Tag Archives: Johan Santana

June 25, 2010

Twins vs. Mets (6/25-6/27): Series Preview

By mfgz

The Mets will conclude their six game homestand this weekend, as well as interleague play, with a three game set against the Minnesota Twins. The Twinkies come into Citi Field at a good time for the Mets, as they have lost three in a row and six out of their last 10. However, thanks to the Mets taking two of three from Detroit, they still sit atop the AL Central by a half game.

The Twins, as always, are getting steady contributions from everyone. Offensively, they rank third in the AL in OBP, 5th in OPS and 4th in walks. Pitchingwise, the Twins rank third in ERA, WHIP, and OBPA. Twins pitchers are hittable, however, as opposing teams have a .266 batting average and 664 hits. The reason the staff has been so successful is that they don’t hurt themselves, having allowed only 155 walks, the least in Major League Baseball.

The series features some interesting pitching matchups, highlighted by Saturday’s game, when Johan Santana faces his old team for the first time since being traded to the Mets in 2008.

Both Mike Pelfrey and Santana need to get back on track. Santana’s recent struggles have been well-documented, so there’s no need to get into them. Pelfrey has struggled his last two outings, giving up 3 runs on 9 hits and only 1 strikeout against Baltimore and 5 runs on 7 hits and only 2 strikeouts against the Yankees. He did manage to go 6 and 7 innings in both starts, though. Jon Niese toes the rubber on Sunday also looking to get back on track, though his last start should be disregarded, considering he was pitching a no-hitter through three innings before the rain came and disrupted things.

This should be an exciting series with two good teams facing each other, Johan Santana facing his old mates for the first time, and getting to see two of the games best duos in Joe Mauer-Justin Morneau and David Wright-Jose Reyes.

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June 23, 2010

Where's the Old Santana?

By Richard Gross

13mets_1_600It hasn’t been the ace-like season for Johan Santana. This blog has been mentioning some of the statistical concerns over Santana of late. Matt has pointed out the decreasing strikeout rate, the higher than normal xFIP and the dangerous combination of being a fly ball pitcher with a poor strikeout rate.

To build on Matt’s foundation, I thought it might be interesting to really take a look at and try to pinpoint some differences we see in Santana this year, compared to season’s past and to elaborate on some of Matt’s excellent observations.

First let’s take a look at the strikeout rate. For his career, Santana has averaged 8.9 strikeouts per nine innings. This year, he is only averaging 5.7. This is a fairly dramatic decrease even from 2009 and 2008 when he was averaging 7.9. We have seen a steadily decreasing rate of strikeouts as the years have gone by and the lack of punch outs have had a negative impact on his FIP (3.90) and xFIP (4.71) in 2010. The lack of strikeouts and the fairly steady stream of fly balls that Santana tends to allow have given him a bloated xFIP.

To date, Santana has been relatively fortunate in the home-runs-allowed department. He has allowed just 8 home runs on the year and the good news is that only one of those home runs has been hit at CitiField. Obviously Santana is enjoying the high walls and the deeper alleys of his home ballpark. But the concern is that this his typical elevated fly ball rate with the lack of strikeouts will catch up with him and his ERA may increase even further.

So those are the worrisome statistical trends, but is there something that we can identify that’s different in Santana this year than last season or the seasons before? Why are we seeing this concerning slide? Is he not eating his Wheaties or getting enough sleep?

Remember that Santana is coming off surgery that cleaned up bone chips in his elbow. Whether there are some lingering ramifications from that procedure, it’s hard to say, but his velocity has gone down this year which may attribute to some of the poorer strikeout numbers. Santana’s fast ball is only hitting about 89 mph on the radar gun whereas in the past, it’s always been in the low 90’s. Consequently, batters are able to make contact on him this year and extend their at-bats, making Santana throw more pitches. Hitters are making contact 82.3% of the time compared to a lifetime mark of 74.1%. Huge disparity there.

Historically, Santana has always been equally effective against right-handed batters and left-handed batters alike. For his career, righties are batting .223 against Santana versus .235 for lefties. Also for his career, he has an average K/9 against righties of 9.26 and a career average K/9 against lefties of 8.73. All very impressive numbers.

But this year has been a completely different story. We already know the strikeouts are down, and it’s not surprising to learn that Santana’s K/9 against right-handed batters this season is 6.08. What is surprising is that he possesses a K/9 against lefties of only 4.50. It also appears that lefties have been hitting him fairly well with a .289 batting average and a .346 OBP.

With some help from TexasLeaguers.com, I took a closer look at how Santana has pitched against lefties the previous three seasons from 2007 to 2009. I examined pitch selection and effectiveness of those pitches. I then looked at the current 2010 season by comparison.

Take a look at the two pictures below. The first one represents Santana versus lefties from 2007-2009. The second picture represents Santana’s 2010 season versus lefties.

2007-2009 Seasons
js0709

 

 

2010-Season
js10

What stands out as the biggest disparity between the two sets of numbers is the changeup (CH). Santana doesn’t use his changeup very much against lefties. He throws that pitch hit far more against right-handed batters. He mostly uses the slider and fastball against lefties to set up the changeup. But when he does throw it, it has had very effective results in the past.

