HALF WAY!!

Back in the day, when I fancied myself a pseudo athlete (I ran track and cross country and to this day, I insist they're not sports), I remember that Matt Munoz, the best runner on the team, would scream, "HALF WAY!!" in the middle of long-runs and intervals. While I don't know for sure why exactly he did it, it usually inspired two emotions in me: fear or determination. Whether it was fear or determination depended on how I was doing at that point in the run/workout.

So, the Astros are, "HALF WAY!!" plus one, through their 2008 season. My question is, should this inspire fear or determination in us? Let's take stock of our present and then disect the past, to discuss the future.

Yesterday afternoon, we finished off our third straight series win over the AL. Two series victories over the top team in the AL East is a feat that seemed impossible as recently as two weeks ago when the team was getting swept out of Baltimore. However incredible the last week has been, the fact is that the Astros have been a disappointment for 50% of the 2008 season. A 39-43 disappointment, to be exact. What follows is a break down of some key statistics through the first 82 games to analyze how we’ve gotten to where we are. Hopefully, these will paint a picture of what we might expect for the next 80 games we play.

Here's the quick and dirty of where we rank with our stats in terms of the rest of the National League with our offense:

Tied for 5th in BA
15 (Second to Last) in OBP
9th in OPS

Next, a chart of how our hitters (pitchers have been excluded) have performed at the plate through the first 81:



The last time we took a meaningful look at the Astros numbers at the team level, was May 13th. We were tearing it up, and everyone in baseball loved us. I urged for cautious optimism, because the only aspect offensively that we were doing exceptionally well at was hitting .292 with men in scoring position. As you can see, we're now actually hitting worse, on average, with men in scoring position then we are overall. Which goes a long way to explain our absymal month of June. Our ISO has also totally fallen off, indicating that our bats just are not generating the power that they once were. A 19% line drive percentage coupled with a BABIP below .300 should inspire some optimism for an increase in offensive production for the second half. Carlos Lee in particular has a rather low BABIP, but a respectable 18.2% LDP, we're begining to see his BABIP fall in line with his LD% even, and with the revamped line-up it should help us produce more than the 2 or 3 runs a game we did for most of June. The absurdly low OBP is still troubling. As long as it stay's low, we'll have to rely on hitting well in with men in scoring position, because our opportunities to produce runs will be fleating. All in all, things should get better in the offensive department, but it won't be anything to write home about.


To the pitching:



What should jump off the stat sheet is the pitching staff's ridiculous HR/RB ratio. A majority of Astros pitchers have a tendency to induce a great deal of fly balls (probably wasn't the ideal rotation to create for MMP), but when fifteen percent of them are leaving the yard, you have to just shake your head. There are two ways to look at this development. While it's not as if their BABIP is just outlandishly high, a LD% of 20% is startling to see, especially when it's coupled with our HR/FB. Opposing hitters are getting in some good swings, which is most likely apparent to anyone who follows the Astros. More important than the HR's perhaps, are the line drives, which have a greater chance of going for extra bases than do ground balls or fly balls, thus putting runners in scoring position with relative frequency. However, and oddly enough, the Astros staff has the second best LOB% at 74%. Given that we should see the LD% drop down a tick and the FB stay in the yard more often as well, there's room for the hope that our pitching should improve a pretty good deal in the second half. This definitely surprised me.

As we noted last time, the defense has been phenomenal this year, and certainly goes a long way in explaining why our pitchers' LOB% is so good. We are currently 3rd RZR with an .852; surprisingly (to me at least) 2nd in infield RZR with an .815. If the defense holds up it's in the of the bargain, and the LD% and HR/FB rate of our pitchers levels off, the result should be some pretty well pitched games.

Taking stock of our first 81 games has lead to these insights:

1.) Our offense will struggle to consistently put runs on the board because they're just not getting on base frequently enough, but with a big-bat in Carlos Lee due for a resurgence, we should do better than we have in June. Just don't expect a repeat of May by any stretch.

