Is Big Game James Back?

It's been a while.  As the semester winds down, I, like many of you, am feeling the strain of academia, and have been a bit strapped for time as of late.

Additionally, I've feared that any postings may extinguish the Rays current hot streak.  My superstitiosity borders on Turk Wendell levels.  I mean seriously, every day I settle into the same spot on the same couch to watch the game on the same channel.  And much to the chagrin of my girlfriend, I sit in this same spot screaming at the television, celebrating any hit or strikeout or samfuldery with the kind of revelry that is certainly closer to One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest than the flaccid fan following the Rays have received so far this season.  Whatever.  The cat shoots me dirty looks, likely wondering what kind of savage beast I am.  I am man.  As in caveman.  I like seeing club smash rock far.  Granted I typically watch these games clad in only my underwear, I've been known to don the occasional rally cap, which to this point in the season has netted at least two ninth inning comebacks.  You're welcome Rays.  I do this for you.

Tonight, I broke form and headed over to my local feeding trough to gorge on some chicken wings and Dudetime with some Dudes.  In watching tonight's game, the Rays again jumped White Sox pitching in the opening inning, but were only able score one additional run against John Danks, who pitched a dandy tonight.  

Stealing his thunder was James Shields.  Shields recorded his first complete game since 2008, and required just 105 pitches to get the necessary 27 outs tonight.  Watching the game I noticed that Shields was working smart, not hard.  He dropped the first pitch in there for a strike around 80% of the time, and faced the minimum number of batters in five of nine frames.  The White Sox were kept off balance all night by Shields offspeed pitches, which can be this particular group's kryptonite.  There's no doubt that the Sox can hammer fastballs, however, the team will likely feature a handful of 100-strikeout hitters at the completion of 2011 due to their inability to recognize the breaking pitches. 

But back to Shields and my excitement for the evening.  Upon getting home, I immediately went over to the amazing people at brooksbaseball.net, and nerded out over Shields' Pitch f/x data and strike percentages.  While watching the game I noticed he was working primarily with his soft stuff, but I didn't realize this was a result of his harder pitches failing to find their way into the strike zone.  Shields was only able to get his fastballs (two-seam, four-seam, cutter combined) and sliders over the plate for a strike just a bit more than half of the time, in spite of the fact that his two-seemer and slider showed excellent movement (according to average H-break).  But what Shields did do, was kill the Sox with his curve and changeup, getting those pitches in the strike zone around 90% of the time.  With his fastballs ineffectively wild, Shields actually had to pitch, instead of just throw.  

What does this mean and why should you give a shit?

The quick decline of Shields over the previous two years has been based around his inability to consistently spot his fastball, and an over-reliance on a four-seemer that is nothing more than a below-average pitch.  He throws the pitch harder than ever (actually increased his average velocity in 2010), but he missed his targets more and more, causing a rise in his BB/9 and HR/9 to go with an insanely-high 5.18 ERA last season.  Teams also made harder contact with the ball, producing higher-than-acceptable HR/FB and FO/GO ratios for Shields in '09 and '10.  While some stat geeks point out that Shields was victimized by a rather high BABIP in 2010, not all of the swelling was caused by sheer bad luck, some part owed to Shields piss-poor play on the field.  Either way, Shields was already pegged by the sabermetrics' community to have a rebound year based on his solid career ERA- and reasonable FIP last season, but he's taken this one step further early in 2011.

No longer relying on his fastball to navigate his way through lineups, he's now turned to his trusty changeup, utilizing this pitch more than any other (~30% of his pitches).  Coupled with the change, is his curveball, which he is using roughly 20% of the time with above-average vertical movement (-10.45 avg. vert. movement tonight, filthy).  His changeup is a legitimate tool and hardly something new to AL batters.  In '07 and '09, his changeup was the 1st and 4th best in baseball according to wCH, a crazy metric at fangraphs designed to assign runs above average to a particular pitch.  What makes this pitch so devastating?  Based on Pitch f/x mapping, his release points for his four-seamer and change were nearly identical in 2010, however, the change arrives at the plate seven miles an hour slower than the fastball, making hitters bats appear to have holes in them.  So far this season, he's using his soft pitches to setup a plus two-seamer and a put-away slider from his vast repertoire, consistently keeping hitters off balance and unable to square up the ball for power.

I know I've probably lost everyone reading this with my over-the-top schtick and intense usage of metrics that beckon the question is there anything that isn't counted, measured and graphed in today's game?  

So in review and in more simplistic terms, Shields has relied less on his fastball that got slapped around the last couple of years, instead going with an improving curve and a top notch change for 50% of his pitches.  With his ability to spot these pitches in the zone, Shields is pitching to contact, considerably weaker contact, which the steady Rays defense is gobbling up.  If he can stick with this new formula, expect a return to form for Big Game James, who'll hopefully have another chance to pitch in some big games this October.