Notice that high whiff rate for the changeup in the first set of numbers is 19.6% from 2007-2009 versus 8.5% this season. Lefties are simply not swinging and missing on this pitch. It also appears that his command of the changeup is down this year by more than 14% as he has been unable to throw it consistently for strikes. And then we can also see from the data that lefty batters are fouling off the pitch more frequently than in the past three years, thereby extending their plate appearance and obviously having overall more success against Santana.

The loss of velocity on the fastball has been concerning enough. But Santana’s command of the changeup has been compromised as well. And of course the two work hand-in-hand with each other. The more speed on the fastball, the more the changeup fools the hitter because of the wider variation in speed. If there is less speed differentiation, then the hitter has an easier time making contact. If Santana’s changeup isn’t working, then he has to rely more on his fastball. But that pitch has been decreasing in velocity, so this may explain some of the struggles he is facing this year.

Hopefully, these are adjustments that Santana can make going forward. He usually gets blistering hot in the second half of seasons and hopefully he will regain the touch on his changeup that can make him so dominant. Certainly, the Mets are counting heavily on Santana the rest of the way.

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June 22, 2010

SP Trends (Takahashi, Pelfrey, Santana)

By mfgz

The Mets went into this past weekend playing the best ball of their season.  They won their first game behind an strong outing by Hisanori Takahashi but couldn’t get a win in the next two games, though the pitching wasn’t the entire culprit.  Mike Pelfrey and Johan Santana seemingly took some minor steps back as some key metrics are beginning to normalize for them.

takahashi k/9 bb/9 hr/9 babip lob% gb% hr/fb% era fip xfip
current 8.20 3.28 0.60 0.311 78.7 37.5 5.3 3.13 3.26 4.12
thru 6/18 8.61 3.31 0.66 0.322 76.8 34.9 5.7 3.48 3.26 4.06
career 8.20 3.28 0.60 0.311 78.7 37.5 5.3 3.13 3.26 4.12

Hisanori Takahashi pitched 6 strong innings on Friday, allowing only 4 hits.  He struck out 3 and walked 2, while throwing 61 of 103 pitches for strikes.  He yielded 9 groundouts to 6 flyouts as the Yankees again weren’t able to get a good read on him.  Takahashi’s k/9 should continue to drop if he sticks in the rotation.  He’s been able to avoid the home run ball and his 4.12 xFIP is excellent for a spot starter.   Still, he seems to be the most likely candidate to be sent back to the bullpen when, and if, John Maine returns.

pelfrey k/9 bb/9 hr/9 babip lob% gb% hr/fb% era fip xfip
current 5.86 3.27 0.48 0.275 80.7 50.4 6.0 2.69 3.61 4.12
thru 6/19 6.13 3.22 0.31 0.280 81.5 50.4 4.0 2.39 3.28 4.02
career 5.28 3.38 0.66 0.309 71.5 50.1 7.6 4.27 4.21 4.57

Mike Pelfrey’s k/9 has been regressing towards his career average the past few games while both his bb/9 and hr/9 are still both better than his career averages.  He’s still pitching well, but you have to wonder when his .275 babip and 80.7% strand rate will revert towards his career average.  He’s generating the same amount of ground balls and his hr/fb% is usually much lower than the league average.  He did manage 7 innings on Saturday, but was hurt by the long ball and 3 walks.  He only struck out 2 and allowed 7 hits.  Look for a rebound performance from Pelfrey as he solidifies himself as this team’s number two.  With the low strikeout totals and lucky babip and lob% marks, be careful not to label Pelfrey an “ace”, a guilty pleasure I occasional dabble in myself.

santana k/9 bb/9 hr/9 babip lob% gb% hr/fb% era fip xfip
current 5.69 2.85 0.73 0.274 76.5 37.0 6.0 3.31 3.90 4.71
thru 6/20 5.77 2.93 0.68 0.270 77.1 36.6 5.5 3.13 3.82 4.71
career 8.94 2.51 0.97 0.286 77.3 37.8 9.3 3.13 3.41 3.46

Johan Santana is quickly falling from ace status.  Though one grand slam in one inning was the only real damage done against Santana, he only struck out 3 through 6 innings and had to throw 114 pitches.  He did manage more groundouts than flyouts, and only walked 1, but the sub 6 k/9 is extremely alarming.   He’s a good enough pitcher to make adjustments, and he always gets better as the year goes on, but as his hr/fb% normalizes coupled with the declining strikeout to walk ratio, there will be more  rough games going forward.  Hopefully he can find a way  turn some of those would be strikeouts into batted ball outs.  A 4.71 xFIP tells some of the story of his lucky 2010 campaign to date.

takahashi k/9 bb/9 hr/9 babip lob% gb% hr/fb% era fip xfip
current 8.20 3.28 0.60 0.311 78.7 37.5 5.3 3.13 3.26 4.12
thru 6/18 8.61 3.31 0.66 0.322 76.8 34.9 5.7 3.48 3.26 4.06
career 8.20 3.28 0.60 0.311 78.7 37.5 5.3 3.13 3.26 4.12

