Aroldis Chapman, the Cuban Missile in Crisis

Do you get the feeling that Aroldis Chapman of the Reds is uncomfortably familiar these days with the old song, “Wild World,” by Cat Stevens?

As I look at Chapman’s stats, Stevens’ lyrics keep resonating in my head,

“Oh, baby, baby it's a wild world
It's hard to get by just upon a smile.”

In Chapman’s case it's hard to get by just upon a 105 mph fastball if you can’t control it.

Over the last month, Chapman is everywhere but home plate. This season, the Cuban Missile, as the lefty is called, has 20 walks, 15 strikeouts and a 6.92 earned-run average over 13 innings. He has walked 12 batters and managed only four outs in his past four appearances, twice leaving before retiring a batter. On Sunday, Chapman walked four of five batters his faced in the 9th inning, leading to a five-run Cardinals comeback. He managed only five strikes in 18 pitches. As a result the Reds put him on the DL, more the Dysfunctional List than anything else.

Take a look at Chapman’s fastball over the last month (April 17 – May 17):

In some respects his slider is even worse, because when it is not in the strike zone it is right down batters’ power alleys.

It is indeed a wild world these days for Chapman and the Reds need to find out why, which is primarily why he is on DL at this time.

Things Looking up for Gomes

Jonny Gomes is off to a great start in 2011.  He's showing selectivity and power at the plate, ranking among the league leaders in walks and home runs.  His home run rate should cause him to eclipse his previous season high of 21.

Gomes's selectivity isn't so much strike zone judgement as it is pitch judgement.  Great hitters talk about getting one good pitch per plate appearance, and that's the one they want to attack.  In the past, Gomes swung at most pitches in the strike zone:

Jonny Gomes, swings, 2008-2010.Although he swung at strikes, his power zones were limited:

Jonny Gomes slugging, 2008-2010.This season, Gomes seems to be looking for pitches up in the zone:

Jonny Gomes swings, 2011.That turns out to be a great place to power the ball:

Jonny Gomes, slugging 2011.By selecting pitches he can hit hard, Gomes increases his slugging percentage.  That also helps his walks in two ways.  Pitchers are more careful throwing to him, and umpires see that Gomes defines his own strike zone well.  If he can keep this up, Gomes could have a monster year.

Arroyo's Hook

Bronson Arroyo has thrown over 200 innings in every season since 2005.  Last season was the first in that stretch where he yielded less than 200 hits.  Most of his success comes against right-handed batters, and he has done well pitching them away.

Bronson Arroyo vs. RHB - Outside Zone

Arroyo was very efficient with his pitches to the outside corner.  The above graphic shows all his pitches that would qualify as hitting the outside part of the zone in 2010.  Last year, 43.6% of those pitches were curveballs, the highest of any pitcher throwing outside to righties.  Batters struck out 30.8% of the time and produced an overall wOBA of .130 against curves in that zone (298 pitches, 91 PA).  In his career, Arroyo has a 31.2% K-rate on curves to RHB in that zone with a wOBA of .171 (890 pitches, 261 PA).

With two strikes versus RHB last season, Arroyo went to his curveball 38% of the time, most of any pitch in his arsenal.  Batters swung 63.4% of the time and struck out 43.2%.  When they did make contact, the result was a miniscule .062 batting average and .148 slugging percentage.  At this point in his career, opposing batters are probably well aware of what's coming - but Arroyo continues to make that pitch work.