Pitch to Contact at Your Own Peril

I got the call to pinch hit for Joey this morning at 5:00 am, so here's something that's more food for thought than a thoroughly developed argument. 

I've had pitchers tell me things over the years that reveal the extent to which their awareness of the composition of their defensive support dictates how they choose to pitch (e.g. "When I have Gentry aand Boggs out there, I'll pound them with 4-seamers all day long."  "I utilized Elvis's deerlike footspeed with sinkers.")

Pitching to contact is much easier to do when you know the boys behind you are going to make plays.  But I think it's safe to say that when the defensive alignment is suspect more often than not at more positions than not, pitchers tend to find it much more difficult to pound the zone with impunity.

Among the many things that have gone wrong for the 2011 Rangers over the past few weeks, an enormously bad development has been the steep decline of the defensive performances at virtually every position, save third base.

Here are the player / positional metrics for the 2011 Rangers, whose -6.6 team UZR ranks 20th in MLB.

Name	Pos	Inn	Plays	RZR	RngR	ErrR	UZR	UZR/150
Adrian Beltre	3B	302	50	0.794	3.6	1.7	5	28.1
Elvis Andrus	SS	291	69	0.863	4.5	-3.5	1.5	5.3
Josh Hamilton	CF	28	7	1	0.6	0	0.7	39.4
Mike Napoli	1B	89	15	0.79	1	-0.4	0.6	9.7
Ian Kinsler	2B	262	59	0.881	1.5	-1.6	0.4	-0.4
Mitch Moreland	1B	130	13	0.722	-0.2	0.4	0.2	3.5
Chris Davis	3B	21	4	0.667	-0.2	0.2	0.1	2.2
Nelson Cruz	LF	68	10	0.909	-0.7	0.2	0.1	10.3
Josh Hamilton	LF	61	14	1	-0.3	0.2	0	2.4
Chris Davis	1B	62	4	0.8	-0.4	0.1	-0.3	-14.6
Andres Blanco	3B	2	0		0	-0.7	-0.7	0
Andres Blanco	SS	34	8	0.8	-1.6	0.4	-1	-34
David Murphy	CF	59	11	0.917	-1.3	0.1	-1	-27.1
Michael Young	2B	62	13	0.765	-1.2	0.2	-1.1	-21.9
Julio Borbon	CF	237	49	0.891	-1.7	-0.5	-1.2	-8.7
David Murphy	LF	196	26	0.897	0	-0.3	-1.8	-15.5
Mitch Moreland	RF	125	18	0.857	-0.2	-0.7	-2.2	-28.4
Michael Young	1B	44	1	0.333	-1.1	-1.4	-2.5	-124
Nelson Cruz	RF	181	31	0.816	-2.7	-0.6	-3.6	-24.1

 

And here are the player / positional metrics for the 2010 Rangers, whose 18.1 team UZR was the ninth best in MLB:

