Archive for John Smoltz

The Cardinals’ acquisition of John Smoltz sparked some debate here and elsewhere. The debate basically went like this:

“Smoltz is not done. His ERA is meaningless. His peripheral stats are still pretty darn good. His high batting average of balls on play and homer per fly ball rates are unsustainable. More importantly, he’s still missing bats. He may not be a dominant pitcher anymore, but there’s no reason to believe he can’t be decent. He’s just thrown 40 innings of unlucky ball.”

“Are you freaking kidding me? Have you seen him pitch? He’s old, coming off of major surgery and can’t hit his spots. He’s throwing meatballs and getting pasted. He can’t make it past one trip around the lineup. He should just retire.”

First hand experience can sometimes cloud our judgment when it comes to regression to the mean. In other words, perception and reality many times will clash. Having personally watched Smoltz pitch on TV yesterday, my feeling was the he is at the very least a reasonable facsimile to the Smoltzy of old. His fastball had decent life and he located the pitch well. His splitter was a thing of beauty. His slider and curveball both looked pretty good. The final result, Smoltz threw 5 innings, allowed 3 hits, no walks and struck out 9. At one point in the game, he struck out seven in a row. Granted, this came against San Diego’s weak lineup, but how in the world did Boston let this guy go?

Who is right? The Boston fan who witnessed this guy get blasted around Fenway, or me?The process in finding out is a lot more complicated than people think. We’ll have a clearer picture over Smoltz’s next few starts, but even then it’ll still probably be in the realm of small samples. Smoltz says it was mechanics, the Cardinals say it was a matter of tipping pitches. We can’t quantify either, really.

Here’s my lazy, take it for what it’s worth analysis. John Smoltz was by all accounts an awesome pitcher in 2007, when we started to get pitch f/x data. Not a full season’s worth, mind you, and there have since been some kinks worked out. Caveats now aside, here’s how his stuff stacked up from 2007 to his time in Boston to his one start for St. Louis —

(Sorry, not sure why the curves got cut off. Velo is the same year to year)

What can this tell us? Not a whole lot. Obviously his fastball and slider’s velocity is down. His fastball has been less than effective, while his slider is still an effective pitch. His splitter is also still a weapon, although I can’t explain the crazy horizontal movement from yesterday. Yes, his stuff is down. He’s not the “let’s stink up the joint” version of Smoltz, neither is he going to strike out 40% of the batters he faces. But I just don’t see any reason to believe he is finished, from a quantitative standpoint and from my own two eyeballs. I just trust the numbers more.

Well, it is officially 2009, meaning pitchers and catchers report in less than two months. This offseason has seen CC Sabathia and A.J. Burnett sign extremely lucrative deals with the Yankees, Javier Vazquez shipped to the Braves, and negotiations begun on a deal between Derek Lowe and the Mets. As obvious as it may sound, starting pitching is very importance to the success of a team, and these teams have made great strides to strengthen their respective staffs.

There are several other options available on the free agent market, though, that would not require long-commitment/big-money contracts. Doubly important, their classification as Type B free agents means that the teams they eventually sign with do not have to surrender a first-round draft pick next season. As of right now, there are five such pitchers on the market: Paul Byrd, Jon Garland, Braden Looper, John Smoltz, and Randy Wolf.

Byrd is 38 years old and coming off of a relative down season spent with both the Indians and Red Sox. It did not seem to make much sense when the Red Sox acquired him last season and it won’t make much sense if he signs anything other than a 1-yr deal with little monetary investment. Byrd projects to log 175 innings with a 4.78 FIP next season. These numbers make him worth +1.2 wins. This below average projection pegs his fair market value at around $6 mil. If a team finds itself needing some veteran experience in the rotation, it could do worse than Byrd, but anything over 1-yr/$6 mil is really overvaluing his potential contribution.

Garland, 29, happens to be the youngest of this quintet. He has also been one of the more overrated pitchers in recent history. Garland has shown himself to be very durable, but his combination of good, not great, ERA figures with 200+ innings pitched has hidden his poor controllable skills. Next season, Garland projects to 184 innings at a 4.58 FIP. This makes him a +1.7 win pitcher, just slightly better than Byrd, and nine years junior. Jon is coming off of two consecutive seasons during which his salary exceeded $10 mil. At +1.5 wins, his fair market value is $8.5 mil. I can definitely see Garland signing a 3-yr deal somewhere, but fear that the signing team will pay much more than this fair market value. In fact, I would not be surprised if Garland signs a 3-yr/$36 mil deal similar to the one currently offered to Derek Lowe.

