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October 30, 2008
John Maine – Season Analysis 2008
Promoted from the journals, here’s john’s look at John Maine. You can find his previous studies here and here on Johan Santana and Mike Pelfrey, respectively. John Maine – Season Analysis 2008 Basic Stats Another significant pitcher for the New York Mets in 2009 will be John Maine. Maine had an unfortunate ending to the season, making his last start August 23rd. Maine struggled for much of 2008. Every month he got worse and worse starting with a respectable 3.58 ERA in March/April and ending with ERAs of 5.13 in July and 4.60 in August. During the offseason, Maine had surgery to remove a lesion in the back of his shoulder. All signs indicate that he will be all ready to go by spring training. Overall, John Maine finished with an ERA of 4.18, after posting an ERA of 3.91 last season. During the first half of 2007, Maine posted an ERA of 3.44. Many felt that Maine should have been an all-star and felt he was ready to take off. However, a disappointing second half in 2007 and 2008 season have tempered expectations quite a bit. Looking at John Maine peripherals stats from the 2008 season, we see that John Maine’s K/9 rate went down from 8.48 to 7.84, and his BB/9 rate increased from 3.53 to 4.31. While most people will point to Ollie Perez as the one with control issues, Maine was pretty bad himself in this regard. Homeruns were a major problem with him in 2006 however in both 2007 and 2008, he has done quite better at keeping the ball in the ballpark. His BABIP and LOB% were both in line with his career average. Looking at everything together, it seems like control was the biggest contributor to his struggles. 1) What Does He Throw? Using data from the MLB Gameday application, we can look further in detail to what John Maine threw in 2008. John threw 2534 pitches during the 2008 season, of these gameday has tracked 2497 pitches. Looking at the data on a game by game basis, I noticed that the 2 starts in Colorado, the camera was way off, either that or John learned how to throw a cutter those two games lol. For this table, I decided to remove the two starts (220 pitches) from the data as the results would skew the x and z movements. Since I was still able to figure out pitch type for these two games, I kept the information in the outcome data below. The following table lists the data:
The first pitch in Maine’s arsenal is his four-seam fastball. Unlike Mike Pelfrey and John Santana before him, Maine doesn’t seem to have to different fastballs. I generally will do the clustering and look for scouting reports to match the data up with what the pitcher says he throws, but I had trouble finding scouting reports on Maine. If he does throw a two-seamer, he doesn’t get much vertical movement on it and it reacts just like a four-seamer. Maine’s fastball is about two mph faster than average and he throws it nearly 10% more than the average pitcher (59% was average). John Maine ranked seventh among NL Starters in infield popups (Johan was sixth). Given that his average vertical movement is nearly a full inch greater than average, it’s not surprising he would generate a lot of infield fly balls. This is what most mean by “rising” fastball. It doesn’t sink nearly as much as hitters think it should, thus they hit the bottom of the ball, causing a pop up. The next pitch is the changeup for John Maine. Unlike Pelfrey, Maine prefers his changeup over his slider as his primary off-speed pitch. John actually gets more horizontal and vertical movement on his changeup than the average pitcher. Since Maine lacks a two-seamer, I’d imagine that this is his go to pitch whenever he needs a groundball. Like Pelfrey, the difference between the change and fastball is around 7.5 mph. Maine’s third pitch is his slider. John threw this pitch a lot last season (21.4%). This season he only threw it about 12.12% of the time. I’m unsure why the change. He definitely does not get a whole lot of vertical movement on the pitch with movement of 5.08 compared to MLB average of 3.7. (remember lower is more sink). A lot of pitchers vary on movement with the slider. Some throw it with more horizontal movement and not much vertical movement, some vice versa. The fact that John threw it with not much vertical movement and average horizontal movement cannot be a good thing in my opinion. That might be why he is throwing it far less this year. The last pitch John Maine threw was his curveball. Like Pelfrey, Maine threw this pitch very sparingly, only throwing a handful of curveballs per game. Looking at the data, he didn’t get much horizontal movement on this pitch, however given the fact that he only threw this pitch 58 times, I would not put a whole lot of stock into the movement values. Maine used his curveball a bit in 2005 and 2006, however stopped throwing it in 2007. Given the fact that he has begun to throw his slider far less this season, I’ll be curious to see if maybe he starts throwing more curveballs and less sliders next season. 2) When Does He Throw It? Next lets breakdown John’s pitches between Lefty vs Righty:
As we see from the data above, John is primarily a fastball/changeup pitch when facing lefties. When facing the righties, he adds his slider but still throws his changeup quite a bit as well. Because John throws a changeup a decent percentage of the time, his splits are not as extreme as Mike Pelfrey’s. 3) What Happens When He Throws It? Here is a breakdown on what happens when John throws each type of pitch
John didn’t throw a high percentage of curveballs to begin with and when it was put into play, hitters went 4-for-5 (.800) with three singles and one double. As noted above, he did not have much horizontal movement on this pitch so that’s probably why he used it sparingly. On the flipside, he reduced his usage in his slider, however hitters did not do too much damage from it (.240 average when the slider was put into play). Looking at the data above, John indeed used his changeup in order to get the ground outs. Since the vertical movement on the changeup was in the 5’s, it acted like a sinker, producing the ground ball outs. The last thing that jumps out is opponents hit John’s fastball fairly well (.312). John might want to throw a tad less fastballs and a bit more changeups in the future. 4) Percentage of Strikes Thrown Per Pitch Type Let’s see how John Maine did as far as controlling his pitches go. Remember the average strike percentage for fastball and slider are 64% and the average strike percentage for curveball and changeup are 60%. Since we are not concerned with movement here, I’ve included the two Colorado starts back into the data.
