California Dreaming: Lohse and Garland

by wcooley on Feb 16, 2006 12:24 PM EST

Kyle Lohse vs. Jon Garland

Last year Jon Garland had his "breakout" season. Can Kyle Lohse duplicate this feat? These Californians seem similar in many ways, including the frequent references to their good "stuff" from coaching staffs and commentators. In fact, last year it was reported that Lohse had too many pitches. Both are taller righthanders who often had a great start followed by a scuffler (or two).

Lohse was born in 1978 and drafted in the 29th round of the 1996 draft by the Cubs. Garland was born a year later but also drafted by those lovable losers in 1997. Garland, however, was a first rounder.

2002
era    innings        bb    so k/9
G 4.58 192.2      83      112    5.23
L 4.23    180.2        70    124    6.18

2003
G 4.58    192        83    112    5.07
L 4.61    201        45    130    5.82

2004
G 4.89    217        76    113    4.69
L 5.34    194        76    111    5.15

2005
G 3.50 221 47 115 4.68
L 4.18 178.2 44 86 4.33

It's strange that both guys k/9 has declined (Lohse's especially), but maybe the league average has as well. It appears Garland's success last year can be attributed in large part to his control. As Hawk Harrelson frequently noted, Garland finally decided to go after hitters instead of trying to be too fine.

One other stat that sticks out to me is innings. Does this show that Lohse tends to tire in the 5th or 6th? Does he lack the stamina to be a front-line starter? I wish there was something to indicate the Lohse was poised for a solid year, but I ain't seeing it. His temperament, like his stats, show inconsistency. Likewise, if Garland starts walking guys again, he could be back to mediocrity.

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Innings

Lohse lost a half a dozen starts when the Twins skipped him in the rotation on off days and pulled him for two starts (replacig him with Baker) when he struggled early. After he made the adjustments (stopped being too fine and trying to strike everyone out) he consistently ptched into the 7th. He'll get more innings as a fourth starter, if he sticks witht he program.

Joe Mauer for MVP.

by cmathewson on Feb 16, 2006 12:54 PM EST reply actions

Some more numbers on the two...

The only way to be really successful with a low strikeout rate, in general, is to be a groundball pitcher. So, let's check out the BABIP (Batting Average on Balls In Play) and G/F ratios for the two (and I added K/Total Batters Faced and BB/TBF for the sake of comparison, too):

Garland -- BABIP, G/F, K/TBF, BB/TBF: 2002 -- 0.278, 1.50, 0.135, 0.100 2003 -- 0.273, 1.76, 0.133, 0.091 2004 -- 0.277, 1.83, 0.122, 0.082 2005 -- 0.270, 1.82, 0.127, 0.052

Lohse -- BABIP, G/F, K/TBF, BB/TBF: 2002 -- 0.283, 1.06, 0.158, 0.089 2003 -- 0.291, 1.21, 0.153, 0.053 2004 -- 0.327, 1.56, 0.125, 0.086 2005 -- 0.316, 1.64, 0.112, 0.057

The only thing that really changed for Garland last year was his walk rate, and a very slight uptick in strikeout rate. If Garland can't keep the walks down, I don't know that he's much more valuable than the pitcher he was in 2002-2004 that was largely considered a disappointment.

One thing that sticks out to me: It's been shown that a typical groundball is less likely to be fielded for an out than an average flyball. (This is in part one of the reasons that Santana winds up with a lot better BABIP numbers than Silva does.) This is likely why we've seen Lohse's BABIP rise while his G/F ratio has gone up. A big part of Garland's success seems to be tied to being able to induce more groundballs for outs than you would expect a typical groundball pitcher to be able to do. Lohse doesn't seem to have that ability. So while I think Lohse is a good guy to have around for what he is, I'm a little skeptical that he'll have a Garland-like breakthrough season.

by ubelmann on Feb 16, 2006 4:18 PM EST reply actions

Park effects? Luck? Defense?

A big part of Garland's success seems to be tied to being able to induce more groundballs for outs than you would expect a typical groundball pitcher to be able to do. Lohse doesn't seem to have that ability.

