Monday, April 30, 2012
MLB.com: Yanks move Garcia to ‘pen, Phelps to rotation
NEW YORK—Freddy Garcia has been dispatched to the Yankees’ bullpen, and rookie David Phelps will have an opportunity to pitch out of the club’s rotation.
Garcia was battered by the Tigers for six runs in 1 2/3 innings on Saturday in a 7-5 Yankees loss, the second straight start Garcia only recorded five outs, and the change did not come as a shock to the hurler.
“When you’re pitching [poorly] out of the rotation, what do you expect?” Garcia said. “When you don’t do your job, what are they supposed to do? That’s what happened. They’re honest. I didn’t pitch the way I was supposed to pitch. It’s reality.”
I don’t think Garcia’s as bad as he’s looked so far this year, and his peripherals generally agree. Repeated from yesterday’s game thread.
Garcia 2011: 15.3% K/BF, 7.2% BB/BF, 4.36 xFIP, 87.2 mph average fastball velocity
Garcia 2012: 15.7% K/BF, 7.1% BB/BF, 3.95 xFIP, 87.0 mph average fastball velocity
Unfortunately, there’s also this:
Garcia 2011: .292 BABIP against, 22.3% LD, 8.2% HR/FB, 77.1% LOB
Garcia 2012: .440 BABIP against, 42.3% LD, 23.1% HR/FB, 41.0% LOB
I get the feeling that Garcia will get another chance to start at some point, and will probably do ok if he does. That being said, I think removing him from the rotation for now is the right thing to do, moreso to see what the Yankees have in David Phelps, but also to give Garcia a chance to regroup.
As far as what the Yankees have in Phelps, I have no idea. He’s pitched pretty well this year, but that’s the extent of his MLB resume. His projections are all based on translating his minor league numbers and have huge error bars because of that. Rather than rehash those, I’ll. just point you to his pre-season projections.
If all we knew about Phelps was what he’d done as a reliever at the big league level (17.2 IP of 3.57 ERA), we could try and fudge how that would translate to a starter. In general, a reliever who moves to the rotation will be about 15-20% less effective. Hits, homers and runs will go up by 15-20%, strike outs will drop by about the same rate. Walk rate stays pretty stable. If you were to use his performance so far to project him as a starter and reliever, it’d look something like this.
| Role | W | L | G | GS | IP | H | ER | HR | BB | SO | ERA |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Starter | 7 | 7 | 20 | 20 | 120 | 93 | 58 | 34 | 45 | 82 | 4.35 |
| Reliever | 4 | 3 | 70 | 0 | 70 | 48 | 28 | 16 | 28 | 55 | 3.60 |
The problem here is that it’s probably not realistic to think Phelps can hold hitters to a .178 BABIP all year. FIP has him at 5.66 and xFIP has him at 4.09. Splitting the difference puts him at around 4.87. That’s a hair better than his average ERA projection heading into the year, and although it’s not great, it’s better than what they’ve gotten out of Garcia at least. And Phil Hughes, for that matter.
Comments
It’s not just Garcia, all the the Yankees starters have crazy HR rates so far. I’m not sure why. If I remember correctly (which usually means I don’t), HR/FB rates is a skill so xFIP might not be completely telling but what (instead of using league average HR rates) we use each pitchers career HR/FB rates they all look drastically better. I think Garcia is the only one who wouldn’t be quite as good as his xFIP. All the rest would be as good, if not better.
This is sort of a big move now, right? If Phelps pitches better than Hughes, and Pettitte comes back in a week and half/two weeks, then does Hughes get bumped from the rotation for Pettitte? Or does Phelps go back to the bullpen and they make a move with Garcia? Or does Garcia stay as the long man, Phelps goes back to AAA and Pettite and Hughes stay in the rotation? I guess it’ll depend on how these guys pitch over the next 2 times through the rotation. Should be interesting.
Didn’t Nova give up a bunch of HR in spring training too?
Hilarious (but not really) quote from Jason Frasor regarding the new CBA and type A status for relievers:
“I think this is the right way,” Frasor told me yesterday. “You have middle relievers who are Type A? I mean who’s going to give up a first round pick for someone who’s going to pitch the seventh inning? So I think this is more fair.”
