Hector Rondon: How Bad Has He Really Been?

Hector Rondon recently got his first win of the season on Thursday. Skimming the game recap, you might think that he had a good outing, he did get a Win afterall and he struck out 8 batters. But, when you look a little closer you see that he gave up 5 runs on 9 hits over only 6 innings. On top of that, he yielded 4 home runs and continued his homer-prone ways of 2010 with his worst episode yet.

Just like we all know that Wins and Losses mean little when evaluating a pitcher, so too do a lot of stats when looked at for only 6 starts and when looked at out of context. Everyone was worried about Rondon's HR's given up before this most recent outing and then he goes and gives up four in one night. This seemed like cause for concern and I could hardly believe it myself. I started looking at his 6 starts over the 2010 season and found some interesting items:

2010 (AAA): 1-3, 8.79 ERA, 1.849 WHIP, 28.2 IP, 9BB, 30K, 44H, 12HR

That's not pretty. He has been giving up hits and HR's at a very high rate. His ERA, WHIP and W-L record are all being dragged right along with those two items. Giving up HR's is largely dependent on the pitcher's ability to reduce the # of balls put in play (by racking up strikeouts) and by inducing ground balls on the balls that are put in play. The easiest thing to look at is his Rondon's K totals, so we'll tackle that first: 30 in 28.2 IP. That's very good. On top of that, he isn't walking anyone either, so the K's aren't coming as a result of nibbling on the corners and getting some called strike threes but also getting a lot of ball four's as well. His K:BB ratio is 3.33, and K/9 is 9.4 which is also very good. Just for everyone's reference, Stephen Strasburg has a 10.6 K/9.

OK, so Rondon can get strikeouts. But why is he giving up so many hits and home runs on the relatively few balls that are put in play? This is where I had to roll back the tape and look at all of Rondon's starts batter by batter. Over his 6 starts in 2010, Hector Rondon has faced 138 batters which resulted in:

Hector Rondon, 2010 Batted Ball Outcomes:
36 GB's, 39 FB's, 19 LD's, 4 PU's, 9BB's, 1 HBP and 30 K's

Hector Rondon has given up 44 hits in his 28.2 IP, which is an average of 13.8 H/9. This is surprising, because only 98 batters have actually put the ball in play. Could it be that hitters are just teeing off on this historically hard to hit pitcher or could it be that Rondon has just been extraordinarily unlucky so far? The first thing to look at when dealing with luck is of course his BABIP:

2010 BABIP = .370
xBABIP = .300
Hector is suffering though about .070 points higher than the “luck-neutral” .300 BABIP that one would expect. If Rondon was luck-neutral he would have given up ~18 fewer hits on the season. His WHIP would be a pretty darn good 1.22 instead of a horrible 1.84. Things are looking a little better already.

Of the 138 batters faced, 98 of them have put the ball in play and only 36 have been ground balls for a slightly below-average 37% GB rate, but this shouldn't yield the home run rate he is currently giving up. Rondon has been cruising around a consistent 43% for most of his career and there is no reason to believe that over the course of the season he won't further revert back to that level. However, there is something to note about the ground balls he has been inducing this year:

2010 GBBABIP = .305
xGBBABIP = .240

As a component of his overall BABIP his GBBABIP (ground ball BABIP) is at .305 compared to an expected rate of .240. Expect this to regress a little too and further make Rondon's outcomes (W-L, ERA, WHIP, H/9) look even better.

Things are starting to look better, yes. But they still aren't looking that great and we still haven't addressed the 12-home run gorilla sitting in the corner. Look at it, just sitting there, ruining our fantastic daydreams of a successful and potentially dominant 22 year old, durable starter. Of the 12 HR's given up by Rondon, 11 were recorded as FB's and the other HR came on a LD. This means that 11 out of 39 FB's given up have left the park so far this year, which is a ridiculous 28.2% HR/FB rate. Just for your reference, the MLB leader in HR/FB over the past 3 years is Ryan Howard at a 29.4% clip. This is just a guess, but the average batter faced by Rondon this year has not closely resembled Ryan Howard's prodigious power. If we look at the standard rate, which according to DIPS is around 11-12% (depending on your source), we can see that Rondon is giving up HR's at more than double the expected rate! This is bound to regress over the rest of the season and things are once again looking good and feeling good.

In addition to all of the above regressing to more normal rates and Rondon returning to his standard, persistent rate stat-alicious self, there is a synergistic benefit to the regression to the norm. As fewer men get on base, the HR's he does give up will have fewer men on base, the GB's that no longer get through will yield a few extra double-play opportunities, etc etc. Basically, once a couple things start going your way as a pitcher, everything starts rolling your way.

So the bottom line? Have patience. He is striking lots of men out, he is giving up very few free passes, he is recording ground-balls at an acceptable rate and he is the victim of some bad luck so far this season on his balls in play and lots of bad luck on his fly balls allowed. The 12 HR's this early in the season and 6 starts worth of high BABIP-against will mar his final season stat lines, but once the chips start falling his way, things should look just as promising as they did before the season got underway. Most importantly, we can all take our fingers off the panic buttons and crack a beer, because while Rondon hasn't been great, he certainly hasn't been bad and having a beer while we wait for his tide to turn sounds pretty darn good to me.

Posted in: Columbus,Hector Rondon