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Did James add up 5 guys or 6?
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Last April 30th, James came up with the idea to score 30 rotations using his Starting Pitcher rankings. Brilliant! :: guinness :: That's the kind of 30,000-foot view that he invented Win Shares for: how do you judge a trade like [Ken Caminiti, Steve Findley and 4! other guys] for [Phil Plantier, Derek Bell, and 4 other guys]. Was that trade more of a net loss than developing a single good SP? How do you proportion it?
Nowadays we have WAR to make those calculations pretty simple, but WAR is just a refinement of Win Shares. The point is, you back the camera up, and up again, and up again, and finally something really obvious hits you.
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On April 30th, James laid out a complete table for the 30 rotations. At that time, his observations included the following:
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The teams with the strongest starting rotations in their divisions, as of April 30, are Baltimore, the White Sox, the Angels, the Nationals, the Cardinals, and the Dodgers. The teams with the weakest rotations, by division: the Yankees, Indians, A’s, Phillies, Brewers, and Diamondbacks. Other notes:
1) Strongest rotation in the majors, by far: Washington. Washington’s #5 starter, Gio Gonzalez, ranks ahead of the number one starter for no less than 13 teams. That’s astonishing. If it holds up over the course of the season. . . .one of the strongest rotations of all time.
2) Weakest starting rotation in the majors: Arizona. Arizona’s #1 starter, Josh Collmenter, ranks as the #75 starting pitcher in baseball.
3) The AL East generally has weak starting pitching. No pitcher in the AL East is among the top 15 in baseball.
6) My real purpose in doing this was to educate myself about the 30 major league rotations. If I can force myself to do this once a week—which I probably can’t, but if I could—then I would develop a stronger understanding of who was in the rotation right now for all 30 teams, who their #1 starter was, etc. I’m old; I have a hard time lodging all of that information in my head.
7) Miami’s rotation is surprisingly good. . . not big names, but they’re pitching well, and most of them have been for a least a couple of months.
Arizona wound up scuffling to a mediocre rotation when two young pitchers, Robbie Ray and Patrick Corbin, came through big for them. Washington wound up with a sparkling ERA+ of 112, but they were snakebit. And the Cardinals, the #6 rotation by Starting Pitcher Rankings, had an amazing, Wainwright-less ERA+ of 135. Did you think that Lackey, Martinez, and Lynn would go absolutely nuts? There's more to an MLB season than drawing up the rotisserie rankings. Fortunately.
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The 2016 Mariners by this method. 300 points is the baseline for a new SP:
| SP | Rank | Points |
| Felix | #12 | 513 |
| Iwakuma! | #35 | 462 |
| Miley | #46 | 449 |
| Taijuan | #100 | 396 |
| Karns | #114 | 389 |
| K-Pax | #177 | 322 |
| Points, Top 5 | 2209 |
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That 2209 points total would, last April 30th, have been #1 in the American League. Washington NL had 2424, Los Angeles NL had 2226 (barely beat us) and all AL West teams were in the 1800s-1900s except the pesky rodent Angels, who were at 2076. The 2015 M's had, at the time 2029 points. Same digits as we got now, but Scrabbled a bit.
Enjoy,
Dr D
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Comments
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adding in Paxton would take it to 2531... The graphic is misleading, but 2209 is apples to apples with the other 5 man rotations...
I assume Doc added in Paxton to show that not only do we have a very strong top 5, but we have a #6 that is also already strong, and with huge upside.
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Just put Paxton in there since he's an alternative candidate for the rotation. If something happens to one of the other 5 guys, that's the points total that fits in.
A bit like saying "here are the points-per-game of Portland's starting five, and sometimes this sixth guy takes the place of one of the first five."
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Should have looked more closely
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For me, replying to e-mail is like playing ping-pong :- ) and then half the time, I've asked a Q that was answered in the third paragraph of the original sender's letter ...
Speaking of which, I notice the Shout Box is un-ping-pong'y lately. That's the transaction slowdown or more the functional issues onsite?
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Nice read, thanks.
I looked at the rankings and was impressed with the rankings spare Felix dropping down to #12 after the off year. I think the other rankings were spot on maybe even overly bullish on the M's arms.
My biggest disagreement with the rankings would be the one that came last . Paxton in fact has a 118 ERA+ career in MLB. I know he has only managed 13 starts in 2014 and 15 but I think that depressed his evaluation. I really think our young guns Walker/Paxton are primed to perform in 2016.
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... hey 'Jag! Thanks for commenting ...
The rankings are done like in tennis or golf; a pitcher scores points for a good start but then the points 'leak away' again if he's inactive. Paxton is like a young golfer out of college who placed top-5 in a major his first time out, but then scored middle-of-the pack (making the cuts) occasionally while being injured a lot the next two years.
For sure I'll take K-Pax over the guys who tend to be ranked anywhere near him, like Hector Noesi at #196, but that happens with real young talents. Matt Moore is #178; Derek Holland is #176 ... the best SP prospect in the minors is unranked.
But yeah. Personally I'll go with K-Pax over even Taijuan or Nate Karns. If it's my team, I trade either of those two before I trade Paxton.
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Paxton over Walker or Karns? I like KPax quite a bit but he's one more 100'ish IP season from the bullpen, I think. I mean, his IP totals since turning pro are 95, 106, 170, 87, 73. One of those totals is not like the others and there is major risk of a Snelling-level brittleness with the guy. It's good that it's not his shoulder or his elbow, of course, but he could be one of those guys where it's always something. I don't want another "Mr Glass" in the org but we have to at least consider that we may have another one.
DiPoto is certainly not sold on the guy but he didn't trade him off, either. So he'll get his chance, even if he has to start the year in Tacoma. Better that than starting it on the DL, I guess.
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...if you took the ratings seriously for the Mariners in 2015...you'd have been surprised by the outcome, since we were one of the top 5 teams in baseball back then, and our rotation wound up a weak spot.
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Betwixt the cup and the lip is many a slip.
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seeing them as having the upside this current rotation has, after Erasmo and Iwakumas splashes in 2012 and with Walker and Paxton having successful cups the year before and Hultzen all *potentially* right there. Erasmo looked like a quality #5/6/swing pitcher. The ceiling for the 5 or 6 were similar to now but I think the floor was considerably lower. The probability was considerably lower. But then Elias came out of nowhere in the Spring and they still as a group didn't get there.
Last year was much the same even if a few names were different. Iwakuma was established at #2 then, Walker and Paxton were a year wiser, Elias was still looking like a quality#5/6 and Happ had been added at #3. Looking much the same as now in the depth department even if the dependability seems to be higher.
I'm saying all this because those years I argued against acquiring more SP and was wrong. It seems to me that we're just as deep at the position as the last 2 years. Maybe we're still a man or 2 short?
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Thanks for your response to my musings.
Long time reader, recent poster.