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Baseball Primer Newsblog— The Best News Links from the Baseball Newsstand
Saturday, September 04, 2010
The fact that Takahashi has been so successful in the relief role seems to suggest that he remains there, but the only real difference between his perfomance as a starter and as a reliever appears to be the amount of home runs allowed. It is likely that Takahashi (or any other pitcher, for that matter) would allow more home runs as a starter than as a reliever, but not to the extent that Takahashi has in his one major league season: a 1.54 HR/9 as a starter against a 0.18 HR/9 as a reliever. It’s far more likely that Takahashi would allow a 1.00 HR/9 as a starter like he has overall this season. With that kind of home run line, his 2.6 K/BB would play quite well in a starting role.
The fact that Hisanori Takahashi has given up a multitude of home runs as a starter belies the kind of season that he is having. In reality, Takahashi has shown that he has no problem retiring Major League hitters. Yes, he may be more suited to a relief role – in reality, most pitchers are – but there’s certainly reason to believe that he can succeed in a starting role. If that is indeed the case, teams should target him as a starter – not only would Takahashi be more likely to sign, but the increased amount of innings would lead to more value added to the team as well.
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Split G PA BA OBP SLG OPS tOPS+ sOPS+
1st PA in G, as SP 12 109 .229 .286 .313 .598 67 71
2nd PA in G, as SP 12 105 .293 .353 .565 150 144
3rd PA in G, as SP 11 66 .371 .409 .581 .990 172 156
4th+ PA in G, as SP 1 1 1.000 1.000 2.000 3.000 707 658
1st PA in G, as RP 29 165 .179 .259 .241 .501 41 40
2nd PA in G, as RP 5 16 .429 .500 .786 1.286 251 219
Source: B-R
He had four starts in which he allowed 0 ER, one start in which he allowed 1 ER, and another where he allowed 2 ER. So he was spectacular for half his starts. Problem was, he allowed 5 ER or more in 5 of his other six starts.
I think Takahashi could be useful as a swingman. Ideally, I'd like for the Mets to sign him to be a starter with him eventually to the bullpen when Mejia gets called up.
I grouped the starts into two buckets of 6, "game scores above 50" and "game scores of 50 or less." I'll call them "good" and "bad" starts for short.
I then looked at Takahashi's splits by "time through the lineup" for each of these two buckets, using PA data from B-R Play Index.
The interesting result is Takahashi's HR splits. 10 of the 11 home runs he gave up came in the bad starts. He never gave up a home run the first time through the lineup, in good starts and bad starts. His BA/OBP/SLG/OPS line the first time through the lineup in his bad starts is similar to that in his good starts.
In his bad starts, Takahashi generally appears to have gotten into trouble the second time through the lineup. I don't think this is a coincidence, and it may be due to his apparently being a two-pitch pitcher, fastball/slider against LHB and fastball/changeup against RHB.
While any pitcher is more valuable as a starter, I think Takahashi will only be more exposed as a starter than a reliever unless he can alter his approach.
GS>50? PA# PA HR BA OBP SLG OPS
N 1-9 54 0 0.229 0.296 0.292 0.588
N 10-18 52 7 0.404 0.462 0.915 1.376
N 19-27 26 3 0.522 0.577 0.913 1.490
N 28 1 0 1.000 1.000 2.000 3.000
Y 1-9 54 0 0.216 0.259 0.314 0.573
Y 10-18 54 0 0.163 0.222 0.184 0.406
Y 19-27 40 1 0.282 0.300 0.385 0.685
Agreed, if you can spot start him against teams with lefty lineups / key hitters. It's easy to anticipate teams stacking their lineups heavily with righties against him.
SPLIT PA HR BA OBP SLG OPS
vs LHB as SP 63 0 0.259 0.317 0.345 0.662
vs RHB as SP 218 11 0.290 0.339 0.500 0.839
Putting aside concerns about small sample size for a moment, Takahashi's (home run) problems as a starting pitcher against RHB arose the second time through the lineup.
SPLIT PA# PA HR BA OBP SLG OPS
vs LHB as SP 1-9 22 0 0.143 0.182 0.286 0.468
vs LHB as SP 10-18 22 0 0.286 0.318 0.333 0.652
vs LHB as SP 19-27 18 0 0.333 0.444 0.333 0.778
vs LHB as SP 28 1 0 1.000 1.000 2.000 3.000
vs RHB as SP 1-9 86 0 0.244 0.302 0.308 0.610
vs RHB as SP 10-18 84 7 0.280 0.345 0.600 0.945
vs RHB as SP 19-27 48 4 0.383 0.396 0.660 1.055
vs RHB as SP 218 11 0.290 0.339 0.500 0.839
I love the analysis that you've done bobm but I think it's even simpler than that. Even with his elevated home run rate, his FIPs as a starter was 4.70. He's not going to be a great starting pitcher but he's probably going to be better than anyone else the Mets are going to be able to add to their rotation. Mejia's got a lot of talent but he's barely pitched above AA as a starter and he's still really young. I would not be upset if the Mets signed Takahashi to be a starter.
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