Brett Myers Revisited

Brett Myers : Rotoworld.com - Brett Myers Biography from Rotoworld.com

He has been magnificient this season, and he gets a chance to show this is for real tonight against Florida with whom the Phils have played putridly for two years and Sunday in Atlanta. If he comes out of these unscathed, I will be an official convert.

What I would be hoping for is something similar to what Ben Sheets did last year. He was a medicore pitcher for a couple seasons (2002 and 2003) who broke through in 2004 will absolutely unGodly numbers - sub-1.00 WHIP and sub-3.00 ERA in 237 innings!

This was more dramatically illustrated in his non-4X4 category, strikeouts, where he whiffed 264 - 107 more than the previous season in only 16.1 more innings! Myers appears to be doing the same as he has already struckout 71 in in 62.1 innings - 61% of his 2004 total of 116 in only 35% of the innings pitched (176). If he threw the same number of innings in 2005 and kept the 2005 strikeout rate, he'd k 204!

If he maintained his 7 innings per start average over a full-season of 34 starts and maintained the 2005 k-rate then he'd k 275! Assumptions can fail but these are fairly simple ones and clearly point towards a Sheets-like breakout.

Sheets also exhibited increased control as his walks dropped from 70 to 43 to 32 from 2002 to 2004. Myers does not have this three-year parallel as his walks increased from the 2003 to 2004 season (76 to 108). However, they have dropped greatly in 2005 (14 in 61.1 innings). Assuming that rate remains steady, matching last years 176 innings would yield 40 BBs and maintaining the average innings per start of 7 over 34 starts would mean 54 BBs.

His 2005 pace certainly looks like Ben Sheets even on his walk rate, but remember there are a lot of assumptions working here - namely assuming his 2005 performance-to-date continues for the remainder of the season.