On the Edge of Order and Chaos

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Matthew CastillonOctober 21, 2022October 16, 2022

Cavan Biggio’s Swings Too Much Against Lefties

Cavan Biggio took Major League Baseball by storm in 2019 and 2020, hitting a combined .240/.369/.430 over the course of his first 2 seasons. But over the past 2 seasons, the son of Craig has fallen off a cliff, falling to a .213/.321/.359 line. Instead of following in the footsteps of Vladimir Guerrero Jr. and Bo Bichette, his fellow Blue Jay sons of MLB greats, Cavan Biggio has spent much of the course of the 2021-2022 in the Minor Leagues.

What happened to the player who was supposed to be a part of the young and exciting Toronto Blue Jays’ offense? Upon digging into the data, it’s clear that Biggio’s main problem is he’s lost the ability to hit lefties. In his first 2 seasons, Biggio actually fared quite well against lefites going .259/.404/.400. Yet in the previous 2 years, he’s hit a pitiful .180/.280/.260 against southpaws. He has seen a decline against righties, going from .231/.351/.445 to .221/.331/.376, but it has not been as dramatic.

Now some may point to Biggio’s eyepopping .442 BABIP against lefties in 2020 as completely unsustainable, with his .250 BABIP against lefties in 2022 indicative of luck swinging against him. But the peripherals tell a different story. Biggio went from a 17.2% and 27.4% walk and strikeout rate in his first 2 years against southpaws, to 11.0% and 37.3% in his past 2 years. For righties, those rates went from 15.4% and 26.0% to 12.9% and 24.8% respectively. He’s actually been striking out less frequently against righties as of late.

A few interesting tidbits arise in Biggio’s plate discipline numbers. His Swing % has noticeable bump starting in 2021, in particular his out-of-zone swing %.

Season	Swing%	Contact%	Zone%	Whiff%	O-Swing%	O-Contact%	Z-Swing%	Z-Contact%	Pace
2019	35.9	74	40.8	26	16.9	47.6	63.6	84.1	20.1
2020	36.1	76.8	41.6	23.2	18.2	57.6	61.1	84.8	20.3
2021	41.4	74.2	44.8	25.8	22.7	46.8	64.5	86.2	20.4
2022	39.9	74	43.4	26	21	48.7	64.6	84.7	21
Career	38.1	74.6	42.4	22.8	19.3	49.7	63.5	84.9	20.4

https://www.baseballprospectus.com/player/101605/cavan-biggio/

This explains the declining walk rate, though not the problem with southpaws. The splits should explain more.

Let’s start with pitch location. In 2020, lefties and righties generally targeted Biggio away, with lefties in particular going low and away. Fast forward to 2022, and pitchers aren’t treating Biggio any different. A bit of a shift down in the zone against righties, but still pitching away, and not anything substantially different.

We saw earlier that Biggio’s been swinging more frequently out of the zone as of late. What do those heatmaps look like? Biggio exhibited elite patience against lefties going low and away, only swinging and 9% of pitches low and away out of the zone, the favorite target of southpaws. Similarly, against righties he would only swing at 10%/17% high/low and away out of the zone. This is truly off the charts patience, with Biggio coming in 3rd place leaguewide in the Maddux Plate Discipline Index for 2020. 2 years later we see a pretty different picture. Biggio is now swinging at 24% of pitches low and away out of the zone against southpaws, more than doubling his rate. Meanwhile his swing rate against pitches away and out of the zone has barely budged, only increasing by 4%/1% for high/low.

We saw earlier that Biggio’s strikeout rate had gone in different directions for lefties and righties, and the out of zone rates show why. Biggio would strike out only 25% of the time against lefties throwing low and away out of the zone in 2020. Meanwhile those rates were 26%/44% for high/low and away out of the zone for righties. But in 2022, things changed dramatically against southpaws. Biggio had a whopping 71% strikeout rate against lefties throwing low and away out of the zone. Meanwhile his numbers against righties barely budged.

What about walks? In 2020, Biggio drew a whopping 75% walk rate against lefties throwing low and away out of the zone. These numbers were 61% and 11% for high and low away against righties. Weighted average makes this a respectable 39%. And 2022? It’s all the way down to 29% against lefties low and away out of the zone! Meanwhile, the weighted average away and out of the zone against righties is only down a tick to 34%.

What about beyond walks and strikeouts? Or at least quality of contact given the BABIP variation? In 2020, Biggio had a terrific xwOBA of .524 low and away out of the zone against lefties. Against righties, the weighted average away and out of the zone was a mediocre .297. In 2022, Biggio was down to a pitiful .197 against lefties in the zone we care about. Against righties away and out of the zone, the weighted average xwOBA is actually up to .304!

