Why it doesn’t matter if Jon Niese goes six innings

This season, Niese has had a tendency to pitch deep into ball games, however, an advanced metric shows that maybe this doesn’t exactly matter.

A month and a half into the Pittsburgh Pirates season, the biggest storyline has surrounded the struggles of the entire pitching staff. In particular, the Pirates starting rotation has struggled, both at the top of the rotation with Gerrit Cole and Francisco Liriano and at the bottom of the rotation with Juan Nicasio and Jeff Locke. The other fifth starter in the rotation is one of the newest members of the Pirates, Jon Niese. This season, Niese has had a tendency to pitch deep into ball games, however, an advanced metric shows that maybe this doesn’t exactly matter.

One of the biggest headlines of the Pirates offseason surrounded the acquisition of Niese from the New York Mets in exchange for fan favorite second baseman Neil Walker. With heavy expectations on the left hander, Niese has been so-so to start the season.

So far this season, Niese is 3-2 with a 5.63 ERA and 29 strikeouts in seven starts. In each of those starts, Niese has pitched at least five innings, while pitching at least six innings in three of his starts. During the first weeks of the season, Niese was lauded for being one of the only Pirates starter to consistently last into the sixth inning and beyond.

As you will soon see, getting that far into games doesn’t matter for Niese.

Despite being able to pitch deep into a ballgame, which it seems like he has received praise over, Niese’s game scores haven’t been particularly good this season.

If you are unfamiliar with what a “game score” is, it is a metric created by Bill James to simply determine how strong a pitcher has been in a particular game.

To determine a pitcher’s game score, you first start with 50 points at the beginning of the ballgame. Points are added to the score for each out recorded (one point), for each strikeout (one point), and for each inning completed after the fourth (two points). Points are also deducted from a game score for every walk (one point), hit allowed (two points), unearned run allowed (two points), and earned run allowed (four points).

When it comes to game score, a high score would be in the 100’s, with the highest score in history for a nine inning game belonging to former Chicago Cubs pitcher Kerry Wood during his 20 strikeout, one-hit, no walk performance on May 6, 1998. A low game score can be as low as being in the negative numbers, with the lowest recorded game score in the last 20 years belonging to former Oakland Athletic Mike Oquist, who had a -21 game score by giving up 14 earned runs on 16 hits with three walks and three strikeouts in five innings against the New York Yankees on August 3, 1998.

In his seven starts this season, Niese has put up game scores of 45, 52, 71, 32, 30, 23, and 51, for an average of 43.5. Going deep into ballgames and compiling strikeouts does help Niese’s game scores from being way lower than they could be, but the amount of walks, hits and runs he allows are the reasons why these scores remain so low.

Niese’s 71 point night didn’t come on a night in which he compiled a ton of strikeouts. In fact, on April 16, the night of his 71 point game score, Niese simply pitched seven shutout innings while giving up just three hits, three walks and striking out three against the Milwaukee Brewers.

[pullquote align=”right” cite=”” link=”” color=”#000000″ class=”” size=””]Despite being able to pitch deep into a ballgame, which it seems like he has received praise over, Niese’s game scores haven’t been particularly good this season.[/pullquote]

On May 3, Niese posted his lowest score of the season, a 23 point performance against the Chicago Cubs. In this outing, Niese gave up six earned runs on nine hits while walking five and striking out three in five innings of work.

As you can see, although innings pitched does give a good point boost, a pitcher can go deep into a ballgame and still put up low game scores. The difference, for Niese at least, is that he has a knack for allowing a ton of hits, home runs and walks within his starts. Amongst all Pirates starters, Niese has pitched the second most innings (40), however; he has also allowed the most hits (49) and home runs (10), while allowing the third most walks (15).

The entire starting pitching staff has struggled throughout the 2016 campaign. Needless to say, Niese is not the only one who has struggled and therefore posted less than stellar game scores. However, pitching deep into ballgames is not enough. It is important for Niese and the other Pirates starters to, not only pitch a high number of innings and give the Pirates quality starts, but to pitch effectively throughout their outings. The Pirates offense has been good enough to win games early on in the season, but Pirates pitchers posting positive game scores may be even more vital to the club’s success.

Tonight, Niese has his latest opportunity to post a positive game score, as he takes the mound against the Atlanta Braves, a familiar opponent from his days with the New York Mets, at PNC Park.

Photo Credit – Daniel Decker Photography