FLIP:
I didn't say that there weren't a few pitchers who performed well for stretches of time. Of course there were. What I pointed out was that those guys didn't pitch MUCH. Yeah, Bedard was great, for 83 innings. RRS looked good, but only threw 96 frames. Washburn is a big regression candidate, but he was ditched with a full third of the season left so he contributed only 133 innings. As I said in my original comment (in the portion you left out) this team had to turn to a whole bunch of junk in order to get through games. That means bringing in even decent pitchers can make a big improvement.
And as Matt made clear, pointing out that Morrow and Snell were terrible isn't a counter to my arguement that the staff as a whole didn't pitch well. That's exactly the sort of thing that I had in mind. Those guys have a great chance to do better. So I don't see how my arguement is refuted. This team is still perfectly poised to get better performances from it's pitchers which would offset any decline in defense or synergy or whatever. It is perfectly reasonable to expect another league leading ERA.
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CHOP:
The post isn't in the nature of a refutation. I think your argument needs to be angled 10 degrees left -- but it's possible that you're in the right here.
Let's say that you think the pitching was a 4.0 on a scale of ten, Matt a 5.0, and the rest due to defense ... I'm wondering whether the pitching, in isolation, might not have been (say) a 6.5, with some funny things going on in the stats.
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I agree that, because of the part-time seasons that the 2-3-4 SP's had, there was an awful lot of scramble innings thrown.
But...
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Of the 162 games, Felix, Bedard, Washburn and RRS threw over half, and in those 85-odd starts, they posted a cumulative ERA of >150. (Granted that amazing ERA+ was in part due to the context."
Those 4 guys didn't start "a few" games. :- ) They started a lot of games -- more than 81. And they were dazzling.
Just in terms of proportion, the other guys would need an ERA of
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The other guys weren't 50 ERA+ and they weren't 75. Doug Fister threw well. Morrow and Snell were tough to hit. Jason Vargas was amazing, considering his lack of ability.
The starters after the Big Four were back-of-rotation guys, but taken as a whole, I think it's pretty easy to see that the M's 162 starts this year beat the stuffing out of the rotations of the last several years.
What I saw in 2009 ... the Big Four plus Vargas, Fister, Snell, Morrow, and some other guys -- was one of the better M's staffs I've seen since '77.
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I could be wrong. What I haven't done, here, is taken a sharp pencil to the question of whether the M's good pitching outweighed the pitching of the Jakabauskases and Frenches.
Eyeballing it, both on the field and on the team baseball-reference.com card, it looks to me like the great pitching was more frequent than we give it credit for, and that the lesser pitching was more competitive than we give it credit for.
I mean, you have 85 starts of Felix, Bedard, Wash and RRS, and the BOR was well-managed by Wok... does that sound like your typical Mariner pitching performance?
It's worth further consideration.
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=== Yusei Kikuchi ===
By the way, IceX reports that Kikuchi will pitch in Japan.
Very understandable that a teenager would not want to go through that kind of culture shock -- if that factored in -- but I read this as an indication that MLB teams did not ante up with a staggering signing bonus, either.
Had some MLB team offered Kukuchi (say) $15-20M, it would be awfully tough (maybe even foolish) for him and his family to pass it up.
Not sure whether to take this, in turn as (A) an indication that the typical $4-8M for a high 1st-rounder is inherently close to correct, or (B) Major League Baseball's determination not to have its salary structures warped due to Japanese teenagers.
I'm guessing the latter. My guess is that the word came down not to offer Kikuchi more than, say, $5M so as not to potentially impact the June draft.
Cheers,
Jeff
No, ERA+ is screwy so 50 is not the reciprocal of 150. You would need an ERA+ of 75 to cancel out 150. Furthermore, the 2009 M's had a good or great defense so they had an ERA+ of 112, not 100 so the rest of the staff would just need and ERA+ of around 85 or 90 in this instance to cancel out the top 4 starters.
Jason Churchill had this to say about him:
If Kikuchi were in the 2009 MLB Draft, he would have been a high-round talent probably ranking somewhere behind fellow prep arms Tyler Matzek, Zack Wheeler, Shelby Miller, Jacob Turner and Matt Purke and right there with Chad James, Matt Hobgood and Tyler Skaggs.
In other words, he's just your typical talented prep arm who is most likely going to flame out rather than some drawdropping, once in a decade phenom. That means he'd probably make less than $3 million if he were drafted normally and there is no point in going much beyond that to sign a teenager who won't help out for at least 3 years if ever.
I am saying that we didn't lead the league in ERA because we had a 9 or 10 pitching. Therefore, we shouldn't just assume that there will be a big step back in run prevention. If you think that this staff was a 6.5, what's the disagreement?
