(sorry for the very late post today…internet problems.)

Another indicator I like to look at to evaluate a team’s performance is the innings pitched by starters vs. relievers. There are lots of reasons why any given team’s starters might throw more of fewer innings. The two most common are:

• If the starters aren’t as good or as durable, they tend to throw fewer innings per start
• If the starters are very young, their managers tend to have them throw fewer innings. This is piece of baseball wisdom that was largely ignored for many years but most managers now abide by.

So let’s start in the American Leage by looking at splits by pitching role. The second set of data shows the number of games and innings pitched depending on whether the pitcher was a starter or a reliever. By clicking on the red text you can get an expanded breakdown by team such as this.

I extracted some of the key data and put it into an Excel spreadsheet. See here:

Starts    Relief    IP/start    IP/RG
KCR     82    208    6.09    1.08
MIN     83    223    6.05    1.06
TEX     81    204    6.04    1.15
TOR     84    235    6.00    1.08
LAA     81    216    5.97    1.08
CHW     82    203    5.96    1.15
BOS     82    234    5.95    1.04
SEA      82    208    5.89    1.21
DET     82    220    5.81    1.12
TBR     83    239    5.78    1.03
NYY     82    233    5.76    1.13
CLE     83    231    5.59    1.17
OAK     81    236    5.58    1.17
BAL     83    231    5.40    1.22

The four columns here are game starts, games in relief (total number of relief appearances) and then 2 numbers I calculated in Excel: innings pitched per start, and innings pitched per relief appearance.

Kansas City’s starters are averaging 6.07 IP per start, meaning just barely into the 7th inning. Baltimore’s starters are avering 5.40 IP per start, meaning that they get, on average, a bit more than 1 out in the 6th inning. This might not sound like a big difference, but so far Baltimore’s bullpen has pitched 282.1 innings while Kansas City’s has pitched only 224. That’s nearly 60 innings of extra work being loaded onto Orioles relievers.

The point is this: with the exception of the closer and sometimes the setup guy, pitchers in the bullpen are usually the worst major-league pitchers. I’m not saying they are bad, but these are often guys that haven’t been able to develop the pitching technique or stamina to be starters and are usually the worst performers on their teams. The more innings these guys pitch, the worse it usually is for their team because A) they are the worst pitchers and B) they have less stamina.

Point B) is the really significant one. It means that if they get used more over the course of the season, they are quite likely to see a significant decline in performance come August & September. (As an aside, sometimes playoff teams see a boost when they call up an extra bullpen guy or two in September but then can’t use those guys in the playoffs and have to resort to their tired-arm relievers.)

When I look at the list above, the team the jumps out to me as being in trouble is Tampa Bay. They are averaging only 5.78 IP/start, one of the worst figures in the AL plus their relievers are pitching only 1.03 IP/game, the lowest figure in the game. Their relievers have already appeared in 239 games, most in the AL. More appearances by relievers means more times these guys warm up in the bullpen, more pitches thrown, and tired arms later in the season.

The Yankees and Tigers don’t look much better. Both have IP/start figures similar to the Rays and have also seen many relief appearances from their bullpen.

Alternatively, the Rangers looks great. Their starters have one of the highest averages, as do their relievers. It means fewer innings and fewer pitches for their relievers. The Twins and Red Sox also look fine.

So what does this mean for the playoffs? Well for Tampa Bay, it’s the opposite of what I wrote yesterday. Based on run scoring differential, they seemed to be shy a few wins and I expected to make them up later in the season. But based on what their pitching staff is doing, I also expect to see the team fade down the stretch. By combining those factors, I’d expect to see a similar record in the second half, meaning they’ll finish with about 87 wins and out of the playoffs.

Yesterday, I liked the Twins, and today even moreso. I predict a fade for the Tigers and a third-place finish between the Twins and the White Sox.

And in the West, I like the Rangers.

Because of the strength of the Angels pitching, I’m taking them ahead of the Rays or the Yankees to win the AL Wild Card.

Now here’s the same table for the National League.

