All data from Baseball Reference and the BR Play Index.
Kershaw's Game Score in NLCS game 6 was 39. Hendricks had 80, tied for his 2nd best this year, including the post season (best was 81). His average GS in the regular season was 61.2. Kershaw averaged 70.3.
Kershaw's 39 was his lowest of the season, including the post season (he had a 40 on June 26).
So Kershaw was 31 below his season average and Hendricks was 19 above his. That is a swing of 50.
Kershaw's Game Score in NLCS game 2 78 game 6 39 (11th best of 14 post seasons starts), Avg of previous 13 was 55.15
I looked at the "swings" from all world series and LCS final games since 1912.
In
the ALCS in 2012 with the Scherzer-Sabathia, the swing was 53.5. Their
respective averages and final GS were 55.6-69 & 58.1-18
The
only other time there was a bigger swing than Kershaw-Hendricks this
year was in the 2013 NLCS with the Kershaw-Wacha matchup. Their
respective averages and final GS were 66.9-17 & 57.44-77. So that
was a swing of 69.46.
The next highest was a 29.84. So interesting that Kershaw was on the wrong end of two of the worst since 2012.
Sunday, October 23, 2016
Wednesday, October 19, 2016
Top Ten Pitchers in FIP- In 2016 With 100+ IP
Data from Fangraphs. Kenta Maeda is 28th.
| Name | FIP- |
| Clayton Kershaw | 45 |
| Noah Syndergaard | 56 |
| Jose Fernandez | 58 |
| Christopher Devenski | 55 |
| Rich Hill | 58 |
| James Paxton | 67 |
| Stephen Strasburg | 72 |
| Johnny Cueto | 76 |
| Aaron Nola | 73 |
| Yu Darvish | 71 |
Sunday, October 16, 2016
Satchel Paige Had A Remarkable Season At Age 45 (Or So) In 1952 And Much Of It Was Done In High Leverage Situations
All data presented here is from Baseball Reference and its Play Index.
He pitched 138 innings and was 11th in the league in WAR for pitchers with 3.4. Only one pitcher ahead of him was older than 35, Connie Marrero, who was 41 and had 3.6 WAR. Paige even pitched two shutouts. One was a 12 inning shutout a couple of days after he turned 46 which had a Game Score of 95.
The table below shows his stats and the league averages
He is better than the league average in everything, except BB9 where he was league average. He likely did not get any help from his park. The Batting Factor was 102 and the Pitching Factor was 106. Over 100 means the park favors the hitters.
The Browns' DER or defensive efficiency rating was 7th at .709. The league average was .713. So his fielders probably did not help much, although maybe the rest of the Browns staff just happened to be pitchers who tended to do poorly on balls in play.
52.68% of his batters faced were in High Leverage situations. The league average was 22.22%. Now that was taking the stats presented in the Leverage section of his splits page (and same for the league). There may be some missing cases where it is not known what the Leverage was (all the PAs in Low, Median and High leverage cases did not add up to his season total).
Using the Play Index, I find that about 43.86% of the ABs against Satchel Paige in 1952 were in High Leverage situations. I did not check the "Exclude Results Which are Incomplete" option.
I called up all pitchers who had at least 500 ABs against in total and at least 200 ABs against in High Leverage situations from 1946-60 for single seasons. That was 99 pitchers. Now PAs are not a choice for the data you can select and I don't know for which pitchers the data is complete and which are not. But Paige sure did alot of work in key situations. His percentage is not as high as I mention above since his known High Leverage ABs are divided by his total ABs, and again, there may be ABs whre the leverage is not known. Here is the top 10:
I also called up all the guys who had at least 400 ABs against in total and at least 160 ABs against in High Leverage situations for the same time period. There were 372 guys. Although Paige is not first here, he still ranks high. For a 45-year old pitcher to perform so well pitching so much in high pressure situations is amazing. Now the Browns were a 7th place, 64-90 team, and so maybe it is not like the pressure of a pennant race. But is still quite an accomplishment.
He pitched 138 innings and was 11th in the league in WAR for pitchers with 3.4. Only one pitcher ahead of him was older than 35, Connie Marrero, who was 41 and had 3.6 WAR. Paige even pitched two shutouts. One was a 12 inning shutout a couple of days after he turned 46 which had a Game Score of 95.
