We talk about Xavier Nady a lot around here. Most of the time we whine about his lack of playing time. But last week, The Fathers made a real good point in the comments about the quality (or lack thereof) of pitchers against which Nady has homered this season.
Because it’s lame to present only one side of the argument, and because my judgment is probably a bit clouded when it comes to Nady (I really want to see him succeed, and I want it to happen here in San Diego), I thought it’d be good to look into this claim a little further. So I did, and you know what I found? The Fathers is onto something.
Good Hitting, Bad Pitching, or a Little of Each?
| Player (HR) | IP | ERA | WHIP | H/9 | HR/9 | BB/9 | SO/9 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ryan Klesko (16) | 105 | 4.73 | 1.417 | 9.64 | 1.22 | 3.11 | 5.98 |
| Xavier Nady (13) | 97 | 5.35 | 1.522 | 10.56 | 1.23 | 3.14 | 5.70 |
| Brian Giles (12) | 127 | 4.21 | 1.331 | 8.90 | 0.98 | 3.09 | 6.09 |
| Khalil Greene (10) | 133 | 4.58 | 1.347 | 9.19 | 1.12 | 2.93 | 5.65 |
For each of the Padres’ top home run hitters this season, I compiled a list of pitchers they’ve homered against. I then took the season totals of each of those pitchers (through games of August 22) and came up with an “average” line.
Nady certainly is taking advantage of a lower class of pitchers than are the other three guys. Ryan Klesko has feasted on some pretty bad pitching as well, but half of his 16 home runs have come against pitchers with an ERA under 5.00. Giles and Greene? They’ve homered off some good arms, especially Giles.
An ERA under 5.00 may not sound like a very high standard, but consider that only two of Nady’s 13 bombs have been hit off such pitchers (Esteban Loaiza, 3.66 ERA; Greg Maddux, 4.56). Klesko at least has the occasional Brad Radke (3.78), Brandon Webb (3.89, twice), Jason Marquis (4.36), or Kerry Wood (4.36).
Giles is the one hitter who has been able to take real good pitchers deep, including Pedro Martinez (2.86), John Garland (3.43), Matt Morris (3.80), and the aforementioned Webb. Giles’ first two jacks of the season came at Coors Field, against Joe Kennedy (6.44) and Jason Jennings (5.02). Since then, just one of his 10 homers has been off a pitcher with an ERA over 5.00 (Brad Hennessey, May 27 at San Francisco).
Greene falls somewhere in between. He’s victimized a couple of pitchers who have been awful this year (Aaron Sele, 5.90; Jeff Francis, 6.01), but he’s also taken guys like Pedro, Kris Benson (3.89), and Jason Schmidt (4.41) deep.
That’s Nice, but Why Isn’t Nady in the Lineup Every Day?
The point of researching these questions isn’t to find numbers that support a predetermined conclusion. It’s to look for reasons why something may or may not be happening. In this case, I’ve been frustrated and baffled by Nady’s frequent absence from the lineup. But after looking a little closer, I’m less baffled than I was.
I still believe that Nady is good enough to play every day. But right now what the numbers tell me is that he’s good enough to abuse bad pitching, and the jury is out on the rest. (We’re looking at who Nady has had the most success against, not how he’s fared against all pitchers.) Viewing things in that light, I can at least understand Bruce Bochy’s reluctance to expose his young slugger to some of the league’s better pitchers.
With quality at-bats like the ones against John Smoltz Sunday night in Atlanta and Roy Oswalt Monday night back home, Nady is getting there. We’ll have to keep an eye on how Nady responds as he’s put into more challenging situations throughout the remainder of the season against other top pitchers.
Thanks to The Fathers for leading me in this direction of inquiry. As always, the most interesting aspect of this blog, to me, is the dialogue we have and the ideas that folks come up with through our discussions.
Very nice analysis, Geoff as always.
I think that was my wanting to get Nady as many ABs as possible. He’s never been exposed to a full season of facing MLB pitching and if he’s not getting that experience now, he’ll never improved.
This whole coddling of Nady (if we can call what Bochy is doing that) is unreasonable. Let Nady gain the experience of facing quality pitchers. The more he’s exposed to them the better approaches he’ll take. I do believe this.
After all he’s proven his skills in AAA to very good success and he seems to have good attitude about being a PT player and he does have the skills to play eveyday.
On the positive side, the fact that Bochy let X faced both Smoltz and Oswalt and having X done battle well against them, bodes well for X’s playing time. I’m still thinking 1B may not be his best position but heck, he’s playing.
Lost in all this, is Fick’s bat. Has he played at all the past week?
Enjoy Peavy-Clemens.
