Neat Manny Parra Article

[logan82]

PitchF/X is where the focus should be, location, velocity differential between pitches, break on the pitch, etc.. If you're a pitcher getting lit up chances are you're leaving the ball up in the zone. it's that simple.

 

Funny you mention that after the article Russ posted earlier today.

 

I find hard to believe that anybody who watches baseball wouldn't believe luck plays a large role in baseball.

[HiAndTight]

PitchF/X is where the focus should be, location, velocity differential between pitches, break on the pitch, etc.. If you're a pitcher getting lit up chances are you're leaving the ball up in the zone. it's that simple.

 

Funny you mention that after the article Russ posted earlier today.

 

I find hard to believe that anybody who watches baseball wouldn't believe luck plays a large role in baseball.

 

I don't believe this is what ''crew07'' is saying, that luck doesn't play a large role in baseball. I think he's trying to say that other things play a larger role and when something can't be explained, you can't just chalk it up to "luck".

 

To expand on that point, does anyone believe that if a pitcher threw nothing but 85 MPH BP fastballs, he's going to have a incredibly high BABIP? I think the answer to that is obvious, and then by extension, you can't simply chalk up any pitcher who carries an inflated BABIP to bad luck.

 

 

Don't get your opinion confused with fact because many people completely disagree with you and they just aren't wrong because you disagree with it.

I must confess this has always been a pet peeve of mine, and something that I run into a lot. For instance when discussing Carlos Villanueva........

[Ennder]

We can argue all we want about BABIP but if a MLB hitter isn't able to hit a belt high fastball right down the middle of the plate they wouldn't be there facing Manny to begin with, every MLB player can hit a grooved fastball, that's not luck, it's an easily defined/observed skill on the hitter's part

 

Yes and if the pitcher grooves these fastballs it means he isn't striking anyone out, gives up more HR, gives up more flyballs and probably only sees a small jump in BABIP. Parra most likely will carry a higher than normal BABIP because his fastball is so bad, that doesn't mean he is going to sustain a .365 either, there is some luck involved in there. If you look at the outliers in the 'luck' based stats every season you most likely are looking at players with bad luck every time. They are probably bad at that skill in the first place but odds are they had bad luck for the season as well.

[thebruce44]

To expand on that point, does anyone believe that if a pitcher threw nothing but 85 MPH BP fastballs, he's going to have a incredibly high BABIP? I think the answer to that is obvious, and then by extension, you can't simply chalk up any pitcher who carries an inflated BABIP to bad luck.

As Ennder said, in a situation like this, that pitcher is likely to always carry a slightly inflated BABIP over the regular norm. If there is a season where it is higher than even the individual player's norm, that is bad luck and likely to regress back to their norm. I expect Parra to carry a higher than normal BABIP around .315-.330 for his career, but .365?! Thats some seriously bad luck.

 

Statistical analysis isn't always as cut and dry as some people want it to be.

[logan82]

I expect Parra to carry a higher than normal BABIP around .315-.330 for his career

 

.330, Really? That seems pretty high. I could easily see him carrying a higher BABIP, but it seems like hitters have a greater skill variance in the 2 major influences on BABIP, foot speed and how hard a ball is hit, than pitchers do. Over the course of the year a pitcher will face what amounts to an average hitter, or there about. If his fastball is not good I can see him getting hit harder, but I wouldn't think that would cause to much of an increase when facing so many different guys.

[TheCrew07]

Sheets had a pretty straight 95 MPH fastball too... Sheets only had 2 pitches, Parra has a much better arsenal to work with even though on average his FB is a tick or two slower.

 

It's not Parra's fastball it's how and when he uses it. I'm sure you all have played baseball yes? As a hitter wasn't much it easier to hit a pitch you expected was coming? Is the notion that Parra is predictable really that far out there?

 

There's nothing behind BABIP to prove "luck", his BABIP is so inflated above the norm that it's nearly impossible for him to be that unlucky. Is there some luck... of course, but this issue goes far beyond regression to the mean.

