Oliver Perez: Wild And Out
Oliver Perez had a bad day.
To start the bottom half of the third inning, Perez walked Jimmy Rollins. After a Pedro Feliz fly out, Perez walked Eric Bruntlett. Then he walked Carlos Ruiz, loading the bases for pitcher Jamie Moyer and setting the scene for the unthinkable: walking the pitcher to walk in a run. Jerry Manuel was less than pleased, pulling Perez after 2.1 innings, six walks, five hits, and only two strikeouts. Of the 77 pitches Perez threw, only 36 were strikes.
Entering the game Perez’ BB/9 sat just shy of seven. Extremely odd, given Perez is not only throwing more pitches in the zone this season (52.5%, Perez’ Mets career high) but also more first pitch strikes, nearly 60% (previous high with the Mets: 55.6% in 2007.) Generally, those two variables don’t have an inverse relationship with the amount of walks issued.
Even worse for Perez, his batted profile is ugly. No matter your source for batted ball data, the number of line drives hit off Perez is in the neighborhood of 30%. Unnecessary baserunners + tons of liners = the opposite of fun.
Perhaps the only humorous aspect of this affair is the articles being produced on how the Mets flopped when choosing Perez over an additional year of Derek Lowe. These articles are being written as if, within the time since, new information arrived and suggested Perez was a far less valuable pitcher than Lowe. The idea isn’t simply hindsight – after all, Eric laid out the terms and everything before either deal wrapped and Matthew suggested Perez was overpaid directly after— but why weren’t these same articles written by these same people before or directly after the Mets made that decision? Why has it taken a month of the new season for everyone to finally realize that the Mets may have made a mistake?
As poor as Perez has pitched, unless there’s something more at work here – an injury, an outlier, whatever – his FIP will not remain this high all season. Meanwhile, hopefully this leads to some smarter decision making and decision making analysis on behalf of those who entertained the idea of Perez over Lowe, and perhaps next time they won’t entertain the idea one bit.
Oliver Perez is an ace. These early struggles are merely an abberation from his usual dominance.
lol
Omar has quite a few epic fails on his record.
It was and always will be a terrible signing. That being said, his fastball has been 3-4 mph lower than normal this year. He’s hurt.
He was actually around 91-92 today, just not enough control and a very tight strike zone that doomed him.
He avg’d 89.83 today, and topped out at 91.7.
As a Met fan and amateur baseball analyst, the Oliver Perez signing bothers me to no end. Check out Amazin’ Avenue and Mets Geek who were foaming at the mouth this offseason about their anti-Perez stance. How can a front office be so inept?
5 minute at FanGraphs or StatCorner will tell anyone Ollie is worth nowhere near $12 million. What a joke.
Yeah this is a tough time for Mets fans.
Omar has made some poor peripheral moves but with Castillo and now Ollie, he’s making some major ones too.
Here’s what I worry about. Considering the last few GMs the Mets have had before Minaya, I can’t be confident that Omar’s replacement would be better. We could go from Layden to Isiah Thomas, so to speak
Yea, this Oliver Perez is significantly worse than the one from the past two years. This fact, however, only highlights how stupid the signing is, as Oliver’s breakdown is no surprise given his trackrecord.
I can fix Oliver Perez in 10 minutes!
on a serious note, has anyone ever noticed that his right foot doesnt point towards home when he pitches? Just seems like since that was the first thing I was taught when I was 8, that someone might have mentioned that to Perez.
http://mlb.mlb.com/media/video.jsp?content_id=4014127
Have we looked at his Hit F/X data? Could he be getting squeezed all the time? I’ve seen some rather sloppy umpiring this season. Not that I’m disagreeing that Perez sucks.
That could have been true yesterday. There were 18 walks in that game…
Jamie Moyer actually walked seven times last year, and remarkably has walked in four of his five starts so far this year.
I don’t know why everyone is so worried Jerry Manuel has already figured out the problem. It’s a lack of confidence. I think some positive reinforcement, a night out with David Wright, and a pat on the back from Johan should help his bb rate, control, and velo. Maybe he can wait for another bases loaded bottom of the ninth and pinch hit with Oliver.
But, he recently got married and therefore more mature. How much maturity does a guy need?
and now he’s been demoted to the bullpen.
:evil laugh:
Perez is throwing more pitches in the strike zone than last year, but he is throwing fewer total strikes, as his O-Swing has dropped from 22 to 15. His pct of total strikes put into play has not changed his years with the Mets, and is 1.2 SD better than league mean. The low pct of strikes combined with the low contact rate means Perez will run up his pitch counts, issuing more walks along with more strikeouts.
In regards to the comment that the Mets should have ponied up to get Lowe I completely agree…but:
I’ve heard the evil conspiracy theory that with Boras representing both he KNEW the Mets would be the highest (and potentially ONLY) bidder on Perez once Lowe was signed.
It certainly would have been in his best interest if Lowe signed elsewhere…
Ouch…Perez v. Lowe….Quick death by hanging or slow death by poison?