Investigation of the time of David Festa in the context of the Order struggles

David Festa’s rookie season was a mixed bag, with moments of dominance that you’d expect from a top prospect and sudden bouts of inconsistency that are often normal for a rookie pitcher. After seven starts (and eight total appearances), Festa’s ERA of 5.20 isn’t exactly inspiring, but his 28% strikeout rate and 7% walk rate are.

Festa’s top numbers are skewed by the 12 runs he allowed in his first two games as a major leaguer. Since returning to the Twins in late July, Festa has allowed 9 runs in 26.1 innings, good for a 3.08 ERA. Festa has struck out 36 hitters in that stretch, a big reason why his Fielding Independent Pitching (FIP) is a more tolerable 4.25.

However, attentive observers have noticed that Festa’s performances have not often been in line with these averages. In practice, he has been a pitcher of two extremes. One is among the very best in baseball, the other is literally the worst. Check it out:

Data from Baseball Savant

When opposing hitters first saw Festa, he was absolutely dominant. He led the 474 pitchers who faced at least 70 hitters this season and ranked 3rd among them in wOBA allowed. His first-time numbers are comparable to those of Cleveland closer Emmanuel Clase (0.61 ERA, .174 wOBA).

However, when hitters faced Festa a second or third time, he did the exact opposite. In those cases, he posted the MLB’s worst ERA and wOBA allowed in that order.

Looking again at the chart above, it’s clear that much of the opponent’s increased power is due to more and louder contact from Festa. His strikeouts drop off after the first inning and that’s also when he allowed all 7 home runs he allowed. Other Statcast numbers on contact quality back this up:

• Exit velocity: 84.1 mph → 91.5 mph
• Launch angle: 15° → 19°
• Hard hit%: 29.5% → 42.9%
• Barrels/PA%: 0.0% → 11.9%

That wasn’t a problem Festa had in the minor leagues, at least as far as the available Statcast data tells us. There, he allowed a wOBA of .329 to 219 batters in his first few lineups, but then only allowed a wOBA of .265 to the 194 batters he faced.

I’ve looked for an obvious culprit, but can’t report that I’ve found such a clear-cut explanation. Instead, I’ll suggest that there are a handful of possible explanations that may be somewhat intertwined.

Happiness & little tastes

First of all, there is probably some degree of small sample size noise and random luck in Festa’s performance, both in terms of his dominance the first time he was in the lineups and his great struggles afterward. This is the simplest explanation when we’re dealing with a rookie who has only 8 appearances and 32.2 innings pitched.

For example, all of Festa’s expected Statcast stats are about 60 points higher than his actual results the first time around. His batting average on balls in play (BABIP) on that trip is a minuscule .205. The second and third times around, it’s the other way around: His actual results are significantly worse than his expected numbers, and his BABIP allowed is a whopping .420.

Photo by Adam Bettcher/Getty Images

While there are significant differences between his actual results and expected stats, I won’t claim they’re so pronounced that they explain why Festa goes from being one of the most dominant pitchers in baseball to one of the worst when the lineup changes. To be clear, his expected numbers the first time out — .197/.253/.246 (.225) — are still excellent, and he’s still pretty bad afterward: .302/.359/.577 (.397).

To get to the point of this section, if we break down his work by time in the order, he’s just about faced enough batters to give credence to his strikeout rate and enough batted balls in play to give credence to exit velocity measurements. There’s enough here to say something was different after the first round, but nowhere near enough to believe the triple-slash stats or home runs allowed are representative of his skill level.

Keeping his things

Festa is undoubtedly a success story in the Twins’ player development. Drafted in the 13th round out of Seton Hall in 2021, he was praised more for the projection ability of his lanky frame and his ability to throw strikes than for his impressive speed and skill.

He had a significant boost in velocity when he came into the Twins’ system, kicking his arsenal into high gear. He’s only 24 years old, which raises the question of whether some of his issues later in games are a result of his sharpness and quality waning as he begins to tire.