 

Peterson was talking about Parra's batting average against being well above average in the lower part of the strike zone, in the very low .200s, so how predictable was he pitching that his pitches in the upper parts of the strike zone got hammered hard enough that his BABIP on the whole (I understand its not BAA, but this isn't a giant leap) is the worst in the league? How is it even reasonable to throw out BABIP by itself in such an extreme case and claim it was luck induced when he got hit historically hard in the upper part of the strike zone? There is more analysis that needs to be done rather than simple BABIP regression, luck and/or regression to the mean isn't the "why" in this case and most cases. That's like saying Braun was historically unlucky as a 3B... it just doesn't add up, he just played a crappy 3B. BABIP was basically meant to measure luck, which is why it doesn't include HRs (which of course are a batted ball in play but not in the field of play) and so on... so I admit I've always had a problem with the metric being used as lone measure of a player from the start as it clearly favors power hitters the way regression analysis is done. However as I argued about Escobar all last winter BABIP regression analysis alone isn't going give you a complete picture of any 1 player, and I honestly believe it's an incredibly shallow analysis of any given player.

 

With pitchers personally I'm into raw ralent, trends, peripherals, and then results. Parra is trending the wrong way since coming up, his K/9 has gone down every year, his BB/9 has gone up every year, his K:BB ratio has obviously declined every year, his WHIP has gone up every year, his H/9 have gone up every year, so predictably his ERA, the end result has gotten worse every year. Now I realize that 2007 was a small sample, but 2008 and 2009 definitely were not... and last year in his short stint in AAA his numbers down there were by far the worst MiLB numbers of his minor league career, are we to believe his bad luck followed him to another team in a different league against inferior competition? There is clearly more going on here than just "bad luck".

[RockCoCougars]

Though he's cheap, left-handed and throws hard, I'm not as big of a Parra fan as many on here are. As we found out last year, he's not a #2 starter. In my opinion, he's best suited as a #5 starter at this point...... even better as a piece in a trade, but I'm afraid that ship has sailed. I will say that I'd rather give him another chance than another 34 year old free agent who can hit 89 on the fast gun on a good day.

[thebruce44]

I expect Parra to carry a higher than normal BABIP around .315-.330 for his career

 

.330, Really? That seems pretty high.

Agreed. I suspect him to be more around .315 but he has yet to have a BABIP lower than .330 so its hard to predict anything lower than that for me at this time. Lets see how well he works with Peterson.

[logan82]

Even in the minors he was over .300. After I posted I thought about it and anything over a .320 BABIP and he probably wouldn't be in the majors for long. You don't see to many pitchers in the majors with a BABIP over .320 getting a lot of innings. I was going to guess a .320 BABIP for Parra so saying .330 is high is kind of nitpicking.

 

The other thing in my opinion is that PArra is a lefty. I know people like lefties, but the platoon advantage exists and a lefty has to be a better pitcher as a lefty than a righty does. If you have two guys who are otherwise equal, I would take the righty.

[Ennder]

BABIP is pretty heavily influenced by count and by type of results as well. LD% has a higher BABIP than GB% than FB%. Pitching from behind carries a higher BABIP than pitching from ahead.

 

But again none of this suggests it is plausible he can sustain a level as high as last season. For all the 'it's not luck' arguments you hear, the next season after these big statistical outliers universally regress towards expected trends. The closest I could find to a player that kept it up is Sidney Ponson who managed to keep his over .330 over a 600 IP sample from 2004-2009 though it dipped under .330 a few season. He had the perfect skillset for it, low K, too many BB and a high GB% and LD% putting him almost completely at the whim of his infield defense.

 

You can go through the last 36 years of baseball stats at fangraphs including BABIP and you can sort by highest BABIP over 100 IP and you'll see tons of guys who go over a .330 BABIP, sometimes for 2 or 3 year chunks at a time, the pattern will look more or less random with most pitchers but almost none of them keep it up long term and there is no compelling reason to expect Parra to be somehow unique and keep it up either.

[danzig6767]

and last year in his short stint in AAA his numbers down there were by far the worst MiLB numbers of his minor league career, are we to believe his bad luck followed him to another team in a different league against inferior competition? There is clearly more going on here than just "bad luck".

I'm not a big stat follower mostly out of lack of interest, but i don't think they are saying Manny pitched fine last year, he was just unlucky. They are saying he pitched poorly and was unlucky, both are able to happen in a season. Thus, his numbers were miserable instead of just being bad where they should have been with a little better luck.

[logan82]

Ponson didn't exactly get a lot of innings during those years other than 2004 either.

[mletto157]

That's like saying Braun was historically unlucky as a 3B...

Although in this case there is a huge track record of Braun playing a bad 3B in the minors as well. In Parra's case, his track record shows that of a good pitcher with great stuff in the minors.