Maine is coming into the season at age 28, but he will turn 29 in May. Maine is one of those guys you envision being a "youngster", but in truth there are many guys his age who have already put in 5+ quality seasons as a regular starter.
When you think of John Maine, you immediately think of durability issues. Maine has had only one season thus far with 30 or more starts, and one other season with 25 starts. The rest of his career he's been on the mend and on the shelf.
The Breakdown:
Maine has been noticeably solid whenever healthy. He always has a winning record and he always has a decent WHIP (typically in the 1.25 range). His strikeout rates have fluctuated a bit, but it's hard to tell with Maine because of the sample size each year. Overall, he strikes out 7.5 batters per 9, but the more starts he has had in a season, the higher his rate (as high as 8.5 per 9 a few years ago when he started 32 games.
Trends:
Maine's has been allowing fewer homeruns per 9 every year for his entire career. 2.5, 1.8, 1.5, 1.1, 1.0 and 0.9 last year. He's been improving as a "pitcher". The same had been true for his walk rates as well, until the last couple of years where it jumped up a hair. I think this might largely be the result of lack of regular games, coming off of injury and shaking off the rust.
Projections:
Bill James predicts that Maine is going to have a solid year, with a 3.86 ERA and 27 starts, striking out about 7.4 per 9 IP.
CHONE projections are a bit harsher. They predict closer to 22 starts, and a mediocre 4.46 ERA. The biggest difference between James and CHONE is that CHONE projects Maine to be more easily hit, yielding about 20 more hits and striking out 20+ fewer batters.
My Prediction:
This is tough, simply because no one really knows what John Maine's arm feel like. Even if it feels fine when the season starts, it could fatigue in June at which point we are looking at a different pitcher.
I am going to pick and choose from each side of the projections above. I think that Maine understand the value in staying healthy. A healthy mediocre pitcher can make a boatload of money these days, where the talented but oft injured guys struggle to get short-term incentive-laden deals. See Ben Sheets and Joel Pineiro for a great example. Sheets is twice the pitcher that Pineiro is, but Sheets is groping for a one year deal at the same kind of money that Pineiro is hoping to get for 3.
The net result is that Maine is going to look to continue improving as a pitcher, at the expense of his strikeout rate (and velocity). He'll pitch more to contact (especially in Citi Field) and secretly find some contentment in merely taking the hill every 5 days for a change.
Line: 12-8, 4.50 ERA, 165 IP, 28 GS, 7.0 K/9, 4.2 BB/9, .275 BAA
No comments:
Post a Comment