John Means and His Narrow Path Forward

One of the few bright spots for the 2019 Baltimore Orioles was starting pitcher John Means. The soon-to-be 27-year old lefty finished second in AL RoY voting and posted a 3.60 ERA over 155 innings. Things look great, huh?

Well, maybe. Means also had a FIP of 4.41 and an xFIP of 5.48. The discrepancy between his ERA and FIP (E-F) ranks 8th among MLB starters who pitched 150 innings or more. (All rankings going forward are for MLB SPs with 150 IP or more in 2019.) His K/9 just barely eked over 7 and his BABIP allowed was a likely unsustainable .256. All these peripherals scream that a massive correction is coming for Means in 2020.

Or does it? Instead of looking at these obvious peripherals and assuming Means got very, very lucky in 2019, let's see if we can find what Means did well, how he got those results and if these skills can carry into 2020.

Did Means induce a large number of ground balls? He did not. In fact, quite the opposite. Means is an extreme flyball pitcher with 50% of batted balls hit in the air. (Caleb Smith at 52.2% is the only MLB pitcher with a higher rate in 2019.) That is a bad fit for Camden Yards. How did he succeed?

Means is not your typical early-21st century pitcher as he barely strikes out 7 per 9 IP. If you are going to have that kind of rate, you need to keep the walk rate down and he did. His 2.21 BB/9 ranked 18th among this group which is not dominant control but very good and it can help limit damage if more balls that average are being put in play. (This is different than a guy like the Cardinals Dakota Hudson who sports a similar strikeout rate but walks nearly double Means' rate pointing to more "smoke-and-mirrors" results for him in 2019.)

So Means is stingy with free passes which helps but it's not a crazy-good rate. Let's look at batted balls and how he was able to keep that BABIP so low.

Scrolling through the leader boards at FanGraphs, I do find two categories where Means ranked as elite in 2019. He was in the top 5 in O-Contact% at 73.5% which puts him between crafty veterans like Mike Fiers and Rick Porcello. That means batters were making a high amount of contact of pitches outside the zone and perhaps inducing weak contact.

As far as weak contact, Means was number one in limiting hard hit balls. Number one. His Hard Hit % of 27.8 is just ahead of Noah Syndergaard, Jacob DeGrom and Stephen Strasbourg.

Over at the Athletic, they looked at combining Hard Hit% and Soft Hit % to measure a pitcher's ability to limit quality contact with their Hard Minus Soft Rate (H-S%) measurement. A description of the stat and its stated purpose:

"Hard Minus Soft is a statistic that compares the number of times a pitcher is hit hard and the number of times that same pitcher induces soft contact. I intend for H-S% to be viewed and used in a similar manner to K-BB%, as it should highlight pitchers who combine the best of the two outcomes."

As you can see in the below screenshot, Means comes in 9th, just behind Stephen Strasbourg and Kenta Maeda and just ahead of Lucan Giolito and Zack Wheeler.

Is this a "sticky" skill? Can John Means continue to (seemingly) induce weak contact by getting batters to strike pitches out of the zone? I can't answer these questions yet but am fascinated to see if he can.

And he'd better. Without some improvement in his underlying talent (his fastball speed ticking up a bit, improving swing-and-miss rates on one of his secondary pitches), this is Means' way forward as an effective MLB starter. Fortunately for Means, even with some regression built in, a pitcher who can  hold an ERA between 4.25-4.50 over 175 innings is still incredibly valuable to this team in 2020.

kwERA and bbFIP: ERA Estimators for the Oriole Staff

Lucas Apostoleris of Beyond the Boxscore has a post up about league leaders and trailers in a couple of lesser known ERA estimators, kwERA (strikeout-walk ERA) and bbFIP Batted Ball Fielding Independent Pitching), both created by Tom Tango. Both work like FIP but with different data. kwERA is ridiculously simple, using only strikeouts and walks as criteria and bbFIP is a bit more complex but used various batted ball data to come to its conclusion.

I'll let you read more about the calculations for these stats over at BtB or on Tom Tango's site but Lucas posted a spreadsheet with 2010 kwERA and bbFIP numbers for every pitcher in the league and since I am mildly obsessed with ERA estimators, I wanted to take a look at how a few Oriole pitchers fared.

              ERA     kwERA    bbFIP
Millwood     5.10      4.32     4.71

Kevin Millwood pitched a bit better for Baltimore than he gets credit for. His actual ERA was worse than both of these predictors as well as FIP and xFIP. The defense let Millwood down a bit and he was slightly unlucky perhaps. Again, I'm not saying he was good but he was a sliver better than we give him credit for.

              ERA     kwERA   bbFIP
Matusz       4.30      4.07    3.86

See a pattern here? Defense matters and the Orioles were not great in that facet of the game in 2010. kwERA came pretty close to estimating his ERA but the batted ball data suggests Matusz deserved a lot better from his fielders and Lady Luck.

One would have to think that the infield of Lee-(healthy)Roberts-Hardy-Reynolds would have to be better than the Wigginton-Lugo-Izturis-Tejada configuration we saw for most of last year. And the pitching numbers should be better for it.

             ERA   kwERA   bbFIP
Guthrie     3.83    4.23    4.44

Jeremy Guthrie doesn't give a damn about your ERA estimators.

Like all the others, Guthrie outperforms these estimators too. kwERA comes the closest and it's still .40 off. Kind of interesting that the estimator that uses solely strikeouts and walks is the best at quantifying what he does. I might have to apply it to previous seasons as well to see if there's a correlation.

