Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild 181: Giancarlo Stanton’s Lineup Protection Problem

Episode Date: April 15, 2013

Ben and Sam discuss how the Marlins’ lack of lineup protection has affected Giancarlo Stanton so far.

Hey, bada, bada, bada, bada, bada, so we bada. Hey, bada, bada, bada, bada, so we bada. Kennedy, Kennedy, Kennedy, Kennedy, Kennedy, so we bada. Good morning and welcome to episode 181 of Effectively Wild, the daily podcast from Baseball Prospectus. I am Ben Lindberg. Joining me is Sam Miller. How was your weekend, Sam? I am Ben Lindberg. Joining me is Sam Miller. How was your weekend, Sam?

I don't have an assessment ready for you. Okay, well think about it. And maybe at the end of the episode or in a future episode, you can let me know. Okay. We both wrote about the same thing for today at Baseball Perspectives, and now we are both going to talk about the same thing that we wrote about. And that thing is Giancarlo Stanton and his plate discipline stats and the way that pitchers have approached him and the way that he has responded to their approach. So I wrote a bit about the first part, how he's been pitched, and you mostly concentrated

on how he has hit or tried to hit because he hasn't really done the hitting part so much yet. done the hitting part so much yet. So I guess I can start since my part of the article came first. Just, I wrote a couple weeks ago, right before the season started, when Mike Redmond announced that he was considering Placido Polanco as a cleanup hitter for the Marlins this season, I wrote about how bad that would be, basically. Just how historically terrible Placido Polanco would be as a cleanup hitter. And the sad thing was that I couldn't even conclude that it was a managerial mistake. It wasn't like he was putting the wrong person in the fourth spot in the order. There was just no better person to put there. He probably chose the wrong team to manage yes well that definitely and i i've actually

wondered because he he took over that team and signed a three-year contract kind of right before they they made the big trade um and i've i've kind of wondered how much he knew about that because as we talked about on the podcast, it had been in discussion for some time. So I kind of – I wonder whether he was fully apprised of the fact that that trade was possibly going to happen or maybe going to happen so that he would know what he was getting into before signing a three-year contract. Well, if there's one thing we know about the Marlins, it's that they would never sign somebody while misleading them about their long-term future plans. Yes, they probably told him to buy a house. But I guess if you're a first-time manager with pretty much no managerial experience, maybe you take that job anyway.

I don't know. Anyway, so Placido Blanco has batted behind Stanton four times. Greg Dobbs has batted behind Stanton five times. And Dobbs also batted cleanup a couple times last year behind him. Is that right? So there's a little bit of an element here where it's easy to look at the Marlins lineup right now and say it's historically bad. But it was close to historically bad at times last year directly behind him. They had Reyes in front of him and they had Hanley Ramirez for some of the year.

But toward the end of the year, it was Dobbs and Carlos Lee. So it isn't quite as though he had a ton of protection behind him last year. There's a little bit of continuity. Yeah, there was some Hanley. There was some Infante. Really, Infante batted cleanup behind him? Yeah, I think so. I'll check that, but I think I saw that.

So anyway, through nine games, Stanton has seen a lot fewer pitches in the strike zone than he did last season. And he was already a guy who didn't see a lot of strikes, which makes sense because he's a guy who has a lot of power. And typically guys who have a lot of power see fewer pitches in the strike zone. And he's also a guy who will chase outside the strike zone now and then. He's not a Pablo Sandoval or Josh Hamilton as far as chasing pitches outside the strike zone now and then. He's not a Pablo Sandoval or Josh Hamilton as far as chasing pitches outside the strike zone, but he's not super selective. You can get him to chase.

So the combination of a power guy and a guy who will occasionally swing at pitches outside the strike zone means that pitchers don't throw him a lot of strikes. And this season, it's much more extreme now with Polanco and Dobbs behind him every day that he's played. He has seen the third fewest percentage of, or the third lowest percentage of pitches in the strike zone, about 20% fewer than last season.

And there was one stretch of an equivalent length last season. And, uh, there was one stretch of, of, of an equivalent length last season where he, he saw this, this few pitches, uh, in the strike zone. It was like late May to early June when he was hitting in front of Dobbs for a couple of games and Logan Morrison, who had just hit 176 for the entire month of May. So possibly that was just the same sort of lineup protection issue then. But now there's really no hope on the horizon or there's no better Marlins hitter really to put behind him or not significantly better. So this is probably something he's going to have to put up with all season.

And surprisingly, there was a quote that you showed me that I put in the article that he says he doesn't think he's seen fewer pitches this season. I don't know whether that's just because he doesn't want to blame the rest of his team being bad for his stats being bad so far, or whether he actually believes that. But there is a definite trend in the direction of Stanton seeing fewer pitches. And so the question is then how is he going to respond to that? And what will his approach be? And you looked into that or looked into what it's been so far.

