Jenry Mejia Pitch F/x

Mejia pitched yesterday for the Suprise Rafters, and didn't do that bad, going 3 innings giving up 4 hits, a walk, a run while striking out 3 in a 2-1 loss to the Peoria Javelinas.
Pitch F/x

Jenry Mejia, 10/26/09
Pitch Type	Avg Speed	Max Speed	Pitch Fx_x	Pitch FX_Z	Count	Strikes / %	Swinging Strikes / %
FF (FourSeam Fastball)	93.99	97.6	-6.18	5.58	37	22 / 59.46%	4 / 10.81%
CH (Changeup)	87.17	88.1	-9.71	3.52	9	7 / 77.78%	3 / 33.33%
CU (Curveball)	77.50	80.2	2.81	-8.18	5	2 / 40.00%	0 / 0.00%
FT (TwoSeam Fastball)	87.75	88.7	-10.93	5.17	2	2 / 100.00%	1 / 50.00%

His fastball has some pretty good sink on it, as Sam Page at Amazin Avenue pointed out in a post a while back. His Curveball also has some insane movement, but he only threw 5 so not much can be read into that, and his changeup has some sink too. He had 14.3% Swinging Strikes.

Met Prospects Pitch F/X

So, if you haven't heard, there are several Mets playing in the Arizona Fall League, on the Surprise Rafters. The Arizona Fall League also has Pitch F/X data, which is what you see on gameday.
It is explained here and here.
The last game that we have Pitch F/x data from (from Brooks Baseball) is October 22, where Josh Stinson went 1 inning, giving up 1 hit, and striking out 1. Stinson is a 21 year old right hander who had a 1.98 ERA in Port St Lucie.
His Pitch F/x data:

Josh Stinson, 10/22/09
Pitch Type	Avg Speed	Avg Pf_x(Horizontal Break)	Avg Pf_z (vertical break_
Fastball (4 seam)	91.07	-6.41	7.94
Changeup	84.75	-9.52	6.75
Slider	82.90	1.99	1.61
Curveball	77.97	6.85	-5.23
2-seam Fastball	89.90	-7.98	5.54

Information gotten from Brooks Baseball, which is an awesome site.
Negative values on horizontal break means the pitch is in to righties, and positive values mean it's in to lefties. 1.99 mean's it's fairly down the middle of the plate.
Stinson threw 13 fastballs, 3 curves, 2 changeups and 1 slider and 2 seam fastball.
So, his fastball breaks inside to righties, his curveball breaks inside and down to lefties, and low and away from righties, which seems to make it a good out pitch.

What the 2009 Mets could've been

Seeing as Omar and Jerry are staying, I wanted another good reason to have them fired. So, I decided to project the Mets win total in 2009 if no one was injured. I used Wins Above Replacement, which can be found at www.fangraphs.com. There were a couple of rules: Players who had had injuries last year that forced them miss significant time (10 games+ in one stretch) could get injured this year. Thus, Carlos Delgado, John Maine, Oliver Perez and JJ Putz all get injured in this year's version along with Ryan Church and Angel Pagan. Also, if a player was called up due to injury, and would not get called up unless in September does not appear. (Sucks for you, Argenis Reyes). Also, I am going by 4.5 PA/G for starters. wOBA stays the same for hitters, as does UZR.
For pitchers, I used the guide that fangraphs has. So, a pitcher's FIP (fielding Independent Pitching) is divided by .92 to convert it to a scale with Run Average. It is then divided by the Park Factor to normalize it (I think...). I used ESPN's Park Factors, which was .94 for Citi Field. Also, for the league RA FIP, I used 4.53, the NL RA.
So, the 2009 New York Mets, who do not lose Jose Reyes, Carlos Beltran, David Wright and Johan Santana finish 82-80. Feeling proud, Omar and Jerry?
Carlos Beltran has an awesome year, with a 6.5 WAR. David Wright has a 4 WAR. Because Fernando Nieve doesn't start, he gets 15 appearences out of the pen, 30 innings (2 per G) and has a war of 3.5. I know, it's fantasy, but I was just going by what I got, so bear with me.
Billy Wagner does not get traded for Chris Carter, and appears in 15 games. Ramon Castro still gets traded, Angel Pagan doesn't play in as many games, and Cory Sullivan doesn't play at all. Johan Santana and Mike Pelfrey each have 33 starts, Tim Redding gets 20, Nelson Figueroa gets 19 starts.
I know this isn't the most accurate way of figuring out what the Mets could've been, but it wasn't extremely hard, and still paints the main picture: The Mets are a .500 team, and Omar Minaya did not give this team enough starting pitching depth, and the starting pitching wasn't good enough. It also shows that this team needs a good offensive outfielder and first baseman, as we knew about. What I'm mainly trying to say here is that the Mets bad season this year was not just due to injury; it was also due to lack of good starting pitching, starting pitching depth, and the need for an outfielder who is good offensively.
Update: The spreadsheet

Correlation, Part 4

This is the correlation of Isolated Power to Runs
For a explanation of correlation, go here.
Isolated Power is Slugging Percentage-batting average, and measures a player's true power
The correlation between Isolated Power and Runs is .66, just below the cut off mark of .7 for strong correlation.
The R squared is .43, and the equation is f(x)=0x+0.03
And here is the graph: (click to make bigger)

Correlation Part 3

The 3rd part, this shows the correlation of BB/K (walk/to strikeout ratio, offensively) with runs.
For an explanation of correlation go here.
The correlation of BB/K to runs is .37. The r squared is .14. There isn't that much correlation.
The equation is f(x)=0x+.2
Here is the graph:


Click to make bigger

Correlation, Part 2

For this part, I am focusing on K%, again from the years 2004-2008. For a recap of part one and an explanation of correlation, go here.
K% doesn't have any correlation, with a correlation of .02, and an R^2 of 0. This indicates that there is no correlation.
Here is the graph:
Click to make larger.
The equation (in slope-intercept form) is f(x)=0x+18.68.

Did I Not Say Figgy was Pretty Good

If only he could've done this in 2007. Or 2008. Oh well, congrats to Nelson as he pitches the second complete game shut out of the season for the Mets. The other one was Pat Misch. That sums up the season.
Adieu, 2009.

Correlation, Part One

The first part of a 10 part series, I'm following on this great post to The Hardball Times by Dan Fox. I'm going to follow with different stats, however: BB%, K%, BB/K, BABIP (batting average on balls in play), Isolated Power (Slugging-average), weighted Runs Created and weighted Runs Above Average and weighted On Base Average (see fangraphs for those 3), home run/Fly ball percentage, and line drive percentage.
I'm seeing which one correlates with run scoring the most;
correlation runs from -1 to 1
-1 indicates that a high value in one is a low value in the other; 0 means that there is no correlation, and 1 is perfect correlation. The cut off for good correlation is .7, because the R^2 is .49, which is half, which is acceptable. (R^2 is correlation squared).
My data is from 2005-2008; I may redo it with 2009 data as well.
The Correlation between runs and walk percentage is .41 which is an R^2 of .16. It's not strong, so walk percentage does not relate well with scoring runs.
The equation of the line of regression (line of best fit) is y=0.01x+3.96 (it's in the mold of the slope-intercept form: y-mx+b)

Click to make bigger

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