Besides the Mets beefing up their rotation and getting back their center fielder, they also gained David Robertson yesterday.
The Mets signed the 37 year old righty to a one year, 10 million dollar contract yesterday, getting their set up man. Robertson was a target for the Mets during the Trade deadline, but the Cubs asked a top Mets pitching prosect, which the Mets smartly declined. Now they got their man in free agency. So how does Robertson get hitters out? Let’s take a look.
As you see in the tweet from the great Brad Badini, Robertson was lethal against both lefties and righties. The way he gets it done is movement. Robertson is at the top of the league in fastball spin, with a cutter that he throws 50.9 percent of the time. It’s his least succesful pitch in general, but makes his slider/curve so much better.
His cutter was still extremely good this year with a -5 run value and an expected slash line off .207/.331/.372. He had his best vertical drop with a 6.8 inch above average on vertical movement (Top of the league). Movement plus added velo (93.0mph). It’s a pitch he doesn’t get much swing and miss on, that’s the job of his breaking stuff.
Robertson was in the 90th percentile in Whiff rate and K percentage, mostly because of his breaking stuff. He throws a slider and Curveball, which he’s using almost equally. His curve is his main weapon, with a crazy 44.4 Whiff rate and a 49.4 K%. His expected slash line against the curve is .132/.183/.229. It’s clearly his put away pitch to get most of his strikeouts, and why not, with those crazy good numbers.
His slider also has a very solid Whiff rate (38.2%), but with his 20% strikeout rate, it’s clearly not his put away pitch. He likely uses it more as an offset to his cutter earlier in the count to get to his curve to get hitters out. Still, his slider is a great pitch with a .177/.255/.268 expected slash line against. It’s also worth noting that hitters aren’t able to hit his slider hard, when they do make contact, making this more of a put in play pitch even with his solid Whiff rate.
Overall Robertson is able to keep opposing hitters slugging percentage and batting average down. That’s a must with his walk rate, as that’s his main bug a boo. Not surprising as Robertson lives down in the zone a lot, mainly because of vertical movement on all of his pitches. At 37 years old without trusting on major velo, he should be good to keep his current performance up. I believe we can trust Robertson game plan.
What do you think about the Robertson addition?
Photo Credit: MLB Trade Rumors
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