Revised WAR Stack: STARTING PITCHERS

Link to the position player summary article:

http://seattlesportsinsider.com/news/revised-war-stack-pitching-preview-...

*sigh*

All of the rumblings out of Seattle seem to indicate that the Mariners have absolutely no intention of adding another starting pitcher. Which, given Zduriencik's track record, implies that we're about to hear that they traded for Roy Halladay and Tim Lincecum in a five-team 32 player mega-blockbuster. :)

But I'm going to write this piece under the assumption that we get no additional help in this department and that the club has supreme faith in its ability to spend zero dollars and cobble together a replacement level BOR while we wait for Bedard, Lee and RRS to get rolling. What this means, in the abstract, is that the Mariners have no problems juggling pitchers pitchers like Tiger Woods juggles women. (too soon? nah! :) ) So the projections for the Mariner rotation are going to be extremely complex and at least ten different pitchers are probably going to get starts for the Ms this year, a couple of which will not appear in this article as they will be primarily used as relievers (Kelley and Texeira leap to mind). If you want an example of a team that had success juggling a bunch of "who's he?" AAAA pitchers through its' staff while guys were injured, look at the '09 Angels. Granted, they had way more offense than we do, but still, their pitching results could have been much worse than they were.

So...I'm going to take off my "annoyed fan" hat, put on my analytical hat, and try to put a reasonable set of projections on the table. A reminder...the ERA-looking figures you see are not in fact ERA, but Defense Neutral Run Average. This is a defense independent play-by-play based pitching metric I invented and have discussed at length here and at D-O-V (amongst other places). Average (a 100 DNRA) would be 4.86 in the 2009 AL, and we're assuming the league run environment doesn't change significantly. The stats listed will be DNRA (DNRA+) / Games Started / IP / KPBB

"King" FELIX HERNANDEZ: 3.10 (157) / 34 / 230 / 2.6

Some worry that now that he's got his big-money contract, Felix is going to relax and not be as sharp as he was the last 25 starts of the 2009 season. I am not one of those people. I think that Felix has matured to the point where he is internally motivated by much larger goals (winning pennants, making the hall of fame, etc.) I do, however, think that his high workload will take the edge off his game juuuust a little. His DNRA+ progression goes:

2005 - 174
2006 - 109
2007 - 120
2008 - 132
2009 - 171

I'm projecting his to post a 157 DNRA+ if you take my figure literally, so I'm backing off a tad on his monster 2009 season. Still, he was worth in excess of 6 WAR last year, and there's plenty of room to be a hair less masterful and still be in the top four in the league in pitching WAR.

CLIFF LEE: 3.90 (125) / 27 / 170 / 3.2

Andy Pettitte isn't a bad comp for Lee, in terms of likely career trajectory. If you look at what Pettitte did after his early-career peak (and giant IP totals), you get a DNRA progression of: 157, 109, 96, 118, 127, (Injury shortened) 141, 123, (Injury shortened again) 133, 147...he pitched a lot better when he spent a bit of time on the DL to rest his arm, but was consistently above average and did manage to eat innings quite nicely. Cliff Lee is, IMHO, a better pitcher today than Pettitte was in his prime, and more likely to stay further above average thanks to his heavy downward-angled fastball and his "75" command (on the 20-80 scouting chart). But I am still projecting a significant drop in effectiveness for Lee in 2010. Down to "only" top ten AL pitcher. :) The abdominal strain cuts into his starts and innings and I think the Mariners will pitch him a little more carefully as a result even when he does get back.

