Kyle Weiland came to the Astros in the Melancon trade, which creates some curiosity among Astros' fans. Conroestro wrote about the competition for the No. 5 spot in the rotation; since Weiland is a bit more of a mystery to Astros' followers, I will provide a more in-depth profile of the former Red Sox prospect. Among the five potential starters in conroestro's article, the 25 year old Weiland joins Harrell and Lyles as 4 pitch pitchers, which may give them an advantage in competition for the rotation.
I should give a hat tip to conroestro for finding this article by alex speier, which I use liberally. Weiland's interview at Soxprospects.com was also useful. Weiland impresses me in the latter article as a young pitcher who has given some thought to his craft.
BACKGROUND
Weiland went to Eldorado High School in New Mexico Weiland showed promise at a young age as a swimmer, but switched to baseball at age 10. While in little league, Weiland received instruction from two star pitchers at Eldorado High School who would, themselves, become draft selections. One of those players, Kyle Evans, went on to have both a college (Baylor) and minor league career followed by work in major league front offices as a scout. When Weiland was eligible to be drafted out of Notre Dame, Evans happened to be an advance video scout in the Red Sox front office and he encouraged to the Sox to look at Weiland.
Weiland was a good college closer at Notre Dame, relying upon a sinking fastball and good curveball. But the Red Sox believed that Weiland had the ability to pitch as a starter. Going into the 2008 draft, the Sox believed that Weiland could be a bargain draft pick, because most teams were unaware of his pitch repertoire and would view him as a reliever. Because Weiland might only pitch one inning in a three game series in South Bend, he was hard to scout. The Red Sox scouts compared Weiland to the groundballer, Justin Masterson, who they believed was a bargain draft selection in the preceding year. When they drafted Weiland in the third round, the Red Sox front office felt that they had gotten a first or second round talent with a lower draft pick.
Weiland signed quickly so that he could begin the transition process to becoming a starting pitcher in short season ball, and he was very impressive. He was pushed up to High A Salem, where he initially struggled until he adjusted to the competition and ended the season brilliantly. Although Weiland's FIP and ERA increased in AA, the fact that he increased his K rate (8.4 per 9 IP) and BB rate against better competition was a more important indicator. The results looked worse due to an increase in his HR/fly rate. In AA, Weiland learned how to use his curveball as a backdoor pitch against lefties. As a result, Weiland became equally effective against batters on both sides of the plate.
Weiland put everything together when he moved up to AAA in 2011. During spring training last year, he added a cutter to his repertoire, giving him another weapon against lefthanded bats. This Baseball America report at mid-season raves that Weiland has shown both dominance and consistency. When BA posted that note, he had allowed 2 runs or less in 13 of his 16 starts; and he had just pitched a gem in which he allowed only 1 walk and 1 hit with 12 strike outs for Pawtucket. Overall, he posted a 3.58 ERA, 47% GB rate, and an impressive 23.5% K rate in AAA.
Weiland was called up to the big league team and posted unimpressive results in a small 24 inning sample. A couple of things need to be kept in mind about his big league cup of coffee. First, due to the Red Sox's desperation in a cratering season, Weiland was thrown into critical playoff-critical games while the Red Sox were in the midst of a chaotic team losing skid. The associated pressure is far from an ideal situation for a piayer to pitch in the big leagues for the first time. Second, in some of his previous promotions in the minors, Weiland sometimes got off to a bad start until he adjusted to the new level. Since scouts say that one of Weiland's positive traits is the ability to make adjustments, he may not show the desired results in the majors until he has a more extensive adjustment period.
Some video from Weiland's minor league days:
Weiland strikes out Astros' catcher Jason Castro
Strike out with a curveball in AAA
The holiday season has arrived for a large portion of humanity, and that means good food, time with family, and the giving of gifts. Astros fans have suffered through what perhaps was one of the most difficult seasons for any fanbase since man picked up a stick and decided to take a whack at a ball of yarn.
