Tillman should be in Cy Young Conversation

[Phantom]

Has Tillman been lucky?

Certainly. How lucky is a bit debatable. He is certainly pitching better than last year. His K% has gone up (as has his SwStr%) without ballooning his BB% much at all. So that's good, and can explain some of the decrease in ERA.

Unfortunately, he is actually giving up harder contact than last year, when he had a .293 BABIP, and a 68.2 LOB%. So those numbers sitting at .262 and 81.2% respectively seem awful fortune. There is a reason his FiP is still at 4 and his xFip is almost as bad as last season. He is letting up more fly balls than last year, but less in field fly balls, so the fact that more aren't leaving the park seems fortunate to me.

[Redskins Rick]

Certainly. How lucky is a bit debatable. He is certainly pitching better than last year. His K% has gone up (as has his SwStr%) without ballooning his BB% much at all. So that's good, and can explain some of the decrease in ERA.

Unfortunately, he is actually giving up harder contact than last year, when he had a .293 BABIP, and a 68.2 LOB%. So those numbers sitting at .262 and 81.2% respectively seem awful fortune. There is a reason his FiP is still at 4 and his xFip is almost as bad as last season. He is letting up more fly balls than last year, but less in field fly balls, so the fact that more aren't leaving the park seems fortunate to me.

Last year was an off year, after 3 seasons of solid pitching.

It takes more than luck to get to 14-2.

[survivedc]

Certainly. How lucky is a bit debatable. He is certainly pitching better than last year. His K% has gone up (as has his SwStr%) without ballooning his BB% much at all. So that's good, and can explain some of the decrease in ERA.

Unfortunately, he is actually giving up harder contact than last year, when he had a .293 BABIP, and a 68.2 LOB%. So those numbers sitting at .262 and 81.2% respectively seem awful fortune. There is a reason his FiP is still at 4 and his xFip is almost as bad as last season. He is letting up more fly balls than last year, but less in field fly balls, so the fact that more aren't leaving the park seems fortunate to me.

Fair enough. I saw the lower BABIP and assumed it was just softer contact in general through better location and pitch mixing.

Are there any specific numbers on how hard the contact is for fly balls to the outfield? Is there a chance that his hard hit balls tend to be grounders?

[Phantom]

Fair enough. I saw the lower BABIP and assumed it was just softer contact in general through better location and pitch mixing.

Are there any specific numbers on how hard the contact is for fly balls to the outfield? Is there a chance that his hard hit balls tend to be grounders?

There is probably be some data out there, and I think that's almost certainly the case. There is already a ton of doubt about how much control a pitcher has over batter balls period. I've never even heard someone suggest that a pitcher could limit their HH% to only certain types of hits, so it stands to reason that he has just been lucky that the solid contact he has allowed has been less damaging.

[DirtyBird]

The Cy Young is based off results, not analytics.

[survivedc]

There is probably be some data out there, and I think that's almost certainly the case. There is already a ton of doubt about how much control a pitcher has over batter balls period. I've never even heard someone suggest that a pitcher could limit their HH% to only certain types of hits, so it stands to reason that he has just been lucky that the solid contact he has allowed has been less damaging.

Yeah that is a pretty far fetched idea, I'll admit. But definite proof or not, it seems fairly obvious that certain pitchers can induce weak contact, Britton being a good example, with late and sharp movement on his pitches, preventing batters from "squaring up."

With Tillman it seems like he has changed eye levels and mixed pitches better this year, not to mention I think his fastball has been faster than last year.

[Redskins Rick]

Yeah that is a pretty far fetched idea, I'll admit. But definite proof or not, it seems fairly obvious that certain pitchers can induce weak contact, Britton being a good example, with late and sharp movement on his pitches, preventing batters from "squaring up."

With Tillman it seems like he has changed eye levels and mixed pitches better this year, not to mention I think his fastball has been faster than last year.

Tillman has 4 pitches that he can throw for strikes, when he is on.

Like Olympic scoring for fields like gymnastics and diving, you toss the lowest score.

Thats what you do with Tillman and last year. You toss it out of the equation.

[schittenden]

Chris Tillman has had 111 pitches resulting in an exit velocity at 95mph or higher that travelled 140 feet or more. That is 5.34% of his total number of pitches. That is mostly hits into the outfield, including some into a shift. That percentage ranks him 67th highest among pitchers with at least 1,000 pitches. Those pitches resulted in hits 56 times and outs 55 times. He is tied for 14th highest among such pitchers in terms of pitches resulting in batted balls meeting this criteria, but tied for 55th in the number of resulting hits. That suggests either Tillman has been fortunate to have great outfield defense (unlikely), has been fortunate to have the balls that are hit hard hit toward outfielders (more likely), or is especially skilled in making batters miss the ball just enough (doubtful).

