First Half Review: The Starting Pitchers
by Freneau on Jul 13, 2010 2:00 PM EDT
in Kansas City Royals News
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PrintTalking about the offense is relatively easy. When we get to run prevention, it starts to get more complicated. First, there's the issue of the team defense behind the pitchers. Defense remains difficult to quantify and often subject to debate. Secondly, and relatedly, there's the issue of how to credit pitching results. Do you reward a guy for beating the odds when it comes to stranding runners and not allowing singles? There's also a difference between looking at what happened, versus thinking about what will happen in the future.
Anyway, by this point just about everyone is aware of these issues. Let's cautiously look at the starters.
- Royal starters, as a group, posted a 5.11 ERA in the first half, 13th best in the AL. (Only Baltimore was worse.)
- The starters are 11th in K/9 (6.31) and 11th in K/BB (1.89).
- Royal starters allowed 69 home runs, 4th worst in the league.
| Rk | Pos | ERA | GS | IP | R | ER | ERA+ | WHIP | H/9 | HR/9 | BB/9 | SO/9 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | SP | Zack Greinke | 3.71 | 18 | 119.0 | 57 | 49 | 113 | 1.160 | 8.8 | 1.0 | 1.7 | 7.6 |
| 2 | SP | Brian Bannister | 5.56 | 18 | 102.0 | 65 | 63 | 75 | 1.500 | 10.5 | 1.6 | 3.0 | 5.3 |
| 3 | SP | Kyle Davies | 5.57 | 17 | 95.1 | 61 | 59 | 75 | 1.521 | 9.4 | 1.0 | 4.2 | 5.7 |
| 4 | SP | Luke Hochevar | 4.96 | 13 | 78.0 | 47 | 43 | 85 | 1.385 | 9.2 | 0.7 | 3.2 | 6.6 |
| 5 | SP | Gil Meche | 6.66 | 9 | 48.2 | 39 | 36 | 63 | 1.849 | 10.4 | 1.3 | 6.3 | 5.5 |
| Rk | Pos | ERA | GS | IP | R | ER | ERA+ | WHIP | H/9 | HR/9 | BB/9 | SO/9 | |
| 11 | Bruce Chen* | 3.81 | 8 | 52.0 | 24 | 22 | 110 | 1.308 | 7.1 | 1.0 | 4.7 | 7.4 | |
| 12 | Anthony Lerew | 7.56 | 5 | 25.0 | 21 | 21 | 56 | 1.520 | 11.2 | 2.9 | 2.5 | 5.8 | |
| Team Totals | 4.76 | 88 | 777.1 | 437 | 411 | 89 | 1.428 | 9.3 | 1.2 | 3.5 | 6.5 | ||
| Rank in 14 AL teams | 13 | 10 | 12 | 13 | |||||||||
| Rk | Pos | ERA | GS | IP | R | ER | ERA+ | WHIP | H/9 | HR/9 | BB/9 | SO/9 |
- Here are the tRA numbers for the starters, courtesy of Stat Corner. Good: Greinke with a 3.37 and Hochevar with a 4.47 (kinda). Bad: Davies with a 5.06, Chen with a 5.52, Bannister with a 5.97, Meche with a 6.84, and Lerew with a 7 something. Obviously, there's a huge gap between Chen's tRA and his ERA, so I wouldn't hold out much hope that he's going to be a useful pitcher going forward.
- I think the stability of the starting rotation over the last few years has somewhat lulled us to sleep. Back in the bad old days, the rotation was a constant mess, with just utter randoms coming and going constantly. It hasn't been like that around here for awhile. Even with the injuries the Meche and Hochevar, they still made a fair number of starts, and have been replaced by just one guy each. Meanwhile, Greinke and Davies and Banny have chugged along. Only problem is, other than Greinke, no one has actually been good. All part of the first half theme of STABILITY, without results.
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I'm not sure Bannister deserves to continue starting much longer
he might not catch Darrel May in career starts after all
Bannister needs an express ticket to the bullpen
A starter that can’t get through the lineup two times is useless.
