Month: May 2006

Looking over the batting stats over the past 365 days on Pinto’s database, a few random observations:
*Grady Sizemore is not a future star, he’s just a star, period. And Travis Hafner is a monster.
*I’ve got to stop thinking of Michael Young as a guy who had a good year; he’s been a tremendous producer for some time now.
*Concerns that the incredibly consistent and productive Bobby Abreu may be slowing down could be well-founded. Abreu’s .268 average and 18 homers aren’t that impressive, and 11 caught stealings in 36 attempts, and 11 GIDP, are comedowns from his previous levels. Abreu’s still a highly valuable player, and this could just be a short-term rut, but like a lot of guys he may be entering the phase where he’s not the same bankable superstar year in and out. Ditto Jim Edmonds (.246, 12 GIDP after going almost a year without one).
*Carl Crawford – who’s been on fire lately after another slow start – has some serious power potential, given his age and athleticism. (And like super-fast players like Kenny Lofton, Marquis Grissom, Rickey Henderson, Tim Raines, and Davey Lopes, Crawford may be a good bet to have a very long career). But Crawford’s drawn 29 walks in the past year compared to 40 for Jose Reyes. Until he learns more patience, Crawford won’t tap his true power potential. Willy Taveras, meanwhile, may be fast but he has not learned to steal bases.
*Lance Berkman may be baseball’s most underappreciated slugger (120 RBI).
*Randy Winn has had a heck of a year, hasn’t he?
*I never thought I’d see Craig Biggio end up as a low-OBP slugger at this age: 65 extra base hits compared to 62 times on base by walk or hit by pitch. Then there’s 74 extra base hits for Bill Hall.
*Miguel Tejada has become quite the GIDP machine (27 of ’em). Ditto Jason Kendall (25), although Kendall can still get on base (.359).
*Matt Holliday sure has mastered Coors Field (.587 slugging).
*Brian Roberts went back to what he’d been before: a doubles machine. So did Brandon Inge – an easy out (.298 OBP). And Jose Guillen’s days as a star appear to have been short-lived.
*Justin Morneau and Dan Johnson have been nothing to write home about – but unlike Johnson, Morneau is lucky not to have any big prospects breathing down his neck.
*Angel Berroa: 14 walks, 104 K. That’s what happens to talented young players when they have no reason to learn how baseball games are won.
*Mike Cuddyer: .277/.501/.350, still no regular job.

Well, while I’m feeling pretty good about the Mets banishing Jose Lima, trading Jeremi Gonzalez and bringing up Heath Bell, now comes news that – in response to an appendectomy for the already-ailing Xavier Nady – the Mets are bringing up Lastings Milledge, presumably to play right field regularly until Nady’s return and show whether he’s ready for prime time. Nady’s been productive this season but the Mets shouldn’t hesitate to replace him if Milledge shows he’s ready.

Following yesterday’s look at the Tigers and how their team ERA stands head and shoulders above the American League, I thought I would take a look – as I did here and here with slugging and OBP – at the all-time great pitching teams in terms of team ERA compared to league ERA (bear in mind these figures do not include any adjustment for home park). I’m not suggesting that, before May is even over, we can project that the Tigers will end up in this group – the contrary is far more likely – but it should help give a sense of the rarefied air they are breathing right now. This list covers major league teams back to 1893, when the mound was moved to its present distance of 60’6″.

Three other teams came in at 30% or better – the 1915 Chicago team in the Federal League, the Spahn-led 1953 Milwaukee Braves, and the 1998 Braves. Among the teams just missing the 30% bar were the 1927 Yankees, but they have enough distinctions. I left off the pre-1893 teams because one pitcher could have an outsize influence – George “Grin” Bradley’s 1876 St. Louis Cardinals and Old Hoss Radbourn’s 1884 Providence Grays both bested the league ERA by more than 80%.
Most of these teams are familiar and unsurprising, some (like the 1912 Giants and 1939 Yankees) are perhaps better known for their superior hitting, some are obscure (the 1919 Cubs had Grover Alexander and Hippo Vaughn; more on that team here, and more on the 1960s White Sox here), and some surprising, like the 1954 Giants and the 1926 A’s and perhaps most of all, the 2003 Dodgers, with a rotation including Kaz Ishii, Hideo Nomo, Odalis Perez and a cast of spot starters behind Kevin Brown.
Naturally, the Tinker-Evers-Chance/Three Finger Brown Cubs dominate this list, and Bobby Cox’s Braves make a few entries. Interestingly, some of these teams (the 1939 Yankees and 1966 Dodgers in particular) fit a pattern – several straight years of being 15-25% above the league and then a sudden step up with largely the same personnel both in the pitching staff and the defense. Besides random chance and the ability of established staffs to fill their remaining holes, one wonders if a stable relationship between the pitchers and the fielders led to improvements over time.

