to prove that latos’ home park is affecting him a lot, and because xFIP adjusts for home park isn’t the right stat for that.
It’s much too early to say that Latos should ditch the cutter. I remember a time when articles like this were written for Cole Hamels to ditch his cutter in may/june 2010. he had given up 18 HRs by the end of June, but the rest of the way gave up only 8 HRs. In 2011 it was a plus pitch and he was gold, so maybe Latos can turn it around maybe he won’t.
Thinking back specifically to his 5 homer game, at least 2 of those were wall scrapers. Latos has been disappointing for sure, but he’s also shown flashes of his old self and his rates will probably trend toward his career norms. Remember his road numbers were always close to his Petco ones, he wasn’t a creation of that park.
those wall-scrapers are the problem. Yeah its unlucky compared to last year but they are going out this year because of the park. This may be approximately the new Latos (4+ ERA)
Latos’ decline is tough to explain.
No. Others said it; even the article said it.
Simple explaination: Sample size and flyball pitcher goes from San Diego to Cincinatti.
He’ll be worse than before but better than he is showing now.
it’s a little more than that, there are several poorly trending indicators (some were mentioned in the article, some weren’t):
- despite having the same velocity as last year, is SwStr% is down to 8.6% after hovering in the 10-11% range the rest of his career, and as a result his K-rate is down a bit (and it’s a bit worse than it looks because he’s allowed a lot more baserunners)
- despite his F-Strike% being strong, his walk rate and BB% is up
- as someone noted above, his pace is WAY slower, presumably some combination of changes made by CIN pitching coaches and/or him slowing down to try and find his groove when the results aren’t going his way
So it’s not like it’s just the exact same dude with a few extra homers, overall his “stuff” just seems a bit off, as noted in the discussion of his offspeed pitches in the article. He’s just not getting the same combination of lots of whiffs with great control that made him so effective.
I wonder if Walt Jocketty understands any of the metrics being discussed in this article. Probably not.
Maybe it was premature to call him an ace and now he isn’t living up to the hype. This is common in sports these days. There is a desperate need by media and fans alike to annoint young players as the next super stars. Then you have a bad season and everyone thinks something is ‘wrong’. Like as if having a off year is unfathomable.
Two words: Dusty. Baker.
Brilliant analysis. Spot on. Thorough, original, and well supported. Commenter of the day- nay, Commenter of the Year. Breathtaking.
Fin.
i’m sure Cubs fans everywhere agree…
[sarqazm]
The thing I like about this comment is that ‘dusty’ and ‘baker’ actually are words. Far too often, you see the ‘two words’ shtick bastardized with names that don’t have any other meaning.
Now if only the Reds can track down the unsanitary breadmaker Latos came in contact with, so they can determine what illness he caught and treat it properly…
How much of Latos’ performance is due to him being a slow starter?
In 2010,
Before June 5, 66.1 IP, 3.26 ERA, 56/19 K/BB
After June 5, 118.1 IP, 2.74 ERA, 133/31 K/BB
In 2011
Before July 4, 93.0 IP, 4.26 ERA, 87/36 K/BB
After July 4, 101.1 IP, 2.75 ERA, 98/26 K/BB
Maybe we can expect a similar turnaround this season?
good point, i was reading similar articles last year at this point.
How are people feeling about Latos after tonight’s stinker against the Indians (in Cleveland no less)?
Mine have. It’s taking all my willpower not to drop him for Felipe Paulino.
Oddly enough, Latos has pitched better at home than away. Much better at home actually. 3.91 ERA at home vs a 7.45 ERA on the road