The Twins gave Nick Blackburn every chance to battle through his struggles this year. They were patient with their contact-happy right-hander, freshly signed to a four-year contract extension; patient to a fault, in my opinion. But when Blackburn turned in another dud on July 18, allowing five runs on nine hits over just five innings in a key game against the White Sox (in which Brian Duensing's lengthy and outstanding relief appearance aided a Twins victory), Ron Gardenhire and the Twins coaching staff could no longer find a way to justify his continued presence in the rotation.
They did what had to be done. They demoted Blackburn and his 6.53 ERA to the bullpen. After one shaky relief appearance, Blackburn was sent to the minors. He hadn't been there since late in the 2007 season.
Back in Triple-A Rochester, Blackburn seemed to quickly regain his confidence against inferior hitters. In his first three starts with the Red Wings, he allowed only two runs on 11 hits over 16 1/3 innings while ratcheting up his ground ball rate. Despite the fact that Blackburn looked significantly worse in his fourth start with Rochester (5.1 IP, 8 H, 4 ER), he got the call back to the big-league club, as Kevin Slowey's aching elbow had opened a vacancy in the rotation. Francisco Liriano's bout with a tired arm necessitated that Blackburn start Monday night's game, on his first day back with the team.
Despite Blackburn's 2.49 ERA and 65 percent GB rate during his minor-league stint, I was skeptical as to how he'd perform on a hot Texas night against a playoff-caliber offense. But you know what? He pitched damn well. In seven innings, Blackburn allowed only three runs, and for once I can say his results don't accurately reflect how effective he was. A couple infield singles led to damage in the first, and a muffed routine double play by J.J. Hardy allowed a run to cross in the fifth. All in all, Blackburn didn't allow much hard contact and looked a lot more like his 2008/09 self.
Now, I'm not naive enough to believe that this one start signifies a 180-degree turnaround for Blackburn. I've watched him get mashed up by opposing offenses too many times this year to be so easily convinced. What I offer is a plea to Blackburn: please, keep it going.
We know you're capable of it. We remember your final five games last season, when you bounced back from a brutal eight-week slump to lead the Twins to four pivotal victories down the stretch in the regular season (posting a 1.65 ERA) and then nearly helped pilot them to a victory at Yankee Stadium with a gritty ALDS performance. Heck, even more recently, we remember how you bounced back from an awful April this season to win all five of your May starts, posting a 2.65 ERA.
Now would be a great time for you to put together one of your little signature runs. Because the Twins are trying to build separation in the division standings and Slowey's status is uncertain. This time, there's no Brian Duensing to be called upon if you should fail; Glen Perkins and Jeff Manship are simply not appealing fallback options.
You are a pitcher who has had many ups and downs in your young career. This season has mostly been a valley, but you can erase a lot of ill will by stepping up now, in the rotation's time of need.
It's not like you haven't done it before.
Tuesday, August 24, 2010
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19 comments:
Great post dick bremer err Nick. Lets do better than era. Youre hoping blackie can get lucky for a month, which isnt the high percentage play. Despite a low era blackies ability to miss bats has ranged from really terrible to worst in baseball. Combine that with good control and an average gb rate and youve got a pitcher who's not good and has never been good. Instead of praying blackie manages to get a ton of balls hit at people, lots of opportune DP's and a tiny hr/fb rate for the next month, why not instead cheer for delmon to return to his 1.000+ ops form despite not walking ever or cheer for matt guerrier to revert back into a 1.3 era setup man. Theyve done it before right.
I'd love nothing more than for Blackburn to keep it going. For that, he needs to continue to do three things.
1 - Get his off-speed stuff to not suck. That's all, just "not suck". If he can mix speeds and throw GOOD strikes with his breaking balls and changeup, it suddenly becomes a lot more difficult for hitters to wait on the mediocre sometimes-sinking fastball.
2 - Miss a few more bats. Not Liriano-miss, mind you. Just Blackburn-career-miss. Strike out four guys per nine instead of two. It's not the two strikeouts themselves that mean a whole lot, it's what the ability to strike out a couple more hitters means: hitters aren't quite as sure about what's coming and where it's going.
