Ageless Jamie Moyer oldest winner

Jamie Moyer broke into the Major Leagues in 1986 with the Chicago Cubs and had 5.05 ERA. Moyer was worth at least 1.9 WAR in each season from 1996-2003, and he has shown that a changeup can get you by despite not generating many Ks (career strikeout rate of 5.37 per nine). Moyer has 268 career wins, with ZiPS projecting four wins- and a 5.40 ERA- for this season, so he could get to the 275-win threshold before he turns 50.

Yesterday, Jamie Moyer became the oldest pitcher, 49 years old, in Major League history to record a win, after his Colorado Rockies defeated the San Diego Padres 5-3, with Chris Denorfia going 4-4 for the Padres and Mark Kotsay going 2-3 for San Diego.

Moyer finished the game with a Game Score of 60 and netted his first victory of the season (1-2). He currently has a 2.55 ERA- but a 4.55 FIP- this season in 17.2 innings. He lasted seven strong while allowing six hits, two walks, and two unearned runs. He did, however, strikeout just one batter to prove that he’s still going by the same method; getting guys out without the Ks. The man threw a first-pitch strike 59.2% of the time, which is right at his career average of exactly 59%.

What the starter, who was pitching for Seattle when Soundgarden disbanded and Layne Staley died, has done to combat old age is to induce more grounders. In this game, he managed to get a grounder 68.4% of the time, and he finished with a low 6.9 SwStr% (6.2% last season).

Jamie Moyer owns a career 4.23 ERA in over 4,000 innings of work, and he has been worth 49.1 WAR. The last season in which he was worth more than 2 WAR was in 2008 for the Philadelphia Phillies, and he was worth 2.5 WAR that season in 196.1 innings of work. Moyer struck out 5.64 per nine, walked 2.84, allowed less than a home run every nine innings, and he had a ground ball rate of 43.9%.

The year of dominance for the 6’0″ left-hander was in 1998, as he struck out just over six batters per nine innings and walked only 1.61 in that span. He worked through 234.1 innings and had a 3.53 ERA (3.73 FIP) to finish with a value of 5.3 WAR. At that time, it was much more difficult to accumulate a high WAR. After all, ’98 was “The Year of the Chase”. With the whole ERA/FIP thing, Jamie Moyer has almost always outperformed his FIP; he’s just one of those Matt Cain– type pitchers.

Some facts about his changeup. Jamie Moyer has thrown his changeup 28% of the time in his career, and it is seven miles per hour slower than his fastball (all stats since 2002). His pitch value on his changeup has been at 91.4 (!) since ’02, with a 37.1 wCH in 2002 and a 24.2 wCH. Yeah, that is one filthy pitch.

Let us celebrate a win at 49 for a guy who should be one of everyone’s favorite starters. What is there not to like about a veteran like Jamie Moyer who has paced himself through 25 Major League seasons, with 2012 being his 26th (sat out the 2011 season).

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