In his first 7 games of the season, Slade Cecconi got off to one of the worst starts to a season a starting pitcher could possibly have. He had a 6.56 ERA, a 5.79 FIP, and was giving up 2.02 HRs per 9 innings pitched. In the 9 starts since, his ERA has gone down to 2.96, his FIP to 3.47, and the HR/9 rate is down to 0.74. So, has Slade turned things around? Let's break it down.
Before getting into some of the changes he's made, it's important to look at the information we already have a bit more closely. There's a natural ebb and flow in a baseball season, as both hitters and pitchers will experience changing conditions in the field. Batted ball distribution, luck, and defensive performance behind a pitcher can fluctuate, and because of that, surface level results can often be cloudy. For example, on the surface, a pitcher putting up an ERA 3.50 runs lower than they had been and a FIP drop of almost 2.50 sound amazing, but if we look at his xERA and xFIP numbers, they tell a slightly different story. For example, look at the following table:
We can see that in those first starts, Slade was actually getting significantly higher than expected results, and in the more recent set of starts we see the opposite. (Granted, the more recent difference is not as extreme.) This leads us to conclude that baseball variance has amplified both ends of this equation. The good news is that even though the degree of the new performance is a little bit overexaggerated by the under and then overperformance relative to expected metrics, we can see there still appears to be a definite improvement that's happened, even if it's less of one than we originally might have thought. In order to get to an answer, we're going to take a look deeper at his more specific quality of contact numbers and see if we can find any differences that would explain this extreme change in results. Let's start with the following data:
Looking at this, I think we may have a bit of conundrum. Hard-Hit % has stayed the same, but the Average Exit Velocity has gone up, and the Barrel % has plummeted. We also have a modest, but important, uptick in Ground Ball %, and here we can draw a few conclusions. Even though Slade appears to be getting hit slightly harder on average than before, we can see from the Barrel % and the Ground Ball % that the hard-hit contact is not translating into barrel-level damage nearly as much as before. The Barrel % drop is so significant it's the clearest signal of improved damaging contact prevention. Another consideration with increases in ground ball outs comes the chance for increases in double plays turned. When we look at that data, we can see there were 3 GIDPs in Slade's first 7 starts, and 6 in the most recent 9 starts. This could be normal variance, but it is worth mentioning to see if the pattern holds. This modest rise in Ground Ball % may have contributed to reducing the severity of the contact outcomes on Slade's pitches, but the largest driver of improv
Before getting into some of the changes he's made, it's important to look at the information we already have a bit more closely. There's a natural ebb and flow in a baseball season, as both hitters and pitchers will experience changing conditions in the field. Batted ball distribution, luck, and defensive performance behind a pitcher can fluctuate, and because of that, surface level results can often be cloudy. For example, on the surface, a pitcher putting up an ERA 3.50 runs lower than they had been and a FIP drop of almost 2.50 sound amazing, but if we look at his xERA and xFIP numbers, they tell a slightly different story. For example, look at the following table:
We can see that in those first starts, Slade was actually getting significantly higher than expected results, and in the more recent set of starts we see the opposite. (Granted, the more recent difference is not as extreme.) This leads us to conclude that baseball variance has amplified both ends of this equation. The good news is that even though the degree of the new performance is a little bit overexaggerated by the under and then overperformance relative to expected metrics, we can see there still appears to be a definite improvement that's happened, even if it's less of one than we originally might have thought. In order to get to an answer, we're going to take a look deeper at his more specific quality of contact numbers and see if we can find any differences that would explain this extreme change in results. Let's start with the following data:
Looking at this, I think we may have a bit of conundrum. Hard-Hit % has stayed the same, but the Average Exit Velocity has gone up, and the Barrel % has plummeted. We also have a modest, but important, uptick in Ground Ball %, and here we can draw a few conclusions. Even though Slade appears to be getting hit slightly harder on average than before, we can see from the Barrel % and the Ground Ball % that the hard-hit contact is not translating into barrel-level damage nearly as much as before. The Barrel % drop is so significant it's the clearest signal of improved damaging contact prevention. Another consideration with increases in ground ball outs comes the chance for increases in double plays turned. When we look at that data, we can see there were 3 GIDPs in Slade's first 7 starts, and 6 in the most recent 9 starts. This could be normal variance, but it is worth mentioning to see if the pattern holds. This modest rise in Ground Ball % may have contributed to reducing the severity of the contact outcomes on Slade's pitches, but the largest driver of improv
3 months ago
