Jonny Venters is Just Fine
June 13, 2012 at 9:13 am by Ben Duronio under Atlanta Braves
3.04, 2.88, 3.19.
Those are Jonny Venters’ xFIPs over the past three seasons. He has not changed much at all as a pitcher, but this year he is just receiving all of the poor luck that he didn’t receive in the two season’s previous.
His velocity is slightly down, a mile per hour on average for both of his pitches, which is likely the reason for Venters becoming as hittable as he has been. Even so, his 93-94 mile per hour power sinker is a difficult pitch to hit for any major leaguer, and the rate at which he has given up hits and allowed home runs is far out the ordinary.
Venters currently has a BABIP of .439 compared to a .288 career average, with a HR/FB rate of 33.3% compared to a career rate of 9.5%. If you think those rates will continue, I do not know what to tell you.
Here are the strikeout and walk rates of Venters over the past three seasons
K% – 26.6, 26.9, 26.5
BB%- 11.1, 12.0, 10.3
Along with almost identical strikeout-to-walk rates, Venters has a SIERA of 2.70 compared to a career SIERA of 2.71. The difference between him now and him over the past two years is not nearly as vast as his ERA and FIP suggest. The homers will come down as will the hits allowed. Maybe he won’t be quite as dominant as he has been over the past two years, but he should still be one of the better relievers in the game going forward unless they begin to attack hitters differently or try to fix something that really is not broken.
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There has also been a lot of talk lately about his arm slot and working on it during bullpen sessions. Wonder if that is effecting some of his location.
Eek, this post is a perfect example of Sabermetrics gone wrong.
Statistical analysis is a supplement to “real” knowledge in the absence of that knowledge as well as a tool to assist in that evaluation. Statistics allow you to example a large sample of data to look for trends when it’s impossible or too costly to apply intelligent analysis to each specific instance.
If you are looking at every at bat from every hitter over the course of a season, statistics rapidly become more valuable than experience because no person can bring intelligent analysis to bear on that sample size.
In the case of Jonny Venters, you seem to think he’s fine because a few statistics are mostly unaltered from his career numbers and you also assume that his regression is because xFIP says he should.
NONSENSE.
He’s struggling for simple reasons. From what I’ve seen of his appearances, he’s only hitting his intended target on fastballs probably half the time, and on sliders… maybe 20% of the time.
Ben, If you can dig up a pitch f/x stat on Pitch Location Deviation From Intended Location, I have absolutely no doubt you would find a HUGE break from his previous seasons but the face is that we just don’t have stats for all the things in the world of baseball that we know exist.
Here’s something you might be able to do. Can you find a heat graph that shows the location of pitches on which batters make contact and see if it varies from previous seasons? I bet it does.
I would lay good money down to say that Venters has a BABIP of .439 because he’s making a lot of bad pitches. Having great sink doesn’t help if you leave your fastball where hitters like it instead of appearing to throw it where they want it only to have it sink 6″ below that point.
Here’s another example:
I haven’t seen him throw a back foot slider to a righty successfully in a long while. A back foot slider should appear to be a thigh-high, inner half fastball but turn out to be a slider that’s low and inside that the hitter will swing over and whiff. Venters is consistently missing this pitch so that it appears as an waist-high, outer-half fastball which ends up as a thigh-high, inner half slider. A thigh-high, inner half slider is a very, very easy pitch to hit even if you were fooled on the velocity, swung your hips through too early, and had to slap the ball with your slowed hands.
“Examine”, not “Example”
Venters has never known where the ball was going. If he was missing spots as rapidly as you suggest, his walk rate would be much higher. It isn’t, so no, this isn’t “sabermetrics gone wrong.” It’s exactly what it is, he’s perfectly fine and has ran into poor fortune. He was extremely lucky for the past two seasons. This year, the opposite is true, and the drop in velocity hasn’t helped, but it does not make him a ~4.50 FIP type pitcher either.
