MVN - Most Valuable Network

No Longer Farnsworthless?

It seemed like a story that we have seen many times before on this stage. Kyle Farnsworth enters a game with a sizable lead and proceeds to put the outcome in serious doubt. As we watched, we rolled our eyes as Kyle reverted back to form, allowing an inherited runner to score and putting runners at second and third with nobody out in the 7th inning of Saturday’s game against the Tigers. With the score now 5-2 and Renteria, Rodriguez, and Polanco due up, it seemed like it was only moments before a typical meltdown for the Yankees maddeningly inconsistent reliever.

Yet this game, and this season, is different. Farnsy got Renteria on a soft liner, but went to 3-1 on Pudge. With a base open, the old Kyle would have given up on the at bat and walked him. Instead, he recovered to strikeout Pudge and got Polanco on a popup. For some fans, it was just a lucky escape for a poor reliever. For those who have been paying close attention to Farnsworth’s pitching this season, it is indicative of his better approach and increased confidence on the mound. To gain a better understanding of exactly why Farnsy has looked so much better this season, we can look at both his statistics and approach.

Statistics: Hitters are batting .284/.329/.507 off Kyle, which represents numbers considerably higher than his career norms in both AVG and SLG. So why exactly is his ERA at 3.00 and his ERA+ 136? Furthermore, his K/9 is at 9.00, which is considerably lower than all of his effective seasons. So what is going on? I think the key lies in his 3.60 K/BB ratio. Kyle has always had good stuff, but his fear of the zone led to high walk totals. The fact that he has lost strikeouts and still has the second best K/BB of his career is telling. He is allowing more hits, and for more power, but there are fewer runners on when he allows his extra base hits. He has a stellar  LOB% (percentage of runners allowed that did not score) of 97.8. By spreading his hits out over multiple innings, he has been able to avoid the big inning and minimize damage when he gets in trouble. Furthermore, the hits that he has allowed thus far may have been aided by a bit of luck, as he has a BAbip (batting average on balls in play) of .326 compared to a career number of .296. Although there is plenty of variation of BAbip for a pitcher, it can be used in conjunction with line drive rate and groundball rate to provide some decent indicators. Farnsworth has a career low 14.6% fly ball rate paired with a very high 45.8% ground ball rate, for the third highest GB/FB ratio of his career, at 1.22. Those numbers should suggest a lower BAbip, as fewer line drives should equal fewer hits (The Hardball Times says about 75% of line drives are hits). This suggests that Kyle has allowed plenty of groundballs with eyes (although I am unsure as to whether his high number of home runs is accepted as a contributing factor to high BAbip). All in all, the numbers suggest that Kyle’s better control has aided him immeasurably, while pointing to a bit of unluckiness that suggests his numbers could be even better. One caveat is that he has allowed 3 of 4 inherited runners to score, which indicates that it may be more prudent to use Kyle to start innings rather than to put out fires.

Approach: Anyone who has watched Farnsy pitch this season has seen a marked difference in approach from him. He is attacking the zone with his fastball, getting ahead in the count and making his solid slider play up. His increased ability to throw that slider on the edges of the plate for strikes then expands the zone on the hitter, frequently forcing hitters to chase his high 90’s fastball out of the zone, as we saw Pudge do on Saturday. It has really always been about confidence with Kyle. His problem was always a lack of trust in his stuff, and his newfound belief in his ability to get hitters out in the strikezone has led to fewer walks and more hitters chasing borderline pitches. Although he is not preventing contact as much as he has in the past, he has shown some calm under pressure and effectively pitched out of trouble.

Ultimately, both the numbers and his improved approach give me little reason to doubt that Kyle Farnsworth has actually made at least some progress at this point in his career. Maybe Joe Girardi knew exactly what he was talking about when he said he could fix him. Do I trust him in the eight inning of a big game once Joba goes to the rotation? Probably not, and I would be likely to advocate Ross Ohlendorf as the successor to Chamberlain. But one thing is certain- Kyle Farnsworth is worthless no longer.

This entry was posted on Sunday, May 11th, 2008 at 3:14 pm and is filed under Off the Facade. 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.