Starts    Relief    IP/start    IP/RG
STL     85    258    6.13    0.90
SFG      83    222    6.12    1.02
CHC     81    236    6.11    0.99
COL     83    232    6.11    0.98
ARI     84    273    5.97    0.96
PIT     84    236    5.95    1.00
ATL     83    257    5.94    0.98
CIN     82    245    5.94    1.05
NYM     82    266    5.77    0.96
PHI     81    251    5.75    1.06
WSN     82    270    5.71    0.94
FLA     85    262    5.71    1.05
LAD     83    262    5.69    1.08
HOU     83    239    5.69    1.13
MIL     83    243    5.64    1.08
SDP     83    255    5.55    1.13

Right away we see some interesting differences between the leagues. The IP/start is just about the same between leagues (5.863 for NL and 5.840 for AL) but relievers in the NL tend to pitch fewer innings per appearance.  I assume this is due to the DH–in the NL if a pitcher gets in trouble and needs to be relieved, the reliever is going to come out of the game as soon as his place at bat comes up. In the AL, this concern doesn’t come up. This probably means that it’s a little more common for a reliever in the AL to come in to finish an inning and stay in to face one or more batters the next inning.

So in the NL East, all three leading teams (Phillies, Mets, and Marlins) are putting up some unimpressive pitching numbers. All three teams have low averages for IP per start. The Phils and the Fish, at least, have a higher average IP per relief appearance. The Phillies have one more ace up their sleeve, though, which is that the two biggest names in their bullpen, Brad Lidge and J.C. Romero, missed significant time to far this season, meaning that they will be fresher later in the season. Given that yesterday’s run-scoring analysis suggested that the Phillies are already deserving of a bigger this, this reaffirms that they will run away with the division.

In the NL Central, both the Cardinals and Cubs have put up fantastic starting pitching so far, at least in terms of innings per start. Coupled with yesterday’s results, this puts the Cardinals as the team most likely to win the divison.

The NL West gives us our first big surprise, where the Dodgers rank quite low on the list. The reason, though, is one of those exceptions I mentioned at the top–they’ve been holding up some of their youngsters from accumulating too many innings. After all, their team ERA is fantastic and their relievers are pitching just about the longest of any NL team. The Giants pitching has been great as well, but not enough to catch the Dodgers.

I do, however, like the Giants for the NL Wild Card.

So the picks are all the same results as from yesterday’s analysis except for the AL Wild Card. I think the locks are Philly, LA, Boston, and Minnesota. I feel pretty good about the Rangers and Cardinals, as well as the Giants as the NL WC.

2008 Tampa Bay Rays Pitching Splits - Baseball-Reference.com

Fixed a couple of bugs in the team splits. Tooltips for team splits do not show up for splits we don’t keep for players, e.g., “May, GS”. They would always be blank.

Second, I fixed the bug that was causing the tooltip for the pitching stats output (e.g., the second output for home/road stats) to fail.

Yesterday Ken Rosenthal was reminding Red Sox fans how badly Carlos Delgado started out last year.

Indeed, check out the sum from his first 43 games last year (though May 21.) He had 5 HR and 20 RBI, to go along with 36 Ks, a .217 BA, and a .650 OPS.

Through his first 43 games this year, David Ortiz had 1 HR and 18 RBI, 45 Ks, a .194 BA, and a .594 OPS. Worse numbers than even Delgado last year. But you know what else? Delgado finished 2008 with 38 HR, 115 RBI, and an .871 OPS. His slow start is nothing but a distant memory. If Ortiz can have 80% of the season that Delgado had last year, he’ll be fine. That bomb he hit against the Yankees last night helps.

Speaking of the Yankees, on ESPN radio, I heard the guys talking about how much better Derek Jeter is than Alex Rodriguez during critical times in games. (I think the theory came from all the recent discussion of how much better A-rod hits when games are out of reach, i.e. how many of his homers & RBI come during garbage time.)

Thanks to the new Leverage splits that were added during the recent site update, this is quite easy to measure.  Take a look at Derek Jeter’s career leverage splits. For those who do not know, leverage calculations use Win Probability Added to determine how much of a swing any given situation has in the outcome of the game. It looks at how all games in the same situations have turned out historically and can therefore calculate the increased or decreased likelihood that a player’s team will win that particuar game based on what the player does. It is, in my opinion, the best metric out there for measuring the true value of a player’s offensive performance.

Anyway, you can see that Jeter has hit better in high- and medium-leverage situations than he has in low-leverage situations. Both his BA and OBP are significantly higher and his fractional OPS (tOPS+) shows that more of his own production comes in the higher leverage situations. In terms of RBIs, he has 0.24 RBI per PA in high-leverage, 0.10 RBI per PA in medium-leverage, and 0.07 RBI per PA in low-leverage situations. (This general trend would be expected as situations with runners on base are by definition higher leverage, so there are more RBI opportunities in high-leverage situations.)

