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He'll know going into the off season whether he has a stud or trade fodder in Walker.
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Q. If Taijuan is going to be a pitcher of Felix or Michael Pineda class, how important is it that he pitch well his first three games in the bigs?
A. What a coinkydink. Bill James did a study on this just a couple of months ago. It's a subscription article, but it started off thusly:
...........
Hi Bill. If you were to look historically at pitching prospects first three (or four or five) starts and separate them into prospects that went on to successful careers and those that didn't, would you see a big difference in performance between the two groups?
Asked by: izzy24
Answered: 6/13/2013
I wouldn't think you would see any performance difference in 3-5 starts. I haven't run the study. . ..I probably should study it before I comment. I'll try to get to it.
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I did study that, and my answer. …spoiler alert [to the article following]. . .it turns out that my answer was completely wrong; there IS a meaningful separation in futures that occurs within the first few starts of a pitcher’s career. - 6/15/2013
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Q. What's the exec sum of that study?
A. Starting with the 3B camera angle: If a pitcher had an outstanding first two starts, his chances of being a great pitcher did go way up. (That's not the same thing as saying that two lockdowns mean that you're going to be Juan Marichal; your chances go up.)
It was remarkable, though ... of 2,200+ starting pitchers studied, the best 14 debuts (first two starts) included:
- Juan Marichal
- Fernando Valenzuela
- Dave McNally
- Dennis Eckersley
- Luis Tiant
and
- Rick Reuschel
- John Hiller
- Wayne Simpson
and
- Some other pretty decent SP's
Which is pretty WOW. Just two awesome starts to start with, and you have a 50% chance to be a TOR starter, and a 30% chance to be a HOF type?
Which ... not exactly. But! It suggests that if a kid comes out of the gate really breathing fire, it does mean --- > eyes slideways. Real nice chance he's going to be an impact pitcher.
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Q. How about the best 3-start rookies and 4-start rookies?
A. The list of 10 pitchers having the best 3-start debuts is absolutely packed with TOR starters. Steve Rogers joins the list, and several of the scrubs drop out.
The 10 best 4-start debuts (out of 2,200+ pitchers), the list is not a bunch of guys like Blake Beavan. It is:
|
1 |
Fernando |
Valenzuela |
|
2 |
Wayne |
Simpson |
|
3 |
Burt |
Hooton |
|
4 |
Bruce |
Howard |
|
5 |
Steve |
Rogers |
|
6 |
Juan |
Marichal |
|
7 |
Danny |
McDevitt |
|
8 tie |
Mark |
Fidrych |
|
8 tie |
Steve |
Busby |
|
10 |
Jim |
Wright |
Not exactly a list of Antony Vazquezes.
The best 10-start debuts, as you would know if you'd been paying Bill $3 per month for personal training:
|
1 |
Fernando |
Valenzuela |
|
2 |
Orel |
Hershiser |
|
3 |
Dick |
Hughes |
|
4 |
Steve |
Rogers |
|
5 |
Jose |
DeLeon |
|
6 |
Phil |
Niekro |
|
7 |
Mark |
Fidrych |
|
8 |
Bill |
Parsons |
|
9 |
Kerry |
Wood |
|
10 |
Milt |
Wilcox |
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Q. Okay, how about going from right to left. If you struggle in your first few starts, does it mean you're not going to be Michael Pineda?
A. Of all pitchers who get detonated in their first starts, 17% go on to "successful" or better ML careers (Jeff D'Amico, Scott Erickson).
Of all pitchers who are awesome in their first starts, 30% go onto "successful" or better careers.
Bill ran another chart ... if you have TWO terrible starts, the chances drop (only) to 16%. If you have THREE, it's 15%. If FOUR, it's 13% ... but, suddenly, if you have FIVE STRAIGHT terrible starts, your chances drop to 0%. (Partly because you get powerflushed!)
Whereas, one terrible start, followed by a decent one, the chances go back up to solid ... 25%.
So: one or two terrible starts, no biggie at all. But you really wouldn't want to see 3-5 horrible starts ... sabermetrically you wouldn't want to see that.
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Q. What if Taijuan strings three good starts?
A. Three is kind of the sweet spot. For all 2,200 pitchers ... if you were in the top 1/6 of debuts, here are the chances for big careers:
- 30% - chance of nice career after 1 good start
- 40% - chance after 2 starts in the top 1/6 of the pool
- 50% - chance after 3 starts (rounded from 49%)
- 50% - chance after 4 starts (rounded from 51%)
- 50% - chance after 5 starts (rounded from 54%)
- 55% - chance after 6 starts
- 60% - chance after 7 starts, 8 starts, 9 starts, 10 starts (rounded from 56-61%)
It's kind of interesting. From a saber standpoint, three starts are going to tell you what you want to know, as much as ten starts would. Kind of.
The difference between seeing 1 Taijuan start, or 3 of them .... that's as much as the difference between seeing 3 starts, or a lot more. By a remarkable coincidence, we're going to see three or four Taijuan starts, going into 2014, right?
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