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Monday, November 19, 2007

The Best and Worst Pitchers

By , 04:02 PM

I just finished my projections for next year.  I don’t project playing time (other than classifying a pitcher as starter, reliever, or both/either) and I don’t go beyond next year, so my “best” and “worst” players are always by “rate” and don’t consider longevity beyond next year, chance of getting injured, etc.  When I rate a reliever, it is as compared to other relievers, and starters are compared to other starters.  For pitchers who have done both, their rating is as compared to pitchers of their primarily role (starter or reliever).

The worst pitchers are tough to isolate if only because they tend to be in and out of the majors and they tend to change roles a lot, as would be expected of a bad pitcher.  Rather than using an IP qualifier as Tango did in his “worst pitcher in baseball” thread, I’ll just wing it.  If it looks to me like said pitcher has been around at least a little bit in the majors the last few years, I’ll include him.  If it looks like he is permanantly gone (although you never know) then I probably won’t - like Ponson. 

One more thing.  I make rough league adjustments, so the best pitcher in the NL is probably not the best in baseball.  AL pitchers are substantiallty better than NL pitchers, by I think around .25 runs per 9.  So, for example, a pitcher in the NL who is projected to be .25 runs better than the average NL pitcher is only an average pitcher in the AL and a slightly (around .125 runs) above average pitcher in the NL and AL combined.

Best Starters

J. Santana
Harden (if and when healthy)
Peavy
Webb
Halladay
Beckett
Bedard

Worst Starters

Maroth
Mulder
Runelvys Hernandez
Jerome Williams
Victor Zambrano
Mark Redman
Eaton
C. Park

Best Relievers

Nathan
Betancourt
Ryan
Papelbon
Rivera
Putz
Street

Worst Relievers

Gryboski
Meas
Venafro
Childers
F. German
Bayliss
Kolb


#1    Xeifrank      (see all posts) 2007/11/19 (Mon) @ 17:08

1. Are your projections available for public download?

2. No NL relief pitchers made your list.  Who were the highest ranked NL relief pitchers, and how close were they to breaking into the overall best list?

vr, Xei


#2          (see all posts) 2007/11/19 (Mon) @ 17:35

I’ve got to believe Saito and Wagner were close.  Saito maybe doesn’t surprise me too much, since we only have two reliever seasons worth of data from him - so perhaps mgl is regressing his stats relatively heavily.

Wagner, on the other hand, has been pretty consistent for a while now - consistently good!

Halladay really surprises me.  His best days are behind him, I think.  He’s lost his impressive K rate… now he’s just a groundball pitcher who doesn’t walk too many people.  Hello CM Wang.


#3    Phil D.      (see all posts) 2007/11/19 (Mon) @ 19:01

I assume you’re referring to Jose Mesa as one of the worst relievers when you write “Meas.”


#4    Gary_      (see all posts) 2007/11/19 (Mon) @ 20:22

Hum, Roy Oswalt gets no respect at all.


#5    MGL      (see all posts) 2007/11/19 (Mon) @ 20:54

Mesa, Meas, Meat, toast, it’s all the same thing.

One reason why there are no NL pitchers on the reliever list is the disparity between the leagues.

Saito, Wagner, the good Cordero and Heath Bell are the best relievers in the NL and are up there close to their AL counterparts.

Without the league adjustments, I have Saito as 4th best, Cordero as 10th and Wagner as 12th.  With the league adjustment, Saito is equivalent to like Putz, K-Rod, Jenks, and Street.  Wagner is not really up there among the elite closers anymore.  In the AL, he would be far down the list among the likes of Shields, Benoit, Al Reyes, Soria, etc.

There is nothing in the stats to indicate that Halliday has “lost it” other than normal aging.  His K rate in 07 was almost exactly the same as in 06 and only a little less than in 04 (05 was high point in K rate).  But his extremely low BB and HR rate are what makes him a great pitcher. Here are his normalized (to 4.00 in the AL) component ERA’s for the last 4 years:

3.51
2.18
2.86
3.13

That is a great pitcher.  I’ll gladly wager that he exceeds the league ERA by at least .75 runs (after adjusting his ERA for his opponents, park, and defense) next year.  (That is not too bold, but I’ve got to give myself a big edge in order to bet.) Keep in mind that the best starters in baseball are projected with around a normalized ERC of 3.00, a run less than an average starter.  There are ocassionally starters whose projected normalized ERC’s fall below 3.00 (guys like Pedro, RJ, Clemens, and Madduz in their heydays).  The only one presently is Santana at around 2.9 (he slipped from around 2.8 last year).


#6    bedir than average      (see all posts) 2007/11/23 (Fri) @ 23:36

mgl, how does Horacio Ramirez miss the cut of worts pitcers?


#7    MGL      (see all posts) 2007/11/24 (Sat) @ 05:47

By having good (ERC) numbers in 04 and 06 (because of very good HR rates) and not having bad BB numbers over the last 4 years. You are colored, as everyone seems to be, by his poor 07.  I pay no attention to when a pitcher has his bad and good years.  Pitchers don’t decide to all of a sudden be good or bad in any given year.  They just keep pitching and happen to have lots of days off in between seasons.  Of course, as they age, they tend to get worse.  They occasionally learn how to pitch better or forget how to pitch or get injured.  Which is why we weight recent seasons more heavily.

That being said, he IS a truly a bad pitcher and he is up there with the worst in baseball.  I just don’t have him as the 10 worst or so.  There is enough innaccuracy in pitching projections that he might be among the 10 worst if we knew everyone’s true talent level.  As well, if you were to only include full time pitchers, especially starting pitchers, he would definitely be up there with the worst, perhaps in the top 3 or 5. 

In all fairness to the M’s, he was not projected TOO badly going into 07.  07 really jacked his projection up (or down, if you will).  Of course, one reason for the bad performance in 07 is his move to the AL, where the pitchers are a lot better.

Basically though, at 29, with that overall projection and K rate, he should be pretty much done as a major leaguer and be thankful for what he has been able to do and earn.  But given the stupidity of major league teams and the fact that he is a lefty, he will probably hang around for a couple of more years.  Well, I take that back.  I have not looked at his career platoon splits, but if it is at all large, he could certainly be a LOOGY.


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