With A-rod, the picture is a little different. He hits virtually the same in all three cases, with BA, OBP, and tOPS+ virtually identical for high-, medium-, and low-leverage situations. He has 0.37 RBI per PA in high-leverage, 0.16 RBI/PA in medium, and 0.12 RBI/PA in low. We see that his RBI production, while still shifted like Jeter’s is somewhat closer to being equal in all three cases.

This supports the general argument that a greater fraction of Derek Jeter’s production helps his team win games than for A-rod. That being said, A-rod produces so many more runs that he is still likely helping his team win more games than Jeter. The point being made on ESPN radio, though, was this this is why the fans adore Jeter and hate A-rod–because the perception (which really is truth) is that Jeter shines more when the game is on the line.

I heard a bit on ESPN radio about how Eric Gagne was historically much better in save situations than in non-save situations.

That’s easy to see from his splits.

In 216 games comprising save situations, he had an ERA of 2.31. In 138 games comprising non-save situations, he had an ERA of 3.06. While both numbers are good, that’s a pretty significant difference. Note that the non-save situations excludes game starts which, although clearly a situation in which a save can not be earned, doesn’t really apply to what we’re looking at. Early in his career, Gagne was a starter, and it’s helpful that the “non-save situation” already excludes game starts.

As a reliever, his career OPS against was .573, which is excellent. In save situations, that figure is .524 while in non-save situations it was .639. Again, both figures are good but that is a very large difference over so many innings (over 370 total.)

Eric Gagne’s highest similarity score is to Bobby Thipgen, who had an even more stilted set of splits in favor of save situations. Thigpen’s ERA was more than 1.5 runs higher in non-save situations.

I wonder why this is. I’ve heard managers reference that their closers do best when pitching one inning (the 9th usually.) But is this cause or effect? Clearly Gagne and Thigpen both did better when pitching in save situations, but was it their mentality or the hitters’ mentality, or something else?

For a bit more data, I checked Mariano Rivera’s splits, and he’s much closer, although still a little better in save situations. Ditto for Trevor Hoffman.

I also notice that the K/BB ratios for all these guys are significantly higher in save situations. I wonder if that has to do with eagerness of the batters, knowing that they need runs and perhaps are more likely to swing, and therefore more likely to swing and miss.

Thoughts on this?

Just 7 players have gotten at least 100 RBI in each season at ages 34, 35, and 36:

                   From  To   Ages Seasons Link to Individual Seasons
+-----------------+----+----+-----+-------+------------------------------+
 Raul Ibanez       2006 2008 34-36       3 Ind. Seasons
 Gary Sheffield    2003 2005 34-36       3 Ind. Seasons
 Rafael Palmeiro   1999 2001 34-36       3 Ind. Seasons
 Paul O'Neill      1997 1999 34-36       3 Ind. Seasons
 Andres Galarraga  1995 1997 34-36       3 Ind. Seasons
 Stan Musial       1955 1957 34-36       3 Ind. Seasons
 Babe Ruth         1929 1931 34-36       3 Ind. Seasons              

Ibanez is easily the most surprising name on there as a late bloomer. His first 100-RBI season didn’t come until age 30 and his second was the one at age 34. He’s 37 years old now and has averaged more than 24 HR the past 4 years, and yet hasn’t reached 200 career homers.

By comparison, Gary Sheffield had 449 HR at the end of his age 36 season. Babe Ruth had 611 HR at that time.

Ibanez has had a fantastic start this season including his best March/April ever as well as what is already his best May ever. Assuming he falls back towards his career averages for the rest of the year, he still has a good shot at setting career highs in HR, RBI, BA, OBP, and SLG this year.

Jonathan Papelbon has had a fantastic career so far and appears likely to become one of the best closers of the next decade, taking over for Mariano Rivera and Trevor Hoffman. But I have to say that the guy is a complete jackass. While I don’t think it’s his job to be a role model and do the job that parents are supposed to do, he has behaved like a complete idiot on numerous occasions. I think he would do better to shut his mouth and keep his inappropriate behavior limited to when there aren’t TV cameras or journalists around. (FYI a few examples of his behavior are drunken rants after the Red Sox won the World Series in 2007, many public comments about how great it is to drink beer and get drunk, how “closers gotta get paid”, and numerous other comments about how important money is.)

