What's Going On With: Max Scherzer

Year	Age	Tm	Lg	W	L	W-L%	ERA	G	GS	IP	ERA+	WHIP
2011	26	DET	AL	15	9	.625	4.43	33	33	195.0	93	1.349
2012	27	DET	AL	16	7	.696	3.74	32	32	187.2	114	1.274
2013	28	DET	AL	19	1	.950	2.90	27	27	183.1	145	0.933

Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Original Table

Generated 8/31/2013.

What's The Story? Max Scherzer is the odds-on favorite to win the American League Cy Young Award. The gaudy won-lost record is the main reason, and that number's been juiced by his run support, 6.0 per game, the most in the league. But he's also fourth in ERA (both raw and park-adjusted--that's what ERA+ is), first in baserunners per nine innings...you get the idea. He's having a great season, after being viewed as a guy who put up decent W-L records, mostly by virtue of the thumpers playing behind him, but never really being a top-tier pitcher. He's never been Top 10 in ERA, WHIP, or just about anything else until this year.

If You Don't Want to Read all the Rest of This: I think we can attribute Scherzer's success to two factors. One's luck. An unusually small percentage of the balls put into play against him are falling in for hits, and he's getting the best run support in the league. Neither of those are likely to persist. But by laying off his fastball a little, he's keeping the ball in the park better. Batters are going deep against his fastball as frequently in 2013 as they did in 2012, but by throwing more breaking balls, particularly a curve that hasn't left the park yet this year, he's allowing a lot fewer homers, and that's a sustainable skill.

What's He Throwing?
Against Lefties:
Year   Fastball  Sinker    Slider   Curve    Change
2011      65%                6%                30%
2012      63%      1%        6%        2%      28%
2013      57%                1%       12%      30%

Against Righties:
Year   Fastball  Sinker    Slider   Curve    Change
2011      57%               33%                 9%
2012      59%      1%       35%        1%       8%
2013      53%               38%        2%       7%

Overall:
Year   Fastball  Sinker    Slider   Curve    Change
2011      61%               18%                21%
2012      60%      1%       18%        2%      20%
2013      56%               15%        8%      21%
He's gone to his breaking balls more. Overall, he's throwing his four-seam fastball 55.5% of the time after relying on it for over 60% of pitches earlier in his career.

What's His Velocity?
Miles Per Hour:
Year   Fastball  Sinker    Slider   Curve    Change
2011     93.9               83.6              83.2
2012     94.9     93.4      86.7     81.2     86.0
2013     93.9               85.6     78.6     85.4

Scherzer's pitches are all a tick slower this year. Can't attribute any of his success to throwing harder.

How Much Movement?
Inches, horizontal/vertical:
Year   Fastball  Sinker    Slider   Curve    Change
2011    7.1/7.4           1.9/0.4           8.9/0.4
2012    7.7/7.8 10.2/4.1  1.4/1.5  3.8/2.5  9.6/0.5
2013    8.1/7.7           1.6/1.3  5.8/1.7  9.3/0/2
A little more movement on his fastball. Not a lot. The movement on his curve, below average in 2012, is above average now.

What's He Given Up?

Year  BABIP  K%   BB%   HR%   GB%   LD%   FB% HR/FB+LD Str%
2011  .316  21%  6.7%  3.5%   40%   19%   41%   9.9%    67%
2012  .337  29%  7.6%  2.9%   37%   19%   45%   9.2%    63%
2013  .252  28%  6.1%  2.3%   39%   19%   42%   6.7%    66%
(See glossary at end for definition of column headings.)
Some items are consistent. He's walking fewer people, but not a lot fewer. His strikeouts are in line with last year's, just under 30% of all batters. Batters are getting about the same percentage of ground balls, line drives, and fly balls as always. About two-thirds of his pitches are strikes, the same as in 2011.

But there are also two big differences here. First, his batting average on balls in play this year of .252 is 45 points below the league average of .297, and only 6.7% of his line drives and fly balls are going over the fence compared to a league average of 8.1%. His BABIP and HR/FB+LD percentages were above the league averages in 2011 and 2012. This year, his BABIP is the second-lowest in the league and his HR/FB+LD is the 12th lowest. The former suggests an element of luck. It's rare for a player to sustain a well-below-average BABIP. Pedro Martinez had a .282 career BABIP compared to a league average of .298. Greg Maddux was .286 vs. .295. Roger Clemens, .286 vs. .293. For Scherzer, that 45 point gap is probably as much hits not falling in that normally would as anything else. The improved home run rate, though...there may be something there. Good pitchers can keep that number down, year after year.

(All data here from Baseball Reference and Brooks Baseball.) 
Glossary: BABIP = batting average on balls in play; K%, BB%, HR% are percentage of plate appearances resulting in a strikeout, walk, and home run, respectively; GB%, LD%, FB% are percentage of batted balls that are ground balls, line drives, and fly balls, respectively; HR/FB+LD = percentage of fly balls and line drives that are home runs; Str% = percentage of pitches that are swung at or called strikes. 

How Soon They Forget

Don't scroll down to the bottom of this post. You'll see why.

Miguel Cabrera is, as they, say, good at baseball. You probably already knew this. I ran some lists to figure out how good. He's in his 11th major league season. Among right-handed hitters at a similar point in their career (since 1901, minimum 4500 plate appearances), Cabrera is:

• 7th in home runs
• 4th in RBI
• 13th in runs scored
• 4th in total bases
• 6th in hits
• 3rd in doubles
• 12th in batting average
• 16th in on-base percentage
• 15th in slugging percentage
• 11th in on base plus slugging

He's also top 10 in a bunch of advanced hitting metrics, like runs created, batting wins above replacement, batting runs, base-out runs added...OK, I'll stop.

The point here isn't that Cabrera's great. As I said, you probably knew this. What surprised me was the list of his peers, that is, the greatest right-handed hitters of all time. Here are some of them. Again, no surprises:

• Hank Aaron
• Dick Allen
• Jeff Bagwell
• Joe DiMaggio
• Jimmie Foxx
• Hank Greenberg
• Rogers Hornsby
• Willie Mays
• Manny Ramirez
• Frank Robinson
• Alex Rodriguez
• Frank Thomas

OK, here's the surprise. Look at that list. Again, these guys, plus Cabrera, are the greatest right-handed hitters of all time through 11 seasons. I left one guy off the list on purpose. It's a glaring omission. As good as Cabrera's been, this guy was better. In every single category I listed. Do you know who it is?

No, it's not an old-timer. In fact, he's still playing. Can you guess?

I'll put the answer in the comments. Don't feel bad if you can't get him. I probably wouldn't have either. Shows how fleeting our memories are. 

Matt Harvey, 2013

Let me just say this.

Pitchers with 191 or more strikeouts, 31 or fewer walks in a season (yes, I know they're arbitrary endpoints, just play along):

Player	Year	SO	BB	Age	Tm	Lg	G	GS	CG	W	L	W-L%	IP	H	R	ER	ERA
Matt Harvey	2013	191	31	24	NYM	NL	26	26	1	9	5	.643	178.1	135	46	45	2.27
Cliff Lee	2012	207	28	33	PHI	NL	30	30	0	6	9	.400	211.0	207	79	74	3.16
Roy Halladay	2010	219	30	33	PHI	NL	33	33	9	21	10	.677	250.2	231	74	68	2.44
Cy Young	1905	210	30	38	BOS	AL	38	33	31	18	19	.486	320.2	248	99	65	1.82
Cy Young	1904	200	29	37	BOS	AL	43	41	40	26	16	.619	380.0	327	104	83	1.97

Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Play Index Tool Used
Generated 8/26/2013.

(via Corey Seidman @CoreySeidman on Twitter)

Alex, I'll Take Dodger Lefties Starting With "K" for $200

If there's a given in L.A. Dodgers lore, other than Vin Scully and Dodger Dogs, it's that Sandy Koufax is the greatest left-handed pitcher in team history, if not baseball history overall. You know the story: scuffled from 1955 to 1960, posting a 36-40 record with a league-average ERA, a lot of strikeouts (nearly 9 per nine innings) and a lot of walks (over 5 per nine innings). Starting in 1961, at age 25, he found his control, was an All-Star every year thereafter. From 1963 to 1966 he was absolutely dominating, winning 78% of his decisions with a 1.86 ERA, 9.3 strikeouts and only 2.0 walks per nine innings, collecting three Cy Young awards back when they gave out only one in all of baseball.

When he retired after that 1966 season, just 30 years old, due to arthritis, everyone assumed we'd never see another Dodger lefty like him.

Then, 22 years later, Clayton Kershaw was born. 

Now, I'm not going to say that Kershaw is better than Koufax...yet. Kershaw is only 25 years old, and has been dominant for three of his six major league seasons, shorter than Koufax's four-year peak. But his last three years have been a Koufax-like run: through Sunday's game, a 70% winning percentage, 2.20 ERA, 9.1 strikeouts and 2.1 walks per nine innings. He won the Cy Young in 2011, was second last year, and appears to be the front-runner this year.

But wait, you're saying. Kershaw's 2.20 ERA is a lot higher than Koufax's 1.86. But there's more to that. One of the things I always look for when analyzing numbers is context. What were things like when numbers were accumulated? The fact is, baseball was different in the mid-1960s than it is today. The league ERA during Kershaw's peak was 3.85. The league ERA during Koufax's was 3.49. That's a difference of 0.36 runs. The difference between Koufax's ERA during his peak and Kershaw's during his is 0.34 runs. But wait, there's more: Dodger Stadium during Koufax's peak depressed scoring by 8%-9%. It's still a pitcher's park today, but the effect during Kershaw's time has been more like 5%-6%. So while Koufax's raw statistics are better, when you adjust them for the scoring environment and the stadium at the time he played, the advantage disappears.

One of my favorite websites is baseball-reference.com. It is a fantastic source of information that has helped make baseball encyclopedias obsolete. All my player links are to baseball-reference.com pages. Anyway, one of the calculations they do there is what they call ERA+. ERA+ measures how much better a pitcher's ERA than the league, adjusted for the pitcher's home ballpark. An ERA+ of 100 is league average. Anything above that is better than average. During Koufax's four-year peak, his ERA+ was 172. There have been only 125 times since 1901 that a pitcher has accumulated a single season ERA+ of 172; Koufax averaged that over four years. But Kershaw's three-year peak ERA+ is only negligibly lower, 168. Here are few more comparisons, adjusted for scoring but not stadium: strikeouts per nine innings 9.3 for Koufax an 9.1 for Kershaw, home runs per nine innings 0.7 for Koufax and 0.6 for Kershaw, baserunners per nine innings 1.04 for Koufax and 1.05 for Kershaw. Adjust those for the difference between the mid-1960s Dodger Stadium and the current iteration, and Kershaw pulls ahead.

There are two legitimate objections to the canonization of Kershaw. First, his peak has been shorter. That's fair, and why I'm not ready to call Kershaw a better pitcher. Let's see how 2014 plays out. Second, he isn't the workhouse Koufax was. Kershaw's never topped 233.1 innings pitched, while Koufax had 311 or more innings pitched in three of the four years during his peak.

I've got some problems with the latter argument. There's no question that Koufax pitched a lot more innings, just as starters in the 1960s pitched more innings than contemporary starters. But without getting into an argument about innings and pitch counts, let's remember that Koufax was done at age 30. Kershaw is headed toward a career high in innings pitched at age 25. When Koufax was 25, he was in is first All-Star season. At age 21, 22, 23, 24, and 25, Kershaw (69-39, 2.44 ERA, 155 ERA+) was clearly superior to Koufax (50-47, 3.92 ERA, 106 ERA+). If he can stay healthy (and stay signed with LA), Kershaw's on track to become the best, if not the most mythologized, Dodger lefty.

