Every year, some players get off to terrible starts. Some, like follow on Twitter who finally put together solid seasons the past two years in Oakland. After a scary line drive to the head ended his season, he signed with Arizona and got off to a rough start. He’s got a 4.74 ERA and is striking out batters at a near career low rate.
But he too has been the victim of bad luck. He’s allowed a .335 average on balls in play, compared to his career rate of .286. His FIP is over a full run lower than his ERA, which implies balls just happen to be falling where his fielders aren’t standing.
McCarthy’s strand rate is 67.0, which is essentially a career low (in 101 innings in 2007, he posted a 66.9 percent strand rate). There is a school of thought that pitchers, with a few exceptions don’t have a whole lot of control over their strand rate. (Relief pitchers, who are used to pitching out of the stretch, are a whole different beast.) The league average strand rate is typically around 72-75 percent. Basically, McCarthy is allowing more runners to score than he has in the past, and he probably doesn’t have a whole lot of control over that.
Don’t expect the same kind of dramatic bounce back as Cespedes, but look for McCarthy to start resembling his 2011-12 form. His last two starts, in which he allowed 10 hits and no runs over 17 innings, are a great sign that he’s back on track.
Matt Cain
Per Pitch F/X, Cain’s fastball is at -5.8 runs above average, which in technical terms means it’s well below average. This is the first time Cain’s ever had a negative measurement on his fastball – in both 2009 and 2010 he was over 20 runs above average on the pitch.
He has seen a steady decline in the effectiveness since those peak years, but it still has been serviceable. He has matched this decline in effectiveness with a decline in usage of the four-seamer. He has thrown four seam fastballs less frequently in every year since 2008, and is down to 37.3 percent this year, compared to a peak rate of 65.9 percent.
This is not necessarily a bad thing for a pitcher expanding his repertoire, and he has supplemented the four-seamer these last three years with a two-seamer he almost never threw before 2011. Additionally, his reliance on his slider has increased every year since 2010; he’s gone from a 8.9 percent rate then to a robust 26.8 percent rate this year.
All this is to say that yes, Cain’s fastball is losing some heat and yes, he’s throwing it less often but no, it’s not all of a sudden a worthless pitch. There is, to some degree a lack of control over a fly ball once it’s in the air. Obviously not all fly balls are created equal, but given Cain’s extensive track record, there’s no reason to expect him to keep delivering gopher balls signed and sealed. His value is as low as it’s ever been. What better time to try and scoop him up?
Alex Hampl covers the baseball and the Atlanta Braves weekly for numberFire. Contact him at alexhampl@gmail.com or on Twitter @hampl9.