The Mystery of Travis Wood

The mystery of Travis Wood

Before yesterday’s game, I heard the word inconsistent before most every mention of Travis Wood’s name.  He actually has been in a consistent pattern of alternating quality starts with disaster starts (more ER than IP) every other time.  Good thing yesterday was the quality start turn and he delivered on schedule.  I am going to look a bit deeper into Travis Wood to see if we can tell more about his hot/cold start.

Travis Wood 2011 Starts

4/2 (7ip,1er, 0bb, 7k, 1hr)

4/8 (5ip,6er,2bb,4k,0hr)

4/13 (6.2ip,1er,3bb,5k,0hr)

4/18 (3.1ip,6er,1bb,3k,0hr)

4/23(6.1ip,3er,1bb,5k,1hr)

Is it bad luck?

                Overall Travis Wood's ERA is 5.40.  His xFIP (expected ERA with average defense and   10.5% of FB turn into HRs) is 3.70. His career ERA is 3.93 and career xFIP is 3.91.  So I think it is safe to say that he has been unlucky to thus far to be at a 5.40 ERA.

                Adding up his lines in the quality/disaster starts we get this:

Quality Starts: 20ip, 4bb, 17k, 2hr, 17H

Disaster Start: 8.1ip, 3bb, 7k, 0hr, 15H

From those two lines we can see his strikeout rate is about the same in both lines but he is walking more in the disaster starts.  He is also having a lot more balls fall for hits in the disaster starts.  So luck plays a role but his walks are not helping his cause either.

Pitch F/X  

                Below is Travis’s Pitch F/X data for 2010 per thanks to Texas Leaguers Pitch F/X site.   Last year Travis was throwing his 90MPH four seem fastball (FF) almost 2/3 of the time.  See the bottom of the posting for a pitch type key.

Primary Stuff

                The four seamer is Travis’s primary pitch.  One thing that stands out is he did not rely on it over 50% in the first and the third games.  We’ll see more on what he did in those two games in the secondary stuff section.   Nothing besides that usage pattern nothing seems to stand out on his primary fastball. 

Secondary stuff

                Below is a chart of all secondary pitches that Travis pitched over 10% of the time in his 2011 starts.  In the first game he was throwing his four seam fastball and his cutter for over 80% strikes.  He was obviously emulating his off-season workout partner Cliff Lee and he even got Lee like results.   Too bad that lasted only one game.

               In the third game he threw the change 22% of the time and mixed his pitches more.  He was effective with the change getting 6 whiffs.  I guess in this start he decided to emulate team mate Edison Volquez and it worked to get him a quality start.

 

Overall

                I think overall Travis is just fine.  He seems to have had two outings where he had better than Travis Wood stuff on 4/2 and 4/13.  The others days Travis Wood looked like an average Travis Wood.   When Travis is average his results will be well about a 4.00 ERA pitcher which will give you a quality start often but sometimes the balls will fall in as he is not overpowering. 

                Seeing this I feel good about what we have seen in Travis Wood thus far.  Only suggestion is we should send him between starts to the Phillies to see if he can emulate Cliff Lee some more.

Pitch Types Key

FA           Fastball

FF           4-seam Fastball

FT           2-seam Fastball

FC           Cut Fastball

SI            Sinker

SL            Slider

CU          Curveball

CH          Change-up