Q. Is Petit one more Garret Olson type, a guy whose flashy minors stats won't translate?
A. Petit has shown some truly spectacular, Fister-like :- ) command in the minors, such as his 67/8 control ratio in AAA in 2008.
He's also had excellent CTL in the majors, 6.9 / 2.9 lifetime, despite being so early in his career. As we all know, this has come at the expense of his HR rate -- 2.0 per 9 innings, when 1.1 is average and 1.4 is gopheritis.
As you know, a lot of these Garret Olson, Ryan Franklin, Yusmeiro Petit types have terrific CTL's because they have 3-4 legit pitches and they throw every blinkin' pitch for a strike.
Then in the majors, the batters guess right often enough that you get the 1.5, 2.0 homer rates.
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Q. So, will Petit get his homers under control and become Paul Byrd or something?
A. I'm not optimistic. I'll tell you exactly why:
The smoke-and-mirrors type #3-4 starters have something they do good. They have real good command of a FB and can nibble, or they have a Campillo / Fister change, or both, like Radke had.
I loathe Petit's fastball -- it's sloppy, slow, and he doesn't have great command of it.
He has three legit offspeed pitches thrown with major-league, but not Trevor Hoffman, arm action. I just see the ML hitters continuing to guess right on these offspeed pitches a good % of the time.
I don't see Safeco bailing Petit out of this gopheritis, for exactly the same reasons that it doesn't for Olson or Vargas. A deep left-center fence saves you some borderline fly balls. It doesn't save you when the batter loads up and swats a batting-practice pitch.
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Q. Is that sabermetric?
A. Sure. The template is Ryan Franklin (umpteen mediocre pitches) -- minus 5 mph on the fastball. The Bill James key for this family of pitcher is plus-plus command of the lousy fastball.
Garret Olson, for example, just doesn't have the command of his mushy fastball to keep it out of that homer-oval for 7 innings. Neither does Vargas. So they over-challenge, and the batters accept the invitation.
In his prime, Jamie Moyer could throw 100 pitches and never center a mushy fastball. Petit has never been able to do that. The question is when you think he will.
........
Petit does throw a 50-15-15-15 game and his offspeed pitches are 50-solid. If he could somehow develop hair-fine command with his FB, nibble with it but still get ahead in the count, sure. That would be the key. So far he hasn't, and I don't visualize it occurring.
If Capt Jack & crew picked up Petit for the same reason they did Olson, they're going to get the same result IMHO.
OTOH if they think they can help him find dazzling control of the FB, then fine.
........
Dr's diagnosis: I'll believe it when I see it, but it's spaghetti against the wall. No harm trying.
My $0.02,
Dr D
So if Franklin is the template, then is Petit our next closer? Maybe only if Dave Duncan were our pitching coach. I agree that he's probably spaghetti, but Jack will actually let him be thrown against the wall rather than just laugh him out of cyber-space.
-Watcher
...I am pretty hard-core with the SABR-analysis. And as you should know...Ron Shandler is not. He's a numbers guy, but that doesn't make him a scientist when it comes to this sort of discussion. Ron Shandler is a gamer...he's figured out some patterns that help him find diamonds in the rough for playing fantasy baseball. There's nothing wrong with starting there in your analysis, but this is an example of the kind of player Shandler will screw up on every single time...as was Ichiro. A real sabermetrician is not going to overlook a sky sky SSKKKKYYYYYY high HR rate with a simple "HR/Fly correction should help" line. A real sabermetrician knows that if you're talking about a pitcher with a sky high K/BB and a HR/Fly that's marginal, then maybe he can tick that HR rate down a hair, but not for guys whose HR rate is twice the league. A 2 HR/9 is not some statistical abberation...it's a fatal FATAL flaw.
I'll bet the farm SUPER-low on Petit.
I haven't paid close attention, so it has been a mystery to me that Ryan Franklin ends up the closer for a playoff team.
Looking it over, he was pretty consistent at giving up 1.5 HR/9 from 1999-2006, mostly as a starter, while overall decent in 01-03 then pure mush in 04-05. Then he goes to STL and at age 34 and since his HR/9 is 0.9, 1.14 and 0.3. Obviously, that is in relief, but does that make a huge difference for a guy like Franklin who doesn't rely on stuff?
Now at 36 he's an all-star with a 214 ERA+ and 3.31 FIP. I know there is a school of thought that "(almost) anyone can be a closer" -- and obviously some of the HR avoidance is chance, but he's done it 3 years running. I can't imagine that suddenly his fastball started to fool people in his mid 30s, and it can't be that he's the "wily veteran" because his approach was the "wily veteran" approach when he was 26, wasn't it?
Just curious.
Moving from the AL to the NL is having a similar impact on guys like Frankin as moving from the NL to AAA would.
The NL is AAA. Got it. Guess that explains why K-Rod dominated the NL like he did. Oh, and Putz, too. Let's not forget about Putz.
But hey. It's nice to know you won't be coveting the lesser talent in the NL ... like Pujols or Lincecum.
Of course, if you're fishing for talent in the NL ... like Branyan or Wilson or Griffey ... well, if that's who you're stocking up on ... over-the-hill minor leaguers ... then, I guess that makes your entire organization minor league, doesn't it?
The NL matters as far as the ability to judge starting pitching in that they get to face the pitcher several times a game. You have to account for that in their ERA and hits totals. 2-3 auto outs a game can be significant over the course of 200 innings. It makes no nevermind whatsoever to a closer like Franklin, because he's NOT facing a pitcher. Lineups are not weaker in the 9th between leagues, and having an abundance of pinch hitters makes NL bullpen matchups harder on NL bullpen arms, actually.
I know Matt's not a believer in NL talent, but for Franklin the situation should be basically neutral between leagues, certainly not like facing AAA.
~G
In part I
Gracias :- )