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June 20, 2010

SP Trends 6/15-6/17 (Santana, Niese, Dickey)

By mfgz

The New York Mets swept the Cleveland Indians on Thursday as they won seven straight heading into their weekend series with the New York Yankees.  The Mets are playing some of the best baseball in the majors and getting contributions from many young players.  Their rotation has been key in this June surge, so let’s take a look at how the starters fared against The Tribe and how their key metrics are trending.

santana k/9 bb/9 hr/9 babip lob% gb% hr/fb% era fip xfip
current 5.77 2.93 0.68 0.270 77.1 36.6 5.5 3.13 3.82 4.71
thru 6/15 6.14 2.96 0.64 0.272 78.0 36.1 5.1 2.96 3.65 4.63
career 8.95 2.51 0.97 0.286 77.4 37.8 9.2 3.12 3.40 3.46

Johan Santana recorded his fifth win of the season on Wednesday, though once again he did so by getting outs via balls in play as he only struck out one.  Johan Santana’s k/9 has dropped to below 6 for the first time this season.   He’s starting to give up home runs, which for the first third of the season, seemed to be the metric keeping his era respectable.  He’s still pitching well for a pitcher who isn’t striking anyone out, and his fly ball tendencies haven’t gotten him into too much trouble yet.  His hr/fb% is still 4 points below his career average.  His xFIP sits at an ugly 4.71 and sooner or later his fly balls are going to turn into home runs.  A sub 6 k/9 and an elevated walk rate is not a pretty combo for a fly ball pitcher.  Concern is definitely warranted.

niese k/9 bb/9 hr/9 babip lob% gb% hr/fb% era fip xfip
current 6.72 2.94 0.70 0.331 73.9 50.0 8.2 3.64 3.77 4.05
thru 6/16 7.06 2.98 0.63 0.336 73.1 52.2 7.7 3.61 3.60 3.93
career 6.66 3.29 0.69 0.340 71.7 48.6 7.7 4.24 3.83 4.19

Jonathon Niese followed up his complete game performance with another strong outing, going 7 innings and striking out 3.  He induced 8 ground ball outs and 8 fly ball outs and is continuing to impress without huge strikeout totals.  He improved to 4-2 on the season, as trade rumors whirl about Seattle’s interest in him as they look to find a suitor with available cash for Cliff Lee.  It’ll be interesting to see what the Mets decide to do, since their true ace Santana, is clearly on the decline.  Like Mike Pelfrey, Niese induces 50% ground balls, and in a large ballpark his value is even greater as the fly balls he does give up yield home runs well below the league average.  Niese’s babip has stabilized a bit, after being the high 3s for the first two months of the season, and it still has room to regress towards the league average.

dickey k/9 bb/9 hr/9 babip lob% gb% hr/fb% era fip xfip
current 7.28 2.82 0.47 0.342 80.1 50.8 5.6 2.82 3.13 3.74
thru 6/17 6.68 2.78 0.56 0.329 82.9 49.5 6.3 2.78 3.36 3.90
career 5.65 3.53 1.33 0.320 70.6 44.1 12.3 5.22 5.02 4.69

R.A. Dickey perpetuated the Mets win streak, and his own, as he improved to 5-0 and his young season.   He’s seeing success by limiting balls into play with a 7.28 k/9 which is significantly higher than his 5.65 career mark.  He also has improved his ground ball rate about 4% points this season, as his gb% is an impressive 50.8%.   He has been stranding runners at a clip of 80% which is bound to regress, though his babip of .342 has room to regress too.  The Mets have to keep handing Dickey the ball, no matter what happens when John Maine and Oliver Perez return from their DL stints.

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June 15, 2010

Are Takahashi and Dickey Enough for Met Pitching?

By Richard Gross

rahtThe sun just got a little brighter for the Mets as they won consecutive road games for the first time this season and their first road series. Granted, the wins are coming against the Baltimore Orioles who are owners of the worst record in baseball, but these are the games that the Mets must win if they are to call themselves contenders. The upcoming Cleveland series could be categorized in a similar fashion as must win games. The Indians are not playing the same underwhelming baseball as the Orioles, but they are a team that will struggle to be a .500 ball club and the Mets need to look at the Indian series as one that they should win as well.

With eleven games under their belts in June, the Mets are 9-2. Still, the offense has remained relatively quiet for the most part although it was nice to see them break out on Sunday with 18 hits against Kevin Millwood and company. Still the team is batting just .260 this month and have been offensively erratic. Hopefully the hot hitting on Sunday will carryover on the flight from Baltimore to Cleveland.

However the real story (and has been all season long) is the pitching. For June the Mets have the best ERA in baseball at 2.46. What’s been particularly impressive over the last 11 games and what I consider a very good sign is that they almost have a 3:1 strikeout to walk ratio and have only given up 3 home runs. The walks have been the biggest nemesis for the pitching staff as they are second in the major-leagues allowing the most walks (255) behind only the Brewers who best the Mets at this dubious distinction.