John does a much better job than Pelfrey as far as controlling his off-speed pitches go. Both pitchers have issues locating the curveball but John is right about average on the changeup and above average on the slider. Pelfrey makes up for it by being a lot more accurate on his fastball then Maine. What’s the most surprising thing to me is that fact that Maine throws an overall higher percentage of strikes then Pelfrey’s, however Pelfrey’s BB/9 rate was 2.87 compared to Maine’s 4.31. What’s In Store for 2009 With questions surrounding whether or not Oliver Perez is returning to the Mets and whether or not the Mets plan on resigning Pedro Martinez, Maine remains a key figure next year. With Johan Santana being the obvious ace of the staff and Mike Pelfrey taking leaps ahead in 2008, Maine will be asked to become a solid number three or four pitcher in this staff. His strikeout rate went down as well but 7.84 was still pretty good. To become more effective, he simply MUST reduce his walk rate that was way too high this season. I personally feel his entire success will be due to his control which has gotten progressively worse each year he has been with the Mets. Next week, I’ll begin to look at some of the relievers from the lolpen. If we happened to bring back Pedro or resign Oliver, I’ll go back and do profiles on them. I might do a Jon Niese profile as well. 9 Responses to “John Maine – Season Analysis 2008”Leave a ReplyYou must be logged in to post a comment. |
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john, you did an impressive job, although it’s wasted on someone like me…..lol!
While I like Maine, I find him incredibly frustrating. He wastes a ton of pitches on 2 strike counts lessening his chances of getting deep into a game. His walks drive me crazy. I’m hoping that part of his control issues had everything to do with the bone spur, but unfortunately I don’t think this is the case.
maybe in 2009, maine will actually put together a whole good season. that would be nice. or perhaps he’ll just continue to be overrated by met fans everywhere. oh that bulldog mentality.
Great analysis John.
Is it possible to look at strikes on a more refined basis:
- swinging and missing
- swinging and fouling off
- looking (non-swinging strikes)
I think if you analyzed these categories, Maine’s problems would be more pronounced. I would guess that Maine doesn’t fool as many hitters and that his stuff is more hittable than it used to be. So I would expect that his “swing and miss” rate as well as his “looking” strike rate are way down while his swing and foul rate is way up.
One reason for his higher walk rate could be that hitters are more likely now to foul off pitches until Maine throws a ball. If you looked at the pitch count just for his walks, I’d bet you’d find that number increasing quite a bit over the last three years.
Maine, I think will be one of the keys to next season - and I’m worried about his prospects. I don’t think Ollie will be back - his output is just not worth the money (and the Mets have tried for a few years to bring a consistency to his game which we should all conclude right now is impossible). Let him go to another team that thinks it can reform him - I’d rather get the draft picks (hopefully he’s a Type A free agent). And Pedro - really offers nothing more than a 5th starter performance now - and that would be too frustrating to watch (expecting more than he could ever deliver). So unless the Mets make Sabathia a big target this off season - a lot will ride on Maine’s “shoulders” in 09.
I guess the positive way of looking at him would be to think that his performance (velocity, movement, location) has been hampered physically by an arm problem - and that the surgery may now help him get back to the promise we all saw at the end of 06 and the first half of 07.
The more pessimistic view would be that Maine has always been a head case - that he may be his own worst enemy and that he is not maturing fast enough (despite his young age) to learn how to get the most out of what he has. That is, hitters are learning him faster than he learns to stay ahead of them.
