Comments on: Free Agent Joel Pineiro

By: B

Wed, 18 Nov 2009 19:14:52 +0000

Wow, this is a really interesting case study. I love players that are unusual and get things done in ways that don’t work for most players. You know, I always thought the whole “pitch to contact” idea was a load of crap, basically a nice thing to say about bad pitchers when you don’t have any other easy to use cliche at the ready…but the concept of being hittable so batters don’t get the chance to get anywhere close to 4 balls is interesting. You may be on to something – that letting guys hit the ball (usually a bad thing, but not so bad if theyre mostly GB’s) can have a positive effect, that effect being a lower walk rate. I wonder how many pitchers per batter Pinerio throws compared to normal pitchers, and compared to other GB pitchers.

There are a lot of reasons Pineiro should regress next year, from his likely unsustainably high GB% and BB%, to his fluky good HR/FB…I think it’ll be interesting to see how much regression there is, though, and if he’s still a legitimately good pitcher after things trend in the direction they should…

By: nota bene

nota bene — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 05:36:18 +0000

FWIW, according to this, Pineiro's new pitch this season was actually something called a one-seamer. There's a picture of the grip here.

By: Gary

Gary — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 22:50:00 +0000

If you got 200 IP and a FIP around 4 you’d be kissing your lucky stars.

The last time Pineiro pitched 200 innings was 2003.

Which is the 2nd killer red flag for me. Pineiro is a ticking time bomb waiting to have tommy john surgery.

By: Pat

Pat — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 22:07:55 +0000

Is he the rich man’s Carlos Silva? I’m sure Pineiro is a better pitcher, but when I quickly look at the two I see some similarities. I hope for the team’s sake who signs him, he doesn’t flop as bad as Silva. I’m not really sure what went wrong with Silva, other than everything?

By: joser

joser — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 21:54:10 +0000

Yes, although the M’s strength is outfield defense; the infield isn’t all that special (Jack Wilson certainly improves it, but it’s a wash if Beltre leaves as a FA). The Rays, sure, but they’ve got a lot of pitching anyway and probably have better uses for scarce FA money. But your general point is dead-on: you only want to give up groundballs if your infield is going to turn them into outs.

By: joser

joser — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 21:50:34 +0000

This almost certainly was a best-case season for Pineiro, but I wonder how much of his new skills can be attributed to Dave Duncan and how much of them he’ll retain if he leaves that tutelage?

By: joser

joser — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 21:47:44 +0000

Where are all the posts by “Wrightous” and those other guys for whom any unexpected (or just any) increase in performance can only have one possible cause: the juice?

Or have they (thankfully) been banned or otherwise gone on to posting at sites more, uh, worthy of their contributions?

By: b_rider

b_rider — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 21:22:11 +0000

You mentioned that Piniero’s Zone% seems low. I don’t know the statistics, but isn’t that common for good groundball pitchers?

Career Zone%
Derek Lowe 50.1%
Felix Hernandez 50.9%
Brandon Webb 51.6%

I would guess that the key to being a really good groundball pitcher is to throw pitches that look like they are going to be in the zone, but sink or move just enough that they move out of the hitter’s optimal contact zone and get hit weakly or at a downward angle. If you couldn’t hit the zone at all, no one would swing, and it wouldn’t work. Conversely, if your sinker doesn’t miss bats, and you throw it down the middle of the plate, it would get hammered (a la Carlos Silva). So a good pitch-to-contact groundballer is going to look like Piniero–with the ability to throw pitches close enough to the zone that batters swing, but not so close that they can get solid contact.

That is not to say that it will be easy for Piniero to repeat his success. It strikes me that he has to walk a fine line to make this strategy work–he’s got to have pretty good command. We can probably expect some regression.

By: Logan

Logan — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 21:15:51 +0000

I’m a Mets fan, I think Minaya’s bad, but this would be a good move. First, he’d come cheap relative to other starters (Lackey), which would allow the team to pursue a bat like Holliday.

Also, with Reyes back and Castillo possibly traded(?), the infield defense would be improved to the point where those ground balls would be very useful.

Even if he regresses, a 200 IP pitcher with an FIP around 4 is very useful. I’d like to see us sign him.

By: Dave Allen

Dave Allen — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 20:37:46 +0000

I really don’t think he can maintain that BB rate. It is just too good. My best guess, and this is just a guess, would be something like 4.95 k/9, 1.8 bb/9 and 0.8 hr/9. That works out to 110 Ks, 40 BBs and 20 HRs over 200 innings and a FIP of 4, which I think is reasonable. FIP is (HR*13 + BB*3 -K*2)/IP + 3.2, so if you want you can plug in your own projected K, BB and HR, and see what it predicts.