Enough Already

On Tuesday, the Pirates destroyed the Diamondbacks, 12-1. But the game featured some serious ugliness towards the end. In the top of the seventh, the Pirates were leading 9-1. Arquimedes Caminero, who's exhibited only passing knowledge of the strike zone so far this year (13 walks, three hit batters, and a wild pitch in 17.1 innings), came on for the Bucs. He got center fielder Chris Owings to ground out but then gave up back-to-back singles to shortstop Nick Ahmed and Jake Lamb. Then, with runners on first and second and the count full, he hit second baseman Jean Segura in the head with a 96 mph fastball. 

In the bottom of the inning, Evan Marshall, who'd faced two batters in the sixth, gave up singles to second baseman Josh Harrison and shortstop Jordy Mercer. Catcher Chris Stewart grounded out, with the runners advancing to second and third. Marshall's first pitch to third baseman David Freese, a 95 mph fastball, hit him, either on the shoulder (Pirates broadcast) or grazing his uniform (Diamondbacks broadcast).

In the top of the eighth, Caminero still on the mound, catcher Wellington Castillo walked, left fielder Yasmany Tomas struck out, pinch hitter Chris Herrmann forced Castillo, and then Owings singled. With runners on first and third and the count 1-2, Caminero hit Ahmed in the head with an 89 mph split-fingered fastball.

A notes about this: First, this occurred the day after Pirates pitcher Ryan Vogelsong was hit in the head with a 92 mph fastball thrown by Colorado's Jordan Lyles. Vogelsong's now on the disabled list with broken facial bones. So it's not like nobody was aware of the risks here. 

Second, it's pretty clear that Caminero didn't intend to hit Segura or Ahmed, and certainly not in the head. It's not so clear about Marshall, who has a history if ill-advised retaliation. 

Third, it's fortunate that Segura and Ahmed are both OK..

Fourth, I was glad that neither the Pirates nor the Diamondbacks TV announcers talked about "protection" or any other Book of Exodus eye-for-an-eye nonsense. Nobody was making excuses for this sort of thing.

All that being said...Enough already. Pirates pitchers have hit opposing hitters 19 times this season, the fourth most in the league. Pirates batters have been hit 31 times, the most in the league. Last year, they hit the most batters (75) and were hit the most (89). In 2014, they hit the most batters (88) and were hit the second most (78). In 2013, they hit the most batters (70) and were hit the most (88). From 2013 to 2016, they've hit 252 batters (15% more than any other National League team), and been hit 286 times (20% more than any other NL team).

As I've pointed out (here and here), some of this may be retaliation for prior hit batters, but a lot, maybe most of it, isn't. But that doesn't make it OK.

Look, I get it. Hit batters are part of the game. Sometimes a pitch gets away from the pitcher. Some batters stand really close to the plate. Pitchers need to be able to pitch inside as well outside, and sometimes they miss. That's all understandable and forgivable. 

What isn't understandable and forgivable to me is intentionally hitting a batter with a pitch. If I intentionally throw a hard object at high speed and hit you, it's criminal battery. Hard contact is part of the game if you're playing football or hockey, and the players dress appropriately. It's not supposed to be part of the game of baseball. Throwing at a batter because he flipped his bat or slid hard or because his team's pitcher hit a batter on the other team isn't just dumb moral equivalence, it's dangerous. Baseball can wait until a player gets killed, or suffers a traumatic brain injury, or is otherwise never able to play again because he's hit by a pitch. (I'd say "or suffers permanently decreased performance" but that's already happened.) Or it can do something now.

First thought: Immediately eject any pitcher whose pitch hits a batter in the head. I think Diamondbacks manager Chip Hale had it right when he said after the game against Pittsburgh, "You know what, when guys get hit in the head and they get hit in the face, there's no place for that in the game. And if the guy is not trying to do it, then he shouldn't be here at this level." I know some have called for ejecting any pitcher who hits a batter, but that could lead to batters leaning in, getting grazed by the pitch, in order to get an ace pitcher out of the game. Nobody's going to lean in with his chin. 

Second thought: Give umpires more latitude to eject pitchers who throw at batters. Granted, a lot of hit batters are in a gray area. But some aren't, like the Pirates-Reds HBPfest on May 11, in which a Red hit a Pirate, then a Pirate hit a Red, then a Red hit a Pirate, it happened again, then a Pirate hit a Red and a Red hit a Pirate. 

Some people will say that that's the way the game's governed itself for over a century and it shouldn't change. Sorry, not buying it. The average fastball velocity so far this year is 92.3 mph; that can do a lot more damage than fastballs of Ty Cobb's and Babe Ruth's and Joe DiMaggio's eras, so it's not an apples-to-apples comparison. Besides, the game went for decades with no nonwhite players on the field. That wasn't a good idea. Until 2014, baseball didn't bother enforcing the interference rule, prohibiting fielders from blocking the baserunner's path the base, at home plate. That wasn't a good idea either. If governing itself means that Ryan Vogelsong gets bones broken in his face one day and has Jean Segura getting tested for a concussion the next, I'd say it's a pretty pathetic job of self-governance. Roll back the historically high trend of hit batters now, baseball, before you have to, with regrets.

