Colorado’s Playoff Rotation
Congratulations to the Colorado Rockies, who clinched the NL Wild Card with a victory yesterday. Now that they’re in the playoffs, they just have one small problem – figuring out what their rotation should look like.
The Rockies have a problem most teams would love to have. Their five starting pitchers – Ubaldo Jimenez, Aaron Cook, Jason Marquis, Jason Hammel, and Jorge de la Rosa – have combined for +19 WAR, which is the main reason they’re going to the playoffs in the first place. Cook is the low man on the totem pole with 2.1 WAR, but that’s a function of injury related struggles and a stint on the DL. Over the last few years, Cook has established himself as a reliable, high quality starting pitcher.
You just don’t need five starting pitchers in a playoff series, however. So, one member of Colorado’s rotation is going to head to the bullpen, and figuring out who that should be isn’t as easy as it is for most clubs.
Jimenez is the #1, clearly. He’s one of the best pitchers in baseball. After that, it gets muddier.
Cook should probably be the #2. He’s been very good in two starts since returning from the DL, and you probably don’t want to mess with a guy’s routine who is coming off an arm problem.
That leaves de la Rosa, Hammel, and Marquis to fight for two spots. All of them have experience out of the bullpen. All of them provide different qualities as a starter. Hammel is the guy who pounds the strike zone. de la Rosa is the guy who racks up strikeouts. Marquis is the groundball specialist. They’ve all had pretty similar years, with their FIPs ranging from 3.73 to 4.10. And they have all checkered history before this season.
I’d go with Hammel and de la Rosa, personally. Marquis would give the bullpen something it doesn’t have right now – a guy to come in and get a ground ball in order to induce a DP or a play at the plate. The Rockies have relievers who can do other things, but they don’t have a sinker specialist in relief. Marquis would provide an option for Jim Tracy if he finds himself in a situation where he needs a groundball in a high leverage situation.
However, I’m not sure there’s a wrong answer here. You could make an argument for all three guys. No matter what is decided, someone isn’t going to be happy, but that’s the life of having too many quality starters in October. There are worse problems to have.
Dave is the Managing Editor of FanGraphs.
Wow, every team Marquis has played for went to the post-season that year.
I guess the Pirates should sign Marquis next season!
I think I’d stick Hammel in the pen, though Marquis has slumped lately. It’s a tough call, but a nice problem to have.
Depends who their opponent is, if they play righty-heavy St.Louis I’d stick de la Rosa in the pen. Against Philly I’d pitch groundballer Marquis @ homer-happy Philly and de la Rosa in the other game. The fact that the pen lacks a pitcher like Marquis is a great point, but I still don’t like moving him out of the rotation overall because Marquis is such a great hitter that its a shame to give up those ABs.
A righty heavy team that can’t hit lefties. George of the Rose should start against them. LHP’s cripple Rasmus/Ankiel, send Schumaker to the bench in lieu of Lugo, and Ludwick is a reverse split hitter.
Marquis can pinch run/hit too!
But yes, this is a great problem to have. Whoever doesn’t start can enter in long relief at the first sign of trouble or lack of stuff/command.
According to Yahoo’s situational statistics, de la Rosa and Hammel both have pretty high ERAs in their first 15 pitches, making me think that they would not be so ideal as relievers.
I would still put Marquis in the rotation though; his amount of playoff experience to me is invaluable.
Marquis does have playoff experience but the only time his team won the WS, he was left off the post-season roster. I’m not sure what that says about Marquis though.
Nothing.
That year Marquis was the worst starter in baseball and his team made the WS in spite of him. That was truly one of the most teeth-nashing seasons to watch in recent memory for we Cardinals fans.
first, he was left off the playoff roster three of the last four years (cubs in 08, card in 07 and 06), and pitched all of one inning last year. Second, he was bad when he did pitch. In 22 playoff innings he’s walked 18 and struck out 14.
http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/m/marquja01.shtml
sorry, the cards didn’t make the playoffs in 07. But he was left off playoff rosters in 06 and 08.
Interesting column. Nice work Dave.
Absolutely agree with you on the rotation order. As hard as it is to believe, Colorado is set up very well to make another run to the World Series.
De La Rosa would be pretty killer out of the bullpen, I would think. He’s had a good year starting though.
He hasn’t pitched well from the pen in awhile. He has electric stuff, but he always struggles in the first inning before he can settle down.
His particular skillset would be redundant to Morales, Betancourt, Daley, and Street. We don’t need another high K9 high BB9 in the pen. Not that a high BB9 is ideal from the rotation, but he’s done much, much better in the rotation than he has in limited bullpen work (like one outing).
Ubaldo, Cook, DLR, Hammel are our best 4 pitchers. Marquis has regressed to the mean pretty badly, and while his past start only resulted in 2 runs, he was missing locations badly, got himself into too many jams and worked out of them by pretty much pure luck. I’d rather have him as mopup relief than have him in the rotation.
DLR’s ERA isn’t very indicative of being a “good” starter, but his 2.28 K/BB and 3.96 FIP and his growing maturity (in terms of reaction to bad outings/innings) has really made him a threat from the rotation. Also, his 2nd half numbers are pretty solid in general http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/split.cgi?n1=rosajo01&year=2009&t=p#half
If you are deciding between Marquis and Hammell, I think who starts depends on the ballpark. Hammell’s home ERA is 5.73 and his road ERA is 3.19. Marquis is basically even home and away (approx 3.95). Marquis’ groundballs might be valuable in the pen, but there is no way I’d start Hammell in a Coors Field game.
Hammel wouldn’t be as bad at Coors Field as his ERA might indicate. His BABIP at home (.376) is extremely unlucky, especially compared to his .290 road BABIP and .289 overall BABIP in 2008. Predictably, both home/road ERA’s have regressed slowly to the mean as the season went on.
It’s not like they can’t win with Hammel on the hill at Coors. They are 11-4 in his home starts this season.