Interesting approach, thanks Geoff. Does this overlook or neglect the fact that Nady hasn’t had a chance to face better quality pitching? In other words, have his starts and his AB’s, as well as his HR’s, come against lesser pitchers? The other three guys are all everyday players and my assumption would be they would have faced better pitching as a matter of course.
Geoff, thanks for the good work. Here is some more information for you, the average OPS against of pitchers that the Padres’ hitters have faced this year (min. 100 PA with Padres):
Joe Randa .709
Robert Fick .724
Eric Young .729
Damian Jackson .736
Ryan Klesko .737
Brian Giles .738
Khalil Greene .738
Mark Loretta .743
Xavier Nady .744
Mark Sweeney .744
Geoff Blum .745
Dave Roberts .745
Phil Nevin .749
Ramon Hernandez .750
Sean Burroughs .752
just eyeballing it, league average OPS against is around .747 +/-.
didi, I guess we are watching different things. I see Nady looking very poor at the plate his first two times against power right handers like Smoltz and Oswalt, and then putting up a quality plate appearance his third time. The Padres can’t afford to give away outs early in games and Bochy is hurting the offense by not playing Sweeney and Fick more. I am all for Nady going through his growing pains, as a full time starter in 2006, not while the Padres are still in the playoff hunt. Nady’s .643 OPS in August is hurting the team.
Pat: Yes, you are correct about the deficiency of this approach. My wife mentioned the same thing last night as I was working on it. We’re only looking at one part of the equation here, that is, where Nady’s greatest success have come. To get a more complete picture, we would need to examine how he does against all pitchers he’s faced.
One thing that might be worth studying (and this could be something to do in the off-season because it will be time consuming) is Nady’s splits versus pitchers by ERA (e.g., < 3.00, 3.01-3.50, 3.51-4.00) or maybe by some other measure (K/9?) and compare them with those of other, more established hitters. Even as I type this, though, that sounds like a real pain in the neck.
TF: More good info there. True about Nady this month. I would add that Klesko’s 406 OPS and DJ’s 564 OPS in August aren’t helping much either.
If Bochy were mostly sitting Klesko for Nady, I wouldn’t be as disappointed, but he is mostly sitting Sweeney and Fick for Nady. Even then, I would argue that Fick or Sweeney would be the better OF replacement for Klesko against right handers. If Nady could play SS, well . . . but DJ appears to be regressing to the mean, so at a minimum I would get him to the 8th hole.
Nady at SS. Nice. Actually, if Peavy could play LF… (Joking, but he does have a 1056 OPS in August.)
Thanks Geoff. I’d say the deficiency isn’t inherent in your method, but in Bochy’s.
From BP:
X. Nady’s Quality of Pitchers Faced line: .256/.338/.406
X. Nady’s Actual line: .263/.318/.471
His OBA if the umpire last night hadn’t been an idiot: .321. That’s still lower than it ought to be, but the power is still significantly higher than average. If you believe DePodesta, a point of OBA is worthly roughly three times a point of SA. You’ve got a deficit of .020 in OBA and a surplus of .065 in SA. It’s a .005 advantage over average. Nothing too special, but nothing bad enough to keep a developing player with huge upside off the field.
Fick’s QPF line: .251/.328/.396
Fick’s real line: .303/.383/.419
Pretty damn good.
Sweeney’s QPF line: .257/.337/.407
Sweeney’s real line: .330/.433/.540
Obviously the problem isn’t “too much playing time for Sweeney and/or Fick.” I also don’t think anyone has argued that. The issue is that Nady plays five positions and needs every day playing time to develop and he’s already an above league average player. There is room for him to play practically every day and Bochy needs to use it.
Richard, would you first agree with me that Nady’s line would be considered average to below average for an NL left fielder, right fielder and first baseman?
Second, I understand from reading your web site that you are not too fond of how Bochy has handled the Nady situation. I hope that one thing upon which we all can agree is that Bochy does utilize Nady correctly against lefthanded starters – Nady plays every time. The issue is against righthanded starters primarily, righthanded pitching in general. On that issue, who would you currently sit in favor of Nady and why?
Dave Roberts and/or Joe Randa. And any day that Giles or Klesko would be inclined to take a day off.
OPS versus right handed pitching (2005):
Randa .799
Roberts .776
Nady .736
If Roberts weren’t on fire now, I might be with the dump Roberts/move Giles to CF movement. Not with Randa though – I have no reason to doubt Bochy on X’s defensive liabilities at 3rd, and Randa has a track record which shows that his current underperformance shouldn’t last.
I am currently on the sit-Klesko-for-Nady bandwagon.