Archive for Pedro Martinez

On Friday night, we witnessed a matchup of starting pitchers in the Dodgers vs. Mets series that only comes along a few times every generation. Clayton Kershaw — in the middle of a career that is already alongside some of the great starting pitchers in history — went head to head versus Jacob deGrom, a leading National League Cy Young Award candidate and ace of the Mets staff.

Perhaps we shouldn’t have been surprised about the combined numbers the two starters produced: 13.2 IP, 9 H, 5 BB, 3 ER (two of which scored after Kershaw was replaced), and a staggering 24 strikeouts. The tally of strikeouts, for those who weren’t watching, was historic: Friday night marked the first game in postseason history that two starters each had at least 11 strikeouts. And, while Kershaw was very good, deGrom was better, going a full seven innings while allowing only six base runners, no runs, and 13 Ks. “Better” is in fact a serious understatement, as deGrom scythed through one of the best offenses in baseball in what was one of the most dominant postseason debuts in recent history.

Earlier this season, when Pedro Martinez was about to be inducted into the Hall of Fame, I wondered: what current starting pitcher possesses the same arsenal of pitches (by velocity) as vintage Pedro? While many commenters simply wrote “no one” in response to the article (an understandable response, given Martinez’ dominance), the answer was actually deGrom: possessing a fastball, changeup, and curveball that clocked in at almost identical speeds to 1999 Martinez.

We don’t have any data on how Martinez’ pitches moved, so comparing the all-important “nastiness” factor between Pedro and deGrom is impossible. However, the conclusion is there: deGrom has the stuff to compare to Martinez, and that simple fact is remarkable. This section toward the end of that piece comparing the two pitchers sums up both the limitations and excitement of the exercise:

“There is more to pitching than velocity, and Martinez’ acumen in terms of pitch sequencing and knowledge of hitters was one of the biggest reasons why he was so incredibly successful. deGrom might not have the other intangible skills (yet) that the newest Hall of Fame member possessed at his peak, but we can all agree: 1999 Pedro velocity is a pretty great starting point.”

Jacob deGrom isn’t Pedro Martinez. Basically no one can make that claim, and deGrom has a long, long way to go before their careers can be compared. However, for a few brief hours on Friday night, deGrom was almost as dominant as peak Martinez, and he was dominant in very similar ways. The similarities between the two were already there, and in many ways, they were cemented in the first game of the NLDS. Let’s dive into deGrom’s start to explain further.

First, there was the electric fastball, which compares very well to Pedro’s. Sitting at an average of 97 mph, he quickly established the pitch on Friday, throwing 85% fastballs in the first inning alone. From then on, he relied on the fastball in all situations and counts as his main pitch, only deviating from that plan to mix in first-pitch sliders to 44% of the right-handed hitters he faced. In fact, most of the “trouble” he got into on Friday night was against righties, so he pitched backwards to those hitters later in the game, relying on offspeed pitches early in counts to keep them off-balance.

In the first few innings, he relentlessly went after righties early in the count with fastballs before getting weak contact or whiffs with sliders, as he did to A.J. Ellis in the second inning:

Read the rest on Just a Bit Outside.

Three historically great pitchers were inducted into the baseball Hall of Fame this past weekend, with John Smoltz and Randy Johnson representing two-thirds of the former titans to be inducted into Cooperstown. There was always something special about the final member of the trio, however. He had a season in 1999 that ranked among the greatest pitching seasons of all time, and he put together a string of seasons between 1997 – 2003 that are collectively among the most dominant ever when compared to league average. That pitcher, of course, was Pedro Martinez.

Though there might never be another pitcher with the unbelievable combination of fastball, curveball, and changeup that Pedro had, it is possible there are current pitchers with arsenals that are similar to him. Today, in honor of Martinez’ induction, let’s try to answer a possibly unanswerable question: who’s the closest current pitcher to vintage Pedro?

