Nationals Arm Race

Verlander has already given the Tigers a huge leg up in their divisional series. Photo unknown via rumorsanddrants.com

As we have already seen in the playoffs thus far, predicting these coin-flip games, or predicting the outcome of individual games, is usually fool’s gold.  The first four games of the playoffs featured four Road-team wins.  You can argue that the higher-seeded teams in the divisional series are “better” than the home teams and this was to be expected … except that we’re talking about divisional winners/90+ win teams all around.  So far, the results have been surprising.

What’s also been tough this year is the lack of “announced” starters.  The Tigers seem to know exactly who they’re throwing for all 5 games of the series … but nobody else does.  Baltimore’s only announced starter (Jason Hammel) hasn’t pitched since September 11th and they have a handful of guys to pick from.  In last year’s version of this post I was able to do match-up analysis.  This year i’ll just look at the breadth of the starters to see who has an upper hand.

Washington-St. Louis:

• Washington’s likely starters: Gonzalez, Zimmermann, Jackson, Detwiler
• St. Louis’ likely starters: Wainwright, Garcia, Carpenter, Lohse

I’ve already talked at depth about this series in my previous post.  Just looking at starters, its hard not to see the Nats as the favorite.  Our Ace Gonzalez goes twice in the series, St. Louis doesn’t hit righties as well.  Carpenter could be a difference maker.

Detroit-Oakland:

• Oakland’s likely starters: Parker, Milone, Anderson, Blackley
• Detroit’s likely starters: Verlander, Fister, Sanchez and Scherzer

Justin Verlander is as close to unbeatable as there is, again evidenced by his game 1 dominance. (7ip, 3 hits one solo home run).  If he’s set to go in game 4, Oakland basically has to win out.  The rest of Detroit’s planned starters all sport sub 4.00 ERAs and all of them have at least a 113 ERA+.  In fact, how exactly is this only an 88 win team?  They have three unbelievable hitters in the middle of their order and plus starting pitching.  Max Scherzer and his dominating fastball apparently has recovered enough from a post-game celebration injury and should take the ball in Game 4.  Anibel Sanchez has been pretty effective since arriving from Miami in a mid-season trade (is Sanchez an off-season FA target of the Nats for their 5th starter?) and should give the Tigers a great chance to win his game 3 start.

Meanwhile, Oakland has a slew of rookie starters to choose from, all of whom sport sub 4.00 ERAs (the worst season ERA on the staff is Travis Blackley, who may or may not feature in the post-season).  Jarrod Parker threw game one and was effective, just not effective enough.  I was surprised to see Tommy Milone slated as the game 2 starter (perhaps chosen by virtue of his home/away splits; 2.74 ERA at home, 4.83 ERA away).  After that I honestly have no idea who we’ll see.  Oakland named 5 starters to its post-season roster, but AJ Griffen was pasted in his last outing and may be a long-man/emergency starter.  Brett Anderson is clearly the staff Ace at this point but only returned in late August.  Oakland’s been on such a tear though, its hard to bet against them.

Prediction: Verlander already gave Detroit the huge advantage with a game 1 victory.  Oakland needs more magic to advance.

New York-Baltimore:

• Baltimore’s likely starters: Hammel, Tillman, Chen, Saunders
• New York’s likely starters: Sabathia, Pettitte, Kuroda, Phelps?

Baltimore’s only announced starter as of today is Jason Hammel, who (as noted above) hasn’t thrown in 3 weeks.  After that?  The Orioles used 12 different starters on the season and at one point demoted 3/5ths of their rotation in a week.  They seem set to roll out the above named guys after Hammel, but this leaves out both Miguel Gonzalez and Steve Johnson, who were effective down the stretch.  I can’t find a link for Baltimore’s named divisional roster as of the time of this writing; which would have helped.

Meanwhile, looking at New York’s options past the above named three guys, I would initially guess that New York is going to a 3-man rotation for the playoffs.  What would you rather do?  See three effective veterans going on 3 days rest, or to give post-season starts to the likes of Phil Hughes or Ivan Nova?  Freddie Garcia lost his starting spot in September when Pettitte returned but isn’t an option because of how ineffective he’s been all season.  Would you give a game-4 start to rookie David Phelps?  It seems amazing to me that the highest payroll team in the league can’t find an effective 4th and 5th starter (getting Pettitte out of retirement?  Giving Garcia 17 starts after signing him off the trash heap?) and I think it continues to be their downfall (only one World Series appearance in 8 years).

New York swept the Orioles in the first series of the season, split a 2-game set in mid-season, but lost EVERY other series exactly 2 games to 1 on the season.  Is there any reason not to think they’ll do something similar in this series?  I see a split in Baltimore and then New York struggling to win 2 of 3 in New York.  Does Sabathia struggle going on 3 days rest?  More importantly, does Pettitte??  He should be on a golf course right now, not pitching in October.  It should be interesting to see if New York uses a 4th starter.

San Francisco-Cincinnati:

• San Francisco’s likely starters: Cain, Bumgarner, Vogelsong, Lincecum
• New York’s likely starters: Cueto, Arroyo, Latos, Bailey

We’ve already seen some interesting mishaps with Cincinnati’s best laid plans; Cueto out with bask spasms after just 2 batters, planned game 3 starter Latos forced into action.  Now it looks like Cueto will go game 3, with Bailey either pushed to game 4 or skipped outright since Latos only threw 4 innings in game 1.  Or perhaps Bailey goes game 4 with Latos pushed to a possible game 5.  Either way, the wild-cards here are Cueto’s health and Arroyo’s effectiveness.  If Cueto returns for a game 3 start, with Cincinnati haven already “stolen” a game against SF’s ace, the Giants are in trouble.

Meanwhile, has San Francisco made a decision on its starters?  They’ve named all 5 (the above four plus Barry Zito) to the post-season roster with an unnamed player dropping to the bullpen.  I think they’ll go with supposed ace Tim Lincecum as the 4th starter despite Zito’s numbers being superior. Meanwhile, Ryan Vogelsong has been vulnerable down the stretch despite good numbers on the season.

I think the back-end of the Giant’s rotation is a huge question mark, and if the Reds have already stolen a game against Cain, this series may be short.

Gonzalez signs a long term deal; we're committed now. Photo Jed Jacobsohn/Getty Images via nydailynews.com

This is your semi-weekly/periodic wrap-up of Nats and other baseball news that caught my eye.  Apologies for the delay in posting; new rules on laptop usage at work have thwarted my typical read-sports-news-at-lunch habits.  I’ll have to get creative.

Nationals In General

• Nats extend Gio Gonzalez for 5 years.  Terms: 5yrs, $42M with two more club options.  A little more than $8m AAV, or in other words what we were paying Jason Marquis.  I’m sure its backloaded somewhat, but I like the deal for two main reasons.  First, we buy out all the arbitration years ahead of time and avoid the arbitration process altogether (which does nothing but serve to bruise the fragile egos of professional athletes over a few hundred thousand dollars of salary).  Secondly, it locks up the player for the longer term and gives the team some stability for the next few years.
• Jim Callis at BaseballAmerica answered a question about what an updated Nats top 10 prospect list would look like post trade: he’d promote up Destin Hood, Chris Marrero, and Michael Taylor.  Considering what Marrero’s prospect status is now, considering how long it has taken Hood to get the hang of playing baseball, and how far away Taylor is from the majors, I think its safe to say our farm system is officially “thin.”
• Nice little piece on Bryce Harper from Buster Olney, who relays the well known opinion that Davey Johnson really likes young superstars and predicts that Harper may break camp with the team.  Why doesn’t anyone relay all the facts in this case?  Like the fact that there wasn’t a concept of “Super-2” when Johnson promoted Gooden and Strawberry and there wasn’t a punitive financial issue lurking by doing so.
• Great news to see so many of our arbitration eligible guys settled well ahead of going in front of the arbitrator.  These cases don’t help anyone in the long run and end up arguing semantics over a few hundred thousand dollars that the team can clearly pay.
• Though I havn’t seen any confirmation of this elsewhere, Bill Ladson reports that the Nats are engaged in extension talks with Ryan Zimmerman.  If so, this comes at a relatively good time for the team to be doing the negotiating; Zimmerman’s value is as low now as it has been since before his rookie season, on account of multiple injuries and a lack of overall production.   Which is exactly why I don’t think any long term deal is going to be struck this off-season frankly; Zimmerman would expect a Troy Tulowitzki like deal and I don’t think he’s done enough to earn it.