I wonder if the difference is park- or defense-dependant, more than the actual ability of the pitcher. Cingular is known for long grass and soft dirt. The Sox also had a huge improvement in defense up the middle last year over the year prior. Besides walks, I would say that was the biggest improvement for Garland, more outs on ground balls because of improved defesne behind him.

Considering that Lohse has a better second baseman behind him, we can expect a slight uptick there. But the speed of the surface can't be helped.

Joe Mauer for MVP.

by cmathewson on Feb 16, 2006 4:34 PM EST reply actions

Luck, etc...

"I wonder if the difference is park- or defense-dependant, more than the actual ability of the pitcher. Cingular is known for long grass and soft dirt."

Doing a quick and dirty evaluation of Garland's BABIP from last season, using

BABIP = (Hits - HR) / (AB - HR - SO)

I get:

Overall BABIP -- .270 Home BABIP -- .252 Road BABIP -- .287

And for Lohse:

Overall BABIP -- .316 Home BABIP -- .321 Road BABIP -- .311

So, based on this one year (espn's splits don't seem to be working for the previous years) this certainly closes the gap, but Lohse still lags Garland on the road. That difference could be the defense, in which case putting Castillo at 2B and getting Cuddyer out of the infield should help Lohse out some, like you mention. I don't know if I'd go so far as to say it's the whole difference, though.

"Besides walks, I would say that was the biggest improvement for Garland, more outs on ground balls because of improved defesne behind him."

But looking at the year-to-year numbers, Garland's BABIP really didn't improve much last year. 0.007 is some improvement, but it's certainly not nearly big enough to explain most of the 1.39 runs/9 drop in his ERA. The one thing that looking at these numbers did for me is that it impressed me how consistent Garland's year-to-year numbers in BABIP and G/F are.

Looking at Garland's away numbers, I'm much less impressed overall, but he still gets to pitch roughly half his games at home, so apparently that's a good place for him to be.

by ubelmann on Feb 16, 2006 8:38 PM EST up reply actions

Turf

A purely anecdotal observation: the look on Scott Erickson's face when weak groundballs would scoot through for singles on the Metrodturf. Maybe this new turf has slowed the balls down for Silva just enough to get more double plays and fewer scratch singles. I can say that when I played third in the Dome in college I was more than a little frightened by a baseball that sped up on the turf.

by wcooley on Feb 16, 2006 6:09 PM EST reply actions

Aluminum bats + old turf =

Scary. I've seen a couple college games there, and the depth that the middle infielders play at is totally ridiculous and totally understandable at the same time. So, I can definitely understand why you might be frightened at the hot corner.

Anyway, Silva's BABIP this season was .295, which was about average on the staff last year, so it's plausible that the turf has helped Silva. It's also plausible that more of his groundballs are actually groundballs and not line drives. I don't have any data for Silva, Lohse, or Garland that shows the breakdown between fly balls, pop ups, groundballs and line drives, but if you know who to pay and are willing to pay them, that sort of data can be acquired, and would probably help us to see what's going on.

by ubelmann on Feb 16, 2006 8:15 PM EST up reply actions

Funny you should mention

It's funny you should bring up this topic.

This is about third or fourth hand info, but a friend of a friend of mine was at a baseball clinic at St. Olaf College with Mauer and with TR. They opened it up for questions, and this guy asked TR why we still had Lohse. According to the email I got from my friend, this was TR's response:

"Well, you all aren't the only ones frustrated with Lohse. We have always seen him doing what Jon Garland did last year, but the problem is that Lohse refuses to change the way he pitches. Garland won so many games because he listened to his pitching coaches. Lohse does that seldomly, but when he does is when he rattles off 3 or 4 wins in a row. If he does not change his approach permanently this season, he may be moving somewhere else."

by adam @ Twinkie Town on Feb 16, 2006 8:29 PM EST reply actions

That is VERY interesting...

and very candid of TR if that's true. Wow. I tend to agree; if he would just listen more this guy could be a top pitcher. I seem to remember RA saying in an interview not too long ago that he has the best stuff of any pitcher on the roster, including Santana. I still find that amazing.

by djskilbr on Feb 17, 2006 3:29 AM EST up reply actions

Amazing...

