Ugly Numbers
One of the more famous axioms in baseball goes something like this – good pitching beats good hitting. A perfectly placed changeup on the outside corner can fool even the best players like Albert Pujols and Alex Rodriguez. Sure, offense plays a major role in the success of a team, but front offices certainly dish out their fair share of funds for hurlers based on the idea that a solid pitching staff can keep their team in any game. With that in mind, here are the ERA, FIP, and K/BB marks for five starters from an anonymous major league starting rotation:
A: 5.35 ERA, 6.61 FIP, 1.80 K/BB
B: 5.65 ERA, 6.43 FIP, 1.70 K/BB
C: 6.67 ERA, 6.18 FIP, 1.23 K/BB
D: 6.84 ERA, 5.65 FIP, 2.56 K/BB
E: 7.27 ERA, 5.89 FIP, 3.75 K/BB
The closer of this team has the following numbers:
Closer: 6.75 ERA, 7.87 FIP, 1.86 K/BB
This team currently sits in first place and sports virtually an identical team from last season when they won the world series. Yes, this is the rotation+closer of the Philadelphia Phillies. In order, the letters above are Brett Myers, Jamie Moyer, Chan Ho Park, Joe Blanton and Cole Hamels. Brad Lidge closes out games for the defending champs.
Myers, Moyer and Blanton, entering play tonight against the Mets, had combined for 23 home runs. Moyer allowed two in the first inning tonight and another in the second, running this tally up to 26 dingers. There are fourteen teams in major league baseball, as in full pitching staffs, that have allowed 26 or fewer home runs. Just about half of the league has allowed as many home runs, or fewer than, these three starters.
Now, Hamels has been hurt by injuries so far, having to leave two games in which he was pitching very well, and these ERA and FIP marks are not likely to hover around their current vicinities. Still, to sit in first place with a rotation putting up those numbers is kind of incredible. Can anyone think of a first place team in the recent past where the five primary starters all posted very ugly numbers?
Eric is an accountant and statistical analyst from Philadelphia. He also covers the Phillies at Phillies Nation and can be found here on Twitter.
Make that a 7.26 ERA for Moyer as I type…and he’s still on the hook for those runners on second and third.
Hard to believe they could be holding up with pitching like that, even in a hitters’ park. It’s still early, and eventually one thing or the other will probably change (either the pitching or the spot in the standings), but so far they look a bit like the all-offense no-pitching Rangers teams that had decent success last decade. The 1999 Rangers in particular fit the bill pretty well. They finished in first place with the following rotation:
Rick Helling (35 GS): 4.84 ERA/1.54 K:BB/5.68 FIP
Aaron Sele (33 GS): 4.79/2.66/3.94
John Burkett (25 GS): 5.62/2.09/4.53
Mike Morgan (25 GS): 6.24/1.27/5.85
Mark Clark (15 GS): 8.60/1.29/6.43
Estoban Loaiza (15 GS): 4.56/1.93/4.02
That’s not as bad as what the Phillies’ starters are putting up now, but that was over a whole season for a division winner. And you would think at least Cole Hamels should be a better ace than Aaron Sele.
Another team that had bad pitching across the rotation and still finished in first was the 2000 White Sox team. They didn’t have a lot of extraordinarily bad starters, but the whole group was consistently not good:
Mike Sirotka (32 GS): 3.79/1.86/4.56
Jim Parque (32 GS): 4.28/1.56/4.87
James Baldwin (28 GS): 4.65/1.97/5.55
Cal Eldred (20 GS): 4.58/1.64/4.67
Kip Wells (20 GS): 6.02/1.22/5.53
John Garland (13 GS): 6.46/1.05/5.72
The whole staff, through the 6th starter, had FIPs over 4.5 and K:BB ratios under 2, and it’s hard to imagine a more lackluster list of names in a playoff rotation.
Just a quick note, the FIPs don’t match the FanGraphs listings. I calculated them straight from the formula, so if FanGraphs’ are park-adjusted or have any other sort of adjustment, that would be where they’re off. They do match with THT’s FIP, though.
The only issue with those Rangers, and I’ll discuss it a bit more tonight (Friday night) is that the league ERA for the AL in 1999 was 4.87, meaning Helling, Sele, and Loaiza were actually above average.
In 2000, the AL ERA was 4.92, meaning Sirotka, Parque, Baldwin and Eldred were all above average.
Tonight we’ll look at poor playoff rotations from 1969-2008, whose ERAs were worse than average.
Of course the complete — and the only universally correct — version of that axiom is
“Good pitching beats good hitting…except when it doesn’t.”
This is exactly why they won’t be in first for long. Give it a week or two and the Mets will have a 2-3 game lead which will not soon be relinquished.
In ’06, the Mets ran away with the NL East by 12 games. Not hard to foresee a repeat.
2006? Dude, live in the now. What has NYM done the past two seasons?
2007 2nd to PHL
2008 2nd to PHL
And I can still see that hammer that Wainwright threw Beltran to win the Pennant…
This comment is hilarious in hindsight.
The staff as a whole has a first pitch strike rate, a K/BB rate, and a swinging strike rate that aren’t great but are in the middle third of the NL. The home runs are really what’s killing them. The HR/FB rate is 16.6%, second highest team in the NL is 11.6%. I’d expect them to be towards the top in that category, since there’s a lot of power bats in the NL East, they’ve got a small-ish home park, and two of the biggest innings guys in Hamels and Myers seem to elevate mistakes pretty frequently. Still, that seems really high. If that comes down a bit they should be okay.
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