The Ducks On Pond Chacon
Cliff Corcoran at Bronx Banter posted an excellent summary of BP’s Marc Normandin findings regarding Shawn Chacon and his “abnormally low opponents’ batting average on balls in play.”
Most of the stat-guys out there have red-flagged Chacon because of his low opponents’ batting average on balls in play. The notion is that this indicates that he was lucky and his productivity for the Yankees last year was a fluke.
Normandin points out that maybe Chacon is just one of these pitchers who can produce low opponents’ batting average on balls in play. And, as such, maybe he’s not a fluke.
However, there’s something else that should be considered with Chacon, with respect to his stats last year in New York. According to Ron Shandler’s Baseball Forecaster 2006, Chacon’s Strand Rate with the Yankees was 79%. (Stand Rate measures the percentage of runners that a pitcher leaves on base.)
According to Shandler’s studies, pitchers with Strand Rates over 80% will have misleading low ERAs and tend to relapse to their previous ERA-levels.
79% is pretty darn close to 80%. (And, in case you’re wondering, from 2002 through 2004, Shawn’s rate was always around 67%.)
If you look at Chacon’s road ERAs from 2002 through 2003 (when he last was a SP – before last year), that means that he should be closer to an ERA in the ballpark of the high fours this season.
Of course, with the Yankees offense this year, that’s no reason why he cannot be a 15-game winner this season.
