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Noah K. Murray/The Star-Ledger
Our resident Sabermetrics analyst at Metszilla, The Bionicchop, decided to pull out his calculator, t-square, sun dial, pocket protector and whatever other nerdly devices he deemed necessary in order to get a good look at two of the better stories in New York baseball this season.
Part I of the story is that of the Mets rookie left-hander Jonathon Niese, who, after a torn hamstring tendon ended his 2009 season, entered this season without so much as a guaranteed spot in the rotation. The highlights of his season are many and include a 1-hit complete game shutout against the Padres on June 10th. About the only thing more encouraging than Niese's current performance, is his future……even when you take a stab at his stats with a saber:
Numbers from the back of the baseball card
Numbers from the back of the Da Vinci Code
- 23 years old
- 3.38 ERA / 3.95 XERA
- DOM (K/9) 7.1
- CTL (BB/9) 2.8
For anyone who prays to the bible of sabermetrics the above indicators help get you to one bottom line, Base Performan
ce Value (BPV). An excellent resource for deciphering these statistics can be found on line at BaseballHQ.com. According to the site, BPV is a measure of 'overall raw skill level' and is calculated with a formula that Good Will Hunting discovered while sanding the floors of M.I.T. ((Dominance Rate – 5.0) x 18) + ((4.0 – Walk rate) x 27) + (Ground ball rate as whole number – 40).
Photo by Michael Baron
With that in mind, the benchmark for BPV is a minimum of 50 for a player with hopes of achieving long term success. Bullpen aces will have BPV's in excess of 100 but that usually is not sustainable. As a point of reference when looking at Niese's rookie season, keep in mind that Ubaldo Jimenez has a BPV of 83 so far this year, Mat Latos a 114, and Roy Halladay checks in with an unworldly 148.
Niese registered a 83 PBV in June, a 109 in July and a 79 in August. Very solid #'s for a young hurler seemingly on the cusp of ace material. At the age of 23 it's an easy assertion that he's one of the best young pitchers in the game today. From a saber standpoint, Niese is about as sure of sure thing as you can have with a young MLB arm.
If you need more convincing then we recommend tuning in to his start this Saturday evening in Pittsburgh. The rookie left-hander will take on the Pittsburgh Pirates and is riding a string of 3 straight starts in which he has pitched innings and allowed 1 ER.
We did mention that while The Bionicchop was rolling out the saber analysis we had him do a two part story, but the second half will come tomorrow and without giving away the star of the post, let's just say there's some funky knuckling involved.
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