Positive outlook on Heilman (article)

[RammyFanny]

Not that I know what WHIFF is, but...

On Wednesday, the Mariners and Cubs brokered a three-player deal involving one of the biggest trading chips of the offseason, Aaron Heilman. His stock bottomed-out following a tumultuous 2008 season, when he and the rest of the Mets bullpen seemed destined to fail every time out. Heilman finished with a 5.21 ERA and a 1.59 WHIP, allowing 38% of inherited runners to score.

 

One ugly season aside, Heilman has always been an effective reliever with the ability to spot a few starts. The former 1st-round pick is unquestionably talented, with a plus arm and stuff that jumps off the pages of the WHIFF charts:

 

Pitch..........MPH.......WHIFF.....InK%....SLG%....%tile (WHIFF)

Fastball..... 93.387.... 0.185....... 0.48....0.453.....80

Slider........ 84.155.... 0.481....... 0.42....0.195.....97

Change......83.713.....0.422....... 0.33....0.462.....90

 

Those are WHIFF-rate percentiles of 80, 97, and 90, respectively. It is very, very rare for any pitcher to feature their entire repertoire in the upper quartile, let alone have two pitches in the top 10 percent. Heilman's bread-and-butter has always been his fastball-changeup combo, but it would've been difficult to predict his slider (a pitch he rarely threw in previous seasons) developing into killer (.195 SLG% against). The .481 WHIFF rate puts it only a couple spots below the gold standard sliders of Brad Lidge (.509) and Joba Chamberlain (.506).

 

Breaking down Heilman's repertoire a little further, we see there are some blemishes beneath the swing-and-miss allure. Heilman is consistently pitching outside of the strikezone. The InK% (In-Strikezone rate) of each of his pitches is below league average. Usually, a leading indicator of a breakout season is a newfound killer pitch with a strong InK%. It's safe to say Heilman has the killer pitches, but he's depending on hackers to chase them, rather than attacking within the zone.

 

Heilman does, however, compare very favorably with a guy who is now his teammate, Ryan Dempster. Like Heilman, Dempster was in starter/reliever limbo heading into last year, carrying the same "unreliable" tag after a rather disastrous season in relief. Both throw essentially the same three pitches (Dempster throws a unique split-change hybrid), with similar WHIFF structure:

 

Ryan Dempster - 2007

 

Pitch..........MPH.......WHIFF.....InK%....SLG%....%tile (WHIFF)

Fastball..... 92.041.... 0.127.......0.48....0.519.....38

Slider........ 86.326.... 0.316.......0.47....0.356.....53

Splitter.......83.156.....0.520.......0.31....0.218.....99

 

Like Heilman's slider in '08, Dempster's splitter shot to the top in '07. He threw this pitch close to 600 times in '08, allowing him to neutralize LHBs over the course of 206.2 innings. Heilman has the same weapons to get hitters out from both sides of the plate if he gets a crack at starting this season.

 

It's up to the Cubs. Many baseball observers have noted Heilman's delivery--specifically, his high elbow inversion and near-sidearm angle--as major handicaps to becoming a successful innings-eater.

 

Heilman, at the very least, can be an adequate swingman. He's got the change of scenery he wanted, now we'll see about the results. WHIFF says his 2009 campaign is a real good bet to look more like his 2005-2007 seasons than the one he had in '08.

http://blog.stats.com/2009/01/whiff_profile_aaron_heilman.html

[anabiono]

sweet article, i had never heard of whiff and ink

[Post Count Padder]

I posted this in the thread in transactions.

[TruffleShuffle]

interesting stuff. i did find the anger about the heilman trade from nsbb folks a little puzzling, since we gave up a lousy middle infielder who was out of options and a young pitcher who has gotten shelled in the big leagues so far, and we got a guy who was very good from 2005-07. i think he can be pretty useful, moreso than what we gave up to get him.

[Hairyducked Idiot]

Is WHIFF percentage of pitches swung and missed at?

 

And having a 99th percentile splitter is awesome regardless.

[Transmogrified Tiger]

Is WHIFF percentage of pitches swung and missed at?

 

And having a 99th percentile splitter is awesome regardless.

 

I'm pretty sure that's what it is. I found a link to a yahoo article talking about what WHIFF was, but the link was dead.

[Soul]

interesting stuff. i did find the anger about the heilman trade from nsbb folks a little puzzling, since we gave up a lousy middle infielder who was out of options and a young pitcher who has gotten shelled in the big leagues so far, and we got a guy who was very good from 2005-07. i think he can be pretty useful, moreso than what we gave up to get him.

 

For me it's not anger, just a little frustration because I would very much like the Cubs to begin developing some younger talent rather than trading all of them away.

 

But I'm not angry over the trade. And I'm certainly not going to fly off the handle over trading away Ronny Cedeno.

[TruffleShuffle]

interesting stuff. i did find the anger about the heilman trade from nsbb folks a little puzzling, since we gave up a lousy middle infielder who was out of options and a young pitcher who has gotten shelled in the big leagues so far, and we got a guy who was very good from 2005-07. i think he can be pretty useful, moreso than what we gave up to get him.

 

For me it's not anger, just a little frustration because I would very much like the Cubs to begin developing some younger talent rather than trading all of them away.

 

oh i agree with that, but there has been a lot of young talent contributing - soto, fontenot, theriot, a lot of the pitching staff. cedeno was a bum who was never going to be much of anything, and i don't think olson is going to be much either. i don't think the problem is that the cub have been trading away too much young talent, it's that they haven't found and developed young talent properly. most of the young guys they have who don't suck end up on the big club.