Zach Duke Likely to Struggle With 2010 Defense
by Charlie on Mar 21, 2010 1:23 PM EDT
62 comments
The Post-Gazette on Zach Duke:
Other stuff from this morning: Zach Duke's minor league game -- an intrasquad setup involving mostly Class A players -- was pushed up to 10 a.m. today over at Pirate City. It had been set for 1 p.m., but they're trying to make sure he gets in his work...
He gave up the lone hit after there were "five outs in the fifth," as he glibly put it just now.
Duke was just referring to the fact that he literally had to pitch extra outs in order to meet his pitch count, but because I misread what the Post-Gazette wrote, I originally took Duke to be making a sarcastic comment about his defense. To which I would have responded, well, welcome to your life this year, Zach. I'm working on a Pirates preview for the Hardball Times right now, and one of the things I'm writing about is how Duke benefited last year from the Pirates' only competent defense since ever. His batting average on balls in play in 2007 was .360; in 2008 it was .327; and last year it was .296. His WHIPs for those three years, in order, were 1.73, 1.50 and 1.31; his ERAs were 5.53, 4.82 and 4.06. The correlations between BABIP, WHIP and ERA aren't accidental--his ERAs are primarily the result of those correlations, and weren't mainly caused by, for example, a massive change in the quality of balls hit against him, since Duke's line drive rate was right around 20% in all three seasons. The change in BABIP, meanwhile, was caused partly by luck but also partly by his defense, which converted 69.1% of balls in play into outs in 2009 after converting only 67.5% in 2008 and 67.4% in 2007.
Duke's a fine pitcher, and he did make some legitimate improvements last year, as his slightly improved strikeout rate suggests, but he's like a mirror: he reflects his defense. All the Pirates' pitchers will miss guys like Jack Wilson and Adam LaRoche, but Duke will miss them most of all, and it's no surprise that his ERAs in August and September last season shot up after those players were gone. Duke unfortunately could have a bunch of five-out innings to look forward to this year.
UPDATE: Wilson and LaRoche were, of course, with the Pirates in 2007 and 2008, but the quality of those defenses was much worse than in 2009, thanks to some mediocre performances by Jose Bautista, Nate McLouth (a middling defender regardless of the Gold Glove) and Jason Bay in 2007 and 2008 and especially strong performances by Wilson and Nyjer Morgan in 2009. Go to Fangraphs and check out some UZR stats to see what I mean. UZR performances do fluctuate a lot from year to year, but overall the 2009 team defense was much better than in preceding years, as shown by the overall percentage of balls in play converted into outs.
0 recs |
62 comments
|
Email
Print
Comments
Yeah
but Jack Wilson & Adam LaRoche were with the team in 07 & 08. While I do agree with a lot of the stats analysis game, I think it comes down to pitch quality and location with Duke.
Right, but the overall defense was much worse, since the Pirates were awful at third base and in the outfield.
I don’t get the big deal around Adam LaRoche’s defense. The systems seem to agree that he’s below average, and my scouting report from watching him isn’t any different. CHONE’s projection only has Clement at -1, which would be an improvement, and the word from spring training seems to be more optimistic with his glove than his bat.
by Adam Reynolds on Mar 21, 2010 9:08 PM EDT up reply actions
No disrespect, what would a CHONE projection of a guy who’s played almost zero first base have to do with anything? I don’t think LaRoche is any great shakes, but it stands to reason that he’d be better than a guy who’s hardly played any first base at all.
The Plus/Minus system...
hates Laroche. He ranked 27th last year and 29th the year before that. I think Plus/Minus is a little better at evaluating 1B defense than UZR because it takes more than range into consideration. I do get your point but maybe the drop off won’t be as bad as we expect. Personally, from watching Laroche play I’m surprised that most defensive metrics don’t like him. I never thought he was gold glove material but he wasn’t Randall Simon either.
Randall Simon and Daryle Ward came before him, so Adam looked much better at least by comparison to what we had.