Free Agents/Player Transaction News

• The arbitration case to watch this coming off-season will be Tim Lincecum; he is asking for $21.5M for 2012, with the Giants offering $17M.  Wow.  There’s really no case like his out there to use as a precedent; if you think he should earn roughly 80% of his FA value, then $21.5M equates with an annual salary of $26.875/year AAV.  That’s more than Cliff Lee, CC Sabathia or Johan Santana (the three highest paid pitchers at current).  So I guess you have to ask yourself; is Lincecum the best pitcher in the league?  Because he’s about to be paid in line with that title.

Hall of Fame items

• Not HoF specific, but inspired by it.  David Shoenfield compiles a list of the best players by running 5-year WAR figures to show some enlightening information.  WAR has some limitations over longer terms but I like what it shows for season-to-season value for players.  His point was that some relatively unsupported hall of fame claims appear on these lists.  For me the last couple periods showing guys like Chase Utley and Matt Holliday were kind of eye opening.

General Baseball News

• Phillies sign Joel Pineiro to a minor league deal.   I know he struggled in LA last season, but at one point this guy was pretty decent.  If he can regain his health and his St. Louis form, suddenly the Phillies might have themselves a pretty good 5th starter option to take mediocre innings away from Joe Blanton.  I’m surprised they were able to get him on a minor league contract.
• I’ve read bits and pieces about the fall of Puerto Rican baseball before; but this is the first article i’ve seen that really delves into it deeply.  Rob Neyer lists the cause and effect; baseball subjected Puerto Rican’s to the normal draft and almost immediately killed baseball in the country.  This is the lesson/concern about going to an international draft; individual teams won’t cultivate and build off-site academies if they serve to build players who can be drafted by other teams.  This is what happened in Puerto Rico and its probably what would happen in the Dominican Republic, Venezuela and other developing countries.  Its a scary thought.
• Related to the above Puerto Rican story is this: Cleveland pitcher Fausto Carmona arrested in the Dominican Republic for falsifying his name and age ahead of his big signing.  For all the lamenting of the above Puerto Rican situation … this is yet another example (see Gonzalez, Smiley for Nats fans) of the flip side of the lack of an international draft.  Draft experts and scouting mavens lament the loss of Puerto Rican development and think that the exact same thing would happen in the D.R. if they were included in the draft, and yes its hard to argue differently.  But the down side of having such a “lottery” for 15-16 yr old players in the impoverished D.R. is the continued fraud among players growing up there related to age falsification.
• Sabre-nerds may decry the lack of statistical science behind it, but Tom Verducci‘s annual “Year After” effect (which has come to be known as the Verducci-effect by others) has had an 84% success factor in predicting either injury or distinct decline in performance for his named pitchers.  The most interesting names on the list are newly traded Michael Pineda, Jeremy Hellickson, and both Texas mid-rotation starters Matt Harrison and Derek Holland.  Holland in particular threw a whopping 77 more innings this year over last.

General News; other

• Not that any of us needed to read any more about the Jerry Sandusky/Penn State Scandal, but reading Washington Post’s Sally Jenkins‘ front page story with Joe Paterno‘s first interview post-scandal was an interesting read.  Frankly, I don’t buy some of the way the story reads (intimating that Paterno had “little to do” with Sandusky by the time the 2002 allegations came around, for example).  It doesn’t seem like Paterno was really challenged in the interview.  Gene Wojciechowski echos some of these sentiments in this analysis piece here, criticizing Paterno’s convenient stance on the scandal and on the multitude of other stories that have come out about his manipulation of the system and real influence at the university. The real problem is just the nature of dealing with a legend; he worked for Penn State for 61 years and made the university what it is; how do you possibly deal with such a figure, who clearly was larger than the university?  Update: just prior to publishing this, Paterno lost his battle with lung cancer, a quick and unfortunate end to his legendary career.  Its amazing to consider that just 3 months ago, Paterno was still the larger than life legend and nothing bad had ever happened on the campus.
• I’m sure the real story is somewhere in-between the original story and the “Update” at the end, but there seems to be enough truth in the former to not necessarily believe the latter.  A new Utah high school’s board decided that the student-voted mascot name “Cougars” can’t be used because the name is derogatory towards middle-aged women who hook up with younger men.  Seriously.

Virginia native Justin Verlander is your unanimous AL Cy Young Winner for 2011; is he also an MVP candidate? Photo unknown via rumorsandrants.com

In honor of the AL MVP vote, set to be announced today 11/21/11 ….

Justin Verlander had one of the better starting pitcher seasons in the past few years.  He compiled a 24-5 record with a 2.40 era, a sub 1.00 whip and a 9.0 k/9 rate.  Pitchers getting to 25 wins in the modern 5-man rotations is exceedingly rare and, no matter what you think of the “win” category is still indicative of a stellar season.

Verlander was your unanimous 2011 AL Cy Young Award winner.   He led the AL in a slew of traditional and non-traditional statistical pitching categories, including your “pitching triple crown” categories of Wins, ERA and Strikeouts.  He also lead the AL in bWar and Whip, and is in the top 5 in a number of other categories (k/9, k/bb, fWar, FIP, xFIP, and SIERA).  He wasn’t nearly as “far ahead” of some of his AL competition (in most other seasons any one of Sabathia, Weaver, Shields, and maybe even Beckett before he got hurt would be serious Cy Young candidates), but it’s no surprise that he was the unanimous Cy Young winner.

So, is he also your AL MVP?

In a year where most of the candidates for the AL MVP seem to have “warts” of some sort, is Verlander in line to be the first pitcher since Dennis Eckersley in 1992 to win both the Cy Young and the MVP?

Lets talk about reasons having a starting pitcher win your league’s MVP does not make any sense:

• A SP only plays in 34-35 games a year, about 20% of a team’s total starts.  How can the “most valuable player” only play in 20% of a team’s games?
• Even if your SP wins 25 games (as Verlander nearly did), or the team goes 27-8 in your pitcher’s starts (as Detroit did for Verlander this year) … that’s still only at best representing 25-30% of your team’s victories.