Bucs Update: April

The Pirates finished April with a record of 15-9. While that trailed the best-in-the-majors Cubs by three games in the National League Central, it's still a good record: Fourth best in the National League, fifth best in the majors overall. The only teams that were better are the Cubs at 17-5, the Nationals at 16-7, the Mets at 15-7, and the White Sox at 17-8.

That's better than last year, when the Pirates finished the month at 12-10, third in their division, fifth in the league, eleventh in the majors. It's worth noting that after April 30 last year, the Pirates were 86-54, the best record in the majors.

Now, April's not the most important month. In fact, per this article of mine in Baseball Prospectus, it's the least predictive month of the season. By the same token, the trends that've emerged in April need to at least be monitored.

How did they get to 15-9? Well, there are a couple overall comments. First, they team's been a little lucky, but just a little. Based on its April run differential of 128 runs scored and 109 allowed, we'd expect a record a game or so worse. Second, they haven't played a particularly tough schedule so far. Through the end of April, they'd played only four games against teams playing better than .500, going 1-3 against Detroit, while running up an 14-6 record against Arizona, Cincinnati, Colorado, Milwaukee, San Diego, and St. Louis (the Cardinals were exactly a .500 team in April). That'll change tonight when they fact the Cubs, who did not play a single .500-plus team in April, facing Arizona, Atlanta, Cincinnati, Colorado, the LA Angels, and Milwaukee.

Yet it doesn't feel like the team's been one of the best in the league, does it? Let's compare how they Pirates arrived at this year's 15-9 vs. last year's 12-10. I'm going to show you three tables, indicating how the Pirates did this year vs. last year in April. For each statistic, I'll show the raw number as well as where the team ranked in the 15-team National League. For ranks with an asterisk, it means that the lower the statistic, the better (e.g., ERA).

First, offense:

The offense has been a lot better than last year. The Pirates are fourth in the league in scoring and lead in both batting average and on base percentage. Note that they've cut way down on strikeouts and are getting way more walks, in each case moving from one of the worst teams in the league to one of the best. Like last year, opposing pitchers aren't throwing them a lot of pitches in the strike zone (Zone %) but the batters are much less likely to swing at pitches outside the strike zone (Chase %). Also, while the team's power ranking (isolated slugging, which is equal to slugging percentage minus batting average) hasn't moved up much, the raw number has. As Travis Sawchik pointed out over the weekend, the team's benefited from seeing more pitches. They won't stay this hot, but the offense looks strong.

One exception: Andrew McCutchen was the worst batter in the Pirates' starting eight during April, posting a .226/.339/441 slash line. But considering that he hit .194/.302/.333 in April last year, one of the worst performances in the league, then went on to be one of the top hitters in the game for the remainder of the season, it seems premature to worry.

In my preview for the team's 2016 season, I identified starting pitching as a key area of concern. Has that been borne out?

The starters have undoubtedly been worse. Their ERA is higher, and their FIP (fielding-independent pitching, a measure that's scaled like ERA but takes into account only strikeouts, walks, and home runs) has gone from best in the league to among the worse. They're striking out fewer hitters, walking more, and not lasting as deep into the game. Most worrisome to me is the chase percentage. When pitchers get opposing batters to swing at pitches outside the strike zone, it means that they're fooling hitters and, more often than not, inducing weak contact. The Pirates starters got a lot of batters to chase last year. They're not this year. If hitters lay off pitches outside the zone, they can tee off on the resulting pitches in the zone. This is a concerning trend that I'll monitor. I'm still worried about the rotation.

How about the bullpen, long a Pirates strength, but off to a slow start this year?

Well, the bullpen isn't the dumpster fire it was when I wrote the post referenced above, but it hasn't been good, and it started May with its fourth loss of the year. This is my biggest worry for the Pirates. The offense won't stay this good, but it's a good unit. The starters aren't a great bunch, but they're OK, and there are probably reinforcements on the way. But a bad bullpen? This is new, and it's disconcerting. Last season, the Pirates had nine relievers who threw at least 25 innings, and of them, all but one had an ERA below 3.00. (And the one who was above, Arquimedes Caminero, was at a not-bad 3.62). This year, of the eight Pittsburgh relievers with at least five innings pitched so far, only one's below 3.00 (and that one, Mark Melancon, isn't below by much, 2.61). They're still getting batters to chase pitches outside the zone, but they've backslid in all the components of FIP--they're allowing more home runs and walks and getting fewer strikeouts. Absent pretty marked improvement, the team is going to be challenged to hold onto late leads and overcome late deficits.  