The table below shows his stats and the league averages
| Split | Paige | Lg. Avg. |
| BA | 0.226 | 0.253 |
| OBP | 0.307 | 0.330 |
| SLG | 0.310 | 0.362 |
| ISO | 0.084 | 0.109 |
| OPS | 0.617 | 0.692 |
| BAbip | 0.266 | 0.272 |
| SO/W | 1.60 | 1.11 |
| ERA | 3.07 | 3.67 |
| ERA+ | 127 | 101 |
| FIP | 2.85 | 3.70 |
| WHIP | 1.25 | 1.37 |
| H9 | 7.6 | 8.6 |
| HR9 | 0.3 | 0.6 |
| BB9 | 3.7 | 3.7 |
| SO9 | 5.9 | 4.1 |
| SO/W | 1.60 | 1.11 |
He is better than the league average in everything, except BB9 where he was league average. He likely did not get any help from his park. The Batting Factor was 102 and the Pitching Factor was 106. Over 100 means the park favors the hitters.
The Browns' DER or defensive efficiency rating was 7th at .709. The league average was .713. So his fielders probably did not help much, although maybe the rest of the Browns staff just happened to be pitchers who tended to do poorly on balls in play.
52.68% of his batters faced were in High Leverage situations. The league average was 22.22%. Now that was taking the stats presented in the Leverage section of his splits page (and same for the league). There may be some missing cases where it is not known what the Leverage was (all the PAs in Low, Median and High leverage cases did not add up to his season total).
Using the Play Index, I find that about 43.86% of the ABs against Satchel Paige in 1952 were in High Leverage situations. I did not check the "Exclude Results Which are Incomplete" option.
I called up all pitchers who had at least 500 ABs against in total and at least 200 ABs against in High Leverage situations from 1946-60 for single seasons. That was 99 pitchers. Now PAs are not a choice for the data you can select and I don't know for which pitchers the data is complete and which are not. But Paige sure did alot of work in key situations. His percentage is not as high as I mention above since his known High Leverage ABs are divided by his total ABs, and again, there may be ABs whre the leverage is not known. Here is the top 10:
| Player | Year | HL% |
| Satchel Paige | 1952 | 0.439 |
| Jim Konstanty | 1950 | 0.424 |
| Mickey McDermott | 1951 | 0.324 |
| Bob Turley | 1954 | 0.296 |
| Joe Hatten | 1946 | 0.284 |
| Saul Rogovin | 1951 | 0.284 |
| Frank Lary | 1955 | 0.275 |
| Larry Jackson | 1958 | 0.274 |
| Johnny Vander Meer | 1946 | 0.273 |
| Billy Pierce | 1951 | 0.270 |
| Vic Raschi | 1952 | 0.270 |
I also called up all the guys who had at least 400 ABs against in total and at least 160 ABs against in High Leverage situations for the same time period. There were 372 guys. Although Paige is not first here, he still ranks high. For a 45-year old pitcher to perform so well pitching so much in high pressure situations is amazing. Now the Browns were a 7th place, 64-90 team, and so maybe it is not like the pressure of a pennant race. But is still quite an accomplishment.
| Player | Year | HL% |
| Joe Page | 1949 | 0.490 |
| Clem Labine | 1957 | 0.470 |
| Harry Gumbert | 1948 | 0.462 |
| Don Elston | 1960 | 0.460 |
| Satchel Paige | 1952 | 0.439 |
| Hersh Freeman | 1956 | 0.428 |
| Jim Konstanty | 1950 | 0.424 |
| Jim Konstanty | 1951 | 0.412 |
| Lindy McDaniel | 1960 | 0.408 |
| George Zuverink | 1957 | 0.401 |
Saturday, October 8, 2016
Bryce Harper Had An Historically Large Decline In OPS+ This Year
Below is a post from July 15. Not sure why I have an OPS+ of 195 for Harper in 2015 because now Baseball Reference shows him with 198 (maybe park effects changed with this year's data included). His OPS+ this year ended up being 116 (it was 134 on July 15, so he did not do very well since then). That means he dropped 82 point in OPS+. So that is the biggest decline since 1900 for a player 23 or younger who had a 170 OPS+ or higher with 400+ PAs. The next largest decline is 64 points, belonging to Boog Powell of 1964-65.
****************************************
Here is the July 15th post:
Last year, at age 22, Bryce Harper had an OPS+ of 195. The only player to ever have a higher OPS+ at age 22 or younger with 400+ PAs was Ted Williams who had 235 in 1941, the year he batted .406.
But so far this year, Harper's OPS+ is just 134, a drop of 61. To see how this ranks historically, I used the Baseball Reference Play Index to call up all the seasons since 1900 when a player 23 or younger had an OPS+ of at least 170 (I first tried a cutoff of 180 and using players 22 or younger, but that was a short list). Again, a minimum of 400 PAs was used.
Then I found their OPS+ the next year and ranked them by how much their OPS+ changed, with the biggest losers listed first. That is all in the table below. Harper does not have the biggest decline ever, but he is close.