On the other hand:

• If you have an ace starter and switch places with a replacement-level player, how much of an effect would that have on your team’s success?  If you assume the Tigers replaced Verlander’s 27-8 record in games he started with a .500 pitcher, suddenly the Tigers are looking at potentially 10 fewer victories and missing the playoffs.  But then again, this probably overstates the capabilities of any one pitcher winning games all by himself.
• Tom Boswell once argued that pitchers may only pitch every 5th day, but they face nearly 1000 batters in a season (Verlander faced 969 batters this year).  That’s nearly 300 more batters faced than positional players get plate appearances.  The converse is that if you’re looking at impact strictly on a plate appearance basis, you have to then factor in every single play in the field that a positional player takes part in.  Using an MVP competitor as comparison:  Jacoby Ellsbury (an outfielder) had 388 putouts in center field while playing 1358 innings.  He also had 729 plate appearances.  So those two figures add up to eclipse direct involvement on a per-at bat level.  Depending on where you play in the infield, your involvement on a per-at bat level is about equivalent to an outfielders (for 3rd basement), significantly higher (for middle infielders) to exceptionally high (for 1st basemen and catchers).  The difficulty of a center fielder catching a fly ball for a putout isn’t nearly as much as a pitcher recording a strikeout with the bases loaded … but then again, when you’re already expecting roughly 75% of hitters to make outs without you (as a pitcher) even really being considered anything much above replacement … the law of averages, averages out a bit.

To me, pitchers are not a large enough part of a team’s success on a day in/day out basis to be the “most valuable player,” in the accepted working definition of the title.  I believe pitchers have an award for accomplishment (the Cy Young) and the MVP, while perhaps poorly named or poorly defined, really should be for positional players.  Perhaps this argument comes back to the pure definition of an MVP, and on this point I’ll have disagreements as well, since I basically consider the MVP to be realistically defined as “the most important positional player on a playoff team.”  I generally don’t believe that the best player on a 4th place team really can be the MVP.

Of course, all this being said, I did predict that Verlander would win the AL MVP.  Why?  Because every one of his primary competitors seems to have some narrative that will prevent them from winning.  Ellsbury‘s team folded in September.  Bautista‘s team didn’t play a meaningful game for months.  Cabrera was only the 2nd best player on his own team.  Granderson had a 40-homer season but he hit .260 and wasn’t even in the league top-10 in bWAR.

What do you guys think?

Justin Verlander’s season is one for the ages. Will it net him both a Cy Young and an MVP? Photo unknown origin via rumorsandrants.com

Last year (not to pat myself on the back or anything) but I went 8 for 8 in predicting the end-of-season awards for MLB.  In 2010 though, most of the major awards were relatively straightforward, even the Managers of the year being pretty obvious, so perhaps it wasn’t that great of a feat.

Here’s my predictions for 2011.  There’s been enough discussion about these awards in the media, with enough differing opinions, that its going to be interesting to see how this plays out.  This time through, there’s enough controversy about who really “deserves” the two MVP awards that I’ll be offering up some distinctions between who I think will win and who really should win.  I wonder if sometime soon we won’t have to make that distinction.

• AL MVP:  Who I think will win: Justin Verlander.   In a year where none of the four playoff contending teams really had a break-out candidate, I think the voters will give it to a pitcher for the first time in 25 years.  I don’t agree with it: I don’t think pitchers should be eligible for MVPs (a topic for a future blog-post), but Verlander’s season was clearly a step ahead of the normal pitcher’s season.  As for Jacoby Ellsbury, his 30/30 season and his single-handed effort to drag his team into the post season almost earned him the nod, but when Boston missed the playoffs I’m guessing Ellsbury’s candidacy took a nose dive as well.  Curtis Granderson‘s fade in the 2nd half after a blistering first half costs him, despite a fantastic season overall. Adrian Gonzalez also started out w/ a monster first half, but faded down the stretch.  Jose Bautista would get more consideration if he was playing for a better team.  Miguel Cabrera quietly had a fantastic season but he’s completely overshadowed on his own team by Verlander’s great season.  Who really should win? Batista if his team was relevant at all.  He was clearly the best AL offensive player this year and put up historic stats.  But, the modern MVP isn’t about guys who toil in the 2nd division.  If they wanted to give the equivalent of a “Cy Young” to the “best hitter” in the league, Batista would be the winner hands down.  The definition of the MVP comes into consideration yet again.  Who probably would have won if his team didn’t collapse and miss the playoffs? Ellsbury.
• AL Cy Young: Justin Verlander, with a no-hitter and dominance day-in and day-out, first to 20 wins and the pitching triple crown.  Jered Weaver, Josh Beckett get some 2nd place consideration (despite Beckett’s late season injury and subsequent beer and chicken distractions).   James Shields became a new pitcher in 2011 and could get some top 5 votes. CC Sabathia will get votes since wins play so heavily.  Felix Hernandez won’t get the votes he got last year.  CJ Wilson had a great season leading Texas to back-to-back titles; thankfully for him the voting for this award came in prior to his post-season meltdowns.
• AL Rookie of the Year:  Jeremy Hellickson had wins and a great ERA and should be the pick.   Michael Pineda looked like a lock until fading in the 2nd half, but Hellickson’s toiling on the East Coast (media bias) and in the AL East (legitimately more difficult than the teams Pineda normally faced) gives him the nod.  Mark Trumbo put up some comparisons to Wally Pipp for Los Angeles and gives the Angels another big bat going into 2012.  Jordan Walden (closer for the Angels) had a fine season.  Ivan Nova quietly put his name into the mix with a 16-win season.  Justin Smoak, perhaps Dustin Ackley, Eric Hosmer, Mike Moustakas, Aaron Crow could get mentions.  Zack Britton started strong but disappeared in the 2nd half.  There’s so many good candidates this year, the voting may be pretty close, and any of the above names could get some top-5 votes.  But Hellickson should be the winner.
  
• AL Mgr:  Joe Maddon‘s magic show of a managing job, with a completely new bullpen, huge loss of talent and nearly halving of his team’s payroll from the 2010 version of the Rays yet still sneaking into the playoffs should be your winner.  Manny Acta, who had the Indians in playoff position for a bit after last year’s 93-loss season in the first half, gets some consideration.  You could mention the job Ron Washington did to get his team back to the WS despite losing his ace pitcher.
• (Unofficial “award”): AL GM: This award begins and ends with Andrew Friedman, who had the Rays in the playoffs with a payroll 1/5th of his competition.  It just doesn’t get any better than that.  Dombrowski in Detroit gets some credit for trades that paid off well, and Daniels in Texas gets some longer term credit for continuing to build a good young team.

• NL MVP: Who I think will win: Ryan Braunled his team to the playoffs and overshadowed his cleanup hitter down the stretch.   Matt Kemp hit the cover off the ball all season but his team went nowhere during the season of the McCourts, and there’s little precedent for players from the 2nd division winning the MVP unless they have an outer-world season.  Jose Reyes had a great (contract) year, but his team is faltering and he was hurt by injuries.  And, his little ploy to guarantee the batting title on the season’s final day certainly turned off some BBWAA members.  Andrew McCutchen had a breakout season but the Pirates swoon will cost him.  Lance Berkman will get some consideration but will be difficult to select since he’s (arguably) the 3rd best player on his own team.   Prince Fielder also had a monster year and could take votes away from Braun, but without a clear candidate in the competition I’m guessing Fielder comes in 3rd.  Justin Upton came out of nowhere (as did his team) to put his name in the discusion and likely is a top-5 finisher.  Who really should win? Kemp clearly, but for the same reasons Batista won’t win, neither will Kemp.
• NL Cy Young:  Clayton Kershaw won the NL pitching “triple crown” (Technically, he tied for the league-lead in wins with 21) for a team with a losing record on the year.  That’s tough to do.  Roy Halladay, having his typical dominant year with 6 CGs at the break, certainly deserves the award but i’m guessing voters want to reward someone new.  Cliff Lee isn’t having a half-bad season either.  Cole Hamels and Jair Jurrjens should be in this conversation but tailed off in the latter part of the season.  Ian Kennedy should get some 4th and 5th place votes for his fantastic season, finishing 21-4 for the surprising NL West winning Diamondbacks.
• NL Rookie: Craig Kimbrel, who broke the rookie-save record before the all star break and is one of the top closers in the game right now will win despite what people may think about saves and reliever value.  Freddie Freeman is in the conversation.  Phillies starter Vance Worley has come out of nowhere to go 9-1 to start the 2nd half.   The Atlanta rookies (including Brandon Beachy) could go 1-2-3.  Hometown candidates Danny Espinosa and Wilson Ramos certainly deserves some notice and may get a few 5th place votes here and there, but you can’t hit .230 and expect to win the ROY award.
• NL Mgr: Kirk Gibson in Arizona for a worst-to-first turn around.  Clint Hurdle of Pittsburgh, with his 2010-worst team over .500 at the all star break is 2nd.
• (unofficial award) NL GM: Milwaukee’s Doug Melvin wheeled and dealt his prospects into two front-line starters and a first place team out of last year’s 77-win team.  You can also give some credit to Towers in Arizona (though a lot of the work there was due to his predecessor).

Thoughts?  There’s plenty of opinion pieces out there with these predictions, though most were published at the end of the season.  Get ready for two weeks of award over-analysis as these awards are given out by the BBWAA starting November 14th.

Lots of World Series questions from Boswell this time around. Photo unknown via usasportsbettinglines.com

Tom Boswell did his monday morning chat on 10/31 in the wake of the end of an epic World Series and a brutal 23-0 loss by the town’s #1 draw Redskins.  Lets see how many baseball questions he takes…

Questions are edited for clarity and space, and I write my answer before reading Boswell’s.  We’ll only address baseball-related questions.

Q: What do you make of the decision to post-pone game 6 of the World Series so early?

A: The implication being, it never really rained.  Baseball was very quick to do cancellations this year, as we saw when a day game here was cancelled despite it being perfectly sunny outside.  The extra day of rest enabled St. Louis to put Carpenter on the mound for game 7 on a relatively acceptable amount of rest (3 days), a key factor that helped turn the tide.  Meanwhile Texas didn’t take advantage and kept the same rotation they announced at the beginning of the series (a point I made in this space, asking why Holland wasn’t recalled after his game 4 gem).  I understand what MLB was worried about (starting, stopping, rain-delays and losing TV viewership), but the delay ended up affecting the world series in a way that the Rangers can’t be happy about.  Boswell notes that he was in St. Louis, it was barely raining but he supported the decision at the time.

Q: Is St. Louis the “team of the decade,” since they went to three world series to the Yankees and Red Sox’ two?

A: Eh; both St. Louis WS victories were as weaker teams that ran the table in the playoffs.  For me the Yankees are probably the “team of the decade,” with their winning percentage and 90% playoff rate being paramount.  Boswell notes that St. Louis’s A-players are far better than the Nats comparable players, and that we have a long way to go.

Q: Are baseball players overpaid?  (Citing Pujols’ contract demands, Sabathia’s opt-out and Jeter’s $12M/year)?

A: In a game where you can have MVPs on rookie contracts making $450k (Dustin Pedroia) and a large percentage of your team also on league minimums, its hard to say that a player is “overpaid.”  Pujols IS the St. Louis Cardinals; if I were them i’d offer him ownership in the team, since he’s a legacy ball player that will always be as associated with St. Louis as Stan Musial.  Sabathia is just taking advantage of the market; he knows that he can get a few more guaranteed years and more guaranteed money, so why not do it?  Blame the Yankees for giving him that ridiculous opt-out clause in the first place.  Lastly the Jeter contract was NOT about equating pay with performance; it was about the Yankees paying to save-face for their own vast overpayment of Alex Rodriguez when Jeter’s the captain and the clear face of the franchise.  Boswell notes that most FAs show solidarity towards the efforts of their yesteryear colleagues who fought so hard for free agency, and try to push the envelope.

Q: Was Nelson Cruz’s miss on the David Freese triple a Bill Buckner-level gaffe?

A: Not at all; Freese‘s ball hit the fence and was nearly a walk-off homer.  Cruz may not be the best fielder but that was no gimme ground ball (like the one that Buckner missed).  Boswell puts it well; Cruz failed to make an excellent play while Buckner missed an easy one.  No better way to put it.

Q: Was St. Louis’ victory about Karma (and then a long winded, conspiracy theory level email involving the Deckinger blown call)?

A: St. Louis’ victory showed what happens when you put together a very strong 3-4-5, have a couple guys on complete hot streaks, and add a dominant shut-down Ace starter to a good lineup with a deep bullpen.  No matter what the record of the team or how they got into the playoffs, its a crap shoot as to who comes out.  St. Louis went from being out of the playoffs to beating the Phillies within a span of a week.  I hate it when wild card teams win the World Series, because it just validates more and more how the best teams are not being rewarded with post season success.  Boswell notes just how good LaRussa’s teams have been.

Q: Was Lance Berkman’s comment about his batting thought process eye opening in the context of clutch hitting?

A: Not really; Berkman said that he (paraphrased) tries not to think about anything at the plate.  And that’s the key to hitting in general; focus on the pitcher, not the situation or the pressure.  Otherwise you’re distracted at the plate and will be an easy out.  I think the questioner was trying to bat Boswell into a conversation about “clutch hitting,” which can’t really be proven by stat-nerds (so therefore they don’t believe it exists, despite 100 years of experience to the contrary.  Grr).  Boswell didn’t really address the question.

Q: Did Texas “deserve” the world series?

A: Not after blowing leads THREE times in game 6.  The Rangers got everything the deserved there.  Boswell notes, in response to the phrasing of the question, that Dallas has only recently (within the past few years) even had a legitimate “fan base” for baseball.  It is good to see though the area starting to embrace its team.

Q: Thoughts on the way home field advantage is decided for the World Series?

A: Ridiculous.  An exhibition that pulls all its stars after 3-5 innings and lets all-star “scrubs” (which are usually the one-per-team required guys from weaker franchises) decide home field advantage in the World Series.  It was ridiculous that a divisional winning 96-win team didn’t have home field advantage over the barely-eked-into -the playoffs Cardinals.  Either rotate back and forth year to year or give it to the team with the best record each year.  It really shouldn’t be that much more complicated.  Boswell says that he prefers the system stay the way it is except to say that a wild card team can never have home field.

Q: Will the Nationals go after the recently opted out CC Sabathia?

A: I doubt it; I think Sabathia is doing this purely as a procedural move to re-up with the Yankees for a ton more money.  Nobody has reported his having any desire to leave New York.  10/31/11 update; this is confirmed by Sabathia re-upping with the Yankees for 5 years.  Boswell seems to intimate that Sabathia makes sense on a team like the Nats.  Hmm.  Nothing about whether we’d actually go after him.  Then some comments on just how much money Wilson cost himself in the post season.  Agreed.

Q: Was this a better WS since it didn’t have the “best teams money can buy” like in Boston/NY/Philly?

A: I’m not so sure.  Personally I like to see teams be rewarded for superiority over 162 games … but understand the desire of the league to have multiple playoff rounds for TV ratings and excitement.  Boswell says it was a great world series.  In arguable, but not the question.

Q: What do you think of LaRussa’s retirement?  How does Davey Johnson rate compared to TLR?

A: Surprising; we don’t live in the St. Louis market so we don’t get the regular questioning of LaRussa to ascertain whether this was a surprising retirement or not.  I’d rate Johnson relatively close to LaRussa; if Tony is one of the better managers ever, Johnson is still in the upper-calibre grouping.  Boswell says this was a surprise announcement, but not really a surprise since LaRussa has had medical issues of late.  He also notes that this does NOT help the Cards resign Pujols.

Q: Did Boswell save all his “alternative ending” stories and columns that he had to re-write because of some late game heroics or misfourtunes?

A: Boswell says it happens more than you think; he’s had 10-12 blown just in the past few months.  Wow.  He doesn’t save them though.  I agree that they would make for very interesting reading.

Is CJ Wilson worth a 9 figure contract this off season? We’ll see. Photo Chris O’Meara/AP via livesportsdb.com

As the World Series ends, and as clubs start exercising (or more importantly, declining) player options, the FA market for starting pitching is starting to really take shape this off season.

The Nats don’t “need” Starting Pitching as they have in the past, but a quality veteran starting pitcher would certainly be preferred to the question marks that we might have if we used the likes of Ross Detwiler, Tommy Milone or Brad Peacock as a 5th starter in 2012.

Lets take a look at the starters on the market, put in some predictions as to what kind of money they’re going to get, and discuss whether or not the Nats should (or might) pursue them.  For reference, here’s a list of 2012 FAs from mlbtraderumors, as well as the Elias rankings as of the end of the 2011 season.  Remember, thanks to their end of the season run, the Nats 1st round pick is NOT protected and would be forfeited if they signed a type-A free agent.  So the FA types will be of importance when talking about each of the pitchers below.

Category: Aces (or nearly Aces) and Type-A starters.

• CC Sabathia seems certain to opt-out of his remaining Yankee contract and will almost certainly re-up with the team.  11/1/11: he has done just that.  5yrs, $122M, fewer years honestly than I thought he’d demand.  He raises his AAV from $23M in the last deal to $24.4M and gets one additional guaranteed year.  The structure of the deal pays him $23M/year for the first four years, then $25M the last.  There’s an option for 2017 at $25M that he most likely makes if he stays healthy.
• CJ Wilson is also a type-A FA and seems set on testing the market.  I would too if I were Wilson; I don’t think he’s an ace but he’s certainly going to be paid like one.  He seems set to get an AJ Burnett type deal (5yrs $85M) or perhaps more.  I hope the Nats don’t over-spend and get him.  I’d guess he heads to Boston; his free-spirit personal seems to fit with that franchise and the team just got a shock bit of news that John Lackey, despite how bad he was in 2011, is out for the entirety of 2012 with Tommy John surgery.
• Roy Oswalt had his team option for $16M bought out on 10/25/11, but I’m guessing this is just a procedural move to re-sign him and keep the “big 4” together for a few more years.  Oswalt’s on the wrong side of 30 and had a rough season of declining stats and missed starts, but still slots in as the best #4 starter in baseball and certainly didn’t come to Philadelphia for anything less than a World Series shot.  I’d guess he re-ups for 3 years, $36M with the Phillies.  Other pundits disagree and see him moving back to Texas to take over Wilson’s #1 spot on the Rangers rotation.
• Edwin Jackson: another guy whose post season performances seem certain to hurt his FA prospects.  Big arm, good numbers, right age (only 28 hitting free agency), but a propensity to get hit hard and often.  Mike Rizzo loves him, tried to trade Adam Dunn for him in 2010, and it wouldn’t be a stretch to see the Nats go after him again.  Look for him signing with the Nats for 3 years and $28M.  Unless a pitching-starved big-money team like Boston or New York offers him a ton more than that.  I’m not really in favor of this deal for the Nats, but wouldn’t be surprised to see it happen.
• Yu Darvish: as I opined here, I really do hope that the Nats do not spend fools money after Darvish.  A posting fee in the $40-$50M range, then at least that amount to sign the guy.  I know he’s got great numbers in Japan.  So did Dice-K.  There’s a halfway decent chance he doesn’t even get posted this year, so all ink spilled over Darvish could be moot.  Baseball Prospectus put out a great article about Darvish, including lots of analysis and links to others who share the same concerns that I do.  If you’re in the “pro-Yu” camp there’s a couple good articles on places like fangraphs that support your case.

Category: Mid-rotation/decent starting options.

• Mark Buehrle is hitting the FA market, but i’d be shocked if he leaves Chicago at this point in his career.  I’m sure he’ll take a team friendly deal that extends his career out 3-4 more years, at which point he may very well retire a one-franchise guy with a surprisingly high number of career wins.
• Hiroki Kuroda just finished off a sneaky-good season, going 13-16 with a 3.07 era.  The problem is that he’s 36 and had a ton of innings on his arm in the Nippon league prior to getting here.  He’d be a risk.  The Dodgers franchise is a mess but its the only team he’s known, and I’d guess he wants to stay on the west coast.  I’d guess he gets a decent 2-year deal from Seattle if the Dodgers can’t find the money.
• Javier Vazquez looked washed up during last year’s FA market analysis, having lost 3-4 mph on his fastball and getting shelled in NY.  However, he had a great bounce-back season in Miami and i’d guess he re-ups there for the new season and new stadium.  However, there’s word out there that he may retire.  Hard to see a guy who just put in a decent, comeback season retire though, especially if guaranteed money is thrown around.

Category: Aging/Back of the Rotation starters

• Bruce Chen has very quietly put together two pretty good seasons for the Royals all things considered, but will be 35 and may see a precipitous drop in production.  He’s not any better than the options the Nats face now, when you consider price and productivity.
• Freddie Garcia had a revelation of a season for the Yankees; I’d think he stays there as insurance for 2012.   Still hard to believe the Yankees won 97 games giving no less than 51 starts to Garcia and Colon.
• Bartolo Colon is in the same boat as Garcia, but is 38 to his 34 and may be cut loose to find another team willing to give him a shot with his stem-cell enhanced shoulder.
• Joel Pineiro has never stayed healthy long enough to reach his potential, and he just laid an egg in his contract year in LA.  I’d be surprised if he got anything more than a 1yr $5M deal.
• Aaron Harang: beware the veteran pitcher who goes to San Diego and suddenly looks like a #2 starter.  2011 numbers: 14-7, 3.64 era.  Home/Away splits?  3.05 era at home, 4.70 on the road.  I’m sure he’ll get some money, somewhere for a back-of-the-rotation job.
• Livan Hernandez reportedly offered to move to the bullpen for the Nats, in order to stay here.  Unfortunately he pitched so poorly, and takes so long to warm up, that using him in extended relief really isn’t much of an option.  My guess is that Livan returns to his roots in Miami as the Marlins’ 5th starter on the cheap and enjoys one more spin around the league.
• Jason Marquis, in a remarkable sense of timing by the Nats, was traded for Zack Walters and then promptly broke his leg.  Its too bad for Marquis, who clearly was using 2011 to regain some market value for his free agency this off-season.  At this point he certainly won’t be getting any 2year deals for 8 figures.  I’d guess he gets a 1yr $4M deal with some incentives, if that.
• Chien-Ming Wang, by virtue of being in THIS section and not the next, has already had a successful 2011.  He is what he is right now; a guy trying to reclaim former glory and his former sinking fastball, and a guy who looks like a #4 starter who has capabilities of improving as he gets more and more innings into his repaired shoulder.  My guess is that he repays the Nats for nursing him back to health while providing him millions in salary and signs for a 2-year deal worth roughly $6-7M overall.
• Tim Wakefield; I would have predicted him to possibly hang up the spikes until news of Lackey’s injury and Dice-K’s question mark.  Wakefield’s stats have really declined the past two years, but Boston seems in need of a back of the rotation guarantee that Wakefield’s $4M standing salary can fill, cheaply.
• Brad Penny, Jeff Francis, Paul Maholm, Chris Capuano, Vicente Padilla, Rodrigo Lopez, Zack Duke, Aaron Cook, Kevin Milwood, Dontrelle Willis and anyone else not already mentioned: all of these guys were either so mediocre in 2011, went unsigned in 2011, or are so old, that i’d be surprised if more than just a few of them got major league deals for 2012.

