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| Courtesy of Bleacher Report |
Last week, I briefly mentioned how Bobby Parnell could cause a bit of complication in terms of the bullpen once he returns.
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| Credit to NY Daily News |
I gave my outlook on the bullpen a few articles back, but for this time around, I am going to give strictly a statistical look on the competition for the closers job between Bobby Parnell and Jenrry Mejia.
Here are the following stats for both pitchers.
Career Stats as a Reliever
| Player | ERA | FIP | SIERA | K/BB% | GB/FB | WHIP |
| Bobby Parnell |
2.99
|
2.97
|
3.41
|
8.2%
|
1.92
|
1.32
|
| Jenrry Mejia |
2.90
|
3.78
|
3.64
|
15.8%
|
1.87
|
1.47
|
The stats essentially show what I have said about both pitchers in the past, in that Mejia is a pitcher with good stuff (15.8 K/BB% despite a high walk rate), but is pretty wild. Parnell on the other hand, has started to come around as a finesse pitcher, as evidenced by a lower WHIP, and also a lower overall ERA, FIP and SIERA line.
Those stats don't tell the whole story though, as Parnell started to hit his stride in 2010, while Mejia didn't start to figure things out until last season. I already talked about Parnell in a previous article, while most fans know what Mejia's stat line looked like last season.
Lets look at Mejia's approach, shall we? According to Brooks Baseball, Mejia generates a lot of ground balls from his go to pitch, the cutter. He also coaxes a good amount of swings and misses from his off speed pitches. As stated before, Jenrry Mejia is very good at getting ground balls, something that is imperative, since they typically lead to weak contact, and there is no better way to limit damage than to suppress solid contact. Here are the spots in the zone where Mejia induced the most groundballs.
As you can see, when Mejia is able to locate the ball, he is very difficult so square up anywhere in the zone, especially low in the zone (a ground ball rate of over 50%! and an overall ISO of .45 on low pitches!). If he is able to command his pitches low in the zone, then he should be able to maintain a low ERA and reduce the amount of runners (and especially extra base hits) he allows.
Personally, I think despite both pitchers having different styles of pitching they both bring a lot to the table, and whoever Terry Collins decides to have close out games should do a very nice job doing so.
Those stats don't tell the whole story though, as Parnell started to hit his stride in 2010, while Mejia didn't start to figure things out until last season. I already talked about Parnell in a previous article, while most fans know what Mejia's stat line looked like last season.
Lets look at Mejia's approach, shall we? According to Brooks Baseball, Mejia generates a lot of ground balls from his go to pitch, the cutter. He also coaxes a good amount of swings and misses from his off speed pitches. As stated before, Jenrry Mejia is very good at getting ground balls, something that is imperative, since they typically lead to weak contact, and there is no better way to limit damage than to suppress solid contact. Here are the spots in the zone where Mejia induced the most groundballs.
As you can see, when Mejia is able to locate the ball, he is very difficult so square up anywhere in the zone, especially low in the zone (a ground ball rate of over 50%! and an overall ISO of .45 on low pitches!). If he is able to command his pitches low in the zone, then he should be able to maintain a low ERA and reduce the amount of runners (and especially extra base hits) he allows.
Personally, I think despite both pitchers having different styles of pitching they both bring a lot to the table, and whoever Terry Collins decides to have close out games should do a very nice job doing so.
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