I'm Crazy, So What's the Fuss?: What to Expect from Scott Richmond in 2010
by jessef on Dec 26, 2009 7:46 PM EST
in Toronto Blue Jays Analysis
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PrintFor someone who had pitched for the Edmonton Cracker Cats as recently as 2007, Scott Richmond put together a pretty nice season in 2009, in spite of his 8-11 record and 5.52 ERA. Over 24 starts and three relief appearances, Richmond pitched 138 2/3 innings and struck out 117 (7.6 K/9), while doing a fair job of limiting his walks to 59 (3.8 BB/9). If Richmond were a groundball pitcher, those peripherals would suggest he was a good -- if not very good -- one, but unfortunately Richmond induced grounders barely one third of the time (33.6%) last season. To make matters worse, hitters weren't just hitting it high, they were hitting it far, as Richmond yielded 27 homeruns (1.75 HR/9). He was likely the recipient of some bad luck (14.3% HR/Fly), but even if that luck evened out, he'd still be giving up a lot of dingers.
He actually had a very strong season through August (8.2 K/9; 3.3 BB/9; 1.44 HR/9; 39.2 GB% over 106 1/3 IP) before having an absolutely horrendous finish (5.6 K/9; 5.6 BB/9; 2.8 HR/9; 29.2 GB% over 32 1/3 IP) in September and October. Richmond did have three excellent starts in August after returning from a stint on the DL with shoulder tendinitis, so I wonder if he had been a bit overworked by September. Although the 147 1/3 combined (minors + majors) innings he logged were not significantly more than he'd pitched in 2007 with the Cracker Cats (145 2/3) or in 2008 between the Fisher Cats, Sky Chiefs and Jays (164 2/3), major league innings are more taxing than minor or independent league ones, so it is certainly possible that he was worn out. Skeptics might argue, of course, that it's possible that it just took American League batters a few months to catch onto what Richmond was throwing.
So what can we expect from Richmond going forward? At 30 years old, Richmond could hardly be considered a prospect, but that does not mean he does not have at least a few more seasons in him. Richmond's pre-September 2009 season showed that the Jays could get quite a bit of value at very low cost from him over the next few seasons, but his last seven starts suggest that his flirt with excellence will be short-lived. If he does plan to hang around in the majors, he needs to improve some on his overall performance last season, but if he can pitch like he did over his first 17 starts, he will be fine. Perhaps because of his late start, people tend to write him off, but at 30 years old and with so few innings on his arm, there is no reason Richmond should be hitting his decline phase yet. Bill James projects him to improve a bit on his overall strikeout- (to 7.7 K/9), walk- (to 3.29 BB/9) and homerun- (to 1.61) rates in 2010, putting him at an FIP of 5.06, which, though unspectacular, would not preclude him from being at the very least a serviceable major league pitcher. The realist part of me says that James's prediction is solid, but the optimist in me wants to say he'll be good for 165 innings and 140 strikeouts (7.3 K/9), 60 walks (3.4 BB/9) and 25 HR (1.36 HR/9), an FIP just a little worse than average at 4.56. An average player at the major league minimum is a good thing to have.
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The eye test
Tells me Richmond might do alright with a limited number of starts, but if he pitches a full season his numbers will look pretty similiar to Josh Towers. Richmond will have more strikeouts and more walks, but overall kinda of a hanger-on in the major leagues. I hope I am wrong though.
Depends
As of right now not much. He had a bad finish and was pitching in relief.
But if he were to come out strong/pretty-good in 2010 he could maybe fetch a weak B level prospect. But thats a stretch.
I would hope
They the Jays could do better than Richmond, but if not, better sign him ASAP because its better than nothing. One year deal max.
On a related note
When will “pitches thrown” be a valid statistic? I think it is silly we can only compare innings pitched between years, but on a game to game basis, all we consider is number of pitches. Isn’t this a better representation of a pitcher’s workload over the course of a year?
I think it's a valid statistic to evaluate a coaching staff, to see if they're overworking a pitcher(s)
But as for a pitcher himself, I don’t care how he pitched 200 innings, but only if he did. That’s what makes some pitchers like Halladay and Greinke special. They’re almost like 1.25 aces, because they pitch at an elite level and eat up so many innings.
