Jamie Moyer Dominates the Marlins . . . and the Cardinals, Rays, Nationals, and Orioles Too

by David S. Cohen on Jul 17, 2009 1:21 PM EDT

Last night, Jamie Moyer did what it seems Jamie Moyer does best: he dominated the Marlins. In his career, he's 13-2 against the Marlins, with a 2.83 ERA over 95.3 innings. He's even more amazing against them in Miami. There, he's 8-0 against them in 8 starts, racking up a 1.37 ERA in 52.7 innings.

Much is made of Moyer's mastery of the Marlins, but this kind of dominance by Moyer against one team is not unique. With a career ERA of 4.22 over 3,848.3 innings, you would expect Moyer to have some teams he really excels against. Certainly, the Marlins are one of those teams, but there are others as well. Here's a list of the teams that Moyer has a less than 3.00 ERA against over the course of his career:

Team	IP	ERA	WHIP	K/BB	HR/9	tOPS+	W-L
Cardinals	69.1	2.34	1.23	1.9	0.5	80	5-1
Rays	113.1	2.78	1.10	4.0	0.5	70	9-4
Marlins	95.1	2.83	1.04	2.8	1.0	72	13-2
Nationals	145.2	2.90	1.29	2.7	0.7	90	13-4
Orioles	199	2.98	1.14	2.2	1.0	77	18-4

Based on this list, there's nothing really special about the Marlins. His dominance of them sits comfortably with his dominance over a few other teams. The more important question, that I don't have the answer to, is whether there's some pattern here in the sense that there's anything that these teams have in common. That's a hard question, especially considering that he has performed well against these teams over such a long career (particularly over the Orioles and Rays, against whom he's pitched over a greater span of time than the three NL teams). If there's nothing that these teams have in common, is this just a normal distribution of performance for a player with a 4.22 ERA -- there are going to be some teams he dominates, and this is the list?

On the flipside, there are teams against whom Moyer is horrible. Even though past performance is no guarantee of future results here, I would think hard about skipping Moyer's spot in the rotation if the Phillies ever face the Red Sox again. Here's the same chart as above, but for the teams Moyer has a career 5.00+ ERA against:

Team	IP	ERA	WHIP	K/BB	HR/9	tOPS+	W-L
Red Sox	122	6.57	1.59	1.6	1.9	132	6-12
Phillies	84.2	5.74	1.58	2.0	1.6	128	5-8
Braves	94	5.65	1.47	1.2	1.2	110	3-9
Dodgers	72	5.50	1.43	2.1	1.0	107	3-6
Pirates	85.2	5.46	1.54	2.0	1.6	123	6-7
Rockies	33	5.45	1.39	1.9	1.1	112	1-4
Blue Jays	234.2	5.41	1.41	1.9	1.5	118	15-9
Reds	44.2	5.24	1.63	1.2	1.6	134	3-4

Same question here. Is there anything that these teams have in common? With the Phillies, Rockies, and Reds on the list, maybe he's not so good in hitters parks. After all, his career ERA at Citizens Bank Park is 5.04. But also on the list are the Dodgers and Braves, who have had pitchers parks.

Someone with a career ERA of 4.22 over almost 4000 innings is not going to have an ERA of 4.22 against every team. Rather, there are going to be some teams the pitcher dominates. And other teams the pitcher looks like a career minor leaguer. As boring as it is, Moyer's mastery of the Marlins may just be normal statistical variation.

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I didn’t watch any of the game last night, but was following it briefly on my iPhone—including when Moyer came the closest to getting in trouble, in the fifth inning. Cantu singled, he struck out the next guy, and then he walked Paulino. The Phils had a 3-0 lead, and I was getting nervous; he retired the next hitter, bringing up Brett Carroll, batting eighth. Mindful of Moyer’s two-out problems in some starts this year, I thought he should walk Carroll and pitch to Volstad, who’s something like an .070 hitter this year. But he got Carroll to foul out (I think) to end the inning.

This morning I looked at his splits to see if my subjective sense that Moyer has been worse with men on base or with two outs this year was borne out by the numbers. Long story short, it wasn’t… another argument against “I watch the games.” But what did stick out was his 2009 home/road splits. His ERA at home is something like 6.80 this year; on the road, it’s around 4.20.

