Al Aburquerque Is Being Aggressive in the Strike Zone

Al Alburquerque has only faced 24 batters so far this season, so small sample caveats apply.  However, he's only given up 1 walk for a walk rate of 4.2%, which is a much better rate than he has shown in the past (15.9% in 2011; 15.1% in 2012; and 15.5% in 2013).  Based on his plate discipline numbers, there is evidence to suggest a change in approach to attack the strike zone more aggressively this year:

Year	F-Strike%	Zone%
2011	51.7%	43.5%
2012	54.7%	41.4%
2013	56.8%	41.8%
2014	66.7%	59.7%

His percentage of pitches in the strike zone is up almost 20% from past seasons and even his first pitch strike percentage is up about 10% from last year.  

One of the reasons for this could be his pitch selection.  Alburquerque's best pitch is his slider and while he's always thrown it at a high rate, he's throwing it even more often than in the past (according to Brooks Baseball):

Year	4-Seamer	Sinker	Slider
2011	38.1%	4.8%	57.1%
2012	5.8%	31.4%	62.8%
2013	5.2%	29.4%	65.4%
2014	16.9%	9.1%	74.0%

This is concerning from an injury standpoint, but again it is a small sample.  

Visually, this chart shows where in the strike zone he is pitching:

Compare this to the 3 years before:



The bottom right corner is still a hot spot for Alburquerque (mostly his slider) but it can been seen in the 2014 chart there are more hot spots in the strike zone.  An encouraging sign for someone prone to walking a lot of batters.

Of course when a pitcher is throwing more strikes, there is the potential for hitters to make more contact:

Year	Contact%	Z-Contact%	O-Contact%
2011	58.8%	74.4%	38.6%
2012	58.5%	66.7%	47.5%
2013	62.4%	80.3%	41.4%
2014	81.1%	92.0%	58.3%

Alburquerque has a fairly high BABIP (.333), but his line drive rate is only 15.8%, down from 25.4% last year, so batters aren't hitting him as hard as last year.  So even though hitters are making more contact, they aren't making hard contact, which is a good sign.  Therefore, there might be some regression here as the season goes on:

Year	BABIP	LD%	GB%	FB%
2011	0.250	13.6%	56.8%	29.6%
2012	0.222	11.1%	63.0%	25.9%
2013	0.312	25.4%	40.4%	34.2%
2014	0.333	15.8%	42.1%	42.1%

Visually, we can see where he's been given up the hits in the strike zone:

Alburquerque has given up 7 hits and almost half of them, 3, have been right down the middle.  Maybe he's being to aggressive in throwing strikes?  It's one thing to throw strikes, but you don't want to put in on a tee for batters.  
   

Another thing that Alburquerque is doing that we're not used to seeing are low strikeouts, only 4 or 16.7%.  In 2011 his strikeout rate was 36.8%; in 2012 it was 34%; and in 2013 it was 31.8%.  The low strikeouts are making his Fielding Independent Pitching (FIP) look not as good as in the past:

Year	K/9	BB/9	HR/9	FIP	ERA
2011	13.92	6.02	0.00	2.08	1.87
2012	12.15	5.40	0.00	2.19	0.68
2013	12.86	6.24	0.92	3.72	4.59
2014	6.75	1.69	1.69	4.55	5.06

Alburquerque showing better control and command of his pitches is a good sign.  If he can keep it up, while still maintaining a low line drive rate and increase his strikeouts to where they were the last 3 years, he can possibly be one of the best relief pitchers in the league.  However, it's only been a little more than 5 innings, so it could just be a blip on the radar.  It's something to keep an eye on, though as the season progresses.  

Alburquerque Struggles With Men on Base

Saturday night the Tigers enter the 9th inning trailing 1-0 when Leyland summons Al Alburquerque out of the bullpen.  Groans ensued throughout Twitter, yet I felt confident.  My "eye test" told me that Alburquerque does alright starting an inning and he didn't disappoint, pitching a clean 1-2-3 inning.  However, using memory as any kind of reliable source is asking for trouble, so onto Baseball-reference.  As it turns out, I was a little bit wrong on Alburquerque; he's not just good with the bases empty - he's great.

