Would Kyle Kendrick Succeed in the Pen?

Given the temperature of baseball in New York, I thought it was about time to just start writing about the Phillies without adding the New York spin. It's clear that the Yankees only care about themselves and that almost no one cares about the Mets. So here's a perspective about my home team from afar.

Much has been made of Kyle Kendrick's struggles recently. With the Phillies broadcast suggesting that he was available in relief in tonight's game, it made me wonder if Kendrick's vocation is simply pitching in a different format, not moving half way around the world. So I tried to forget his recent troubles and took a look at some of his split stats over his career.

The most obvious splits would be between his starts and relief appearances:

Starter: 79 G, 442.1 IP, 4.80 ERA, .297 BABIP, 4.0K/9

Reliever: 10 G, 19.0 IP, 3.32 ERA, .279 BABIP, 4.7K/9

Despite the extremely small sample size of his relief appearances as a professional, it appears that Kendrick is a stronger pitcher in relief. The difference in BABIP is slight, as is his strikeout rate, but his ERA is almost 1.5 runs lower.

Being that Kyle is not a strikeout pitcher, but instead supposed to be a ground ball specialist, he would probably not do well in high leverage situations. But I'm not convinced that he would just need to be a mop-up man either, based on his leverage splits:

High: .292 BAA, .267 BABIP, .833 OPS, 0.81 K/BB

Medium: .282 BAA, .295 BABIP, .781 OPS, 1.66 K/BB

Low: .299 BAA, .308 BABIP, .845 OPS, 1.69 K/BB

Along with having the best numbers in medium leverage situations, these splits tell a few things. In medium and low leverage situations, Kendrick has a BABIP around league average, meaning his performance in these situations is likely sustainable. However, in high leverage situations, he is actually getting somewhat lucky. Therefore, Kyle would likely be a candidate for middle relief, medium leverage situations.

Now let's take a look at his batted ball and plate discipline data for his career. This shows his line drive, ground ball, fly ball, and infield fly ball rates, as well as his first pitch strike, contact, and total strike percentages:

Batted Balls: 21.8% LD, 45.7% GB, 32.5% FB, 8.4% IFFB

Plate Discipline: 59.4% F-Strike%, 88.8% Contact%, 48.5% Zone%

While these numbers aren't ideal for a reliever, they must also be considered in context. All but 19.0 of Kyle's innings in the big leagues have been as a starter. Under those circumstances, Kendrick must pitch to contact given his lack of strikeouts. Clearly, if he were to become a reliever, he would need to throw more strikes and first-pitch strikes.

But in relief appearances, it may be possible for him to focus more on the task at hand and begin inducing a greater number of ground balls. The old adage of quality over quantity may have a beneficial impact on his effectiveness. With the way Kyle has struggled, a simple change of scenery to the bullpen may not hurt. And there is a potential that it would benefit the Phillies, by shaving innings off of Jose Contreras and Chad Durbin's workloads.

* Statistics are again courtesy of Fangraphs and Baseball-Reference.

Best Pitcher in the NL East

Remember back in February when Roy Halladay was asked who the best pitcher in the NL East was? He was humble and mentioned a number of solid starters, such as Florida's Josh Johnson, his teammate Cole Hamels, and even New York's Johan Santana. In a word, Halladay was the essence of class.

One of his NL East counterparts was not. Johan Santana boldly proclaimed who he thought the best pitcher in the division was with a single word: "Santana." Usually the single-named person is reserved for the most accomplished of people, so initially, I was a little shocked that he thought musical great Carlos Santana had taken up pitching. But of course, what the Mets' pitcher really meant was himself.

Now that we are approaching the end of the regular season, I thought it would be fun to re-assess this position. And I didn't think it would be fair to analyze post-season performances, since Santana will, of course, not have any yet again. But looking back at the regular season thus far, who really is the best pitcher in the NL East?

I broke down the division's top five pitchers' (based on ERA+) season statistics in the following sabermetric categories*: IP, ERA+, FIP, WAR. Here's what I found (through September 3):

Josh Johnson: 177.2 IP, 182 ERA+, 2.50 FIP, 5.9 WAR

Roy Halladay: 214.0 IP, 182 ERA+, 2.79 FIP, 6.6 WAR

Tim Hudson: 191.2 IP, 175 ERA+, 3.75 FIP, 3.2 WAR

R.A. Dickey: 139.1 IP, 138 ERA+, 3.59 FIP, 2.6 WAR

Johan Santana: 157.2 IP, 121 ERA+, 3.56 FIP, 3.7 WAR

Just for argument's sake (and for fun), let's compare Santana's best statistical season with Halladay's projections this season, which statistically is not even his best season:

Santana (2004): 228.0 IP, 182 ERA+, 2.92 FIP, 7.7 WAR

Halladay (2010): 252.1 IP, 182 ERA+, 2.79 FIP, 7.7 WAR

This doesn't take things into account, such as the fact that Roy Halladay is a family man and wanted to move his family to a good community, and he even accepted less money to do so. This doesn't adjust for the fact that Roy Halladay threw a perfect game but gave all of the credit to his teammates. He even spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to honor them. Statistics don't tell the whole story, about a pitcher's work ethic or respect for the game.

Based on stats, there could be quite a debate about who the best pitcher in the division really is. This being a Phillies-based blog, I could argue with you night and day that Halladay is better than everyone else on that list, especially Santana. Heck, Johan might not even be the best pitcher named Santana. But truth be told, I think there's little argument about who the best pitcher is from a human standpoint. Roy Halladay's grace wins that honor over every other starter, including Johan Santana and his sexual exploits.

* Statistics compiled from Fangraphs and Baseball-Reference. Learn more about sabermetrics there.