3 - Keep going inside with the fastball. For a guy with mediocre stuff but good control, it's imperative he jams hitters in order to have a little more control over the outer half of the plate.
He'll never be an ace, and I know you're not claiming he is. But he can definitely be the guy he was in 2008 and 2009--there's value in that, and that's all we need him to be.
Even on television it seems obvious that his sinker had its movement back. I can really only see the tailing action though because of the perspective and everything but it was tailing a lot more than earlier this season and I assume it was sinking as well.
Think with Blackburn is that when he can pick corners with that sinker it is actually kind of a dominant pitch. It isn't like Slowey where the stuff is so mediocre that well placed pitches are still sometimes hammered. He does have a nasty pitch when it was on and last night the Rangers had a hard time against it. He was just a victim of bad luck.
Good for Blackburn. You know dang well everyone is pulling for him to keep it up.
To the first poster:
You do realize that Blackburn was an innings eater with respectable ERA and .500 winning percentage his first two seasons? In addition to that he was a stud down the stretch both times?
I hate when people post this crap about how bad he is because of periphreals. Those side stats are used to predict how a guy will do after AAA experience or minimal MLB time because ERA and winning percentage and innings pitched and things of that nature haven't yet averaged out. We use those "other metrics" to predict what the important metrics will look like before we have, for example, 400 innings in two seasons to look at.
But after a guy has two solid seasons you don't use those numbers to say how much he sucks. That logic is so beyond retarded that it is hard for me to even respond to it.
I mean, he's obviously not a frontline ace but if you add up his first two seasons he was 22-22 with 400 innings pitched and a very respectable 4.04 ERA. In terms of his runs given up I'd say his record was "bad luck" if anything. His struggles this year are because he has regressed as a pitcher. It has nothing to do with his periphreals from the first two seasons. 400 innings in two seasons is enough to eliminate the "he keeps getting lucky" argument.
He's just sucked this year, plain and simple. It can happen to strikeout machines with awesome periphreals like Liriano. It can happen to contact pitchers like Blackburn.
Got to say our starting pitching is really up in the air right now. Is Frankie's arm dead? Is Pavano running out of gas? Is Slowey done for the year? Is Baker going to do the good start/awful start shuffle the rest of the year? Is Duensing our best starter right now? And really, Nick Blackburn?
I realize the Twins couldn't have foreseen the LH relief crisis, but it sure would have been nice to get another starter along the way.
Lets do better than era. Youre hoping blackie can get lucky for a month, which isnt the high percentage play. Despite a low era blackies ability to miss bats has ranged from really terrible to worst in baseball. Combine that with good control and an average gb rate and youve got a pitcher who's not good and has never been good.
This is where strictly statistical analysis fails, in my opinion. To claim that Blackburn's peripherals are a recipe for sub par performance is accurate, but to claim that he's "never been good" is silly. He posted an above-average ERA over ~200 innings in BOTH of his first two seasons.
I'm tired of this crusade against ERA. Is it predictive? Often not. But Blackburn DID post a 4.04 ERA over 400 innings in the past two years (better than Slowey, Liriano or Pavano); you can't just take that away from him because you don't like the way he did it.
As much as Blackburn's success can be attributed to luck, there are clearly things he's doing differently when he's going good than when he's going really bad. If he pitches with confidence, locates his pitches where he wants to and gets some help from his defense, there is no reason he can't repeat another one of his his low-ERA stretches. And if he keeps runs off the board and helps the team win, I couldn't care less what his FIP is.
It's not that Blackie or any of the Twins rotation suck, it's that they are inconsistent from game to game. Finding IT and keeping IT has been a problem with this set of pitchers. I, for one, would be thrilled if Blackie pitches the rest of the season like he pitched last night, he'll win most games. His sinker was wicked.
Nick,
Cheers for acknowledging that stats can't tell you everything - a LOT of bloggers out there go off of stats alone, and it just doesn't work.
