Tuesday, July 21, 2009
Meet Sergio Mitre
Yankee uber-prospect Sergio Mitre is scheduled to make his 2009 debut tonight against Baltimore. I probably don't have to explain to most of you that Mitre's not an actual prospect. He's a 28 year old who's logged 310 MLB innings and is working his way back from Tommy John surgery. Here are his career MLB stats along with his 2009 MLE(major league equivalency).| Season | Team | G | GS | IP | BF | H | R | ER | HR | BB | HBP | SO |
| 2003 | Cubs | 3 | 2 | 8.7 | 43 | 15 | 8 | 8 | 1 | 4 | 0 | 3 |
| 2004 | Cubs | 12 | 9 | 51.7 | 244 | 71 | 38 | 38 | 6 | 20 | 4 | 37 |
| 2005 | Cubs | 21 | 7 | 60.3 | 268 | 62 | 37 | 36 | 11 | 23 | 3 | 37 |
| 2006 | Marlins | 15 | 7 | 41.0 | 189 | 44 | 28 | 26 | 7 | 20 | 6 | 31 |
| 2007 | Marlins | 27 | 27 | 149.0 | 662 | 180 | 88 | 77 | 9 | 41 | 10 | 80 |
| 2009 | Yankees (MLE) | 9 | 9 | 55.7 | 219 | 53 | 25 | 22 | 4 | 10 | 4 | 34 |
| Season | Team | AVG | OBP | SLG | ERA | CERA | FIP | BABIP | LD% | GB% | FB% | IFFB% |
| 2003 | Cubs | .380 | .442 | .546 | 8.31 | 7.48 | 5.22 | .395 | 11.4% | 65.7% | 22.9% | 12.5% |
| 2004 | Cubs | .328 | .389 | .488 | 6.62 | 5.89 | 4.52 | .374 | 15.6% | 59.4% | 25.0% | 11.1% |
| 2005 | Cubs | .267 | .328 | .465 | 5.37 | 4.73 | 5.46 | .277 | 11.9% | 65.8% | 22.3% | 6.7% |
| 2006 | Marlins | .276 | .370 | .467 | 5.71 | 5.36 | 5.76 | .304 | 20.2% | 51.9% | 27.9% | 11.1% |
| 2007 | Marlins | .300 | .349 | .418 | 4.65 | 4.52 | 3.98 | .335 | 17.3% | 59.7% | 22.9% | 5.9% |
| 2009 | Yankees (MLE) | .259 | .306 | .378 | 3.56 | 3.59 | 3.70 | .275 | 17.9% | 63.1% | 16.7% | 8.6% |
CERA: Component ERA (calculated as 31 times OBP times SLG)
FIP: Fielding independent pitching
BABIP: Batting average on balls in play
LD%: Line drive percentage
GB%: Ground ball percentage
FB%: Outfield fly ball percentage
IFFB: Infield fly ball percentage
It's not a particularly impressive set of stats, although in 2007 Mitre was a little worse than average (ERA+ of 93) and about 15 runs above replacement level. Looking at that batted ball data, it almost seems fitting that Mitre is replacing Chien-Ming Wang.
| Career | LD% | GB% | FB% | IFFB% |
| Mitre | 16.2% | 60.1% | 23.8% | 7.9% |
| Wang | 17.7% | 60.1% | 22.2% | 6.8% |
Those are some eerily similar ratios.
Despite those similarities, these numbers only tell us part of the story.
| Career | HR/FB | BB/9 | K/9 | BABIP | FIP | ERA | FIP-ERA |
| Mitre | 13.40% | 3.13 | 5.45 | 0.325 | 4.62 | 5.36 | -0.74 |
| Wang | 8.20% | 2.64 | 4.16 | 0.294 | 3.99 | 4.16 | -0.17 |
Mitre has allowed more HRs per flyball and has had slightly worse control than Wang. He's K'd a few more batters on a rate basis, but his FIP is about one-half run worse. His BABIP against is a good amount worse too, which explains the larger discrepancy between his FIP and his ERA. FWIW, here are Mitre's team defenses runs saved above average (using zone rating) from 2003 through 2007:
2003 Cubs: +7
2004 Cubs: +22
2005 Cubs: +17
2006 Marlins: -38
2007 Marlins: -62
Mitre's BABIP with the Cubs was .323 compared to .326 with the Marlins, so I don't know that his defense made much difference in either case.