I'm not totally up to speed with the last crop of HS arms, but Japanese prep arms are going to be inherently 1 or 2 years ahead of their age bracket due to the larger amount of reps they've been through. Though that does equate to some damage, it also means that they're going to have less growing time in the minors. It also means the inverse: Japanese arms are through more, so the upper echelon that makes it through high school is going to have been through more stress tests, so to speak.
(Japanese arms are abused, but their regiment is built to theoretically support the load. I imagine US HS teams don't have them do a 200 pitch bullpen on their 3rd day (or every day), then go 150 for game time.)
Tazawa totally smashed the rules last year. It would have been nice to have that happen for two years in a row.
you were saying that the staff was better-than-average. I thought you were saying the pitches thrown were worse-than-average.
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As far as the ERA+ of 112 ... not especially disposed to debate this to the Nth degree ... but as you know, that is the question under consideration: how much of that 112 was due to the pitching, and how much to the defense.
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I had (mis-?)understood Matt to say that the pitching as-such was a 100, and you to say that the pitching as-such was
The pitching itself, to me, looked like a good 105, with circumstances boosting it to 112 (remembering that the 112 itself is supposed to edit the Safeco Field runs-saved out of the picture).
You're right, since looking at it again, ERA+ is LgERA/ERA, expressed as a percentage. (Normalized for park, of course.) So:
AL ERA 2009 = 4.46
150 ERA+ = 4.46/2.97 = 1.5
50 ERA+ = 4.46/8.92 - 0.5
Lessee, just real quick here, to "cancel" a 150 ERA+ of 2.97, well, 2.97 is 149 points lower than average, so we need 4.46+1.49 = 5.90 ... bravo! 4.46/5.90 = .75.
Right you are. So to "cancel" 80 games' worth of 150 ERA+ starting pitching, you need 80 games' worth of 75 ERA+ starting pitching. Thanks for the correction.
I'd draft Kikuchi ahead of American HS arms, but right, he looks like a top-half-of-first round high school pitcher.
No surprise, I guess, that he didn't wind up breaking the bank.
Kikuchi garnering offers significantly above what MLB 'slotting' would offer him, because signing him doesn't entail the opportunity cost that comes with each draft pick.
And I stand by it.
Just eyeballing this team from the surface using DNRA+ and %TBF we had:
King Felix (160) - 15.9
Jarrod Washburn (119) - 8.6
Ryan Rowland-Smith (107) - 6.5
Chris Jakubauskas (79) - 6.3
Jason Vargas (75) - 6.3
Erik Bedard (149) - 5.7
Garrett Olson (62) - 5.6
Mark Lowe (126) - 5.5
Miguel Batista (80) - 5.3
Brandon Morrow (90) - 5.1
David Aardsma (170) - 4.8
Ian Snell (82) - 4.7
Sean White (105) - 4.2
Doug Fister (91) - 4.2
Shawn Kelley (92) - 3.1
Corcoran/Messenger/Stark (40) - 3.1
Luke French (42) - 2.9
Carlos Silva (34) - 2.3
The team DNRA+ for the season was (wait for it)...99! TADA!!!
I'm not making this stuff up, Doc. :) We got some performances that, in isolation, were so foul that they doinked up a staff that was, at least for the firs thalf of the year, noticeably better than average (back when we have Felix, Bedard, Washburn and Aardsma all clicking). But Washburn's "up" year got aborted and replaced with RR-S who, while solid, was not as good as Jarrod was in a pure-pitching analysis, the team had no replacement at all for Bedard, so it went out and got Snell and French to try to find his innings and they both sucked. Options they tried that worked well enough were limited to Fister. Vargas, despite your comments to the contrary, was far from amazing...he was defense-assisted to much better results than he deserved. Olson was a disaster. Silva was a disaster. Most of the relievers, headed by the spectacularly lucky sean White and Miguel Batista, weren't good. This team without Felix, Bedard, and Aardsma has a DNRA+ of **85**!
So yes...I expect the pitching to improve irrespective of how the defense changes. THere's a very high probability that the scrubs we try next year will do better than the scrubs we tried this year...that we'll get more innings out of our #2 and #3 starter than we got this year, that we'll find some better arms for the bullpen, and that Felix doesn't regress one iota. I see only one point to be nervous about...and that's white-knuckle Aardsma.
So even if the defense slides some (had a "career" year)...which is possible...I really don't think we're in any danger of losing lots of runs allowed to the opponents compared to this year.
Could the pitchers be both average and slightly below average? Actually, yes. All depends on how large one wants to make the center. By extreme definition, Matt's DNRA+ says the pitchers, (starters and relivers), were technically below average, (by the slimmest of all margins, of course). The TTO stats all agree with the basic assessment that team was somewhere near middle of the pack as pitchers. I'd agree with the take that they were on the under side of average -- but I don't think anyone is arguing they WERE dregs. But, that they were average to slightly below, INCLUDING the 200 innings from Bedard and Wash that one simply cannot "expect" to own in 2010. From a - "start from 2009" standpoint, one HAS to begin the analysis by setting the starting point BELOW the aggregate for 2009. (How low, and what adjustments follow are, of course, debateable).