...because if Rick Anderson actually said that he was lying. Lohse doesn't have a 94-mph fastball with movement or anything close to as good as Santana's sick change OR his slider. To say that Lohse has better stuff than Santana is ridiculous.

by ubelmann on Feb 17, 2006 3:51 AM EST up reply actions

I agree, but

Lohse consistently sits at 94 on his two seemer. He touches 96 on his four seemer on the Metrodome gun (which Anderson doesn't want him to throw except as a purpose pitch because it often ends up in the seats). Santana has a much better change-up and a better slider. So Santana has better pitches overall. But Lohse throws harder. The biggest difference is control. When Santana gets in a groove he can spot all three pitches, making him virtually unhittable. Lohse makes lot of mistakes, which seem to always end up as hits.

Joe Mauer for MVP.

by cmathewson on Feb 17, 2006 10:14 AM EST up reply actions

I agree with this as well...

Again, that's why I was amazed at RA's comment. This was approximately 1 1/2 years ago, when he was in that good groove heading into the playoffs.

I do think he's got some great stuff to work with if he could harness it, but I agree with you guys as well. Pretty tough to top Santana's stuff.

by djskilbr on Feb 17, 2006 12:46 PM EST up reply actions

Control and movement...

...there's a reason that Lohse's four seamer winds up in the seats and Santana can regularly throw his 94-mph fastball with no repurcussions--Lohse doesn't have any movement on his four seamer.

Throwing harder is not the same as having better stuff.

by ubelmann on Feb 17, 2006 1:09 PM EST up reply actions

Right

Which is why Anderson wants Nuke La to throw the two seemer and the cutter and not try to strike guys out with the four seemer. When he listens, he's fine. But occasionally he his fastball makes so much noise in the bullpen before the game, that he reverts to the, "I can get this by anybody" mentaility; and he has to learn the lesson again the hard way while twisting his neck to see how far the homer went.

This is where guys like Voros McCraken have done us a disservice. By emphasizing strikeouts so much, a genreation of young pitchers is trying to act like Roger Clemens when they don't have that ability. All things considered, strikeouts are great, but some guys just can't get them whenever they want them. So they have to rely on movement, defense, and control to get guys out.

It reminds me of the debate about Russell Branyan. Lots of coaches have tried to get him to cut down his swing and make more contact. But he just thinks he has the ability to hit a home run every time up. So he swings for the fences with a guy on second and no one out, and strikes out. If he just played the game like he is able, and he's a pretty talented guy, he could be a very productive player.

Joe Mauer for MVP.

by cmathewson on Feb 17, 2006 2:02 PM EST up reply actions

It's Voros' fault?

Huh? Do you really think that Lohse gives two hoots about what Voros McCracken thinks? If you mentioned the name Voros McCracken to Lohse would he give you anything but a blank stare in return?

Most of the athletes I went to high school with picked on the nerds--they certainly didn't ask them for advice on how to play their sport. Have you noticed the backlash directed at Moneyball? Players and coaches think they know what they are doing, and they'll agree with the stat-heads when the stat-heads agree with them, but they sure aren't changing their thinking to agree with some sabrematrician.

Some athletes have turned a deaf ear to their coaches since the advent of coaching. There's no need to go blaming that on some guys with spreadsheets.

And honestly, do you think that those are the only people in the world that emphasize strikeouts? Not everyone shares the Twins' pitching philosophy, and most of them couldn't care less about what Voros McCracken has to think. (For exhibit A, I direct you towards the Yankees of the past decade. I guarantee that they aren't telling Randy Johnson just to put it across and see what happens.)

by ubelmann on Feb 17, 2006 2:22 PM EST up reply actions

I misspoke

What I meant was, players need to play to their strengths. Pitchers who try to strike guys out when they are unable to do it consistently often fail when they could be decent pitchers if they just stayed within themselves. Hitters who try to change what they're best at in order to conform to some baseball theory or other do themselves and their teams a disservice.