The 35-15 Detroit Tigers have been baseball’s biggest surprise team thus far, burying the more highly-regarded Indians and Twins in a double-digit early hole and even outdistancing the Thome-powered White Sox.
Globally, Jim Leyland of course deserves credit for finally lighting a fire under this long-dormant predator. But how are they doing it? The first and obvious answer would seem to be: pitching. The American League as a whole has an unsightly 4.75 league ERA, which if continued over a full season would be its highest since 2000, and 7th highest of all time:

(Hey, somebody check that DiMaggio kid for steroids!)
Anyway, even in this most inhospitable climate, Tigers pitchers are posting a sparkling 3.36 ERA, running away from the #2 White Sox at 4.13 and the #3 & 4 Yankees and Red Sox at 4.28 and 4.47. But while Detroit has some good young or young-ish arms like Jeremy Bonderman, Justin Verlander, Fernando Rodney and Joel Zumaya, the fact is that most of them are overachieving the ERAs they should have based on their K/BB and HR rates, with the significant exception of Bonderman. Look at the K/9 figures for the rotation: Bonderman’s at 7.57, but he’s the only one striking out a significant number of batters; the others are at 5.73 for Nate Robertson, 5.24 for Verlander, 4.41 for Kenny Rogers, and 4.12 for Mike Maroth (although they do throw strikes – Robertson’s at 3.47 BB/9, but the others are all down between 2.14 and 2.81).
The real answer is defense: both the Hardball Times and the Baseball Prospectus have Detroit rated above the Cardinals as the best defensive team in baseball this season in terms of turning balls in play into outs. As Bill James used to say, “much of what we perceive as pitching is in fact defense.” Then again, give the Detroit staff credit for throwing enough strikes to let the fielders do their jobs.
There’s also POWER. The Tigers’ .336 team OBP is a bit below the league average of .339 (Curtis Granderson’s doing his bit and is on pace for 87 walks, but nobody else is on pace to draw 70), but they are slugging .474 as a team; as I discussed here, the all time record is .491 by the 2003 Red Sox, followed by .489 for the 1927 Yankees (the 1953 Dodgers slugged .474). Given the .431 mark for the AL as a whole, that slugging average isn’t of historic proportions (in fact, the Blue Jays lead the league at .490) and isn’t as impressive as the team’s ERA, but it’s enough to put plenty of runs on the board even in the absence of a surfeit of baserunners. Detroit has mainly done this with 1977 Red Sox-style depth and Chris Shelton’s hot start (Shelton’s now at .603 and the rejuvenated Magglio Ordonez, who may earn his big contract if he can stay healthy all this year, at .571, while Marcus Thames steams along at his Toledo pace at .707. But like I said: the bats may be carrying their weight, but it’s the gloves that are making the difference.

Mets trade the expensive, expendable and unreliable Jorge Julio to the Diamondbacks for Orlando Hernandez. El Duque has a 2.65 ERA this year on the road and has struck out 10.25 batters per 9 innings this season, but an 8.16 ERA in home games in hitter-friendly Arizona made him available. I love this deal; Hernandez may not be the most reliable or durable starter, but he came cheap, he’s still got good stuff, he’s a proven big-game guy, and he can probably be a useful mentor to his countryman Alay Soler.
And one more question: who will replace Julio in the pen? Can I dare hope to Free Heath Bell?

Every year, it seems, there’s some impatient young hitter who comes hot out of the gate and, instead of cooling off, just keeps getting hotter all summer. This year’s model is the Mariners’ 22-year-old second baseman, Jose Lopez. Lopez was overmatched at the plate the past two years, batting .239/.373/.272 in 397 at bats, but at his age dramatic improvements are as much the rule as the exception (and he had smacked 32 doubles in those 397 at bats, a good indicator of power potential for a guy that young). Lopez is currently batting .302 and slugging .516, and is on pace for 34 doubles, 17 triples, 24 HR and 131 RBI (while batting second). Yet, his command of the strike zone remains appalling: at this pace he will finish with 17 walks to 86 whiffs. Eventually, that will catch up to him, but it’s possible that – like Alfonso Soriano’s second season with the Yankees – it won’t be this year. If not, enjoy the show.