Trailing 30 - August 25

Here is an explanation of this weekly post, which lists leaders and trailers for the past 30 days. This is possible through the magic of Fangraphs and its fabulous Leaders application.

This week's fun statistic: The American League's two most disappointing teams make a joint appearance in the worst team W-L, encapsulating what a lost season it's been for them.

   American League             National League

   Team W-L                    Team W-L      

1. Detroit         20-8     1. Los Angeles     23-5        

2. Texas           19-8     2. Atlanta         20-7        

3. Cleveland      17-11     3. Washington     16-11         

4. Tampa Bay      14-11     4. Cincinnati     15-12   

5. Kansas City    16-13     5. Pittsburgh     16-13        

   Worst Team W-L              Worst Team W-L

1. Los Angeles     9-19     1. Philadelphia    9-18      

2. Houston         9-18     2. Chicago        10-19       

3. Toronto        11-18     3. San Francisco  11-17      

4. Seattle        10-16        Colorado       11-17

5. Chicago        13-16        Miami          11-17   

   Batting Average             Batting Average     

1. Beltre, Tex     .400     1. Werth, Was      .420        

2. Trout, LA       .366     2. McCutchen, Pit  .400             

3. Lawrie, Tor     .352     3. Venable, SD     .379            

4. Castro, Hou     .350     4. Hill, Ari       .371          

5. Cabrera, Det    .348     5. Prado, Ari      .354       

   Lowest Batting Average      Lowest Batting Average
1. Wieters, Bal    .171     1. Frazier, Cin    .153          

2. Napoli, Bos     .171     2. Hechevarria, Mia.176         

3. Carter, Hou     .176     3. Castro, Chi     .195
4. Franklin, Sea   .181     4. Rizzo, Chi      .196           

5. Plouffe, Min    .183     5. Young, Phi      .198            

   On-Base Percentage          On-Base Percentage
1. Trout, LA       .536     1. Werth, Was      .509            

2. Beltre, Tex     .487     2. McCutchen, Pit  .496            

3. Castro, Hou     .459     3. Davis, NY       .485         

4. Encarnacion, Tor.422     4. Votto, Cin      .437              

5. Cabrera, Det    .417     5. J Upton, Atl    .423       

      

   Slugging Percentage         Slugging Percentage   

1. Cabrera, Det    .728     1. Venable, SD     .737        

2. Davis, Bal      .652     2. J Upton, Atl    .667     

3. Trout, LA       .646     3. Hill, Ari       .608       

4. Castro, Hou     .638     4. Hewyard, Atl    .604       

5. Beltre, Tex     .590     5. Werth, Was      .602        

          

   Home Runs                   Home Runs

1. Cabrera, Det      10     1. Goldschmidt, Ari   9
2. Davis, Bal         9        Ruf, Phi           9        

   Soriano, NY        9     3. J Upton, Atl       8          

4. Morneau, Min       8        Murphy, Chi        8
5. 3 with             7        Gyorko, SD         8

   Runs                        Runs    

1. Trout, LA         22     1. Heyward, Atl      24        

   Jackson, Det      12     2. Werth, Was        21       

3. Victorino, Bos    20     3. McCutchen, Pit    20
   Soriano, NY       20        Goldschmidt, Ari  20
   Andrus, Tex       20     5. 5 with            19

   RBI                         RBI      

1. Cabrera, Det      30     1. Prado, Ari        25       

2. Soriano, NY       29     2. Johnson, Atl      24      

3. Jones, Bal        23     3. Rosario, Col      22       

   Trumbo, LA        23     4. Alvarez, Pit      21
5. Beltre, TEx       21     5. Freeman, Atl      20