Yeah, when he says that he hasn't seen fewer pitches, it seems like if you catch him on a different day, he will say that he has seen fewer pitches. It seems like if you catch him on a different day he will say that he has seen fewer pitches. It sort of has just depended on what day he's been asked. There was another day that he said he saw 21 pitches in a game and he

only saw two worth swinging at in lamenting the lack of pitches he's seen. And I've also seen the Marlins both seems it seems to me, overplay and underplay the difference in the pitches he's seen. So it might just be that for him as well, it's early in the season and he's trying not to make too much of a small sample.

Yeah, so I wrote about his response to this because when you watch the Marlins play and he comes up with a runner on first and a Polanco behind him, there's this sort of sense of desperation. Like this is the one chance that the Marlins have to score some runs and it's all on Stanton. And you're really kind of hoping that he's going to take a humongous swing at a pitch in the strike zone. And so when I've been watching him this year, though, it's been interesting to see that he's as patient as he's ever been. He's actually been more patient on pitches in the strike zone. I've seen him take fastballs down the middle. I've seen him take strikes in hitters' counts. And it surprised me because it seems to me that if the pitchers reacted to him, to the Marlins lineup, that he

would react in an equal and opposite manner. And so I don't really know why that is. I guess more to the point, I don't really know whether it's a significant trend going forward. But it does feel like if you were looking back at the Marlins' first 10 games, it would be certainly a significant factor in the games that they have played. Whether it's real or fluke, I think it has been real. It has felt real, and it has actually mattered. And we're talking about a fairly small number, obviously. But he's swinging at, he's basically in the lower 10th percentile of aggressiveness that pitches in the strike zone in the major leagues.

And normally he's in the upper 20th or 30th percentile. So it actually is not just that he's a naturally passive hitter, but this has been an actual change in approach. And it hasn't come along with a more selective approach overall. He's swinging at just as many pitches outside the strike zone, which is a fairly high number, as he always has. He just seems to be, I guess the, the conclusion that I come to is that he seems to be a little bit befuddled, uh, based on the way that, uh, pitchers are pitching to him and not knowing how pitchers are going to pitch to him. And by which I mean that

he, um, he's not expecting to be pitched to, he's not expecting to get a challenge fastball and he doesn't quite know what his role is in that lineup. He doesn't quite know how aggressive to be pitched to. He's not expecting to get a challenge fastball. And he doesn't quite know what his role is in that lineup. He doesn't quite know how aggressive to be and when he should expect to strike and when he should expect to be pitched around. And it feels like a sort of kind of a learning situation that not most hitters ever have to go to. And you remember that he is young and he will grow into his role. And right now, I'm not totally sure he has grown into his role. Well, I guess he hopes that this won't be his role for very long. And I guess if he gets a chance to go somewhere else, he will be happy

to do that and not have to deal with this situation anymore. I mean, I wonder if, if for some reason he is the type of hitter who can't handle this, whether it's, uh, whether it's the pressure of being the only good hitter in the lineup, or it's just the fact that he's not seeing as many good pitches. And for some reason he doesn't adjust to this. And I doubt that will be the case, if it were the case I guess that would uh if it if it continued long enough would maybe affect what the Marlins could get in return for him I don't know I mean it would have to be it would have to continue for quite a while I think for for team's interest in Stan to be diminished at all um but if if this sort of thing were going on all season and he had a really down year, I guess theoretically that would maybe decrease the package that the Marlins could get

in return for him. And I don't know whether that would make it less likely that he'll end up being traded sooner rather than later, possibly. But I don't know. I mean, it's hard to find the significance because ultimately what the Marlins do doesn't matter very much right now. Yeah, it's sort of more interesting as a theoretical exercise than it is in wins and losses. I have a hard time thinking that Stan can affect his trade value in any way other than getting hurt. If he has a really down year, then people might wonder whether it's tied to his shoulder injury, or I don't even know if it's enough to call it an injury, his shoulder owie, and wonder whether he actually does have something significant going on with

his shoulder. We're obviously not anywhere near, we're not anywhere near that point yet. So, you know, that's not what we're talking about. But I would think that there's almost nothing that Stanton could do in this lineup that would decrease his trade value all that much. If he hit, I don't know, 64 home runs, then it might increase it to something that would be a little bit more frantic. But I don't think anybody's giving up on Stanton short of about two bad years. I mean, nobody gave up on Justin Upton really at all, it doesn't seem to me.

And I guess there would be some people who would be inclined to just write it off as him being a competitive player in a non-competitive situation and maybe getting a bit bored by that, which would make him the classic change of scenery candidate in that case. I mean, what do you think ultimately we will see? I mean, I would certainly expect pitchers to continue to pitch around him as much as they have so far. And I would expect him to adjust better and to handle it better. I would think that he will start swinging at pitches in the zone as much as he ever has, if not more so. But I guess, I mean, certainly if you're interested in Stanton from a fantasy perspective,

you probably bumped him down a few spots just because he's not going to knock in any runs or score any runs because no one else in the lineup is on base or driving him in. But I guess, I mean, do you think that ultimately it will affect his other statistics, the statistics that he can control himself? Do you think that he'll be a less productive hitter because of this? Because, I mean, I guess if you look at past instances of this, and there was a study done in the book of hitters without lineup protection, and it suggested that they tend to walk more and they tend to strike out more, but they don't really have different outcomes when they make contact.

