Alexi Ogando's Decline, And The Familiarity Effect

I was asked yesterday by loyal reader Andrew to check in on this, and so I shall do so here... the question posed to me concerned how Alexi Ogando has been faring against offenses that have been fortunate enough to get a second look or third look at him this season, with the hypothesis being that his 2.5-pitch arsenal may predispose him to opposing teams catching onto his tricks faster, and being able to sit on the fastball, or some such.

Here are all of the starts Ogando has made this season where those starts have been made at least twice against a particular team (if that's as clear as mud, you should get the idea pretty quickly from the chart):

Rk	Date	Opp ▾	Rslt	Dec	IP	H	R	ER	BB	SO	HR	HBP	BF	Pit	Str	GB	FB	LD	GSc	WPA
2	Apr 28	TOR	L,2-5		6.0	4	2	2	3	7	1	0	25	96	54	5	10	1	60	0.163
3	Jul 24	TOR	L,0-3	L(10-4)	6.2	7	3	3	2	6	0	0	28	103	69	8	12	4	52	-0.029
4	Jul 29	TOR	L,2-3	L(10-5)	5.2	4	3	3	4	4	1	0	25	103	62	5	12	3	49	-0.129
5	Apr 5	SEA	W,3-2	W(1-0)	6.0	2	0	0	2	4	0	0	22	90	55	5	11	1	70	0.378
6	May 3	SEA	L,3-4		6.0	5	1	1	1	6	0	1	25	102	68	5	12	6	63	0.234
7	Aug 9	SEA	W,7-6		2.2	8	6	6	2	0	0	0	16	70	42	8	6	2	16	-0.472
8	Apr 17	NYY	L,5-6		6.1	6	5	5	1	1	3	1	26	92	58	8	15	3	41	-0.422
9	Jun 14	NYY	L,4-12	L(7-1)	1.2	6	6	6	1	1	0	0	12	53	32	5	5	3	19	-0.342
10	May 13	LAA	W,4-1	W(4-0)	6.1	5	1	1	1	5	1	1	25	99	62	10	8	3	63	0.239
11	Jul 19	LAA	W,7-0	W(10-3)	8.0	4	0	0	3	5	0	0	29	116	74	6	15	4	76	0.379
12	Aug 15	LAA	W,8-4	W(12-5)	6.1	8	4	4	2	2	1	0	27	105	65	8	15	5	41	0.086
13	Apr 23	KCR	W,3-1	W(3-0)	6.0	5	1	1	1	5	1	1	25	114	70	6	12	2	62	0.230
14	May 18	KCR	W,5-4		7.0	4	2	2	1	5	0	0	25	116	73	8	11	2	65	0.204
15	May 29	KCR	W,7-6		6.0	7	5	5	1	4	1	0	26	106	68	9	12	3	41	-0.269
16	Apr 11	DET	W,2-0	W(2-0)	7.0	2	0	0	1	4	0	0	23	79	53	5	13	4	76	0.430
17	Jun 8	DET	W,7-3	W(7-0)	7.2	6	1	1	2	7	1	0	32	110	73	6	17	4	68	0.178
18	Aug 4	DET	W,5-2	W(11-5)	6.1	8	2	2	0	7	0	0	26	97	69	8	11	7	56	0.130
19	May 23	CHW	W,4-0	W(5-0)	9.0	5	0	0	3	6	0	0	32	115	76	9	14	5	80	0.492
20	Aug 20	CHW	L,2-3		7.0	6	2	2	1	5	0	0	28	104	65	8	14	7	61	0.232

"So," you're thinking, "what's your point?" I'm glad you're thinking that. Basically, Ogando has made two starts against seven different teams this season, and three starts against five different teams this season.

In seven start No. 1's, he's pitched a total of 46.2 innings.

In seven start No. 2's, he's pitched a total of 44 innings.

In five start No. 3's, he's pitched a total of 27 innings. I'll let you decide whether these samples are adequate for our purposes.

Now that we know how many total innings we're talking about, I can share with you Ogando's per-start averages in his first, second, and third starts against teams that he's faced multiple times this season:

Start No. 1: 6.2 IP, 4.1 H, 1.3 ER, 1.7 BB, 4.6 K, 0.9 HR, 98 pitches, 61 strikes, 65 Game Score, +.215 WPA

Start No. 2: 6.1 IP, 5.4 H, 2.1 ER, 1.6 BB, 5.0 K, 0.1 HR, 101 pitches, 65 strikes, 58 Game Score, +.122 WPA

Start No. 3: 5.1 IP, 7.0 H, 4.0 ER, 1.8 BB, 3.4 K, 0.6 HR, 96 pitches, 61 strikes, 41 Game Score, -0.131 WPA

Now, we still don't know how much of this is random variation/noise, but looking at these numbers, it's very, very clear that Ogando has pitched progressively worse against teams who have gotten second and third looks at him this season. We've answered that part of the question beyond any doubt.

Of course, it's true that Ogando has pitched worse overall as the season has progressed *, and there have been one-start teams that have smacked him around (e.g. the Mets, who touched him for six runs in three innings in late June), and it's also true that we can't really render a final judgment on this until we know how the rest of the starting pitchers around the league fare in those second and third go-rounds.

So, basically, this means something ... unless it doesn't.

[* This may not be true, after all.]