Bannister has been extremely unlucky on his HR per fly ball rate
Like BABIP around .300, most starters regress to a HR/FB rate of 10-11%. Bannister’s HR/FB this year is 14%. His career HR/FB is 9.8%. His xFIP (which regresses HR/FB) is 4.69, which is right around his career FIP (4.71) and xFIP (4.83). He is basically the same pitcher he has always been — his K/9, BB/9, GB%, BABIP are all around his career numbers — except for the bit of bad luck with the fly balls going over the fence.
The issue with Bannister is that while he has two more years of club control, the last two years are arbitration years, and he is already making $2.3 million. For a team with limited payroll resources, that makes him a non-tender candidate. Moore really should be looking to move him for a modest return, as he would have some value to an NL club in need of rotation depth.
Moore really should be looking to move him for a modest return, as he would have some value to an NL club in need of rotation depth.
that’s basically all of our guys, save for greinke, when you get down to it
that’s the first thing that jumped out to me when I looked at the firsthalf numbers: national league staff
thank goodness Moore didnt trade Meche last summer
Moore needs to call the Padres immediately
Bannister: trade
Davies: trade or move to pen
Hoch: keep
Greinke: leave alone
Meche: pray
couldn't we
offer him 3 mil for his last 2 years, take it or leave it, and if he takes it we have the back of our rotation locked up, if he leaves it, no harm done?
Teams can always negotiate and reach a deal with a player prior to the tender date
In fact, teams have been known to use the threat of a non-tender if the player does not agree to a contract before the deadline in negotiations. But on the open market and with the scarcity of healthy starting pitchers (even middling ones like Bannister), Bannister should be able to get his 2010 salary ($2.3 million) again, especially from an NL club, so he would most likely “leave” that offer.
what would his arb number be, and can he be a type B if he declines arb?
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by SagehenMacGyver47 on Jul 13, 2010 5:40 PM EDT up reply actions
or can he not decline yet b/c of team control?
Would you like to follow me on Twitter, Facebook, or my blog...well you can't.
by SagehenMacGyver47 on Jul 13, 2010 5:41 PM EDT up reply actions
Can't decline this season, at least
I'm not a sabermetrician, but I do play one at FanGraphs and Beyond the Box Score.
Can't get enough of me? Check out my Twitter feed.
by Matt Klaassen on Jul 13, 2010 6:16 PM EDT up reply actions
I think they have him through 2012 if they want
I'm not a sabermetrician, but I do play one at FanGraphs and Beyond the Box Score.
Can't get enough of me? Check out my Twitter feed.
by Matt Klaassen on Jul 13, 2010 6:17 PM EDT up reply actions
Virtually no one gets a pay cut in arbitration
and almost everyone gets a raise (as service time is a major factor). Without going through all of the recent comps (which is time intensive), I would guess that Bannister would get a modest raise to $3 million or so, and definitely no less than the $2.3 million he made this year. If he can cut his ERA under 5.00, that number goes up.
The Royals could not get compensation for him because the compensation rule only applies to free agents with six years of service time. In any event, Bannister was a ways off from qualifying for B status per the latest updates.
As a player under club control (less than six full years of service time), he cannot decline arbitration if offered.
Remember that tRA is scaled to RA, not ERA
I'm not a sabermetrician, but I do play one at FanGraphs and Beyond the Box Score.
Can't get enough of me? Check out my Twitter feed.
I think they're smart enougn to know that ERA doesn't tell the whole story
you definitely need to consider WHIP
I'm not a sabermetrician, but I do play one at FanGraphs and Beyond the Box Score.
Can't get enough of me? Check out my Twitter feed.
by Matt Klaassen on Jul 13, 2010 2:09 PM EDT up reply actions
you cant just look at wins
you also have to consider losses
by Freneau on Jul 13, 2010 2:10 PM EDT up reply actions 1 recs
it's a rich tapestry
I'm not a sabermetrician, but I do play one at FanGraphs and Beyond the Box Score.
