Just yesterday, the Cardinals were holding open tryouts for the imaginary “sixth starter.” Well, those tryouts just bumped up in significance with the news that Adam Wainwright may be lost for the season. Over the past four seasons, Wainwright’s 17.5 WAR ranks 11th among all starters – and far outpaces Chris Carpenter’s 9.9 – making this a terrifying blow to the Cardinals staff. If the Cardinals have any good fortune, it’s that they’ve discovered this early in spring training, and have more than a month to find an alternative solution. While there certainly are options among the still unemployed, Tony La Russa has already declared that the solution will come from someone already at camp in Jupiter.

Candidates for the job include Kyle McClellan, P.J. Walters, Adam Ottavino, Brian Tallet, Lance Lynn and Ian Snell (of course, if the Cards wanted to get wild, they could promote Shelby Miller, but he seems ticketed for High-A Palm Beach). McClellan could be an interesting choice. While he has been a reliever throughout his Major League career, he did start in the minors, and was already slated to be stretched out this spring. Certainly, he has a starter’s arsenal. Last season, he threw four pitches – fastball, cutter, curveball and changeup – at least five percent of the time, and his fastball, curveball and change were all at least 3.5 runs above average. In fact, last season, among relievers with at least 60 innings pitched McClellan’s wCB mark of 5.9 ranked fourth in the Majors, ahead of both Heath Bell and Neftali Feliz. Whether or not he could handle a starter’s workload all season remains to be seen, but if his Marcel-projected 3.96 FIP held up as a starter that would be terrific for the Cards.

Read the rest of this entry »

A couple weeks back, the Astros made the unusual announcement that they would definitively be going to an arbitration hearing with Hunter Pence. This was unusual, because generally team execs like to leave things open-ended. But sometimes, when you know you have the advantage, you choose pistols at dawn. And in their case with Pence, the Astros clearly have the advantage.

Read the rest of this entry »

There are several issues complicating Jose Bautista’s impending arbitration status. For starters, there’s the fact that last season was a career year for him, something that was completely out of line with his previous statistics. This brings up the career vs. platform year debate in full force. A five-plus hearing (and four-plus as well) is supposed to focus almost solely on the platform season, but given the circumstances surrounding Bautista, you would be hard pressed not to point out his past failures. In addition, there are not a lot of good comps for five-plus corner outfielders in the pay range Bautista is going to occupy, making the case even murkier. Given these factors, it’s not surprising that the Jays and Bautista made the nearly unprecedented move of postponing their hearing.

Read the rest of this entry »

In the wake of Ross Ohlendorf’s arbitration win, it would be easy to claim that this was a win for advanced stats. That may not be the case, however. Yes, Ohlendorf recorded only one win last season, but this is the not the first time a pitcher has won an arbitration hearing with one win. You only need to go back to 2009, when Shawn Hill won his hearing against the Nationals despite a 1-5 record the previous year, to see that it’s not necessarily always about wins and losses.
Read the rest of this entry »

An arbitration hearing is basically a fancy performance review – few want to do it, few want to hear about it besides your friends and family and someone is bound to leave angry, and as a result, some teams will avoid it at all costs. Nonetheless, arbitration is important for the whole industry. The fact that comparable players form the basis of the system makes each and every case important. And since cases that go to a hearing make for the best comps, and comps are only relevant for a short time, each and every case that goes to a hearing has the potential to set precedent.

Read the rest of this entry »

Over his last 169.2 innings pitched, Justin Duchscherer’s ERA+ is 160, which ain’t too shabby, as the kids say (Note: Kids don’t say this at all). Looking at other pitchers with similar innings pitched totals, we see that Scott Baker’s ERA+ was 92, Wade Davis’ was 97 and Phil Hughes’ was 102. The difference of course, is that these three pitchers accumulated those innings in 2010, whereas you have to go back to 2008 for Duchscherer’s innings count that high. Additionally, a lot of things have gone his way when he has been healthy. Expecting those results to continue may be a bit optimistic, but with such a low base, the Orioles made a nice calculated gamble when they signed him for 2011 this past weekend.

Read the rest of this entry »

Over the weekend, the following passage was found in Buster Olney’s column (sorry, “Insiders” only)

By the way: Some rival executives are convinced that the Mets’ financial situation all but ensures that Jose Reyes — who stands to be in the running for a nine-figure contract as a free agent next fall if he stays healthy and has a good year — will be traded before the July 31 deadline. That’s all speculation at this point.

This rumor may seem a bit dubious to some. After all, Reyes isn’t the only Met heading into the final year of his contract. Carlos Beltran, Francisco Rodriguez, Oliver Perez and Luis Castillo qualify here as well, and all but Castillo are slated to make more than Reyes, so if a straight salary dump is the order of the day, the Mets have plenty of options. But let’s pretend for a minute that there’s something to this – who would want Reyes in 2011?
Read the rest of this entry »

When Cliff Lee spurned both the Rangers and Yankees for the Phillies earlier this offseason, it set up the Phillies rotation to be akin to the Miami Heat starting five, except without all the reality shows/live tv specials and hatred, but with state income taxes (albeit a low one). Now teamed up with Roy Halladay, Roy Oswalt, Cole Hamels and (for the time being) Joe Blanton, everyone outside of the NL East is looking forward to the potential dominance of this rotation. And together, Halladay and Lee could also form one of the most efficient duos ever.

When I think of efficiency for a pitcher, I think of BB/9 and K/BB. You could easily make a case for BB%, K%, strike % or even P/PA, and you wouldn’t be wrong, but BB/9 and K/BB would be the two I pick, especially since they have readily available yearly leaderboards on baseball-reference. And looking at those two, we see that Halladay and Lee could be on the way to some serious history. Halladay has ranked in the top 5 in the Majors in each category each of the last three years, and Lee has almost matched him (he finished seventh in K/BB in 2009). In fact, last season, Lee ranked first in both, with Halladay right behind him, and no one was even remotely close to them:
Read the rest of this entry »

The Yankees may rely on Sergio Mitre or Ivan Nova to be their fifth starter this year. You may think that this is patently un-Yankee-like, but you’d be wrong. In the past five seasons, Yankees starters have compiled 72.5 WAR, good for eighth most in the Majors. However, virtually none of that was compiled by their fifth starters.
Read the rest of this entry »

If you missed the first two parts, you can find them here and here. One quick clarification on scheduling from those first two pieces – I don’t think going back and resimulating seasons would be fair. It would be impossible to simulate added tension for games that may have taken on added importance thanks to different division rivalries. Pitching matchups may have changed based on the situation, guys that didn’t play hurt may have done so, etc. Furthermore, as one commenter pointed out, travel situations and other extraneous factors would change drastically as well. It is for this reason that I chose not to resimulate season results – there’s just no way to control for those variables. As for determining an optimal 162-game schedule, it’s clear that from the passion of the commenters and the complexity of the issue that that is a subject that deserves its own post at a later date.

Back to the topic at hand – what would the baseball landscape look like if each league went back to two divisions? Here’s how I laid out the new divisions in Part 1:
Read the rest of this entry »