Burn It
Posted by Steve L. on June 17th, 2010 · Comments (6)
Here are A.J. Burnett’s stats over his last 8 starts – including last night:
IP: 46.6
ERA: 6.36
BA/OBA/SLG allowed: .290/.377/.530 (218 BF)
For $16.5 million a season, you would expect a little better results than that, right? Granted, that’s just a one-quarter slice of what should be a full season for him. But, those numbers are just terrible.
It’s Burnett, he’s going to have good starts and bad starts, he has been that way since he was in the Mets system. The only thing that has changed is that he has stayed healthy.
FWIW, his K’s are down, as well as his walks. He’s getting more grounders and less flyballs which may be tied to the fact that he has been throwing his fastball more (71% of the time)
@ Raf:
Different Pitch F/X data sites are reporting different things. Texas Leaguers is calling Burnett’s third pitch a sinker while FanGraphs is reporting it as a traditional two-seamer. Although they’re both fastballs intended to induce groundballs, the pitches are more close cousins rather than identical twins.
In any case, Burnett is still using his breaking ball about as often has he’s always used it (approximately 26-28%) so he can’t be using the fastball *THAT* much more often.
The real question is why Burnett is using his four-seamer less. It would seem to me that losing the velocity off his good fastball (down 1 mph) and introducing a new look with the two-seamer/sinker (whatever it might be) could be degrading the command, control and quality of his curve.
This is called ‘fun with selective endpoints.’
jay wrote:
Yes and no. It’s only cherry-picking data if you want to draw the conclusion that Burnett is only capable of pitching to a 6+ ERA.
Steve acknowledges that he’s only looking at the last eight starts, isn’t drawing any conclusions for the future and isn’t wrong to say that the results of the last eight starts have been horrid.
Burnett is what he is?
Yes and no.
Yes, he’ll always have games, and runs of games, where he has command issues. He’ll look like crap for stretches at a time. And he’ll also get hot and dominate for games at a time. He’s always been inconsistent. Some pitchers can easily adjust mid-game. He’s not one of them.
No, in that he always had major injury problems, but this is now 2 1/2 seasons (so far, knock wood) without one.
MJ Recanati wrote:
Disagree. The mention of the contract is an indirect Cashman shot. I could find similar length stretches for a dozen players and make the same statement.