I know someone who would.
HR/FB rates is a skill so xFIP might not be completely telling
The whole point of xFIP is that HR/FB rate is not a skill for the majority of pitchers, although I think xFIP overstates it slightly. So if you have a pitcher who’s got skill in suppressing BABIP & HR/FB rate xFIP will underrate him, and if you have a pitcher who is worse than average in suppressing BABIP and HR/FB rate it will overrate him. See Rivera, Mariano for an example of the first case. Whether Garcia, Freddy falls into the second case, I’m not sure. It’s possible, but we don’t know that yet.
SG - do you really think Garci is pitching simlar to last year? (K, BB, xFip)
Do your eyes not tell you that he is throwing meatballs every few pitches?
[6] He might have been throwing those meatballs last year, but at different points in a pitch sequence, or in the context of another pitch that is working better than now, so the batters are sitting, or just not fooled anymore.
He could have the exact same stuff, and the results vary based on approach, not just performance.
Or he’s just incredibly unlucky. Obviously Garcia’s margin for error is not big.
Hard to imagine he got thru an entire season throwing meatballs…but even Girardi said his stuff is less than year.
Do your eyes not tell you that he is throwing meatballs every few pitches?
He’s making more bad pitches and catching too much of the plate at times I’d say, but our eyes are also biased by the results. He didn’t look great even when he was pitching well last year because he doesn’t crack 90 mph. So it stands to reason when they’re hitting him the way they have this year he isn’t going to look good.
I really don’t think he went from a 4.50 ERA guy to a 12.50 ERA guy over one year. I think if he were to pitch all year he’d be closer to 4.50 than 12.50 going forward.
But as I said, I agree with the decision to pull him from the rotation.
I really hope we don’t have to repeat all this with Andy in three weeks.
[5] - I thought it was a skill but takes something like 2000 IP (or some other large number) to stabilize.
Either way, when pitchers do show a skill (or lack there of) at it, we aren’t talking about the magnitude the Yankees starters are off right now.
Edit:
I’m not knocking xFIP, I like it a lot more that FIP because most of the fluctuations with the season to season numbers are luck. It filters out the noise but I can see some of the objections to using it.
[2] Well, how much better, right? There are probably 2 starts each for Hughes and Phelps before Pettitte comes back, and probably 2-4 relief outings for Garcia. Also, Gardner is probably back in that timeframe. Assuming Swisher doesn’t need to be DL’d, when Gardner comes back I imagine they send Mitchell back to AAA and get back to a 7-man bullpen.
When Pettitte is ready, if Hughes is pitching well - e.g. 12IP/6R or something similar, with supporting peripherals - I think he stays in the rotation. And, unless Garcia is pitching very well out of the bullpen, I think Garcia is disposed of, and Phelps goes back to the bullpen. Regardless of how well he’s pitching (no hitters could change the conversation). If Hughes is pitching poorly and Phelps well, I think they still have a window to send Hughes to AAA.
Bartolo threw 38 strikes in a row a few starts ago. I’m not sure Garcia will throw 38 strikes next month. Just saying.
[14] When they compute balls and strikes, they always count balls in play as strikes, no matter the location. I think if he were left in long enough, he could serve up throw 38 strikes in a single inning. It would be a 20 run inning, but I think he could do it.
[15] Well, yes, but still—every pitch he threw in that span was in the zone or too close to take. That’s something.
I was morosely looking at the standings a minute ago and noticed that the East is the only division in the AL that has more than one team with a positive run differential. We need to trade the unstoppable juggernaut that is the Baltimore Orioles to another division for something like the Royals.
Buck is going to sweep us at home, isn’t he ?
In which case, I’m going to need a new TV. I can feel it.
Any suggestions on brands ?
I wonder what the Mets would want for Johan.
[19] Melky + IPK.
[20] Ha! The Mets are so bad, they don’t even know those guys are on different teams now!
Stoopid Metsies. Heh heh heh.
[18] This?
Next entry: Orioles (14-8) @ Yankees (12-9), Monday, April 30, 2012, 7:05pm
Previous entry: Does Derek Jeter now project to hit .300?
