Is Travis Wood “outstanding?”

In Better Know a Cub by myles65 Comments

On Bleacher Nation, Brett had some very kind words to say about Travis Wood:

"I’m not sure I’d say he’s even the best starter on the Cubs at this point, but Wood’s ridiculous start to the year can’t be ignored. And, as I pointed out previously in the Bullets, it isn’t just the start of this season: Wood has been outstanding since he began his tenure with the Cubs."

and he follows it up with the necessary caveat:

"In fairness, any conversation of how good Travis Wood has been this year needs to include a conversation of what the advanced stats say. In short, they say he’s been far more lucky than good. A .198 BABIP against and an 80.7% LOB make him the polar opposite of Edwin Jackson, which is to say fortune may be smiling on Wood (his xFIP is just 4.19, even though his ERA is 2.33). In total, I believe Wood remains a very nice 3/4/5 type, and probably more of a 4/5 on a good team. Best starter in baseball? Nah. But that’s not an insult."

I'm not trying to misinterpret Mr. Taylor; he knows that Travis Wood is not dominance given flesh. The assumption that Travis has been anything more than average, though, is really interesting to me. I can't remember ever thinking "man, I'm glad we've got Travis Wood on our team" last year, and he's been tremendously lucky this year. Still, it bears looking at. How good has Travis Wood been this year (and for the Cubs)?

First, let's look at his regular stats. As a Cub, has pitched 202.1 innings for the Cubs in 33 starts, so basically exactly a full season. In that season, he's allowed 86 earned runs (93 total) off of 29 HR, and he's struck out 153 while walking 68. That's good for a 3.83 ERA and a 1.137 WHIP. Those numbers are good for a 106 ERA+, which is indicative of a slightly above-average pitcher (and his 2012 ERA+ was 96). 

Last year, his ERA was 4.27; however, his FIP was 4.84 and his xFIP was 4.62. His tERA (which is derived from batted ball rates) was 5.58, primarily due to his huge HR number (an inordinate amount of flyballs from Travis were home runs last year). Essentially all advanced stats had Wood as a below-average to well below-average player last year. 

What's changed from 2012 to 2013? For starters, his line drives allowed have been much less; they've all become groundballs. I'm not sure how sustainable a 5% drop in LD and an associated 6% increase in GB is, but I'm willing to believe it's extremely unlikely. I will say that Bosio has done some sort of magic to increase the GB rate across the board on our team. Suffice to say, the more GB (as opposed to LD), the better.

Wood has also been "luckier" in his HR/FB rate. Last year, it was 12.7%, which is atypical for him. In the previous years, it was around 6.5%, and it's returned somewhat to normalcy. These two changes have brought his tERA to 3.62 from 5.58, which is more in line with an average pitcher. 

It's hard to understate how lucky Wood has been this year, though. The average strand rate in baseball this year is 73.3%; Wood's is 80.7%. That's 28th in the league right now. His BABIP of .198 is 5th. BABIP normalizes around .280-.320 for pitchers (who can control it, perhaps, but only minutely) so that's going to go up. 

Something else to note is that Wood's opponent's contact rate is way, way down this year. Normally, it's right at 84.5%. This year, it's 81.5%. That doesn't seem like a big deal, but is. The swing rate in baseball is around 45%. That means that opponents will swing, on average, at about 45-50 offerings Wood throws each game. The difference of 3% in contact on those is an extra swing-and-miss or two a game. Depending on where those misses come, that could mean either a strikeout or just a worse count for your opponent (keeping in mind that a swing and miss isn't a foul ball and thus always changes the game state). If Wood keeps that up, it's a huge bonus; one of Wood's biggest obstacles is the fact that opponents have always made contact against him (the league average hovers around 77%, so this gain is not incredibly difficult to continue realizing).

So, we've established that batters are hitting grounders more, have a lower BABIP (which is some indication of poor contact), and missing bats more often (all great things). Why can this be this year? 

It's probably explainable with the pitches he's throwing. Wood has been using his cutter more often than in previous years. This is a good thing, because it's also moving a bit more (over 2 inches of vertical movement extra). Thus far, that's yielded a higher number of ground balls and a lower number of line drives. 

The tale is similar with his normal fastball. It's dropping 11.2 inches now as opposed to 9.8 on average and 8.8 last year. A fairly flat fastball (which he had last year) going to a fairly active fastball (which he has this year) is going to do wonders to a player's confidence. Curiously enough, he's still had bad luck with the long ball in his fastball offerings; however, he's cut his walks with the pitch in half (possibly an artifact of not throwing it later in counts), maintaing a lower BABIP (and his slash line with the fastball is .190/.244/.381), and inducing a TON more grounders (39.3%, 28.4% career average). All told, his fastball has gone from a mediocre pitch to an average to above-average one. 

