A Post About Oliver Perez and a Fish

On this blog, I’ve become a fan of comparing the short-term stats of current players to that of players from the past.  I know its not groundbreaking stuff, but it helps put what we’re seeing on the field today in perspective.

Here are a few examples:

• http://www.ihatethemets.net/2009/06/who-are-these-2009-mets.html
• http://www.ihatethemets.net/2009/06/who-is-this-david-wright.html
• http://www.ihatethemets.net/2009/05/case-against-jose-reyes-part-1.html

Baseball-Reference.com’s similarity scores do this in part, but they don’t make comparisons of individual seasons.  Because of that, they definitely can’t come up with something like this:

	GS	IP	Hits	Walks	K	WHIP	ERA
Oliver Perez 2009	10	48.2	52	47	44	2.034	7.03
Steve Trout’s Yankees Career	9	46.1	51	37	27	1.899	6.60

 

Pretty similar, although Perez’s walk rate is considerably worse than Trout’s was, even though Trout’s NY career was known for his losing the strike zone (he also had 9 wild pitches).  And the historical perspective here is important, because Steve Trout’s performance as a Yankee is considered to be the classic example of a pitcher completely losing it with a new team and of the Yankees series of disastrous pitching acquisitions in the ‘80s.  And Oliver Perez is worse.  Congrats Omar.

Here are some links that highlight the sad arc of Steve Trout’s time in NY:

• Yankees Get Trout in Deal With Cubs – NY Times 7/13/87
• Trout Wants a Ring Too – NY Times 7/18/87
• Yankees Pitching Tattered – NY Times 8/10/87
• Trout Traded – NY Times 12/23/87
• Unhappy Yankee Tradition – Pitching Deals of the 1980s Were Disappointing – NY Times 5/23/90