2006 in Review- Paul Maholm

Now that 2006 is over, I'll be looking at one or two Pirates and their 2006 season each day. I'll look at what we expected, what we got, and what that might mean for the future. I may or may not assign a meaningless grade to their performance. Today: Paul Maholm.

2005 key stats: 12 starts above AA. I can't think of anything more important than that.
2006 PECOTA: 8-10, 4.49 ERA, 1.48 WHIP, 96 K, 66 BB in 147 and 1/3 innings
2006 key stats: 8-10, 4.76, 1.61, 117 K, 81 BB in 176 IP

I could take the easy way out on this one and say "take everything I said about Zach Duke and say it again for a guy that is slightly less talented" and we'd have our Maholm review. Maholm made an even briefer 2005 cameo than Duke and had a lot of success, though he outpitched his peripherals by a mile (3-1 with a 2.18 ERA and a 1.16 WHIP but a 4.26 PERA, see the Duke post for a PERA explanation). Like Duke, he had an awful first half, and he was hurt all year by bad defense (evidenced by a BABIP very similar to Duke's). He limped into the All-Star break with a 5.10 ERA, a hideous 1.78 WHIP, and a horrible 1.27 K/BB ratio. From the break on, he improved to a 4.28 ERA (better than Snell), a 1.37 WHIP, and a 1.76 K/BB ratio (helped a lot by an impressive 6.23 K/9 rate).

If we want to compare him to Duke and Snell, ERA+ is probably the best method. Duke was exactly average this year with a 100, while Maholm and Snell both put had 95s, putting them slightly below average and thus slightly below Duke on overall performance for the year (go here and scroll down for ERA+ explanation). That's kind of an interesting stat, at least to me, because if you would ask Pirate fans to rate the performances of Duke, Maholm, and Snell this year from best to worst off the top their heads, I'd imagine 95% of us would go Snell, Duke, Maholm without thinking. The best evidence of this is that in most hypthetical trade talk that I see, Maholm is always mentioned as being the arm to ship away with the assumption being that by trading him, we'd lose less than we would by trading Duke, Gorzy, or Snell. Instead, I think it would be another example of Littlefield selling low. I could go on, but that's another post (for tonight, I think). Anyways, I'll close this by saying the same thing I said about Duke yesterday. If he can keep his walks under control, I think the strikeouts will come (they did in the second half this year) and he'll be a much better pitcher next year.

Stats from the Baseball Musings Day by Day Database, Yahoo! Sports, ESPN.com (they're the only ones that list current BABIPs for free), Baseball Reference, and my trusty copy of Baseball Prospectus 2006.