A Quick Statistical Look at the Brewer Bullpen

by Kyle Lobner on Jun 21, 2010 1:01 PM CDT in Statistical Analysis

With the offday today, now seemed like as good a time as any to take a moment to look at some numbers and see if we can get a feel for what's working/not working in the Brewer bullpen.

As things stand right now, the Brewers have nine pitchers that fit the following criteria:

1) Have pitched at least ten innings out of the bullpen this season, and
2) Are not a current member of the starting rotation.

Those pitchers are:

Carlos Villanueva (35.2 IP)
Jeff Suppan (31 IP)
Todd Coffey (25.1 IP)
Trevor Hoffman (22 IP)
Claudio Vargas (19.2 IP)
John Axford (16 IP)
LaTroy Hawkins (11.2 IP)
Kameron Loe (11 IP)
Zach Braddock (10 IP)

With help from FanGraphs, follow the jump for a look at their numbers!

Everyone likes a big fastball. Let's start with a look at the Brewers' hardest throwers, and how often they use the fastball:

Pitcher	Velocity	%
John Axford	94.8 mph	62.4%
Todd Coffey	94.3 mph	68.3%
Zach Braddock	93.9 mph	61.5%
LaTroy Hawkins	92.6 mph	81.1%
Carlos Villanueva	90.1 mph	29.3%
Claudio Vargas	89.4 mph	65.0%
Kameron Loe	89.3 mph	74.2%
Jeff Suppan	87.5 mph	49.8%
Trevor Hoffman	85.2 mph	56.1%

No, that's not a typo. Carlos Villanueva has a 90 mph fastball he's using less than 30% of the time.

Moving on, let's take a quick look at luck. Here are two stats that seem to at least partially display how lucky a pitcher has been on the mound: FIP-ERA and Batting average on balls in play (BABIP):

Pitcher	ERA	FIP	Diff
Kameron Loe	0.82	1.86	1.04
Todd Coffey	3.91	4.31	0.40
Carlos Villanueva	4.04	3.46	-0.58
John Axford	2.81	2.07	-0.74
Trevor Hoffman	9.00	7.49	-1.51
Jeff Suppan	6.81	5.09	-1.72
Claudio Vargas	7.32	4.81	-2.51
LaTroy Hawkins	9.26	3.47	-5.79
Zach Braddock	7.2	1.33	-5.87

Pitcher	BABIP
Kameron Loe	.250
Todd Coffey	.284
Trevor Hoffman	.304
John Axford	.332
Carlos Villanueva	.351
Jeff Suppan	.385
Claudio Vargas	.400
LaTroy Hawkins	.421
Zach Braddock	.515

Any pitching coach or analyst will tell you the importance of getting ground balls. But which Brewers do it well?

Pitcher	GB%
Kameron Loe	53.6%
LaTroy Hawkins	51.6%
John Axford	48.7%
Todd Coffey	47.4%
Jeff Suppan	38.1%
Claudio Vargas	35.9%
Carlos Villanueva	33.7%
Zach Braddock	24.1%
Trevor Hoffman	20%

Here's a look at strikeouts and walks:

Pitcher	K/9
Zach Braddock	13.5
Carlos Villanueva	11.86
LaTroy Hawkins	11.57
John Axford	10.69
Claudio Vargas	8.24
Kameron Loe	8.18
Trevor Hoffman	5.73
Todd Coffey	5.68
Jeff Suppan	5.45

Pitcher	BB/9
LaTroy Hawkins	4.63
Claudio Vargas	4.58
Trevor Hoffman	4.5
John Axford	3.94
Zach Braddock	3.6
Todd Coffey	3.55
Carlos Villanueva	3.53
Jeff Suppan	3.4
Kameron Loe	1.64

As ranked by Run value per 100 pitches, here's a look at each Brewer's best pitch:

Pitcher	Type	R/100
LaTroy Hawkins	Change	+8.08
Kameron Loe	Fastball	+4.87
John Axford	Slider	+4.06
Carlos Villanueva	Curve	+2.78
Claudio Vargas	Change	+2.69
Todd Coffey	Slider	+2.29
Zach Braddock	Slider	+0.36
Jeff Suppan	Curve	-0.62
Trevor Hoffman	Fastball	-1.2

And on the other side of the coin, the worst:

Pitcher	Type	R/100
Trevor Hoffman	Curve	-5.88
Jeff Suppan	Change	-4.33
LaTroy Hawkins	Curve	-3.91
Todd Coffey	Split	-3.68
Carlos Villanueva	Fastball	-3.23
Claudio Vargas	Fastball	-2.11
Kameron Loe	Curve	-1.51
Zach Braddock	Fastball	-1.45
John Axford	Fastball	+0.06

Now, the best Brewers at throwing strikes:

Pitcher	Zone%
Carlos Villanueva	49.2%
LaTroy Hawkins	49.1%
Kameron Loe	48.4%
Zach Braddock	47.1%
Trevor Hoffman	46.7%
Claudio Vargas	45.9%
Todd Coffey	45.3%
Jeff Suppan	44.2%
John Axford	43.4%

And the Brewers doing the best job of getting their opponents to swing at non-strikes:

Pitcher	O-Swing%
Kameron Loe	37.5%
John Axford	37%
Zach Braddock	32.3%
LaTroy Hawkins	30.6%
Carlos Villanueva	27.6%
Jeff Suppan	26.2%
Todd Coffey	23.9%
Claudio Vargas	22.6%
Trevor Hoffman	21.2%

Conclusions:

Before I jump to conclusions here, I should note a giant sample size caveat: Even the largest sample size included here (Carlos Villanueva's 35.2 IP) is much too small to use as a true evaluation. Using ten innings of Zach Braddock or Kameron Loe is not nearly enough to make any relevant statements about their long-term effectiveness.