First, the "Good Guys" struggled to a franchise-low 106 losses. Then, it became apparent that the club's owner, Drayton McLane, Jr was doing the equivalent of coasting carelessly through a few senior-year electives as he waited to hand off a franchise that he no longer maintained much interest in. Afterwards, the sale of the club was delayed by Major League Baseball as they claimed to investigate (for the third time) character claims against the new owner-in-waiting, Jim Crane, thus preventing an already budget-handicapped front office from making any useful changes to improve the club. Finally, Astros fans watched helplessly as Crain was strong-armed by MLB into accepting a $70 million bribe to move the Astros to the American League, which was widely criticized by just about everybody, including teams in the American League.
Yes, it's been a rough year. But now it's the holidays and the Astros are receiving gifts unheard of since Jeff Bagwell was given to them in an act of unprecedented charity. First, the Astros hired a GM, Jeff Lunhow who seemed eager to pull the franchise out of outdated methods of player development with statistical analysis applied to methodical scouting practices, and who even sees the importance of communicating with the fans. Next, an unexpected gift. Lunhow traded a player not needed for when the Astros regain relevance for a starting shortstop with a good hitting reputation and a solid and projectable minor league starter. Below, Jed Lowrie, the new shortstop for the Houston Astros, will have his stats unwrapped to give fans a good look at what they can look forward to in 2012.
How much stock should we put into the new Astros starting shortstop?
When Mark Melancon, the team's closer for the immediate future, was traded to Boston for Lowrie and pitcher Kyle Weiland, most of us, including national outlets like FanGraphs, viewed it as a win for both sides. Houston got some young players who might break out and Boston got some late-inning help after losing Jonathan Papelbon and moving Daniel Bard into the rotation.
I liked the trade, said as much in a post the day it happened and liked where new GM Jeff Luhnow was taking the team. He was trading surplus value for something that will help the team and could provide more value down the road. That's the kind of thinking I've been waiting for since Gerry Hunsicker left town.
But, a lot of that hinges on Jed Lowrie and he's much more of an enigma that I'll probably let myself believe.
Why did Houston make this trade? Well, Boston needed a closer, but more importantly, the Astros were searching for a shortstop. They were picking through the bargain bin, but with every passing day, it looked like Angel Sanchez would be the everday guy.
Lowrie changes that...maybe. What he does show is how much more important offense is at the position and how defense is valued on the open market.
On October 28, 2011, the Astros announced that they had received Craig Tatum from the Baltimore Orioles on a waiver claim. Tatum is a 28 year old catcher who for the previous two seasons has split time between the major leagues, where he served as backup to Matt Wieters, and the Orioles minor league system. His Wikipedia page proves that he is a real person, in case there was any doubt, and provides information about his history for the curious.
But how does Tatum fit in with the Astros? In Triple-A and the majors, the Astros already retain the rights to Jason Castro, Humberto Quintero, and Carlos Corporan, among others. The announcement of acquiring Tatum has come with little fanfare and no notable quotables, so perhaps examining his body of work will provide some insight.
Moneyball seems to be on my mind lately. We discussed a lot about the book, the movie and what they all said. I know the sabermetric community gets thrown around here a lot, but for all the fancy statistics we have, there are still things we can't know until we have more information.
I didn't have to try very hard to come up with 10 different things about this team that we just can't know. First up, Jimmy Paredes. Let's run through what we do know about him:
After the jump, we'll look at what we can't know...
After Bud Norris' excellent start Wednesday against the Phillies, I considered a question about his season. Was Bud affected by Brad Arnsberg's firing?
Certainly, his season started out well before training off some in July. Just taking his first two month splits and comparing them to July and August show a slightly different pitcher, with lowered strikeout rates but similar peripherals.
Was there a reason Bud was getting more strikeouts with Arnsberg, who was fired on June 15? Let's look at the Pitch F/X data for Norris from before and after that date.
Before Arnsberg:
| Type | Count | Selection | Strike | Swing | Whiff | Foul | In Play |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| FF | 723 | 50.6% | 61.0% | 41.8% | 5.5% | 19.4% | 16.9% |
| SL | 564 | 39.5% | 68.1% | 55.1% | 20.7% | 18.8% | 15.6% |
| CH | 141 | 9.9% | 53.9% | 41.1% | 9.2% | 12.8% | 19.1% |
After Arnsberg:
Type Count Selection Strike Swing Whiff Foul In Play
FF
793
49.3%
61.7%
41.5%
5.3%
18.2%
18.0%
SL
599
37.2%
65.4%
53.8%
19.0%
17.0%
17.7%
CH
217
13.5%
62.2%
47.9%
7.4%
20.7%
19.8%
The first thing you'll notice is a pretty even split on number of pitches thrown between the two halves. You'll also notice that there's not much difference between the two charts. Norris throws three pitches and leads with his fastball. His slider is his best pitch and that usage rate remained unchanged wit slightly lower strike rates and swing rates.
The only real, substantial difference is an uptick of about 3.5 percent in the changeup usage rate. This is where the drop in his strikeout rate can be attributed.
See, Norris is getting about 10 percent more strikes with the change than before and saw an increase in his swing percentage on the pitch as well. Since his whiff rate dropped slightly since the beginning of the season, that means more hitters were making contact with the change.
However, they weren't putting the change in play and were instead fouling it off. If you follow the percentage increase in the strike, swing and foul ball percentages, they're all about the same. So, all those extra changes Bud is throwing are getting fouled off, which leads him to use his slider or fastball as an out pitch and may be lowering his strikeout rate.
It seems counter-intuitive that if Norris is throwing his change for more strikes, his strikeout rate will lower, but that's the best explanation I can see from some rather incomplete data. I'll also add the disclaimer about looking at partial season data for pitches. We have a pretty big sampling here, but it's still not a full season's worth of data.
If I had to guess, I'd say this is more about Norris learning how to command the changeup. It could be his best pitch, but he's throwing it where hitters can get to it right now, even if they're just fouling it off. If he can learn to sequence it better and command it more effectively in the strike zone, Norris' strikeout rate could jump again.
As I mentioned Wednesday, I'm starting a little series on some of our rookie hitters, where I look at their seasons so far through the eyes of Pitch F/X data to see how they are being pitched in the big leagues. This isn't going to be the most scientifically rigorous Pitch F/X study you've seen, because I'm not going to be ascertaining how good the pitches were, just what each batter was thrown and where those pitched ended up.
To start off, we're going to look at Jose Altuve, who has quickly turned into a fan favorite here in Houston. Let's review a couple of things about him that we already know. First, his modest walk rate in the minors has plummeted into almost nonexistence in the majors. He's not striking out particularly much, but he has been slumping lately. Also, because of his size, we've heard talk that pitchers are trying to challenge him with fastballs to see if he can't catch up.
After the jump, we'll start by looking at his pitch chart to see just what he's been thrown this season...(Thanks to Texas Leaguers for providing the data).
Yesterday, I broke down Chris Wallace based on his scouting reports and the eye of those who have seen him play. Today, we are gonna dive into statistics in a way that may seem unorthodox. But, thats what we do around here from time to time. I mentioned the passed balls stat in yesterday's post so we are going to focus the whole article on his ability to throw out runners.
There are basically two segments to throwing out baserunners; pitcher to catcher, catcher to fielder. Both segments have to be quick in order to create the best chance to get a baserunner out. The first segment has a few factors that come into play that affect that segment. There is the quickness of the delivery and there is even the pitch type that affects the time to the plate of the ball. In the second segment, we have fancy little "pop times" to measure that. As for Chris Wallace's pop time, I was only able to find one from Perfect Game in which he recorded a 2.09 back in 2004. For reference, solid ML pop times are sub 2.00 and great pop times are 1.80, so as a high schooler he was almost in ML range for pop times.
I've been told that not everyone will understand what exactly a pop time is. So, I'm going to break this down just a bit for some of ya'll. The stopwatch starts when the ball hits the mit and it stops when the ball reaches the second baseman. There are quite a few things that go on during that time including: footwork, glove-to-hand transfer, and arm strength. As a catcher develops you would expect just slight improvements in arm strength but you would like to see a lot of improvement in footwork and transfers. Those three improvements can really improve a pop time since it's such a small window.
So, if all of those factors in his pop time point to an improved pop time into the ML range, why are his CS% so low? If TCVfan says, "The thing that sticks out to me was how good he would throw to the bases. Never afraid to make snap throws, strong and accurate," why is his CS% so low? That's what I want to figure out.
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