Maholm Still Struggling

by Charlie on Sep 5, 2006 12:53 AM EDT in News Comment 6 comments

I just saw this teaser for the Post-Gazette's recap of last night's game and assumed I was reading a Paul Meyer article:

Paul Maholm had created quite a mess for himself, and he knew it. But he also knew, as did others on the Pirates' side, that he had the talent and temperament to escape it after having done it so many times before.

That's one way of looking it. Other ways of looking at it include the following:

Four runs allowed in five innings is not good.
Four strikeouts and three walks in five innings is not good.
More broadly, a 4.91 ERA is not good.
107 strikeouts and 76 strikeouts in 163 innings is not good.
A .381 OBP against is really not good. In fact, it's the worst among National League qualifiers.
Seven wins in 27 starts is not good, so it's not as if Maholm has some sort of magical ability to turn subpar performances into ballgames won.

Anyway, my point is not to pick too much on the usually excellent Dejan Kovacevic (and anyway, the rest of the article is fine), but rather to point out that Maholm has a long way to go if he's going to become a good starter, and it bothers me when I see quotes like this (from Jim Colborn):

"Every bit of adversity he faces, he has a chance to learn. And he is learning, believe me."

I guess if I were coaching the Pirates, I'd probably also feel the need to try to convince people I was doing a good job. But it's not at all clear from Maholm's month-by-month stats that he's learning anything. He's had exactly one good month, and that was May. He's a total mess on the road, where he can't rely on the huge left field at PNC. And he continues to walk batters at an alarming rate - he's fifth among qualifiers in bases on balls.

All of this is to explain why I find Maholm frustrating to watch in almost the same way I found Josh Fogg frustrating to watch. Clearly, Maholm's still young and he can be better than Fogg, but it should give us pause that the Pirates have so much riding on Maholm's success.

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All in how you look at it

There does seem to be -- maybe I'm imagining it -- an inordinate focus on the 5 good innings our starters throw, rather than the one inning where they get lit up for 7 runs, as if somehow those 7 runs are worth less because the other 5 innings were good. I understand the psychological value of dealing with fragile young egos. So long as there's an accompanying expectation that they'll stop having bad innings all the time, I even think that tactic is a good idea. That is a rebuttable presumption, though.

by KPatrick on Sep 5, 2006 12:14 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs

You know

We really should have traded him for Vernon Wells when we had the chance. It's not like we're lacking starting pitching (although since nobody seems to stay healthy it's a bit of a problem) and we really could have used a legitimate RF this year. Not like Wells is the missing puzzle piece to a division crown or anything, but it's one less hole to fill and several hundred fewer ABs for Nate McLouth and Jeromy Burnitz. DL really makes me wonder sometimes.

by jeremy on Sep 5, 2006 12:40 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs

We did?

When did we have the chance?

by KPatrick on Sep 5, 2006 5:41 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

Maholm's

BAA, WHIP and K/BB have slightly improved, although he's still way below average. In May he actually got a lot of guys to swing and miss. I watched the Cleveland game and couldn't believe how he wound up with 7 Ks in 5.1 innings.

by Bukanier on Sep 5, 2006 2:57 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs

Maholm is 24

He pitched less than 200 innings in the minors, and has 200 innings in the majors total so far over 2 years. Give him a chance to improve before we start saying "he's trash, we should have unloaded him before he stunk so he could have gotten us something." He's leading the team in quality starts. He's also been a tough luck loser more than a few times. His 7-10 record is deceiving because he's received the 69th worst run support of any starter in the big leagues, and before the few recent games where we scored a lot for him, it was like 80th. We're 11-16 in all games he's started. We've also lost by scores of 3-1, 3-2, 4-1, 4-3, 5-3, 5-4, 3-2, and 2-1 while he's been on the mound. So there's 8 more games where we were RIGHT in the game with Maholm on the mound. A lot of those were with Burnitz stinking up the lineup. We win half of those with a competent lineup, and instead of being 11-16 in his starts, suddenly we're 15-12 and Maholm's probably got an 11-10 record and you're talking about how he could be the best rookie on the club. Sure, he's scuffling, and having control issues, but its clear he's got the stuff to pitch here. He gets tons of ground balls when he's on, and lots of batters swing and miss. He's just got to continue to improve. I see big things for him in 2007.

by PGHcager on Sep 5, 2006 3:07 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs

Whoops

It's quite possible I was thinking of Alex Rios, not Wells. My bad. Rios missed most of July with a leg infection and hasn't really been the same since, but his OPS was over 1.000 until mid June. Despite hitting only .198 in August, his OPS is still at .844. This is the kind of player we should be going after with our young pitchers, and we shouldn't be wasting time/money/roster spots on people like Burnitz.

by jeremy on Sep 5, 2006 8:11 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs