Basic Stats

 Although the bullpen as a whole was horrible in 2008, there was one bright spot, Joe Smith.  Smith finished with a 3.55 ERA last season, not a whole lot different from the 3.45 ERA he posted in 2007.  Believe it or not, Mr. Smith had posted the highest WPA in our bullpen last season with a 1.10 WPA.  Using leverage numbers, he held batters to an OPS against of .586 in high leverage situations. 

Looking at the peripheral statistics, Smith did fairly well with a 7.39 K/9 but was down quite a bit from the 9.14 K/9 he posted in 2007.  A 7.39 K/9 is still pretty good.  While the strikeouts decreased from 2007, his walks went up a little.  His BB/9 was 4.41 compared to the 4.26 BB/9 mark he posted in 2007.   

The best thing about Joe Smith is that he keeps the ball in the ball park.  Throughout his career that has spanned 107.2 innings, Smith has only given up 7 home runs.  Smith’s unorthodox delivery makes him an extreme groundball pitcher, thus he does not give up many home runs at all.  His groundball rate in both 2007 and 2008 was 62%, ranking him 4^th among all relievers in groundball percentage.  Having a rate similar to the previous two years will make Joe an effective reliever for years to come. 

Surprisingly, Joe Smith’s BABIP was .360 in 2007, yet he posted an ERA that was lower than his 2008 season in which his BABIP was only .271.  Even more surprisingly, his LD% was about 2.7% higher in 2008 than in 2007.  An LD% rate of 19.6% suggests that the BABIP should have been a bit higher then .271, so Joe may have gotten somewhat lucky last season in this regard.  Checking further into this, Smith’s batting average against on line drives was .870 in 2007, a number that is way too high.  In 2008, his batting average against on line drives was .710, much closer to the norm of .750.  I’m not really sure what to make of these numbers.  His LOB% was much lower this season compared to last (72.1% vs. 80.8%) so that contributed to the ERA’s being similar although the BABIP was much lower. 

With Smith’s delivery, Joe is always going to have extreme splits, however last season was (like most Mets relievers) a bit too extreme.  Joe limited righties to an OPS against of .589, however lefties OPS against was .903, a difference of .314.  In 2007, there was a visible split; however it wasn’t nearly as extreme.  In 2007, righties OPS against him was .720, compared to the .858 lefties hit off him, a difference of only .138.  Moving forward, he’ll have to post closer splits like in 2007 in order to be more than a ROOGY. 

Pitch F/X Data

1) What Does He Throw

 Using data from MLB Gameday application, we can look further in detail to what Joe Smith threw in 2008.  Smith threw 1027 pitches during the 2008 season, of these gameday has tracked 980 of those pitches. 

 While he’s not exactly Chad Bradford, Smith throws from a low angle delivery, thus his movement numbers are actually backwards then what we would expect from a normal pitcher.  Let’s start with the fastball.  Smith’s fastball velocity is right around average.  Look at the negative vertical movement he gets on his fastball.  His fastball actually moves in the same direction a normal curveball would move in.  Being able to throw a pitch near 90mph with that much sink, it’s no wonder Joe Smith is a groundball machine.  As long as he continues to throw from his arm angle, he should be able to get many groundballs.  Although groundballs produce higher BABIP, most of the hits are singles whereas a fly ball pitcher has a lower BABIP usually but gives up more extra base hits.  Ideally, you want a guy that can strike batters out and get a lot of groundballs.  Joe Smith does just that. 

Another big pitch for Joe Smith is his slider.  Now look at the vertical movement on the slider.  The pitch is in the positives.  Thrown at a sidearm arm angle, Smith’s slider actually moves like a fastball.  Also, pitchers that throw sidearm or submarine typically have huge platoon splits.  While this pitch is extremely effective against righties, I doubt it will be very effective for Joe against left-handed batters, which is why Joe must develop another pitch to go with his fastball/slider combo. 

Lastly, Joe Smith’s third pitch is his changeup.  Unfortunately, Smith only threw 24 of these pitches during the 2008 season.  Later on in the article we will see why this has become an issue for Joe Smith when facing lefties. 

2) When Does He Throw It? 

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

 Much like Pedro Feliciano before him, Joe Smith does not throw the changeup to same-handed batters simply because he doesn’t need to.  With the arm delivery, Joe Smith can get by with just a slider and a fastball against them.  Against lefties, it’s an entirely different story.  Smith tried the changeup against them but only threw 24 to them.  He also tried the slider, throwing 24 pitches.  He didn’t seem to have any confidence in either because he threw his fastball over 77% of the time.  As we have seen before, this is a huge problem.  Throwing any pitch that much makes you entirely predictable and against MLB hitters that’s one thing most pitchers simply cannot afford.  Joe will have to figure out something to use against lefties in the future to realize his full potential. 

3) What Happens When He Throws It? 

Here is a breakdown on what happens when Joe throws each type of pitch.  I will begin by giving total data and then I’ll breakdown the data between lefties and righties. 

Total

  Well, 2 singles and 1 double in 5 balls put in play on the changeup; this is probably the reason why Joe Smith hasn’t thrown more changeups this season.  His fastball did well but his slider was absolutely outstanding.  Let’s break it down lefty and righty. 

Righties

 As you can see the fastball and slider was extremely effective against the righties.  Now for the lefties: 

Lefties

 This is why throwing the fastball a large percentage of the time is a problem.  As you can see, only put the changeup and slider in play 9 times, compared to the 34 times the fastball was put into play.  And lefties hit the fastball hard (BABIP of .353).  Joe will have to find an out pitch against the lefties and throwing the fastball at a rate closer to his rate against righties. 

What’s In Store for 2009?

 Listen, Joe Smith is always going to be very effective against righties.  The question becomes whether or not he’ll be able to handle lefties.  Given his K rate and his strikeout ability, it would be a real shame if he can’t figure lefties out because I really believe he can be an effective setup/7^th inning guy for us in our bullpen.  Right now, if I had to for 2009, I’d say he is what he is and that’s a ROOGY.  If Joe is having issues against lefties and cannot develop a changeup, he may want to think changing his arm angle against them, maybe throwing more 3/4ths or overhand.  Anyways, Joe will be a major factor in our pen for 2009.  He may be the difference next year between a good bullpen and a mediocre one.