Ask Nationals' Lefty John Lannan A Question...?

In return for helping to fund Nats Insider's Mark Zuckerman's Spring Training reporting, fans of the Washington Nationals are being provided with the opportunity to ask a question of a member of the team, with the answers to be posted on Mr. Zuckerman's site next week.

Well, Federal Baseball.com readers, I figured I'd let you ask. Did you ever have anything you wanted to ask the Nationals' Opening Day starter John Lannan? Let's come up with a good question for the Nats' lefty, you have 24 hrs to think of something to ask and post it here, I'll pick the best question and pass it on...

almost 2 years ago Patrick Reddington 16 comments 0 recs |

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Here's a question:

For the part couple years, your ERA has been about a run per game better than your FIP (Fielding Independent Pitching). If you aren’t familiar with FIP, it’s a stat based on things that are soley under a pitcher’s control like walks, strikeouts, and home runs and turn it into how many runs per nine innings would be expected based on these factors. How do you think you’re able to consistantly perform so much better than your FIP and confound the statheads?

by cassander on Mar 19, 2010 12:18 PM EDT reply actions

Here's a less jargony version:

For the last two years, you’ve had a lot of success at the major league level despite not striking out very many batters. What do you think allows you to get so many outs when opposing batters put the ball in play?

by cassander on Mar 19, 2010 12:20 PM EDT up reply actions

Especially with a suspect defense behind him, that makes it even more impressive...

Wonder what it is about the big lefty that inspires the Nats?

Vivian Jaffe: "Have you ever transcended space and time?"
Albert Markovski: "Yes. No. Uh, time, not space... No, I don't know what you're talking about."

by Patrick Reddington on Mar 19, 2010 12:23 PM EDT up reply actions

It's an odd defense too.

If he can control where the ball goes, especially if he can get the ground balls to the 3rd base side, then he’s got a plus-plus defender. But if it goes toward 1st base, then pretty much any grond ball is a hit. Likewise, for flyballs, we got a statue out in left field but Death-To-Flying-Things-NL-Edition in center.

I’ve been meaning to do a study on where Lannan’s groundballs go, but haven’t gotten around to it yet. I haven’t found a good tool to track hit location for pitchers rather than hitters, so I’ll probably have to find a database and query it out myself.

by cassander on Mar 19, 2010 12:36 PM EDT up reply actions

Does Lannan work fast?

The talking heads all say the fielders love pitchers who work fast…maybe that’s part of the answer…but I’m not John Lannan.

by RoscoeNats on Mar 19, 2010 1:21 PM EDT up reply actions

And all this time, I thought you were...Lannan that is...

Vivian Jaffe: "Have you ever transcended space and time?"
Albert Markovski: "Yes. No. Uh, time, not space... No, I don't know what you're talking about."

by Patrick Reddington on Mar 19, 2010 1:27 PM EDT up reply actions

well, as a left-handed pitcher, he's facing more right handed batters

and since he doesn’t throw heat, they are making contact. but since his pitches move so much, they don’t make good contact, which results in a lot of ground balls to the 3rd base side.

or, he’s been tremendously lucky for three years.

Your voice of doom and gloom. Read more at natsnewsnetwork.blogspot.com

by Dave at District Sports Page on Mar 19, 2010 1:22 PM EDT up reply actions

Where are the stat heads who can pull Zim's putouts with Lannan on the mound...

I’m not even going to try….what? I’m at work…

Vivian Jaffe: "Have you ever transcended space and time?"
Albert Markovski: "Yes. No. Uh, time, not space... No, I don't know what you're talking about."

by Patrick Reddington on Mar 19, 2010 1:28 PM EDT up reply actions

work, schmerk.

i just proffer opinion, i don’t do research :-)

Your voice of doom and gloom. Read more at natsnewsnetwork.blogspot.com

by Dave at District Sports Page on Mar 19, 2010 2:26 PM EDT up reply actions

Besides, the only importat stat for pitchers is Wins...

…Dibs and Stras agree! (Yes, I’m looking at B-R to see if I can figure out how to do this…)

"And everybody lived happily ever after. Except the Phillies and the Mets. The End." --Sasskuash
Friend of Dukes and Desmond #3

by Doghouse on Mar 19, 2010 3:17 PM EDT up reply actions

Based on limited data, maybe a pattern...

…I don’t have my full set of 2009 AB handy, but based on a half a season:

Among Nats pitchers who recorded 100 or more outs:

Lannan had the highest percentage of ground-outs to Zimmy as a fraction of his total outs (11%—next was Olsen with 10%)
Lannan has the second-highest percentage of ground-outs to Zimmy as a fraction of his ground outs (23%—Olsen had 27%).
This does not include double-plays. I’ll take another look when I get home and have the full 2009 dataset.

Interestingly, a full 28% of Julian Tavarez’ outs were grounders to Zimmy, which comprised 47% of his ground-outs (50 outs in this sample).

"And everybody lived happily ever after. Except the Phillies and the Mets. The End." --Sasskuash
Friend of Dukes and Desmond #3

by Doghouse on Mar 19, 2010 3:46 PM EDT up reply actions

Hmph... Maybe not.

Looks like Lannan, Stammen, J-Zimm and Martis all got about 12% of their outs courtesy of the Z-Man in 2009. Olsen, Clippard, Cabrera and Saoool all got 10% in the hot corner, Mock was 9% and everyone else was down at 6-8%. Overall, Zimmy made 10% of the Nats’ outs in 2009. Of course, this doesn’t factor out grounders vs. balls in the air…

"And everybody lived happily ever after. Except the Phillies and the Mets. The End." --Sasskuash
Friend of Dukes and Desmond #3

by Doghouse on Mar 19, 2010 4:32 PM EDT up reply actions

good work Dog

Your voice of doom and gloom. Read more at natsnewsnetwork.blogspot.com

by Dave at District Sports Page on Mar 19, 2010 5:03 PM EDT up reply actions

One more try:

There’s been a bit of a debate in the stats community about how you are able to succeed without getting many strikeouts. Last year, you had the fewest strikeouts-per-nine-innings of all pitchers with an ERA under 4.00. How do you get so many outs on balls put in play?

by cassander on Mar 19, 2010 12:39 PM EDT up reply actions

I sent this one in...Just to be clear though...

Part of the deal with Mr. Zuckerman was that each person who contributed had to use their real name and be accountable for their question, so while I presented it as a question from Federal Baseball, it had to be asked under my “real” name when they ask Lannan…just didn’t want you to think I’d passed your question off as my own, those were the rules….

Should have an answer this week…

Vivian Jaffe: "Have you ever transcended space and time?"
Albert Markovski: "Yes. No. Uh, time, not space... No, I don't know what you're talking about."

by Patrick Reddington on Mar 21, 2010 1:03 PM EDT up reply actions

I like cassanders question!

Can somebody look at infield flies. Perhaps Lannan gets tons of those which are basically as good as a strikeout. Also, his hr/fb % is fairly low if I recall correctly. Add in the extra outs to Zim and I am sure he can be explained. They may hit him, but they do not hit him hard as often as expected. Of course this flies in the face of the pitcher having little control over BABIPas DIPS theory explains. I personally think that Lannan does have some control over BABIP because he throws lightly and with control. A hit pitch thrown hard travels farther than an equally hit soft pitch. I think a guy with near perfect control that throws lightly can keep the ball in the park can have more control over where ball is hit than hard throwing pitchers.

"What you know is often the enemy of what you can learn" Bill James

by PhDBrian on Mar 19, 2010 6:13 PM EDT reply actions