Baseball Musings
Baseball Musings
July 06, 2004
Hero Zito?

I think at this point in the season it's appropriate to ask, "What happened to Barry Zito?" Looking at his stats, two things are clear:


  1. He's on a pace to set a career high in HR allowed.

  2. For the first time in his big league career, he's giving up more hits than innings pitched.


The HR are his fault, and the number is not surprising given his grounder to fly ratio of .7. (AL average, 1.2). He's giving up a high percentage of line drives, 20% vs. 18% for the league. It seems to me Zito is simply putting his pitches in the wheelhouse.

He certainly did for the Red Sox tonight who collected 9 hits in four innings off Barry, including a HR by Mueller. The A's have a problem with their number three starter. Maybe it's something minor like tipping his pitches. But if this keeps up, the big three will be reduced to a dynamic duo. (Happy birthday, Burt Ward!)

Update: Looking at the Yankees boxscore, you could pretty much write the same thing about Mike Mussina, except Mussina gets a normal number of ground balls.


Posted by David Pinto at 09:25 PM | Pitchers | TrackBack (1)
Comments

he needs the Rick Peterson Kool-Aid
I hope the mets can swing a trade for him some time next year

Posted by: James at July 6, 2004 09:38 PM

Ty Wigginton is certainly available...

Posted by: OFF at July 7, 2004 04:33 AM

You don't want him, James...even with Rick Peterson doing his Yoda thing with pitcher mechanics in Oakland, Zito was growing less and less effective. His K's from 2001 to 2003 went from 205 to 182 to 146 while his number of batters faced went up from 902 to 939 to 957. If you think of K's per batters faced like batting average, then he's gone from .227 to .194 to .153. His ERA in that time frame benefitted from the A's underrated (and improving) defense.

I wouldn't be surprised if the A's try to trade him now, while his perceived value continues to bask in the glow of his Cy Young trophy. Best to hope your team doesn't give up any major prospects for him!

Posted by: Dave S. at July 7, 2004 08:53 AM

Where did you get that line drive percentage?

Posted by: Danil at July 7, 2004 11:12 AM

Zito thinks the Red Sox hitters might have been tiped off about what pitches he was going to throw last night. Link.

Posted by: Dimmy Karras at July 7, 2004 11:48 AM

Tell me about it- I usually try and snag two out of the three Oakland 'Big 3' every year for my fantasy team, and this year it happened to be Mulder and Zito.

Mulder- couldn't be happier. Zito- should have traded him in May when everyone was making me offers. Now I don't think I could GIVE him away..

Here's hoping for a better 2nd half.

Posted by: Pete at July 12, 2004 02:29 PM