With Clayton Kershaw and Zack Greinke anchoring the Los Angeles Dodgers’ rotation, it will be nearly impossible for the Dodgers to have a bad rotation, but the Dodgers had depth problems entering the spring with Brett Anderson penciled in as the number five starter and little behind him in case a starter should falter. The lack of depth gained some early exposure, with Hyun-Jin Ryu unable to start the year with the team as he continues to work his way back from shoulder problems. The Dodgers received another blow last night, with news that Brandon McCarthy would miss the rest of the season as he joins the Tommy John Surgery waiting list.

The Dodgers have gotten by in the early going without relying on a single fifth starter, instead giving one start each to Mike Bolsinger, David Huff, and Scott Baker. David Huff is no longer on the 40-man roster, although the Dodgers will have an opening if they choose to put Brandon McCarthy on the 60-day disabled list. Scott Baker is currently scheduled to make this Friday’s start against Arizona, making him the de facto fourth starter behind Kershaw, Greinke, and Anderson. The Dodgers have an off day on Thursday which means they can pitch their top three starters on normal rest Saturday through Monday before needing their fifth starter again on Tuesday.

Prior to McCarthy’s injury, the Dodgers pitching Depth Chart for the rest of the season looked like this.
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Wednesday, we all thought at the time, was the worst day. Wednesday, during a start against the Angels, Brandon McCarthy was hit in the head by a line-drive comebacker. Though McCarthy managed to turn his head away before impact, all that did was spare his face; a line drive still struck him in the skull, and McCarthy went down to the ground, hitting his head. It’s just a nightmarish sight every time that this happens, and McCarthy, of course, was removed from the game. But he walked off under his own power, and immediate reports were positive. It sounded like McCarthy had avoided serious injury.

Thursday was the actual worst day, for the public. Thursday, we all found out that, Wednesday night, McCarthy had undergone two hours of brain surgery. The terms were chilling: epidural hemorrhage, skull fracture, brain contusion. Really, “brain surgery” was sufficient. Doctors needed to go through McCarthy’s skull to relieve pressure on his brain, pressure that could’ve killed him if left untreated long enough. Wednesday brought the incident, but Thursday brought the grisly details.

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Special thanks to Brandon McCarthy for taking the time to walk me through his experiences as a pitcher, and providing me with countless insights I never would have discovered researching on my own. 

When part one ended, we had covered the final changes McCarthy made to his delivery in Winter Ball, and were about to analyze his 2011 season. It’s safe to say that Oakland seems to have been the right choice, as the end result of two years of hard work and frustration was a league-leading 2.86 FIP built on the strength of a 1.32 BB/9 and 0.58 HR/9 – both by far career lows. He also mixed these with a solid 6.49 K/9 and career high 46.7% ground ball rate. The groundball rate can be explained fairly easily by the increased use of sinkers and cutters*, but it’s not often that we see a pitcher cut his walk rate by 2/3 almost overnight. However, these were the stats that McCarthy was chasing going into 2011.

“I CANNOT (emphasis McCarthy’s) stand the “nerd stat” narrative and the disdain for them, especially considering how valuable they can be… They’re accurate barometers of what you’re actually doing… Those are the numbers that I was chasing after. I wanted lower home runs, I wanted lower walks, more ground balls, and to get to the top of that category the first year after the changes is a nice accomplishment.”

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Special thanks to Brandon McCarthy for taking the time to walk me through his experiences as a pitcher, and providing me with countless insights I never would have discovered researching on my own.

There has been plenty of ink spilt this season over Justin Verlander’s American League MVP candidacy, and he is a shoo-in for the AL Cy Young Award. A large part of the narrative is the 24 wins, but one would assume that all the gushing means he had one of the most dominant pitching seasons of the last decade. However, when controlling for run environment, Dave Cameron notes that the last two AL Cy Young winners, Zack Greinke and Felix Hernandez, had better ERA’s relative to league average than Verlander. Moving on to the advanced stats, Verlander did not even lead the league in FIP in 2011. Neither did his nearest competitor for the award, CC Sabathia. It was in fact Brandon McCarthy of the Oakland Athletics.

In 2010, McCarthy was a 26 year-old pitcher with 372.2 Major League innings under his belt toiling away in Oklahoma City, AAA affiliate of the Texas Rangers. He had been cut from the big league club following a rough Spring Training, and was toying with his mechanics and pitch repertoire, all while battling micro stress fractures in his right shoulder. Injuries limited him to 56.1 innings that season, and while the 3.36 ERA looked tidy, a 79.9% strand rate masked a less impressive 4.23 FIP.  As a pitcher who is in tune with defense independent statistics and had experienced severe arm injuries four years in a row, McCarthy said “it was at that point that I was going to have to start considering my options outside of baseball.” A year later, he was the American League FIP leader.  To figure out this transformation, let’s travel back in time.

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