Don’t Cry for Pedro, He’s Already Gone

After his decent finish to the 2009 season and his good start in the world series, Mets fans can be forgiven for wondering if perhaps Pedro Martinez would have been a good pitcher to re-sign going into this past season. They can even be allowed to ponder the possibility of signing him for 2010. However, the Mets brass will have been right to have done neither.

Maybe Mets fans have longer memories than this. Surely, if they do, they remember that Omar Minaya proudly inked the future Hall of Famer to a four-year $53 million contract after the Red Sox balked at adding a fourth year. Pedro went out and promptly proved the Red Sox brass right.

Year one went well, there’s no doubt about that. Pedro was worth about $20 million and was ‘only’ paid about $10.9 million for the year. He went 15-8 with a 2.82 ERA, a 0.95 WHIP, and 208 strikeouts. He pitched 217 innings, and all seemed to be well in 2005. Pshaw to the nay-sayers, right?

Wrong. Pedro went on to put up about 270 innings in the next three years of the contract, with a combined 4.73 ERA and 1.31 WHIP. He did feature a 8.52 K/9, but that number would also be the second worst of his career had it been in a full year of play. In any case, Boston was right: four years was at least one too many, and seemingly almost one-and-a-half seasons too many. Was it obvious from the numbers at the time?

The short answer is yes. By the end of 2004, Pedro was obviously in decline. His K/9 was in the midst of a three-year decline, his BB/9 had risen for two straight years, his WHIP had lurched forward over 10% in the space of two years, and after three years of a sub-0.60 HR/9 rate, he suddenly gave up 1.08 home runs per nine in 2004. His fastball had lost a MPH and went from being an elite pitch in the majors to being average in the space of two years. Pedro knew it, too, because he used his fastball less than ever before in 2004.

But the Mets stepped to the plate and forked over the cash. After watching him put in a 5.61 ERA in 109 innings of torturous pitching in 2008, they were of course right to let him go. By then the decline was a full-on rout, as Pedro hit career lows in K/9 (7.18), BB/9 (3.63), WHIP (1.57), HR/9 (1.57) and FIP (5.18). No reason to keep that sort of production around.

Then Pedro went and got healthy. He came back and made his triumphant return down the turnpike, and made it to the World Series with his new team. How about now? Would he make a good low-risk investment for the Mets in 2010? Could he shore up the back end of the rotation, or even become the #2 the team needs? He was worth about $2.5 million this year, what if the Mets signed him for one year, $5 million, would he be worth the money?

The short answer is once again no. He did it all with smoke and mirrors this year and he still only managed to put in 44 innings of work. To be fair, he did regain about a mile per hour on his fastball which he had lost in the latter three years in New York. That allowed him to return his fastball to an average one as opposed to the putrid one he left town with.

But look at his mix of pitches and you’ll see he didn’t magically return to the pitcher he once was. The slider that was once his second-best pitch was not used once in 2009. The only positive pitch he had was his curveball, which he used 10% of the time (15% career). His groundball rate was terrible (29.5% in 2009, 38.8% career), and batters smoked the ball off of him (26.6% line drives in 2009, 20.8% career). In fact, had he qualified for the ERA title this year, he would have given up the most line drives in baseball.

So, no, Mets fans, don’t cry for Pedro (if anybody is). He’s already gone.

Tags: Pedro Martinez