Really, you can’t ask more from a guy than 7 shutout innings of sudden-death relief. But the Phillies asked for one more, and the poor guy gets saddled with the loss.
You also can’t very well play more games this dramatic in the season’s first two months than the Mets have. Man, have we been treated to some great baseball.
UPDATE: Madson now has a career ERA of 8.16 as a starter, 2.97 as a reliever. I don’t suppose he’ll ever return to the rotation. Meanwhile, David Pinto notes that the hits keep on coming for the depleted Phillies pitching staff, as Cole Hamels is scratched from today’s start in favor of Jon Lieber. Either way, given the state of the two teams’ bullpens, Lieber and Alay Soler are both going 6 innings today if it kills them.

Despite extravagant predictions from some quarters that he would take the AL by storm as Dwight Gooden and Vida Blue did in years gone by, Felix Hernandez has struggled badly, to the tune of a 5.84 ERA. How bad has he really been? The Hardball Times’ pitching stats offer a closer look. Hernandez’ K numbers have been fine (9.31 K/9), but his walks have been higher than you’d like (3.83 BB/9). He’s allowed a ton of homers (1.64 HR/9). His groundball/flyball ratio is good, though not on Lowe/Webb levels, 58.4%, so where are all the homers coming from? 29.2% of his flyballs have left the park, 6 points higher than the next worst in the majors (Brad Radke). Granted, that could partly be a rookie serving too many meatballs, but if he keeps throwing that many grounders, the HR rate will fall. As for balls in play, Hernandez hasn’t allowed a particularly high number of line drives, but his defensive support has been appalling, at .646 one of the lowest rates of balls in play turned into outs of any major league pitcher.
Conclusion: yes, Hernandez is struggling with rookie mistakes and control troubles. But all signs still point to a guy who will be a star sooner or later. As long as you didn’t overinvest your hopes in young pitcher skipping his growing pains, there’s no cause for alarm.

You know, I’m not ready to conclude that Billy Wagner was a bad signing for the Mets, who needed a better closer than Braden Looper. But as I argued last fall, it’s now clear that BJ Ryan was a better signing.

Justin Verlander has yet to have a no-decision in his first 11 major league starts. I wonder who was the last pitcher to get through that many starts at the beginning of a career without a no-decision – in fact, these days, a double-figure string of starts without a no-decision is a rarity in itself.

A quick breakdown of homers by age:

One thing you can see is that Bonds picked up a 45-homer advantage – and Aaron, a 90-homer advantage – before age 24, when Ruth became a full-time outfielder. Of course, by then Ruth had an 80-41 record and a 2.09 ERA as a starting pitcher, was 3-0 with an 0.87 ERA in the World Series, and had won three World Championships. Even so, if you look on the age charts, Bonds doesn’t even appear in the top 10 in homers through age 35 (Ruth is second, Aaron third, Mays fourth – Sammy Sosa is first and Ken Griffey jr. is fifth).
Anyway, there really isn’t much point in baseball making any fuss over 714 or 715. Bonds still won’t be the all-time home run king, at 715 he will still be 18 homers from the National League record, and he still isn’t a better player than Babe Ruth.

The (predictable) struggles of Jose Lima and Jeremi Gonzales, contrasted with the near-juggernaut the Mets have been thus far when they start their real starters, made me think back to two Mets teams I remember well that had much the same problem: the 1987 and 2000 Mets. Let’s compare how each team fared when starting their emergency starters vs. the main rotation – I’ve included not just W-L and runs scored and allowed per game but also the team’s “Pythagorean” record with each set of starters:

