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What's the better natural advantage?

Posted by EJ Fagan at 7:40 pm 4 Responses »
Sep 242010

The response to my Cito Culver post earlier this week put an interesting question in my head. Here are the comments:

Richard Deegan: It’s about having people on the ground and getting into all corners, especially “home” (well, at least NY) turf. That’s how the Cards got The Man, while the Pirates dozed.
Legwork!!!

Tripp: I think the Braves are also real good at plucking players out of the Georgia area.

The Yankees certainly seemed to believe that they had a better read on Culver, who was projected as a second roundish pick, than other teams. He is from upstate New York, a cold-weather area without a whole lot of showcases and scouts. Culver’s proximity to Yankee HQ meant that the team could get a lot of good looks at him, while most other teams may only have looked at him once or twice. So, the Yankees were better informed (thanks in part to their large scouting investment) on draft day.

As Tripp points out, this isn’t unique to the Yankees. Lots of teams scout their backyard especially hard, because its cheaper and allows the top brass to get in on the game. Notably, the Braves do a great job of finding talent from Georgia. Look no further than Jason Heyward, whom the Braves drafted ahead of some higher-rated high school hitters in 2007. They also went local (if you count North Florida, southern North Carolina, Mississippi and Tennessee)  in the top rounds of 2005, 2008, 2009 and 2010 drafts. They mostly pick from their home court.

The difference between the Yankees and Braves is that the Yankees’ home court is not a baseball talent hotbed. The warm-weather South is loaded with draft talent, while most of the New York area is not.

So, my question for everyone is: who has the advantage, the Yankees or the Braves? I don’t know the right answer. I’m curious to hear the discussion.

The Braves get to see more players up close and personal. They form better relationships with local college and prep programs. Their top brass regularly gets to go out and see potential draftees up close, instead of relying on cross-checkers to report back.

But, I think the Yankees actually have a better home-field advantage. Every team is going to have a concentrated network of scouts making frequent visits to showcases and top schools in the South. The good players are pretty well known to all, and there are few secrets. Getting a better look at a player might provide them a little bit more information, but their marginal advantage over other teams is significantly less, even if their volume is much greater. Up in New York, on the other hand, there are true diamonds to be found in the rough. There’s a good chance that the Braves didn’t even bother to send a scout to watch Cito Culver play, much less follow up with multiple visits, or send a cross checker out. For a highly-touted Northern player like Rick Porcello they would make the trip, but probably not as much for an under-the-radar high schooler like Cito Culver.

But that’s just a theory. What do you guys think?

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Berkman's Mechanics Against Lefties

Posted by Moshe Mandel at 3:00 pm 4 Responses »
Sep 172010

When the Yankees traded for Lance Berkman, many wondered whether they would give him a chance to hit against left-handed pitching, considering his deterioration in that area over the last few seasons. With a lefty-mashing player in Marcus Thames at his disposal, Joe Girardi has answered that question with an emphatic “no.” It seems pretty clear at this point that Berkman is unlikely to see any important at-bats against lefties in the postseason, as he will platoon with Thames and be pinch hit for if a lefty reliever enters the game. In fact, Joe has shown that if a lefty is on the hill, he would prefer to substitute Thames for Berkman even if it means that the opposing manager will change pitchers and bring in a righty to battle Thames.

Being that Lance had always been adequate against left-handers, some have been searching for a way to explain his inability to hit them over the last few seasons. At the request of friend-of-the-blog Jamal Granger (@JamalGr), I reached out to Steve Carter (@SteveCarterPP), senior scout at Project Prospect, to ask if he could see anything different in Berkman’s swing from the right side. The following is his scouting report:

From the right side, he’s always been pretty much a dead pull hitter. Really opens up with his front side. That I knew. What I didn’t know was how bad it had become. Looked it up on TexasLeaguers.com’s spray charts, and since the beginning of 2009, he has a total of 5 hits to the right of dead center. Five. (One infield hit, but with his legs, ain’t nothin but a fluke.)

He’s never been a great hitter from the right side, but now that he’s older and his bat is slowing, his natural tendency to open up with his front side is hurting him big time. He’s basically early on everything that isn’t a fastball, but can’t generate enough bat speed to catch up to the fastball. Caught in between on everything. And since pitchers are seeing the slow bat, they’re pounding him in with hard stuff and then attacking away with soft stuff. And him being early isn’t really a timing issue. It’s a swing issue that leads to a timing issue. He’s not giving himself a chance to be on time because his own actions aren’t properly executed/timed up.

