Jeremy Hellickson: Strikeouts Cometh

I was up until 2:30 this morning working on this little piece on Hellickson. I'm happy to report Hellickson's prospects appear good.

8 months ago BWoodrum 9 comments 0 recs |

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I was afraid you were only going to make my head hurt.

However, this is one of the best statistical pieces I have read in quite a while. Excellent job.

by mr. maniac on Oct 4, 2011 1:13 PM EDT reply actions

Thanks maniac!

I try to keep my stuff user friendly, so that means a lot to me.

A DRaysBay and FanGraphs writer from Cubs Stats and Twitter @BradleyWoodrum

by BWoodrum on Oct 4, 2011 1:23 PM EDT up reply actions

GhettoBear asked the question on FanGraphs; I'll ask it here:

I absolutely see where your optimism about Hellickson’s future K-rate comes from. I’m not sure, though why/how much you should expect the improvement to kick in, in one start against the team that struck out at the lowest rate of any MLB team during the regular season…?

Dark Luck Dragon of the Sith

by Darth Snark on Oct 4, 2011 1:14 PM EDT reply actions

Oh, haha, I never said it will come against the Rangers necessarily.

But I do think it means in general his strikeouts should improve.

Of course, at his season rate of strikeouts, we’d expect 0 to 1 today. At his true talent level, maybe he gets 3 or 4. As we saw from Price, 3 can (not will) be enough to keep the Rangers offense manageable.

A DRaysBay and FanGraphs writer from Cubs Stats and Twitter @BradleyWoodrum

by BWoodrum on Oct 4, 2011 1:26 PM EDT up reply actions

Ahhh.

When I read,

So, crazy BABIP or not, the Rays still have a genuine commodity in the unflappable young rookie — as well as a match-up more even than it appears for this afternoon

I took it as an indication that Hellickson could be expected to post his true-talent outcome against the Rangers. The parallel with Price is interesting. Price struck out 23.8 percent of batters he faced in 2011, which doesn’t come as a huge surprise given his career trajectory (though it’s interesting to compare his swinging strike percentages). He struck out only 3 of 27 during what was (as you point out) a pretty damn effective outing yesterday.

If the Rangers offense effectively halves opposing pitchers’ K-rates in that way, then with a true-talent level of 20 percent, and facing 25 batters, Hellickson should be expected to strike out 2-3 batters, but I’m not sure if/how that represents an evening-out of the match-up. Not a big deal: I was just curious how you saw it.

Dark Luck Dragon of the Sith

by Darth Snark on Oct 4, 2011 1:50 PM EDT up reply actions

Or, putting it another way:

If Hellickson mimics Price’s performance yesterday, his BABIP would be far less crazy, but his LOB% wouldn’t — right?

Dark Luck Dragon of the Sith

by Darth Snark on Oct 4, 2011 1:59 PM EDT up reply actions

/jinx

@dobbertweets
#FreeSandy

by blackraven on Oct 4, 2011 1:24 PM EDT reply actions

Leapfrogging off of Matthan's work looking at expected K% I had him at 17.8%, not too shabby for a rookie

That would be about 138 on the year which would put his FIP around 4.16 or pretty dang good for a guy in his first real season. The best part of your piece was the zone contact nearly 5 percentage points lower than league average despite having an elevated number of zone swings. Having swing and miss stuff within the zone is what separates him from other guys that have to get by on great control. I’m really high on Helly and hope next year we can see him shine through with better peripherals even if the ERA is less shiny.

and there goes our season

OTM's biggest Clutch Carl fan.
by gizmosandy on Sep 11, 2011 3:59 PM EDT reply actions

by Sandy Kazmir on Oct 4, 2011 2:01 PM EDT reply actions