The 1987 team was particularly frustrating (the frustration still burns today): this was the defending world champs, and they had seven top-notch starters – behind the front five of Dwight Gooden, Ron Darling, Bob Ojeda, Sid Fernandez, and Rick Aguilera, they had the rookie David Cone and my all-time favorite Met, Terry Leach, who started 12 games and went 7-1 with a 3.51 ERA as a starter. As you can see, when one of those guys started, the Mets played at a 95-win clip, the same as the division champion Cardinals. But Gooden missed two months in drug rehab, and the others had a series of injuries – Ojeda and Aguilera missed months with arm trouble, Leach had knee problems, Sid wrenched his knee running out a triple, Cone had a finger crushed when he was hit on the hand while bunting, Darling tore up his thumb fielding a Vince Coleman bunt that broke up a no-hitter. In their stead, the Mets gave 19 starts to the resolutely mediocre John Mitchell, and 10 more to a combination of short reliever Jeff Innis, a washed-up John Candelaria, and hopeless cases Don Schulze and Tom Edens. The results were predictably disappointing.
The 2000 team was more a matter, like the current team, of just falling off a cliff after the 5-man rotation. The starters included two aces (Al Leiter and Mike Hampton), two reasonably dependable pitchers (Rick Reed and Glendon Rusch), and the by-then unpredictable Bobby J. Jones (the white, righthanded one), who went 11-6 despite a 5.06 ERA but ended up throwing a 1-hit shutout in the NLDS to eliminate the team with the best record in the National League, Barry Bonds’ Giants (Bonds went 0-4 with two whiffs). But beyond there be dragons: Pat Mahomes was an occasionally effective reliever that year, but hideous in five starts, and the other emergency starters – Dennis Springer, Bill Pulsipher, Grant Roberts, and Bobby M Jones (the black, lefthanded one) all got shelled whenever they appeared, albeit not often enough to keep the Mets from the Wild Card.
This year thus far looks like 2000 – even including Victor Zambrano, the front five (featuring Pedro, Glavine, Trachsel and Brian Bannister) has kept the team playing at a 105-win clip, but Jose Lima, Jeremi Gonzalez and John Maine have offered nothing but grief. (I’m not totally down on Maine, but he’s clearly not a great option). Lima is gone now, replaced tomorrow night by Cuban defector Alay Soler, who’s been tearing up AA. Mike Pelfrey is probably not far behind as a replacement for Gonzalez, and Bannister is expected back soon. Let’s hope that’s as far down the depth chart as these Mets have to go again.

Mike Mussina’s revival this year could give a shot in the arm to his Hall of Fame candidacy. A fuller assessment of where Mussina stands should await another day (see here for some perspective on his path to 300 wins), but my older brother pointed out something that I should have considered before: Mussina’s never won 20 games. As it turns out, there are no starting pitchers in the Hall of Fame who have never had a 20-win season, and none of the active guys who would come up with Mussina (Clemens, Johnson, Maddux, Pedro, Glavine, Schilling) have the same problem, nor do Tommy John (3 20-win seasons), Bert Blyleven (1), Jim Kaat (3), Jack Morris (3) or Luis Tiant (4). The lowest totals of 20-win seasons by starting pitchers in the Hall:
One: Jim Bunning, Don Sutton, and if you count him Dennis Eckersley. Sutton, of course, won 324 games, and Bunning was a bad selection.
Two: Chief Bender, Don Drysdale, Whitey Ford, Waite Hoyt, Herb Pennock, Nolan Ryan. Ryan likewise won 324 games, Ford had amazing winning percentages, lost two years to military service and was held back by Casey Stengel’s eccentric concept of a starting rotation, and Hoyt, Pennock and probably Drysdale and Bender were bad selections. Bender and Pennock at least were like Mussina in having very good winning percentages, but not in Ford’s class. Babe Ruth also won 20 twice, but is, of course, not in as a pitcher.
Three: Jesse Haines, Sandy Koufax, Ted Lyons, Rube Marquard, Phil Niekro, Dazzy Vance. Again, a mix of bad picks, 300+ winners, and guys who had something else unusually impressive on their resume. John Ward also won twenty three times but is partly in as a shortstop and other things.

Well, Wagner was even worse today than Rivera yesterday, so maybe this whole “Sandman” thing is jinxing them both . . . frankly, Willie left Wagner in at least one if not two batters two long – there was no need to let him load the bases, then walk in a run, then bean in another run; if they’d lifted Wagner when it was 4-2 and Bernie was coming up, they might have got out of that inning alive. What a horror show. So the Mets win with Jeremi Gonzalez coughing up six runs in three innings, and lose with Pedro tossing seven innings of shutout ball.

