Jair Jurrjens and Peripherals
February 13, 2012 at 12:27 pm by Ben Duronio under Atlanta Braves, Statistical Analysis
The steady argument between sabermetricians and old school types in regards to Jair Jurrjens has been alive since his second season. Jair posted a 2.60 ERA in ’09, leading many to believe that he is one of the best young starters in the game. His FIP that season was a much higher 3.68, which put his -1.08 ERA-FIP spread the third biggest in the league. Many saber types predicted a regression to the mean, while others expected him to build off of that performance into a perennial Cy Young candidate. To date, neither have been quite right.
Last year, Jurrjens did it again. His ERA sat at another incredible mark of 2.96 while his FIP of 3.99 did not quite agree with the results. Again, his ERA-FIP spread was one of the largest in baseball, ranking fifth in the league, at -1.03. Since the start of his Braves’ tenure, he maintains a spread of -0.48, 16th over that time period.
Because of the two big seasons and the current high spread, many conclude that this is just something Jurrjens can do regularly. It is believed by some that he has the ability to outpitch his peripherals. Often, ground ball pitchers and weak contact pitchers do have this ability. To the extent that they have said ability is unknown. For example, Tim Hudson and Derek Lowe both have ground ball rates at 59% or higher, with Lowe actually having the higher rate. Hudson has a -0.38 spread while Lowe’s is +0.15. Obviously, the conclusion that all ground ball pitchers are misjudged by FIP is not valid, though it is often the case.
Now is that the case with Jurrjens? Of the 173 qualified pitchers since ’08, Jurrjens ranks 78 in ground ball percentage. He is not exactly a ground ball wizard, though that misconception is one that is often assumed. His infield fly rate, a number also often associated with weak contact, ranks 136. Jair’s GB/FB rate also sits in the middle of the pack at 78. Lastly, his line drive rate ranks 53, closer to the top of the league than his ground ball or infield fly rates. Batted ball numbers are still statistics to look at with caution, but over the relatively large sample size of four seasons the bias in their ratings gets at least somewhat mitigated.
So what exactly has Jair done that enabled him to record two seasons with a BABIP south of .270 and spreads better than -1.00? The only conclusion I can wrap my finger around is plain good fortune. In both of Jair’s seasons where he outperformed his peripherals, he finished in the top-5 in left on base percentage.
| LOB% | Jair’s | League Avg | E-F Spread |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2008 | 71.0% | 71.4% | 0.09 |
| 2009 | 79.4% | 71.9% | -1.08 |
| 2010 | 69.3% | 72.2% | 0.45 |
| 2011 | 81.0% | 72.5% | -1.03 |
Is there some uncanny skill that Jair retains that sometimes allows him to leave men on base at a higher rate than almost every pitcher in the league? I doubt it.
One argument commonly heard is to entirely discount his 2010 year due to injuries. On September 14 of that year, Jair tweaked his knee, which actually resulted in a torn meniscus. He did not start a Major League game after the reported tear. Prior to the tweaked knee, Jair made every start from June 30th until that final start in mid-September. He pitched to a 4.02 ERA over that 14 game span, with 68 strikeouts and 30 walks in 87.1 innings. That equates to 7.02 K/9 and 3.10 BB/9 rates, which are similar to his career numbers. To completely discount his entire year, despite having what seemed to be at least 14 healthy starts during the season, is picking and choosing numbers.
During spring training of that year, Jurrjens reported shoulder issues. He made four starts before his hamstring gave him problems in his one-inning outing against the Cardinals. In those four starts, he had two decent appearances and two poor ones. There is a chance that the shoulder problems he had in the early parts of spring affected those starts — the shoulder may have even led to the hamstring injury by nature of altering his mechanics — but he did have a nine strikeout performance before hitting the disabled list. While his start against the Cardinals can obviously be discounted due to the hamstring injury, assuming the previous four should be looked over is a stretch, in my opinion.
So while Jair did have injury issues in 2010, it is hard to say that all 116.1 innings — roughly 17% of his entire career — should not be included when evaluating his career. After all, his strikeout and walk percentages of 17.2% and 8.4% that season matched his rates from the previous season.