   Stolen Bases                Stolen Bases             

1. Andrus, Tex       14     1. Young, NY          9            

2. Davis, Tor        13     2. Gomez, Mil         8      

3. Villar, Hou       10        Segura, Mil        8   

   Martin, Tex       10     4. 3 with             6

   Dyson, KC         10     

   Wins                        Wins   

1. Scherzer, Det      5     1. 11 with            4

2. 5 with             4     

   Saves                       Saves

1. Holland, KC        9     1. Kimbrel, Atl      12

   Farquhar, Sea      9     2. Jansen, LA        10

3. Benoit, Tex        8     3. Henderson, Mil     9

   Reed, Chi          8        Chapman, Cin       9
5. Perez, Cle         7     5. 2 with             8

   ERA                         ERA

1. Scherzer, Det   1.33     1. Kershaw, LA     0.78

2. Sanchez, Det    1.77     2. Fernandez, Mia  1.10

3. Cosart, Hou     2.10     3. Latos, Cin      1.24

4. Jimenez, Cle    2.10     4. Greinke, LA     1.29

5. Darvish, Tex    2.13     5. Haren, Was      1.32

   Worst ERA                   Worst ERA

1. Dempster, Box   6.67     1. Peralta, Mil    5.29

2. Hellickson, TB  6.67     2. Jackson, Chi    4.91

3. Sabathia, NY    6.56     3. Leake, Cin      4.80

4. Lyles, Hou      6.19     4. Stults, SD      4.71

5. Norris, Bal     5.53     5. Koehler, Mia    4.59

   WHIP                        WHIP

1. Scherzer, Det   0.76     1. Haren, Was      0.74

2. Albers, Min     0.87     2. Kershaw, LA     0.78

3. Price, TB       0.94     3. Fernandez, Mia  0.80

4. Sanchez, Det    0.95     4. Wood, Atl       0.86
5. Archer, TB      0.95     5. Ross, SD        0.90

   Strikeouts                  Strikeouts

1. Darvish, Tex      64     1. Fernandez, Mia    54       

2. Hernandez, Sea    45     2. Wainwright, SL    45

3. Scherzer, Det     39     3. Kershaw, LA       40

   Sale, Chi         39        Teheran, Atl      40

5. 3 with            37     5. Lincecum, SF      38

Trailing 30 - August 20

Here is an explanation of this weekly post, which lists leaders and trailers for the past 30 days. This is possible through the magic of Fangraphs and its fabulous Leaders application. (Sorry I'm late with this. Day job.)

   American League            National League

   Team W-L                   Team W-L      

1. Detroit         21-9     1. Los Angeles     23-4        

2. Kansas City    19-10     2. Atlanta         21-6        

3. Texas          17-10     3. Pittsburgh     16-12         

4. Cleveland      15-12     4. Arizona        14-11   

5. Tampa Bay      13-11     5. Cincinnati     15-12        

   Worst Team W-L             Worst Team W-L

1. Houston         8-19     1. Philadelphia    5-20      

2. Los Angeles     9-19     2. Chicago        10-18       

3. Chicago        11-18     3. San Francisco  10-17      

4. Toronto        12-16     4. Colorado       11-16

5. NY, Sea        12-14     5. Miami          12-15   

   Batting Average            Batting Average     

1. Trout, LA       .375     1. Werth, Was      .429        

2. Beltre, Tex     .374     2. Prado, Ari      .374             

3. Martinez, Det   .362     3. Hill, Ari       .370            

4. Cabrera, Det    .354     4. Venable, SD     .368          

5. Grossman, Hou   .350     5. McCutchen, Pit  .355       

   Lowest Batting Average     Lowest Batting Average             

1. Plouffe, Min    .136     1. Uggla, Atl      .138          

2. Izturis, Tor    .157     2. LaRoche, Was    .188         

3. Carter, Hou     .165     3. Hechevarria, Mia.187
4. Franklin, Sea   .179     4. Alvarez, Pit    .191           

5. Moreland, Tex   .179     5. Young, NY       .193            

   On-Base Percentage         On-Base Percentage                 

1. Trout, LA       .531     1. Werth, Was      .509            

2. Beltre, Tex     .446     2. Davis, NY       .490            

3. Cabrera, Det    .440     3. McCutchen, Pit  .435         

4. Dunn, Chi       .433     4. Holliday, SL    .434              

5. Ortiz, Bos      .423     5. Prado, Ari      .433       

      

