beckdawg
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This came up in another topic and I wanted to look at it. As a brief introduction, Wood's cutter was one of the most effective pitches in the majors last year with a pitch fx value of 19.5. Only a couple pitches were more valuable: Darvish's slider(35.5), Hamels(29.1) and Ryu(21)'s change ups, Jose Fernandez's curve(23.5) and A.J. Burnet's knuckle curve(20.3).
What surprised me is that in Wood's previous 3 years it wasn't particularly great. Last year it was worth 4.67, the year prior -3.89 and in his rookie season it was worth 3.28. Fangraphs warns that this stat is descriptive and not predictive. That is to say it can describe why a pitcher performed well but it isn't a predictor of future success as well as cautioning small sample size. In Wood's case, he's thrown a cutter 2428 times according to pitch f/x with 1109 coming last year and 1931 coming since he came to the cubs. So, one explanation could be that since coming to the cubs their coaches encourage him to develop the pitch as he only threw it around 500 times with the Reds.
In that regard, his previous values with it is slightly interesting. The two best years throwing it were with the cubs and you could make the argument that after developing it last year he got a better feel for it this year which lead to it becoming such a good pitch for him. What's interesting is it's not valuable in the same sense as Shark's sinker which is one of the most unhittable pitches in the league(read: lowest contact%). Wood's cutter had a contact % of 87.0% so people are putting into play but apparently not doing much with it. Batters hit .210/.293/.311 with a .235 BABIP, .275 wOBA and a 75 wRC+ vs it. Considering he threw it around 57% of the time.... yeah.
What I'm having a little trouble figuring out is why it was such a good pitch. It had better movement than the previous year(vertical). However, that was sort of in line with 2011 which was the worst value year. Looking at what batters did with the pitch, there's about 5% difference in HR/FB in 2011 and this past year which would obviously be a big deal. They also hit .298/.367/.500 vs it in 2011. What I'm having difficulty figuring out is whether this is more a "luck" thing or just a pitcher changing something and becoming way more effective. HR's in particular are something that can wildly fluctuate year to year. This is especially true with heavy fly ball pitchers of which Wood is one(6th highest fly ball% over the past 5 years). It's possible Wood just got lucky keeping balls in the outfield which in turn lead to a ridiculously low BABIP which killed the various other stats. Flyballs in particular are kind of strange from a statistical stand point. When they stay in the park they are often quite good as players make fewer errors on them than ground balls. However, they also lead to more HRs which obviously is bad.
Without more data I think you can't really say it's likely to continue. However, it's definitely something worth watching particularly if he isn't giving up HRs.
What surprised me is that in Wood's previous 3 years it wasn't particularly great. Last year it was worth 4.67, the year prior -3.89 and in his rookie season it was worth 3.28. Fangraphs warns that this stat is descriptive and not predictive. That is to say it can describe why a pitcher performed well but it isn't a predictor of future success as well as cautioning small sample size. In Wood's case, he's thrown a cutter 2428 times according to pitch f/x with 1109 coming last year and 1931 coming since he came to the cubs. So, one explanation could be that since coming to the cubs their coaches encourage him to develop the pitch as he only threw it around 500 times with the Reds.
In that regard, his previous values with it is slightly interesting. The two best years throwing it were with the cubs and you could make the argument that after developing it last year he got a better feel for it this year which lead to it becoming such a good pitch for him. What's interesting is it's not valuable in the same sense as Shark's sinker which is one of the most unhittable pitches in the league(read: lowest contact%). Wood's cutter had a contact % of 87.0% so people are putting into play but apparently not doing much with it. Batters hit .210/.293/.311 with a .235 BABIP, .275 wOBA and a 75 wRC+ vs it. Considering he threw it around 57% of the time.... yeah.
What I'm having a little trouble figuring out is why it was such a good pitch. It had better movement than the previous year(vertical). However, that was sort of in line with 2011 which was the worst value year. Looking at what batters did with the pitch, there's about 5% difference in HR/FB in 2011 and this past year which would obviously be a big deal. They also hit .298/.367/.500 vs it in 2011. What I'm having difficulty figuring out is whether this is more a "luck" thing or just a pitcher changing something and becoming way more effective. HR's in particular are something that can wildly fluctuate year to year. This is especially true with heavy fly ball pitchers of which Wood is one(6th highest fly ball% over the past 5 years). It's possible Wood just got lucky keeping balls in the outfield which in turn lead to a ridiculously low BABIP which killed the various other stats. Flyballs in particular are kind of strange from a statistical stand point. When they stay in the park they are often quite good as players make fewer errors on them than ground balls. However, they also lead to more HRs which obviously is bad.
Without more data I think you can't really say it's likely to continue. However, it's definitely something worth watching particularly if he isn't giving up HRs.
