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Innings and pitch counts (split from World of Pain)

Benjamin Grimm Feb 18 2009 08:18 AM Edited 1 time(s), most recently on Feb 18 2009 09:04 AM

Okay, I looked it up: Innings pitched by Mets starters in 2008: 0.0 to 1.0: 1 game 1.1 to 2.0: 1 game 2.1 to 3.0: 2 games 3.1 to 4.0: 11 games 4.1 to 5.0: 29 games 5.1 to 6.0: 55 games 6.1 to 7.0: 45 games 7.1 to 8.0: 12 games 8.1 to 9.0: 6 games That means that in 99 out of 162 games, the Mets starting pitcher failed to stick around long enough to get at least one out in the 7th inning.

Benjamin Grimm Feb 18 2009 08:25 AM

The good news, I guess, and I realize that I'm talking to myself, is that the Mets opponents had worse longevity from their starters in 2008: 0.0 to 1.0: 0 games 1.1 to 2.0: 2 games 2.1 to 3.0: 12 games 3.1 to 4.0: 13 games 4.1 to 5.0: 41 games 5.1 to 6.0: 55 games 6.1 to 7.0: 28 games 7.1 to 8.0: 10 games 8.1 to 9.0: 1 game Maybe I can work this into an auto-generated graph for display on the UMDB. I'm sure that now that the thought is buzzing around in my brain I'll probably do it over the next few weeks.

Centerfield Feb 18 2009 08:29 AM

I'm not sure what the league average is, but I would guess that it is not that realistic to ask that the starters give us much more than that. Also, pushing your starters throughout the year can lead to breakdown there as well.

John Cougar Lunchbucket Feb 18 2009 08:49 AM

Everyone likes to point to Ollie as the main culprit but other than a few episodes of "sudden meltdown," the real bullpen-killer was John Maine. This prolly belongs in its own thread but the Snooze yesterday noted Maine had, I think, the 3rd highest number of pitches per turn at bat in the bigs last year, in part because his high fbs are fouled off frequently. Warthen said he wants Maine to mix in a curveball this season so as to get guys to see different elevations in his repetoire. Anyway, Maine = too many pitches, too few innings, bad for the bullpen

metirish Feb 18 2009 09:01 AM

I'm going to post what was in the Snooze because the numbers were startling. ] Now the former 15-game winner aims to go deeper into games, after averaging just under 5-2/3 innings per start in 2008. Maine's 4.17 pitches per batter were the most of any NL pitcher who logged at least 100 innings last year. His 18.14 pitches per inning were second only to Pitsburgh's Ian Snell (18.29) among major-league pitchers who faced at least 400 batters. To address that, pitching coach Dan Warthen is encouraging Maine to throw a curveball, which the 27-year-old righthander hasn't used in two years. Maine's pitch count is high because he throws the ball up in the strike zone and batters tend to foul off his fastballs and sliders. Warthen believes that by showing a curveball, even if it bounces in the dirt, hitters' timing and eye levels will be disrupted. Then, the logic goes, when Maine goes back to the fastball at the top of the strike zone, batters are more likely to swing and miss, or take it for strike three.

Edgy DC Feb 18 2009 09:10 AM

This dovetails with observations about his surgery, which was to remove a lesion from the back of his shoulder. Two possible thoughts (not the only two) are (1) more curves are too much to ask, as curves punish a rehabbing shoulder (or any shoulder more), or (2) he was throwing the curve too little last year because of the pain caused by the lesion, and that explaines his downgrade in effectivness.

Frayed Knot Feb 18 2009 10:52 AM

Met starters in 2008 threw a somewhat larger pct of all innings pitched than the overall NL average: 66% to 64% The problem (at least the main one) wasn't that they left too much for the pen to do it's that the pen messed it up so thoroughly once the game was in their hands.

RealityChuck Feb 18 2009 12:03 PM

Yes. The Mets pen toward the end of the year was fully capable of blowing any lead in any inning.

attgig Feb 18 2009 05:49 PM

can you also throw in that in the 7th inning, mets batters ave was 245, 8th ave:.256, and 9th inning:.244. not many insurance runs.

RealityChuck Feb 19 2009 01:49 PM

How was the BA in innings 1-6?

Nymr83 Feb 19 2009 01:58 PM

the other side to that argument is that Mets starters could relax because they had early leads from the Mets' early scoring. I don't buy into any idea that late runs are at all more important than the same number of early runs.

attgig Feb 19 2009 03:08 PM

1-3 = .292 4-6 = .258 7-9 = .249 extra: .217 while a run in the first inning is as important as a run in the 8th (when you're adding up the final score), when you have a struggling bullpen, I think late inning runs can provide a psychological boost.