Situation	PA	AVG	OBP	SLG
Bases Empty	98	0.152	0.316	0.177
Men on Base	98	0.313	0.408	0.542

Oh, I just love it when the sample size perfectly match.  These numbers obviously show a lot; Alburquerque appears to be one of the best relievers in the game when no one is on base, yet pitches like a AAAA-player as soon as someone is occupying one of his bases.  There are several explanations that range from random variance to pitch usage.  But the one that immediately comes to mind is that his delivery may be off when pitching out of the stretch.  

Going back prior to his 1 full year in the majors in 2011 when he had a 1.87 ERA and a 2.08 FIP, here were his numbers in the same situations:

Situation	PA	AVG	OBP	SLG
Bases Empty	80	0.182	0.325	0.182
Men on Base	102	0.110	0.260	0.122

Alburquerque certainly looked capable of pitching with men on base before.  Again, it could be, random variance, confidence/mental issues, but the "what's wrong with Al Alburquerque" could be as simple as a mechanical adjustment when pitching out of the stretch.  Now I'm not one to post videos comparing how a pitcher looks when pitching out of the wind-up vs. out of the stretch.  Honestly, I wouldn't know what to look for.  I'll leave that up to the bloggers who are smarter than me.  And I really hope someone takes on that project.  

Using RE24 to Evaluate Relievers

Run expectation is one way to measure a player's effectiveness, either on offense or pitching.  In every 24-out situation, there's a different run expectation depending on the the baserunners and outs (the inning and score is irrelevant in RE24).  The difference between the run expectation at the start of a PA and the end of the PA gets charged to both the hitter and pitcher.  FanGraphs provides an example using the Red Sox and Rockies 2007 World Series game.  At the start of an inning the run expectation was .52 (this is just the league runs/league innings), then Ellsbury doubled that changed the run expectation to 1.15.  The difference between 1.15 and .52 is 0.63.  Therefore Ellsbury gets charged with +0.63 and Cook gets charged with -0.63.  

During the course of the season, these run expectation differences get added and subtracted to the player's total and at the end of the season they get a cumulative total that shows how much better they've been than league average.  Run expectation is extremely useful in generating linear weights which then can be applied to stats such as wOBA.  However, many analysts agree that RE24 can be very useful in proving relief pitcher value because they often come in and leave in the middle of an inning.  Say a starter loads the bases in the 7th inning and a reliever comes in and gives up a 3-run double and then a strikeout.  All 3 runs get charged to the starter while the reliever gets a scoreless 1/3 of an inning.  ERA doesn't properly show what happened, but RE24 does. 

The table below shows the Tigers relievers' RE24 as of games played through 8/31 provided by FanGraphs:

Player	IP	RE24
Joaquin Benoit	54 2/3	19.91
Drew Smyly	69	16.70
Jeremy Bonderman	14 1/3	3.50
Jose Veras	14 1/3	1.57
Jose Ortega	11 2/3	0.93
Rick Porcello	2	0.84
Bruce Rondon	26	-0.11
Evan Reed	18	-0.35
Luke Putkonen	22 2/3	-2.18
Jose Valverde	19 1/3	-2.38
Al Alburquerque	39	-3.27
Darin Downs	33	-3.73
Jose Alvarez	4	-4.78
Octavio Dotel	4 2/3	-6.02
Phil Coke	36	-6.46
Brayan Villarreal	4 1/3	-8.73

Tangotiger recently showed us how we can put RE24 on a RA9 or ERA scale:

If it helps, we can recast RE24 into an RA9 scale (i.e., similar to ERA) as follows.  Say the league average is .48 runs per inning.  Say you have a pitcher that has an RE24 of +40 runs and has pitched 200 innings.  That means the league average is .48 x 200 = 96 runs, and our pitcher here is 40 runs better than that, or 56 runs allowed.  So, his (RE24-based) RA9 is simply 56/200*9 = 2.52.

