Don’t Retire Smoltz Just Yet

People have been saying it, Tweeting it, blogging it, thinking it since about 9:00 PM last night: It's hard to watch John Smoltz pitch like this. Obviously, I'm a Yankee fan, so it wasn't too hard to watch Smoltz pitch poorly last night.  Actually, it was a sigh of relief to see the Yankees put up big numbers early against a Red Sox team they hadn't beat yet. But still.  If you like baseball, if you like what it means to be a dyed in the wool baseball player, you have to at least respect John Smoltz, if not flat out admire him.  And at the ripe age of 42, he's still trying to play the game he loves after major shoulder surgery shortened his 2008 season. After Thursday's performance against the Yankees, people are hoping Smoltz will call it quits.  But that might be premature. Smoltz's numbers don't look great.  His ERA (8.32) and WHIP (1.70) for 2009 are pretty bad. But there's a few things to feel good about:

1. Smoltz is still throwing in the low 90's.

2. His slider and splitter still appear to have some bite.

3. Despite bad totals, his K/BB ratio is 3.67, higher than his career average.  Before last night's game, it was 6:1.

4. His K/IP ratio is 7.4, a little below his career ratio of 8.0.

What I find most interesting in Smoltz's stats this season are these three breakdowns:

Times Facing Opponent in Game
Split	G	PA	AB	R	H	2B	3B	HR	BB	SO	SO/BB
1st PA in G	8	74	64	6	16	2	1	0	7	16	2.29
2nd PA in G	8	68	67	16	26	9	0	3	1	8	8
cont.
Split	BA	OBP	SLG	OPS	TB	HBP	BAbip
1st PA in G	.250	.342	.313	.655	20	2	.333
2nd PA in G	.388	.397	.657	1.054	44	0	.411
By Inning
Split	G	PA	AB	R	H	2B	3B	HR	BB	SO	SO/BB
1st inning	8	37	30	5	8	1	0	0	5	7	1.4
2nd inning	8	29	27	0	5	1	0	0	2	7	3.5
3rd inning	8	40	39	9	15	4	1	2	0	6
4th inning	8	40	38	10	18	7	0	1	2	3	1.5
cont.
Split	BA	OBP	SLG	OPS	TB	HBP	BAbip
1st inning	.267	.405	.300	.705	9	2	.348
2nd inning	.185	.241	.222	.464	6	0	.250
3rd inning	.385	.385	.692	1.077	27	0	.419
4th inning	.474	.500	.737	1.237	28	0	.500
Pitch Count
Split	G	PA	AB	R	H	2B	3B	HR	BB	SO	SO/BB
Pitch 1-25	8	43	35	3	9	1	0	0	6	6	1
Pitch 26-50	8	54	52	8	17	3	1	2	1	12	12
Pitch 51-75	8	50	49	13	19	8	0	1	1	6	6
cont.
Split	BA	OBP	SLG	OPS	TB	HBP	BAbip
Pitch 1-25	.257	.395	.286	.681	10	2	.310
Pitch 26-50	.327	.340	.538	.878	28	0	.395
Pitch 51-75	.388	.400	.612	1.012	30	0	.429

Small sample sizes?  Absolutely. There's still some info to be taken from this.  Obviously, he's more effective the first time he goes through the order and the second time he gets beat up.  He also seems to find his groove around the 20 pitch count. This is complete speculation on my part, but I think there is a matter of conditioning Smoltz's arm.  He had "only" thrown 27 innings in the minors before coming back up to the majors.  Should that be enough after the pain he went through in 2007 and 2008 before going under the knife of Dr. Andrews?  I don't know, but I would imagine it would take him some time to both build up the strength and get the feel back for his pitches. The other thought here is that Smoltz may not be a starting pitcher anymore, but there's nothing to say he can't be a good to great relief pitcher again.  The velocity is there and probably could be a bit higher in a relief role.  It may be that his arm can't handle the rigors of 80 to 100 pitches, or even 50.  Maybe the more he throws the stronger he will get. I'd be willing to bet, however, that if Smoltz wanted to make the move back to the bullpen, he would have decent success.  The question is, would he want to do it? I'm not ready to throw Smoltz to the curb just yet.  The Sox may be stuck with him in the rotation a little bit longer until at least Wakefield or Dice-K comes back.  At that point, it would make sense for them to let Smoltz work himself out in the pen.

es Facing Opponent in Game

CSV · PRE · Direct Link

Split	G	PA	AB	R	H	2B	3B	HR	SB	CS	BB	SO	SO/BB	BA	OBP	SLG	OPS	TB	GDP	HBP	SH	SF	IBB	BA	tOPS+	sOPS+
1st PA in G	8	74	64	6	16	2	1	0	0	0	7	16	2.29	.250	.342	.313	.655	20	3	2	1	0	0	.333	43	84
2nd PA in G	8	68	67	16	26	9	0	3	0	0	1	8	8.00	.388	.397	.657	1.054	44	1	0	0	0	0	.411	116	171