Looking back over the years, it appears that multiple outlets actually called for Cavan Biggio to increase his swing rate after 2020, especially since he had a higher than called strike 3 rate. This advice may have been prudent against righties, who generally throw him fastballs and changeups away, pitches that are easier to foul off with a defensive swing. But lefties love to throw sliders to Cavan low and away and out of the zone.

Cavan Biggio is still a serviceable MLB player. As we’ve seen, there’s reason to believe he handles righties decently. But unless he returns to the patience he exhibited against lefties in 2019-2020, he will remain a platoon player at best.

Matthew CastillonJanuary 7, 2019April 29, 2019

Dillon Maples – A More Extreme Carlos Marmol

A pitcher lives and dies by the hitters they strike out and walk. It is this concept that brought about FIP, the modern foundation for advanced pitching metrics. And no pitcher in recent memory epitomized the extremes of high strikeout and walk rates more than Carlos Mármol .

Mármol slider was one of the most unhittable pitches in all of baseball. It’s impossible to describe how nasty the pitch was, so I’ll just leave this video of Mármol striking out 4 straight San Francisco Giants (including Buster Posey) with just a slider.

Absolute filth.

In 2008, Mármol slider had the 5th best total value in the MLB. Not too bad, especially when you consider Mármol was a reliever, who only pitched 87.1 innings. All pitchers ranked ahead of him were stellar starters (CC Sabathia, Armando Gallaraga, Derek Lowe, and Ervin Santana), all with at least twice as many innings as Marmol.

Carlos Mármol finished his career with a 11.6 K/9, including a 2010 campaign of 16 K/9, a record at the time. Every single season he pithced he posted double digit K/9’s. And batters could not hit him, as he finished his career with a .186 Batting Average Against. Amongst pitchers with 500+ Innings, only Craig Kimbrel, Kenley Jansen, and Billy Wagner allowed fewer Hits per 9 Innings Pitched.

But Mármol had a weakness, a big one. Carlos Mármol struggled with his command, particularly on his 94+ MPH fastball. And as a result, he walked a lot of batters. A LOT. In his career, Mármol walked 15.7% of batters, 6th worst amongst pitchers with 500+ Innings. Amongst all his outings, probably none were more painful than September 24, 2011. Against division rivals St. Louis Cardinals, Mármol walked the bases loaded, a run in, and capped it off with a wild pitch to blow the save and lose the game. In his career, Mármol allowed 385 hits. He walked 395. Hitters decided they had a better chance getting on board by not swinging.

With impeccable strikeout rates and ghastly walk rates, Mármol stands alone amongst Major League pitchers.

MLB Career K% vs. BB%; Minimum 500 Career Innings; Source: Fangraphs

Carlos Mármol is a legend in this regard. Upon being DFA’d by the Cubs, Deadspin commemorated the moment with an article titled “Fare Thee Well, Carlos Mármol And Your Extreme Aversion To Contact”. It seemed hard to believe that such an extreme pitcher would ever arise again, especially in the Cubs organization. But wouldn’t you know it, the Cubs have been developing a pitcher even more extreme than Carlos Mármol, Dillon Maples.

So far, Dillon Maples has only seen 10.2 Innings of big league work, but already posted a 16.9 K/9 and a whopping 9.3 BB/9. In an inning of work, you can count on at least 1 batter getting walked by Maples. It was thought that Mármol was extreme in only seeing 38.7% of pitches getting a swing. So far, Maples is at 31.5%. League average is 46.6%.

Just like Mármol, Maples features a nasty slider. Here he is throwing one by Max Muncy.

Dillon Maples, Disgusting 88mph Slider. 🤮 pic.twitter.com/WvWc6JMULn
— Rob Friedman (@PitchingNinja) June 28, 2018

But also like Mármol, Maples features a hard (97 MPH+!) fastball that he struggles to throw for strikes. Out of 154 sliders thrown in the big leagues, Maples has thrown 81 in the zone (52.6%). Compare that to 38/81 fastballs (46.9%).

Maples’ performance in the Pacific Coast Leagues demonstrates that these numbers are not a fluke. Amongst his PCL peers, Maples stands alone, with an eye-popping 42.4 K% and 22.0 BB%.