Next up is Braden Looper, of whom I wrote about not too long ago. Though Looper is 34 years old, I am very surprised his name is not being tossed around that much. His projections are sunnier than Garland and in the same vicinity as other pitchers making substantially more money. He also projects to 184 innings next season, but with a 4.42 FIP, deeming his value at +1.9 wins. Braden’s fair market value would then be $9.5 mil. A team looking for a safe bet to fill out the back end of their rotation would do themselves wise to sign Braden to a 2-yr/$18 mil deal.

John Smoltz, 41, is the elder statesman of the group as well as the most curious case. From 2005-2007, he easily surpassed the 200-innings plateau. Last year, however, injuries sidelined him for the majority of the season. Marcel has him pegged for 94 innings at a 3.50 FIP, numbers that fall vastly above or below his marks from the previous three seasons. Under this scenario, Smoltz would still be worth +2 wins. A more optimistic projection would see Smoltz pitch 190 innings with a 3.35 FIP, deeming him closer to +4 wins. Ideally, Smoltz would return for the Braves for one more season before hanging up his glove. Smoltz could be worth anywhere from $10-$20 mil next season, but he definitely has the potential to be the best of this group, even at 41 years of age.

Lastly, we have Randy Wolf, who has been linked to a slew of teams, including the Mets. The former all-star has seen his fair share of injuries over the last several seasons, but projects to log around 180 innings with a 4.40 FIP. These numbers, very similar to those projected for Looper, place Wolf around +2 wins, $10 mil. At 32 years old, a 3-yr deal would not be in the realm of absurdity, but his injury history may make him risky to some front offices. Whoever inks Wolf to a deal should include an option and performance bonuses to protect themselves if he should find himself on the familiar disabled list.

Later on tonight, we will look at the Type B relievers on the market.

In 2008, the Atlanta Braves had a very disappointing season. I know, thanks Captain Obvious, but still, many analysts pegged them to at least be competitive and they essentially fell short in that regard. Granted, they lost John Smoltz after five starts, saw 13 replacement level starts from Tom Glavine before losing him for the rest of the season, made up that difference with slightly above replacement level performance from Mike Hampton, and saw Tim Hudson fall prey to Tommy John Surgery. Whew. By the end of the season, the rotation was headlined by Jair Jurrjens and accompanied by Jorge Campillo, Jo-Jo Reyes, and Hampton.

Here are the values of the primary Braves starters from 2008. Keep in mind that this only includes their numbers as starters, not bullpen appearances:

NAME               IP       FIP      WAR
Jair Jurrjens     188.1     3.59     +3.6
Tim Hudson        141.0     3.83     +2.6
Jorge Campillo    137.0     4.27     +1.9
John Smoltz        27.0     2.32     +1.0
Jo-Jo Reyes       110.1     5.04     +0.5
Mike Hampton       78.0     4.94     +0.5
Tom Glavine        63.1     6.02     -0.3

Put together, these seven pitchers combined for +9.8 wins above replacement. Glavine is not very likely to return in 2009. Hudson will miss most, if not all, of the season recovering from his surgery. Hampton just signed with the Astros. Jo-Jo Reyes was initially rumored as part of the Javier Vazquez-deal, and though his moving did not come to fruition, I think it’s safe to say he is not necessarily part of the Braves 2009 rotation hopes.

That leaves Jurrjens and Campillo. Smoltz will likely return as long as he can physically throw a baseball, leaving two rotation spots open. One of them was filled the other day, as Frank Wren traded a package of prospects for Javier Vazquez. And, if the reports I have been reading are true, and the Braves are offering that guaranteed fifth year, it seems A.J. Burnett will soon round out that rotation. What would this rotation look like compared to last year?

NAME              IP     FIP      WAR
A.J. Burnett     190     3.90     +3.3
Javier Vazquez   200     3.92     +3.3
Jair Jurrjens    160     3.84     +2.9
Jorge Campillo   160     4.12     +2.4
John Smoltz       94     3.57     +2.0

Campillo’s projection was a tad skewed due to Jorge pitching out of the pen and lacking much major league tenure entering this year, as well as the fact that it does not slot him as a full-time starter in 2009. I adjusted it to something in between what the systems are calling for, taking his rotation spot into account. For Smoltz, this assumes he only pitches 2/5 of the season or so. Still, even with 40% of Smoltz, this rotation would be worth 13.9 wins above replacement, a four-win improvement from last season.

