Makeshift Mets Back In First, But What's the Matter With John Maine?

   After splitting the four-game series in Cincinnati, the Mets are back in a first-place tie with the Phillies for the lead in the NL East.  Lately it hasn't only been Jose Reyes, David Wright and Carlos Beltran leading the offense; Carlos Delgado has been on fire recently and came through with the clutch, game-tying hit in the seventh inning on Sunday, and the Mets' bench players have been carrying the torch as well.  The "irregulars," (as Mets television broadcaster Gary Cohen puts it) such as Fernando Tatis, Endy Chavez, Damion Easley and Ramon Castro, have been igniting the Mets' offense for the past three weeks.  But two new players with anything but household names were just as instrumental to the Mets' success in Cincy as anyone getting paid upwards of $12 million per year:  Argenis Reyes and Robinson Cancel.

    The feisty Reyes has played excellent defense at second base, and his knack for being right smack in the middle of countless rallies has been impressive.  He provides a solid presence in the number two hole, and if he and Easley keep up their production, we may see a small-scale Wally Pipp/Lou Gherig situation when Luis Castillo returns from injury.  Cancel only has two hits for the Mets this year--and only two since 1999 for that matter--but they could not have come at more opportune times.  His first was a two-out, two-run, pinch-hit single to give the Mets the lead in a 4-2 win against the Rangers on June 15, and the second was a pinch-hit double to lead off the tenth inning on Sunday in Cincinnati.  Argenis Reyes eventually followed with the grounder that Edwin Encarnacion threw into right field to score Cancel and give the Mets the lead.

    But even with Cancel's timely hitting, his real value is in his presence as a third catcher, because it allows Jerry Manuel to utilize Ramon Castro more often as a pinch hitter.  Just how spectacular has Castro been this year?  His .290 batting average with runners in scoring position is very good, but is dwarfed beside his .462 mark with RISP and two outs.  Castro always seems to come through with a big hit, and he has been a monumental part of this team as a dependable back-up catcher and spot-starter for the last four years.

    On the other side of the ball, after allowing just 13 hits over five games from July 8-12, the Mets' pitching has come back down to Earth.  The bullpen has started allowing runs again, and Aaron Heilman once again makes any Mets fan groan as he strolls toward the mound from the bullpen.  The key to maximizing bullpen production is keeping the relievers fresh; a main cause of the Mets' collapse in 2007 was an overworked bullpen that was out of gas come September.  In order to keep the bullpen fresh, starters need to go deeper into games.  One starter who has not been helping on that front is John Maine.

    What's the matter with John Maine anyway?  Even when he looks like he has absolute lights-out stuff on a given night, he still seems to get into early trouble and can never seem to get past the fifth inning.  On July 5 against the Phillies, Maine only allowed three baserunners (two walks, followed by a three-run homer by Ryan Howard), and his fastball looked fantastic, but he only lasted 5.2 innings, throwing 99 pitches in that span.  The reason was that of the 21 batters he faced that night, eight worked out at-bats of six pitches or more.  This inability to put hitters away early in at-bats has been Maine's biggest problem all season.  Ten of Maine's 20 starts this year have been quality starts.  In those ten starts, Maine has thrown 63.2 innings, and allowed 59 batters to work counts of six pitches or more.  In his ten non-quality starts he has allowed just as many deep counts, but in just 50.1 innings.  By fouling pitches off and and consequently making Maine throw more pitches, teams have been able to run up his pitch count and limit his inning totals.  As a result, in his ten non-quality starts, his ERA is 6.43 (compared to 2.40 in his ten quality starts), and he averages just five innings per non-quality start, as opposed to 6.1 innings per quality start.

Theory of the Week:  The Best Places to Play in Order to Win

    Over the last 16 years, since Oriole Park at Camden Yards opened in Baltimore, 16 other teams have moved into new stadiums.  Next year both the Mets and Yankees will christen new fields, and the Twins will ditch the Metrodome for an open-air ballpark in 2010.  This wave of new ballparks has brought with it both cavernous, pitcher-friendly yards such as Safeco Field in Seattle, Comerica Park in Detroit, Turner Field in Atlanta, PetCo Park in San Diego and AT&T Park in San Francisco, as well as tiny, homer-happy fields like Citizens Bank Park in Philadelphia, The Great American Ballpark in Cincinnati, Progressive Field in Cleveland and U.S. Cellular Field on the south side of Chicago.  Since 1992, newly built ballparks have hosted nine fall classics, and have been home to two World Series Champions.  But which kind of ballpark truly translates to wins on the diamond--a pitchers' park or a hitters' park?

    It has long been said that offense wins games and pitching wins championships.  There may just be some truth to that.  In the last 30 fall classics, 18 of the 60 teams to participate have led their respective league in ERA, while only 11 have led the league in runs scored.  Forty-five of the 60 teams (75%) have ranked in the top three in ERA, compared to 30 pennant-winners (50%) who have ranked third or better in runs scored.  While offense--and more specifically, timely hitting--is vital for any championship-caliber team, unwavering pitching is ultimately the key to winning pennants. 

    In light of that data, if I were starting a team from the ground up, I would try to tailor everything controllable toward aiding my pitching staff.  If shut-down pitching translates into wins, a pitcher-friendly park is an optimal place to play 81 games.  Naturally there are many factors at play other than just the ballpark--otherwise the teams with the biggest fields would win every year.  Payroll constraints, injuries, league competition, hot and cold streaks, and obviously player performance, are also instrumental in ultimately deciding the outcome of every baseball season.  But if it is possible to give a team an edge via its ballpark, then I would rather my team play in a pitcher-friendly park.

    Playing in a pitchers' park doesn't just help a team's ERA--it goes much deeper than that.  Pitcher-friendly parks boost pitchers' confidence, which can have an unmeasurable, yet enormous, effect on performance.   Free agent pitchers can be more easily enticed to sign with a team that plays in a bigger ballpark.  Just look at the Texas Rangers' problems signing front-line pitchers over the years:  they have been forced to overpay for Vicente Padilla, Kevin Millwood, Chan Ho Park and Kenny Rogers in their search for an ace over the last decade, and look how far that's gotten them.  By virtue of the fact that fewer runs are scored in pitcher-friendly parks, starters can routinely go deeper into games, therefore putting less pressure on the bullpen.  Over the course of 81 games, that can help ease the burden on relievers by a great margin.

    Are there exceptions to this theory?  Of course, there are.  The Phillies, who play in one of the most hitter-friendly stadiums in the big leagues, won the NL East last year, beating out the Mets, Braves, Marlins and Nationals, who all played in pitcher-friendly parks.  But the bottom line is that with all other factors being equal, a more pitcher-friendly ballpark is a better place to play.

I'll be posting again later today.  Check back for my Baseball History Tidbit of the Week--it comes from a time long before pitch counts. 

*Statistical information, as well as game logs and historical information, derived from www.baseballreference.com

**For information regarding ballpark trends in favor of hitters and pitchers, see Total Baseball and http://www.baseball-reference.com/about/parkadjust.shtml.