mvn
Posted May 7th, 2009 by mvn
Tags: Baseball, Tampa Bay Rays
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Grant Balfour Has Been Better Than Suggested

Grant Balfour has been scorned a little for his high ERA at 7.00, 5 points higher than last season at 1.58. We at the Rays Party don’t always look at traditional statistics but rather sabermetrics and even pitch f/x if available. Well a couple things to point out that makes Balfour so much better than what he is made out to be. First, Balfour has given up only fours run while he was physically on the mound. The other 2 runs were given up by other relievers who inherited his runners. Speaking of inherited runners, Balfour has inherited 9 runners this season and not allowed a single one to score. Compared that to the rest of the Tampa Bay Rays bullpen that allowed inherited runners to score 33% of the time.

People have used his ERA to explain his struggle but I say look at his FIP which is a surprising 4.51. That is even more surprising since that is the fifth best on the staff. What had been killing him is the walks, 10 per 9 innings.

His struggles may have been his velocity dip, down an average of 2 mph from last season. Not only is his fastball velocity down, but he has lost an inch of “tail” on it which makes it easier for opposing hitters to square up on it. All of this may have resulted in him to use more control and maybe feeling and nibbling on the strikezone, increasing his walk totals yet keeping his strikeout rate. His off speed stuff also dipped in velocity, but he has used both his slider and a new curveball to his arsenal more frequently. Both pitches has seen increase movement too. 

Yesterday his fastball movement had moved over around the zero inch scale in the horizontal movement, which can be liken to more a cutter than a normal four-seamer. He did retire all four batters he faced yesterday which encouraged me to write that Balfour isn’t as bad as it is made out. (Here is his movement from yesterday, courtesy of Fangraphs)
718_P_0_200905040_game grant balfour 5-04.png 

This is a much different analysis since when I grilled him a bit on Sunday.

Stats from Fangraphs and Baseball-Reference.

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  Written by mvn

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