Obviously, we Met fans are overjoyed right now with the state of the pitching. But let’s be honest here for a moment. There’s probably not a soul out in Met-Land that foresaw this kind of pitching coming out of spring training.

Leaving Port St. Lucie, Johan Santana had an ERA of 6.75, Jon Niese an ERA of 6.52 and Mike Pelfrey, who has unquestionable been the Mets best pitcher this year left spring training with an ERA of 6.15. Opposing hitters feasted off of Pelfrey in the pre-season smacking 8 home runs through just 26 innings. But that was a different Mike Pelfrey as he has gone through a renaissance and I will make this statement with confidence: he has been one of the best and most consistent pitchers in the major leagues this year. And you know that home run problem in spring training? Pelfrey has only allowed 3 home runs through 86 innings of work and has a stellar ERA of 2.39 with a 9-1 record.

However, John Maine and Oliver Perez’s springs were a foreshadowing of the disaster to come. Maine left Port St Lucie with an ERA of 7.88 while Perez decided to outdo him with an 8.68 ERA. Maine has since been placed on the DL and as far as Perez goes, I have spent many, many hours wishing and wishing him out into the cornfield. Sadly that has not worked, so I will have to settle for Buffalo

Perhaps the biggest maneuvers that have salvaged the Maine/Perez Titanic were the addition of Hisanori Takahasi to the rotation and the promotion of R.A. Dickey. Both were afterthoughts during spring training. Takahashi was penciled in for the bullpen while Dickey seemed to have a one-way ticket to Buffalo after pitching just a handful of innings in spring training. They have both stepped up and fulfilled significant gaps in the pitching staff and have pitched surprisingly well.

But here is where things get dicey because I’d be lying if I felt that the Dickey/Takahashi combo was the Mets equivalent to the Jeff Neimann/Wade Davis duo that anchor the back-end of the Tampa Bay Rays’ rotation. In truth, I’m holding my breath waiting for them to look more like the Kyle Davies/Gil Meche tandem of the Royals.

Takahasi may own much of his success so far this season to the fact that he is an enigma to the league. Scouting reports have not been fully compiled on him and the real test will be the 2nd go-around in the league to see if he is still able to be as successful. Certainly, hitters will be making adjustments and Takahashi will need to stay a step ahead and make his own adjustments if the Mets are relaying on his continued success.

Opposing hitters are already warming up to Takahashi as he moves through the lineup two or three times. The first time around batters are hitting just .250. The average goes up a pinch the second time around to .268 but by the third time, it jumps significantly to .346. To further bring the point home, the Florida Marlins have seen Takahashi on four separate occasions this season: three times in relief and once as a starter. The third and fourth go-arounds against the Marlins have resulted in a cumulative 7 earned runs through 8.1 innings. This may be a trend the Mets will need to watch.

Dickey, on the other hand, has been around baseball for a while. What he has accomplished so far exceeds many people’s expectations, but how far can the Mets ride this gravy train with a pitcher who has a career ERA of 5.25 and a lifetime WHIP of 1.56? If you follow Dickey’s historical trends, what he has been doing this season is an anomaly in an otherwise tainted career. Dickey has never produced an ERA lower than 4.62 for a season so the concern is that Dickey’s future outings will begin to regress back to his historical trends.

Personally, I love the efforts that both Takahashi and Dickey have been putting out and I hope for their continued success. But the Mets have been playing with house money and there’s a pit in my stomach that tells me that the Mets need to do more where their pitching is concerned. They need some insurance for Dickey and Takahashi if they should falter, and in my humble opinion, not to be a downer, but I expect one of them to stumble. Perhaps Maine will come around and right himself. Perhaps there is a trade option that might provide that needed back-up. Certainly Omar Minaya should be calling clubs about now and seeing what is available. If a deal could be made to acquire some mid-level starting pitcher, the Mets could find themselves in a battle to the finish.

But one thing is for sure: if the Mets choose to look at Oliver Perez as a viable option to help them through the rest of the season, they might as well push the self-destruct button right now and save all Met fans the agony of another season of frustration. Let’s hope they find better and more suitable options in the coming weeks.

What do you think? Are Takahashi and Dickey enough for the back-end of the rotation? Or would you prefer the Mets land another arm as back-up to secure that they stay in contention for the division? Let us know your thoughts.

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June 11, 2010

Mets @ Orioles/Indians (6/11-6/17): Series at a glance

By mfgz

These next six games will be a telling sign for the Mets, given their season-long road struggles and the fact that the Orioles and Indians are terrible teams. So, since the Mets can really use these next two series to push them right into the thick of the pennant race, I’m going to combine both series into one preview.

By now you all know the story: the Mets are where they are right now because of their home record (now 24-10 after a 5-1 homestand). On the road, however, they are a putrid 8-18. But they really haven’t had a prime opportunity to make a statement on the road like they do now. I did some math — which means the stats I’m about to point out are probably wrong somewhere along the line — and up to this point, Mets road opponents (Atlanta/Cincinnati/Colorado/Florida/Milwaukee/Philadelphia/San Diego/St. Louis/Washington) have a combined record of 283-258 this season, good for a .523 winning percentage. So they have been playing some quality teams on the road, though it certainly does nto excuse them from playing so poorly.

