BBR^2 Part Five: Fernando Rodney

In the BBR^2 series, there is typically a focus on position players and starting pitchers.  This comes out of the fact that these players play a lot, build up a solid body of playing time, and allow for extensive analysis.  Personally, I wanted to work in relievers this year because I often feel that they are incredibly undervalued.  No, they don't play as much during the season as other players do, but the quality relievers pitch the majority of their innings in high leverage situations.  Because of this, their relative value is probably higher than modern calculations of WAR can account for.  After all, there is something to be said for the psychology of sports and the fact that pitching with a big lead or a big deficit comes with less inherent pressure than constantly pitching in tie games, close games, and inherited situations.  In 2012, there were few better (two, in my opinion) better than Rays closer Fernando Rodney.
 
Part One: Solving the Puzzle
 

For the majority of his career, Rodney has been known as a volatile, wild arm with an explosive arsenal of pitches.  Coming into the 2012 season, Rodney's average year came with 4.9 BB/9, 8.2 K/9, and a 101 ERA+.  Unfortunately , Rodney's career has also seen injury troubles and many poor performances.  In 2012, all of that changed. Rodney struck out 9.16 batters per 9 innings, walked only 1.81 and gave up 0.24 HR per 9 innings.  All of this came directly following a year where he only struck out 7.31 and walked 7.88! So what happened with Rodney?  Why did his 2012 suddenly see him as a top 5 reliever in baseball?  In my opinion, it's all about control.
 
In recent years, Fernando Rodney has been very good at two things: inducing ground balls and limiting home runs.  For most relievers, and pitchers in general, doing this leads to success.  Unfortunately, Rodney's incredible inability to limit walks has erased any other accomplishments in his game.  Extending innings by walking batters leads to more opportunities for the other team to get hits and score runs.  Despite an ability to leave runners on base, Rodney has allowed so many of them that it's been nearly impossible to prevent runs.  In 2012, Rodney limited himself to 15 walks in 76 appearances.  How did this happen?  Well, essentially Rodney gave up on his slider, which he had tried to use more in 2011, and went back to being a two pitch pitcher.  But why was this approach effective?  Well, I think it has less to do with  what he was throwing and more to do with how he threw them.
 
The plate discipline section on fangraphs is a beautiful thing.  In it you can see how often people swing, what pitches they are swinging at, when they are making contact with them, and how often they are swinging and missing.  To backtrack a little bit, I want to go back to my research, most notably where I looked at Chase % (the amount of time a batter swings at pitches out of the strikezone).  Of all of the metrics I tested, nothing correlated more with success than Chase %.  Well, on fangraphs, this metric is called O-Swing%, and Rodney increased his to a career-best 35.4% in 2012.  What does this suggest?  Better control and command of his pitches.  He was able to fool hitters more often into swinging at pitches they shouldn't be swinging at.  However, it's not just that: Rodney also greatly reduced the contact he was allowing within the strike zone (2.5% lower than his career average).  All of this was driven by getting his swing-and-miss rate up to 13.2% , nearly 2% better than his career average.
 
Don't be fooled, though.  Not all of Rodney's success was driven by these improvements, as there was definitely some luck involved.  Despite very little change in his BIP rates, Rodney's BABIP was shockingly low at .220.  Remember, he's also not giving up many home runs, so the number of hits he's giving up is very small along with the number of walks.  The other thing that stands out is the 89.4% LOB% Rodney was able to put up.  So let's review: he strikes out a lot of batters, doesn't walk many batters, doesn't give up home runs, doesn't give up other types of hits, and strands 9/10 of the the runners he actually does allow.  What does that lead to?  A 0.60 ERA in 74.2 IP, good for a 634 ERA+.
 
With all of this considered, it's time to be realistic about Rodney.  Relievers are extremely volatile players.  Their careers frequently resemble roller coasters, and this is one of several reasons why they don't see the long-term mega contracts that position players and pitchers do.  Rodney may indeed be able to repeat his control and command from last season, but it's fairly unrealistic to think he can control how incredibly low his BABIP was or how incredibly high his strand rate was.  With reductions in K and BB rates, I'll predict this for Rodney in 2013:
 
65 IP/ 8.20 K/ 3.4 BB/ 0.35 HR/ .285 BABIP/ 72% LOB/  3.20 xFIP
 
Part Two: Fantasy Value
 
With Aroldis Chapman now in the rotation, the relief position breaks down like this:
 
1) Craig Kimbrel
2) Everyone else
 
The truth here is that no reliever can give you what Kimbrel can.  He will get a lot of save opportunities, he can post a microscopic ERA, and provide 115+ strikeouts.  Rodney had his highest strikeout total last year at 76, and his K/9 rate was only good for 55th among relief pitchers in baseball.  Along with this, the Rays suffered a couple of key losses this off season in B.J. Upton and James Shields.  While I don't think this will change his number of opportunities, it definitely could lead to fewer 2013 appearances.  Before I get to 2013 predictions, here's what Rodney did in 2012:
 
0.60 ERA/ 48 Saves/ 2 Wins/ 0.777 WHIP/ 76 K
 
By all means, a phenomenal season.  Getting nearly 75 innings of 0.60 ERA baseball really helps the team ERA, and the same goes for WHIP (the high number of saves goes without question).  How does this translate into 2013?  Well, assuming something closer to 68 IP and probably 45 save opportunities instead of over 50, I think it translates into mediocrity.  Here's what I expect from Rodney in 2013:
 
3.20 ERA/ 39 Saves/ 1 win/ 1.205 WHIP/ 59 K
 
Among closers, that isn't a great ERA, and those really aren't very many strikeouts.  Honestly, this kind of performance would probably have Rodney as one of the middle-tier relievers available.  Rodney was a 10th round pick in our message board fantasy league, which is probably a couple rounds higher than I would want to take him (now that I've been through several mocks and two real drafts, I would probably take him 12th or later).  Position players are too thin these days to worry about getting a high risk/high reward reliever in the first 10 rounds.
 
With all of these things considered, Fernando Rodney is officially a bust candidate for 2013.