Our Apologies

by Jeff on Dec 26, 2005 5:43 PM PST in Regular News Comment 5 comments

Site (and network) performance has been pretty lousy since yesterday morning, and while we're all aware of the problem, I think the techie has bigger things to worry about right now, so bear with us.

As far as today's news is concerned, no, I don't think Kevin Millwood is a $60m/5yr pitcher. He might not have to be, though, because initial reports have the fifth year being some variant of a team option, with the base contract being $48m/4yr. Still a lot of cash, but I'd say Millwood has a significantly better chance of being worth the money through 2009 than Jarrod Washburn. His coming to the AL West certainly doesn't make things any easier on the Mariners, as the Rangers now have the makings of a rotation that could very possibly be better than ours.

And now a few things from The Bill James Handbook 2006:

Ichiro had the #2 BPS (batting average plus slugging) in the AL on pitches out of the strike zone at .629. Raul Ibanez was #6, at .536.
Ichiro had the #1 BPS in the AL against curveballs, at .887.
Richie Sexson had the #2 BPS in the AL against changeups, at 1.043. Adrian Beltre was #10, at .912.
An average Richie Sexson home run traveled 401 feet, tied for 7th in the AL.
Richie Sexson also swung and missed on 24.4% of the pitches he saw, which was the worst percentage in the league.
Julio Mateo ranked #2 in BA against with runners on among relievers at .185, and #1 in BA against with RISP among relievers at .188. Matt Thornton, meanwhile, was #6 in BA against with runners on among relievers, at .213.
Jeff Nelson allowed just 19.4% of his inherited runners to score, good for 8th in the AL.
JJ Putz allowed a .219 OBP to the first batter he faced, 5th in the league.
Jamie Moyer had the slowest average fastball in the AL at 81.8mph.
Felix Hernandez threw 522 pitches at 95mph or above, third in the AL. JJ Putz was 8th, with 366.
On the other side of the coin, Jamie Moyer threw 1169 pitches under 80mph, third in the league. He also threw the second-lowest percentage of fastballs, at 40.1%. 27.3% of his pitches were changeups, second-highest in the AL.
Joel Pineiro allowed just a .491 BPS on curveballs, 6th in the AL. Moyer allowed a .575 BPS on changeups, third in the AL.
JJ Putz's average fastball flew by at 94.8mph. Matt Thornton's was 93.3. These ranked 5th and 10th in the league, respectively.

That's all for now. I'll save some of their player projections for another day.

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Comments

I wish...

...they didn't add batting average and slugging average together. They should just use slugging. That said, I'm surprised Ibanez did so well against pitches out of the zone and Beltre rocked against changeups. It would be interesting to see if certain players consistently performed disproportionately well against certain types of pitches year after year or if that's just small sample size randomness. Interesting stuff nonetheless.

by Aaron on Dec 26, 2005 6:29 PM PST reply actions 0 recs

Jamie Moyer

Bringing the gas

by Scruffy Lefty on Dec 26, 2005 8:47 PM PST reply actions 0 recs

Only after dinner at a Mexican restaurant

by Gomez on Dec 27, 2005 11:02 AM PST up reply actions 0 recs

You didn't put a cover sheet on the BPS report

One of my friends, when he comes to Mariners games with me, if Moyer is starting, he makes a deliberate attempt to try to compute the fastest and slowest Moyer pitches he's seen so far. It's always sort of amusing to me the glee he has over some of them - "Oo, look at that 63-mph changeup! That's the new low!" or "Hey, was that Moyer bringing THE HEAT? It said 83!"

Marinerds - a different daily dose of baseblog.

by Deanna on Dec 27, 2005 11:08 AM PST reply actions 0 recs

On the projections

Just got the book for XMAS (I was told NOT to buy ANY thing for myself until then). I haven't gotten to the hitters projections, BUT the pitcher projections (which Bill James himself doesn't believe in) like our SP. However our pitching staff is one huge injury risk save Putz and Sherill. ERA on the projectsions blew me a way, 2.67 for the king, 3.90 for Jamie, 3.96 for Jarrod, 4.00 for Joel, and a 4.90 for Gil. With the projected ERA's and IP it came out to 4.12 ERA. OK, I know pitcher projections cannot be totally accurate, but that book likes our SP. Not only that, our RP doesn't look so bad. How expects Joel, Jamie, and Jarrod (Not-so Killer J's?) to all post ERA's of 4 or less? If so, we got one hell of a sleeper. I'll forget I ever read those projections and expect 4.55+ for the staff. That way I won't get to disappointed (if they all go 5+ except the King)

by chrisisasavage on Dec 28, 2005 5:32 PM PST reply actions 0 recs