But the O’s and Indians are a different story. The two teams combine for a 40-79 record, a lousy .336 winning percentage. On top of that, both teams are just as bad at home as the Mets are on the road. The Orioles are only 11-18 at home this season, while the Indians are 10-16. Offensively, of the 30 MLB teams, the Orioles rank 29th in runs scored, 27th in OBP, 26th in slugging, and 27th in OPS. The Indians rank 26h in runs, 25th in slugging, and 25th in OPS. This is good news for Mets pitching, especially given how well the starters have been throwing lately.

This weekend, the Mets will face Jeremy Guthrie, Brian Matusz, and Kevin Millwood. There has been a lot of talk about the Mets maybe making a trade for Millwood, but perhaps Guthrie is the one they should be asking the Orioles about. Despite a declining K/9 rate (4.75 this season compared to 5.53 career), all of Guthrie’s other peripherals this season are better than his career numbers. As for Millwood, this season’s 4.64 ERA and 4.95 FIP are bad enough, but then you compare them to his career 3.92 ERA and 3.88 FIP and it’s even worse. And his 7.28 K/9 rate, while good, is also decling from his career average of 8.27.

When the Mets head to Cleveland they will see two of Cleveland’s young arms in Justin Masterson and Mitch Talbot (with Jake Westbrook pitching the final game of the series). Masterson and Talbot are interesting when compared with each other. Looking at Masterson’s traditional stat line — 2-5, 4.74 ERA – it’s nothing special. But then you look closer and see a 8.03 K/9 rate, a 4.08 FIP and 3.88 xFIP, which tells you his defense has let him down a lot this season. Then you look at Talbot who, at 7-4, 3.59 ERA, is having a nice first full season. But with a 4.84 FIP and a 5.05 xFIP, it tells you his defense has actually been a lot of help for him. Oh, the quirkyness of baseball.

As for the Mets, they will go with RA Dickey, Hisanori Takahashi and Mike Pelfrey in Baltimore, then attack Cleveland with the lefty duo of Johan Santana and Jon Niese, before RA closes out the series. Interesting to see the knuckleballer opening up these next six games then ending it before next weekend’s showdown in the Bronx.

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June 8, 2010

Padres vs. Mets (6/8-6/10) – Series Preview

By mfgz

What a great upcoming series this will be. The best team in the National League is travelling into Citi Field to face the best team in baseball!…What?…What am I talking about, you say? Well, the Mets DO have the best home record in Major League Baseball. So if they didn’t have to endure that huge inconvenience of going on the road every other week, they would have the best record in baseball! And since they’re at home for this series, I say it’s fair to call them the best team in baseball until Friday, when they turn turn into one of the worst.

You’re also probably wondering how the San Diego Padres have the best record in the National League. I mean, this is an offense that has a .250 team batting average, have scored a mere 242 runs, and are second-to-last in the NL in home runs (42). Yet, even with their offensive struggles, the Friars sport a +54 run differential, the best in the National League.

The key has been their pitching. Coming into this series, the Padres lead MLB with a 3.02 team ERA, are second in MLB with a .231 BAA and are third in the NL with 447 strikeouts. The starting staff has two underrated, young arms which will be facing the Mets this series: Mat Latos and Clayton Richard.

Richard’s last start came last Wednesday against the Mets in San Diego. He pitched well, going 6 innings allowing 1 run on 4 hits with 5 strikeouts in a no-decision. In that start he went up against Johan Santana, who was brilliant. Tonight, he goes up against another Mets starter who has been brilliant all year in Mike Pelfrey. Most of the following stats for Met hitters against Richard are a result of last week:

METS HITTER

AB

BA

OBP

SLG

OPS

Alex Cora

6

.000

.143

.000

.143

Angel Pagan

6

.167

.167

.167

.333

David Wright

5

.200

.333

.200

.533

Jeff Francoeur

5

.400

.500

.400

.900

Rod Barajas

4

.250

.250

.500

.750

Fernando Tatis

3

.667

.667

1.000

1.667

Ike Davis

3

.000

.000

.000

.000

Henry Blanco

2

.000

.333

.000

.333

Jose Reyes

2

.000

.333

.000

.333

Jason Bay

2

1.000

1.000

1.000

2.000

Mat Latos takes the hill tomorrow night against Johan. Latos made one start against the Mets last season, where he went 6 innings and allowed 1 run on 4 hits with 7 strikeouts in a 3-1 victory. Since that was his only appearance against the Amazin’s, posting player stats would be pointless. As for Santana, he has not allowed a run in his last two outings, yet doesn’t have a win to show for either, as the Mets offense totaled only 1 run in those starts and the bullpen was unable to hold things together.