Jair basically has two seasons in which he stranded tons of runners, comparable with anyone in the league, and also posted a batting average on balls in play that ranked among the league’s lowest. There simply is not much evidence to support that this is the type of pitcher that Jair is, due to batted ball rates and the other two seasons in which he started. Simply doing this in two seasons does not make it the standard with which to project performance. While 367 innings is a relatively large sample size, Jair’s peripherals and batted ball rates make the notion that FIP does not judge him accurately seem somewhat inaccurate. Maybe there is something to Jair’s style of pitching that allows him to get better than expected results, but that conclusion is not one I am ready to side with just yet.
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I don’t think it’s illogical to say that in Jair’s 4 seasons with the braves he’s been alternating unlucky and lucky seasons (babip of .301, .268, .300, .269). Statistically, it’s just as likely to have four average years than to alternate good and bad luck. He’s not actually the pitcher he was in 2011. Or 2010 for that matter.
His batted ball profile shows he’s better than average at allowing HR/FB, popups, line drives, and XBH/BH. Where there’s smoke there’s a fire. Jurrjens allows weaker contact than expected. You don’t get a lifetime babip of .280 in over 700 innings by fortune (especially not with the mediocre defenders behind him). My guess is he’s due for a .280ish babip this year and an ERA in the mid 3s. Jurrjens and Marcums and Cains are outliers, but they exist.
@1, I’m not sure you *can’t* get a lifetime BABIP of .280 over 700 innings by chance. What’s the standard deviation for pitcher BABIP?
Could his strand rate be tied to an increase in effectiveness in pitching out of the stretch vs a full wind up?
I think it stands to reason that some pitchers might be better at stranding runners on base. For instance, maybe JJ is more comfortable than other pitchers at pitching from the stretch. Or maybe he handles the extra adrenaline of having a runner behind him a little better. Can you get numbers from when he is pitching with bases empty vs. runners on?
Unrelated to Jurrjens, it seems like “outperforms his peripherals” is the new back-handed compliment du jour in baseball. It’s like being an “energy guy” in hoops or a “game manager” in football.
Four years in the show should provide some experiential advantage in how to win, how to pitch in critical situations, and how to train to avoid injuries. Braves have had some HOFs that feasted on weak contact and strategic BBs. Are we serioulsy going to chalk up this talent, winning %, and ERA to luck?
Yes, you should chalk it up to luck.
With the exception of basically Matt Cain, every single hitter and pitcher that has these runs of good final numbers but moderate or sub-par peripherals always falls back to what. they should be doing. Jurrjens was off to an amazing start last year, then in June and July he was only good, and then he was injured. Had he not be injured his ERA would certainly have climbed a bit higher as well. He outperformed most of the year, but suddenly he went from being everyone HOLY CRAP CY YOUNG AWARD WINNER to pitching much closer to how he should have been.
Players get off to great starts, then more or less go back to how they should be playing. Uggla is basically the opposite example. He was absolutely terrible to start the year, then finished the year mostly how he should have. He did have a torrid streak, but his second half couldn’t overcome how bad he started. Imagine if he had hurt himself in August before he could further bring up his numbers.
These kinds of things happen all the time. To come out and bank on Jurrjens being a 3ERA pitcher is silly, very few pitchers are legitimately that good.
People want to claim he’s better than fip/xfip give him credit for, that’s fine, but he isn’t this much better.
@1,
JJ’s batted ball profile indicates that he isn’t much better than the league average at allowing weak contact, so what other evidence is there that he can maintain a low HR/FB ratio and low BABIP? Even if we grant that he is a weak contact pitcher who gives up more fly balls than ground balls, which is unlikely, he’s still giving up too many line drives for me to believe that he can keep this up.
@6,
“Four years in the show should provide some experiential advantage in how to win, how to pitch in critical situations, and how to train to avoid injuries.”
If that were true of Jurrjens, wouldn’t it be true of any pitcher who’s been in the majors for 4 years?
And that’s a pretty big if. I have no idea what you mean by “how to win,” and Jurrjens hasn’t exactly been great at avoiding injuries (probably because pitching is, you know, not exactly the most natural thing to ask your body to do).
The defensive positioning when a runner is on base, for most cases, make it far less likely that a pitcher, who allows hits when nobody is on base, will not allow a hit when someone is on base.
The defense allows holes in order to hold runners close to the bag and cannot play in an optimal position particular to a batter’s history of hitting. The double play infield is one in particular. There are major holes on the right side of the infield where a chopper will make it through the shifted defense.
It makes it far less likely that a pitcher can have such strand rates and make it through unscathed time after time.
I am inclined to believe that part of the FIP / ERA diffeential is real and part isn’t. Nothing statistical there, just gut instinct.