We’re going to focus only on Pedro’s 1999 season — when he was at the height of his powers — in comparison to 2015 starters. As a preface, here is the incredible stat line from that season:

Martinez had the 10th-best ERA+ of all time in 1999, setting career-highs in strikeouts, wins, and Fielding Independent Pitching. He also famously struck out five of six hitters in the first two innings of the 1999 All-Star Game, proving his complete dominance on the mound at the height of the PED era by fanning Barry Larkin, Larry Walker, Sammy Sosa, Mark McGwire, and Jeff Bagwell. Some would argue 2000 was as great a season for Pedro as 1999, but we’d be splitting hairs by trying to decide between them: they both represent two of the greatest pitching seasons in history.

Read the rest on Just a Bit Outside.

By striking out 12 St. Louis Cardinals hitters on Tuesday night, Chris Sale of the Chicago White Sox tied Pedro Martinez’s record for striking out at least ten hitters in eight games in a row. The feat is an impressive one, requiring a consistent level of performance for more than a month. Only four pitchers have had such a streak last more than five games, per Baseball Reference’s Play Index (Much of the data throughout this piece comes the Play Index).

During the streak, Sale has an ERA of 1.80 and a 1.27 FIP while striking out 42.5% of hitters. Counting only strikeouts during the streak, Sale’s 97 Ks would be tied for ninth with Sonny Gray for strikeouts for the entire season in the American League. WIthin Sale’s current streak is a five-game span where Sale struck out at least 12 hitters every game which is also tied with Pedro Martinez (as well as Randy Johnson) for the longest streak in history. As it stands, Sale’s 141 strikeouts and 35% K-rate are number one in baseball. Although unlikely, Sale has an outside shot at becoming the first pitcher to achieve 300 strikeouts since 2002 when both Randy Johnson and Curt Schilling achieved that mark for the Arizona Diamondbacks. Read the rest of this entry »

With the Phillies struggling in third place this yer after back-to-back National League Championships, GM Ruben Amaro has been toying around with an old idea:

Pedro Martinez appears to have his sights set on a repeat of 2009, when he joined the Phillies midseason and wound up starting two games for them in the World Series.

…”Pitching is always the issue. Everybody is always looking for the same thing,” Amaro said. “Again, a lot of it depends on how Happ progresses. And we’ve got to get (setup reliever Ryan) Madson back. I like our chances when both of those guys are back.”

…”I don’t know how much he’s been throwing, but what he did here last year, he was great for this team and helped (the Phillies) out a lot,” said Phils catcher Brian Schneider, who caught the righty with the Mets. “I loved working with Petey. But we have enough stuff going on right now that we’re just concentrating on the pitchers that are already here.”

While the Phillies may say they are happy with the pitchers they’ve got on board, I don’t see why they would be. Here are the members of the Phils rotation with their current and rest of season FIPs courtesy of ZiPS:

Roy Halladay: 2.67/2.93
Cole Hamels: 4.55/3.78
Joe Blanton: 5.83/4.30
Jamie Moyer: 4.98/4.83
Kyle Kendrick: 4.81/4.74
J.A. Happ: 4.48 (10 innings)/4.71

There is currently not one starter on the Phillies not named Roy Halladay who has a better FIP than any Mets starting pitcher. Joe Blanton’s projection for the rest of the year seems generous given his awful pitching, and Cole Hamels has suffered from a nasty combination of homeritis and a career low K/BB.

But what can Pedro Martinez offer the Phillies? Not much, really. He put up a 4.28 FIP last year, but is another year older and hasn’t pitched yet this entire season. Keeping that in mind, here’s what the prognosticators said before the start of the 2010 campaign:

Bill James: 3.67 FIP
CHONE: 4.75 FIP
Marcel: 4.65 FIP
ZiPS: 4.17 FIP

The algorithm at Bill James’ site must be messed up, because it has Pedro with a 8.90 K/9, even though his last two years were 7.46 and 7.18 (and, again, he’s 38 years old and bound to be rusty). Pedro would most likely sit around the ~4.50 FIP area, which would basically give the Phillies someone a tick better than Kyle Kendrick. Martinez’s ceiling isn’t that high, but his rock bottom can be pretty bad.

