Ricky Nolasco will be taking to the bump shortly as the Florida Marlins take on the New York Mets tonight at Citi Field. The Miami Herold has a nice little piece on Nolasco and his inability to finish off batters after an 0-2 count. Hey Ricky, when Mortal Kombat tells you to finish him, you can’t just do a leg sweep, people will never forgive you for shit like that. You’ve defeated him, and now must hit Forward, Down, Forward, Forward, X!!!
Ricky Nolasco Is A Great Buy-Low Candidate!
Expectations were high for Nolasco who broke-through after the All Star Break in 2008. Nolasco started 14-games posting a 3.29 ERA and a 0.99-WHIP, including a sub-3.00 ERA in the final two months of the season.
Alas, 2009 hasn’t been kind to Nolasco who’s currently 1-2 with a 6.86 ERA, 1.67 WHIP, 17K, and 6BB in 21 innings pitched.
While Nolasco’s line isn’t pretty, all of the indicators for future success are there:
- Batters are hitting .390 on balls in play against Nolasco. While Florida’s defense is pretty terrible, one should expect this number to regress down to somewhere between .300 and .310
- Nolasco’s Left On Base percentage is also uncharacteristically unlucky, as it sits at 57.2%. An educated guess using the projection models show that this number should be a lot closer to 70-75%
- Nolasco’s FIP (fielder independent pitching) normalized to ERA sits at 3.82 which is noticeably lower than his actual ERA of 6.86.
While Nolasco hasn’t been quite as sparkling as he was in 2008, he hasn’t been nearly as bad as his numbers indicate thus far.
What makes Nolasco special is his penchant for throwing strikes and refusal to walk batters. This mentality lead to a spectacular 4.43 BB:K ratio in 2008. Over at MLB.com, Nolasco offers up this little tidbit:
“I’ve always thrown strikes. It’s something that I was always taught to do,” Nolasco said. “All my dad cared about was if I left it on the field. The way I took it was to throw strikes and not be afraid of anybody.
“In the big leagues, when you give guys extra outs, extra opportunities on base, they always score. It’s unbelievable. I don’t know the exact percentage, but it just seems that 100 percent of those who walk score.”
Nolasco’s repertoire isn’t devastating, but it is vast: Nolasco throws a 4-seamer, sinker, splitter, slider, curve, and a slurve. Nolasco has no trouble throwing any of them for strikes and has actually improved upon his First Pitch Strike Rate of 2008, raising it a full 4 percent to 68 percent (league average is about 58%.)
Nolasco’s BB/9 is up marginally from 2008 (1.78 BB/9 –> 2.57 BB/9,) but he’ll almost certainly finish the year with a walk-rate in-line with most projections of 2.00 to 2.20 batters per nine. Nolasco’s also managed to keep his K/9 on the right-side of seven batters per nine, and should remain a solid fantasy number two.
If there is one statistic that concerns me, it’s Nolasco’s GB/LD/FB rates in 2009. You can check out Nolasco’s Fangraph Here, but the 10% increase in his Line Drive percentage, which comes directly from his FB%, hints at hitters picking Nolasco up easier and hitting him harder.
The Mets/Marlins game is underway, and of course Nolasco looks terribly average. He’s walked 2 batters, given up 4 hits, 3ER, and notched 3 strike-outs in 3 innings of work. I guess Nolasco was right — those walks do always come into score.
