Luis Vizcaino - Trade Bait, Set-up Guy, or …
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While Colorado and the Cubs wait for Luis Vizcaino and Jason Marquis to pass
their physicals, I'm going to look more at Vizcaino and, in particular, his
struggles in 2008.
The issue in 2008 seemed to be the lefty/righty splits. Since the small
samples for a relief pitcher get tiny when doing splits, it is important to
consider his recent, and career, performance alongside.
avg/obp/slg (PA)
Career
RHH 238/314/404 (1313)
LHH 249/330/439 (965)
2007
RHH 213/314/354 (195)
LHH 265/362/427 (139)
2008
RHH 170/252/277 (107)
LHH 372/432/744 (96)
Well, that was an ugly season indeed. 2007 was good, in line with career
stats, but, in 2008, everything was whacked. I would expect both splits to
regress towards the career line in 2009.
Still, the performance was poor. Whether or not is was predictive or
meaningful, what can we uncover about it?
Starting with his stuff, Vizcaino throws a fastball/slider combo to righties,
and adds a splitter against lefties. He may throw another change-up type as
well, but I haven't been able to isolate it reliably. So, the splitter is our
first candidate for exploration. Only thrown to lefties, it could help
explain the unusual splits - or at least one side of them.
Starting with spin movement and flight paths, Luis' fastball averages 92.7
mph at release, the splitter runs in the high 80s (87.9mph) and then the
slider (84.1).
Here are some metrics (a few new ones) on how this stuff works out
(definitions below):
cfx # B:CS ISZ FatIns FIISZ Swing InPlay HR Foul Whiff nkSLG TBP
FA 503 2.23 0.449 0.276 0.615 0.471 0.291 0.013 0.447 0.249 0.542 0.078
FS 123 2.29 0.407 0.203 0.500 0.545 0.537 0.045 0.299 0.119 0.872 0.276
SL 488 2.79 0.389 0.246 0.632 0.471 0.313 0.022 0.339 0.326 0.532 0.084
1114 2.47 0.418 0.255 0.609 0.479 0.331 0.021 0.382 0.266 0.606 0.102
OK, what is this? B:CS is what it seems, ISZ is the rate of pitches in the
rule book zone (league/PFX average is .40), FatIns is a 12 inch slice of the
zone - four inches "out" from the middle and eight inches "in" (.27).
FIISZ is the rate of pitches in the zone that are FatIns (average is .67),
then you have Swing Rate, and the HR, Foul and Whiff rates (all are based on
swings).
nkSLG is total bases on home runs and balls in play divided by pitches put in
play (.509), and TBP is total bases yielded divided by all pitches thrown
(.09).
Vizcaino's slider and fastball are actually quite good - nice whiff rates,
and all the numbers look good. That's very promising...but about that
splitter. The whiff rate is absurdly low - that's a fastball whiff rate for a
lot of guys. And, yes, Luis has a very high whiff rate on his fastball.
So, back to the splitter - there are more things that are odd about it.
For example, the ISZ - it's near the league average for all pitches, which is
unusually high for a split. He also throws it harder than most pitchers do,
for whatever that's worth (smaller gap to the fastball speed?).
Here's some context - L-Viz splitter vs. other splitters I've ID'd, and
change-ups, to
# B:CS ISZ FatIns FIISZ Swing InPlay HR Foul Whiff nkSLG TBP
LV'sFS 123 2.29 0.407 0.203 0.500 0.545 0.537 0.045 0.299 0.119 0.872 0.276
FS 3432 4.69 0.294 0.192 0.652 0.518 0.387 0.016 0.294 0.303 0.522 0.109
CH 14763 3.73 0.322 0.202 0.625 0.513 0.380 0.013 0.302 0.305 0.474 0.096
The problem is, as you can see, is that the Vizcaino's splitter gets pounded.
Thrown to lefties, kept outside, not fat, thrown pretty hard with average
movement for such a pitch, but crushed.
Here are the plate locations against LHH. It should reinforce that nice low
FIISZ. BTW, the lowest overall FIISZ in the database is Tom Glavine, just
around .511 (IIRC).
One thing I notice is that the ball tends to be up. For most pitchers, I need
to extend the chart range down below the ground. Amazingly, L-Viz doesn't
throw anything in the dirt (short of the plate, at least).
So, I think we have two components to the problem. The splitter may not be
enough of a speed change to mess-up a hitter's timing, and, while not a fat
pitch, it catches to much of the plate too far up in the zone.
Is he too predictable with it? Take a look at pitch selection by situation,
vs. LHH only.
type # FA FS SL
first 126 0.5238 0.3016 0.1746
even 88 0.2614 0.2386 0.5000
ahead 132 0.4470 0.1515 0.4015
behind 102 0.5490 0.2843 0.1667
full 26 0.4231 0.2692 0.3077
474 0.4536 0.2426 0.3038
He's backwards. Throws it the least when he's ahead in the count. Throws it
the most on first pitches. I can't say he's overly predictable in any case,
since this pitch mix is pretty nice compared to what I typically see.
So, back to the three options for this guy
1. Trade Bait - sure, still a possibility. But I think the Cubs want a
veteran in the pen and Samardzija in the Iowa rotation.
2. Set-up Guy - quite possibly. His success against righties in 2008 was
amazing, but not enough to off-set getting crushed by lefties. He'll have to
improve on that to qualify.
3. ROOGY - is there such a thing? If he doesn't fix the splitter, he might be
one.
How does he fix the splitter? Take a little off it, get it lower in the zone,
if at all in the zone.
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