Your 2016 Giants: Cueto Fatigue

Continuing my series of posts on Cueto.  As I have been finding out, Cueto have splits, both by home vs. road, and first half vs. second half.  And those splits hold even when taking the two splits into account, both home and road gets worse in the second half.  The mysteries are two-fold:  why is he so much better in Cincinnati and why is he that much worse in the second half?

I don't think we can ever answer the former (my best guess is that there is something in the background of the stadium that works well with his deceptive pitching motion; there was an analysis long ago of why San Jose Municipal Stadium has a much higher strikeout rate and Giants hitters (including Bowker), noted that there were mountains in the background in CF that hid the ball in some visual haze plus also the sun would set in CF in the second half of the season and the hitter would be looking into the sun, so there was no hitter's eye, making it harder for the hitters to see the ball) but let's take a look at his monthly stats and see what's there.


ogc thoughts

I	Split	G	PA	AB	R	H	2B	3B	HR	SB	CS	BB	SO	SO/W	BA	OBP	SLG	OPS	TB	GDP	HBP	SH	SF	IBB	ROE	BAbip	tOPS+
	April/March	36	941	856	78	183	46	2	22	3	3	58	210	3.62	.214	.273	.349	.622	299	11	13	9	5	5	7	.256	82
	May	40	1078	975	100	216	50	4	27	6	8	75	217	2.89	.222	.282	.364	.646	355	24	10	11	7	4	11	.256	89
	June	40	1027	932	96	219	40	4	25	6	9	69	194	2.81	.235	.298	.367	.665	342	20	15	9	2	0	10	.271	95
	July	39	1039	918	103	231	43	5	17	3	7	86	201	2.34	.252	.324	.365	.688	335	20	14	16	5	2	16	.304	103
	August	35	903	818	92	199	40	4	30	5	3	55	194	3.53	.243	.305	.412	.717	337	12	20	6	4	1	5	.283	109
	Sept/Oct	38	949	859	108	236	48	5	24	2	8	69	167	2.42	.275	.335	.426	.762	366	21	12	4	5	3	5	.315	123

Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Original Table
Generated 4/14/2016.

I	Split	W	L	W-L%	ERA	G	GS	GF	CG	SHO	SV	IP	H	R	ER	HR	BB	IBB	SO	HBP	BK	WP	BF	WHIP	SO9	SO/W
	April/March	13	9	.591	2.84	36	36	0	2	1	0	234.1	183	78	74	22	58	5	210	13	5	4	941	1.028	8.1	3.62
	May	19	13	.594	2.93	40	40	0	4	2	0	267.1	216	100	87	27	75	4	217	10	3	2	1078	1.089	7.3	2.89
	June	21	10	.677	3.07	40	40	0	1	0	0	252.1	219	96	86	25	69	0	194	15	0	6	1027	1.141	6.9	2.81
	July	17	11	.607	3.38	39	39	0	3	2	0	242.1	231	103	91	17	86	2	201	14	2	2	1039	1.308	7.5	2.34
	August	16	13	.552	3.63	35	35	0	2	1	0	216.0	199	92	87	30	55	1	194	20	1	3	903	1.176	8.1	3.53
	Sept/Oct	12	14	.462	4.14	38	38	0	0	0	0	222.0	236	108	102	24	69	3	167	12	1	6	949	1.374	6.8	2.42

Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Original Table
Generated 4/14/2016.

Sometimes a chart tells a thousand words.  As one can see in his OPS, it just get steadily worse and worse, until he's pretty bad in Sept/Oct.  And his ERA mirrors that mostly, though as one can see, his OPS almost linearly gets worse, but there is a big jump in ERA once he gets to July, and the bigger jump in Sept/Oct.  His BABIP mostly mirrors that, as well as his K/BB (or SO/W in the chart), except for his odd improvement in peripherals in August, but still worsening ERA and OPS.  So it appears to be fatigue.

The thing is, I'm not sure what else he can do to combat that.  It helps now that he's in a temperate ballpark, so we'll see if he can avoid the second half decline at home this season.  He is known as an innings eater, that is a big reason we signed him, but it might behoove the Giants not to ride him too hard, if the relievers are well rested and needing work.

The Reds appear to have kept an eye on him, his pitch count was actually lower by 1.6 pitches in H2 vs. H1.  He also pitched about a third of an inning less, probably as the result of giving up so many more hits and XBH's.   Still, his PQS fell from 3.91 to 3.31 and Game Score fell from 62 to 56, from H1 to H2.  He's giving up much more homers, though, only up slightly, and it was still very good, from 5.5% to 5.8%.