MVN - Most Valuable Network

Introducing The Gil Gauge

Gil Meche is starting tonight for the Royals. We all know he’s been the best pitcher on the staff, among the best in the league, and to most Royals fans, well worth the cash.

(AP Photo/David Zalubowski)

If you haven’t seen it by now, the Kansas City Star has come up with a neat little contraption known as the Meche Meter. The whole point of the meter is to determine if Meche is earning his money. Basically, they’ve settled on a point system where he can earn zero through three points in each start this season with the ultimate goal being 55 points. Get it? $55 million contract. 55 points.

But I’m confused. Nearly a third of the way through the season, he’s on pace to score something like 80 points. Hmmmm. That tells me the “goal” is a little too easy to reach. And then there’s the whole $55 million/55 points thing. If he makes his goal of 55 points, does that mean he only needed one year to “earn” his $55 million? It’s all very cloudy.

That’s why I decided to do something about it.

Inspired by David Pinto at Baseball Musings (and a dose of common sense) I’ve decided to look at Meche and his starts through the beauty of Game Scores.

Game Score is a simple formula to figure a starting pitcher’s strength, and it’s one of my favorite ways to look at a pitcher.

What I have done is look at the average game score for every AL Cy Young award winner since 1990. For a greater sampling of above average pitchers, I also took the average game score for every pitcher who finished third in the balloting. And then I found the average for every pitcher who finished last in the vote. That gave me a range of what I would term a “Cy Young Contender.”

Here are the results:

Cy Young Winner - 62 Avg. Game Score
Cy Young 3rd Place - 58 Avg. Game Score
Cy Young Last - 56 Avg. Game Score

Next, realizing that a Game Score above 50 represents a “quality start,” I did a little more research to determine an acceptable range for what we would term an average performance. I looked at a bunch of number two and number three starters from the last several seasons to come up with a range. (Interesting fact: Meche’s average Game Score last year was an even 50.)

And then I took the worst starter in recent history (Jose Lima in 2005, tah-dahhhh) and averaged his Game Scores. I’m thinking you can’t possibly do any worse than Lima Time’s 34. Usually, when you suck that bad, you don’t make it an entire season in the rotation. But I digress.

Without further ado, it’s time to unveil the Official Royals Authority 2007 Meche Meter.

The Gil Gauge

With an average Game Score of 57, Meche is right in the thick of things. By my calculations, he’s in the running for some Cy Young votes, but will need to step it up if he’s looking to win. Cy Young votes? Who would have thought this team would have someone garnering serious consideration? The last Royal to get a vote was David Cone when he won the award in 1994.

Meche has received a Game Score of 62 or better in six of his 10 starts, with a high of 70 back on May 3, a 5-2 win against the Angels. And he’s had two Game Scores in the 30s, including last weekend’s stinker against the Rockies. That was a season-low of 33.

The beauty of this system is, it is truly a gauge. The number can go higher or lower depending on his performance. Right now, things are looking good. But if he suffers through a month of bad starts, the needle is going to droop.

If you’re looking for a device to see if Meche is earning his money, move along back to the Star. We can give him a full season before we decide if he was worth $11 million. Let’s just say if he stays on the green side of the gauge, I’ll be happy.

EDIT: See the updated Gauge here.

This entry was posted on Friday, May 25th, 2007 at 12:24 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.