Maybe he won’t keep these higher level things in mind when the games start later?

Unlike some of the metrics discussed above, one of the main advantages of stuff models is that they become reliable very quickly. FanGraphs’ Stuff+ only needs 80 throws to be more signal than noise, and Festa has thrown at least that many with all of his throws.

Overall, Stuff+ rates Festa’s arsenal just above average. His fastball and slider are both above average, while his changeup is below average.

Unfortunately, we don’t have public breakdowns of these metrics by time in the order, by innings, or by pitch count, so we can’t know for sure how they rate Festa’s performance during a start.

However, we can look at the key inputs to these models and check for changes to draw conclusions about what the models might think:

Data from Baseball Savant

There are a lot of numbers in these tables, broken down by pitch type. Generally speaking, you’ll notice that there are slight declines in Festa’s 2nd and 3rd appearances against a lineup almost everywhere.

The Stuff models give the most weight to the differences in speed and movement between a pitcher’s fastball and his secondary pitches, and Festa’s differences have gotten a bit smaller over the course of his appearances.

It’s not like his stuff would fall off a cliff. But it seems likely that it would rate slightly worse than it did the first time around. But even these small changes don’t seem enough to fully explain the dramatic swings in his scores.

Counting management and execution

When sample noise, luck, and the like don’t fully explain it, the next thing I think about is managing ball strike count and execution. For all the attention we pay to velocity and other things, improving ball strike count remains one of the best things a pitcher can do to be successful.

For example, there is a 90 point difference between the wOBA allowed when a pitcher goes up 0-1 and when he falls behind 1-0. Similarly, if a 1-1 count becomes a 1-2 count instead of a 2-1 count, the wOBA allowed changes by about 140 points.

For the first time in a lineup, Festa was excellent at taking the lead and keeping it. After that, it was not the same:

Data from Baseball Savant

Among the nearly 500 pitchers who have thrown 250 or more pitches to batters for the first time this season, Festa’s percentage of pitches thrown with the count advantage ranks 40th (easily in the top 10% in MLB). He has led batters 0-1 nearly 70% of the time and then kept the count advantage. His percentage of pitches thrown with the count advantage ranks 58th on the same list (also in the top 10% in MLB).

After the first round, however, Festa ranks 155th out of 216 pitchers by the same metric (roughly in the bottom quartile). His first-pitch strike rate has dropped to just 55% and he’s had more than twice as many 2-0 counts. He ranks 199th out of 216 by the percentage of pitches he threw behind in the second and third rounds (nearly bottom 10%).

You may recall from the beginning of this article that Festa’s walk rate remained largely unchanged in the periods leading up to the order split. It was 6.9% the first time and 7.1% after that. If he’s falling behind in the count more often but not giving more batters walks, that’s a good sign that batters are getting what they want to hit. As a result, opposing hitters have hit .462/.563/.962 (.616 wOBA) against him when he’s trailed in the 2nd and 3rd times in the count.

However, we can’t say that working forward is a panacea, because he also got hit hard when he was ahead in the second and third rounds (.304/.304/.652/.400). It’s not as hard as when he fell behind, but still.

Diploma

In summary, I’m not sure there’s a single “smoking gun” we can attribute Festa’s 2nd and 3rd issues to. The most promising explanation seems to be that he got a head start in the count, but noise, luck, and holding and doing his stuff could also contribute. Additionally, research has shown that penalty pitchers are often hampered by increasing familiarity rather than fatigue or other factors in the order. To this point, Festa’s pitching is relatively unchanged from 1st to 2nd and 3rd. Perhaps changing his attack attempts on hitters who have seen him once would benefit him.

In any case, it will be interesting to see what adjustments he tries to make later today when he starts.

John writes for Twinkie Town, Twins dailyAnd Pitcher List with a focus on analysis. He is a lifelong Twins fan and former college pitcher. Follow him on Twitter @JohnFoley_21.