Ben, isn’t it possible that many of his misses are in the zone?
I think it’s a good analysis Ben, but there is certainly some truth to GreatZen’s point. From just watching him pitch, the eye ball test (which is still worth something HA), there are two things I notice as well. His location is WAY off, which points to mechanics. Now, he may have always been this way to a point, but I guarentee from watching him the last two seasons, he has never been this far off from his intended target. Secondly, my assessment of why the walk rate is not higher is because he is laying fat pitches into the zone behind in the count b/c his slider is not on point. Hitters are not chasing his mislocated sliders, getting into hitters counts, and taking advantage. There is truth to BABIP exascerbating the problem, but until Venters finds his mechanics that made his slider such a nasty out pitch instead of an easy take pitch, he will continue to regress, just not at a .400+ BABIP rate.
That’s madness! It’s almost seems like you don’t actually watch the games. Both of the last two years, Venters was consistently executing the pitch he intended. This year he’s not.
Can you think of a way to produce the heat graph analysis? I can’t think of where to get that data.
And yes, his walk rate isn’t up because when he gets down 3-0, he’s getting shelled when tosses meatballs into the zone.
Okay, I stepped in it here. When he gets down 3-0, he walks 100% of batters.
That was basically true in 2011 as well.
It appears that except for 3-2, his performance on hitter’s counts is virtually identical to previous seasons.
Does anyone have first pitch strike numbers?
GreatZen, he didn’t walk Rodriguez last night…
Ha! Good point.
I guess ESPN doesn’t update the split stats real time. I know they update the traditional stats realtime.
Ball, Ball, Ball, Strike (looking), Strike (foul), Foul, A Rodriguez homered to left (389 feet), D Jeter, C Granderson and M Teixeira scored
That’s not fair to say he’s never known where the ball was going he’s always pounded the zone the past couple seasons. I’m with Zen on this one, Venters isn’t fine and just watching him trying to locate his pitches will tell you that. One thing I think sabermetrics conversations and analysis often don’t look at is putting thought behind BABIP in general. The term luck is thrown around too loosely. Venters is not getting “unlucky” he’s flat out not commanding his pitches and he’s leaving pitches up and in the middle of the zone when he’s not bouncing them in the dirt. That’s not luck related it’s skill related right now and he’s not going right. Now once he fixes whatever issues he’s having, he’ll locate better and a lower BABIP should follow that. At which point the argument would be well his BABIP just regressed to the mean. Yea numerically it did, but not b/c lucky grounders stopped finding holes or hitters missed a pitch here or there. It will have regressed because Venters got himself back on track. Whether he’s commanding his pitches well or not he’s still throwing hard from the left side with sink and break. That’s where the strikeouts come from. Dominance comes from having that and the command to back it up. Venters doesn’t have the command right now and when he’s misses up he’s paying for it
Spot on.
he’s never known where the ball was going? wait, what? He’s always had some control issues, true. I don’t at all expect for him to keep having the results he’s currently having either, but there has been a difference in location from last year. the charts on the next post show pretty well.
I hope you’re right, but he still shouldn’t have been left in to face Arod.
I agree, Kimbrel should have been in.
And let’s point out that with the tying run in the batter’s box, Fredi didn’t even have Kimbrel warming up. He had Gearrin and Martinez up. Then, in a tie game, Fredi brought in Gearrin to face a lefty. Gearrin’s career split against LHB? An eye-popping .412/.524/.706 slash line.
Good call, Fredi! Almost as good a call as sending Chipper to Rome to rehab so he could miss the Smoltz number retirement ceremony and we could play Constanza’s bat in the lineup instead!
Agree as well. I think a lot of times when the game is over people want to point to an at bat in the 6th or 7th and shout bring in the “closer” it was the highest leverage at bat in the game.Well you can’t have him warm up every time someone runs into trouble and you don’t always know what the highest leverage point of the game will be. But last night when the bases when things were getting tight in the 8th he should have got Kimbrel up and ran every delay possible to get him ready for the ARod at bat. Johnny obviously didn’t have it and had shown that convincingly by that point.
