Michael Pineda in Pinstripes
So Michael Pineda has parlayed his All-Star performance in Seattle into a gig in the Big Apple due to the overwhelming needs of Seattle’s offense. Many are thinking Pineda slots in right behind C.C. Sabathia as the team’s #2 starter, but as far as fantasy baseball is concerned, I think a degree of caution is prudent.
Pineda demonstrated a pretty tremendous amount of talent in 2011, no question. He was among league leaders in strikeouts per 9 innings pitched at 9.11 K/9 — just shy of Tim Lincecum and a touch ahead of Justin Verlander. That’s pretty good company.
But we have only one season to gauge and frankly, Pineda entered 2011 as a fringe possibility in Seattle’s rotation to begin with. Before you go drafting him as your savior in fantasy baseball, take a step back and look objectively at the situation.
Pineda’s hit trajectory in 2011 reveals a 45% fly ball rate, and if you’re pitching at Safeco Field, that’s not too difficult to get away with as his 9% HR/FB rate demonstrates. The move to Yankee Stadium might have a different effect, however as Stat Corner rates Yankee Stadium as 143 versus left handed batters where 100 is neutral, and 115 versus right handed batters. Compare that to the 95/82 rating Safeco Field receives versus LHB and RHB, respectively, and you can see why Pineda might make a fan or two scream something about being a bum by mid-Summer.
This is not to say that Pineda will fall apart, but his success certainly has the whisper of Safeco influence. His home/road splits aren’t at all damning, and in fact, his home run per fly ball rate was even a tad lower on the road, not to mention obviously working under the evil shadow of small sample size – but his average, BABIP, and strikeouts were quite different at home:
Pineda was other-worldly versus right handed batters and just pretty good versus lefties in 2011. His K/9 vs. RHB was 10.44, and he held them to a .184 batting average, and registered a 3.24 xFIP. On the other side of the dish, he averaged 7.77 K/9 vs. LHB, holding them to a .234 batting average, and registered a 3.82 xFIP.
Now, Pineda is still going to throw hard, and he’s still going to have that wicked slider, but one of the knocks on him is that’s pretty much his repertoire. He’s peppered in a change here or there, but he used in less than 5% of the time. When you’re throwing 95 miles per hour and slinging an 88 mph slider, you can get away with that. But there are some pretty seasoned hitters in Boston, Tampa Bay, and Toronto that he’s likely to face more often – and as the educational campaign on NBC goes, “the more you know…”
My expectation is that Michael Pineda will be very good in New York and in fact, looking at his average draft position at Mock Draft Central, he’s being taken on average at 97, which seems like a darn good value to me. This trade will likely raise his profile and positively impact that ADP, but Pineda as a #3 starter in a good rotation looks like a pretty nice idea to me. But I’d avoid drafting him to anchor your rotation because I think there may be some growing pains related to adjusting to pitching in Yankee Stadium.
Michael was born in Massachusetts and grew up in the Seattle area but had nothing to do with the Heathcliff Slocumb trade although Boston fans are welcome to thank him. You can find him on twitter at @michaelcbarr.
uh, that k/9 graph might be the worst scale i’ve ever seen <1 k/9 difference displays as 4x bigger
ha – yeah, I wasn’t thrilled with it either. I blame Google docs.
You build it, you own it Michael. That being said, nice article. I agree with what you’re saying.
CM – good point, and thanks.
I just scrolled down to the comments also to complain about it.
alright, I figured out how to edit graphs in Google’s clunky system, so I hope that helps.
This article is kind of moot for the time being; the same site where his ADP presumably was taken from (MDC) has him as the 26th starter off the board, which would be a SP3 in 10 or 12 team formats, not an anchor.
Aren’t the park factors of Safeco field dramatically influenced by Seattle’s complete lack of offense? I mean, they were dead last in wRC+ last year with a 79, they were the sixth lowest in HR’s as a team with 109. Compare that to a team like the A’s who have a very offense suppressing park as well but put up a wRC+ of 90 and 114 (statistically unnoticeable difference) in HR’s (the Mariners also had the 4th worst K% and third worst ISO).
So yeah, Yankee Stadium might be a band box compared to Safeco, but the park factors won’t tell you the whole story. Even if you looked at only road teams there these guys are facing wicked good pitching in Seattle anyway. I worry about the FB rates, but I think Pineda will be fine in pinstripes.
I don’t know how else to respond other than to just say you’re wrong. I mean, I get your line of thinking, but it’s just not correct. At all.
The reason your explanation is wrong is because park factors are team adjusted. They are influenced only minimally by the home team.
Granted, there can be some effect. For instance the mid-00’s Phillies really buffed up CBP’s park factors probably thanks to a bunch of just enough HRs from Howard and Burrell. But generally, the effect is very small. Safeco simply is a run suppressing stadium.
And I’m referring solely to the overall HR factor at CBP. Other park factors experienced little to no effect.
Well take Jacob’s Field/Progressive as an example, going into ESPN’s park factors the Jake had park factors that made it look amazingly hitter friendly, but then once the amazing offense died down for the Tribe, the park factors tanked with it. I don’t remember the OF expanding, or some addition being made that would suddenly stop the wind from blowing out and carrying balls over the fence. But overall the park now looks fairly neutral. I can’t help but believe that the bad pitching good offense of the mid 90’s – 00’s didn’t play a roll in that, just like I find it hard to believe that the bad offense and good pitching of the Mariner’s doesn’t factor in to Safeco’s park factors enough to make a significant difference.
Think I’m wrong, look at the park factors for Progressive from 2001, 2003, 2005, 2006, and 2011 and look at the triples, runs, BB’s, etc and watch how much they bounce around from year to year. I’m in no way saying that Safeco and Yankee stadiums are the same, or that he wont have any issues in the transition, but he should be fine.
He did use his changeup 11% against lefties tho.
His road stats (and also total stats)were greatly effected by 3 consecutive road games around the all star break (dead arm period).
should we feel better that a 23 year old (by the way, happy birthday Michael Pineda) had a dead arm period?
I have him as a keeper at a bargain price (I bought him before he was officially announced for the rotation last spring) so this question is entirely academic for me, but I wonder if this overall hurts or helps his value. Is the 5-6 extra wins a trade-off worth taking, given the hit to ERA and WHIP?
yeah, in a keeper format, Pineda was a fantastic snag last season. And I’d think the trade off of wins with what will probably be small increases in his ERA and WHIP will be worth it. If you can win 9 games with the Mariners over 28 starts, would anyone be surprised if he won 16 games with the Yankees over 32?