For the record, here's Lee's DNRA+ record:

2004: 90
2005: 104
2006: 93
2007: 64 (ew!)
2008: 156 (yay!)
2009: 148

ERIK "-kkkkkk" BEDARD: 3.85 (126) / 17 / 100 / 2.3

Just for grins and giggles...here's Bedard's DNRA+ line:

2004: 90
2005: 119
2006: 138
2007: 168 (!!)
2008: 130 (yes...really)
2008: 135 (yes...really)

Just for comparison's sake, Sandy Koufax had one season in which he had a DNRA+ higher than 168. :) Randy Johnson had 4 such seasons. As Doc has been insisting for some time...Bedard is as nasty as they come when he can pitch. I'm projecting a relatively conservative early June return time for Bedard and calling for him to miss a couple of starts even after the return date for minor aches and pains associated with shoulder injury recoveries. I'm also calling for his command to be a little less fine in the 2010 season, especially early on as he tries to pitch his way back into form, thus the slightly weaker overall production. But I'll take 100 innings of 126 DNRA+ and a third ace in the post-season with glee.

RYAN "Rockin'-" ROWLAND-SMITH: 4.45 (109) / 25 / 150 / 1.8

RRS has actually pitched more innings than I've been giving him credit for over the last few seasons. He logged a total of 152+ innings in 2009, and 136+ in 2008. So, although he has bouts of dead-arm syndrome at this workload, he is certainly capable of giving the Mariners 150 innings. Because the back-up options are so shaky, I expect he will do all of his pitching save for a rehab start or two in the major leagues in 2010, and although his aggregate numbers look solid, he's going to get there by way of major streaks and swoons tied to the freshness of his arm. As the number of starts indicates, I'm projecting him to hit the DL for at least a 4-6 weeks at some point in the season. We shall see if he can prove me wrong.

The good news for Hyphen fans who may have been a bit spooked by his dismal performances this spring is that his velocity has been slowly climbing in his last couple of outings back to his usual 90 mph range and the results are getting a little less scary as it does. The other good news is that Arizona is notoriously hard on curveball pitchers and guys who rely on a lot of movement on their fastballs and change-ups. Erik Bedard, for example, has never had a good ST. George Sherrill was world famous for getting his butt handed to him every year in Peoria. So the ST stats need not cause a panic here. I still believe what you see with RRS is what you get...a slightly above average starting pitcher who is hot and cold depending on how his arm feels.

IAN "What's That" SNELL: 6.15 (79) / 14 / 70 / 1.4

To quote the title of one of my favorite portions of "Halo: Combat Evolved" - "Light Fuse...Run"

Snell looks like a nice crispy piece of tasty bacon to me...and he looks good and done. His fastball is flat and lifeless and only hitting 89-91 on the radar gun, he's lost the whipsaw action on his slider most nights, and although he's been running good K/BB numbers all through spring, between the 5 Ks and the 1 or 2 BBs, there are usually about 8 well hit balls, 2 of which clear the fence. Yes, it's Arizona and he may not be as hittable as he looks right now, but I have a strong suspicion that Snell is a lost cause. His DNRA+ trend is the really scary thing to me:

2005: 73
2006: 109
2007: 111
2008: 98
2009: 83

Looks like a guy who got booked by the NL as soon as they realized his fastball had no late hop. He's got visually "good stuff"...but his game doesn't work if he can't get at least a few outs with his fastball. Here are the fastball run values since 2006:

-14.5
-7.1
-18.9
-3.6

Felix would say, "No es muy bueno, Paco." (note the use of the permanent state verb ser, as opposed to the temporary state verb estar, implying that this problem is not going to go away) This guy is going to get destroyed by the AL and be out of the rotation by mid June. The bad news in this projection is that I think it's going to take the Mariners 14 starts to pull the plug on this experiment since they traded a LOT to get Snell. Z thinks he can fix Snell...he's going to pull out all the stops to get return on his investment. He leaves the rotation when Bedard, RRS and Lee are all pitching great and the Mariners have to choose between Snell, Vargas, French, Fister and Pauley. There's a high probability that one of the other four guys will be out-pitching him by enough to force Zduriencik's and Wakamatsu's hands.