Pedro Martinez may give the Phillies an extra 0.5 WAR at best, but he’s unlikely to be the tipping point in the Phillies’ race to make the playoffs. Right now Philadelphia needs Ryan Howard and Chase Utley to right themselves, as the offense has been putrid of late. If the Phillies are going to trade for any starting pitcher, Cliff Lee may be the one guy who can put them above and beyond every team in the National League. They’d be so good I couldn’t imagine anyone ever passing up the opportunity to go Halladay-Lee-Hamels in the starting rotation. Oh, wait…

The Los Angeles Angels have experienced a slew of unfortunate injuries on top of the devastating death of young Nick Adenhart. If starting the season without Kelvim Escobar in the rotation wasn’t bad enough, John Lackey and Ervin Santana were both lost to ailments with the jury still out as to when they will return. Though the Scioscia-led Halos always seem to find a way to win, as Dave recently noted, all of this hardship might be too much.

According to Ken Rosenthal, the Angels are currently showing interest in Paul Byrd, Pedro Martinez, and Mark Mulder. Tony Reagins isn’t going to sign all three of these unemployed hurlers but Robo’s report suggested that there is a better than good chance that one of them ends up in California by summer’s end. All three have issues, however, ranging from Byrd’s desire to play to the shaky health histories of both Martinez and Mulder.

Mark Mulder has not pitched a full season since 2005 when a +2.2 win value deemed him a league average pitcher. He had experienced great success in Oakland for several years before going to St. Louis in the Dan Haren deal, but his time in St. Louis worked out about as well as Carl Pavano’s with the Yankees. In 2006, he made 17 starts and posted an ugly 6.01 FIP in 93.1 innings of work, and had made just six total appearances over the last two seasons. At 31 years old, Mulder is not exactly a decrepit southpaw trying to hang on, but while his previous success will garner at least one more opportunity to pitch in the big leagues, why would the Angels, a team ridden with pitching injuries, sign someone with his history?

The same goes for Pedro Martinez, who might be a league average pitcher when healthy but who spends more time on the disabled list than on the roster. With Pedro, some think that signing him for just half of a season will eliminate the wear and tear that leads to his issues, but again, why take that risk?

Byrd publicly stated he was going to sit out the first half of the season, an odd move given that he has not exactly been at the top of everyone’s wishlist. Though durable, Byrd has not been truly effective since the 2005 season with the very same Angels. Strangely enough, Byrd’s strikeout rates experienced a sharp dropoff between the 2004 and 2005 seasons and have never looked back. He no longer fans hitters at a rate in the vicinity of the league average but is still tremendous with limiting free passes.

If the Angels were going to sign any of these three pitchers, given their injury troubles, Byrd makes the most sense given his durability. The bigger question is why would these three cover substantial ground on the Reagins Radar? A guy like Odalis Perez is available, likely for a fraction of the price of Pedro, and with much more of a track record for staying healthy than Mulder. I’m not necessarily advocating that the Angels sign Perez but rather questioning why their search would be somewhat limited to Martinez, Byrd and Mulder. A team suffering from pitching ailments should in no way, shape or form, bring in equally risky players to fill the void.

After it became abundantly clear that the Mets were going in a different direction to fill the back of their rotation, Pedro Martinez had very limited options. Teams certainly had interest in his services but not for the $5-6 mil asking price. Considering that Martinez is closer to replacement level than very productive these days and that he is an incredible injury risk the hesitance made perfect sense. Many advocated the signing of an incentive-laden deal that would pay Martinez handsomely if he actually stayed on the field. Not realizing that he is but a shell of his former self, Martinez rejected the idea of such deals.

When nobody bit, he resorted to using the World Baseball Classic as an audition of sorts. Pedro did not exactly “wow!” anyone in the WBC and continues to remain available. Yet instead of lowering his asking price in the hopes that someone will bite, Pedro is now resigned to the idea that a team will see a pitcher or two go down with injuries and view him as a knight in shining armour… worth $5-6 mil on a guaranteed deal.