So far there have been 16,965 runs allowed in 36,380 1/3 IP for a league run/inning of 0.47 so far in 2013.  Using Joaquin Benoit as an example, he has pitched 54 2/3 innings; the league average would allow 0.47 * 54 2/3 = 25.49 runs.  Benoit has been 19.91 runs better or (25.49-19.91) 5.58 runs.  5.58 divided by 54 2/3 times 9 = 0.92.  The table below shows all of the Tigers relievers using this new metric (which I'm calling reRA9):

Player	IP	reRA9
Rick Porcello	2	0.42
Joaquin Benoit	54 2/3	0.92
Jeremy Bonderman	14 1/3	2.00
Drew Smyly	69	2.02
Jose Veras	14 1/3	3.21
Jose Ortega	11 2/3	3.48
Bruce Rondon	26	4.23
Evan Reed	18	4.37
Al Alburquerque	39	4.95
Luke Putkonen	22 2/3	5.06
Darin Downs	33	5.21
Jose Valverde	19 1/3	5.30
Phil Coke	36	5.81
Jose Alvarez	4	14.95
Octavio Dotel	4 2/3	15.81
Brayan Villarreal	4 1/3	22.33

We could then compare the pitcher's reRA9 to his ERA to see if he's been overvalued or undervalued:

Player	IP	reRA9	ERA	Difference
Octavio Dotel	4 2/3	15.81	13.50	2.31
Luke Putkonen	22 2/3	5.06	2.78	2.28
Brayan Villarreal	4 1/3	22.33	20.77	1.56
Evan Reed	18	4.37	3.00	1.37
Phil Coke	36	5.81	5.00	0.81
Bruce Rondon	26	4.23	3.81	0.43
Rick Porcello	2	0.42	0.00	0.42
Al Alburquerque	39	4.95	4.85	0.11
Jose Veras	14 1/3	3.21	3.14	0.07
Darin Downs	33	5.21	5.18	0.03
Drew Smyly	69	2.02	2.22	-0.20
Jose Valverde	19 1/3	5.30	5.59	-0.28
Jose Ortega	11 2/3	3.48	3.86	-0.38
Jeremy Bonderman	14 1/3	2.00	2.51	-0.51
Joaquin Benoit	54 2/3	0.92	1.48	-0.56
Jose Alvarez	4	14.95	15.75	-0.80

Villarreal and Valverde are no longer with us.  Other pitchers like Dotel, Porcello and Alvarez have too small of a sample size to tell us much.  It looks like Putkonen, who has a nice ERA, has been overvalued according to his RE24.  And Benoit, who has been extremely good in his role this year, looks to be even better by looking at RE24.  

Who's Your Tiger Closer?

The Tigers are obviously going by a closer by committee, at least to start the season.  Jim Leyland brilliantly managed the 9th inning of the first game by sending Joaquin Benoit back out to get one out in the 9th inning before taking him out and using Phil Coke to get the last two outs.  The opposing batters were right-handed hitter Josh Willingham, left-handed hitter Justin Morneau and switch hitter Ryan Doumit.  By using Benoit against the right-hander and Coke against the left-hander and the switch hitter (where he does significantly worse against left-handed pitchers) is what made the move brilliant.  He went unconventional and played the match-ups instead of going by the unwritten rule that the closer has to start the 9th inning.