2.) Though on pace to set all kinds of records with our HR's allowed, our pitching staff has been one of the best at stranding their base runners. With the possibility that LD's will decrease ever so slightly and the expectation that HR/FB should diminish a significant amount, we should see a lot fewer runs posted by our oppents. Especially, given that...

3.) We have a great defense, especially in the in-field and CF and RF too, backing our hurlers.

So, "HALF-WAY," shouldn't inspire fear in us going further in terms of our ability to win some more ball games. However, it also shouldn't necessarily inspire determination or an excess of optimism going foward. We've dug ourselves a large hole to climb out of in the NL Central and the Wild Card race. While this franchise has over come some long odds, we don't seem to be made of the caliber of stuff that overcame them in 2005. That we should do better moving forward does inspire fear in me, because it will probably convince Drayton McLane to stay the course with this team -- or worse, try to acquire some missing piece. We look like a team that might be able to put up a good fight to reach .500, but as fans we have to ask ourselves, is that what we want? Is obtaining a respectable, but hardly noteworthy, amount of wins worth trying to build for a successful, stable future? I say, not at all.

***Note: Evan contributed a significant amount to this, won't be credited in the by-line, but deserves equal share of either the props or criticism (well maybe just the criticism) too.***

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Examining the Wizard: Roy Oswalt, a Case Study in Luck

Today, I was excited to see this article from The Hardball Times. For those of you who are too lazy to click the link and read the article, I’ll quickly summarize. The article looked at pitchers who were the unluckiest so far this season; measuring their rate stats against league averages to define unlucky. Astros fans should not be surprised to find out that Roy Oswalt was the most unlucky pitcher in terms of HR/FB (Home Runs per Fly Ball), posting an absolutely astounding 21.05% HR/FB so far this season. The article by, Derek Carty, goes on to normalize Oswalt’s (and the other pitchers listed in the article’s) outlandish rates stats back to league average levels, plug it into a very complex formula, and determine Oswalt (and company’s) LIPS ERA (Luck Independent ERA). Carty finds that by normalizing Roy Oswalt’s HR/FB back to league-average, Roy Oswalt owns a LIPS ERA of 4.08. Not an outstanding ERA, but I don’t think any Astros fan would quibble with having Roy Oswalt’s ERA be 1.30 earned runs lower.

The LIPS ERA concept works, because by-in-large, things like BABIP, HR/FB, and LD% are largely beyond the pitcher’s control (See above linked articles and this one for supporting evidence). However, what does the knowledge that Roy Oswalt has been unlucky tell Astros fans, or fantasy owners for that matter, about what to expect? Thankfully, Derek Carty again, provides some insight into a favored term bandied on this blog “the law of averages” or “regression to the mean”. Once again, for those to lazy to click the link, essentially we can expect Roy Oswalt to surrender HR/FB at a rate consistent with his career levels from here on out, meaning somewhere around 9% HR/FB, ( he’s never exceeded 12.9%).

To dig further than just discussions of luck and regression to the mean, I was graciously given Roy Oswalt’s pitch-result data from the talented and majestic Josh Kalk. Honestly, I cannot thank him enough for helping me, who knows absolutely nothing about database coding, for providing this data. While I had just about anything you’d ever want to know (and a lot you wouldn’t about) Roy Oswalt’s every pitch in 2008; save his last two starts (tonight’s start included) due to when I actually obtained the info. I’ve isolated only the pitches that resulted in HR, since that’s what we’re looking at (click here for an explanation of the data):



Quickly, here are the pitch averages for all of the available data on Roy Oswalt for 2007:



And then his 2008 pitch averages:



Clearly, movement is down on his Fastball (FB) and slider this year. Velocity does not seem to be the issue for Roy on his fastball in terms of HR allowed either. Of the 11 FB’s that turned into HR in 2008 for Roy, the average speed was 93.23 MPH (min: 91.62 max: 95.61), so that’s clearly not the issues as evident by just looking at his 2007 average. His movement on the FB’s that turned into HR: -4.09 in. X (min: -1.44 in. max: -8.16); 6.00 in. Y (min: 1.99 in. max: 10.85). There’s not as much life on the FB’s that became HR this year by comparison to Roy Oswalt’s 2007 numbers and on the whole his movement is just down. This probably explains his overall decline in strikeout related rate stats, but I don’t know that it really explains why he’s just getting crushed so much. However, I get the feeling that 11 FB's is just far to small of a sample size to say anything meaningful about. In fact if anyone can see any clear trait from the FB velocity or movement from the chart that indicates he's doing something that's allowing his HR spike, please speak up.

Note: I’m ignoring the three sliders, because his slider is just God awful this year, but not the issue apparently.

In my last attempt to decipher the enigma that is Roy Oswalt in 2008, I cited the fact that his release point seems excessively bunched, most likely in an effort not to tip his pitches, thus causing him to lose life on his pitches. While my initial conclusion from that observation was that it must be his slider that is getting pounded was wrong, I none the less stand by the observation as providing insight into his struggles to date.

Tonight, however, I am offering another observation. Looking back at Roy Oswalt’s HR pitches, all of but three of the fourteen pitches have one thing in common: men on base. While it is clearly a limited sample size, perhaps either pitching from the stretch, or the distraction of holding runners is causing Roy to throw pitches that are a bit more crushable. Food for thought at least. While it’s not an earth shattering observation, the pitch/fx data of his HR pitches revealed no other apparent trend. Oddly though, his 50/50 split of RHB/LHB going yard is elevated for his career 75/53 RHB/LHB HR split. There wasn’t a meaningful home/road split for the HR’s either.

Having spent the entirety of the game researching and writing this article, we saw some dominant pitching from Roy Oswalt tonight, but the Ryan Braun long ball makes it 17 HR the season. During the post game so far I’ve heard a lot of discussion centering around Roy Oswalt trying to pitch to contact more vs. trying to strike guys out. Our first attempt to discern what was ailing Roy Oswalt revealed little in the way of evidence that Roy was attempting to pitch to contact from his numbers, but there are probably short comings in trying to prove or disprove pitching philosophy from limited statistics. After an exhaustive combing of pitch/fx data, I’m left scratching my head. It seems that although pitch/fx is an incredible tool that is sure to further revolutionize baseball analysis, it also seems to support the assertion that pitchers have little control over their BABIP, DIPS, HR/FB, LD%, etc. If this is the case, we can only have one logical expectation of Roy Oswalt from here on out: that he should pitch in-line with his career numbers. Astros fans should rejoice and fantasy owners should do what they can to acquire him.

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2nd 10 Game Recap: Finding Solid Ground

Since we waited an extra day, you guys get a bonus 11 Game Recap...that also means we get to do less work the next time around (9 games).

In this eleven game span, we’ve been 6-5, a marked improvement from the last time we reported in this fashion. Our XW-L is 10-11 on the season, while we really stand at 9-12. Things seem to have evened out in the luck department -- just slightly the opposite of what we’d hoped for, but hey, we should still be a win better than we are. AND if you look at the NL Central’s XW-L record, we’re only trailing the Cubs by 3.5 games (Cubs XW-L 13-7). So, 21 games in, we’re still in the thick of it -- in theory.

Aside from XW-L records, what can the numbers tell us about our team and how they’ve been playing 21 games into the season.

