Ribbie Reporter -- In Gil we trust? For we must?

Musings on Meche

I was contemplating Gil Meche's start against the Boston Red Sox earlier tonight. This sort of contemplation is dangerous, because then I start thinking about ERA+, K-BB ratios, Nachoman Quality Starts and other such things. Then I pull open espn.com and baseball reference.com and start looking at Mr. Meche's career numbers. (Before we go any further, I'd like to tell Buzz Bissinger that I have never lived in my mother's basement[1] and in fact have only lived at home on holidays and during the summer since I was 14).
But anyway, back to Mr. Meche. He had the type of start tonight that drives the Nachoman – and sometimes me – to distraction. He went six innings and gave up only four hits. He struck out nine but walked five. He managed to get David Ortiz – who’s always had his number – out three times.[2]
And when it was all said and done, he handed the bullpen a 4-2 lead that turned into a 4-3 victory after a few hiccups from closer Joakim Soria. That’s not a NQS, but I can’t be too upset with managing to hold the Red Sox to only two runs. Obviously Meche was struggling with his control all night, but he managed to dance out of trouble after the first inning (when he allowed the two runs) and turn in five more solid innings. Tonight wasn’t the sort of performance that makes general managers or the folks at Baseball Tonight drool, but it was certainly a workmanlike – and effective – effort.
So what should we make of Meche, who’s in the second year of a 5 year, $55 million contract that was widely reviled when it was announced in the winter of 2007. Last year Meche turned in an excellent season, posting a 3.67 ERA that was more than a run better than the league average and gave him an ERA+ of 128.[3]
This year, however, has been more of a struggle. Meche’s ERA is 4.17, though that’s still below the league average of 4.39. Opponents are hitting a slightly better batting average against him and have a slightly higher OPS (on-base plus slugging).[4] So, by all appearances, Meche is having a mediocre season, one probably not worth $11 million.
If you look deeper, however, you start to wonder if that’s really true. If you throw out April, Meche’s ERA is 3.25. Obviously the Royals pay Meche to pitch well every month, not just after the weather warms up, but even great pitchers go through six or seven start stretches in their career where they scuffle and even stink. Baseball’s a cyclical game that way. Even though his numbers are down, he’s on pace to pitch 206 innings. Last year he threw 214, good enough for eighth best in the AL. So aside from one awful month, Meche has been as good as last year. He’ll probably finish in the top 1o in innings pitched. And at $11 million, he makes less than Barry Zito, Pedro Martinez, Mike Hampton and Jason Schmidt. Everyone knows Zito has been awful. The others haven’t even pitched this year more than once or twice (well, Pedro’s pitched 10 times and run up a nice 6.16 ERA). So yes, Gil Meche is still probably overpaid. And yes, he didn’t look brilliant last night against the Red Sox, but the Royals still won 4-3, so who’s complaining? Besides, we could have been spending all of that money on Barry Zito.

[1] We don’t even have a finished basement in fact. It’s just used for storing junk and serving as a tornado shelter.
[2] Ortiz came into the game hitting something like .450 against Meche in about 20-30 career at bats.
[3] 100 is the league average… this stat lets you compare pitchers across years, leagues, etc. by seeing how much better (or worse) they were than the rest of their peers.
[4] Crud. Now I’ve spent 20 minutes looking up OPS. Did you know that Babe Ruth and Barry Bonds have the six highest OPS seasons in history, with Barry’s 1.4217 in 2004 taking top honors? Think about that: Barry got on base 60(!!!!!) percent of the time that year and still slugged better than .800 in the few at bats where he got a decent pitch to hit. Dang. He may be a scumbag and a steroid user, but that’s wild.