My issue with ERA is when it's applied to relievers - a guy can come in with the bases juiced, give up a bases-clearing double, strand that guy and his ERA is 0.00 for the day. That ERA doesn't begin the tell the story.
With starters ERA is definitely more meaningful. But you can also just look at the way Blacky pitched down the stretch last year and realize he's capable of being a very valuable guy.
My issue with ERA is when it's applied to relievers - a guy can come in with the bases juiced, give up a bases-clearing double, strand that guy and his ERA is 0.00 for the day. That ERA doesn't begin the tell the story.
I agree, but I think that over the long term ERA can be a fine barometer of any pitcher's ability. You can ignore Matt Capps' ERA this season if you want, but his career mark of 3.44, spread across five seasons and 330 innings, indicates that he's probably a pretty good pitcher.
hey nick and fellow twins followers. i have just started reading this blog and am really impressed with the intelligent people who comment here. i look forward to posting here more often.
my thoughts with blackburn are
1. contract security can sometimes lead to a false sense of rotation security. i think blackburn's poor off speed control has been a mental laps of confidence.
2. he has proven that he can be effective. in my opinion, when hot, he is a much better version of scott baker.
3. i hope the pressure of knowing there is no one to back him up this time is enough to send him on a tear, he seems to perform better under pressure and later in the season.
Hey Sean, glad to have you aboard! I agree, the quality of discourse in the comments section here is second to none, in my opinion.
I like how some previous posters have stated that Blackburn needs to command some offspeed "show me" pitches better so he can miss a few more bats and keep hitters off balance.
Let's hope he can keep doing that.
Yeah, and ERA counts. I agree with Ed in the inherited baserunners for relievers bit, but ERA is still a key stat and gauges a pitcher's worth relative to his park and defense behind him.
I think Jesse pretty much sums up Blackie. The more he consistantly works hard inside it makes hitters more uncomfortable and his very mediocre off speed pitches much better. When his fastball really has good life he will break bats consistantly. I really think he would be a candidate for a forkball/splitter. I realize the Twins dont do this but if there's ever been a pitcher that needs to get over a hump its him and it could be the splitter that could do it.
"To claim that Blackburn's peripherals are a recipe for sub par performance is accurate, but to claim that he's "never been good" is silly." Fair enough. My point was that blackie isnt a good pitcher, and posting a 4 era over a full season is very lucky, but that certainly says nothing about his performance in a game or even a stretch.
"You do realize that Blackburn was an innings eater with respectable ERA and .500 winning percentage his first two seasons? In addition to that he was a stud down the stretch both times?
I hate when people post this crap about how bad he is because of periphreals." This is why there needs to be a crusade against ERA. Its the batting average of pitching statistics. The majority of fans believe that ERA is not only a good pitching stat but that its the best. Its not predictive, you cant use it to compare players on different teams, you cant use it to compare pitchers on the same team. And to the people that believe a consistent era over 2 seasons is a large enough sample size for the result not to be luck, there is not a sample size large enough for this to be true because there are some many variables that the pitcher doesnt control that go into era. Defense, ballpark, dp rate, hr rate, strand rate ect ect. There is no chance pitcher skill alone could hold all of these large factor constant. If a pitcher is getting lucky, getting lucky for a long time doesnt make it a skill. And just for reference, even if sample size could add validity to ERA it would take way more than 2 seasons. ERA isnt a top 5 pitching statistic, innings pitched isnt a top 10 pitching statistic and w-l record shouldnt even be considered.
"there is no reason he can't repeat another one of his his low-ERA stretches. And if he keeps runs off the board and helps the team win, I couldn't care less what his FIP is." This is the rational the twins used when they signed blackburn and baker to high risk almost no reward contracts. And what your post really boils down to is that you dont care if blackie pitches poorly as long as the twins win. Pretty deep thinking.
