Capuano: One year wonder?

[trwi7]

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You really need to hang out with Geno and David. They will appreciate this nice bit of sarcasm just as much as I do.

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I agree that had me laughing. Man look at what the Brewers losing and the heat does to us.http://forum.brewerfan.net/images/smilies/wink.gif

[brewerphandog]

There are some great posters here, the vast majority of whom have forgotten more about baseball than I know about baseball, but there are some serious issues with statistical validity going on here.

 

We can use an ERA to ascertain how bad a pitcher is, but only sometimes? The third Thursday of each month? Is there a sale? We can use WHIP to diagnose a pitchers ability, only some times, perhaps during the vernal equinox.

[TheCrew07]

Sample size and all that really doesn't matter when you're saying a pitcher has been terrible lately. What does it matter what his secondary stats are if the team is losing and he's pitching poorly?

 

There's no reason to make excuses for Cappy, would he make excuses for himself? Yost could have pulled him sooner today, but the Brewers still lose regardless. They didn't score another run after the 6th.

 

I'm sure someone would post well if they would have limited the damage the Brewers would have come back. I don't get into these woulda, coulda, shouldas... nor do I care about a small sample, or what metric you use to gauge a pitcher over his last 5 starts.

 

Lets not make excuses for our guys when they don't play or pitch well. Call a spade a spade. I hope Cappy rebounds, but he's been very up and down going to back to the second half of last year's season.

[brewcrew00]

I agree, call a spade a spade. Throw all this stats garbage out the window. The first thing you learn in any stats class is how you can manipulate the data to show anything you want. He's not pitching well this year. He didn't pitch well in the second half of last season. It is what it is. All this team needs is a gut check. Going 2-5 against two pretty horrid teams leaves a sour taste in my mouth no matter what the stats say.

[pitchleague]

I didn't catch the post-game show (if there even was one, since everyone was probably heading out of dodge as soon as possible), but did Yost do the calm and cool thing again? Or did he spew the same garbage as yesterday, "Cappy pitched a great game," and the like?

 

If he did, that's 2 days in a row of that baloney. Is he going to be saying that to the National reporters in October in playoffs when it isn't true? He's going to be flamed in the media so fast for it.

[trwi7]

He walked out of the press conference.

 

They talked about the leadoff walk to Jimenez and he said something like "No offense to Jimenez but you can't walk an .045 hitter. There now you guys got your quote, I'm done with this."

 

Something like that.

[Ennder]

His first 7 games he pitched pretty well other than giving up too many BB's in one game. Then he had 3 bad starts in a row followed by two good games, one bad start and an injury. Judge it how you want but he hasn't been 'bad all year' or anything.

 

Sounds a lot like the argument that Bush is killing us lately even though he's pitched great since the Padres game.

 

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Sample size and all that really doesn't matter when you're saying a pitcher has been terrible lately.

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All depends on how you want to define pitching terribly. A pitcher goes 6 innings, gives up 3 bloop hits and 1 BB which all score, he ends up with 6 IP, 4 ER some would say he pitched terribly, I'd disagree.

 

In Capuano's case he hasn't pitched all that well in the past month or so but I mean you can't fret over 4 or 5 starts by a starter, EVERY pitcher has a bad 4 or 5 game stretch. Even the Santana's of the world have them and Capuano is no Santana. Add in the injury which can really mess up a pitcher and you have a very uncertain sample to work wtih.

 

You just have to hope he gets healthy and fixes his mechanics and gives you the 4ish ERA I'd expect out of Capuano over 200 IP.

[EAsports28]

Cappy's still ok in my book. He's been the beneficiary of excellent run support in years past, maybe we took it easy on him a little bit then. He'll be fine. I would only want a trade for Cappy if it was proposed to us, I don't think we need to dangle him out on the trading blocks at this point.

[JoeHova]

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Granted those aren't as extreme as my original post but its what I found in 3 minutes of research just looking at this years data, I'm sure if you searched hard enough you could find really extreme splits.

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Perhaps, but you are way overstating your case. If a guys ERA is 7, he has inarguably been pitching poorly. Like I said, I'm not saying he will continue to do so or that his ERA is a 100% accurate indicator of how well he has pitched.

 

I just don't understand why I would have to make some elaborate case that Capuano has not pitched well over the last couple months. It's obvious to anyone that has watched the games or looked at the box scores.

[UeckerAddict]

Hey JoeHova, this is a total non-sequitor, but did Wilbon really say that? I've been racking my mind trying to figure out what he could have possibly been trying to say. Shouldn't journalists know what words mean? Or was he really trying to suggest that few people understand what it means to lead the league in OBP?

[MoneyballMan]

Ok, completely useless to say that he isn't pitching well?!? I don't get why people are so defensive about every little thing on this site. Capuano has not pitched well since early May. That's all I was saying, why does everything become such a big production?

 

Why can't someone point out that a guy isn't pitching well and show his ERA to prove that point? ERA is how pitchers have been judged for 130 years, but now it's "completely useless"?

 

I could not agree more. You can usually point things like this out, but just don't offend anyone!

