Pablo Lopez is Better than His ERA

[Ted Wiedmann]

2 minutes ago, danielp19653 said:

Isn't this the same argument that's been made for Pagan the last two years and Kepler the last 3 years? At what point do we accept that some people will never play as well as their advanced analytics suggest? Some people just have some issue that undermines it, Kepler hits a lot of balls hard straight up or down which wrecks his stats, Pagan can't help himself but to throw a pitch down the middle whenever a game is close, Lopez can't help but randomly implode for an inning every game or two. Not saying he's bad or the contract is anything that should be a pain point, but maybe we should stop trying to suggest that everyone is magically going to improve and they simply are what they are.

This isn't the same as Kepler or Pagan I don't think.

As far as I understand, Pagan's case has never been results based, it's always been a stuff+ projection. Looking at Pagan's fastball IVB it ranks among the elite in baseball, but hardhit% and BB% have been problems for Pagan.

Kepler has never had consistently good hardhit% or barrel%, he doesn't strike out and takes walks but doesn't have a very good batted ball distribution, which you already referred to, and his avg EV aren't great, they're only slightly above average. 

The reason for Lopez optimism are that he's improved on his K% and whiff%, his BB% and HR/FB% are the same, and his xwOBA and his wOBA are both career bests. When I see things that tend to be stable year over year improving and things that are volatile like ERA and LOB% are career worsts,  I interpret that as those numbers are more likely to change since year over year studies show those are more likely to change. 

[Minny505]

Lopez has the 7th highest fWAR in the AL. He's closer to an allstar than a 5th starter. 

I don't believe any of the Twins pitchers are as good as their numbers. Playing in the central means they pitch against arguably 4 of the 6 worst offenses in the AL. That's going to make any pitcher look better than they are. 

So the next step is to look at park and oppenent adjusted numbers, which are the +/- stats.

When adjusting for quality of oppoentent, Lopez has been (marginally) better than Joe Ryan and the 5th best SP in the AL. 

All 3 of those Twins SPs are in the top 10 SPs in the AL. 

The Twins finally built a team to win in the playoffs, with 3 of the best pitchers in the AL. Their SP will be the equal of, or better than, the SP they face in every matchup if their performance to date holds thru October. 

Now they just have to get there.

[Matt Braun]

This was a great Pablo López article that may accidentally be a “why is the twins defense so bad again?” piece. 

[IaBeanCounter]

I believe Lopez is a good starter.  However, he seems to either have a mental block when runners get on (same as Berrios when he was a Twin) or is just unlucky (as Jax was earlier in the season).  Lopez has given up 48 runs (47 earned) in 96 innings.  It would be interesting to see how many multiple run innings he has give up.  I know recently he seems to have given up a lot of 3 run innings.   Some pitchers have the ability to reach back for another gear when facing adversity, Lopez doesn't seem to have that ability.  He can't stop the bleeding at only one run or pick up his defense when an play wasn't made behind him.

[Mark G]

I know I am old school; I get reminded of that every time I post something like this.  😉

The only thing that would make me think someone is better than his ERA is if there is a stat that shows how many inherited runners the bullpen allows in after you are taken out.  I might even understand if you had an official scorer who continuously calls clear errors hits, or if an umpire is walking batters on clear strikes.  But how often does that happen over the course of a season?  

Earned runs - runs scored due to batters hitting your pitches - are, always have been, and always will be the best indicator of a pitcher's performance.  And all of the advanced metrics that numbers can provide isn't going to change that.  And, for me, that is larger than just Lopez; it is pitching in the major leagues period.  

I love you, Ted; no, seriously, I love your articles.  I just don't believe all these advanced analytic metrics are worth the paper they are written on unless they match up with time proven stats.  Lopez gets a lot of swings and misses, and a lot of soft contact - all adding up to 4 1/2 runs a game (averaged over 9 innings, of course).  It just is what it is.  And I am in the minority; I get it.  But that doesn't make me wrong.  🤭  Or does it? 😵

[stringer bell]

I couldn’t agree more Ted. The deeper one looks into López’ stats, the more the record and ERA look like outliers.  The key is health. If López stays healthy, the Arraez trade will look better and better. 

