Rick Porcello Archives - River Avenue Blues

Scouting the ALDS Opposition: Rick Porcello

October 9, 2018 by Domenic Lanza

Rick Porcello had his standard season in 2018, continuing his tradition of somewhat boring consistency. Take a look at his 2018 and career averages side-by-side:

2018 – 191.1 IP, 2.3 BB/9, 8.9 K/9, 4.28 ERA, 102 ERA+, 4.01 FIP
Career – 205 IP, 2.1 BB/9, 6.6 K/9, 4.26 ERA, 101 ERA+, 4.02 FIP

His strikeout rates have been increasing gradually, but, with the exception of his Cy Young-winning 2016, Porcello has been the same guy year in and year out. And that guy has been effective against the Yankees throughout his career, posting a 3.11 ERA in 141.2 IP against the good guys, including a 2.31 ERA in 23.1 IP this season. Porcello’s four starts against the Yankees breakdown as follows:

April 12 – 7.0 IP, 2 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 6 K
May 9 – 5.1 IP, 8 H, 5 R, 3 BB, 3 K
August 3 – 9.0 IP, 1 H, 1 R, 0 BB, 9 K
September 30 – 2.0 IP, 0 H, 0 R, 1 BB, 2 K

It’s actually quite similar to Eovaldi’s splits, which I discussed yesterday – two ace-like performances, one dud, and an early exit in a meaningless game. And, much like Eovaldi, Porcello is seemingly better against the Yankees than any other team. Frustrating, isn’t it?

So how does Porcello ply his craft?

The 29-year-old righty is a five-pitch guy, working with a low-90s four-seamer, a low-90s sinker, a mid-80s slider, a low-80s change-up, and a mid-70s curveball. And that’s the mix that he’s worked with throughout his career – with one notable change in usage:

Porcello was a sinker-baller for the first eight or so years of his career, but has drifted away from the pitch over the last two years. It basically fell from between 40 and 50% of his offerings to a shade under 30% the last two years; and he’s replaced those sinkers with a little bit of everything. Though, his slider usage did go up significantly this year, and it has been his best pitch over the last two years.

If Porcello pitched the Yankees differently than other teams, it doesn’t really show. Brooks Baseball has him down for zero four-seamers on April 12 – but that happened in starts against the Blue Jays and Astros, as well. And he threw his normal distribution of fastballs in his other three starts. He didn’t throw a single sinker on May 9 but, again, that’s not an isolated incident, and he made up for it in other starts. Porcello’s pitch usage varies greatly on a game-by-game basis, so it’s difficult to draw much of anything from such a vantage point.

It’s also worth noting that Porcello has historically thrived on extra rest, which is how he’ll be working tonight. He had a 2.56 ERA in 6 starts with 6+ days of rest this year, and has a 3.42 ERA in 48 starts with extra rest for his career. That being said, this isn’t quite extra rest, as he did throw 15 pitches on Friday. It may have been his normal throwing day, but there’s a huge difference between a bullpen session and pitching to Miguel Andujar, Gary Sanchez, and Gleyber Torres in a playoff game.

Porcello did fall-off in the second half this season, though. His ERA rose by 0.41 runs, his FIP jumped by 0.60, and his home run per flyball rate increased by 7.1 percentage points. He also has a career 5.33 ERA in 25.1 postseason innings, for what it’s worth. And – and this is a big ‘and’ – he’s a historically average pitcher. This isn’t an ace that has the Yankees number; this is someone that they’ve beaten up on before, and there’s no reason they can’t do so again.

Let’s stay alive, gentlemen.

2014 Winter Meetings Open Thread: Thursday

December 11, 2014 by Mike 1,569 Comments

Thanks to the Dodgers, yesterday was by far the busiest day of the Winter Meetings. They made four trades and also agreed to a four-year contract with Brandon McCarthy, so he is no longer a pitching option for the Yankees. There are still plenty of quality pitchers left on the free agent market but they’re starting to come off the board pretty quickly, so the Bombers can’t sit around and wait much longer to act.

The Winter Meetings have been relatively quiet for the Yankees. On Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday we learned they continue to say they won’t bid for Max Scherzer, will give Chase Headley four years in exchange for a lower annual salary, have talked to a few teams (Braves, Royals, Marlins) about bullpen help, and have some level of interest in Stephen Drew, Sergio Romo, Jason Grilli, and Rafael Soriano. Today’s the last day of the Winter Meetings and we’ll keep track of all the day’s Yankees-related rumors right here, so make sure you check back throughout the day. All timestamps are ET.