Anyway, during his recent negotiations with Boston that ended in a record contract for a relief pitcher with so little experience, I heard someone argue that Papelbon was overused by the Red Sox in 2008 and was lousy when he had to pitch on back-to-back nights. That’s an easy thing to check just by looking at his 2008 pitching splits, specifically for pitching by number of days of rest.

 I Split         G   GS GF  W  L  S CG SHO   IP    ERA   H   R   ER HR  BB IBB  SO HBP
+-+------------+---+---+--+--+--+--+--+---+-----+------+---+---+---+--+---+---+---+---+
   0 Days,GR     18   0 17  2  1 14  0   0  18     2.00  16   5   4  1   1   0  13   0
   1 Day,GR      20   0 19  1  3 13  0   0  21     1.29  11   5   3  0   2   0  21   0
   2 Days,GR      8   0  6  1  0  3  0   0   8.1   6.48  10   6   6  2   2   0  12   0
   3 Days,GR      8   0  7  0  0  4  0   0   8.1   1.08   9   4   1  0   1   0  14   0
   4 Days,GR      5   0  5  0  0  2  0   0   5     1.80   4   1   1  0   0   0   8   0
   5 Days,GR      2   0  2  0  0  0  0   0   1.2   0.00   2   0   0  0   0   0   3   0
   6+ Days,GR     6   0  6  1  0  5  0   0   7     3.86   6   3   3  1   2   0   6   0

It’s true that he was only a little worse on back-to-back days. He allowed 1 more earned run in 3 fewer innings, and his hit rate was higher, and his strikeout rate was lower. But his numbers with zero days rest were still excellent. Interestingly, his numbers with 2 days rest were pretty bad, thanks I’m guessing to those 2 HR he allowed. I doubt that has much to do with how much rest he had.

Going back to 2007, we can learn a few things:

 I Split         G   GS GF  W  L  S CG SHO   IP    ERA   H   R   ER HR  BB IBB  SO HBP
+-+------------+---+---+--+--+--+--+--+---+-----+------+---+---+---+--+---+---+---+---+
   0 Days,GR      8   0  8  0  1  6  0   0   8     1.12   2   1   1  1   2   0  12   0
   1 Day,GR      13   0 11  0  1  9  0   0  13     3.46  10   5   5  1   6   0  19   1
   2 Days,GR     18   0 16  1  1 11  0   0  18     1.00   7   2   2  0   2   0  23   1
   3 Days,GR      8   0  7  0  0  6  0   0   8.1   3.24   6   3   3  2   2   0   9   0
   4 Days,GR      8   0  7  0  0  3  0   0   7     1.29   3   1   1  1   3   0  14   1
   5 Days,GR      3   0  3  0  0  1  0   0   3     0.00   2   0   0  0   0   0   5   1
   6+ Days,GR     1   0  1  0  0  1  0   0   1     0.00   0   0   0  0   0   0   2   0

Firstly, he was used a lot less on back-to-back nights, although his pitching was awesome in those cases. He was used on 2 days’ rest a lot more as well. My guess is that the Red Sox management felt that he had gotten stronger in 2008 (he had an arm injury previously) and were willing to pitch him more frequently last year.

Anyway, sorry about the rant on the guy. Great pitcher, just a total jerk. He may match Rivera and Hoffman in performance but I don’t think he’ll ever match either guy in class.

Traditionally,  certain types of players have been cast for specific positions in the batting order (speedy leadoff hitter, contact #2 hitter etc.).  Here are some players who bucked the trend. All lists are 1956-2008.

Disclaimer: This is by no means meant to be worst of list. To make this list a player has to play a tremendous amount of games hitting in a  particular slot in the batting order.  Additionally,  players who get their stats in bunches, as I suspect was the case with Billy Williams,  will be penalized as well. Nevertheless, I thought that it would still be fun to take a look.

Most games in a season batting leadoff, but not recording a stolen base.

 Pete Rose         1975   162 Ind. Games
 Chuck Schilling   1961   150 Ind. Games
 Dave Cash         1975   149 Ind. Games
 Pete Rose         1973   148 Ind. Games
 Pete Rose         1976   147 Ind. Games
 Pete Rose         1971   146 Ind. Games
 Pete Rose         1978   146 Ind. Games
 Don Kessinger     1969   146 Ind. Games
 Pete Rose         1968   145 Ind. Games
 Don Kessinger     1968   145 Ind. Games
 Pete Rose         1969   144 Ind. Games

Usually, the Batting Game tool  is not perfect for searches like this, because it doesn’t take into account playing time and games with multiple occurrences. However, when a player can go an entire season, play every single game and get shutout in them all, then you know he is the champ.  In 1975 Pete Rose did just that. 162 games leading off  and not 1 stolen base.  In fact for his career Rose averaged 8.75 stolen bases per 162 games leading off.