Mitch Williams mentioned that the Cleveland Indians might be a fit especially with the uncertainty surrounding someone like Carl Pavano. The Angels are certainly not among the interested parties as they are convinced injured pitchers like Ervin Santana and John Lackey could be ready in the same amount of time that it would take a free agent to prepare. The aforementioned Halo stalwarts certainly project more optimistic lines than Martinez as well.

Beyond Pedro, Odalis Perez is still available, and though it may seem as if I am beating a dead horse here, Perez is still quite productive and incredibly consistent. Over the last four years he has virtually posted identical +1.5 win values. How someone like Tim Redding was given a guaranteed deal by a contender with worse production and a more storied injury history than the equally aged Perez, who couldn’t even get a major league contract from the Washington Nationals will continue to puzzle me.

Pedro Martinez has had a tremendous career. He is a first ballot hall of famer and, in my eyes at least, owner of the two best pitched seasons in the rich history of this sport. He should not be signed, however, for anything above what Odaliz Perez could be signed for given that the latter has proven himself durable over the last several seasons and closer to league average. Pedro might provide better value when healthy but if I am investing a certain amount of money and have two options, my risk-averse personality is going to lean in the direction of the more reliable option. Pedro is one of the best pitchers of all time but he is not anymore, and $5 mil at this point for a fifth starter who might make three starts and then miss the rest of the season just does not make sense for a team, especially given that the teams in question are looking to fill voids that came undone due primarily to injuries.

The Philadelphia Phillies and New York Mets have, over the last several seasons, reignited a rivalry that many have been hoping to see for quite some time. They have also combined for extremely memorable finishes in each of the last two seasons. Entering 2009, the teams once again project to be very close in talent, with the Mets solidifying their bullpen and the Phillies ridding themselves of Adam Eaton. Both of the teams also happen to be four men deep in their respective starting rotations, with a decent number of hurlers competing for the final spots.

With Johan Santana, Mike Pelfrey, John Maine, and Oliver Perez in the fold, Tim Redding looked to be the de facto fifth starter when he signed early in the offseason. Omar Minaya added some competition, however, by bringing prospect Jonathan Niese to camp as well as inking Livan Hernandez and Freddy Garcia to minor league contracts with spring training invites. Redding reportedly showed up overweight and has not been terribly impressive so far, giving up nine earned runs in just two innings of work.

Though we should never put too much stock into preseason statistics, you better believe that they play a part in the decision making processes. In 14.2 innings this month, Livan Hernandez has a 3.07 ERA and has not yet surrendered a home run. Sure, his 4.29 K/9 is below average and his success is likely smoke and mirrors, but he hasn’t looked too shabby. His low risk counterpart Garcia has been the opposite, allowing 14 hits and 13 earned runs in just seven innings, vastly reducing his chances of making the big league club. And despite being young, Niese has not looked great either, with seven walks and six earned runs in eight innings. He has shown a knack for fanning hitters, but his control needs improvement before we can consider him to be a viable and dependable major league pitcher.

Then we have Pedro Martinez, who as I wrote in a profile at Baseball Prospectus has seemingly been engaged in a one-sided game of hard to get with his former employers. The Mets apparently have an offer of $1-2 mil on the table for Pedro, and if the Dodgers fail to match these terms, Martinez would prefer to remain in New York. Assuming Garcia does not break camp with the team, and Martinez comes aboard, what do you do? Minaya will have Livan, Redding, Pedro, and Niese and just one spot available. Niese would presumably go back to the minors, but that still leaves Livan, Redding, and Pedro, with Redding being the sole owner of a guaranteed contract.

The Phillies situation is a bit easier in terms of the number of viable candidates left, but the remaining two hurlers have both been very impressive. With Kyle Kendrick and Carlos Carrasco out of the hunt, just J.A. Happ and Chan Ho Park remain. In 15 innings this month, Happ has a 3.60 ERA with 11 punchouts and just three free passes issued. Those numbers are bested by Park, who has a 1.54 ERA, 11 punchouts and no walks in 11.2 innings.

