A Pretense Upon Which to Invoke Matt Shoemaker
#Angels Matt Shoemaker will start Game 2
— Jeff Fletcher (@JeffFletcherOCR) October 1, 2014
One requirement — perhaps the only real requirement — of a baseball weblogger interested in retaining his role is that he (or she) possess the capacity to produce, if not necessarily substantive, then at least a lot of content.
For proof of same, one need look no further than the author’s own contributions to FanGraphs — insofar as (a) there are over 2,000 of them and (b) they’re all, by and large, an exercise in nonsense.
The flimsy pretense upon which the author has chosen to construct this post is the very recent announcement by Angels manager Mike Scioscia (and relayed by Jeff Fletcher above) that right-hander Matt Shoemaker is scheduled to start Game Two (and a hypothetical Game Five, it would seem) of the club’s Divisional Series against the victor of Wednesday’s night wild-card game. The information is notable both because Shoemaker (a) missed the last two weeks of the season due to an oblique strain and (b) is probably the club’s best available starting pitcher.
Regarding that latter point, consider this table, which features the top-six Angels starters by projected WAR per 200 innings, according to Steamer:
| # | Name | IP | K/9 | BB/9 | HR/9 | ERA | FIP | WAR |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Garrett Richards | 200 | 8.5 | 3.2 | 0.8 | 3.88 | 3.43 | 3.2 |
| 2 | Tyler Skaggs | 200 | 8.3 | 3.5 | 0.9 | 4.14 | 3.87 | 2.6 |
| 3 | Matt Shoemaker | 200 | 6.8 | 2.2 | 1.1 | 4.06 | 3.91 | 2.0 |
| 4 | C.J. Wilson | 200 | 7.9 | 3.9 | 0.9 | 4.28 | 3.95 | 1.9 |
| 5 | Jered Weaver | 200 | 7.1 | 2.6 | 1.4 | 4.14 | 4.41 | 1.5 |
| 6 | Hector Santiago | 200 | 7.2 | 3.9 | 1.3 | 4.28 | 4.74 | 0.7 |
With regard to this table, the reader will likely recognize the first and second pitchers within it as the injured Garrett Richards and also injured Tyler Skaggs. Third overall is Shoemaker, who entered the season as a 27-year-old having recorded 5.0 total major-league innings and leaves it as an integral member of one of the postseason’s strongest clubs. Relative to Hector Santiago (who presumably would have started Game Three), Shoemaker is worth probably somewhere between 0.2 (if one uses projected ERA) or 0.8 (if one uses FIP) runs per nine innings. Prorated to the ca. 5.0 innings one expects from a starter in the postseason, that’s about 0.1-0.4 runs per game in the Angels’ favor, with the added benefit of allowing Santiago to pitch out of the bullpen in lieu of an inferior arm, thus potentially saving further runs.
Carson Cistulli has published a book of aphorisms called Spirited Ejaculations of a New Enthusiast.
“The Hook” by Blues Traveler seems to inspired this weblog post.
No need to be hard on yourself Carson…
at the end of the day, EVERYTHING an exercise in nonsense.
“is” an exercise…
(sigh)