DOUG "two-" FISTER: 5.10 (95) / 18 / 130 (some relief appearances as swingman) / 3.3

I think Fister is always going to suffer from bouts of gopheritis and a higher than team-average BABIP. That's just who he is. He doesn't have Brad Radke's devastating deception on the change-up, and he doesn't have Scot Erickson's sinker velocity, so he's probably never going to turn into a skull-crushing ground ball specialist to avoid the tater-factor on his fastball mistakes. What he does do, however, is pitch to contact (into the teeth of a tremendous defense and a favorable park - he's going to, IMHO, be one of the two or three guys on the Mariner staff whose ERA is the furthest below his DNRA), throw strikes and work deep into games by limiting his pitch counts. And he's not a marshmallow up there...he does have a couple of soldi out pitches and gets 5-6 K/9, which is enough for him to battle and stay near average.

Assuming he's healthy enough to pitch all year, he won't spend too much time in AAA...perhaps missing a few starts here and there while we're juggling the roster and trying to figure out who to keep. Vargas has to get some work too and the club may choose him over Fister when Lee comes back, at least for a little while. I think Fister is going to be high on Shandler "REL" index...not dominant, but after a couple of seasons, we're all going to know what to expect from him, and it's not going to be a bad thing.

JASON "Viva Las" VARGAS: 5.75 (84) / 12 / 80 (a smattering of bullpen innings) / 1.6

Although Fister and Vargas had nearly identical FIPs last year, their DNRAs were quite divergent. Which I find fascinating. It seems my system is picking up something regarding batted ball results (especially extra base hits...Vargas gave up WAY too many doubles last year and got lucky not to get splattered more often...and GIDPs...Vargas almost never induced them whereas Fister induced them fairly regularly) that FIP misses. xFIP does see the difference though...projecting Fister's '09 to a 4.50 ERA and Vargas's '09 to a 4.68 (OK...so it's a smaller difference than DNRA is suggesting, but still). I think Vargas is a healthy step worse than replacement level while Fister is a small step better than replacement level.

The possible counter argument to that is that Vargas has been getting ground balls this spring and his change-up appears a good bit livelier, so maybe his fly ball rates from last year won't translate and his batted ball results will improve. I'm not going to project that, however, based on 20 ST innings.

LUKE FRENCH "Fries" / DAVID "Big" PAULEY: 6.50 (75) / 9 / 65 (minor bullpen time for French) / 1.3

Many claim that French's big problems last year were injury related. His tired arm may have sucked the life out of his out pitch (the slider) and sapped 2-3 mph from his already mushy fastball. He is also working on a change-up this spring and that is helping him get more grounders in ST games. It's possible he does better than I have painted here. But I think his arm is made of glass and the whole reason he got tired arm last year hasn't gone away. I think if you one out pitch is a slider, you're just asking for trouble with his small body and VERY mediocre arm strength (not to mention shaky mechanics). I think he's going to continue to struggle in the AL if he doesn't find a third pitch to compliment the show-men fastball and the slider that he can throw 30-40% of the time. Maybe the change-up is that pitch...time will tell. I'm not betting my projections on it.

Note, I have only spent 156 of my 162 starts...that's because I have 6 starts going to spotted opportunities for Kelley and Texeira out of the bullpen.

WAR Stack: (Player: DNRA+, IP, WAR)
Hernandez: 157, 230, 5.5
Lee: 125, 170, 3.8
Bedard: 126, 100, 2.2
Rowland-Smith: 109, 150, 2.2
Snell: 79, 70, -0.5
Fister: 95, 130, 0.6
Vargas: 84, 80, -0.2
French/Pauley: 75, 65, -0.6

TOTALS: 156 GS, 995 IP, 13.0 WAR

That brings us up to 86 wins before we consider the bullpen.

Comments

1

Heh :- )
Perhaps we're starting to see some smoke around the Wash situation now?
..............
Agree with a capital A, that Fister is always going to have to nibble with his FB.  Predict the BABIP will come down, though, cause it says here that he gets great arm action on the change.
Not sure why he doesn't throw that 70 change curve.  It could be his ticket to Yomiuri.