With the uncertainty surrounding Cole Hamels‘ availability, both Happ and Park could conceivably start the season in the rotation. If Hamels is available right away, the Phillies have a decision to make: which one starts and which one goes to the bullpen? The “logical” decision would be to place Happ in the bullpen to start the season given the absence of JC Romero for at least 50 games. Either way, whichever pitcher loses out will be close behind should the fifth-spot victor struggle.

If you’re a Mets fan, do you want Redding, Pedro, or Livan? And for Phillies fans, Park or Happ? And if you’re a fan of neither, who has the more intimidating name: Balfour or Broxton?

Pedro Martinez is no doubtedly a Hall of Fame pitcher and one of the best in the history of the sport. In fact, many feel that his 1999-2000 seasons are the best of all time. Right now, though, his durability has seemingly fallen by the wayside and his performance has suffered from decline as well. After pitching for the New York Mets the last few seasons, Martinez has hit free agency once more, this time in one of the biggest buyer’s markets we have seen.

Which makes it somewhat surprising why he has reportedly turned down a 1-yr/$7 mil offer from an unknown team.

Granted, this team apparently plays in the American League, and it would be very understandable for any pitcher to prefer the friendlier confines of the senior circuit. Still, one has to wonder whether or not his motives lie in the above reason or if they stem from $7 mil being too low for his liking.

From 2006-08, Pedro has spent his fair share of time on the disabled list, averaging just 16 starts and 90 innings per season. His ERA in that span is around 4.75 and his FIP is not too far behind. Suffice it to say, the Pedro pitching right now is a far cry from the dominating force at the turn of the millennium. Still, he has value as a starting pitcher, but $7+ mil in value?

To find out his worth, let us turn to the projection systems. Bill James seems to be the outlier here, with Marcel and CHONE placing Martinez in the same general vicinity of performance. As it stands, Pedro projects to pitch around 105 innings with a 4.70 FIP. The replacement level in the National League, for starting pitchers, is right around 5.50.

The issue with his performance deals more with his actual playing time. Given his recent history, 175-200 innings simply does not look even close to feasible. At 105 innings, his current projection, Pedro would be worth +9 runs, or under one win. At fair market value, that commands a salary of $4.3 mil.

Perhaps the 105 innings is too low given that he has had ample time to recover from injuries. What if he logs 150 innings this season with a 4.70 FIP? In that scenario, Pedro would allow 78 runs compared to the 92 surrendered by a replacement starter. This advantage of +14 runs converts to around +1.4 wins, a fair market value of $6.7 mil.

Judging by these calculations it appears that Martinez either:

a) Wants to pitch in the NL even if his salary is below $7 mil,
b) Believes he can exceed 150 IP while sustaining an FIP near 4.70, or
c) Feels that even if maxes out at 150 IP, his FIP will be much better than 4.70

For the sake of semantics, I don’t mean to suggest that Pedro uses FIP or calculates his value above replacement level, but rather that he believes he will surpass these projections. At 150 IP and a 4.70 FIP, he is worth $6.7 mil, very close to the $7 mil deal he just turned down. If we assume that he does not care about league as much as money, which could be a faulty assumption, let’s see what he would have to do in scenarios b and c to be worth more than $7 mil.

If he sustains a 4.70 FIP in 2009, to be worth more than $7 mil, Martinez would need to produce at least +1.5 wins. In terms of our calculations, he needs to be about +15 runs above replacement. After 150 innings, though, the 4.60 FIP for a replacement level reliever comes into play because a replacement level starter isn’t going to pitch more than 150 innings. To reach +15 runs, do you know how many innings Pedro would need to pitch? I’ll give you a hint as to the general range: at 200 innings of 4.70 FIP pitching, he still wouldn’t be there.*

*-You may be wonderng how he could be worth +14 runs at a 4.70 FIP in 150 innings yet need 70 more innings at that FIP to gain one more run of production. The reasoning is that the replacement level FIP for an NL reliever is 4.60, which is actually better than Pedro’s projected mark. Therefore, his production at any FIP above 4.60 will look better in just 150 innings than it will after the fact because his 4.70 projection is worse than the 4.60 replacement level for relievers.