When they put balls in play, they are just as successful as hitters who are not getting pitched around. So, I mean, I guess it would affect his counting stats, right? I mean, if he has fewer plate appearances where he's getting hittable pitches and he's walking a lot more, then he's not going to be hitting as many home runs. I guess on a rate basis, maybe he could be just as good. Do you have any expectation of what we will see for the rest of the season? Well, you know, I always had a theory watching Barry Bonds, and I wish that we had pitch effects data for Barry Bonds during his run where he wasn't getting pitched to, but I always had this theory that one of the things that made him,

that made his numbers so incredible on balls in play, his slugging percentage was so insane that his home runs, he was homering every six plate appearances. One of the ideas that I had was that he actually could benefit from the pitching around him because he didn't really ever have to swing. He knew that pitchers weren't coming after him, and he knew it was kind of unlikely that they were going to throw three strikes in the strike zone. And so he was able to be extremely selective within the strike zone.

As long as you're willing to take the walk, as long as you don't have any sort of personal vendetta where you're going to feel the need to put the ball in play just to thwart them, he had this great freedom to take almost any strike, knowing that even if he fell behind 0-1, the odds were still that they were going to walk him. Even if he fell behind 1-2, the odds were still not that bad that they were going to walk him. And so you could see him just basically narrow down the strike zone, unless it was a situation where he knew he was going to be pitched to, if there were the bases loaded in two outs or something like that,

or the very few situations where he knew he was going to be pitched to. or the very few situations where he knew he was going to be pitched to, he could basically narrow down the strike zone to a tiny, tiny, tiny sliver, knowing that if it wasn't in that zone, that it was essentially like always a 3-0 count for him. It was always likely that he was going to get walked. And so if Stanton adjusted to that point, and I don't know if he's capable of adjusting to that point. I think that that was one of the things that made Bonds supernatural and incredible was that he was

both impatient and he, I'm sorry, he was both extremely patient and he had that incredible eye and he could narrow down the strike zone to a small, a very, very small square that I'm not sure Stanton has the natural ability to do. But if he could, it could end up really proving to help him out a lot. I don't necessarily see that happening, and I don't see the thing that I wrote about of him going the other way as happening. My guess is that his numbers will look a lot like you expect them to look, with a better on-base percentage and 180 walks or something like that. But you mentioned that he's sort of gotten some conflicting advice,

at least in quotes through the media from the team, about how he should handle this. Yeah, that's one of the reasons that i wonder whether he's just befuddled is that there's it's it's hard to follow all the advice he's been getting it's like take the walk but be aggressive uh expand the you know look look to swing but don't expand your zone and there's a lot of um like you know keep it simple but follow these seven steps to success kind of advice going on. And I don't know if that's what they're telling him or if that's just how people share their feelings with the media. But, I mean, it's a topic one way or the other, even if you ignore the conflicting information,

One way or the other, even if you ignore the conflicting information, just the fact that his hitting coach, his manager, and whatever Andre Dawson's role in Marlins organization is, are all talking about this, makes you think that it's a topic that is weighing on him, that he's having to think about a lot, and you generally don't want a hitter having to think a lot just the fact that he has to uh to deal with this is probably uh enough to uh take him a little bit out of his natural zone and that can hurt all right uh by the way omar infante did not bat clean up for the marlins last year but he did

hit fifth 21 times so he hit behind stanton sometimes when stanton's cleaning up do you do you think that dobbs or polanco is the more historically bad cleanup hitter because i'm actually not sure that polanco is not the better option there yeah no i think i think polanco is probably better i certainly his his pakota projection is better than dobbs's uh not by a whole lot, but I mean, they're both bad. I mean, when I looked at that article, there have been some awful cleanup hitters, or at least some pretty unsuccessful cleanup hitters, or guys who were their team's primary cleanup hitters, but very few of those guys were expected to be bad heading into the season where they were installed as

the cleanup hitter a lot of them just i don't know suddenly got old or or they were hurt and playing injured the whole season and it was just kind of a fluky bad season by a by a guy who wouldn't be a good cleanup hitter candidate in most in most years but very few uh of the people were coming off seasons like Polanco or at the age that Polanco is or at the expectation that we have for Polanco. So I don't know. I guess I would take Polanco over Dobbs. It's close.

Don't want either one of them. Yeah, certainly if it's a lefty pitcher, then it's such an automatic walk for Stanton. I mean, that's probably the most automatic walk situation. Yeah, I look to see if it was a strict platoon, how they were choosing between Polanco and Dobbs to hit fourth, and it hasn't really been. Each of them has started a cleanup against a same-handed pitcher,

so I don't know how exactly they're determining that. Anyway, we will follow this story throughout the season, and maybe we will talk about it again sometime when more stuff has happened and we know how Stanton's adjusting. You can send us questions for the Wednesday email show at podcast at baseballperspectives.com, and we will answer them then. Talk to you tomorrow.