Comments on: Grading the pitchers’ first half

By: brian mcnamee

brian mcnamee — Sun, 26 Jul 2009 10:06:57 +0000

What !?!??!
You give Santana a B and Pelfrey a B ????
You’re high, right ?
Pelfrey gives up 6 runs every outing.
He walks 4 guys every 9 innings, while whiffing only 5.
3 times this year he hasnt gotten out of the 4th inning !!
Don’t blame the defense this time; Pelf’s era is 4.50.
He’s a disappointment to me, not a B

By: Chris Wilcox

Chris Wilcox — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 23:25:04 +0000

I’m going to put this another way. Would you rather have:

Option A: Oliver Perez (3 years/$36 million, annual salary $12 million) and Frankie Rodriguez (3 years/$37 million, annual salary $12.3 million, plus fourth year option) for $24.3 million for years 1, 2, and 3, $73 million in total value, $15 in year 4 if Frankie hits playing time incentives, pushing the deal up to $85 million in total value
Option B: Derek Lowe (4 years/$60 million, annual salary $15 million) and Brian Fuentes (2 years/$17 million, annual salary $9.5 million) for a total of $24.5 million for years 1 and 2, and $15 million for years 3 and 4, $77 million in total value

Now, obviously year 4 of the Lowe contract is going to be a little hard to swallow in his age 39 season. But considering that Oliver Perez is already a bust in year 1 of his contract in his age 27 season…I mean, that’s not a good sign. Plus, you’re paying Frankie Rodriguez $15 million in that 4th year anyway if he hits his playing time incentives, and if he doesn’t, that’s a good sign that the team has wasted $12.3 million in years 2 or 3. Overpaying for Frankie probably cost them Derek Lowe, and with Lowe and Fuentes, this is a much better team right now. You can’t deny that.

By: Chris Wilcox

Chris Wilcox — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 18:42:38 +0000

ERA does not necessarily say how well a pitcher has pitched. You gloss over strikeouts and walks like this is unimportant; it shows that Fuentes has been a better pitcher than K-Rod, at less than half the cost. Even if you go by saves (which is not the best way to compare pitchers), Fuentes has more saves than Frankie. He hasn’t been that good this year, and if he continues to pitch as well as he has through the first half, if he doesn’t pick up the strikeouts and drop the walks, he’s going to get bombed in the second half. I don’t feel nearly as safe with him as you guys.

By: tjv101

tjv101 — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 13:23:58 +0000

You probably should have used ERA because thats the most important number of all. If you come into a game in a save situation, you probably do not want to give up runs hence you may not earn the save. (Pretty rational thinking I assume). ERA certainly can tell you how good a pitcher pitched. If K-Rod’s ERA is sub 2, then he’s getting the job done. His SV/SVO is very good and deserves to be better. Is it alarming that he averages a K an inning only now? Not really. Its still the first half of the season and when his team begins to get healthier in August, he should get more chances to save games as he has in years past. Do we really want to compare apples and oranges. The only real difference between Fuentes and K-Rod this year is Fuentes is averaging slighly more than a K/IP and has walked less batters than K-Rod. I would much rather have a guy that saves a heck of a lot more games on my team that Fuentes. K-Rod has saved 227 saves since 2005 compared to Fuentes 157 (including this year). Can you give the guy some praise for getting all that work in and still being pretty dominant and having so many more appearances in save situations meaning more work. Let’s not forget Fuentes’ shitty 3.40 career ERA (3.23 this year) compared to K-Rod’s 2.31 (1.90 in 09). You remember ERA right, that thing you like to omit from your stats?

By: tynian16

tynian16 — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 19:29:37 +0000

Because starters rarely go more than 6 innings anymore, relievers are very valuable. How do you think Yankee fans have felt all these years with Mariano coming out in the 9th? It’s nice to know that 95% of the time or whatever the rate is, you are going to win the game. And now that the yanks haven’t had a reliable bullpen in about 5 years, those later innings become a bit messier. K Rod has done exactly what the Mets have paid him to do and what they didn’t have at all last year.

By: Chris Wilcox

Chris Wilcox — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 17:52:50 +0000

I’m going to list three mystery pitchers’ rate stats below. Two of them I discussed above so they should be easy to find, but one is a surprise. Rank these pitchers 1 through 3:

Pitcher 1: 8.9 K/9, 5.3 BB/9, 0.6 HR/9, 0.51 GB/FB, 3.9 XBH%
Pitcher 2: 8.0 K/9, 4.0 BB/9, 0.5 HR/9, 0.76 GB/FB, 4.9 XBH%
Pitcher 3: 10.0 K/9, 2.6 BB/9, 0.6 HR/9, 0.63 GB/FB, 3.9 XBH%

You know whose rates look the best? Pitcher 3. You know who that is? Hint: he signed a two year, $17.5 million contract with a club option for a third season with the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim, or $20 million less than the Mets signed K-Rod (Pitcher 1) and about $36 million less than they will pay Bobby Parnell (Pitcher 2) in that same time period. Yes, K-Rod is overpaid.

I didn’t use ERA here, particularly with relief pitchers, because it really doesn’t tell you how well a pitcher pitched. You have to look at things like strikeouts, walks, home runs, and in all of those categories, K-Rod has shown decline this season. He hasn’t been that good, and frankly had no business being on the All Star team (then again, relief pitchers in general shouldn’t be All Stars).

By: tjv101

tjv101 — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 16:33:42 +0000

You are some tough critic I must admit but most of your assessments are completely legit…but not all. First, though I am terrified that Johan isn’t striking out people anymore. He started of hot as a firecracker the first two months of the season and looked like the most dominating pitcher in baseball. It was interesting to see the dropoff numbers. However, most people would say that he is a second half pitcher so lets cross our fingers, he’s not hurt…or unhappy.

I must completely disagree with you about K-ROD. ERA is 1.90 (which is almost half a point below is average…which is still good). 23/26 Saves isn’t shabby especially when that number should be 24. He flat out blew it against the Pirates and Orioles only this season in those 2 other save changes (not counting Castillo’s blunder). Mets fans knew from the start he’s rarely going to have a 1-2-3 9th inning but thats ok because his pitches are so filthy that he’s gonna get out of it most of the time. Oh yeah, averaging a K and inning isn’t too bad either. How do you give him a C ? Also, they didn’t overpay for him. He’s making $12 million a year getting the job done almost every time and your gonna get mad because he’s walking too many people? He’s one of the elite closers in the game and right on par money wise. I think they actually got him pretty reasonably. The rest of the bullpen Manuel plays around with almost daily. I think once Putz went down, he wanted Parnell to step in but couldn’t do it. Then tried his hand at Feliciano which then started to fall apart. Then Sean Green, then Brian Stokes. Now it’s just whoever the heck he has a hunch for since the Mets still don’t have a good pen beside Rodriguez.