2

Fister isn't really showing signs of mastering his off-speed game yet...though granted, Arizona is a bad place to try to get the change-curve working.  If he develops consistency with a major league plus plus off-speed pitch, then the conversation also changes on his HR rate and K rate, not just the BABIP.  Even without that kind of big improvement in his weaponry, he's a slightly below average major league starter, and those have value.

3

That part of why the Mariners traded for Lee, might have been  their possession of so many similar pitchers (to the pre-2008 version).  Vargas, Feierabend, French, and Ryan Rowland-Smith are all lefties with mediocre to bad fastballs, good command, and a slider, change, and (with the exception of French) curveball that are all at least close to servicable major league pitches.  Since camp has started,  RRS has started throwing a new cutter, Luke French has renewed commitment to his (and from the early results very much improved) change up as well as having a cutter appear in his pitchFX, and Jason Vargas has showed so far sterling command (BB/9

4

I know I'm nuts, but I still think late in the season the #5 starter could be Daniel Cortes.  He's the only one of the whole lot with big upside (until you get to the Pineda generation).
 

5

Considering he didn't have much success in AA until late in the year, I think it will take a lot to get Cortes up here and into the rotation.  But it's at least possible I suppose.  Wak and co. were talking him up big time while he was in camp.

6

With a lot more enthusiasm than they do Pineda, or anybody else.  They think he's a future ML ace.
This spring, Mauricio Robles jumped their charts to get up there with Cortes.

7

I think the Mriners are skeptical of Pineda if only because there is concern aobut his mechanics holding up.  He projects more as a closer than a starter, realistically, though obviousyl he's going to start until he proves he can't.
Robles and Cortes were great bits of scouting by Z though...underappreciated in their own organizations but with huge upside and acquired for superfluous players.

8

My comments about RRS shaking off the cobwebs and starting to throw better come to fruition with a bang...a nice 7 inning, 5 H, 1 R, 4 K, 0 BB performance by Hyphen.
That makes me feel a little better about calling him a streaky but above average starter.

9
Taro's picture

Definetly. I'm relieved to hear about his velocity returning as well.
For now at least we don't have to worry about 2 spots in the rotation, though we could still use another starter.

10

And that does make a lot of sense.  If, for example, we traded for Brian Tallet, he's been a fantastic lefty set-up man in the past, and you could use him as a starter only until Lee returns, then pen him and enjoy your LOOGY.  Makes sense to me.

12

They talk up Cortes so maybe they only have to give him up in trade.  Mauricio's short and Pineda has that elbow thing, y'know.  But that Cortes, he's a bad mamma jamma.  Best pitcher we got, I swear...
 
I hope his control comes along and we can make somebody else take him as our bonafide ace in trade.
 
Nice work on the pitchers, Matt.  Having a hard time finding quibbles with em.
 
~G

13

Since we seem to be homing in on a bullpen consisting primarily of seven guys - Colome, Texeira, White, Kelley, Lowe, League, Aardsma...the bullpen piece is simplifying down quite nicely.
There'll be other guys getting relief innings...some already documented in this article...but I don't think we're going to see a huge influx of bullpen arms this year...Nick Hill, Josh Fields and a few fringy guys might steal a handful of innings, but I expect this will be a "veteran" pen (veteran meaning the guys doing most of the work will be established within the mariners' system other than Texeira).

14
blissedj's picture

But I'd love for Z to pick up Chris Narveson from Mil. Former top prospect for StL years ago who has bounced around due to injury. Looks to be really rounding into form. MIL has a logjam of civics in the rotation. Really think he is ready to bust out now and help for years to come.
http://mlb.mlb.com/media/video.jsp?content_id=6817345
 

15

Snell: 79, 70, -0.5 Vargas: 84, 80, -0.2 French/Pauley: 75, 65, -0.6
So you think they are below replacement?
They don't have any value?
 

16

I think all three are more likely to have no value than significant positive value...My projection for Vargas might end up being overly negative...but I am not seeing a lot of upside with him...
I am definitely not seeing any value in Snell right now.

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