Swing wise- His first move from the right side has pretty much always been to open up with his front hip/oblique. Good when the pitch is middle-in, not so much when it’s away. He could get away with that when he was younger, not so much anymore. He also never really has been able to work his hands right from the right side. He has a very pronounced ‘hit down on the ball’ move with his hands, which doesn’t really allow him to build up bat speed behind him before committing to the pitch. All of his bat speed is late and out in front, and pretty much all his energy is directed out to left field- by that I mean the energy he builds up by loading doesn’t get built up in time, and what little he has built up doesn’t get expelled into the ball. Last thing about his swing from the RH side, it’s always been rather ‘armish’. A lot (more than there should be) of arm involvement, not enough hips/core/hands. Arms mean slow actions and slop in the swing, neither of which are good. Also, in his case, he extends his arms out away from his body too soon, further slowing him down and putting him in weaker positions to both create bat speed and drive the ball with authority.

As it stands, I’d avoid using him as a RHH if at all possible. Unless you face Cole Hamels, then I’d force him to sit the whole game on Cole’s change up.

Thank you to Steve for contributing, and check out Project Prospect for more of his work.

One thing I wanted to add to bolster this analysis is that Berkman is hitting 9% more line drives when hitting left-handed (18.8 to 9.5%). As Steve noted, his righty swing is not allowing him drive the ball, a major issue that is likely at the core of his poor performance against left-handers. I am uncertain whether this is something that he can fix, as it sounds like age and bat speed are major factors in his decline. Regardless, he is unlikely to get a chance to alter his mechanics and then test the changes during his tenure with the Yankees. When lefties take the hill against the Bombers in September and October, it will be Marcus Thames manning the DH spot.

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Previewing the Double Header with Pitch F/X

Posted by Matt Imbrogno at 11:00 am 1 Response »
May 122010

Later today, the Yankees will square off in a day/night double header.

In game one, Javier Vazquez will oppose Rick Porcello and in game two, Phil Hughes will face Jeremy Bonderman. Let’s examine how the Yanks’ opponents have done so far and see what the Yankees can do to counter Bondo and Porcello.

We’ll start with the guy whose pitches will start the day: Rick Porcello. After a solid rookie season in 2009, Porcello has struggled. He hasn’t allowed fewer than five runs since his second start of the season and has not pitched more than six innings in any of his starts. His ERA is an ugly 7.50, though his FIP is a more respectable 4.41 and his xFIP is at 4.61, so a correction could be coming. His tRA is 3.89 and his tRA+ is 114 so he’s not giving up hard contact. Hopefully, Rick’s recovery doesn’t start tomorrow.

His pitch selection is led by a two seam fastball that he throws 55.5% of the time and averages 89.7 MPH. Next at 21.1% is a four seam fastball that sits at 91.6. He has a slider that goes 81.4 MPH and has gotten swings and misses on 15% of its offerings. However, FanGraphs has that pitch at 4.42 runs below average per 100 pitches. Wrapping it up is a changeup that’s been thrown 11.1% of the time and travels at 80.5 MPH, a good difference from the fastball. Texas Leaguers has also identified a curveball thrown 0.8% of the time. Those pitches are likely mislabeled sliders.

Starting out a plate appearance, Porcello will likely throw some sort of fastball. He’s started batters with a two or four seamer 76.1% of the time. When getting ahead 0-1 or 0-2, Porcello, like most, likes to use his changeup and slider more. When behind 1-0, Porcello stays with the two seamer (63%), but also increases his changeup use (15%). When down 2-0, Porcello has thrown only fastballs.

So, how should the Yankees approach Porcello? As always, they should be patient. Jumping out at pitches won’t help any offense. However, if they get ahead 2-0, they should be looking to swing away. It’s almost a guarantee that Porcello’s throwing a fastball in that count and it’s turned into a strike 70% of the time. When they fall behind, wait some more. Porcello’s not a strikeout guy and with the increased offspeed pitches after strike one, it’s likely that the Yankees could wait the PA out into an even or favorable count.

