To wrap up our Projection Review series, we’ll take a look at one of the top relievers in 2014 for the Mets. As stated in the initial projection, “Vic Black throws gas.” Black stayed true to that assessment by averaging 95.7 mph on his fastball. However, Black also learned this season how to use his devastating curveball to more effect, tossing it nearly 27% of the time, while his fastball rate dropped from 73% in 2013 to 61% this year. Did it all work out for him in the end? Let’s take a look at his numbers and see. Here is the official Mets360 projection from before the season:
IP: 54
ERA: 3.49
K: 50
BB: 21
HR: 5
FIP: 3.72
SV: 6
Here’s how Black actually did, with the best and worst individual projections among our group.
IP: 34.2
Best: Koehler – 30
Worst: Ferguson – 85
ERA: 2.60
Best: McCarthy – 2.71
Worst: Kolton – 5.23
K: 32
Best: Koehler – 33
Worst: Ferguson – 75
BB: 19
Best: O’Malley – 18
Worst: Ferguson – 30
HR: 2
Best: Joura, Koehler, Kolton, O’Malley, & Walendin – 3
Worst: McCarthy – 8
FIP: 3.77
Best: McCarthy – 3.65
Worst: Parker – 4.85
SV: 0
Best: Kolton – 0 (Pessimism works sometimes)
Worst: Manners – 15
Black was sort of an enigma going into the season. His dreadful spring training highlighted the fact that he needed more seasoning early on. When he finally came up in late May, he pitched quite well. He struck out a lot of batters, but still struggled with walks from time to time. He corrected that over the long haul though, and from June 15th forward he had only a single game where he walked more than one batter.
He pitched back to back a handful of times, and often saw multiple days at a time between appearances. Add that to his late-May call-up, and his mid-September shut down due to a neck injury, and it’s easy to see why our Innings Pitched guesses were all over the place. Meanwhile his ERA, walks and HRs were better than our average projections, and his K/9% was right around where we thought it would be.
Overall Black had a very good, if shorter year than expected. He will feature prominently in the drastically improved Mets bullpen that features plenty of velocity and increasing accuracy. He may not be front and center in the conversation for closer, but he’s a vital part of getting the Mets into contention in 2015.
Vic Black had a very good year and showed that he can pitch in the 7th inning but so could Torres, Edgin and Carlyle. Parnell is coming back and that will only strengthen the bullpen and diminish the times that Black will get a chance to pitch the 7th inning (but with Turnstile Terry making multiple pitching changes you never know!).
If the Mets get into the position that one of the relievers can “sweeten” an impact deal then they can do it. Some change over April 2014 !
I would have been on point on the SO’s, BB ‘ s and innings if he’d pitched the whole year. Oh well.
The neck injury curtailed Black’s innings. So did the effectiveness of so many other members of the Mets’ bullpen.
Which was and is a good thing.