Buster Olney caused a bit of a stir among Yankee fans this week with a tweet last Thursday. Some accused him of anti-Yankee bias, others fretted that between this tidbit and Mo’s recent cold stretch that we may really be seeing the end of the greatest Closer of all time. To his credit, Buster clarified that he was simply putting the numbers out there and people can make of them what they will. Here’s the tweet:
Buster Olney
Rivera has dominated LH hitters with his cutter, but the #’s are declining. Opp LH vs. Rivera: ’08, .147; ’09, .182, ’10, .214; ’11, .267.
First, I’m not a huge fan of batting average in general as being the best way to asses how productive a hitter is, so conversely I’m not all that comfortable using it to gauge how hitters are faring facing a certain pitcher. There are lots of different ways to do this, but lets look at his complete triple slash (BA/OBP/SLG) plus OPS and BAbip to see if the trend still holds.
vs LHB:
2008-.147 .173 .194 (.367 OPS) .193 BAbip
2009-.182 .238 .273 (.511 OPS) .229 BAbip
2010-.214 .264 .301 (.565 OPS) .230 BAbip
2011-.269 .278 .372 (.650 OPS) .311 BAbip
OK, so the trend line holds across the board facing lefties. Since 08 he hasn’t been as effective against lefties, and his numbers have declined annually as Buster implied. His use of the cutter has been higher since 08, but I’ll get to that later. These numbers are subject to some luck since you’re only dealing with around 120 PAs for each full season, but that’s the nature of the beast when it comes to relievers. BAbip has shot up substantially this year, but he’s coming off a bad stretch and were comparing a partial season to full season numbers, which you obviously can’t do. His career BABIP facing righties is .277 and .254 facing lefties, but I’m not even sure how much utility that has since he didn’t even start throwing his infamous cutter until after the 2003 season.
Next, let’s look at his splits facing Righties over the same time frame:
vs RHB:
2008-.183 .208 .275 (.483 OPS) .247 BAbip
2009-.211 .236 .350 (.586 OPS) .268 BAbip
2010-.155 .217 .209 (.426 OPS) .213 BAbip
2011-.218 .247 .299 (.546 OPS) .281 BAbip
Not much to add here. Unlike his lefty numbers, his stats facing righties have held up well the past few seasons.
Finally, I wanted to look at Mo’s pitch selection to see if anything has changed there:
| Season | Team | FB | SL | CT | CB | CH | SF | KN | XX | PO |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
Total *
|
- – -
|
41.9% (93.2)
|
1.0% (90.5)
|
57.0% (92.2)
|
0.1% (82.6)
|
1.5%
|
0.2%
|
|||
| 2002 | Yankees | 98.4% (93.2) | 1.6% (79.0) | 4.7% | ||||||
| 2003 | Yankees | 96.8% (93.0) | 3.2% (88.8) | 0.5% | ||||||
| 2004 | Yankees | 48.4% (93.5) | 3.8% (92.7) | 47.5% (93.0) | 0.4% (82.5) | 1.7% | 0.8% | |||
| 2005 | Yankees | 44.1% (93.4) | 1.0% (91.1) | 54.8% (93.0) | 1.2% | 0.3% | ||||
| 2006 | Yankees | 56.6% (93.8) | 43.4% (93.2) | 1.9% | 0.4% | |||||
| 2007 | Yankees | 26.7% (93.6) | 73.2% (93.2) | 0.1% (83.0) | 1.0% | |||||
| 2008 | Yankees | 18.0% (93.1) | 82.0% (92.8) | 0.6% | ||||||
| 2009 | Yankees | 7.1% (91.7) | 92.9% (91.3) | 1.5% | ||||||
| 2010 | Yankees | 15.1% (92.2) | 84.9% (91.1) | 1.9% | ||||||
| 2011 | Yankees | 11.9% (92.1) | 88.1% (91.2) | 0.9% |
Over the past two seasons he has been relying on the cutter a bit less, but its still clearly his bread and butter pitch. No big change here. Looking at his Pitch FX numbers over the past 4 seasons, not much has changed. In terms of velocity the cutter is right in line with the last 3 seasons. Horizontal and vertical movement have held up nicely as well. If Lefties are getting better swings off of him, its either a result of location mistakes or simply relying on the pitch too heavily, where batters have seen it enough times to have made adjustments. He may opt to mix up offerings a bit more, which he clearly has already been doing since 2009. But the stuff is there, and as many others have stated this week this appears to be just another edition of the annual blip on the radar for Mo, not the beginning of the end.