Voros is just one of a legion of guys who evaluate players by a set of simplified statistics. Their intent is not to say all guys need to try to conform to the ideal according to how they define it. But the effect is the same. Those who pay attention to this stuff (and I suspet it's more than you give credit for) and who are marginally talented might try to do too much to conform to that ideal. The fact is, the ideal is only well applied to the best players.

Ted William's theory of hitting only worked for guys like Ted Williams. For less talented players, a more simplified approach (see the ball, hit the ball) might be the only way they can succeed at all.

I hear all the time about how DIPS means guys like Carlos Silva will not be effective long term, and that he's survived on luck all these years. Does this mean Carlos Silva should change his approach and try to get more strikeouts? Absolutely not.

More and more coaches and scouts are paying attention to sabermetrics. Not that it's an overwhelming majority, but there are coaches, say, in the Oakland system, who try to make good contact guys into more patient hitters, for example. What it means is guys who have trouble hitting with that approach will be left behind while they could be productive hitters in their own right if they just stayed witin themselves.

Perhaps I overstate the effect. But I don't overstate the effect on the analysts. I have read lots of guys who say that Lohse regressed last year because his strikeout rate went down after the adjustments. The reality is the opposite. Lohse improved after his strikeout rate went down because he started pitching to his strengths rather than trying to strike everyone out.

Joe Mauer for MVP.

by cmathewson on Feb 17, 2006 3:49 PM EST up reply actions

Listening to the wrong people...

"I hear all the time about how DIPS means guys like Carlos Silva will not be effective long term..."

Then you are listening to the wrong people. Voros McCracken, or just about anyone else who understands DIPS, will tell you that groundball pitchers can get by with lower strikeout rates than flyball pitchers, because groundballs are less harmful than flyballs.

Even just looking at the general basis of DIPS, that pitchers don't have much control over BABIP, and that pitchers with really low BABIP will likely have higher BABIP the next year, Silva had a BABIP of .320 last year, which is far from Silva being really lucky with balls-in-play.

Last year, Silva's DIPS ERA, according to ESPN's formula (which is a fairly primitive version of DIPS) was 4.33, while Silva's actual ERA was 3.44. Personally, I'd say that Silva was slightly lucky overall last year, but that somewhere around 3.75 is pretty reasonable for what Silva's capable of doing on a year-to-year basis through his peak years. And at any rate, Silva's such an extreme case (with his ridiculous double play percentages and miniscule walk rates), that any analyst worth his salt would tell you that the generic formulas aren't going to be perfect for Silva.

Voros McCracken's not doing anyone a disservice. People who aren't reading the theory carefully, thinking about it hard, and trying to understand where it comes from are doing themselves a disservice.

by ubelmann on Feb 17, 2006 4:06 PM EST up reply actions

You're missing the point

I conceded the point about Voros. It's not his fault. That was not my main point. I apologize for touching that nerve.

My point is, sabermetrics does a good job of evaluating talent in general. There are plenty of outliers, but the outliers can be explained in terms of the norm (e.g. bad-ball hitters).

But the metrics are not a good guide as a coaching or development tool because players need to play to their strengths rather than to some ideal.

And the metrics can sometimes do a bad job of projecting how a guy will do if he is an outlier. Lohse is an outlier relative to the DIPPS ideal in the sense that he's more effective as a contact pitcher than as a strikeout pitcher. DIPPS favors strikeout pitchers because those who are successful as strikeout pitchers are the best pitchers out there. Those who are successful as contact pitchers tend to be less successful in general than the successful strikeout pitchers.

Joe Mauer for MVP.

by cmathewson on Feb 17, 2006 5:04 PM EST up reply actions

Okay...

"But the metrics are not a good guide as a coaching or development tool because players need to play to their strengths rather than to some ideal."

