Archive for pitching

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?

This is something I began over at Statistically Speaking but it makes more sense to continue here at Fangraphs. Giants pitcher Matt Cain had an historically unlucky season in 2007, posting statistics similar to, if not better than, most NL starting pitchers. And yet, at the end of the season, all he had was a 7-16 record with no true consolation prize. Via my Net Luck Rating statistic–which measures the quality of decisions and no-decisions by evaluating each start as a separate commodity–it was the unluckiest season of the decade. Based on the quality of his starts and his frequency of well-pitched games Cain would have gone 16-7 in his decisions if pitchers were awarded wins for every well-pitched decision and losses for every poorly pitched decision.

Based on how bleak the outlook appears for the Giants I have every reason to believe the string of bad luck will continue. That being said I have decided to track each of his starts. To read the recaps of his first two starts, click any of the links below:

• Cain Watch #1
• WPA, 4/1/08
• Cain Watch #2
• WPA, 4/7/08

Cain’s third start of the season proved to be the perfect example of his lack of luck. Here is the graph of the game:

To recap, Cain pitched 6.2 innings, surrendering three hits and two earned runs; he also walked three and struck out five. At the time of his departure in the seventh inning Cain had a 5-2 lead. Oh, and do you see that little red dot in the graph above in between the sixth and seventh innings? If so, you read correctly: Matt Cain also hit a home run in this game.

After Cain’s departure, Jumpin’ Jack Taschner (it’s a fun nickname, admit it) hit Rico Washington before Merkin Valdez got Ryan Ludwick to fly out. After seven full innings the Giants led 5-2. Some Tyler Walker, Brad Hennessey, and Erick Threets action later and the Giants found themselves extra-inning losers by a final score of 8-7. Sigh. Poor Matt Cain.

In terms of WPA, Cain contributed .286 in the pitching department and .190 in the hitting department; for the game that adds up to an accumulative WPA of .476. Considering that the winning team will add up to a .500 and that the Giants eventually lost the game, the team had to do a lot wrong to lose. A cursory scan of the bullpen WPA for the game supports that: Threets chimed in with a -.292, Walker with a -.318, and Hennessey with a -.434. The efforts of these three not only erased Cain’s efforts but doubled over in the negative direction.

This was definitely a game Cain should have gone onto win but will go down as a too-familiar great start but no-decision. For the season, Cain is now at: 3 GS, 16.2 IP, 13 H, 6 ER, 12 BB, 15 K, 3.24 ERA. Based on his WPA, Clutch, and WPA/LI Cain is currently very comparable to Johan Santana. Despite pitching well in two games, and poorly in the other, he is 0-1. The saga continues.