Wednesday, March 12, 2008
Looking Ahead to 2008 - Mike Mussina
Mike Mussina rebounded from a couple of below average seasons in 2004 and 2005 to put up a strong 2006. The Yankees re-signed Moose for two years because of that, and ended up being rewarded with his worst season ever. At age 39 Mussina's career is nearing the finish line, but does he have enough left to help the Yankees in 2008?2007
Mussina's fastball lost a few MPH, and his effectiveness suffered for it. We don't have Pitch F/X data for all of his games in 2007, but for those that we do Moose's average fastball was 86.15 mph, which makes it difficult for a right-handed pitcher to survive in MLB.
| Mike Mussina | ERA | G | IP | Hit | R | ER | HR | BB | K | RSAA | RSAA/200 | H/9 | HR/9 | BB/9 | K/9 |
| Avg Proj | 4.12 | 30 | 182 | 191 | 91 | 83 | 23 | 44 | 145 | 9 | 10 | 9.4 | 1.1 | 2.2 | 7.1 |
| Actual | 5.15 | 28 | 152 | 188 | 90 | 87 | 14 | 35 | 91 | -8 | -11 | 11.1 | 0.8 | 2.1 | 5.4 |
| Difference | 80% | 95% | 83% | -110% | -110% | 85% | 134% | 104% | 75% |
Moose was close to two wins worse than projected. He allowed 17 more runs than expected despite pitching 30 fewer innings than projected. He gave up more hits and homers on a rate basis while fanning 25% fewer batters. Only his walk rate matched expectations.
Moose had an up and down season. In his first six starts, here's how he did:
| GS | W | L | IP | H | HR | R | ER | SO | BB | TBF | Stk% |
| 6 | 2 | 3 | 29.0 | 36 | 5 | 21 | 21 | 12 | 6 | 127 | 67.0% |
| FB% | GB% | LD% | ERA | RA | FIP | xFIP | HR/FB | BB/9 | K/9 | RSAA | BABIP |
| 38.2% | 32.4% | 29.4% | 6.52 | 6.52 | 5.23 | 4.92 | 0.13 | 1.9 | 3.7 | -5.1 | .304 |
Moose hurt his hamstring in the second start and missed about 4 weeks. This followed some missed spring time due to the death of his father-in-law, but even when he came back was getting torched, with 29.4% of the batted balls he allowed being scored as line drives. His BABIP was actually lower than you'd expect given that. His walk rate was great, but his K rate was horrible. 13% of the fly balls he allowed went for HRs. During this stretch he faced the Orioles, Twins, Rangers (twice), White Sox and Red Sox. Those teams ranked by 20th, 26th, 19th, 29th and 5th respectively by Baseball Prospectus's EQA, which is a rate stat used to measure offense. The average EQA is .260. So only Boston was an above average offense.
He followed up that start with a nice 14 start stretch.
| GS | W | L | IP | H | HR | R | ER | SO | BB | TBF | Stk% |
| 14 | 6 | 4 | 85.0 | 94 | 8 | 38 | 36 | 61 | 18 | 354 | 65.6% |
| FB% | GB% | LD% | ERA | RA | FIP | xFIP | HR/FB | BB/9 | K/9 | RSAA | BABIP |
| 37.2% | 44.7% | 18.0% | 3.81 | 4.02 | 3.62 | 4.07 | 0.08 | 1.9 | 6.5 | 8.5 | .323 |
His K rate spiked up, his line drive percentage plummetted, his HR rate per fly ball dropped. The opponents he faced over this stretch?
Team: EQA
Angels: .262
Red Sox: .270
White Sox: .243
Diamondbacks: .248
Rockies: .264
Giants: .247
Athletics: .262
Twins: .252
Devil Rays: .266
Devil Rays: .266
Royals: .241
White Sox: .243
Royals .241
Indians: .260
That's 7 games against average or above teams and 7 games against below average teams. The reason I bring this is up is there is a theory that Moose only did well because he was facing bad teams. Let's look at the splits over this stretch.
| Vs | GS | W | L | IP | H | HR | R | ER | BB | SO | ERA | RA | FIP | FB% | GB% | LD% | |
| EQA: .260+ | 7 | 2 | 2 | 42.7 | 53 | 4 | 22 | 22 | 13 | 27 | 4.64 | 4.64 | 4.07 | 34% | 45% | 21% | |
| EGA: <.260 | 7 | 4 | 2 | 42.3 | 41 | 4 | 16 | 14 | 5 | 34 | 2.98 | 3.40 | 3.18 | 40% | 45% | 15% |
Obviously, pitchers will do worse against good teams, otherwise they wouldn't be good teams, but it does look like there is something to the idea that Mussina benefitted from some cupcakes. Whether he suffers more than most against better teams would require a more rigorous study of all pitchers, which I don't really have the inclination to do right now.
