Hakuna Matata
Posted on August 14th, 2012 by azruavatar in shelby miller, tags: Carlos Martinez, shelby miller, Trevor RosenthalTake a look at the table below:
| K% | BB% | |
| Player A | 24.9 | 9.1 |
| Player B | 22.6 | 9.6 |
| Player C | 20.3 | 6.8 |
Which of those players are you worried about? The player with the lowest strikeout rate — Player C? The player with the worst K:BB rate — Player B?
If you’re the average fan as of late, you’re worried about Player A, Shelby Miller. The player who has a better strikeout and walk rate than Trevor Rosenthal, Player B, at a higher level of competition. The player with a better strikeout rate than Carlos Martinez, Player C.
That’s not to say it’s totally unjustified. As chuckb aptly pointed out the other day, there’s a home run component to the concern with Shelby Miller this year.
| Player | HR/9 | FIP |
| Shelby Miller | 1.69 | 4.85 |
| Trevor Rosenthal | 0.67 | 3.67 |
| Carlos Martinez | 0.41 | 3.30 |
When you’re getting bombed out of the park as frequently as Shelby Miller is, it’s going to have an adverse effect on your overall performance. There are plenty of reasons why this could be happening. The PCL, though not necessarily Memphis in particular, has some nasty park factors. Parks out west — think Albuquerque and Las Vegas — are generally considered to be launching pads due to the dry air conditions. There’s been lots of talk about Miller’s command being off, which could lead to more home runs on mistake pitches. There’s been talk of decreased velocity, which could contribute as well.
Those are highly speculative unless someone spends the time to chart each home run pitch as a mistake/non-mistake or can offer some more concrete evidence as to what is actually causing the home runs. Because, in an arguably less speculative but also less interesting way, this could just be terrible luck. Miller is currently sporting a 15% HR/FB rate. Last year, that number was 3.8%. There’s little compelling evidence that the change in competition level is enough to constitute that kind of a jump all on it’s own.
Jeff will touch more tomorrow on Shelby Miller’s recent activity but the much lamented demise of Shelby Miller is mostly poppycock. Even if a scout provides anecdotal remarks regarding a single at bat or a single game, unless there’s a deeper — and critically — better researched explanation for Miller’s recent propensity to allow home runs, the default assumption should be that this is an aberration. The default assumption should be that this is, in large part, bad luck.
To be clear, that doesn’t make that assumption correct. But those individuals bemoaning Miller’s performance have the burden of proof as to why the general axiom about home run rates doesn’t hold true. The groundwork for the default position has already been laid and Miller’s past performance in 2010 and 2011 reinforces that default — specifically that Miller has never shown to be extremely prone to home runs. Moving up a level does not invalidate that argument and until someone makes a compelling case as to why that is wrong, the hand wringing about Shelby Miller is overwrought for the evidence at hand.
So don’t worry. Shelby Miller is fine. In some ways, he’s pitch as well or better than other well regarded prospects that no one seems the least bit worried about.
Be happy that Shelby Miller is still in the farm system. He’s still a top prospect.
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Miller’s HR rate at home is not much better than on the road and those so called launching pads.
There is a reason HR’s are included in FIP – they are considered somewhat controllable. I don’t rule out some element of luck but to say luck accounts for the majority of his HR problem would take some more convincing.
That is categorically NOT the reason home runs are in FIP. GB% is somewhat controllable and is not in FIP.
HRs are in FIP because they have a major impact on scoring and they are somewhat predictive. FIP is an ERA estimator and does its best to predict future ERA. Ks, BBs & HRs have proven to be a stable method of predicting future scoring. The entire reason that a stat like xFIP exists is to normalize HR/FB rate because it is only nominally controllable.
You seemed to miss the whole point. The burden of proof has to rest with the side trying to disprove the general axiom of home runs and flyballs. That would be the side that is saying Miller’s HR problem is unique to Miller. Those are the people who should be providing specific evidence rather than generalized narratives. There’s evidence to believe that it’s luck. There’s little/no evidence to believe that there’s something uniquely wrong with Miller that has been presented.
What’s this “burden of proof” business? You make it sound like this is all being played out in a court of law. Sorry, but baseball isn’t quite that important. Even Cardinals baseball.