What happens if Smoltz comes back and pitches more than these 94 innings though? What if he logs 165 innings at a 3.45 FIP, which would actually be his highest such mark since 1994? In that scenario, Smoltz would be worth +36 runs, or +3.6 wins as opposed to two wins. In that scenario, the Braves would be getting a steal with Smoltz, because there is no way he will sign a 1-yr deal for his fair market value of $18 mil. It would also add another 1.6 wins to the projected 13.9, bringing the Braves potential rotation to +15.5 WAR, an improvement of almost six wins.

We don’t know if Campillo can build on his 2008 performance; if Jurrjens can avoid the sophomore slump; if Smoltz will return and/or stay healthy; or even if Burnett will end up as a Brave. If all of this comes to fruition, however, the Braves could realistically put out an extremely potent rotation.

When the Braves won their nine-hundred consecutive division titles they did so in large part with the help of their stellar pitching rotation. The Big Three, they were called, referring to Greg Maddux, Tom Glavine, and John Smoltz; three aces that could easily headline every other rotation in the league but served as 60% of the same one. Glavine left Atlanta after 2002 and Maddux left after 2003. Smoltz stayed.

Five or six years later, these three are in the twilight of their careers, albeit at different stages of said twilight. Smoltz will undergo season-ending surgery and, despite proclaiming he would make a comeback attempt, recovering from surgery provides ample time to do nothing but think and consider options. Glavine rejoined the Braves but has not been particularly effective and seems to be a shell of his old self. Maddux is still pitching quite well, regardless of his home park, but has hinted that the time has come to watch his son play baseball, rather than vice-versa.

Before Smoltz got hurt, he was continuing his dominance as a starter, posting these numbers:

5 GS, 28 IP, 25 H, 8 BB, 36 K
2.57 ERA, 2.21 FIP, 1.18 FIP, 82.8% LOB

Smoltz, whose career LD% is around 20.2%, was limiting hitters to just 13.9% this year; despite that, his BABIP clocked in at .349. Odd.

Glavine has not been as unlucky as Smoltz and, as his ERA-FIP suggests, it has actually been the other way around:

11 GS, 56.1 IP, 59 H, 29 BB, 34 K
4.47 ERA, 5.24 FIP, 1.47 WHIP, 75.6% LOB

His K/BB has plummeted to just 1.17 and his HR/FB of 15.1 is the highest it has ever been. He lets a lot of guys reach base but strands 3/4 of them. Interestingly enough, his BABIP of .269 is down from the .292-.305 range of the last three years.

Maddux plays in a notorious pitcher’s park in San Diego, but still, his FIP has steadily improved since leaving Atlanta:

13 GS, 77.2 IP, 80 H, 12 BB, 42 K
3.48 ERA, 3.39 FIP, 1.18 WHIP, 67.0% LOB

Essentially the opposite of Glavine, Maddux doesn’t let many runners reach base but more of them come around to score. With regards to BABIP, Maddux once mentioned (when discussing DIPS) that it was definitely true that a pitcher’s hits allowed would fluctuate; still, Maddux’s BABIPs of the last six years have been: .290, .290, .296, .295, .313, .295. Not too much fluctuation there! Maddux also has a 0.68 WPA, ranking behind just Jake Peavy as the most from a Padres SP.

I always wanted to see these three retire together so they could all go into the Hall of Fame at the same time. With Smoltz’s impending surgery and the time in which he will be forced to consider his future, this very well may happen. All three are no-doubters, in my eyes, when it comes to the HOF, due to their dominance, individual and team success on the field, and the legendary ambassadorship they have garnered over the years.

We’ll have to wait and see what happens but I am definitely not looking forward to a baseball season in which none of these three will be active.

With one out in the top of the third, and a 2-2 count, Felipe Lopez made a futile effort to hit a filthy, down and in John Smoltz slider. With the whiff, Smoltz earned a lifetime membership to the 3,000 Strikeout Club, a group that previously consisted of just fifteen pitchers. Making this feat even more remarkable are the facts that Smoltz missed a little over a year due to Tommy John surgery and, upon returning, found himself closing games for 3+ seasons. He became the fifth pitcher this decade to join the club, joining Randy Johnson, Greg Maddux, Curt Schilling, and Pedro Martinez.

