The "John Maine Effect"

By Matt "The Stat" Himelfarb
Posted Monday, April 30, 2007

David Wright is not the face of the franchise. Neither Willie Randolph's "small ball" style or Jose Reye's energy precisely captures the flavor of the Mets.

It's John Maine, ands that's something Mets fans shouldn't be too happy about.

That's simply because Maine, who most folks in the F.U. forums have conjectured is a mainstay in the Mets rotation, is symbolic of the word luck.

Luck is what got Robinson Cano, Chien-Ming Wang, and now Philip Hughes to the Bronx. Luck is worth 1,000 other words. Luck embodies and honors the principles of the month of April. Luck can also be utilized as the key cog in the definition of the phrase "blind optimism."

Coming into this season, many fans thought that Maine's only glaring weakness was an inability to last past the 5th or 6th inning, and developing more consistency with his changeup and slider. Since then, he has come one hit away from pitching a no-no, made Jim Duquette look like an even bigger fool, and has had an article written by fellow professor Evan Pritchard, in which he contemplated the idea of Maine throwing the first no-hitter in Mets history.

It doesn't mean squat to me.

John Maine's Statistics (2006)
IP…… H……. K/BB….. HR…… BABIP
90....69.... 2.15.... 15..... .225

Now, I did acknowledge the fact that this was Maine's first full season in the big leagues, and that his career K/BB ratio, ( 2.16) included a pretty bad short stint with Baltimore in 2005, but first of all, we're not talking about some 19 year-old fireballer in A-Ball, with a little trouble spotting pitches, We're talking about a 25 year-old collegiate pitcher with some pretty average stuff aside from a nice sinking fastball that can be inconsistent at times.

Second of all, Maine's start this year, for me, has proven to be somewhat disappointing:

IP…...…. H…….. KK/B…… HR
26.1 ... 15 .... 1.57 .... 2

Where am I going with all this? Maine's era. in 2006 (3.60) and this year, (1.71) is nothing but a complete aberration. While some of you may be thinking I've come to this conclusion using Voros McCracken's theory of "DIPS" (defense independent pitching statistics) which was invented by him in 1999 and published on Baseball Prospectus, but it's McCrakcen's 2.0 version of DIPS- BABIP (batting average on balls in play) that precisely captures the "luck" of John Maine.

Simply put, Based on the research of Voros McCracken and others, BABIP is mostly a function of a pitcher's defense and luck, rather than persistent skill. There have been studies showing that pitchers have little to no control over balls put in play. Thus, pitchers with abnormally high or low BABIPs are good bets to see their performances regress to the mean.

In addition, for those not interested in looking at statistics unfamiliar to them, the best way to predict a pitcher's era. is not hits allowed, but statistics such as strikeouts, walks, and HRs, (which Maine has also allowed a lot of) that have no effect from the defense behind them.

In a study done by David Gassko, at "The Hardball Times", he conjectured that McCracken's theory did, indeed hold true. "The pitchers who were the best at preventing hits on balls in play in 2004 had a composite BABIP of .252 that year, he said, versus an average of .291 for the whole sample. In 2005, they regressed to a BABIP of .282, versus an average of .288.

For instance, on a local scale, this is why we see pitchers like Shawn Chacon, who's 2.84 era. with the Yankees in 2005 was a direct result of a .240 BABIP. Earlier in the year, in Colorado, he posted a much more normal .283 BABIP. leading to a 4.08 ERA. In 2004, Carl Pavano posted a .287 BABIP an average mark, which led to his 3.00 ERA. In 2005, that number shot up to .333. Surely, the increasing of an occurrence over which a pitcher has little or no control contributed in some way to his 4.77 ERA.

Maine isn't alone though; he's just the tip of the iceberg. Paul Lo Duca, Moises Alou, and Shawn Green are all solid players and more proven than Maine, but they're only as good as the rest Willie Randolph gives them. Let's face it, even if the wheel doesn't fall off these guys this year, (my gut feeling is that Valentin will) the success they've had early on this year is nevertheless unsustainable. Paul Lo Duca has all the intangibles to go along with sheer playing ability, but there's no reason that in April, if Lo Duca's thumb is bothering him, you don't let it get worse no matter how bad he wants to play. If I can have Endy Chavez or even Ben Johnson at 100%, I want them more than Green or Alou at 75%. Unfortunately, there was no better time to let Lastings Milledge take his bumps last year than last August, and yet each and every day, Willie Randolph wrote down Michael Tucker's name on the lineup card every day.

Come June or July, the shine will have fallen off many players who've positively affected the Shea Faithful's conscience. In a weak National League and the expected rebound of David Wright, it may not be all that bad, but seeing the Phillies or Marlins leapfrog over the Mets at one point isn't out of the question.

Matt Himelfarb has fabricated the ingenious idea of dealing John Maine and Carlos Gomez to the Atlanta Braves for Jarrod Saltamacchia. Who else would think of that but him? Sound off at: matthimelfarb@gmail.com or at: www.prospectpit.blogspot.com