[Ted Wiedmann]

6 minutes ago, IaBeanCounter said:

I believe Lopez is a good starter.  However, he seems to either have a mental block when runners get on (same as Berrios when he was a Twin) or is just unlucky (as Jax was earlier in the season).  Lopez has given up 48 runs (47 earned) in 96 innings.  It would be interesting to see how many multiple run innings he has give up.  I know recently he seems to have given up a lot of 3 run innings.   Some pitchers have the ability to reach back for another gear when facing adversity, Lopez doesn't seem to have that ability.  He can't stop the bleeding at only one run or pick up his defense when an play wasn't made behind him.

I would point to his LOB% in this case. It's briefly addressed but not very thoroughly explained. He is pretty substantially underperforming in runners left on base, that can be taken two different directions, one, Pablo struggles with runners on, or two, he's had bad luck. 

 Given that Lopez with runners in scoring position actually increases his K% to 36.3%, allows SLG of .353, but has a BABIP of .452 tells me he's getting unlucky since the swing and miss is still there and there doesn't seem to be an extra base hits problem. 

Also the defense has been terrible that's certainly part of this. 

[Ted Wiedmann]

8 minutes ago, Mark G said:

I know I am old school; I get reminded of that every time I post something like this.  😉

The only thing that would make me think someone is better than his ERA is if there is a stat that shows how many inherited runners the bullpen allows in after you are taken out.  I might even understand if you had an official scorer who continuously calls clear errors hits, or if an umpire is walking batters on clear strikes.  But how often does that happen over the course of a season?  

Earned runs - runs scored due to batters hitting your pitches - are, always have been, and always will be the best indicator of a pitcher's performance.  And all of the advanced metrics that numbers can provide isn't going to change that.  And, for me, that is larger than just Lopez; it is pitching in the major leagues period.  

I love you, Ted; no, seriously, I love your articles.  I just don't believe all these advanced analytic metrics are worth the paper they are written on unless they match up with time proven stats.  Lopez gets a lot of swings and misses, and a lot of soft contact - all adding up to 4 1/2 runs a game (averaged over 9 innings, of course).  It just is what it is.  And I am in the minority; I get it.  But that doesn't make me wrong.  🤭  Or does it? 😵

I appreciate the kind words, it's a much needed pick-me-up to some of the other comments received.

I'm not one to tell you how to watch baseball but perhaps explaining my thinking in more traditional terms may help. 

Let me ask you, if a pitcher gets lots of strikeouts and soft contact, is he doing his job?

And if he is creating ideal outcomes as a pitcher ie, whiffs and soft contact, would you anticipate him giving up a lot of runs in the future? 

[DJL44]

30 minutes ago, IaBeanCounter said:

I believe Lopez is a good starter.  However, he seems to either have a mental block when runners get on (same as Berrios when he was a Twin) or is just unlucky (as Jax was earlier in the season).  Lopez has given up 48 runs (47 earned) in 96 innings.  It would be interesting to see how many multiple run innings he has give up.  I know recently he seems to have given up a lot of 3 run innings.   Some pitchers have the ability to reach back for another gear when facing adversity, Lopez doesn't seem to have that ability.  He can't stop the bleeding at only one run or pick up his defense when an play wasn't made behind him.

Pitching with runners on means the pitcher no longer uses the windup but pitches out of the stretch. That can definitely have an impact on effectiveness (otherwise they wouldn't ever pitch out of the windup). Of course that isn't a mental block issue at all, but a physical ability issue.

[Mark G]

16 minutes ago, Ted Wiedmann said:

I appreciate the kind words, it's a much needed pick-me-up to some of the other comments received.

I'm not one to tell you how to watch baseball but perhaps explaining my thinking in more traditional terms may help. 

Let me ask you, if a pitcher gets lots of strikeouts and soft contact, is he doing his job?

