Game 122, Mariners at Rangers – The Mystery of Marco
Chris Flexen vs. Spencer Howard, 11:05am
A couple of years ago, I wrote about Marco Gonzales and how the three major WAR formulations simply could not agree on how to value the guy. In 2019, Gonzales’ K:BB ratio wasn’t great, but he yielded few home runs in the season absolutely dominated by dingers; as a result, his FIP was brilliant. It didn’t penalize Gonzales for allowing more base hits than most pitchers, just as long as he didn’t walk too many or give up homers. In that season, Gonzales yielded plenty of unearned runs – 16 of them in all – that drove a pretty big gap between his ERA, which just pulled those 16 runs off the board, and his RA/9, which kept them. Baseball-reference’s bWAR thus had him in the middle of the pack for most of the year, but a brilliant finish got his bWAR (RA/9) and fWAR (FIP) pretty close to each other.
Then there’s DRA. BaseballProspectus’ pitching metric counts all outcomes, including singles/walks/errors/you name it, and then tries to account for context from park to weather to umpire. It *hated* Gonzales’ 2019, figuring that any random minor leaguer could’ve done as well or better – it took a great end to the campaign to dig him out of negative WAR, and he finished right at 0: replacement level.
But that was a weird year, right? Tons of unearned runs, a great HR/FB ratio, DRA waking up on the wrong side of the bed? Well, here we are almost exactly two years later, and it’s happening again. Kind of. Marco Gonzales has, with an assist from the hapless Texas Rangers it must be noted, worked his ERA down to 4.10, an unthinkably low number given how he began the year (his ERA was 6 as recently as July 1). He’s given up zero unearned runs, and thus bWAR is pretty impressed, showing him at 1.4 after yesterday’s commanding performance. But all those HRs Gonzales wasn’t giving up in the juiced-ball world of 2019? They’re here now. His HR/9 stands at 1.72, and that, coupled with the highest walk rate in any full season for him, has pushed his FIP over 5. fWAR has him at 0.7, solidly below average, but not replacement level. WARP, the WAR based on DRA, remains unmoved. DRA sees this season as a near carbon copy of 2019, but ever so slightly less. DRA throws up in its mouth a little before pronouncing its verdict: -0.4 WAR.
If the takeaway here is just that DRA doesn’t work or something, it’s worth pointing out that MLB’s new statcast-based ERA estimator, xERA, is a near match to WARP/DRA. Based on how hard batters have hit the ball, and then adding in walks and strikeouts, xERA figures Marco *should* have an ERA of 5.7, pretty close to DRA’s 5.91. There are multiple ways to believe Marco’s been a great middle-of-the-rotation rock and multiple ways to believe he’s…not.
Some pitchers are just like this, I guess. As I mentioned in 2019, Sam Miller wrote a great piece about this same phenomenon and Robbie Ray. But what makes me laugh about this one is that, for all of his metronome-like consistency (Marco’s ERAs with the M’s run 4.0, 3.99, 3.10 in a short season, and 4.10 now), his peripherals are constantly changing. No, he’s not going to suddenly become a strikeout pitcher, but he had an amazing FIP in 2018, but BABIP pushed his actual runs allowed higher. His K:BB ratio was worse in 2019, and he still gave up lots of hits, but effectively managed contact, as seen from a xERA that was a near match to his actual ERA. Everything worked in 2020, especially his contact management, but that’s precisely what’s left him in 2021: he’s giving up more barreled contact than just about anyone, and for the past month or so, it simply hasn’t mattered. There’s always something to debate about Marco, apparently.*
Marco’s changed his pitch mix somewhat, moving further away from his old “four pitches are equally likely to be thrown” approach and really leaning on his fastball. In August, it’s worked to perfection, as batters are only hitting .125 off of it. Of course, that’s three games against the Rangers in the month out of four total starts. Still, that fourth was against the Yankees, and it was an absolute gem. He’s also adjusted the way he tunnels his breaking stuff. In the beginning of the year, he threw his fastball near the middle to the top 1/3 of the zone, but kept his curve and cutter well below the center of the zone. Particularly with curves, that’s often seen as an ideal approach, as the high fastball and curve are at a similar height when the batter has to decide whether or not to swing. Now that he’s throwing the curve and cutter higher, he’s traded a few percentage points in swings-and-misses for better results on contact.
1: Crawford, SS
2: Haniger, DH
3: Seager, 3B
4: France, 1B
5: Toro, 2B
6: Fraley, CF
7: Murphy, C
8: Bauers, RF
9: Moore, LF
SP: Flexen
A day off for Jarred Kelenic who got hit by a pitch last night, but that fact isn’t behind his omission here – it’s just a scheduled off day (per Ryan Divish) with the M’s facing a lefty.
I talked about Spencer Howard the last time we saw him, but he remains a hard-throwing lefty who put up dominating lines in the minors but who hasn’t been able to throw enough strikes in MLB. He’s got an ERA nearly 6 *despite* not allowing many home runs this year and…wait a minute…yes, by bWAR he’s dead on replacement level, while fWAR is intrigued by his better-than-average FIP. DRA/WARP is right in the middle, thinking he’s been much better than his runs-allowed, although worse than his FIP, which is just starry-eyed over his HR/9. The range here is very small, which probably makes sense given that Howard’s thrown all of 33 2/3 IP this year.
* In a twist that I sure as hell didn’t see coming, all four ERA estimators get quite close when describing Marco’s 2018 season. His FIP was very low, so fWAR likes it most, with bWAR coming in lowest, but DRA/WARP and xERA are again nearly identical, and in between the other two. The range is only 2.7 to 3.5.
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With 5 runs in B 9th, it’s hard to give confidence in Mes, Cas and bottom of our rotation. Power, ave, back end closing, still a while before embracing this lineup. Yet, we are somewhat relevant going into end of August. Did anyone her think we’d be here? As a lifelong Ms fan, I’ll take it. I can see the future (tentatively) through my smoke filled glasses