            ERA   kwERA   bbFIP
Hernandez  4.31    4.11    4.38

He is what we thought he was. These numbers are pretty right on and even FIP does a good job. (Only xFIP was totally out of whack.) So he's an average-ish reliever with some potential upside as a late inning strikeout guy. I'm still OK with trading him for a couple years of Mark Reynolds.

           ERA   kwERA  bbFIP
Tillman   5.87    5.22   5.60
Arrieta   4.66    5.14   5.23

These two are linked due to their upcoming spring training duel for the 5th spot in the Oriole rotation.

As you can see, the two aren't as far apart in performance as their ERAs would suggest. There is a bit of sample bias since Arrieta faced nearly twice the major league batters that Tillman did in 2010. I still like Tillman's progress a little better at this point but...flip a coin with these two. We're likely to get the same 2011 performance from both of them.

           ERA   kwERA   bbFIP
Berken    3.03    3.84    3.52

Jason Berken wasn't quite as stellar as his sparkling 3.03 ERA but he was legitimately very good. Hopefully, he fully recovers from his injury and pitches at that level again.

           ERA   kwERA   bbFIP
Gonzalez  4.01    2.70    2.91

The contract was still not good...but Mike Gonzalez pitched pretty well over the second half of last season. It gives you hope that he can actually get results like he did in Atlanta. These numbers are giving me hope for the bullpen. Speaking of which...

           ERA   kwERA   bbFIP
Uehara    2.86    1.85    2.45

As spectacular as Uehara was when healthy last season, he may have been even better than we thought. All these numbers are really making me question our defensive team in 2010. Was it really that bad? Maybe.

(By the way, Dave Mc of Weaver's Tantrum has a nice breakdown of what defensive improvement can do for a team. Maybe the O's are setting themselves up for a big move for the better on D?)

           ERA   kwERA   bbFIP
Bergesen  4.98    4.79    4.68

That's about right for Brad. But hopefully the Bergy of the second half is what we get in 2011. It's no surprise that Brad fares slightly better with the metric that used batted ball data.

Three things to think about from this data:

1) For the first time, I'm beginning to think we might mave a pretty good bullpen.
2) It appears that our defense in 2010 may have been really, really bad. And that our defense in 2011 looks like it will be a sizable improvement. And the pitching numbers could improve with it.
3) I still can't pin down the intangible quality that makes Jeremy Guthrie so good. (I guess that's why it's intangible...)

Low Cost Pitching Depth for the Orioles

You can never have enough pitching. Never.

The Orioles appear to be set in the rotation for 2010 with Jeremy Guthrie, Brian Matusz, Brad Bergesen, Jake Arrieta, Chris Tillman and, waiting in the wings in AAA, Zach Britton. But as we have seen before, injuries happen and these young arms may not all be ready to go. You don't want to have to rush a guy like Britton to the majors because you lack pitching depth. With David Hernandez gone, that just leaves Rick VandenHurk as a guy who could provide emergency starts. Jason Berken is not returning to the rotation.

But Baltimore has enough talent that they don't need to spend a lot of money on pitching depth. There are guys coming off of injury or poor seasons that can be had for cheap and may provide some upside if they rebound. I'm not saying these are great pitchers but they would be available for depth and emergency.

Sign a guy or two from this list and let them compete. They could always be shifted to the bullpen or to AAA if they are not needed.

Here's some candidates listed, more or less, in order of desirability.

Jeremy Bonderman - There is always a chance that Bonderman regains his pre-2008 form when a blood-clot in his shoulder shut him down for the better part of 2 seasons. He pitched a bit better than his 5.55 ERA (xFIP, FIP) and threw 171.2 innings in 2010. Another year removed from the injury, he could improve on those numbers and could provide great value.

Jeff Francis - A lefty starter, Francis pitched much better than his 5.00 ERA (3.88 FIP, 3.95 xFIP). If he's fully healthy, he could be an interesting weapon against the Yanks and Red Sox lefty-heavy lineups. Not a big strikeout guy but has pretty good ground ball rates.

Chris Capuano - The Brewers don't want Capuano, not as a starter anyway, so he's on the market. Capuano didn't pitch badly in 66 innings as a swingman for Milwaukee and even though he would probably see a bump in his ERA (3.95 ERA, 4.22 FIP, 4.08 xFIP), he would still be a slightly better than average starter. Another lefty in the rotation in the AL East couldn't hurt.

Kevin Millwood - Millwood didn't quite live up to expectations but he did provide more than 190 innings and 1.3 WAR last season. Again, he can take the beatings if the youngsters aren't all healthy or ready. He did it last year and you might be able to squeeze one more year out of him.

Freddy Garcia - Garcia is kind of a flyball pitcher which would seem to be a bad fit. Also, there seems to be some competition for his services which may push his price up. Still, he has been right around league average for the last nine seasons so he's a good bet to remain consistent and do that again.

Doug Davis - Davis would be a guy to bring in on a minor league deal. He could be an interesting option as a swingman or 5th starter if he has a good Spring Training.

Noah Lowry - What happened to this guy? He tried to make a comeback before last season, nobody signed him and he didn't pitch anywhere in 2010. Go find him and see if he'll sign a minor league deal. The guy had all kinds of upside as a young lefty for the Giants. It would be worth a look to see what he could do in Spring Training.

John Maine - Why not? Another guy who would come cheap, maybe even on a minor league deal and he could be shifted to the bullpen if needed. He wasn't healthy last season but if he's healthy now , he could give us a half season in the rotation or add depth to the 'pen.