Game 4 Pitching Match Up Drill Down
Hi folks — Harry Doyle here with your game 4 pitching match up analysis.
Game 4 brings back the Indians’ Corey Kluber coming off a win in game 1. Kluber faces the Cubs’ John Lackey who is sitting on 10 days of rest since his last start v. the Dodgers in the NLCS.
Things to consider:
John Lackey is no stranger to the post-season, with 25 post seasons games played, including two World Series appearances (2002 w/Boston, 2013 w/Anaheim). He has also been in the league 8 more years than Kluber and is older by the same amount.
The Cubs have already seen Kluber, so they have a feel for his “stuff”.
Lackey will more than likely only pitch 4 innings, barring him performing well.
This is a must win game for the Cubs — for many reasons. If they don’t win tonight they will have to win three in a row AND will more than likely would Kluber again in game 7.
I looked at Lackey v. Kluber focusing on regular season and post season performance. Net-net it’s a really close race, but Kluber is slightly better when it comes to hits per batters H/BF faced in the post season. Bah — this isn’t too helpful — let’s look at more data. (See next section).
Pressure v. performance
This graph below is the ratio of Vaughn Score over Haywood Score. The Vaughn Score is a function of control control, accuracy, and outcome. The Haywood score is a function of lead threat [(lead-runners)*batter strength], psychological baggage (hits in innings, types of hits, errors, walks, …) scaled by the remaining time game.
Lackey in Cubs blue has two interesting data points. One, he had 9 games this season where he performed very poorly, specifically where he had low pressure and resulting poor Vaughn scores. Two, when compared to Kluber, the majority of Lackey’s games show him with higher. This is an indication that he has better count control. Kluber has a tendency to work the count a bit harder (takes more risks). Notice though that Kluber did not have any train-wrecks during the season.
If Lackey brings his control and stays in control, we could have a tight fight in the first few frames. If he doesn’t, well… Chicago we might have a problem.
One more thing. John Lackey has a career batting average of .104 on 204 PAs: 6H, 2DB, 2BB.
Corey Kluber has a career batting average of .250 with only 4AB for 1H.
This is worth mentioning, as Lackey might be able to get a hit in the early innings to avoid stalling the lineup momentum of the Cubs.
Note: You can build these yourself by plowing through this document and hacking on BigQuery and Datalab. Thanks to my friends at Sportradar for the help.
