Seattle Sports Insider

Langerhans' Batspeed

Posted by

8/27/09

=== Matt's Report ===

SABRMatt noticed*, visually, that Ryan Langerhans seemed very comfortable going out and getting curves and fastballs -- even LH-on-LH curves, like the one he just hit for a GW HR.

He wondered whether Langerhans might therefore be vulnerable to fastballs, seeing as Langerhans isn't a 300/400/550 hitter.

He looked at the "vs power" and "vs finesse" stats, and found that on a prelim basis, they were consistent with his first hypothesis.

.....................

I agree with the comments that "power" pitchers are K pitchers, not 96 mph pitchers as such. But! High K/9's do of course correlate strongly with good fastballs.

Looking at a guy's results vs. "power" pitchers isn't enough in itself, but it's suggestive, sure.

=== Doc's Kibitz ===

We went over to fangraphs. Lo and behold, Langerhans has poor "run values" against fastballs, cutters, and changeups on a per-100 pitches basis.

Langerhans' -0.29 lifetime score in the wFB/C column means that, in a Strat-O-Matic game, if you threw 100 fastballs to a lineup of 9 Ryan Langerhans, then that lineup would score -0.3 runs below average.

That's about -0.4 runs per game -- equivalent to maybe a 90 OPS+ for Langerhans on FB's. Lifetime.

His -1.73 score in the wCT/C column is catastrophic, and it means that if you pitched a whole game of cutters to 9 Strat-O-Matic Langerhanses, they would score about -2.2 runs below average.

That's equivalent to about a 55 OPS+ vs cutters.

The -0.76 score in the wCH/C column means that he is also swinging through a whale of a lot of changeups. This suggests (not proves) that Langerhans may be "cheating", swinging at a particular pre-ordained moment, to catch up to the fastball.

Call a -0.76 roughly equivalent to a 75-80 OPS+.

......................

By contrast, his scores vs CB and SL equate to, roughly, a 100 OPS+.

=== The Whole Package ===

Putting Dr. D's cornball OPS+ / wFB/C conversions together for Langerhans:

90 OPS+ - Fastball

55 OPS+ - Cutter

75 OPS+ - Change

105 OPS+ - Slider

95 OPS + - Curve

Considering that FB's are 60% of ML pitches, and that there's a fairly even mix of everything else... what would you expect? 85-90 OPS+ for Langerhans in sum?

Langerhans' actual career OPS+ is 87.

If Matt's scouting cheat sheet were correct, that 87 OPS+ would go way up against LHP's who think they can throw him a slider. It would go way down against pitchers who challenged him to hit good fastballs, mixed with a few changeups for strike three.

=== Cf. Jose Lopez ===

Our guest in the comments pointed out that Lopez has a career minus score in the FB values column of -28, far more than Langerhans'. That's just because fastballs are thrown a lot.

True dat, but if you move over to the FB/100 column (wFB/C) that per 100 pitches, Lopez is not weak vs. fastballs. (He's weak on everything across-the-board because, in his early 20's, he's been a below-average ML hitter).

=== Eyes Slideways ===

Obviously this is a very alert heads-up by SABRMatt. He did not say that he has proven anything; he's called our attention to something. It's not clear to me why we get into Courthouse Mode so quickly when we are, after all, just chatting baseball.

I'll be watching to see if Langerhans can turn around a 94 fastball.

Will also be watching to see if Langerhans "cheats," starts the bat at a pre-ordained moment, and looks bad on cambios.

Will be watching to see if he hammers sliders and curves, even from LH pitchers.

=== Earl Weaver Specialized Bench Dept. ===

Supposing that it WERE true that Langerhans were a bendy-pitch hitter, would that be a bad thing? Of course not. He'd be a specialized weapon.

Nobody ever looked up the Jered Weaver matchup for me. :- ) I'll bet you'd find a number of ML stars that Langerhans beats to a pulp.

Cheers,

Dr D

Comments

Maybe cheating doesn't help you vs. cutters?

Looking at Langerhans' data, you might wonder -- assuming the Fangraphs data is sound -- why he's so dreadful against cut fastballs.
Then you look at his trouble with changes, assume he's cheating vs FB's, and .... hey, I've never been in a pro batter's box. Maybe there's something about a cut fastball that makes "cheating" unprofitable?
In my minds' eye, I can remember a lot of Mark Langstons and Andy Pettittes who splashed on the league ... then faced adjustments by the hitters, and problems ... and who then got great again, and crowed about the value of a cutter.
I wonder if cutters are, in some way, the antidotes against hitters who are starting the bat too soon.

Which would also explain Rivera

Since hitters *have* to start the bat early against him, but then his FB cuts anyway...
Rivera has been, loosely speaking, impossible to hit, his entire career...

No data against Weaver

Otherwise, I'd have already posted. But if you look at his numbers against lefty relievers, most of whom are marginal in terms of velocity as ageneral rule, he's hit 2 of his 3 dingers against that subgroup this season and has a career .789 OPS against lefty relievers (.770 against all lefties). There's a reason he has a reverse platoon split...and I think it's primarily because when he cheats to hit a right handed fastball, he becomes vulnerable to all of the other pitches...whereas he can't cheat against lefties (takes too long to see the ball) so he can clobber off-speed stuff from that group. I'm not arguing that the case is closed here...but I'm telling you what I observe. Intelligently deployed against lefties with good breaking pitches, I bet he will outhit his normal OPS.

Physically...

...a cutter would have the affect of inducing a lot of cheap ground outs if you were cheating to catch up to the slightly faster fastball. Picture stepping it up to make sure you hit the 94 fastball, getting the 91 cutter and being out in front but still making contact because the difference isn't that great. They are indistinguishable to the batting eye...yo can't adjust to a cutter. At all. So you roll over on it and bounce out to second a lot. I think that's what may be happening to Langerhans on cutters.

Hmmmmmm

:taps chin:

No, I think you have a very interesting observation here

"Worthy of consideration" as the Russian grandmasters say. :- )
Not sure exactly what's going on, but Langerhans did smash that lefty slider with great joy, and if it WERE the case that you were right here, it would probably be a secret the M's could exploit for a year...
You say, lefty sliders. What's your thought as to whether he could hit righty curves and sliders, too?
We mention Jered Weaver as the prototype of a guy who lives off his slider and who pounds the knees with a low (unimpressive) FB that would be right in a lefty's wheelhouse. What's your expectation in this kind of matchup?

Again...using basic saber-concepts...

...Langerhans has a swing similar to Raul Ibanez' swing...topspin with an average GB/FB, a slightly better sense of discipline than Ibanez (more P/PA) with roughly the same EYE (2 K/BB ratio...league average in that department). So why is Langerhans not able to succeed where Ibanez did? I posit that Ibanez was better able to adjust to change-ups and hard stuff than Langerhans. If it were pitch recognition, we would expect Langerhans to have a worse EYE than Ibanez, and he doesn't. Langerhans is, however, in the Ibanez template for batting...and Ibanez always did better against pitchers who heavily featured sliders and 2-seamers and significantly worse against high hard stuff. And Ibanez' lefty split was negative against all-comers but singificantly positive against short relief lefties (in other words, he could not hit your average lefty starter, but the LOOGY types with marginal velo and good sliders that populate most bullpens he could handle very well).

Not sure what this has to say

Not sure what this has to say on the point at hand, but I think it may be a clue as to Langerhans strengths and weaknesses. He had his first run of MLB play in 2005, was a league average hitter that performed well against FB. The next year, his play declined significantly as did his performance against FB. What should also be noted is that he saw a lot fewer of them. The league responded to his initial success, by throwing him a lot fewer FB. Jose Lopez has seen the same change this year from last.
I think in general the defense in the bigs is so good and the tough hitters are so talented, that when pitchers face a new batter or a particularly weak batter they just put balls in the zone until they are punished for it. Langerhans in 2005 and Lopez finally in 2008, started punishing pitchers for their lack of respect. So the next year they see the number of fastballs they get to hit drop (60% to 54% for Langerhans and 65% to 57% for Lopez). Maybe this is why Jose struggled in April and May, but apparently he's responded. For whatever reason, Langerhans hasn't.

"especially if in a community

"especially if in a community that has a friendly atmosphere, it is better to introduce yourself and shake hands."
I would prefer not to.   Besides, my exerience from one thread is that the atmosphere is more, let's say, spirited than 'friendly' per se.
"Looking at a guy's results vs. "power" pitchers isn't enough in itself, but it's suggestive, sure."
Again, Langerhans has two walk-offs versus 'power' pitchers, Howell and Breslow.   That they threw sliders and have so-so FBs is precisely my point.   It does not address velocity or pitch type.   By the way, Mark Lowe?   Not a power pitcher this year. He's in the middle grouping.
The hypothesis may be right, and maybe you should sit Langerhans against high velo guys, I don't know.   But using a metric that thinks JP Howell is a 'power' guy and Edwin Jackson or Mark Lowe aren't is going to obscure more than it'll clarify. And yet again, Branyan seems to be a decent counter.   If you looked to this metric to see who's likely to struggle vs. power pitchers, Langerhans wouldn't be close to the top of the list.   You'd go to Branyan.
The same is basically true with using the pitch type linear weights.   These are greatly affected by small sample size BABIP swings - and this isn't single-season BABIP (which isn't too reliable), it's a fraction of that (as it's single-season broken down by pitch type).   This is exactly why they vary so much, and why drawing conclusions about batspeed may not be advisable.   For examples, look at Robinson Cano or Ian Kinsler.   Great years versus fastballs, catastrophic years against FBs side by side.
The same is true for Jose Lopez.   He's had two full MLB seasons of disastrous results versus FBs, a very good year in 2008, and then a merely awful season in 2009.   What conclusion do we draw from this?   Personally, not much of anything.   If you think this DID prove something, you'd be much more likely to bench Lopez against anyone throwing hard in 2008 (coming off two years of around -15 runs each on FBs), and that wouldn't have been the right move.   Similarly, benching Langerhans this year versus 'power pitchers' would've cost us the two walk-offs.   The counter from SABRMatt seems to be that you'd ditch that definition and sit him against high velo guys.   Obviously, this means using one group of pitchers to show that he may have weakness against a different group, and probably isn't very helpful. What we need are are the league averages against power pitchers and/or the league average LW versus FBs for a hitter of Langerhans' caliber.   That would still not give us a whole lot given the variability of these stats, but at least we could actually see if they point to something.
"He did not say that he has proven anything; he's called our attention to something. "
Well, if the claim was that it was based on visual evidence, and was something to watch, I'd never have made the comment.   The initial post was that Langerhans was DONE as an MLB player once people stopped throwing him sliders.   The fact that he's done well this year versus FBs and power pitchers was dismissed as small sample size, while the small sample size of visual evidence is still paramount.   It's a crazy ol' world.
Again, I DO NOT KNOW if Langerhans has a slider speed bat, and until we go to the pitch fx data, neither does matt.   Just watching his performance against FBs going forward is great, and I suspect we all will given that we're Mariner fans.   I'm just asking for some humility and and to really think about what we can prove, what constitutes evidence, etc.
Sorry for the breach of netiquette.
FYI, he hasn't faced Weaver as Matt notes, but he's got a very solid OPS versus Ubaldo Jimenez, the flame-throwing righty from the Rockies.   Is this counterevidence?   I'd say no, it's noise, but do with it what you will.

if this is the case

"especially if in a community that has a friendly atmosphere, it is better to introduce yourself and shake hands."
I would prefer not to.
...............
Then I would prefer that you not participate in the discussions on a substantial basis.
If you're, say, a well-known personality who wants to remain incognito -- of which we have several here -- then you can take an identifiable screen name and virtual personality. This will allow others to recognize your past posts and tendencies, and respond accordingly.
................
Matt is the one here who is sometimes spirited, as opposed to friendly, and we don't fault you for replying in kind, to him.
But SABRMatt doesn't string his posts spiritedly :- ) behind an anonymous screen name that makes it far more difficult to react to him.
................
As to insisting on being anonymous, and yet part of the discussion? We're not talking about my personal rules. We're talking about basic netiquette: don't lurk, and then expect the same rights and privileges as those who accept responsibility for their actions.