Jeremy Bonderman has a similar repertoire to Porcello (2/4 seamers, slider, changeup). Bonderman goes to his non-fastball stuff much more (38.1%) than Porcello (23.4%). Most of his first pitches are also fastballs. Unlike Porcello, though, when Bonderman gets ahead 0-1, he uses his fastball more (55%) than in all situations (51%). On 0-2, though, Bonderman’s fastball usage plummets to 44% and his slider usage pumps up to 36%. When behind, Bonderman goes back to the comfort of the old number one.

Bonderman doesn’t throw hard (89.9 MPH average) and his change up is only 5.2 MPH slower than the fastball. This is a good thing for the Yankees. They likely won’t be overpowered and if they can spit on the slider, they can hammer the relatively slow fastball. This is easy for me to say, blogging from my bedroom, but the Yankees are definitely good enough to force Bonderman to throw his fastball. If they can do that, it’ll be a long day for Jeremy.

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Granderson's New Handset

Posted by Moshe Mandel at 1:03 pm 8 Responses »
Apr 082010

Old:

New:

Twitter is an amazing tool for fans and bloggers, in that it provides access to people with expertise that many fans would not have had the ability to speak with in the past. Last night, I was able to learn something about Curtis Granderson’s stance from one such interaction. After Granderson hit his home run, senior scout Steve Carter of Project Prospect stated that he loved Granderson’s new handset. When I asked for clarification, he graciously sent me the following explanation:

Granderson is holding his hands further away from his body, and much more out over the plate. His struggles in the past against LHP was a result of him flying open trying to protect inside, which left the outer half wide open. Now that his arms are out away from his body he can win the race on the inner half and still cover and/or fight off pitches away. This has also helped him be more direct and quicker with his hands, which will help regardless of pitching. So if he wants to hook the ball out over that nice little porch in Right at Yankee Stadium, he won’t have to fly open to do so, he’ll just have to be quick with his hands. Should see him increase in all areas offensively with this new handset. Wouldn’t shock me if he hit .265-.270 with 35 home runs.

It should be interesting to keep an eye on this mechanical change going forward. As I understand it, the new handset should give him more plate coverage while allowing him to retain the ability to pull inside pitches. This should be particularly helpful against left-handers, against whom he was pull happy last season. Greater plate coverage should mean that fewer of those pulled balls will turn into pop-ups, and that he can go the other way with an outside pitch if he so chooses. Hopefully, he can leverage this change into improved performance against left handers while continuing to beat up on righties.

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Yanks to introduce Towers on Tuesday

Posted by Chris H. at 5:00 pm No Responses »
Mar 112010

According to Tom Krasovic of FanHouse (props to RAB), next Tuesday, the Yankees will announce the hiring of former Padres GM, Kevin Towers. Towers will serve as a special scouting assistant to his friend, Brian Cashman, and will begin working in that capacity following his introduction. A good baseball brain, Towers will be a valuable asset to the organization and is an exciting addition to the front office. It will be interesting to see what impact he has this year.

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Could Granderson Learn From Cano?

Posted by Moshe Mandel at 1:00 pm 3 Responses »
Feb 052010

Yesterday, I posited a theory whereby Robinson Cano’s struggles with men on base and his poor 2008 season could be explained by his attempt to pull everything, and attributed his 2009 success with taking pitches middle-away the other way. Soon after I finished writing that post, Jeremy Greenhouse of The Baseball Analysts posted a study that seems to support my assertion about Cano’s 2009. He split the strike zone into various zones, and then computed run values for each hitter in each individual zone. This chart marks the leaders and trailers for pitches middle-away:

Greenhouse then comments about Cano, and notes that this data fits Cano’s MO as someone who excels at hitting the ball the other way. At least some of his 2009 success was directly attributable to his ability to deal with those pitches. Conversely, Curtis Granderson also made the list, but was one of the trailers. Why is this significant? After the Yankees acquired Curtis, I did some reading of various Tigers blogs, and based on the data they collected, reached the following conclusion:

From an amateur scouting point of view (and one that the Tigers fans agree with in the comments), it seems that Granderson has a similar problem to that of 2008 Robbie Cano: he has trouble laying off the pitch on the outer half, and instead of lining them to the opposite field, he is either pulling them to the right side or popping them up to the left. The Tigers Blog writer suggests that this increase in popups is the cause for his low BABIP, meaning that there is more than luck at play. This is an issue that Kevin Long fixed with Cano, and the hope is that he can correct it with Granderson as well.

