For Duke's Sake, the Pirates Need Better Defense

by Charlie on Sep 28, 2008 7:27 AM EDT Comment 28 comments

Most years, it seems that the Pirates are about average in either runs scored or runs allowed and dramatically below average on the other. This can lead fans to argue that if they only spent some money on players to help on the side of the ball where they'd been lacking, they'd suddenly have an above-average team.

The Pirates' offense, led by a resurgent Jason Bay and somewhat surprising years from Xavier Nady, Nate McLouth and Ryan Doumit, hit well for the first few months of 2008 despite receiving little help from Adam LaRoche or Freddy Sanchez. You might think that the Pirates could have sculpted an offensive core like that into a winning team by adding a couple of decent pitchers, but you'd be wrong.

Leaving aside that the offense was merely mediocre anyway and was running entirely on McLouth and three players with extensive injury histories, the real problem was that the Pirates' position players were a big part of what appeared to be problems with their pitching. The Pirates' pitching this year was bad but not nearly as terrible as it seemed, and adding new pitching to the mix was unlikely to help this group much because nearly any new pitcher would've instantly looked worse with the Pirates' defense behind him.

As I write this, the Pirates' defensive efficiency is .679, the worst in the majors. In 2007, it was .676, third worst in the majors, with many of the same key defensive players. In 2006, it was .676, worst in the majors. Defensive efficiency isn't some fancy statistic; it simply measures the rate at which balls in play are converted into outs. The Pirates are awful at it, and they have been for some time. Assigning blame to individual players for this is difficult and debatable, but it's probably less important to do that than to simply acknowledge that this isn't a mediocre defense we're looking at, it's a horrible one. Also, the core of position players with which the PIrates started the season was unlikely to get much better--both middle infielders (Sanchez and Jack Wilson) were entering their thirties, and none of the other starters were particularly young.

The Pirates' defense might have improved some if everyone could have stayed healthy at the same time, but that would have been unlikely, and actually the Pirates were somewhat lucky this year that their regular players stayed as healthy as they did. So to be halfway decent at run prevention with the core of position players they had, the Pirates would have had to bring in some extraordinary pitchers.

Among all pitchers who have thrown at least 100 innings this year, Paul Maholm places 33rd of 142 in batting average on balls in play (BABIP) with .273. Tom Gorzelanny places 69th, with .287. Zach Duke is 128th, with .311. And Ian Snell ranks 141st with .338. So Maholm was solidly above average in this category (this, unfortunately, explains away a big part of his breakout year), Gorzelanny was about average, Duke was awful, and Snell was beyond awful.

Pitchers have very little to do with their BABIP. That's mostly on the defense, and for the Pirates' starters, the defense simply did not get the job done. Snell didn't have a good year by any standard, but his defense completely failed him. Snell could have lopped a run off his ERA if he'd had an average defense behind him.

Zach Duke simply is not a bad pitcher and was not an important part of the 2008 Pirates' problems. Obviously, he's not the pitcher he was when he came up in 2005, but it's no coincidence that was the last year the Pirates had a semi-competent defense. If the Pirates had had their 2008 defense in 2005 and their 2005 defense in 2008, Duke would now look like a reliable rotation cog, not a disappointment.

The Pirates' defense has simply destroyed Duke the past three years. As a pitch-to-contact starter, Duke not only has dealt with ridiculous BABIPs, but those BABIPs have harmed him greatly because batters put the ball in play so often against him. In addition to finishing near the bottom in BABIP this year, Duke was dead last in 2007 and 123rd of 138 in 2006.

As with any team, the Pirates' pitchers' fortunes are closely tied to the performance of their defense. As well as the Pirates hit at times this year, it would have been very difficult to generate better overall results with the same core of position players, because their defense would have continued to eat pitchers alive.

This is one reason why the Pirates can't find their own Kyle Lohse. Put Kyle Lohse on the Pirates, and he probably won't look very good, whether or not he actually pitches well. It's not really about an inability to find good pitching. It's about defense, and the Pirates didn't have it.

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Read More: zach duke, paul maholm, ian snell

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Is it really that bad?

What does our ranking look like this year if you exclude the Bixler/Rivas stretch during the beginning of the season when Jack was hurt?

by patmeares on Sep 28, 2008 9:25 AM EDT reply actions 0 recs

I haven’t looked at the defensive numbers since trade deadline, but at that point Jack had a good zone rating, I think Nady was average, and everyone else was inadequate to terrible. They just didn’t have any guys who could really run.

by Arnold Rothstein on Sep 28, 2008 11:10 AM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

Charlie

I found your article well researched and thought provking, but as I continue to wrestle with the question of whether our poor BABIP is a reslut of bad defense, bad pitching, or a combination of both, one nagging question comes to mind. For our team to succeed they must find some people to replace the offensive production created by the loss of both Bay and Nady because without those bats in the lineup we will simply not produce enough runs to win games as predicted by the Pythagoreum theorem.

