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October 11, 2013

On Darvish's Perceived Weaknesses

I've performed a quick analysis of perceived weaknesses in Darvish's game. I was prompted by Richard Durrett's column today: Can Yu Darvish Be Like Verlander and Wainwright? I wouldn't call this a direct response to Durrett, even though I'll be using his pitchers for comparison. I've been thinking about this for a while.

Leads Lost

Perhaps the largest complaint lodged against Darvish is his inability to maintain leads. Darvish did indeed lose his share, the implication (or explicit accusation) by some being that he lacks mental toughness. (Durrett doesn't go there, I should note.) Still, has anyone bemoaning Darvish's loss of leads compared him to other pitchers? Maybe, but I've yet to see it. I did the research myself and tweeted in mid-September:

Adam Wainwright has allowed more 1st-inning runs (19) than Yu Darvish (17). On more occasions (9 vs 8). And given up more leads (11 vs 10). — Scott Lucas (@scottrlucas) September 15, 2013

Here's the end-of-season results for Darvish, Wainwright and Verlander:

Pitcher Games With Leads Lost Total Leads Lots Avg Runs Ahead When Lead Lost Team Record Adam Wainwright 11 13 1.3 4-7 Yu Darvish 12 12 1.4 6-6 Justin Verlander 13 15 1.3 4-9

Darvish did lose a few more leads in innings 6-7 than the others, but on the whole, there's no evidence that he was worse at maintaining a lead than Wainwight or Verlander. Texas also fared better in those games, although I'd attribute that mostly to luck.

1st Inning Runs Allowed

Pitcher Occasions Total Runs RA9 Justin Verlander 9 12 3.18 Yu Darvish 12 21 5.91 Adam Wainwright 11 23 6.09

Darvish was pretty sloppy in the 1st inning. Wainwright was worse. While putting your team in a hole is problematic, from an analytical standpoint there's a danger in getting too granular. You might end up arguing about a pitcher's bad ERA in the 6th inning, which is silly.

Efficiency

Pitcher Outs per 100 Pitches Pitches / GS Adam Wainwright 20.5 104 Yu Darvish 18.2 108 Justin Verlander 17.7 109

Darvish's outs per 100 pitches equal to the league average. He could be better. Verlander was worse.

Run Support

Pitcher Run Support Relative to Park-Adj. League Avg. Justin Verlander 4.74 +3% Adam Wainwright 4.68 +19% Yu Darvish 4.30 -3%

Adjusted for parks, Justin Verlander received about .26 runs per game more than Darvish, a little over eight runs over the course of the season. In the aggregate, that's worth almost one additional win. The difference between Darvish and Wainwright is a whopping .95 runs per game (Wainwright pitches in the NL in a friendlier park.) Imagine Texas record with an addition 30 runs of support with Darvish on the mound.

1-0 Losses

Pitcher 1-0 Losses Adam Wainwright 0 Justin Verlander 1 Yu Darvish 4

No comment.

Frequency and Winning in Best Performances

Pitcher Allowed 0 or 1 Runs Team Record Wainwright 13 13-0 Darvish 13 8-5 Verlander 12 8-4

Darvish was the equal of Wainwright and Verlander at allowing one or fewer runs. Courtesy of Texas's difficulties at the plate, he endured the most losses.

Total Professional Innings

Durrett notes Darvish's lack of experience in general and in big games ("It's not as if Wainwright and Verlander just showed up in the big leagues and did that [i.e., pitched like Verlander last night] right away".) I'm a little mystified by that, as Darvish really didn't just "show up" last year. Darvish has made no fewer than ten postseason starts in Japan (as best as I can tell) plus last year's MLB Wild Card. He has 355 more regular seasons innings than Wainwright and barely 100 fewer than Verlander. Sure, Japanese baseball doesn't compare to the US, but I certainly wouldn't leave it out of the discussion.

Pitcher Regular Season Playoffs Verlander 1,772 85 Darvish 1,669 72 (est.) Wainwright 1,314 49

I don't have stats for Darvish's first five playoff starts in Japan. I assumed 6 IP per game, which, given his usage, is probably low.

Advanced Stats

Pitcher WPA WPA+ WPA- Clutch fWAR rWAR Yu Darvish 2.3 14.93 -12.62 -0.28 5.2 5.8 Adam Wainwright 2.2 15.99 -13.84 -0.06 6.2 6.2 Justin Verlander 0.8 15.88 -15.09 -0.19 5.2 4.6

I'm not going to belabor the advanced stats, other than to say that Darvish is very obviously in the same class as Verlander and Wainwright.

Conclusion

Darvish has room to improve. We all do. But I'd argue that Darvish is already the equal of Verlander and Wainwright. What's separating Darvish from Verlander and Wainwright this October is opportunity.

Posted by Lucas at October 11, 2013 06:23 PM