Free Agent Outlook: Ubaldo Jimenez

Free Agent Outlook: Ubaldo Jimenez

            First was a batter now lets take a look at a pitcher that could be quite interesting in the offseason.  Jimenez has had a rough few years since being the ace of the Rookies staff but made a bit of resurgence with Cleveland this past season.  The main question we have is how consistent can Jimenez stay and can he still be effective going forwards, he had a good year but it wasn’t without flaws.  So lets take a look at one of the better pitchers in the free agency pool Ubaldo Jimenez.

Control

            Jimenez has had a lot of control issues having a BB/9 rate of 3.94 last season and 4.87 the year before that.  A career 4.10 BB/9 is really bad but Jimenez can also strike out a ton of batters as well, a K/9 of 9.56 last year and 7.28 the year before.  A career 8.27 K/9 guy doesn’t just show up in the market that often and there will be teams really weighing the options with just this stat alone.  He can also limit the HR’s pretty well having a .79 HR/9 rate; he also had a 1.27 the year before but looking at his career .73 HR/9 rate this seems to have just been an anomaly.  Bottom line is simple, Jimenez is not wild but he isn’t a pinpoint thrower either, if a team takes a chance on him they need to have a strong defense behind him since if he walks to many it could be ugly.

Pitches

            Jimenez has quite the selection of pitches to choose in his arsenal.  These include a fastball (and the variants such as the cutter and 2 seamer), curveball, slider, split finger and change-up.  Now sabermetrics cant “rate” pitches like they do in traditional scouting using the 20-80 scale, but we do have a way to rank his pitches using the stat called Pitchf/x and to quote www.fangraphs.com

“PITCHf/x is a pitch tracking system, created by Sportvision, and is installed in every MLB stadium since 2007. This system tracks the velocity, movement, release point, spin, and pitch location for every pitch thrown in baseball, allowing pitches and pitchers to be analyzed and compared at a detailed level”

            So using this stat we can look at the value of pitchers pitches and right now lets look at what Jimenez ranked.

Fastball: -1.3

2-Seamer: -5.1

Cutter: 1.0

Splitter: -1.1

Slider: 7.0

Curveball: 0.3

Change-up: 3.1

What these numbers mean is how many runs his pitches saved above the average.  If the average is at 0.0 that means his fastball was worth -1.3 runs so it was slightly below average.  Just a disclaimer here, just because a pitch is listed in the Pitchf/x stat that doesn’t mean he actually HAS that pitch but a pitch that meets the criteria of the defined pitch, it also doesn’t mean he threw the pitch often as others.  Seeing this listing we can see his best pitches were his slider averaging 7.0 runs above average (RAA) and his Change-up at 3.1 RAA.  Historically these have been his best pitches even in his Rockies days.  Some signs to watch for is the fact that his FB and 2-Seamer have been trending down since 2010 and would while his Change-up and Slider have been improving.  Makes me think that in the future he may start relying too much on his trick pitches.  This makes me think he will continue struggle with his command if that’s the case.

ERA/FIP/WHIP

            Jimenez hasn’t had a solid ERA since 2010 and this past season is the strongest season (ERA wise) since that year.  Jimenez has a career ERA is a poor 3.92 and a career WHIP of 1.35, which is also pretty poor.  Like I stated earlier Jimenez has a problem with the BB and this is the reason for the high WHIP, which leads to high R totals.  Just like dominos one thing leads to another.  This last season though was a very good campaign for him, an ERA of 3.30 and a WHIP of 1.33.  The WHIP is a little high but the ERA was solid; his FIP was 14 points higher though so that means he was getting a bit lucky but not terribly.

Overlook

            When I look at Jimenez I see Lincecum and vise versa, very similar skills and weakness.  I can see him getting a good contract this off-season in the range that Lincecum got with the Giants even if I don’t think Lincecum doesn’t deserve the contract (2 year 40mil).  I can see teams like the Angels, Astros, Rangers, Royals, Yankees, Diamondbacks, Pirates, Reds, St. Louis and Phillies at least keeping an eye and kicking the tires.