   Slugging Percentage        Slugging Percentage   

1. Davis, Bal      .613     1. Werth, Was      .703        

2. Soriano, NY     .612     2. Venable, SD     .684     

3. Trout, LA       .591     3. Hill, Ari       .609       

4. Myers, TB       .550     4. McCutchen, Pit  .598       

5. Lawrie, Tor     .539     5. Heyward, Atl    .589        

          

   Home Runs                  Home Runs

1. Cabrera, Det      10     1. Goldschmidt, Ari   9
2. Soriano, NY        8     2. Werth, Was         7        

   Davis, Bal         8        J Upton, Atl       7          

4. Morneau, Min       7     4. 6 with             6
   Trumbo, LA         7

   Runs                       Runs    

1. Trout, LA         21     1. Heyward, Atl      24        

2. Soriano, NY       19     2. Werth, Was        23       

   Bautista, Tor     19     3. 4 with            19
4. 5 with            18     

   RBI                        RBI      

1. Soriano, NY       26     1. Johnson, Atl      22        

2. Cabrera, Det      25     2. Werth, Was        20      

3. Trumbo, LA        24        Prado, Ari        20       

4. Davis, Bal        21     4. Alvarez, Pit      19
5. 2 with            20        Goldschmidt, Ari  19

   Stolen Bases               Stolen Bases             

1. Davis, Tor        12     1. Gomez, Mil         9            

   Andrus, Tex       12     2. Young, NY          8      

3. Villar, Hou       11     3. Segura, Mil        7   

4. Rios, Tex          9        Marte, Pit         7

   Altuve, Hou        9        Aoki, Mil          6

   Wins                       Wins   

1. Scherzer, Det      5     1. Ryu, LA            5

2. 7 with             4     2. Kershaw, LA        4

                               Liriano, Pit       4

                               Medlen, Atl        4
                            5. 21 with            3

   Saves                      Saves

1. Holland, KC       10     1. Kimbrel, Atl      12

2. Benoit, Det        8     2. Cishek, Mia       10

3. Farquhar, Sea      7     3. Henderson, Mil     8

   Reed, Chi          7        Jansen, LA         8
5. 3 with             6     5. 5 with             7

   ERA                        ERA

1. Cosart, Hou     1.45     1. Kershaw, LA     1.20

2. Sanchez, Det    1.54     2. Latos, Cin      1.25

3. Kuroda, NY      1.56     3. Ross, SD        1.32

4. Price, TB       1.60     4. Fernandez, Mia  1.54

5. Scherzer, Det   1.69     5. Hamels, Phi     1.66

   Worst ERA                  Worst ERA

1. Lyles, Hou      8.48     1. Locke, Pit      5.58

2. Sabathia, NY    7.86     2. Lincecum, SF    4.83

3. Keuchel, Hou    6.67     3. Stults, SD      4.75

4. Dempster, Bos   6.43     4. Koehler, Mia    4.59

5. Williams, LA    5.73     5. Peralta, Mil    4.58

   WHIP                       WHIP

1. Scherzer, Det   0.66     1. Kershaw, LA     0.67

2. Price, TB       0.66     2. Haren, Was      0.79

3. Chen, KC        0.87     3. Ross, SD        0.79

4. Sanchez, Det    0.94     4. Strasburg, Was  0.81
5. Darvish, Tex    0.96     5. Harvey, NY      0.82

   Strikeouts                 Strikeouts

1. Darvish, Tex      57     1. Fernandez, Mia    46       

2. Sale, Chi         44     2. Kershaw, LA       43

3. Hernandez, Sea    42        Wainwright, SL    43

4. Masterson, Cle    38     4. Harvey, NY        40

5. Dickey, Tor       36        Bailey, Cin       40