Phillies

Throwing Some Cold Water on Your Vance Worley Boner

By Kyle Scott

Published: Jul 21st, 2011 · 12:35 PM EDT

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UPDATE: Of course as I wrote this Buster Olney Tweeted the Phillies would prefer to trade Worley in a Hunter Pence deal. Timing!

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Oh no! How could he?

Let’s first get a few things out of the way: Vance Worley has been nothing short of incredible. In a year when the Phillies have the best pitching staff in their history, Worley has somehow emerged as one of the top subplots of the season. He is only the second Phillies pitcher since 1902 (!!!) to make six consecutive starts going five or more innings with only one earned run or fewer. The other guy is Steve Carlton. Smoke on that for a second.

Further, he has displayed remarkable composure, plus sweat glands, and a sweet mohawk. There’s no reason not to champion everything he’s done so far.

But let’s be real for just a moment. I will duck the tomatoes…. now!

Not entirely unlike Kyle Kendrick and J.A. Happ, who both induced city-wide wood during their first full Major League seasons, Worley is benefitting from the unknown.

The first time he made his third appearance against a team, the New York Mets on May 29th, he got shelled… though he did pitch well against them on July 15th.

However, you can’t hold inexperience – or newness – against a guy without backing it up with some facts and anecdotes. To do so, I’m going to argue some the points made in this SB Nation article about Worley’s strengths:

1) Hard, tailing fastball.

Not really. While Worley does have a consistent tail on his max-92 MPH heater, there’s little to no variety between his three different fastballs.

Take a look at this pitch chart from yesterday, which was arguably his best outing of the season: 

His four-seam, two-seam, and cut fastballs (green, light and dark blue dots) are very similar. All three range in speed from 88-to-92 MPH and they all have a tail. Unfortunately, most of them broke about three-to-five inches, movement that pales in comparison to top talents like Cliff Lee and Jake Peavy.

Looking at Lee’s start against the Cubs on Tuesday night, a game in which he didn’t have his best stuff, Lee still managed to consistently throw two and four-seam fastballs (green and light blue dots) that tailed between seven and nine inches. In fact, only two fastballs had less than a five-inch tail. His cutters (dark blue dots) broke one-to-three inches in the opposite direction. Keep in mind, Lee is a lefty, so everything is reversed here:

When you look at an average Jake Peavy outing, from June (three runs in seven innings against the Cubs), you again see more consistent pitches than what Worley throws:

There is a sharp line differentiating his two and four-seam fastballs (green and light blue dots). In fact, only a handful of them broke less than five inches.

Even Roy Halladay, who was melting on Monday, displayed more consistency and differentiation between his pitches:

So, Worley’s hard, tailing fastball really isn't that hard (92 MPH) and doesn’t tail all that much (three-to-five inches). He does, however, benefit from what seems to be late life on them. What little movement there is, does appear to come in the last few feet before home plate. That’s very difficult to measure, though.

2) Sharp breaking ball.

Sort of.

His slider (orange dots), the breaking pitch he throws most often, broke around one-to-three inches, which is on par with the sliders of the Timmies: Lincecum and Hudson (who both pitched last night):

But his curveball (purple dots), which he rarely throws, isn’t very good. It breaks five inches with a roughly seven-inch drop. Here’s a real curveball:

Lee has a consistent seven-to-nine inch break on his curveball, to go along with its seven-inch drop. It also has a 4 MPH larger delta between it and the fastball. Speed matters, too.

While Worley’s slider has been consistent and – I’d argue – his best pitch, he doesn’t possess a devastating breaking ball. Guys like Lincecum and Hudson have a plethora of other pitches at their disposal to differentiate their sliders. Worley doesn’t have that repertoire, yet.

3) Effectively wild.

No, he’s just not accurate. His strike out to walk ratio is less than 2-to-1. Yesterday was the first time he pitched more than seven innings, because his pitch count is usually well above 100 by that point. 

Let’s face it, the Cubs mailed it in after the second inning yesterday. They were losing by five and it was 100 degrees. They weren’t exactly working the count.

The same mentality that helped the Cubs have some success against Halladay and Lee – swinging early – hurt them against Worley. 

While his “wildness” has likely helped him when facing lineups for the first and second time, teams will quickly learn to take a lot more pitches. Effectively wild is only good when you’re Randy Johnson and batters have piss dripping down their legs every time you go into the windup.

We’ll keep going. SABR nerd alert!

Worley’s BABIP, the batting average on all balls put into play, is .254. Normally for pitchers, that number is between .290 and .300. This means Worley has benefitted from some luck. Over time, it is expected that number will creep closer to .300. More hits, yo.

To be fair, we’re comparing Worley to some of the best pitchers in the game here. But that’s a comparison his 2.02 ERA has earned. The point is, Worley’s repertoire is not near the level of those guys: He has an an inconsistent fastball with average movement and speed, a plus slider, and a virtually non-existent curveball or changeup. He walks a lot of batters (2, 4, 2, 4, 2 in his last five starts) and strikes out very few (3, 4, 5, 6, 4, 7 in those starts). When balls are put into play, opponents' average is well below what we would normally expect (the luck factor). And he throws a lot of pitches.

Worley has done more than anyone could have asked for this year, but, when taking into account his pitch repertoire, accuracy, and luck, we see that his 2.02 ERA is a bit misleading. Not all dominant starts are created equal. 

Let's just pump the brakes before we beatify him.

All graphs courtesy of Brooks Baseball