Barry Being Barry

So far it looks like Barry Zito is back baby!!!

"Barry is back," a National League scout told FanHouse. "He's pretty close to what he was. I'd say he's 80 percent of what he was, at least. He's got his velocity back. He's not back to 2002, when he won the Cy Young, but he's a competitive, championship-level pitcher again." [...]

Zito's fastball is now reaching 88 mph regularly, and he's consistently at 85-88. During those dark days early in his Giants tenure, he was pushing it up there at 80-85 mph, and "there were games he went out and pitched at 78," Righetti said. [...]

Righetti said the improved stuff has to do with physical conditioning and with the fact that he's thrown less between starts.[...]

Zito, as those who know him would expect, said the differences are all mental.

"When you have an aggressive nature and you are determined to do something, your body gets in position to throw a little harder, your arm gets in position to be a little looser," he said.

I'm not sure if it's a mental thing or not, but Zito's velocity is definitely up this year. Before his last year on the A's, Zito's velocity was around 87. In 2006 it was 85.8, in 2007 on the Giants it was 84.5, and last year 84.9. This year? It's not going to dazzle you of course, but it's been 86.6. The softer you throw, the more it adversely effects you when you lose some of your velocity. It's obviously easier to sit on that curve with a nothing fastball.

This little bit of increase in velocity seems to be the reason for Zito's success. I'm not sure what "80 percent of what he was" necessarily means, but I'm going to take it to mean a good thing. Zito's contract will still haunt the Giants, but if he can sustain this velocity he can be a better than average pitcher, where before he was worse. One thing to note though were Zito's FIPs the last few years. In 2006 on the A's in his contract year Zito had a 3.83 ERA, so it's not so obscene for the Giants to think they were going to get a great pitcher especially when you consider his move to the NL. However, hi FIP that year was 4.89. In 2007 on the Giants he had a 4.53 ERA and his FIP actually improved to 4.82. Last year Zito's ERA rose even more to 5.15, and his FIP improved again to 4.72. So far this year his FIP is at a pretty nice 4.01, with a 3.57 ERA.

This year seems to be a correction between some bad luck that Zito has had before, and an increase in velocity, couple those together and Zito ain't half bad! Zito wasn't as good as he seemed when the Giants signed him, but he also hasn't been as bad as he seems for the Giants. Anyway you want to slice it the contract will go down in history as one of the worst ever, and even though Zito won't now compete for Cy Youngs he at least can be overpaid and help the Giants, instead of being overpaid to hurt the Giants.

Thanks to baseballthinkfactory for the heads up!