As my Rotowire Staff Keeper League team slowly fades into the sunset (the offense was "led" by Hanley Ramirez, Evan Longoria and Nelson Cruz among others, while my rotation needed a wild card or two to pan out and give Dan Haren and Wandy Rodriguez some help. You can see the problems) I've started analyzing the roster to see who gets put in the keeper pile, and who gets put in the tradable asset pile.
Among the tougher decisions is what to do with Joel Hanrahan. I grabbed him on the cheap late last season through FAAB in case he fell into the closer role in Pittsburgh, but not only has he fallen into it he's fallen upward, turning in an astounding 1.74 ERA so far to go along with his 12 saves, and he's done this while seeing his normally outstanding K/9 rate drop to a merely mediocre 6.53. It's the kind of resume that on the surface screams for regression, which would land him in my "trade him now while you can still get something of value for him" pile, but since he's at a very keeper-friendly price I thought I'd look a little deeper to be sure.
What I expected to see, when I looked a little deeper, was first and foremost a very lucky HR/FB rate. Hanrahan's always been a flyball pitcher and yet he's only allowed one HR so far this season, so clearly as his HR/FB rate rises so too will his ERA. Hopping on over to the always indispensable Fangraphs, here's what I found:
Hanrahan's 2010 HR/FB: 9.2|PERCENT|
Hanrahan's 2011 HR/FB: 8.3|PERCENT|
Career rate: 9.3|PERCENT|
Wait, what? So he's not getting really lucky on fly balls? But then the only other logical alternative is...
Hanrahan's 2010 GB/FB: 1.05
Hanrahan's 2011 GB/FB: 2.83
Career rate: 1.04
Ah, there we go. He's switched from firing in his four-seam fastball at the top of the strike zone and trying to blow it past people, to throwing a two-seamer or a sinker or a cutter or something and getting ground balls. That should show up in his pitch selection and velocity then, right?
Hanrahan's pitch selection (with average mph):
2010 - 61|PERCENT| fastball (96 mph), 38.7|PERCENT| slider (85.3 mph)
2011 - 86.5|PERCENT| fastball (97.1 mph), 13.5|PERCENT| slider (85.4)
Hanrahan's still throwing the same two pitches - a mid-high 90s four seam fastball, and good slider. But he's throwing the fastball more often, and somehow locating it better to generate a lot more ground balls. His swing|PERCENT|'s bear this out too: batters are swinging at the same |PERCENT| of his pitches in and out of the strike zone as they have for the last couple of years, and making contact on pitches in the zone at the same rate. His O-Contact|PERCENT| though, the percentage of pitches out of the zone that batters make contact with, has exploded from 47.9|PERCENT| in 2009 and 47.3|PERCENT| in 2010 to an amazing 65.2|PERCENT| this season. In essence, instead of swinging and missing at his slider, batters are swinging at his fastball off the plate and beating it into the ground.
The important question is, is this sustainable? I don't think so. At 97 mpg he's clearly still throwing a four seam fastball, but four seam fastballs aren't supposed to generate ground balls. They're supposed to generate empty swings and big flys. So at some point I have to think those GB/FB rate and K/9 rates are going to start returning to his career norms, producing more strikeouts and more home runs, especially if he keeps emphasizing his fastball at the expense of his slider. His xFIP sits at 2.81 right now, well within his recent range (2.62 last year, 3.19 in 2009) and even that might be a bit low as to what to expect from him going forward.
There is one more number I haven't touched on though. Hanrahan's walk rate has also taken a big jump up. He's at 2.18 BB/9 this season after a 3.36 rate last season, both of which are well above his career rate of 4.51. Now, part of that is undoubtedly due to the fact that he isn't throwing as many sliders, but it still shows some very interesting skill growth on Hanrahan's part, and opens up the possibility that he may not give back all of those gains in O-Contact|PERCENT| and GB/FB.
To put it simply, Hanrahan is locating his fastball better than he ever has before, and a well-located upper 90s fastball is a nasty, nasty thing to try and hit.
He's by no means a sure thing, but I think I'm moving Hanrahan over to the 'keeper' pile. There's just too much reason for optimism in those numbers.