Philadelphia Phillies: Examining the Struggles of Roy Oswalt

In the Phillies‘ fanbase, there appears to be a growing worry for Roy Oswalt. It’s a bit surprising to me, as the typical fan will primarily look at ERA in deciding how good a pitcher currently is, that he and his 3.05 ERA is a cause for concern.

Perhaps there’s still enough of those left in the dark-age that three wins and four losses is enough evidence of his struggles. Or last year’s fluky 1.74 ERA stint with the Phillies caused misguided expectations. Typically, the fans are off-base when judging a player using these out-dated stats, but this time, there are legitimate red flags surrounding Oswalt.

While his 3.05 ERA suggests he is having a good year, a 3.86 xFIP and 4.27 SIERA suggest some struggles. The latter of which is behind pitchers such as Mike Leake, Jeremy Guthrie, Doug Fister, Derek Holland, Jake Westbrook, Chris Volstad, Tom Gorzelanny and Chris Capuano. No one would confuse any member of that group as being an ace-caliber pitcher. Last year, his 3.35 SIERA ranked eighth among pitchers with at least 200 innings.

The main culprit in the worse xFIP and SIERA is the obvious drop in strikeouts. His 5.3 strikeouts-per-nine innings is a significant drop from his career 7.38. While only 56 innings can produce unreliable strikeout rates, hitters are indeed making more contact than at any point in his career.

Hitters are currently making contact 90.8 percent of the time in pitches inside the strike zone and 75.8 percent of the time in pitches outside the strike zone compared to 86.1 percent and 60.9 percent, respectively, in his career. In addition, he is getting less swing and misses than ever. His 7.0 swinging-strike percentage is down significantly from his 9.4 percent career mark.

A major cause for the worse contact percentages has to be his drop in velocity. Across the board, his velocity has dropped. From last year, his fastball is down an average on 1.2 miles-per-hour, his slider down .7 miles-per-hour, his changeup down .9 miles-per-hour, and lastly, his curveball is down a huge 2.7 miles-per-hour.

When you consider his previous back issues, his age, and distractions back in Mississippi, this year’s Oswalt probably won’t be nearly as good as we’ve previously seen. With the way it’s going, the Phillies will have a much harder decision on Oswalt’s team-option at the end of this year.

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