Daily Graphing – Ted Lilly

by
January 24, 2006

The past three seasons I've ended up rostering Ted Lilly in my fantasy league. How has he rewarded my loyalty (stupidity)? With nothing but disappointment and a firm place on my bench (sometimes he was kicked off the bench). Anyway, he has agreed to a one year, 4 million dollar contract with the Blue Jays after an injury ridden 2005 season. Between his trips to the DL (shoulder & bicep tendonitis) he went 10-11 with a 5.56 ERA. Let's see if there may be better days ahead for the oft-injured lefty.

K9

The good news is he can still strike people out decent amount. His strikeouts per 9 innings (K/9) of 6.84 aren't too shabby for a starting pitcher. He was even able to wrack up two 8-strikeout and one 10-strikeout performance in 2005. If healthy, hopefully we'll see a few more of those which would bump his K/9 over 7, like it was in 2003 and 2004.

BB9

His walks per 9 innings (BB/9) over the past two seasons leave much to be desired, but his 2001 and 2002 numbers do give us a glimpse of what he's capable of. I'm sure his injuries played a part in his increased BB/9. Combine all those free base runners with his elevated home runs per 9 innings (HR/9) and you've got a recipe for disaster, hence the ERA well over 5.

HR9

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His HR/9 should be a little better next season since his home runs-per-fly ball (HR/FB) of 13% should regress back towards the 11% league average a bit. However, it's probably unrealistic to expect him to suddenly have a good HR/9 since he's never had one and he's nearly an extreme fly ball pitcher.

If Ted Lilly could pitch an injury free season (and right now that's a big if), I'd say you'd be looking at a quality pitcher with 15 win, sub 4 ERA potential. His strikeouts are just fine and he has age on his side as far as walks go since pitchers tend to walk fewer batters as they get older. Even if he's not 100%, it's unlikely he'll do as poorly as last season. Knowing me, I'll probably take chance on Lilly once again and I can only hope fourth times a charm.





 

David Appelman is the creator of FanGraphs.

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