Astros Community Projection Project: The Starting Pitchers
by Stephen Higdon on Jan 29, 2009 10:54 AM CST
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PrintOn our way to wrapping up the community aspect of the projection project, we're going to take a look at the starting pitchers. I arrived at the current numbers by using IP forecasts from Bill James, Marcels, and CHONE averaged, and ERA by weighting the last three years of tRA* and adjusting it back to ERA by a mulitplier of .96. Some of the numbers I fudged for my own realistic guess, but I'm probably off in some assumptions somewhere. What, if anything, about these numbers doesn't seem right to you:
- Roy Oswalt: 210 IP, ERA 3.79
- Wandy Rodriguez: 150 IP, ERA 4.16
- Mike Hampton: 115 IP, ERA 4.41
- Brian Moehler: 140 IP, ERA 4.66
- Brandon Backe: 140 IP ERA 4.82
- Alberto Arias: 100 IP, ERA 4.29
- Clay Hensley: 85 IP, ERA 4.81
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While it was a 3.54 last year
He got lucky with a lot of UER. Here’s his data from stat corner (the originators of tRA). I think the 4.16 is a pretty good guesstimate (although probably slightly disappointing) but one he can probably out perform.
The question then becomes, how much does he outperform this buy?
The Crawfishboxes
A good friend of mine used to say, "This is a very simple game. You throw the ball, you catch the ball, you hit the ball. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose, sometimes it rains." Think about that for a while.
by Stephen Higdon on Jan 29, 2009 12:39 PM CST up reply actions
the numbers to back up that 4.16 are there, no doubt..
you’re exactly right though, disappointing is the word.
by Evan Hochschild on Jan 29, 2009 1:28 PM CST up reply actions
I tend to agree with HLP...I would bet on a little lower ERA for Wandy.
The telling thing to me are the K/9 and BB/9 for Wandy each year.
K rate: 05—5.60; 06—6.50; 07— 7.78; 08— 8.58.
BB rate: 05— 3.71; 06— 4.18; 07—3.05; 08—2.88.
Do you see any trends there?
I might have suggested something like a 3.9 ERA for Wandy, but then my gut tells me that the ERAs for Moehler and Backe may be too low. So maybe it all comes out in the wash.
Predicting Wandy to have only 150 IP is essentially a prediction that he will have an injury that causes him to miss between 3 and 5 games. He has pretty consistently hit about 5 and half innings per start, which means that you’d only expect him to pitch in about 27 games, which is reasonable for a season, but which falls a few games short of a full load. If you bump his innings up, I wouldn’t go too much above 180…the reason he is so consistent about hitting around 5.5 innings per game is because he consistently has long at-bats by opposing teams, which ultimately caps his innings pitched.
Also, this inning distribution only accounts for 800 innings spread over 7 starters. I think you’re missing about 100 innings covered by 2 or 3 additional starters.
First, the pitching staff will likely throw around 1450 innings next year, 650 more than are covered by this distribution. Many of these innings will be covered by the bullpen, but I still think a projection of 800 innings covered by starters is too low…Even last year, where everybody agrees that the bullpen was overworked, the starters racked up over 900 innings.
Second, the last time we had as few as 7 starters was when two of them were Clemens and Pettitte. I think the 2009 team is going to be more like the teams of 2006, 2007, and 2008…we’re going to have closer to 10 starters over the course of the season. I imagine Sampson will pick up some starts (being the resident swing-man), and two more guys will pick up around 20-30 innings each, mostly in September (think Norris, Lumsden and Fulchino).
Also, my gut tells me:
- Moehler will get significantly fewer innings and his ERA will be closer to 5.00. I’m not sure he can repeat last season’s success, but again, that’s just a gut feeling.
- Backe will have an ERA closer to 5.00 as well, but will pick up more than 140 innings.
Russ Ortiz, Duh!
Chad Paronto and Polin Trinidad are candidates as well.
Did I do the math wrong there? I arrived at my figure by taking the full number of innings pitched and subtracting out any relief innings. For those pitchers who pitched both starts and relief, I went through game logs on fangraphs. I may have double entered some stuff on my calculator though…it’s been a long week. Also, I may have messed up some of my addition since 0.1 IP + 0.2 IP = 1 IP. For the purposes of the projection, should we split the difference and say 880 innings in 2009?
Fangraphs...
separates innings pitched between starters and relievers (no need to go to the game logs) on the team pages…I added up the starters’ innings pitched. I could have made a mistake too…I entered individual starters’ IP onto a spreadsheet quickly and then deleted the file.
Every time I do quick calculations like that, I think to myself “I should keep this spreadsheet just in case”, but then I don’t do it and eventually want to check my math. You’d think I’d have learned by now.
I find myself using the Export to Excel feature on Fangraphs quite a bit lately.
I love that they do that
It’s such a blessing.
The Crawfishboxes
A good friend of mine used to say, "This is a very simple game. You throw the ball, you catch the ball, you hit the ball. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose, sometimes it rains." Think about that for a while.
by Stephen Higdon on Jan 29, 2009 9:25 PM CST up reply actions
I may have mis-spoke (mis-wrote?)....
I think I came up with 840 starters’ innings pitched last year.
I'm still getting 900+ starters innings
Oswalt (208.2)
Wolf (70.2)
Wandy (137.1)
Arias (7.2)
Moehler (142.1)
Cassel (14.1)
Sampson (55.2)
Chacon (85.2)
Runelvys (19.1)
Backe (166.2)
Do we really want to pencil in Wandy for the full 180
Or do we want to handicap him by a start or two?
The Crawfishboxes
A good friend of mine used to say, "This is a very simple game. You throw the ball, you catch the ball, you hit the ball. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose, sometimes it rains." Think about that for a while.
by Stephen Higdon on Jan 29, 2009 9:26 PM CST up reply actions
Tough Call
It’s hard to guess injuries…who could have predicted the missed starts Wandy had a while ago because he had such bad cold sores that he couldn’t eat solid food?
My brain says his oblique will act up again in May and he’ll miss a few starts.
My heart says this will be a breakout year and he will pitch like a true #2 pitcher, complete with close to 200 innings.
Given that this team breaks my heart too often, we can go ahead and predict a minor injury and leave his projection at 150 IP.
HAHAHA
I can feel the emotional ups and downs you experienced as your typed that.
The Crawfishboxes
A good friend of mine used to say, "This is a very simple game. You throw the ball, you catch the ball, you hit the ball. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose, sometimes it rains." Think about that for a while.
by Stephen Higdon on Jan 30, 2009 1:59 AM CST up reply actions
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