Pacific Coast League 2018 K% vs. BB%; Minimum 32 Career Innings; Source: Fan g raphs

Only Jared Miller and Bobby Wahl walked and struck out PCL hitters respectively at higher rates. Maples even posted a .162 Batting Average Against in the PCL, with hitters struggling to get a hit off of him.

The Cubs DFA’d Mármol in 2012, the same year Maples started in rookie ball with them. So in hindsight, it all makes sense now. The Cubs only had room for one pitcher in their whole system with an ability to throw pitches right past batters, regardless of whether or not they were directed at the catcher. Cubs fans, brace yourselves. Carlos Mármol has returned, and he’s even more wild and impossible to hit than before.

Matthew CastillonDecember 1, 2018December 2, 2018

Is China Taking the Necessary Steps to Curb its Coal Appetite?

Of all the energy sources, coal takes the honor as the dirtiest. At 103.7 kg of CO₂/mmBtu, Anthracite Coal makes Natural Gas (53.1) and Petroleum (61.7) look like a breath of fresh air. And at more than 50% of consumption of the world’s coal, no country has as big of an appetite for this carbon emitter as China.

Now China has acknowledged its need to reduce its reliance on coal, with overall consumption down from its peak in 2013.

Chinese Energy Consumption/Production
U.S. Energy Information Administration, China National Bureau of Statistics

Additionally, China’s coal plants are more efficient than the older plants in the United States. And China has made great strides in increasing its use of renewable energies, particularly in the hydroelectric sector.

However, these technological advances have not curbed China’s appetite, with coal consumption ticking back up in 2017. This return to coal has been attributed in part to a decline in hydroelectric productivity, which ironically is related to a fall in river flow precipitated by climate change. Making matters worse, China dramatically increased its coal imports from Mongolia and Russia in recent years, all while creating the illusion that they’ve cut off North Korea. On top of this, China’s rail system has kept up with the need to transport this coal over long distances. Rail transports 55% of coal in China compared to 80% a decade ago.

Perhaps most problematic of all, China struggles to ensure that the coal mines it aims to close actually shutter.

Energy and Carbon
BP Revisions of China Emissions

Historically, BP (and China itself) has revised its initial estimates upwards after it became apparent that China had not met its coal mine closure targets. China’s rural provinces rely on coal for their economy. From 2000-2015, urban use of coal actually declined while rural use increased. These rural areas resist the national government’s call to curb coal plants by continuing to finance their projects. Just last year, China converted 1.2 million rural homes to natural gas, but was only to be able to supply the fuel to 1/3 of these homes, resulting in their continued authorization of coal burning.

Complicating matters, China does not appear to utilize its coal plants efficiently, with utilization falling below 50% in 2016.

So how can China truly cut back on its unhealthy obsession with coal? To do so, China needs to further invest in renewables beyond hydropower, in particular solar and wind. If swings in climate change diminish the impact of hydropower, China must diversify its energy portfolio.

https://www.eia.gov/outlooks/archive/ieo17/pdf/0484(2017).pdf — U.S. Energy Information Administration
International Energy Outlook 2017

Forecasts are rosy, but up until now China has relied almost exclusively on coal and hydropower for generating electricity. Additionally, China must find more efficient ways to transport its coal, since it can’t eliminate its use over night. The Inner Mongolia-Jiangxi Railway is progressing, but much work remains.

There are reasons to be hopeful. Carbon Tracker forecasts that 100% of Chinese coal capacity will cost more to operate than renewables in 2030 (that number is 33% today).

Carbon Tracker
Powering down coal: Navigating the economic and financial risks in the last years of coal power

As renewable energy becomes more cost-effective over time, financial incentives for the status quo diminish. And as China continues to urbanize, its reliance on coal should fall. But none of that matters unless China takes the necessary steps to reign in its rural provinces, invest in solar and wind, and find more efficient energy delivery methods for its entire populace.

Matthew CastillonJuly 15, 2018May 26, 2019

The Curious Case of Jordan Hicks

Jordan Hicks has caught the eye of every serious baseball observer. With a 105+ MPH sinker lighting up radar guns (a feat only achieved by flamethrower Aroldis Chapman) and a 2.70 ERA, he deservers every bit of attention.

But something that got less attention than Hicks’ record setting heat, was the pitch’s distance from the plate.

Jordan Hicks, 105mph Fastball movement. 😂😳🔥 pic.twitter.com/jdu1hbO7N2

— Rob Friedman (@PitchingNinja) May 20, 2018

It doesn’t do much good if you can throw a pitch faster than a hitter reacts if that pitch makes it all the way to the backstop.