In the series finale on Thursday afternoon, a resurgent Jon Garland will take on RA Dickey. Garland was a name thrown around during the off-season for the Mets, and has shown so far that he would have been a nice addition to the starting staff. So far this season, Garland is 6-3 with a 2.68 ERA. However, a 4.17 FIP suggests that could change soon. Most of Garland’s success this season has come from the ground ball, as he has a 52% ground ball rate. As for the Mets, here’s how they’ve stacked up against Garland over the years:

METS HITTER

AB

BA

OBP

SLG

OPS

Rod Barajas

21

.333

.391

.762

1.153

Alex Cora

13

.231

.231

.385

.615

Henry Blanco

12

.167

.333

.250

.583

David Wright

10

.100

.100

.100

.200

Jeff Francoeur

10

.500

.583

.900

1.483

Fernando Tatis

4

.750

.833

1.000

1.833

Jose Reyes

3

.667

.667

1.333

2.000

Jason Bay

3

.333

.333

.333

.667

Angel Pagan

3

.000

.000

.000

.000

Weather stats (courtesy of weather.com): Tonight should be a nice night for baseball, with mostly sunny skies, tempratures in the low 70s and 11mph winds blowing from NW. If you have or were thinking about getting tickets for tomorrow’s game, however, hold up. The forecast calls for temperatures in the 60s and a 70% chance of rain. On Thursday, the forecast calls for a 30% chance of showers, with temperatures in the mid 70s and 12mph winds from NW.

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June 3, 2010

SP Stat Trends (Takahashi, Pelfrey, Santana)

By mfgz

The Mets were only able to take one game from the Padres, though the starting pitchers did not perform terribly.  Using some stats from the default Fangraphs Dashboard, let’s take a look at how each starter in the Padres series is performing relative to their career averages, and which direction some of these key indicators are trending towards since their last start.

takahashi k/9 bb/9 hr/9 babip lob% gb% hr/fb% era fip xfip
current 9.64 3.64 0.43 0.341 77.5 33.6 4.1 3.21 2.79 3.77
thru 5/31 10.42 3.55 0.24 0.329 83.3 33 2.3 2.13 2.31 3.51
career 9.64 3.64 0.43 0.341 77.5 33.6 4.1 3.21 2.79 3.77

Hisanori Takahashi did not fare well in his third start of the season.  Takahashi gave up 8 hits in 4 ip, though many of them were ground ball singles that made their way through the defense.  The main culprit was a grand slam early in the game which he was never able to overcome.  He threw 69 pitches, 44 of which were strikes.  He only struck out 1 and walked 2 and it’s safe to say he should rebound in his next start if some of those balls in play make their way into defenders’ gloves.  Takahashi’s FIP is still excellent and he’s doing a good job limiting home runs – sans the grand slam.  Everyone should be eager to see how he responds on Sunday vs the Marlins.

pelfrey k/9 bb/9 hr/9 babip lob% gb% hr/fb% era fip xfip
current 6.53 3.52 0.38 0.279 82.6 52.5 5.5 2.39 3.37 3.87
thru 6/1 6.22 3.68 0.42 0.285 82.5 51.1 5.9 2.54 3.56 4.04
career 5.34 3.42 0.65 0.311 71.5 50.3 7.6 4.30 4.20 4.56

Mike Pelfrey continued his ascension to a top of the rotation starter with his performance on Tuesday.  Pelfrey picked up his 8th win of the season, tossing 8 innings with 8 strikeouts and 2 walks.  Pelfrey’s k/9 shot up to 6.53 and while his lob% and babip should both regress a bit towards his career averages, he’s making a strong case that he will continue to outperform his career averages in these stats.  His “split-changeup” is producing a solid 12% whiff rate according to TexasLeaguers.  Look for continued success for Big Pelf.

santana k/9 bb/9 hr/9 babip lob% gb% hr/fb% era fip xfip
current 6.55 2.76 0.69 0.268 79.7 37.8 5.5 2.76 3.56 4.48
thru 6/2 6.81 2.40 0.76 0.272 76.8 35.4 5.9 3.03 3.48 4.32
career 9.01 2.50 0.97 0.286 77.5 37.8 9.3 3.10 3.39 3.43

Johan Santana put in another quality outing though laboring a bit without all of his stuff.  He walked 5 batters and only struck out 3 hitters through 7 innings of work.  He threw 123 pitches, 74 for strikes.  Santana has been able to limit home runs, but the lack of strikeouts explains the stark contrast between his ERA and FIPs.  Santana is an elite competitor, still with plus stuff, but he is seemingly on the decline.  Luckily, Pelfrey is taking some pressure off of Santana, and Jonathon Niese should be returning from the DL this weekend to continue his solid season.

takahashi k/9 bb/9 hr/9 babip lob% gb% hr/fb% era fip xfip
thru 9.64 3.64 0.43 0.341 77.5 33.6 4.1 3.21 2.79 3.77
thru 5/31 10.42 3.55 0.24 0.329 83.3 33 2.3 2.13 2.31 3.51
career 9.64 3.64 0.43 0.341 77.5 33.6 4.1 3.21 2.79 3.77

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May 26, 2010

How Do the Met Pitchers Stack Up Against Quality Hitters?