Below is a table generated by Baseball Reference's Play Index (which is on a free trial until April 15th).  I set the parameters from 2009-2013, which only included how they performed in the 9th inning.  I then deleted out everyone that isn't currently in the Tigers bullpen: 

Rk	Player	Split	From	To	G	ERA	IP	H	R	ER	HR	BB	IBB	SO	HBP	BF	WHIP	BA	OBP	SLG	OPS
11	Al Alburquerque	9th inning	2011	2011	11	1.08	8.1	6	1	1	0	8	2	16	1	40	1.680	.194	.375	.194	.569
13	Brayan Villarreal	9th inning	2011	2012	12	2.89	9.1	6	4	3	0	8	0	10	0	41	1.500	.182	.341	.212	.554
15	Joaquin Benoit	9th inning	2011	2013	31	3.67	27.0	18	12	11	3	7	1	29	0	102	0.926	.191	.245	.340	.586
17	Phil Coke	9th inning	2010	2013	34	4.23	27.2	29	12	13	1	13	3	17	1	115	1.518	.299	.384	.392	.776
19	Darin Downs	9th inning	2012	2012	2	4.50	2.0	2	1	1	0	1	0	3	0	9	1.500	.250	.333	.375	.708
22	Octavio Dotel	9th inning	2012	2012	12	12.38	8.0	14	10	11	1	5	2	6	0	43	2.375	.378	.442	.541	.982

Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Play Index Tool Used

Generated 4/2/2013.

Obviously, we're dealing with small sample sizes here.  Only Joaquin Benoit and Phil Coke have significant innings in the 9th inning, and even then it's only 27 innings.  So this has to be taken with a grain of salt, but it's still interesting to look at.  Some notes:

Al Alburquerque and Brayan Villarreal have low ERA's, but very high WHIP's due to a lot of walks.  

Joaquin Benoit's looks like the best option.  Not only does he have a lot of experience (at least more than anyone other than Coke), but he's held opponents to only a .191 AVG, he has more than a K/inning and very low walk totals.  

Phil Coke's ERA doesn't look too bad, but his WHIP and opponents batting line against does, probably due to facing right-handed batters.

Darin Downs only has 2 innings of experience pitching the 9th inning, not nearly enough to  properly evaluate (then again, technically neither is 8-9 innings).

Octavio Dotel surprised me the most.  He has the most experience closing out games, yet he has the highest ERA.  This is a good example of why small samples shouldn't be used, as he probably wouldn't be this awful if given the bulk of the save opportunities.  Also, it's only restricting him to 2012, since I set the parameters to only Tigers pitchers (2012 was the only year he's pitched as a Tiger).  Luckily, we can get the information from his total years in the 9th inning from 2009-2012:
  

Rk	Player	Split	From	To	G	SO	ERA	IP	H	R	ER	HR	BB	IBB	HBP	BF	WHIP	BA	OBP	SLG	OPS
44	Octavio Dotel	9th inning	2009	2012	76	74	4.82	65.1	58	41	35	9	25	3	3	280	1.270	.235	.308	.429	.737

Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Play Index Tool Used

Generated 4/2/2013.

Now we have a much higher sample size, much more than anyone else currently in the Tigers bullpen, but the ERA is still alarming.  

Maybe ERA isn't the best stat to use.  One sabermetric stat is Fielding Independent Pitching (FIP) , which only uses home runs, walks, hit by pitches and strikeouts (events that the pitcher has the most control over).  The formula is ((13*HR)+(3*(BB+HBP))-(2*K))/IP + constant.  The constant puts it on the same scale as ERA.  For simplicity's sake, I'm going to use 3.2 as the constant.

	FIP
Darin Downs	1.70
Al Alburquerque	2.60
Joaquin Benoit	3.27
Brayan Villarreal	3.63
Phil Coke	3.96
Octavio Dotel*	4.01

I'm still dismissing Downs due to a small sample size (again, it's not like anyone other than Dotel has a big sample anyway).  *I'm using the full 65 1/3 inning sample from Dotel in this calculation, and he still comes off as the weakest one (but not much worse than Phil Coke).  I find that very interesting.  In the meantime, Alburquerque, Benoit and Villarreal still look like very capable options.  

Who should get the most Save Oppotunities?

• Al Alburquerque
• Joaquin Benoit
• Brayan Villarreal
• Phil Coke
• Darin Downs
• Octavio Dotel

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