Simple Trend Analysis Part One: The Offense

Who wants to do some trend line analysis?  Don't lie to me; no one wants to do trend line analysis.  Unfortunately, I've already created the charts, so you get to look at them.

Trend line analysis can be useful for some things, less useful for others.  What we're hoping to see here is evidence for quality play, or maybe justification for the 'eye tests' we make every game.  We also looking at how Small Sample Size can really skew numbers.  Note that the very last number in the chart is the season number.  This will skew the line a bit, but it skews it toward the season-long calculation.  This provides a comparison between the trend line and the overall production.

For lack of a better way to organize, I'll present these in alphabetical order.

After an incredibly hot start, Beltre suffered a slump three weeks in, which dragged him down to "average" status before some recent upticks.  The explosive bat is on display, but he'll have to avoid the slumps or extend the streaks to maintain a wRC+ well above average.  Because it's Beltre, the almost flat trend line isn't as concerning as the line being centered around "100", rather than "115", "125", or "135".

Grand slams can only do so much, and Wilson's trend line is representative of most catchers:  he hits home runs and not much else.  Still, the trend appears to be headed toward stabilizing at "100", which is pretty good for replacement catchers.

Another familiar stable, jagged pattern.  Holaday seems to be more consistent than Wilson with the bat; so if all other metrics are reasonably consistent, we might see Holaday behind the plate a bit more.  I wouldn't put money on it or anything, though.

I included Delino so we could see if he was doing as bad as the eye test said he was.  And the stats, to be fair.  You can see that trend line heading toward zero.  You can see the extended streaks of games at -100 (-100 means "zero", BTW).

How important are walk-off home runs?

This important.  The top chart has "the Home Run".  The bottom chart excludes it.

Elvis.  I think this confirms the eye test.  He's fallen off, but he isn't performing terribly.  I wouldn't be surprised if his production stabilizes just under "100".  That would probably be "good Elvis".

Wow.  Ian Desmond is for real.  He is performing consistently, at a high level, and over an extended period of time.

Mitch is producing around league average right now.  And unfortunately, there isn't a lot of boom in his bat.

Yes, Nomar is trending down to league average.  That's mostly because of the hot start, but he's had more games recently where he isn't being productive with the bat.  Fairly consistent with the arrival of a new hitter; there is, as they say, "a book" on  him now.

I hate to say it, but for all of the people talking about Fielder showing signs of life with the bat...no he's not.

Despite the recent slump, Rougie is still trending up.

Rua needs to do more than he has.  I'm worried that his production since he became the full-time left fielder has actually dropped, but that's only a few games worth of data.  He was far more valuable off the bench than Hanser, who's value as a bench bat has been very negative.

Texas lost one of it's two biggest producers with Rougie's suspension, and Adrian and Elvis are slumping.  This is putting the weight of the offense on the rest of the team, which is for the most part producing right around league average.  Other than Fielder, the Rangers don't have a lot of "ouch" in the lineup, but they have way to much "meh".  Thankfully, the trends behind Rua, Wilson and Holaday are indicating at least the possibility of greater production at the bottom of the order.  Mazara stabilizing his minor slide would help a lot, too; he provides the most stable presence at the top of the order while Choo is gone.

Coming soon:  we'll look at the rotation and the bullpen.

Some Changes at One Strike Away

As a somewhat well-known blog in the Rangers universe, this is something I feel like I need to put up, if for no other reason than to get the truth out there.

Some changes are currently underway at One Strike Away; more specifically, Eric Reining will no longer be writing for the site.

In recent months, some of you may have noticed a person in the comments section that went by the name "Dubya". Oftentimes, Dubya was contentious and had pretty scathing things to say about not only my published articles, but the articles of other writers on the site.

It went as far as even blasting one author for the format and length on a post. I dismissed it as a normal Internet troll. It happens, especially when you're getting linked by ESPN several times a week. There's always bound to be that fan that thinks either sabermetrics are stupid, that you're insulting their favorite player, whatever it may be. That's not what this was.

So in recent weeks, Dubya ramped up the criticism. In a post about throwing some mostly non-serious trade ideas out for fun, there was this: "Embarrassing article. Just stop with the trades. Just stop."

In a piece talking about the brawl on Sunday, Dubya went on to call me petulant, as well as add this little tidbit: "You sound like all of the local DFW media that people can't stand."

