Two interesting articles regarding the two most important Yankee relievers were published today. The first (from RLYW) is about Mariano Rivera, and bodes well for 2011:
It’s a good bet he will need to be used less and less frequency because a 40-41 year old body just doesn’t recover like one that’s 30. That’s a legitimate point in discussing Rivera’s value, because value is not just about rate of performance. You’re not very valuable if you aren’t pitching.
Just because he’s now turned 40, there’s very little reason in his statistical record to think that he’s about to fall off a cliff. He certainly could, and he’s got the same risk any pitcher does of hurting his arm and becoming worthless….
Rivera’s CAIRO projection is still top tier for all relief pitchers, and it does include both aging and some component regression to the mean for his FIP and xFIP. For CAIRO, his projection for runs allowed is based on 35% RA, 30% ERA, 15% FIP, 10% xFIP, and 15% component ERA. So 40% of his projection includes data that is most likely to regress, and he STILL projects about as well as anyone.
He will eventually reach the point where he’s not an asset. But all the evidence we have says that’s not going to happen in 2011.
I think observation confirms the statistics in this case, as Mo looked as effective this season as he has been since he entered the league. He continues to exhibit excellent command and control, and rarely allows hard contact. The post makes some interesting comparisons and discusses Mariano’s ability to induce weak contact, and I recommend that you go to RLYW and read the full post.
The second article comes from Beyond the Boxscore, and confirms a troubling observation that some have made regarding Joba Chamberlain. Over the last two seasons, many have noticed that Joba’s slider seems to be flatter, tumbling rather than diving out of the strike zone. Considering that he has largely ditched his curveball and changeup, diminished effectiveness from the slider is a major problem for Chamberlain. Lucas Apostoleris used Pitch f/x to examine whether this observation is accurate, and his results are a bit unsettling:
The slider has both lost break and gained velocity, and the change has been particularly noticeable since September 2009. There was a higher percentage of hanging sliders in 2009 and 2010 than there was in 2008. The difference may appear slight, but as the saying goes, baseball is a game of inches. All in all, while the slider may not be filthy as it was in the old days, it’s still pretty great.
Joba’s slider is resulting in fewer swinging strikes, likely because it has gotten worse in many different ways. The pitch is being located higher in the zone, it has less vertical “drop” to it, and it has increased in speed (meaning there is less of a gap between the slider and fastball). While it remains a very good pitch, Joba likely needs it to be dominant now that he only has 2 pitches and the fastball has diminished in velocity. If he is truly to be the heir to Mariano, he needs to figure out how to harness his slider.
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11 Responses to Looking At Mo and Joba
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I don’t know a whole lot about the man but while reading Cubs fans comments and what not trying to get a feel for Rothschild they said that he was the one who really improved Marmol’s slider break by changing his mechanics so maybe he can Joba back into that violent delivery that he had back in 07.
I’m hoping he not only improves his slider, but gets back to the curve and the change. I think he needs longer outings, both to help his development and because he can be so hit-and-miss from one outing to the next. I’d like for him to get multiple innings when he’s ‘on’. (I still think he can be a decent or better starter.)
I wouldn’t seeing him use his other pitches but he’s going to only be a late inning reliever. They aren’t going to use him in the role that Aceves was in. I’d rather see him traded to another team.
I was writing about Mo yesterday and I concluded that he is definitely worth the money for the next couple seasons but there is also some legitimate risk in that contract renewal. Aside from lingering shoulder injury, Mo’s horizontal break and velocity have been gradually declining. I generally agree with the projections RLYW offers, but I think given the exorbitant price being allocated to a closer (albeit a damn good one), there has to be at least some degree of trepidation. Eventually, even ridiculously good players like Mo become human.
My only quam with the post: you cite Mariano’s FIP-stats but not his declining velocity and then cite Joba’s declining pitches but not his FIP-stats. Joba had a pretty good year by FIP, even if the results didn’t exactly look good.
But yeah, not worried about Mo.
The problem I have with the “Joba pitched really well the results just didn’t show” argument is that when he pitched in big spots with the game on the line he consistently blew the opportunity then as soon as Kerry becomes the setup man all of a sudden Chamberlain emerges with more gas and better control, that by it’s self isn’t terrible you can say it was motivation and the talent was there all along but then even after that once given a chance to lock down important outs he couldn’t be trusted and more often than not failed.
Joba was the only pitcher last year who could come into a blow out and make us have to use Mo by the end of the inning and did so at least once last year that I remember.
No doubt his FIP, xFIP, K/9 and K/BB were pretty good to outstanding in certain categories but the performance on the field in big spots is what matters and I don’t care if he did have a 2.9 FIP last year I don’t expect him to pitch to the tune of a 2.9 pitcher next season especially in a setup role.
As for Mariano I’m still waiting for him to reach the point where he feels the cutter isn’t good enough by it’s self anymore and he breaks out the changeup everyone talks about him having, I would laugh if he reinvented himself and pitched another 3 or 4 years.
I wasnt trying to relate the two. Mo’s velo actually recovered a bit, and the results were still the same, if not better. Joba’s slider, while still good, showed statistical decline as well as “scouting” decline.
I think his point is more along the lines of if you use FIP to determine one pitchers performance going forward you need to do the same for any other and if you use pitch “deterioration” for for one pitcher you should it for the other as well so as to tell the entire story of both pitchers and not a limited view. I could be wrong though.
By examining both pitchers under one write up it does link the analysis of both players therefore not showing the good FIP while underlining the deterioration of Joba’s slider could come off unintentionally bias, or at least that’s how I interpreted his response.
On the topic of Mariano I don’t think a slight drop of velocity will really hurt Mo all that much, he has been steadily losing something off his cutter for 3 years or so now but it doesn’t matter but he is still generating great movement along with pin point control, if his pitches stop moving enough or his control somehow dissapears he could be in trouble. In reality I think the only real danger to Mariano at least for the next 2 years is injury like has been stated above.
I agree Pep but I think the change is more important to Joba than curve a lot of people seem to be on the side of just use either or but I think he needs to spend as much time as possible working on the change, when he was starting in 08 there was a baseball tonight segment and over the course of a couple starts Joba had the biggest difference in fastball and changeup velocity at 11 MPH.
The changeup would help him by letting him have a 3rd pitch to go too when either the slider or fastball doesn’t feel as strong and learning to throw a good change with a good arm angle will speed up the fastball in the hitters minds eye so even if you aren’t throwing as hard that day you ca get away with more.
agreed-I’ve long thought the change is a more useful pitch than either a slider or a curve. I think if he and Hughes could master that pitch, along with him improving his slider, they could come fairly close to what was predicted for them way back when.
I still believe Joba has more value as a starter but I just don’t think we will get a chance to see it again but yeah if gets traded or something and he can harness the change I could see him being a number 3 pitcher maybe a number 2 of some of the velocity comes back, he would have to be throwng harder than that 88-90 he was starting games with in the first inning before building up to 93 but I kind of rule out him ever being elite again.