Players · N · Pitcher · 2016 regular season

Jonathon Niese

Pittsburgh Pirates National League Central

Age: 30
B/T: L/L
Height: 6' 3"
Weight: 215 lb
Number: #49

Born: October 27, 1986 in Lima, OH, United States
MLB debut: September 2, 2008

dbWAR: 13.4
IP: 121.0
ERA: 5.50
FIP: 5.62
K/9: 6.5
FIP−: 134

Jonathon Niese was a starting pitcher for the Pittsburgh Pirates. In 2016 he struck out 88 batters over 121.0 innings across 29 appearances, 20 of them starts, going 8-7. His ERA of 5.50 was 31.4% higher than the league average of 4.19 — the worst on his team, and 413th of 512 among MLB pitchers with 20+ innings. Stripping out defence, his 5.62 FIP suggests the ERA was no fluke. He missed bats on 17.9% of swings (8.3% of every pitch he threw), walked 8.6% of the batters he faced and struck out 16.1%. His -0.8 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, 2016 regular season.

FIP5.62

K/96.5

WHIP1.59

WAR-.8

WAR by season

Pitching Regular season

Standard and advanced, by season. Regular-season games only — postseason games are listed separately below.


2016	PIT/NYM	29	20	121.0	8	7	145	74	88	47	5.50	5.62	1.59	6.5	3.5	131	134	-0.8
2015	NYM	33	29	176.2	9	10	192	81	113	55	4.13	4.41	1.40	5.8	2.8	104	111	0.8
2014	NYM	30	30	187.2	9	11	193	71	138	45	3.40	3.67	1.27	6.6	2.2	91	98	2.1
2013	NYM	24	24	143.0	8	8	158	59	105	48	3.71	3.58	1.44	6.6	3.0	96	93	2.0
2012	NYM	30	30	190.1	13	9	174	72	155	49	3.40	3.80	1.17	7.3	2.3	85	95	2.5
2011	NYM	27	26	157.1	11	11	178	77	138	44	4.40	3.36	1.41	7.9	2.5	112	85	2.8
2010	NYM	30	30	173.2	9	10	192	81	148	62	4.20	4.10	1.46	7.7	3.2	103	100	1.8
2009	NYM	5	5	25.2	1	1	27	12	18	9	4.21	3.25	1.40	6.3	3.2	97	75	0.6
2008	NYM	3	3	14.0	1	1	20	11	11	8	7.07	5.13	2.00	7.1	5.1	164	119	0.0

Batting Regular season

Standard and advanced, by season. Regular-season games only — postseason games are listed separately below.


2016	PIT/NYM	18	34	3	1	2	14	.100	.156	.133	.033	.188	5.9%	41.2%	.138	-5.0	-24	-0.1
2015	NYM	26	60	9	4	5	18	.173	.246	.192	.019	.265	8.3%	30.0%	.208	-5.1	25	0.4
2014	NYM	28	65	5	4	6	29	.091	.180	.109	.018	.192	9.2%	44.6%	.149	-8.1	-17	0.1
2013	NYM	21	45	8	4	4	17	.205	.279	.256	.051	.364	8.9%	37.8%	.251	-2.3	55	0.3
2012	NYM	28	68	12	2	6	19	.218	.295	.218	.000	.333	8.8%	27.9%	.243	-4.0	50	0.5
2011	NYM	26	60	3	0	4	33	.061	.132	.102	.041	.188	6.7%	55.0%	.120	-9.3	-39	-0.2
2010	NYM	30	66	10	4	8	27	.189	.295	.226	.038	.385	12.1%	40.9%	.255	-3.7	53	0.5
2009	NYM	4	9	1	0	0	3	.125	.125	.125	.000	.200	0.0%	33.3%	.113	-1.6	-50	-0.0
2008	NYM	3	6	1	0	0	4	.167	.167	.167	.000	.500	0.0%	66.7%	.149	-0.9	-26	-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 Jonathon Niese's postseason pitching, by October and round. Not part of any regular-season figure on this page.
Season	Team	Round	G	IP	H	ER	BB	SO	ERA	WHIP	K/9
2015 Post	NYM	Postseason total	6	5.1	5	3	1	6	5.06	1.13	10.1
		NLDS	1	0.1	0	0	0	1	0.00	0.00	27.0
		NLCS	1	0.1	0	0	0	1	0.00	0.00	27.0
		World Series	4	4.2	5	3	1	4	5.79	1.29	7.7

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, 2016. 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	142	125	38	4	13	28	.304	.383	.504	.386	19.7%
vs RHB	404	364	107	21	34	60	.294	.352	.530	.376	14.9%

Spray chart

Where every ball he put in play landed, 2016.

Loading 18 batted balls…

Hot and cold zones

Batting average by pitch location, 2016.

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 .255.

Pitch sequencing

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

ShowBatter

SinkerFour-seamCutterChangeupCurveballSliderIN

Select a count to see exactly what Jonathon Niese throws in it.

Pitch arsenal

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

Season


Sinker	29.9%	602	88.8	2,038	42.9%	11.2%	154	.325	.893
Four-Seam Fastball	26.5%	532	89.3	1,754	46.4%	17.0%	122	.320	1.018
Cutter	23.5%	472	86.0	763	50.2%	20.6%	111	.261	.769
Changeup	10.3%	207	82.6	1,553	27.1%	17.3%	49	.265	.721
Curveball	8.9%	178	74.4	1,004	39.3%	36.6%	51	.255	.834
Slider	0.5%	11	82.4	805	54.5%	0.0%	3	—	—

Jonathon Niese'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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Jonathon Niese

Similar players

Nearest 2016 seasons by command, run prevention and role, on rate statistics rather than totals.

Braden ShipleyAZ

ERA: 5.27
FIP: 5.76
SO: 43
WAR: -0.4

Very close

Tommy MiloneMIN

ERA: 5.71
FIP: 5.54
SO: 49
WAR: -0.4

Very close

Matt CainSF

ERA: 5.64
FIP: 5.14
SO: 72
WAR: -0.0

Very close

Pat DeanMIN

ERA: 6.28
FIP: 5.20
SO: 50
WAR: -0.2

Very close

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.