Clement is moving way down the defensive spectrum from a very challenging and demanding position, so it stands to reason that he’d probably become a quality (if not standout) defender at 1st once he got used to it, whether that is in spring training or a little bit in the season.
by Adam Reynolds on Mar 22, 2010 5:16 AM EDT up reply actions
This is where CHONE and other defensive rankings err.........
LaRoche has long been graded an excellent defensive player. He really isn’t. He plays the short hop on both batted balls and throws from the infield very well. Other than that he is very average, and that’s being kind. Plays very stiff. No range.
by Hitman Easler on Mar 22, 2010 3:19 PM EDT up reply actions
I don’t know that you can say he’s been rated as excellent. Slightly above average more like it (+5 UZR). I would see excellent as in the +15 – 20 range like Longoria, Zimmerman and Beltre.
by MarkInDallas on Mar 22, 2010 5:48 PM EDT up reply actions
Oh, of course. It’s in an Adam thread. Well, many baseball people on Adam’s teams have commented on how good his defense is. Me personally, I don’t see it. I’d say he’s good on scoops, average on throws, and below average in the range area.
by MarkInDallas on Mar 24, 2010 2:34 PM EDT up reply actions
A player can produce a bad UZR for his career and be a good defender. That’s admitted by the people who produced it. Beyond the inherent biases and flaws, rating first base is near impossible.
UZR and 1B.
The main issue with UZR and 1B is that UZR is purely a range measure, and there’s a large slice of 1B defense that’s outside of range (i.e. hands). But as a measure of a 1B’s range, it’s a very helpful tool.
As for a good defender producing a bad UZR over a long career being possible, sure. It’s also possible that if you flip a coin a thousand times, it’ll land “heads” every time. Doesn’t make either one particularly likely.
So a guy who, by your own admission, is great in a few areas and "very average" in everything else...
…isn’t an above-average defender?
Huh?
Losing Jack
will definitely hurt Duke and all the pitching staff this year. I’m not so sure about Adam LaRoche. People talk about Adam’s solid defense, but I really didn’t see him as a better than average 1B. He is solid, but his range is really limited, which hurts him. It’s too early to know how good or bad Clement will be at 1B, but the early returns seem to be encouraging, and if Jones ends up there, he’s probably just as good if not better than Adam.
The Pirates would actually have a good fielding team if they play Jones at 1B, Church or Tabata in RF, and Andy at 3B. If Cutch develops his defense as most people expect, we’d have average to above average defenders at all positions except SS.
On the other hand, if Clement sticks at 1B, Jones is in RF, and Pedro plays 3B moving Andy to 2B, then the defense becomes a huge question mark which could turn into a disaster for Duke especially.
I’d say theres also a legitimate concern with Iwamura defensively, especially coming back from injury.
by Deadstar on Mar 21, 2010 3:42 PM EDT via mobile up reply actions
That 5-out inning
was to complete his pitch count, according to Langosch.
That hit actually came with five outs (yes, five) in the fifth. Duke was only scheduled to pitch five innings, but to get to his pitch count goal, he needed to get six outs in the fifth.That tells you how efficient Duke was. He finished with 71 pitches.
But yeah – it may be a looooooong summer for Ol’ ZD.
Free your ass and your mind will follow.
maybe instead of blaming the defense—we look at the fact that Duke has given up approx. 40 more hits than innnings pitched in the last 4 seasons.
you cannot expect any defense to make up for that…..
Actually you can...
that’s the whole basis behind zone ratings. Duke is the type of pitcher that is heavily reliant on his defense. Moreso than a guy like Hanrahan who puts people on base but can get out of a jam with a strikeout. Duke puts a lot of balls in play and better defenders get to more of those balls. That was the point Charlie was making about his line drive rate being consistent over that period. Batters didn’t square on balls any better in his good years as they did in his bad years.
