Pitching Trio of the Month
One of the hot topics during spring training revolved around the Tampa Bay Devil Rays and how this would be the year they experienced significant improvement. Photos surfaced of an interesting shirt Troy Percival donned on which he compared Scott Kazmir, James Shields, and Matt Garza to John Smoltz, Tom Glavine, and Steve Avery. Steve Phillips added fuel to this fire by repeatedly mentioning how the shirt compared the three Rays youngsters to Greg Maddux, Glavine, and Smoltz. With no disrespect towards Avery, he is not Greg Maddux, and any comparison to one of the best pitching trios in the history of the game is going to generate some buzz. As of right now, Kazmir is yet to pitch and Garza has not yet met expectations; Shields, however, has pitched quite well.
Great pitching trios are so valuable for the more obvious reason that, over the course of any given three game series, the team is likely assured of having at least one solid starter on the mound. Seeing as April is about to come to a close I decided to take a look at the WPA totals of starting pitchers from 2002 until now to generate a basic list of the best recent pitching trios. The only real “rule” stipulated that all three of the pitchers needed to have a positive WPA. For instance, last year, the combination of CC Sabathia, Fausto Carmona, and Paul Byrd accounted for a WPA of 7.13. This would normally qualify as second-best across the league, but the numbers broke down as follows: Carmona at 4.25, Sabathia at 3.49, Byrd at -0.61. Clearly the WPA total belonged to CC and Fausto; Byrd actually brought their total down. Here are the top trios from 2002 until now:
2002 – Athletics: Barry Zito (3.85), Tim Hudson (3.28), Mark Mulder (3.15)
2003 – Cubs: Mark Prior (4.37), Kerry Wood (4.05), Carlos Zambrano (2.46)
2004 – Twins: Johan Santana (5.52), Brad Radke (3.61), Carlos Silva (0.61)
2005 – Astros: Roger Clemens (5.77), Andy Pettitte (4.86), Roy Oswalt (3.91)
2006 – Tigers: N. Robertson (2.92), Justin Verlander (2.29), Kenny Rogers (2.21)
2007 – Padres: Jake Peavy (4.61), Chris Young (2.67), Greg Maddux (1.17)
A month into this 2008 season and there are three rotations very close to each other: the Cardinals (2.20), Mariners (2.11), and Angels (2.08). The Cardinals trio in question is Adam Wainwright, Kyle Lohse, and Braden Looper; the Mariners are Felix Hernandez, Carlos Silva, and Jarrod Washburn; the Angels are Joe Saunders, Ervin Santana, and Jered Weaver.
Update: The Indians can also be thrown into the mix, but not with Sabathia. The combo of Lee, Carmona, and Westbrook are currently at 2.35. Add them into your consideration. As I mentioned in the comments, though, for potential Mariners fans reading here, Bedard does not count because he does not qualify for inclusion yet. Clearly he is a better choice than Washburn, but the question pertains to the aforementioned threesomes.
Felix Hernandez is the best of the nine pitchers comprising these three teams but, overall, none of them appear to be on the same level as some of the aforementioned trios. Here’s the question: If you had to win a three-game series, which of these three 2008 trios would you pick, and which of the 2002-2007 trios would you pick?
Eric is an accountant and statistical analyst from Philadelphia. He also covers the Phillies at Phillies Nation and can be found here on Twitter.
I’d pick Harang/Volquez/Cueto over anyone right now. I knot Cueto is just barely below, but that should change after next start.
Would a Volquez/Bailey/Cueto trio resemble a domination similar to the braves? I think it’s the closest trio in baseball right now since the Reds get them for 6 years. It’s very possible you’ll see 1 season of those 6 with all of them reaching 200Ks
I feel like Volquez and Cueto have the chance to be very good but I need to see more from them. Pitching numbers can change on a monthly basis as certain hitters and competition heats up. Greg Maddux was 5-0 in April a couple of years ago and then did not really pitch well again until the beginning of June. He seemed capable of recapturing his Cy Young Award days and then suddenly seemed like he should retire. Things change. That being said, they definitely have a shot at something special, and I’m a big Aaron Harang fan.
Can I replace Washburn w/ another lefty – Bedard?
Felix-Bedard-Silva would be my pick for the #1 trio right now. The only other trios that I’d consider would be Webb-Haren-Johnson or Halladay-Burnett-McGowan.
I’d take the Padres. But why not Santana, Maine, Oli or Pedro?
Because the question is relative to the three combinations I mentioned. Of course there are better threesomes out there, but as of right now, these three groupings have resulted in the highest threesome WPAs. It’s not like I’m ignoring them but rather curious for the choice of these three. No substitutions, no other rotations, just these three.
Um, then why choose Washburn? He has a lower WPA so far this season than Bedard (0.28 to 0.18)?
Because Bedard does not qualify for inclusion when you look at the WPA leaders. I went to the Major League leaders, sorted by team, and it automatically includes those that qualify.
Clearly he would be a better choice than Washburn, but I’m curious to hear thoughts on these three combos.
Jake Westbrook does though, instead of C.C. I mean, which makes the Indians far and away the leader without Sabathia.
Is this a sorting problem? The grid claims min IP is N/A, but some default threshold is being applied.
Yeah, that’s a good point. Weird. I’ll update it to reflect that.
To the question (sorry): I’d take the Mariners and hope the team wins one behind the so-so back end guys…and of the historical trios I’d take the 2003 Cubs, just barely over the 2005 Astros, but really only due to age and possibly hindsight/bias.
For me, it’s tough. I love Felix, and I do think Silva is a solid #3-4 type pitcher but I got to watch Kyle Lohse a lot last year and he really surprised me. He had a propensity for getting into jams right before he would naturally exit the game. As in he would pitch 6 strong innings, get one out in the seventh, and then give up a walk and a double or something along those lines. The historical ones I agree, Cubs for me and by a very slight margin over the Astros. VERY slight. It’s hard to answer questions like that without our hindsight coming into play, too, but it’s pretty weird to think that Carlos Zambrano was the #3 starter.
As a matter of fact, I do have a Pirate pitching trio of the month–and I’m not being facetious. They are three relievers:
Pitcher WPA Rank (National League)
Tyler Yates 0.93 3
Matt Capps 0.91 7
John Grabow 0.90 9
And don’t write off the starters. Paul Maholm is an unlikely star, who just pitched a complete game and has an ERA of 3.23 (although his sabermetric ERA is a somewhat worse 3.89). Zach Duke has improved a lot over last year, judging by his sabermetric ERA of 3.66 rather than his actual ERA of 5.34. Ian Snell, the ace, doesn’t look like anything special with his 4.45 ERA; until you realize that his sabermetric ERA 2.93 is (1HR, 9 BBs, 21 Ks in 30 1/3 innings).
Maybe I’m biased, as a former Pittsburgher. But this is the most exciting Pirates team I’ve seen since the early 1990s, and one that has for a change been unlucky, rather than not good. They’ve had injuries to Jack Wilson and Freddy Sanchez in the early going. And who would have thought that veteran (and now bought out) “Matty Mo” would have been such a drag (not counting the five losses in his starts, the 10-15 Pirates would be 10-10).