[brewmann04]

i do think they should move Yo into the Rotation instead of Vargas.

[Never Outhustled]

Whats scary is, not only is Cappy pitching poorly right now, but we entering the part of the season where Cappy has been historically poor. He has always held his spot in the rotation with his strong 1st halves.

 

I don't buy the excuse today that he was tired in the 6th. He should have been well rested after he failed to run when he popped up that bunt attempt earlier, which went for a double play. If he really was that out of juice in the 6th, he could feel free to tell someone.

[TheCrew07]

There is no stat that tells you the catcher set up low and in and the pitcher missed high and over the plate... you need to watch the games to see those sorts of things happening. Cappy is a control pitcher, and he's been very up and down

 

At any rate, I would qualify Cappy this year as below average, and I was expecting much better. Obviously I'm disappointed in both him and Suppan. Historically he's not a very good 2nd half pitcher. In 2006 he went from a 3.21 to a 5.17, 2005 3.63 to 4.42 (4.42 is okay though), in 2004 3.69 to 7.04.

 

www.baseball-reference.co...&year=2007

 

There's good reason to be worried about Cappy, he's going to have to buck his career trend and have a better 2nd half than first to regress to his mean. He had a very nice April, but ever since then he's been sliding. His best start in my opinion was the Marlin game, and that was the first game Capellan blew, but he still gave up 2 runs. Actually after looking at the game logs, May 2nd was probably his best start against the Nationals, which I had forgotten about. He gave up the 2 hits in the 9th, and Coco came in for the save.

 

The point is, why does it matter what stat someone uses, ERA, Wins, whatever when discussing a small smaple? Ultimately, any way you slice it a win is vastly better than a loss. When you look at his secondary numbers, they've gotten progressively worse... look at his OPS against by month... Every number you look at is trending negatively, except May where his bb:k ratio was 3:1. He's deserved a better fate in some of his games for sure, but he's not been sharp in a while, and again, historically he's worse in the 2nd half.

[Ennder]

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Historically he's not a very good 2nd half pitcher. In 2006 he went from a 3.21 to a 5.17, 2005 3.63 to 4.42 (4.42 is okay though), in 2004 3.69 to 7.04.

 

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This does need to be put in context though.

 

In 2004 the 7.04 ERA was due to back to back starts against the Cubs when he was injured and then shut down afterwards. In 2005 they were starting him on short rest late in the season to try to get him to 20 W's. When you put those two seasons into perspective its hard to say 2006 is a pattern, especially since Aug was arguably his best month that year.

[1992casey]

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We can use an ERA to ascertain how bad a pitcher is, but only sometimes?

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The problem is that ERA can be very breakable, even over the course of a full season. For one pitcher, it may be an accurate representation of his work; for another, it might not be.

 

As an example, here are two very similar seasons with very different ERAs:

 IP ERA K BB HR
Carl Pavano, 2003 201.0 4.30 133 49 19
Carl Pavano, 2004 222.3 3.00 139 49 16

[obobo55]

I just think it is funny that this comes up today.

 

He pitched a fine game.....................................until he blew up. Why that happened is beyond me. Before the 6th he had given up 5 hits and no walks and 1 single HR that snuck out at the foul pole. At 75 pitches there is no way to know that all of a sudden he cannot find the plate with anything but meatballs.

 

I think many here again have too high expectations of Capuano. To me he is just like Suppan. A decent innings eater that gives you a chance to win if the team gets 5 runs. He has never been in the "ace" category IMO, he just can't go 8 innings giving up 2 or less very often.

 

At 30 with his money years about to hit the premium level, if the Brewers can get premium talent in a trade for him I think it is worth exploring. I'm not sure he is at a sell high point right now but hopefully he can show his stuff over the next 3 starts leading to the trade deadline. That would put Melvin in an interesting position of deciding to keep him (because he is pitching well at that point) or dealing him and extracting something he feels we need to get over the top.

 

Everyone seems to want to label someone on our staff as our #2. I don't think we have anyone that is in that category. Sheets is (at his best) a true ace, but after that we have very middling talent for our starting rotation. Perhaps Yo can develop into that, but how often did he ever get to the 7th or 8th in AAA this year? I think it is a bit too optimistic to expect him to replicate his early success over the long haul this early in his career.

 

Take Cappy, Suppan, Bush, and Vargas for what they are. They are adequate (and together they are better than most teams have for a staff), but none of them blow you away with their stuff. They will get hit at times and some days they will be lights out. Each of them will rely on good run support to be much better than .500. Hopefully our offense is good enough to do just that. Today it clearly wasn't and Yost was mad that as soon as the offense scraped out a lead (in no small part from Cappy himself) he proceeds to walk a .050 hitter. Once he gave up the meatball (since we didn't score again) the game was over at 3-2. The other runs didn't mean anything in effect. Of course we don't know if it would have played out that way, but still.....

