It is pretty hard for me to believe that the Jay pitcher that threw the 3rd most innings, this year, was Brett Cecil. It says a lot about our season.
Brett had a very good 2010, with a team leading 15 wins and a 4.22 ERA in 28 starts.
Things went bad right from the start of spring training. Brett seemed to get overly concerned about his velocity, right at the start of spring. I don't, I think he obsessed about about MPH when he should have been more worried about location.
Our predictions for his 2011 season were all over the place. I was miles off:
30 starts, 4.00 ERA, 14-10, 200 innings and 150 strikeouts
This is what he did:
Not good at all. Fangraphs had him at a 0.4 WAR giving him a value of $1.7 million to the Jays. He had an FIP of 5.10 and an xFIP of 4.36. His BABIP was actually better this year, .267 compared to 2010, .293.
Brett's strikeouts per actually went up a little (6.33 from 6.10 in 2010), but his walk rate went up a bit too (3.06 from 2.81).
He gave up more line drives (18.3% from 17.6%). His ground ball rate went down (38.2% from 44.2%). Fly balls were up (43.5% from 38.2%). He gave up a lot more home runs (13.3% HR/FB from 8.7%).
Cecil was great against LHB (.186/.282/.240), but just awful against RHB (.282/.337/.539).
He pitched much better on the road (4-3, 4.04 batters hit .232/.315/.409) than at home (1-7, 5.43, .280/.238/.506). Facing RHB at home must have been a really bad thing.
Brett by month:
April: 1-2, 6.86. Batters hit .304/.376/.519 in 4 starts.
June: 0-1, 8.53. Batters hit .320/.379/.720 in 1 start.
July: 3-1, 2.19. Batters hit .231/.297/.357 in 5 starts.
August: 0-3, 4.81. Batters hit .228/.297/.430 in 6 starts.
September: 0-4, 5.85. Batter hit .288/.352/.550 in 4 starts.
July was pretty good. The rest of the season wasn't.
Cecil's longest win streak was 3 games. His longest losing was 7 games from August 9 to the end of the season.
His best game score was a 84 against the Rangers, July 24, a complete game shut out, 4 hits, 2 walks and 7 strikeouts. His lowest game score was a 29 on April 9 against the Angels. He went 5 innings, allowing 10 hits, 5 earned, 1 walk, 3 k and 1 homer.
It was a bad season for Brett, he's going to have to have a really good spring to keep his place in the rotations. He seemed to be getting the ball up in the strike zone much more than he has in the past.