Well, the Mets trailed the Hated Yankees 4-3 after the first inning. The question is who should be more depressed: Mets fans watching Jeremi Gonzalez get trotted out and predictably get shelled, or the Yankees watching their #1 starter, Randy Johnson, yet again get lit up, on a day when the Yankes get news that Carl Pavano needs elbow surgery and is likely done attempting to pitch this season.
UPDATE: 5-5 in the third after Xavier Nady takes Johnson deep. Nady was nine years old when Johnson broke in. I’ve been a big believer in the Big Unit remaining effective with the Yanks, but I’m starting to think he’s had it.

Looks like Victor Zambrano’s injury could be career-threatening, as his surgery ended up being more extensive than anticipated. I wish Zambrano well, and far from New York and the memories of the Kazmir deal. Still, if this is curtains for Zambrano, let’s remember the good stuff: leaving Tampa Bay as the Devil Rays’ winningest pitcher, posting a 3.55 ERA in his first 20 starts as a Met, including a 10-start string as one of the most effective starters in the game, and his status as one of baseball’s toughest starters to take deep. Zambrano never did have the consistency he needed to be successful, and in retrospect maybe his arm was hurting him much of last year. But it was never his fault who he was traded for.

It’s a small step, but Mariners fans have to be happy to see perennially injured prospect Chris Snelling playing again at AAA; all indications are that Snelling, who is pretty clearly a major league hitter and – when fully mobile – can play center field, will be up in the majors with a shot at some significant playing time in Seattle’s offense-starved lineup once he’s had some time to shake off the rust:

Snelling’s rehab stint can last up to 30 days before the Mariners have to decide what to do with him. He could join the parent club, or with a final club option he could stay in Tacoma.

Hideki Matsui joins Gary Sheffield on the DL with a shattered wrist, probably for several months and perhaps for the year. As I noted before the season, the Yankees tried to stem their twin vulnerabilities in the everyday lineup – age and a lack of depth – by loading up on guys who have been insanely durable over the years (Matsui, Sheffield, Damon, Jeter, A-Rod, and – by catcher standards – Posada). But age and freak accidents can spoil that. Now the Yanks have Melky Cabrera and Bubba Crosby holding down outfield corners and a washed-up Bernie as DH. With Randy Johnson shaky and Carl Pavano still out, the Yanks need a powerhouse offense to win; they may not now have one.

Always Amazin’ and MetsGeek both had good roundups Monday of the possibilities for filling the holes in the Mets’ rotation left by the injury to Victor Zambrano as well as the short-term injuries to Brian Bannister and John Maine. I had meant to do a longer roundup myself, but life has been intervening lately. Quick thoughts:
*Clearly, Lima Time is not even a short-term answer; Sunday’s debacle wasn’t entirely Lima’s fault, but he’s just not a credible major league starter anymore.
*Personally, I favor putting Heilman permanently into the rotation and calling up Heath Bell to shore up the bullpen. So far this season, Bell has a 1.35 ERA and 5 saves at Norfolk, with a 20/3 K/BB ratio and no homers allowed in 13.1 innings. UPDATE: Busy as I am, I missed that the Mets have indeed called up Bell.
*Odalis Perez makes me nervous; I’ve been a fan in the past, but in 2005-06 he’s been beaten up pretty bad.
*Mike Pelfrey seems like he’ll be ready quickly, although he’s probably not going to be highly effective at the major league level just yet; his numbers between A and AA are very encouraging but not yet quite dominating when you account for the level of competition – 2.56 ERA, 38.2 IP, 40 Hits, 1 HR, 7 BB, 47 K. That says “future star” but it doesn’t say “ready to take the NL by storm”; the real question is, does it say “ready to at least equal Victor Zambrano”? I’d guess yes, so if the scouts are agreed, the Mets shouldn’t hesitate to bring him to the majors. But I’d be much more hesitant to use him as a starter, as opposed to breaking him in as a reliever – less out of concern for his productivity and more because most guys, in their first year of professional ball, don’t have much more than maybe 120 good innings in them. Not only don’t you want him hurt, you don’t want him running out of gas when you need him most. A bullpen built around Wagner-Sanchez-Bell-Pelfrey-Bradford sounds good to me.