With that said, I think there are encouraging things here for LaTroy Hawkins, Zach Braddock and John Axford, about what we'd expect from Kameron Loe, and reasons to be concerned about Todd Coffey, who isn't getting strikeouts, isn't fooling anyone into swinging at bad pitches and appears to be getting lucky on balls in play.

What do you think?

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Comments

So your saying we are good? Bad? Kameron Loe is our Bullpen MVP?

by Troy J. on Jun 21, 2010 1:14 PM CDT reply actions

Can’t you draw any conclusions from the data? While Kameron Loe’s traditional baseball numbers (era) look very good; he has been very lucky. Add in the small sample size, and I’d expect him to fall back closer to his career averages over the course of the season.

by KittenMittons on Jun 21, 2010 1:52 PM CDT up reply actions

Let's hope not!

I’d expect him to fall back closer to his career averages over the course of the season.

Dreads this when this happens. I hope he can continue his great performance, but yeah what goes around comes around eventually in beisball

by Bush League All Star on Jun 21, 2010 1:59 PM CDT up reply actions

Take a look at his BABIP and other stats, over the course of his career.

I hate being pessimistic, but it doesn’t look like he’ll keep this performance up.

http://www.fangraphs.com/graphs.aspx?playerid=4422&position=P&page=0&type=mini

by KittenMittons on Jun 21, 2010 2:06 PM CDT up reply actions

I agree.

Hopefully he can have his good stuff the rest of the year. But yeah, seems unlikely he will.

by Bush League All Star on Jun 21, 2010 2:16 PM CDT up reply actions

Keep in mind

Loe’s not the same pitcher he was in ‘04 thru ’08. He’s a reliever now, he’s got a different mindset, a different pitch selection, and definitely a different approach. He can go full-bore in his inning, without having to worry about batters adjusting the 2nd or 3rd time through, or tiring as the game progresses. It’s entirely possible his “stuff” is more conducive to relieving, and thus performance out of the pen will exceed that out of the rotation

Shruggity.

by Mykenk on Jun 21, 2010 3:19 PM CDT up reply actions

FWIW

He was a reliever for most of ’05 and ’08.

I've had it with this verkakte flippity-ship!

by TheJay on Jun 21, 2010 3:29 PM CDT up reply actions

Well, then nevermind.

Replace my above post with the following:

“Well, before 2010, while pitching in the majors, he had a giant snake, which, as I can attest to, tends to be tiring”

Shruggity.

by Mykenk on Jun 21, 2010 4:12 PM CDT up reply actions

heyy-oooo

http://www.mlbsoup.com

by tcyoung on Jun 21, 2010 4:37 PM CDT up reply actions

I think I have asked this before

Why is FanGraphs BABIP different from Baseball Reference?

BABIP = (H-HR)/(AB-K-HR+SF)

For Coffey: (24-2)/(91-16-2+4) = 22/77 = .286
For Villanueva: (33-4)/(138-47-4+2) = 29/89 = .326

I've had it with this verkakte flippity-ship!

by TheJay on Jun 21, 2010 1:18 PM CDT reply actions

difference with respect to SF or SH?

by PagsBrewCrew on Jun 21, 2010 1:26 PM CDT up reply actions

I don't know

But 29/82 = .354 and 29/83 = .349 so I guess the numerator is not correct if they have .351.

I've had it with this verkakte flippity-ship!

by TheJay on Jun 21, 2010 1:30 PM CDT up reply actions

Just came across this

In 1976, Robin Yount was the shortstop for pitcher Jerry Augustine on 233 occasions at County Stadium in Milwaukee when a righty batter put the ball in play (excluding home runs and bunts).

in an article written by Tango: http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/article/fielding-aging-curves/

This indicates that perhaps he removes both bunt hits as well as sacrifice bunts from BABIP. This would result in both a different numerator and denominator.

by PagsBrewCrew on Jun 21, 2010 2:27 PM CDT up reply actions

another thing that could change the denominator

foul outs. Are they really balls in play? I know that they don’t get into the stands and are fair play, but they’re not in fair territory.

Also, how does one count a bunt-out-K? I assume neither formula considers it in play, as it’s a strikeout. What about advance-to-first-on-dropped 3rd strike? also out for both formulas (still a K?)?

by PagsBrewCrew on Jun 21, 2010 2:31 PM CDT up reply actions

Villanueva hasn't allowed a sac bunt or bunt hit this year

I did think of foul outs, and Villanueva has three of those. 29/86 = .337

He also has three dropped 3rd strikes, batter to 1B, but I don’t think those would or should be included as balls in play, since the idea is to measure how many hits fall in.

I've had it with this verkakte flippity-ship!

by TheJay on Jun 21, 2010 2:56 PM CDT up reply actions

woah

poor braddock

by PagsBrewCrew on Jun 21, 2010 1:23 PM CDT reply actions

And poor LaTroy, too....

Obviously the ERA-FIP is similar to Braddock’s but these two really popped out:

51.6% ground balls.
.421 BABIP

Absolutely unbelievable statistics.

The 1-2 punch of his solid fastball and deadly changeup makes me feel a lot better about our signing. Hopefully the injury doesn’t mess with his head when he comes back.

by Vee Sanford's Next-door Neighbor on Jun 22, 2010 2:44 PM CDT up reply actions

**

the statistics in and of themselves aren’t unbelievable, but in tandem they are.

by Vee Sanford's Next-door Neighbor on Jun 22, 2010 2:47 PM CDT up reply actions

John Axford

So good, his worst pitch is above average.

Jeff Suppan & Trevor Hoffman: So bad, their best pitches are below average.

by Cheeseandcorn on Jun 21, 2010 1:34 PM CDT reply actions

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