Your earlier posts suggested that the Devil Rays’ success is a direct function of their improved defensive efficiency and I am having a hard time in understanding how a team can improve by over 30 games simply by converting a few singles into groundouts. I can understand a slight increase or even a modest one, but to suggest that a record can improve by over 30 games because of good fielding is a concept I cannot accept. However, I will continue to research your position and see what I can uncover.

by Illinois Pirate Fan on Sep 28, 2008 9:44 AM EDT reply actions 0 recs

It's not just "a few singles".

For the season as a whole, the difference between their 2007 and 2008 DERs over a full season is about 250 hits. Plus whatever benefit they’re getting from holding runners to fewer bases on hits, which doesn’t show up in DER.

That’s a lot.

by Vlad on Sep 28, 2008 2:19 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

the Rays' improved defense is probably worth 10-15 wins over last year

the offense is almost exactly the same, and the other 15-20 wins come from the rotation, bullpen, leveraging the bullpen, and luck.

Beyond the Boxscore // Calling BJ Upton lazy is lazy.

by Sky Kalkman on Sep 28, 2008 4:14 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

Charlie

I did a little research and discovered that the Bucs did finish 28th out of 30 in Defensive Efficiency, which is not good. Actually, it’s horrible, but by definition (efficiency of balls put into play other than homeruns) it is partly defense and partly luck and so I decided to look further. This same staff finished 24th out of 30 on balls not put in play), ie. Home Runs, which cannot be attributed to poor defense. Then, I noticed that we finshed 28th again in Walks, Hits, and Strikeouts indicating that the problem is a lot more than poor defense. Our pitchers pitched horribly and I seriously doubt an improved defense is going to make much difference consider the run production we lost and the poor pitching we have that is not attributable to defense.

by Illinois Pirate Fan on Sep 28, 2008 10:02 AM EDT reply actions 0 recs

Who are you,

and what have you done with IPF?

;-)

When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro. -- HST

by cocktailsfor2 on Sep 28, 2008 12:05 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

(Swallows (pride) hard) Uhh... I, uhhh... agree with IPF

There I said it.

Charlie, you may not have intended this in this post or the Rays post, but you seem to be pointing to a stat in isolation. As I noted there, Rays pitchers have given up significantly less walks and HR this year than last. I don’t dismiss the defensive improvement as a factor at all, but you seem to be dismissing everything but defense in that post and this one.

It’s hard to prove something untrue, but from watching Gorzelanny several times this year, you could have put 8 Gold Gloves behind him, and the 1927 Yankees lineup with him, and he would not have done as well as he did in 2007. He’s lost velocity, and command.

To me, it’s akin to the steroids effect. PED turn warning track fly balls into HR. A slight dip in a pitcher’s effectiveness, in fact, in the pitches themselves, turn ground ball outs into ground ball singles, etc.

All I’m saying is, it’s a two-way street.

by azibuck on Sep 28, 2008 10:39 AM EDT reply actions 0 recs

Gorz

Charlie isn’t saying that Gorz would’ve had a good season if not for the defenders. He clearly regressed in several important skill areas. The big spike in walk rate isn’t on anybody but him, for example, and neither is the smaller but still significant drop in his K rate.

What Charlie IS saying is that Gorz’s season looked even worse than it was because he didn’t get good defensive support. He had an extremely low line drive rate (15.9%), but still gave up a whole bunch of hits. That shouldn’t happen in front of a good defense… and with good defensive support, he would’ve had an ERA maybe 3/4 of a run lower. Still not good (that’d put him around 6), but much less bad than his actual figure.

Gorz was also a little bit unlucky, in that his HR/F was 14.6, and pitchers tend to regress toward 10 in that figure. As such, a few more balls than usual squeaked over the wall instead of turning into long outs.

He’s still got a lot of work to do in order to be a useful pitcher in 2009, but a better defense would make his job a lot easier.

by Vlad on Sep 28, 2008 2:27 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

Cocktailsfor2 and Azibuck

As I sat in Mass today, I started to feel the walls shake and couldn’t figure out what was happening. However, I immediately knew that it was either the Second Coming or that you two had agreed with me on a subject! I immediately ran outside of the church and looked towards the East and didn’t see any angels or chariots of fire and knew something big was brewing. It was a good way in which to end the regular season. It was nice to know we could agree on something. LOL

by Illinois Pirate Fan on Sep 28, 2008 10:12 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

Ah, there's the disagreement.

“A slight dip in a pitcher’s effectiveness, in fact, in the pitches themselves, turn ground ball outs into ground ball singles, etc.”