And if he is creating ideal outcomes as a pitcher ie, whiffs and soft contact, would you anticipate him giving up a lot of runs in the future? 

In today's game........Okay, let me use our Buck as an example.  Correct me if my eyes are deceiving me, but his swing has changed over the course of his career.  He has adapted a virtual golf swing.......er, "launch angle" swing, to maximize his power on the occasions he actually squares up.  And his strike out rate shows it; as does his home run totals.  He will swing and miss more, and also have soft contact on the occasions he does make contact, but not square up.  But when he does, good things happen, as we have seen.  Now change that around to the pitcher's side.  A lot of swings and misses and soft contact, but throughout the game, and the season overall, when they do square up bad things happen, and runs - earned runs -, are on the board.  If it works for hitters, all of the power stats, etc., even though the BA is lower, then it has to be the same for the pitchers as well.  They go hand in hand.........or not?  Lots of strike outs on both sides, pitcher and hitter, and soft contact in between, but runs scoring when they finally square up.  Or not? I trust your knowledge a crap ton more than mine, so I will leave that question with you.  😉

[jmlease1]

2 hours ago, Ted Wiedmann said:

If you think 17 million per is top tier starter money I'm not sure what to tell you.

He's significantly changed his pitch arsenal from when he was with the Marlins, he's striking out hitters at elite levels while maintaining low walk and home run rates. 

Again, the point of the piece is that his ERA will likely come down closer to pitchers that he performs similarly to in per batter metrics.

Seriously. there's already 30+ pitchers signed for 2024 with salaries at $15M+, and that number will definitely go up. Lopez is a good pitcher and we have him locked down on a great contract.

[joefish]

1 hour ago, Schmoeman5 said:

But you're doing an overall measurement.  And I know his swing and miss rate, whiff rate. I get all that. But those are cumulative results. What you're not factoring in is the OBI. The one innining he falls off the rails. And they're as regular as a sunrise. 

OBI

One Bad Inning. Bravo!

[Fire Dan Gladden]

3 hours ago, mikelink45 said:

Come on - next we will find out that the Twins are better than their record.  Performance and results are what I care about.  And Lopez after the first month has been no better than a #4 or 5 starter.

Pitchers stats, more than any other player, are reliant on other players.  Ignoring the secondary information will give you an incomplete view of his performance.

So Nolan Ryan going 8-16 in 1987 means he was a bad pitcher that year?

[mikelink45]

4 hours ago, Ted Wiedmann said:

Evaluating performance through strikeouts as soft contact is looking at results. It's just results on a per batter basis instead of a per game basis and therefore giving us a much larger sample to look at.

who won?  That is all I ask.

[mikelink45]

4 hours ago, rusty boots said:

So what you're saying is Lopez is not the guy from his first 5 starts (which he was paid for) but he's actually closer to his other 105 starts in the MLB as a 4-5? That's crazy!

I have no idea - but no one else does either.  Look at his career and tell me that he is better than his record.

[mikelink45]

3 hours ago, TwinsDr2021 said:

There are 15 teams in the American league.

He is 7th in the American league in innings, 3rd in the American league in K's, 16th in the American league in WHIP, 27th in the American league in ERA. To me that puts him in the range of top 15 to top 25 pitchers in the whole league.

and that isn't a #4 or #5 starter, he is a 2 or 3 on  decent staff and a 3 good staff.

I am not saying this to defend the trade (which I liked and still do) but you and others are making it sound like he is Happ, Shoemaker, Bundy or Archer and he isn't, he is the type of pitcher we have been wanting for a while and now that he is here people are pissed he isn't Valdez or Cole.

No you are exaggerating to make a point - I simply ask who won, who lost and did he perform at the level we want and expect and after the first month he has not.

[Reptevia]

Should have started article with:  “Caution- Twin’s party line follows”. Sure he has a league average Era, but, but…G54fwa% is tops in the league! Blah, blah, blah. Transfer above to almost every player on this team. “We should have the best record in the league”!  Simply bad luck. Again, maybe it’s time to question the validity of the underlying metrics?

