Langerhans' Batspeed
=== 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.
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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.
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=== 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+.
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By contrast, his scores vs CB and SL equate to, roughly, a 100 OPS+.
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=== 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.
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=== 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).
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=== 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.
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=== 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