Most games batting second and recording at least 1 strikeout.

 Dan Uggla         2007    95 Ind. Games
 Jay Bell          1999    93 Ind. Games
 Jay Bell          1993    91 Ind. Games
 Royce Clayton     2004    90 Ind. Games
 Lou Brock         1964    90 Ind. Games
 Phil Bradley      1985    89 Ind. Games
 Dwight Evans      1982    87 Ind. Games
 Alex Rodriguez    1998    86 Ind. Games
 Dwight Evans      1984    86 Ind. Games
 Robby Thompson    1989    85 Ind. Games

If you look further down the list Jay Bell’s name pops up a few more times. For his career,  Bell averaged over 116 strikeouts per 162 games from the #2 hole.

Most games batting third without knocking in a runner.

 Carl Yastrzemski  1975   110 Ind. Games
 Billy Williams    1968   110 Ind. Games
 Dale Murphy       1986   109 Ind. Games
 Billy Williams    1967   107 Ind. Games
 Tony Gwynn        1989   106 Ind. Games
 Ryan Zimmerman    2007   105 Ind. Games
 Carl Yastrzemski  1963   105 Ind. Games
 George Brett      1976   105 Ind. Games
 Carl Yastrzemski  1968   104 Ind. Games
 Cal Ripken        1984   104 Ind. Games

If you click on the link, you’ll see that two names dramatically  jump out from this search Carl Yastrzemski and Billy Williams.  Yastrzemski averaged 91 RBI per 162 games  as a number 3 hitter in his career. Williams’s average was 100.5 per 162.

Most games batting fourth without hitting a homerun.

 Joe Torre         1969   141 Ind. Games
 Bobby Murcer      1973   141 Ind. Games
 Bob Watson        1973   140 Ind. Games
 Justin Morneau    2008   140 Ind. Games
 Ron Santo         1963   139 Ind. Games
 Greg Luzinski     1982   139 Ind. Games
 Joe Torre         1971   138 Ind. Games
 Alex Johnson      1970   138 Ind. Games
 Bobby Bonilla     1989   138 Ind. Games
 Bobby Bonilla     1991   138 Ind. Games

The two names that appear most often on this list are Joe Torre and Bobby Bonilla.  For his career Torre hit 20.25 home runs per 162 games batting fourth.   Bonilla’s career was a mixed bag. In all he hit  26.39 home runs per 162 games batting fourth.

I’m going to leave it at that. If anyone wants to pick it up, I’d be interested to see what you come up with.  One word of caution: This doesn’t work well on the career level. There are players who are so good at what they do that they dominate the playing time at their batting order postion and then by default finish at the top of the zero games as well. For example, the player with the second most career 0 SB games from the leadoff slot is Rickey Henderson.   So try it with single seasons, I think that the top few names are revealing.

In honor of today’s inauguration of a new American president, here are a few “presidential” facts about El Presidente, Dennis Martinez:

Most PAs against Martinez:

                   **PA**  AB  H  2B 3B HR RBI  BB  SO   BA   OBP   SLG   OPS   SH  SF IBB HBP GDP G_miss YR_miss
+-----------------+-------+---+---+--+--+--+---+---+---+-----+-----+-----+-----+---+---+---+---+---+------+-------+
 Barry Bonds         100    92  21  5  1  1   7   8   8  .228  .290  .337  .627   0   0   2   0   0

None other than Barry “U.S.” Bonds.

Most HR against Martinez:

                    PA  AB  H  2B 3B **HR** RBI  BB  SO   BA   OBP   SLG   OPS   SH  SF IBB HBP GDP G_miss YR_miss
+-----------------+---+---+---+--+--+------+---+---+---+-----+-----+-----+-----+---+---+---+---+---+------+-------+
 Jim Rice           95  85  32  4  4    7    26   7   8  .376  .421  .765 1.186   0   2   0   1   2

None other than outgoing Secretary of State Jim “Condoleeza” Rice.