4:33pm: The Yankees did contact the Diamondbacks about Wade Miley and the Tigers about Rick Porcello before they were traded to the Red Sox. “Did I call Arizona? Yes. Did I call Detroit? Yes. I didn’t have Cespedes to send to Detroit. We are waiting for something we are comfortable with.,” said Brian Cashman. [George King]
2:02pm: Ervin Santana is currently finalizing a four-year, $54M deal with the Twins. The contract includes a fifth year vesting option based on innings pitched. Scratch him off the list of available pitchers. [Jeff Passan]
1:56pm: It’s unlikely Chase Headley will pick a team today. Earlier this week it was reported he would likely pick a club before the end of the Winter Meetings. So we wait. [Joel Sherman]
1:35pm: “There are still players in the market place who are attractive to us at the position they play,” said assistant GM Billy Eppler in the most generic Yankees quote ever. They’ve mastered the art of saying something and nothing at the same time. [Brendan Kuty]
1:06pm: Brian Cashman confirmed the Yankees never did make an offer to Brandon McCarthy. “I figured the market would take him at a level that we couldn’t play on,” said the GM. [Bryan Hoch]
12:53pm: A team official said the Yankees are “definitely not” chasing Max Scherzer. We’ll see. I will never truly believe the Yankees are out on a big time free agent until the player signs with another team. [Bob Klapisch]
12:23pm: The Yankees are active in the trade market but are unwilling to give up their top prospects for a pitcher they would only control for one year, like Jordan Zimmermann or Johnny Cueto. [Joel Sherman]
9:37am: The Yankees are “kicking the tires” on Ervin Santana. The Twins are pushing hard to sign him and are reportedly offering four years though. Santana is probably the third best available starter right now behind Scherzer and James Shields. [Chris Cotillo & Jon Heyman]
9:30am: Brian Cashman confirmed the Yankees spoke to the Dodgers about Dee Gordon and the Phillies about Jimmy Rollins before they were traded yesterday. Neither conversation went very far. We heard about their interest in Rollins a few weeks ago, but the interest in Gordon is new. [Dan Barbarisi]
The Rule 5 Draft is at 12pm ET today and Cashman said the Yankee are unlikely to make a selection. They have three open 40-man spots but prefer to keep them open for flexibility. Lame. [Chad Jennings]

2011 ALDS: Previewing Rick Porcello

October 4, 2011 by Mike 90 Comments

With their season on the line, the Yankees will face a local kid in tonight’s Game Four. Rick Porcello, a graduate of Seton Hall Prep in West Orange, already has three full big league seasons to his credit despite being a professional for just four years. He didn’t spend a single day in either Double-A or Triple-A before cracking the Tigers’ opening day rotation in 2009, and the lack of experience has shown a bit. Although this will be his first career playoff start, Porcello did pitch well (two runs in 5.2 IP) in Game 163 against the Twins as a rookie.

Performance

A true ground ball reliant pitcher (we’ll get to why in a bit), Porcello owns a 4.75 ERA with a 4.06 FIP and 4.02 xFIP in his career. The ERA is obviously poor, but the peripheral-based stats are almost exactly league average during his three-year career. He doesn’t miss bats (4.84 K/9 career) but he doesn’t walk anyone (2.38 BB/9 career), and obviously he gets a bunch of grounders (51.9% career). His 2011 performance is right in line with his career totals (5.14 K/9, 2.27 BB/9, and 51.4% grounders).

Still just 22 years old, Porcello has shown no home/road split during his career simply because he doesn’t give up enough fly balls for Comerica Park’s spacious outfielder to matter. Left-handers have hit him substantially better both this year and over his career though, and we’ll look at why right now.

Pitch Selection

(via Texas Leaguers and FanGraphs)

After taking Porcello in the first round of the 2007 draft, the Tigers sent him to High Class-A in 2008 and put him on a pitch count. In an effort to pitch deeper into games, the right-hander developed a two-seamer to get quick ground ball outs, and that’s been his approach ever since. Once a power pitcher with two swing-and-miss pitches in his four-seamer and slider, Porcello is now essentially a sinkerballer by choice.

Two two-pitch pitchers like Max Scherzer, Porcello uses a fastball-slider approach against righties and fastball-changeup against lefties. He uses his curve so infrequently that it’s not worth mentioning. At more than a full run worse than average (per 100 thrown), Porcello’s changeup is his worst pitch, and that’s why he struggles against lefties. He has to get them out with his fastball, the changeup just isn’t good enough to consistently rely on. All of his other pitches are right around league average, close enough that it’s not worth getting worked up over.

Pitching Pattern

(via FanGraphs)

The XX pitch is an undefined pitch by PitchFX, the system was unable to classify it. Perhaps it’s a slurve or cement-mixer changeup, something that doesn’t fit into one of the other pitch categories. A junk pitch. At 3-9% in the various counts, he throws a decent amount of them.

Like most sinkerballers, Porcello is very fastball heavy, even with two strikes. His first pitch strike percentage has increased every season of his career (61.4% in 2011 compared to the 59.4% league average), so he does a decent job of getting ahead of hitters. Not an extraordinary job though, the Yankees will be able to work the count a little bit more than they were against Justin Verlander, who seemed to be 0-1 then 0-2 on everybody. Porcello will let them put the ball in play and that’s a good thing, the Tigers have a shaky infield defense (especially at short and at first) and you want to force those guys to make the plays. If the sinker’s really working, it could be a long night for the offense. If not, Porcello will have to battle for every out. The latter has been true more often than the former in his career.