I don’t think he’s worth much in a trade, but he’s somewhat valuable to the Jays right now. Worst case scenario is the he’s insurance for the Jays rotation in 2010, playing out of Vegas. For 2011 and beyond I see him more as a bullpen option, because of the many youngsters who might be ready to step up and totally squeeze him out of any rotation possibilities, in addition to the Jays relievers potentially leaving.
That being said, I’m going to kinda contradict myself here and say that I’m in the camp that believes that Richmond can maybe be as good as a number 3, with a high 3/low 4 ERA. I remember looking at him early in the season, where his pitches had nice movement, and his fastball got as high as 94. He looked great (as good as Romero, IMO) and the results showed! When he learned to pitch against lefties, he looked like an elite pitcher, and most of us probably remember his streak of appearances with 3 or less runs, to start his career. What was it, 8 or 9? I really think he tired after the AS break, and wasn’t the same after his injury.
I’m going to be optimistic say and he’ll have a good year. I’m not sure if he’ll make the club out of Spring Training though. Right now, I think he’s 6th on the depth chart, with Cecil and Zep ahead of him and Purcey/Ray behind him. He’ll be up sometime though, and will do well.
yea, early season Richmond was great. If he plays like that all season, than hooray, he is a great asset to the Jays. But late season Richmond was a real liability, a problem made worse by unresponsive bench mgmt that did not yank him as soon as he started to tail off.
I would be inclined to give Richmond another shot. Even if he is 30, if he pitched like he did early season for five more years, the Jays would be very fortunate. Heck, even another year is helpful. But, probably does not even need to be said, he should probably be on a short leash for 2H:10.
Richmond
I think he’ll be in the rotation Opening Day and stay there most of the year. His second half was so unlike his prior performance that either he just forgot to pitch (which happened to Doc once so it’s possible) or the combination of injury and fatigue caught up with him. Yes, he logged a lot of innings with the Cracker Cats and in the minors, but that’s very different to logging innings in the AL East in terms of wear and intensity. I don’t have the pitch FX for him, but in the second half, it looked to me like his slider wasn’t breaking as much, which is why he got teed off on as they’d hang up in the zone.
Personally though, I’m pulling for the guy. How can you not? Canadian guy, was working on the docks a couple of years ago, gets discovered out of no where and comes up as a solid major league starter. At worst, Richmond looks like a solid number 5 starter who can eat innings if you need it. At best, he’s a dominant slider pitcher who limits runs by changing speeds and expanding the zone.
I'm pulling for him too. He's a great Canadian story. Heck maybe Dirk Hayhurst can write a novel depicting his rise to the majors.
I’d like to see him get enough service time, so that, despite his late start, when his career is done, say between 36-38 for example, that he can walk walk away having earned enough dough to be well off for the rest of his life, maybe making a few mil, as a FA at some point. He started off well earning just over 400 k last year.
But anyways, regardless of the money, I’d probably do it for 25 k/year, if I had the opportunity.
Richmond is much more
valuable to the Jays as a league average starter making the minimum than he’d return in a trade, so I definitely think the Jays should hold on to him. The Jays have a ton of young starters coming up through the system but Richmond is great to have as insurance in the event of injuries or ineffectiveness. He faded hard at the end of the season but I think a lot of it was fatigue and he certainly showed enough over the first 2/3 of the season to merit another chance – though I think he’ll begin the season as the 6th starter. If there’s no place in the rotation, I’m also not convinced that he can’t be a good righty specialist out of the pen – his numbers against righties were quite good and he has an excellent slider and a fastball that probably shows better over an inning than over 7 or 8.
"Let us go forth awhile, and get better air in our lungs. Let us leave our closed rooms... The game of ball is glorious." - Walt Whitman
I think Richmond has potential
but it might be too late as stated, he is 30 years old. From what I’ve seen, he features two good/sharp breaking balls, and an average fast ball. The thing that kills him is that he doesn’t get ahead of batters. When he is bad, he falls behind into good hitter’s counts and gets burned by having to throw his fastball over, or ends up walking the hitter.
HEADING STRAIGHT FOR THEM, I PRESS DOWN MAH GUNS!
