Justin Verlander And The Big Inning
by ChrisDTX on Jan 5, 2010 6:13 PM EST
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You may have noticed that Justin Verlander had himself a fair-to-middlin’ season in 2009. After a sucktacular 2008, JV rebounded to finish 3rd in the AL Cy Young race and led the league with eleventy billion strikeouts while notching career highs in W’s with 19 and ERA at 3.45. Though I guess that last one is technically a career low, but whatever. I’m also sure you noticed that Mr. Verlander also had a bit of a problem with damage control, frequently getting lit for 3+ runs before you could blink. If you’re like me, the fingernail chomping began in about the 5th inning whenever runners reached base. You just hoped it wouldn’t be one of those innings. Anyway, that brings me to the point of all this: were Justin's "big" innings in line with his peers, or does he really have a problem with That One Inning? Because, after all, I don’t trust my lyin’ eyes.
I decided to take a look at JV’s 2009 game logs compared to those of Zack Greinke, Felix Hernandez, Roy Halladay and CC Sabathia. Call me a homer, but I considered these guys his “peers” this season. For the purposes of this research, I counted innings where the pitcher gave up 3+ runs (earned or not – just straight runs). Then using the complicated mathematical formula known as “division”, I figured the % big innings vs. total innings pitched and the % of total runs allowed as the result of those innings. Disclaimer: some of these runs were inherited runners that the bullpen let score. I didn’t really know what to do with those. Check it out:
JV: 15 innings allowing 3+ runs (out of 240). 6% of all innings pitched were “big”. 52 runs allowed in those 15 innings (99 total runs allowed). 53% of all runs allowed were during “big” innings. Wow.
FH: 7 Big Innings (out of 239, or 3%). 23 runs scored in Big Innings (out of 81 runs allowed, or 28%)
ZG: 4 Big Innings (out of 229, 1.7%...yeah, he was real good). 14 runs scored in Big Innings (64 runs allowed, 22%)
RH: 4 Big Innings (out of 239, 1.6%...enjoy him, Philly). 14 runs scored in Big Innings (82 allowed, 17%)
CC: 14 Big Innings (out of 230, 6%). 47 runs scored in Big Innings (96 allowed, 49%)
So what does this all mean? Well, first of all my suspicions were confirmed – JV was more susceptible to allowing multiple runs than the other Cy Young candidates. Only Fatty was even close in that department. If JV can go to the Doc Holliday school of limiting the damage while keeping his K/BB rate where it was in ’09, the sky is the limit for the Pride of Goochland.
This is a FanPost and does not necessarily reflect the views of the Bless You Boys writing staff.
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It could just be random variation, poor defense, poor pitch selection,etc.
It is probably a combination of things. If we could look at his 2006-2008 game logs and identify if this is a consistent problem throughout his career, then we’d be on to something. If this was just a 1 year blip in the radar, though, then it would not really be predictive of what will happen next season and probably not something to worry about going forward.
True
Random variation/defense are beyond his control. Pitch selection, however, is. I began noticing his tendency to throw almost exclusively fastballs in tight situations during this game. With 2 on, he whiffed Hafner (maybe the most feared AL hitter at the time) at 100 mph and went into caveman mode, throwing something like 18 straight fastballs and getting roughed up. I haven’t delved into the pitch f/x data to see how consistently he does this, but here’s another good example from this season. After Jones reached base, he threw 25 pitches, 23 of which were 4 seam fastballs. Of course, I’m cherry-picking from memory so I’d have to look at more data to draw any sort of conclusion – just thought it was interesting.
FWIW, here’s the numbers for ‘06-’08 using the format from the post: ’06 (7/186, 3.7%. 29/78 37%), ’07 (9/202, 4.5%. 32/88, 36%), ’08 (12/201, 6%. 46/119, 39%). Basically between 4-6% of his innings are horror shows, which accounts for nearly 40% of the runs he allows in a given season.
