Bronson Arroyo and the 40-Home Run Fraternity
by ken on Sep 12, 2011 8:00 AM EDT
in Pitch Charts / Pitch(fx)
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PrintWhen Greg Maddux said "chicks dig the long ball," I don't think this is what he had in mind. As mentioned in Saturday's game recap, Bronson Arroyo gave up home run no. 40 in a classic Bad-royo outing, allowing 3 taters in one-plus innings of "work" at Coors Field. He became just the 19th pitcher to allow 40 long balls and the first since Eric Milton in 2005. Sort of like losing 20 games, allowing 40 home runs is a perverse badge of honor in that a truly terrible pitcher would never be given the opportunity to face so many batters. The 40 HR club is a distinguished fraternity - four HOFers plus seven other former All-Stars make up the list, and the performances in general are not disastrous.
Arroyo's 2011 is not typical for the 40 HR year, unfortunately. Whereas half of the 22 prior 40 HR seasons had an ERA+ above average, Arroyo's 74 is the second-worst, ahead of only Milton's monstrosity. Arroyo also sets himself apart from the pack in throwing just 175.7 innings to date, the lowest by at least ten innings.
With the mock-applause out of the way, a look under the hood gives us some idea as to how the season has unfolded and hints at what the future holds. Arroyo's home run rate had been very steady as a Red up to this year, always at 1.2 or 1.3 per nine innings before jumping to 2.0 and counting this year. The jump in HR rate suggests a pitcher in decline, but that's not necessarily supported by looking at the other true-outcome rates. His K-percentage has been among the lowest in the league over the past few seasons, but it's not unforgivably worse this season - 12.8% so far in '11, compared to 13.8% in each of the past two years (or if you prefer 5.0/9 IP against 5.2). Meanwhile, his walks have steadily declined over the past three seasons, going from 7.0% to 6.7% to this year's 5.4%. He's therefore been able to actually raise his K/BB rate from slightly below two-to-one in 2009 to 2.39 this season.
Like any saber-leaning fan I initially thought that bad luck could be at the root of the tater explosion, but that's not supported by the data. According to Hit Tracker, just four of his 2011 home runs (not counting Saturday's) are classified as "Just Enough/Lucky." Five others are "Just Enough." 12 are "No Doubt" and 16 are "Plenty," so it's not as if Bronson has mostly given up a bunch of wall-scrapers. I also considered that some of his 2011 home runs could be doubles or triples of years past, but that also doesn't seem to be the case. Arroyo has allowed 46 doubles/triples so far this year, which is slightly more than either of the past two years (despite more innings in those seasons). So it's not just the round-trippers. Bronson's giving up a boatload of extra-base hits; the home runs have simply been more noticeable.
The cause of the power surge isn't completely clear, but my guess is that it's a combination of failing to keep the ball low in the zone and a slower fastball. The pitch location graphs below are a bit muddled, but to my eye it looks like he's throwing fewer pitches lower in the zone. This is likely the cause for Arroyo's worsening groundball ratios. Arroyo had seemingly become more a groundball pitcher during the past few seasons, learning to rely on an improved IF defense. His GB/FB ratio in 2009-2010 was 0.80 and 0.76 in 2008. But this year it's down to 0.62, about where he was in his first two years in Cincinnati. So not only is he allowing more balls in play, but more of them are being hit in the air. And they're going farther, too - his HR/FB percent has jumped to 12.7% this season after never reaching 10% in prior Reds seasons.
As for his fastball velocity, it's dipped to 87.0 MPH, a full MPH lower than 2010 per Fangraphs. A one MPH difference might be immaterial, but then again Arroyo's poor fastball might have finally crossed below the threshold that allows major league hitters to be honest - especially if it's not kept low in the strike zone.
Can Arroyo turn back the clock next year? Hopefully. Any solution will need to account for the incredible amount of damage inflicted by left-handed batters this year. LHBs slugged about .450 in each of the prior two years against Bronson, but this season it's up to .622. To put that in context, Dan Uggla is slugging .456 this year. No NL hitter is slugging .600. Bronson's contract will mean he'll get an opportunity next season to remedy the wrongs of 2011, but it's far from certain that he'll have his old Tiger Eyes.