I generally think the readership here is pretty clever, so you've likely deduced by now that Mitre's a sinkerball pitcher. Here is Fangraphs breakdown of his pitch types and selection.
| Season | Team | FB | SL | CB | CH |
| 2003 | Cubs | 65.3% (91.9) | 30.7% (78.4) | 4.0% (83.0) | |
| 2004 | Cubs | 66.5% (89.8) | 4.2% (80.0) | 16.9% (78.3) | 12.1% (83.0) |
| 2005 | Cubs | 77.7% (90.2) | 4.9% (79.3) | 10.8% (78.1) | 6.7% (82.8) |
| 2006 | Marlins | 72.1% (89.8) | 3.7% (78.5) | 6.5% (77.1) | 17.8% (83.7) |
| 2007 | Marlins | 68.4% (90.1) | 3.5% (79.3) | 6.2% (78.3) | 21.9% (83.6) |
Mitre's average fastball/sinker sits around 90mph, and he throws it around 70% of the time. His second pitch seems to be his changeup, which he throws around 16% of the time, along with a curve he throws about 10% of the time and a slider he doesn't throw much. Wang throws his fastball/sinker about 77% of the time, and throws it about two MPH faster . So it makes sense that Mitre could be Wang-lite, he's essentially Wang missing a few MPH. Hopefully he's not like 2009 Wang-lite though.
As I mentioned at the top, Mitre's coming back from surgery. For that reason, it's tough to project him because we don't know what's changed with him physically. He may have lost some stuff on the operating table, or the surgery may make him stronger. So I'll show his projections entering 2009 here, but with the caveat that because of his injury and subsequent surgery we shouldn't really read a ton into them.
| sergio mitre | IP | H | R | ER | HR | BB | SO | ERA | FIP | RSAA | RSAR |
| 2009 marcel projection | 71 | 77 | 39 | 35 | 6 | 24 | 48 | 4.44 | 3.96 | 0.5 | 9.4 |
| 2009 zips projection | 114 | 131 | 65 | 60 | 11 | 36 | 60 | 4.74 | 4.35 | -3.0 | 11.3 |
| 2009 cairo projection | 124 | 137 | 74 | 67 | 11 | 37 | 75 | 4.86 | 4.03 | -4.9 | 10.6 |
| 2009 average projection | 103 | 115 | 59 | 53 | 9 | 33 | 62 | 4.68 | 4.1 | -2.0 | 10.8 |
Those are the only systems that projected Mitre for 2009. If we add in his 2009 MLE with a weight of 25%, his ERA drops by around .15 runs and his RSAA goes to essentially average. That'll work fine for a fifth starter, especially if Joba Chamberlain and Andy Pettitte can pitch better going forward.
Here are Mitre's CAIRO percentile forecasts, just for the hell of it.
| 2009 cairo percentiles | IP | H | R | ER | HR | BB | SO | ERA | FIP | RSAA | RSAR |
| 80% | 136 | 138 | 72 | 65 | 8 | 34 | 92 | 4.26 | 3.39 | 3.6 | 17.2 |
| 65% | 130 | 138 | 73 | 66 | 10 | 35 | 83 | 4.56 | 3.71 | -0.9 | 12.1 |
| Baseline | 124 | 137 | 74 | 67 | 11 | 37 | 75 | 4.86 | 4.03 | -4.9 | 7.5 |
| 35% | 111 | 129 | 70 | 64 | 11 | 36 | 64 | 5.15 | 4.35 | -8.1 | 3.0 |
| 20% | 99 | 119 | 66 | 60 | 11 | 34 | 53 | 5.45 | 4.66 | -10.5 | -0.6 |
Lastly, I keep picturing this awful commercial when I read the name Sergio, so he'd better be decent to compensate for that.
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