DIPS Revisited

I did this back in May to see who was overachieving and whose has not been as bad as their numbers suggest. To review what DIPS ERA is:

DIPS

* There are several possible outcomes for any pitched ball.
o Strikeout
o Walk/Hit Batsman
o Ball put into play resulting in Home Run
o Ball put into play resulting in an out
o Ball put into play resulting in a single, double or triple

* The pitcher has direct control over the first three, and there is a strong correlation between the players who lead these statistics from year to year. Nolan Ryan, Greg Maddux, Kerry Wood, Billy Wagner

* The last two are affected by the defense and can be summarized by Batting Average on Balls in Play (BAbip).

* Voros McCracken found that BAbip is only weakly tied to the pitcher, and there is very little consistency in who leads this statistic from year to year. It is primarily the result of defense and luck.

* You can compute a defense-independent ERA (dERA) based on the first three factors and this is a better predictor of next year's ERA than the current year's ERA is.

Here are how things looked back on May 11th:

                DIPS ERA  Actual ERA
Pedro Martinez    3.58      2.89
Steve Trachsel    3.87      4.96
Brian Bannister   4.99      2.89
Victor Zambrano   6.11      6.75
Tom Glavine       3.50      2.19
Aaron Heilman     2.49      1.96
Billy Wagner      4.65      2.39
Duaner Sanchez    2.60      0.41
Jorge Julio       3.84      4.28
Pedro Feliciano   2.34      0.93
Darren Oliver     2.23      3.86

Here are how things look today:

                DIPS ERA  Actual ERA
Pedro Martinez    3.65      3.45
Steve Trachsel    5.32      5.14
Tom Glavine       4.55      3.69
The Duque         4.54      4.80
John Maine        4.41      3.24
Mike Pelfrey      3.64      5.28
Billy Wagner      3.13      2.36
Heath Bell        3.91      3.20
Duaner Sanchez    3.70      2.70
Aaron Heilman     3.80      4.40
Pedro Feliciano   3.36      2.29
Darren Oliver     4.17      2.09

Pedro's DIPs ERA remained roughly the same but his real ERA regressed towards it which is to be expected over the course of the season. Even with his bad stretch, Pedro was still solid with a ridiculous BAA. His biggest problem was allowing the long ball a bit too much. When he makes a mistake these days, he gets punished. He has been fortunate enough to have most of those homeruns come with no one on base.

Steve Trachsel's numbers show us his 5.14 ERA is not a byproduct of him being unlucky. Though he thinks that he pitched well of late, he really has not. As someone pointed out in the comments section on Metsgeek yesterday, some guy on Metsblog pointed out that Kaz Ishii and Steve Trachsel have alarmingly similar numbers when Kaz was cut. Kaz had 19 starts, a 5.24 k/9, 1.08 k/bb, 5.14 ERA, and a .257 BAA. Trachsel has 20 starts, a 4.24 k/9.98 k/bb, 5.14 ERA, and a .291 BAA. It can be argued Trachsel is pitching worse. With Willie not doing six man rotation for the rest of the year and the Mets needing to get more out of their starters, I think something needs to be done.

Tom Glavine's DIPS era echoes Baseball Prospectus' numbers that he has been one of the luckiest pitchers in the league in 2006. Back on July 7th, he was the luckiest pitcher in the league according to Baseball Prospectus. You can officially begin to worry about the Mets having even one very good pitcher in the rotation come playoff time. Glavine has looked really, really bad after a strong start and not in a small sample size. It would be nice if it could be attributed to some injury that rest would help, but it does not appear that way. He is missing his spots and when that happens, he gets whiplash.

As for the bullpen, they are still solid. Billy Wagner has pitched much better than he did earlier in the year and that is refreshing to see. Aaron has been pitched better than his numbers would indicate and though Darren is overachieving according to his DIPS ERA, he has been extremely solid and his high DIPS era is tied to the high number of homers he has given up. The Mets have a deep bullpen and it should continue to be a strength of this team.

I'm actually starting the think the rotation is in worse shape than I thought. The Mets need to rely heavily on two rookies to step up and though I do not think it is impossible, it is certainly improbable that both step up.

* * *

The Royals traded Elmer Dessens for Odalis Perez. The Dodgers are sending over $8 million to help cover the $16.5 million he is owed over the next two years.

