Players · S · Pitcher · 2009 regular season

John Smoltz

Age: 42
B/T: R/R
Height: 6' 3"
Weight: 220 lb
Number: #29

Born: May 15, 1967 in Warren, MI, United States
MLB debut: July 23, 1988

dbWAR: 17.7
IP: 78.0
ERA: 6.35
FIP: 3.87
K/9: 8.4
FIP−: 89

John Smoltz was a starting pitcher for the Boston Red Sox. In 2009 he struck out 73 batters over 78.0 innings across 15 appearances, 15 of them starts, going 3-8. His ERA of 6.35 was 46.8% higher than the league average of 4.32 — the second worst on his team, and 438th of 484 among MLB pitchers with 20+ innings. Stripping out defence, his 3.87 FIP suggests he pitched better than his ERA shows. He missed bats on 23.9% of swings (11.4% of every pitch he threw), walked 5.2% of the batters he faced and struck out 21.2%. His 1.4 dbWAR is built from that FIP rather than runs allowed, so it credits him for what he controls and not for the defence behind him.

League context

Percentile among qualified pitchers, 2009 regular season.

FIP3.87

K/98.4

WHIP1.45

WAR1.4

WAR by season

Pitching Regular season

Standard and advanced, by season. Regular-season games only — postseason games are listed separately below. Seasons on file run 2005–2009; his career began in 1988, and earlier seasons are not in this data yet.


2009	BOS/STL	15	15	78.0	3	8	95	55	73	18	6.35	3.87	1.45	8.4	2.1	147	89	1.4
2008	ATL	6	5	28.0	3	2	25	8	36	8	2.57	2.35	1.18	11.6	2.6	59	54	0.9
2007	ATL	32	32	205.2	14	8	196	71	197	47	3.11	3.21	1.18	8.6	2.1	69	72	5.2
2006	ATL	35	35	232.0	16	9	221	90	211	55	3.49	3.44	1.19	8.2	2.1	77	76	5.4
2005	ATL	33	33	229.2	14	7	210	78	169	53	3.06	3.27	1.15	6.6	2.1	71	76	5.5

Batting Regular season


2009	STL/BOS	8	16	1	0	1	7	.067	.125	.067	.000	.125	6.3%	43.8%	.101	-3.0	-59	-0.1
2008	ATL	5	9	0	1	0	2	.000	.000	.000	.000	.000	0.0%	22.2%	.000	-2.5	-125	-0.2
2007	ATL	30	68	5	2	1	19	.093	.109	.111	.019	.143	1.5%	27.9%	.102	-13.3	-60	-0.4
2006	ATL	33	86	8	4	4	27	.125	.176	.172	.047	.216	4.7%	31.4%	.164	-12.5	-16	0.0
2005	ATL	32	83	10	3	3	26	.147	.183	.206	.059	.238	3.6%	31.3%	.177	-10.4	-4	-0.0

Separate from the regular season

Postseason Postseason

Wild Card through World Series. These games are counted on their own: none of them are in the regular-season tables, career totals, league context, leaderboards or dbWAR on this page.

Postseason pitching

Postseason John Smoltz's postseason pitching, by October and round. Not part of any regular-season figure on this page.
Season	Team	Round	G	GS	IP	W	H	ER	BB	SO	ERA	WHIP	K/9
2009 Post	STL	NLDS	1	0	2.0	0	4	1	0	5	4.50	2.00	22.5
2005 Post	ATL	NLDS	1	1	7.0	1	7	1	1	5	1.29	1.14	6.4
2005–2009		Postseason total · 2 Octobers	2	1	9.0	1	11	2	1	10	2.00	1.33	10.0

Postseason batting

Postseason John Smoltz's postseason batting, by October and round. Not part of any regular-season figure on this page.
Season	Team	Round	G	PA	AB	R	H	2B	3B	HR	RBI	BB	SO	SB	AVG	OBP	SLG	OPS
2005 Post	ATL	NLDS	1	3	2	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	.000	.000	.000	.000

Box-score and rate statistics only. wOBA, wRC+, FIP and dbWAR are measured against a full league season, and a postseason is a few teams playing each other for a month, so they are not computed for October.

Platoon splits

How left- and right-handed hitters fare against him.

Season

Opponent batting by the side the hitter bats from, 2009. Counted from play-by-play, so totals can differ from the box-score season line by a plate appearance or two.
Split	PA	AB	H	HR	BB	SO	AVG	OBP	SLG	wOBA	K%
vs LHB	178	161	55	8	11	33	.342	.386	.590	.420	18.5%
vs RHB	166	156	40	3	7	40	.256	.289	.391	.298	24.1%

Spray chart

Where every ball he put in play landed, 2009.

Loading 7 batted balls…

Hot and cold zones

Batting average by pitch location, 2009.

Below averageLeague averageAbove average

Batting average by location of the pitch that ended each plate appearance, catcher's view. The bordered square is the strike zone; the outer band is chase territory. Cells with fewer than 8 at-bats are left grey rather than shown as signal. League average on the same attribution is .262.

Pitch sequencing

What John Smoltz throws in each count, and what he follows each pitch with. Select any cell for the breakdown.

ShowBatter

Four-seamSliderSplitterCurveballSinker

Select a count to see exactly what John Smoltz throws in it.

Pitch arsenal

What he throws, how hard, how often it misses, and what hitters do with it.

Season


Four-Seam Fastball	38.1%	501	91.3	2,265	44.9%	11.9%	104	.404	1.155
Slider	37.4%	492	84.6	719	52.6%	32.7%	132	.235	.603
Splitter	13.8%	182	85.7	1,732	34.6%	19.4%	62	.242	.643
Curveball	6.8%	90	76.3	1,303	53.3%	41.5%	15	.267	.933
Sinker	3.0%	39	91.5	2,580	41.0%	0.0%	3	—	—

John Smoltz's arsenal by usage. Velocity is average release speed in mph, spin in rpm, and whiff rate is misses per swing — the cleanest single measure of whether a pitch beats hitters. BAA and OPS are what hitters did against each pitch, credited to the one that ended the plate appearance, and are left blank under 15 at-bats.

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John Smoltz

Similar players

Nearest 2009 seasons by command, run prevention and role, on rate statistics rather than totals.

Carl PavanoCLE

ERA: 5.10
FIP: 4.00
SO: 147
WAR: 2.8

Kevin SloweyMIN

ERA: 4.86
FIP: 4.26
SO: 75
WAR: 1.2

Brian MatuszBAL

ERA: 4.63
FIP: 4.08
SO: 38
WAR: 0.7

Ricky NolascoFLA

ERA: 5.06
FIP: 3.35
SO: 195
WAR: 4.4

How these are computed

wOBA uses linear weights measured from this season's own play-by-play rather than published constants, and wRC+ is park-adjusted against that same league. dbWAR is our own open implementation — not fWAR or bWAR — and the full derivation, including its simplifications, is on the methodology page.