Barry Zito's performance in NLCS Game 5 has produced page after page of published text marveling at how surprising and unexpected this performance was. While it would be foolish to expect a performance like that from Zito, it should not have been surprising.
OGC has approached this through his PQS research on his blog, Obsessive Giants Compulsive so I'm not the first person to come up with this notion, but I'd like to share some data and thoughts that came to me while researching a comment I posted to a blog post by Chris Quick over on Bay City Ball.
Barry Zito had 17 Quality Starts during the 2012 regular season. He had two more starts where he went 5 or more innings and allowed just 2 runs which is a near-QS(he had just one start where he went at least 6 IP and allowed 4 runs which is the other kind of near-QS). In those 19 starts he pitched a total of 126.2 IP and allowed 29 runs for an ERA of 1.99. In his other 13 starts(including the near-QS in which he allowed 4 ER), he pitched 57.2 IP, and allowed 56 ER for an ERA of just under 9.00. He had 5 starts over the course of the season where he pitched 6 innings or more while allowing 0 ER. In short, Barry Zito was either very good or he was very bad.
Most analysts, when they talk about how bad Barry Zito is, look at his season stat lines. It doesn't matter what metric you use, ERA, FIP, SIERA, WAR, WPA, he comes out looking like a replacement pitcher because the badness of the bad Zito starts overwhelm the goodness of his good starts. In reality, very few, if any, replacement pitchers would give you 19 starts with an ERA of 1.99. Ironically, when all is said and done and you look at all possible stats, Barry Zito's W-L is probably the most accurate measure of his value to the team in 2012.
It really was not a question of whether Barry Zito was capable of the performance we saw in NLCS Game 5. He had 5 comparable starts during the regular season, so clearly he was capable. The question was whether the good Barry or the bad Barry would show up. If it was the good Barry who had a 1.99 ERA in 19 good starts then yes, you could almost expect him to pitch that kind of game. The problem, and what most of us also quite reasonably thought was possible was that the bad Zito would show up and the Giants would be blown out by the 3'rd inning.
In summary, while no reasonable person would dare expect Barry Zito to pitch the way he did in NLCS Game 5, nobody should have been surprised by it either.
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Sort of a coin flip. Zito keeps the ball down, avoids walks a d pitches to contact he can be effective. He gets a lead, the curve ball comes out, and he can be dominant.
ReplyDelete18 year old shohei Otani, he of the 99 mph fastball and the 6'4 frame, is going pro. No silly posting fee due. Giants need to get in and do some due diligence.
Saw Video for Otani do you think we should make a bid for him?
DeleteQ: Does Otani come under the bonus cap for international prospects?
DeleteGreat question Doc. The CBA summaries I have seen say something to the effect that Japanese posting will not be affected. Is this a murky grey area? The Giants have about 1mm bucks left this year that we know about, although they may have snagged some under the radar guys already after Cabrera and Javier.
DeleteIf he would not count towards teams caps maybe he hits the sweet spot and a genuine bidding war breaks out. If he does count, what team would he value. The giants are a nice high profile team. Like them to at least get the due diligence and name in the hat.
If there is no cap, I'll guess the Dodgers blow everybody else out of the water on this one. They seem to be intent on proving to the world they can outdo the Yankees when it comes to throwing money at their problems.
DeleteI think the Cubans are exempt, at least for awhile. Not sure about Japan and Asia.
DeleteDocB, part of the reason I was surprised, was that during the regular Zito can catch hitters by surprise. He is one of those weird change of pace guys. You're used to seeing guys throwing in the 90's and here comes Zito and his 84'er.
ReplyDeleteIn the playoffs, I thought with all the preparation and advance scouting that goes into each game, the Cards would be prepared to face Zito and dissect his slow stuff. So yes, I knew Zito could be effective (shutting out the Rocks in their home opener showed me that) but I didn't think a quality, RH, well prepared team could be shutdown by Zito.
I had to watch every pitch to believe it.
I think there is more to it than just catching hitters by surprise, but yeah, the Cards were not the most likely team for him to do it against. He is noticeably more effective against LH batters.
DeleteThat's the funny thing about Zito, he started his career very good against RHB but not as much the LHB, but as he got older and losing velocity, the RHB started to figure him out, but then he started to figure out LHB, and just had his best season against LHP ever.
DeleteThen he comes out with a start like this where he's back to the old Barry shutting down the RHB.
It was also lucky that Beltran insisted on coming back in Zito's start, Zito is like one of the few Giants pitchers who can shut him down really well. Might have been different if the Cards brought in one of the other good hitting OF.
Give Zito all the credit for pulling together one of the best playoff starts in recent memory. In an elimination game on the road with zero momentum against a RH lineup that has a .650 winning percentage against lefties this year and Barry was brilliant. This does beg the question why wasn't he able to do this more over the last 6 years!! Doesn't matter, thank you Barry Zito for this one!
ReplyDeleteI think the answer is that when Zito can locate the FB, break off curves in the zone and throw in an occasional fading changeup he's as good as anybody out there(well, maybe not as good as Justin Verlander). The problem is he isn't able to always do those things, and when he isn't he gets bombed.
DeleteAs for the last 6 years, I think there are several factors: 1. He hasn't always even tried to keep the ball down. He was trying to pitch like he could reach back for a 92 MPH heater that didn't exist. He's not trying to do that anymore. 2. Having a missus to go home to can make a big difference in a man's life. I call it supportive accountability.
Maybe sabers should do something to relfect the fact that relationship-committed starting pitchers sleep on the couch, until they pitch again, when they don't have quality starts.
DeleteHa! I said SUPPORTIVE accountability!
DeleteGood points but Zito has actually been like this since 2009. He has been basically like this in 2009, 2010, and now 2012. People forget but he had a great ERA going into August 2010 and was still under 4 at his last start of August 2010. And he probably would have been like this in 2011 if that car accident had not happened, he did pitch well in first initial games in 2011, but then his body failed him and he tried to get it done, as most athletes do, even though he wasn't 100%. He has actually been a good pitcher most of his Giants career, just not the pitcher that a $126M price tag would suggest.
DeleteIt's always easy to point out the Verlanders and Strasburgs of the world who dominate as power pitchers. I see a lot of posts about declining FB velocity and how that translates to poorer performance.
ReplyDeleteI would be interested in discussing which pitchers have thrived in the mold of Greg Maddux-- Who would you list in the upper quarter of pitchers who do not have a FB above 90?
GO GIANTS!
Including knuckleballers?
DeleteIt's getting harder and harder to think of pitchers who don't hit 90 as practically everybody can get to that these days.
DeleteRomo is a reliever but he comes to mind. He succeeds with insane movement on his pitches, and not just the slide piece. He gets great movement from his upper 80's two seam FB too.
Not sure if he hits 90 or not, but Tommy Milone comes to mind as a velocity challenged young pitcher who is succeeding.
I'll try to think of some more. I think there is a website somewhere that uses Pitchfx to monitor average FB velocity. I'll have to try to find it.
Jered Weaver is an example of a starter who barely touches 90 mph with his fastball, but still gets the job done with a variety of pitches and movement.
Delete