I guess I don't see who ever said they were good as a development tool. One important thing that gets glossed over, but is always there as an underlying assumption in statistical analysis, is that all the trends that are observed is that the observations are made under the condition that the players are being selected by traditional baseball thinkers.

So, saying that pitchers have little control over balls-in-play is sloppy shorthand. What is really meant is that, historically, in the subset of all pitchers on the planet who have been selected to be major league pitcher by scouts, coaches, and management, there is little variation in a pitchers' BABIP. Providing that pitchers continue to be selected in the old manner, a pitcher with an abnormally low BABIP one year is likely to see their BABIP increase the next year.

Now, if we go ahead and change the assumption that scouts and coaches are selecting pitchers, and we promote a whole bunch of guys to the majors who have good strikeout rates but terrible BABIPs, even though the coaches tell us those guys have no business pitching in the bigs, then we have no reason to expect their BABIP to go down, because they don't fit in the group of pitchers that we initially studied. So, if we're careful about our statistical analysis, it can help us identify things (like trends over time, or to a certain degree, luck) that it's tough for scouts to pick up on, because a scout can't keep track of every game that's ever played like the numbers can. The two play off each other and should both help management make decisions, but it's the baseball people who should be teaching the players how to play baseball.

But, I guess mainly you did touch a nerve there, so I just needed to get that out of my system. Back to the matter at hand...

"Lohse is an outlier relative to the DIPPS ideal in the sense that he's more effective as a contact pitcher than as a strikeout pitcher."

I don't necessarily think that Lohse is especially an outlier. When he was going well, he was inducing groundballs, and DIPS tends not to punish you for that. Maybe he's a slight outlier, but he's nowhere near the outlier that, say, Silva is. (Actually, I'd say that Santana is the biggest outlier on the team. His stuff is so good that he really does induce balls in play that are easier to field. I think Crain might also have this skill, but deep down, I'm afraid he doesn't.)

by ubelmann on Feb 17, 2006 6:51 PM EST up reply actions

Now I see....

....Where we disagree. I think Santana is right smack dab in the center of the DIPS bell curve because he has high strikeout totals, relatively low walks, and low home run totals. These are the primary DIPS metrics. A secondary metric is G/F. He does not conform to the bell curve on this because he induces a lot of pop-ups. Correct me if I'm wrong here, but the conventional wisdom makes G/F less important than the other three DIPS metrics (K, BB, and HR).

Silva is a bit of an outlier because he does not strike people out and he gives up a few too many home runs. But he's the paradigm for low walk totals and G/F.

Lohse (in the second half last year) is an outlier on all four metrics. After the adjustments, his strikeouts went down, his home runs and walks only went down slightly, and he became slightly better on G/F. Overall, though, he was on the bad side of the norm on all four metrics, yet his ERA went from 5.65 to 4.18 after the adjustments. When your oveall DIPS metrics get worse, your ERA typically goes up, not down.

Those who look at his numbers from a DIPS perspective have written (on other blogs) that he is more likely to regress after Anderson's adjustments because his strikeout totals are the only significant change in his metrics, and those changed for the worse. The other three changed for the better, but those writers tend to ignore subtle changes as statistical noise.

I think perhaps cases like Silva and to a lesser extent Lohse show that DIPS needs to put G/F on par with Ks, BBs, and HR. When you do, neither become as extreme of outliers because the overall metrics line up.

Joe Mauer for MVP.

by cmathewson on Feb 18, 2006 10:10 AM EST up reply actions

Sort of...

"I think Santana is right smack dab in the center of the DIPS bell curve because he has high strikeout totals, relatively low walks, and low home run totals. These are the primary DIPS metrics."

According to DIPS, those are the things that a pitcher has the most control over. And for the purpose of computing DIPS ERA and such, those tend to be the determining factor.

