Zito in Line for a Big Payday

Barry Zito should thank Roy Oswalt.  Forget that, he should take him, and his entire extended family out to dinner.

Thanks to Oswalt, the 28 year old former Oakland Athletic left-hander is sure to get a huge contract this upcoming off season. See, it wasn’t too long ago (this past August) when Oswalt, 29 years old, signed a five year, $73 million contract extension with the Houston Astros before he was to hit the open market this off season.  Since the Astros had exclusive negotiating rights when the contract was offered, meaning there was no other teams available to outbid them, I think it is fair to say this huge contract is actually lower than what Oswalt would have gotten as a free agent.

Zito, though, is going to test the free-agent waters and is likely to make more money than Oswalt—on both a per-year basis, and a total contract basis. 

But is he as good? 

Using a great statistic found over at Baseball-Reference.com called ERA+ we will attempt to begin to answer this question.  ERA+ is great because it is adjusted to the level of competition of the league the pitcher pitched in, and to his home ballpark.  It is figured by dividing the league ERA (adjusted for pitchers ballpark) by the pitchers actual ERA.  It is set so that “100” is exactly average.  An ERA+ greater than 100 is above average, while a number below is below-average.

Wow, they really aren't even close.  Oswalt is the much better pitcher, but it is important to look at the inning totals of both pitchers in each year they have pitched.  You can see Oswalt has been injured (2003), albeit only once.  While this may seem negligent, it becomes important when you notice that Zito has never even seen the inside of the trainers room.  

If you have watched either of the two above pitchers throw it shouldn't surprise you that of the duo, Oswalt is the more oft-injured (even though one injury in six year is hardly oft-injured).  Oswalt is a small pitcher (6'0", 170 lbs) who has a violent wind-up that is hard on his tiny frame.  Zito, on the other hand is a bigger guy (6'4", 205 lbs) and has a very fluid windup and delivery that causes minimal damage to his larger frame.

That difference is what closes that gap between these two pitchers.  Even though Oswalt has been the better pitcher he is far more prone to be injured, has been injured, and projecting an injury in the future is not maniacal.  Zito, while clearly less effective has shown he can handle the full rigors of a season, year-after-year, and any injuries in the future should be minimal, if any.  

A guy that can be depended on to take the mound every five days is immeasurably valuable, and extremely hard to find.  A guy that can show this durability and pitch effectively, like Zito, is worth his weight in gold.

So "Yes," Zito is worth just as much as Oswalt.  Add this to the fact that he will be on the open market and it should come as no surprise when he gets a 5 year, $85 million deal this off season.  

But, how will he perform once the contract is signed?  To try and answer this question lets have a look at a detailed profile of Barry Zito which includes batted-ball data (provided by FanGraphs.com):

What can we tell from this chart?  Well, first off, we see that it was a minor miracle that Zito was as effective in 2006 as he was in 2005.  In 2006 he allowed more hits than in 2005, walked more batters, struck out less, and induced less ground balls; yet he ended up with a very similar ERA.  

According to the chart Zito is an extreme fly ball pitcher.  His career, and 2006 FB% are/were both far higher than the American League average in 2006 (36%).  Not surprisingly, all of these fly balls have come at the expense of groundballs, as his career GB% of 38 is far below last years AL average (44%).  He gives up slightly less line drives than normal over his career, but gave up much less in 2006 (20% AL average in 2006)--this is the main culprit behind his success in 2006 being equal to that of 2005 when his peripheral numbers were actually worse .  

For Zito's career he strikes out more hitters than average (6.3 K/9 in AL last season), but last season was below average in this category.  Notice his three year downward trend in this category.  He's always walked too many batters as his career rate is on the wrong side of the average (3.1 BB/9 in AL in 2006), and his rate last year was his worst since his rookie year and is also the third installment of a three year decline.

So, if Zito is an average strikeout pitcher that has below average control, doesn't induce many groundballs, and gives up tons of fly balls, how is it that he has been as effective as he has?  I mean, that profile isn't usually one that matches up to one of a very effective pitcher.  That answer can be found in the BABIP column.  Zito's career rate of .269 is phenomenal, and has been sustained over such a long period of time (1400+ IP) it's impossible to say Zito has had nothing to do with it.  Obviously, hitters cannot make good contact on his 12 to 6 curve ball (which he threw 22% of the time in 2006), and he has made his living off of it. 

But, while Zito definitely has some innate ability to produce such low BABIP against numbers, it is important to note that over his career the Oakland A's (since 2001) have a mean team BABIP against of .289--meaning Zito has always pitched in front of some top-notch defenses.  Essentially, the A's defense made a pitcher who was very good at inducing bad contact, great.  This should be duly noted when looking at possible suitors for Zito.   

OK, so now we have our profile of Barry Zito:

"High fly ball, low groundball pitcher that depends on hitters making bad contact on his curve ball to succeed.  Average strikeout pitcher, with slightly below average control."

How can this pitcher be expected to produce in the future?

To answer this question we will refer to my old friend, Baseball Prospectus (BP).  Over at BP they run a very complicated, and detailed projection system called PECOTA which takes into account a player's profile to try to predict their future (just like were trying to do).  When they capture a player's profile, they match it to others with similar profiles from the past to make their projections.  Pitchers most similar to Barry Zito, according to PECOTA are as follows (descending from most similar, to least similar):

Using the career paths of those pitchers, and many others that are similar to Zito, prior to the 2006 season PECOTA projected his 2007 through 2010 seasons to look like so:

As you can see, PECOTA doesn't see Zito being an "Ace" in any sense of the word.  If anything, he is an extremely durable number two, or even a number three starter according to these numbers.  Keep in mind though, those projections were made before the 2006 season when Zito posted his career-worst BB/9, and second-lowest K/9.  I would expect, if anything, this would make PECOTA's projection for Zito worse for his future seasons; meaning it wouldn't be crazy to make those projections a tad worse.  

So, for teams looking for a "Top-of-the-rotation" guy, Zito is not your answer.  But, for those looking for somebody to take stress off of the rest of their rotation, and bullpen, Zito will do just that; and pitch effectively while doing so.  And in today's market, that is worth $17 million a year for five years.

It wouldn't surprise me to see a team that had a lot of injury problems in it's starting rotation last season make the biggest pitch for Zito in the coming months.  A team that has gone through a season of minor league call-ups and replacement-level pitchers filling in for injured starters will be much more willing to dole out the big bucks for pitcher like Zito.

The number one team that comes to mind is the New York Mets.

Thank you for reading,

If you have any questions, comments, concerns, or suggestions, please do not hesitate to contact me at frnkbndy@yahoo.com.