Pirates Defense - BiP

Voros McCracken must have had a future vision of the 2006 Pirates when he wrote his essay on Defense Independent Pitching Statistics - DIPS for short. His conclusion - that "pitchers don’t appear to have the ability to prevent hits on balls in play" - certainly pans out for Bucco starters this year. Let me show you why.

I took the top 200 starter's in MLB by the number of games started and obtained the median DIPS ERA for them. I then compared each of our five starters to the median and here is what I found:

Four of the five starter's have a DIPS ERA lower than the median. Ok.. so what does that mean?

It means that when you remove the defense and the park factor out of the picture, four of our starting pitcher's have lower DIPS ERA's than the MLB median for those pitchers who have started the most games. That's pretty impressive for three rookies and a Rule 5 player. And when you throw in the fact that two of those four starters are lefties who traditionally have a higher batting average on balls in play anyway, that is even more impressive.

So why is it the Pirates have allowed the 12th highest amount of runs to score against them this year if 4 of the 5 are pitching better than the median? The clear answer to that is that in the opposing team's on base average of .370 against them - second worst in MLB. Ok.. I hear you saying that our starters must have one of the highest left on base (LOB) averages if we are pitching good, albeit a ton of guys are getting on base, but our runs allowed are kind of high but not off the shelf.

Nope.. 12th best and just .007% above the National League average. Confused?

Don't be. Despite having lower a DIPS ERA than the median, look at the amount of earned runs above the MLB median each starter has allowed so far.

Those are high numbers for starter's with such good DIPS ERA's. So what's happening?

Too many line drive balls in play. McCracken determined later in his work that each line drive to the outfield fell for a hit 81% of the time vs. groundballs that go for hits just 23% of the time, and fly balls to the outfield just 27% of the time. That's quite a difference.

Now look at how our starter's are doing with their line drive rate on balls in play. Pretty high. In fact, extremely high except for Zach Duke. Now you know why Zach has the lowest ERA of the five starter's despite not having the best DIPS ERA. BTW, that 17% LD rate is very, very good and one reason Zach will remain a high quality starter if he can maintain that rate.

Every starter on the staff has a higher batting average on balls in play than the MLB median except Zach. Just looking at the line drive rates pretty much tells us why. But, are the other starters doing anything different?

Considering Oliver Perez's groundball to flyball ratio is almost the same as Duke's and Maholm's is much better, there has to be a reason why the other starter's are seeing so many line drives that Zach isn't seeing. And, you're right.. there is.

The reason is defense.

If you have watched any of the games lately, I don't have to tell you how many times one of our outfielder's have run a poor route, allowed a fly to land at their feet, or other miscues have occured like simply dropping the ball. Plus, how many times have you seen a right hand batter take Maholm the opposite way for a single between Castillo and the 2B bag.. or a Snell shot between Freddy and Jack? A ton.. you're right.

Looking at the chart above you can easily see that our left hand pitcher's are allowing more hits than the MLB median (which is zero on the chart) and what type of hits they are (the number on the left represents +/- of the MLB median).

Are you surprised Oliver Perez is allowing so little? Don't be.. he is actually pitching very well *when* he finds the bat. But as a power pitcher, he gives up more home runs than the other four command and control pitcher's do.

One part of McCracken's theory plays out well here.. our left hand pitchers are allowing more hits on balls in play than right hand pitchers overall. But where are those hits going and could they be prevented? Line drives are hard to catch.. unless you play the outfield for line drive hitting.

If you have been reading my blog you noticed about a week ago I mentioned I was tickled to death manager Jim Tracy was bringing in the outfield from no doubles depth more often. He has too.. that is the only way to shut down the line drive hits.. and he knows it.

Now who isn't able to make the plays? Let's look:

These two charts plot our position players range factors (RF) vs. the MLB median for each position based (I used MLB qualified players for each position). While RF isn't a perfect science, it does give us a pretty good clue as to who isn't able to make plays in their zones and, as you can see, every single position player is below the MLB median for their position. Only Jack is close and, while Freddy is a bit short at 3B on the chart, he doesn't have as many games played there and RF tends to penalize a player with fewer games played. But even Freddy is below average with the adjustment for games played. (players: Casey 1B, Castillo 2B, Wilson SS, Sanchez 3B, Bay LF, McLouth CF, Burnitz RF).

Well no wonder our pitcher's have such high earned run averages considering their lower DIPS ERA. Sheeze.. we don't have but one player on the field who has an average ability to get to balls in play and convert them to outs. And the player's on the right side of the diamond are absolutely killing us.

Now you understand why Tracy is using more elaborate shifts with Jack closer to the bag with left hand pitcher's on the mound (except Perez) and a right hand batter at the plate.. he's trying to cut down the amount of balls in play going for hits on the right side - and more specifically, take away some of the liners. Maybe Jose should be playing deeper too? Just a thought.

The other obvious, not so obvious, missing link here is advance scouting, of course. Clearly Tracy has an advance scouting problem with so many balls floating out of the reach of his position players. True, part of it is not positioning the players properly.. part of it is that, other than Duke, our battery is not pitching to the defense.. and part of it is that our player's simply aren't capable of creating outs from balls in play their way as often as the league average position player is. But the lack of advance scouting history on batter's faced the last 3 years is clearly showing up.

Conclusion -- Tracy and Colborn need to get Ronny Paulino and his starter's a better game plan on pitching to batters where fewer balls in play are hit for line drives. Tracy also needs to shore up the defense on the right side from CF over. One way to do that is with better advance scouting. Another way is to continue deploying elborate - and risky - defensive shifts.

If Tracy can get the staff to cut down line drives hit to the median of 20%, and continue trying to figure out defensive plots behind the pitchers to halt the barrage of balls in play to the right side going for hits, this team will start winning a ton of games. But not until then.

Side note -- Roberto Hernandez is leading the team in every category there is for relievers by a wide margin. I would not be surprised to see Littlefield move him for a good return at the deadline but I am sure going to miss his filthy stuff.