In part I, I took a stab at predicting the 2008 OPS for Met hitters, and comparing my guesses to those of that publication most revered by sabermetricians everywhere-Baseball Prospectus. This time I’ll go to work on the pitchers, predicting the ERAs of everyone who we think will see regular time on the mound for us this year.
Johan Santana. My guess: 2.32 ERA. Baseball Prospectus’s projection: 2.94
As I mentioned in an earlier post, Santana has a 2.16 ERA in 16 career starts against the National League, and he should only benefit further from getting to pitch at Shea Stadium half the time. Frankly, assuming nothing horrible involving words like “rotator” or “ligament” goes down, I can’t imagine Santana having an ERA over 3.00. How crazy is it that I’m able to type a sentence like this about a Mets pitcher and actually mean it?
Pedro Martinez. Me: 3.15. BP: 3.37
Call me a believer. I think Pedro’s as healthy as we’ve ever seen him, and he’s going to have a tremendous year. I think he’ll dial it up to 90 MPH+ when he has to, but I think 90 percent of the time he won’t need to pitch that fast to get people out. If Rick Reed was a poor man’s Greg Maddux, then Pedro, at this point of his career, is a rich man’s Greg Maddux.
Oliver Perez. Me: 4.00. BP: 4.22.
Ollie’s ERA benefited from some good luck last season. He gave up a ton of unearned runs (20, to be exact), which means a lot of the Bad Ollie performances we all experienced didn’t count against him in this particular statistical category. It would be too much to ask him to repeat his 3.56 ERA of 2007, but I see no reason that Ollie can’t repeat his strikeout rate of one per inning. That alone should keep his ERA below the 4.22 that BP projects.
John Maine. Me: 3.58. BP: 4.03.
I’m trying not to buy into the hype of all these fantastic spring training performances, but I just can’t do it. I mean, what is spring training for if fans aren’t going to get overexcited about a very small sample size and amazing results. Maine looks as though he picked up right where he left off (you all remember where he left off? one swinging bunt single and 14 strikeouts in 7 2/3 innings? the anti-Tom Glavine? yeah, I remember too), and he’s at the age where many pitchers start to hit their peak years. And yes, he’s looked amazing this spring. I’m predicting a huge year for John Maine (and I’m sure everyone reading this hopes I’m right).
Orlando Hernandez. Me: 4.50. BP: 4.08.
I feel stupid trying to predict anything about El Duque. We don’t know anything about him. We don’t know how old he is, we don’t know what kind of windup he’s planning on using, we don’t know how healthy he’s going to be–we don’t even know if he’s going to make the team at all. What we do know is that he was tremendous last season, posting a 3.72 ERA and a 1.17 WHIP in 147 2/3 innings, to go with a 2-1 strikeout-to-walk ratio. When he’s been healthy, he’s been great for us, so maybe my ERA guess for him is too high. Still, I can’t get his most recent spring training start out of my head. Yikes. Let’s hope this is just a small sample size bias on my part.
Mike Pelfrey. Me: 4.83. BP: 4.32.
When was the last time Big Pelf pitched well? I think I remember a start or two towards the end of last season where he looked OK, but it’s been downhill ever since. I gotta think that at some point this season he figures it out and pitches effectively, only because it wasn’t all that long ago when Pelfrey was mentioned in the same breath as Cole Hamels when discussing the next set of elite pitching prospects. If only we could’ve found a way to trade them straight up at some point. BP seems to think the skills that made Pelfrey so successful in the minors and in college will finally translate to major league success this season.
Billy Wagner. Me: 3.45. BP: 2.77.
I hate to say it, but Wagner is due to decline. He turns 37 this year, and his strikeout-to-walk ratio last year was the worst of his career (not counting 2000, when he only pitched 28 innings). The good news is that a declining Billy Wagner is still a very strong pitcher, and even his career-worst k/bb ratio was 3.64, a number almost any other reliever in the league would take in a heartbeat. Luckily, BP sees only a very small drop-off from last year’s numbers.
Aaron Heilman. Me: 2.95. BP: 3.47.
If you had to guess Heilman’s ERA from last season, what would you guess? I think most would pick a number higher than 3.03, his actual 2008 earned-run-average. His WHIP was even more impressive at 1.07. Heilman did have some problems, though. He had the lowest strikeouts-per-inning of his career (though his best ever k/bb ratio), and the eight home runs he gave up were the most he’s allowed since becoming a full-time reliever. Still, Heilman is only 29 year old, and I see no reason why he can’t improve on his ERA just a little. BP is worried that Heilman’s relatively low strikeout rate of 2007 represents a trend.
Duaner Sanchez. Me: 3.20. BP: 3.60.
I don’t expect to see the Duaner of 2006 (2.60 ERA), but I expect him to do better than his career ERA of 3.81. He appeared to be heading towards his prime before all the injuries, and we all hope he can head back in that direction in 2008 (maybe getting ready to inherit the closer’s role in a few years?). BP also sees Sanchez better than his career numbers, though significantly worse than my guess for him.
Scott Schoenweis. Me: 4.90. BP: 4.05.
I refuse to write about him. OK, OK–he should be used only against lefties (who actually only hit .204 against him last year), and only in non-critical situations (we have a better lefty for critical situations). But this won’t happen thanks to our manager, so I refuse to write anything further. OK, fine, I’ll just drive the point home. Over the last three seasons, lefties OPS 554 against him. Righties, 849. I don’t know what BP was smoking with this projection. Schoeneweis has a career ERA of 5.01 and he’s 34 years old.
Pedro Feliciano. Me: 3.30. BP: 3.43.
This is the better lefty I referred to above. Feliciano was positively dominant against lefties last season. Lefties hit .168 against him and posted a 478 OPS. He holds his own against righties too. They only managed a 697 OPS against Feliciano. Our bullpen is deep enough that Schoeneweis should never enter a high-leverage situation. We’ve got plenty of better guys for that. Let’s all just hope Willie figures this out before it’s too late.
Jorge Sosa. Me: 4.15. BP: 4.33.
I’m not a believer. Braves fans were thrilled when Sosa left their team, and I think we were all starting to understand why by the end of last season. His 4.59 ERA in 14 starts last season was acceptable. His 4.18 ERA in 28 bullpen appearances was not, although it was pretty much in line with what he’s done as a reliever over the past three seasons. He’s turning 31 next month, so I think it’s too much to ask for Sosa to improve. He’s just an innings-eater, not a reliable arm for tough situations.
Matt Wise. Me: 4.15. BP: 3.91.
Again, I’m not a believer. He’s 32 years old and he had a 1.45 WHIP last year. He was equally ineffective against lefties and righties. Opposing base stealers are successful 92% of the time against him over his career. I just don’t see what he’s bringing to the table. BP notes that he might’ve been a little shell-shocked from hitting Reds infielder Pedro Lopez in the face with a pitch on July 25 of last year. After that point, Wise posted a 10.45 ERA. Let’s hope he’s ridded himself of whatever demons he might’ve been facing last August and September.
On the Joe Smiths and Nelson Figueroas and Steve Registers of the world, I’m not even going to pretend to guess what they’ll do. They could combine for zero innings, or 200, or anywhere in between. It’s not for me to speculate, and so I won’t.
My next post will be an Opening Day recap. How sweet do those words sound?