Is this whining about a good team? Perhaps. But remember, that 15-9 record came against teams that, by and large, have struggled this year. In May, the team has six games against the Cubs and three each against the Cardinals and Rangers. That's a tougher slate than the team faced in April. Some things, especially the bullpen, need to get better in order to maintain this hot start.

Overworked Pen, Revisited

At the beginning of July, I wrote that the Pirates have gone to their bullpen a lot, and that this raised concerns about the relievers' durability over a 162-game season. The team's top four relievers at the time--Arquimedes Caminero, Jared Hughes, Mark Melancon, and Tony Watson--had appeared in more games, and pitched more innings, than any top four in the National League. However, I noted that the Pirates relievers were unusually efficient, with all throwing a below-average number of pitches per inning. As a result, they hadn't thrown as many pitches as many of their peers, reducing the concern about wear and tear.

I decided to revisit this analysis as we enter the last month-plus of the season. I expanded my net, looking at each team in the majors. For each club, I identified their top three relievers, not in terms of games pitched, but in how they're used. FanGraphs' RotoGraphs column each week has a "Bullpen Report" that lists the top three relievers for each team. For the Pirates, for example, the closer is Melancon and the top two setup men are Joaquim Soria and Watson. For each team, I calculated, for the top three relievers:

• The number of games in which they've appeared
• The number of batters they've faced (a superior measure to innings pitched, which measures only outs)
• The number of pitches they've thrown

I included only relief appearances for pitchers who've moved from the starting rotation to the bullpen. For pitchers who've been traded, like Soria, I used their full-year statistics. This analysis makes bullpens that've had upheaval through injury (e.g., the Braves, who lost closer Jason Grilli for the season in mid-July to a ruptured Achilles) or roster changes (e.g., the Mariners, who released closer Fernando Rodney over the weekend) seem well-rested, since more lightly-used relievers may have moved into more prominent roles. I don't worry about that; somebody's who's thrown only 30 innings is, in fact, likely pretty well-rested.

Here are the 12 bullpens whose top three relievers have appeared in the most games:

1. Pirates (Melancon, Soria, Watson) 176
2. Cubs (Rondon, Strop, Hunter) 170
3. Rangers (Tolleson, Diekman, Dyson) 168
4. Phillies (Giles, Garcia, Gomez) 164
5. Cardinals (Rosenthal, Siegrist, Cishek) 162
6. Angels (Street, Smith, Salas) 161
7. Marlins (Ramos, Dunn, Morris) 161
8. Mets (Familia, Clippard, Torres) 161
9. Yankees (Miller, Betances, Wilson) 160
10. Brewers (Rodriguez, Smith, Jeffress) 159
11. Indians (Allen, Shaw, McAllister) 156
12. Royals (Holland, Davis, Herrera) 153

Other contenders: Astros (Gregerson, Neshek, Qualls) T13th, Orioles (Britton, O'Day, Brach) 17th, Giants (Casilla, Romo, Strickland) 18th, Dodgers (Jansen, Johnson, Baez) 21st, Nationals (Papelbon, Storen, Janssen) T22nd, Twins T24th, Blue Jays (Osuna, Sanchez, Cecil) 27th.

Granted, it's a strain on a pitcher to appear in a game, as it entails both warmup pitches and live pitches. But there's more strain in coming into a game with one out and a runner on first and allowing two more batters to reach before retiring the next two compared to getting the first batter faced to ground into an inning-ending double play. So the number of batters a reliever faces is probably a better indicator of usage than the number of games in which he appears. The top three relievers for these teams have faced the most batters:

1. Phillies 740
2. Rangers 698
3. Pirates 671
4. Cubs 670
5. Mets 667
6. Cardinals 655
7. Red Sox (Tazawa, Machi, Ognado) 642
8. Orioles 640
9. Angels 635
10. Indians 632
11. Reds (Chapman, Hoover, Mattheus) 625
12. Yankees 621

Other contenders: Astros 21st, Dodgers 22nd, Nationals 24th, Giants 25th, Twins 26th, Blue Jays 28th.

Finally, as I pointed out in July, efficiency can reduce strain on relievers' arms. So far this year, relief pitchers have averaged 3.9 pitches per batter faced. That figure ranges between 3.7 for the Giants, Twins and Pirates to over 4.0 for the Rangers, Rays, and Yankees. Spread over a few hundred batters faced, those extra pitches can wear a pitcher down. These teams' top three relievers have thrown the most pitches this year:

1. Phillies 2,848
2. Rangers 2,694
3. Cardinals 2,669
4. Pirates 2,623
5. Mets 2,618
6. Yankees 2,556
7. Indians 2,545
8. Cubs 2,535
9. Reds 2,529
10. Orioles 2,523
11. Red Sox 2,413
12. Angels 2,412

Other contenders: Royals 16th, Dodgers 22nd, Astros 23rd, Giants 24th, Twins 25th, Nationals 26th, Blue Jays 28th.

So what are the takeaways here?

• The Pirates have used their relievers a lot. However, the figures shown above are skewed by the addition of Joakim Soria. If I substitute Jared Hughes (the Pirates' No. 3 reliever before they traded for Soria on July 30) for Soria, the Pirates are still No. 1 in games pitched and rise to No. 2 in batters faced, but they fall all the way down to tenth in pitches thrown, behind both the Cardinals and the Cubs. They remain one of the most efficient bullpens, in terms of pitches per batter, in baseball. 
• To expand on that, the only Pirates relievers who have averaged more than the major league average of 3.9 pitches per batter are Antonio Bastardo (4.4) and Soria (4.6 with the Pirates, 4.2 with the Tigers). That being said, of the 100 relievers who have thrown the most pitches this year, only three teams have six on their current roster: the Pirates, Cardinals, and Rangers.
• The teams toward the bottom of the lists, notably the Blue Jays, Giants, Nationals, and Astros, in my opinion, seem to have particularly well-rested bullpens heading into September.

Is A.J. Burnett Broken?

In two starts following the All-Star Break, A.J. Burnett has allowed 27 baserunners (16 singles, four doubles, two homers, four hit batters, one walk) in 11.2 innings, giving up 11 runs, all earned, for an 8.49 ERA. Granted, that's only two games, but this appears to be more than disappointment over being named to his first All-Star Game but not appearing; his ERAs have risen every month this season:

Month	ERA	GS	IP	H	R	ER	HR	BB	SO	HBP	BK	WP	BF	WHIP	SO9	SO/W
April	1.80	4	25.0	24	5	5	1	7	20	1	0	0	101	1.240	7.2	2.86
May	1.82	6	39.2	31	10	8	1	13	39	1	0	1	156	1.109	8.8	3.00
June	2.41	5	33.2	40	11	9	1	7	27	0	0	2	143	1.396	7.2	3.86
July	4.68	5	32.2	40	17	17	3	7	24	6	1	2	147	1.439	6.6	3.43

Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Original Table

Generated 7/26/2015.

I think you know most of those column headings. BF is batters faced, WHIP is walks plus hits over innings pitched, SO9 is strikeouts per nine innings, SO/W is strikeout to walk ratio.

Obviously, the ERA's a concern. He's allowed more earned runs so far in July than he did in any two other months combined. His strikeout rate is down, and while he's not walking more hitters, those six hit batters indicate a lack of control. So what's going on?

I'm going to walk through a few steps that I like to check when a pitcher's effectiveness changes.

tl;dr: Burnett's been throwing pretty much the same pitches, at the same velocities, to the same spots of late. However, he's facing tougher opponents than he did earlier in the year, and when batters make contact, they've been hitting the ball harder than in the past. There is also a fair amount of evidence that Burnett's been just unlucky of late, suggesting that he could rebound from his July performance.

Has his repertoire changed? Sometimes a pitcher will change his mix of pitches, changing his overall outcomes. Burnett throws four pitches: A four-seam (straight) fastball, a two-seam (sinking) fastball, a curve, and a changeup. Here are his mix of pitches, by month, from Brooks Baseball:

Month	Fourseam	Sinker	Curve	Change
April	11%	53%	32%	3%
May	11%	57%	29%	3%
June	8%	52%	33%	7%
July	7%	59%	28%	7%

Do you see any big changes there? Me neither. Yes, he's throwing a few more changeups and fewer four-seam fastballs, but we're not talking a big shift.

Has his velocity changed? Burnett is 38 and in (he swears) his last season. There are only three starting pitchers in the majors who are older: San Francisco's Tim Hudson (40), Toronto's R.A. Dickey (40), and the Mets' Bartolo Colon (42). Might he be slowing down? Here are the velocities of his pitches, per month:

Month	Fourseam	Sinker	Curve	Change
April	91.6	91.4	82.4	85.8
May	92.3	92.2	82.7	86.3
June	92.4	91.7	82.7	85.9
July	92.2	91.5	82.4	85.6

There's almost no change there. Decreased velocity is not an issue.

Has his command changed? Velocity's nice, but it's not the whole story. Among National League pitchers, the Pirates' Arquimedes Caminero has the third highest average fastball velocity, 97.9 mph. But among Pirates pitchers with at least 40 innings pitched, he has the highest home rate and second-highest ERA, because major league hitters can hit just amount any pitch if it misses its intended spot. 

Here are his percentage of Burnett's pitches in the strike zone, starting in April: 48.0%, 49.5%, 47.8%, 48.5%. He's been right around the National League average of 47.9% all year. 

Of course, just throwing strikes isn't the story, either. Brooks Baseball tracks what it calls "grooved pitches." Think of the strike zone as a 3x3 grid, with nine identically-sized squares. The one right in the middle of the grid--the "middle middle" pitch, in the middle of the zone horizontally and vertically--routinely gets crushed. Andrew McCutchen is batting .393 with a .699 slugging percentage on middle-middle pitches. Starling Marte is .347/.551. Neil Walker, .313/.567. On the other side of the ball, Burnett has given up a .270 batting average and .358 slugging percentage overall this year, but .347/.569 middle/middle. So has he been grooving his pitches more? Nope. Here are his percentage of grooved pitches against right handed batters: April 6.9%, May 5.8%, June 6.3%, July 5.9%. Against lefties: April 5.0%, May 5.5%, June 4.5%, July 6.1%. It's all pretty consistent.

OK, so he's not missing the strike zone, and when he's in the strike zone, he's not missing his spots. How about when he's outside the strike zone? How is he at getting batters to swing at pitches outside the strike zone, where they're more likely to make weak contact? It turns out he's gotten better as the year's progressed: swings on 28% of pitches outside the strike zone in April, 24% in May, 33% in June, 30% in July. 

Are his pitches getting hit harder? His ground ball rate is down, and Pirates pitchers live on ground balls: 56% in April, 55% in May, 52% in June, 50% in July. Do hitters know what pitch is coming and therefore hit it harder? Well, they're making a little more contact, whiffing on 19% of Burnett's pitches in April, 21% in May, 18% in June, and 17% in July. The National League average is 21%. However, as he's allowed more contact, he's induced more soft contact: 15% of batted balls in April, 16% in May, 17% in June, 21% in July. Yet at the same time, he's allowing more hard contact as well: 27% in April, 33% in May, 27% in June, but (gulp) 43% in July. That's the second highest hard contact rate in the league in July. However, he's middle of the pack in soft contact this month. So batters are making more and harder contact off Burnett, though I'd really like to see another month of data to see whether this is a trend or a blip.

Is he facing tougher opponents? This gets overlooked a lot, but it's important in an era in which starting pitchers get, at most, 35 starts per year. If a starting pitcher goes against the Mets and Phillies (each scoring 3.5 runs per game) a lot more than the Rockies and Diamondbacks (4.4 each), he's likely to have better numbers than a starter who does the opposite. Let's divide each 15-team league into thirds to define good-hitting, average, and weak-hitting teams. During April, Burnett faced two good-hitting teams (Diamondbacks, Tigers), one average (Reds), and one weak (Cubs). In May, he faced three average teams (Cardinals, Reds, Padres) and two weak (Mets, Phillies). In June he faced two good (Giants, Nationals), two average (Brewers, Reds), and one weak (Phillies). In July he faced two good teams (Nationals, Tigers), and two average ones (Cardinals, Royals). He hasn't caught a breather, opponent-wise, since his June 14 start against the Phillies. So some of the deterioration in his performance is probably just a reflection of pitching against better-hitting teams.

Has he been unlucky? This is the trickiest question, because it depends on how one defines luck. Baseball analysts look at three statistics: batting average on balls in play (BABIP), percentage of baserunners left on base (strand rate), and percentage of fly balls going over the fence (HR/FB).

This doesn't mean that these figures are all a product of luck. Let's take two pitchers: Phillies ace/trade bait Cole Hamels, whose career ERA is 3.30, and his teammate Jerome Williams, currently sporting a 6.28 ERA and a career ERA of 4.55. Hamels' career BABIP is .285, Williams' is .290. Hamels' career strand rate is 76.9%, Williams' is 70.5%. Hamels' career HR/FB rate is 11.0%, Williams' is 12.0%. Does that mean Hamels' superior ERA is a product of BABIP, strand rate, and HR/FB luck? Certainly not; he's legitimately a better pitcher, and his numbers reflect it, across the board.

But variations in those figures can reflect luck. BABIP can be helped by scorching line drives hit right at a fielder and hurt by a pop-up that falls just beyond the reach of a retreating infielder. Strand rate is affected by clustering of hits; if a pitcher allows two singles, and no other baserunners, in each of three innings, he'll give up six hits and no runs. If a pitcher gives up no hits in two innings and six singles in his third, he'll also give up six hits, but will probably give up four runs. As for HR/RB, a 400 foot drive to straightaway center is a home run at Angel Stadium of Anaheim (the fence is 396 feet from home) but doesn't even reach the warning track drive at the Marlins Park in Miami (422 feet). So each of those factors can be influenced by circumstances other than the pitcher's skill.

Consider, for example, Hamels' disappointing 2009 season. After going 15-5 with a 3.39 ERA in 2007 and 14-10 with a 3.09 ERA in 2008, he slumped to 10-11, 4.32 in 2009. He was supposed to be the ace of my fantasy team that year, and toward the end of the season, I changed my team's name to Cole Hamels You Suck. But did he really suck? Let's look at those three luck indicators, from 2008 (when he was good), 2009 (the year in question), and 2010 (good again; 12-11, 3.06 ERA):

• BABIP: .259,.317, .289
• Strand rate: 76%, 72%, 83%
• HR/FB: 11%, 11%, 12%

OK, the last one didn't change much. But his 2009 BABIP and strand rate were career worsts for him. More hits dropped in that year (and no, it wasn't because batters were hitting the ball with authority; his hard contact rate of 26% in 2009 was the second best of his career), and they came more often with batters on base. His "peripheral stats"--strikeout, walk, and home run rates--were more suggestive of a pitcher with an ERA in the mid-threes, rather than his career-high 4.32. And, sure enough, he rebounded to a 3.06 ERA the following year.

So let's look at Burnett's BABIP, strand rate, and HR/FB, April-July:

Month	BABIP	Strand	HR/FB
April	.319	88%	5.3%
May	.294	80%	4.3%
June	.361	79%	4.2%
July	.352	74%	10.0%

Every single luck indicator has moved the wrong way over the past couple months, during which his ERA's gone from 1.81 in April-May to 2.41 in June and 4.68 in July. This isn't to say that he's been equally effective; as I've shown, he's allowed more hard contact in July, and he's also facing tougher opponents. (The latter's not going to let up; heading into today's games, the Pirates have the fifth toughest schedule in the league over the rest of the season, with an average opponents' winning percentage of .506.) But there's been enough going against him in those luck indicators to make me think that we haven't seen the last of the good A.J. Burnett.

Overworked Pen?

After last night's 14-inning game, Pirates relievers have pitched 238.1 innings, the 13th most in the majors and fourth most in the National League. That's a bit of a surprise, given the quality of the starting rotation. Pirates starters have combined for 3.17 ERA, fourth in the majors and second in the National League. Normally, you'd think that good starters give you a lot of innings. And they do: Pirates starters are averaging 6.09 innings pitched per game, seventh most in the majors and third most in the National League. But the average Pirates game has lasted 9.23 innings this year, the most in the majors. (Pitchers for only the Tigers, Cardinals, Cubs, Diamondbacks, and Pirates are averaging over nine innings per game.) So manager Clint Hurdle's gone to the bullpen. A lot.

That's borne out in usage numbers. I'm going to focus on the Pirates' four most frequently used relievers: Arquimedes Caminero, Jared Hughes, Mark Melancon, and Tony Watson. All four appeared in last night's game. Entering play tonight, Hughes and Melancon have appeared in 38 games, tying them for the third most in the majors. Watson's right behind with 37 appearances, tied for 11th. Caminero's been in 35 games, tied for the 27th most. Put another way, of the 40 pitchers who've appeared in 35 or more games this year, four are Pirates. Only the Cardinals, Giants and Phillies have as many as three. 

Well, maybe they've been in a lot of games, but have they been used lightly? The Cardinals have Left-handed One Out guY (LOOGY) Randy Choate, who's appeared in 36 games but pitched only 16 innings. Ditto the Giants with Javier Lopez, 39 games and 22 innings. The Pirates, though? Watson's pitched 38.1 innings, tying him for 11th most in the majors. Melancon's pitched 37.2 innings, the 15th most. Caminero, with 35 innings, is tied for the 29th most. Hughes' 34 innings ties him for the 38th most. Of the 41 relievers who've pitched 34 or more innings, four are Pirates. The only other team with that many is the Phillies, and the Diamondbacks are the only other team with as many as three.

So to review so far, the top four Pirate relievers, as a unit, have been used more frequently, and pitched more innings, than any other bullpen. Isn't that a big red flag?

Well, maybe, but perhaps not as red as it seems. Let's consider not just workload but the strain on the pitchers' arms. You can tax a reliever by asking to throw a lot of pitches, or to work consecutive days without rest. Let's tackle the second one first: the number of times a reliever's been called upon to pitch on no rest.

Here, the story's a little better. The Cardinals' Choate has pitched in 16 games after having pitched the prior day as well. That's the most in the majors. (Staying fairly true to his LOOGY acronym, he's pitched only 7.1 innings in those 16 appearances.) Watson has pitched on no days rest eleven times, tying him for 18th most in the majors. Melancon's pitched on no days rest ten times, tying him for 32nd.  It's happened nine times for Hughes, tying him for 43rd. And Caminero's pitched on consecutive days only seven times, tying him for 78th in the majors. By contrast, the Giants have four pitchers who've pitched ten or more times on no days rest. The Cardinals have three. So do the Braves, Brewers, Cubs, and Rays. By this measure, the Pirates, with only two, have been more conservative with their bullpen arms.

