credit NyDailyNews.com
DG may stand for Dillon Gee, but they may as well also stand for Damn Good.
Coming off a year where his WAR was only .2 above replacement level, Dillon Gee appeared to be shaping into a fringe five or six starter. This year has been a bit of a different story.
Dillon has the 12th highest swinging strike percentage (SwStr) in baseball this year at 11%, ahead of guys like Tim Lincecum. One may see this and say, “oh well I mean SMALL SAMPLE SIZE MORON,” but they would potentially be wrong.
Dillon has thrived this year throwing his off-speed stuff more often, decreasing his percentage of fastballs thrown from 55.6% in 2011 down to 49.3 this year. In concurrence, the decrease in fastballs has lead to more curve balls (9.8% to 13.5%) and cutters (7.7% up to 12.5%).
The increased amount of off-speed pitches has lead to a higher amount of ground-balls, increasing that from 47.4% in 2011, up to 52.2% in 2012. The ground-balls may be attributed to the higher percentage of swings at non-strikes (32.6% up to 36.8%), which presumably has been caused by his increase in off-speed pitches.
Looking deeper into the types of fastballs he has thrown, he hasn’t even used his straight fastball most of the time! Even though Fangraphs pitch f/x separated the cutters, Brooksbaseball goes even deeper, showing that Dillon has thrown more sinking fastballs than straight ones this season (27%-22%). More evidence that the ground-ball rate is very sustainable.
Hopefully Dillon can continue to pitch near this level, even if it is unlikely. One thing is for sure though: We all underestimated Dillon Gee.
So what do you guys think about Dillon’s performance so far? SSS? Or sign of what’s to come?
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7 comments
Stick
5/15/2012-4:07pm at 4:07 pm (UTC -4)
I like Gee. Happy to have him in the rotation. I was on his bandwagon over the last couple years already. I know he isn’t the “sexiest” pitcher stuff wise, but he has a nice assortment, and knows how to pitch.
SaltyGary
5/15/2012-4:22pm at 4:22 pm (UTC -4)
I like him, he’s gritty LOL. He reminds me a lot of Brian Bannister. He will never have great stuff but manages to grind out the game. He’s really only had one bad game so far. He’s keeping the team in the games so kudos to him.
Prismo
5/15/2012-4:29pm at 4:29 pm (UTC -4)
His WHIP is 1.407 and his ERA+ is 75….
But overall he’s been fine for a #5 starter. I don’t know if I would call his pitching “damn good,” but it’s at least as good as I expected from him so far.
SpencerRealDirtyMets
5/15/2012-4:34pm at 4:34 pm (UTC -4)
FIP is 3.39 and hisxFIP is 3.02
Prismo
5/15/2012-8:39pm at 8:39 pm (UTC -4)
Yes, please continue to tell me about his FIP and xFIP.
SaltyGary
5/15/2012-8:45pm at 8:45 pm (UTC -4)
HAHAAHAHA
SaltyGary
5/15/2012-8:45pm at 8:45 pm (UTC -4)
Hindsight on this post huh?