Timo Dooley and the 2045 Nebraska Race
Posted: Sun Jan 31, 2021 11:09 am
On the latest BBA today podcast, episode 83, Aaron Weiner and I spent time talking about Timo Dooley, Omaha’s 25 year old ace. Aaron noted that Dooley had posted a gaudy 23-win record, yet was still down the ballot in this year’s Nebraska award voting. Along the way I postulated what that Dooley’s peripheral “stathead” numbers might be impacted by the team's propensity to let him throw late into games. Dooley led the league with 11 complete games in 2045, this after having led the League last year with six.
Timo Dooley
WorkhorseThe idea here being that perhaps Dooley’s case for the Nebraska was a matter of having sacrificed himself for the good of the cyclones, in that if he pitched less often into the 8th and 9th innings those stat head numbers might look even better than they do now.
It should be noted that merely gathering any votes for the Nebraska immediately places a pitcher into a fairly elite category, and that awards are not everything. Still, they're fun to look at and, in the rare case of Hall of Fame kinds of players, these things do make an impact. Or at least can matter.
So, let's take a look at Timo Dooley's numbers this year.
First and foremost, it should be noted or must be noted that 2045 was a very good year for Timo Dooley. At 25 he seemed to come into his own, posting a 3.08 ERA against a lifetime 3.88, and throwing 248 innings, a number that represents a steady climb year over year. He struck out a career best 184 hitters while posting, also a career best, .253 BABIP. His WHIP dropped to 1.01. Add it up and you get 5.5 WAR and an ERA+ of 155. So, yes, it was a very good year to be Timo Dooley. A very good year indeed.
But let's break this down in groups of innings, specifically the first three innings then middle three innings and then the last three innings. I pulled data from my game log script and compared it to the OOTP stats lines to confirm the numbers matched up. Here are the core results data that hitters created against Dooley in each of those groups of innings.
Those are interesting of course but standing alone they don't tell us a whole lot. Or at least they don't really let us understand the real effectiveness of Dooley over those time periods. So let's do a little bit of math and come up with rate information.
Now maybe we're getting somewhere.
First things first we note that Dooley threw 742 pitches in those last three innings the number roughly half of what he threw in the other groupings. Not surprising of course, he did not pitch into the ninth inning every game he threw. So, before we get going too far into this it should be noted that the weighting of his performance in the last three innings is about half of the other innings when it comes to final numbers. At this elite level, though, even a tiny fade can make a difference. Dooley is going against guys like Alaric Wullenweber and Danya Tchekanov after all. Every little bit helps.
So let's scan the table.
I was surprised to see his pitches per batters faced actually fell in each grouping but fell off dramatically in innings 7 through 9 roughly 3.6 to 3.3. Given what we will see as we go further, I postulate that hitters get to him earlier in the count. I've not done a look count by count to see if hitters got Dooley into more hitter friendly counts earlier, but it seems logical. From a “game” standpoint this question raises all sorts of new questions that I'm not even going to attempt to address at this point. Instead, let's just have fun with baseball.
So, scanning further we see the slash line against Dooley in that last grouping of innings jumped fairly substantially.
I should note here that I think it would be extremely dangerous to make an assumption that any patterns we're seeing in Dooley's performance have any relevance to any other pitcher, or perhaps even to any other season in Dooley's record. While it feels logical, the fact is that I just don't know. It is possible, more than possible, at this one data point is merely that. One data point.
I should also note that Dooley’s OPS in the less set of innings is not really any worse than in the opening frames. It turns out that this is probably because his home run rate actually fell in the 7th through ninth innings, dropping from .04 two .029 two .025 in the three stages we're looking at. Noting sample size, one wonders whether Dooley just got lucky regarding home runs. If I were so inclined, I would dig through the list of hitters he faced in those innings to see if perhaps they were disproportionately hitters of lower power.
It's an interesting question though because his strikeout rate dropped fairly dramatically in the late innings, and his BABIP also rose dramatically. This seems a little bit counter intuitive to the HR rate drop because when we think of a picture losing his stuff one would expect home runs and BABIP to increase. Of course, again, I don't know how realistic that assumption is. That's just how I think.
Regardless, the information is interesting when it comes to the question of whether or not Timo Dooley is sacrificing Nebraska positioning for the good of the team. Because, let's face it, even though it seems like many of his rate statistics grow worse in those late innings, they are still quite good. A pitcher who allows an OPS of .683 in any set of frames is still bring some pretty good stuff to the table. League average is .777 after all.
I posit here that it is fair to think voters are penalizing Dooley due to those later innings were some of his stat head rates fall, though. I suggest that one could say the issue is with the voters and how we value inning count, or perhaps better said how we struggle to comprehend usage patterns. It’s interesting to note both Wullenweber and Tchekanov threw exactly 212 innings. Would either look quite as stout if they had an additional 36 “fatigued” innings tacked onto the back of their numbers?
These are fun questions.
It is hard after all to make these kinds of evaluations and, even if we had perfect knowledge, we would still be faced with making trade-offs that are hard to make. As much as we would like things to be “simple math,” the world does not work that way.
All we can say for certain is that Timo Dooley had a spectacular season, and that if his numbers in 2045 represent a true growth Heartland hitters are in for some serious hurting in 2046.
Timo Dooley
Workhorse
It should be noted that merely gathering any votes for the Nebraska immediately places a pitcher into a fairly elite category, and that awards are not everything. Still, they're fun to look at and, in the rare case of Hall of Fame kinds of players, these things do make an impact. Or at least can matter.
