Reds Win Again

I didn't get to follow tonight's Reds vs. Pirates game.  (I was out a bit late with my son's tee ball game, and I didn't have the luxury of following the game on my iPod Touch while getting the kids to bed since my daughter threw it in her grandmothers drink today.  Hopefully it will be all dried out and ready to go tomorrow.)  I see that Bronson Arroyo threw a beauty, and the Reds won 4-0 behind home runs by Miguel Cairo and Chris Heisey. 

As should be obvious by now, I like to pay attention to how many pitches Reds starters are throwing.  Arroyo threw 113, which is still a bit higher than I'd like to see.  I can kind of understand at this particular time though.  Tonight was game 13 of 20 in a row without an off day for the Reds.  During this most recent trip through the rotation, both Cueto and Bailey had to make early exits because of injuries, leaving the bullpen to pick up some extra innings.  When the Reds put Bailey on the DL, they quickly called up Enerio Del Rosario to help alleviate some of the bullpen workload.  The bullpen workload was enough of a concern that Harang was probably left in an inning longer than he should have been on Monday night.  Mike Leake was excellent last night and worked into the eighth, so that helped.  But with Arthur Rhodes ailing, Dusty probably still needs to rely more heavily on his starters at this point in time.

For what it's worth, at the same time I've been urging not to overwork the starting staff, redreporter has been looking at how the Reds' best relievers may be being overworked as well.  What's left?!  Well, there's actually an answer to that.  The Reds probably need to be using their lesser relievers a bit more.  The commenters correctly cited the fact that the Reds have been in a large number of one-run games and need bigger leads in order to get the lesser relievers opportunities that suit their skills (or lack thereof, I guess).  I'd argue that the way to do this is to avoid waiting until your starting pitcher starts to struggle to take him out of the game. 

Take Harang on Monday night as an example.  After six innings, he'd thrown 101 pitches and the Reds were comfortably in front 7-2.  Harang was even due to lead off!  It made perfect sense to tell him to hit the showers and let someone else get some work in.  Instead, Dusty sent him out to start the seventh.  According to the fangraphs game log, the LI (leverage index) was 0.33 when Harang went out to start the seventh.  I don't know much about LI, but I get that you want your best pitchers pitching when the LI is high (greater than 1) and your lesser pitchers pitching when it is low (less than 1).  Clearly this was a time when one of the lesser guys could have tried to get an inning of work in (and the Reds could have used a pinch hitter the inning before to boot).  Instead, Harang started the inning out, tired, and gave way to Del Rosario who entered the game to a 7-4 game with a runner on second and just one out.  The LI was 1.23 when Del Rosario took the mound.  Wouldn't it have made a lot more sense to let Del Rosario try to avoid getting into trouble in the first place, instead of asking him to try to clean up the mess after Harang ran out of gas?  I certainly think so.

Dusty Baker and Pitch Counts

(This post was also posted on the fangraphs community research blog.)

Over the first week of my new blog, I've made a number of posts about Dusty Baker's handling of Reds pitchers.  I suggested that I thought Baker has done a better job of managing the workload of his starting pitchers this year.  In that same post, I noted how Reds pitchers exceeded 110 pitches only five times at that point this season, and that after each such occurrence the starter was given an extra day of rest before his next start.  The next day, he left Johnny Cueto in to throw 113 pitches in the fourth game of a twenty-day stretch with no off days.  I then speculated that having Cueto throw so many pitches might cost the Reds before the stretch was over.  Cueto had to leave his next start early with a blister.  Then, of course, there is Homer Bailey.  Yesterday, Bailey left his start early, and I pointed out that Baker has not been as careful in his handling of Bailey -particularly last year - as he has been with the other two youngsters in the rotation: Johnny Cueto and Mike Leake.  Today, Bailey went on the DL with shoulder soreness.  So, is Dusty managing the starters' pitch counts better or not?

To help understand, I put together this chart (with data pulled from fangraphs).

