Friday, August 13, 2004

Pirates quick hits

A couple of thoughts from the Giants series....

I've been worried all year that Jose Mesa would pitch just well enough that the Pirates would hire him back for next season at a higher salary. Mesa was simply atrocious last season, and there was no reason to believe he would be significantly better this year. Despite the odds, Mesa has pitched pretty well (though not great, as some in the Pirates media would have you believe.) I was greatly disappointed that they didn't trade him at the deadline. I doubt he has any trade value at all, but I really felt that even a crappy prospect for Mesa would be a decent deal. Regardless, it now looks like things are unravelling a bit for Mesa, having blown 2 games in the
Giants series and 3 of his last 6 save opportunities. When you consider that Mesa is 38 (listed age) going on 42 (probable age) and the potential logjam of competant pitchers in the bullpen for next season, I can only hope that they let someone else overpay in the offseason for all his saves.

There's no other way to put this....Craig Wilson is clueless at the plate right now. Even though he hit a couple of HR in the series, he looks totally lost at times. I think its more of a mental funk, than anything else. It's something that all players go through, you would just hope that Wilson will eventually find a way to work himself out of it. I think he will.

Why is it that John Grabow seems to get the important innings out of the bullpen, and Mike Gonzalez seems to often be a last resort? Maybe its my imagination. Anyway, there's alot to like about Grabow's strike out numbers (50 k's in 47 ip) but the league is batting .312 against him, he walks 4.5 batters per 9 ip, and he's given up a miserable 8 hr. Meanwhile, Gonzalez
has only given up 19 baserunners in 24 ip and has a sparkling era of 0.74. Maybe his numbers wouldn't be as great if he had to face more right handed batters, but isn't it time to find out?

After a very good start to his career, Sean Burnett has been roughed up a bit in his last 3 starts. What should we expect from him from here on out? A look at his peripherals tells the story. Nobody expected Burnett to strike out many batters, that's not his M.O. But Burnett has a terrible k/bb rate so far. In 62 ip, he's only struck out 27 batters, yet he's walked 24. Ouch.
He's going to either have to figure out a way to miss more bats, give up fewer free passes, or else settle for being a pretty mediocre pitcher. Additionally, the league is currently hitting .289 against him which seems high. But that's a pretty typical number for someone who doesn't strike many guys out. One thing in his favor is that he seems to be able to keep the ball in the park. He's given up 6 hr so far this season, but 4 of those came in the same game, and 2 in another. That means that in 9 of his 11 starts, he didn't give up any hr. That's a crucial stat for a pitcher like Burnett who will give up a lot of baserunners by virtue of his lack of k's. What I
think this means is that if Burnett can keep the ball in the park, we have a near .500 pitcher with his current k/bb rate. However, if he can somehow improve his k rate or reduce those walks (this wouldn't be unprecedented for a pitcher of Burnett's style) then we might have something significantly better.

posted by bkopec @ 9:03 AM   7 comments