That’s just not true.

by matskralc on Sep 28, 2008 1:05 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs

In general I agree

that pitchers don’t have a lot of say over where balls are hit and whether they get fielded or not, but I don’t think they have NO control. If most balls you serve up get drilled, because you’re grooving straight pitches at 85 mph, as opposed to getting lots of easy three-hoppers because you’re fooling batters effectively, well, isn’t that within your control? And couldn’t a pitcher transition from one to another mode by losing effectiveness, ie, losing a couple MPH off a fastball, having trouble getting breaking balls over etc.?

I also must side half-way with IPF on the three true outcomes, while not disagreeing with Charlie that the defense is awful. The two go hand-in-hand. Our pitchers often are their own worst enemy, constantly walking the other team’s pitcher or letting the likes of Brad Ausmus beat us. I’d think that suggests a lack of concentration, and that perhaps our guys might benefit a little from more visits with the team shrink, though not as much as they’d benefit from having people behind them who could actually play defense.

by bucdaddy on Sep 28, 2008 1:24 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

To the extent that a pitcher has control over it...

…it shows up in LD%, insofar as line drives convert into hits much more often than ground balls or fly balls.

Our pitchers may not have been great this year, but LD% shows that a lot of hit has to rest on the defense.

by Vlad on Sep 28, 2008 2:21 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

I understand LD% plays a role

but there are hard-hit ground balls too, especially when hitters get good pitches to pull.

by bucdaddy on Sep 28, 2008 8:13 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

Actually,

if I’m reading bbref’s stats right, we seem to have above-average range factors at almost every position, but I guess that would make sense with a team that puts the ball in play as much as this one does. So would leading the league in DPs.

Just to add to IPF’s research, going into Sunday this team had given up 63 more runs than any other NL team, had the only ERA over 5.00, had given up 84 more hits than any NL team, 2 more walks than any team (and the next-worse team, the Giants, gave up 63 more than the third-worst). Fourth-worst in HR allowed, 1 away from worst in the league in strikeouts.

So there: Bad defense AND bad pitching.

by bucdaddy on Sep 28, 2008 8:36 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

RF is a junk stat.

You need some form of adjusted ZR.

by Vlad on Sep 29, 2008 10:12 AM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

I understand

it’s not a good stat but it does tell you SOMEthing. It says our pitchers put an awful lot of balls in play. Of course, I guess we knew that already …

by bucdaddy on Sep 29, 2008 9:54 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

It's unambiguously true, and self-evident

by azibuck on Sep 28, 2008 10:46 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

Agree but Disagree...

Charlie, I agree with some of your research on the BABIP, and yes we should definitely improve our defense as it is a huge part of winning, but where does this Duke defense end at? We need pitchers that can produce whether the defense is bad or average. Granted, Duke’s numbers would be better with a top-notch or even an average infield/outfield behind him, but so would everybody’s elses. Quality pitchers can be found, (yes it will take some time) and three years of an almost unbelievable opponent’s average against is not totally attributable to defense alone. Guys hit this guy HARD!! Every year and this will continue as long as Duke keeps making comments such as “I felt good about the last month of the season” after posting a historically poor 5 months of work. This guy not only does not realize he is doing poor, he does not pitch with his head. He is not an intelligent pitcher, and he has failed. 25yrs old and lefty sure, but I truly think if he has 3 bad starts and then 1 good one he feels good about how he has done. His comments show this. Acquire, and send up some guys that might struggle for a while but at least do not have a 3 year track record of—again—LEGENDARY opp. BA against. Duke is less than 24 months from his physical peak age of 27 and we have nothing to show for it.

Mark my words readers: Duke may have one more winning season in his whole career, and when everyone jumps on his bandwagon remember that he will also have at least another 10 years of sub .500 records, barring injury or retirement,demotion etc…

by SkeedTom on Sep 28, 2008 4:30 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs

The thing with Duke

Is that while all pitchers benefit from better defense, high-BIP pitchers benefit more than low-BIP ones.

Right now, we have a high-BIP staff and a crappy defense, which is the worst of both worlds. And it’s probably easier to improve the defense than to discard and replace all the non-Snell pitchers in the rotation…

And, of course, a pitcher’s record is half a function of the offensive support he receives, rather than his own work. But you already knew that, right?

by Vlad on Sep 29, 2008 10:17 AM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

One more bit

It is time Pirate fans and management start holding Duke accountable for his own failures, and not blame the rest of the team.

by SkeedTom on Sep 28, 2008 4:32 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs

"defensive efficiency"

I like to check in here now and again because I usually find interesting incites on this site. I however found this stuff about defensive efficiency so ridiculous that I felt I had to put my 2 cents in!

