The Great Zito
I am never one to leave well enough alone. I'm a Giants fan. I love to poke holes in any and all points of light surrounding my team. Today I've decided to make myself feel worse about Barry Zito's early success.
This started as an examination into today's starting pitcher for the Mets, John Maine. So far the 26-year-old has a sub 2.00 ERA and looks like one of the better pitchers in the majors. But a close look at his stats shows a .220 BABIP, which suggests young Maine will soon be back up towards his expected ERA of around 3.30.
That got me thinking about which Giants starters are playing over their head. Matt Morris was too obvious, so I moved on to Zito.
The fact that Zito, whose walk and strikeout numbers have been moving in the wrong direction the last few seasons, is pitching better than expected isn't all that shocking. But I wanted to find out exactly what was different and what we could expect to change.
A quick check at Fangraphs showed one graph that was way out of whack: Home runs. Zito has given up only one home run this season, a rate of 0.20 HR/9, where Zito's lifetime average is 0.91. What's more is that his HR/FB rate is 2.1 percent, compared to a lifetime average of 8.4 percent.
HR/FB rates normally hover around 11 percent. The last two seasons Zito's been at 9 and 10.4 percent. Batters have hit 47 flyballs off Zito this year. A straight up 10 percent would give him four home runs expected if you round down. Just those three extra runs would raise his ERA from 3.65 to 4.28, and that's without trying to guess how many runners would have been on base.
One could argue that moving to pitcher-friendly Pac Bell/ATT/Mays Field has lowered his expected home run rate, but the two parks have played pretty close recently. Last season Mays Field was last and the Coliseum 24th, while in 2005 they were 17th and 19th respectively, according to ESPN. And while five of Zito's seven starts have been at home, his only home run was in San Francisco.
What's interesting is that since home runs are a three-true-outcomes result, his luck isn't represented in his FIP ERA, which is lower than his actual ERA. But his xFIP at the Hardball Times is 4.24, almost exactly what his home run rate would predict. So while Zito looked sharp against the Mets -- a well placed curve ball like Zito's may be my favorite thing in baseball -- we can expect a few more of those fly balls to hit the seats. We can only hope that wont derail him too much.
This started as an examination into today's starting pitcher for the Mets, John Maine. So far the 26-year-old has a sub 2.00 ERA and looks like one of the better pitchers in the majors. But a close look at his stats shows a .220 BABIP, which suggests young Maine will soon be back up towards his expected ERA of around 3.30.
That got me thinking about which Giants starters are playing over their head. Matt Morris was too obvious, so I moved on to Zito.
The fact that Zito, whose walk and strikeout numbers have been moving in the wrong direction the last few seasons, is pitching better than expected isn't all that shocking. But I wanted to find out exactly what was different and what we could expect to change.
A quick check at Fangraphs showed one graph that was way out of whack: Home runs. Zito has given up only one home run this season, a rate of 0.20 HR/9, where Zito's lifetime average is 0.91. What's more is that his HR/FB rate is 2.1 percent, compared to a lifetime average of 8.4 percent.
HR/FB rates normally hover around 11 percent. The last two seasons Zito's been at 9 and 10.4 percent. Batters have hit 47 flyballs off Zito this year. A straight up 10 percent would give him four home runs expected if you round down. Just those three extra runs would raise his ERA from 3.65 to 4.28, and that's without trying to guess how many runners would have been on base.
One could argue that moving to pitcher-friendly Pac Bell/ATT/Mays Field has lowered his expected home run rate, but the two parks have played pretty close recently. Last season Mays Field was last and the Coliseum 24th, while in 2005 they were 17th and 19th respectively, according to ESPN. And while five of Zito's seven starts have been at home, his only home run was in San Francisco.
What's interesting is that since home runs are a three-true-outcomes result, his luck isn't represented in his FIP ERA, which is lower than his actual ERA. But his xFIP at the Hardball Times is 4.24, almost exactly what his home run rate would predict. So while Zito looked sharp against the Mets -- a well placed curve ball like Zito's may be my favorite thing in baseball -- we can expect a few more of those fly balls to hit the seats. We can only hope that wont derail him too much.
Labels: Barry Zito, Giants
posted by Chris at
12:46 PM
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