Pedro would need the replacement level FIP for NL relievers to be above 4.70 for him to be able to amass +15 runs with a 4.70 FIP himself.

What about the other scenario, the one involving around 150 innings with an FIP much better than 4.70? If he posts a 4.60 FIP in 150 innings, his production is +15 runs. At a 4.50 FIP and 150 innings his production is +17 runs, and this runs total rises by two for every tenth shaved off of his FIP in 150 innings. And also, with a 4.50 FIP or lower, he does not lose any value when the reliever calculations come into play.

Basically, for Pedro to be worth $7+ mil, assuming there is no way he exceeds 170+ innings, he needs to reach any of the following:

a) 150+ IP at a 4.60 FIP
b) 140+ IP at a 4.50 FIP
c) 130+ IP at a 4.40 FIP
d) 115+ IP at a 4.30 FIP

These options do not look too unrealistic given what his performance could look like if he is fully healed. If he can meet or exceed the scenarios listed above, his fair market value will exceed $7 mil based on production alone, before even factoring in what he adds to attendance and, potentially, merchandise.

We do not know the true motive behind his rejection of the 1-yr/$7 mil deal, but it does not seem to be as ludicrous of a decision based on the above calculations. How the buyer’s market will effect him is yet to be seen, but he likely has at least one somewhat effective year left in him.

Reports recently circulated that Pedro Martinez definitely plans on pitching in 2009, if not longer than that. Having just turned 37 years old, he certainly would not be the oldest pitcher in the major leagues next season; however, based on his performance this season, the supremely dominant Pedro is long gone. With that in mind, what type of contract should he sign? Or, then again, what would be reasonable, given his track record as well as his most recent performance? I’m sure the Mets will make some type of offer to him, be it half-hearted or not, but if he wants to pitch next season, you better believe he will be able to find a home.

In 2006-07, since he made just five starts in ’07 alone, Pedro started 28 games, threw for 160.2 innings, and surrendered 141 hits, 19 of which were home runs. He walked 46 and fanned 169 hitters. This resulted in a 4.15 ERA and 3.67 FIP, still very solid. Last year, however, things took a turn for the worse. In 20 starts and 109 innings, his K/BB dipped below 2.0, and he posted a 5.61 ERA and 5.18 FIP. Given that we estimate replacement level to be a 5.50 FIP, Pedro was pretty darn close to being a replacement level pitcher last season.

The marcel projections for next season are now available here, and they are not too optimistic regarding Martinez. Marcel has Pedro pegged for 117 IP with a 4.85 ERA and 4.57 FIP. Based on his FIP, Pedro is projected to give up 60 runs in 117 innings pitched next season. How does that stack up with the replacement level? Well, unlike Dave’s recent posts on Sabathia and Burnett, both of whom are projected for 180+ IP, Pedro is slotted to log a significantly lesser amount of innings. Since he is only projected to pitch in 117 innings, we cannot use the 160 inning replacement benchmark. Instead, we will adjust the replacement level starter to amass Pedro’s projected innings total.

In other free agent value posts, the replacement starter and reliever came into play since manager’s will have a quicker hook with replacement level starters. In Pedro’s case, we are assuming he will miss starts entirely, not get a quick yank out of the game. Now, we compare Pedro’s 117 innings to that of the replacement level starter:

Pedro Martinez: 117 IP, 60 runs allowed
Replacement SP:117 IP, 72 runs allowed

Put together, Pedro is projected to be twelve runs better than the replacement level next season, or one win above replacement. If free agents are going for the rate of 5.5 million dollars per win, then Martinez should sign a deal worth 5.5 million. Add in his name value and his “veteran leadership” and we can bump that up to at least 6 mil, perhaps even 6.5 mil.

I would tend to think the 10% discount for a multi-year deal would not apply here, as it would be more appropriate for Pedro to sign something like a 1 yr-6 mm deal, laden with incentives. He may not be the dominant force he once was, but there will likely be plenty of teams willing to take flyers on him for next season, if not more than that.