In my opinion it would be difficult to speak authoritatively to what’s with Shelby’s high HR/9 rate without seeing him pitch. ALL of the times he pitches. ALL of the pitches he throws. And knowing, as well, what he has been asked to throw by the catcher, what he has been told to work on by the coaching staff, and so on. Lacking that degree of informedness, all we can do is look for possible explanations that fit the observed facts, while accepting that those explanations are working with incomplete information. That is as true for the luck explanation as it is for the assertion that the HR “problem” really is a problem and unique to Shelby.
Personally, one thing I would love to know — a thing that is certainly known to the Memphis coaches, and therefore, to everyone in the Cardinals system who’s watching him, as well as to scouts — is: where is the catcher setting up, and is Shelby hitting the target? A model that fits all the known facts is:
* His stuff has been good all season, except for the (well documented) early, transient loss of velocity.
* Early in the season, he was missing both in and out of the zone, so that mistakes were leading either to walks or to a high probability of being hit hard.
* Following the no-shake-off rule, he is being given targets more in the zone, so that missing out of the zone has essentially stopped (hence the dropoff in walks), but misses still become fat pitches that a decent hitter can hammer.
* In general his command has improved, so that his overall pitching is better today than before the ASB.
Is there proof of this? No. There is circumstantial evidence that it may be so, between the changes in some of his rates and the definite fact that his velocity was down early but has come back up. That isn’t proof. However, if we had good beta on where Anderson had set up on all his pitches, we could test the hypothesis. We don’t, so we can’t. That doesn’t make it a weaker hypothesis than the claim that what’s been going on is a matter of luck.
Not everyone “in the know” agrees with you Az.
http://www.fangraphs.com/library/index.php/pitching/fip/
I also realize there are others (such as Hardball Times) that argue that HR’s are a luck function.
My reading of McCracken’s original FIP (DIPS) work is that he thinks a pitcher does control his HR rate but he doesn’t say that directly.
I would also argue that if you think HR’s are “somewhat predictive” then they are not determined by luck.
Just because you declare that someone has the burden of proof doesn’t make it so (other than fact it is your web site :) )
You compared Shelbys 2011 HR rate with his 2012 HR rate. You make the assumption that 2011 is the baseline and any increase from that is bad luck. yet you provide no evidence for that is argument. Given the evidence you presented, it is just as reasonable to assume that 2012 is the norm and 2011 was just a lucky year (if you make the assumption that HR’s are determined by luck.
Az does not make the assumption that his 2011 rate is the baseline. Nor does the Fangraphs link show disagreement with Az’s point above.
You’re a right that you can not know what is good or bag luck unless we have a track record. We don’t have a long track record with Miller, but we do for the league as a whole. We can see how far off of average he is and get some information from that. Miller may be one of those points on the thin end of the bell curve, but it is not likely. So if we are going to take a guess, we should go with the percentages.
You are wrong to say that you can’t declare that someone has the burden of proof.
The burden on proof is on the person making the claim.
If a person claims that Miller’s home run rate is a result of his decrease in (or lack of) skills, they should prove it.
And if Azruavatar makes the claim that is luck, he should prove it.
The null position should be that we just don’t know.
That being said I think Azruavatar has the better theory because it’s simpler, and the simpler explanation is most likely true. We have some weak statistical evidence that it is luck, and we have anecdotal evidence that it is not.
I think the most fair conclusion would be: We don’t know. It’s probably luck. We’ll know more when we have more evidence (he plays more games).
i don’t think that azru is stating that HR numbers lack value or are purely a function of luck.
in the context of a single season, the likelihood that bad home run numbers are luck is high, whereas a season of K and BB numbers are less likely to be luck influenced. those numbers stabilize a lot sooner.
Rosenthal passing Shelby to the majors is a good thing in the short for Shelby IMHO. He is not ready but is still very young with excellent minor league numbers, on the whole. We fans and the organization just need to be patient. It’s a blessing that Joe Kelly and now Rosenthal are able to contribute to the big club in a time of need, which takes pressure away from the urge to promote Shelby. I hope Trevor’s second turn in the STL pen fares better and they give him a longer look this time.
Bottom line is that Miller’s GB/AO is .74 – he is a flyball pitcher. He is also a strike-out pitcher which often leads to high pitchcounts – although he has had some recent success. That is where I see his biggest problem and that is pitch efficiency. Without doing the math, even with his recent success, he still isn’t averaging 5 ip a start. Of course, as he gets older, I have to assume they will let him pile up more pitches. He’s very young. I don’t really see anything “wrong” with him, but I’m not sure he is a top 20 prospect either. I think he may have been overhyped a bit and his “regression” maybe depresses some fans based on that.