For me, there is not question -- the defense was specifically responsible for every point above average in "real" ERA -- because the best any pitching-neutral model can make the staff is, in fact, average. BUT ... it might be interesting to know EXACTLY which pitchers benefitted most from the defense ... and which didn't.
For the sake of this post - I'll look only at the starters. (ERA - FIP - E-F) Bigger the negative E-F, the more the defense helped.
B. Morrow - 3.68 / 4.95 / -1.27
Washburn - 2.64 / 3.80 / -1.16
Ian Snell -- 4.20 / 5.23 / -1.03
G. Olson -- 6.49 / 7.46 / -0.97
D. Fister -- 4.20 / 5.11 / -0.91
E. Bedard - 2.82 / 3.55 / -0.74
King Felix - 2.49 / 3.09 / -0.60
R R S ------ 3.74 / 4.20 / -0.46
J. Vargas -- 5.33 / 5.44 / -0.11
L. French -- 6.38 / 6.21 / +0.18
C. Jakuba - 6.64 / 4.94 / +1.70
C. Silva ---- 8.48 / 5.92 / +2.55
Of note here -- Jaku, AS A STARTER had negative defensive impact. As a reliever, -0.96.
The starter E-F just barely beat the Rays (-0.52 to -0.51). The half run plus of the defense gave overall. BUT, the individual skews are massive. Felix and RRS happen to be the only two starters who actually end up near the soft, chewy center. The question NOBODY has an answer to is how much "influence" (I won't say control), can any pitcher have on the quality of the defense behind him. I think Silva is an example of a player who, (likely due to injury), fell below the minimum entrance requirement of MLB talent. It was almost certainly true that Silva's woes were HIS fault - and not likely just a particularly bad run of luck for the defense.
But, was there a reason the defense was stellar behind Morrow? The more important question is -- are they likely to be that good NEXT season? No simple answer - but a hint might be found in the 2008 stats, (when the defense was dreadful). In 2008, RRS, Bedard and Felix all had negative E-F figures, (the defense made those three better than their raw stats). Morrow had a 0.30 E-F, so Morrow wasn't hurt much, but they didn't do him any favors. (Silva had a 1.82 E-F in 2008 ... so, evidence suggests he was below MLB talent threshold even back then -- just as Baek and Feierabend also suggest).
I suspect that Morrow's good E-F isn't about the defense. It's just that he has so much movement, hitters have trouble squaring on a regular basis. BUT, his control is so erratic, I think he's unlikely to be able to solve his increasing gopher problem. (No defense can solve that). Snell smells like a similar guy, though I have stronger belief that SEATTLE can fix Snell, (while Morrow is likely a lost cause in the upper northwest). While Putz was the obvious juicy morsel to dangle in 2009, I think Morrow is that guy in 2010. His scouting numbers are drool material, and he's shown flashes of aceness, and some other org MIGHT be able to fix him, (and Seattle fans should HOPE for that result -- it improves potential in future trades).
My belief is that the ability to EXECUTE a game plan is critical to helping max the defensive impact. It's interesting, though, that Morrow and Snell both end up with remarkably good defensive help, while guys like Jaku and Vargas, (with substantially better control), don't.
Ultimately, at this point, NOBODY has any real clue how teams sustain defensive excellence. Analytically, it's all guesswork. But, Atlanta managed to sustain top tier defensive results for an entire decade, while having scads of turnover in lots of positions. So, yes, it IS possible to sustain an excellent DER over many years. But, evidence suggests it is NOT driven by individual defensive athleticism. Seattle and Texas BOTH jumped to the front of the class in DER overnight. The big change in Texas - new SS (*AND* Nolan Ryan taking charge of pitching). In Seattle, it was a new CF.
Being Seattle is likely going to have new guys getting MAJOR innings at SS, 3B and LF, ANY assumption about how good the Seattle defense is going to be in 2010 is massive speculation. I would be comfortable expecting them to be above average -- top 10 among all MLB teams, perhaps. But, anyone's guess is just that -- largely a guess.
Sandy...a lot of the E-F stuff you're looking at for individual pitchers is going to be random noise. There is significant luck involved in how the hits happen to cluster once you drop below a certain number of innings.
In response to another poster, you said that it was a given that this team wouldn't have the best ERA next year. The implication being that the M's had more ground to make up in order to be competitive than it seemed. My counter was to point out that this staff wasn't anything special and had a ton of room for improvement. We already have the pieces in place to do that and I have full faith that Z will make savvy moves to take things to the next level. Whether the staff as a whole was slightly below average, exactly average or slightly above average doesn't change the fact that this team relied on a whole bunch of dreck to get through '09 and has little reason to expect significant decline in 2010.
So where do you think this team will rank in ERA next year?