Astros Space Magic

Last night, Aaron Sanchez and the Houston Astros made history when Sanchez threw 6 no-hit innings in his debut after being traded, and the Astros bullpen completed the no-hitter in their 3 innings of work. Marking the second time in history that a player threw or was part of a no-hitter in their team debut after Mark Langston threw the first 7 innings of a no-hitter in his debut with the Angels after signing as a free agent in 1990.

Aside from the excitement and awe, the most common thread has been regarding how the Astros “fixed” Sanchez with numerous thought trains about what they could do to revive other players careers by trading for or signing them. While there is no magic wand or trick that turns frogs to princes in Houston, there is clearly something to be said as they seem to have a magic touch.

First, with Justin Verlander, Verlander was already well on his way to a career that would merit HOF consideration with Detroit, but his last 4 seasons there, all after Verlander crossed into his 30s, were not up to the standards he had previously established with ERA+ of 85, 118, 140, 117, respectively, after posting 131, 124, 172, 161, & 120 in the five seasons prior. The story was that the innings had wore him out like Felix Hernandez and he was in his decline phase. A great career derailed by aging and heavy use. Almost immediately after a late-season trade to Houston he looked like his old self posting a 389 ERA+ with the highest K/9 of his career in his 5 starts with Houston. He followed that up with two new highs for K/9 (11.2 & 11.6) and ERA+ of 161 & 164.

Then there is Gerrit Cole, Cole, a promising rookie from Pittsburgh who in his five seasons there was mostly consistent with a 112 ERA+ and never a K/9 over 9.0. After an off-season trade to Houston he posted ERA+ of 141 and 156 with K/9 rates of 12.4 and 12.9.

There is also Wade Miley, a promising rookie with AZ who put up a 122 ERA+ in his rookie season in 2011 and followed up with a 109 in his sophomore season, only to not have another positive season until an 80 inning run in 2018 with Milwaukee. Yet, here in his first season with Houston he’s sitting at a 146 ERA+ with one of the highest K rates of his career and a full 2 K/9 higher than last season with Milwaukee.

Similarly, with Charlie Morton, a 9-season veteran who only had one season with an ERA+ above 97, who in his 2 seasons with Houston goes 113, 130, and now in his first year removed has a 163. Plus, the tales of the development and usage of Collin McHugh, Lance McCullers Jr., and Brad Peacock. It seems like a Cinderella or revival story every season with a new pitcher or group of pitchers for Houston and their coaching staff.

Immediately after the Astros acquired Sanchez in trade from the Blue Jays the half-joking hot takes were along the lines of, “I guess he’ll be good again now.” With Toronto this season, Sanchez had a 6.07 ERA, the worst qualifying ERA in the majors, and not all that close to the next worst (Rick Porcello at 5.74). Sure enough, in his first start he goes 6 innings and doesn’t allow a run, let alone a hit, and strikes out 6.

Like most of the above pitchers, the biggest change was in pitch usage. When the Astros made their World Series run a couple years ago the focus was on how the team was increasing the use of curveballs and highlighted this with McCullers 24 consecutive curveballs to get the final 6 outs of the final game of the ALCS to beat the Yankees. It’s not as simple as “just throw curveballs,” but, in simple terms, this has a lot to do with it.

According to Baseball Savant, MLBs statcast tool, Sanchez threw more than 30% curveballs for the first time in his career last night, he also dropped the use of his sinker from a high of 77.2% in 2014 to still his most used pitch at 29.8% this season, to just 12% last night. Relying on both his 4-seam fastball and curveball, and only mixing in his sinker and changeup. Compare this to an anecdote from the book The MVP Machine, about the acquisition of Cole where the Astros gave him an hour-long presentation on his pitches with video, heatmaps, data, and explanations. The result, career highs in 4-seam and curveball use and significant reductions in use of his sinker and changeup.

This is where it gets most interesting, because Verlander never threw a sinker and already relied heavily on his 4-seam fastball, so what changed for him? He decreased the use of his fastball and increased the use of his changeup, curve, and slider, most notably, his slider. In that same anecdote about Cole, it was emphasized that the Astros use an individualized development program and that they don’t have a “one-size-fits-all-approach.” And the Verlander data and the different rates at which their pitchers rely on their curve and fastball would also show this.

The Astros are very clearly utilizing the data available to see the strengths and weakness of each pitchers pitches and maximizing the game theory value of each pitch. This is where their magic comes from: it’s not just coaching, it’s full scale data utilization to maximize the value of each pitch thrown. From the data at Baseball Savant, before the trade, Sanchez had an elite curveball, with an expected AVG against of just .200, and a SLG against of just .265. His 4-seamer was also well above-average, but he wasn’t using either pitch often or in a way that maximized their value, he was using them predictably, thus diminishing the returns even on these great offerings.

So, if it’s so easy, why aren’t more teams doing this? Some are, Tampa Bay, Minnesota, the Yankees, the Dodgers, the Cubs, etc., and some clearly aren’t. (And some players are trying to do this on their own – to an extent, Trevor Bauer, though from his publicly shared info it looks like he’s working more on the individual effectiveness of each pitch rather than the game theory value of using each pitch.) A number of teams seem to be relying on classic truisms about fastball counts and waste-pitch counts, not following certain pitches with others from old data and old anecdotes, managing the team and game the way it was when they came up and through because that’s what worked in the 60s, 70s, 80s, or 90s.

There’s always a first to market and a best practice and the Astros (along with the Dodgers and Rays) clearly have those advantages in their favor on these points. If I was a team though, I’d be hiring data analysts with baseball knowledge to help build a similar approach to pitch calling ASAP even though they’d just be playing catch-up on this front, the value is clearly huge.