I suppose what we are seeing then, based on the career xFIP compared to career FIP and ERA is expected regression of Venters. He is going through bad luck now, but that is part of the regression we should have expected to see at any given point in time. His career ERA coming into 2012 was too low given his xFIP and now with his luck this year he is regressing toward that projected xFIP of 3.04 (avg of 2010-2012). The career ERA now sits at 2.76 and career FIP is 3.37. This should lower expectations of where he settles in once he gets out of this bad BABIP luck streak.
Qualitatively, I think his issues stem from a) slightly lower velocity, b) bad location, affected by mechanics issues, and c) hitters current tendencies to lay off out of the zone sinkers and look for in the zone fastballs or changeups. If he can get the GB% to come back to 2010-2011 type levels, then the BABIP will follow. His LD% is near 2x that of his first two seasons rates.
Sorry, I didn’t weight the career ERA. Career ERA is 2.22.
I’d have to agree a little bit that Venters is now famous enough that every hitter on every team knows who he is and has at least given some thought to how they would like to face him. And I agree that hitters do seem to be adopting more of an anti-knuckler approach to him: “If it’s high, let it fly.” Everyone knows that every pitch he has sinks and sinks a lot so no is even offering at anything that starts lower half. How much that is altering his numbers is awfully hard to quantify.
But even with that, if you are consistently missing all your pitches by a foot or more, it doesn’t much matter what approach hitters are bringing. Have you seen him pitch recently?
We’re in the same camp.Based on my qualitative factors, we agree on alot (see response above to Ben).
Venters has poor command. Getting behind 3-0 is difficult to overcome hence the meat balls that are being hammered. I am sure his getting behind due to lack of command has much to do with the high BABIP and HR/FB rate.
I can’t comment on anything but last night. What I saw was Venters consistently falling behind batters and then having to make pitches that he knew would be strikes. Three of the batters had hitter’s counts for the entire at bat, one walked, one hit a homer and one singled. I know Venters said he felt fine and thought he was pitching fine, but any time you’re consistently pitching from behind in the count you are putting yourself at a disadvantage.
The strategy against Venters, as I have stated for years now, is to stand at the plate and look for pretty girls.
This might be the only thing we agree on here.
People seem to think Venters has all of a sudden gotten wild.
He has *always* been like this.
He’s been in the zone more this season than in season’s past. The only difference I see in anything is the mile per hour drop, which is likely the biggest reason for his issues so far.
As we keep insisting, there is a big difference between intentionally out of the zone and missing by huge amounts.
Venters previously threw pitches that looked like strikes which became balls or pitcher’s pitches. This year he’s just lobbing things in the general direction of the mitt.
Ben, I responded to your tweet on this same point. I disagree. In the age of instant scouting reports, I see no way that it take 2 years for a “don’t swing at Venters’ pitches” to get around. It just doesn’t happen. I think it’s more something that we can’t see with numbers (like him tipping pitches or his sinker/slider looking less like his fastball). Anyways, it’s complete conjecture, but I just don’t believe he’s struggling because teams finally started taking pitches.
We should point out that out-of-division, advance scouts often only view 3-6 games of the next team on the schedule. If you see 3 games and don’t see Venters pitch, there’s literally no current report on that pitcher from within an organization.
To give an example, I have no idea which Braves scout is responsible for scouting the Rays, but he probably will only see them play two series ALL YEAR before delivering that report. This basically means that information about players (like Venters, for instance) routinely takes 2-4 years to matriculate through an organization.
On a player like Venters, who was a poorly regarded failed starter, it probably really did take two years and an all-star appearance for teams/players to take sufficient note of him to dedicate scouting resources to him.
Brad, I never said people started picking it up how to attack him. I don’t know where in my words you see that, but I don’t feel that way at all.