*The next year for Williams and Musial in these cases was actually after they returned from military duty. Williams had three years in between and Musial had one.
There are 18 players on this list. 13 are in the Hall of Fame. Those not in the Hall are Albert Pujols, Harper, Mike Trout, Boog Powell and Joe Jackson. Trout and Pujols both have good chances to make it. Jackson might be in if not for the 1919 World Series scandal.
Boog Powell is probably not Hall worthy but he still hit over 300 career HRs and won an MVP award later in his career. He had a couple of seasons with an OPS+ in the 160s and two more in the 150s. He had a total of six seasons in the top 10 in OPS+, including the 176 at age 22. So a good career.
Powell, along with Reggie Jackson, are the only two guys here to see a drop off of 60 or more in OPS+. Jackson is in the Hall and, as seen above, Powell had a pretty good career. So even with the big decline so far this year, Harper's future still looks pretty good.
****************************************
Here is the July 15th post:
Last year, at age 22, Bryce Harper had an OPS+ of 195. The only player to ever have a higher OPS+ at age 22 or younger with 400+ PAs was Ted Williams who had 235 in 1941, the year he batted .406.
But so far this year, Harper's OPS+ is just 134, a drop of 61. To see how this ranks historically, I used the Baseball Reference Play Index to call up all the seasons since 1900 when a player 23 or younger had an OPS+ of at least 170 (I first tried a cutoff of 180 and using players 22 or younger, but that was a short list). Again, a minimum of 400 PAs was used.
Then I found their OPS+ the next year and ranked them by how much their OPS+ changed, with the biggest losers listed first. That is all in the table below. Harper does not have the biggest decline ever, but he is close.
Player
|
OPS+
|
Year
|
Age
|
Next
Yr.
|
Change
|
Boog Powell
|
176
|
1964
|
22
|
112
|
-64
|
Reggie Jackson
|
189
|
1969
|
23
|
127
|
-62
|
Bryce Harper
|
195
|
2015
|
22
|
134
|
-61
|
Arky Vaughan
|
190
|
1935
|
23
|
148
|
-42
|
Mel Ott
|
174
|
1932
|
23
|
138
|
-36
|
Eddie Mathews
|
170
|
1955
|
23
|
143
|
-27
|
Eddie Collins
|
171
|
1909
|
22
|
152
|
-19
|
Ted Williams
|
235
|
1941
|
22
|
216
|
-19
|
Albert Pujols
|
187
|
2003
|
23
|
173
|
-14
|
Jimmie Foxx
|
173
|
1929
|
21
|
161
|
-12
|
Mike Trout
|
179
|
2013
|
21
|
168
|
-11
|
Ty Cobb
|
206
|
1910
|
23
|
196
|
-10
|
Mike Trout
|
176
|
2015
|
23
|
169
|
-7
|
Frank Thomas
|
180
|
1991
|
23
|
174
|
-6
|
Stan Musial
|
177
|
1943
|
22
|
174
|
-3
|
Eddie Mathews
|
172
|
1954
|
22
|
170
|
-2
|
Shoeless Joe Jackson
|
193
|
1911
|
23
|
192
|
-1
|
Ted Williams*
|
216
|
1942
|
23
|
215
|
-1
|
Willie Mays
|
175
|
1954
|
23
|
174
|
-1
|
Ken Griffey
|
171
|
1993
|
23
|
171
|
0
|
Eddie Mathews
|
171
|
1953
|
21
|
172
|
1
|
Stan Musial*
|
174
|
1944
|
23
|
183
|
9
|
Ty Cobb
|
193
|
1909
|
22
|
206
|
13
|
Mickey Mantle
|
180
|
1955
|
23
|
210
|
30
|
*The next year for Williams and Musial in these cases was actually after they returned from military duty. Williams had three years in between and Musial had one.
There are 18 players on this list. 13 are in the Hall of Fame. Those not in the Hall are Albert Pujols, Harper, Mike Trout, Boog Powell and Joe Jackson. Trout and Pujols both have good chances to make it. Jackson might be in if not for the 1919 World Series scandal.
Boog Powell is probably not Hall worthy but he still hit over 300 career HRs and won an MVP award later in his career. He had a couple of seasons with an OPS+ in the 160s and two more in the 150s. He had a total of six seasons in the top 10 in OPS+, including the 176 at age 22. So a good career.
Powell, along with Reggie Jackson, are the only two guys here to see a drop off of 60 or more in OPS+. Jackson is in the Hall and, as seen above, Powell had a pretty good career. So even with the big decline so far this year, Harper's future still looks pretty good.