So the difference between 2009 and 2008,
using 69.1% vs. 67.5%, is that out of every 1,000 balls in play for the team to turn into outs, 16 fewer fell in for hits? By my rough calculations in Duke’s case, about 710 batters put balls in play against him last year in 32 starts (891 batters faced minus the three true outcomes), so we’re talking about fewer than 12 hits saved, about one every three games, and not all of which would have been responsible for a run scoring against him (some of them would have been dribblers through shortstop when somebody like Bixler or Cruz was “manning” short, rather than triples; some of those runners would have been stranded).
Can a number that small possibly account for such large drops in WHIP and ERA?
It's worth keeping in mind...
…that 69.5% is still below-average defensive support.
We started last year as a very strong defensive club, but there was a whole lot of Young at 2B and Jones in RF in the second half.
I don't believe defense alone...
was the result of the drop in WHIP and ERA. He also walked fewer batters, increased K’s per 9 (albeit slightly) and and had better movement, command and ultimate success with his offspeed pitches. He did increase his contact % to 85% (I believe from 81%) while holding his LD % steady so he obviously attempted to put more balls in play and was successful at it. It was a combination of things that lead to Duke’s nice season but I don’t want to take away from the fact that he did throw the ball better last year than in previous years.
Yep…I think this is one of the reasons they’re giving Hart every opportunity to be the 5th starter. McCutchen is a lot like Duke, except right-handed and not as good.
I don't think Duke is a good comp...
McCutchen is much more of a flyball pitcher than Duke and had the ability to miss some bats in the minors. I would expect him to be closer to 7K/9 once he gets acclimated to the majors. He was pretty consistently at or above the number throughout the minors. Obviously McCutchen’s ceiling is limited based on stuff (in comparison to Hart) but I think our flyball pitchers like McCutchen and Ohlendorf will be less affected by our D than GB pitchers like Duke and Maholm. I think our OF defense will be average to above average this year.
He also had a contact % of 82%...
and only struck out 5.5/9. He is due for some regression but as I stated above he is more of a flyball pitcher than Duke so I think he will be hurt less by the defense than ZD. I will say that if Ross is looking to capitalize on that increase in velocity and become a power pitcher he had better generate some swings and misses.
I've been saying for some time now . . .
that I’m concerned about Ohlendorf. He’s mediocre or bad at the things pitchers can actually control.
ohley
one thing i like about ross, is that he is a really smart pitcher, i think he will be a solid number 4 for sure
I'd think that...
Maholm would probably see a change in his numbers as well…although slightly less extreme than Duke.
"Duke's line drive rate was right around 20% in all three seasons"
No it wasn’t. His LD rate the last three years has gone from 21% to 18% to 17%. I think that’s significant, and the 17 % in 2009 represents a career low. At the same time he’s become less of a groundball pitcher, and he was never extreme in that regard anyway. With his low K rate he will depend on his defense, but I think he’s pitched better and the defensive effect shouldn’t be overstated.
Not sure where you got your data
but FanGraphs shows Duke’s LD % at 20.1%, 20.8% and 19.5%. He’s career is 20.7%. I would say that’s pretty consistent. He has become less of a GB pitcher the last couple of years but her still had 1.46 GB/FB ration and a career mark of 1.63. While he has raised his K total the last couple of years it is still under 5 per 9. He did throw better last your but with his peripherals I don’t see him geting any better than last year. And as you state he does depend on his defense and with a worse defense we are likely to see some regression. I would expect something bewteen his 2008 and 2009 performance. I don’t however expect a regression to his 2007 numbers because, again as you stated, he has pitched better. The biggest thing I saw was all around improvement with his off speed pitches.
Huh. I got them from bbref
Some of the numbers are quite a bit different, although it looks like they’re calculated the same way.
Interesting.
