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Now that the big fish David Price and Zack Greinke have been landed in free agency, the next tier of pitchers will look for their pay days. Jeff Samardzija – perhaps a medium fish -- has inked a contract with the Giants.

One of the most intriguing (if not sought after) names remaining on the market is that of Scott Kazmir. Kazmir is one of the most enigmatic pitchers in the game, especially after his nearly two-season layoff from the major leagues.

And they’re probably both right. And wrong.

Let’s break his season down my month. Despite the small sample sizes, the breakdown shows us some interesting numbers:

We see a couple of things in this chart.

• Kazmir’s best two months, ERA-wise, came with wildly different K/9 rates. He started the season on fire across the board, but his best month came with a K/9 rate of 6.35.

• His fastball velocity stayed steady throughout the season, but that of his change-up and slider did fall off a bit through the year. He has perhaps the best change-up in the game, so a widening difference in velocity compared to the fastball might be a good thing. But his slider, against which hitters fared very well, needs to sizzle to get results.

• Think the Astros are going to overpay for Kazmir? Doubt it. Look at the August/September results.

Let’s now look a key measure of effectiveness against each of Kazmir’s pitches, the swinging strike percentage. This measures the percentage of total pitches that result in a swing and miss. The nastiest starters tend to be in the 11-12 percent range overall:

We see the change-up’s effectiveness here and that Kazmir’s fastball is clearly not dominant. He rarely throws his curveball, and you can see why. The slider seems somewhat effective.

Now let’s look at Scoutables data that measures contact rates against these pitches:

We see hitters make below average contact on his change-up and fastball, but his slider and curve yield ugly contact rates.

Let’s look at Scoutables data on batting averages on each pitch:

It’s interesting to note that Kazmir’s average-at-best fastball (which is made more effective by the worldly change-up) is a very good option when the lefty can manage to dial it up to 93 mph or greater. Consequently, when he hits 90 or below, the fastball is as minimally effective as his slider and curveball. So while he’s not the strikeout artist he once was, retiring hitters remains in large part a function of bringing the heat.

So what have we learned?

We learned that the 31 year-old Kazmir, in his third full season back in the bigs, appeared to tire down the stretch. While his fastball stayed mostly consistent, his secondary pitches lost some oomph at the tail end of the year.

His poor performance in August and September will likely give the Astros cold fee when it comes to re-signing their in-season rental. It should also cool the overall market for Kazmir; but the fact that he is left-handed and makes a soft-throwing alternative behind a fireballer could offset those fears.

He remains a solid middle-of-the-rotation hurler, but fantasy and major league owners alike should not select Kazmir with visions of his delivering a pennant.

References:
1. "Baseball Statistics and Analysis | FanGraphs Baseball." Baseball Statistics and Analysis | FanGraphs Baseball. Fangraphs, n.d. Web. 16 DEC. 2015.
2. "Baseball Reference." Baseball-Reference.com. Baseball Reference, n.d. Web. 16 DEC. 2015.

NOTE: All statistics accurate as of 12/16/15

By Tom McFeeley
Scoutables.com

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