The chart shows the percentage of team games in which the starter pitcher threw at least the number of pitches on the x-axis.  So, in 2009, Reds starters threw 80 or more pitches nearly 91% of the time. In 2010, the fewest pitcher a Reds starter had thrown in a game was 81 pitches.  (I pulled this data the day before Homer Bailey's injury forced him out early.)  This chart makes clear that the 2010 Reds are not having as many low pitch count outings as the 2009 team.  Low pitch count outings are driven by the injury bug and by ineffectiveness.  The 2010 Reds have been generally healthy, Bailey's injury notwithstanding.  Plus, the 2010 Reds are in contention and have been pitching relatively well of late, so it stands to reason that they've had relatively few ineffective outings.  It also doesn't hurt that it is still early in the season before arms wear down.

While the factors mentioned above explain the low pitch count disparity between the 2009 and 2010 Reds, the manager makes a move in those cases out of necessity.  What is more interesting are the high pitch count games, where the manager determines the pitcher has done his day's work.  Reds starters are being called on to throw between 103 and 113 pitches slightly less frequently than in 2009, but they are also throwing 118 pitches or more with greater regularity (albeit with a very small sample size).  So, is Dusty abusing his rotation?  It depends on where you draw the threshold for what constitutes overuse.

For comparison, let's see how other teams are handling their starting rotation.  First, here are curves for each MLB team in 2009.

A few features jump out here.  First, Astros starters (blue x) managed to get beyond 80 pitches only 77% of the time.  That was less than any other team.  Second, Nationals pitchers (pink triangles to the left) reached the magical 100 pitch mark only 24% of the time, while the Diamondbacks (royal blue to the right) reached it a league-high 59% of the time.  Finally, and most interesting of all, is that Tigers starters (maroon diamonds at the bottom right) were called on to throw more than 110 pitches with significantly greater frequency than any other team.  Maybe Rick Porcello isn't striking anyone out because his arm is about to fall off.  :-)

So, is 2010 any different?

Boy, is it!  Pirates starters (green diamonds) have made it to 90 pitches just 53% of the time.  I had to look it up to make sure there wasn't an error in my script.  It is, in fact, correct.  Other than Zack Duke and Paul Maholm, no one has been able to get to remotely deep into games with any consistency at all.  Also of note is that pitchers are generally having fewer low pitch count games in 2010 than in 2009.  This can be seen because the top half of the curve is generally to the right of the top half of the 2010 curve.  I assume this difference is because of the fatigue that shows up as a season wears on.  This trend even hold true in the high pitch count games, although it isn't as clear from this chart.  In 2009, just four teams had starters throw more than 115 pitches in 10% of their games.  They were the Tigers (17%), Giants (12%), Royals (12%), and Reds (12%).  In 2010, there are 13 teams whose starters have thrown 115 or more pitches 10% of the time.  That group is led by the Rockies (19%), and includes the Giants (17%), Angels (16%), Astros (14%), Tigers (14%), Phillies (14%), Rangers (14%), Red Sox (14%), Brewers (12%), Dodgers (12%), Reds (12%), Cubs (11%), and Diamondbacks (11%).

By this measure, Dusty Baker is still working his starting rotation pretty hard but not any more than he did last year.  Maintaining the status quo is still better than much of the rest of the league at this point in the season though, so maybe we should cut him some slack and see how the season plays out.

Bailey Not Being Handled with Care

I posted last night and praised Dusty Baker for taking Johnny Cueto out of the game after 6 strong innings and just 93 pitches.  Not having access to anything more than game stats, I wasn't aware that Cueto was removed because of a blister.  I guess it may be too early to say that Dusty is handling him with care.

The criticism of Dusty in the past has been about his handling of young starting pitchers.  In Mike Leake, Cueto, and Homer Bailey, the Reds have three such pitchers in their rotation right now.  Baker has actually done a fairly good job limiting the workload of both Leake and Cueto, but Bailey has been something of a different story.  Other than one 118 pitch outing earlier this season, neither Cueto nor Leake has been asked to throw more than 113 pitches in a game in their short careers.  Bailey already has two games this year where he's exceeded 113, and that's in addition to the six he had last year.  Why isn't Dusty showing the same restraint with Bailey as he has with Cueto and Leake?  A quote from Mark Sheldon's blog gives some insight into Dusty's thinking about Bailey:

"That's why I left him in certain games, certain situations to help him get to this point of maturity to know the importance of this game, how to handle it and pitch accordingly," Baker said. "It's kind of felt like the making of an ace. That's what I told him. It's a big game for us and him. It's not do or die but it sure can take us a long ways and take his confidence over the top."

Dusty apparently feels like an "ace" needs to be able to work deep into games - even if that means throwing a lot of pitches.  Bailey may suffer for that mentality.  In fact, Bailey was removed from today's game a little while ago.  I don't know what the nature of the injury was, but it certainly didn't look like he was pulled for poor performance.  Hopefully this is a minor thing, but I wouldn't be surprised if this turns out to be serious.

Thoughts While Watching the Mets and Yankees

It's not often that I get to see much baseball anymore since I don't have cable, so tonight I was treated to the FOX game of the week: Yankees - Mets. Mike Pelphrey pitched very well, and the Mets survived despite the Yankees eighth inning threat.

Joe Buck and Tim McCarver announced the game. I'm not a fan of either of them; they're both too full of themselves for my taste. McCarver did talk about something that caught my attention though.  He spent some time talking about a recent SI story in which Nolan Ryan shared his view that pitchers today ought to be able to throw as many pitches in a start as pitchers in Ryan's day did. I didn't see the article, but I assume Ryan's reasoning is that pitchers are generally in better shape than they used be. McCarver seemed to suggest he agreed with Ryan, although if he came right out and said so, I missed it.

I don't know if pitchers today are able to throw as many pitches as they were allowed to throw back then, but I do strongly believe that they shouldn't throw that many pitches, for two reasons. First, the game has changed dramatically. Batters work the count much better than they used to, rarely giving an at bat away. This means pitchers have to be very precise with their pitches. They can't just throw it close and wait for the batter to hit their pitch. When a batter works his way into a good count, he's got the leverage in the at bat, forcing the pitcher to throw something meaty. When the pitcher has to throw a hitter's pitch, the stress on the pitcher is greater.  Since the batters are better at getting into these counts now, I believe that pitchers are not able to throw as many pitches on a consistent basis as pitchers in Ryan's day did.

Even if pitchers are able to throw that many pitches, I don't think they should do so. My second reason is that more than ever before, baseball players are viewed as a very expensive investment for a team. Pitchers are asked to push the limits of what the human body can do. There has been a lot of work done to show that overworking pitchers leads to injury, with the Reds' own Dusty Baker being the poster child for his handling of Mark Prior and Kerry Wood in their Cubs days together. The fact is, pushing a fatigued body to attempt to perform on a regular basis for the marginal benefit that could be gained with a few extra pitches at the end of a long start just doesn't outweigh the long-term business risk posed by such a maneuver.

As I typed entry, the Reds won and regained first place from the Cardinals. Johnny Cueto was coming off two excellent outings, but threw 113 pitches in his last game. In an earlier post this week, I noted that Baker had given his pitchers an extra day off when throwing more than 110 pitches. I speculated that he wouldn't do that with Cueto this time around, and I said it would cost the team before this stretch of games was over. Dusty didn't give Cueto the extra day; however, he did the next best thing.  Despite Cueto pitching another excellent game and the game being in an AL park (where there is no temptation to wait till the pitcher's spot in the lineup to hit for the pitcher), Dusty pulled Cueto after just 6 innings and 93 pitches. A few years ago (maybe even last year), Dusty doesn't make that move. The fact that he did gives us Reds fans hope that we may be able to manage our considerable talent well enough to give St. Louis a run for their money. Hopefully he keeps it up.

Another Solid Outing for Leake - and for Baker

Mike Leake gave the Reds six solid innings tonight, beating Cardinals stalwart Adam Wainwright in the process.  Leake gave up a Colby Rasmus home run and walked three while striking out five.  For the game, Leake threw 97 pitches - 60 for strikes - continuing an encouraging trend for Leake and the Reds.

It has been my belief for some time that the Reds have turned a corner and are starting to become a fairly well run organization.  They've got a lot of young talent in the minors, and they seem to be making smarter investments in the team.  In my mind, the big thing holding them back now was Dusty Baker.  As the season has progressed though, I'm finding myself wondering if Dusty's learned a few things himself.

I've have two main complaints about Baker over the years.

• He has been known to favor veterans over younger talent.
• He has a history of abusing his starting pitching.

Dusty has shown some promise on both fronts this year.

I really thought there was no way that Leake,  Wood, or Chapman would win the Spring Training battle for the fifth starter spot, so I was quite surprised when Leake got the nod.  Of course, the more veteran options were terrible, and the Reds really had no choice but to select between the youngsters.  Still, at the end of Spring Training, I was not so believing that anything had changed.  The top young position prospects - Frazier, Heisey, and Francisco in particular - really didn't see much playing time in the spring and weren't sent down until just before the season got underway.  In Francisco's case, he initially made the club - to pinch hit instead of play regularly - but that was just until Leake had to be placed on the active roster on his first day to pitch.

Since then though, Baker has really shown me something in his handling of the Drew Stubbs situation.  Clearly, Stubbs is struggling at the plate.  Between that and the atrocious handling of the Willy Tavares fiasco last year, I fully expected Baker to sour on Stubbs.  To his credit, Baker has stood by Stubbs, and his effort to move Stubbs down in the lineup to help rebuild his confidence appears to be a good move even with no real viable options at the top of the order.  In the six games since the move, Stubbs is 7 for 24 with two homers and 8 RBIs (according to baseball-reference.com).  In addition to Stubbs, Baker has been giving more playing time to Ryan Hanigan as well, which I'm glad to see.  I'd still like to see Heisey get more time, but with Gomes hitting well right now, it's understandable that Heisey's not getting more opportunities.

The other thing I've been pleased to see is that Baker has overworked his starting pitchers nearly as bad as in the past.  I was particularly worried about Leake, given his lack of professional experience.  Baker hasn't allowed him to throw more than 106 pitches in a game yet though.  We'll have to see if Baker will be able to pull Leake when he finally labors through a start.  Baker hasn't been so kind to Homer Bailey so far this year.  Bailey has been allowed to throw more than 110 pitches twice so far this season, going as high as 121 pitches on May 1 against the Cardinals (when he REALLY shouldn't have been allowed to face Pujols in that final at bat).  Still, that doesn't compare to the end of last season when Baker allowed Bailey to throw 112 or more pitches in 7 of his final 9 starts (including 6 in a row).  Bronson Arroyo has not thrown more than 109 pitches in a game this year, but he threw more than that in ten different games last season.  Aaron Harang already has five games this season where he's thrown fewer than 105 pitches after having only 10 such games all last year.  On the other hand, Harang has thrown games of 116 and 121 pitches already this season.   Johnny Cueto did go as high as 118 pitches on May 5, but other than that hasn't topped 110.  (Of course, last year Cueto never topped 112.)  Also encouraging is that after each of the five games where a Reds starter has exceeded 110 pitches (twice each by Bailey and Harang, once by Cueto), that pitcher was given an extra day of rest before his next start.

If Dusty can keep this pitching staff healthy and can take make use of some of the nearly-ready talent in the high minors down the stretch this year, the Reds may just have enough to make a run at the Wild Card (if not the Cardinals).  That's still not likely to happen, but it is a whole lot likelier than I thought it was when the season began.