[mikelink45]

26 minutes ago, Fire Dan Gladden said:

Pitchers stats, more than any other player, are reliant on other players.  Ignoring the secondary information will give you an incomplete view of his performance.

So Nolan Ryan going 8-16 in 1987 means he was a bad pitcher that year?

I lost my original response, but to compare Nolan and Pablo is way out of my ability.  Pablo is 31` - 36 with a career 4.01 and this year he is 4.40.  Is he okay - yes, but we did not extend him because he was okay

[joefish]

If we only had an offense...smh

[TwinsDr2021]

12 minutes ago, mikelink45 said:

No you are exaggerating to make a point - I simply ask who won, who lost and did he perform at the level we want and expect and after the first month he has not.

You wrote - "Performance and results are what I care about.  And Lopez after the first month has been no better than a #4 or 5 starter. "

I added data to say you were incorrect he isn't a 4/5 starter and the numbers say he is in the range I said. Now you changed to who won and who lost. If you are only going to compare Lopez to Arraez, it seems the Twins lost. But the whole picture isn't as black and white as who won and who lost. Take Lopez off the Twins and who replaces those 110 innings? It would have to mostly be somebody that hasn't pitched this year for the Twins and more innings for relief pitchers? Then you have to look at who's at bats Arraez would have taken from and do a compare, the Twins still come out on the losing end. But there still is that asset in the minors that could help even that out.

I am much more upset how the Berrios trade has worked out than this one. Berrios is back to being one of the best in the American league and as of now the two super prospects have been flops.

[TwinsDr2021]

17 minutes ago, mikelink45 said:

I lost my original response, but to compare Nolan and Pablo is way out of my ability.  Pablo is 31` - 36 with a career 4.01 and this year he is 4.40.  Is he okay - yes, but we did not extend him because he was okay

I think they extended him because they feel pretty confident that they can pencil him in the rotation for the next 3 plus years and he would be better than the prospects they have coming up in that timeframe, and if they are wrong about the prospects and they are better than expected they should be able to flip a pretty decent contract. And to save some face that they traded Arreaz.

[John Belinski]

A few games ago Lopez walked 2 batters and hit 1 batter in the same inning. He seems to always have a bad inning and then gives up runs. Striking out a lot of batters usually means throwing a lot of pitches so can only pitch 5 or 6 innings and then need RP to finish game.  The Twins have too much money invested in Lopez for him to be a losing pitcher. 

[Ted Wiedmann]

1 hour ago, Mark G said:

In today's game........Okay, let me use our Buck as an example.  Correct me if my eyes are deceiving me, but his swing has changed over the course of his career.  He has adapted a virtual golf swing.......er, "launch angle" swing, to maximize his power on the occasions he actually squares up.  And his strike out rate shows it; as does his home run totals.  He will swing and miss more, and also have soft contact on the occasions he does make contact, but not square up.  But when he does, good things happen, as we have seen.  Now change that around to the pitcher's side.  A lot of swings and misses and soft contact, but throughout the game, and the season overall, when they do square up bad things happen, and runs - earned runs -, are on the board.  If it works for hitters, all of the power stats, etc., even though the BA is lower, then it has to be the same for the pitchers as well.  They go hand in hand.........or not?  Lots of strike outs on both sides, pitcher and hitter, and soft contact in between, but runs scoring when they finally square up.  Or not? I trust your knowledge a crap ton more than mine, so I will leave that question with you.  😉

Forgive me if I misunderstand you, 

But I think you answered your own question. If the ERA were high and there is lots of hard contact being allowed, that would make sense. However, Lopez is both striking out lots of hitters and also not allowing much hard contact but still holds a high ERA. The conclusion is then Lopez must be allowing runs on soft contact, which is not a sustainable way to score runs offensively. Therefore if Lopez continues to disallow hard contact, the amount of runs he allows decreases. 

To your Buxton example, if he were to have half the hard contact rate he does but still a high batting average, I would say unless he starts hitting the ball harder it is likely his batting average decreases. 