Thanks for the info
If anything, this could be looked at as a positive. Pitchers tend to get smarter as they age and walk and hit fewer batters, etc. If a large sum of his runs allowed are b/c of 1 bad inning and he’s able to correct that problem in the future while maintaining his dominance in the other innings… look out AL. Even with this “problem” (assuming we want to call it that) he’s still been one of the top 10-15 most productive starters in baseball these last 4 years and is certainly a legit #1 starter. And, he’s just hit his prime. I actually feel better about him going forward than I had. This is probably a correctable problem.
we saw him learn how to pitch this season...
the problem sounds like he’s falling back into bad habits. Certainly correctable with time and having success doing things the right way.
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Comes down to this...
He won a lot of games with a sucktacular offense supporting him.
But like the post above me…I’d need to see a trend from season to season because of the variables.
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Caveman Mode
went into caveman mode, throwing something like 18 straight fastballs and getting roughed up
That’s the problem right there. He sometimes gets into this mental state where he tries to get the batters out by sheer brute strength and force of will, and it usually turns out badly for him. He had a streak early in the season when it was a particular problem for him. When he keeps his composure and pitches, it’s a very different story. I would guess that nearly every one of those 15 big innings involves him doing this.
thanks for taking the time to do this
I had been wondering basically the same thing, especially as I watched him have a VERY “big inning” or two in person in 2009. I think as he continues to mature he’ll learn how to balance things out; we’ve seem him get really amped up and have it work to his advantage at times. When it doesn’t, the hits just keep on coming. As a fan I may be biased, but I really trust that he can overcome that issue, or hell, any issue he has.. it’s just a matter of concentration and getting everything to work at once. That’s when he dominates.
An interesting note
is that, removing every pitcher’s “big inning” runs, Verlander has the fewest total runs allowed by a fair amount. In other words, when he wasn’t having a meltdown inning, he was the absolute best pitcher in the AL.
Great post!
I’m really glad that you crunched some numbers to put some fact behind the tragedy that we observed all to often. You’re right about being an caveman mode. Perhaps the reason that 2009 was worse than the other seasons is that I think JV had more 100mph fastballs to work with. He certainly didn’t have that pitch in his 2008 arsenal and I think the 2006 and 2007 versions of JV didn’t trust the arm to throw that many.
Hmm
My question would deal with regression- if these numbers are based on variance, will they regress to the mean (which is most likely higher than 53%), and if so, how will the AL deal with the awesome that is Justin Verlander?
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Regression to the Mean
if these numbers are based on variance, will they regress to the mean
If they were just . . . randomness, then we could expect regression to the mean. I think, though, that they are not just randomness, but reflect his mental makeup, which means that regression to the mean may not be that big a factor in his future performance.
He might learn not to do this—but on the other hand, his intensity is a big part of why he is a great pitcher, so I’m a bit wary of wishing for him to learn to be less intense.
Interesting points
It’s a fine line, really. He likes to rely on his fastball when he gets into a jam, which is perfectly reasonable since it’s such a good fastball. It would seem like a relatively minor adjustment in approach to throw the occasional offspeed pitch in tough situations, though. Pitch smarter, not harder…or something.
well I'll reiterate a point I made above...
we did watch him learn how to pitch, and we watched it this season. The bad innings are him falling into bad habits (becoming a hurler instead of a pitcher). With time (off season), coaching (rick knapp), and JV’s obvious competitiveness, he should be able to make this type of thing a lesser occurrence.
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My predominant memory of the big innings
was the aforementioned fastball reliance but also thinking “wow, most of these hits are bull-shit.” A lot of bloops and seeing eye singles were a factor, and that will probably be less of a problem next year.
He needs to get more groundballs early in the count
Verlander can better himself by throwing more groundballs early in the count as opposed to striking out lots of hitters. I still think Porcello will have more success long-term because he has a profile as a pitcher that will allow him to be more efficient and use the groundball to get out a trouble.
FWIW
I don’t think has anything to do with this post really, but I would love to see Verlander develop that cutter that Rivera and Halladay (and Burnett) use. He seemed to make huge gains in learning breaking and change up pitches.
by Fien SHOULD CLOSE on Jan 9, 2010 8:34 PM EST reply actions
With the success that Rivera's had with it....
I don’t understand why every power pitcher hasn’t tried developing a cutter.
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