We’ll shake things up this time and lead-off with:

Starting Pitching
Stats	IP	W	L	K	BB	K/9	K/BB	ERA	BABIP	GB%	E(W)	E(L)
Last 11 Games	58.7	4	3	45	22	6.90	2.05	4.76	.290	44%	3.9	3.8
1st 10 Games	58	0	4	36	18	5.59	2	4.03	.303	44%	1.9	3.7
2008	116.7	4	7	81	40	6.25	2.03>	4.40	.305	44%	7	7

In the last 11 games, we’ve seen our starters BABIP fall right in line with the league average, which is good, however, it is important to note that in that time frame, Backe’s BABIP in this was .327, which is easily explained by/explains his poor outing in Philly. It is frustrating to have an overall record of 4-7 for your starters, when they’ve pitched well enough to be 7-7, but we’ll leave much of that analysis for the bull pen. Our peripherals have been remarkably consistent, which is an early indicator that what we’re seeing so far, is probably what we’re going to get, with the exception. Of course, with the exception of Roy who should continue averaging out his poor start with performances more in line with his talent, as we mentioned earlier.

Relief Pitching
Stats	IP	W	L	SV	K	BB	K/9	K/BB	ERA	BABIP	BB/9	H/9
Last 11 Games	37.7	2	2	2	35	12	8.36	2.91	4.78	.293	2.87	9.8
1st 10 Games	27	3	3	1	19	12	6.33	2.03	5.67	.379	4	12.33
2008	64.7	5	5	3	54	24	7.52	2.25	5.15	.328	3.34	10.86

The W, L, and Saves columns are pretty straight forward, if you’ve been watching the games. The two columns that should give every Astros fan hope is the BABIP, K/9, and K/BB. Our peripherals have improved dramatically in the last 11 games compared to the first and the BABIP has dropped to a very sustainable level. While a 4.76 ERA is certainly not what everyone was hoping from this bull pen, it is necessary to note that if you take away Brocail’s shelling last night, the ERA probably isn’t all that bad. What I am trying to say is, things seem to be stabilizing and at this stable state, the Astros’ bull pen looks solid.

Hitting
Stats	PA	R	HR	RBI	BB	SO	AVG	OBP	OPS	ISO	K:BB
Last 12 Games	426	66	13	61	41	62	.286	.357	.809	.167	1.51
1st 10 Games	339	36	11	34	22	56	.232	.286	.707	.190	3.65
2008	765	102	24	95	63	118	.261	.325	.764	.177	1.87

For those who've been keeping up, sorry that it took an extra day to get the hitting data in. Due to our ineptitude, we're giving you a bonus game in the hitting because the method we're using to get the stats can't spit out specific game sets...our bad. But in the end, it's probably good because it gives us a chance to see what the Astros have been doing as they began to heat up. The stat that immediately pops out is the .OBP which is a tremendous .357 -- for a team OBP that's outstanding. The leading indicator, if you're going to simply choose a single stat, for run production is OBP, because you can't score anyone if they're not on base -- unless Adam Dunn is all nine of your hitters and just crushing solo shots. While that team OBP seems high, in reality it shouldn't fall too much. Last time, we reported that our projected team OBP is .344, meaning we shouldn't see too much of a drop off in run production. While it correlates to OBP, our vastly decreased K:BB ratio for our hitters is also a number that portends to more good things, because it indicates that our hitters are being very patient and selective -- hopefully that holds. There is reason to believe that it will as the number of PA our team has is inching close to most of these stats becoming statistically significant. Run production during this period has averaged 5.5 runs a game, which, again, utilizing an RC/27 formula, we predicted the line-up should produce about 5.1 runs/per game. So all in all, it appears that our hitters are beginning to settle in and perform at their true talent levels. Thus, while it is improbable to believe that the team will keep notching 8+ runs a game, we should see a steady stream of 5-6 run games as we move forward, which as the pitchers find their grove should put us in the position to stay in contention in the NL Central.

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10 Game Recap: Searching for Silver Linings

As promised, here is our 10 game wrap. For this, our inaugural edition, we decided to look at some raw statistics to see what they tell us about our dismal 3-7 start.