I'd expect that as long as Wood has the extra downward movement on his two primary offerings, he's going to have some success going forward. Pitchers that can induce groundballs are going to have some success barring really bad pitch placement or bad luck. As Wood's balls starting falling in for hits, his numbers are going to look quite a bit worse. I'd imagine he'll settle into the 3.50-3.75 range when it's all said and done (EDIT: at the end of the year, he'll be in the 3.50 to 3.75 range, if I'm not clear), but with a distinct possibility of a low-3 average should he maintain his newfound movement and swing/miss action. His K% and BB% are essentially identical to his career numbers, so the gains are going to have to come this way. Travis Wood might not be "outstanding," but he has been genuinely good.

 

 

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  1. dmick89

    @ mikeakaleroy:
    Yeah, but none of the other mlb.com sites I checked were pink. Weird. I guess only the Cubs care about mothers.

    At least they give a shit about something.

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  3. dmick89

    The Cubs got a very nice package in return for a reliever with one year of control left. Wood will never be flashy, but he’s a solid middle to back of the rotation guy. That has value.

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  4. srbutch5

    “Cubs wear pink today for Cubs Charities and Advocate Health’s “Pink Out” for breast cancer awareness”

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  5. Author
    Myles

    dmick89 wrote:

    The Cubs got a very nice package in return for a reliever with one year of control left. Wood will never be flashy, but he’s a solid middle to back of the rotation guy. That has value.

    Yep. It was a Good Trade, and it actually was decent for them too. Wood wasn’t going to make that rotation last year (and they their 1-5 made 161 starts), and Marshall was great for them last year. They were going for it all in any case.

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  7. Berselius

    I’d imagine he’ll settle into the 3.50-3.75 range when it’s all said and done, but with a distinct possibility of a low-3 average should he maintain his newfound movement and swing/miss action

    I thought MB was the optimist around here (dying laughing). Wood strikes me as a 4.40 ish ERA guy going forward, which is solid but not outstanding. I’m inclined to give him more credit for his good numbers so far (cue the FIP vs ERA WAR calculation wars), but I definitely don’t expect something like that going forward.

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  9. dmick89

    @ Berselius:
    ZiPS and Steamer day to day forecasts have him at about 4.2 and 4.4. PECOTA daily, which was released today, has him at 4.0. If the GB rate is improved as much as it has been, I could see 3.7ish. I’d lean closer to what you suggest.

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  10. Author
    Myles

    Well, I mean at the end of this year. Perhaps I wasn’t clear enough. At the end of this year, his ERA will be 3.50 or there about, which would mean that he’ll probably be in the low-4s from this point on.

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  18. josh

    There is literally no part of my body that a 90 mile an hour fastball could plunk where I wouldn’t be on the ground screaming for an hour.

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  23. Suburban kid

    Oh wait, I forgot I paused this and my feed is behind. If Rizzo did something awesome after the 4th, don’t tell me.

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  29. Berselius

    @ Rice Cube:

    The umpire was technically correct, the best kind of correct, that Borbon was running down the infield side of the base line, which is interference. But it was a terrible throw and his baserunning didn’t affect it.

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  30. Suburban kid

    According to Wikipedia, which sees all and knows all, Mike Quade hasn’t done shit since he left the Cubs. Is this true? Is he living in a fishing shack on the Gulf coast full time?

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  33. josh

    Well, that was a shit game. Seems like a catch all the bad ones the season, and I know that the probability is against me on this.

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  36. dmick89

    @ Berselius:
    The ump was correct, but what I don’t get is that you’re supposed run within the lane, which is outside of fair territory. The base is in fair territory. I don’t get why they just don’t put a base in foul territory. It would cause less injuries and make more sense if you’re going to demand he run outside of fair territory.

    Pretty simple solution. Coming to MLB in 654 years or longer. Because, you know, gotta change a rule for that.

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  39. Rice Cube

    @ dmick89:
    I didn’t look it up, but I’m going to guess that most rosters were full and the Cubs picked the right time to sneak him through. Even if that wasn’t the case…why claim Ian Stewart? Would he become the new Casper Wells?

    Also, the base suggestion you had above is pretty much what beer league softball uses to prevent stepped-on ankles at first and at home.

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  41. dmick89

    Rice Cube wrote:

    Also, the base suggestion you had above is pretty much what beer league softball uses to prevent stepped-on ankles at first and at home.

    Eventually MLB will catch up to beer league softball. Give it a century or three.

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  44. Rice Cube

    I think they had to do something really weird to keep him in the organization since a DFA would’ve made him a minor league free agent unless I’m thinking of it wrong. I also don’t think Stewart had enough service time to refuse an optional assignment. I thought AZ Phil explained it but now I’m just confused (dying laughing)

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  49. GW

    @ dmick89:

    i would like to see that, too. seems to me that it would facilitate rigging up some pressure sensors (in each base and in the 1st baseman’s mitt) to automate calls at 1st.

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  52. dmick89

    @ GW:
    I don’t think it would be that difficult. The umpire is far enough back that he ought to be able to view both the fair and foul base nearly as well he could just one base. Maybe it would be a lot harder. I don’t know.

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