[Ted Wiedmann]

37 minutes ago, Reptevia said:

Should have started article with:  “Caution- Twin’s party line follows”. Sure he has a league average Era, but, but…G54fwa% is tops in the league! Blah, blah, blah. Transfer above to almost every player on this team. “We should have the best record in the league”!  Simply bad luck. Again, maybe it’s time to question the validity of the underlying metrics?

What would you consider underlying metrics and what is invalid about them? 

[Ted Wiedmann]

22 minutes ago, John Belinski said:

A few games ago Lopez walked 2 batters and hit 1 batter in the same inning. He seems to always have a bad inning and then gives up runs. Striking out a lot of batters usually means throwing a lot of pitches so can only pitch 5 or 6 innings and then need RP to finish game.  The Twins have too much money invested in Lopez for him to be a losing pitcher. 

Lopez is tied for 13th most innings per start in baseball with Joe Ryan, Bryce Elder, Shohei Ohtani, Marcus Stroman and Clayton Kershaw 

[joefish]

Another loss today. 3-0. We can't hang this loss in our pitchers.  

Gotta find some bats or a new hitting approach. Change the hitting coach. We have too many guys looking lost at the plate. 

Pablo's numbers would look better if we gave him ( and the others) some run support. Today was dismal again.  

[mikelink45]

46 minutes ago, TwinsDr2021 said:

You wrote - "Performance and results are what I care about.  And Lopez after the first month has been no better than a #4 or 5 starter. "

I added data to say you were incorrect he isn't a 4/5 starter and the numbers say he is in the range I said. Now you changed to who won and who lost. If you are only going to compare Lopez to Arraez, it seems the Twins lost. But the whole picture isn't as black and white as who won and who lost. Take Lopez off the Twins and who replaces those 110 innings? It would have to mostly be somebody that hasn't pitched this year for the Twins and more innings for relief pitchers? Then you have to look at who's at bats Arraez would have taken from and do a compare, the Twins still come out on the losing end. But there still is that asset in the minors that could help even that out.

I am much more upset how the Berrios trade has worked out than this one. Berrios is back to being one of the best in the American league and as of now the two super prospects have been flops.

I'm not upset and I'm not bringing up Arraez   I just get upset with efforts to find statistics to make people better than what they are. I'm very happy with the eye test and I don't need somebody to tell me that we didn't lose because we actually had better statistics.

Lopez is talented. But he's not any different than what his career stats show. So I Don't want to hear how great he is and I don't care to judge the trade. Give me the full year and let's see what Lopez has done for us. 

[mikelink45]

45 minutes ago, TwinsDr2021 said:

I think they extended him because they feel pretty confident that they can pencil him in the rotation for the next 3 plus years and he would be better than the prospects they have coming up in that timeframe, and if they are wrong about the prospects and they are better than expected they should be able to flip a pretty decent contract. And to save some face that they traded Arreaz.

I'm not upset about the contract, but I'm just not ready to think he's that great.

[Blyleven2011]

7 hours ago, TwinsDr2021 said:

There are 15 teams in the American league.

He is 7th in the American league in innings, 3rd in the American league in K's, 16th in the American league in WHIP, 27th in the American league in ERA. To me that puts him in the range of top 15 to top 25 pitchers in the whole league.

and that isn't a #4 or #5 starter, he is a 2 or 3 on  decent staff and a 3 good staff.

I am not saying this to defend the trade (which I liked and still do) but you and others are making it sound like he is Happ, Shoemaker, Bundy or Archer and he isn't, he is the type of pitcher we have been wanting for a while and now that he is here people are pissed he isn't Valdez or Cole.

He is a good pitcher but seems to have one bad inning each game  , I like what I see on occasion  , when he is on.  He locates the ball very very well ...

I do miss our sparkplug  arraez though  , he is definitely a major league hitter ...

[jkcarew]

I’m fine with with Lopez. Think there’s realistic expectations for slightly better results, which would make it better yet.

In hindsight, wish we would have traded Buxton instead..

but that was never going to happen.