Are you saying that he’s overhyped because he gets too many strikeouts?
He’s stating that Miller is inefficient with all the strikeouts he produces that leads to high pitch counts causes him to not going deep into games.
He’s just not perhaps the brightest bulb in the pack. HR ARE mistakes. They also reflect a young pitchers frustration at the umpires strike zone. In other words they just get frustrated and try to throw it past the wrong guy. He will learn, it may take a while but he will.
He reminds me of Matt Latos, not much upstairs and extremely immature as a 20-21 year old but incredibly talented.
He is not over hyped, once he figures it out he will be around for a while.
HRs are not necessarily “mistake” pitches. You think every pitch Vlad Guerrero hit for a HR was a mistake? The first thing to recognize to even start understanding the argument about pitchers and HR rate is to understand that once a pitch leaves a pitcher’s hand, he longer controls anything about the outcome of that pitch.
i don’t really care for the personal attack in this comment. claiming, based on a high HR rate, that a prospect is stupid is a silly assertion. adam wainwright had 1.7 HR/9 in memphis in 2004, the same HR rate as shelby has. is adam stupid?
Well said. There has been far too much made of Shelby’s struggles this season. I’m certain that some of his struggles have been related to bad luck. We know he’s had problems with pitch selection, velocity, and location but the K’s and the not-bad BB rate demonstrate that he’s pitched better than his ERA indicates.
I’m not sure this logic works for me. Taking it to an absurd level, if a guy pitches 7 innings and records every out as a strike-out, so 21 strike-outs, but also gives up 5 HR’s every outing, is the pitcher a good pitcher? I would submit, “no”. Strike-outs are only good as long as the runs allowed follow to a low level and you actually get through 7 innings. Lately, Miller is achieving that kind of success. However, on the season, he has not. If he finishes the season strong, I’m good with saying he has turned the corner – I’m not quite there yet…..but we’re making progress!
John Vuch was on the Bernie Miklasz Show a month or so ago and was asked about Shelby’s struggles at AAA. Vuch said that there was a small mechanical change between his throwing motion from the past compared to AAA, one that they were going to work with Shelby on correcting. He said that that small flaw may be taking some life off of Shelby’s fastballs. He also said that Shelby’s breaking stuff is good, but not as good as it can be, and not consistent enough. He stressed that Shelby needs to use his breaking stuff in different counts, which is why Shelby will be using a game called by the catcher going forward and won’t be allowed to shake off; by taking the pitch calling away from him, Shelby should be able to focus solely on making the best pitch, whichever pitch it may be.
The bottom line is that people just need to chill on Shelby. He’s not a freaking machine. He’s a young immensely talented prospect who hit a speed bump (no pun intended). He’s being analyzed ad nauseum and just needs to be left alone to focus on improving. Throw all the predictors you want at the wall to see what sticks, but it still all comes down to Miller’s resolve to be a major leaguer. The talent is there in spades. Does he have the character to put it all together. I’m going with YES. Go Shelby! Nuff said!
Miller gets very frustrated easily. He would often do what he wanted, that is why they implemented the no shake rule.
Yup they have made changes to his delivery and I am not sure they had to.
If he is bright he doesn’t let on to that fact. Yes, the no shake rule was so he didn’t have to stand on the mound and figure out what pitch to throw and in what count and why. There comes a time when a pitcher has to understand and realize when you throw what, it may take him longer than others to figure that out.
I beleive in the above, stop analyzing the kid, let him grow up and take the heat off of him and he will be fine. He doesn’t have to be in STL next year, he will get there when he is ready.
If you ask any pitcher about the HR he gave up the first thing he will say might be, “I knew as soon as it left my hand”. The comment about him also being a fly ball guy doesn’t help his cause. He will learn as he matures to throw with conviction all of your stuff and when to let up.
what does it mean that shelby doesn’t let on that he’s bright? he doesn’t call you up to discuss particle physics and kierkegaard?
i wish people would stop acting like they know what’s going on in the heads of prospects they don’t know, in the absence of any evidence to support their claims.
My thought is that you shouldn’t get emotionally attached to particular prospects. I would love for Miller, Rosenthal, Kelly, Martinez, Maness, Jenkins, et al to all become top MLB aces. Realistically, if we get 1 front-of-the-rotation starter and 2-3 back-of-the-rotation/bullpen guys out of the lot, we’d be doing pretty well. And I really don’t have a rooting interest in which of them succeeds more than the others.