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September 13, 2007
Feliciano, Mota and Platoon Splits
In the eighth inning of last night’s game, after L’il Pedro walked Brian McCann to load the bases, Willie decided to take out Feliciano, who’d walked McCann on only five pitches, and go with the platoon righty-righty matchup of Mota vs. Francoeur. I actually said out loud “this is a bad idea,” and sure enough, Frenchy got a base hit to tie up the game. Sweet. Now Bill James said that “the platoon differential is real and virtually universal,” but I wasn’t sure about the wisdom of replacing a pitcher who’s been lights out with a pitcher who’s stunk up the joint all year, just because he’s right-handed. So I decided to look into it and see who’s been better against RHB this year, lefty Pedro or righty Mota. I seriously doubt the answer will surprise anyone.
Wow. One of these pitchers has been very effective against right-handed batters, and the other one is Guillermo Mota. Anyway, Willie has to know this, right? I mean, Pedro hadn’t pitched for a few days, so he wasn’t tired; and the Mets have a day off before taking on Philly, so you wouldn’t need to save his arm, either. I just don’t understand why Willie would let the worst pitcher in his bullpen come in to pitch in the most important situation in the game. Especially when he had a better reliever in there already. Of course, the Mets score in the bottom half, so it all works out OK (unless you’re John Maine). Mota . . . not good. Congratulations on the W, though. But here’s something that actually was surprising.
In 2007, Mota has actually been pretty effective against left-handers. This year, anyway, Guillermo has a reverse-platoon split. There aren’t a lot of pitchers like this, but anecdotally, pitchers who are more effective against batters from the opposite side frequently have crappy fastballs but good fadeaway changeups/screwballs (Jamie Moyer, Jim Mecir, Fernando Valenzuela). That sounds like Guillermo Mota to me.* Mota used to have a small but normal platoon differential (better against RH than LH), so maybe I shouldn’t get too excited about these 86 at bats (sample size alert!) But of course, for most of his career Guillermo used to be a good reliever, too. Special thanks to David Pinto, whose Day by Day Database makes my dull and inaccurate analysis possible. 9 Responses to “Feliciano, Mota and Platoon Splits”Leave a ReplyYou must be logged in to post a comment. |
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There’s a simple explanation for Mota’s reverse platoon advantage: dumb luck.
2007
BABIP vs RHP: .348
BABIP vs LHP: .250
Mota has a higher strikeout rate against right-handers, which you would expect. His HR rate is about the same, regardless of platoon. The reverse platoon effect seems to be entirely a product of BABIP. Mota has been both bad and unlucky, which is not a pretty combination.
Yeah, that’d do it. I’d still rather see Feliciano in there with the game on the line than Mota, though, regardless of the handedness of the batter.
Looking into it further, I found this over at the Hardball Times.
Surprising. Looks like Feliciano has been just as lucky as Mota’s been unlucky.
I thought he should have kept Feliciano in. He has been effective against both righties and lefties this year……why treat him just as a LOOGY and then turn around and consistently use show to pitch to righties? (when he’s had HORRIBLE numbers against them?)
Makes no sense. Show is a LOOGY……..Pedro 2 can be used for innings at a time against either handed batter.
Pedro2 is also very difficult to hit a HR against– he’s only surrendered 2 in 56 innings. He’s the only true groundball pitcher on the team, unless you count Joe Smith. Feliciano has always been excellent at keeping the HRs to a minimum. He has a deceptive delivery and his stuff has all sorts of diving, darting action.
Mota, on the other hand, is a right-hander with a conventional delivery and a fastball as straight as an arrow. He’s had serious HR issues this year and last. Feliciano is quite clearly the better pitcher because he’s so much better at preventing HRs.
I was thinking the same thing and even found those same lefty/righty splits you posted. The only reason I can think of that Willie would’ve rather had a righty in there is that Francouer has been hitting over .320 vs lefties. But he’s also been around .285 against righties, nothing terrible there. I’d have still kept the better pitcher in the game if the decision was up to me. Good pitching beats good hitting the majority of the time.
Willie is going to give Mota chances like this down the stretch because he wants Mota to earn his way onto the bullpen. And Mota let up the single to Franceur but did manage to get out of the inning after that. That inning had much more to do with Hielman’s than Mota.
But I do agree, I would have preferred to see Pedro left in, but if Franceur had hit Pedro there would have been a lot of people complaining about Willie because he left in a lefty who had just walked the bases loaded on 5 pitches against Franceur who hits 35 points higher with more power from the left side.
He’s the only true groundball pitcher on the team, unless you count Joe Smith.
Mike Pelfrey. 101 grounders, 57 flies.
I think the “Willie is too devoted to the vets” and “Willie can’t manage a bullpen” complaints are overstated sometimes, but man, he does have a major-league blind spot when it comes to Mota.
It’s not surprising to me that Mota does better against lefthanders this year. He, like Heilman is is a fastball-change pitcher. Neither throw breaking pitches. Right-handed change ups tend to move away from lefties and into righties. In other words, neither Heilman nor Mota have a repertoire that makes them effective “righty specialists.” Their splits bear this out — at least over the past 3 years as shown on ESPN.com. Both Mota and Heilman have been equally effective (or ineffective) against lefties and righties over this period. Unfortunately, with the demise of Joe Smith, the Mets were left without anybody in the pen with the stuff to consistently make righties swing and miss. It was hoped that Sosa could do this, but he’s been pretty crappy of late. Hopefully in the postseason they can move somebody into the pen who can fill this role.