A number of interesting points

Rather than engage them in detail, since I just have a few minutes ...
1. If Langerhans' results against Jimenez are good, then sure, that's a piece of evidence worth looking at. If a guy can deal with this or that upper-90's flamethrower, that's important to know.
2. I tend to agree with you, that the original premise may have been overstated. I wouldn't agree that Langerhans would be done if fed a steady diet of FB's, not at all. Even if Langerhans did have a slider-speed bat (and we don't know that he does), slider-speed guys can adjust if they know FB's are coming.
3. Your remarks about Lopez sort of miss the point about Langerhans' across-the-board wXX/C results compared to Lopez', IMHO. Langerhans' wXX/C results show a weak spot vs FB/CH and Lopez' do not. I haven't seen you deal with this data, which is the most important data w/r/t the debate.
4. We seem to have common ground here -- watch the situation going forward.
Thanks for dropping in. Your ideas are great. Would be glad to have you as part of the community.
- Jeff

It's kind of interesting that you comp him to Ibanez

...seeing as how they had similar career arcs through their age 29 seasons. Ibanez through age 29, was a part time player that had never shown enough to get a full time job, having a career OPS of .678 with good, but not great, power when he joined a lousy Royals team in 2001. What changed for Ibanez that season? Was it his "career" BABiP of .266, was it some adjustment Raul made, or was it simply that half way through June, he started to get consistent major league playing time? I'm not a Royals scholar, and wasn't inlined to particularly research Ibanez 2001 season any more than to look at the stats, I just thought it was funny, and would be funnier still if Ryan Langerhans followed a similar late bloomer career path.

I also thought it might be interesting to relate that, in fast ball counts (2-0, 2-1, 3-0, 3-1 to my understanding) Ryan is batting .361/.622/.514. I know the reaction to that should be the same as me saying it rains in Seattle (He hits in hitter's counts, surprising!). The interesting thing is that he only has 3 home runs in 105 at bats, that makes a ratio of 1 homer for every 35 balls put in play, in comparison to the rest of his at bats, where he hits it out 1 out of a little more than every 27 balls in play. By comparison, Jose Lopez, who we've already established doesn't hit fastballs very well, hits a home run 1 out of 19.5 balls in play in those counts, compared to 1 for every 42 balls in play otherwise.

So this means, when Jose Lopez knows he's getting a fastball, even though he usually doesn't fare that well against them, he can still smash it. Ryan Langerhans on the other hand, can't crank one as well as he would if he thought he might see a curveball. One would think that, since Jose will go after anything close, he would be the one more likely to hit fewer homeruns in fastball counts, making weaker contact on fastballs outside the strike zone compared to Langerhans, with his more patient approach, only swinging at the riper fastballs, but this isn't what happens. Of course, small sample size caveats apply, if Langerhans see a fastball count tonight and gets a home run, then his "fastball count" homer ratio comes even with his "all other counts" ratio. Still, I think it's an interesting statistic that helps prove he has to cheat on fastballs, so maybe he doesn't go on to have Ibanez career arc after all.

PS Just in case anyone was wondering, Langerhans and Lopez both their same patterns with extrabase hits in general.

This is a scintillating discussion

Thanks for the midfield-winger pass there malcontent.
We could surmise that a guy whose reflexes were a tick slow, could still pound a FB on a 2-0 count. But the comp to Ibanez is provocative.
.............
Now that some arguments have come in on the other side, am not sure where I'm leaning on Langerhans' batspeed :- )
Will watch it.

'Lack of respect'

Langerhans in 2005 and Lopez finally in 2008, started punishing pitchers for their lack of respect.
Hmmmmm... another fundamental paradigm to look at. We're getting a confusing menu of root causes offered here. :- )

Jeff, 3) I guess I'm not

Jeff,
3) I guess I'm not seeing what you're seeing.   Langerhans is worse against fastballs than sliders, and pretty bad against change-ups.   Lopez is much worse against fastballs than Langerhans, but quite good against change-ups and lost against cutters.    The FB isn't his 'weak spot' solely because no one could run a CAREER -1.40 or whatever against FBs and stay in the league.   OK, Yuni Betancourt is trying, but the results aren't great so far.   Anyway, just looking at the LWs/C, Lopez is worse versus FBs, and much worse this year, for what it's worth (not much).   It's just that both have a pitch that they struggle against even more.

4) Yes, we'll all be watching, as we should with all the M's.   Sure would be nice to get some pitch fx data and do some cool graphs the way Dave Allen's doing them at fangraphs, but I don't have the database.
"Then I would prefer that you not participate in the discussions on a substantial basis."
This is absolutely your right, and I accept your terms.

OK...this is annoying me.

I tried using Dr. D's cornball writing style and people took me absolutely seriously for the literal words. I would never seriously suggest that Langerhans couldn't adjust if he never saw anything but fastballs. COULDN'T you guys TELL that I was trying to be amusing based on the "or something like that :)" comment in the original topic? Apparently not.
Whatever.