Posted by Bill Baer on Wednesday, July 15, 2009 at 4:21 pm

On July 10, San Francisco Giants left-handed pitcher Jonathan Sanchez became the 14th player to throw a no-hitter this decade and the 262nd overall. If not for an error by third baseman Juan Uribe, it would have been a perfect game. Adding to the allure of the game was Sanchez’s Major League struggles: he hadn’t started a game since June 22, mostly due to a stretch of three bad starts since June 6 in which he had a 7.45 ERA in 19 and one-third innings and hitters tagged him for a .984 OPS.

With a historic feat added to his resume and the increased exposure, many are getting back on board the Jonathan Sanchez bandwagon. There’s no doubt he has two good Major League-caliber pitches in his fastball and slider; it’s simply a matter of him putting it together for an extended period of time.

I’m going to list a few reasons for optimism and for pessimism with regard to Sanchez. He is one of those “enigma” players — those who have a wealth of talent but just can’t seem to harness it, like the Phillies’ Brett Myers.

Optimism

• Sanchez has compiled great Minor League numbers

In nearly 253 Minor League innings, Sanchez has a 3.42 ERA including 3.05 at AAA. He’s struck out 333 hitters and walked 98 for K/9 and BB/9 rates of 11.9 and 3.5 respectively, and a K/BB ratio of 3.4. Further, he didn’t allow many home runs — just 12 for a HR/9 rate of 0.4.

• He is 27 years old, still with a couple more years left for him to hit his peak (or he might be a late-bloomer like Jamie Moyer)

In baseball years, 27 is not young but it’s not old, either. He’s making $455,000 this year, so it’s not costing the Giants much to allow him to take the mound every five days to figure himself out. However, the Giants do find themselves atop the NL Wild Card, so if Sanchez falls back into his familiar struggles, they may continue to keep him on a short leash.

• His FIP has always been significantly better than his ERA

Take this with a grain of salt, though. His xFIP (found on his page at The Hardball Times) is closer to his ERA, especially this season. Until this season, the Giants defense behind Sanchez had typically been only slightly above average with a UZR/150 between 1 and 2; this year, it’s near 7.

• He has always had a high strikeout rate

His Minor League numbers were mentioned above, but he averages more than a strikoeut per inning at the Major League level as well. As we know by now, strikeouts are a good predictor of future success as shown by J.C. Bradbury’s article for THT four years ago:

Everyone evaluates pitchers by strikeouts, and they should. No variable produced by pitchers had more constancy over time than the strikeout-rate. The strikeout-rate from the previous year explained over 60% of the variance of the following year’s strikeout-rate.

As long as Sanchez keeps his K-rate up, he’ll always have at least a glimmer of hope.

• Opponents hit a slightly-below-average amount of line drives against him

The average LD% is around 20-21; hitters have hit 19.8% against Sanchez including 15.5% this year. The only issue I take with Sanchez’s batted ball splits is that, with his spacious home ball park, he should take more risks and allow more fly balls. It’s tough to hit ‘em out at AT&T Park, which has ranked 29th, 24th, 13th, and 20th in HR park factor according to ESPN.

Because Sanchez allows a bit more ground balls than one would like, his BABIP has been slightly above-average. The ML average BABIP on ground balls is .234; Sanchez’s GB BABIP is .268 over his career. Overall, Sanchez has a higher BABIP on all three types of batted balls compared to the league average, but his ground ball split really sticks out — it’s at least partially due to the mediocre defenses he’s had.

• Great slider at times

Like most young pitchers with high strikeout rates and a good secondary off-speed pitch, Sanchez can really make hitters look dumb at times. It was not entirely a fluke that he got the no-hitter.

Put yourself in the hitter’s shoes — check out the difference between his fastball (green line) and his slider (blue line) from his no-hitter against the Padres.

I would not enjoy facing Sanchez, who has a 92 MPH fastball and an 82 MPH slider.

That said…

Pessimism

• He has compiled an extremely high walk rate

Sanchez has a career average of 4.7 walks per nine innings, including 5.3 this season. That’s entirely way too many walks. It would be a miracle if he could get it down below 4.

It’s self-explanatory why his high walk rate is bad. Even the best hitters fail to get a hit 65% of the time; giving them free passes to first base is usually a bad idea, unless we’re talking about Albert Pujols or Barry Bonds.

• FB/CH differential is about average (7-8 MPH), not enough for it to be a go-to Major League pitch

According to FanGraphs, his change-up has been worth -20 RAA over his career. Compare that to his fastball (+6.5) and slider (+4.6). As an illustration, if he used those three pitches at an equal rate, his change-up would be about four times less valuable than his fastball and slider combined. Over his career, he’s used his change-up more often than his slider, but that hasn’t been the case this season.

Sanchez should scrap the change-up altogether. A good change-up would give him added value against right-handed hitters, but it’s a hard pitch to master and he’s shown no signs of that. His slider, while a different animal, provides enough of a speed differential to keep the hitters honest and away from sitting on his fastball.

• Hitters don’t swing that much against him (partially due to high walk rate) but still make a good amount of contact

Hitters swing at 45.5% of his pitches, right around the average. However, they make contact 4.5% more against Sanchez than against the average. What this indicates is that, despite the high strikeout rate, hitters are able to read his pitches, pointing to inconsistency on Sanchez’s part (and illustrated by his high walk rate); he’s an enigma.

Overall, there’s a lot more reason for optimism than pessimism when we’re talking about Jonathan Sanchez. No one questions his ability, he just has to make some adjustments to increase his changes of experiencing prolonged success.

There are rumors that the Giants are considering trading him, perhaps to help improve the offense. The Giants have the fifth-worst offense in the NL (4.18 runs per game) and they’re currently the favorites for the fourth and final NL playoff spot, so they certainly have incentive to move Sanchez if they should so choose. Add to that the huge boost in value to Sanchez’s name thanks to the no-hitter.

Any team that acquires Sanchez is getting a pitcher with a lot of upside.