The Contact Tales: 2006

Starting Pitchers (Min IP: 100)

The Best:
Cole Hamels 72.3%
Scott Kazmir 73.9%
Johan Santana 74.8%
Aaron Harang 75%
Jeremy Bonderman/Jake Peavy 75.2%

Santana has appeared on the last few lists and while there’s not much to say about him that most don’t already know, it is worthwhile to acknowledge his relevance and greatness. Since 2002, Johan’s career high contact% against is 78.4% — which coincidentally came in 2009 – the lowest league average in that same frame has been 78.5% and that came in 2002. That is to say that Johan has always been better than average at missing bats. Most of the credit goes to Johan’s outstanding change-up, although don’t forget, he could still dial up a decent fastball.

The Worst:
Carlos Silva 90.2%
Scott Elarton 87.9%
Paul Byrd 87.5%
Jason Marquis 87.5%
Aaron Cook 87.4%

I’ve pondered labeling Silva as the new Kirk Rueter – one who finds himself amongst the leaders in contact against annually. Elarton is more interesting. I don’t know how he stuck around for 170 career starts. From 2002 onward, Elarton threw 559 innings, which is more than half of his career total. During that span he holds a tRA of 6.79 and xFIP of 5.45. It wasn’t with one team either, as he spent time with Colorado, Cleveland, and Kansas City. Good on his agent for being a smooth-talker.

Relief Pitchers (Min IP: 40)

The Best:
Mike Wuertz 64%
Brad Lidge 64%
Fernando Cabrera 66.6%
Dennys Reyes 67.2%
Francisco Rodriguez 68.2%

These were the times where Cabrera was outstanding at striking batters out (10.53 per nine) as well as putting them on (4.75 per nine) and letting them jog (1.78 per nine) and it all resulted in a 5.01 FIP. He followed this up with an even worse season and in the process was released from Cleveland. His last few seasons have come with the Orioles and Red Sox, where he’s spent the majority of his time in Triple-A.

The Worst:
Willie Eyre 88.4%
Brian Meadows 88.3%
Rick Bauer 88.1%
Todd Jones 87.9%
Dan Kolb 87.6%

I feel fortunate to have experienced 80% of Meadows’ career saves during 2006. Here’s how you know save percentage doesn’t work as a statistic representative of performance: Meadows converted on 80% of his attempts yet had a 5.40 FIP. Oh, he wasn’t just bad through FIP; he was horrible through ERA too, with a 5.17 ERA. During one outing, Meadows threw 2.1 innings with six batters reaching base (five via hit) and striking out only one. Somehow nobody scored and somehow he was credited with a save.