It wasn’t so long ago that Gil Meche was a top 100 prospect. He was rated No. 82 in 1998, No. 78 in 1999 (by Baseball America) and lost his prospect status that year with the Seattle Mariners. In his first six seasons, Meche, 28, posted ERAs of 4.73, 3.78, 4.59, 5.01, 5.09 and 4.48, respectively. It appeared as though he was a bust or at best, a mediocre pitcher.
So when he signed with Kansas City for five years at fifty five million dollars, the baseball world mocked Royals’ GM Dayton Moore with reckless abandon. But here we are, half way through the season, and it seems plausible that Moore may have seen something no one else did.
Gil Meche wasn’t finished yet.
He has managed to post a 3.26 ERA with a 1.29 WHIP. Looks pretty good, right? You don’t know the half of it. When we take a closer look at his 2007 season to this point, we’ll see some jaw-dropping stuff. He ranks 30th out of all major league pitchers in VORP, just behind Daisuke Matsuzaka and Josh Beckett who fill out the 29th and 28th slots respectively.
His fip (fielding independent pitching) is at 3.82 and his xfip (a less-tested but theoretically more accurate stat) is at 3.81. What does that mean? It means he’s benefited a little bit from good defense, but that it hasn’t had a huge impact on his numbers. His BABIP (Batting Average on Balls In Play) is at .311 meaning he hasn’t been very lucky either. The league average for BABIP is generally around .300.
So why is he benefiting from the defense as much as he is? And why isn’t that simply attributable to luck? Meche has a 50.7% ground ball rate, meaning he’s pitching to contact and using his infield defense. In previous years, it has only reached 43.0% once and topped out at 38.9% before that. His rate has been steadily climbing the last few years, though, suggesting he’s made an adjustment. The decline in ERA over the same period supports this.
Another interesting stat to look at is his BRAA (Batting Runs Above Average) which has been negative for the last three years. This year he’s at 8.97 so far, a serious improvement.
As if all of that wasn’t enough, when we look at a ranking of qualified pitchers (70.0 IP or more) for quality of batters faced, Gil Meche ranks 4th in the majors. Only three starting pitchers have faced a collective group of hitters with a higher combined OPS than Meche.
It’s easy to look at Gil Meche’s win/loss record of 5-6 and just assume he’s been a mediocre pitcher. But when we look closer he appears to be one of the best starters in baseball through the first half of the season. So what does it matter and why is this relevant here at Project Prospect? It’s just another reminder that prospects, especially pitching prospects, don’t often take the league by storm right out of the gate. Many of them require a few years to settle in and become the pitchers they are going to be for their careers.
It’s possible that Meche will fall back to earth a bit in the second half, but it’s also far enough into the season that we have to consider it a real possibility that he won’t.
Damian Dydyn can be reached at damian.dydyn@gmail.com.