MVN - Most Valuable Network

Demystifying The Struggles Of C.J. Wilson

What’s wrong with C.J. Wilson?

It’s a relatively popular question right now in Texas Rangers fandom. And for good reason.

After pitching virtually lights-out baseball through the better part of last summer, and compiling a stellar 2.40 ERA and 1.12 WHIP in 60 IP through September 1st (fatigue is likely to blame for his 7.56 ERA and 1.92 WHIP in 8.1 September innings), everybody’s favorite blue-gloved lefty has been something of an enigma thus far in 2008, notching eight shutout frames through April 17th but yielding 10 earned runs in 9.2 innings since.

Listed below are some vital statistics that should allow us to acquire a better grasp of what is currently ailing Wilson, and what he’ll have to improve upon in order to return to his previous level of dominance:

Year	IP	ERA	ERA+	WHIP	K/9	BB/9	HR/9	BABIP
2006	44.1	4.06	114	1.29	8.73	3.65	1.42	.281
2007	68.1	3.03	149	1.21	8.30	4.35	0.53	.262
2008	17.2	5.09	80	1.25	4.08	3.57	1.02	.237

Three major oddities immediately manifest themselves in this first chart. His 2008 strikeout rates have been more than halved from 2007 and 2006, while his home runs allowed per nine innings have nearly doubled. What’s a trifle disconcerting is that he’s struggling to such a degree despite possessing a BABIP (batting average on balls in play) a full 25 points lower than last year.

Wison’s current .237 BABIP is likely unsustainable; case in point, of the 264 pitchers who tossed 60 or more innings in 2007, only eight surrendered a final BABIP lower than .237. And in 2006, all eight of those pitchers (a group that includes such relief luminaries as J.J. Putz, Rafael Soriano and Jason Isringhausen) had a BABIP higher than .237. It’s an extremely volatile statistic.

There’s not nearly enough detailed information present here to arrive at any sort of definitive conclusions, so let’s take a look at this secondary set of data:

Year	IP	GB/FB	LD%	GB%	FB%	IFFB%	HR/FB	LOB%	S%
2006	44.1	1.67	21.3	49.2	29.5	13.9	19.4	74.7	60.7
2007	68.1	1.82	23.8	49.2	27.1	8.2	8.2	76.7	58.7
2008	17.2	0.88	15.5	39.7	44.8	0.0	7.7	62.5	64.4

Lower line drive rates (a very good thing), but also lower ground ball rates (bad) and much higher fly ball rates (very bad). I’m uncertain as to whether Wilson’s infield fly ball rate of 0.0% is actually correct, or if this is some sort of data entry error on the part of Baseball Info Solutions where they’re lumping regular fly balls and infield flies into a single category, but even assuming a IFFB% of 8-10% and lopping that off his FB% still results in a substantial increase over 2007.

One thing that did surprise me is the utter disqualification of the popular refrain that C.J.’s struggling to throw strikes; quite the contrary, in fact. He’s throwing more strikes than ever. But he’s also stranding far fewer baserunners.

Indeed, opponents’ batting lines against Wilson with runners on base and with runners in scoring position bear that out:

2008, nobody on: 44 PA, .167/.205/.238
2008, runners on: 30 PA, .320/.433/.680
2008, RISP: 20 PA, .294/.400/.706

To be certain, C.J. didn’t pitch as well with runners on base or in scoring position in 2007 either (.171/.266/.195 with nobody on, .248/.361/.385 with runners on, and .240/.371/.360 with RISP). But the implication here is that he’s also being unfairly inflicted with some degree of bad luck; that tremendous discrepancy between his performance with and without runners on base simply will not continue over the long haul.

Poring over what has just been submitted here, I’m still a tad baffled as to what, precisely, is to blame most for C.J.’s recent struggles. A convincing argument could likely be made that an improvement in his strikeout rates would cause the other areas of concern to follow suit; then again, he’s throwing roughly 5.7% more strikes than last year, and isn’t exactly benefiting as a result.

More likely than not, Wilson will snap out of his current funk in relatively short order and go on to post yet another fine season - both ERA-wise and peripheral-wise. But this is, nonetheless, a situation worth closely monitoring over the coming weeks and months.

All statistical data courtesy of Baseball Reference and FanGraphs. 

This entry was posted on Thursday, May 15th, 2008 at 11:00 pm and is filed under The Season. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.