2017 Atlanta Braves Season Preview: Right-Handed Relief Pitcher Mauricio Cabrera

To the surprise of many, Atlanta Braves’ reliever Mauricio Cabrera played the best baseball of his professional career in the majors last season as a rookie. Why the success? Can he continue it?

Yes, Aroldis Chapman is going to be mentioned in this piece. No, I’m not saying that Mauricio Cabrera is the next Aroldis Chapman. However…

As far as fastball velocity goes, these two are in a category of their own. However, velocity isn’t everything– especially when it doesn’t amount to a lot of swing-and-misses.

Last season, Aroldis Chapman was 5th in all of baseball in K%, at 40.5%. Mauricio Cabrera, on the other hand, was 165th among relievers with at least 30 IP with a 19.8 K%. So why did Mauricio Cabrera have such difficulty striking batters out?

Michael Francis, of FanGraphs, was pondering this same question and wrote about it earlier this month.

His first theory– perceived velocity:

I first thought that maybe his perceived velocity is not as great as his actual velocity, and sure enough Cabrera does gets very little extension toward the plate when he delivers the ball. He only extends about six feet toward the plate before he releases the ball, which is a full foot shorter than fellow reliever, Zach McAllister, and several inches shorter than average for fastball-heavy relievers. This lack of extension means that the velocity that the batter perceives is slower than the actual velocity coming out of Cabrera’s hand, because it has farther to travel before it gets to the plate. However, this is only a minor difference, as Cabrera’s perceived velocity is still above 100 mph. This is not a huge drop, but it does bring him closer to the pack, as many relievers get good extension that increases their perceived velocities above their actual velocities.

Francis later mentions that Chapman, inversely, extends much more to home plate before he releases the ball, which actually increases   his perceived velocity.

However, there’s more to it. Francis’s next theory– spin rate:

Spin rates correlate quite strongly with strikeout rates. Pitchers with high spin rates on their fastballs typically generate more swings and misses, and thus more strikeouts. It turns out that Mauricio Cabrera does have a low spin rate on his fastball. His fastball spin rate of 2300 rpm is well below average for fastball-heavy relievers, which is probably a major reason why he doesn’t miss many bats.

Okay, now we’re getting somewhere.

Essentially, Cabrera doesn’t extend much towards home plate when he releases the ball, causing a drop in perceived velocity. Further, Cabrera’s balls carry a low spin rate. For these reasons, he doesn’t generate as many whiffs as are expected from someone with that   kind of velocity.

This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, though. Due to the low spin rate relative to velocity, Cabrera produces a lot of ground balls. In fact, 49.1% of batted balls vs. Cabrera were ground balls. As Francis explains, this is what happens when a pitcher has a low spin rate:

Just as high spin rates lead to strikeouts, low spin rates lead to ground balls. An average spin rate is really where you don’t want to be, as those are the pitches that get squared up more often. While Cabrera actually has an above-average spin rate for the entire population of major-league pitchers, his spin rate is one of the lowest in the league compared to his velocity.

Which means that we, as fans, shouldn’t just assume a guy is going to set the world on fire with his strikeout numbers just because his fastball averages 100+ MPH.

Unique: the best word to describe Cabrera

It’s entirely possible that if the Braves weren’t rebuilding and/or Arodys Vizcaino didn’t get hurt last season, Cabrera may still have zero major league innings.

This is a guy who struggled  in the minors. After signing with the Braves in 2011, Cabrera had a career minor-league ERA of 4.24  across multiple levels in 356.1 innings. His main obstacle: finding the strike zone.

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Just last season, before he got called up to the majors, Cabrera was a walk machine, with a BB/9 of 5.88  in 33.2 IP for the Mississippi Braves. Then, somehow, at the highest level of baseball, something clicked.

While his BB/9 of 4.46 with the major league squad last year isn’t great, it is the best he’s had at any level since playing Rookie-ball in 2012. Further, his 2.82 ERA was the best he’s ever sported.

He also gave up a total of zero home runs in his 41 major league appearances, even though he pitched to medium-to-hard contact 85.5% of the time. The infielders were  expecting  rocket ground-balls to come their way.

Plus, for whatever reason, Cabrera was better on the road, pitching to a 2.59 ERA in 23 appearances away from Atlanta. While this sample size is too small to assume it will continue, it could prove valuable if there’s something there.

2017 Prediction

Unless something fundamentally changes with how Mauricio Cabrera throws a baseball, the low strikeout rate will most likely carry on. As we’ve learned from Michael Francis, MPH isn’t everything.

The Braves have no reason to panic about this, either, because the defense (especially up-the-middle) figures to be very good starting in 2016. Bring on the hard-hit ground balls.

For this reason, Cabrera absolutely has the potential to become a stalwart in the Braves bullpen moving forward. It entirely hinges on his ability to cut down (or even sustain) his walk rate. As mentioned before, a 4.46 BB/9 isn’t turning any heads, but it can coincide with an ERA of, say, 2.82.

The Steamer and ZiPS predictions, found on FanGraphs’ website, have two entirely different ideas for how Cabrera’s 2017 season will play out.

According to ZiPS, Cabrera will come close to doubling his 2016 IP total, with 74.0 IP in 2017. They also believe that his ERA will rise to 4.05 while both his BB/9 and K/9 rise about one tick each to 5.52 and 8.47, respectively.

The Steamer prediction, on the other hand, has a much more conservative IP total of 55.0, to go along with a 3.89 ERA. They also believe that both Cabrera’s BB/9 and K/9 will rise in 2017. They estimate a big rise in K/9 to 9.83 K/9 and a 5.24 BB/9.

To me, the 74 IP figure is seemingly impossible. Although the Braves did have the 5th highest relief inning total in baseball last season at 567.1 IP, this probably won’t be the case this season. With the addition of multiple veteran starters in the offseason, a lot of stress should be taken off the bullpen in 2017. Plus, if Cabrera has anything close to a 4.05 ERA, why would Brian Snitker keep trotting him out there game-after-game?

The 3.89-4.05 ERA range does seem reasonable, though, as Cabrera gets to experience his first full season in which batters make adjustments to the pitchers as they seem them more often.

Also, it is my hope that the walk rate goes down next season, but, in all honesty, it shouldn’t be expected as it’s something Cabrera has struggled with his entire career.

Next: 2017 Braves Season Preview: Lefty Ian Krol

Note: It’ll be interesting to see how Cabrera develops in his first full season in the show. More importantly, though, it’ll be interesting to see if he can finally be the guy to take down Chapman for most 100+ MPH pitches in a season.