So, let's take a look at Timo Dooley's numbers this year.
First and foremost, it should be noted or must be noted that 2045 was a very good year for Timo Dooley. At 25 he seemed to come into his own, posting a 3.08 ERA against a lifetime 3.88, and throwing 248 innings, a number that represents a steady climb year over year. He struck out a career best 184 hitters while posting, also a career best, .253 BABIP. His WHIP dropped to 1.01. Add it up and you get 5.5 WAR and an ERA+ of 155. So, yes, it was a very good year to be Timo Dooley. A very good year indeed.
But let's break this down in groups of innings, specifically the first three innings then middle three innings and then the last three innings. I pulled data from my game log script and compared it to the OOTP stats lines to confirm the numbers matched up. Here are the core results data that hitters created against Dooley in each of those groups of innings.
| Timo Dooley | |||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Inning | BF | 1B | 2B | 3B | HR | K | FO | GO | FC-Out | E | CI | BB | HBP | Sac | (blank) |
| 1-3 | 396 | 57 | 13 | 3 | 15 | 77 | 109 | 96 | 1 | 2 | 1 | 17 | 3 | 1 | 1 |
| 4-6 | 363 | 43 | 13 | 2 | 10 | 75 | 85 | 108 | 1 | 3 | 0 | 18 | 4 | 0 | 1 |
| 7-9 | 223 | 38 | 8 | 1 | 5 | 32 | 49 | 70 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 8 | 6 | 2 | 4 |
Those are interesting of course but standing alone they don't tell us a whole lot. Or at least they don't really let us understand the real effectiveness of Dooley over those time periods. So let's do a little bit of math and come up with rate information.
| Timo Dooley | ||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Inning | Pitches | P/BF | AB | H | AVG | OBP | SLG | OPS | BABIP | K/AB | HR/AB | BB/PA |
| 1-3 | 1449 | 3.66 | 373 | 88 | 0.236 | 0.274 | 0.408 | 0.682 | 0.260 | 0.206 | 0.040 | 0.043 |
| 4-6 | 1318 | 3.63 | 340 | 68 | 0.200 | 0.249 | 0.338 | 0.587 | 0.227 | 0.221 | 0.029 | 0.050 |
| 7-9 | 742 | 3.33 | 203 | 52 | 0.256 | 0.304 | 0.379 | 0.683 | 0.283 | 0.158 | 0.025 | 0.037 |
Now maybe we're getting somewhere.
First things first we note that Dooley threw 742 pitches in those last three innings the number roughly half of what he threw in the other groupings. Not surprising of course, he did not pitch into the ninth inning every game he threw. So, before we get going too far into this it should be noted that the weighting of his performance in the last three innings is about half of the other innings when it comes to final numbers. At this elite level, though, even a tiny fade can make a difference. Dooley is going against guys like Alaric Wullenweber and Danya Tchekanov after all. Every little bit helps.
So let's scan the table.
I was surprised to see his pitches per batters faced actually fell in each grouping but fell off dramatically in innings 7 through 9 roughly 3.6 to 3.3. Given what we will see as we go further, I postulate that hitters get to him earlier in the count. I've not done a look count by count to see if hitters got Dooley into more hitter friendly counts earlier, but it seems logical. From a “game” standpoint this question raises all sorts of new questions that I'm not even going to attempt to address at this point. Instead, let's just have fun with baseball.
So, scanning further we see the slash line against Dooley in that last grouping of innings jumped fairly substantially.
I should note here that I think it would be extremely dangerous to make an assumption that any patterns we're seeing in Dooley's performance have any relevance to any other pitcher, or perhaps even to any other season in Dooley's record. While it feels logical, the fact is that I just don't know. It is possible, more than possible, at this one data point is merely that. One data point.
I should also note that Dooley’s OPS in the less set of innings is not really any worse than in the opening frames. It turns out that this is probably because his home run rate actually fell in the 7th through ninth innings, dropping from .04 two .029 two .025 in the three stages we're looking at. Noting sample size, one wonders whether Dooley just got lucky regarding home runs. If I were so inclined, I would dig through the list of hitters he faced in those innings to see if perhaps they were disproportionately hitters of lower power.
It's an interesting question though because his strikeout rate dropped fairly dramatically in the late innings, and his BABIP also rose dramatically. This seems a little bit counter intuitive to the HR rate drop because when we think of a picture losing his stuff one would expect home runs and BABIP to increase. Of course, again, I don't know how realistic that assumption is. That's just how I think.
Regardless, the information is interesting when it comes to the question of whether or not Timo Dooley is sacrificing Nebraska positioning for the good of the team. Because, let's face it, even though it seems like many of his rate statistics grow worse in those late innings, they are still quite good. A pitcher who allows an OPS of .683 in any set of frames is still bring some pretty good stuff to the table. League average is .777 after all.
I posit here that it is fair to think voters are penalizing Dooley due to those later innings were some of his stat head rates fall, though. I suggest that one could say the issue is with the voters and how we value inning count, or perhaps better said how we struggle to comprehend usage patterns. It’s interesting to note both Wullenweber and Tchekanov threw exactly 212 innings. Would either look quite as stout if they had an additional 36 “fatigued” innings tacked onto the back of their numbers?
These are fun questions.
It is hard after all to make these kinds of evaluations and, even if we had perfect knowledge, we would still be faced with making trade-offs that are hard to make. As much as we would like things to be “simple math,” the world does not work that way.
All we can say for certain is that Timo Dooley had a spectacular season, and that if his numbers in 2045 represent a true growth Heartland hitters are in for some serious hurting in 2046.