The over/under game—Gil Meche!

I don’t check ESPN too terribly often, but I saw this fantasy column about three fantasy pitchers—Jason Marquis, Matt Morris, Gil Meche—and had to peruse.

They break it down into two thoughts and each columnist takes one. Adam Madison took the “Gil Meche isn’t for real” angle. He addresses Meche’s positives first—peripherals like his walk rate and home run rate, and the length of his starts (6 2/3 IP per start, much higher than past years). Then he delves into why he believes Meche won’t finish the season as strongly as he has started: (1) “the AL Central is tough to pitch in,” (2) “the Royals are 27th in defensive efficiency, which is a rather big negative since a poor defense results in more balls in play” (which has to be a typo—hopefully he meant more balls in play become hits, not simply more balls in play). Madison continues to say this might be a career year for Meche, but he’s still regressing toward the mean.

I agree with the first point (AL Central), but I don’t know how much of a difference it’ll make by the end of the year. I’m not so sure about the second point. Perhaps their defensive efficiency as a whole is down, but if you look at Meche’s ball placement, you’ll see that he’s getting an insane amount of groundballs and pop flies. He is severely limiting the number of line drives. And those groundballs? It helps when you have a Gold Glove-winning second baseman and a Gold Glove-caliber shortstop. It’s not that I don’t think the Royals defense as a whole could be better—I most certainly do—I just don’t think it’ll have much affect on the rest of Meche’s season, even if he allows more line drives.

(I don’t mean to blow off Will Harris’ thoughts on why Meche is the real deal, but half of it seems to deal with Meche’s improvements on the road, which seems weak because he’s only played on the road six times so far this year, against six different teams.)

But looking at things like Meche’s 4.17 FIP (fielding independent pitching, an estimate of a pitcher’s expected ERA based on non-fielding things like strikeouts, walks, homeruns, etc.) would suggest that perhaps he has been lucky. So… it’s another over/under game.

Gil Meche’s ERA right now: 3.00
(1) Gil Meche’s ERA by the All-Star Break: 3.00
(2) Gil Meche’s ERA by the All-Star Break: 3.50
(3) Gil Meche’s ERA by the end of the year: 3.50
(4) Gil Meche’s ERA by the end of the year: 4.17

Gil Meche—3 wins (5 losses) in 13 games
(5) Gil Meche’s Ws by ASB: 5
(6) Gil Meche’s Ws by the end of the year: 10