He gave up a homer to Randy “George” Bush:

  Car# Year Date          Tm   Opp Score       Inn RoB Out Cnt Pit Play Desc.
+-----+----+-------------+---+----+-----------+---+---+---+---+---+-------------------------+
     1 1983 1983-05-25    MIN @BAL ahead  2-0  t 1 12-   1  -      Flyball: CF (Deep CF)

  Car# Year Date          Tm   Opp Score       Inn RoB Out Cnt Pit Play Desc.
+-----+----+-------------+---+----+-----------+---+---+---+---+---+-------------------------+
     2 1984 1984-07-04    MIN  BAL tied   0-0  b 2 ---   0  -      Strikeout
     3                             down   1-3  b 4 ---   1  -      Groundout: 2B-1B
     4                             down   1-5  b 7 ---   0  -      Home Run

  Car# Year Date          Tm   Opp Score       Inn RoB Out Cnt Pit Play Desc.
+-----+----+-------------+---+----+-----------+---+---+---+---+---+-------------------------+
     5 1985 1985-07-09    MIN @BAL tied   0-0  t 1 ---   2  -      Ground-rule Double
     6                             ahead  1-0  t 3 12-   1  -      Walk; Puckett to 3B; Hatcher to 2B
     7                             ahead  4-0  t 4 1-3   2  -      Lineout: 1B            

And so on…

Recently I wrote that the Red Sox should try to keep Jason Varitek because catcher’s offensive contributions have been steadily in decline. My metric of 20 HR, 75 RBI seasons was (reasonably) questioned by some, so here is a less arbitrary way of looking at it.

Using the basic splits across the major leagues (such as can be found here) I’ve graphed OPS+ contributions by positions as far back as the data goes, to 1956.

Here is the raw data:

So remember that an average major leaguer comes in at 100. A quick look at the above graph reveals things like:

• Overall, there is far less spread among the positions today than there used to be, save for the early 1980s when the spread was also small.
• First baseman have been the biggest contributors, leading baseball almost every year. The difference was huge back prior to the mid-70s, when 1B’s occasionally had OPS+ values as high as 130!!
• Other above-average contributors have been RF, LF, DH, 3B, and CF, with each of those positions being above 100 nearly every single year.
• Centerfielders have been on a continuous decline over the last 50 years. In the late 1950s, they were as highly ranked as 1B and the corner outfielders. By the 1970s, third basemen had caught CFs. In the last 5 years, CFs have now fallen below 3B.
• Catchers, shortstops, and second basemen have been below average nearly all years.
• However, while catchers show a steady decline over this 50-year period, 2Bs and SSs have come closer to the pack, consistently hitting 90 or higher the last bunch of years.
• Finally, and more to the main point of this post, catchers how now fallen to be the least-contributing group in baseball. They have been dead last or tied for last in 7 out of the last 8 years.

There are numerous other interesting things that can be gleaned from the above graph, such as the bumps up in 1998 for 1B and RF when McGwire and Sosa when on their HR-hitting sprees. I encourage you to take a more detailed look at the plot on your own.

For those who’d prefer a simpler view, I offer this 10-year average of the above data. So, for example, the data for 2008 is an average of the values by position for the years 1999 through 2008.

This graph very clearly shows the gradual and continual decline of catchers. They were close to average in the 1960s but have steadily fallen off. By this 10-year average, they’ve actually become the worst group in baseball in the last 2 years.

Accepting the fact that catchers are the least productive hitters, this doesn’t mean that the Red Sox should accept a terrible offensive player at the position. What it does mean, though, is that they are unlikely to be able to find a catcher that is a truly significant contributor, and assuming that Varitek’s value to the pitching staff is real and significant, I feel that they are better off with him than with some other offensively-average catcher.

Longtime major leaguer Brett Myers spent the All-Star break this year in the minors, thanks to a horrendous first half. He was sent down to work some things out, but returned in July to the Phillies.

Obviously, he figured something out in the minors.

Check out his splits so far this year:

 I Split         G   GS GF  W  L  S CG SHO   IP    ERA   H   R   ER HR  BB IBB  SO HBP
+-+------------+---+---+--+--+--+--+--+---+-----+------+---+---+---+--+---+---+---+---+
   1st Half      17  17  0  3  9  0  0   0 101.2   5.84 115  70  66 24  44   3  88   3
   2nd Half       9   9  0  6  1  0  1   1  63.2   1.55  53  12  11  2  15   1  56   3 

More than 4 runs have come off his ERA and his HR rate has all but vanished. His K/BB ratio has improved considerably, as has his hits/9IP.

If the Phillies stand any chance of overtaking the Mets again this year just like they did last season, they’ll need Myers to continue his fantastic second half.