If I understand it correctly defensive efficiency is a measure of what percentage of ball put into play that are converted to outs. That being the case this number has to be strongly effected by the quality of the pitching. If you have good pitching and you are getting lots of ground balls and pop ups, that is going to bring that efficiency way up. Conversely, if you have poor pitching and the other team is knocking the cover off the ball, hitting line drives all over the field that number will go down!

by buccofan on Sep 28, 2008 6:22 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs

Argh!

The poor DER isn’t a function of pitchers getting hit hard; just look at our LD%. When a pitcher is just out-and-out hittable (like Glendon Rusch), hitters center the ball better and hit more line drives.

There are 43 pitchers in the NL this year who pitched enough innings to qualify for the ERA title. The midpoint for those pitchers is right around 20.8 LD. We had 757 innings at or below (i.e. better than) the average LD, and 698 that were above (i.e. worse than) it. You can see the whole rundown here.

We don’t have a crazy-bad team LD%, ergo most of the DER is a function of team defense, not hittability.

by Vlad on Sep 29, 2008 10:39 AM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

Argh indeed, Vlad

I didn’t want to straight-reply to your post above because I’m not agreeing with Buccoben, but take issue with this point:

When a pitcher is just out-and-out hittable (like Glendon Rusch), hitters center the ball better and hit more line drives.

We can quibble over “out-and-out” but my reply is that when a pitcher is more hittable, hitters hit balls of all types better. Better ground balls, better liners, and better and deeper flies.

I’m down with examining and believing in all kinds of stats, but a problem I have with a lot of them is that they remove game context. Look at Zach Duke’s game logs — all of them, but in particular look at the 5 games against the Cubs. His performance in those games is a function of how he pitched that day. They range from abjectly horrible to very good. If the GB/FB/LD numbers from the boxes at bbref are to be believed, at times keeping the ball on the ground was a good idea for Duke. Other times, not.

If you don’t believe things like a pitcher, on a given day, “couldn’t keep the ball down”, “couldn’t find a consistent release point”, “wasn’t throwing his breaking ball for strikes”, or simply “just didn’t have it,” then color me one of those guys that assumes you don’t actually watch the games. And I know you’re not that.

Again, I reiterate that I believe a better D helps all pitchers, especially pitch-to-contact pitchers. But also believe that the pitchers that usually hover (at season’s end) as slightly below average to slightly above average, will see their numbers fluctuate, perhaps wildly, from start to start, and no amount of defensive change will greatly help or hurt.

by azibuck on Sep 29, 2008 12:39 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs

Time evens all those things out.

All pitchers have days when they’re “on” and days when they’re “off”. That’s why we go with the season-long sample (and appropriately weighted performances from past seasons) when we assess a guy’s probable level of ability for future seasons. If you try and maintain specific context, then you’re going to be recognizing false patterns and chasing shadows all day long.

My issue in pointing out the LD% is that there’s virtually no plausible scenario where a pitcher is being “hit hard” and not giving up more line drives, regardless of what his grounders/flies look like. As such, if a pitcher is getting pounded, his LD% is going to spike, even if a grounder or a fly is the hit that does most of the damage in any given game. And our LD% isn’t high enough relative to the rest of the league for it to be all on the pitchers instead of the guys with the gloves.

The reason that average-ish BIP pitchers seem to fluctuate greatly from start to start is that ball-in-play distribution varies greatly from start to start. Some days, all the little flares fall down on the infielders, and some days they drop in for singles.

by Vlad on Sep 29, 2008 1:02 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

You know

in this context, Huntington’s quest to load up on hard throwers makes perfect sense. Aside from the fact that it’s probably easier to teach hard throwers to pitch than it is to teach pitchers to throw hard (like trying to teach somebody to run faster), the more batters we strike out, the fewer BIP our defense has to handle.

by bucdaddy on Sep 29, 2008 9:59 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs

What would

really help is a few guys capable of striking ot people, and some more who can catch the ball when it is hit, determine where to throw it and then successfully execute that throw. Add to that a few guys who take walks and who hit a lot of balls hard, and I think our luck improves dramatically.

Tongue now out of cheek, we really do put a hell of a lot of balls in play in front of a defense that doesn’t field enough of them. That is an awfully lethal combination. The other problem (and I am sure someone has looked at it) is all of the foul balls our pitchers seem to give up. That has to be random, or is it? Snell, especially, seems to give up one foul ball after another, often culminating in a hit. I don’t know if I am imagining this or not, but we do know that our guys throw a lot of pitcher per inning. It would seem that getting that third strike quickly would make a hell of a lot of difference in a number of respects. Truisms all, but it just seems that except for Maholm this was a broken record all season.

by RichieHebner on Oct 3, 2008 6:56 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs