The Michel Hernandez Effect on James Shields
by R.J. Anderson on Jul 28, 2009 12:30 PM EDT
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PrintI'm not a big believer that Michel Hernandez changes games with his pitch calling and framing. Still, I decided to take a look after pulling James Shields pitchfx data and noticing that Hernandez had about an equal number of starts as Navarro. I decided to derive run values from Shields starts with each catcher, these are the set of values I used:
Walk: 0.32
Single: 0.48
Double: 0.78
Triple: 1.06
Home run: 1.4
Out: -0.28
If this looks familiar, it's because these numbers go into wOBA and other linear weight statistics. For a pitcher, you want this number to be negative, for a hitter, positive. Imagine my surprise when the numbers showed that Navarro's games resulted in a run value of 5.26, while Hernandez' resulted in a run value of -2.94. That's nearly a full win swing in the matter of four fewer games.
So what in the world is going on? Well, I don't know.
The splits involving pitch usage, strikes, and so on. break down like this:
| Catcher | Pitches | FA% | CH% | SL% | CV% | Strk% | SwStr% |
| Hernandez | 878 | 47.72 | 21.98 | 15.38 | 14.92 | 43.17 | 10.59 |
| Navarro | 1290 | 48.99 | 21.47 | 12.79 | 16.2 | 43.49 | 8.29 |
No difference. Hernandez' duties have seen more whiffs, but the strike% is nearly the same still. There has to be something in the pitchfx graphs that would suggest why the results are different, yet the usage and strikes are the same, right? Not really:
Maybe you can argue that the locations are a bit more spread out in Hernandez' graph, but there's not a ton of difference between the two. Could Hernandez mix pitch selection up better while still using the same percentages? Sure, I'm not sure how to check that in a timely manner, but it's totally possible. It's also possible that this is nothing but luck and random variation. In fact, I'd call it likely.
*Strike% does not include foul%, which is why the number looks low.
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Depends if this is the same for all pitchers...
Sign lady must die.
by EminenceFront on Jul 28, 2009 12:34 PM EDT up reply actions
I'm not sure the run values really mean anything at this point.
Shields was excellent with Navarro last season.
by R.J. Anderson on Jul 28, 2009 12:36 PM EDT up reply actions
Navarro was good last season
Things change apparently
it seems pretty obvious to me what is going on
hitters are promising Navi a dozen donuts after the game if he tells them what pitch is coming.
Why does it seem like a lot more strikes get called balls then balls get called strikes
Kap-rilla???
lack of robots.
but seriously the low-strike has disappeared (except to A-Rod last night) seemingly from baseball.
Its time to raise the lower line of the box
After looking at the body of Price and Shield’s work, at least the ower tenth of the box is nto deemed a strike.
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by FreeZorilla on Jul 28, 2009 12:45 PM EDT up reply actions
ahh Hammel syndrome could explain it.
I’d be interested in seeing this too. If Navi has caught ALE games and Michel mainly outside the division it could explain a lot.
Michel:
BOS
BOS
CLE
OAK
KCR
NYM
TOR
OAK
NYY
by R.J. Anderson on Jul 28, 2009 12:41 PM EDT up reply actions
4 of 9 vs ALE
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by FreeZorilla on Jul 28, 2009 12:43 PM EDT up reply actions
Navi:
BOS
BAL
CHW
SEA
MIN
CLE
FLA
MIN
LAA
WSN
FLA
TOR
KCR
CHW
by R.J. Anderson on Jul 28, 2009 12:42 PM EDT up reply actions
3 of 14 vs ALE, there goes that angle
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by FreeZorilla on Jul 28, 2009 12:43 PM EDT up reply actions
yeah - really agree
First thing I though when looking at the numbers was also: well, who were they playing?
Shawn Riggans has been hitting well in rehab
Michel Hernandez is going to be out of a job soon anyway right.
I could be misreading the graph, but does Navi have more called balls that were within the strike zone?
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by ReasonableDoubt on Jul 28, 2009 12:42 PM EDT reply actions
no you are reading it right
he has a lot of “strikes” that are called balls. I think MLB is going to have to look into changing the zone or explaining to their umpires what a strike is. Consistency is good, but a strike is a strike and there is no reason that there should be that many missed calls.
So there could be an argument that Navi is framing pitches poorly.
Any way to tell how many of those were “passed balls”?
Into the Wall : Sarcasm for the Soccer Guy
by ReasonableDoubt on Jul 28, 2009 12:46 PM EDT up reply actions
The bottom right of Navi's graph certainly has a lot of dots
Into the Wall : Sarcasm for the Soccer Guy
by ReasonableDoubt on Jul 28, 2009 12:48 PM EDT up reply actions
Part of the problem may be Navi doesn't know the low strike disappeared?
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by FreeZorilla on Jul 28, 2009 12:50 PM EDT up reply actions
I'm guessing that has more to do with being down than being wide given the rest of the zone
This also can’t entirely be put on catchers framing pitches. We don’t exactly have a “Maddux” on the team that gets and extended zone and as a team we don’t have the best command thus shrinking the zone. Basically umpires not giving the benefit of the doubt to a guy like Price or Kaz who throw a lot of balls. While this shouldn’t be the case umpires are human.
Navi's missing the high strike
That should be impossible given the fact low strikes don’t exist
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by FreeZorilla on Jul 28, 2009 12:49 PM EDT up reply actions
I doubt this is any different than how it's been for decades.
It’s probably much better.
We just now have the technology to point out and examine the errors.
It looks like he does,
but he also has a lot more called balls overall.
Is there any way we can get a percentage of called balls that were in the strike zone?
Navarro:
74 balls within the normalized zone (-1 to 1 x, 3.5 to 1.5 y).
by R.J. Anderson on Jul 28, 2009 12:57 PM EDT up reply actions
That's ludicrous
17% balls were in the normalized stike zone
I could be wrong though
by staplemaniac on Jul 28, 2009 1:08 PM EDT up reply actions
Michel:
310 balls and 52 within the zone.
by R.J. Anderson on Jul 28, 2009 1:03 PM EDT up reply actions
So:
16.7% for Michel
16.9% for Navarro
by R.J. Anderson on Jul 28, 2009 1:04 PM EDT up reply actions
Michel has 520 pitches within the zone
So 10%.
by R.J. Anderson on Jul 28, 2009 1:07 PM EDT up reply actions
Navarro has 775 pitches within the zone
So 9.5%
by R.J. Anderson on Jul 28, 2009 1:08 PM EDT up reply actions
What about called strikes outside zone as % of pitches outside zone
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I got zero called that were horizontally and vertically out of the zone.
And none were too far out of the zone, the only one called that was well out of the zone was the Figgins pitch.
by R.J. Anderson on Jul 28, 2009 1:17 PM EDT up reply actions
Well it just means the issue isn't a matter of umpires calling balls strikes, but rather calling strikes balls
I’d love to see this on our hitters to see if it holds true.
I don't have an easy way to pull the hitters data this quickly, or else I would try.
by R.J. Anderson on Jul 28, 2009 1:22 PM EDT up reply actions
It would be interesting to see some of our rivals vs the Rays
All the pitchers we’ve seen 3 times such as Halladay and Burnett
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I think we're getting closer to reaching the conclusion that a catcher's defense isn't all that important.
Outside of the obvious caught stealing percentage and amount of passed balls I’m not seeing any good way to quantify it.
I’m not saying this is definitive proof that a catcher who frames pitches better is an aberration, but I haven’t seen any definitive proof to the contrary.
Unless I’m completely missing something. I’m genuinely curious as to what people are going off of when they say “catcher X is poor defensively.”
It's the Nichols Law of Catcher Defense.
Catcher hitting and defense have an inverse relationship that plays to the public’s perception.
by R.J. Anderson on Jul 28, 2009 12:49 PM EDT up reply actions
off the top of their head does anyone remember how Riggans was last year
He seemed to catch most of Garza’s gems
because Garza and Navi hate each other
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by ReasonableDoubt on Jul 28, 2009 1:00 PM EDT up reply actions
Really?
I thought they got into a hugging match last year in the dugout.
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It seemed like Garza was trying to push Navi back into the clubhouse
for a little between inning action, but then the guys in the dugout broke it up.
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Navi's called strikes seem evenly distributed where Michel has a donut hole in the middle
Could be a sign of Navi falling behind in the count?
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Is there a differentiation between Navarro & Hernandez
In pitches and their location/being called strikes? Like his Change-Up maybe more more low & away with one than the other.
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