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I'd like to think that a lot of this came from the whole mono thing.
I thought from day one that Bronson should have been shutdown, until he was completely healthy. Maybe that really screwed him up. Either way, he is going to get a chance next season to prove himself. If he has another terrible year the Reds might just be better off releasing him. It is a growing trend in baseball to just cut your dead weight.
You had me at meat tornado. ~ Ron Swanson
Arroyo sucks? Who knew?
Oh, wait a minute….
Wear something sexy to my funeral.
by Pops Daniels on Sep 12, 2011 9:19 AM EDT reply actions 1 recs
sure fire reds HOFer
One of the top 75 reds of past one hundred fifty years.
BroYo!
"the only place they lost was the scoreboard"
by Ewok on Sep 12, 2011 6:56 PM EDT via mobile up reply actions
Arroyo's fastball has actually improved a bit
for much of the year it was down around 86, so maybe that is a sign he is a bit stronger now.
From looking at the graph his velocity does seem to be up a tick in the late season.
I break the backs of young children by shattering their dreams.
It's been better late in the season...
But it is still below what he’s thrown in past years. Plus, he’s actually been a bit better late this season.
I think the charts are fascinating. He really isn’t getting the ball down well at all. Maybe I just can’t see in this muddled mess, but it looks to me like he can’t get the change-up down in particular. That’s important because the change-up ought to have negative vertical movement. It looks like he’s got nothing that he can throw that will make hitters chase pitches beneath the strike zone.
To me it looks like a control problem.
His walk rates may be down, but if you look at the graphs it appears that he has no idea where his fastball is going.
I can see two very big differences from 2010 and 2011 in the graph. In 2010 Arroyo’s pitches were much closer to the plate. When he missed he was at least around the corners, and they were pitches that would entice a hitter to swing. In 2011 his pitches are either located way out of the zone, or right in the hitter’s sweet spot. It is a lot easier for a hitter to lay off bad pitches, and then Arroyo is forced to groove one.
Here are some other differences that I notice.
- In 2010 it appears that Arroyo used his fastball exclusively high and/or inside. His fastball has always been a pitch used to deceive a batter. Usually the batter would be sitting on his curveball, and then would be late on the fastball. In 2011 it looks like his throwing his fastball more, but his location is all over the place.
- In 2010 Arroyo depended primarily on his curveball and his changeup. He used his fastball to keep a hitter honest, but his bread and butter was the curve and change. When he threw his fastball it was to set up these two pitches. In 2011, it appears that Arroyo went to using his slider a lot more. I would think that would be a big reason for his drop in performance. Arroyo throws a very slow, sweeping slider, and it was never as effective as his curveball.
I am almost worried that Arroyo has lost the feel for his curveball and is trying to find another mixture of pitches. It worries me to see a drop in the curveball and changeup, and increase in the fastball and slider. It would also help if he could find a better location for his pitches.
You had me at meat tornado. ~ Ron Swanson
by BigBabyBruce on Sep 12, 2011 10:43 AM EDT up reply actions
The pitch classifications are imperfect, but according to Fangraphs he's used his changeup much less this year
He’s also thrown his curve slightly less, his slider slightly more, and his fastball much more. Maybe some of his changeups have been misclassified.
On the texas leaguers site, you can filter the graphs by pitch type. I probably should’ve done that above. It does look like he’s thrown more high fastballs this year. 2011 on top, 2010 on the bottom.
Arroyo on tying Milton:
"(The record’s) irrelevant. You can only pitch your style of game. It’s round baseball and a round bat. You can’t dictate if the ball’s going to go up or down. You pitch your style of game. This season for whatever reason, I’ve given up a lot of balls up in the air that have gone out of the park. I’ve got three starts left. Even if I ended with three no-hitters, it wouldn’t be a good season in my mind. You take your licks and you come back and try to have a better season next year."
Here's what I don't get
And I’ve posted this before, but I think it bears repeating:
If it’s loss of cammand/lower velocity/loss of talent, why hasn’t his LD% gone up? To me, it seems if he really was getting hit harder his LD% should rise, but it hasn’t – it’s below his career average, and significantly better than his first 3 years with the Reds.