Then there's pitch counts. You hear about them more with starters, but they're relevant for relievers as well. The Phillies' Jake Diekman (30 games, 27.1 innings pitched) is averaging 21.0 pitches per inning. The Twins' Blaine Boyer (37 games, 36.1 innings pitched), on the other hand. is averaging just 13.4 pitches per inning, more than a third fewer than Diekman. The Cardinals' Choate is averaging only 12.7 pitches per inning. By being more efficient, Choate and Boyer are putting a lot less strain on their arms than Diekman.

Overall, major league relievers are averaging 16.3 pitches per inning this season. Are the Pirates relievers efficient, thereby saving their arms despite heavy workloads in terms of innings pitched?

Yes, they are. Hughes averages 13.4 pitches per inning. Melancon's average is 13.5. Watson's at 15.0. Caminero's 15.1. All four throw a below-average number of pitches per inning. As a result, while Pirates pitchers have elevated innings pitched, their pitches thrown this season are much more reasonable. Watson's thrown 575 pitches, 20th most in the majors. Caminero, with 530, is tied for the 44th most. Melancon's thrown 509, 60th most. Hughes, at 456, is tied for 88th most. The Pirates have three pitchers in the top 60 for relief pitches thrown. The Phillies have five. The Brewers, Cardinals, Diamondbacks, Rangers, Rays, and Yankees have three like the Pirates. Again, by this measure, the team looks a lot less reckless.

Then there's the pitchers themselves. The four primary Pirates relievers aren't kids. Caminero, though he'd appeared in only 19 major league games before this season, is 28. Melancon turned 30 in March, Watson did the same in May, and Hughes will do so this Saturday. So their arms are presumably less likely to be broken by overuse than a younger pitcher's might be. 

Me, I'd maybe tap on the brakes a little bit with Watson in order to make sure he's still relatively fresh in September. He's also the fallback closer in case something happens to Melancon. But overall, I'd say the Pirates bullpen is a lot less overworked than their games and innings pitched would seem to indicate.

Odds and Ends - April 26

• On April 14, I noted that left fielder Starling Marte had struck out in 47% of his plate appearances, the highest percentage in the National League. In the ten games since, his strikeout rate is just 18%. (The NL average for position players so far this year is 19.4%.) He's also batting .323 with a .742 slugging percentage since April 14. His problem was that he was swinging on a lot of pitches outside the strike zone (45% of pitches thrown to him outside the strike zone) and missing a lot of them (61%). He's cut down on his swings outside the strike zone (his total for the year's below 41%) and, as a result, making contact more frequently (whiffing on 52% of out-of-zone pitches year to date). Looks like he started the year over-aggressive but has things together now.
• The Pirates' offense remains a sore spot. They're batting .223 (11th in the league) with a .275 on base percentage (13th) and .364 slugging percentage (10th). Their OPS of .639 is 13th in the National League, 12th when adjusted for PNC Park. The only positions at which they're getting above-average offensive performance (measured by park-adjusted OPS) are catcher and second base. Center fielder Andrew McCutchen's got a .175/.294/.316 slash line--this is the worst 17-game streak of his career, I'm pretty sure [UPDATE 4/27: Nope, not at all. Watch you search terms! But pretty bad]; are we sure he's not hurt?--and last year's other top performer, third baseman Josh Harrison, is slashing .221/.264/.382. The team's been kept afloat by its starting pitchers, who have a 2.87 ERA (second best in the league), 1.16 walks and hits per inning pitched (third), and a 23.5% strikeout rate (second), 
• No, Mark Melancon's velocity hasn't returned yet. But he's pitched in each of the last three games, collecting saves in each. His average cut fastball velocity: 89.8 mph Thursday, 88.7 mph Friday, 88.2 mph Saturday. (All figures from Brooks Baseball.) Recall that he's never averaged below 90 mph, even for a month, over his career. His recent success suggests that he's substituting guile for speed, but I don't know whether that'll last. If he struggles, the Pirates have plenty of depth, with lefty Tony Watson (3.00 ERA and zero walks in 11 appearances), righty Jared Hughes (2.89 ERA, 11/2 strikeout/walk ratio), or flamethowing Arquiimedes Caminero (98.8 mph average fastball velocity, second in the league to Reds closer Aroldis Chapman) probably 1-2-3 in the closer depth chart behind Melancon.
• The Pirates' next series is against the Cubs. I'll hit that up tomorrow. The Cubs are the only National League team the Bucs have played this year with a winning record; they went 1-2 against the 12-6 Detroit Tigers in interleague play.

Odds and Ends - April 19

In about a month, I'll restart my weekly Trailing 30 report, which lists league leaders over the prior 30 days. There's no sense in doing it until then, though. If you want to know who's leading the league over the past few weeks, just look up the current standings. Once we get into May, seeing who's hot (and not) of late becomes interesting. At this point, it's just current events. 

Breaking the Brewers Curse?

This chart shows the Pirates' winning percentage against Milwaukee, at home and on the road, over the past 15 years. The pattern is pretty clear.

The Brewers used to absolutely own the Pirates, particularly at Miller Park. From 2006 to 2011, the Pirates went 6-48 in Milwaukee--a .111 winning percentage. After Pittsburgh's three-game sweep at home over the weekend, they're 3-0 at home, 2-1 on the road against a Milwaukee team that, to put it nicely, didn't look particularly sharp.

Ryan Braun--Star or No?

As I pointed out last Thursday, Brewers right fielder Ryan Braun had no extra-base hits entering the series against the Pirates. He exits the series the same: eleven games played, 38 at bats, nine hits, all singles. That's not much of a start for a player considered to be the team's biggest star and, at $13 million, its highest-paid player. This is Braun's ninth year in the majors, and this is only the second time he's gone over ten games straight in a season without an extra-base hit. That's not good. However, the one other time it occurred was in 2011, when Braun had a 12-game, 7-for-44 (.159) streak to start May. That was also the year he was the National League's Most Valuable Player, so it's not like he can't overcome his slow start. On the other hand, he wasn't 31, coming off two disappointing seasons, back in 2011.

This raises a question as to whether Braun is, in fact, the Brewers' biggest star. I'd make a case for center fielder Carlos Gomez or catcher Jonathan Lucroy. Gomez is on the disabled list with a strained hamstring, and Lucroy's started the year batting .132, which, combined with Braun's light hitting, helps explain Milwaukee's 2-10 start, the worst record in the majors.

But apparently the Pirates still view Braun as the team's star. In Saturday night's game, Brewers reliever Tyler Thornburg hit Pirates center fielder Andrew McCutchen with a high and inside pitch in the bottom of the seventh. I cannot fathom any reason for Thornburg to have hit McCutchen intentionally. The Brewers were losing, 6-1 at the time. There were two outs, nobody on. One of the stupid reasons that pitchers throw at batters is the prior batter hitting a home run. That wasn't the case; right fielder Gregory Polanco preceded McCutchen by grounding to second. Another stupid reason pitchers throw at batters is if the batter's having a big night; McCutchen had walked in the first, fouled out in the third, and walked in the fifth. So, as I said, Thornburg didn't have any justification for hitting McCutchen. Here's a plot of his pitches from Saturday night.

The pitch that hit McCutchen is the green square up and to the left, with the number 1 next to it. That's not the most inside pitch Thornburg threw. The second pitch he threw to leadoff batter Josh Harrison, the green square farthest to the left, with the number 2 next to it, was more inside. He didn't hit Harrison. Was he trying to hit McCutchen? I doubt it.

The point is, McCutchen is, unquestionably, the Pirates' biggest star. The code of baseball says that if you hit my star, I'm going to hit yours. McCutchen was hit in the bottom of the seventh inning. The Brewers went down 1-2-3 in the top of the eighth, with lesser lights (15 total plate appearances among them this season entering the inning) Martin Maldonado, Jason Rogers, and Luis Jimenez retired without incident. In the top of the ninth, Braun led up, and Pirates reliever Arquimedes Caminero promptly nailed him with a 98.6 mph fastball. Pirates fans cheered, the umpires warned both benches, and, a single and a run scored later, the Pirates had a 6-2 victory.

I'm sorry, but I really find Caminero's action objectionable, for two reasons. First, this eye-for-an-eye macho stuff serves no purpose I can see. Yes, I get it, McCutchen shouldn't have gotten hit. And if there were any reason to believe that Thornburg had done it on purpose, I could see the logic behind retaliation. But that really doesn't seem to be the case--Thornburg just threw too far inside, and McCutchen was unable to get away from the pitch, unlike Harrison, who was able to avoid an even closer pitch. Why is it necessary to retaliate for an accident?

Second, if you're going to retaliate, why do you need to do it with a 99 mph fastball? I don't refer to a hit batter as "getting plunked," because plunked conjures up an image of something soft and gentle, like getting hit by a pine cone falling from a tree. A baseball's hard to begin with, and throwing one nearly 100 miles per hour at somebody would be called assault, not plunk, away from a baseball diamond. 

You know what this whole thing reminded me of? Last summer, when Diamondbacks reliever Randall Delgado threw a 96 mph into McCutchen's back, ostensibly in retaliation for Arizona's star first baseman Paul Goldschmidt getting hit by a pitch the prior day. McCutchen was hurt, missing several games, and a number of commentators called for Delgado to be suspended. What's the difference here, except that Braun didn't suffer an injury? Same casus belli, same action by the pitcher, same type of pitch thrown. I could do without all of it.

I suppose, though, that Braun can take solace in, apparently, still being the Brewers' big star despite his .237 slugging percentage.