If You Remove…
As Dave noted early yesterday morning, the Joe Blanton-to-the-Phillies trade is one that fans of the Phightins—like me—are not going to be in favor of for years to come. It’s not that Blanton is a bad pitcher, or that a guy like Adrian Cardenas is a lock to become a superstar middle-infielder, but rather that the Phillies gave up two of their top prospects for a back-end of the rotation pitcher. From living in Philadelphia and watching the local broadcasts and such it seems to me that those in favor of this trade feel the way they do because Blanton is “new.” If these same fans watched Blanton intently over the last year and a half or so I have a funny feeling their dispositions would not be as sunny.
Add in the facts that Kentucky Joe dominated the Phillies lineup a couple of weeks ago, that he “won” 30 games in 2006-07, and that Adam Eaton stinks and it becomes very easy to see how fans could be manipulated into thinking this was the right trade to make.
One form of this manipulation really irked my family yesterday, however, in that some writers and reporters tried to justify the trade with the clause “if you remove Blanton’s X worst starts, his ERA is …” I’ve seen differing quotes, involving Blanton’s 3.87 ERA sans-three bad starts, or even his 3.58 ERA sans-four bad starts. Well, you just cannot do that. My brother, who covers the Phillies at MVN.com, offered this take, which is essentially the entire point of this post:
“Todd Zolecki wrote on Philly.com that Blanton actually has a 3.58 ERA if you take away his worst four starts. That’s great, but you don’t merely take away four starts to try to justify a trade. Heck, if you take away Adam Eaton’s worst four starts, his ERA would be 4.06! Has Eaton been a pitcher who deserves an ERA nearly in the 3’s this season? No. Has he been effective at all? No. So let’s not cherry-pick stats.”
You can’t simply remove numbers to justify anything. As has been discussed at length this season, the last three years or so should be quoted when discussing a player’s true talent level. If these same writers wish to justify the trade, perhaps it would serve them wise to note that Blanton’s current ERA is worse than his pre-season projection, and that he is expected to be in the 3.77 range over the remainder of the season… not that his numbers would be better if we take away the worst starts, or that he has performed well against NL East teams in a total of four or five starts in his career.
Overall, we don’t know if the Phillies are done dealing. Maybe they turn around and send the perhaps-overrated Carlos Carrasco and fellow top-tier prospect Antonio Bastardo for Erik Bedard, which would give them a rotation of: Cole Hamels, Erik Bedard, Jamie Moyer, Joe Blanton, and Kyle Kendrick, with Brett Myers also in the fold. From what I’ve come to learn, however, regarding Pat Gillick and his “approach” on his way out the door, it really does seem Blanton is supposed to be the prized acquisition to keep the Mets at bay.
But then again, maybe he IS what the Phillies need to keep the Mets at bay, because as many other Philadelphia columnists have noted, Blanton has pitched 15 scoreless innings against the Mets in his career… (sighs and hopes readers pick up on the sarcasm of small sample sizes and cherry-picked stats).
Eric is an accountant and statistical analyst from Philadelphia. He also covers the Phillies at Phillies Nation and can be found here on Twitter.
Well, there may be something to be said for picking off the worst few starts — does it really matter if in his worst games he gave up six runs or ten? Either way the team he’s pitching for will lose. More generally, looking at the distribution of the number of runs given up, and not just the average, might be a good idea. Perhaps you might prefer someone who gives up, in two consecutive starts, zero runs in eight innings and ten runs in four innings to the guy who gives up five runs in six innings twice. The first guy is almost certainly one win and one loss; the second guy is a bit harder to predict but both of those games are more likely to be a loss than a win. But both of them gave up ten runs in twelve innings, having the same effect on their ERA.
But if people are going to cherry-pick Blanton’s best starts, they’ve got to cherry-pick everybody else’s as well. For example, removing Hamels’ four worst starts (7 in 5.7, 6 in 4, and 5 in 7 (twice)) takes him from 50 runs in 142.7 IP to 27 runs in 119 IP, or in ERA from 3.15 to 2.04. Every pitcher has good days and bad days.
Now, it may be the case that some pitchers are more inconsistent than others. That seems like a mental thing — some of them might let a couple baserunners get to them where others don’t. But in the absence of evidence, this business of calculating ERA without “bad” starts is meaningless.
And feel free to interpret this entire comment as my own desperate attempt to convince myself that the Phillies can hold off the Mets (and the Marlins) this year.