An issue which COULD affect the strand rate and the FIP / ERA spread is a pitcher with extra pitches. Maybe a pitcher has a pitch that when used frequently would be “exposed” but to throw it once to a batter in a game could handcuff the batter. I feel that Jair’s ability to move the ball with different grips and throw the same pitch at different speeds (poor man’s Pedro) is significant and utilized.
We had a couple of Braves who did that successfully and had many people think it was smoke and mirrors, but they will be inducted into the Hall of Fame in 3 years.
Mark Lemke’s story tells it best. Maddux pitching. Ball hit to him eats him up and bounces him in the face. Maddux goes to check on him (and others). Maddux says “are you alright.” Lemke says “yeah, yeah.” Maddux says, no, I mean are you ready. the next batter is going to hit it to you and I need to know you are o.k.” Lemke again says “Sure”.
First pitch to next batter, ground ball to Lemke.
Moral of the story. Some pitchers DO have pitching smarts and it CAN be real.
2011 MLB Trade Rumors: Blue Jays, Rockies, Tigers Targeting Braves Jair Jurrjens Yesterday Jon Heyman of CBSSports.com tweeted that, while the Red Sox are not in on Braves strnaitg pitcher Jair Jurrjens, the Blue Jays, Orioles, Rockies and Tigers are all interested in the young right-hander. Atlanta has made it known that they are Read more on Call to the Pen
It was mentioned I believe last year (???) that Jurrjens had changed his approach from more of a power-type pitcher to a pitch-to-contact pitcher. What effect do you think that has on judging his stats from last year?
The larger his sample size continues to get, the more we’ll know – If his numbers this year are as good as last’s, luck starts playing a lesser role.
I guess Warren Spahn was lucky, too.
@12 /Jack
I’m anxious to see how his change in philosophy plays out as well. I think it’s going to be a good thing for him.
I’d like to see Jurrjens have a “normal” season this year – one that is essentially injury free and where is outpitches his peripherasl by a bit, but not by as much as he did the first half of 2011 (people seem to think this is where he should “normally” end up). This will allow both the Braves and prospective trade partners property evaluate him. Until then, he is basically untradeable and it creates difficulty for the Braves in ranking their starters.
A cursory glance at the PitchFX between 2010 and 2011 shows that Jurrjens threw his sinker with more downward movement last season. Wouldn’t that account for some of the improved BABIP and strand numbers? Also his K rate was well down last season (as was his velo) which would seem to suggest that he did in fact seek to induce more weak contact last season.
Might be a one year thing, but based on those figures it does seem an overall change of approach for JJ.
Despite the possible increased downward movement, he did not see an increased rise in GB%, and quite a bit lower than his 2008 which is more or less the type of pitcher he represents.
Jurrjens is a good pitcher, but he’s more middle of the rotation than ace type. If you believe he is a solid middle rotation guy, then you are right about him (barring injury). I think people just argue the peripherals and forget they agree on how good he is.
It is statistically more likely that Jurrjens’ true skill level is closer to his FIP numbers than his ERA. But, because his performance has so far coincided pretty closely to his health…we need to see a full season at full strength to decide whether correlation equals causation in his case. I suspect that he’s somewhere in between the 2 numbers, but we really don’t know yet.
It strikes me that the logical comparison is to Tom Glavine. He stranded a ton of runners by not giving in and pitching smarter than the hitter. Maddux would have done that if he ever allowed batters on in the first place.
I think Jurrjens is a particularly smart pitcher. But I also think he has a small margin for error. If his mechanics are off – as they were in 2010 and after his knee started barking – then he will get lit up.
But if he can make his pitch when he needs to, he can escape.
@20
JJ may not be as smart as Glavine, but he’s definitely an intelligent pitcher.
What bothers me the most about advanced stats is the immediate assumption that anybody outpitching their peripherals must be due for a regression. While that nay be true, some people have the ability to succeed due to a high baseball IQ, a strong mental make-up, and by knowing how to get the most out of their pitches. JJ has all of these characteristics when he is healthy. Those health issues are the only real concern.
To all the baseball stat NERDS who would make far greater use of their time by analyzing how they can put one foot in front of the other without terrorizing their nutsack by the friction of their knock knees…I cannot WAIT for 2012 when Jurrjens rocks the casba (and) your ashbergers obscessions that prove NOTHING.
Ashbergers sound delicious!