Comments on: Is DFA’d Smoltz Done For?

By: Nick

Nick — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 00:47:31 +0000

Matt, BABIP for pitchers is almost completely luck. Smoltz is allowing about 18% LD, which is a league average rate, so his BABIP should reflect that A ~.400 is certainly elevated and almost completely the results of luck.

By: VolsnCards5

VolsnCards5 — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 19:29:15 +0000

The Cards only need a 5th starter a few more times this season…this signing was made with an eye towards the playoff roster. RH relief has been a sore spot for the Cards(outside of Franklin, who sucks). Look at Smoltz’s numbers against RH. My guess is that if he has even a modicum of success as the 5th starter, he will make the playoff roster as a late-inning glorified ROOGY. The Cardinals need that badly

By: Ed

Ed — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 19:23:23 +0000

The .466 BABIP from lefties is probably due to his arm angle. After his early struggles he tried lowering his arm angle. That generally tends to make your pitches harder to read for like handed batters, and easier to read for opposite handed batters.

He had a .390 BABIP overall, so righties still had an above average BABIP against him, although not insanely so.

By: Tom

Tom — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 19:16:45 +0000

Boston lost six of Smoltz’s eight starts. Is that the kind of superficial number a contending team should overlook? Those K/9 and BB/9 stats look great, but wins are still the metric that determines whether or not your team qualifies for the postseason. If the Cardinals didn’t have a comfortable lead, I don’t think they’d risk starting Smoltz every fifth day with hopes that his results catch up to his BaBIP and HR/FB.

By: Ed

Ed — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 19:16:01 +0000

The things that don’t show up in the box score…

Smoltz struggled hard. He knew he wasn’t effective and was trying different things. He went into the game against the Yankees trying a different arm angle to see if it helped any. It got him through the lineup once with great results. The second time through, the Yankees adjusted and smacked him around hard. It wasn’t luck that lead to all those hits, he just didn’t have good enough stuff. From watching his face, he seemed to realize that too.

He just doesn’t seem to have the physical ability to be an effective MLB pitcher anymore. The bright spots in his stat lines are a testament to his knowledge of how to pitch effectively, not to the ability he has now.

By: Matt

Matt — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 22:25:55 +0000

Did you read the article? I’m not making a new argument here, just reiterating the point of this entire post. Read the last paragraph.

A .466 BABIP against lefties with probably something like 20-25% of flyballs from that side leaving the park (6/25? 6/30? couldn’t find the split) might account for some of the problem.

By: Judy

Judy — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 21:35:08 +0000

I think it takes more than just bad luck to turn a sample of 90 LHHs into the equivalent of facing Barry Bonds 90 times. Use your brain. That doesn’t mean he can’t do something to fix it, just that it wasn’t fixed yet and the Red Sox didn’t feel they could afford to devote any more time to trying to fix it at the expense of giving their team a better chance to win games.

By: Adam

Adam — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 17:06:58 +0000

Smoltz really struggled with his location so far this year. He was hanging breaking balls left and right, and he would constantly leave his fastball right over the middle. I honestly think he would be better served out of the bullpen, but the Sox have as much bullpen depth as any team in baseball.

By: Matt

Matt — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 16:46:39 +0000

The point is that he was pitching effectively and was the victim of really, really bad luck.

By: stephen o'grady

stephen o'grady — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 14:50:19 +0000

The Sox DFA’d him because they had no reasonable mechanism for predicting when his underlying statistical solidity would manifest itself at the major league level. Maybe it was the next start, maybe not for another five.

In the meantime, they were losing games, which was bad, but losing innings as well, which was worse.

If the Sox had a comfortable margin in either the division or the wildcard, I would not be surprised to see them demonstrate more patience. But they’re in a dogfight to make the playoffs, and without any idea when he would begin pitching effectively, they simply couldn’t afford to take the chance that it would be a while.