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Mo discovered his cutter in June 1997, playing catch with Ramiro Mendoza. He refined it and began to use it regularly in 1998. Why are you referencing 2003?
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Steve S. Reply:
August 13th, 2011 at 1:46 pm
That’s what I always thought, but in the pitch selection chart above Fangraphs has him beginning to throw it after 03. If someone has an explanation for that, I’d appreciate some clarification.
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Duh, Innings! Reply:
August 13th, 2011 at 4:02 pm
Fangraphs didn’t exist in 1998 or did it? Regardless, all one needs to do is watch footage of Mo from ’98 on.
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MARIANO will bounce back, just like every pitcher who is not a robot has a bad streak, it happens every year thats why nobody in the history of the sport has a .ooo era.. easy on MO. how he should be handled at his age is what should be talked about, at this stage for my opinion, he does not pitch in tie games unless there is no body left..home or not..never in the eighth..not with a four run lead..of coarse playoffs , W.S everything to win at that point/. i would have not brought him in the ninth vs angles in a tie game we were loaded with talent and extra arms, joe must not go by the “plan” all the time..he has done a good job controlling himself this year,, he brought in david r. the other day up four runs in the eighth , i would have had him rest that day up four..it is august and the kid has had super stressful innings this year and not pushed him in a game with a four run lead.. CC should be skipped his next start, not pushed back a day..again august, joe pitched him into the eighth , a mystery to me down by that many runs..try to keep these guys arms as fresh as possible,,winning the division is great ,winning the W.S is greater..also i am tired hearing about A.J. and his mental issues and how he needs coddling and pep talks , he is another guy who can not pitch in this city..now he colors his hair like a 16 year old..last year he missed his coach, his wife hits him, YANKS must try and trade him to the N.L. in the off season where he will be very productive..he would be a great fit on the brewers..three years of excuses , i was very happy get him three years ago, loved the signing..he was great vs yanks and sox..he came here and melted vs sox.. kevin brown, r johnson, pavano, weaver, whitson and a host of others could not make it in N.Y. just add A.J. to that list.. big names before coming here ,,bigger bombs pitching here..
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No one is saying Mo is on the decline. People including myself who express concern for Mo because of what he’s done lately are merely worried that he might not be effective for so long that it could hurt the Yanks chances of winning the division. I don’t he will hurt those chances, but you never know. Maybe this is the one year where Mo sucks for longer than a week or so or he sucks for week then sucks again. He has blown alot of saves this year and is the oldest he’s ever been, besides being only human.
Personally, I think Soriano and Robertson should save a few games in the 14 games between this weekend’s series and Boston 8/30-9/1 so Mo can not only be brought in to close all three games at Fenway if need be, but be conserved for the postseason. I’d say have Soriano or Robertson close any game where the lead is three runs. Another thing the Yanks can do is create two-out save opportunities for Mo.
I just hope that the Yanks and Mo are not trying to break the saves record this year since Mo needs only 13 saves to break the record of 601 saves, or the thought of him breaking the record by year’s end isn’t on their minds. If Mo falls just short of breaking the record, he’ll break it next year probably in April, possibly with his first save of 2012.
I will say this: if he keeps sucking against the Red Sox, the Yanks should seriously consider having Soriano or Robertson be brought back for the first out of the ninth to shorten Mo’s save opportunity (have him get the second and third outs instead of all three.)
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