THE BOOK--Playing The Percentages In Baseball

Chapman throws really hard, but other than that, I don’t see much comparison to Strasburg.  Strasburg had four good pitches and good command/control.  Chapman has two good pitches but is wildly inconsistent with them.  If he can harness that over a longer period of time, maybe there’s something special there, but at the current time, no way is he near what Strasburg was when he was promoted to the majors. 

Fastball speed matters, but it’s not the be all, end all of pitching.

Should Chapman be projected as a starter or reliever for 2011?  Or some combo of both?
vr, Xei

Compare him to Joel Zumaya for now, not Strasburg.

"While it takes years to go from once-in-a-generation catcher Wieters I to go to Wieters II (Montero) to Wieters III (Bryce Harper),”

Why is “years” plural?  Seems like one year does the trick.  Wieters 2009 - Montero 2010 - Harper 2011.

Meanwhile, Buster Posey and Carlos Santana slipped in under the radar.

Mike, I didn’t mean that he was like Strasburg, just that the exuberance will reach those levels. 

In hockey, it was always “The Next One”, after “The Great One”.  Mario, Pierre Turgeon, Eric Lindros, Sidney Crosby, and a few more… just an endless list of players being crowned “The Next One”.

Oliver projects a 5.20 ERA from Chapman this year. He’ll strike out a lot of hitters—Oliver projects 9.4 K/9, but his walks (6.1 BB/9) will be killer. So as far as Oliver is concerned, Chapman is nowhere near Strasburg.

I do think it’s pretty cool that he may have the fastest fastball ever.  The initial look suggests he may be a little faster than Zumaya.  I was not expecting that despite the reports of radar gun readings over 100.

I’m dubious but somewhat hopeful about how that translates into baseball success.

I have to be very skeptical on whether his arm can hold up.  And I have my doubts about whether he can be a starter - the lack of control means he’s going to be hurt by extra baserunners, and also by high pitch counts.  Randy Johnson survived those negatives to become a great pitcher, he pretty much had an indestructible arm - his injuries over the years were his back and knees.  There are thousands of hard throwers with poor control who couldn’t last long enough to fix their problems like Randy did.

As a relief pitcher I’m very optimistic about his success, especially short term.  He’s going to be a very impressive spectacle for the next month, and hopefully for Reds fans, into October.

Fastest ever since they standardized velocity measurement, but we’ll never know exactly how hard Dalkowski threw.

What about Strasburg III? Chris Sale, White Sox. Just got his first save. So far

IP 10
H 5
BB 7
HR 1
SO 16
ER 1

I forgot.

Opp. Avg. .152

The [Wieters|Strasburg] [roman numeral] tag is reserved for players of whom prognosticators are aggressively exuberant.

This just proves the White Sox get no respect

Which projection system is high on Chapman?  Or are you expanding the definition to include human prognosticators shooting from the hip in the excitement of the moment?

Right, humans.

It’s going to be hard for a system to give him anything good if his walk rate is so high.

The question is should the walk rate count as lower because his fastball speed is so high?  Or does the fastball speed get used only to reinforce the estimates, so that a low ERA goes even lower after considering fastball speed, and a high ERA goes… lower?  higher? after considering the 103 mph?

If a forecasting system DOES NOT USE tools (like Oliver?, PECOTA?, Chone?, etc), then the 103 is irrelevant, like Strasburg’s 99 is irrelevant.  MGL for one said that he DOES use fastball speed.

How that gets applied to Chapman is unknown.

Well, in my case, I just got excited because a White Sox closer did not blow a save. That makes him a big prospect for us. Maybe I’m just an amateur gnosticator.

Rally, weren’t you thinking/talking about adding velocty (or something similar) to CHONE?

I have the Cuban league stats beginning in 2005, but so far there’s not enough comparables of other players who played in both Cuba and the US, and for which I have stats. After this season, there may be a bare minimum for batters (6-8 different players), but still less than a handful of pitchers.

That said, Chapman’s Triple-A stats have been very similar to what he posted his last three years in Cuba. In 2005, at age 17, he started 15 games, with 54 BB and 56 SO in 54 IP.

YEAR AGE Level G GS IP  PA  BC   H HR  BB  SO _BH   _HR   _BB   _SO
2005 17 Cuba 15 15  54 263 144  48  5  54  56 0.309 0.035 0.205 0.213
2006 18 Cuba 23 12  81 350 187  59  4  50 100 0.301 0.021 0.143 0.286
2007 19 Cuba 16 16  74 324 197  55  3  37  79 0.268 0.015 0.114 0.244
2008 20 Cuba 22 20 118 515 304 109  7  62 130 0.343 0.023 0.120 0.252
2010 22  AAA 39 13  96 412 229  77  7  52 125 0.315 0.031 0.126 0.303

2010     VsL           138  65  23  3  15  53 0.323 0.046 0.109 0.384
2010     VsR           274 164  54  4  37  72 0.313 0.024 0.135 0.263

Oliver’s MLE of 2010 is BB/9 6.5, SO/9 10.2, but after regression are 6.1, 9.4.

From what I’ve read, he had problems keeping the ball down, but has had better results since relieving. GO/AO as a starter was 0.83, as a reliever 1.46.

  
          IP   H  HR  BB  SO
Starter   66  60   6  40  76
Reliever  30  17   1  12  49

Considering Sale. Here’s Oliver’s MLEs

                       HR9 BB9  SO9
2008 Coll              1.3 3.7  7.2
2009 Coll              1.8 4.1  7.3
2010 Coll,A,AAA,MLB    1.4 2.6 10.0

ps I hope this doesn’t post twice, but the first time seemed to be lost so I am reposting

I think high velocity makes the prior or peer mean strikeout rate that you regress to higher but it does really affect (or perhaps only makes slightly higher) the walk rate and flyball rates you regress to.  I don’t think it’s so much that high velocity causes high walk rates (probably the opposite) but rather that the control level needed to reach the majors is less if you throw super hard so Chapman’s hypothetical peer group includes pitchers who walk a fair number of batters.

Of course, lefties who throw as hard as Chapman more of less don’t exist.

"Rally, weren’t you thinking/talking about adding velocty (or something similar) to CHONE?”

Yeah, but thinking/talking is a long way from doing.  Haven’t had the time to even start on that.

Did add him to my pitcher list, so he’s on the latest update.  As a Reliever I get a 3.93 ERA, 55 IP, 44 H, 30 BB, 6 HR, 70 K.  No Cuban stats, no knowledge of the radar gun, and data through Sunday so his MLB debut is an unknown, just his stats in the 40202.

"we’ll never know exactly how hard Dalkowski threw.”

Or Ryne Duren or Sidd Finch, either.