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Wednesday, December 26, 2007

River Ave. Blues: Kabak: Can Mike Mussina be league-average?

“The Alumni Game is always such a wonderful event for the entire Stanford Baseball family,” said head coach Mark Marquess. “We really enjoy the chance to bring back some of the special people who have meant so much to this program and Stanford University.”

In 2007, Mussina’s stats were not pretty. He went 11-10 but had a career-high 5.15 ERA. He allowed 36 more hits than innings pitched and struck out a career low 91. The decline in strike outs — from 7.85 per 9 IP in 2006 to 5.39 in 2007 — is alarming. Those numbers are well worse than league-average, and Mussina’s VORP declined from over 40 to 11, just a shade above replacement level. Those are alarming trends.

But when you break out Mussina’s defense-independent stats, things look a little better. His fielding-independent pitching line, a number that equates roughly to ERA, was 4.58 or roughly league average. His home run totals were down, and while his line drive percentage was up, a lot of those baserunners from line drives seem to be a result of poor fielding.

Repoz Posted: December 26, 2007 at 02:10 PM | 6 comment(s) Login to Bookmark
Tags: sabermetrics, yankees

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1. Cowboy Popup Posted: December 26, 2007 at 06:10 PM (#2653656)

I think all of Moose's future sucess hinges on him getting that extra mile or two per hour back in his fastball. He's servicable at 87-89, bad at 85-87 and pretty good at 89-91. I don't think league average is in the cards unless he has inconsistent velocities over the course of the year. I think if he gets back to 89-91, he will be pretty good again because he seemed to learn more things about pitching last year when he was stuck with his 85 MPH heater and said things to that effect. If he carries over that knowledge and renewed velocity, he could be a pleasant surprise. I do not think that will happen. I would guess a 4.85 ERA and 165 IP.

2. Jolly Old St. Neck Wound, Moral Idiot

Posted: December 26, 2007 at 06:36 PM (#2653675)

while his line drive percentage was up, a lot of those baserunners from line drives seem to be a result of poor fielding

We should be able to gauge Mussina's effectiveness by seeing how good his own reflexes are on line drives hit straight back through the box. This experiment will likely take about two or three starts to produce a large enough sample size.

3. Vogon Poet Posted: December 26, 2007 at 06:57 PM (#2653686)

Marcel has Mussina at a 4.50 ERA. ZiPS has him at 4.74. CHONE has him at 4.45. The average AL starter had a 4.61 ERA last year. Seems average isn't only possible, but exactly what we should expect.

4. jyjjy Posted: December 26, 2007 at 07:16 PM (#2653701)

Yeah, Mussina was pretty much average until August last season. It seemed like he got tired at that point, lost a few miles per hour on his fastball and ended up with a 8+ ERA for the month. He was removed from the rotation, got some rest, regained a bit of velocity and was actually quite good over the last month.
That said I have no idea what to expect next season. Maybe he puts extra effort into conditioning to avoid wearing down next season and is effective or maybe he is just one year older and basically done or anything in between. The AL East is a tough place to pitch and it'll be interesting to see if a bright and talented guy like Mussina can make adjustments and keep it together in such an environment now that he has 2007 to learn from.

5. Loren F. Posted: December 26, 2007 at 07:54 PM (#2653735)

Yeah, Mussina was pretty much average until August last season. It seemed like he got tired at that point, lost a few miles per hour on his fastball and ended up with a 8+ ERA for the month.

Even in his "comeback" 2006, Mussina's performance eroded in August. That month has been a particular problem for him in recent years. It seems to start in 2004, but he was injured and unlucky that August:

August 2004 7.04 ERA .268 BAbip 15.3 IP
August 2005 6.68 ERA .385 BAbip 32.3 IP
August 2006 5.14 ERA .382 BAbip 21.0 IP
August 2007 8.87 ERA .426 BAbip 23.3 IP

It may be that as he's aged, he's gotten tired more easily by August. I don't think he's rebounding to 2006's level, but maybe if Mussina gets extra rest in April-July (because the Yankees can and should give some of his starts to Joba), it's possible that maybe he avoids the worst of the August slump and he's slightly above average for 2008.

I don't know if that'll happen. Mussina is a smart pitcher, as jyjjy noted, but there's only so much a creaky 39-year-old pitcher with a fading fastball can do.

6. Slinger Francisco Barrios (Dr. Memory) Posted: December 26, 2007 at 10:18 PM (#2653878)

LOLZ, Andy.

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Wednesday, December 26, 2007

River Ave. Blues: Kabak: Can Mike Mussina be league-average?

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