Some bipolarness over at Fangraphs on Lannan (yes, I still cite them too much, but I don't see the signature line anymore).
First, from Matthew Carruth's piece on pitchers who rely on their defense for their good numbers (ed. note - Nats defense helpful? WTF?):
"John Lannan, the 24-year-old lefty seemed poised for a good season this year after some encouraging trends last year in his ability to throws strikes, miss bats and keep the ball on the ground. The strike throwing and the ground ball rate have at least remained stable, but the missed bats are down a whole two points and the home run rate remains elevated. Lannan is young and under team control for awhile, but I might consider moving him if I were the Nationals and could trick some team into giving up a haul of prospects for his shiny ERA."
http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/index.php/letting-others-do-the-workThen there is this piece of Lannan love from Dave Cameron. While the main focus of the piece starts with a discussion of Chad Jenkins, it starts with a paen to grounball pitchers like Lannan, whose skills get overlooked by some geeks but not others:
"If you’ve been reading the site for a while, you’ve probably figured out that I like groundball pitchers. Due to the emphasis placed on strikeout rates as a predictor of future success, too many sinkerball strike throwers have been overlooked as prospects on their way to success on the majors, and too often, their ability to get outs is dismissed as a fluke because they don’t generate an above average amount of swinging strikes. However, when you see guys like Aaron Cook, Jake Westbrook, Paul Maholm, and John Lannan consistently keep runs off the board, it becomes easier to realize that there’s a path to success that doesn’t involve high strikeout rates.
"However, there’s a downside to being an extreme groundball pitcher. Most of the guys who rack up tons of groundballs rely heavily on their two seam fastball, and as Dave Allen showed with Pitch F/x data, the two seamer has the largest platoon split of any pitch in baseball. It is a terrific pitch against same-handed hitters, but it’s not much of a weapon against opposite handed hitters. Scouts have intuitively known this for a long time, which is why so many sinker-slider guys gets pigeonholed as relievers, where they can be used in situations where the platoon problem can be minimized.
"If a groundball pitcher has a good change-up (or split finger, or even a curve in some cases - vertical movement is the key), he can neutralize opposite handed hitters and be an effective starting pitcher. However, without that off-speed pitch, he’s probably destined for the bullpen or a Vicente Padilla career path (check out his career L/R splits some time)."
http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/index.php/chad-jenkins/So, in sum, the stat-head analysis says John Lannan's ability is either underrated or overrated.
