I think that Pavano is pitching well this year due mainly to his great control. If his sinker has been at times subpar, his control has made up for it this year. He has given up only 22 walks in 103 innings. He has only had one very good season in his career (2000), in which he had only 15 starts. Pavano has always had a good BB/9 ratio, but suffers on the strikeout end of pitching. This year, his WHIP is 1.05. He has also had 7 win shares, not including his last two starts. For $3,800,000 he has been a bargain so far this year, but I'm concerned that his control may not make up for some of his lackings for the whole season.

 

http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/players/profile?statsId=5945

http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/wsnllead

http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/players/stat...ontext=pitching

http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/players/scouting?statsId=5945

I thought last year was a great year for him. He was 12-12 in starts. (One loss in Extras) He lead the team in quality starts and never walked a lot. Even this year, out of his 22 walks, 9 of them are intentional. He finally put it all together this year and now is looking like our ace who might even make the All-Star Game.

 

Er... great name by the way.

Pavano has always had a good BB/9 ratio, but suffers on the strikeout end of pitching.

Forget the strikeouts. If he keeps his control like this he can strike out 2 batters a game for all I care.

 

Team is 13-2 when he starts this season. :thumbup

He's trusting the defense and not wasting pitches. The team's Defensive Effeciency Rate jumps .068 points over league (NL)-average and .056 points over the team (Marlins 2004)-average this year.

It's a skill to break out of the batter/pitcher machup and locate your pitches to induce whatever type of batted ball is needed (groundball, fly, popup, direction), and one that Pavano has mastered. Two of our less-than-stellar starters Willis and Beckett rank just .01 and .18 points over NL-average (Willis .009 below team-average, Beckett .008 above) and have been hit hard because they want to overthrow and strike out batters.

 

http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/statnlpitch/

http://www.baseballprospectus.com/statisti...ef_eff2004.html

Bot sure I agree with the "concern" about Pavs k numbers. He's averaging 5+/game which isn't that shabby. He can get the k when he needs it, and he throws in the 90's.

 

 

 

I think k's re more important for a reliever anyway.

Pavano has been good. He has been consistant every start, he gives us 7+ quality innings. I consider him to be one of the All-stars going to the Allstar game this year.

I think that maybe Pavano has gotten a little lucky this year. I don't think inducing ground balls is necessarily all skill. And he did not have a very good ERA last year.

I think that maybe Pavano has gotten a little lucky this year. I don't think inducing ground balls is necessarily all skill. And he did not have a very good ERA last year.

Uh... how can it not be skill? Locate your pitches low and the odds are, the ball will be hit on the ground. And the key to winning is limiting the damage. He did that a lot last year. He doesn't walk a lot of guys and that's huge too. He hasn't gotten lucky.

The odds are if you locate the ball and pitch well enough, the batter will miss. Once the batter has actually hit the ball, luck and fielding are major factors in the outcome of the play. The best pitchers can be identified by BB/9 and K/9. And we have agreed that Pavano does not lack in BB/9

Well, I guess every great pitcher in the MLB is only great because of their luck. No skill involved.

That's not what I'm saying. What I'm saying is that the skill is usually to not walkbatters to make them swing and miss, and not to give up home runs. At the Major League level, the difference between pitchers is rarely enough for one pitcher to be better than another in terms of balls hit into play. The hits and non-hits there are usually decided by luck and fielders.

 

Also, I never said Pavano is bad. I just said that maybe he's not quite as good as he seems.

Don't agree. Getting opposing batters to hit into a lot of ground balls isn't luck (at least most the time). It's all about the location.

There's plenty of room for those grounders to skip through. That's his point.

I'm a big fan of DIPS for the single fact that it is one of the first studies to view the batter/pitcher matchup in terms of team defense, but I still think good pitchers have more control of batted balls than most believe.

I personally like the fact that Pavano doesn't K alot of people, because his pitch count is usually relatively low and we can shut down the pen when he is out there.

 

You'd love for pitchers to strike alot of people out, however some pitchers just aren't made for strikeouts based on what they throw, where, and most importantly how the pitch moves. More often than not a hitter is going to strike out because he thought the ball was going to be in one location and it ended up somewhere else. That usually takes a very live fastball speed wise (Pavano can get it up there when he wants, he is a good pitcher in that regard) or movement wise, preferably both but one works. The bat swings but the ball isn't there to make contact with. Strike outs on changes are because the bat swung too earlier, when the ball wasn't there. On sliders and curves the ball drops out of where the batter saw it, and so on with the rest of the pitches. Pavs' pitches don't have the great bite that AJ, Josh, and Brad's do. He makes up for this very effectively by using on of the best if not the best infield in the league to his advantage. He gets flies when he needs a fly, and a grounder when he needs one. He's a very, very effective and efficient pitcher. It's fun to see him work.

I think that DIPS is a good stat and applicable to most pitchers. Once he read the McCracken article hyperlinked below, Bill James did a study on pitchers and found that pitchers who had one year that rose far above the rest of their careers, tended to have this season due to a one-year fluke where the hits just didn't get through the defense. The essay is in his The New Bill James Historical Baseball Abstract.

 

http://www.baseballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=878

But the thing is this season isn't a "fluke". He's been progressing to this in recent years. In the regular season last season he was our most reliable pitcher, walking barely anyone while chewing out over 200 innings and having a truckload of QS. In the playoffs he was phenominal. He's been working towards this. Maybe this is the peak, but I expect a plateau instead of a drop off in the upcoming years.

I hope Pavano is building towards a good career. With that said, his ERAs have not goten consistently lower. They have been up and down.

 

Year ERA Games Starts

1998 4.21 24 23

1999 5.63 19 18

2000 3.06 15 15

2001 6.33 8 8

2002 5.16 37 22

2003 4.30 33 32

 

 

http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/players/stat...ontext=pitching

 

This does not demonstrate consistent improvement. It does not show a good pitcher. Also, Pavano now pitches in a pitchers park. It shows a pitcher often injured, and one who did a 2002 stint in the bullpen. I hope I am wrong.

Lopat was an exception. He was an amazingly tricky junkball pitcher. The man was a pitching genius. Also noted is that he pitched in a time of much lower ERAs (http://www.baseball-reference.com/l/lopated01.shtml). He was also a completely different type of pitcher than Pavano. Second of all, I am not saying that a groundout is worse than a strikeout, I'm saying its not a good an indication of a good pitcher.

 

On Pavano's quality starts: QUALITY START

A start in which the pitcher pitches at least six innings and allows no more than three {earned} runs (http://www.sportfanatics.net/Articles/Baseball/Baseball_Definitions.htm).

QS is a vastly overrated method of ranking pitchers. A pitcher with 6 innings pitched, giving up 3 earned runs qualifies for a quality start. However a quality start means a 4.50 E.RA. I would rather have a pitcher who goes five innings giving up 2 runs. Also, if a pitcher gets shelled every other appearance, but pitches decently in the other half of starts, QS would have him as a very good pitcher, where in reality he would be terrible.

 

Again, I hope Pavano pitches well.

Pavano has gone his last 11 starts 7 innings or more, and has given up 3 or less runs in 9 of those starts. Not bad, wouldn't you say?

I didn't say that he wasn't going a lot of innings, nor did I say he was giving up many runs. My argument was about luck and his future. My last reply referred mainly to his past, as you're 9:55 post seemed to refer to his past and present progress.

 

Additionally, I think Pavano is doing well this year. I just think he is oftentimes getting lucky.