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Michel Baez

The Pitcher To Receive The Most Extra Strikes In 2019 Was…

By TC Zencka | May 9, 2020 at 9:42pm CDT

In a recent bout of strike zone curiosity, I started looking into umpire accuracy metrics to try to visualize the baseball world at our doorstep: a world in which balls and strikes are called by robot umpires. While referring to an electronic strike zone as “robot umpires” no doubt adds an unnecessary measure of Asimovian flourish, the reality of baseball’s future is bearing down on us. Electronic strike zones are coming to baseball.

Then again, COVID-19 threw a wrench into all pockets of predicting baseball’s future, and there’s no longer any certainty in, well, just about anything. So there will be no more crystal ball voyeurism from me today, no more speculation, only a cold, hard look at the past.

Of course, the issue of umpire accuracy is hardly reserved for the future. Until electronic strike zones are implemented, the human models making the calls behind the plate remain incapable of ridding themselves entirely of human error – try as they might. Sometimes a ball misses the plate, and they call it a strike. Sometimes it crosses the dish, and the arm stays at the umpire’s side. The question for today is this: which pitcher got the most extra strikes in 2019?

With my previous look into Statcast pitch data, I looked for clusters of pitchers that would illuminate certain things about how umpires called balls and strikes. Today is about passing along some of the trivia. Statcast data, after all, holds a ton of information, including whether or not each ball or strike was correctly called. Using machine learning, we can pretty cleanly find those pitchers who benefited the most from gifted strikes, as well as those who were hurt the most by stolen strikes.

And that brings us to Adam Warren of the San Diego Padres (frequently and presently a member of the New York Yankees). Of the pitchers who threw as many as 200 pitches in the majors in 2019, it wasn’t close: Warren benefited more than any other pitcher in 2019 from umpires gifting extra strikes.

To be perfectly clear, a gifted strike here is a pitch that lands outside the strike zone that the umpire calls a strike. This alone does not make Warren the luckiest pitcher in baseball. Nor does it make him the umpires’ favorite (though it probably gets him a look). In a vacuum, that Warren led the league in percentage of called strikes that were gifted means only this: no pitcher had a higher percentage of their called strikes come from pitches that missed the zone.

This was important for Warren because, even with the added help, only 31.4% of his pitches landed in the zone (league average was 39.4%). And while batters swung and missed at a relatively average rate when Warren was throwing strikes, batter O-Contract% – the percentage of times a batter makes contact when swinging at a ball outside the zone – was just 61.9%, much lower than the 67.3% average. So the more Warren got batters to chase, the more effective he became (surprise, surprise). Still, he only registered 7.85 K/9 versus 3.77 BB/9.

For context, MLB pitchers – on average – had ~16% of their called strikes come on pitches outside the zone. Warren, by contrast, received a gifted strike on almost 42% of his strike calls. This was an extreme outlier. The second-place finisher for highest percentage of gifted strikes was Michel Baez at ~30% – interestingly, also of the Padres (and the conspiracy is on!). Not for nothing, but Warren also fits the profile of the type of pitcher more prone to getting extra calls. He averaged just 86.4 mph this season (fastball clocking at 91.4 mph), he’s right-handed, and both his fastball and curve register in the bottom quartile for spin rate.

If he were a starter, he’d fit the mold exactly. Of course, sample size is likely a culprit here in Warren’s numbers being so far outside the norm. Warren wasn’t exactly a spotlight pitcher in 2019. He threw 555 pitches for the Padres across 25 games, 28 2/3 innings. He ended the year 4-1 with a 5.34 ERA/6.91 FIP making his season worth -0.2 bWAR/-0.8 fWAR. This is not to say he will be a total disaster if he suits up for the Yankees sometime this season, nor is it to say he’ll receive the same measure of umpire error if he does. Though Warren has been received favorably by umpires in the past, his overall average percentage of gifted strikes over the past 5 seasons is just under 28%. That still puts him two standard deviations above the mean, but nowhere near the outlier of his 2019.

