Aaron Loup: Better Than You Think
Aaron Loup has drawn the ire of Blue Jays fans for much of the past 3 seasons. After producing a phenomenal 2.77 ERA through his first 3 seasons, he saw the wheels fall off in 2015. Loup's ERA jumped to 4.46 and many began to question why he was still on the roster.
Despite the ugly ERA there were signs of hope from Loup. Strikeouts, walks and groundballs are generally within the pitcher's control and among all pitchers who threw at least 40 innings in 2015 the only pitchers with more than 9 k/9, fewer than 2 bb/9 and more than 50% groundballs were Jake Arrieta, Zach Britton, and Aaron Loup. Even if we lower the thresholds to 8.5 K/9, 2.5 BB/9, and 47 GB% the list of pitchers remains impressive. Kershaw, Cole, Lester, Carrasco, Pineda, Rondon, Familia, Cecil, Gregerson and Blanton join the group. This isn't to say Loup is an elite pitcher, but he does have some valuable skills that tend to lead to success.
Among those pitchers listed Loup allowed the highest BABIP, 3rd lowest LOB% and the highest HR/FB. BABIP, LOB% and HR/FB are considered more luck based rather than skill based and pitchers often see those numbers regress to the mean. In 2016 Loup still produced strong strikeout and walk numbers, but his BABIP and HR/FB failed to return to normal and he finished an injury riddled year with an ugly 5.02 ERA.
At first glance Loup's 2017 ERA of 3.75 doesn't look all that good. Ask most Jays fans and they would say 2014 was the last time Aaron Loup had a good season when his ERA was 3.15. Enter ERA+. ERA+ is a stat that compares a pitcher's ERA to the rest of the league and adjusts for the ballparks the pitcher throws in. Despite a much higher 3.75 ERA in 2017 his 123 ERA+ was actually better than the 121 he produced in 2014. The reason is that scoring is way up. In 2017 the league average ERA was 4.36, up significantly from 3.74 in 2014.
If run scoring had stayed the same and Loup had just produced a 3.15 ERA there wouldn't be nearly as many people criticizing his performance in 2017. Because offence has taken off, people are perceiving a solid performance worse than it really is.
Loup was successful in limiting damage when batters made contact. He gave up home runs on just 1.5% of opposing plate appearances compared to the league average of 3.3%. He also allowed extra base hits just 5.3% of the time vs. the league average of 8.3%. Just 24% of his hits given up went for extra bases. These numbers are right in line with what he did in 2013-2014 when he was one of the league's better relievers. Loup limits damage on contact by getting hitters to pound the ball into the ground. His 53.5 groundball percentage ranked 27th among relievers last year. Home runs are at an all-time high so it can't be understated the value of a pitcher who can suppress them the way Loup does. Because of his aversion to giving up extra bases he allowed only 22% of inherited runners to score, well below the league average of 30%.
Another criticism of Loup is focussed on his struggles against left handed batters. Left handed relievers who dominate lefty bats even have a cool acronym: LOOGY (Lefty one out guy). Since most rosters have a LOOGY many people believe a left handed pitcher should fit into this category. First and foremost a pitcher's job is to suppress runs. Loup may not dominate same-handed batters like some would hope for, but he does suppress runs, as his 2017 123 ERA+ and career 125 ERA+ attest to. Having a true lefty specialist would allow the Blue Jays to use Loup against both types of hitters rather than continue to miscast him as a LOOGY.
Loup isn't a game changing talent, but he deserves more credit than many Blue Jays fans are giving him. He struggles with consistency and his command has faltered recently, however, if his home run and LOB% issues from 2015-2016 are truly behind him we should expect an above average reliever who can be counted on during the middle innings. For $1.8MM you could do a lot worse.