Category: Reclamation Projects/Injury recovery guys.  The Nats have a history of pursuing former glory with recovering stars.  Would they try it again?

• Adam Wainwright: his injury in spring training 2011 amazingly didn’t really cost the Cardinals, who marched right into the World Series without their #2 starter.  Wainwright’s injury couldn’t have been worsely timed in terms of his contract options; St Louis dodges a major payroll bullet by being able to opt out of millions of dollars of guaranteed money.  But Wainwright is free to look elsewhere.  Will he?  Doubtful: i’d guess he signs a one-year incentive-laden contract with St. Louis aimed towards regaining his career.  10/26/11 update: the team exercised its options on Wainwright, meaning he’s off the market.
• Justin Duchscherer: had some lights out seasons, but missed all of 2009 and 2011 with injury.  Will anyone take a flier on him?
• Chris Young and his 6′ 10″ faster-than-it-seems fastball only got 4 starts (2 against the Nats) before getting shoulder surgery.  Seems to run in the NY Mets family (see Santana, Johan).  It wasn’t as bad a surgery as it could have been, and he should return for 2012.  He’s now missed games in 4 straight seasons and its buyer-beware.
• Jon Garland had season-ending surgery in July after just 9 starts, but when healthy is a 105 ERA+ guy, a 4th starter who can eat innings and be solid.  He had great durability up until this injury, having not missed a start since 2002.  But now its not clear if he’ll even be ready for 2012.
• Ben Sheets is in almost the identical spot as Duchscherer; ironically both have a history of pitching in Oakland.
• Rich Harden; mr Day Game split (or Mr. Unreliable Injury guy, if you play fantasy baseball) just finished yet another unproductive season with a 5+ ERA pitching in one of the best pitchers parks in baseball.  He seems set for a minor league contract for one last flier at a comeback.
• Eric Bedard wasn’t half bad for Boston down the stretch, with a 9.0 k/9 rate on the season.  But at the end of the season he was yanked early in two critical games and i’d bet the team won’t be willing to roll the dice with him again.  We’ll see who overpays for his injury-plagued services in 2012.  With Boston’s sudden shortage of starters, look for Bedard to resign in Boston and start the year as Boston’s #4.
• Brandon Webb: got some looks in spring training 2011, including from the Nats, but then went under the knife yet again.  You can usually come back from TJ surgery.  Shoulders are tougher.  He may be done.

Predictions:  I’d guess the Nats throw their name in the mix for Wilson but get scared off by his price tag.  Maybe we’ll post a respectable figure for Darvish.  But Rizzo goes hard after Jackson and we get him.  Meanwhile Rizzo also signs one of these injury reclamation projects to a nominal guaranteed contract to see what pans out.

After a pretty unbelievable 6 minutes last night, where the Red Sox snatched defeat from the hands of victory and then the Rays had a walk-off win to an amazing comeback (not to mention the Braves losing a heart-breaker to finish off their own September collapse earlier in the nigth), we have a completely different playoff picture than most people predicted just last week.  Lets take a look and put up some predictions.

First off, 3/8ths of these teams were in such scramble mode just to make the playoffs, they havn’t really even declared probable pitchers yet.  But i’ll put in some guesses.

By Series Thoughts:

• Detroit-New York: Detroit took the Season series 4-3 and is on a roll.  New York basically has no idea who is going to pitch the 3rd game (Garcia?  Colon?  Burnett?) or the 5th game, and the 4th game would be Sabathia on 3 days rest.  Detroit is essentially a 1 1/2 pitcher rotation right now, with Verlander unbeatable and Fister just as good.  Game 3 is the toss-up; which 4+ ERA starter will cave first?  Prediction: Detroit in 5.  Supplemental prediction: New York over-reacts and gives CJ Wilson $180M in the off season after having zero pitchers left in game 3.
• Tampa Bay-Texas: Texas took the season series 5-4, but Tampa is obviously hot entering the post-season.  Tampa’s pitching staff was shredded just to get into the playoffs, leaving them at a disadvantage.  They burned their ace Price last night (and he got hammered), meaning they likely can’t use him til game 3.  Meanwhile, arguably their 5th best starter (Neimann) looks likely to get two starts because of the scheduling.   Unless the team puts uber-prospect Matt Moore on the roster and puts him into the rotation.  Despite all that, the Rangers themselves have a conundrum in that the matchups don’t really favor them, at all.   I don’t think the Rangers can beat Shields in game2, and may struggle to beat Price with their #5 starter Colby Lewis going in game 3.  The pivotal game is game 2: can Texas hold serve at home?  Prediction: Tampa in 4.
• Arizona-Milwaukee: Arizona took the season series 4-3.  This is a strange series; if Arizona’s pitching is for real, this could be a great series.  If not?  It could be a quick sweep for Milwaukee.  Arizona needs to win both of their Ace Ian Kennedy’s starts to have any shot, but both will be on the road.  The pivotal game could be game 4, with the veteran Randy Wolf going against the surprising elder rookie Josh Collmeter.  Prediction: Milwaukee in 5.
• St. Louis-Philadelphia: the one team Philly didn’t want to see in the post-season; St. Louis took the season series 6-3.  However, Chris Carpenter was burned just to get into the post season, meaning they likely won’t see him until game 4.  By which point Philly may very well have swept this series.  St. Louis’ pitching isn’t that great this year, with all their starters posting good ERAs but not really dominant lines.  Philadelphia really struggled down the stretch; we’ll find out soon enough if its because they were tired or just complacent by having locked up the #1 seed so early.  I’m guessing their 4-game winning streak to end the season (including the dagger-like 3-game set in Atlanta to cost them the WC) means they’re geared up.  Prediction: Philadelphia in 3

If this plays out, we’re looking at Milwaukee-Philadelphia and Tampa-Detroit for ALCS.  Not as compelling as MLB wants, but some good story lines none the less.  Could be a Philly-Tampa 2008 rematch world series.  We’ll revisit predictions after the divisional rounds are complete.

Detwiler is really making a statement for his inclusion in the 2012 rotation. Photo Haraz Ghanbari/AP via federalbaseball.com

We’re getting down to the wire; There’s only three more of these posts coming, because the rotation only makes 3 more passes before the season is over.  Because of the off-day on 9/19 and the double-header 9/20, Milone pitched BEFORE Detwiler’s start in this “cycle” so the end of cycle #31 bleeds over into the beginning of cycle #32.

Good

• Tommy Milone looked great on 9/15 (box/gamer), shutting down a weak NY Mets offense and getting his first MLB victory.  The Mets started 5 guys who were on their AAA roster a month ago, so its somewhat difficult to get a read on Milone’s capabilities on the day.  But he did go 5 2/3, gave up 1 run on 3 hits with 3 walks (one intentional).  The walks are surprising; Milone’s calling card and the way he’ll survive is by NOT allowing walks.
• Day 3 of the return of Stephen Strasburg on 9/17 (box/gamer) went much better for the kid; his velocity was back, he was efficient (6ip on 61 pitches), he was accurate (0 walks and 45 of 61 pitches for strikes) and he was dominant (1 run on 4 hits and 3 Ks).  Can’t ask for much more than that.  Too bad he got a no-decision as his offense couldn’t get him more than one run against the Marlin’s #5 starter Volstad.
• Ross Detwiler put in perhaps his best start in a Nats uniform in the back side of 9/20’s double header (box/gamer), holding an (admittedly weaker) Phillies lineup to just 3 hits over 7 1/3.  Ross was sitting on just 81 pitches when departing in the 8th, efficiently working through the lineup.