Tuesday night, I posted up a GIF of Adrian Beltre quite clearly looking unhappy with his job. It's a look Beltre has been known to give players such as Elvis from time to time, so I never took it as Adrian "making a statement". Just that he wasn't happy. Dubya railed and said the post needed to be removed.

Finally, Wednesday morning, I had a piece up on the bullpen. In it, I made a comment about small sample sizes and trying not to overreact. To which this comment was posted: "'So while I'm all for not overreacting to small sample sizes...' This is rich coming from you. It's such a long season. Don't you ever get tired of overreacting?"

I got a bit curious. I wanted to see if maybe it was a fan from another area just attempted to troll anything that was posted. As such, I loaded up my Disqus comment moderation panel, and found "Dubya" on the list. Right there, I could see the IP address and email address associated with the commenter account. The account was registered to none other than Eric Reining, one of the writers of One Strike Away.

So, rather than express displeasure personally -- and all while texting at least on a weekly basis -- we had a writer decide to create a "fake" account with which to trash the site and all other contributors.

Upon confronting him with what I had discovered, I never received a response. Maybe part of me didn't expect one, but it seems as if it would have been the adult thing to do. However, another contributor and moderator, my cousin, sent him an email letting him know what had been discovered. The response? "You got me! Ah, man, what ever am I supposed to do now that I can't write on a child's blog anymore?"

I suppose I feel a bit bamboozled. Although he had previously written for Nolan Writin', and had a less than private -- as well as contentious -- departure from that site, Eric's writing was something I wanted to see on One Strike Away. And it was fantastic while it lasted. I have no idea what happened to create so much disaccord, and it saddens me that we won't be getting his articles here anymore.

However, I just didn't see any other way of solving this. As always, thank you to all of you that do read. Although you may not always agree with the viewpoints presented here, your input and opinions are very valuable, and we do work very hard to put out quality content on a regular basis, win or lose.

The Rangers Have a Texas-Sized Bullpen Problem

Coming into the 2016 season, the bullpen figured to be an area of strength for the Texas Rangers. If for no other reason than having been solid down the stretch in 2015, it appeared to be the area of least concern.

A Keone Kela injury -- one that will sideline him until the second half of the season -- as well as general ineffectiveness have made Texas' relieving corps the worst in the American League, and in in the running for the worst in baseball.

Say what you want about the save statistic, but it can have its uses at times. Right now, it's useful in evaluating Shawn Tolleson. You see, racking up a ton of saves -- as well as a lack of blown saves -- doesn't necessarily indicate a great pitcher. On the flipside, blowing a ton of saves is probably a fair indicator that things aren't going as planned.

Certainly a major area of concern would be manager usage of his bullpen. No, Jeff Banister can't simply rely on the same two or three guys every night out of the bullpen. At the same time, an insistence on using Shawn Tolleson to close out close games appears to be, at best, an exercise in foolishness.

Tom Wilhelmsen finally got the axe on Monday, bring up Luke Jackson in his place. Last week, Matt Bush got called up to the big club, and he's looking like could be a great addition as well. For Wilhelmsen's part, he was the worst reliever in baseball by almost every metric. His fWAR of -0.9 is easily the worst, and sounds even worse when you consider that the best reliever, Andrew Miller, has put up an fWAR of 0.9. Two relievers, and they couldn't be more different. Wilhelmsen's 9.37 FIP was also the worst mark in baseball.

Yet, for all the talk about Wilhelmsen, there has always been the prevailing thought that, even if he's not the closer, Shawn Tolleson is a valuable contributor to what should have been a strong bullpen unit. The numbers say otherwise.

He has posted an fWAR of -0.7, and his FIP of 7.06 is fifth-worst in the sport. Win Probability Added (WPA)? Dead last at -1.91. We're not just talking about a guy that can't be counted on in high-leverage situations. This is a pitcher that likely wouldn't be counted on if he had come into the season in literally any other role. But because he's the "closer", for some reason he gets twice the rope with which to hang himself, apparently.

Looking at FanGraphs, Tolleson's O-Swing%, the rate at which hitters are swinging at pitches outside of the strike zone, is 19.4%, down from 26.2% last season. His Z-Swing%, the measure of swings on pitches inside the zone, is 69.1%.

We look further at his Z-Contact%, the amount of contact hitters are making on swings inside the strike zone, and it's a whopping 89.3%. Put it all together, and we've got a pitcher that isn't inducing nearly enough swings outside the zone, being forced to come back in to hitters, and serving up heavy helpings of meatballs.

It's no coincidence, then, that the Rangers bullpen, as a whole, has an fWAR of -1.9, tied for the worst mark in baseball. To think that most of that is tied up in two pitchers is somewhat astonishing.

Tom Wilhelmsen is gone. I'd be surprised if, barring needing a fresh arm at some point, he sees a Texas uniform again. I've talked ad nauseam in the past about how his K/BB rates simply don't play well enough for him to be relied upon. So, that's part of the problem that's fixed.

And while it may seem like a crazy overreaction to some, it might just be time for Shawn Tolleson to get the axe as well. Because again, it's not just a case of a guy struggling to close out a few games. It's a case of a pitcher that wouldn't have a job if he hadn't come in with such high expectations.

So while I'm all for not overreacting to small sample sizes, there comes a point when it's no longer beneficial to anyone to keep pretending things will just somehow get better. It's much easier to wait for a struggling slugger to bounce back. Relievers, on the other hand, generally need to be much more reliable in much smaller samples in order for them to be effective.

At the very least, a demotion to mop-up duty in blowouts would seem to be in order. Want to put him in to close out a 5-run lead in the 9th inning? Go for it. Beyond that, I think it's time that the Rangers take a close look and see if maybe, just maybe, there's someone else within the organization that can provide a little more upside -- or at least less downside -- than what Shawn Tolleson has provided thus far. It isn't only about finding a reliable closer. It's about trying to stabilize the whole bullpen in order to prevent meltdowns in close games.

As is, the bullpen has already lost numerous games for the Rangers this season. It's nearly June, a time when the temperatures rise in Texas, and when you can't simply keep waiting on guys to figure things out. And unless the Rangers get some better production from their relievers in high-leverage scenarios, they're going to find themselves on the wrong end of far too many games like the one they lost in walk-off fashion Tuesday evening.

Adrian Beltre Wasn't Thrilled with Shawn Tolleson

Last night's walk-off loss to the Oakland A's on a Khris Davis grand slam was possibly one of the worst ways to watch your favorite team lose a game.

It's made even more gut-wrenching by the fact that almost all of Rangers Twitter knew what was coming before it happened. Suffice to say, Shawn Tolleson hasn't been very good in 2016. His 9.20 ERA looks ugly enough, and an FIP of 7.05 wouldn't seem to indicate he's been much better. Opponents have a wOBA of .443 against him.

Perhaps Tolleson's biggest supporter, Jeff Banister, has been seen during his Rangers tenure as a manager that gets the most out of his guys. Part of that, it's argued, is that he'll continue to have faith in his players to come through.

Of course, having faith in a slumping hitter to snap out of it and having faith in a reliever suddenly not, you know, throwing meatballs... well, that's something else entirely. So you'd have to imagine that some of the players would be getting a bit irritated with the bullpen issues, and perhaps Shawn Tolleson in general. And if you thought that, you'd be right. After Khris Davis hit the walk-off shot, he began walking off the field. As he did so, Adrian Beltre could be seen -- looking exactly zero amused -- staring Tolleson off toward the Rangers dugout.

And Adrian Beltre is probably the last guy on the team you want irritated at you.

The Rangers Are 22-18

Well, chalk another loss up to terrible bullpen management by Jeff Banister.

• I really don't have many words for this one. I had an entirely different game story written here, but it went out the window because Shawn Tolleson happened.
   
• There's been an argument among the Tolleson faithful that his terrible numbers were inflated by "one poor outing" early in the season. And yet, here we are past the midpoint of May, and Tolleson has a 9.02 ERA. His FIP is 7.05. If it weren't for the "save" statistic, Tolleson would not only never be utilized in high-leverage situations, he'd be lucky to find a job with a big league club.
   
• And yet, here is is. Banny keeps trotting him out there to close out close games, despite all the evidence saying he's not a good pitcher right now, let alone a good "closer". There's nothing to suggest he should be used in high-leverage situations, but Jeff Banister very well might be the last guy to realize it. And it's already cost his team four wins. Just off the top, this team could easily be 25-15 right now, but their manager -- who insisted early on that there were no "set roles" in the bullpen -- continues using set roles.
   
• I just can't reach back for anything but frustration right now. The manager isn't supposed to win you games, but he's not supposed to lose them either. Right now, Jeff Banister is holding the Rangers back, and that's not something I thought I'd say 6 months ago.