Because I’m a hopeless dweeb starved for baseball, I was watching the Mets’ last game of the 2014 season the other day. Sure, sitting through a meaningless game between the sub-.500 Mets and the hapless Astros — when I already know the outcome — might raise questions about my insomnia and/or social life, but keep in mind that the Mets haven’t played winning, feel-good baseball since the Bush administration, and there was a lot to be positive about on Sept. 28.

Lucas Duda cranked home run No. 30 and passed the 90-RBI mark, validating once and for all management’s decision to trade Ike Davis. Bobby Abreu collected the last hit of his career and was rewarded with a heartfelt, rousing ovation from fans who had booed him for years when he was a Phillie. In general, the atmosphere at Citi Field, coming at the conclusion of a strong second half and a 15-10 record in September, hinted that 2015 could be a year of actual competitive baseball in Queens and that there was a lot to look forward to.

And Bartolo Colon notched his 15th victory.
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Gibson ranked 109th on Zach Sanders’ postseason starting pitcher rankings.

Tommy John surgery cost Kyle Gibson a significant part of 2011, and nearly the entire 2012 season. As a result, the former first-round pick — as a college pitcher — didn’t debut until he was 25, or see full-time action in the big leagues until he was 26. Being a bit behind the curve has sort of been the key theme in Gibson’s career, but he made headway in that department in 2014 — in some respects.

Gibson’s overall like of 13-12, 4.47 ERA and 5.4 K/9 is definitely not what some might consider progress. In fact, the American League average starting pitcher had a 3.92 ERA, 3.85 FIP and 7.4 K/9 — marks Gibson missed by quite a bit. But where the tall righty gets a pass is in groundball rate, where his 54.4 percent mark doesn’t only smoke the league average rate (43.2 percent), but rather ranks seventh league wide. A 6-foot-6 righthander getting that kind of downward plane is a very, very good thing. Read the rest of this entry »

Carlos Martinez

Why I watched: He has been getting a little love and hate here at FanGraphs. Also, I wanted to see why the Cardinals are hesitant to make him a starter.

Game(s) Watched: 9/18/14 vs Pirates

Game Thoughts

• The 23-year-old righty works fast.

• He shows his emotions quite a bit on the mound. Once he got the sign for a change, he grimaced and then threw it in the dirt.

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Mat Latos began and ended his 2014 season by missing time because of injuries. Between the two layoffs, he seemed to produce like he did in the past with a 3.25 ERA (3.34 for his career). One difference between his previous couple of seasons and 2014 was a huge drop in strikeouts. They went from 8.0 K/9 in both 2012 and 2013 to 6.5 K/9 in 2014. The biggest reason for the decline in strikeouts was a near 2 mph drop in his fastball velocity. This off season he was traded from the Reds to the Marlins where he hopes regain some of the zip on his fastball, but I wouldn’t count on it.

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As good as he has been as General Manager of the Oakland Athletics, one wonders if Billy Beane would like a taksies-backsies on Hisashi Iwakuma.

It might be hard to remember that Iwakuma was originally posted all the way back in 2010 when they were still making cars called “Pontiac” and “Saturn”. Oakland won the rights to negotiate with Iwakuma, but recognizing he was a year away from free agency, they may never have been all that serious about securing his services at the asking price of his agent, which was reportedly a little ridiculous. So it goes.

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Allen Webster was on my “to investigate” list because his strikeout rate was low compared to the number of swings-and-misses he got in 2014. The numbers intrigued me enough to watch one of his starts for one of my Quick Looks (full report on Friday).

What I found is he can’t/doesn’t throw pitches in the strike zone. Hitters need to chase his pitches out of the strike zone if they want to make contact. Most of the time they don’t though.

In an effort to figure him out further, I found out how much to adjust a pitcher’s predicted strikeout rate knowing his strike zone percentage and swinging strike rate, but it doesn’t make a huge difference.

Time for a little math. A simple way to estimate a pitcher’s strikeout rate (K%) is to double their (SwStr%). Taking all of the 2014 pitchers (min 50 IP), the r-squared between K% and two times the SwStr% (pK%) is 0.66. Good, but not great. Usually early in the season, I look for pitchers with high differences between these two values to find potential break out or bust candidates.

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Last week, fellow RotoGraphist Mike Podhorzer reviewed a $9 fictional pitching staff he created earlier in the year. I did something similar in my home league and the industry league Blog Wars. The success of the strategy was mixed, so let’s delve into the details.

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Last week, I started a review of the players I am targeting to acquire and trade away, going position by position through the infield.

Today we look 12 more players – outfielders and starting pitchers who will factor heavily in my trade talks.

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At 6′ 4″, 225 pounds calling Jake Arrieta a little man isn’t exactly accurate, but Queen didn’t really have a lyric that fit his description. Even still, Arrieta’s impact 2014 created fantasy ripples that was anything but little. Despite making just 25 starts spanning 156.2 innings, the right-hander proceeded to breakout with a 2.53 ERA backed up by a 2.73 xFIP and 2.83 SIERA. Factor in the 9.53 K/9 (27.2% strikeout rate) and you have yourself a fantasy ace.
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Miami Marlins pitcher Henderson Alvarez is an enigma. Despite a fastball that regularly hits the mid-90s, he doesn’t strike anybody out. While strikeouts aren’t the key to being a good pitcher, they sure help a lot. That’s why it was so surprising when Alvarez posted a 2.65 ERA over 187 innings last season. Alvarez did that with the seventh-lowest strikeout rate among all starting pitchers. Strikeouts aren’t everything, of course. There’s much more that goes into being a good pitcher, and Alvarez displays those skills often. He doesn’t give up walks, and generally keeps the ball on the ground. Those skills usually make up a very successful pitcher, but they rarely lead to a player posting the 11th best ERA in a season.

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