Ben, sorry, I just assumed you meant people are just figuring out to “take” against JV from the comment about the strategy against Venters is just to stand there and look at pretty girls. But, I’m guessing you meant that that’s just the best approach (and people have probably always known that)…and it’s just that he’s not as effective this year (making that “take” strategy even more appropriate).
He’s hitting the zone at a higher rate. My point was that he has always been wild, but for some reason people think that this is all of a sudden a new phenomena. He will never have good control and will always be below average in that department. That isn’t his issue.
Gotcha…and agreed. I remember the whole hitting Prince Fielder fiasco where we (Bobby) had to argue to get his suspension lifted that he’s always been insanely wild (and the numbers really did bear that out).
His line drive rate is double what it was last year (26% from 13%). He’s getting hit much harder this year.
Thanks, Brian. There’s finally a SABR stat that Ben might give some credence to as not “bad luck.”
There are a tremendous amount of bias in how line drives get labeled. Colin Wyers has detailed greatly how they are labeled, and the process is basically complete bullshit.
What’s a blooper, is it a liner or a fly ball? Usually labeled a liner. Balls that get through holes or down lines are almost always called liners, even if they bounce once at the lip of the infield. The line drive rate, as I mentioned, likely is higher due to the MPH drop, but it’s not nearly as significant as his numbers suggest. One MPH drop does not make a BABIP go from where his was to where it currently is.
The problem with the ‘line drive label bias’ is that the doubled line drive rate for Venters this year matches the eye test. He’s getting hit harder because his sinker is not dive-bombing 100% of the time like it did last year. This year, it seems to run a little sometimes, instead of dive-bombing. This leads to a lot less ground balls. It also allows a hitter to hit the ball off the proper vertical part of the bat, but maybe more off the end (for a RH hitter) or handle (for a LH hitter), meaning that the ball will carry more and bloopers are more likely to happen/fall. Last year, he got a ground ball 72.5% of the time (a ridiculous number). This year, it’s 55.9%. That’s a drastic difference in one year.
Regardless of whether you want to call a ball that ‘bounce once at the lip of the infield’ a ground ball or a line drive, the point is that the reaction time of the fielders is minimal on a ball hit hard enough to make it to the lip in the air. Minimal reaction time equals much greater chances of a base hit.
I wish we had access to the velocity of the ball as it leaves the bat. I believe that would show a drastic difference from Venters’ 2011 numbers.
Agreed.
You might be right, but this is probably just selection bias with the “eye test”. If Venters gave up a ground ball that was ripped right at Simmons last night, as opposed to the seeing eye single, no one would remember him getting crushed. They would just remember that he’s a sinkerballer who got a ground ball when he needed one.
Is he getting hit “harder” this year than last year? I really don’t know. But just because balls have found holes doesn’t mean they were necessarily hit harder. And the 26.5% line drive rate really doesn’t mean anything through so few innings. Its basically a worthless number. Look at Freddie Freeman this year, for example. He has a 31.4% LD rate, but a BABIP of .298. Its basically impossible to have that many true line drives and such a low BABIP.
I am sorry guys…but its article titles and analysis like this that pisses off traditionalist and makes them look poorly at sabermetrics.
Jonny Venters IS NOT OKAY. I dont care what crazy numbers you guys can pull up say. If you actually watch the games you will see that his performance is not what it was last year. He is not anywhere near the same feared bullpen arm. He struggles to get through innings every time out. And even though he has had some recent periods where he hasnt given up much in the way of runs, it is preceded by and then followed by periods of giving up runs.
If Jonny was fine, we wouldnt be talking about this. If he was fine Jonny himself wouldnt be saying things like “We are trying to fix this or that”.
No, sorry, detailed numbers aside…Jonny Venters is not fine.
You don’t understand the difference between results and performance.
Holy crap, we agreed twice on the same blog. THE SKY IS FALLING.
