I you are like me you have been watching Matt Cain this year and think he finally gets it….mixing pitches, throwing strikes, going deep into games….What's that, his velocity is down? What do the stat heads have to say about that? Strand rates are up BABIP is down its all just luck?...I don't want to listen to this….the Joe Morgan is me tells me that Cain is "clutch."….which of course was probably proven not to exist by a sabermatrician back in 1982…..but I digress……
What do we make of all this noise?
Well, lets review what we DO know……
Fastball velocity is down a little
2006 = 93.4 MPH
2007 = 93.2 MPH
2008 = 92.4 MPH
2009 = 91.8 MPH
First off this is average velocity, and Cain is still hitting 95 MPH at times this year.
Second that's only drop of 1.6 MPH over the course of 3 years…..by itself, really not anything to get excited by…..and perhaps the trend is more troubling than the numbers themselves……but is this indicative of an aging or damaged arm or a pitcher that is learning to throttle down, hit spots, and use movement……
Well, lets look at a couple pitchers who's velocity loss is fresh in our minds….
Jason Schmidt
2002 = 93.0 MPH
2003 = 95.0 MPH
2004 = 93.5 MPH
2005 = 91.8 MPH
2006 = 92.4 MPH
2007 = 86.9 MPH
Cain looks like a model of consistency compared to Schmidt, and add the known arm troubles he had as far back as 2002 he was pulled from a start with Shoulder Tightness…..
Barry Zito
2002 = 87.1 MPH
2003 = 87.5 MPH
2004 = 86.9 MPH
2005 = 87.3 MPH
2006 = 85.8 MPH
2007 = 84.5 MPH
2008 = 84.9 MPH
2009 = 86.5 MPH
Again, Cain is a model of consistency compared to Zito who lost his magic touch after smoking too many unicorns……
Lets throw in one more pitcher just for fun
Johan Santana
2002 = 91.0 MPH
2003 = 91.7 MPH
2004 = 92.4 MPH
2005 = 92.4 MPH
2006 = 93.1 MPH
2007 = 91.7 MPH
2008 = 91.2 MPH
2009 = 91.0 MPH
He Gained 2.1 MPH and then over the same years in question for Cain, lost 2.1 MPH……you think Johan is worried?
My point? Well, don't stress out about the velocity data…..you need a lot more evidence about velocity drop than that to get worried, variations happen and it would take more than a 1.6 MPH drop to get me excited……
But HEY, Strikeouts are down !!! His ERA is a product of an unsustainable strand rate!!!!
Well it would make sense that if he was "pitching to contact" and trying to get deeper into games instead of going for the K…….
Is it possible that Cain is "bearing down" with runners on, and being less careful with the bases empty or 2 down…???
Well, the best data is the most data, so I broke down the situations with the most data
Runners On vs No Runners On….certainly if there is something going on we see it here…..
Cain situational Stats
Wow, what we have is some ridiculous numbers….either Cain is the most clutchiest pitcher in the world, or he has been extremely lucky with runners on and extremely unlucky with the bases empty….Additionally, he is getting GDP's in over 5% of PA thanks to that men on magic, but also improved groundball flyball splits…..
Groundballs???? I thought he was a strike out pitcher?
Well., according to Infosolutions, Cain's Curveball selection has gone from 10 to 16% of his pitches, mostly at expense of his Slider, but also at the expense of his Fastball……
So really he is throwing 6% less pitches that usually get the K's, with a overhand Curve than can get topped into Double Play grounders……..
So, I could type all day, but here is the bottom line as I see it…..
Cain's velocity is nothing to worry about, but deserves watching
Cain has been lucky, but has also changed his game…the luck will even out and the league will adjust…..so don't expect a 2.50 ERA for the year…..honestly I think an ERA in the 3.50-3.75 range with 200+ innings is acceptable….
However, don't be surprised if Cain's magic continues…..stats aren't the whole story and many for all of the theorems and postulates and proofs the sabermatricians come up with, they are all based on trends……It is very possible that these trends can be upset by a set of data, especially by a set of data as small as a single season……
All told, I find this data very encouraging for one fact…Cain is showing the ability and willingness to adjust his approach, which is what this game is all about…….
The league will figure you out, you might lose some stuff whatever it is, eventually you will need to adjust to survive, and being able to make those adjustments is the most important thing to longevity in this game……
Cain Overall stats
And FIP is Fielding Independant Pitching (think of as what his ERA should be based upon peripheral stats)
P.S.
In the modern world, people often take science for truth forgetting what has lead us to this point…. What people must remember is that science isn’t a bunch of equations in a book that must be memorized and calculated…..science is only humans trying to come up with explanations for the world around him…. many of these explanations are very useful at prediction behavior of the world, but the are NOT the world…just models of the world…..science has life cycles….a theory is excepted as fact…and then as time goes on it become less and less useful, and then someone comes up with a better theory….and now we have a new "Fact"…..
I think sabermatricians would be wise to learn this lesson….don't get blinded by stats….baseball is not played on a computer, but between the lines…..Now, I LOVE the stats, and they are very useful and some theories are more solid than others, but don't ever let that make you think that stats are the game…..
P.S.S
Fan Graphs are pretty negative here
Baseball Prospectus is much more even handed here,
but not sure if I buy all their pitchfx stuff about pitches breaking more with runners on
makes the Randy Johnson data I presented look like
La'Chatelier Principle
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