The Luis Mora Experiment
Written by: Freddy Fitzsimmons, American Baseball Perspective
Monday, October 3rd, 2011
The London Underground is one of the lowest payroll teams in the Planetary Extreme Baseball Alliance. With this come some unique circumstances and challenges. Looking back on the current season is a perfect example. “Working through free agency last year was quite a chore,” said London GM Scott Miller. “Due to budget constraints, we were unable to offer any multiyear contracts to any free agent pitchers.” Word in the London front office was that pitchers such as Kirby Gibson and Jon Mitchell were high on the Underground wish list, but due to the money constraints, they were unable to offer competitive contracts. Anastasio Molina and Anthony Cox had both been anchors to London’s surprise playoff run of 2010, but Molina was coming off a devastating injury and Cox declined his player option and became too expensive to sign in free agency. This chain of events led the team to looking at bullpen mainstay Luis Mora.
“With free agency not being an option, we had to look at some things within the organization,” declared Miller. “We had multiple meetings with Sergio Manetti and Del Carley about what we could do to bolster the starting rotation.”
“Del was actually the one that suggested Luis,” explained Manetti. “With his repertoire of pitches, we felt he could do it. It was just a matter of if we could stretch him out far enough to get 100 or so pitches out of him every five days.”
Things looked very promising early on. Luis made four starts in April, logging 27 innings. During this stretch, he posted a 1.67 ERA to go along with 4 BB and 18 K. The one thing that sticks out about these numbers like a sore thumb is Mora’s K/9 for the month. That total isn’t anything to sneeze at, but we have to look at the type of pitcher we are talking about here. Luis Mora the reliever is lights-out nasty. In 2010, he posted a K/9 of 12.26. That’s over double what he accomplished in April.
May and June brought much of the same. Combined for the two months he pitched in 12 games, threw 70 2/3rd innings, and tallied 15 BB and 59 K. Despite the impeccable 3.93 K/BB, Mora was still well below his usual K/9 numbers with a 7.51 K/9 for the two months. One could see that through the first three months, having to face batters multiple times per game was taking a toll on Mora’s stuff. One had to wonder about his workload as well. Already pitching 97 2/3rd innings, Mora was coming close to the number of innings he had pitched for the whole year the last few years.
The last half of the season brought these fears to reality. Mora pitched 82 innings and posted a less than stellar 5.71 ERA. To go with this, he gave up 28 BB and 66 K. His K/9 number is not what stands out here, as he posted an average for the year 7.24, but his home runs allowed tell the real story. Through the first half of the season, Mora gave up just 8 HR, for a HR/9 of .74. The second half of the season, he gave up 17 HR, posting a 1.87 HR/9. This is a staggering difference and shows that Mora didn’t have much left in the tank during the second half. His being tired lent itself to leaving pitches up in the zone. When any pitcher does this, bad things happen. I don’t care who you are.
These numbers clearly show that Mora was stretched too thin this season by trying to make him a starter. The combination of having to face hitters multiple times in a game and having to tone down his stuff to make it through 6 innings really hurt Mora’s dominance. London was in dire need of quality innings from its starters and Mora seemed like a nice option, but in the end, we feel he is better served in a bullpen role where he can dominate hitters like we are accustomed to seeing. The real question is this: Does London feel the same way?