This assertion is backed up by the batted ball data, which among other things shows an increase in his “pull” rate. As I noted in the excerpt and as Greenhouse’s reasearch confirms, Granderson seemed to have been plagued with an inability to go the other way with pitches middle-away. Hopefully, he can do some work with Kevin Long and make changes in this regard. For inspiration, he does not need to look any further than his own clubhouse and Robinson Cano. Every player is different, and just because Cano was able to remedy his problems does not guarantee that Granderson will be able to do the same. However, it is encouraging to see that there are identifiable explanations for Granderson’s tough season, and that the Yankees and Kevin Long have experience in fixing similar issues.

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Why I Do Not Trust Unnamed Scouts

Posted by Moshe Mandel at 10:11 pm No Responses »
Mar 282009

A classic tool for sportswriters to resort to when looking to fill some column space is to find a major league scout and ask him to just riff on a bunch of players. To be fair, Mark Feinsand did so on his blog, where pretty much any content goes. However, reading the things the scout said reaffirms for me the validity of the general movement away from pure scouting towards statistical analysis. Here are some of the highlights:

On Derek Jeter:

“Jeter is the No.1 guy on the club no matter how you look at it. He makes that team go. He can play for my team any day. He has the damndest inside-out swing I’ve seen in my life. He’s a smooth player. He doesn’t have a lot of time left at shortstop, but he’s what he should be – a captain. He’s the leader of this team and has the greatest makeup of any player ever. He’s the consummate professional. His defense is solid. He can make all the plays, can turn the double play and still has good feet. Is he the best? No. But he’s still good enough. I like everything about Jeter.”

This is the kind of stuff that makes people call Jeter overrated. Is he still a good player? Certainly. But his defense is by no means solid, and all the intangibles in the world do not make him the player that “makes the team go.” And how exactly can you make the call that he has the greatest makeup of any player ever?

On Johnny Damon:

He’s always been a great runner. He’s come a long way in his career and found a way to hit. I don’t know how he does it with all that movement, but he can make contact. He’s a dangerous hitter. He never could throw great, but now he can’t throw at all. He’s still the best center fielder on the team. He can go out and get the ball.”

Where has this guy been for the last 3 seasons? Damon is an awful CF at this point, and he is at most the third best CF on the team. The guy then goes on to contradict himself with the following about Brett Gardner:

He always looks good in the spring and looks like a heck of a player, but the regular season is different. I like Gardner though. He’d be my center fielder if I’m running that team. He has good makeup and great hustle. I like speed and this team definitely needs speed.”

So….Damon is the best CF’er on the team, the Yankees have a logjam in the outfield, and he would go with Gardner? Seems pretty crazy, unless he does not like Nick Swisher:

“Swisher doesn’t fit in this organization. He’s a goofball for one, but more than that, I don’t think he’s that good a fielder anywhere you put him. As a corner outfielder and first baseman, he’s not what I would call a good defender. He doesn’t run that good. He can jump on some pitches and hit them far, but you’re banking on him doing something with the bat if you’re going to play him. The only way he works himself into the lineup is if Damon or Nady don’t perform.”

The scout doesn’t like Swisher because of his defense on the corners. For some reason, I do not think I am going to put much faith in the assessment of a guy who considers Johnny Damon the Yankees best defensive CF’er and Derek Jeter a solid shortstop. The lesson here is to avoid putting much faith in the words of unnamed scouts, as they like to make bold statements that they will never be held accountable for.

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Cashman's hidden legacy

Posted by Chris H. at 4:07 am 2 Responses »
Feb 242009

Pete Abraham (LoHud) has an excellent read out on the pro scouting department that Brian Cashman built and bolstered back in 2005, which was the year Cash reportedly gained autonomy over the organization’s baseball operations. Basically, the department focuses on scouting pro players in order to inform future trades, waiver claims and other various moves. Cashman furthered the pro scouting agenda last year, bringing Bill Livesey back in late October.

To be perfectly honest, it’s sort of stunning to read this piece and realize that the Yankees — the richest team in baseball — didn’t try to have a leg up on the competition, from a scouting standpoint, until 2005. You would think that they would have used their resources wisely and created a comprehensive pro scouting system years ago.

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Interview with Damon Oppenheimer

Posted by Chris H. at 12:25 am No Responses »
Jan 302009

NoMaas recently released their latest interview with VP of Amateur Scouting, Damon Oppenheimer. It’s a must read, so check it out.

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