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[DirtyBird]

Chris Tillman has had 111 pitches resulting in an exit velocity at 95mph or higher that travelled 140 feet or more. That is 5.34% of his total number of pitches. That is mostly hits into the outfield, including some into a shift. That percentage ranks him 67th highest among pitchers with at least 1,000 pitches. Those pitches resulted in hits 56 times and outs 55 times. He is tied for 14th highest among such pitchers in terms of pitches resulting in batted balls meeting this criteria, but tied for 55th in the number of resulting hits. That suggests either Tillman has been fortunate to have great outfield defense (unlikely), has been fortunate to have the balls that are hit hard hit toward outfielders (more likely), or is especially skilled in making batters miss the ball just enough (doubtful).

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Is 140 ft a significant distance for some reason?

[Frobby]

Worth noting, Tillman is now 13th on the all-time Orioles win list, with 70 wins. It was mentioned last night that of the Orioles pitchers to reach 70 wins, Tillman did in in the 5th-fewest decisions (he is 70-44).

12th on the list is Sidney Ponson, who was 73-85 as an Oriole. Hopefully, Tillman passes Ponson this year. He has a remote chance to catch Scott Erickson and Mike Boddicker, who are tied for 10th with 79 wins, but my guess is that will have to wait until 2017. Everybody else above them is at 95 wins or more, so 10th is likely to be as high as Tiilman would get next year, which is his final year under team control unless he's extended. Once Tillman is past Ponson, everyone else on the list is a very good pitcher:

Palmer

McNally

Mussina

Cuellar

Flanagan

McGregor

Pappas

D. Martinez

Barber

Boddicker

Erickson

Players Tillman has passed this year include Storm Davis, Rodrigo Lopez and Ben McDonald.

I think we need to appreciate that Tillman has had the best Orioles career of any pitcher they've had since Mussina.

[schittenden]

Is 140 ft a significant distance for some reason?

It was the distance at which most of the balls were hit to outfielders. It doesn't make a lot of difference though if you include them. Second base is 127 feet from home, roughly.

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[Frobby]

Is 140 ft a significant distance for some reason?

I'm guessing that's about where the outfield grass meets the infield behind 2B.

[Phantom]

The Cy Young is based off results, not analytics.

So are analytics.

And if voters just wanted to be dumb, they'd give it to the guy with the most wins every season. Hell, even better, they'd give it to the #1 starter on whatever team won the most games regardless of what the analytics (like strikeouts and walks!) say.

[Phantom]

Yeah that is a pretty far fetched idea, I'll admit. But definite proof or not, it seems fairly obvious that certain pitchers can induce weak contact, Britton being a good example, with late and sharp movement on his pitches, preventing batters from "squaring up."

With Tillman it seems like he has changed eye levels and mixed pitches better this year, not to mention I think his fastball has been faster than last year.

I always find the Britton example pretty funny, because his analytics and career performance match up pretty well. His career xFip (which assumes a league average HR/FB rate) is actually lower than his career ERA.

It's not so much that anayltics don't think certain pitchers can't induce different contact. What they think is near impossible is to be able to induce a ton of weak contact and not strike a ton of guys out (and walk very few). Basically, if you are deceptive and accurate enough to make hitters barely hit the ball, you will get a lot of Ks and very few BBs, so analytics will already love you.

[Phantom]

Chris Tillman has had 111 pitches resulting in an exit velocity at 95mph or higher that travelled 140 feet or more. That is 5.34% of his total number of pitches. That is mostly hits into the outfield, including some into a shift. That percentage ranks him 67th highest among pitchers with at least 1,000 pitches. Those pitches resulted in hits 56 times and outs 55 times. He is tied for 14th highest among such pitchers in terms of pitches resulting in batted balls meeting this criteria, but tied for 55th in the number of resulting hits. That suggests either Tillman has been fortunate to have great outfield defense (unlikely), has been fortunate to have the balls that are hit hard hit toward outfielders (more likely), or is especially skilled in making batters miss the ball just enough (doubtful).

Wow. Great stuff.

I think we need to appreciate that Tillman has had the best Orioles career of any pitcher they've had since Mussina.

Good point. He may not be the ace we wanted, but he is certainly indicative of the SP in this run.