So a couple of days ago, I check out my H2H league team to see that a trade was offered to me. Some people get excited when an offer lands in their inbox; however, I just kind of raise my eyebrows thinking “what lopsided trade will i get offered this time?” Anyhow, the offer turned out to be his Kyle Lohse for my James Shields. I laughed, quickly rejected, and proceeded to chide him on our message board, nominating it as one of the worst offers of the season. But given Lohse’s first half, was it really such a bad offer?

Lohse posted a 4.62 ERA last year, a 5.83 (!!) ERA the previous year, and sports a poor 4.68 career ERA and 1.41 WHIP. He’s always somehow managed to keep that “pitcher with potential” tag as his stuff seems better than what his ERAs typically would suggest. On the surface, it would appear that Lohse is finally making good on the promise all Twins fans once thought he had, putting up a sparkling 3.35 ERA and 1.25 WHIP to go along with a shocking 12-2 W/L record.

Let’s take a closer look at the skills as you’re surely now accustomed to doing as a loyal FBGenerals reader. His K/9 is at the 2nd lowest of his career, coming in at just 4.49, compared with a 5.56 career rate. That’s one X against him. On the positive side, he has cut his BB/9 to the 2nd lowest of his career to 2.21, compared to a 2.76 career mark. Last, and the best news of all, is that Lohse has suddenly become a groundball pitcher, something we seem to be seeing a lot of this year. He’s getting grounders at a 47.6% clip, and only allowing 31.5% fly balls, versus careers rates of 41.5% and 37.8%, respectively. This new groundball approach has had a huge impact on his HR/9 as it’s dropped to just 0.64 from a 1.16 career rate.

Moving on from the skills, let’s take a quick peek at his pitch selection and average velocities. All his velocities are in normal range of past seasons, except for his slider which is down about 1.5 MPH from last season. The big changes, though, have been in his pitch selection. He’s now throwing his fastball 60.2% of the time, up from 52.6% last year and 55.7% in 2006. He’s basically swapped out his change up in favor of throwing more fastballs, as his change is down from 18.1% last year to just 10.8% this year. The interesting thing about this pitch selection change is that over the last 4 years, the trend in his fastball percentage versus his groundball rate had a correlation of .93, as in the more fastballs he throws, the more grounders he has induced. Now, I’m not a mathematician, nor remember much from my stats class, so I really can’t be sure if correlation equals causation in this instance, but I thought it was interesting to ponder.

Last, I’m going to check out his luck metrics. Lohse has a .287 BABIP, versus a .308 career rate and .302 Cardinals team BABIP, so this number should probably rise. His LOB% (strand rate) is at 74.6%, well within a normal range, but the 3rd highest of his career and much higher than his 70.8% career rate. The smart money would bet this number falls, but it wouldn’t be unreasonable if it remained this high. Last is his HR/F, which comes in at just 6.8%, versus his career rate of exactly 10%. Hopefully this has just turned on the alarm bells for all of you. Finally, we get to the biggest reason for his surprising 3.35 ERA. Looking at park factors, the new Busch Stadium sports a .894 HR factor, according to ESPN.com, meaning it has suppressed about 10%-11% of homers this year. In its short history, the park has also suppressed homers in previous years, so it looks like this is the norm.

So the bottom line is, clearly Lohse isn’t sustaining a 3.35 ERA, which I don’t think anyone actually expects him to. Even a sub-4.00 ERA might be difficult to pull off given his pathetic strikeout rate. However, I do think he could continue to post a low 4 ERA and maintain some positive value in NL-Only leagues, despite his 4.50 xFIP, which I don’t think adjusts for his park and therefore would expect full HR/F regression. Lohse’s performance so far does give me an opportunity to brag a little bit and whip out the article on the Cardinals that I wrote as part of the Five Players series before the season. In it, I included Lohse, recommended him in NL-Only leagues, and cited his new home park’s HR-reducing ways as something that Kyle would benefit from.  

Questions, comments, criticisms, praise, expert league invitations? Email me at FBGeneralsMike@gmail.com.