That’s a decent difference. Either way, Duke still pitched better last year than in previous years without a doubt. But a guy with a contact % of 85% is pretty reliant on his defense.
optimistic
I am hoping second base will be an upgrade and I think short and third will do just fine. I don’t think Sanchez had much range at second and I do think Andy is decent at third. Cedeno is not Wilson in the field, but he’s not below average and he could potentially be a big upgrade offensively. The position that concerns me is first base because many uninformed people think it is an easy position to play. That is just not the case! I am hoping that we get average defensive play out of the position because we are probably not going to get spectacular offensive #’s from the position. We need average play both offensively and defensively. If we put a guy out there who struggles in the field and is mediocre at the plate it could obviously be a major issue for the team. Needless to say, I really believe our play at first base will have a major impact on our overall team success!
Cedeneo...
has a career -9.6 UZR/150 at SS. While working with Perry Hill he improved to a -3.6. There is nothing about that rating that screams average. He is certainly below average at SS. So far in 1353 PA he has a career wOBAof .272. wOBA is set to an OBP scale so as you can see that is pretty freaking awful. In no way will Cedeneo be an upgrade over a full season of Jack. Now that is where things get interesting because there is no guarantee that we would have, or Seatle will, see a full season of Jack. IMO Cedeneo isn’t one of these guys who just needs regular playing time to see what he can do. With over 1300 PA’s what you see with Cedeneo is what you get. Concentration problems aside I don’t expect big things from him offensively or defensively. We will be seeing a lot more of Crosby than anyone thinks. The SS position is definitely a hole on this team in 2010.
What is the state of that competition?
A healthy Crosby is clearly much better then Cedeno. Pick an offensive or defensive statistic, Crosby wins. But my sense is that Crosby is still seen as the utility upgrade, not the shortstop upgrade. Am I wrong? Is he healthy enough to be the shortstop?
Viva Clemente!
I expect...
that Crosby will be the starting SS by sometime in June, as you pointed out, if he can stay healthy. He reportedly is in great shape now but he seems to be one of those guys that just seems to get injured. Call it Doumititis. I believe NH would love for Cedeno to bust out and take over the position but he knows that chances of that happening are probably not good. With Crosby we would get some better defense if he hasn’t completely lost his range but his offensive upside is not much higher than Cedeno’s. I’m not too optimistic about the SS position this season.
Zach Duke is a boderline 5th starter on a decent team. All these stats are ridiculous.
He plays for the Pirates. They can’t hit, they can’t field and they don’t have a bullpen.
Hang on for just a brutal season. The team they are putting on the field this year is just the worst. I guess all the guys sent to the minors will be back up soon. By then they will already be 15 games under, we’ll see some improvement, still lose over 90 and be saying a l the same things about 2011 and the Zach Dukes and Andy LaRoches on this pathetic team. When will it ever end.
IDK..
Zach Duke on a better defensive team would probably put up numbers similar to the 1st half of last season. Those numbers are better than a 5th starter by today’s standards. I don’t believe the point of this post was to point out that Duke is a crappy pitcher but to show how much Duke, as a groundball pitcher, relies on his defense. I also expect good things out of Andy Laroche this season but I do agree with you in that I expect a 90 loss season. We are moving in the right direction but 2010 is not the year to bust out the champagne. I don’t think the team is pathetic they are just young. Also, this team upgraded in the bullpen in case you haven’t been paying attention and this team will be better than last year so in that context it won’t be the worst, IMO. That said it won’t be the best. And if you want a prediction it will end in 2011. Above .500 in 2011 and fighting for the playoffs in 2012.
upgraded the bullpen. time will only tell, but for now they have just put lipstick on the pig.
better than last year. I seriously doubt it unless all the other teams got a LOT worse. I’m not putting ZD down, he’s a serviceable ML pitcher. The Bucos starting pitching does have some promise, when have I heard that b4, but the rest of the team ? they don’t have an infield, they have a 2nd year CF if left alone could be a perennial all star and a catcher that if he bounces back is a good hitter, but can’t throw me out….please don’t get out a bunch of stats on the bullpen and how improved it is, please……I wish I could look at all the moves and say we are better off with Lastings Milledge, Jeff Karstens, Ronny Cedeno, kevin Hart, Charlie Morton etc., etc. etc.