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Adam Warren Michel Baez San Diego Padres

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Padres Promote Michel Baez, Adrian Morejon

By Ty Bradley | July 21, 2019 at 11:18am CDT

SUNDAY: The promotions of Baez and Morejon are official. The Padres made room for them by optioning outfielder Josh Naylor and righty Trey Wingenter to Triple-A El Paso. They also transferred injured pitchers Adam Warren and Miguel Diaz to the 60-day IL.

SATURDAY: Righty Michel Baez’s promotion to the Padres from Double-A Amarillo is “imminent,” per the San Diego Union-Tribune’s Kevin Acee. Baez, who was a nominal starter prospect – and near-consensus top-100 name – prior to the 2019 season, has worked strictly in relief for Amarillo since returning from a back injury in mid-May.

It’s the third in a string of high-profile prospect promotions for the plummeting Padres this weekend, who also recalled INF Luis Urias from Triple-A El Paso and are set to select the contract of touted lefty Adrian Morejon, also from Double-A. The San Diego ’pen has been in shambles lately: apart from the untouchable Kirby Yates, who’s on pace for one of the best reliever seasons in MLB history, the revolving high-leverage door for the Friars hasn’t yielded a single reliable arm.

Baez’s prospect stock has slid considerably this season, with FanGraphs now characterizing his once-solid command as “fringe” and bemoaning an unforeseen velocity drop in the latter stages of the 2018 season. The 6’8 righty’s size can be a “hindrance,” per Baseball America, who notes that Baez has struggled to repeat his delivery of late. MLB.com is the high team on the 23-year-old: they place him at a solid #70 on the site’s top 100 list.

In 27 innings for Amarillo this year, Baez has set down 38 and walked 11 en route to a 2.00 ERA. Like soon-to-be teammate Morejon, Baez isn’t on the club’s 40-man roster, so two players will need to be jettisoned from the group shortly. The club also must make room for lefty Jose Castillo, who’s set to return soon from a lengthy injury absence.

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Adam Warren Michel Baez Miguel Diaz San Diego Padres Transactions

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Padres Agree To Deal With Right-Hander Michel Baez

By Steve Adams | December 12, 2016 at 2:26pm CDT

The Padres have agreed to sign 20-year-old Cuban right-hander Michel Baez and will pay him a $3MM signing bonus, reports Jesse Sanchez of MLB.com (via Twitter). Because the Padres are already over their allotted international bonus pool, Baez will come with a 100 percent luxury tax and cost the team a total of $6MM.

Sanchez lists Baez as 6’8″ and 230 pounds, noting that he has a fastball which sits in the 93-97 mph range. Baez comes without much in the way of publicly available information, as he didn’t rate in MLB.com’s list of top 30 international prospects, nor did he appear among the 47 international prospects that were listed on Fangraphs’ sortable scouting board. Baseball America’s Ben Badler ranked 50 players when listing his top international prospects this year — though he didn’t list Cuban players that had not yet been declared for free agency — and didn’t mention Baez’s name, either. Per Baseball-Reference, Baez pitched in part of just one pro season in Cuba — the 2014-15 season — and posted a 5.22 ERA with 17 strikeouts against 17 walks as an 18-year-old. Dennis Lin of the San Diego Union-Tribune tweets that he could start next season in A-ball and is a former teammate of fellow Padres signee Ronald Bolanos.

The lack of information on Baez is not to suggest that he’s lacking in any sort of appreciable talent. Players often fly under the radar and come with unexpectedly large signing bonuses when they do. A player of Baez’s age with that sort of frame and velocity certainly sounds appealing on the surface, though a great deal of additional context would be required before fairly assessing him. Regardless, Padres scouts are clearly enticed by Baez’s abilities, and the sum of the bonus itself seemingly indicates that San Diego faced some degree of competition for his services.

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2016-17 International Prospects 2016-17 International Signings Michel Baez San Diego Padres Transactions

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