First off, let's take a look at how Correia looks when he's pitching. Better yet, let's take a look at how Correia looks when he's pitching in PNC Park. Here's a couple of snapshots from a start he made against the Pirates last year (courtesy of mlb.tv):
Now let's get into the statistics. All the numbers I'm about to show you are from the last 3 major league seasons (2008, 2009, and 2010). Here's the basic stuff (courtesy of baseball-reference.com):
As you can see from the numbers, Correia has been pretty inconsistent the last 3 years. He was pretty awful in his 25 starts in 2008 with the Giants, he was really good in his 33 starts in 2009 with the Padres, and he was bad again in 2010. His strikeout rates have been rising the last 3 years, and his walk rate isn't a big concern. Those stats only tell us so much, so let's look the pitches he throws (courtesy of texasleaguers.com):
You can see that he throws his slider a lot. It's really not a great slider, but he controls it well. His 65.4% strike rate with the slider is 2 percentage points above the league average, however his 10.5% whiff rate is 3 percentage points below the league average. It's a pretty hittable pitch, as 1 of every 5 of his sliders is put into play (that is also above the league average). The velocity of the pitch is harder than most guys throw a slider, but not by much. The horizontal movement is slightly above average but the vertical movement is right on pace with the rest of the league. He has decent movement on it, but not enough to make it a plus pitch. However, he feels confident throwing the pitch in any count, so you'll be seeing a lot of sliders from him this year.
Like almost every other pitcher, Correia throws his fastball more than any other pitch. He throws a couple different types of fastballs, his favorite being the 2-seam fastball. He throws it 28% of the time and it's average velocity is an unimpressive 90.8 miles per hour (2 miles below the league average). It doesn't move much, which explains the 6.1% whiff rate. Despite the average at best whiff rate, batters swing at it and put it in play significantly below the league average, and Correia controls it pretty well with a 62.6% strike percentage.
Those are Correia's 2 main pitches. He also throws a 4-seam fastball, some sort of cut fastball, a changeup, and a curveball. He really doesn't throw the changeup or curveball very much, which is odd. His curveball actually has above average movement on it, but his whiff rate is below average. He throws it for a strike a respectable 57% of the time (right on pace with league average), so the low whiff rate is kind of confusing given the movement the pitch has on it.
Let's take a quick look at Correia's pitch selections for these three years taken independently.
2008: Fastball - 49.8%, Slider - 37.9%, Changeup - 8.1%, Curveball - 3.8%
2009: Fastball - 50.3%, Slider - 32.3%, Curveball - 10.9%, Changeup - 5.9%
2010: Fastball - 50.1%, Slider - 32.5%, Curveball - 9.0%, Changeup - 8.2%
It's interesting that he threw his curveball more in 2009, the year that he had a lot of success, but it probably doesn't mean that much.
So there are his pitches, let's see what happens when he throws them (courtesy of fangraphs.com):
You can see from these numbers that Correia was a pretty big flyball pitcher in 2008 and 2009, but got a lot more groundballs last year. In these 3 years combined, 21.06% of his at bats have ended in a groundout, and 14.48% of his at bats have ended in a flyout. In his career he has a flyball percentage of 37.0% and a groundball percentage of 42.3%. That's a lot more fly balls than most pitchers get, which could end in bad things when you consider that he is going from a very pitcher friendly Petco Park to a more hitter friendly PNC Park. I would be surprised if his home run rates didn't go up this year just because of that change. He is going to have to try and induce more groundballs this year to be successful.
So what do we get from all of these numbers? A couple of things:
Kevin Correia...
- has average stuff, at best
- has slightly above average control
- has been very inconsistent in his career
- gives up too many flyballs
- does not induce enough groundballs
- will be negatively effected by the factors of his new home ballpark
- is a lot better than Zach Duke :)