By Richard Gross

We got our very first taste of Interleague play this past weekend with the Mets taking on the Yankees at CitiField. All in all, the Mets faired well, taking two of three and got some solid pitching performances from starters Hisanori Takahashi, Mike Pelfrey and Johan Santana. They were able to effectively keep much of the potent Yankee lineup in check, which led me to ponder the blessings and curses of Interleague play from the Mets perspective. Let’s face it, when the Mets can take a series from the Yankees, it’s at least cause for Met fans to hold their heads up high and have some pride in their team—at least for a little while. But when things don’t go the Mets’ way, we lament the unfairness of Interleague play, “Why do the Mets always have to play the Yankees two times every season? I don’t see the Phillies having to take on the World Champions as part of their regular season ritual.”

No Interleague is not fair. The schedule and match-ups are unbalanced, although it serves as a great marketing tool for MLB. From that standpoint, it works. Granted, it would be easier for the Mets to move to Toledo, Ohio and take on the Cleveland Indians every year, but that’s not the hand that’s been dealt and if the Mets are to be the talk of the town and grab the back page headlines, they have to take the fight to the baseball diamond where it counts. Fair enough.

But just how tough is the competition the Mets have to face compared to Phillies or other teams in the league? The Cub pitchers, being in the same division as the Cardinals, have to face Albert Pujols on a regular basis. That’s no picnic. Glad the Mets only play the Cardinals 6 times a year. But the Mets have their own problems, because they have to face the likes of Chase Utley, Ryan Howard, Ryan Zimmerman, Hanley Ramirez and long-time Met killer Larry “Chipper” Jones on a pretty regular basis. Choose your poison.

So let’s break this down and take a look at the Mets pitching staff this year and identify not only what batters are hitting off of Met pitchers but also the quality of the hitters they face. First, take a look at this chart and then I’ll go into more detail about the numbers.

Pitcher

AVG

OBP

SLG

Q-AVG

Q-OBP

Q-SLG
Johan Santana

.243

.291

.364

.263

.339

.403
Francisco Rodriguez

.193

.284

.313

.257

.330

.401
Hisanori Takahashi

.235

.321

.348

.256

.331

.403
John Maine

.297

.398

.506

.256

.335

.409
Raul Valdes

.255

.308

.408

.255

.331

.400
Fernando Nieve

.215

.357

.380

.253

.326

.404
Oliver Perez

.269

.404

.440

.251

.328

.396
Jenrry Mejia

.278

.387

.392

.250

.327

.390
Jonathon Niese

.322

.392

.460

.249

.329

.390
Mike Pelfrey

.258

.325

.378

.246

.325

.394

The three columns after the pitcher’s name are pretty straight forward. They represent the batting average, on-base percentage and slugging percentage of opponents against that particular pitcher. We see that Francisco Rodriguez, so far, has been the toughest to get a hit off of with opponents batting average of .193 and Jonathon Niese has been hit pretty hard at .322. John Maine has been more prone to give up extra base hits with an opponent slugging of .506 and once again K-Rod has kept the extra base damage down to a minimum.

The last three columns represent the aggregate batting average (and OBP and SLG) of all of the hitters that pitcher has faced. “Q-AVG” stands for Quality Average which represents the quality of the batters that that particular pitcher has faced.

Let’s give an example. Hypothetically, let’s say that Santana is facing a team where every one of the batters, from top to bottom, is batting exactly .300. This would be a good hitting lineup and the aggregate batting average against this team would be .300. So the Q-AVG would be .300 which represents the difficulty of these hitters that Santana has to pitch to. If Santana were to hold this team to 6 hits after facing 25 batters, his opponent average would be .240. We can then identify that Santana did a really nice job containing this offense to just 6 hits when normally they would have done better since the overall quality of the hitters showed that they were .300 hitters. . But when we are talking about Q-AVG, we are not talking about just one lineup, but rather the collective aggregate averages of all the hitters Santana has faced so far this season.

So what conclusions can we draw from this? Santana, Rodriguez and Takahashi are the three Met pitchers who have faced the highest average of quality hitters. And it appears for all three pitchers that the numbers they have produced are lower than the Q-AVG, Q-OBP, Q-SLG, indicating they have done very well. Pelfrey has faced the lowest quality hitters at .246 and his opponent batting average of .258 suggest that he has not been doing as good of a job keeping them in check. But he has done well in the Q-SLG department keeping extra base hits lower than the slugging average of his collective opponents. John Maine has been mauled in the Q-SLG category and Jonathon Niese has been far too easy to hit in every category compared to the quality of batters he has been up against.

To help put this into context, of all pitchers in the N.L. who have pitched more than 50 innings, Zach Duke of Pittsburgh has faced the highest quality of hitters with a Q-AVG of .265. However, he has not done well as opponents are hitting .309 against him this year. Johan Santana is third on the list with his Q-AVG of .263, behind Jon Garland of the Padres (Q-AVG of .264). So we see what Santana has been able to achieve is very good when you consider the quality of hitters he has had to face.

Conversely, Bronson Arroyo (Q-AVG.234/ AVG.242), Brad Penny (Q-AVG.237/AVG.293) and Josh Johnson (Q-AVG .239/ AVG .201) have faced the lowest quality of hitters in the N.L. Lucky them.