His GB/FB ratio is lower, but again not so much lower that it would raise alarms (and again, lower than his career average and comparable to his last year in Boston and first 2 in Cinci). It is just one number – HR/FB – that is out of whack.
So again I’ll ask – if not bad luck, what?
"You never know how you look through other people's eyes"
maybe he had good luck over the past couple of years
I break the backs of young children by shattering their dreams.
LD classification is generally accepted to be be spotty at best
HRs are almost never classified as LD for example. Even ignoring that, since Bronson is allowing more BIP than ever, and more of those BIP are FBs and LDs, of course he’s going to give up more HRs. Much fewer of his FBs are infield FBs (attributable to pitcher skill), which indicates that when guys are lifting the ball off Arroyo, they’re doing so with more authority than in the past. The HR/FB rate is not that crazy all things considered. It’s a bad sign.
expectations are premeditated resentments - cheshirecat
Agree about the batted ball classification problem
What we really want to know is how hard his pitches are getting hit. In addition to the classification problem, there’s also the issue of parsing “soft liners” and frozen ropes. Until there’s HitFX, I think XBH% is the best proxy. Arroyo’s XBH rate is 11.3% this year, which is almost four percentage points higher than last year.
But I disagree about the popups. He’s given up infield flies at the same rate as last year, 15% IF/FB. Unfortunately, the 85%.
Well, on FanGraphs
his infield flyball rate is down 3% from his career rate, and a lot of percent over pretty much every year as a Reds player.
Hmm.
expectations are premeditated resentments - cheshirecat
bb-ref adds LD and FB for the pop up rate
I think that’s a better way to do it, given the classification problems.
Except that doesn't hold water
Even ignoring that, since Bronson is allowing more BIP than ever, and more of those BIP are FBs and LDs, of course he’s going to give up more HRs.
If you count HRs as BIP, he’s allowed 608 balls in play this year (706 AB-98 K), compared to 683 last year (804-121); that makes a difference of 75 BIP, and he’s allowed 11 more HRs so far. That works out to 14.7% of the extra BIPs going for HRs – not FB, but BIP. There are guys in the Home Run Derby who don’t hit 15% of BIP out.
And the number of “more of those BIP” being FB/LD is pretty small, certainly too small to explain the jump in HR – 61.5% this year vs. 59.9 for his entire career (I don’t know how to break out individual years, but looking at his numbers shows he’s always right around 40% GB).
Since he became a full-time starter in ‘04 until this year, he allowed .313 (BABIP+HR); this year it’s .325 – higher, but not shockingly. That’s only a difference of 8 hits per season. He’s not allowing many more 2B and 3B either – his rate on BIP (7.57%) is close to his ‘04-’10 rate (7.41%).
The only thing I see in the numbers is HR/FB (or HR/(LD+FB), if you like) – not more other XBH, and only enough more hits overall that they’re all HRs.
"You never know how you look through other people's eyes"
That's not clear
He was at .313 H/(AB-SO) before, which would include HR in BABIP, and .325 this year.
"You never know how you look through other people's eyes"
This really isn't that complicated.
He’s allowing more FBs as a percentage of his overall BIP.
2008: 35.6%
2009: 36.7%
2010: 40.3%
2011: 42.9%
That, combined with the steadily decreasing K rates, means a steadily growing number of fly balls each year since 2008.
Now the HR/FB percentage still seems unlucky, and probably is, to some extent. However, the IF/FB thing can’t be ignored. When Arroyo’s junk is moving, it’s really hard for guys to square up and results in a lot of weak pop outs. Here are his IF/FB rates since 2008:
2008: 17.2%
2009: 12.3%
2010: 11.3%
2011: 9.3%
So the narrative is pretty clear. An increasing number of balls in play, and increasing % of those balls in play being of the fly ball variety, and a decreasing % of those fly balls being in the infield.
I don’t think Bronson’s been quite as unlucky as we’d like to hope.
It feels so nice to be back to normal
I would guess that a decrease of velocity, can mean a decrease in movement.
I break the backs of young children by shattering their dreams.
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