Hitting
PA	R	HR	RBI	BB	SO	AVG	OBP	OPS	ISO	K:BB
339	36	11	34	22	56	.232	.286	.707	.190	3.65

Not a lot of surprises here, we just aren’t hitting and more importantly, we’re not getting on base. A positive note, though, is that when we are hitting, we’re hitting for a pretty decent power (note: Isolated Slugging of .190). Even this positive sign is due in large part to a four home run performance on Monday, capped off by this welcoming present from Mr. Tejada.

Our hitting woes are a surprise to say the least. This team has been heralded all off-season long as one of the best line-ups in the NL. Lance’s career .412 OBP always gives reason to be optimistic, but Carlos Lee (.341) and Miguel Tejada (.343) do not have the track record of getting on base. Balancing the good with the bad, we wanted to find a reasonable prognostication about our team’s ability to score runs. In this pursuit, we decided to use a metric called RC/27. It’s an approximation of the number of runs, per 27 outs (the length of a ball game) a player or team is creates. In 10 games our hitters (the hitting stats above exclude pitchers, for the purpose of solely analyzing what the men who are paid to hit the ball are doing for us) have manged 36 runs, which is an average of 3.6 runs/game (tough math, I know). I am using PECOTA’s projections to come up with our projected RC/27 score. Though there are many formulas for RC/27, most just trying to be more and more precise, I used the quick and dirty formula of:

RC= 25xOBPxSLG / (1-AVG)

The projected values for our lineup (including bench players, but Kaz Matsui is excluded because he has not played yet):

OBP: .344 SLG: .437 AVG: .274

This yielded a RC/27 of 5.17. So clearly, we have been vastly under performing at the plate, but we clearly are bound for a regression to the mean -- i.e. something’s got to give. Regardless of notions associated with clutch hitting, luck is a big part of hitting. Hit ‘em where they ain’t may be an old baseball axiom, but it’s very much true. Line drives are often caught, while bloop singles go for RBI’s just as frequently it seems. This offense has a track record of success. Regardless of regression due to age, or questionable lineups, it should (based on our projections) start to hit better, and score more runs as a result.

Starting Pitching
IP	W	L	K	BB	K/9	K:BB	BABIP	ERA	E(W)	E(L)
58	0	4	36	18	5.59	2	.303	4.03	1.9	3.7

For all the talk about how bad the starting rotation was going to be this year, through 10 games, it has been the one bright spot on the club. Even with Roy Oswalt’s hip being a purple bruise and Chris Sampson struggling through the flu yesterday, we’ve put up solid numbers. Brandon Backe went toe to toe with Chris Young and Carlos Zambrano, and kept us in the game both times. Wandy Rodriguez bounced back form a rocky outing in San Diego, and has pitched over nine innings of scoreless ball in a row.

The vacancy in the win column is a testament to our bullpen’s ineptitude. The E(W,L) values are slightly skewed, namely because of both Roy and Chris’s rotten starts. E(W,L) cannot be read as though you were looking at a W-L column, quickly said, it is the expected win share a pitcher earned for getting through X number of innings having allowed X number of runs, determined by the number of wins and losses pitchers through out history have earned with the same IP and RA. The good thing to note is that our BABIP is close to the mean, meaning that should our rate stats stay as strong as they are, then this just might be the way things will go.

Relief Pitching
IP	W	L	SV	K	BB	ERA	BABIP	K/9	K/BB	H/9	BB/9
27	3	3	1	19	12	5.67	.379	6.33	2.03	12.33	4

Like we said last night, this team has been built around hitting and strong bullpen, and just like hitting, the bull pen has STRUGGLED. Just like hitting though, it appears that bullpen is also do for a regression to the mean given their absurdly high BABIP of .379 reflected in a astronomical H/9 of 12.33. While the other rates stats haven't been phenomenal, expect them to improve slightly, but not much. Just expect the bullpen’s BABIP’s regression to the mean to make all the difference in the world.

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