There are still teams heavily interested in Alfonso Soriano. Even Bowden could not mess up getting some value for Soriano.

Looks like Bannister is attracting some interest.

Mets righty Brian Bannister has his first rehab start today in St. Lucie and you can expect that to attract a lot of scouts. Bannister is a the kind of major-league-ready starter many teams are looking at, and those clubs are trying to get any read whatsoever on the righty, even off of a brief rehab start.

Ah, sexual harassment.

After being accused of sexual harassment and fired by ESPN, former "Baseball Tonight" analyst Harold Reynolds said yesterday he doesn't think he did anything wrong and is still hoping to regain his job.

I think Paladin summed up last night's game in the comments last night.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

Oh, man! What a nightmare I just had.

I dreamt that the lowest scoring team in baseball just scored 16 runs in two games against one of the "elite" teams in the NL... and they were still going in the second game!

Wow. Good thing it was just a dream...

...or was it...

No. No it wasn't.

“I didn’t pitch, I didn’t hit, I didn’t field,” Glavine said. “That pretty much sums it up. It was one of those nights.”

I don't care how good of a hitter any pitcher may be, when they go deep, it is insulting.

“The weird thing is how much better I am lefty,” Zambrano said of his batting. “But I don’t like hitting with my right arm out.”

It is even worse is when the pitcher hits a homerun from his weak side of the plate.

Jose Tabata, you are no Fernando Martinez.

The Yankees' Jose Tabata was hit on the hand by a pitch last week and has been placed on the disabled list with a bruise on his wrist/thumb, according to a Charleston RiverDogs spokesman. The spokesman did not know which hand was injured. The 17-year-old had gone 1-for-21 after playing in the Futures Game and has not played in a week. He is hitting .303/.383/.427 in 314 at-bats for low Class A Charleston.

Pedro is ready to go on Friday.

"I'm going to pitch Friday and that's about it," Martinez said. "If I wasn't (better), I wouldn't go."

The Mets have no intentions of moving Phil Humber to AA anytime soon.

The Mets' plan for Philip Humber, who is bouncing back well from Tommy John elbow surgery, is to remain at St. Lucie for now. The 2004 first-round pick lowered his ERA to 2.73 Monday by limiting Sarasota to one run and twohits in seven innings in his sixth Florida State League start.

With the state of the rotation, it behooves them to move him fast. Not that he will help this season, but it makes sense to keep moving guys that don't need much time closer if they are killing the league they are in anyway.

The buzz...

According to officials with two interested teams, the Mets have been telling teams that Aaron Heilman could be included in a trade if the Mets got a good enough pitcher in return. What's not clear is what would constitute a "good enough pitcher." They've pressed the Cleveland Indians about Jake Westbrook, but the Indians don't seem to want to trade him. And there were rumors late Monday about a deal that would have sent Heilman to Seattle for Gil Meche, but it's likely they'd have to give up much more than Heilman to get Meche. Should they deal Heilman, who appeals to teams because of his experience as a starter, the Mets believe they could find a relief pitcher (Roberto Hernandez? LaTroy Hawkins) on the trade market to replace him.

Norfolk won 2-0 over Indianapolis as Lastings Milledge went 0 for 3 with a walk, Willie Collazo threw seven shut-out innings of three hit ball, and Ruben Gotay went deep for his first homer as a Met.

Binghamton Beat New Hampshire 6-1 as Michel Abreu continues to rake and went 3 for 3 with three RBIs to raise his average to .346 and Carlos Gomez went 1 for 3 with an RBI and his 22nd stolen base on the season.

Hagerstown beat Kannapolis 8-5 behind another solid outing by Jon Niese. Niese went 5.1 innings and gave up three hits, one run, and one walk while striking out six. He is 10-6 with a 3.41 ERA.

Back to his old tricks, Heyman wants the Mets to deal for Willis.

But if I could find Minaya (who's presumably holed up in a room with a phone), I'd make this suggestion: offer Lastings Milledge, Aaron Heilman and Phil Humber to the Marlins for Dontrelle Willis.

Luckily, the Mets done drink the same water as Heyman.

When I ran my alternate plan by a Mets official who could be found Tuesday, he reacted with two words: "Too much.'' Another official was even more succinct: "No."

Too much is an understatement.