John posted this in the journals during last week’s holiday, and I wanted to make sure everyone saw it. –Alex

Basic Stats

The next pitcher that I’d like to profile is Duaner Sanchez.  Sanchez was a key member of the Mets bullpen in 2006.  After missing all of 2007, Sanchez returned to the Mets and pitched with a lot of mixed results in 2008.  Sanchez finished 2008 with a 4.32 ERA, his highest mark during his four full seasons of baseball.

Looking at his peripheral statistics, they were actually very consistent with his career statistics.  His K/9 rate in 2008 was 6.79 (compared to career average of 6.63), his BB/9 rate was 3.55 (compared to career average of 3.69) and his HR/9 rate was 0.93 (compared to career average of 0.94).  His LOB% was a bit lower then career average which probably caused the high ERA.  The difference between 2006 and 2008 as far as peripheral stats goes isn’t that much.  He probably was a bit lucky in 2006 and a bit unlucky in 2008.

One of the things I found surprising with Duaner this season is that he had reverse platoon splits meaning he was actually better against lefties (OPS against of .622) then he was against righties (OPS against of .727).  This does not fall in line with his typical splits from his past years.  Later on, we’ll look into why this might have occurred. 

Another thing I noticed when looking at his statistics was that he performed far worse down the stretch then he did at the beginning.  His first half ERA was 3.57 compared to the 6.00 ERA he posted in the second half.  Also, he only pitched 18 innings after the break compared to 40 innings before the break.  Being out of baseball for a year, Sanchez probably ran out of gas towards the end of the season and that could be a reason for his poor finish.

Unlike Heilman and Show, Sanchez did perform well in high leverage situations, holding batters to an OPS against of .560.  He had a positive WPA of 0.85, compared to the negatives that Heilman, Feliciano and Show had posted.  Only Joe Smith had a higher WPA then Sanchez in the bullpen.  I still have hope that Sanchez can be a valuable late inning reliever for us in the future.  Let’s take a look at Sanchez’s pitch selection for 2008.

 Pitch F/X Data

1) What Does He Throw 

Using data from MLB Gameday application, we can look further in detail to what Duaner Sanchez threw in 2008.  Duaner threw 951 pitches during the 2008 season, of these gameday has tracked 925 of those pitches.

Let’s talk about Duaner Sanchez’s fastball.  Given the average vertical movement near 8, I labeled it a four-seamer in my analysis.  One of the things that immediately sticks out is the lack of velocity Duaner Sanchez has gotten with this pitch.  In 2006, Duaner’s fastball averaged 93.2 mph.  His fastball has lost about 2.5 mph after the surgery.  Sanchez has realized this it seems, only throwing his fastball 44% compared to the 51.3% in 2006 and 58.9% in 2005.

The next pitch that Duaner uses is his changeup.  Duaner has been using this pitch on an increasing basis since 2005.  He throws this pitch over 30% of the time, far more than of the other relievers we have profiled so far.  He gets a good amount of sink on this pitch compared to league average and also gets a decent amount of differential between his changeup and 4-seamer.  Having a good changeup, Duaner does not have profound splits like the rest of the relievers and this season has even had reverse splits.

Duaner’s next pitch is his slider.  He throws this pitch over 20% of the time.  I think that having three pitches that are thrown over 20% of the time can only be good.  It means that Sanchez is doing a good job mixing up his pitches.  He gets below average vertical movement on this pitch but mixing it in with his changeup and 4-seamer helps him keep hitters off-track.

His last pitch is his curveball.  Over the past few years, Duaner has been using this pitch a lot less often, instead favoring his slider as his primary breaking pitch.

Let’s breakdown his pitch type between lefties and righties.

 2) When Does He Throw It?

Next lets breakdown Duaner’s pitches between Lefty vs. Righty

Against lefties, Duaner relied on that changeup and fastball to get hitters out.  Against the righties, he added in the slider, but still kept throwing the changeup.  As we have seen before, changeup to opposite handed batters are the way to go and sliders work most effectively against same-handed batters.  It seems like Duaner is one of the few in the Mets bullpen that has it correct.  Guys throwing no changeups or very few changeups are at a significant disadvantage.

 3) What Happens When He Throws It?

Here is a breakdown on what happens when Duaner throws each type of pitch.  Since Duaner was pretty much equal compared to the other relievers, I’ll just list the totals.

 Total 

There’s nothing to really discuss here.  This table definitely shows that Duaner’s changeup was by far his best pitch.  The 4-seamer and slider was hit about the same but even those two pitches were proven to be effective as far as BABIP goes.

 4) Percentage of Strikes Thrown Per Pitch Type

Let’s see how Duaner Sanchez 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%.    

As you can see from the above, Duaner had average control over his 4-seamer but he had big time control of his slider and changeup.  Of course this strike percentage also factors pitches outside the strike zone that were swung at so we need to keep that in mind as well when looking at the data.  He only threw 31 curveballs, but as you can see he had all sorts of trouble locating this pitch.  I can see why he has been favoring the slider over the curveball right now.

What’s In Store for 2009

Besides the low velocity and the changes on the percentages of pitches he throws, I see a lot of consistency in Duaner’s numbers from previous years.  While I believe 2009 won’t be as good as his 2006 season, I simply cannot believe it will be as bad as the 2008 season.  His LD% in 2006 was an unsustainable 13.2%.  In 2008, it was 25.4%, a bit on the high side.  Everything suggests that he will be somewhere in between these two seasons.  As such, I expect Duaner to be a solid and very important member of our bullpen in 2009.