Can't get enough of me? Check out my Twitter feed.
by Matt Klaassen on Jul 13, 2010 2:12 PM EDT up reply actions
no, it's a mediocre tapestry
As Will has conclusively proved.
"Shot by my own men."
by StonewallPDS on Jul 13, 2010 3:49 PM EDT up reply actions
the league leaders (Lincecum, etc) are in the low 70s
here are the Royal guys:
Hoch: 79.2
Davies: 80.8
Bannister: 83.7
Chen: 84%
Greinke: 85.2
suicide now
Swinging strike rates (percentage of pitches resulting in swing and miss)
AL leaders for starters are 10%-12%
Hoch: 9.4%
Davies: 7.8%
Bannister: 6.9%
Chen: 7.6%
Greinke: 6.5% (career 8.6%)
is this the "guys aren't biting on zack's slider anymore" effect?
or maybe is he in the zone too much?
not awesome
Looking at his performance by pitch type (i.e., the pitch type linear weights on Fangraphs)
the real culprit has been his curveball, which has gone from a modest positive in previous years (including last year) to a big negative this year. His fastball is down from last year but still a positive, and the slider is only down slightly. With the curveball not as effective and given that his change up was never great, it is not surprising that his success against left-handed hitters is down this year.
Greinke at 6.5% is kinda scary
I hope he figures out his curve.
Do any of you remember the other pitches he was working on this year? I seem to remember a quote from him about trying “new things” when he had a big lead in a game. sidenote; that has not happened very much this year.
Given enough velocity even a pig will fly
by MarioVanPeebles Republic of China on Jul 13, 2010 5:46 PM EDT up reply actions
OT:
Is it just me, or has the front page layout gone all screwy? The right hand sidebar is now at the bottom of the page.
yep, AFU
- .-. ..- … – / – …. . / .—. .-. - .. . … …
by Jeff Zimmerman on Jul 13, 2010 3:19 PM EDT up reply actions
A couple of random thoughts:
I’m pretty nervous that Hochevar isn’t back yet.
That sucks that we gave Meche that 5th year. Of course, if we didn’t offer it- he might have signed somewhere else. And that wouldn’t be so bad.
Hate to beat the dead horse, but it drives me wacko that Davies has pitched in 100 IP and Soria has pitched in 35. Basically, the Royals are telling me that Davies is 3x better than Soria.
Stuck following the Royals since 1976.
Maybe we should bring Trey back
to explain the concept of “high-leverage situations” to you, Mr. Aird (or is that “Snrub?”). Since Soria usually pitches the ninth inning, his innings are worth 3 or 4 times than those of Davies’ starts. The first through fifth innings of a game don’t really count, since runs aren’t worth anywhere near as much as they are later in the game when real psychological and physical grittiness really take effect. It’s the three-run lead in the ninth that really needs protecting. Tie game in the sixth? Pshaw.
Remember when the rotation was projected to be in the top10 at the beginning of the season?
Glad I came, just wish I hadn't stayed so long.
People ask me what I do in winter when there’s no baseball...Rock Chalk Talk
This is why it all seems so hopeless
Bannister, Davies, Lerew (3/5 of rotation) — essentially hopeless
Chen — a wild card, who knows what you’ll get
Only Greinke is really a front line starter and now he’s missing starts!!
This Rotation Was
Tapdancing on the edge of mediocrity coming into this season, and injuries have pushed it over the edge. Zack, Luke and Gil would make a fine front of the rotation if they were all healthy, and Bannister and Davies are serviceable in the 4/5 roles for a non-contender, but the dreck we’re left with now is not pretty.
I used to be an A's fan until they left town and got good.
by philofthenorth on Jul 13, 2010 8:08 PM EDT up reply actions
yes,
and AND we’ve got one top prospect on the shelf with elbow issues and another who left the team and has come back…who knows how that will play out…a third has sucked most of the year.
we’re really down to lamb and dwyer as far as healthy good prospects.
BOOM YOSTED!
by Home Run Tony Cogan on Jul 13, 2010 11:18 PM EDT up reply actions
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