Tuesday, June 22, 2004
¿Nomo? ¡No Mas!
My post earlier today about trade rumors involving the Mariners and the Dodgers led me to do a quick review of the Dodgers' pitching situation this season.
Although the Dodgers' team ERA of 3.75 is the third best in baseball, their starting pitching is in disarray. No one has really filled the role of fifth starter. The Dodgers were also counting on Hideo Nomo to provide a strong season, but Nomo has been a disaster, leaving the team with only three effective starters.
Last March, I suggested that relying on Nomo as a staff ace looked pretty dubious. I pointed out that Nomo's peripherals had deteriorated signfificantly since 2001, and that Nomo's 2001 season appeared to be a fluke year. That's probably no surprise to Dodgers management, but the uncertainly in the team ownership situation interfered with taking effective action to address the situation. By the time the sale was complete and DePodesta came aboard, opportunities to address the situation were limited.
Nomo's 2004 season so far has been worse than expected. He has started 12 games, but logged only 57 innings (less than 5 innings average per start). He has an ERA of 7.26, and opposing batters have an OBP of .368 and a SLG of .545. That gives him OPS against of .913!! No wonder the Dodgers are interested in Garcia.
The figures below are updates of the charts I posted last March, with pointed arrows extending the previous charts to include 2004 data through yesterday's games.
The situation is pretty gruesome. This first chart presents Nomo's career hit, homerun, walk and strikeout rates,
As indicated, Nomo's strikeout rate has collapsed, while his surrendered hit rates and home run rates have balloned. Nomo's strikeout rate per nine innings has dropped by almost 3, and his home run rate per nine innings has increased by about 1. Thus, about one-third of Nomo's drop in strikeouts is accounted for by baseballs leaving the park. Nomo is putting more men on base, then compounding that problem by doubling his surrendered home run rate. Ughhh!!
Nomo's walk rate hasn't changed much; hitters are simply putting bat on ball much more often and hitting the ball out of the park a larger fraction of the time they make contact.
The next chart, updates Nomo's batting average on balls in play (BABIP) and "pitcher out percentage" (PO%). BABIP is the percentages of batted balls handled by fielders that fall for hits. PO% measures the efficiency of a pitcher in getting batters out without any help from his fielders.
PO% = (SO-HR-BB-HBP)/(Total batters faced)
The picture from this second chart is quite interesting. As indicated, Nomo's BABIP is not much different this year as compared with 2003. So if batters are hitting the ball more frequently, but his BABIP isn't going up, what's the story? The charts indicate the following items:
- Since the percentage of balls in play that fall for hits is not changed, Nomo is not being let down by his defense. Accordingly, a good portion of the increased rate of hits/9 innings is simply more balls being put in play.
- Nomo is no longer putting away more batters by himself (via strikeout) than he is allowing to reach base safely without putting a ball in play (via walk, HBP, or home run). That is almost always a bad sign for a pitcher.
- As noted above, Nomo is giving up a lot more home runs. Home runs don't count in BABIP (because a home run is not a ball in play), but home runs do show in PO%. So Nomo's increased home run rate contributes to a declining PO% without causing a rise in BABIP.
- So far this year Nomo has been an extreme fly ball pitcher - far more than he has been before in his career. This is consistent with his increased home run rate. Also, since fly ball pitchers record more foul ball outs than do ground ball pitchers, it's not uncommon for a fly ball pitcher to have a lower BABIP. (Foul popups successfully fielded are balls in play, whereas ground fouls are not in play. Hence, flyball pitchers often have a higher percentage of balls in play than do ground ball pitchers.)
This poses an interesting dilemma for the Dodgers management and fans. As long as the Dodgers can contend in a very weak NL West, the team is almost obligated to make moves to stay in contention. The Dodgers weaknesses, however, are so large that they need a makeover, not short term fixes. Making deadline trades to stay in a pennant race usually conflicts with strategies to address long-term needs. So, as a Dodger fan, should you want your team to be buyers or sellers right now?
With the above concerns, I suspect if the Dodgers did make a deal to acquire Garcia, the deal might be contingent on Garcia agreeing to a long term deal. In that case, the Dodgers may have addressed the starting pitching situation both for the pennant drive this season and for several seasons to come. They might be able to hang in contention for this year with some additional tweaking, then make some additional offseason moves (Beltran?)to upgrade the offense. The wild card in this would be the extent to which team finances would limit the ability to lock up Garcia and make needed offensive upgrades.
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