Jonathan Papelbon is one of, if not the best closer in baseball. Of that there is no doubt. You don’t have to look much farther than his 89% save rate (118 out of 133 since 2006), 1.84 career ERA, and 4.79 K/BB rate to make that assessment. Throw in the fact that he’s not allowed a run in 25 career postseason innings over 16 appearances and his name stands alone with Mariano Rivera at the top of a long list of closers you would take with you to the end without reservation.
At the surface, 2009 has been more of the same for Papelbon. He’s closed the door in save situations five times in five opportunities while amassing a 1.94 ERA. But a deeper look should give you pause to think twice about thinking that 2009 Papelbon has been as effective as previous years’ versions.
Let’s start with the eye test. Just watching Jonathan Papelbon this season, I don’t get the feeling of sheer dominance that I’ve come to expect from Papelbon. His fastball still has velocity, but it doesn’t look like he’s been able to paint the corners with it inside the zone as he has done so successfully in years past. At the same time, and maybe because of the inability to throw the called strike off the fastball, he’s not getting the swings and misses he’s been used to when he goes out of the zone.
As noted by Amalie Benjamin on Boston.com, Papelbon’s no longer generating the swinging strike at lead leading rates.
“But what might be most troubling is that batters simply aren’t swinging and missing as they once did. Since 2006, the first full year Papelbon spent in the bullpen, no pitcher made batters swing and miss at a higher rate. Batters whiffed on 27.6 percent of their swings, followed by Rudy Seanez at 27 percent, and Eric Gagne at 26.2 percent.
Now? It’s not so automatic. Batters have swung at 85 of Papelbon’s pitches this season, and missed 18 times for a 21.2 rate. That leaves him tied with Manny Delcarmen for 29th in baseball.” – Amalie Benjamin, Boston.com
The other notable thing that the my eyes tell me is that Papelbon’s not making it easy for himself this year. As Benjamin also points out, he’s putting more runners on base and throwing more pitches per outing than previous seasons.
So this is what fans of most teams feel like when the ninth inning rolls around? I have to be honest, I don’t like it. I much prefer the comforting feeling of knowing that the ninth inning was the least likely inning in the game for opposing runners to be on base.
So far, I’m not sure I’ve told you anything new, nor illuminating to the underlying reasons for Jonathan Papelbon’s performance this season to date. So let’s dig a little past the surface.
At the highest level, the stats back up what my eyes are telling me about Jonathan Papelbon so far this season. The most telling indicators that something is tangibly different this year are a 46% increase in his WHIP vs. his career average, a 26% decrease in his K rate, and a 121% increase in his walk rate.
image via FanGraphs
The first thing I wanted to rule out was any potential that velocity, and loss or variance of was the root cause of the lower amount of swings and misses. As you can see, velocity isn’t an issue.
image via FanGraphs
Next, I moved to pitch selection. Interestingly enough two things jump out at me here. First is that Papelbon is throwing both a two seam and his traditional four seam fastball this season, but in total, he is throwing the fastball a little less often than last season. With a small sample size, I don’t think this is all that material a difference. One thing I do notice is that he has almost completely abandoned his splitter in favor of a slider. How effective Papelbon can be with his slider remains to be seen. Can it replace what was a devestating split as a “swing and miss” out pitch? Pitching with the slider in traditional fastball counts could be very effective for Papelbon this season if he can locate the slider for called strikes, something the splitter by nature can’t do.
All in all, pitch selection offers indication of a few subtle changes, but nothing remarkable.
image via FanGraphs
Now we’re starting to get somewhere. To give context to the numbers above; anything with an “O” refers to a pitch out of the strike zone, a “Z” refers to a pitch in of the zone. The percentages are swing and contact rates against Papelbon by opposing hitters by year and the last column represents the most important pitch of the at bat, the first pitch.
What does this tell us? In comparison to his career averages, batters are swinging at less Papelbon pitches than they have in the past. Of those pitches, they are more likely to lay off pitches inside the zone than they had in the past. So hitters are being more selective against Papelbon this season.
At the same time, contact rate overall for batters against Papelbon has jumped 8.3% over his career average. The most noticable difference is contact rate outside the strike zone, which has climbed the past two years. While I can’t access this data by pitch type, I would strongly suggest that the movement away from the splitter is having an impact here.
Also notable is that Papelbon’s overall percentage of balls in the strike zone is down significantly this year. With an 85% plus mix of fastballs, you can surmise his control with the fastball isn’t up to previous years’ standards. Not only his Papelbon throwing less balls in the zone at large, his first pitch strike % has dipped below 60% compared to previous seasons. Papelbon is working from behind more often than he has in the past. More selective hitters and fewer swings and misses coupled with being behind in the count more often definately points to higher walk rates and a higher WHIP.
But what about the lower strike out rate?
Papelbon has always been one of the greatest at bat closers in baseball. Over his career, 130 out of the 233 plate appearances that went to an 0-2 count ended with a K (an astounding 55.8% rate). This season, Papelbon has seen 12 batters go 0-2 and has finished off a third of them. In total, if Papelbon had two strikes on a batter, that batter would strike out 49% of the time (278/563). Batters against two strike counts could only muster a tOPS+ (index against the leaguewide OPS against in two strike counts) of 55. This season, the two strike tOPS+ is 135 (35% worse than the average pitcher with two strike counts) and his strike out rate is only 32% (8/25). Where is the put away pitch?
According to the closer, he has been making some changes to his delivery to take a little strain off the body while keeping velocity.
“I’ve changed my delivery, kind of added a little bit more power to it,” Papelbon said. “When you make adjustments in this game, you’re going to have to take the good with the bad, and maybe right now I’m throwing a little bit more pitches than I have in the past. To me, I’m still not overworking myself because by changing my mechanics, it’s able to take some of that pressure off my arm. So throwing 15 pitches the old way is the same as throwing 25 the new way.” – via Boston.com
Unfortunately for Papelbon, so far this season, those pitches haven’t been as effective as in years past. While there are some unsettling signs for Papelbon here, please keep in mind, it’s very early in the season and the sample size in even smaller for a closer than any other pitcher. For the time being however, the ninth inning doesn’t seem to come with as much a sense of calm and serenity as it used to.
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