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Zito is Neato ... But Overrated

My blogging colleague Michael of Michael's Mets Ramblings commented today on a recent article by Joe Sheehan of Baseball Prospectus. I haven't read the whole article, since I can't afford $39.95 for a subscription to BP. However, here is the excerpt from Michael's post. If anyone would like to sponsor a BP subscription for me, I would be happy to provide additional commentary on some of their great articles.

Honestly, I think the A's traded the wrong left-hander. Lilly is a decent pitcher who is unlikely to be a star, and well-suited to the big outfield in Oakland. He's not very highly regarded, which you can probably tell by his being dealt straight up for Bobby Kielty. The A's got in the trade about what Lilly is worth.

The key in trading, though, is to swap a player whose perceived value is greater than his actual value, taking advantage of that gap to come out of a trade with more talent than you had before. Right now, there are few players in the game for whom the gap between perception and reality is greater than Barry Zito. Zito is just one year removed from a Cy Young Award, but he's been regressing ever since his best year, which was actually 2001.


Year  W-L  ERA    IP    BB/9  K/9   K/BB  HR/9
2000  7-4  2.72   92.2  4.37  7.58  1.73  0.58
2001 17-8  3.49  214.1  3.36  8.61  2.56  0.76
2002 23-5  2.75  229.1  3.06  7.14  2.33  0.94
2003 14-12 3.30  231.2  3.42  5.67  1.66  0.74


Pull away the Cy Young Award, the association with a great team and two other great starting pitchers, and the image of the flaky left-hander that doesn't get bothered by anything, and what you have is a pitcher who is heavily dependent on his defense and his ballpark, both of which have kept Zito's ERA down as his core stats regress. Subjectively, Zito has thrown a ton of pitches from ages 23-25, many of them sharp-breaking, joint-rending curveballs. He's the worst of the big three pitchers, but the only one with a gaudy trophy on the mantle. He's marketable, personable, and signed through 2006 at a total of about $16.5 million.

Zito is a mid-rotation starter with an ace's reputation. Trading him in the right deal--and the right deal would almost certainly be available--would be the kind of bold move that would solidify the team's spot atop the AL West for years to come. Think the Mets wouldn't have to consider a Zito-for-Jose Reyes trade? The Yankees are falling all over themselves to deal Nick Johnson and Alfonso Soriano this winter. Either would improve the A's; getting both--and would you put it past George Steinbrenner to trade both?--would make them a truly great team. Zito is a SoCal guy; both the Angels and Dodgers have good prospects within their system and new owners dying to be loved. The Cubs want a left-hander and appear to have no use for Juan Cruz or Hee Seop Choi.

There are any number of possibilities, all available because Zito has a superstar's name and a fourth-year player's  price tag. What makes a move like this sensible is that Zito isn't likely to continue being one of the league's top pitchers, and I have to believe a performance-conscious braintrust like the A's have sees the degradation in his performance and would concur with that idea. All they need to do is leverage that knowledge.

With Lilly gone, the A's have probably sealed off this route, but perhaps not. After all, they have Rich Harden, Justin Duchscherer and Mike Wood available right now, and Joe Blanton could be ready by midseason. Patching the hole left by Zito's absence would likely only be a problem for a short time, and the potential benefits, when you consider Zito's market value, are huge.

You can read Michael's response here.

I couldn't agree with Mr. Sheehan more. Hits and earned runs are largely defense-dependent statistics. The pitcher has a large measure of control over the number of walks, strikeouts, and homeruns he allows to the opposing team. All else is subject to the fancy of the fates and/or his defense. Zito's walk rate has been consistent over the past three seasons, and his rate is quite good. However, his K/9 and K/BB have dropped in each of the past two seasons, not a very good indicator of future success. He did a much better job this season keeping the ball in the yard (21% better to be exact), which is certainly a good sign. However, the strikeouts are a disturbing trend.

Strikeout rate is probably the single-most important indicator of future success. It certainly isn't ERA or hits allowed, which can fluctuate from year-to-year depending on park factors, defense, luck, rotation of the earth, etc.

I'm not overly concerned about which year was better, 2001 or 2002. Pedro Martinez should have won the Cy Young in 2002 anyway. Joe makes an excellent point about Zito's tradeability, though. I have soured on Zito, particularly because of his low strikeout rates. Pitchers who do not strike out a good number of hitters have a difficult time maintaining consistency in the big leagues. How many great pitchers are in the league now who don't rely greatly on their ability to retire batters without putting the ball into play? Imagine if you will, the Yankees without their ability to ring up strike three on opposing hitters. The Yanks had four pitchers in the top eight in the AL in K/BB (David Wells,#2, Mike Mussina,#3, Andy Pettitte, #7, and Roger Clemens, #8). With the Yankees infield, they would have led the league in runs against if they had a pitching staff made up of Barry Zitos.

Barry Zito is, in my estimation (and Joe's), at his peak value. He's coming off a pretty good season after a Cy Young winning one (even if it wasn't Cy Young-worthy), and there are a lot of teams that would give their left nut for that kind of "alleged" performance. While I doubt the Mets would even entertain the offer for Jose Reyes (at least I hope they wouldn't), the Yankees would almost certainly part with Nick Johnson. Barry Zito is what pitchers are supposed to turn into when they can no longer pitch like they used to, not when they are only 25.