Mediocre/Inconclusive

• John Lannan bounced back from a poor start last week with an improved on on 9/16 (box/gamer).  6ip, 3runs on 8 hits and a walk.  I think we know what we have in Lannan by now, and I’m sure he feels lonely as the sole remaining rotation guy from opening day.
• A 7th inning homer turned Chien-Ming Wang‘s 9/18 start (box/gamer) from a good one to just merely a run of the mill quality start, but there’s definite promise in Wang’s performances as of late.  He went 6 2/3, gave up 3 runs on 6 hits with zero walks and 5 Ks.  Two homers hurt the sinkerballer.

Starter Trends

Milone    bad,soso,good
Lannan    good,good,bad,soso,good,bad,bad,good,soso,good,bad,soso
Strasburg    great,soso,good
Detwiler    soso,soso,good,good,bad,bad,soso,great
Wang        bad,bad,great,soso,soso,good,bad,soso,soso,soso
Peacock    good

Relievers of Note and other News

• (not much in the way of links and notes here; I was gone all weekend and just did very rudimentary reviews.  A future post is in the works for my weekend trip, which will be of significant interest to baseball fans).
• Drew Storen gets two saves in one day on 9/20: that’s pretty rare in this modern age of innings limits and coddling relievers.
• Quick report that the team is scouting FA-to-be CJ Wilson.   The 2011 off season FA market is so thin on quality starting pitching that Wilson, who has had two pretty good seasons after pitching in relief the early part of his career, may be the leading starter out there on the market (i’m not counting CC Sabathia, who almost certainly opts out and re-signs for more money).  One complication: Wilson will be a Type-A free agent, costing the Nats a pick.  And guess what?  This little end-of-the-season run now has the team perilously close to having a non-protected first round draft pick.  Is CJ Wilson worth giving up the 16th overall pick in the draft?

Clay Buchholz provided the best Wins/salary in the majors last year. Photo baseballrumormill.com

A few weeks back si’s Tom Verducci posted an article discussing the value of starters over closers.  One of the points that he made in the article related to the general fact that Ace Starters are more likely to be with the same team that developed them than being free agent acquisitions in the modern game.  In Verducci’s article, he analyzed the 20 best pitchers by ERA from last season and found that 13 of them are still with their original organization.  Furthermore, 10 of them were first round draft picks.

Modern baseball teams are being built more and more through the draft.  Last year’s World Series champions San Francisco featured 4 home grown starters, each of whom would slot in as the best or 2nd best pitcher on most every other rotation in the league.  Tampa Bay rode a slew of home-grown (and cheap!) starters to the 2nd best record in Baseball over the past 3 years.  And now we clearly see Mike Rizzo trying to build up his starting pitcher cache in the minors through mid-season trades and a focus on pitching in the past couple drafts.

I thought I’d take this point a bit further, as it relates to a topic that I have found more and more fascinating.  The New York Yankees and their $200M payroll struggled to find starting pitching in the off season and are now essentially conducting tryouts in spring training for the #4 and #5 starter spots in their rotation.  How did they find themselves in this predicament?  The answer is thus; it has been years since they developed a home-grown Ace starter.  Their best pitcher (CC Sabathia) was a (very) expensive Free Agent, their 2nd best a home grown rookie (Phil Hughes) and their third best (AJ Burnett) another pricey free agent.  Arguably it has been since either Chien-Ming Wang or possibly Andy Pettitte that the Yankees have developed a starter worthy of mention.  Now, the Yankees have certainly bought themselves a whole lot of offense that will mask their weaknesses in the rotation, but the fact remains that they could easily miss the playoffs in 2011 despite their payroll if the first three members of their rotation do not pitch well.

Lets look at the “Aces” in baseball, and take a look at their acquisition methods and their contract status.  Here, “Home Grown” means the team that developed the pitcher, not necessarily the team that drafted him.  When prospects get traded, I credit the acquiring team for developing and delivering the player to the majors.

• Home Grown: Johnson, Hamels, Wainwright, Jimenez, Lincecum, Cain, Lester, Buchholz, Price, Verlander, Liriano, Felix Hernandez, Jered Weaver.
• Free Agent Acquisition: Halladay, Lee, Carpenter, Sabathia.
• Trade Acquisition: Oswalt, Santana, Greinke.

Of these 20 “Aces,” 13 are still with their developing organization.  Four Free Agent acquisitions for big money, and three traded Aces that cost their teams plenty (though in retrospect the Johan Santana trade isn’t looking that bad for the Mets).

Another side-point was Verducci’s findings that 10 of the top 20 pitchers by ERA last year were first rounders.  I find that piece of information really amazing, given the notorious “crapshoot” mentality of baseball Drafts.  Here’s a quick followup analysis of the Initial Acquisition method of my 20 “Aces” and determining draft or international free agent. Here, we’ll put “supplemental first rounders) into the “1st round” category.

• Draft: 1st Rounder: Hamels, Halladay, Carpenter, Wainwright, Greinke, Lincecum, Cain, Buchholz, Price, Sabathia, Verlander, Jered Weaver.
• Draft: top 5 rounds: Johnson (4th), Lee (4th), Lester (2nd).
• Draft: 6th round or later: Oswalt (23rd).
• International Free Agents: Santana, Jimenez, Liriano, Felix Hernandez.

So by my analysis, 12 of the best 20 pitchers in the game were first round picks.  Only Oswalt looks like a complete diamond in the rough find.  For all the talk about how the draft is a crap shoot (hey, Albert Pujols was a 13th round pick), it really seems apparent that these first rounders paid off handsomely.

Here’s one more look; of the 13 “home grown” aces, lets look at their current contract status.  All data per Cot’s fantastic salary database site.

• Johnson: 4 years/$39M (2010-13)
• Hamels: 3 years/$20.5M (2009-11), but he has a 4th arbitration year in 2012.
• Wainwright: 4 years/$15M (2008-11), plus 2012, 2013 club options (this contract is in complete peril though, since the club can terminate at the end of 2011 when Wainwright is on the DL.  That essentially kills $21M guaranteed to Wainwright in 2012 and 2013.  Tough, tough break for the player).
• Jimenez: 4 years/$10M (2009-12), plus 2013-14 club options (the club options are very reasonable for an Ace)
• Lincecum: 2 years/$23M (2010-11), but these are just his first two arbitration years.  Two more to go to take him through 2013.
• Cain: 3 years/$27.25M (2010-12)
• Lester: 5 years/$30M (2009-13), plus 2014 club option
• Buchholz: 1yr/$480K (est): Still on a pre-arbitration contract, possibly the best value in baseball right now.  Controlled through 2014 by the Red Sox.
• Price: 6 years/$8.5M (2007-12).  Wait, actually THIS may be the best deal in baseball, since Buchholz will probably garner a massive first-year arbitration award in 2012 just as Price’s 6 year deal ends.  However, Price can void the contract and file for arbitration as soon as he becomes eligible, presumably for the 2012 season.
• Verlander: 5 years/$80M (2010-14)
• Liriano: 1 year/$4.3M (2011).  Still in his arbitration years, under club control through 2012.
• Felix Hernandez: 5 years/$78M (2010-14)
• Jered Weaver: 1 year/$7.37M (2011).  He lost his arbitration hearing this year after going “only” 13-12 but leading the league in strikeouts and coming in 5th in Cy Young voting.  Under club control through 2012.

