Wednesday, March 28, 2012

Looking Ahead to 2012 - Michael Pineda

In a move that came out of nowhere, the Yankees traded Jesus Montero, their top prospect, for Michael Pineda.  Pineda had a very good rookie year for Seattle in 2011, but getting him came at a heavy price.  It’ll probably take at least five years to see if the trade was worth it, but it’s already been analyzed and judged heavily and will surely continue to be. 

2011
Pineda wasn’t a lock to make the Mariners’ rotation out of spring training last year, but he made the team thanks to a good spring training.  His first half/second half splits have been beaten to death, but I’ll re-post this table that I posted right after the trade.

fb% Percentage of batted balls that were fly balls
gb% Percentage of batted balls that were ground balls
ld% Percentage of batted balls that were line drives
bb/bf: walks per batters faced
k/bf: strikeouts per batters faced
babip: batting average on balls in play
fip: Fielding independent pitching
xfip: Expected fip (uses league average hr/fb rate instead of actual hr)

A is Pineda through July 4, and B is Pineda afterwards.

If you go by ERA, Pineda was much worse in the second half (2.58 through July 4, 5.71 after).  However, there’s a lot of noise in ERA that isn’t necessarily related to the pitcher’s performance.  Every peripheral stat of Pineda’s except for his HR/FB rate and his BABIP was better in the second half, and those are probably the two most volatile stats a pitcher can have.

Stats are only part of the story, but what about his stuff? Here are Pineda’s average velocities by pitch type for each month in 2011.

FFv: Four-seam fastball velocity
SLv: Slider velocity
CHv: Changeup velocity

Here are Pineda’s average four-seam fastball velocities for each game in 2011.

4/5: 95.2
4/12: 95.5
4/17: 97.2
4/22: 95.5
4/28: 95.2
5/4: 96.9
5/10: 95.8
5/16: 94.5
5/21: 94.0
5/27: 95.3
6/1: 94.1
6/6: 95.7
6/11: 95.2
6/17: 94.2
6/23: 93.0
6/28: 94.1
7/4: 93.9
7/9: 94.6
7/19: 95.4
7/24: 94.6
7/30: 94.8
8/9: 94.7
8/15: 94.5
8/21: 92.8
8/27: 94.1
9/3: 93.6
9/10: 94.7
9/21: 91.4

There was a gradual decrease as the season wore on, and the big drop between 9/10 and 9/21 is a little alarming, but he only threw 44 fastballs in that 9/21 game(out of 81 total pitches) and I don’t know if it’s anything more than a blip.  His average fastball velocity through the end of June was 95 mph, and it was 94.1 mph over the rest of the season.

Velocity’s an important part of being a good MLB pitcher, but it’s not the only part.  Much has been made about Pineda’s underwhelming velocity so far this spring, where’s he’s topping out below where he averaged last year.  He’s also throwing with less velocity than he did last spring.  However, he’s not trying to make the team like he was last year, and he’s probably focusing more on developing his changeup which has lagged behind his fastball and slider.  Because of that, I think the obsession with his velocity in exhibition games is a little misguided, although I suppose controversy sells and there’s not a whole lot else that’s controversial for this year’s version of the Yankees so far.

2012 Projections
Pineda’s moving from a pitcher’s park to a disgraceful bandbox.  Although Seattle has a better defensive reputation than the Yankees, the Yankees’ defensive OF is a good one and as a flyball pitcher he shouldn’t see that much of an impact from any decline in the defense behind him.

RA: Runs allowed per nine innings
FIP: Fielding-independent pitching
RAR: Runs above replacement level (using RA adjusted for park)
WAR: Wins above replacement level (RAR divided by 10)

For more information on the projections above you can look at the first post in this series.

I’ve included his 2011 and the league average as frames of reference.  League average is based on role (starters vs. relievers), and is not adjusted for park so unlike with hitters mentally adjust that down a bit.

Pineda’s professional innings progression looks like this.

2006: 20.1 IP in Rookie ball
2007: 59.0 IP in Rookie ball
2008: 138.1 IP in Class A
2009: 47.1 IP in Rookie and A+
2010: 139.1 IP in AA and AAA
2011: 171.0 IP in MLB

Pineda missed a large chunk of 2009 with an elbow injury, but returned from that having put on about 25 pounds and a few MPH of velocity.  Last year was his career high in innings pitched, and it came in the majors where innings are more stressful due to the greater caliber of competition.  That may or may not explain some of his lower velocity, which means he may be able to get it back as his stamina increases.  It’s probably worth noting that velocity peaks pretty early in most pitchers’ career, and Pineda may never throw as hard as he did last year.  That doesn’t mean he can’t be a good pitcher without it, of course.

Pineda’s projections are reasonably consistent across the board.  They’re low on innings since he has never pitched as many innings as he did last year, and ZiPS is probably seeing a rougher transition to the AL East and DNYS than the others.  According to Baseball Reference there were 28 AL pitchers that had at least 3.0 WAR last year.

Baseball Reference: Playing in the AL, For 2011, (requiring WAR_pitch≥2), sorted by greatest WAR for Pitchers

Pineda himself just missed the cut off with 2.8.  Pineda’s average projection would qualify for the most basic definition of a #2 starter in the AL (one of the top 28 pitchers in the league).  Obviously, we hope for more than that.

