The Problem With RRS
We’ve gotten a lot of emails asking for a post about Ryan Rowland-Smith’s problems, so by popular demand, here you go.
This one just isn’t that complicated, though. There’s no great insight to be found here – it’s just as simple as the fact that he hasn’t had any command this year. His skillset can work, but it requires that he be able to pound the strike zone, get ahead of hitters, and then be able to mix in slow stuff to get them to chase pitches out of the zone. Guys with 88 MPH four-seam fastballs can’t be continually throwing fastballs when behind in the count, because hitters will just tee off on them. And that’s exactly what’s happening to Hyphen.
His first strike percentage is down from 61 percent a year ago to 58 percent this year. By falling behind in the count, he’s getting himself into situations where hitters don’t have to look for the change-up or the breaking ball. His fastball isn’t good enough to get by MLB hitters when they know its coming.
The flyball, no strikeout lefty skillset can work, but you need pinpoint command to be able to pull it together. This year, Ryan Rowland-Smith has had far less than pinpoint command, and he’s suffering the consequences. In reality, last year’s strike-throwing ways were probably an anomaly – he’d never shown that kind of command in the minors, and it now looks like an outlier rather than improvement. The M’s are probably best served by just putting him back in the bullpen, hoping he can get a few extra MPH on his fastball in shorter stints, and let him settle in as a lefty reliever.
Unless his ability to hit his spots improves dramatically, he won’t succeed in a major league rotation.
Actually, it looks like he has a “lower back strain”. Oh, excuses to go on the DL
Speaking of RRS, Divish tweets he’s going on the DL with a strained back. Luke French time.
Wouldn’t surprise me if Ryan goes to the bullpen when (if?) he returns.
I loved watching RRS when he first came up. His curve had bite, and his fastball was just fast enough. That was 07′, unfortunately his fastball velocity has dropped every year down to 88.3mph (2007-90.4mph). His curve that I loved to see, now it just barks with no bite, 2007-73.6mph, 2010-70.8mph. His change-up, and slider have the smallest loss of velocity. His change-up has lost 1.4mph and his slider .5mph. I know velocity isn’t the only thing. Its just indicative that he has lost what stuff he had. And as Dave said RRS needs “pinpoint command” to make his current skill set work, which he doesn’t have. I’m for the bullpen specialist role for Hyphen. Its sad to see the Aussie get beaten like a red-headed stepchild.
Hiding him on the DL is weak. They need to make a hard decision on him now, not postpone the inevitable.
Also, if he’s been working on changes to mechanics, pitch selection, etc. in side sessions, isn’t it likely the White Sox knew that too, and knew what to look for?
In addition to the trends that anyone can look up, which Dave noted in his post, I wouldn’t be surprised if a scout knew what he was working on, and that would give the White Sox all but a neon sign displaying the next pitch.
A neck strain from whiplash (watching batted balls ‘laser’ their way past him) would be much more believable.
Whatever it takes to remove the guaranteed “L” every 5th day from his, his teammates and the fans psyche … I am in favor of. At this point, they could find a better replacement arm within their own system by drawing names out of a hat.
I have to concur with the general consensus.
RRS just doesn’t have the repertoire necessary to get through a MLB line-up two or three times. I do think if he can return to throwing in the low-90s in shorter stints, he could be of definite value as his .195/.260/.310 split against LHB in 2009 shows he could at least be a decent LOOGY.
I really hope the M’s are able to find a role in this organization that Ryan can have success with, he’s a stand-up guy and it sucks that he’s had so much uncertainty in his career to date.
Is a 3% difference in first strike rate really all that significant? I’m not sure if I’m asking for a baseball lesson or a stats lesson, but the question is sincere and not sarcasm.
To be fair, he came out of the bullpen exclusively in 2007, so it’s likely that the move to a starting role is the cause of the loss in velocity. Maybe if the team moved him back to the bullpen, he’d be able to get some of that back.