So Anonymous, you want to evaluate pitchers on fip instead of era? A stat that in the name of only judging a pitcher on what he has complete control, eliminates at least 2/3 of the outs made even when you have a great strike out pitcher on the mound.(at least that is the theory, innings pitched still figure in the stat and that is based on outs, no matter how you get them)
The thing is, baseball is a team game, whether era is a good stat or not, you don't penalize a pitcher for taking advantage of his defense, home park or even the elements. Blackburn was arguably the Twins best pitcher over 2008-09. Maybe he was lucky or whatever but it would not be surprising if he is a very effective pitcher for the Twins the rest of the year.
Here is how I boil down the FIP vs. ERA argument - like both stats, it doesn't tell the whole story - but it makes you think about raw numbers in a different way.
If you were playing blackjack -
ERA would be essentially your win/loss rate on this given shoe being dealt. How many actual good outcomes (money won/shutout innings) measured against how many bad outcomes (money lost/runs surrendered in innings).
FIP would be like counting the cards in the shoe dealt to that point. It would be a scientific, predictive stat that would tell you there is a strong, strong likelyhood of the remainder of the shoe being in your favor (lots of high cards still left/good periphrials) or the likelyhood of a really, really crappy stretch ahead (lots of medim-low cards still left/bad periphrials).
ERA is proven results - period.
Just because you might have won (or lost) money because the idiot acting last hit his 16 when the dealer showed a 6 and you got an unexpected outcome - it doesn't matter if it was lucky or unlucky. The point is it happened. You can either now quit and buy some hookers and cocaine with your winnings or try to explain to your wife that you can't go out to dinner for the next month because some idiot hit 16 and took the dealer's bust card.
FIP is predictive - but ONLY a prediction. When counting cards, you might only bet $5 a hand until there is only 4 hands left in the shoe and the "count" is sooooo ridiculously stacked in your favor that you now confidently bet $1000 per hand. Sometimes the dealer shows blackjack. All of your predictive stats just cost you a dime. But then again, how could those MIT kids headed by Andy Bloch have won millions of dollars by "predicitng" results by counting cards if it wasn't a valuable tool?
As a side note - I rarely post here, I frequent Gleeman's site more often - but that isn't the point of this last little rant. The point is - the "discourse" here is usually pretty good. But I couldn't help throwing in my 2 cents regarding this statement made by Anonymous 2 posts up from this one:
"innings pitched isnt a top 10 pitching statistic"
Perhaps not as a predictive stat, but as a retrospective evaluation stat - I beg to differ:
Cy Young
Pud Galvin
Walter Johnson
Phil Niekro
Nolan Ryan
Gaylord Perry
Don Sutton
Warren Spahn
Steve Carlton
Grover Alexander
Kid Nichols
Tim Keefe
Greg Maddux
Bert Blyleven
Roger Clemens
Mickey Welch
Tom Seaver
Christy Mathewson
Tommy John
Robin Roberts
These gentlemen are the top 20 all time in IP career. I would challenge anyone to come up with 10 different pitching statistics that return a list that look prettier than this one.
Have a great Wednesday -
Karl
Terribly sorry about the post spam - It was unintentional
FIP is gross. A better effort than era but imo not great. k/9 bb/9, gb%,ld%, fb% are the pitcher skill stats you should be evaluating pitchers with. If you are looking for all in one stats xfip is ok although very rudimentary and very unregressed. There are good combo pitcher stats out there.
Im still waiting to hear a compelling argument for the value of era. Say the twins want to sign a free agent pitcher, one guy has a 4.00 era and the other a 4.05 era. ERA is not going to tell you a thing about the relative pitching capacities of these pitchers because the 2 pitchers came from such different environments. Say the twins were looking to trade for a pitcher, ERA isnt going to tell you anything about how that pitcher is going to perform with a new defense and stadium or if the pitcher possesses skills to maintain his era. While its true peripherals arent worthwhile when predicting small samples of data, ERA shares this same weakness. I dont know why anyone would chose era over peripherals except that its easier and common practice.
What my point is is that people should stop looking at the result of the play when evaluating pitching and start looking at the result of the pitch. I would much rather see a pitcher give up a weak ground ball single than get an out on a line drive to the warning track. The ground ball on average is going to be the more valuable result.
No problem, Karl. The extra comments have been taken care of. Thanks for your excellent take.
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