Lets Hear It For The Old Guy

Lets face it watching Jamie Moyer pitch gives the rest of us 40 somethings hope. Seriously before I talk about what his signing means for the Phils I want to take a few seconds to talk about what a unique career he has enjoyed. Every year in its annual book Baseball Prospectus gives the most comparable players for each player. I won't bore you with the details but what they do is match player X's age and accomplishments and match him to players of similar accomplishments. Jamie Moyer's top 4 comparables are Hoyt Willheim, Phil Niekro, Satchiel Paige and Tommy John(yes there actually was a player named Tommy John before the surgury). Not shabby company, 3 Hall of Famers. I'm not implying Moyer is headed for Cooperstown but he has had a very special career. Phil Niekro and Hoyt Wilheim were knuckleballers. Paige was the greatest pitcher in Negro League history. And Tommy John's career was done before the radical operation we now take for granted. If you look at the careers of the above pitchers at the end of their careers they held on. Simply put they were not nearly as effective as they were in their prime. Last season Moyer notched 16 wins, the 4th most in his career. Moyer has 245 wins going into this season. I don't see any reason why he won't win 25 in the next two years pushing his win total to 260. He will also end up career with over 2600 strikeouts.

So what does this mean to the 2009 Phils? Moyer will be a solid 4th starter. He will join Cole Hamels, Brett Myers, Joe Blanton and either Kyle Kendrick or JA Happ in a solid rotation. I think it will be unrealistic for him to win 16 games again. So much of a starting pitchers won-loss record is determined by factors outside of his control. Those external factors really helped Moyer last year. For example the Phils averaged 5.3 runs of support per start. And I don't have to remind anyone how good their pen was. To his credit he will do everything you want a back of the rotation starter to do. He averaged 6.0 innings per start last season and has eclipsed 185 innings pitched every year except one since 1997. In addition he averaged over 5 strikeouts per nine innings proving he has alot of ways to get hitters out. Which may be the key to his success with his experience he lets the hitters get themselves out against him. If you are not patient it will be a long 3 ABs against him.