It’s roughly the difference between top-3rd of the league and bottom-3rd of the league.
Fangraphs
The flyball, no strikeout lefty skillset can work, but you need pinpoint command to be able to pull it together.
Jamie Moyer, Hyphen is not.
Carlos Silva at 70.1% … wow.
Hiding him on the DL is weak. They need to make a hard decision on him now, not postpone the inevitable.
Why? How does it hurt the team or RSS to take a couple of weeks, evaluate him in a few “rehab” starts, and so on, before making the next move? I fail to see the harm here.
What was RRS’s BABIP during the last game? Was it unusually high, or did he give up an unusual number of batted balls?
How does it hurt the team or RSS to take a couple of weeks, evaluate him in a few “rehab” starts, and so on, before making the next move?
How much more do they need to see? They already thought they had it figured out in the mechanics changes they did in side sessions, and none of that translated to performance in-game.
Even if roster-wise there’s no harm, because you still get someone else pitching in his place, either switch him to the bullpen now and get an extended look at him in relief in real games, or DFA him. Nothing to date has given any reason to think he’ll be any different when he gets back.
He’s been up and down a few times with the Ms by now. Maybe he needs a change of scenery – look at all the players, especially pitchers, who seem to have done very well once they moved to another team…
Maybe he needs a change of scenery
He plays in a park with good outfield defenders that kills RHB pull hitters (and conversely, helps LHP with flyball tendencies). Unless he’s going to a similar ballpark, a change of scenery is more likely to expose his flaws- getting half your games in Safeco with a Saunders/DTFT/Ichiro! OF is about as good as it gets for someone with Hyphen’s skillset.
That being said, sure, he plays on a better team where he is a bullpen/long guy/spot starter, he looks better, but really, the problem is Hyphen’s type of pitcher is very marginal- a low-K, low-velocity fastball LHP has almost no margin for error before he turns into someone you can replace (in fact, Luke French basically has an identical skillset- marginal fastball, lefty flyball pitcher). For every Jamie Moyer or Jarrod Washburn there are 10 or more John Halamas or Ryan Rowland-Smiths- guys who will eke out a career for a few years but that’s about it.
Speaking of the Halamanator:
Halama’s xFIP by year (the ones we have):
4.01
4.59
4.60
4.38
5.19
Hyphen’s:
4.12
4.91
4.88
6.04
Halama put in those 5 seasons with SIX different teams, by the by.
The fact is that “flyball LHP without much fastball depending on pinpoint command” is and always will be a fringey skillset.
Looking through the data at fangraphs, I don’t see any correlation with first strike% and success. Chris Carpenter, Clayton Kershaw and Tim Lincecum all have their percentages 59% or under and it doesn’t seem to be hurting them. Likewise there are plenty of pitchers with high percentages that aren’t doing well like Rodrigo Lopez, Paul Malholm and Scott Baker.
If a starter goes through the lineup 3 times, the difference between 58% and 61% first strike percentage is about one batter a game. You can’t tell me that the difference between RRS’s 2009 FIP of 4.20 and his 2010 FIP of 6.79 is switching a first pitch from a strike to a ball once a game.
How about the fact that he’s given up 23 HR which is more than the last 2 seasons combined?
I don’t get this, either. So this year, three less times out of a hundred, RRS throws a strike on the first pitch. Which equates, optimistically, to one additional batter during a game. Throwing a first-pitch strike to one less batter yesterday doesn’t seem like it would have mattered much. Am I not understanding the deeper meaning of that stat?
Yeah, I can see that. Really don’t want to, because I’m really pulling for him based on his personality and what we know of his work ethic, but I see it.
Pitcher development often follows a strange path, and is not as easy as batters (to predict).
I would have to conjecture that it’s the combination of velocity and first-strike % more so than first-strike % alone.
Agree, though – move him back to the pen as the long reliever, he was successful that way, and he’ll probably peak at age 31.