Moose's season finished off poorly.
| GS | W | L | IP | H | HR | R | ER | SO | BB | TBF | Stk% |
| 7 | 3 | 3 | 38.0 | 58 | 1 | 31 | 30 | 18 | 11 | 175 | 65.2% |
| FB% | GB% | LD% | ERA | RA | FIP | xFIP | HR/FB | BB/9 | K/9 | RSAA | BABIP |
| 33.8% | 43.4% | 22.8% | 7.11 | 7.34 | 3.46 | 4.97 | 0.02 | 2.6 | 4.3 | -10.2 | .393 |
His walk rate went up, his K rate went down and he started giving up more line drives again. FIP says he had some bad luck on balls in play, but anyone that watched saw he was getting hit hard.
2008
Projecting Mussina for 2008 is a little bit dicey. Projections using past data will probably overrate him because he's lost some fastball velocity that he had in 2004-2006. Regardless, this is supposed to be objective so here's how he looks.
| Projection | G | GS | IP | H | R | ER | HR | BB | SO | ERA | FIP | RSAA | RSAR | FRSAA | FRSAR |
| chone | 29 | 28 | 163 | 185 | 89 | 82 | 19 | 42 | 109 | 4.53 | 4.15 | -1 | 15 | 4 | 18 |
| marcel | 33 | 27 | 155 | 174 | 84 | 79 | 16 | 40 | 113 | 4.59 | 3.86 | -2 | 13 | 8 | 22 |
| pecota | 25 | 25 | 150 | 164 | 82 | 76 | 18 | 40 | 101 | 4.54 | 4.21 | -1 | 14 | 2 | 15 |
| zips | 30 | 29 | 171 | 195 | 99 | 90 | 21 | 41 | 112 | 4.74 | 4.21 | -5 | 12 | 3 | 17 |
| cairo | 30 | 30 | 176 | 204 | 98 | 91 | 22 | 43 | 125 | 4.65 | 4.14 | -4 | 14 | 4 | 19 |
| average | 29 | 28 | 163 | 184 | 90 | 84 | 19 | 41 | 112 | 4.61 | 4.11 | -3 | 14 | 4 | 18 |
Moose projects to bounce back this season, although as I said a lot of his projection is based on what he has done in the past and he's not that guy anymore. The FIP and ERA disparity here makes some sense to me, because I think DIPS theory that a pitcher has minimal control over balls in play suffers from selection bias in that any pitcher who is worse than average will not last long in the majors. We saw that with Kevin Brown in his last year, as he allowed a BABIP of .381. Anyway, if Moose puts up an ERA of 4.61 he'll be a touch below average, or about a win and a half better than replacement if he can pitch 160 or so innings. Here's Moose's range of CAIRO projections.
| CAIRO % | G | GS | IP | H | R | ER | HR | BB | SO | ERA | FIP | RSAA | RSAR | FRSAA | FRSAR |
| 80% | 30 | 30 | 176 | 190 | 88 | 81 | 17 | 36 | 136 | 4.17 | 3.55 | 6 | 23 | 16 | 31 |
| 65% | 30 | 30 | 176 | 197 | 93 | 86 | 20 | 40 | 131 | 4.41 | 3.84 | 1 | 19 | 10 | 25 |
| Baseline | 30 | 30 | 176 | 204 | 98 | 91 | 22 | 43 | 125 | 4.65 | 4.14 | -4 | 14 | 4 | 19 |
| 35% | 30 | 30 | 176 | 211 | 103 | 96 | 24 | 46 | 119 | 4.90 | 4.43 | -8 | 9 | -2 | 13 |
| 20% | 30 | 30 | 176 | 218 | 108 | 101 | 27 | 50 | 114 | 5.14 | 4.72 | -13 | 4 | -7 | 8 |
My guess is the 35% projection is around where we'll see him in 2008, which isn't really that bad for a third or fourth starter. The innings are probably optimistic, I'd expect him to be closer to 150.
Value
If you guessed that Moose is overpaid relative to his free agent worth, you win nothing but a pat on the back.
| Proj WAR | Proj Value | Salary | Difference |
| 1.4 | $6,300,000 | $12,000,000 | -$5,700,000 |
Conclusion
This is very likely Mussina's last year as a Yankee. He's no longer needed to be an ace on the staff, just to be serviceable at the back of the rotation while hopefully mentoring the younger pitchers on the team. He looked good in his last spring training start, hitting 88 mph and showing good command. If he can keep his fastball in the 88-90 mph range instead of the 84-86 range I think he'll be fine in that role. On an unrelated note, Jeteupthemiddle is running her community projections for 2008. If you're interested in helping out, you can visit her blog.
Page 1 of 1 pages: