You make your own luck

Here is a rundown of the contact percentage for Millwood over the years.

1997 – 79%
1998 – 76%
1999 – 78%
2000 – 79%
2001 – 79%
2002 – 82%
2003 – 80%
2004 – 80%
2005 – 83%
2006 – 83%
2007 – 84%
2008 – 86%

That gives Millwood a career (excluding 2008 as it is not in B-Ref yet) contact rate of 80% and a career total of 80%.

Using ERA+ as a measure, Millwood three “best” seasons were 1999 (167), 2002 (128), and 2005 (146). Contact rates for those years were, respectively, 78, 82, and 83. Millwood was able to get 146 K’s swinging in 1999, 102 in 2002, and 83 in 2005. The Hardball Times does not have the line drive percentages that go back for 1999 and 2002, so it is hard to see if there is a correlation between LD and ERA+.

The contact rates for the three aforementioned years were pretty close to his career averages, so low contact rates were not responsible for the high ERA+’s. Millwood got a lot of swings and misses in 1999, but missed lots of bats in 2000 (133), but only had an ERA+ of 99.

As previously mentioned, I don’t have access to LD% for 1999 and 2002, so maybe a decrease in line drives is explains the high ERA+’s. Anybody have access to these stats? Is there a correlation between LD% and the ERA+’s in 1999 and 2002? Regardless, the contact rate needs to come down a bit. Of course, I am using ERA+ to define MIllwood’s best seasons, and this might be a mistake.

there was something wrong with the ascertian that Milwood was only unlucky… after watching him pitch this year, he just never seemed to fool anyone and alot of the balls that were hit against him were pretty much ropes and not just lucky bloopers

TDK is not saying any more than Millwood is not quite as bad as his ERA indicates. He’s probably also not quite as good as his FIP indicates, due to the line drive/contact issue.

It’s like dirkie is shouting MIllwood is worth $100 and others scream back No! he’s only worth $98! Or like local news broadcasts that report minor happenings as if they were major cataclysms.

Bottom line, as with the entire staff, injuries and defense made a bad rotation look even worse.

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