Scott Kazmir’s Legacy and Future Performance

Rick Peterson never fixed Victor Zambrano and Scott Kazmir wasn’t 3 years away from the bigs. However, the anger that Mets fans feel is subdued by Kazmir’s injury-prone clusterfuck of a career.  In 2010, fantasy owners jumped on Kazmir late, dreaming of the 3.50 ERA and 10 K/9 days of yesteryear, but have been rewarded with an atrocious 6.82 ERA and a 1.78 WHIP.

Kazmir’s only owned in 48% of Yahoo! leagues and that number will continue to fall but, despite the horrendous stats, there may still be some value in the arm of Scott Kazmir.

1. The Angels are still a good team.  Never mind that losing record, the pieces are still there.  At the very least, the should be a .500 Club.
2. Have you taken a look at Scott Kazmir’s record? He’s 2-and-3 with both Wins coming against the Tigers (3 RUNS in 11.2 IP — 14K : 4BB ).  This may not seem important, given the Tigers are 14th in Runs Scored and 7th in BB, but the Tigers are also the worst team that Kazmir’s faced.
3. The other teams that Kazmir’s faced (ie. the teams that lit Kazmir up): Yankees (1st in Runs – 3rd in BB), Rays (2nd in Runs – 8th in BB), Red Sox (5th in Runs – 4th in BB).  In four games against these teams (NYYx2, BOS, TAM), Kazmir’s allowed 20 Runs in 18.2 IP.
4. Kazmir’s 2010 troubles are almost completely dependent on his BB-Rate as the majority as the other statistics fall pretty close in line with previous year’s stats.
5. Kazmir’s lost about a MPH on his fastball but with the decreased velocity has come better vertical movement on almost every pitch.  Aside from his disastrous last outing, Kazmir had also exhibited an increase in velocity in each game; whether or not that’s an injury issue, I’m uncertain.  For Kazmir’s complete speed/vert-movement/horz-movement, go ahead and check out fangraphs.

I’m not predicting greatness for Kazmir coming forward but, aside from a very rough opening schedule, the fundamentals appear to be solid.  I doubt Kazmir will ever regain the power-slider that once propelled him into the “elite” category but he should be useful going forward.

More often than not, I’ll sit 85% of my pitchers against elite competition.  With Kazmir, until proven otherwise, sitting him against the best of the best is a must.