+ a trillion
What’s with Scott and his horendous 2nd innings? 1st innings I can understand, but I can’t figure out how someone could struggle in a 2nd inning in particular?
Johnnie Morton: The Man. The Myth. The Legend.
by craig in calgary on Dec 27, 2009 10:12 PM EST up reply actions
If nothing else...
…as bad as this sounds, his is an arm that you are not worried about overworking or damaging.
Accordingly, he should probably be in the plans at least for 2010 to give the younger arms some time to develop. I wouldn’t mind seeing him in the major league rotation ahead of Zep or Cecil, and certainly ahead of someone like Drabek. Richmond won’t be useful when the Jays have a chance at contending, and those other guys might, so protect their arms at all costs.
I agree he is a good “stop gap” solution, serving as a bridge to next gen pitching. Having said that, he could leverage the experience and really upgrade his game. He was strong through June this year. ( http://ca.sports.yahoo.com/mlb/players/8311/gamelog;ylt=Aq3CxLBlR3HvKVNhFq7XpPJbQM6 ) . If he could sustain or improve that, he would be hard to displace.
lefties were a huge problem for Richmond last season
and teams started stacking their lineups with lefties when that became obvious and Richmond really had no response. His splits, v. righties (.233/.276/.411) and versus lefties (.292/.377/.550) really tell the story. By the end of the season, he was facing more lefties than righties and that as much as anything was responsible for his second-half swoon.
I’m hopeful he can cut down on his home runs but it’s tough for a pitcher who struggles so much against lefty hitting to improve and succeed as a starter unless he develops another pitch that can get them out. If I were him, I’d try various pitches and see whether he can develop an out pitch against lefties – maybe ask Jason Frasor to teach him that split change, which really seemed to help Frasor pitch to lefties.
"Let us go forth awhile, and get better air in our lungs. Let us leave our closed rooms... The game of ball is glorious." - Walt Whitman
Agree with you there
But in the minors, Richmond was actually about equally effective against lefties and righties. Sure, minor league batters aren’t major league ones and maybe we’re looking at some small sample size issues, but it’s not like there’s a wealth of major league data out on him, either. The lefties he was facing there were much younger than he is, but so were the righties.
I agree that Richmond seemed to struggle against lefthanded batters, but his strongest start of the season was against the lefty-stacked Phillies, who were batting Jimmy Rollins, Shane Victorino, Chase Utley, Ryan Howard and Raul Ibanez. Those lefties (and switch hitters) batted a combined 3 for 17, with 3 BB and 7 strikeouts.
"Look at me! I'm Tomokazu Ohka of the Montreal Expos!"
that was a great game
but over the season, the numbers don’t look pretty. And the fact that Richmond faced lefties 378 times and righties only 232 times in 2009 suggests that teams caught on quickly and started maximizing the number of lefties that he would have to face. While I’m not suggesting that Richmond can’t improve on his 2009 performance against lefties, I do think that to make such an event likely, he will need at least a new approach, if not a new pitch, to use against them.
"Let us go forth awhile, and get better air in our lungs. Let us leave our closed rooms... The game of ball is glorious." - Walt Whitman
no argument here
Do you know of a way to check his platoon splits in the first half vs. the second half? I know he struggled very early on against lefties, but I remember something about him doing a bit better against them by mid-season. I’ve been known to make mistakes, of course, and unfortunately don’t know how to check on this one.
"Look at me! I'm Tomokazu Ohka of the Montreal Expos!"
not really
I think he may have had some initial improvement, but then got worse as he tailed off overall. According to MLB.com’s split function (which is handy for checking platoon splits before and after the break) before the all-star break, he managed .253/.340/.538 (OBP/SLG) against lefties, after the break it was .340/.421/.565.
"Let us go forth awhile, and get better air in our lungs. Let us leave our closed rooms... The game of ball is glorious." - Walt Whitman
Richmond stats (2009 trend)
April (includes Mar & Apr), September (includes Sep & Oct)
July sample size is probably too small to be meaningful
stat april may june july aug sep
left ip 12.2 16.1 19.2 1.2 12.1 16.2
right ip 10.2 14.1 11.2 1.1 5.2 11.2
it looks like Richmond faced an overweighted left hand order throughout the season
stat april may june july aug sep
l whip 1.58 1.65 1.17 3.60 1.62 2.40
r whip 0.94 0.77 0.94 3.00 1.59 1.37
both (right and left) whips, look like they worsened over the season
stat april may june july aug sep
l avg 0.260 0.313 0.185 0.444 0.306 0.351
r avg 0.179 0.173 0.222 0.429 0.320 0.244
Richmond’s avg. versus righties tends to be better, but both left and right avg. deteriorated over the season
stat april may june july aug sep
l obp 0.351 0.370 0.303 0.545 0.357 0.444
r obp 0.238 0.204 0.239 0.500 0.346 0.320
Richmond’s obp. versus righties tends to be better, but both left and right obp. deteriorated over the season
stat april may june july aug sep
l slg 0.540 0.687 0.385 0.556 0.469 0.649
r slg 0.179 0.231 0.489 0.571 0.600 0.578
Richmond’s slg.. versus righties tends to be better, but both left and right slg. deteriorated over the season
stat april may june july aug sep
l hr 3 5 4 0 0 5
r hr 0 0 3 0 2 5
Richmond’s hr. versus righties tends to be better, but both left and right avg. deteriorated over the season
Overall, and very generally speaking, Richmond’s performance seemed to be improving from April through June. His production fell off in July (due to injury) and he returned in August, at lesser form than he had worked his way to in June, and deteriorated into September.
Based on Richmond’s stats, one could argue that his performance was as much adversely impacted by his injury as it was by hitters “figuring him out”. That is, Richmond never returned to pre-injury performance.
Alternatively, there is still the case that injury was in fact masking the fact that MLB hitters had figured him out.
In the hopes, that Richmond recovers fully from injury over the off-season, and that he gets back on the progression ramp Richmond was moving on from April through June, he seems worth a shot.
Interesting
To me the biggest difference between the two halves (against lefties) is his Groundout to Pop/Line/Flyout-ratio (1.18 before the break, 0.34 after it). Another difference that pops out is the fact that his already high (against lefties) walk-rate (4.4 BB/9) spiked up to 5.9 BB/9. His strikeouts against lefties also increased, which makes me wonder if an inflated BABIP had some influence on that (wouldn’t surprise me considering the Jays defensive woes in the second half).
Somewhat bizarrely, Richmond was also pretty atrocious against righthanded batters in the second half (.301 / .356 / .590) after being lights-out in the first (.191 / .225 / .301), so tiredness does seem to be a factor as well, though his Ground-out/Air-out ratio was not affected much against righties (0.95 1st half; 0.88 2nd half).
You are right, though, Richmond needs to figure out lefties if he is going to be an effective starter and whether that stems from a new pitch or just a new approach, it needs to happen.
"Look at me! I'm Tomokazu Ohka of the Montreal Expos!"
right
I definitely don’t think he got worse against lefties, he just trailed off overall and it showed against both sides of the plate. While a BABIP spike might have hurt, you can see by the increased walk rate and just by anecdotally watching his starts he was clearly not the pitcher he was in the first half. A pitcher like Richmond isn’t going to be successful if he doesn’t keep his walk rates down, so the fact that he was walking 6 batters an inning against the clear majority of the batters he was facing really hurts – when coupled with the home run rate, it was disaster.
"Let us go forth awhile, and get better air in our lungs. Let us leave our closed rooms... The game of ball is glorious." - Walt Whitman
Yep
While his numbers against lefties were still just so-so in the first half, stacking the lineup against him might not help so much because the bats you’re stacking it with aren’t necessarily as good as the ones normally in the lineup. His usefulness as a starter definitely does hinge on his improvement against lefthanded batters.
It’s also possible that the strides we vaguely remember him making towards the middle of the season — though they don’t show in his 1st half (because he made them too late) and 2nd half (because his overall performance was so poor . . . possibly due to health issues?) splits — were real and he’s already improved. As we saw earlier, he was definitely able to keep down one of the strongest lefty-hitting teams in the Majors last year in the Phillies. He had a pretty strong outing against the Yankees in August as well.
"Look at me! I'm Tomokazu Ohka of the Montreal Expos!"
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