Smoltz gave a phone interview to Baseball Tonight following the game in which he admitted to downplaying the milestone as much as he could until the reaction of the Atlanta crowd proved too much to simply brush aside. Later on the show, Kruk and Showalter answered e-mail responses to the posed question: What active pitcher has the best shot at 3,000 strikeouts? Kruk went with CC Sabathia and Showalter went with Johan Santana. Some of the e-mails suggested the likes of Carlos Zambrano, Felix Hernandez and Cole Hamels. This got me thinking: Which current pitchers really do have solid shots at joining Smoltz and the others in this illustrious group?

In order to help answer that question I called upon Bill James’s Career Assessments formula; this used to be known as his “Favorite Toy.” ESPN set up a page on which you can type in numbers corresponding to the appropriate fields and generate the current total a given player will amass based on the projected length of his career, as well as the probability said player reaches a specific target. For instance, I used Sabathia, who is currently 27 years old with 1142 career strikeouts entering this season. Plugging those numbers in as well as his strikeout totals for the last three seasons, the system projects Sabathia to pitch 7.5 more seasons averaging 188.5 strikeouts per year. This would give him 2,557 strikeouts for his career with a 26.2% chance at reaching 3,000.

I repeated this for every pitcher that currently has at least 900 strikeouts and was born during or after 1975. Pitchers like Mike Mussina and Jamie Moyer have upwards of 2,600 strikeouts but they are not likely to pitch much more after this season and do not quite rack up the K’s anyway. It is also difficult to plug King Felix and Hamels in because parts of their prior years are not likely indicative of what is to come. Of the 22 pitchers assessed only eight actually had a chance at 3,000; everyone else came out as having a 0.0% chance. Here are the eight, with their projected career total and chance at 3,000:

• Johan Santana: 2961, 47.6%
• Javier Vazquez: 2941, 44.9%
• Jake Peavy: 2827, 40.8%
• CC Sabathia: 2557, 26.2%
• Carlos Zambrano: 2510, 24.6%
• Josh Beckett: 2216, 11.3%
• Roy Oswalt: 2170, 4.0%
• Chris Carpenter: 2106, 1.3%

Of course things can change, and this system is not completely perfect, but it does shed light on just how hard it is to strike 3,000+ batters out. For fun, I plugged Felix Hernandez in and he came out with a projected total of 2,066 K with a 13.4% chance. After adjusting his 2005 season to be closer to what he may have gotten in 30+ starts, though, he comes out with 2286 and a 21.1% chance. Another interesting case is Aaron Harang, who has seemingly learned how to strike out guys as of late; Harang currently projects to 2210 with a 13.1% chance.

If you had to pick just one pitcher, in the above list or not, who would it be?

On April 17th, John Smoltz and the Braves shut out the Marlins by a score of 8-0. Still being closely monitored Smoltz lasted just five innings. These five innings were all the Braves needed from Smoltz, though, as he twirled a tremendous game; he did not give up any runs and struck out ten en route to his third win. On Baseball Tonight, Tim Kurkjian mentioned that this was the first time in over 100 years that a pitcher recorded a win while going for the exact line of 5 IP, 0 ER, and 10 K.

Though Retrosheet and the B-R Play Index do not have the game-by-game data capable of checking this assertion it is definitely true that Smoltz is the only pitcher to record this line since 1956. With that in mind I thought it would be fun to look at some more obscure pitching lines. To qualify as obscure there could be no more than three owners of the pitching line in question.

WINS

• 5 IP, 8 ER, 0 K: Andy Pettitte, 9/29/07 at BAL
• 5 IP, 8 H, 6 BB: Dan Reichert, 7/31/99 at TEX
• 6 IP, 4 HR, 5 K: Jeremy Bonderman, 6/15/07 at PHI, Jim Brower, 9/24/99 at TOR, Mike Mussina, 5/19/96 vs SEA
• 9 IP, 8 BB, 12 K: Nolan Ryan, 5/19/77 vs MIN AND 5/19/74 at MIN

That is not a typo: Nolan Ryan, in the span of four years and against the same team, posted the same obscure line.

LOSSES

• 9 IP, 0 BB, 12 K: Roger Clemens, 6/16/97 vs ATL
• 10 IP, 1 ER, 5 H: Jerry Robertson, 8/21/69 vs SD, Don Sutton, 6/10/68 vs NYM, Catfish Hunter, 9/18/67 vs MIN
• 6 IP, 8 K, 2 pickoffs: Pat Zachry, 6/26/76 at HOU

Only three pitchers since 1956 have recorded the 10 IP, 1 ER, 5 H line and all three came in consecutive years between 1967 and 1969.

These are just some examples of interesting and obscure pitching lines. If anybody else has some good ones post them in the comments. We can have a contest to help discover the most obscure pitching line.