 

OK I guess I wandered a bit there, but my point is that Cappy pitched OK today and I expect him to be OK the rest of the year. I don't think he will be dominant. I don't think he is untouchable. I also don't think he is worthless and should be taken out of the rotation. If a team comes up with a great offer I wouldn't hesitate to deal him--we have good enough depth in SP talent that we could afford to give one up--but I would be just as happy to keep him in the rotation for the rest of the year too if the deal isn't right. Average SP are very valuable (at least in $$$). Not sure someone would bowl us over for a guy like Cappy, but it is not outside of the realm of possibility either. He is fairly durable, lefthanded and relatively cheap for at least another few years.

 

Just keep your expectations in line with his talent level and you'll see that he is what he is.

[tigerbrew]

To be fair, Cappy did look good in the first 5 innings of yesterday's game, but seemingly self-destructed in the sixth and that inning got really ugly.

 

Think it was Cappy who said that the team went on a winning streak when he was put in the DL. But since he came off the DL, the team lost 3 straight series, maybe it's just coincidence or bad luck.

 

With Vargas, Suppan and Cappy struggling to put in quality starts, sometimes I think it's a pity to have Yo and CV in the bullpen when the team is already down a few runs by the time the ball goes to the relievers.

[ELCABALLO45]

brewerphandog could not agree with you more.

[Ennder]

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We can use an ERA to ascertain how bad a pitcher is, but only sometimes? The third Thursday of each month? Is there a sale? We can use WHIP to diagnose a pitchers ability, only some times, perhaps during the vernal equinox.

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You can use ERA when you have around 400 IP worth of data, before that it just doesn't really say very much. As many other posters have pointed out its a flawed stat for judging a pitcher with a small sample because so much of it is out of his control.

 

Specific to Capuano here are his numbers

 

2006 - 7.08 K/G, 1.91 BB/G, 10.5% HR/FB, 39.9% GB, 4.09 FIP

2007 - 7.63 K/G, 3.76 BB/G, 10.6% HR/FB, 45.8% GB, 4.39 FIP

Career - 7.30 K/G, 3.08 BB/G, 11.8% HR/FB, 40.1% GB, 4.60 FIP

 

As you can see his stats are pretty close to his career stats which would be a 4.27 ERA over 640 IP. His 4.78 ERA on the year is a bit flukish based on a little bit high BABIP and low LOB%. He's actually pitched better in 2006 and as good in 2007 as he did in 2005, he just had a flukish LOB% in 2005 to get that 3.99 ERA.

 

He's always had a problem with consistency, he'll dominate for a few starts then lose his control and get hit around a bit.

[rluzinski]

ERA over a month or two isn't completely useless but it certainly has the capacity to be very misleading. If you want to analyze half a seasons' worth of a pitcher's starts, you are better off starting with a pitcher's secondary numbers than his ERA. Look at his K rate and walk rate before anything else. Those generally jump around much less, so a significant change in them (even over a short period) can indicate injury, mechanical issues, etc.. much better than ERA.

 

And to call Cappy a one year wonder is to admit that you are using a pitcher's record are your primary tool to measure performance. Despite his below .500 record in 2006, he almost halved his walk rate while keeping the same K rate. This year, his walk rate is back up but at least his K rate is where it "should" be.

 

Perhaps injuries have hurt Cappy's performance this year but the stats don't demand that explanation. No one should ever be surprised if a true 4.0-4.25 ERA pitcher (which Cappy appears to be) has an ERA in the high 4's at mid season. ERA is just too course of a measure of performance.

 

And it's easy to poke fun at the uncertainty of small samples but an explanation for the principles that govern them could be found on dozens of websites on the web. Anyone who ever wants an answer to the apparently rhetorical question, "When is the sample large enough?" could find it themselves if they wanted to.

 

I appreciate that most aren't interested in that kind of stuff but those statistical laws govern the stats we as baseball fans look at everyday, whether we want them too or not! http://forum.brewerfan.net/images/smilies/smile.gif

[JohnBriggs12]

I have long felt that Capuano is a "fine line" pitcher. In other words, it doesn't take much for him to cross from being effective to very mediocre.

 

That's why I believe he should have been traded last offseason when he was coming off his 2 max years. He's not a guy I want to go deep into his arby years or give a long term big money deal to.

 

He does have this going for him. He competes. So he will probably have another good stretch this year.

 

Ultimately though (and perhaps soon), I think he'll end up as a reliever though "don't rock the boat" Ned isn't likely to make that move.

[rluzinski]

I have long felt that Capuano is a "fine line" pitcher. In other words, it doesn't take much for him to cross from being effective to very mediocre.

 

In terms of ERA, that's certainly true, although it also is for many starting pitchers. If you are a true 4.0 ERA pitcher, it doesn't take much to end a year with a 4.25 or 3.75 ERA.

 

Ultimately though (and perhaps soon), I think he'll end up as a reliever though "don't rock the boat" Ned isn't likely to make that move.

 

I don't think it would be Yost who makes that decision.

[JohnBriggs12]

I'm not sure Capuano is a true 4.00 pitcher.

 

Since July 1, 2006, he's 7-14 with a 4.93 ERA in 184 1/3 innings.

[rluzinski]

I'm not sure Capuano is a true 4.00 pitcher

 

Neither am I but I also don't think he's a true 5.0 ERA pitcher either. A safe estimate might be 4.25.