Nate Silver has a must-read column – for Baseball Prospectus subscribers only – on pitchers who pitched in the World Baseball Classic, the bottom line of which is a collective underperformance thus far that’s especially pronounced among the starting pitchers. And that’s before you count the injuries, the latest of which was Victor Zambrano’s elbow. The unanswerable question is whether the pattern will persist all year.

I had meant to mention this in my roundup of Friday night’s game, but Always Amazin’ beats me with a picture of Keith Hernandez and Gary Cohen donning rally caps in the broadcast booth in the 13th inning (strangely, Roger McDowell made no effort to do the same down in the Braves’ dugout. But I’m still waiting for him to give Bobby Cox a hotfoot.)

Tonight’s Mets victory – 8-7 over the Braves in 14 innings, opening an 8-game lead over Atlanta – is one of the all-time classics. The Mets rallied from behind four separate times to tie the game, including down 4 runs in the seventh and trailing in the 11th, the latter on a monster home run by Cliff Floyd, the bright spot on a night when the struggling Floyd stranded two men in the 3d and the 8th and stranded the bases loaded in the 13th. Even Jorge Julio got in the act, getting out of a jam in the 14th after Chipper Jones singled to lead off. David Wright – who ended the game by driving in Carlos Beltran with a drive to the wall in left center – and Jose Reyes each reached base safely six times in the game, Reyes getting walked intentionally after starting the game 5-for-5. Beltran’s advance to second on a passed ball in the 14th reminded me of Game 6 of the 1986 NLCS, which I recently re-watched part of on DVD; I’d forgotten in that game how many pitches got away from an exhausted Alan Ashby in the late innings.
Yet again, as they have done repeatedly this year, the Mets won precisely the kind of game a championship team wins. They now stand 20-9, and if they remain healthy there’s no reason this team can’t win the National League pennant.

Darren Oliver’s ERAs from 1998 through 2004 (he didn’t pitch in the majors in 2005): 5.73, 4.26, 7.42, 6.02, 4.66, 5.04, 5.94. Oliver has proven, beyond any shadow of a doubt, that he is a bad major league pitcher; this is a fact as well-established as the fact that Albert Pujols is a good major league hitter.
Or is it?
Now, I’ve been relentlessly critical of the Mets for employing Oliver, but he has pitched quite well thus far this season in relief, which leads me to wonder: is it possible that the Mets are on to something? Noticing some patterns in his numbers, I decided to dig up Oliver’s career stats just as a reliever. What I got here, here and here was interesting.
You see, Oliver pitched fairly well, mainly in relief, in 1993 and 1994 at the start of his career. Early in 1995, struggling in the bullpen, Oliver got moved to the rotation and ran off a few respectable starts. After that, he was used exclusively as a starter from 1996 through 2001, with severely diminishing returns. Let’s break out his career numbers in relief, in three parts:

Now, even when you take out that disastrous stretch in April-May of 1995, those still aren’t earth-shakingly good numbers, with 4.5 walks/9 IP being a particular concern, although the ratio since 2002 has been better than that (2.96 BB/9 and a 2:1 K/BB ratio). But the point is, Oliver over the course of his career has been merely a mediocre reliever, as compared to a really horrible starting pitcher. I’m still deeply skeptical of him (I’d rather have Royce Ring in the lefty role), and will be even moreso if he gets thrown into the rotation at any point, but kudos at least to Minaya and Randolph for putting Oliver into the situation where he has at least a change of succeeding.

Percentage of saves out of save opportunities (regular season) by the Mets’ primary closer:
2000: 89% (Benitez)
2001: 93% (Benitez)
2002: 89% (Benitez)
2003: 75% (Benitez)
2004: 85% (Looper)
2005: 78% (Looper)
2006: 70% (Wagner)
If you take out his injury-plagued 2000, Wagner has averaged 3.7 blown saves per year since 1998 – against 35 saves a year, a 90% conversion rate – whereas he’s blown 3 already this year. Granted, he’s mostly pitched well, his blazing fastball hardly inspires Looper-ish levels of anxiety, and most importantly the Mets have bounce back to win two of the three games he’s blown, lessening their impact. And granted, there’s this. But he’s going to have to do better than a 70% conversion rate or people are going to lose patience with him in a hurry.
UPDATE: Wagner’s career ERA before the All-Star Break: 2.71. After: 1.94.