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Friday, November 18, 2011
What is Ricky Nolasco’s talent with men on base?
Nolasco is one of the handful of pitchers that requires sabermetric study (Matt Cain, and a few others as well). As Derek points out, Nolasco’s K rate drops substantially (from 23% to 18%), his BB rate jumps substantially (4% to 6%), and his BABIP jumps a bit (.304 to .315). All of that conspires to make the number of runs allowed by Nolasco to diverge significantly from his peripherals (peripherals that we presume are not disproportionately influenced by the base/out state, any more than the average pitcher).
Andy in The Book noted that there is definitely a skill with men on base (and it could simply be for the reason of going from the full windup to not). Regardless. It’s a real skill that could impact by about 5 wOBA points. Not a whole lot of course. But given that a pitcher sees men on base 45% of the time, it’ll come into play often enough.
And of course, if we know more about the pitcher’s change in mechanics, then we’d be able to come up with a much better estimate. Unlike the clutch skill, this is more like a handedness skill: a real physical change in the environment that the player participates in.