And, adding in the non-home grown players for a complete picture of the future Ace starter FA market:

• Halladay: 3 years/$60M (2011-13), plus 2014 option
• Lee: 5 years/$120M (2011-15), plus 2016 option
• Carpenter: 5 years/$63.5M (2007-11), plus 2012 club option
• Sabathia: 7 years/$161M (2009-15) but he can opt out after the 2011 season
• Oswalt: 5 years/$73M (2007-11), plus 2012 club option
• Santana: 6 years/$137.5M (2008-13), plus 2014 club option
• Greinke: 4 years/$38M (2009-12)

So, here’s a quick summary of when these Aces may hit the FA market:

• After 2011: Wainwright (but he’ll be post-TJ surgery), Sabathia (probably)
• After 2012: Cain, Liriano, Weaver, Oswalt, Carpenter, Greinke, Hamels
• After 2013: Johnson, Lincecum, Santana (probably)
• 2014 or Beyond : Jimenez, Lester, Buchholz, Price, Verlander, Hernandez, Halladay, Lee

Notice how teams are locking up these Ace pitchers for the long haul.  We’re likely to have perhaps just an injury reclamation project in Adam Wainwright and opt-out 100% certain to return to the Yankees Sabathia as the sole major  free agent candidates this coming off season.  I’ve read differing opinions on whether or not Sabathia opts out of his contract (he’d be abandoning $92M of guaranteed pay over 4 years) but I’d be surprised (shocked actually) if he did NOT opt out, especially if he has a third consecutive year of similar production to his first two for the Yankees.  You would have to think he could easily merit a contract north of Cliff Lee’s $24M/year for 7 additional years.  7yrs/$170M or so.

Lastly, lets look at the 8 playoff teams from last  year and investigate how many of their starters were home grown:

• Giants: 4 of 5 homegrown (Lincecum, Cain, Sanchez, Bumgarner).  1 FA in Zito
• Rangers: 3 of 5 home grown (Wilson, Hunter, Feldman), 1 trade acquisition (Lee), and one FA (Lewis)
• Yankees: 1 home grown (Hughes) and 4 Free Agents (Sabathia, Burnett, Pettitte, Vazquez)
• Phillies: 1 home grown (Hamels), 3 traded acquisitions (Halladay, Oswalt, Blanton) one FA (Moyer).
• Rays: 4 home grown (Sheilds, Neiman, Price, Davis) one trade acquisition (Garza)
• Twins: 3 home grown (Baker, Blackburn, Slowey) one FA (Pavano) and one trade acquisition (Liriano).
• Braves: 3 home grown (Hanson, Jurrgens, Medlen/Minor), one FA (Lowe), one trade acquisition (Hudson)
• Reds: 3 home grown (Leake, Bailey/Wood, Cueto), two trade acquisitions (Arroyo and Harang).

Six of the Eight playoff team used rotations that were mostly home grown.  Most of the trade acquisitions here were trading of prospects (either the acquiring team using prospects to acquire a proven Vet, as with Hudson, or the acquiring team acquiring and developing the player, as with Garza).

What is the lesson, after all this analysis?  Draft well, develop well, and then lock down your Aces for the long haul.  That is the pathway to success.  There are some exceptions of course (the Phillies have acquired 2 Aces by leveraging their very good farm system depth, and still have enough lower-level depth to rank among the best farm systems in baseball.  And the Yankees of course have bought themselves a good portion of their team).  But looking at the playoff teams last year, most of them were draft-heavy on starters.

Coincidentally; the Nats 2011 rotation by way of comparison?  2 drafted (Lannan, Zimmermann), 2 FAs (Livan and Marquis) and one trade acquisition candidate (Gorzelanny).  This would look far better of course if we were using two key drafted/developed players (Strasburg, Detwiler or even Maya).

Here’s hoping that the Nats’ higher-end starting pitcher draft picks (Strasburg, Zimmermann Solis, Cole, and Detwiler) become the core of our rotation for years to come.

Pettitte is done ... leaving a massive hole in the Yanks rotation. Photo: noahhunt.org

One of the last major off-season issues to resolve prior to the beginning of spring training (the status of lefty Andy Pettitte) was resolved with the pitcher announcing his retirement earlier this week.

The retirement leaves the Yankees rotation in serious trouble.  Pettitte may have only given the 2010 team 21 starts but he went 11-3 in those starts and was the Yank’s 2nd best pitcher.  They failed to acquire any of the marquee free agents or trade targets in the off-season and are going into 2011 with this as a rotation: Sabathia, Burnett, Hughes, Nova, and Mitre.  The problem is that after Sabathia, every one of these guys has serious question marks;

• Hughes may have gone 18-8 but his accompanying numbers (4.19 era, 1.28 whip) only rated a 102 era+ for the season.  That’s essentially league average.  He benefited from some pretty amazing run support that probably cannot be sustained in the long term.  It was also his first year starting full time.  He has a great pedigree (1st round pick in 2004) and has pitched well.  But he may be a candidate for the Verducci effect of quickly increasing workload.  The Yanks have been burned in the past by young starters blowing out their arms (Wang).
• Burnett may be the latest in a long line of quality pitchers who just cannot perform in the spotlight.  He was relatively awful in 2010; 10-15, 5.26 era, 1.511 whip.  Most teams would put up with this in a 5th starter if the guy was a promising rookie … but Burnett is a highly paid supposed ace starter.  He’s never been a complete lights out starter, sports a career 110-100 record and should never have been given a $84M contract to begin with.
• Mitre is a 29-yr old journeyman pitcher with a career 13-29 record.  And he’s slated to be the Yankees #4 starter.
• Nova looks like he could be a ok back of the end starter prospect … but he owns a grand total of 3 career major league starts.  And he’s slated to be the #5 starter.

New York has signed a couple of MLB veterans in Freddie Garcia and Bartolo Colon to minor league deals, and they may provide insurance/competition for Mitre and Nova in the spring.  But there is a reason these guys couldn’t catch on with even the worst teams out there; they’re more likely to put up a 6.00 era than a 3.00 era.  Perhaps Garcia’s decent 2010 season may land him a rotation spot, but Colon hasn’t pitched in the majors in over a year and was awful then.

Now, the Yankees are still one of the best offensive teams in the league and can slug their way to a number of 8-6 wins … but in a division where Boston has restocked and looks dominant and Tampa has a rotation that New York only wishes it had, 3rd place looks like it is in the Yankees future.  Writer Jon Paul Morosi thinks that the Yankees won’t miss Pettitte, but i think he’s crazy.  His article seems to just assume that a Fausto Carmona trade is a done deal (despite the fact that the Yankees have swung and missed on every pitcher acquisition this off-season).  He also assumes that 3 prospects that nobody has heard of (Dellin Betances, Manny Banuelos or Andrew Brackman) will magically come to the rescue.  Banuelos and Betances each are grizzled minor league veterans with 3 AA starts to their credit, and Brackman isn’t that far ahead of them (he was 5-7 with a 3.01 era in 15 AA starts in 2010).  Yeah; not exactly Jeremy Hellickson-esque prospects waiting in the wings.

2/7/11 update: Seth Livingstone at USA Today wrote about this same topic and reviewed some other possible prospects in the Yankees system that may be better options than the three mentioned above.

There are definitely some arms to be had in the trade market.  Joe Blanton is probably available, the Braves may have an extra starter in Kenshin Kawakami if their up and coming prospect Mike Minor blows it out in the spring, the Dodgers have 6 starters for 5 slots and may give up Vicente Padilla once the season starts, and even the Washington Nationals may have an extra arm or two worth gambling on (Maya, Wang and Detwiler are all slated to start in the minors right now).

Without a move though, I say “Welcome to 3rd place” and only the 2nd time you’ve missed the playoffs since the wild card era.