However, the other big factor that determines how a DIPS ERA differs from the actual ERA is a pitcher's BABIP. If a pitcher has a really low BABIP, then DIPS projects that the next year, his BABIP is more likely to be league average than it is to be really low. According to Silva's PECOTA card, his BABIP the last three years has been .310, .320, and .295. Those are all fairly average, and there's not much reason to expect Silva's BABIP to change a whole lot next year. (In fact, PECOTA thinks it'll be about .302 next year.) Santana has, on the other hand, BABIPs of .274, .252, and .262, which are significantly below league average. If you asked someone who took DIPS a little too literally, they would tell you that we should expect Santana's BABIP to be closer to .300 than .260. (And again, PECOTA is actually very reasonable in this regard, picking Santana's BABIP to be about .270 next year, not adhering to super old-school DIPS.) So, while Santana's season would still grade out as being good according to DIPS, thanks to his great K/9 and BB/9, DIPS would also say that he got a little lucky.

So, that's what I mean when I say that DIPS would consider Santana "lucky" and Silva not very "lucky." Indeed, this quote from the horse's mouth:

"The critical thing to understand is that major-league pitchers don't appear to have the ability to prevent hits on balls in play."--Voros McCracken

So, I think the critical thing isn't how DIPS predicts your ERA exactly, but what DIPS tells us about what a pitcher can/can't control. There's a lot of stuff, even above and beyond a pitchers' BABIP, that can change his ERA for half the season (like how many runners you strand on base, etc.) I can't find Lohse's splits for BABIP last year, so I can't really speak to how much of an outlier I would consider his second half performance. If he was giving up more ground balls and fewer hits on balls in play, though, he was probably catching a little bit of luck.

Now, that quote was way back in 2001, and DIPS has changed a bit since then. Since then, he and others have sharpened that to mean that pitchers have less control over balls-in-play than you might expect. G/F has a lot to do with which pitchers have more/less control over their BABIP. Santana fits into the category of a guy who has more control over his BABIP, and Silva falls into the category of someone who still doesn't have much control over his BABIP. However, that just means we should expect that Silva's BABIP should be around .300, and it has been. So, I personally don't think we should expect Silva to regress much next year.

I think I repeated myself a bit here, but hopefully that clears our DIPS confusion up a bit.

by ubelmann on Feb 18, 2006 1:53 PM EST up reply actions

Nuke LaLohse

The more I read about Lohse, the more I wonder if he isn't of the "five-cent head" variety. Refusing to listen to pitching coaches, smashing the manager's door, rumours of excessive partying and drinking binges....etc. etc. Maybe he needs to start breathing through his eyelids.

by wcooley on Feb 16, 2006 8:58 PM EST reply actions

I see your point

I see your point, but I kept being surprised anytime I heard this kind of thing about him. I remember when he first came up to the bigs, and I rather liked what I saw -- primarily that he wouldn't get rattled on the mound. If he gave up a couple of hits in a row, he would still seem quite composed and just keep going about his business. You could see he had some ability to get out of jams. Even still, I see this when he pitches. It's just when he gets taken out that he goes ballistic, I think. And apparently he doesn't really want to pitch the way the coaching staff wants him to (or at least he hasn't wanted to so far).

But, yeah, I've always thought he seemed composed while on the mound. I even remember watching a game, back when he first came up, and Hrbek was filling in for Bert, and he made the same observation. The contrast surprises me.

by adam @ Twinkie Town on Feb 16, 2006 9:15 PM EST up reply actions

That's it!

I've changed his nickname in my depth chart to Kyle (Nuke La) Lohse. The old one was Kyle (Bore Ass) Lohse, after his agent. But this one's better. Thanks!

Joe Mauer for MVP.

by cmathewson on Feb 16, 2006 11:57 PM EST up reply actions

Lohse comparisons

A thought I had this season regarding Lohse's success (when he had it) was that his adjustments made him more in the mold of a Twins pitcher that has yet to be mentioned - Radke. Sure, he wasn't nearly as good at it, since Radke has stuck to that style of pitching for however-many years and Lohse tried it about half the time this year, but while we're making comparisons, what are the chances Kyle could be successful if he was more like Brad?

by Jlubby on Feb 26, 2006 9:07 PM EST reply actions