Baseball-Reference and FanGraphs do rate Hicks as a positive value player for the Cardinals with 0.7 and 0.4 WAR respectively. But Baseball Prospectus rates him at a whopping -0.9 WAR, a level that few relievers reach, especially in July. In fact Baseball Prospectus rates Hicks as the 39th worst pitcher in all of baseball, with only 46.2 innings pitched!

What’s going on here? Why do 2 sabermetric sites rate Hicks’ well, while another rates him as awful? The FanGraphs calculation is FIP-based (he Baseball-Reference calculation works similarly), and Hicks has only given up 1 HR all season leading to a respectable 3.43 FIP. With a 61.2 GB%, and a low HR/FB rate throughout his minor league career, Hicks seems unlikely to give up many long balls.

Baseball Prospectus however utilizes DRA, a more complex methodology that assigns values to each baseball event, and relies more heavily on the interaction of contextual variables such as leverage, home-field advantage, and defense. Now Baseball-Reference does take defense into account, but it does not take into account that teams play better defense on their home turf, a key factor that Baseball Prospectus cleverly leverages with linear mixed models.

The big eyesore on Hicks’ metrics is his 12.0 BB% rate, 18th worst amongst pitchers with 40+ innings pitched. Hicks’ peripherals also look concrening. A BABIP of 0.213 is unsustainable, especially when weaker minor league talent achieved levels of 0.269-0.400 on Hicks. Statcast, which leverages quality of contact, confirms these suspicions. Amongst pitchers with at least 150 PA, Hicks owns the 28th, 12th, and 2nd worst xSLG-SLG, xwOBA-wOBA, and xBA-BA differentials respectively.

What drives this discrepancy? Hicks’ extreme groundball rate leads to very few popups (the easiest in-play out), with only 2 allowed all season. Only Tyler Glasnow has a lower popup rate amongst pitchers with 40+ inning pitchers. Much hubbub exists around the groundball revolution in baseball. Grounders are after all very unlikely to turn into home runs. But grounders are also more likely to turn into hits. Matthew Murphy has an excellent analysis demonstrating that extreme groundball pitchers have more trouble with managing flyball contact, especially with low infield fly rates like Hicks. And the legendary Bill James writes about the injury-proneness of players of extreme groundball pitchers:

What I have never understood about ground ball pitchers, and do not understand now, is why they always get hurt.  Show me an extreme ground ball pitcher, a guy with a terrific ground ball rate, and I’ll show you a guy who is going to be good for two years and then get hurt.  I’m not saying this about Chien-Ming Wang and Brandon Webb; I was saying this before Chien-Ming Wang and Brandon Webb.   They’re just the latest examples.   Mark Fidrych.   Randy Jones.   Ross Grimsley.   Mike Caldwell.   Rick Langford. Lary Sorensen.   Clyde Wright.   Fritz Peterson.  Dave Roberts.    They’re great for two years, and then they blow up.    Always.

Always?   Well. ..Tommy John.   If your defense argument here is a guy who is famous for having a surgery named after him, I’m not sure I’m convinced.    Maddux and Glavine, sure, but neither Maddux was not an extreme ground ball pitcher until the last two or three years of his career.   I don’t know whether Glavine was, or not.

Derek Lowe?   Derek Lowe was sensational in 2002; the rest of his career he’s a .500 pitcher.  You take Derek Lowe; I’ll take Verlander.

Now many smart baseball observers have noted that Hicks’ has improved in the past few months. Hicks added more spin to his slider nicely complementing the extreme fastball velocity, leading to more strikeouts compensating for the high walk rate.

But diving further into Hicks’ splits uncovers some curious trends. Hicks walk rate is greater than or equal to his strikeout rate against lefties, at home, and in high-leverage situations. In particular, Hicks exhibits 28.7/9.6 K/BB% rates against righties, but 14.3/14.3% K/BB% against lefties. The BABIP sits at an unheard of 0.145 with righties, yet 0.269 with lefties, rates that become more extreme in the months that Hicks has allegedly improved. March-May, Hicks also had a 38:43 High:Low leverage appearance ratio (47% High Leverage). In June-July, only a 15:33 ratio (31% High Leverage). Given that Hicks has a -1.9 K-BB% in High Leverage (that’s right, more Walks than Strikeouts), but 17.1 K-BB% in Low Leverage appearances, Hicks is bound to regress.

Jordan Hicks is still only 21, and has plenty of time to improve. But reports of a lax work ethic, and a high velocity sinker indicate he will flame out in the big leagues, and get hurt in the process.