I guess I had always hoped that Maine would emerge as a solid #2 and with enough savvy to have a couple of years that could rival a #1 type of performance. I worry now that he is no longer on that arc and may be more suited for a #3-4 role (which sucks now that the Mets need to fill 2 starting pitcher holes and because they have huge problems with their relief staff).
Given the Phillies continually improving position and confidence, the Met’s general condition, and the people in charge of re-vitalizing our team (Omar and the Wilpons), I just don’t feel there’s a lot to optimistic about right now. It seems the only way out of this is to spend (moving our payroll last year of $130mm up to $160-70mm - to get two good starting pitchers, 2 excellent relievers, and one very good corner OF). But that answer is never a good one - even if the profit minded owners were to consider it. In all likelihood, the Mets will get some of what they need, but not all of it on the free agent market. The rest will have to come from the ethereal “Met Magic” and that’s been lost ever since Endy made his miraculous catch in game 6. Let’s all hope it finds its way back to our team soon.
Let’s Go Mets!
Yeah, John this is the thing you should look at. I haven’t looked at it myself, but I would bet that pelfrey gets more swinging strikes than Maine. This leads to longer at bats for maine (remember all those pitches being fouled off) and increases the chance of walks (Longer at bats increase the chances of balls).
I’m curious, the pitchfx data when I looked at it didn’t really let you see how pitchers worked in certain counts unless you went over each pitch and editted the data individually. That is the same for you, right?
I still am optimistic about Maine. He was outstanding in the first half. His down trend in the latter half of last year was probably due to his shoulder bothering him.
I don’t think Maine is consistently wild, so that is why his wildness isn’t apparent from looking at the aggregate strike percentages. He seems to go through bouts of wildness in a game where he’ll walk a bunch of guys in an inning here or there and in the other innings he’ll have very good control. I’ve always thought either he has a concentration issue where he’ll either get distracted or get too relaxed and/or a mechanical issue which will throw him off. Not sure which it is or if it’s a combination.
Yep same for me. I’d love to do a graph breaking down pitch type by COUNT. Im working on Aaron Heilman and he’s been using his slider ALOT more last year and his K rate went through the roof last year so I was wanting to see if he used that slider as his strikeout pitch.
What happens is and I assume you got the same thing, say a batter strikeouts on three straight pitches, in my database I got three rows of pitches. In the balls and strikes columns tho I just have the end result in each of the three columns…..ie each one has 0 balls and 3 strikes.
I’d assume in Excel you could write an IF statement…..like IF the type column = S then increase the strikes by one…..something to that effect.
Ppl have done it cause Josh Kalks player cards has it broken down by count. Its just a matter of figuring out how lol.
I could swear there’s a website that does something like this….prehaps fangraphs but I think maybe just for batters.
Hmm I’ll look into this…..the type column breaks down strikes,balls and put into play….but I suppose I could select strikes then use the description column to break it down further. I think I’ll run into the same problem I have with the count table in that…..in the description on Gameday, it gives me a description for the LAST pitch only….so it will say Player A struck out looking in each of the players pitches. It wont give me description on what happened before the event took place.
I think for that……..prehaps the play by play database from retrosheet would help if those stats arent available anywhere. Im still learning how to work with that one tho lol. I have a pitch fx database, a historial database, a game log database, and a pbp one.
haha I’m going to make it my offseason goal to get you to be more positive :)
Yep Shea, I find that incredibily frustrating as well. I mean……to get 2 strikes on the batter and then have to throw 10 pitches only to end up walking him…….sheesh. I dont know if this is true or not but just an opinion. Pelfrey = groundball pitcher…..so when batters miss they hit the TOP of the ball causing a weak ground out. Maine = Flyball pitcher…..so when batters miss they hit the BOTTOM of the ball causing a weak pop out. Prehaps the pop ups are more likely to go foul then the grounders.
I wonder if any study has been done GB vs FB as far as fouling off pitches goes.
Gotta give Maine credit for continuing to pitch with that huge bone spur and then offering to come back at the end of the season. I would guess that the huge bone spur had to affect his pitching - his arm slot, his choice of pitches, hit control, etc, all translating into his general not good performance the last few months. So, I am cautiously optimistic he pitches very well next year.
I wonder if he could learn a splitter? One fast ball “rising” the other dropping might give hitter a different look and help his strikeout rate especially for those 2 strike situations where it seems hitters foul off pitch after pitch.
Maybe not even a splitter………a 2-seam fastball might work.