Aroldis Chapman: The Cuban Missile Crisis

By Stevo-sama | @yoshiki89

A great deal of attention has been focused upon Cincinnati Reds closer Aroldis Chapman and his stunning performance during a concise time frame, unfortunately the attention after his performance in a loss against the Houston Astros on September 7^th has been focused on Chapman’s apparent shoulder fatigue and how the Reds are going to manage his workload just as they are on the cusp on breaking into the playoffs. 

This concern was underlined on Monday, September 10^th when Chapman entered the game against the Pirates and lasted only 0.2 (luckily) scoreless innings, facing 5 batters, walking 3 and striking out 1 in 22 pitches.  Only 7 of those pitches were thrown for strikes.

Jeff Sullivan of FanGraphs eloquently examined Chapman’s drop in velocity in this article posted Tuesday.  Sullivan hints that there may be more than fatigue at hand in Chapman’s situation, and with the level of hype the Reds reliever has been subject to throughout his brief career with the organization, the level of concern amongst Reds fans and many baseball analysts is magnified greatly.

The drop in velocity could be a very telling sign of fatigue, and data presented in Sullivan’s article validates what the box score already tells us…his velocity as well as his pitch location are not what we’ve seen from Chapman this season.  The question remains, is fatigue truly a factor in what has happened during these two games?

The management of pitchers via innings limit has been a subject of morose controversy in light of the Strasburg shutdown; how has Aroldis Chapman’s innings workload this season compared to those in the past?

The fallacy of Minor League equivalents aside, as they pertain to traditional measurements such as ERA, BB, SO, and the like, workload is workload.  No matter what professional level is being discussed, innings pitched is a constant and deterministic benchmark for workload evaluation.  If Chapman’s innings pitched in 2012 were seen as in excess of his innings pitched in previous seasons, it would validate, at a high level that fatigue could be a factor.  The fact of the matter is this simply isn’t true.

True, Chapman’s workload in 2012 so far is only a few innings more than he worked in 2011, but he’s pitched more innings in past seasons (2010), and has pitched a comparable amount of innings in MLB this year as opposed to 2011.  Workload cannot theoretically be attributed to his perceived state of fatigue.  There is something to be said of his total ERA in relationship to his innings workload; ERA can be arguably subject to MLE deficiencies to some extent, but what can be seen here is that while his workload isn’t abnormally great, his ERA is better in light of that during 2012.  To dig deeper, ERA needs to be ignored and other less subjective statistics need to be reviewed.

Expanding the data set from the previous table, Chapman’s BB, SO, HBP, and WP look alarmingly different.  From the point of view of one who has seen more of Chapman’s work in 2010 and 2011 at the Minor League level, I can testify that despite his ability to throw an occasional 100+ mile-per-hour fastball, his ability to locate that fastball has always been his key issue.  It matters not how fast you can throw, if you can’t put that pitch in the strike zone, the speed is more of an inhibitor of success than it is a part of that success.

The amount of BB, HBP, and WP are relatively arbitrary, what sticks out the most is Chapman’s SO/BB ratio in these three seasons.  Comparing 2011 and 2012, the ratio has increased over 219%.  Location has always been Chapman’s problem, and this is showing us that while his workload isn’t greater, his quality of workload arguably is.  The box scores validate this, but the bottom line is that despite the small sample size, Chapman’s best career season has been due to his ability to tame the demon of inefficient pitch location.  Improving location to such a degree can come at a cost, in Chapman’s case this is almost certainly the factor that is showing signs of wearing him out.

Of course, the drop in velocity was the initial red flag…the concern should be focused more on how to manage his continuing development to harness his best average speed without sacrificing his improvement on pitch location.  It was location, not speed that factored primarily in his recent controversial outings and this is the same issue that the Reds will need to examine if they hope to include Chapman as a part of their playoff push.  Without continued success in pitch location, his legendary fastball means absolutely nothing.