Doumit's throwing isn't actually all that bad.
League CS% for the NL last year was 29.3%. Doumit’s at 29% for his ML career, and he was 31% in 2009. He does have some defensive weaknesses (chiefly passed balls), but I think his problems with the running game are generally overstated.
I agree that there are a lot of question marks in the infield this year. Fortunately, some of the answers may be positive, rather than negative.
Doumit is still better than Jaramillo defensively, IMHO. But, yeah, with mackint running, he’s got no chance.
by MarkInDallas on Mar 22, 2010 2:54 PM EDT up reply actions
please
anything is better then the bullpen we had last year, anything. atleast we got some veterans with decent track records, and we arnt leaning on chavez, meek and jackson as our main men like last year. If hansen and yates come back healthy throwing them in with donnelly, carasco, lopez, and dotel we could have a middle of the road bullpen
he might not be able to throw you out...
but if he saw me stealing 1st to 2nd, he could just run across the diamond and tage me before I got there…
by BlindSquirrel on Mar 22, 2010 8:23 PM EDT up reply actions
We all know that you steal off the pitcher more than half the time anyway, then you got some prtetty shy middle infielders afraid to get dirty too. Catchers take the blame way too often, I’m talking about the mechanics, I haven’t seen real good ones from Doumit yet. He gets in his way alot but that can be for trying to make up for the jumps his pitchers let them get…..with all the free passesand base hits the Pirates give up they sure should get a lot of practice.
I am certainly willing to concede...
…that Doumit doesn’t have the defensive grace of, say, Tony Pena. Man, was he ever smooth…
adam
sure Adam LaRoche was decent defensive 1st baseman, i’m just glad i dont have to watch him hit .130 for the first 3 months of the season, and if one laroche wasnt enough we had to get the other one. 2 laroches on one infield, made me sick, although i think andy could be a decent 2nd baseman he seems to have a good glove
we don’t need a 2nd baseman, we got Mr. Fuji and pretty soon we’ll have Dr Tabata…I’m dating myself I know……..Andy LaRoche, you are right, I was so sick of Adam acting like he had the worst job in the world all the time and could care less.maybe if his bro Andy hits .300 w/ 30 hrs and 100 rbi’s I’ll forget about his last name and just call him Andy…what are the chances ?
andy
i like andy but i just dont see the power being there, if alvarez comes up and we end up trading aki iwamuri (poor attempt at spelling) and move andy to second, his 15 homers and a .290 average would be pretty good producution from a second baseman. if he can handle it deffensivly. lets face it he doesnt hit like a third baseman should and if he wants to be part of this team for the long haul he’ll have to move somewhere
I've thought for a while now...
…that Corey Koskie’s career path was a decent positive-scenario outcome for Andy (minus the career-ending concussion, of course). A .270/.280 average with 15-25 HR, lots of doubles and walks, and a plus glove. That’ll win you a fair number of games.
Nice racial slur there, dude.
Free your ass and your mind will follow.
by cocktailsfor2 on Mar 23, 2010 4:59 PM EDT up reply actions
you're not racist...
if you hate everyone.
by BlindSquirrel on Mar 23, 2010 8:14 PM EDT up reply actions
like me?
Free your ass and your mind will follow.
by cocktailsfor2 on Mar 24, 2010 12:30 AM EDT up reply actions
keep those drinks comin
and we’ll get along just fine.
by BlindSquirrel on Mar 24, 2010 7:50 PM EDT up reply actions
Comments For This Post Are Closed
Secondary Sidebar
Related FanPosts on Bucs Dugout
FanPosts
Community blog posts and discussion.
Certain photos copyright © 2010 by Associated Press or Getty Images. Any commercial use or distribution without the express written consent of Associated Press and Getty Images is strictly prohibited.