CAIRO Percentile Forecasts

The 65% forecast seems like the bare minimum for what Pineda can do to justify being traded for Jesus Montero, who’s going to win the AL MVP and Cy Young.  For whatever it’s worth, since 2000 there have been 21 Yankee pitchers who put up a season of 3.9 WAR or more.

Baseball Reference: Playing for the NYY, From 2000 to 2011, (requiring WAR_pitch≥3.9), sorted by greatest WAR for Pitchers

I hated seeing Jesus Montero get traded, but Mariners fans also hated seeing Pineda get traded.  That probably means that the trade was a fair one.  Getting Pineda for Montero made a lot more sense than trading him for a half season of Cliff Lee or for Felix Hernandez being paid at market rate.  Pineda’s not as good as either pitcher right now, and may never be, but he’ll be under team control for the next five seasons and he’ll probably be getting paid less than he’s worth and it wouldn’t surprise anyone to see him elevate himself into the upper echelon of MLB pitchers if he can refine his changeup and get that fastball back.

Put it this way, if Dellin Betances had done in AAA what Pineda did last year in the majors we’d all be convinced he was on the precipice of being a very good MLB pitcher.  Also, throw in the fact that Pineda did this while being a year younger than Betances. 

With a pitcher, you assume more risk than you do with a position player.  But while Montero had a nice MLB debut, he really hasn’t hit all that well in AAA the last two years and it’s still uncertain he’ll be anything more than a DH.  I hope he goes on to have a solid career, while Pineda develops into the best pitcher in baseball and/or pitches them to a few World Series wins.  If that happens and Jose Campos develops into an eighth inning guy, the Yankees will have probably won the trade. 

Batting Projections

Player            B    PO  Age     BA  OBP  SLG   G  AB   R   H  2B  3B  HR RBI  BB  SO  SB  CS OPS+
Robinson Cano     L    2B   29   .299 .347 .506 156 609  92 182  41   5  25 103  40  76   6   3  121
Mark Teixeira     B    1B   32   .263 .359 .495 147 562  88 148  32   1  32 109  76 112   2   1  122
Curtis Granderson L    CF   31   .256 .346 .495 147 547 104 140  22   8  31  92  71 143  16   7  118
Alex Rodriguez    R    3B   36   .264 .350 .474 108 405  62 107  20   1  21  82  51  89   7   2  115
Jesus Montero     R    C    22   .271 .333 .486 156 576  79 156  37   3  27  93  55 116   0   0  112
Nick Swisher      B    RF   31   .253 .358 .456 142 498  76 126  27   1  24  82  80 129   1   2  113
Andruw Jones      R    LF   35   .234 .335 .455  80 222  31  52  10   0  13  38  32  65   3   1  106
Brett Gardner     L    LF   28   .260 .352 .370 149 462  80 120  17   8   6  39  61  91  43  10   91
Russell Martin    R    C    29   .249 .346 .382 123 422  60 105  17   0  13  58  58  76  10   4   92
Jorge Posada      B    1B   40   .238 .329 .414 105 324  35  77  15   0  14  47  41  80   1   1   94
Eduardo Nunez     R    SS   25   .273 .312 .379 141 480  57 131  23   2   8  48  26  64  21   7   81
Derek Jeter       R    SS   38   .268 .329 .362 129 542  78 145  22   4   7  58  46  84  14   5   82

Pitching Projections - Starters

Player            T     Age      ERA     W    L    G   GS     IP     H   ER   HR   BB    K  ERA+
CC Sabathia       L      31     3.55    17    8   31   31   218.0  211   86   19   63  189   126
Ivan Nova         R      25     4.44    13   10   31   30   178.3  189   88   20   60  111   100
LEAGUE AVERAGE - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -  96
Bartolo Colon     R      39     4.77     7    6   20   19   111.3  121   59   17   32   78    93
Phil Hughes       R      26     4.84     9    8   25   22   122.7  127   66   18   44   96    92
Freddy Garcia     R      35     4.85     9    8   23   22   128.0  143   69   18   40   75    92
Hector Noesi      R      25     5.24     6    6   32   14   103.0  120   60   14   35   68    85
A.J. Burnett      R      35     5.31     9   10   28   27   159.3  170   94   25   70  128    84
David Phelps      R      25     5.40     6    7   23   22   121.7  148   73   18   39   73    83
Manny Banuelos    L      21     5.45     7    8   25   25   115.7  128   70   15   65   85    82
Dellin Betances   R      24     5.66     5    7   24   24   105.0  111   66   15   72   85    79

Player            T     Age      ERA     W    L    G   GS     IP     H   ER   HR   BB    K  ERA+
David Robertson   R      27     3.06     4    2   69    0    64.7   50   22    5   34   87   146
Mariano Rivera    R      42     3.12     3    1   53    0    49.0   44   17    4   10   43   143
Rafael Soriano    R      32     3.14     4    2   67    0    63.0   50   22    6   21   74   142
Joba Chamberlain  R      26     3.88     3    2   46    0    46.3   43   20    5   14   45   115
Boone Logan       L      27     3.91     4    2   62    0    48.3   46   21    5   17   48   114
LEAGUE AVERAGE - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 108
Pedro Feliciano   L      35     4.30     2    1   33    0    23.0   24   11    2   10   18   104
Cory Wade         R      29     4.61     4    4   47    0    56.7   62   29    8   13   37    97
Luis Ayala        R      34     4.62     4    3   44    0    50.7   56   26    6   19   32    96
Sergio Mitre      R      31     5.08     1    1   26    2    44.3   49   25    6   17   22    88