This is one of Bobby Cox’s amazing skills that Fredi does not do well. Fredi seems to manage mostly on results, as evidenced when he yanked Minor after a week ground ball to the 5-6 hole on a pitch where Minor did exactly what he wanted to do and got the result he wanted to get (except that it was a hit instead of an out).
Simiarly, he has consistently left fading pitchers in late in games despite their precipitous drops in velocity and command because they were still getting outs. Unless it’s a no-hitter/shutout situation, that’s time to deploy the hook (or at least wake the ‘pen). Not AFTER they walk two and give up a hit.
week. I’m going to pretend I said “week” on purpose because it took that ball a “week” to get through the hole. Andrelton was almost able to chase it down from behind as it was rolling into left.
I don’t see how it is bad luck when he is being hammered so often. It isn’t like he is giving up the occasional hard hit ball that always seems to find a hole.
I think what most people are commenting on the location issues is how much he is missing. This isnt missing in the dirt with a slider when the target is already low and in. This is McCann setting up on the outer half and Venters missing inside by a foot – repeatedly. You can see it just by watching. I understand Venters has been effectively out of the zone in the past, but that is not the case now. He is missing much too wildly to be effective and ultimately control the outcome of the at-bat. And he knows it based on comments from interviews. When he dropped McCann like a sack of potatoes on the kneecapping, I could only think WTF is wrong with this guy – even though it was miscommunication on pitch type more than anything.
Ha! Good point!
I guess ESPN doesn’t update the split stats real time. I know they update the traditional stats realtime.
STOP BEING OBTUSE
Once this most enlightening discussion has quietened down, how about a debate of why I should be classed as the premier reliever on the staff?
It is ALWAYS Durbin time, BABY! That slider has really developed some bite.
Jonny may be fine, but he was pretty bad last night.
You know, if the single gets hit to Simmons for a double play, instead of three feet to his right, then he’s fine. If AROD hits it 10 feet less for a line out/sac fly, then he’s fine. I agree the results were bad last night, but that doesn’t mean it was all Jonny.
@CharlotteChop 18. Exactly.
Chalk another loss up for Fredi González. How many does he have this year?
In fairness, he played Diaz over Heyward, which helped in the first inning.
Relievers are extremely volatile. This is a combination of multiple factors, including possible matchup bias and sample sizes. To this extent fip and xfip are dramatically less reliable for relievers than starters.
At the same time, 24 innings. To say Venters suddenly became terrible, or there is definitely something wrong with him ignores the whole bad luck part of baseball. Are these people the same who said that Venters is clearly superior to Kimbrel because HE GETS WEAKLY HIT GROUND BALLS. That is luck. This is luck. Pitcher is the same.
I want to believe that Venters is pitching basically the same with worse luck, but I agree with those who see it differently based on watching him pitch. There is a big difference between having pitches hit out of the zone that look like they will be strikes and having pitches hit out of the zone that are easily identified as balls because the stuff just isn’t as good. I think that’s happening and apparent from watching him pitch.
I think that the small difference in velocity on the sinker can make a big difference too, especially when pitching from behind in the count. When Jonny got behind in the count before it seemed like he could just pound the zone with that 95-96 sinker and hitters couldn’t hit it anyway. Now it just seems more hittable, possibly due to the diminished velocity, and when Jonny’s wildness gets him behind the pitches that batters are expecting to come in the zone really get him hurt.
I definitely believe in the value of looking at the advanced stats to compare Jonny’s performance this year to last and analyze what to expect going forward, but having watched him pitch all year, I just can’t agree with the analysis that he’s the same pitcher and everything’s ok. Which sucks because we need good Jonny.
Schoenfield responds to Ben’s post.
http://espn.go.com/blog/sweetspot/post/_/id/25608/braves-need-eighth-inning-help-in-pen
[...] for example, xFIP, which, according to Capitol Avenue Club, shows that Venters “has not changed much at all as a pitcher, but this year he is just [...]
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