Based upon the chart, we can derive some ideas about how good, poor or just plain lucky some pitchers have been. The data is subjective and can be interpreted a multitude of ways. Perhaps as the season moves along, Santana won’t face quite the quality of hitters he has been facing and therefore his ERA will improve. Perhaps because of his ace status, managers from other teams will continue to roll out their best hitters rather than give them a rest day knowing they will need to generate as many run opportunities against Santana as they can. Or perhaps he’s just gotten some bad luck thrown his way and he has managed to perform better than the collective average of these hitters, which reinforces Santana’s overall excellence.

But one thing we can confirm is that baseball is not always a fair game. Some teams will somehow avert having to face Roy Halladay or Tim Lincecum where other teams will have to face them two, maybe three times before the season is over. Some teams are in a weaker division. Some teams have the DH. Some teams will get a break because their opponent’s best hitter is on the DL or in a slump. And yes, some teams have to face a cross-town rival, with the highest payroll in baseball on a regular basis as their cross to bear through a long season. It’s not always fair but the game is definitely perfectly imperfect (or is that imperfectly perfect?—You decide.)

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May 24, 2010

SP Stat Trends: Takahashi, Pelfrey, Santana

By mfgz

We’re going to start a new series (name pending), after each series, detailing the start-to-start change in some key metrics for the Mets’ rotation arms.  The premise of this series is simply to monitor some of the stats that are often “luck” indicators.  I use quotes around luck, because too often we (or at least me) refer to any statistical anomaly as unsustainable or luck.  The trick is to find changes that are sustainable…like Mike Pelfrey’s k/9…we hope.

Friday’s starter, Hisanori Takahashi, pitched a gem in his first MLB start.  Pitching out of the pen he had compiled a k/9 over 11, allowing very few home runs and stranding runners just under 80% of the time.  After his start on Friday, his k/9 dipped and his BABIP began it’s descent from .342.  His 2.56 FIP suggests that his 2.53 ERA, though extremely low, is not entirely a fluke. His 3.0 hr/fb is sure to regress towards the league average, and his expected FIP, or xFIP, which supplements FIP with a league average hr/fb%, rests at 3.56 for the season.  Takahashi could prove to be a very capable starter, but it is unquestionably too early to make any predictions based off of any of these metrics.

Takahashi k/9 bb/9 hr/9 babip lob % gb% hr/fb era fip xfip
after 5/21 10.69 4.22 0.28 0.332 81.3 35.1 3.0 2.53 2.56 3.56
to 5/21 11.42 4.85 0.35 0.342 78.0 32.8 4.0 3.12 2.69 3.51
career 10.69 4.22 0.28 0.332 81.3 35.1 3.0 2.53 2.56 3.56

Mike Pelfrey continued his dominant performances thanks to a splitter that keeps generating whiffs.  His k/9 is still above 6 and remains to be one stat I am very interested in this season as a Met fan.  It’s a full point higher than his career average while all other metrics seem right in line, aside from the increased strand rate.  His LOB% should still be higher than normal thanks to that higher k rate and theconsistent 50% gb rate.  Hopefully a healthy Reyes will keep more balls in the infield, helping Pelfrey strand more runners off of ground balls.  Pelfrey’s xFIP of 4.01, though 40 points higher than his FIP, is outstanding for him, and helps solidify the fact that he hasn’t been overtly lucky, and since he’s never given up many homeruns to begin with, his xFIP is always going to be a bit misleading.

Pelfrey k/9 bb/9 hr/9 babip lob % gb% hr/fb era fip xfip
after 5/22 6.19 3.34 0.48 0.297 80.5 50.6 6.3 2.86 3.55 4.01
to 5/22 6.04 3.38 0.53 0.292 79.6 49.3 6.7 3.02 3.67 4.11
career 5.25 3.40 0.68 0.313 70.9 50.0 7.8 4.43 4.26 4.61

Johan Santana proved he can still be an ace and pitch well, despite a declining strikeout rate.  His walks are right in line with his career average, as are most other key metrics aside from his FIPs. His FIP and xFIP are noticeably higher than his career averages thanks to that 6.96 k/9 and a somewhat low-for-Santana 7.1 hr/fb%.  Hopefully Johan can get a few more home starts to offset the expected long ball regression and declining strikeout rate, but either way he is pitching fantastic and continues to be the ace of this staff.

Santana k/9 bb/9 hr/9 babip lob % gb% hr/fb era fip xfip
after 5/23 6.96 2.42 0.85 0.286 75.1 37.8 7.1 3.41 3.61 4.21
to 5/23 7.11 2.26 0.97 0.289 72.9 38.8 8.0 3.72 3.69 4.13
career 9.06 2.48 0.98 0.287 77.2 37.9 9.4 3.14 3.39 3.41

We’ll monitor the changes in these rates as the season goes on.  Many of us check these stats regularly, so we wanted to present them in an easily accessible format. Seeing the changes first hand from start to start will help provide a glimpse of how our pitchers are trending and just how “lucky” they may have been in recent starts.

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