In some scenarios, the Phils could find themselves with six starters in a few weeks’ time. If that happens to be the case, I’d love to see them consider a home/road platoon between Moyer and either Martinez or Hamels.

by dajafi on Jul 17, 2009 1:35 PM EDT reply actions

A couple of those teams that Moyer has dominated have just been horrific teams, nothing more. The Rays were a laughing stock when he was an AL pitcher, the Nats the NL equivalent. The one that jumps out to me is the record against the pirates who’ve also been dreadful in recent history. I suspect that his poor performance against them were dominated by his time with the Cubs, when the Pirates had the like of Bonds, Bonilla, etc… on their team and we’re slighly better.

The Reds also have usually been a good hitting team, but not so good pitching. For a pitcher to have an inflated ERA against them is expected, but the W/L might not correlate so well (and he’s only 1 gm under .500 against)

by Bilzo on Jul 17, 2009 1:45 PM EDT reply actions

So maybe it's that simple?

He’s been good against the bad teams and bad against the good teams. Over a 20+ year career throwing almost 4000 innings, that’s what we’d expect, right?

by David S. Cohen on Jul 17, 2009 2:22 PM EDT up reply actions

A couple are, and a couple aren’t though. It’s a decent mix.

by SJPhillyVT on Jul 17, 2009 2:39 PM EDT up reply actions

I think if you really wanted to go all ‘stathead’ style at this you would have to compare his performance against a given team against how well they raked AT THE TIME HE FACED THEM, which is a serious second order derivation.

It’s not hard to quantitate the performance of a great pitcher who stayed on one team his whole career, but Moyer has had a couple lines of demarcation. Span 1 = Fledgling rookie with Cubs
Span 2 = Journeyman stints with Texas/StL/Bos, Span 3 = prime/aging veteran with Seattle, Span 4 = Active Pitching coach with phils. Interleague has made this even tougher to assess, because he’s still facing the AL teams once in a while.

This would be a huge undertaking.

by Bilzo on Jul 17, 2009 3:51 PM EDT up reply actions

I'm curious whether age is a factor

I’m wondering what the average age of the batters he’s faced has been on each of those teams. His style of pitching seems to me to be more effective against younger (more impatient) batters, and less effective against veterans that have more experience “reading” junk pitches. Like dajafi, though, this is more of an “I watch the games” sort of feeling than anything statistical.

"When you make your final stand
I'll be right there
I'll never leave
And all I ask of you is
Believe"

by The Dark on Jul 17, 2009 2:41 PM EDT reply actions

I've wondered the same thing

But I’m not 100% sure how to figure this one out.

by David S. Cohen on Jul 17, 2009 2:47 PM EDT up reply actions

Secret Sauce

Nate Silver’s secret sauce formula showed that teams with pitchers who record more strikeouts tend to do better in the playoffs than othe successful teams. I do not believe he had a hypothesis why, but I have a fairly intuitive one…

If the primary thing that a pitcher controls is his walk, strikeout, and groundball/flyball ratio, then it’s natural that the hitter controls more of what happens when the ball has hit the bat, and the pitcher exerts relatiively more control over whether the hitter makes contact in the first place. Therefore, the reason that strikeout pitchers succeed more than other pitchers with similar ERAs in the playoffs is that playoff teams, on average, are going to do relatively better with batting average on contact, and slugging percentage on contact. The pitchers whose dominates comes from avoiding said contact will do better.

Moyer profiles then as the type of pitcher who strikes out fewer batters and therefore dominates teams that door more poorly on contact— bad teams primarily. That might also explain his relatively poor playoff performance last year though that is obviously a small, small sample size.

by Matt Swartz on Jul 17, 2009 2:47 PM EDT reply actions

Historical Perspectives

Interesting comments. In reading Waitkus’s book, he felt that his young teammates failed to wait out the Yankee pitchers in the 1950 Series, and wait for longer pitch counts. In the recent post season, the young Colorado hitters committed the same faults as the Whiz Kids by not waiting longer on the pitch counts and swinging on too many early pitches. Even though the Phillies lost in 1950, I believe that was the closest sweep in Series history.

by fan since late 40's on Jul 18, 2009 6:54 PM EDT reply actions