Name	Pos	Inn	Plays	RZR	RngR	ErrR	UZR	UZR/150
Julio Borbon	CF	1095	264	0.917	12	-0.2	8.9	10.5
Nelson Cruz	RF	799	168	0.933	9	-0.9	7.7	10.6
Josh Hamilton	LF	772	126	0.875	1.9	0	6.8	13.2
Justin Smoak	1B	591	66	0.777	3.7	-0.7	2.6	5.8
Ian Kinsler	2B	905	210	0.854	4.3	-0.4	2.1	4.1
Nelson Cruz	LF	88	15	0.938	1.7	0.2	2.1	31.4
David Murphy	RF	381	54	0.871	3.5	0.6	2	7.7
Jorge Cantu	1B	177	14	0.778	1.2	0.6	1.9	19
Jeff Francoeur	RF	88	14	0.933	1.1	0.1	1.3	21.9
Chris Davis	1B	298	24	0.727	2	-0.6	1.1	6.8
Josh Hamilton	CF	262	59	0.894	-0.7	0.4	1.1	4.5
Craig Gentry	CF	44	6	0.75	0.3	0	0.6	22.5
Craig Gentry	LF	28	4	1	-0.2	0	0.4	20.4
Joaquin Arias	2B	149	36	0.837	0.5	0	0.4	3.7
Ryan Garko	1B	33	3	1	0.4	0.1	0.4	23.4
Vladimir Guerrero	RF	118	22	0.846	1.9	-0.9	0.3	3.5
Esteban German	2B	20	4	1	0.2	0.1	0.2	18.5
Joaquin Arias	SS	12	4	1	-0.1	0.2	0.2	8.7
Chris Davis	3B	2	1	1	0.1	0	0.2	24.3
Elvis Andrus	SS	1291	308	0.817	1.3	0.6	0.1	0.3
Julio Borbon	LF	6	1	1	0.1	0	0.1	10.6
Craig Gentry	RF	6	0				0.1	8.8
Esteban German	SS	2	0		0	0	0	0
Andres Blanco	SS	128	31	0.775	0.3	-0.1	0	0.8
Mitch Moreland	1B	320	27	0.818	-0.1	-0.1	-0.1	1.2
Alex Cora	2B	18	2	0.667	-0.2	0.1	-0.1	-20.4
Vladimir Guerrero	LF	7	1	1	0	0	-0.1	-7.1
Esteban German	LF	7	0		-0.2	0	-0.2	0
Jeff Francoeur	LF	12	1	1	0	-0.3	-0.3	-42.6
Alex Cora	3B	2	1	1	-0.2	0.1	-0.3	-27.3
Mitch Moreland	RF	45	8	0.889	-0.1	-0.2	-0.5	-13.9
Andres Blanco	3B	33	3	0.5	0.1	-0.5	-0.6	-30.3
Cristian Guzman	2B	77	12	0.8	-0.1	-0.4	-0.7	-13.8
Jorge Cantu	3B	48	4	0.571	-1.2	0.3	-0.8	-31.3
Cristian Guzman	SS	22	4	0.667	0.1	-0.6	-0.9	-53.9
Brandon Boggs	RF	17	4	0.8	-1.5	0	-1.9	-106.9
Andres Blanco	2B	283	76	0.826	-1.8	-0.8	-2.2	-9.2
David Murphy	LF	533	85	0.859	-2.1	0.5	-2.3	-5.6
Joaquin Arias	1B	35	3	0.429	-2	-0.5	-2.5	-62.5
David Murphy	CF	53	11	0.786	-3	0.1	-3.5	-80.7
Michael Young	3B	1370	218	0.708	-4.6	-1	-5.4	-5.8

The enormous improvement at third base was certainly expected,  but it has been offset by steep  declines in the outfield where Julio Borbon has regressed, Nelson Cruz has been abysmal in right field (likely due to the fact that he was likely playing hurt for most of the season before finally crying uncle last week) and appearances by Mitch Moreland in right and David Murphy anywhere  have resulted in a lot of balls falling into the outfield gaps for hits that didn't fall in last year with the Hamilton - Borbon - Cruz lineup.

Note also how much more difficult it is for Rangers pitchers to turn ground balls into outs when Michael Young appears at second base.

The return of healty Josh Hamilton and Nelson Cruz should go a long way towards solving much of this mess, but not all of it.  The Rangers will still have to find ways to shoehorn Michael Young into the defensive alignment which will push Mitch Moreland into right field from time to time where he is a liability.  And David Murphy is going to play, exposing the pitching staff to a fairly significant defensive liability each time he does.  

But for as much as the Rangers have been damaged by the loss of their production at the plate, the absence of a healthy Hamilton and Cruz has arguably been equally as harmful to the defense and (inescapably) the pitching.

Source: http://www.bbtia.com/home/2011/5/12/pitch-to-contact-at-your-own-peril.html

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